Four Weeks.

Twenty-eight days.

Six hundred and seventy-two hours.

Forty thousand, three hundred and twenty minutes.

Two million, four hundred and nineteen thousand, and two hundred seconds.

I haven’t been in her car for almost a month. She always kept a bag of sweet-corn flavored snacks and a box of other cookies and biscuits. She had a pink bear in the back seat to accompany her often heavy luggage. In the morning, the car smelled like freshly poured coffee.

Before, we’d be together in the morning ride to campus, during lunch, after class, in meetings in the evening, and in the car ride back home. And this was on every day, even on Fridays and Saturdays when we both didn’t have scheduled classes. We went to campus to study together, from morning ‘til evening. There was even a time when she stayed over for two nights. We became unaccustomed to being away for a day apart, even missing a car ride would feel kind of iffy.

What troubles me now isn’t how long I haven’t seen Abigail. What troubles me is that I’ve stopped counting the days.

It isn’t that big of a deal, really. Abie’s not off in a different country, fighting in a war. She’s not lost or kidnapped. She’s at home, only five minutes away from mine, and she’s been enjoying her Christmas break. So it doesn’t make sense for me to have a need to think about a friend who’s safe and sound in the comfort of her own home.

But that’s just it, I haven’t.

I haven’t talked to her in a while, or tweeted, or even slightly cared about how her vacation is going. And now that I realized just how easy it is for me to be alone, how easy it is for me to let go of friends when they’re not around, it’s a discomforting thought.

It’s discomforting to think that I can live my life without these people. It’s discomforting to think that I’m okay. It’s discomforting to think that I’ve done this before, to so many other friends. Should I even be called a friend? Or am I just a passing phase? Or are they just a passing phase in my life?

How many people have I let go of? And how many friends did I forget?

What is a friend?

Is a friend a person who makes an effort to see you on a regular basis, or at least try to arrange a reunion despite the difficulty? Or is a friend a person that is just effortlessly there in your life, that, without trying, has found a place with you?

After all, if I have to work for it, then it wasn’t meant for me, right?

But what about all the people who tried so hard to hold on to me, those who tried to find a way, and those who did make an effort to give me a spot in their lives—did I lose them because they left, or did they leave because I pushed them away?

I was afraid.

I was afraid of being loved, or to even be thought of by such good people, and to be given so much of their time and effort for our friendship to survive. And I was afraid of being loved this way, not because I was afraid of getting hurt, but because I honestly believed that there was nothing of me to be loved, and nothing that I have which I could give back to them.

Or perhaps I just didn’t want to. Or just that I didn’t want to learn how.

“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is to love, and be loved in return.”

(from Moulin Rouge, 2001.)

 

Let’s Be Friends

Break-ups can be painful and scarring, but no one can deny that they’re part of life. They shape us just as much as relationships do. We’re built up, not only by the things we take in, but also by the things we let go of.

I’ve received a series of similar questions from anonymous askers via Ask.FM, and these answers pretty much sum up how I feel about ex-boyfriends.

What does it mean if your ex wants to be friends with you?

In general, I’d suppose it would depend on the manner and reason for the breakup. For the most part, an ex trying to be your friend would just mean that he perhaps wishes that the relationship didn’t happen, that you would’ve been good as friends before. Or he feels guilty for doing something, and hopes you could find a peace with each other. It would only mean that he wants to get back together, if the reason for breaking up wasn’t really worth losing you over. Other than that, an ex wants to be friends, because he wants to be friends.

Either that, or he wants to seem like friends, because he wants to keep his reputation clean and want to look good and innocent to other people.

Would you want to be friends with your ex after the break-up?

Like, right after the break up? No. I’d like to be left alone. When I’m fine, we can be friends again.

The only person who asks to be friends right after the breakup is the person who cares more about his reputation and just doesn’t want to look like an ass in front of people.

“Friends to lovers, possible. Lovers to friends, never.” Agree? By lovers, I mean those who are in a relationship.

Disagree.

Why do you disagree?

This is about the lovers to friends thing, right? Well, because not all breakups are painful and horrible. In some of them, you both just realize that you didn’t want to be in a relationship. Just because you guys were super close before didn’t mean you should have been together. And upon realizing that, it’s not such a bad breakup. It could hurt, because then you’d realize how much time you wasted trying to build or fix a relationship that wasn’t really meant for you both in the first place. Other than that, you’ll get back just fine. The small details about your life that you let only him know would still be there, and even though you’re not together, you at least make a good friend you could even end up trusting more than others.

How long does it usually take someone to move on?    

The rule is usually half the relationship period. But if you ask me, it kind of takes five to eight months.

How do you make your ex regret leaving you?

Well the first step is to not think about making your ex regret leaving you. If you do think like that, everything you do will be done for that ex. The trick is to do everything for yourself. Get back on your own two feet, live your life, learn to not be dependent on another’s love to survive.

What if I’m the one who broke up with him and right after the break up, he keeps on INSISTING to be friends with me? EVen though the break up’s been a month already   

Maybe he didn’t like the way things ended for the both of you. Why, do you think he’s trying to find a way to get back?

No. I was actually thinking that maybe he wasn’t as hurt as I am cause he can stand being friends with me and he even insists it. 

If that is true, that doesn’t give him an excuse to force his terms on you. Ask him to give you your time and space. Tell him that what he’s doing is insensitive towards you, and that if he really is your friend and cares about your well-being, then he has to learn to leave you alone. If he doesn’t really care about you as a friend, and is insisting on this friendship just so that being together in the same room/group of friends won’t feel “awkward” anymore, or so it wouldn’t make him look like a jerk to have a new relationship, then he can learn to fuck off.

Do you think it’s possible to move on from a broken relationship within a month, if you’ve been with that person for almost a year?

If the past few months of that relationship was all about falling apart and breaking away, then it’s possible. Are you the person who has an ex that insists on being a friend? If you are, your ex might have seen this breakup coming from a while back, and managed to prepare himself for the fall. Whereas you tried to work hard to keep things together. So at this point, you might feel that it’s unfair. Why is he not so hurt, and why does he want to be friends? Why do I feel so alone? Why does it feel like I was the only one doing everything? I feel exhausted, used, hurt. Why do you not feel this way? Why are you okay with everything when I’m a total wreck? Those kinds of things. What you should know is that the other person must have felt like this too, but gave up long ago.

Why do you think badly of ex’s that want to be friends right away?

When I say that they want to be friends right away, to protect a reputation or to have a ‘go’ signal that they can date other people again, it comes from experience. I’ve been that person, sort of. I’ve been the person to pretend that we’re friends, or ask to be friends, even though I know that “you” aren’t okay yet. I’ve been the one to somewhat force “you” into a situation to act like you feel better about everything, when “you” were still hurting. Because, you know, I didn’t want to have to walk the same hallway and not say hi to you. I didn’t want to leave the same set of friends. You should know that as much as I forced you to be okay, I was forcing myself to learn to be okay with it too.

But I’ve also been the person on the receiving end of it. “We’re still friends though, right?” ended up as a way to make sure “he” didn’t look bad in front of other people, especially when he was trying to court another girl. It also gave him an excuse to say “she’s totally fine with us dating; we’re friends” to this new girl.

And I realized, it’s not just me. With the friends I’ve listened to, maybe like you, dear Anon, if you’re the same one asking the questions, it happens all the time.

I guess I’m not really angry at these ex’s. I can understand. They’re just as confused as we all are, and to the best of their judgment, being friends is something they think they should do. If there’s one thing I learned in this world, there are no villains, only victims. People who hurt us do hurtful things, because they believe it’s the best way to protect themselves. Still, learn to protect yourself too. Be angry if angry; express pain if you’re hurt. You can’t begin to forgive someone before you’ve let them know that they’ve done you a great deal wrong.

So now that you now what ive been going through, would u give me some advice on what i should do now?    

Well, for starters, tell that person the reason why you aren’t ready to be friends just yet, if you’re ever to be friends at all. Also, if you have common friends who may be affected by this separation, let them know. Take your time to grow and heal, and learn to take care of yourself without depending on someone else. You can go on dates, if you like. But remember that not all dates have to become relationships. Only enter a new relationship when you feel like you aren’t going to look at this new person, and hope that he fills up whatever gaping hole the previous one left behind. Whether or not you become friends with your ex at the end of it all is totally unrelated. By friends, I mean close friends who regularly meet and hang. But you /should/ be on good terms with him.

Do you know about the Three Month Rule? Do you believe in it?

I don’t know anyone who’s ever dated and never knew about the three month rule, haha. So yes, I know it. I don’t believe in it, but it’s a damn good rule to establish. A lot of people just go and wreck themselves over the notion of love and eternity without even thinking about what happened to them in the past, so they date new people and repeat the cycle of what hurt them in the first place. But I don’t believe in the three month rule in a sense that there are mature people who know what they’re getting in to, and there are also people who are only casual daters, so it doesn’t really matter if they date someone new a day after the breakup.

What can you say about couples who get their names tattooed on each other, but break up only in a matter of months?

They’re impulsive romanticists. I don’t want to judge them. It’s not that they’re doing anything wrong, really. So they fell in love and fell out of it, what now? I’m sure they feel pretty stupid themselves, so I don’t want to add to their humiliation. I’m kind of proud of them, actually, to learn to let go of their fears that they’ll end up broken apart soon, and just fall recklessly and freely in love with each other regardless of that fear.I don’t know. I think society’s dumb for calling people like these dumb, or too idealistic, like having dreams is ever a wrong thing. You know what renders people incapable of getting back up after a break-up? All the scornful people who told them to wake up to reality, because happy endings are only in fairytales, that’s what. Why can’t we all just congratulate them on trying to find love in an otherwise hopeless world, right?

Taxi Cabs, Condoms, and Catholicism

Why is it that, in the Philippines, Taxi Cab drivers are picky when it comes to their customers? And on a side note, why do beggars complain when they get small donations?

Because the traffic regulation system in the country is totally shit, so some trips are less profitable than others. Taxi drivers should retain some right to choose the trips, I think. Like a lot of the taxis we see in central Manila park at Valenzuela, and that’s fucking far. If you ask the driver to take you to Las Pinas via service road during rush hour, then that makes them waste gas because of the bad traffic, it’s going to be one hellafa long ride home for them, and worst of all, they wouldn’t get that many customers there. So it sometimes gets irritating, but I sometimes want to take the side of the cab driver. If only I were rich enough to pay a fixed rate of five hundred bucks whenever I have to take a long cab ride. So if you aren’t rich, the solution is don’t take a cab, take a fucking bus, a train, a jeep and an FX.

 As for the beggars, wellllll, the world hasn’t treated them fairly, and in fact, they’re suffering. We’re going to do a small favor for them, and we’ll do it half-baked? They’re just people who are tired of the injustice of the world, and tired of the fact that they were born helpless and without the opportunity or capability to get out of their situation. Sometimes, it isn’t really their fault.

I’m a firm believer in the underdog, hahahahaha.

What if giving donations to beggars isn’t the answer to injustice?

And so if it isn’t? Because it really isn’t, you know. I know what I said about how they have every reason to react badly to a donation of a peso or something. But I didn’t say that they even had the right to beg in the first place. Begging is illegal anyway, and why inconvenience the upper classes with the burden of having to provide for those incapable of contributing to society?

But the thing is, as much as we shouldn’t give to them, they can’t provide for themselves. (Because if they could, why the hell would they beg, right?) So what I’m getting at is, that it isn’t their fault. They beg because they’re poor, because their parents couldn’t provide for them, because they don’t have proper jobs, because they weren’t provided with good education, because their own parents were total shitfaces back in their day.

So we can’t solve these kids’ problems today, and right away, but we can contribute to making sure that it doesn’t happen to the millions of kids to come in the future. What we can do now is build the foundation for better quality and more affordable education programs, and more employment opportunities.

So do you think the Reproductive Health Bill is the answer to poverty?

One of the steps, yes. Not exactly the answer to poverty. It takes a lot of different things to prevent and alleviate poverty.What I think is important to remember about the RH Bill is that it isn’t meant to be a direct answer to poverty. The principle behind it is that we who have money can buy our own contraceptives if we wanted to, can go see doctors to consult, and avail of health services when we need them. We, who have money, have a choice. It’s as if saying that if you have money, you have freedom. And if you’re poor, you don’t have freedom. What the RH Bill ensures, more than anything, is the closing of that gap. You’re free to choose what to do with your body, whether you’re rich or poor.So what the RH Bill ultimately becomes is not limited to giving contraceptives to the poor so they’ll have less children. It becomes a way of granting the poor access to the rights and resources the rich have, at least in terms of reproductive health services. And isn’t that the first step you take to eradicate poverty?

It took me like six years of my life to see it this way.

What are your views on being Catholic but doing a lot of non-Catholic things (being pro-RH, swearing, all the like)?    

 There’s a specific reason to certain issues, like the ones you pointed out, why I think they’re okay, and sometimes even, possibly in line with what I believe in as a member of the Catholic Church. Being pro-RH, for example, is just me believing in equality and the value of freedom (if you’ve read my previous explanation).

Swearing, on the other hand, is what I think to be a contextual thing. The words ‘fuck’ and ‘shit’ still are bad words to use, mind you. But in the context of our language, and how English is growing in this day and age, a lot of it is used more of an adjective/adverb than to actually mean fornication and fecal matter. Using ‘fucking’ to mean ‘very extremely’, is easier to understand for most. I like learning about words as much as the next bookworm, but in this day and age, I think people would find me weird to say “superlatively” or something else. At the end of the day, it isn’t the word that’s wrong, but how you use it. If you aren’t talking to your elders or children, it’s fine. I think the only reason why elders and children would find those words offensive would be because in the context of their age, it should be. If you think about it, telling someone that you wished they were thrown into a pit of ravenous beasts for them to die an extremely painful death is still a worse thing to say than “Dude, I think this pie you baked is fucking delicious! This shit’s amazing!”

As for the other things that may seem un-Catholic, the only other thing I have left to say is that Jesus is kind of a radical. He believed that man is naturally good, and people should not adhere to the laws of man, but to the laws of God, and that we shouldn’t trouble ourselves with keeping the technicalities of these laws, but only to love God and neighbor. Jesus didn’t bother with following the rules when it came to, like, following the certain way of washing hands. And even when he met a whore about to be stoned to death, Christ was the first to tell us that it’s not in our hands to say what is right and wrong for that person. What matters is we don’t hurt each other, and we promote a culture of love around us. I mean, he took the most ungodly people to be his disciples, and he came from a long line of sinners. He’s here to make us believe that whoever we are, wherever we come from, and whatever we do, He’s going to be here to love us, and His only request is that we love others too.

If you think about that, what right have you, or anyone, as part of this Church, to tell me that I’m going to hell for the things I stand for? If I promote the RH Bill, or Homosexual Marriage, if I’m anti-dress code? Isn’t it less Christ-like to promote hate and prejudice? An important thing to think about.

I’m a huge sucker for prompts. If you want to leave me questions, you can do so at Tumblr or Ask.FM.

8/23/2010: World Contingencies

What is the probability that a person aged x will not die within the next t years?

What is the probability that a person aged x will survive up to age x+t but die within the following u years after?

If there’s anything that I’d know the probability of, that’d be that all men die. P[ X = die] = 1. No exceptions, no excuses.

Even my mother died when I was born. I lived on as Kately Barton, blind girl from birth. There was no excuse for it. She just died because she couldn’t live. That was the story.

A lot of people who see the things I study, about death and life contingencies, tell me that math is an inhumane and detached science, that it is a study that is completely objective if not oblivious to the world. We try to quantify life, death and all the variables and factors that affect them to try to predict how much a life is worth monetarily.

They feel threatened, as if math was a study of measuring the world in numbers.

And they call the study of arts and letters—of history and literature, of sociology and psychology—the humanities.

But you can’t really call math inhumane, in that sense, because all that arts and letters is trying to do is capture the world in a form of language, bounded by a system of logic. And math is a language and a system of logic. It’s a philosophy.

I was told once by a teacher in high school that math is a science of symbols and patterns. Not of numbers, but of their behaviors and their effects in systems of logic.

Math is a behavioral science.

Symbols. Patterns. Like languages, like literature—like history and politics, the world and the ways of thinking. Like people.

Like the people who call my situation inhumane: to be blind and incomplete and incapable of my maximum potential as a human being. But being blind, or being sick, or being incapable of something doesn’t hinder anyone at all from expressing or experiencing love or happiness, despair or sadness, and the range of other human emotions in between. In fact, I don’t think I’m sick or incapable—I feel fine, just different. I see the world differently. I’m like math. I’m human, but with a different language.

Statistics studies the behavior of things that happen and don’t happen, things that might happen and might not. Math studies the behavior of logic. It isn’t inhumane. In fact, it goes deeper into what the mind itself usually can’t grasp. It sees the world in different ways, like how I do.

And if math is inhumane, then every study of that tries to capture the world by some language or system of logic is inhumane too.

Fact of the matter is, the world can’t be captured at all.

No Homo

This has got to be the most offensive thing I’ve ever seen on youtube. Trust me, there are a lot of them, but there is just so much wrong in this one.

No Homo’s Gonna Make it To Heaven

For anyone who can’t watch this video, it is of a child in his Sunday’s Best singing in church the most horrible lines ever uttered by anyone in human history.

The Bible’s Right,

Somebody’s wrong

No homo’s gonna make it to heaven.

Now let me start with the usual:

Religion and Homosexuality

Mark 7:5 – 7:9

⁵ So the Pharisees and teachers of the law asked Jesus, “Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with defiled hands?”

⁶ He replied, “Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written:

“‘These people honor me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me.
⁷ They worship me in vain;
their teachings are merely human rules.’ (Isiah 29:13)

⁸ You have let go of the commands of God and are holding on to human traditions.”

⁹ And he continued, “You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions!

If you are a fanatical Christian who’s only in this religion because your parents told you so, then you would most likely say, “Exactly! And those gay folk try to mess up the law of God and get married just because they want to!”

WRONG.

Marriage is a human rule and a human tradition. There was no marriage in the old times even in the old, old scriptures. Way before, you just took a woman and she was your wife because you loved her. And the laws and rules on marriage and saying that what God has put together no man could ever break was to make sure that a man would not go have a child with a woman he does not care about; it’s to make sure that it isn’t about lust and sex. It was to make sure that man would not abandon his wife and family, and to make sure that he was committed to said family and is prepared to take care of them and be with them for as long as they all live because he loved them.

What is the law of God? Love. 

Who says that just because they’re of similar gender, they could no longer love each other?

And even more so, who ever said that it was right to teach your child such hatred? And have them preach it in church? To hate and discriminate and use the name of God to throw rocks at the Mary Magdalenes that pass us by. Even Jesus Christ saved a sinner and gave her another chance.

1. How dare you?

And 2. Where is your humility? You’re not a God and you can’t make up rules, especially ones that punish other human beings–human beings who sin just like you!

3. Christ is anything but a conservative. He’s kind of a leftist. He believed in communal living, not gaining anything for your work and giving it into a communal fund which everyone takes from equally when needed.

But the most leftist thing he’s ever been is be pro-people. Christ did believe in rules, but only in rules that helped people get to God (because God loves His people and He misses them) and definitely not rules that punish them and tell them that they don’t have any hope.

You don’t make rules to punish people. You make them to protect and help them live their lives as fully as they could, rules to aid in their pursuit of happiness (hoping that that said happiness will be God, ultimately, but everyone believes in something different so I’d rather not give it that name–though for me, that’s still my way of seeing it).

I’d like to quote Charlie Chaplin’s speech from the Great Dictator:

You have the love of humanity in your hearts. You don’t hate – only the unloved hate. Only the unloved and the unnatural.

Those who discriminate and tell homosexuals that they are unnatural (even though science has proven that it’s entirely genetic) and hate on them saying that their love isn’t real–those people are most probably the unloved and unnatural ones.

We can’t go walking around making rules about other people what we believe in, because not everyone believes in the same thing. We can’t tell people that they’re wrong, we’re right–no, we can only say that we believe in different things.

More Charlie Chaplin quoting:

In the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke it is written, ”the kingdom of God is within man”– not one man, nor a group off men, but in all men–in you, the people!

Which is to say that no one man nor an institution of men could dictate what is right and what is wrong in all people, because in every person is the innate power to be capable of love and goodness. I reiterate, we cannot tell people that being gay is bad. In fact, I don’t think Jesus would’ve gotten angry at a gay man.

You remember what He got angry about? People using Church for their personal gain and making a mockery out of His Father’s House.

Family & Parenting

So every parent has the right to educate their child in the manner which they see most appropriate. These parents wanted to educate their child about the conservative rules of orthodox Church. And we have to respect that. I can’t tell this kids parents to stop doing what they’ve been doing for years.

But as much as we should respect them for teaching in their family their beliefs, they have to respect the rest of the world as well.

They can raise their son in a way that he’ll one day have a wife and kids and a white picket fence, and they’ll go to Church on Sunday mornings and have lunch with their friends from Church after the mass.

But what they can’t do is try to be parents to everyone else.

They can’t tell people what to do; in the same way, they shouldn’t instill in their children a mission to force their beliefs on others.

Laws on Homosexual Marriage

I understand, as a Roman Catholic, that every person of every religion has the right to speak up to their government–because it is their government, too, despite being religious. The separation of Church and State only applies to the power of authority, but being a Christian doesn’t change the fact that you’re a citizen of your country.

Having said that, I understand that if a particular group of Christians would like to push for/against something, say, Homosexual Marriage, then they have the right to say it and even quote the Bible if they feel like it.

But their opinions are subject to the judgment of the legislators.

And my dear legislators, you’re not only serving one group of people, not one faction, denomination or religion. You’re serving everyone in your country, and to be honest, not a lot of them are at all religious. The Church and the State were separated so you don’t become biased towards the beliefs that are similar to yours, but so that you can clearly and objectively see the needs of all people regardless of religion.

If the Churches don’t want to marry the gay people, then fine! They say God doesn’t have their blessing and no one in the community does, then okay!

But if a gay couple runs to the government, it is their government too, and that government should allow them the equal rights and opportunities just as every straight white Christian citizen out there.

My opinion, we Christians can keep our rules to ourselves and continue to not allow the gay people get married in our Churches, because that is our belief and the gay people should respect that too.

But, gay marriage should be legalized, so that gay couples can live happily together and have the same benefits of marriage, including insurance policies on married couples that gay people currently cannot avail of.

Pride is a Sin

I’m saying a lot of this because people are now in Christianity because they think being a Christian makes you a pure and clean person of the world. Remember fellow Children of Heaven, the first sin every committed by man was pride, the same sin that brought Satan down to the tenth circle of Hell. Just because we give our citizenship to the system of the universe a name and a community and all these rites and rituals does not make us better humans than others, and should not give us more rights than gay people.

We are all equal. We are all capable of love.

CORONA Watch

The hall is packed with students and professors, seated on plastic chairs in messy rows. On the far end is a projector hooked up to a laptop, showing a video:  senators explaining their votes. Chief Justice Corona’s trial is over, and it’s time to make a verdict. Everyone’s eyes are plastered to the white wall where the video plays on.

Photo by Marvin de Gracia.

Uninterested students and unknowing freshmen pass by the open hall, wondering what all the trouble was for. People are coming in with bags of chips and bottles of soda. Twitter is refreshed every now and then, checked for updates from others where the stream isn’t lagging. A senator speaks; people nod in agreement, or comment with spite. He makes a decision—applause from the crowd! 

People keep count of the votes.

Conviction. Acquittal. Abstain. 

It’s Philippine Senate, and it’s always a public spectacle.

*

Tomorrow, the entire Chief Justice Corona trial will be recapped by BLAZE2013, at the Yuchengco Lobby of De La Salle University, same place where Hatol: Corona was streamed live today. They start at 9am and end at 5pm.

A project of BLAZE2013

It is a good thing to see that people actually care about what’s happening. But it’s pretty disturbing that people are treating the trial like a sporting event. It’s almost comparable to American Idol, and after it’s been shown once, it will stream three times over on Star World.

I’m happy that people are interested in following through with this, and that they’d make an effort to pull their friends over. My only real fear is that it’ll turn into a fad–following with current affairs because everyone else is, not because they understood why it’s important. But I guess getting people interested, even in the slightest bit, in things like this is the first step. And whether or not they’d like to learn any further about it should be left to them.

Scarier than that, however, is that people seem to be taking sides on Corona’s trial based on this: convict if you hate Gloria, acquit if you hate Noynoy.

Oh, what fun!

But yes, Philippine Senate can be its own public spectacle in a way. With all the Lito Lapid jokes and webcomics that have spawned themselves over the interwebs in the past month.

Lito Lapid counts for two votes: one for conviction and another for acquittal . . . Because, he’s Lito Lapid.

Or a better Lito Lapid joke:

Lito Lapid’s vote goes to . . . Jessica Sanchez!

(via So What’s News?)

Defensor speaks. Hilarity ensues!

If the senator is angry, the vote is for acquittal. If the senator apologizes, the vote is for conviction.

If the senator mentions his father, then his father must have been impeached during EDSA Revolution.

*

The Philippines has a history for political jokes. I apologize for nothing.

*

Hatol: Corona

 To keep you up to speed, the verdict on Renato Corona was as follows: 20 votes for conviction, and 3 votes for acquittal. This has been the first time in the history of Philippine governance that a Chief Justice, or anyone in government, to be convicted in impeachment court.

 The three votes for acquittal include Sen. Arroyo, Sen. Defensor and Sen. Marcos.

Sen. Defensor’s speech was mostly her anger at the rest of the senate, trying to re-read and analyze the constitution like it was a piece of literature muddled with symbolism. To her, what was in print was clear: Corona technically didn’t do anything wrong. And in all her years of being a professor of the law, this is obvious. Are you kidding me, prosecution? 

She said the right things in all the wrong ways. If law should be followed as it is, then Corona’s acquittal shouldn’t even have been a question.

But she did call the senate stupid.

And then she walked out when Lacson contested her.

Sen. Marcos, however, mentioned his father. Interesting how, of all people voting for Corona’s acquittal, it would be someone from an opposing party. Marcos, like Estrada, remembers his father’s trials and tribulations concerning the trust of the public. However Marcos, unlike Estrada, must really hate a government wherein Noynoy Aquino is hunting down his rivals. So you can guess which side he’s on, should the conspiracy be even the slightest bit real.

Ay, Corona, your supporters are suspicious people.

But isn’t it suspicious that Mar Roxas stepped down from candidacy for Aquino, even though Roxas was the bet of the public since 2004? Only because Aquino can ride on his mothers coattails and maximize the last of the Cory Magic, he could let him run and win in 2010. Then he’d go on to control his little puppet Aquino, while Roxas hides in a corner of the nearest palengke. Roxas and his party could be hunting down their enemies, if not twisting the words and figures on their cash reports, publicizing destructive things about them. And even though they couldn’t be impeached for corruption, they just have to run and hide and do nothing. And the men who used to support them that are currently elected officials can do nothing but agree with Aquino’s administration, because if not, they know they’d be next.

Ay, ay, ay, dangerous claims. Dangerous, dangerous conspiracies.

Don’t mind me.

Back to the topic at hand, Corona was convicted because Pia Cayetano was pretty and Allan Cayetano’s speech was confusing. His father had cancer, and so we have to get rid of the kanser ng lipunan ala Jose Rizal. Lito Lapid talked about his deficiencies in education, and thanked Corona.

Ang Pahayagang Plaridel, De La Salle University’s Filipino news publication, released a poster earlier tonight announcing the verdict on former Chief Justice Renato Corona.

He wasn’t convicted due to the talent of the prosecution to dig up dirt on him, but because of Corona’s own stupidity.

Coronavela: A Long and Winding Drama

The original claim of the prosecution was that Corona had a total of 10M-USD worth of deposits (about 450M-PHP), a claim backed up by various banking institutions. However, Corona only declared 3.5M-PHP in his 2010 SALN (Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth) .

In his defense, Corona said that he only had a total of 185M-PHP–but wait, I thought you said 3.5M?–because 105M-PHP of that was in dollar form: 2.4M-USD, an amount that, in a sense, shouldn’t be declared in the report because foreign currencies were to be kept confidential (by the foreign currency deposit unit laws) . The other 80M was money that he did not own completely–some of it was his wife’s, mother’s and children.

So the only thing that he really counted for that report was some 3.5M-PHP.

And I’m saying he did something stupid because he basically said it on national television that he hid funds from the report.

Though with good reason, he kind of killed his own chances.

See, the fact of the matter is, pretty much every one of these officials try to cut the number down to something much more believable, simply because it looks bad.

I’ve seen campaigns spend more money in dirty schemes and tricks–but since schemes and tricks are hidden, the money isn’t counted. What people watch are the candidates with big, expensive, long-running advertisements and wonder how much they’re worth. And then when they see the amount–oh my god, the money! As if these people never thought that of course they won’t go into campaign without funds. They actually do own big companies. Anyone who runs and wins in a national election is rich.

Small ads with big bribes win elections because you don’t wave your cash in front of a crowd of starving beggars.

And that’s why officials try their best to look poor. Naka-ligo ka na ba sa dagat ng basura? Solidarity with the poor is the only way to look like you’re not a self-serving shmuck. And trust me, it works. That’s why, despite the fact that everyone in that impeachment court has a nice business and good funds, they all try to find legal ways to hide the cash under the mattress.

The thing is, by rule of law, what they’re doing is pretty much okay. I don’t know why foreign currency is confidential, and why such a contradicting law as the FCDU is even applicable in the context of the SALN. But it’s there, and it doesn’t even have to be a loophole to be legal. The FCDU does say the foreign money doesn’t have to be declared, and when asked, the $2.4M seems to have a legit reason for being in his possession.

Whether or not that 2.4 really was legit, unstolen, hard-earned cash, we’ll never really, really, really know. It is kind of juvenile of Corona to play the Sick-Card–and whether that was true or an act, we will likewise never really know; ah, the great mysteries of life–but how do you speak only clear truth through lips that tremble in fear? It’s pressure. Huge pressure, crashing on him like a wave on a cliff in a bad storm.

He was a suspect under a hot spotlight, and nobody wanted to believe him. He could only do or say so much until the only option left is for him to run and hide.

 Prosecution, however, stated that by hiding his extra fancy cash, it pretty much means he’s betraying public trust, which stands as sufficient reason for conviction.

In this sense, betraying public trust is re-translated thusly: You’re looking pretty pathetic now, so nobody thinks you can work properly.

But a rose is a rose is a rose. And undeclared millions are undeclared millions are undeclared millions.

Ergo, Renato Corona was not convicted for stealing money–he was convicted for not writing down the millions in his SALN. Genius.

So is he a thief? Is he corrupt? We weren’t able to find out because everyone was too noisy fist-pumping out in the rallies, and Corona was busy playing hospital. He’s just really rich, and he didn’t even tell us.

IMHO, Corona deserved to be acquitted not because he was proven entirely innocent, but because the impeachment court was unable to prove that he was guilty beyond reasonable doubt.

I’m saying, that trial was supposed to end inconclusively.

But it ended anyway, because it’s been forty-three days of trial, and it’s starting to waste everyone’s time. This third world country continues to starve, and we have to get on with our lives. The senators had to make a decision based on what they had. We can’t prove Corona truly guilty of graft and corruption, but by principle, his lack of transparency makes him untrustworthy. And that, in itself, is reason for him to be convicted.

Hipster Geek History: A Comprehensive Guide

Whether it’s tumblr, braids, triangles, literature, indie music or pictures with nebulas, you know that without fail, a friend or two would tell you that they got to it first. It’d be forgivable for a select few who may really have found out about such things earlier than the rest—but where’d all these pop culture hoarders come from?

Ladies and gentlemen, today we discuss the Emergence of the Social Class: Hipster.

Now as with all social terms, “Hipster” can be somewhat ambiguous. In this article, we take the Hipster to mean:

hipster

– n. a mindset that entails an excessive sense of possessiveness for a certain trend, claiming to have known it first, before the general population or before said thing became popular/mainstream

For disambiguation of “hipster” see:  tumblr*. Keywords: nebulas, triangles, braided hair, Radiohead, hipster glasses.

*I’m kidding. The term hipster emerged from the 90′s, and basically is a sub-culture of the people who are conscious of going against things that are popular, and prefer alternative/indie, whether in film, fashion, music or others. But for this article, we are discussing the hipster as a mindset, and the insane possessiveness to trends and obsession to be the first.

 

Such behavior is exhibited in this video:

 

Anatomy of a Hipster. “Messenger bag containing Pablo Neruda poems.” — I’m affected.

Hipsters take from their ancestors, widely known, loved and misunderstood as the Geeks. Being a Geek is a compliment, and a privilege, and something that only a select few people could be. Geeks are to be taken as the following:

Geek

– n. person with excessive passion for (a) certain topic(s)

Geeks are a rare bunch, because to be a geek means to have (a) sufficient resources/funds, (b) plenty of allotted time, and (c) an unmatched, excessive passion for hobby/topic.

The true band geeks used to be the people who got the leaked version of the album before anyone else. The true gamer geeks were the ones who truly heard the news on the releases before anyone else. The true Otaku (anime/manga geek) would be the ones who have had copies of the freshly inked manuscript. The true comic geeks were the only ones who knew the lives of their superheroes from cover to cover of every issue.

To some extent, perhaps an exaggeration—but in truth, there were geeks as dedicated as that, more than just plain dedication to buy things on the first day of release. They were the geeks who knew things not because they read it in some magazine—they either wrote that article you were reading, or was one of the few information sources for it.

Now, thanks to the internet, anyone who gains even the slightest interest in anything can purchase or download products, and read a comprehensive write-up on topics over Wikipedia. It doesn’t take much to know things when information is free for everyone. And that is exactly what threatens the valued esteem of having the status of true Geek.

Now, any Common Idiot can read up on a certain topic and come off as an intellectual. It doesn’t matter where they read it from—whether it was a second-hand source online, or if they really poured in some good, dedicated research for it like real geeks. And let me tell you, the geeks do not like to be in the same position as any Common Idiot.

Thus, the birth of the generation of geeks obsessed with informing the world that they got the information before anyone else. This branch of geekdom now not only takes its domain over the unpopular things, but generally, into pop culture, where everyone is a race to first place, just to say, “I loved __ before he/she/they/it became famous.”

A classic example of a music lover, irritated by the fan girls, proceeding to claim in the height of his pride that the band is much better IRL.

You and I know them well as hipsters.

It can be confusing but a lot of hipster geeks double up as curator geeks. Curator geeks are the geeks that love to share things, those that look at the world like some sort of giant museum, where they love to introduce people to new things. Curator Geeks aren’t necessarily the most dedicated researchers into one topic, but are people who like to discover things.

Exhibit A:

Year 2000 something.

GEEK. “Guys, listen to this song. It’s by this great British singer, Adele. It’s so different.”

EVERYONE. “ . . . but it’s boring.”

Year 2011 (release of 21 by Adele).

EVERYONE. “WE COULD HAVE HAD IT ALLLLLLLLLLLL.”

GEEK. “Glad you guys finally appreciate great music! : )”

EVERYONE. “We’ve loved Adele since forever!”

[ GEEK evolves to HIPSTER.]

HIPSTER. “BITCH PLEASE YOU ONLY LIKE HER NOW BECAUSE SHE GOT TO THE TOP OF THE BILLBOARD HITS. I LOVED HER BEFORE SHE BECAME MAINSTREAM.”

Exhibit A.2 ad infinitum:

“I loved Cobra Starship before Good Girls Go Bad.”

“I knew A Rocket to the Moon before Baby Blue Eyes even got written.”

“Why the hell did everyone start listening to Muse all of a sudden? Damn you, Stephenie Meyer!”

The Tween Hipster Manifesto: A classic example of possessiveness.

To be fair, a lot of the hipsters-at-heart are at first curator geeks, or a geek of some sort. But once a Common Idiot likes to one-up them and pretend they know more, oh, how the fire of hipsterdom burns with passion.

It feels like being a super villain, seeking revenge for once being ignored and misunderstood, with years of deep seated hatred for the people who marked you as a loser.

Exhibit B:

[ Comic Geek reads Marvel Comics in the corner.]

EVERYONE. “Hahaha, what a loser. Always alone reading comics.”

[Fast forward to 2010-2012, when movies like Ironman, Capt. America, Thor and The Avengers come out.]

EVERYONE. “OMGGGG AVENGERS!”

COMIC GEEK. “Omggg, Hollywood.”

Exhibit C:

GAMER GEEK. “Anyone ever played Morrowind / Oblivion?”

EVERYONE. “???”

GAMER GEEK. “Uhm, these great RPG games from The Elder Scrolls series. The latest is Skyrim.”

EVERYONE.“SKYRIM LOL OH GOD ARROW TO THE KNEE.”

Hipsters are, in essence, the mighty guards of the Geekdom trying to keep out unworthy civilians. Tumblr feels like a place where they reject your passport to gain entrance. Being a hipster is a defense mechanism, born in an attempt to preserve the value of being a geek.

Hipsters make sure that being Geeks won’t become mainstream.

Other classic examples:

“Just because you can afford a DSLR doesn’t mean you’re a photographer.”

“What kind of idiot doesn’t know that Spiderman and The Amazing Spiderman were from two different universes?”

“Is Hans Zimmer the only composer you know?”

“Ella Fitzgerald came from the fifties, not Fallout videogames.”

“Why do you not know that the Hitler Response video came from the movie Der Untergang?”

“Just because you downloaded the latest Adobe Photoshop doesn’t mean you know how to use it.”

“Windows Movie Maker? HAHAHAHA. No.”

At some point, the moment a certain thing becomes popular or mainstream, a hipster would stay away from it or lose interest in it. Like memes, how they used to be like secret inside jokes among Redditors and 4chan Anons, and even to some dA deviants who were part of inventing them , and then onwards to Tumblr. Once RAEG comics hit 9gag, they all just stopped using them. (Also, a proper hipster will correct you and say that they’re not MEME FACES but RAEG COMICS. Psh. Dumbfags.)

I am like this, and I hate admitting it, but I may be a hipster at times.

I started reading the first two books of Harry Potter at age six. When the movies came out, I stopped reading because it was all everyone ever talked about. And they never talked about the books, just the movies. When you’re like, six or seven, and all your classmates loved the movie but never knew the last test by Snape was omitted, it just gets you and you start to snap.

Hagrid: “Yer a hipster, Harry.”

I started the hipster way of life so early, that I’ll be hipster enough to say that I was a hipster before any of you. (I won’t, but in retrospect, it kinda feels like it.)

I typed down all of the examples of how I am a hipster in real life, what with the books I read before their movie adaptations, or listening to artists’ first albums before they became famous with the second. But they were too many, so I just hit the backspace for the sake of convenience.

  

It’s a horrible feeling, to know something or love something and deem it very special to you, even when once before you were considered a real weirdo. Then when corporate asses try to make money out of the thing you love by making it popular—even though you admit, that money will help said artist/writer/creator/whatever to be able to continue making wonders on this earth—or just generally, something grows popular and everyone else loves it, it feels like betrayal, disrespect and utter disregard for the fact that you were here first.

So how to avoid the birth of a hipster?

When you meet a person who passionately speaks of something and would like to share some information with you, please try your best not to pretend to know more than that person. When you know that you’re (a) Common Idiot or (b) new to The Fold or (c) A Curator Geek, then follow The Curators’ Code and learn to cite your sources and stop pretending like you own the damn world of knowledge. If someone knows more than you do, admit it and give due praise when fit. Treat your betters as they should be—as your betters. Geeks are always more than happy to share the things they love most, as long as you don’t act like a pseudo-intellectual. And a geek knows when he is speaking to someone of equal rank, and will happily discuss the wonders of the universe without trying to be better than you. I assure you.

There is an insane hierarchy of geekdom that no one wants to admit exists, but you really don’t have to as long as you play nice and keep the peace.

And because I don’t want to end this article with “happy hipster-ing!” as I originally planned, I will leave you with a quick guide on how to make things more adorable than they should be.

Step 1: Take Fluffy Animal.

Step 2: Put Hipster Glasses.

Step 3: Add caption. (Optional.)

Step 4: Upload.

 

The Beauty of Choice

If I have to fight for it, then it wasn’t meant for me.

It’s a pretty lovely belief, really, to think that you can’t force yourself into something that you think is yours, because it’s already yours, and that no matter what you do, and no matter what happens, you’ll find each other in the end. The entire system of the universe will bring you together, because that love has been yours from the very beginning, and no matter what happens, it always will be. It’s the entire Red String of Fate Philosophy. And it seems pretty sweet like that, but then I told her:

Love is not a sprint; it’s a marathon.

–Howard Walowitz, The Big Bang Theory

“It is a relentless pursuit…” Love is a job. Love is a lot of hard work. If you want it, you have to get off your ass and get it, and do everything it takes to have it. And when you have it, you have to wake up every morning to take care of it, and get to bed every night to prepare for another tomorrow of it. Love is years and years of hard work, making sure it doesn’t fall apart. Love is doing everything to make sure you don’t give up all the happy moments because of a small bend in the road.

I do believe, to some extent, that there is a specially wonderful certain case when you were meant for each other. Genetics suggest that some people are just biologically born for each other, and that their genetic make-up will create perfect offspring. I think some people were born for each other, in a sense that there are certain physical traits and some other things, like small habits and emotional characteristics, that no one else will find totally attractive but that one special person. But it doesn’t mean that the world will bring you two together because of that, or that the system of the universe will conspire to put you in that place. And everything will go perfectly for it.

I think ‘destiny’ or ‘unique design’ stops at that. You were born with the unique traits, and raised with a certain set of habits and skills that only one person in the world will find particularly attractive about you and no one can ever doubt that you were made to be together. But you still have to find that person, do everything to be with that person, and when you’re finally together, you still have to face every new day of fresh hell to be with each other, come what may.

You don’t give up because of problems. You don’t sneak out of bed in the morning because you think ‘this isn’t going to work out’. You don’t just hang up the phone because you’re tired of the dozen times she’s nagged you about some non-existent woman she’s afraid you’re flirting with.

Love is tiresome, and draining, and difficult, and convoluted.

But love is also beautiful and true and pure. And what makes it so is because of all the effort you make for it.

One of the best philosophy lectures I’ve heard about freedom was delivered by my professor, Mark Anthony Dacela, who shared with us the story of the night he had to go pick up his girlfriend from work. He had a couple of teaching jobs in three different places, and his girlfriend was at the further end of the city. He was running pretty late, so as he hurried to get there, he slipped in a dark alley as it rained. He also got chased by a thief. And when he was near, he received a message from her that she was going to be late. So he went to a nearby bar, waiting for the rain and the mud to dry off his clothes as he contemplated on why he has to do this every single day. Everything seemed like a futile effort. “What for?” He asked us in class. He said that it seemed like love is just a learned habit, that he’s being controlled by this notion of love into doing something over and over again.

But then he said,

“I saw the reason why I do these things for her. It was because I loved her, and I choose to do everything everyday because I love her. No one’s controlling me to do it. Don’t you think that’s more beautiful than the so-called destiny? Isn’t love an expression of true freedom?”

So I honestly think that love is beautiful because it is difficult. Just like any art. You don’t hail someone for singing Twinkle Twinkle unless she’s four-years-old. No, you praise the talent of the soprano who spends months rehearsing, carefully tending to her voice and superfluously delivering every note. You don’t frame a crayon doodle in the Louvre, but you honor the painting or the sculpture carefully crafted with every detail painted with such masterful delicacy.

Hard, back-breaking, mind-wracking, heart-shattering work is what makes something so insanely beautiful, more so when you actually choose to go through with all of it. When you choose to love, and choose to do everything, to fight against all odds to be with that person and let that person know how much love you have in your heart, when you choose to allow love to consume your being, your very existence, that’s when love is true.

Love is true because it is free.

Ask Aunt Arli: I’m in Lesbians with You

A young highschooler from an all-girls’ Catholic school, troubled, sent me a message asking for advice, ending the letter with, “is it wrong for me to love someone like her?”

“If you want something bad, you have to fight for it. Step up your game, Scott. Break out the L-word.”
“Lesbian?”
“The other L-word.”
“. . . L-lesbian. . . s?”

–Wallace Wells & Scott Pilgrim, from Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

In a bit of a background check, she had currently gone into a relationship with a girl behind her entire strictly Catholic family’s back, and has caused her some grief in school on the gossip circuit–not because she’s dating a girl, but because the one she’s dating was the ex-girlfriend of one of the alpha females in the popular crowd, reigning queen for a certain time of residency, while our little heroine is the new girl in town. She’s had some bad reputation for unintentionally grabbing the attention of everyone else’s boyfriends and girlfriends, as she was a pretty young lady with slender legs, a talented young actress with professional training, a champion in public speaking, a mathlete, a dancer and a wonderfully soulful songstress.

Now she’s being trashed, and when she walks down the hall, the air is filled with hushed giggles, snide side remarks and insensible snickering. Upon going home, the only thing filling up her Twitter’s timeline are blind-item taunts directed her way.

Short story: she’s the pretty girl in town, snatched up the queen’s ex-date. Bitches be angry.

To which, I sent her a note of advice:

I’m telling you, leave them be. They do it because they want you annoyed. Or hurt. And if you are, then they’d have succeeded. Don’t go on twitter. And if you see them, smile and act friendly. It confuses them. Mindfuckery is a stronger attack than juvenile backstabbing. And they’re just threatened. There is a price to pay for being pretty. Popularity is just a social grouping for ugly girls to feel better about themselves.

If I ignore them, won’t they still continue? They’d still hate me, right? What if they spread issues? I’m scared to lose friends–scared to have a bad reputation.

Well, stop thinking about your reputation. Your sense of self-worth and your happiness shouldn’t rely on other people’s thoughts and opinions. Stop caring about gossip and start caring about facts: the fact that you’re pretty, loving, a protective friend, a talented writer and a good cook. There are so many good things about you that will never change no matter what they think or say about you. And you don’t need to prove your worth to anyone to know that you are worth loving and respecting.

Respect yourself. That is enough. Respect and love yourself and everyone will follow. It’s true. But by then, you don’t need everyone’s approval anymore. You wouldn’t need or expect everyone else to respect and love you anymore, because you’ve had enough love for yourself.

So was I wrong to love someone like her?

I’m not really the judge of that. For one, I really don’t care. Not because I don’t care about you, but because I just don’t think bothering with other people’s decisions is a good thing. I respect your decisions & trust that you are mature enough and will take responsibility.

The thing is, if you believe that what you’re doing is completely right, why would you question it?

That’s why I asked you. I don’t know if what I’m doing IS RIGHT.

If it’s something you have to question, then it means it’s wrong. All right things are right and never doubted. All wrong things are questioned.

Do you really love her because you love her? Or do you love her because she understands you when no one else does, and gives you time and attention and makes an effort to make you feel special when no one else could?

Because love is only love when you’re at the highest point of your life, and you have the best of everything. Life is complete, and that person is the only one missing. You don’t need someone else to make you happy, but you need someone for no reason.

I don’t think it’s about gender when it comes to love. But in this case, and I’m sorry if it seems judgemental, you might be going for a girl this time because she’s all you have.

Well I’m pretty sure I’m straight. But I just want to try it out.

It’s okay. Maybe you’re just saying you’re straight because we’re all Catholic here. No pressure. But I’ve known you specifically, and I do think you’re straight. In which case, if you think you’re straight too–and we’re all sure that your girlfriend’s completely lesbian–then wouldn’t “trying it out” just be “playing around with her heart”?

You don’t just try out relationships like they’re shoes, or sample on hearts like they were free taste tests in the market. You try out dates–never relationships, never with people who love you back. You never lie with, “Good morning, I love you. :)” You don’t feign concern when you ask if they’ve had dinner. You don’t act out the role of the girl who’s madly in love.

You don’t just walk lightly in onto a person’s life, and run out, trampling over a heart and crushing it into a tiny million pieces, as much as you please.

I’m sure I told you that you were pretty, and talented, and special. And I told you that you had every right to be with anyone. But honey, that doesn’t put you in a position to take everything you want. That’s what everyone is afraid about. And that’s why everyone’s so batshit angry at you, drowning in every insecurity they have.

But I’m not taking everything I want. And we know I don’t mean to.

I’m sure you aren’t. I’m not saying that you are. But that’s the reason why they’re all afraid–because you can. And as much as you have insecurities and fears about your reputation and how you’re being treated or mistreated in school, every other girl does too.

And it isn’t your fault that people’s boyfriends turn heads when you walk past. They have to suck it up and just stop being jealous. But if you were with someone, who thought of someone else and looked at someone else, wouldn’t that make you feel a little less special than he or she should treat you?

It isn’t your fault. But play nice. They’re having a hard time just as much as you are.

She’s a lovely young lady. But she told me that she was going to give this particular young man a chance because he’s been kissing on the ground she walked on for the past half-year. The agony of the long wait must have been truly killer. So as soon as the bi-curiosity is satisfied and the trial version expires, she’s back to the entertaining hopeless little men that she used to laugh at for chasing her and writing her letters–oh the woes of the young and truly beautiful. And though I get it, kinda makes me want to bang her on the head with a frying pan for the entire ordeal of the hearts aren’t free samples of fried meat in the market thing.

Oh well. Whatever suits her best judgement. I can’t be right all the time, and she’s a young teen. She has to learn things in her own way. And we’ve all gone through some sort of heartache somehow–we didn’t die, right? Right? Please tell me that no one’s died of heartbreak? Please?

Unclichéfied

It would be a great understatement to say that people find it difficult to think up clever gifts for me. Whether it’s Christmas or my birthday, even my family and closest friends have the hardest times wracking through their minds of what to give me. And when they do give me something, it is most likely something I don’t even want or need. I would appreciate the thought or effort, if there were thought and effort, but there are just some gifts that seem to not have any thought at all–more like, “ooh, I think she watches stuff from this show / knows something about this franchise. I’m not sure if it’s her favorite, but I’ll get it anyway, because I couldn’t think of anything anymore. I don’t know what she wants.”

I don’t intend on coming across as an ingrate. What I’m trying to say is that people shouldn’t try so hard to guess the things I like, if they don’t know them.

Gift-giving season is nearing, and I’m usually a big gift-giver myself. I always fuss about what I give people, and I make sure that what I give them would be–oh, what’s the word? That’s right–awesome. Okay, it isn’t that. But I made sure that what I gave them had a lot of thought.

Last Christmas, I gave Therese a red Tory Burch wallet, and a year before, a bag with a vector print of a red cat.I gave Jovanni a red leather journal with crisp, cream paper. I gave Yssa a teal shirt with gold print that says “Music is Life”. I gave Shai a plastic file case with a Sanrio Kuromi print. When Xela celebrated her birthday, I baked her a custard pie, decorated with a blue bunny wearing an eyepatch. And when my mother celebrated her birthday, I baked a chocolate ganache cake, decorated with blue lilies.

Gift giving is easy and doesn’t have to be expensive, and only takes a little thought. The question is not, “what does she want?” The question is, “would this be something she’d appreciate?” And under that question, there are sub-questions to guide:

• Is it to her taste?
• Will she be able to use it?

The question of its use and practicality is essential, because if you give her something you think she’d need, then it means you’ve thought about her daily life and what she does, and you are close enough friends to know what it is that would convenience her.

The first question however isn’t exactly thinking of what she likes. Remember this: you never know what anyone likes. Despite living under the illusion that you know someone and what she likes, you never do. Never depend on that instinct. And don’t go for that “what you like, she will like too” because that’s barely ever true. It is true that you have to pick a gift that even you would find interesting, because if you don’t want it, who would? No, the “is it to her taste” question should be re-written in the imperative form as, “make sure that it reflects her trademark or personality”.

The way I see it, gifts are a test of showing how much you know someone, and how well you could reflect them on a piece of novelty item. Besides, if you got something new, regardless of it being a gift or just something you bought for yourself, you’d love it most if it was suited to you, tailor-made as it were, or something that goes along the lines of, “Oh my gosh, this is so me!”

Looking at the past examples I had listed down regarding the gifts I gave before, we see that there are small details for each friend. Therese’s favorite colors are in shades of red–crimson and scarlet are specific tints, if I got them right, but I should never assume that I know her favorites–and she enjoys cats and witty statements, and was, at the time, looking forward to become an editor, and was in need for a wallet. I didn’t need to think about her love for comics, music, anime or games, because even though we share commonalities in taste, I should never assume that I know the specific things she might like. And I really didn’t need to dwell on fandom, because our friendship was based on our working relationship, so the gift was to be designed to reflect what kind of friendship we had. Not only does the gifts remind her of herself, she is also reminded of the times we had over work.

For Xela, her favorite color was cerulean, favorite animal was a bunny, she loved characters with eyepatches like Ciel Phantomhive, and had a sweet tooth that craved for all things creamy. This should be a sufficient explanation for the custard pie with a blue bunny in an eyepatch. My mother likes the color blue and lilies, thus: cake with lilies.

Shai is a student, so the file case came in handy. And Kuromi was her favorite Sanrio character. I did not assume this–she told me.

Yssa likes music. And when I slept over at her place and raided her closet, she told me that she just liked simple clothing the most. And she always went to school with any cool shirt with a statement or a print that suited her. And I thought she needed another shirt. Along with that “Music is Life” shirt, I also gave her a shirt with a print of a caricature chicken mascot. Why? Because her father is an agricultural veterinarian, and takes care of poultry. They have three chickens in their home kept as pets–and they live in the city. And I always have a pleasant feeling when I see her wearing those shirts.

And Jovanni? Why did I gift her with a red, leather journal from Old Navy if her favorite color is blue and when she already has a journal? Simple. Jovanni is an impeccable gift-giver, and always knows what to give. And the reason behind that is because she is a really smart shopper, and takes great delight in finding great . . . well, finds in thrift stores and the most unlikely places. Knowing those Old Navy journals couldn’t even be found at Old Navy anymore, and also knowing that she just generally has a keen enthusiasm and insatiable fondness for high quality items of such rarity, what would be better to give her than something even she couldn’t find on one of her bargain hunts?

It’s always about thinking not only of the other person, but the strength of your friendship. A gift is a reminder of that. It’s always best to go back to the basics and start simple. Then when you know, just build your way to her personality. Don’t buy some cheap gadget just because you think it’s cool. Don’t buy an album or fandom paraphernalia just because you think they might listen to something similar around that genre.

So for those few friends who might have been reading on just to know what to give me next time, I’ll stop beating around the mulberry bush and hand you the ring of roses. What would I like for Christmas?

A pocket full of posies. A mug.

Yep. A coffee mug. Once in class, during the draw-lots for the Christmas exchange gift, my classmate Gerald announced in Filipino, “I have only one thing to say: don’t get me a mug. For god’s sake, anything but a mug. Stop being cheap.”

Okay, fine. Maybe for him, he wouldn’t appreciate a mug. And perhaps, for a lot of people, it would seem all too cliché and un-thought of. But what I’m surprised about is that only very few people ever thought of getting me a mug. A mug to me is my best companion. I’m Thoughtspresso for a reason. Caffeine is a basic need in my book, and though I’ve been advised to cut down on it, who’s to say I wouldn’t have decaf or herbal tea? Warm beverages are the best friends of desk leeches, and those of my kind. When the mushroom field of tea cups and mugs blossom on my desk, it’d be nice if they were designed to suit my taste, like bunnies, or Tigger, or statements, or abstract art, or music labels. But no, the mugs collecting on my workspace are those communally owned within the household, often chipped or with broken handles, because other people may have broken them. Yes, I’m rather possessive and territorial.

What this means is that I don’t really ask for much. It doesn’t take a car, a condo unit, jewelry or new gadgetry to make me happy–they would, but that would be on a general sense; it would make any person happy to afford expensive items. But I don’t need people to get them for me. I don’t need for people to throw me surprise parties, or spend hours in the mall’s craft section or comic book store, looking to see if there might be something I’d enjoy.

That’d be nice. But keep it simple. Something like a mug. Or a coffee tumbler. But with a nice design. Something that may remind people that I (a) like coffee or other hot beverages, (b) enjoy art and literature and (c) have a hectic lifestyle that requires a certain caffeine dosage to accomplish.

Other than mugs and tumblers, I always look forward to cards more than gifts. I’m really not that hard to gift. If you don’t have cash, write me something witty, sweet, funny or appreciative. I keep my cards in a box or a drawer. And sometimes, even the mindless gift tags get transferred to my closet door, and are stuck there on display for a year until the next gift giving season. The letters and cards are kept safely. And sometimes, the thought that went into the letter meant more than the thought that went into the gift.

So about gift-giving. It takes a bit of simplicity, creativity, and thought. Creativity would be really nice. I saw these around deviantART, and I’m fairly certain that anyone would like them, just for the sake of aesthetics.

This last one here is a personal favorite.

I know, I should’ve written about the impact of art on an otherwise lackluster object, like design and artisan craftsmanship on simple coffee mugs, and used it to illustrate a point on the philosophy of aesthetics and its key role in the valuing of otherwise dreary living. But I just wanted to rant about how badly and often mindlessly some people tend to give gifts. Oh well.