nerds whut

to be here oh yes

We are going to die, and that makes us the lucky ones. Most people are never going to die because they are never going to be born. The potential people who could have been here in my place but who will in fact never see the light of day outnumber the sand grains of Arabia. Certainly those unborn ghosts include greater poets than Keats, scientists greater than Newton. We know this because the set of possible people allowed by our DNA so massively exceeds the set of actual people. In the teeth of these stupefying odds it is you and I, in our ordinariness, that are here.

- Richard Dawkins

via purplerevolt

in photos

Yeah I’m feelin’ lazeh.

October 23 (Friday)

Research night. Because we never get tired of each other, oh no.

I am so not drunk in this picture.

More photos here.

October 24 (Saturday)

Christening day of uber-cute Johan. I’m still waiting for Joan (proud mom) to upload the photos. God, I must have looked horrid. But what the hell. Love you Joan, your baby’s absolutely adorable.

P.S. Seriously Ace that was a fun ride from Makati to Bulacan. We should do that again! Hahaha.

October 25 (Sunday)

Watched this with Jaykie.

Not a fan of romantic films at all, but believe me, this is a fun watch. “Inventive” I think was the word Roger Ebert used to describe this film.

Got this early birthday gift. Howee. (Also: we were able to find an issue of The New Yorker in BookSale that went for TEN PESOS. TEN PESOS my goodness.)

Thanks, Jake.

* * *

And oh, Ms Lanot of the Graphic says they will use all of the poems from “Reportage”. It will appear in several issues. Watch out for them? Yes?

freeform

fragment:

me: powerful tag team – katt’s phrase

j: lol para naman tayong mambubugbog

me: or kunwari “hyper-intellectuals” ganyan

me: so I guess I have to buy a cigarette holder

me: and red lipstick

me: and a beret

j: and listen to freeform jazz

me: and talk about Camus ganyan

me: I love freeform jazz!

me: is there such a bar here?

j: hmm

j: I can ask all my friends lol

j: lol I don’t even know who that is

j: so I suppose between the two of us I’m the ditzy blonde

me: haha with the big boobs ohyeah ohyeah

what makes a writer

…in truth, I didn’t become a writer the first time I put pen to paper or when I finished my first book (easy) or my second one (hard). You see, in my view a writer is a writer not because she writes well and easily, because she has amazing talent, because everything she does is golden. In my view a writer is a writer because even when there is no hope, even when nothing you do shows any sign of promise, you keep writing anyway. Wasn’t until that night when I was faced with all those lousy pages that I realized, really realized, what it was exactly that I am.

- Junot Diaz, author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

I’m working on what’s looking to me like a novel right now. (My “novels” often turn into “novellas” – I have a hard time writing long, monstrous stuff – but we’ll see.) Really struggling, but still writing. Still happy about it, but I understand the torment, Mr. Diaz. Thank you for this.

Read the whole article here.

weekend!

Well, not exactly the weekend because my schedule’s weird, but whatever.

Oct. 16 – IV- 1 whut.

Dinner at Cyma (Greenbelt 2) and coffee at Trinoma with high school friends. Still sabog, still fun.

More pictures here.

Oct. 17 – Nice night at Serendra, na nauwi sa alay-lakad and peoplewatching.

Bummer, I didn’t know Bruce Wayne’s already dead. And a time bullet? Wha~? /end nerd

* * *

Random: I had my ID picture taken at Waltermart for ze French class. My hair’s blue in the picture. TRUE STORY.

Some pipe or whatever exploded in the condo unit washroom. Got drenched. (Quick: think boom box, car, boys, SOAP SUDS.) Ondoy-like flood indoors whut.

* * *

Very quickly: my new poem, “Cliffhangers”, can be found in the latest issue of the Philippines Free Press.

watch this

Moved me to tears. Thanks Kath R. for sharing.

(personal) flood watch

Fuck.ing.hell.

Sometime last Sunday my mother sent me a text message saying the house in Bulacan’s no longer flooded. Insert happiness here. I haven’t seen my siblings in months.

This morning (Tuesday), flood inside the house has reached the second step of the staircase. By my estimate that’s thigh-high. Apparently the Angat Dam has released water. Again.

My brother, who was then at home and had class in UST (Manila), had to ride a truck to get to Malolos (Bulacan’s capital). No passenger vehicles were entering/leaving our town, so he had to get on a bus from the capital.

When in fact, our town has its own bus station, now rendered useless by the flood.

To say I’m pissed is a horrible understatement.

* * *

Okay, then.

In happier news, French language classes are a definite go (I’ve just paid my tuition and membership fee, along with Almi). Yehey!

Last night I was able to finish two prose poems.

* * *

I say, I’m not used to not being cynical. I kinda miss it. Friend says, Try it on; maybe it’d look good on you.

Okidoki.

misc.

wherein we talk about whatever

Transmetropolitan

Journalists! A perverse government! Investigation! Data-gathering! Bowel disruptors!

Excellent series. Special thanks to Jaykie for lending me copies.

Orayt. Planetary naman.

Collage Me This

Tearing things up = therapy = FUN.

No, really. Try it. Did me wonders.

(So yeah, picture resolutions are shitty. Let me go find a digicam, then maybe I can upload these again.)

Gig Book Contest Awards er Brunch

I almost said “awards night”. But these are writers for children, so let’s be clean and nice and alcohol-free.

Awarding was on Oct. 10, at 10 a.m. There were ten winners. See what they did there? :p

Didn’t have cam. Will ask Andrea and Kate for the pictures later. (Thank you pala to Andrea’s parents for letting me hitch. If I had gone there alone, I would have gotten lost. For sure.)

EDIT: Pictures!

Thank you Jake and Katt for coming. So nice to see you guys again. Ke gaganda niyo!

weather talk

Weather forecasters caught in the eye of a storm

MANILA, Philippines—A storm threatens to wallop the Philippines but a huge computer that dominates the forecasting room of the nation’s weather service is on screensaver mode showing a cartoon pattern of unexploded bombs.

While Typhoon “Pepeng” (international name: Parma) ominously hovers near the main island of Luzon, the computer has no data to receive as the main weather radar on a hilltop in Baguio City is out of action—again.

This scenario played out on Tuesday when Agence France Presse visited the forecasters in Manila to examine why they failed to predict the ferocity of Tropical Storm “Ondoy” (international name: Ketsana) that killed nearly 300 people in and around the capital on Sept. 26.

“Our old radar has limitations,” said Fredolina Baldonado, a meteorologist at the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA).

“It has a blind spot to the south and that includes Metropolitan Manila,” Baldonado added.

And this I think is an excellent commentary on the problems the Metro and elsewhere experienced during and after Ondoy.

The Ipo Dam started spilling water as early as 1:20 a.m. Saturday, and Angat and La Mesa Dams (different watersheds but connected by aqueducts) would follow. Was there no communication between them and with agencies/LGUs downstream? With so many agencies (PDDC, OCD, MWSS, Pagasa, Napocor, LGUs, Mayor’s Office, NDCC, MMDA, etc.), why did residents receive no evacuation order? Was the MM5 weather model predicting hundreds of mm of rain, even the night before? As for people paying more attention to soap operas than bulletins, what bulletins would they have heard?

The weather bulletin of 11 a.m. Saturday the 26th said: “This disturbance is expected to enhance the southwest monsoon and bring rains over central and southern Luzon and Visayas. Residents living in low-lying areas and near mountain slopes in areas affected by the Southwest Monsoon and those under signals no. 1 and no. 2 are alerted against possible flash floods and landslides … The public and the disaster coordinating councils concerned are advised to take appropriate actions and watch for the next bulletin to be issued at 5 p.m. today.”

What, in that message, suggests anything unusual, and what are “appropriate actions”? Filipinos are by now so used to these standard warnings. Working back, one asks, why keep water in the dams so high, far above the “upper rule curve” (for example, Angat was almost 25 meters above) heading into typhoon season?

And oh, Typhoon Pepeng (international name: Parma) hits northern Philippines a third time. A THIRD TIME! He keeps coming back! Like a shopper who can’t make up his mind! (Do I want this pair of socks No I still have enough socks No wait I really need a new pair of socks Let me take a look again)

Damn weather.