Monday, August 15, 2005

An open, screened window.jpg

Moblog: There are times when people will claim to have minds that are as open as windows, but are still screened and filtered.

When Yancey talks about the hypocrisy of Moody College, it hardly hurts Pinoys since the common, typical Pinoy will not have come from Moody College.

But talk about UP, Ateneo or even DLSU and a lot of Pinoys see red.

Yet the only way we can ever open any window here in Pinas is to put screens, filters on them. To keep flies out, I suppose. To keep the bad things away. So, maybe it isn't always a bad thing. Maybe it's just easier and better to look away.

And so Yancey can talk about bitterness all he wants; his objects are just too far away and too far removed to affect us as little more than quaint and funny little stories. When he talks about the hypocrisy of America, the American situtation and American Christians, they wouldn't have to hurt us. He's talking about them, not us. Apparently, we don't have to see his point. We don't have to feel guilty.

Screens on windows... what a great idea.

Sunday, August 14, 2005

Dad's Birthday

Moblog: I had actually been ill yesterday during Dad's actual birthday. No, not a fever, but really ill nonetheless. So when my brothers came over, with BH and my niece, Dayang, I had been unable to join them.

Today, however, the church found out that it was his birthday, and gave him this cake.

I'm still feeling woozy, but I'm glad I got to celebrate it with Dad, though it is belated.

Saturday, August 13, 2005

Ærynn and I had always shared music

Ever since that first time, when I tried to lend her one of my favorite music CDs (an Enya CD I borrowed from someone else, actually), hoping that she would like it, then finding out that she not only listened to Enya, but owned a cassette tape of the very same CD, I always knew that Ærynn and I would always share music.

To be sure, we still have our distinct musical preferences. She tends to like Pop and upbeat tunes, while I like the classics (not classical, mind you; there is a difference) of no particular genre. There are, of course, intersections and overlapping of interest, like Enya.

At any rate, since most of my music files were destroyed when lightning struck Dad's laptop, I only have those left over from when we were still in St. John, that is, the closest I ever lived near Ærynn's house when we were still unmarried. I am listening to them now: Winter Solstice, Paolo Santos, Enya, some Phil Collins & James Ingram, definitely Charlotte Church (before her descent into the dark side) . . . all the songs and music my wife and I shared when we were still together. I am listening to them as I prepare to go to a job I am finding tedious, repetitive, inefficiently managed, and nerve-wracking . . . yet as I listen to this music, all I can remember was the soft glow of my wife's skin in the half light coming in through the bridal chamber window. All that fills my mind now is the sound of her gentle breathing as she lies asleep beside me. I can still smell the gentle fragrance of her hair on the pillow, where I lay my head beside hers. My heart still throbs for the lovemaking that happened just a few minutes ago—no . . . months ago.

And I remember why I have to be patient: for the hope that I will see my lovely wife again, and share music once again.

Monday, August 08, 2005

So... even DLSU feels inferior, huh?


This is a response to an article written here. This is another one of my badly written articles on the silent gripe on supposed academic superiority and shouldn't see the light of day because it might offend someone.


You know what? I didn't know that La Sallites had an inferiority complex when it came to Ateneo. My, my... who would have thought? And all this time I had been under the impression that they had been so busy looking down at other universities and colleges, especially those that they are in "consortium" with... like PCU.

What's the entire deal with trying to prove academic superiority anyway? When I transferred from UP to PCU, I had so much difficulty having my subjects credited. They kept on telling me that the subjects from "there" are different from those over "here." Some of my friends who had made the same kind of transfer to PCU and were proud of the grades they got in UP were shocked that the "advanced" subjects they took back there is not considered valid. When for a while I tried to take my M.A. back in UP (more out of a desire to validate whatever academic achievement I had than anything else), I had difficulty convincing them that the subjects I took in PCU were good enough and advanced enough to allow me to even apply.

In the end, all this is bullshit. All colleges and universities, in order to be recognized as a college or university and allowed to operate at all, go through the same process of accreditation. Simply stated, they must be teaching the same thing with the same standards. That is, an English major who graduates from UP should be as good as an English major who graduates from Corregidor College. Yet, inspite of all the "accreditation" there is this view that somehow the "ivy league" schools are not only necessarily better, but also rather the only choice for smart students. If you are just too dumb to go into UP or Ateneo, there are still the others.

So, DLSU is trying to pride itself on being really good athletically over such clumsy morons like those in UP, while UP prides itself on their brains... Ateneo has the best of both worlds, it seems. Back in high school, our Salutatorian chose to go to Ateneo even though he passed the UPCAT and had a scholarship in UP; he was trying to prove a point.


The darndest thing about it is that my Dad's generation felt it first. Right now, where my Dad is assigned as a pastor is a RTC judge amongst the congregation. Dad, ever the nice, doormat man that he sometimes is when meeting old "friends" remembers that both he and that present judge both took the entrance exam for Law so many years back. He wouldn't tell me what that guy's scores were, but I suspect that Dad got higher marks. Yet, he couldn't afford it so he didn't take Law and became a pastor.

Fast forward to the present, and here is that same judge arguing before the Church Council exactly why Dad doesn't deserve more than P13k a month: he's just a pastor. The second darndest thing is that the Church Council agrees with him, inspite of the fact that they hear Dad every Sunday and they heard this judge last month give a sermon and... well, there just isn't any comparison. That judge seemed like he was half dead. I wonder how he holds his court...

The funny thing is, this isn't the first time. He has an IQ of 152, right? Yet he never became Valedictorian of his graduating Elementary class. Why? He's from another barrio. Same thing with high school. Same thing with College. Same thing in the seminary. Should he have graduated at the top of his class in Yale then (where he finished 2nd, that is, secundi honoris)? After experiencing all of this prejudice and deliberate stops to his career everywhere, he thinks that it is fiction when I tell him of instances when there is prejudice based solely and merely on where you graduated. Or maybe, he just doesn't want to accept the fact that this is true. He has been held back so long, he needs to know that where he is right now is his best possible destiny. Will I ever become like Dad, or those La Sallites, always giving alibis on why they are perceived as second- or third-rate?


Another group of people who would not believe or acknowledge the unfair bias shown to UP/Ateneo, heck! even La Salle are those people from these very institutions. They just have to know that they are really good, not merely considered good. We got those jobs because UPeans really are good naman. We rule, we rock precisely because we rule and we rock. My wife, who began and ended in UP, finds it offensive whenever I talk about those of us who have been overlooked and shunted aside not because of our lack of skill or talent but because of our Alma Mater. Which is wierd, since I had thought that, after experiencing a version of that particular bias in Oz she would see that there was some validity in our gripes and our groans. But, no go... she should be accepted precisely because she is from UP and they are being unfair. The aussies don't know what UP is, and they will only, only value people who graduated from their local universities, or at least have plenty of local experience, and bugger all other qualifications.

Yet, Ærynn still would not believe me when I say that thing about jobs. The only jobs available to us are the lowly, utusan jobs—being under those who finished in an "ivy league." She, like my Dad before her, would cite all those people who had gotten jobs who were not from UP, silently and deliberately ignoring the fact that most of them only got their jobs not on the strength of their resumes but rather the network of people that they know. The only way a walk-in applicant gets hired is if that person has a UP or Ateneo (and, yes, dear friends, sometimes a DLSU) diploma and TOR; and the cycle continues.

Well, PCU has the basketball championship. Looks like PCU, like DLSU before them, will now have to bask in their athletic rather than academic prowess, making alumni like me even more useless in the job market.

And so, even when this job that I have now is the sort of job I particularly dislike I am staying in it (if it kills me), since it is the first job that has offered me pay higher than P10k a month. In fact, my salary is, in fact, higher than my Dad's right now. I am a prostitute, prostituting my skills and talents in what is technically organized slavery to money just so I can meet some of my friends, and not be ashamed of telling them what my salary is (among other, more needful things, of course).

Oh, don't worry... this won't get published. Nobody will read and be offended by it... I'm hiding it right in here where no one can see... Let the delusions continue... UP... Ateneo... what was it that Mercutio said?

Sunday, August 07, 2005

GH-060.jpg

GH-060.jpg
GH-060.jpg,
uploaded by
Gryphon Hall.
Moblog: My sister-in-law and I just took time off to watch a ballet performance, which had just ended now. It was no Nutcracker nor Swan Lake; in short, it was the sort of pointless and meaningless post-modern production that showcased skill and scantily clad bodies, but little else.

Still, it was a nice experience because I was with my hipag. Too bad that I couldn't spend the night at their house so that I can also be with my mom-in-law. It has been a while since we've had some fellowship together.

I wish my wife was here. This was the sort of thing that we always went to.

Tuesday, August 02, 2005

On the 29th Sonnet of Shakespeare

When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf Heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least:

Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee,--and then my state
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings'.
Just like a lot of my more recent posts, this one is blatantly self-absorbed. I have always loved this particular sonnet of Shakespeare, not particularly because it is well made (though it is) but rather it reflects very well how I see my life. Oh, I am not proud that my life is so very well reflected in this verse; I am not. But, it used to comfort me that there was at least one poem, and a sonnet at that, which gives validity to what I felt was true in my life.

I am not proud to say that the first four couplets are so very true of me. Without any hubris I can say that people are usually surprised that I feel this way. They usually think that I have far too many talents and skills to ever feel that I don't fit anywhere and hate it (1st couplet), that I have once asked God to change my life so often, but felt that he didn't (2nd couplet), and that I am filled with bitter envy (and I still often am) at the financial well-being, the friends, and the talents and skills of other people have (especially those whom I think deserve it least) that I find it difficult to enjoy life (3rd & 4th couplets). No, I am not proud... and for a long time I have dissembled my mind to seem more happy and more content, all for the sake of others.

For the longest time, I had loved that poem... and hated it, since only the first four couplets were true for me. For a long time, I had no friend that would help me appreciate the me that I am now, rather than wish to be the other guy who had more money, or more friends, or more talent. That is, until Ærynn came into my life in 1995.

Oh, I still feel the first four couplets occassionally; yet it no longer haunts me as it did before, for at last my life is a complete Sonnet XXIX, where all I have to consider is that, if I had been somebody else, I would not have my wife now. It is complicated, but I am sure that if I had been somebody else, I would not have met such a wonderful friend and lover all in one. Of course, it seems like a case of the bitter grapes. But one only has to meet her who is my wife, and know that I am more fortunate than I deserve.

Maybe I do feel that the first four couplets should still be part of my life—having just the last three will not a sonnet make, and without the first four the last three are meaningless. I sometimes feel that I should have more money, more friends or more talents to be deserving of Ærynn... however I also know that even if I remain the friendless pauper with limited skills, she will still love me and stay with me.

And that is a poem in itself.