The Flight

The late afternoon sky was dotted with kites being piloted by hyped tots who were swept over by a familiar feeling of elation. Children gawk and marvel at the gaudy figures of their makeshift kites, condoning the punishing heat of the sun. The intermittent blast of air currents lift high the kites at dizzying altitudes, notwithstanding their sizes and materials used to make them. To magnify the adrenaline rush, they would place bets on best-performing kites. Chances of welshing is low, though. Those who belong are compelled to join, and those who are not, well, they are bigtime losers. The sunshine is unstinting, and the children, too engrossed. Their meek faces were aglow; they are appreciative to both their handiwork and toil. Newcomers would troop by the field and will follow the others to set yet another flight of kaleidoscopic chimeras of plastic, wood and paper. Up the humid sky, one of the kites has its string snipped by the torrential wind, just on an instant. The lost of control made it slither sideways, its tail flailing on a phrensied manner. Its side joints of tapering sticks made it glide on the air because of momentum, then pausing in inertia while resisting the pull of gravity, until it came to a tangential crash towards the Earth. The other children seemed not to notice, as they continued loosing more thread from their spools.

New Year's Must-haves and Must-do

Again, I was taken aback by the idea of making my own new year's resolution, because, for as long as my memory serves me good, I have done this crap before and end up having them thrown in the wastebin for the things listed there seem out of the question. Well, I resorted on listing down material things for they gratify me in endless ways, so to speak. Here are plenty of superficial things I want to have and want to do.

- Finish eight novels for the first six months.
- Design more interior renderings for portfolio.
- Put endings to unfinished proses of mine.
- MUST buy Fuji Velvia, at all cost.
- Compile furniture sketches on a sketch pad.
- Save 5000 Php until the end of the year, through my own money.
- Overhaul, if not, arrange all the mess in my room.
- Play lawn tennis again.
- Ransack more manga and drawing materials.
- Request for Dad to buy a handheld lexicon for one more time.
- Maintain Plurk regularly to attain Nirvana.
- Buy a new set of domesticated umang (hermit crab) for my cryogenic, household and academic purposes.
- Persuade mother to have the Yamaha organ be repaired.
- Go scuba diving.
- Reread the Holy Scriptures
- Work as a draftsman
- Borrow the Communication Theories book, digest its contents and absorb its thoughts.
- Buy drafting stencil and template and techpen needle.
- Attend at least one of the Cosplays frequented by Alodia (and see her ecchi-garbed would be a bonus.)
- A human hand lay-figure (if budget permits.)

Now, after some wishful thinking, I wonder how many of these will materialize. A blessed new year ahead, everyone!

Incompetent Teachers

As my fingers fidget while typing this blog entry, arbitrary ideas were popping in inside my mind. I had typed this because I want to vent out my resentment to those teachers who do nothing but impart nonsense knowledge among their students. Well, in terms of incompetent teachers, our University is never in want. It is a commonplace scenario for students to blacklist, detest and curse ineffective teachers and aver the bluffs and blunders these professors have committed over and over again. I am not generalizing all teachers as totally inept when it comes to teaching, but the smoking gun of their dismal deeds still lingers in the mouths of students. I know a professor who is a professional engineer, but he/she is incapable of teaching well, he/she shirks her duty of inculcating the appropriate knowledge to his/her students. I do not harbor enmity towards that professor, nor grudge to other professions, but this person does things terribly. I daresay, that if you are a licensed professional of the technical field, it doesn't necessarily mean that you can teach well because you are good at your career. Teaching, some people do not know, is a separate vocation to be pursued, another profession to be learned first, and must be borne in heart and in mind with seriousness. It requires dedication and a giver-receiver rapport. I wonder if all these incompetent teachers were lessened on our school, then the number of competent and well-rounded graduates of our University could have multiplied. Enough of wishful thinking.

spam thoughts

These past few days, I am always annoyed by some intrusive ideas and notions that always come unannounced. I think there is a coven of subversive and mischievous imps scheming at the back of my mind, and they keep on telling me that I can't do things, that I must quit because I'm just wasting precious time, that I can't finish things that I've just started. I couldn't stand it because it is mentally upsetting, and distressing at that. Sigh. I want to get rid of them.

and here I go again

I am fond of eyeing her furtively without her noticing it. Minutes, or just seconds of short glimpses of her, are a moment of bliss for me. The contours of her face, the color of her sun-kissed skin, the bulging cheeks of hers massed like a profusion of adipose tissues from a fat baby's belly- they all are perfectly complementary. I am fond of eavesdropping to her muffled sighs and childish grunts, and it cannot be helped all the time. I am fond of listening to her quips and anecdotes of life, like an attentive student eager to hark more stories from his teacher. She is standing atop a pedestal, and I am still on the ground, looking up to her like a weary carpenter content on appreciating a finely sculpted statue. However, along the ticking of the clock, I do know that that pedestal will soon collapse and crumble.

omen

On the evening of All Soul's Day, I was left alone in the house. With nothing to do aside from net surfing, the deepening night called me to cook food for dinner. I went down and I noticed that I forgot to switch on the lights downstairs. The tolerable darkness was illuminated by the lights coming from our neighbor's house so I just rushed down the flight of stairs. Some second elapsed, and I was startled by a terrifying eek-eek sound just behind the stereo shelf on the living room that my hearbeat thudded louder. The freakingly spooky stories through word of mouth and overheard conversations had started to materialize though I always label them implausible. Or was it much worse than I just thought of? The eek-eek sound reverberated again and this time, the unseen entity revealed itself. It was a bird. A black bird intruded on our house. This could mean an omen. A portent. A bad sign. Perhaps, the bird could be possessed by the disquieted spirits of our long-dead relatives. I know nothing. But one thing is for sure, I must make it go away.

I stomped my feet repeatedly to scare the bird but it jumped and tried to flee but to no avail. However, I cannot catch the brash and elusive bird because it moved too fast. My wild-goose chase ended when I cornered it inside our powder room. I quickly closed the door and it took me half an hour to finally seize the bird. I marveled at the bird in my hand because it doesn't look like an ominous creature. It has spotted plummage, and its real color was dark brown; the lower beak is reddish while the legs have long, slender toes. After I took pictures of the pitiful bird with my cellphone, I decided to end the horseplay by securing it firmly again on my hands so for it to not go away and cause another round of mess. I freed it outside and I hurled it expecting that it would take flight, but it didn't. Instead, it landed on the ground and walked briskly going to the looming grayness of the night. I was left there, puzzled and disoriented, wondering what kind of bird it was, I do not know. I came back in the house in deep thought. Before anything else, I went over to our altar and I hurriedly lighted the candles there. Our family always do this in accordance to the rites of the day of the dead, and we never forget to dedicate prayers. Hence, I was filled with hope that the evil presence around, if any, will be warded off.

a close encounter with the third kind

Before I went home last night, I had a very harrowing experience that I will never forget, an experience worse than seeing strange entities and apparitions of the deceased. Walking on a dimlit alley near TUP along Ayala Blvd, the traffic light going straight of the way going to Taft Avenue turned green. As I saw it, I hurried my steps so that I can cross the opposite street. With all my force, I ran fast and the green light turning yellow was the last thing I saw. An open waterway caught my left foot up to my knee.

The fall made me lunged forward and my left hand hit the concrete road. The result, the concrete scraped the flesh below my knee and a little portion of skin in my palm was peeled off. And before I could get out my foot out of the waterway, the headlights of the passing cars flooded my sight. I mustered some confidence to stand firmly. Good thing is, there were no people from around to see such disgrace. The pain suddenly brought me back to my senses, and the left part of my pants was soaked. It began to smell, and I found out that the waterway is a passage for leachate! C'mon, it's leachate! I did not mind the foul smell, and I hurried to go to the nearest public toilet to wash all the dirt and grunge I have accumulated.

I was disgruntled with what had happened and I started to mentally curse those sloven Pulis Oysters or any of those who are in charge of sanitation in that place for not putting covers in the waterway. But I know in my part that the blame is on me, because I did not look to where I am walking. Again, another maladroit feat was added to my record, but this time, I have learned my lesson.