Posts tagged: ahfuck
So there’s this essay contest.
I don’t want to join. Teachers force me to join. So I join.
I make sure to sabotage myself: create the greatest brain flatulence the world has ever seen. Put your shoddy writing to work.
The glorified fart-essay still gets in the finals.
FUCK.
WHAT AM I DOING WRONG.
My club moderator gave us a few exercises to do last Friday. The forms were pretty simple at first : tercet, quatrain, couplet, etc. However, as I near the bottom of the list, I find my brain stretching thinner and thinner.
I suppose I didn’t really read these exercises through as well as I thought I did, because. Uh. I think I want to die now.
Why? Oh, because last three forms on the list are the Sonnet, the Villanelle, and the Sestina.
FUUUUUUU——
I know that the sonnet is relatively simple. I can totally roll with iambic pentameter, but I absolutely abhorr rhyme schemes, and asdfghjkl, the results were terrible. I only like rhymes that are coincidental, for crying out loud.
I’m still trying to figure what on earth I’m going to do about the villanelle and the sestina, though. Just playing with different phrases following the respective forms is a nightmare for me. The sestina especially.
I know I can probably come up with a decent villanelle, given enough time to think, but the effing sestina makes me want to jump out a window because I can’t pick any words because words are pretty and I can’t possibly choose just six to repeat over and over when there is a dictionary full of them.
/is possibly the bitchiest writer ever
/i suck
/that is all I have to say
Oh God. Oh God. Oh God.
We’re having our Shakespearean Festival tomorrow. I can’t. I don’t even.
These past two weeks have been Hell and Heaven over and over again, in a constant revolution of change and jazz. I’ve been an incompetent director that somehow managed to pull together a presentable play.
There’s been an onslaught of inspirational speeches on our section’s facebook page. I’ll save it here to be sure they exist.
From the actress playing King Lear (fyeah all-girls-schools):
“‘You can pull it off. You just have to trust the text, and yourself. Don’t get stuck with how you think it’s supposed to be. Go to Shakespeare. He’ll tell you. Imagine. And then BE.’ -Ms. Mortel
From the director/assistant director (our places constantly switch) who sorta-kinda-abandoned us and dumped the play on me:
“Just give your all and remember why you’re doing this. Offer it all to God. Don’t let your hard work go to waste. It all boils down to those 20 minutes onstage, make it worth it. Nothing’s worse than losing because you didn’t do your best. Don’t let the nerves get to you! Let’s win this!”
From our sleepless production manager:
“The floor is full of cardboard, styrofoam, wires, bags, cellophane, gift wrapping blahs, and etc. All this, plus a sleepless week, a framed panel board, five eyeballs, a playbill, a poster, a shield stencil, and whatever else I’m not sure of anymore
All for you guys.
Uy, ah. First time I ever cried while attending a Mass. Usually it’s just at home, but this one was… well, how do I put it. You guys are an awesome bunch, and the whole Shakes experience was both exhausting and worthwhile. I don’t even have regrets with the lack of sleep, even if all the deadlines were moved.
I just really want to say thanks, guys. Do your best and do us proud. No effort shall be wasted. Break some limbs. And for the love of Shakespeare, SLEEP.”
From our beloved costume designer:
“Hello people, I know what I’m about to do is not original anymore but I know I need to thank you guys for one of the best things that’s happened to me.
First of all, thank you. Thank you so much for trusting me to clothe your actors and believing that I would do a good job. Thank you for bearing with my “Mrs. moments”. honestly I just do it to cheer you up.
I’m not usually the type who works early, works hard. Sometimes I don’t work at all, but your trust makes me want to do the best I can for all of you. I’m also sorry for all the times I bug you with my long announcements and my complaints.
I know that we will do a really good job, because contrary to popular belief we are more than grades or high expectations, we do everything we can for each other, we want to win not for ourselves, we win for 3 Service.
Thank you so much for letting me be a part of that, truly.
So now, like always, let’s win this. Now it’s time to kick some ass, Shakespeare style. For all things said and unsaid, thank you so much.
Love and faith in you always,
From our sturdy stage manager:
“Sorry, if I was a little bossy the past weeks. I don’t know I really felt stressed lang. (You know me naman eh, always stressed and always panicking). Anyway, I believe in you guys and I know that we will be great tomorrow. Basta don’t forget to have fun and breathe onstage! Yun na yung shining moment niyo tomorrow so don’t waste it. Instead, make the most out of it. Whenever panghinaan kayo ng loob tomorrow, isipin niyo na lang na God wanted me to be here because he planned something great for me. I love you guys! We can do this! Break a leg!
“Contrary to popular belief, I’m not good with words. But I’ll give it my best shot here.
Thank you. For bearing with the constant changes, for bearing with an incompetent replacement director, for bearing the burden of this production, and for bearing fruit to the play that we are going to expose to the cold air of the Little Theatre tomorrow.
[Cold against the heat of our anxiety, anyway.]
I know that I said I prayed, but let me tell you: that was a load of bullshit. I don’t believe in God: I believe in you. All of you. The actors, the minors, the production staff, the choir. Nothing would have been possible without you to back it up.
Tomorrow, things will go well. I know it. You can pray all you want, but God will not be the one pushing the play forward. It’ll be you and your brilliance, and your infinite talents - be it in your acting, singing, or craft-making. [You can believe that God gave your talent to you, but it was your decision to use it, and to use it well.]
I will never say these things out loud. [Too mainstream and too cliche]. Just know that I’ll be thinking them and repeating them as a priest would sing a solemn hymn to his rituals: I believe in you. (And if it pleases you so: kaya mo ‘yan.)
WE LOVE YAH PACHO!!!!!! Mabuhay ka!
“…And now, I’ll back into the corner of failure, where I belong.” No way. You’re the best. We owe you a lot. Thank you for everything, PaCho. Thank you so much. :( ♥
I had a good day.
Kind of.
I was required to go to school on a Saturday, which is pretty bad, considering that I woke up at 6 AM just to commute there. Our student council required us to go there for a batch team building, which I think ended up fun, but overall pretty damn useless. Everyone is still kind of pissed off at each other from the shit flying around about Shakesfest.
After that, I went and had lunch at Kanin Club. Stuffed my face; oh, my poor heart shall never be the same. Seriously though, I go there a bit too much.
There was a book fair happening right beside the Filipinas Heritage Library, so I stopped by and picked up a few books: a Manix Abrera comic book and an interesting book about the Philippine Revolution. This was also the first time that I was in the area while the library inside was actually open. I went inside.
Dear Lord. I have to go back.
I had to pay 20 pesos to get into the library itself, but it was worth it.
I’ve never been in a library outside of my school before. It’s sad, but understandable when the government doesn’t really invest in that kind of thing. Because of that, I’ve always had a tendency of buying all of my books with my own money.
This was a dazzling first experience, no matter how badly foreigners might think of it.
The library is located in the basement floor, and it is just bigger than a normal classroom. There can’t be more than forty shelves of books in there, with about six or eight reading tables in front of a librarian’s desk.
But goodness, was I amazed.
I spent about three hours in the room, poring over books I had never seen before, which is saying something, considering the fact that nearly all Flipiniana can be bought in bookstores. Every book I opened had something to do with the Philippines, if it wasn’t actually written here. When I first came in, I accidentally ended up in a rare books section, which was restricted because they were only for processing; but I got a good look at the titles of these books, and fuck, some of them dated back to the Spanish Colonial Era.
The librarian (dear Lord, they exist) told me to GTFO of the restricted section, so instead, I lingered in the World War II books before finding myself hidden near some religious books. For fear of turning to ash, I was about to grab tail and move on to another section, I turn around and fond some books about Art.
I see a book dedicated to Juan Luna. I pick it up and read it.
Truth be told, I’ve almost never been this inspired before.
I want to write about him. And Juan. Or Salazar. Yes, Salazar would make more sense. It would make even more sense if I manage to include the painting Espana y Filipinas.
This could be my F!Philippines’ debut.
But I don’t have time to write. Fuck this shit.
Okay, so I said I’d be busy. And so I am. I’ve got my grades and my editorial duties to worry about. Being an assistant director/real director fucking sucks (asdfghjkl, King Lear, y u an old man who acts liek baby?).
I can’t write fanfiction anymore. Not even if I wanted to. There just isn’t any time.
As I type this down, it’s nearly 1 AM, Sunday morning.
I just spent the (Satur)day at school, attempting to help unfortunate children have a fun afternoon… while speaking in Filipino. I managed to get away with not speaking much, but I’m still deathly afraid of children. Especially large swarms of them that appear out of nowhere and appear to want to eat you up with their smiles and laughter and frigging energy.
I get out feeling accomplished, and like shit at the same time. My mom suddenly wants to watch Breaking Dawn. It’s not even worth talking about, though I will say that I laughed my ass off.
After I get home, relax a bit, and finish a movie on television, I finally decide to check Tumblr.
INTERNET IS AS AWESOME AS EVER. FROSTY IS A MOTHER. LIFE HAS GONE ON WITHOUT ME.
I can only offer the largest of OTLs.
All right. Recollection cancelled. I can handle that.
The next morning, I wake up: no electricity.
It’ll come back eventually, I thought. I glance at the clock — not even 9 AM. I get up and go downstairs, supposedly to do my homework, though I end up not doing it because I’m too stupid to understand what’s in my math textbook, and I can’t be damned to answer the social studies questions when I don’t even know what page I’m supposed to answer.
So I grab the iPad and watch King Lear. I actually finish it this time. [Lear deserves its own tag. It’ll be flooding this blog by November.]
Storm still. (See what I did there?)
I end up lying around the couch with my cousin (it’s a big couch) and throwing abnormally large pillows at each other in the hopes of actually killing time. Our lola is sitting near us in her wheelchair, listening to the radio.
My mom comes home. My aunt comes home.
My mom goes upstairs. I follow.
She turns on the radio. I take a nap.
When I woke up, we decide to leave the house because we’re awesome like that to buy food for dinner before dark won over light in the sky. We went to Waltermart and it only took us just over 10 minutes instead of the usual 20.
We sped a bit. There wasn’t any traffic.
We buy the food and decide to stop by Sofitel (yes; the one with Spiral), merely because we were curious about how flooded it was. Outside there were two GMA vans. It wasn’t that flooded, in all honesty, though I suppose that’s because we got there relatively late.
All in all, we were gone for about three hours.
I called my classmate later, just to ask about the homework and if we were actually going to school the next day. Somewhere in the conversation, she said she spent the whole day slacking off. I told her I did the same, recounting me, my mom, and my cousin’s little adventure to Makati and back.
She asked me if I lived in an alternate universe.
It took me a while to say that I didn’t.
Recollection was supposed to be today: an overnight stay in Tagaytay with my classmates. We showed up at school in civilian clothing, and we were all so pumped up for it.
Then classes are suspended about an hour before we were scheduled to leave.
Now, I’ve got to cram some homework I should’ve done yesterday because, obviously, I’ll be having classes tomorrow instead of having the retreat. It’s not raining hard, and I doubt the typhoon will hit at all [because life works like that].
Well. Isn’t this wonderful?
So, we’ve been tasked to write a creative non-fiction about ourselves; in it, we must weave metaphors.
The problem is: what do you write about when a rock’s existence is more interesting than your life?
I wrote something. It was boring, it was plotless. The best thing about it was style, which I can safely say I don’t have much of a problem with.
My moderator reads it, and tells me about this other member in the club who doesn’t even need to edit her work. She says I could probably do something just as good as her; maybe even better.
“You just have to be brave,” she says.
Well, fuck.
Tomorrow, my mom is dragging me to her office so I can study for my periodical exams. She’s going to find an empty cubicle and dump me in it; no one to talk to, and no fucking Internet.
Splendid isolation.
My mom is isolating me like a legit crazy person. I’m so proud of myself.
I’m allowed to bring my cellphone and everything, but there’s actually no one to text. My school is the only one in frigging Manila that gives a day off for reviews (which I’m thankful for, don’t get me wrong). My best friend is off to Spain for World Youth Day to see the Pope, so I certainly can’t text her.
I could always text my classmates, but being in the fucking honors class means that everyone there is smarter than you, and I don’t think I can handle another blow to my pride by asking them for hep. They’d probably reply that they’re just going to cram later; when the test results come out, their scores will be higher than mine. Undoubtedly.
Suppose I should be sad for tomorrow as well. It’s going to be my last visit to my mom’s office, since she’ll be moving to another company. Friday is her last day after nearly/over 15 years of working there. Basically, she was working there before I was born.
So much nostalgia, so little time.
Back to periodicals shit.
Science should be all right, though I have yet to pass any of our quizzes concerning conversion. Relatively good scores since I started; so far so good.
Social studies is something I’ll always end up taking seriously; after I failed it for a quarter two years ago (first academic failure of my life, trufax), I’ve been unconsciously squeezing the life out of it.
Math… Gray area. Probably won’t be getting away with winging it. I’ll have to practice.
Literature… Shit. I’ve never actually had to study it before, but my teacher is also my club moderator, and I’m kind of an editor for the literary magazine of the school, so…. the pressure hurts.
Communication Arts is probably the subject I’ll be taking least seriously. Because… God, I can’t even describe how easy it is most of the time.
Filipino is where shit gets real. I suppose no elaboration is needed.
May whatever existing deities have mercy on my burdened soul.
