Site visit

Visited my site for my ever so lovely thesis:

To journey from my abode to my site (a parcel of Philippine soil in which i wish to build my fancy architecture for my thesis) via communal public transit,  I took a jeepney ride labelled MRT EDSA Shangri-La Crossing which traverses Shaw Blvd and terminates just across EDSA. Before crossing EDSA, I alighted at EDSA Shangri-La and took an MRT ride southbound until Taft Ave. Station. Upon reaching Taft Ave. Station, I bid my fellow wayfarers goodbye as I hopped into another jeepney with MOA as label. I told my dear ferryman para po upon reaching F.B. Harrison St. cor EDSA and he gracefully positioned his vehicle at the curbside, his hands exquisitely stirring the wheel as his supple feet stepped on the pedals like a delicate ballerina. I took off and rode another jeepney labelled Mabini Harrison et cetera et cetera, paid nine pesos and told the aging manong driver to take me to Bangko Sentral.

The frontage of CCP Complex facing Roxas Blvd. is just a few steps distant from the Mabini side (rear side) of Bangko Sentral where I alighted from my third jeepney commute. However, I needed to cross Roxas Blvd. and we all know that it's not possible to cross Roxas Blvd. or any Metro Manila road having more than two lanes without risking your life, so I risked my life. But fortune favours the brave as all them white ppl say and the next thing I knew, I was swaggering my buttocks inside CCP Main Theater because I needed to attend to an appointment with monsieur CCP development program something something director.

After my appointment, I walked to my site which is unfortunately situated at the rearest part of the complex, facing the bay facing GSIS Building and I walked and it was far as fuck and perhaps, the best part of my walk was when I was reciting a famous human proverb: "FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK and so on."

My findings upon reaching the site:

1. the street side portion of my site is covered by a conglomeration of plants which is covered by a tall fence which is covered by a conglomeration vehicles parked at the street side
2. a small portion of my site have been infiltrated by strange and heartbreakingly poor informal settlers driven away from the residential zones by poverty, unemployment, injustice, corruption, malevolence, and other icky stuff. they were able to put up a small basketball court for sports and recreation and a few light commercial establishments for revenue
3. joyce kilmer had her poem put up as signage, sign after sign per line, along my site's frontage like the ones causing accidents and environmental awareness along south luzon expressway. i blame the philippine senate and joyce kilmer.

To reach home, I had to walk further and curse further to reach MOA's hugeass globe to ride a bus home. 

Also, I slept in the bus and watched Ang Kakambal ni Eliana on the bus TV but I couldn't watch properly because the reception was bad.

~*~*~I AM WONDROUSLY TIRED TODAY OR WHATEVER~*~*~

Lying on the floor facedown not to relax but to prove a point

I AM AWAKE AT 3AM BECAUSE I DON'T SLEEP AT ALL

I LOVE TO BE AWAKE

BEING AWAKE MEANS WE CAN MEET AND WHATEVER

I AM AWAKE AT 3AM IN THE LIVING ROOM, MY BODY IS STUCK IN THE COUCH IN A MANNER THAT HURTS BUT I CANT MOVE 

BECAUSE MY LAPTOP IS SITTING ON MY TUMMY AND YOU CAN JUST IMAGINE HOW UNCOMFORTABLE MY POSITION IS

I AM AWAKE AT 3AM AND I AM ON THE INTERNET COS IM A PIMP

ELECTIONS TIME AND I HEAR FIREWORKS AND SOMEBODY JUST WON BY LANDSLIDE

AND I CAN ONLY IMAGINE HOW BEAUTIFUL VICTORY FIREWORKS MUST BE

I LOVE FIREWORKS

BUT I CANT GET UP TO WATCH COS MY BODY IS UNCOMFORTABLY STUCK IN THE COUCH

AND IN MY MIND FLASHES SPLASHES OF SPARKS 

SPARKING AND BURSTING IN THE DARK STARLESS 3AM SKY

DAWN DELAYS ITS ASCENT FOR A FEW MINUTES TO WATCH THE FIREWORKS

AND IN MY MIND ARE FLASHES OF LIGHTS

BUT WHEN I FINALLY MANAGE TO GET UP

I WALK A FEW STEPS TO THE TERRACE AND THERE ARE NO FIREWORKS

BURSTING IN WONDERFUL COLOURS AND WHATEVER

THEY ARE ONLY SOME CHEAP FIRECRACKERS/SKY ROCKETS MAKING NOISE

AND THE FLASHES AND SPLASHES AND SPARKS OF LIGHT AND COLOURS

ARE JUST ALL IN MY HEAD
AND I WOULD PAY MY LIFE JUST TO SEE THEM ALL IN MY HEAD ALL OVER AGAIN
AND I WOULD SMOKE 10K WORTH OF WEED BEFORE I DIE
JUST TO SEE THEM ALL IN MY HEAD AGAIN
AND I WOULD DIE IN ORGASM
AS I SMOKE EXPENSIVE WEED
AS LIGHT BURSTS IN DIFFERENT COLOURS IN MY HEAD
AND IT'S JUST ALL IN MY HEAD
AND I FEEL IT
AND IT'S WEIRD
AND MY HEART THROBS FASTER THAN A MOTHERFUCKER
AND IT WILL STOP THROBBING
AND I WILL FEEL WEIRD

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

IDK 
I JUST KEEP PICTURING THAT IM LYING FACE DOWN ON MY CONCRETE FLOOR
AND I DONT SEE SHIT EXCEPT FOR MY CONCRETE FLOOR
AND THEN YOU COME INTO MY BEDROOM
THE DOOR CREAKS AND YOUR FLIP FLOPS MAKE SCRATCHY SOUNDS
AND I KNOW IT'S U COS I KNOW THE SOUND OF YOUR FEET AS THEY SWEEP MY FLOOR
I HAVE MEMORIZED THE INTERRELATIONSHIP AND THE INTERACTIONS 
OF YOUR BODY MOVEMENT WITH MY BEDROOM FABRIC
AND YOU WILL JUST STAND THERE WAITING FOR ME TO PICK MYSELF UP
AND I WILL JUST LIE THERE WAITING FOR YOU TO PICK ME UP
AND RELEASE HORMONES WITH YOU AND STUFF

WE BOTH TRY TO PROVE A POINT

#PieceOfShit
#PieceOfShit
#PieceOfShit
#PieceOfShit
#PieceOfShit

LYING DOWN FACE DOWN ON THE FLOOR
NOT TO RELAX
BUT TO PROVE A POINT

NO
NO
NO
NO, NO, NO

I JUST WANT A FRICKIN MASSAGE 

Citations

Urban life is predicted on proximity, walkability, and immediacy

I wrote that statement above on a piece of scrap when I first encountered it some months ago. For the lack of proper citation, I blame my thesis, lack of sleep, and tumblr.

---

There are a few things I need to constantly remind myself:

1. take notes of citations, they are important.
2. idea precedes form. ideas are immortal.
3. the container must never outperform the contained.

---

Urban life is predicted on proximity and everything beyond 4 kilometers is far enough to travel without taking a bath. Anything beyond 1 km is not walkable so we try as much as possible to compress ourselves, for instance, I am thirsty so I'm just gonna walk a few meters from my doorstep and I'm gonna be grabbing a Slurpee because my havs are capable of travelling to that 7 Eleven store without getting much soiled. Intramuros is the first urban experiment in the country but now everyone thinks it was a bad idea. That it was a bad idea to use this particular part of the island as a laboratory for the mad experiment. However, we built beyond the walls and expanded eastward, eating up the suburbs, the swamp lands, the ricefields, the forests, of Pasig, Makati, Muntinlupa, Quezon City; as though an elastic band that, upon reaching its maximum elasticity, when ungripped, goes back to the innards. For one, because Binanongan, Cainta, Malolos, San Pedro, are too far. So we snap back to the left overs of our expansion. On immediacy because I want things now.

The city is so seductive.

An old lady approached us one day asking for help. My mother asked what kind of help. She said she needed help to find a job, to feed herself and her family etc etc. My mother talked about how it's impossible for her to get a neat job in the city on her age and that she must just go back to the province and plant veggies and stuff. The old lady abruptly left in the middle of my mother's speech.

We didn't give her a chance to be cosmopolitan.

The old lady just wanted to be cosmopolitan. She wanted to be a clerk in red stilettos and pencil-cut skirt, answering phone calls in English in some office building in Ayala with a marble-clad lobby. She wanted to feed herself and her family Starbucks in the morning, Bon Chon at lunch, Pancake House during merienda, and Yakimix at dinner. She wanted to learn how to eat with chopsticks even though she's not even sinitic. She wanted to use hashtags on her statements. She wanted to instagram her Jamba Juice and have a weekly bathroom selfie. But we told her to plant veggies instead. Remember, madame, elasticity -- once you've reached too far, you'll snap back.

Go, old lady!

Go, old lady, run away from this place you majestic piece of aging organism! Hop on the earliest Florida Bus and go back to your rice fields! Your rice fields need you! Your corn fields need you! So we can have sushi and pop corn. Go, old lady and stay away from the debauchery of this blessed land. Go forth to your virgin soil and there you plant the rice grain of your urban empire. Build your own city army and roar forevermore.

Just remember that urban life is predicted on proximity, walkability, and immediacy.

Most terrible

Approaching Kalentong from Legarda by jeepney makes you feel like you should have never been born. Makes you feel like you got to get out and start somewhere that doesn't go to Kalentong or anywhere near Sta. Mesa, V. Mapa, and all their traffic lights, barkers, and zigzagging streets. Makes you feel like shit in most parts. But as one crosses the border of Manila and Mandaluyong in Kalentong, passing JRU, the travel becomes steam escaping from kettle. The jeepney is breathed out seamlessly into ether. I just want to go home.

---

My thesis puts my mind off of things this summer. I don't want to concern myself with a lot of things going on everywhere around me, one of them being mundane human emotions. I always think of deactivating my Facebook account this summer and just disconnect myself from the rest of everybody even just for two months. But that's too much. That's too much emo shit. I will be away on some parts (hoping on most parts) of summer and I am hoping that will ease all the terrible terrible fucktoids swimming in the softness of my brain. I feel so terrible even for no reason at all. (Or even for reasons that are not worth feeling terrible at all)

---

I need a book that ain't Ayn Rand.

School year ender notes

i.
My summer vacation began with waking up on a Sunday noon time, all cold and feeling light headed, curled up under the blanket, on my soft bed sheets while trying to recall a very strange dream. My fourth year in the university has been one of the most colorful and fast paced schooling experience I have had.

ii.
My father criticized my decision to change my undergrad thesis from prison to museum, saying that a museum is nothing but a single building with nothing in it. My father, always my inspiration.

iii.
You slept as though nothing could crawl upon your lurid unconsciousness.

iv.
Hold onto that small clear plastic bag of carbonated drink, a slender cylinder sticking out entering your lips. A small gush of liquid bursting out, wetting your tongue. Swallow.

v.
Look at me putting pepper on my sunny side up egg.
Look at me breaking the yolk.
Look at the yolk, liquid, as it joins the rice
deep down.

vi.
Had my last oral defense for my last Design plate yesterday. Felt so liberating like Britney Spears. Can't wait to get out of school and be forevermore away.

Dancing

We sped past Bonifacio Global City when the taxi driver ranted on how the pedestrians of Taguig City are so dumb that they intentionally removed a panel of the grilled fence separating the two sides of the highway just to be able to cross when the overpass is just about five meters away.

Further on, he continued to tell me things about the streets until he was talking about driving. "Driving is an art of dancing," he went on to tell me, "it's an art of surveying." He then broke into a laughter which was a quite annoying laughter, to be honest. 

By the time we reached Pasay City, he went on telling me his experiences as a bus driver in the '80s. Finally reaching the MOA complex, just as we passed by the huge globe, he asked me what school I go to. 

"UST ho," being polite and all.

"Ah, dun nag-aral si Rizal eh. Kaya lang binuking nya yung mga pari, ayun pinatay tuloy sya," punctuating with the annoying laugh.

Our driver-passenger relationship finally ceased as he pulled up at SMX Convention Center. I paid the fare and went off, entering the glass doors of SMX.

As I passed by the lady guard, I noticed the taxi was still there. I turned to look back and the driver signaled me to come. I thought he called me back to say that Rizal had his best schooling days in Ateneo, not in UST. Not that I care and not that I would actually argue. But he just really called me back to check if he gave me the right amount of change.

Waiting area

2010.