September 30, 2012

Dear Pal,

It’s the last day of September and the last week of the first semester!  Time flies so fast, isn’t it?  You know how much I dread the end of the semester.  I feel jobless (which I definitely am) for like two or three weeks because of the long break.  Then, I am being encumbered by uncertainty regarding my teaching load.  I shouldn’t have to worry about that, I know, but everytime this thought enters, I couldn’t help but feel, well, depressed.  I just wish that God would grant me a lot of positivity.  Though I always am optimistic.

You might be wondering why I’m addressing you as “Pal”.  Well, it’s because my most-awaited movie adapted from one of my fave books, finally opened — The Perks of Being a Wallflower.  You know how much I love the book, right?  It’s just so amazing how, once in our lives, a book can actually tell a story about someone’ else’s experience.  Writers are one hell of magical beings. And when I read The Perks of Being a Wallflower, without a doubt, I told myself that this book is about ME.  I fell in love just by reading the first few pages.  I connected with Charlie.  For me, he becomes a representation of my struggles, my joys, my pains, my life.  Any kid who happens to have the similar experience as dark as Charlie’s can definitely draw inspiration and courage from his story.  Because I did.  But I am not going to disclose everything in just one entry.  If one reader has actually read the book nor has seen the movie, then, he or she might actually understand what I’d been through.  Yes, wallflowers do exist.  And wallflowers have stories to tell.

I am happy that the semester is about to end.  I’m gonna miss my students.  I’m gonna miss my classes.  Even so, I am looking forward to this break.  I am looking forward to the books that I’m about to read, to the time I’m gonna spend with my family, to the time I’m gonna lag writing just about anything.

I am ready for October.

Love,

Sed

I Am Immortal: A Snippet from an Old Journal

I’m being sentimental these past few days. Maybe because of my flu and fever which made me think I could not make it through the day. When I was still at home, I read all the articles, poems, and short stories which I wrote during my college days. And I realized I’ve been missing a lot of things. The write-ups and the pictures were so reminiscent to the point of being nostalgic. I cried, I smiled, I felt bad.

I have forgotten to accept the fact that everything in this world is temporary. What do you know? I’m clingy and sentimental. I have always wished things were still the same. That I can always go back and find the circumstances as they were before. Alas, times are indeed changing, and as the cliché goes, “we must go with the flow.”

Reading all the articles I wrote in The Augustinian Mirror, the poems published in Irong-Irong, and the short stories published in SanAg, I come to believe that I have the power to halt time. I can always go back to the past amid this fast-paced world.

Thus, even in my sufferings, even with this illness that encumbers me, I am still happy. Because even if i die tomorrow, I know deep within me, I am immortal.

If Blogs Didn’t Exist…

I surprise myself for having written nine journals already. Since I discovered writing as a passion, I feel empty without a notebook and a pen by my side. So, if blogs didn't exist, I could have owned a closet of journals...

snippet

I’ve been trying to pierce the Netbook screen with my blank stares, but not even a germ of ideas springs from my brain.  The rain pours hard on the roof. Intermittent lightning and thunder flashes and roars, slightly deafening the streets, or perhaps the room we occupy in the male dormitory.  I have enough for the day, I think, and all I really need is a good night sleep. But even sleep  refuses to take hold of me. And again, I hate the thought that I would be sleeping at two or three o’clock in the morning.  Good thing, the lightning prohibits me to turn on the WLAN button.  It’s dangerous to use the internet when the lightning tries to penetrate on the jalousies, especially when the connection is active.  I could imagine if the lightning catches the gadget and it suddenly explodes.  Possible, I’m not really sure.  Will it set the whole dormitory on fire?  I don’t think so.  Water is stronger than fire, and even if the latter smoulders the walls and doors with heat, the former will just wash away the ember on the surface.

When it rains, I wish my thoughts become flooded with streams that meander through the crevices of my dreams and imaginations.  Only then that I begin to write.  No Muses.  That even though I stare blankly at the computer screen, I follow the course right down the bend.  I fall.  I fall from that bend and drown myself in the returning passion of writing.