6/30/2011 ‒
The president is out

As I write this, Noynoy Aquino is giving his so-called Ulat sa Bayan, another self-given chance to tell the citizens of the Philippines all that he has accomplished since he assumed the presidency exactly one year ago.

I'm in a bit of a blogging rut, but I've always planned to write about this very occasion, so I decided to turn on the TV and hope that whatever he says inspires me to become a piss-poor attempt at being a political analyst. But there's the problem: I cannot be a political analyst. I cannot see things objectively at this point. I have this deep dislike for Noynoy, and his speech - or at least, the two minutes of it that I caught - illustrates why.

His speeches tend to revolve around a few things. He'll illustrate why he's best suited for the position, by talking about how he didn't plan on running for the presidency two years ago. He'll say he didn't plan to take on the monster that was a government riddled with corruption. Maybe he'll invoke the spirit of his mother, Cory Aquino, the woman in the middle of the first People Power revolution in 1986, the one that kicked out Ferdinand Marcos from a two-decade dictatorship and restored democracy. After all, it was after her death when all eyes went on Noynoy - and, just like that, he became a viable successor to Gloria Arroyo.

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6/22/2011 ‒
We are the bad people

This blog entry was supposed to be all about me being such a complaining old git.

I was reorganizing my links area (again) early this week and noticed that more people were blogging on Tumblr. All fine and good, except that I've seen my sister browse through her dashboard, often to amuse herself at what the people she follows have reblogged. I've taken a look sometimes, especially when she starts to laugh annoyingly, and all I see are reblogs. And more reblogs.

So, I thought, Tumblr isn't a blogging platform - it's just full of reblogs. Sure, there are the people who actually blog something, else there wouldn't be reblogs - but pretty much all of the content an ordinary user would see on the site is copied and pasted (okay, clicked, it's easier) from somewhere else.

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6/18/2011 ‒
Falling down the rabbit hole

The catch is, you tend to take things personally. Very personally.

See, you've made the perfect situation for yourself. Everything has, for some reason, fallen into place, and you believe - you genuinely believe - that all of this is what you need to keep yourself afloat. Nothing can take it away from you.

And then, somewhere along the way, it falls apart, and you feel like the world is pretty much going against you. Oh, damn it. Won't you give me this one time? Just this one time?

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6/13/2011 ‒
Stand around

Just to prove that I was there, look here.

I never thought I'd carry a relatively long conversation with Miss Diaz. I was never in her classes; we only crossed paths during thesis orientations, thesis readings and thesis defense. Oh, and during our college recognition rites, a few days before our graduation, when I went up on stage ("cum laude!") and received a sash from her. She received me enthusiastically. I think there was a hug, even.

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6/09/2011 ‒
"Perhaps I may reply, if you are lucky"

She has been gone for two weeks now.

I knew it would happen. In the few times we talked, she told me this much. "My life hangs on this," she said, more or less. "If I don't get this, I don't know what to do. Oh, please, can't they just tell me I'm not getting it?"

"What if you do?" I told her. "That'd be one hell of a new chance."

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