Note: This is an old post from my Multiply site last June 13, 2006.
Introduction
(If you want to know what happened to my blogging this summer, read this.)
It’s been awhile since I last posted a journal entry. The last sensible (if you would even call it as such) entry I have posted in this Multiply site was about my Boracay outing two months ago. Even that sucked in my standards because I was simply narrating stuff (or worse – I was somewhat reporting). Maybe, I am not at my writing best when I am not at my angst mode. Anyway, let me retract what I have written. Blog entries are not meant to be evaluated or whatsoever… all I have to do is to rave, rant, or talk about nothingness.
So, what’s up with me this summer? Have I turned into a happy, satisfied guy that is why I am not ranting as I did before in my Senior’s Syndrome articles? No. I am still a whiner of some sort (although I am a little less edgy recently). It is just ironic that when I have absolutely nothing to do, I do not find a time to write such things as this. There are actually so many factors. Laziness is one. Lack of passion to write is another. Watching too much TV could be a silly reason but it has somehow affected my journal writing. I could not share other reasons because those are very personal for me. I do share stuffs in blogs but I seldom shared some deeper stuff about me. I guess I am just used to be discreet on my feelings. Some of my closest friends do not even know what is going on with me right now.
Therefore, I’ll just share the shallower stuff. I am still unemployed as of the current time being. There are no major potential companies yet so I guess I will be bumming even up to my birthday. Am I enjoying this long bum life? Yes and No. For four years of studying and working, I never had a two-month long vacation. I felt like going back in time when all I did was spend the whole day at home 24/7. I am watching a lot of TV again (especially Jack TV!) and I must admit that I am a That ‘70s Show and WWE addict. Hell, I even watch the replays. The funny thing is, I could memorize the lines and still laugh at those. OK, I am getting pathetic but that’s how it goes by being a couch potato. At least, my belly is still flat and I am not getting any bit of fat. Blame it on my metabolism and recurring ulcer attacks. I am becoming an avid NBA fan again as I was when I was in grade school. Too bad, Dallas is heavily pouncing on the Heat recently. All in all, I feel similar as I was during grade school – doing nothing at home but watch TV. I am even watching Cartoon Network again (thank God for the Simpsons’ double episodes!). The sad thing about this bum life though is that I do not have the social life that I was having the past four years. Ever since our Boracay outing, me and my friends spent most of our time at home or dating their significant others (I don’t have one so I am quite stuck at home… that sucks!) I am not getting my weekly allowance so I am pretty much broke…but not that much since I am still earning some money from my parents by doing some chores. I just feel unfulfilled by it because I want to earn money from an external source, not from my family. In the end of the day, there is no net gain for the whole family (I may gain for myself, but the hell with it). As days go by, bumming 24/7 at home becomes boring. Something is telling me, however, that I should savor every moment of this bum life for I would not be having the luxury of it once I start working. I got tired as hell in just two months of internship last year.
-End of Intro-
Sandman Volume Five: A Game of You
What the fuck?! From an ME senior whiner to a book critique?! Just kidding… I was never an excellent critique of art and literature but I do love that field of mystery more than science so I will be giving some of my reflections on Neil Gaiman’s masterpiece. This is how simple my life is these days – one magnificent book or a striking song lyrics would fill up my whole week. My recent Multiply journal entries can attest to that.
I bought this expensive comic book (what the hell… who cares about the price? It’s my passion anyway) three weeks ago after my test and interview at Citibank. I was just strolling at Gateway when I happened to pass by Fully Booked. Impulsive buyer that I was, I said to myself that I will buy a Sandman comic book if I see a non-hardbound copy of A Game of You, since I have not seen it the past few months and I was aching to complete my Sandman library. Me and my big mouth. I saw the last copy of A Game of You along with a handful of Sandman comic books. I did not have to resist the temptation because I knew that I will easily give in to it, so I said farewell to my PhP 1,000 (anyway, what is PhP 1,000 these days?). After giving up reading 1984 (because my mind was always preoccupied when I was reading it), I began reading A Game of You last week. I could have done it in one sitting but I always loved prolonging my enjoyment (since it always lasts quite soon) so I had one week of reading a 186-page comic book. You know what? This just made me realize the problem on why I am reading slowly in the past few months.
OK, so what is the big deal about the book? I’ll start with the trivial details. The front cover of A Game of You is nothing that special as compared to other Sandman covers because they seem to all look alike. Nevertheless, I love the color combination of black and pink. It kind of reminds me of Bret “The Hitman” Hart’s colors and I must admit that the striking pink with the matte black never fails to make me appreciate how cool the whole book cover is. The usual Sandman illustration magic still exists. Sandman comics will always feature the artistic images after every chapter, but I just have the feel that the pictures of the characters and background in the story were too ‘normal’. But as I observed it again, I realized that the illustrations still play around with changing background colors to further depict the situation. Perhaps, there’s just less of Morpheus in it and no signs of Delirium (that colorful bitch!) that is why it brings in ‘less magic’.
Enough of colors and artwork. Sandman’s main gist, after all, is literature. The story in A Game of You, just like most of the other Sandman stories, features weird and peculiar characters. You have a weirdo main character who loves to draw things at her face so she would look like someone. She draws crisscrossing lines on her face so that she appears to be wearing a veil. She has a bunch of transsexuals as her friends. One of those was an Asian (talk about discrimination in the US). One of her friends looks like a nerdy girl who actually lives for hundreds of years, while one of her flatmates is a man who has cuckoo birds living inside his body. Reading about these weird characters kind of made me disinterested at one point but to think of it, they were put in this setting because of a political purpose. Well, that’s how Samuel Delany (the one who wrote the preface) states it. Queer people exist in this world and they won’t go away. OK, fine, I now understand it.
But the whole story does not suck as I appear to portray it. (Note: Spoilers in here) The main character eventually travels into her dreams. It featured a journey kind of dream similar to Lord of the Rings where she must go to a certain place. The only difference is that those that accompany her are: a parrot, a monkey, and a rat. The journey eventually ends to the house she once lived in when she was a child. It is where the enemy of her dream was found. Its name is Cuckoo and it is actually herself when she was a child. The Cuckoo showed to her that her dreaming world was the same fantasy world she once created out of her imagination when she was a child. The parrot, monkey, and rat that accompanied her were her stuff toys then.
Damn! That part struck me. I could easily relate to it. I had an imaginative world when I was a child. That was how I played with my toys then. I made a fantasy world out of them. Actually, it was more of a movie world. I can solely attest that I am greatly affected by media as early as childhood. Every day when I played with my cousin, we created storylines for our toys. Storylines were boundless. It could be about a war, Hollywood, simple daily life situation, fantasy world, Wild West, and so much more. Even though we were just playing our toys in the same old sofa and floor, I was imagining various settings (appropriate for their storylines) in my mind. I can still remember those days when I couldn’t get satisfied with the structures I was making out of my Lego bricks. I was building various worlds every week by using the same bricks: a pirate ship, medieval world, a normal city, theme park, and even a basketball stadium. It did not matter if the colors do not coincide (I was lacking bricks of the same color, that’s why hahaha), what mattered then is that I could imagine the world that I have created for these imaginary characters. What mattered then was there is always a storyline behind every world I created in my mind. It didn’t matter if there was a climax – as long as there was a story that moved our emotions, whether it be action, suspense, comedy, drama, or inspirational, it was OK. I can still remember the times when our playing got intense to a point that I accidentally tossed the action figure into the fishbowl thus breaking it (poor fish!). Oh, how life was simple way back then! All I cared was to imagine worlds and create storylines and all of it is even spontaneous.
Did I have an unusual childhood? I don’t know. If I were to repeat my life all over again, I think I would still settle with my imaginative, out-of-this world childhood. Whenever I see children making funny noises with their toys and making those things appear to fly and crash or whatsoever, I understand them. Sometimes, we need to dream in order to get creative ideas.
OK, so Sandman has given me nostalgia of some sorts. A Game of You has also struck me when the writer who made the preface mentioned the Murphy’s Law - “If anything can go wrong, it will.” That is what I currently am getting used to these days. Shit happens always. Life’s a bitch. This is so ironic for me because I used to be the optimistic guy who loves to try to make his friends feel high when they were down (although I have to admit that I sometimes unintentionally make them feel down at times due to my spontaneous happy-go-lucky reckless attitude). Nevertheless, I am currently trying to go back to my old optimistic ways despite of this ongoing dark chapter in my life.
A Game of You. Why not a Game of I ? Pretty much reminiscent of Ph103: Philosophy of Religion (the course that taught me more of love than of religion). In this life, “no one can win the game of I… A Game of You is the only game worth playing – because it is the only game where, in the end, there’s any chance of coming out ahead.” Our lives are always filled with relationships and we always support each other. I cannot ultimately be me without your support. This is because we co-exist with each other. I even believe that I can only become important in this world because I contribute to the welfare of others. It is you that makes me important. Anyway, that has been the story of myself in the past few years. Others support me as I support others. Perhaps, this is why I feel bored and a bit dead recently. I am confined within the four corners of my room, and I seldom get in touch with the people who supported me and I supported. I don’t exactly know but it has been social relationships that have been keeping me alive because after all, I am a social being.
As I looked into my resume and my achievements, I realized, “wow! I am not that bad at all. I have been achieving a handful of awards I can be proud of.” I’ve become a champion of this and that. I have a handful of medals (and a trophy) to be proud of. But, what the fuck?! Those awards are useless if I haven’t been the social being that I am. The whole experience that made me alive all these years was more rooted on the relationships I had with people. My personal achievements were more of a bonus or an esteem booster but these won’t make me fully happy. To think of it, I achieved most of those awards with the support of others. For instance, my Marketing championship did not just involved me – we were a team then. I became the AB of the year in MEA last year but I believe I wouldn’t have achieved it without the help and support of my core group. When I became a Math Quiz Bee Champ in high school, I was even supported by my team and, well of course, my classmates.
Achieving for myself is cool. But, walking my journey in life with others would always be cooler. Why? Because it’ll always be a game of you.
Afterword
The last time I bought a Sandman book (A Game of You) was when there was something happening in my jobhunt (meaning, an interview or a test). Today, er, yesterday (damn! Inabot na ako ako ng midnight sa kakasulat ng blog), I had a test at Starcom and guess what I did again? I just bought another Sandman comic book (World’s End) so expect another journal entry within a few days.
Introduction
(If you want to know what happened to my blogging this summer, read this.)
It’s been awhile since I last posted a journal entry. The last sensible (if you would even call it as such) entry I have posted in this Multiply site was about my Boracay outing two months ago. Even that sucked in my standards because I was simply narrating stuff (or worse – I was somewhat reporting). Maybe, I am not at my writing best when I am not at my angst mode. Anyway, let me retract what I have written. Blog entries are not meant to be evaluated or whatsoever… all I have to do is to rave, rant, or talk about nothingness.
So, what’s up with me this summer? Have I turned into a happy, satisfied guy that is why I am not ranting as I did before in my Senior’s Syndrome articles? No. I am still a whiner of some sort (although I am a little less edgy recently). It is just ironic that when I have absolutely nothing to do, I do not find a time to write such things as this. There are actually so many factors. Laziness is one. Lack of passion to write is another. Watching too much TV could be a silly reason but it has somehow affected my journal writing. I could not share other reasons because those are very personal for me. I do share stuffs in blogs but I seldom shared some deeper stuff about me. I guess I am just used to be discreet on my feelings. Some of my closest friends do not even know what is going on with me right now.
Therefore, I’ll just share the shallower stuff. I am still unemployed as of the current time being. There are no major potential companies yet so I guess I will be bumming even up to my birthday. Am I enjoying this long bum life? Yes and No. For four years of studying and working, I never had a two-month long vacation. I felt like going back in time when all I did was spend the whole day at home 24/7. I am watching a lot of TV again (especially Jack TV!) and I must admit that I am a That ‘70s Show and WWE addict. Hell, I even watch the replays. The funny thing is, I could memorize the lines and still laugh at those. OK, I am getting pathetic but that’s how it goes by being a couch potato. At least, my belly is still flat and I am not getting any bit of fat. Blame it on my metabolism and recurring ulcer attacks. I am becoming an avid NBA fan again as I was when I was in grade school. Too bad, Dallas is heavily pouncing on the Heat recently. All in all, I feel similar as I was during grade school – doing nothing at home but watch TV. I am even watching Cartoon Network again (thank God for the Simpsons’ double episodes!). The sad thing about this bum life though is that I do not have the social life that I was having the past four years. Ever since our Boracay outing, me and my friends spent most of our time at home or dating their significant others (I don’t have one so I am quite stuck at home… that sucks!) I am not getting my weekly allowance so I am pretty much broke…but not that much since I am still earning some money from my parents by doing some chores. I just feel unfulfilled by it because I want to earn money from an external source, not from my family. In the end of the day, there is no net gain for the whole family (I may gain for myself, but the hell with it). As days go by, bumming 24/7 at home becomes boring. Something is telling me, however, that I should savor every moment of this bum life for I would not be having the luxury of it once I start working. I got tired as hell in just two months of internship last year.
-End of Intro-
Sandman Volume Five: A Game of You
What the fuck?! From an ME senior whiner to a book critique?! Just kidding… I was never an excellent critique of art and literature but I do love that field of mystery more than science so I will be giving some of my reflections on Neil Gaiman’s masterpiece. This is how simple my life is these days – one magnificent book or a striking song lyrics would fill up my whole week. My recent Multiply journal entries can attest to that.
I bought this expensive comic book (what the hell… who cares about the price? It’s my passion anyway) three weeks ago after my test and interview at Citibank. I was just strolling at Gateway when I happened to pass by Fully Booked. Impulsive buyer that I was, I said to myself that I will buy a Sandman comic book if I see a non-hardbound copy of A Game of You, since I have not seen it the past few months and I was aching to complete my Sandman library. Me and my big mouth. I saw the last copy of A Game of You along with a handful of Sandman comic books. I did not have to resist the temptation because I knew that I will easily give in to it, so I said farewell to my PhP 1,000 (anyway, what is PhP 1,000 these days?). After giving up reading 1984 (because my mind was always preoccupied when I was reading it), I began reading A Game of You last week. I could have done it in one sitting but I always loved prolonging my enjoyment (since it always lasts quite soon) so I had one week of reading a 186-page comic book. You know what? This just made me realize the problem on why I am reading slowly in the past few months.
OK, so what is the big deal about the book? I’ll start with the trivial details. The front cover of A Game of You is nothing that special as compared to other Sandman covers because they seem to all look alike. Nevertheless, I love the color combination of black and pink. It kind of reminds me of Bret “The Hitman” Hart’s colors and I must admit that the striking pink with the matte black never fails to make me appreciate how cool the whole book cover is. The usual Sandman illustration magic still exists. Sandman comics will always feature the artistic images after every chapter, but I just have the feel that the pictures of the characters and background in the story were too ‘normal’. But as I observed it again, I realized that the illustrations still play around with changing background colors to further depict the situation. Perhaps, there’s just less of Morpheus in it and no signs of Delirium (that colorful bitch!) that is why it brings in ‘less magic’.
Enough of colors and artwork. Sandman’s main gist, after all, is literature. The story in A Game of You, just like most of the other Sandman stories, features weird and peculiar characters. You have a weirdo main character who loves to draw things at her face so she would look like someone. She draws crisscrossing lines on her face so that she appears to be wearing a veil. She has a bunch of transsexuals as her friends. One of those was an Asian (talk about discrimination in the US). One of her friends looks like a nerdy girl who actually lives for hundreds of years, while one of her flatmates is a man who has cuckoo birds living inside his body. Reading about these weird characters kind of made me disinterested at one point but to think of it, they were put in this setting because of a political purpose. Well, that’s how Samuel Delany (the one who wrote the preface) states it. Queer people exist in this world and they won’t go away. OK, fine, I now understand it.
But the whole story does not suck as I appear to portray it. (Note: Spoilers in here) The main character eventually travels into her dreams. It featured a journey kind of dream similar to Lord of the Rings where she must go to a certain place. The only difference is that those that accompany her are: a parrot, a monkey, and a rat. The journey eventually ends to the house she once lived in when she was a child. It is where the enemy of her dream was found. Its name is Cuckoo and it is actually herself when she was a child. The Cuckoo showed to her that her dreaming world was the same fantasy world she once created out of her imagination when she was a child. The parrot, monkey, and rat that accompanied her were her stuff toys then.
Damn! That part struck me. I could easily relate to it. I had an imaginative world when I was a child. That was how I played with my toys then. I made a fantasy world out of them. Actually, it was more of a movie world. I can solely attest that I am greatly affected by media as early as childhood. Every day when I played with my cousin, we created storylines for our toys. Storylines were boundless. It could be about a war, Hollywood, simple daily life situation, fantasy world, Wild West, and so much more. Even though we were just playing our toys in the same old sofa and floor, I was imagining various settings (appropriate for their storylines) in my mind. I can still remember those days when I couldn’t get satisfied with the structures I was making out of my Lego bricks. I was building various worlds every week by using the same bricks: a pirate ship, medieval world, a normal city, theme park, and even a basketball stadium. It did not matter if the colors do not coincide (I was lacking bricks of the same color, that’s why hahaha), what mattered then is that I could imagine the world that I have created for these imaginary characters. What mattered then was there is always a storyline behind every world I created in my mind. It didn’t matter if there was a climax – as long as there was a story that moved our emotions, whether it be action, suspense, comedy, drama, or inspirational, it was OK. I can still remember the times when our playing got intense to a point that I accidentally tossed the action figure into the fishbowl thus breaking it (poor fish!). Oh, how life was simple way back then! All I cared was to imagine worlds and create storylines and all of it is even spontaneous.
Did I have an unusual childhood? I don’t know. If I were to repeat my life all over again, I think I would still settle with my imaginative, out-of-this world childhood. Whenever I see children making funny noises with their toys and making those things appear to fly and crash or whatsoever, I understand them. Sometimes, we need to dream in order to get creative ideas.
OK, so Sandman has given me nostalgia of some sorts. A Game of You has also struck me when the writer who made the preface mentioned the Murphy’s Law - “If anything can go wrong, it will.” That is what I currently am getting used to these days. Shit happens always. Life’s a bitch. This is so ironic for me because I used to be the optimistic guy who loves to try to make his friends feel high when they were down (although I have to admit that I sometimes unintentionally make them feel down at times due to my spontaneous happy-go-lucky reckless attitude). Nevertheless, I am currently trying to go back to my old optimistic ways despite of this ongoing dark chapter in my life.
A Game of You. Why not a Game of I ? Pretty much reminiscent of Ph103: Philosophy of Religion (the course that taught me more of love than of religion). In this life, “no one can win the game of I… A Game of You is the only game worth playing – because it is the only game where, in the end, there’s any chance of coming out ahead.” Our lives are always filled with relationships and we always support each other. I cannot ultimately be me without your support. This is because we co-exist with each other. I even believe that I can only become important in this world because I contribute to the welfare of others. It is you that makes me important. Anyway, that has been the story of myself in the past few years. Others support me as I support others. Perhaps, this is why I feel bored and a bit dead recently. I am confined within the four corners of my room, and I seldom get in touch with the people who supported me and I supported. I don’t exactly know but it has been social relationships that have been keeping me alive because after all, I am a social being.
As I looked into my resume and my achievements, I realized, “wow! I am not that bad at all. I have been achieving a handful of awards I can be proud of.” I’ve become a champion of this and that. I have a handful of medals (and a trophy) to be proud of. But, what the fuck?! Those awards are useless if I haven’t been the social being that I am. The whole experience that made me alive all these years was more rooted on the relationships I had with people. My personal achievements were more of a bonus or an esteem booster but these won’t make me fully happy. To think of it, I achieved most of those awards with the support of others. For instance, my Marketing championship did not just involved me – we were a team then. I became the AB of the year in MEA last year but I believe I wouldn’t have achieved it without the help and support of my core group. When I became a Math Quiz Bee Champ in high school, I was even supported by my team and, well of course, my classmates.
Achieving for myself is cool. But, walking my journey in life with others would always be cooler. Why? Because it’ll always be a game of you.
Afterword
The last time I bought a Sandman book (A Game of You) was when there was something happening in my jobhunt (meaning, an interview or a test). Today, er, yesterday (damn! Inabot na ako ako ng midnight sa kakasulat ng blog), I had a test at Starcom and guess what I did again? I just bought another Sandman comic book (World’s End) so expect another journal entry within a few days.
No comments:
Post a Comment