I typed the first five paragraphs on valentine's day. I was bored, unmotivated and lonely at that time but it didn't show in writing. Well, Valentine's way over but I decided to continue and post it here...
There are still lots of things that i could write about my vacation but I'm putting them off for now. Real life is happening so fast that it caught up to me. In saner words, I want to write about the present while it is happening. If ever real life slows down to a crawl, I can always dip my hand in my well of happy/insane/weird memories to write about.
Though I had my own share of really happy Valentine's (like the day I picked up a billful of wallet devoid of identification, totally non-love related but nonetheless happy. Or like the time I found out the girl who dumped me got herself pregnant with an unknown sperm donor, bitter maybe, but happiness is getting revenge too), I would rather write about valentine's day of a singled geek.
To an idealistic high school geek who is just over puberty (pubic hairs:check, armpit hairs: check, waning acne infestation:check, deep mature you-know-i'm-circumcised voice: check, barely proportioned stature:check), today is the time you pledge your undying love for the person who you want to love you back. This is the exact time to splurge all your cash you received and saved over christmas on almost non-practical-purely-aesthetic gifts of flowers, cards and other sweety stuffs. And ideally, everything should go perfect as expected. And if you belong to the unfortunate majority, like I do, you would know real life's never always perfect.
What could go wrong? The three red roses you bought, which now cost an 2 arms and half a leg, for your object of lust.. ehm.. affection was easily outdone by a gift of basketful of flowers, which probably costs 4 arms and 3 knees at this time, from an obviously wealthy secret admirer. That sure makes your three roses look like paper roses.
Or maybe your officemates found out that it was just really you who anonymously sent the uber-romantic bouquet of flowers for yourself (Really pathetic but doable in certain situations, and effective in illiciting jealous stares and envy if done discreetly).
The crazy things that we do and that happens on valentine's day. But do you really know why we celebrate valentine's day? According to the papers I read at that time, there is indeed a Saint Valentine, not just one but three. The church is even lost as to who among the three saints Febr14 is attributed to. But according to ancient scripts (an old yellowing inquirer newspaper count as an ancient script), in the roman past, a certain priest named Valentine continued to perform the sacrament of marriage even though it was banned by the emperor. According to the emperor, married men lost fierceness and aggressiveness and the willingness to go into battle and during those times of war, you need those men to fight for you (These data might be from an ancient roman survey done by the emperor). And when the emperor found out what Valentine was doing (Avoiding taxes by not declaring income from secret weddings. It's just about the money really), Valentine was executed.
This is one version of valentine's day origin. If you like this version, go celebrate Valentine's by executing priests who secretly wed couples in love... err... I think I missed the moral of the story.
Another version of Valentine's day origin was the mass pairing of single citizens in ancient rome. According to the same ancient script, nonmarried citizens interested in looking for a mate gather in the town's square to be randomly paired with other probably desperately single people. The celebration is supposed to be joyous and usually ends in sex. Hmm... sounds like modern Valentine's day to me. And since the church is not really much into sex, the church decided to twist this pagan ritual and made it a bit churchy (which really means no sexual activities of any kind, which led to less fun but wholesome celebration).
I like this version better. I think most people celebrates Valentine's day the pagan ritual way. No wonder motels are fully booked (not personally checked by me of course, it's what I heard on the news. Really, promise).
I am reminded of my female physics teacher back in UP. She used the last 10 minutes to discuss various sexually-transmitted diseases and ways to have 'fun' and yet not get sick and/or pregnant. Hilarious. the couples in our class who was uber-sweet a while ago were now quiet with heads bowed down, avoiding any eye contact with the singletons. They reminded of children about to be reprimanded. Aha! We know you're having sex later so please stay safe. And then you expect them to meekly answer ...o.k..
It's just tragic that the terrorist groups decided to have explosions of their own on the same day. I guess some people's cheekiness mellowed down after such incidents. I watched an interview of an actress who witnessed the makati bombing while having a candlelit dinner with her male partner. and she goes: 'it was so tragic, blah-blah, very unfortunate, blah-blah, explosion, blah-blah. how could they do this today? after we saw what happened, we were not in the mood to do anything now.' and the question in the back of my mind was, and what should you be in the mood for? Hmm... must be one of those pagan ritualists.
Monday, February 28
Monday, February 7
Time Space Warp, Immediately!
I belonged to the generation of youngsters where afternoon TV viewing means kid friendly shows of batibot, where the kuya bodgie interacted alongside puppets. Puppets made from cloth, which were by the almost real to at that time like: Pong Pagong (Pong the Turtle), Kiko Matsing (Kiko the Monkey) and the rare appearance of a special guest Ibong Malaki who regularly appears in sesame street as Big Bird. Sesame Street at that time was still wholesome. The show was still devoid of rumors that Bert is evil, that Ernie is gay due to his bathing preference of always playing with his ‘rubber ducky,’ that Ernie died due to aids, that Ernie contracted the virus thru his sexual relations with Bert.
Robot shows were also the rage at that time. I especially liked Voltron, a robot composed of 5 lions of different colors (I believe my color coordination skill was due to this show, imagine mixing 5 different colors into 1 ultimate fighting machine and still avoid being a fashion victim). Memorable Japanese futuristic shows are shown: Voltes V, Mazinger Z, Mask Rider, Macros, Daimos and Bioman (which incidentally, is included in GMA7’s cartoon lineup on Saturday as of this writing.
For those who belonged to my generation, you would probably recognize the title as the translation to Bioman’s utterance before the final fight scene with the baddies: (‘Time space warp, ngayon na!) and almost instantly, a super-high-tech looking spacecraft would appear from somewhere over the mountains and carry Bioman to a place where innocent civilians may be made unaware of a vicious battle between good and evil that may possible tear the world apart.
I am making you recall this since I experienced being ‘time space warped.’ My LA vacation started with it.
We were scheduled to leave the manila international airport at 10pm Dec19 Sunday with an estimated travel time of 13 hours. Seems normal to me at that time. And then we boarded the plane.
Thirteen (13) hours flew quite quickly (pun intended). The 13 hours were consumed by intervals of sleep, eat, watch the in flight movie (taxi, which stars Queen Latifah and a moron police cop with a shallow plot you must definitely avoid except for the watching racing cars scenes which kept me half awake. Volta, starring Ai Ai delas Alas, and Sky Captain something and the World of Tomorrow).
Then we landed after a relatively uneventful 13 hours. The time on my watch says it should be 11am Dec20 Monday, but it seems that I was in for a surprise (to keep the story fresh, amazing, interesting and even keep you readers in awe, let us pretend the idea of international time zones are yet to be explained to us).
As we were going through immigration, the speakers blared: Welcome to the Los Angeles International Airport, the time now is 6pm Dec19 Sunday. WHOA!! Let’s pause for a moment of silence and then backtrack a little..., I remember leaving manila at 10pm Dec19, went through a 13 hour flight, and yet arrived in Los Angeles at 6pm Dec19. I actually flew back 4hours in time! (pun intended). I was very elated to know that I’ve gone back in time yet shocked to know that I might have torn the delicate fabric of time. I was already thinking of things to minimize the repercussions of going back through time. I already decided to move my birthday a day ahead. Instead of celebrating it on Dec1, from then on, my birthday is on Nov31. I was also anxious to find mind doctors to erase all memories that supposedly happened during the time space warp.
And since I am a fickle minded creature of non-habit, plus a disdainful procrastinator, none of this where put into action as I forgot everything else and looked forward to my vacation...
Robot shows were also the rage at that time. I especially liked Voltron, a robot composed of 5 lions of different colors (I believe my color coordination skill was due to this show, imagine mixing 5 different colors into 1 ultimate fighting machine and still avoid being a fashion victim). Memorable Japanese futuristic shows are shown: Voltes V, Mazinger Z, Mask Rider, Macros, Daimos and Bioman (which incidentally, is included in GMA7’s cartoon lineup on Saturday as of this writing.
For those who belonged to my generation, you would probably recognize the title as the translation to Bioman’s utterance before the final fight scene with the baddies: (‘Time space warp, ngayon na!) and almost instantly, a super-high-tech looking spacecraft would appear from somewhere over the mountains and carry Bioman to a place where innocent civilians may be made unaware of a vicious battle between good and evil that may possible tear the world apart.
I am making you recall this since I experienced being ‘time space warped.’ My LA vacation started with it.
We were scheduled to leave the manila international airport at 10pm Dec19 Sunday with an estimated travel time of 13 hours. Seems normal to me at that time. And then we boarded the plane.
Thirteen (13) hours flew quite quickly (pun intended). The 13 hours were consumed by intervals of sleep, eat, watch the in flight movie (taxi, which stars Queen Latifah and a moron police cop with a shallow plot you must definitely avoid except for the watching racing cars scenes which kept me half awake. Volta, starring Ai Ai delas Alas, and Sky Captain something and the World of Tomorrow).
Then we landed after a relatively uneventful 13 hours. The time on my watch says it should be 11am Dec20 Monday, but it seems that I was in for a surprise (to keep the story fresh, amazing, interesting and even keep you readers in awe, let us pretend the idea of international time zones are yet to be explained to us).
As we were going through immigration, the speakers blared: Welcome to the Los Angeles International Airport, the time now is 6pm Dec19 Sunday. WHOA!! Let’s pause for a moment of silence and then backtrack a little..., I remember leaving manila at 10pm Dec19, went through a 13 hour flight, and yet arrived in Los Angeles at 6pm Dec19. I actually flew back 4hours in time! (pun intended). I was very elated to know that I’ve gone back in time yet shocked to know that I might have torn the delicate fabric of time. I was already thinking of things to minimize the repercussions of going back through time. I already decided to move my birthday a day ahead. Instead of celebrating it on Dec1, from then on, my birthday is on Nov31. I was also anxious to find mind doctors to erase all memories that supposedly happened during the time space warp.
And since I am a fickle minded creature of non-habit, plus a disdainful procrastinator, none of this where put into action as I forgot everything else and looked forward to my vacation...
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