A Funeral

I shed tears before the coffin was lowered into the ground, but not because I could feel any sense of loss, or remorse. My cousin was trembling as he leaned on the coffin, a crisp thousand-peso bill trapped in his fingers. He works as a seaman; he had been away when my uncle lost his battle with emphysema just a few days ago in a public hospital. The second in a brood of five brothers, my cousin was the only one among them who had a job, and for years he had been working to make sure his father had money to spend. He kept repeating how sorry he was for not saying goodbye each time he left home to go back to his ship. His pregnant wife wept quietly beside him as he laid the bill onto the coffin. All around him, behind oversized, darkened lenses, tear ducts were triggered; hands reached into pockets for folded handkerchiefs. His sorrow had become ours, fleetingly, as his voice shook with the weight of his words.

* * *

The wake before and the lunch after the funeral were mini-reunions of sorts. Before I visited my uncle at the hospital two weeks ago, I hadn't seen his sons for a year or so, and I was surprised to see how much (and how little) they had changed. There was a lot of laughter and small talk as relatives from the provinces arrived one after the other. Other cousins I hadn't seen in years were there too, some with children, some heavy with child. Everyone was busy catching up with everyone else. My uncle's sons wove among the guests every so often to hand out cupcakes and crackers on plastic trays. In the small room next to the viewing room was a table laden with several kinds of ulam and pots of rice. It could have been a party, if we weren't in Funeraria Paz.

Funeral cosmetics had transformed my uncle's face. His round, full jowls had somehow become flat, and his mouth was a thin, dark line barely an inch above his chin. I hurried away from the coffin, as quickly as I had sneaked up to it as soon as we arrived. In my mind I couldn't connect the man behind the glass window of the coffin to the shrunken man on the hospital bed who communicated by writing messages on a pad of paper. The latter had smiled at me kindly when I fumbled for words during my visit to the hospital; it was the same smile he wore in the framed photograph that faced everyone in the room.

* * *

Throughout my life I seldom saw my uncle and his sons. During the rare times that we would be in the same room he would clasp my hand in his meaty palm and ask after my schooling. He always smelled of cigarettes and beer; the essence of both seemed to mix naturally with his sweat. Once, when I was in elementary, he gave me a folded hundred-peso bill to spend as I wished. I had never held a bill that was worth so much before then.

At the funeral I said goodbye to a man I barely knew beyond a name, a face and a set of mannerisms. I wished his family well, kissed cheeks, clasped hands. I watched my cousins' faces go pink as they cried. I listened to my mother chatting with a relative (or family friend) whose name and face I didn't remember, to my father laughing at some comment I failed to catch. I turned around and observed the raised grave markers several meters away; a number of them resembled old wooden desks. I paid attention to the ebb and flow of emotion that radiated from the tent sheltering the coffin from the late morning sun. I felt it, released it, felt it again. I sipped my mother's leftover juice from a foil tetrapak. Once the coffin had been covered in dirt, I walked away, following my relatives back to the viewing room. It was the last of a tiny handful of memories about a man who shared my genes, my heritage, and very little else.

Field Trip

adopt your own virtual pet!

Although I didn't see any white bats in the caves of Mt. Banahaw, I might not have been surprised if I had - I've been told that the mountain is a hotspot for mysteries and psychics. I didn't get any strange vibrations while I was there, though, so maybe the spirits were content to just watch us from the jagged rocks and dense foliage of the mountain; they must have gotten used to seeing long lines of students and tourists slipping and sliding amid the smooth stones of the stream beds, since the mountain is also a popular tourist spot and field-trip destination. At any rate, I did get to see some interesting things, such as a rock that allegedly contains the imprint of Jesus' left foot; apparently he had a large sole shaped like the bottom of a fat rubber slipper. Not to mention the miraculous streams, said to cure any and all diseases. The guide told one of my classmates, who wore thick eyeglasses, to rub some of the water on his eyes; she said it would improve his eyesight. I'm guessing that the residents of the little villages at the foot of the mountain must not get sick that much, since some of them seem to take their baths at those same miraculous streams regularly (I even saw one woman brushing her teeth in the middle of the stream ^^ must be good for tooth and gum problems, too).

Our teacher had told us we'd be wading in streams quite a lot, but I hadn't really understood how much until he changed his denim pants for loose house shorts; he looked like he was getting ready for a trip to the beach. ^^ He took the liberty of inviting us into the clear flowing water of the streams, and splashing us as soon as we turned our backs on him. I have him to thank for the water-shaped splotches within the screen of my cellphone. (Well, technically he did tell us to wrap our valuables in plastic, and I did forget to, but still. XP) Anyway, it was fun. All that splashing and wading and slipping and sliding and stretching my hamstrings to reach high footholds. I'm just glad I didn't fall flat on my face (if I had I might've smashed it on the sharp rocks), and I only got one bruise. Just below my kneecap, which hit a smooth stone hidden in knee-high water at the bottom of a cave.

I was planning on buying an agimat as a souvenir, but when we passed by the little shops on the way back my eyes latched onto a T-shirt bearing the words "I was there" and a cartoon of two red footprints. At the time my legs were quite sore from over three hours' trekking through steep, muddy trails, and I was thinking about how apt the message on the T-shirt was. I had been there, to the streams and caves of Mt. Banahaw - the persistent ache in my calf muscles was proof enough of that. So I went and got myself that T-shirt. ^^; I still feel bad about not getting an agimat though...not that I believe in the power of talismans, but it's not the kind of thing you would buy at other tourist spots, I guess. After all, Mt. Banahaw is also the home of religious sects like the Rizal worshippers, who believe that Dr. Jose Rizal is an incarnation of God. If anything, it seems like an apt place for getting mysterious (or purportedly mysterious) artifacts. Anyway, Agimat the white virtual bat will have to do. ^^ (Click on him to wake him up; he'll follow your cursor around when it's in his lair. ^^ If you mouseover the little tab labeled "more" at the lower right corner and click on the fly that will appear, he'll use his echo-location to find it and eat it. :D Cute, ain't he?)

At the Job Fair

What with graduation being only a couple of months away, I found myself wandering amongst the booths at the Engineering job fair last week, checking out companies like a shopper in a supermarket. Actually I felt more like a teenager window-shopping at a mall - I didn't have any copies of my resume with me, because I didn't know that you could fill up application forms and leave your resume at the booths. I was wistfully looking around, avoiding the glances of representatives from companies that had nothing to do with IT. A few of them reminded me of the sales attendants at department stores, the ones who watch your every move as you browse through the merchandise; as soon as anyone stared at the signs on their booths or the flyers on their tables for more than a couple of seconds they would home in, like flies to exposed meat. Most of them, however, seemed not to care if anyone took interest in their companies, leaving me to read their posters in peace.

My curiosity got me talking to the people manning booths that I found interesting in one way or another. I didn't visit every IT booth - I skipped the ones I had no interest in, like IBM and Accenture. (Sounds snooty, I guess, but I'm just not into mainframes or COBOL. XP) I suppose that was an unwise decision, given the current state of the economy, but at the time I was just looking at what the participating IT companies I'd never heard of were offering. It was only after I had met up with other Computer Science students at the fair that I realized they were holding many, many more flyers than I was. ~.~ Anyway, I got to talk to different kinds of company representatives at the job fair, and each one falls under one of four broad categories:

• HR people

Most of the people manning booths belong to this category. Some of them had nice smiles, and actually recognized me when I went back a couple of days later to follow up my resume. Unfortunately, a lot of them couldn't describe in specific terms the type of work being done by the software developers from their company; one in particular barraged me with spiels with a stubbornly serious expression on her face. She seemed impatient with me whenever I asked a question, and she didn't smile at all while she was talking, even when she first approached me. She was exactly the kind of representative I don't want to talk to at a job fair. -.- At any rate, it was probably a good thing that her company's software developers worked on mainframes; I only approached her booth 'cause I was curious about the snazzy (but uninformative XP) posters.

• young Engineering alumni

I usually see these people giving testimonials at company talks, but at the job fair I saw a couple of them manning the booth of a big company. They were dressed in crisp corporate clothes, like the students who were coordinating the job fair; if they weren't manning booths I could have mistaken them for upperclassmen. They looked bored, and weren't so keen on telling me about their company and the kind of work they did. (I guess they must have been in the HR department, but they still seemed like students...the UP vibe hadn't quite worn off yet. ^^) One of them perked up when he saw from my resume that I was from Manila Science High School, like him; sadly, that was pretty much the highlight of my talking with them. ~.~

• managers

These were the people I wanted to talk to at the job fair. They have a solid knowledge of the kind of work their company assigns to software developers, and thus are able to answer all sorts of questions. The longest talks I had were with managers. One of them was a middle-aged woman from a startup company; after I handed in my application form she asked me all about my programming background, then proceeded to give me a detailed overview of what work would be like if her company decided to hire me. It was practically an informal interview, the only difference being that I was clad in old jeans and a loose T-shirt instead of a knee-length skirt and a blouse with puff sleeves. (Now that I think about it, I wish I wouldn't have to go through the whole business of putting on a corporate costume and being in a formal atmosphere. It's so much easier to talk informally...at least, I won't be as nervous. o.o;;)

• invisible people

Quite a few booths were manned by people under this category. They don't put in any effort at all in recruiting the students wandering amongst the booths; they don't even bother to pick up the fallen flyers on the floor. They just hang around, silently watching the goings-on. I avoided their booths; they looked kinda creepy. :P hehe.

Witness

Four guys. Ski masks. Lead pipes. A black car, parked just inside the entrance of Fine Arts. A pudgy male victim, with a torn black shirt and a slightly bleeding head.

Me, in an ikot jeep that slows down as the driver, interest piqued, watches the goings-on with a look somehow akin to wonder on his face. My eyes taking in every detail - the broad shoulders of the assailants, the shiny finish of the getaway car, the car's plate number, one of the assailants taking off his ski mask behind tinted windows as the car smoothly slithers past us and away, never to be seen again, perhaps.

I took note of things that might have been helpful, if I had decided to go to the police. What the assailants were wearing. How tall they might be. The color of their skins. The car model and, yes, the plate number. I don't remember the exact time or date, but I could ask my classmate; I was on my way to meet her when I saw the whole thing. I wouldn't be able to identify the four guys - I was too focused on the victim, watching them pummel him as if I were in a dream, unable to move or look away - and the car probably belonged to someone else who would deny ever having a part in it. I remember what one of the guys was wearing, though - a blue- and white-striped polo shirt, and denim pants, just like the others. Bits and pieces. Nothing that could really help, but I saw it. I was there.

Maybe I'm writing this down to convince myself that I really did see it happen. I was already looking out the window when I saw these four guys running in front of Fine Arts, surrounding a fat guy, hitting him with slender pipes and grabbing his clothes. I was thinking, hey, what are they doing? They can't really be trying to hurt him, are they? Those must be rubber sticks or something. The fabric of the fat guy's shirt ripped; I thought, no, this is real. Since the four were running, they couldn't land a good hit, but one of them stood still for a moment (or did I just imagine him doing that?) and hit him with what must have been a solid crack on the skull, drawing blood. Then they were at the driveway, the four running for their car as a security guard came running and shouting. In the back of my mind I was aware of relief as I started to register what I had just seen. The fat guy was lucky. Apart from the bloody head (which wasn't really bleeding much, from what I saw) he had gotten away with just a torn shirt, and maybe a few scratches when he tripped and fell. He was lucky, I thought. He's okay.

It took me several minutes to think that maybe they had just mistaken him for some other guy, since I had never heard of anyone with ski masks and lead pipes attacking someone in Fine Arts; they were always at AS, NCPAG or Engineering, or even right outside a dormitory like Molave. At least one guy had been killed by getting mistaken for someone else. A few days later I thought, maybe they had gotten him somewhere else, if they were really serious about it. Maybe he wasn't really lucky.

Now that I know this, I wonder what I'm supposed to get from knowing that it really happened. Or what I should have done, even if I was sure that what I had to say wouldn't have helped much...and there were many other people who saw, many students at Fine Arts who were watching with dazed expressions while someone who was probably another student was attacked right in front of them. Other students like me. What would they have done? What did they do? They might even have known the fat guy. Maybe they talked about it or blogged about it (I never looked, or thought to look), maybe it will be reported in the year's first Collegian issue. Maybe no one will even remember that it happened. Except for me, and maybe you, if you believe me.

Offline

One week without a dial tone means not being able to:

• check if there's a new chapter of Goong
• read the sequel to Hana Yori Dango
• browse for aXXo rips
  
• listen to A-sides, the Soundgarden best-of collection I'd never heard of until recently ~.~
  
• look up the voice cast of Mononoke Hime
• catch up on Butch Dalisay's recent articles
• read the Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler
• check for updates on my friends' blogs, send messages to my brother who was in Switzerland, greet my YM contacts a Happy New Year, discuss draft revisions with my thesis partner, join the World Peace Project...
  

Bummer.

Slacker No More

I've been writing the conference version of our thesis for the past several days. So far I've made ten pages, including the bibliography. Not all of that is new stuff; I only wrote the abstract, introduction and a couple of sections. I copied one of the sections covering the review of related literature from an earlier draft, since I figured we hadn't really discovered anything new since then, and it was probably okay. When I think about it, I should've finished this work last week; the stuff I wrote was only a few paragraphs long, stuff that I've known by heart after a semester and a half of semi-continuous research. It's a matter of sitting in front of the monitor in the sala and spinning my thoughts into words while tuning out the sound of my father's NBA game on TV.

Only it's not that simple. I'm prone to distractions; in fact, I tend to invite them quite readily. Whenever I get stuck at a tricky turn of phrase—I'm particular with word choice, even in my academic writing—I fire up Firefox and look up Dictionary.com. While looking for the link in the search bar's drop-down menu, the link for Onemanga catches my eye. Hmmm, a quick browse won't hurt. Even if I'm not currently following any manga, I love looking at random titles to see if there's anything interesting. So I click on Onemanga and browse to my heart's content...all the while watching the little digital clock on the system tray. I think, 30 minutes is fine. Unfortunately those 30 minutes pass by almost unnoticeably; the next time I check it's already been 50 minutes. 50? 50's fine. It's only about an hour before midnight, and I can stay up late, after all. Then an hour and a half pass by, then two, then three...until my eyes hurt and I check whatever work I've managed to put in. A couple of paragraphs. I don't need to look at the clock to know that it's way, way past my bedtime. A mixture of shame and weariness tug on my eyelids as I save my work and back it up on my thumb drive. Another day lost to my bad habits. I promise myself (always half-heartedly) that I'll finish the next day, I remind myself that if I would just sit down and work, I would be finished the next day. But in the back of my mind I'm already resigned to whatever distractions I'm bound to encounter. I welcome them, whether they be my favorite cooking shows on TV or another juicy installment of Lucifer (which I've already downloaded in its entirety, and is just waiting for me to open my comic reader and immerse myself). I welcome the temporary escape they bring, the promise of easy entertainment. The rush. The thrill of new information or wonderful stories. Both good things, but not when I'm using them to distract myself from what I ought to be doing.

I've been calling myself a slacker for the longest time. I used to think I was just being true to myself; hey, it's my nature, after all. I love goofing off. Sometimes I think that this is all that I really want to do with my life...amass books and movies and comics and manga and anime until I have more than I know what to do with. Take two- or three-hour naps. Watch TV. Open the door whenever our quirky Japanese spitz barks at it (and me) so he can go outside and watch the children playing on the street. Chop vegetables and saute garlic and onions and tomatoes whenever my mother's cooking. Sleep some more. Watch some more. And all the while I keep wondering, what about the stuff I keep saying I care about? The stories in my head, waiting to be given life? The books I keep buying and downloading, but haven't even bothered to read? And of course, there's the commitments I promised to keep, not the least of which is my thesis. I hate my habit of cramming my work ('cause I spent most of the allotted time slacking), but I always wind up doing it. Always. 'Cause I'm me, a slacker by nature.

Writing this all down helps me look at myself a little more critically, I suppose. It all sounds like so much rationalizing, and it is, it really is. Slacking is not what I want to do with my life. I want to accomplish something. I want to write my stories. I want to win a Palanca (yes, seriously). I want to read awesome, mindbending novels and watch critically-acclaimed movies. I want to broaden my perspective. And so on. But these things remain mere wants 'cause I haven't taken that crucial step: I haven't put in the work. I haven't gotten away from square one 'cause I haven't tried to leave it; I just whiled my time away, thinking that maybe I'd start moving somehow even if I didn't put in the effort. But no. No way that's gonna happen. Not at the rate I've been going.

So yeah. There's my New Year's resolution (though I better start even before the New Year 'cause my deadlines are in January XP). No More Slacking. Like a knife through the heart, that is. ~.~


PS I only got to thinking about these things because of an article I received in the mail from StevePavlina.com. It was about setting your sights on goals you care about and resisting distractions. It hit me square in the face, that one. ^^ If you're into personal development stuff, he's got some nice articles about all kinds of things, like building up your confidence. Good reads. :D

Happy Halloween ^^

A little something I wrote for a horror-story contest. Enjoy. ^^


Thirst

When it awoke it gazed lazily through the gaps amidst the leaves. It could hear the shrill yipping of ten urgent animal voices, but their owners were nowhere in sight; all it could see were its usual prey, the mute cockroaches, centipedes and lizards that wandered about on the rough cement of the yard. By instinct it stayed absolutely still, taking care not to disturb the pile of leaves that served as both shelter and camouflage. Once the unsuspecting prey had wandered within its reach, it shot out fibrous tendrils from beneath the leaves and paralyzed its prey with a swift-acting poison. It relished the slow act of digesting an immobilized victim. The juices of surrendered flesh, frozen in a state of permanent shock and fear, enlivened every fiber of its carnivorous being, more so if the victim had struggled or fought before the poison set in. Lately, however, it had grown weary of its steady diet of strong-willed cockroaches and sly lizards. Compared to the heady rush of warm blood from a still-pulsing heart, the cold juices of an insect or a tiny reptile were bland and unappealing.

It had gotten its first taste of warm blood by a stroke of good luck a few days before. A wary little sparrow had landed a few feet away from the leaf pile; it hopped about on tiny clawed feet, pecking stale bread crumbs off the dry cement. It maintained a safe distance between itself and the leaf pile, as if it was aware of the invisible eye-stalks watching it forage for food. However, the leaf pile stood absolutely still, and there was a large, tasty morsel several inches away from the leaves... It hopped closer, all senses alert, agile wings poised for flight at the slightest sign of movement. There was none. The large bread crumb was only a few inches away. It hopped once, twice, thrice—

Fibrous tendrils shot out from the leaf pile. The startled sparrow spread its wings and tried to fly away, but it could barely hop off the ground. Spasms jerked its wings in a grotesque parody of flapping as it quickly lost its control over its paralyzed wing muscles. Its heart beat furiously for a few tense seconds before coming to an abrupt halt.

Somewhere in the depths of the leaf pile, a ravenous creature was exulting from a dying sparrow's adrenaline-spiked blood. After disposing of the shriveled corpse, it eagerly awaited other warm-blooded animals, its tendrils trembling slightly from barely contained excitement.

For days it waited. No sparrows landed near the leaf pile; no sparrows landed anywhere on the cement within its range of vision. Every day it could hear the yipping of animal voices—full, throaty, vivacious voices, from bodies much larger than the unfortunate sparrow's. It threw away half-consumed lizards and completely ignored cockroaches. Its fibers and sinews hungered for warm blood.

Just as its hunger had reached an unbearable peak, it saw a densely furred little dog dart from an open doorway; the animal voices had grown louder, as if protesting the dog's escape. It yipped excitedly as it dashed from one corner of the yard to another, sniffing and marking its newfound territory with abandon. It was unaware of the eye-stalks underneath the leaf pile that eagerly following its movements.

A cockroach skittered in front of the dog; the dog followed, trying to snap up the cockroach. The cockroach, terrified, headed straight for the cover of the leaf pile and disappeared beneath the leaves. The dog, still sniffing, approached the leaf pile cautiously; it began to bark in its shrill, urgent voice, but the cockroach failed to reappear. The leaf pile was absolutely still. The dog slowly inched forward.

Beneath the leaf pile, a multitude of fibrous tendrils sprang to life. They shot forth, impatient, bloodthirsty, ravenous for the kill.