i can't breathe!

K: may papagawa ka pa?


N:....


K: may papagawa ka pa?


N: ....


K: may papagawa ka pa?


N: bakit ba? ano bang gagawin mo?


K: sabi mo ayaw mo dito. eh di sa ibang bahay.


N: eh di umalis ka na! magpaalam ka sa ama mo!



i'm starting to feel extremely crappy and disgusted about my ho..hom...house. can't breathe! i need oxygen! oxygen is only confined within my room... and of course outside the area of 763.

Amidst a casual conversation...

eryka peralta: teka

eryka peralta: newsflash lang

karen mirano: go

eryka peralta: kung hindi mo pa nababalitaan, FIRST PLACE si GIDO sa NATIONALS!

WOW.

Congratulations Gian Dominique S. Francisco!

Gido, a friend and a classmate (I hope he doesn't mind considering!) champed the Sports Writing Event in the National Press Conference!

Way to go, E-I-C!

Soooo proud!

FOUR YEARS, SIX MONTHS, TWO DAYS

I don't know who I am anymore or how I got here.

I miss who I used to be.

I wanna have my home again, you know.

And real friends, you know?

The kinds of friendships we used to believe in.

I miss that.

And I miss you.

I guess I just miss all of it.

-PEYTON SAWYER

PERSONIFIED HOPE.

Way back in grade school, I believe Trisha and I are friends. So to add, our mothers are friends too. We became classmates in first grade. She is sandwiched between Carmina Fernando and Aprille Maleficio in our class picture; I am located in her northeast. But it doesn't really matter how often we were housed in a classroom together.

I remember our phone call conversations. I remember how we talked about our moms. I remember how the news came to me that she was diagnosed with cancer.

Days have passed by without her treading the corridors, sitting in a wooden armchair, sheltered in the cradle of St. Paul School of Sta. Maria. I don't think I have noticed at all. On the other hand, she must be thinking of herself treading the corridors, sitting in a wooden chair, sheltered in the cradle of St. Paul School of Sta. Maria-- she must be thinking of it everytime.

I can clearly recall how she surfaced in the limelight during our Graduation day. She walked, reached for the directress' hand, received her diploma, stood still and took a bow like any other student of the Centennial Batch. She was given a well-deserved round of applause. It lasted for seconds but that touchstone encompassed a lifetime.

After that occasion, I hardly heard anything about her.

Sundays. I remember seeing her family and her after masses. She flashes a weak smile everytime our eyes meet. Paradoxically, her strength never fails to radiate everytime.

Seeing her small frame, you can feel how much she has gone through and sympathize. Moreover, you admire her and get inspired.

I did not have a hint that she came back to school this year. I was not surprised to see her last June afterall. I was happy to see her. Working behind the red curtains during the Acquaintance-Disco, I felt the same happiness when I saw her in line with the transferees and freshmen. She wore an elegant gown I see in fairytales. I felt maternal love on the spot. I remembered how I loathed the Acquaintance Party I am supposed to enjoy and here she is enjoying, as how it should be, what I missed. That was the last time I saw her. They said she attended the JS Prom. That was the last time I was supposed to see her.

Someone's death reminds me of mortality. It never fails to remind me how short life is, how hopeful life is. It never fails to remind me how may days I've sulked, how many weeks I've taken for granted, how many months I've squandered and how many years I've wasted.

Throughout her battle, Trisha was a personified hope to those who have heard of her story.

I am never knowledgeable how much you have been through or how much your family has been through, but I am omnisciently claiming that I know you have indeed fulfilled your purpose. You deserve to breathe sans the worldliness in His loving arms.

deviant and promising

The windows of your soul just set on the REAL DEAL.
This is a deviation by a friend.
Click here to visit here deviantart account and find more magnum opuses.

See, she posts once in a blue moon. The two of us are pretty sluggish in terms of site*acct maintenance (greatly opposite MARUH's overrated "social utility" account).

Anyway, substance is worth the wait.

*Happy Birthday Ronald Joaquico. Oh I just know it's your day. I know a lot. Haha. Kidding aside, hey Mr. Senior 2008 I think (from what the lot has been telling me) your outfit last Prom Night was oh so oozing with confidence. Gee, I missed your heavenly get-up. :)*

tanong: pumunta ka ba nung prom? hindi kita nakita eh. sagot: di ako umattend, wala akong pera.

See, I shouldn't be blogging at this very moment. I should be in a different spacetime.

At this very moment, I should be wearing a sophisticated ball gown whose length wouldn't touch my toes. My marble round windows should have been accentuated, thanks to the flirty inventors of eyeshadow. . My locks should have been flaunted. All these remain to be "Shoulds."

At the very least, I can say I became a part of the refined evening in my own way. Eh bakit nga ba kasi ako di aatend? Hey on the first place, missing prom is nothing but my idea. Let me tell you why.

I am missing my friends right now. Hell, I am sure Jeca looks stunning tonight. More than turning heads, I know she's breaking necks. *whoa :)* So how do my guy friends look like? I know I just have to change those chinese collars to suits but I can barely imagine. I asked doodles Rommel to send me a pic of his get-up three hours before the soiree. Nice. Just how I want a man to be dressed- turtle neck + suit. Unquestionably, I know he looks handsome and charming tonight in his all black do. And speaking of all black, I remember Ariben mentioning that he'll be in an all get-up too. Black looks good. waaa. sooo passé.

Days ago, I guess I do not know what I am missing. Well hours ago, I guess I know what I am missing somehow.

THE FIFTH MEMBER.

A J plays ball.

naisip ko lang...

It's pretty amazing how people enter your life infiltrated by entropy. The arrival and departure of people from silly to coincidental manners is nothing but one of the sugars and spices of life.

Sometimes, it doesn't matter how surreal their entrances were, or how graceful their exits came. You may not have realized so but the vital part is these people you meet, in one way or another, have made the tiniest to the largest impacts in your life. They will forever be encapsulated in your witty memory.

There's always a choice of keeping of them or not; there's always their choice of staying or not. Afterall, you are not always choosing to keep someone. You also tend to choose to break out and leave someone. The same way, your arrival in someone's life is just as heartwarming like how someone's departure is heartbreaking.

Lives. Lives. The interconnection is simply amazing.

One Tree Hill Season 5, Episode 2. Racing Like a Pro

The rest of your life is a longtime.


And whether you know it or not, it isbeing shaped right now.


You can choose to blame yourcircumstances on fate, or badluck, or bad choices or you can fightback.


Things aren't always gonna be fair inthe real world, that's just the way it is.


But for the most part, you get whatyou give.


Let me ask you all a question: what'sworse, not getting everything you wish for or getting it but finding out it'snot enough?


The rest of your life is being shapedright now.


But the dreams you chase, the choicesyou make and the person you decide to be, the rest of your life is a long timeand the rest of your life starts right now.

-Haley James-Scott

unexpected

I totally suck at writing poems. Well, I was not really born to craft a winning declamation piece or melt people's heart. I'm just not good at stringing words together, rhyming words so to speak.

Words won't just bud from my brain. Okay. Let me restate that. Sane words won't just bud from my brain. Would you consider "flower-power" lucid? Everytime I try to make a poor attempt to be a poet laureate, this pair of rhyming words automatically flows from my neurons. Hell, I do not know why! Some involuntary nerve I obtained from third grade? I guess. Not a purely absurd presumption afterall. I, if truth be told, learned flower-power, an overrated rhyming words example, in third grade.

Casing her indispensable absence, my English teacher left a seatwork I never looked forward to. The class was instructed to make a poem inclined with a paradox, metonymy or allusion. Oh men! Did you just say another poem? Oh well, the previous poems I have made in my life are all, without doubt, for the sake of passing a seatwork, project, portfolio, assignment or quiz. What's the difference afterall?

It was a topic of free will. Anything under the sun. And anything under the sun makes my head blunter. I was very much on lethargic mode. I doubted if I can finish one by the end of the hour. I was purely loitering and amidst my idle stroll, I saw my classmates working on the seatwork. It was a thwarted feeling. So, they are working on the seatwork huh? Well, I am not!

But my stand-in kept getting bothered. Di ba talaga ako gagawa? English is the last subject I wanna mess up with, really. At talagang patigasan. I am not passing a seatwork by the end of the period, or even by the end of the day. Afterall, Miss Carpio might just let it pass if I pass one tomorrow. Anyway, the class president to whom the seatwork was given to was pretty much on a sluggish state, I can say.

But I waked up today remembering that I did not finish any poem last night. I have not even started a single line! In the course of the day, I was all bothered... just bothered. I tried skipping recess so I could work on this upsetting seatwork. But I can't just turn down the company of my friends. :) I allowed myself to accompany them in the canteen with my pen and paper. I did not buy anything to feed myself because I was too focused to finish, uhm, or should I say, start a poem. Thirty minutes passed by...guess what? Course, I wasn't able to germinate a line.

The only thing that consoles me is English is the last hour of the day. Anyway, I still have lunch. I will have finished that by lunch. But then again, lunch passed. And the recess in the afternoon passed. I was in the point of return.

Nice try miss, the disturbia brought you nowhere. We arrive to the final
hour and accept it, you did not finish, and again have not even started, a poem
inclined with a paradox/metonymy/allusion.

Miss Carpio finally asked the class president for the outputs yesterday. To her dismay, there were only a few papers submitted to her. Not even the one to whom she had entrusted the seatwork complied. And there goes the blah...blah...blah...the scolding went on. The next thing I knew, we, who did not care to finish a line (I cared actually! I just wasn't...aarggh.), were standing. We were asked to finish a poem within the period. Same instructions. Just this time, we have to squeeze the words out standing.

Suddenly, I was Isaac Mendez. Like how his fingers started to paint a magnum opus, my pen started scribbling words I did not know where the hell did they come from. Really, I would love to share you the work of miracle that happened hours ago but sadly, I lost my draft (see, I'm very good with losing things.)

I approached the table and I passed my work. Out of nowhere, she told me she handpicked me to represent the school for poem-writing in the 5th National Science Congress. Dude. I really wanna explode a boisterous laugh that very moment but I managed to emit a modest smile.

The incident wouldn't really give a good hard laugh, but afterall ain't it hilarious? :) It was pretty funny for me.

I said no. Of course, I do not trust my poetic skills (oh so do I have them? :P). I insisted that I would just work for the school paper. I was even sent to the office of the HS Academic Chairman so to plead that I am not in any chance joining the tilt. He was very dismayed with my spirit. I springed all the reasons I can come up with no matter how flattering the words he says of me. Well, being a delegate means paying the fee. And I am not paying the fee! I insisted that I will just work for the newsletter, the least thing that I could do for the science meet.

By the end of the day, I turned down the opportunity. It could have been a very good risk though. But being the first choice to compete for poem-writing, it was pretty silly, but it was more than I could ever think of. :)

So I do not suck at all. :)

To all heaven-sent viewers and mind-blowing passers-by:

SORRY FOR THE EXTREME UGLINESS AND INSANITY.

THIS SITE IS UNDER DEEP CONTEMPLATION AND UNFATHOMABLE CONSTRUCTION.

ANYWAY, WHY DON'T YOU MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR VISIT? IT WOULD BE A GOOD IDEA TO DROP BY MY CBOX. MINGLE WITH THE ADORABLE SUNSHINE ITEM BELOW, BLOW ME AWAY AND SPEAK YOUR MIND.

--aakaren*.

for YUH.

I wrote this essay like six months ago. This is my ADMU Essay in response to their application requirements. Working on this (meaning deciding what topic to expound, dealing with the pressure to catch the eye of a blue eagle and all ++) denoted a brain bomb. Absolute.

I dedicate this post to one of the sparkling gems (how did I come up w/ that?haha.) in my insane-sane-insane-sane life, Maruh. ( Friend, it's worth the link, hey, you've got an exposure, see? :D ) You made me post this.
***
Are there any significant experiences you have had, or accomplishments you have realized, that have helped to define you as a person?

I learned the other day that a classmate from grade school is now a Cadet Major in their school and the Corps S2 of their batch. Hearing anything CAT makes my heart twinge and smirk. I wonder and ponder; does she have a similar life?

Candidate Officer Leadership Training (revised C.O.C.C. in my school) practically changed my life. From being the remorseful latecomer for two years, I morphed to a patron of public transportation and a fan of punctuality. For the love of being early, I allowed myself to get hit by a tricycle that I limped for a month. I endured and survived three-month pumpings with an injured limb. I wore pigtails that made me bear out dreams of being Baby Spice. Placard served as a year round nametag. I shouted a nine-letter codename from extremely humdrum to exceptionally thrilling formations. Hanay became a household name. 7/11 served my gastronomic wants and needs. I lost the so-called friends but the unfeigned have stayed. I obtained the best circle of friends. I lost family ties. I was not in good terms with my mother often times. I enjoyed the clique of quitters and uncovered the tales and goodness of quitting. I disgusted the word “Unity.” I offended and got offended. The bosses brought me into a hurdle to choose between the High School Board of Students and Citizenship Advancement Training. Taking me to insanity, a class of good riot and unforgettables fostered me. I cried the hottest tears and flashed the coldest grins. These all happened for eight treasured months.

Last 26th of May, eleven hard slaps hit my face concluded my eight-months sojourn. It was the final station of six days of physical challenges, mental check-up and emotional hell. C.S. Lewis captured the alpha-omega relationship on the last page of the Chronicles of Narnia, his seven-book children’s fiction series: “For us this is the end of all stories…But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world…had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story.” Yes, it marked the end of the COLT and marked the beginning of a far bigger responsibility.

My fellow officers and I were under observation for two months before our final ranks and designations are unleashed. I have been appointed officer-in-charge several times together with my mates. I heard the call for deep perseverance and elevating optimism. Design and submit a comprehensive Summer Training documentation, construct the activity plan and facilitate an overnight Leadership Training for a hundred students, work on the physical arrangement of the Acquaintance-Disco— these tasks were handed out to me at my most favorite package— surprise.

Even before the strike of the school year, I already had a deadline to meet. It’s funny to think I have not even met my teachers who will kill me with projects yet I have to work tirelessly in front of the monitor. A day before the opening of classes, I have to offer my crib to my mates to cradle all the paperworks.

Haggard, I have confused myself with activity and productivity. I thought knowing my purpose would simplify and focus my life. Maybe, I tried to do more than God intended for me.

I told you. I disgusted the word “Unity.” We are sixty three in the unit, yet, there are only few that get pissed, bothered and hassled over and over again. And these are the people I love. These are the people I work with at sleepless nights and no-time-for-recess days. I curse those unconscious people and they curse me back. I got myself a mortal enemy and chums convert to users and backstabbers. On the other hand, I love to beam that arrogant smile for the lagi-na-lang-kayo compliments from the Commandant.

Outside the unit, the so-called friends did not run out of queries. I did not explain. Friends will understand and foes will not believe anyway. I love the circle I have now. My mother never understood and never supported that made me cry because she did not ever. Nevertheless, I am thankful that she has been continually permissive.

CAT is more than the formations, the marchings, the rifles and the commands to me. I saw more beyond the principles of commitment, discipline and leadership.

CAT is a family. I have treated my mates the best brothers and sisters I could ever have. And so the feeling is mutual. We may not be related by birth, marriage or adoption but the bonds generated are as strong as or even stronger than those. They have been the best partners in crime and the best shoulders to lean on. Our Commandant is next to our fathers. He never failed to show us love.

CAT is a quest. It was a search for self-identity. Nathan Scott quoted, “Stepping up. It's a simple concept. It basically means to rise above yourself; to do a little more, to show you something special.” Yes, I learned to step up and stand tall. When my heart will break again, I’ve got to fight like hell to make sure I’m still alive and kicking. The pain, confusion, fear and insecurity are all self-imposed. No one learns to walk by taking only the first step. I should not be afraid. I am a tough cookie.

CAT is a learning experience. Everyday is an investment to wisdom and knowledge. I always like to give the name experience to my mistakes. I have learned that you become effective by being selective. I have distinguished friends from companions. I realized to loosen up my buttons and don’t live by the opinion of others. I understood the reason they pull you down is because you are above them. I developed the love for work. I have contemplated over that pessimism is a waste of life. I discovered that laughter is not far behind tears.

I still leave the house before the sun opens it eyes. I still pass by 7/11 to serve my cravings. I still have the silliest “best friends.” I still get scolded by my mother over misunderstood matters. I am busy and people find my lifestyle pathetic. The emotional saga extends. If my classmate from grade school lives exactly the same life, I don’t know if she’ll be happy, but I am.

I am a CAT Officer. Two hours from now, I will be inaugurated as Cadet Major Mirano, Karen Anne A. - Corps Executive Officer. This is my story.

***
I told you, I wrote this like six months ago. Things have changed. Some strings of this ____(crap?) are now obsolete, some still beautifully existing. Nevertheless, I cannot change the fact that the essay was passionately crafted-- 100% true, 100% heart.

(hours after this post, I thought of some persons who really loathed me for my CO Experience so I deleted this then. But turned out, nabasa niya na pala. I don't have to be bothered anymore. So here I am (yes I am this essay) again.)