Explosive Dreams, and Art School

Shifting away from Arki feels scary and empowering and, well, surreal. I guess this is an offshoot of ’sticking to the plan’ all my life, and having someone else plan my academic life for me. Ah well, the gears are turning in the opposite direction now. But at least there IS a direction, and I am grateful for that. Following your ridiculously huge dreams is exciting and wonderful, and adrenaline-injected. How big? First off, I want to go to school here. Yes, that word is linked to the correct site. School for Visual Arts! New York! (James Jean is from there! Will Eisner! Dave Mazzucchelli! Jared Leto and Gerard Way! Umbrella Academy was okay)

Thirteen thousand six hundred and eighty nine kilometers away from here, Manila! Four years of school over there would cost me at least 8 million pesos! Gasp!

I do not have that kind of money. And as far as background in the arts is concerned, I need more of it. Architecture did help, of course; perspective, rendering, etc. But that’s as far as it goes. Color theory? Nil. Composition? No. Presentation class didn’t help much (all plates and no actual teaching) AND THUS, my shiftage into UP Fine Arts is justified. But does it need to be justified? Do you need a reason, an excuse to follow your dreams? I think  NOT! And I know what my dreams are. Ever since I picked up that green marker and drew a fan comic of an episode of Timon and Pumbaa when I was six, I knew that I wanted to be. (a singing meerkat/warthog duo) Comics and cartooning? Animation? Illustration? I have yet to decide. But I certainly want to be involved in this field, and I am certainly passionate for it (or at least, I think I am)

Why only now, you ask? I guess I thought I could stick it out, bear the burden and all that. I realize now that I am not doing myself any favors by staying in a course that I was never really an eager beaver for. Also, Pisay approved it. Yeah, that goes to show how being a stickler for the rules doesn’t really get you anywhere. It was a fun ride. But I’d rather be awesome at something I love. Awesome Comic Book Artiste > Mediocre Architect. I’m sure you agree.

“BUT HANNAH, YOU’RE OLD!” Do I look old? Problem solved.

Yes, it is one huge prerogging, GE-less (for now), major-dropping adventure, and I can’t do it alone! Only by God’s grace shall anything happen, for I may be tiny, but my God is the infinite enormity, towering over human logic, human systems, blowing people’s minds everyday. So, so long Arki people. There will be no teary farewell (the only teary farewell will be at my funeral. Or YOUR funeral, maybe. ), and most certainly no regrets because I definitely don’t want to be an architect (although I will surely miss you all and wish you the best of luck) and I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other around. In the mean time, it is fine to assume I’ll be floating around in the infamous limbo known as NON-MAJOR and will be having a grand time triapsing about language classes, long lunch breaks, and such. At least, I hope so. Here’s to the bright, precarious future, and to, after two and a half years of  loitering, finally following your dreams.

(I will still be there at your parties, lounging on your parents’ couches, listening to your gossip. Just a heads-up, arki people.)

About Our Handwriting.

Thus she opened my notebook and read
The first lines you ever wrote,
She nodded and she said, Oh love!
This is the story of his life and it is
Evident in the lines, hidden in the designs
The shivers that make up our spines,
Indeed, what does curve our straight lines,
but the atrocities of ourselves?
Our little worlds, our insides.

Yours go up, she said, flipping the pages
Pointing at me with her eyes, and yes,
I had to agree; my lines went up, oh why.
Slanted up like a reverse parachute, pointing.
It meant happiness till the skies.

Last page, I told her. Yesterday.
So she did turn to yesterday, a look
Of befuddlement crossing her face, as
Her fingers did graze the words going down
Down like the corners of our mouths.
So sad, she said, so sad. But why?

But why, I echoed, suddenly silent
I thought it was done, but the lines,
They don’t lie.

Even at our swiftest speed

And I have learned
That even landlocked lovers yearn
For the sea like navy men
‘Cause now we say goodnight
From our own separate sides
Like brothers on a hotel bed.

- Death Cab for Cutie, Brothers on a Hotel Bed

Raccoons and why the earth seems to stand still when you are in a room without windows.

I opened the refrigerator door and stared at the brightly-lit insides for about two minutes.

It’s difficult to love invisible things.

I closed the refrigerator door, made my way into the other kitchen, and opened the other refrigerator. The Korean chicken barbeque was in a glass Pyrex dish. The soup was in a glass Pyrex bowl. I pulled the bowl out first, subconsicously slamming it down on the table.

There are two things I am: ridiculously sensitive, and ridiculously ideal.

Not as ideal now as I was before, mind you. And twice as pessimistic. Still pretty sensitive, but I will never admit to people that I am sad, unless the reason is quite obvious, and unless I need to. Sometimes, it is better to keep everything inside and store your pain in a little glass box and label it DNE. It works unless you’re someone who tends to overthink things.

Which I am. Sadly. Somehow, my train of thought led to God again, a while ago. Haha.

It’s a trivial speck of an issue, this thing that I am griping about, but it points to a bigger picture.

I feel so disconnected, but outside-Hannah (head knowledge Hannah–the one who is sensible) tells me that this feeling is baseless and nonsense and My, my, what a sensitive little thing you are. Again. As always. I follow head knowledge Hannah. She spares the rest of my friends hours and hours of unimportant whining, she spares them wasted time.

Cy stopped walking. We were on the way to the library. He looked at me. I was complaining that Joanna got hugs, and I did not.  “You don’t cry to me.” he stated.

I looked up, raised an eyebrow. “No, I don’t.”

I’m inside another box. That box is on an island, that island is a legend on a map, the existence of which is also a legend. I have to wait for some pirate to find me before I’m eaten by crabs. Before I die of starvation. Before I simply decide not to exist.

It is times like these that the what-if scenarios mill through my head.

Head knowledge Hannah says there are better things to think about. More things that need to be finished, and better ways to spend your time so–Get off the internet and rearrange your priorities, you’re not yet done.

—

She folds her arms and stares down at me, and there I am, liquid everywhere, scrutinized under every kind of light. She puts her fingers to my face and rearranges it.

:3

On “I Am a Zombie Filled With Love” by Isaac Marion

Jovi sent me this story; he picked it up somewhere on the peyups LJ methinks. I papered it for English 11. Haha. Here goes:

The story deals with a well known, fictional creature—the zombie. A reanimated human corpse who eats living flesh to survive, the zombie is something of a pop culture icon, spawning many horror films, comic books and novels. The zombie prototype was established in the hugely popular 1968 film, Night of the Living Dead.

In this short story, Isaac Marion delves into the mind of a thoughtful young zombie, as he tackles life and love in the realm of the undead. Marion writes with humor and insight, and is able to connect with the readers, even when speaking from a rotting corpse’s point of view.

Being dead changes you, as the nameless narrator points out: I don’t think much about the future anymore. That’s something that’s very different from before. When I was alive, the future was all I thought about. Obsessed about. Death has relaxed me.

The story takes place in a post-apocalyptic world, where pretty much everyone has been turned into a zombie. Of course, there are still cities with living people in them, but everything is slowly disintegrating and decaying. The author describes to us the way of life of a zombie: they eat, they lose some of their number, they walk around in circles in the dust, and they groan. As mentioned earlier, death is uncomplicated. There are no more obsessions to worry about, because there is no more future. Dead is dead.

Of course, there are certain things that transcend death, according to the story. A handful of memories, the capacity to think, and, love. The narrator falls in love with another zombie named Emily, but according to him, it is a different, simpler kind of love than the love that existed when he was alive. Here, the world is stripped of sex, fights, and ulterior motives. There are no more reasons to hurt each other, and no more reasons to mind anything.

In the end, the story is all about how nothing really matters anymore, once you are dead. It’s an entertaining read, and it brings to light a question: What really matters when you are alive? Is it riches, sex, ambition, success? What do they matter, when you’re a zombie? The story’s answer, of course, is love. Love matters, love can be carried over, even in death.

Ten-thirty tales at a table for two

It was nighttime. Equally excited, we settled our behinds on the long jeep-benches, sitting across one another. We were talking in chirpy, bright voices, and the jeep’s lone light bulb flickered like a candle, tinged our skin with yellow.

I peered outside, felt the cool air toss the troublesome bangs into my eyes.

“I think it’s here. Right?” I glanced at Reez for some affirmation, as navigation wasn’t one of my strongest traits.

“Hmmm…” her eyes flickered over the square forms, the passing shapes in the darkness. “No, I think it’s there pa.”

The jeep drove on.

A few minutes later, she tossed the driver a “Para ho.”, and we hopped off, fixed our eyes on the little restaurant built to resemble a tree, and the floating lights surrounding it. I pointed to it, said,

“There it is! Shall we trek through the jungle?”

Reez looked indecisive for a moment, and she put her hand to her chin. “No, I think there’s a way through here.”

We walked through another building’s ramp, which eventually led to the little tree-shaped restaurant. The lights were lovely, and several tables were vacant. A handful of people were having dinner, and a petite waitress approached us, menu in hand. Reez and I hesitated for a moment, as she turned to me.

“I don’t see a poetry night going on here.” I nodded, and she turned around to ask the waitress.

“Ay, na-move ata. Hindi sila natuloy.” A pained look must’ve crossed both our faces, as she smiled at us sympathetically, and went to the front desk to consult a little piece of paper taped behind the counter.

“March 20 ho. Na-move nga. Ito ba yung sa Underground?” I looked at Reez quizzically. She was the one with all the details, more or less. Reez nodded.

“Wow, that sucks.” I checked my phone for time time. “So. What now?”

—

Five minutes later, we were standing by the roadside, waiting for a jeep to rescue us. A lone streetlamp curtained us in yellow light once more, and Reez begain to sing.

“I know your eyes in the morning sun! I feel you touch me in the pouring rain! And the moment that you wander far from meeee, I wanna feel you in my arms agaaaain….”

The Bee Gees. At this point, I joined in, a little amused.

“And you come to me on a summer breeeeze, keep me warm in your love and then softly leave, and its me you need to shooow..HOW DEEP IS YOUR LOVE!”

Sadly, there are few things more magical and smile-provoking than two friends singing at the side of the road, with no where to go in particular. We both sounded sub par, but it didn’t matter. At all.

I really need to learn
cause were living in a world of fools
Breaking us down
When they all should let us be
We belong to you and me

Nine-thirty in the evening landed us at the McDonald’s in Katipunan, amidst a gaggle of screaming, talking, laughing students whose Friday nights were probably just beginning. We had dinner, and in situations like these, the ice cream must always be eaten first. Reez made her way to the bathroom, and I reached for the plastic spoon, scooped a bit of the white and brown into my mouth.

We sat there, and, it wasn’t a conscious effort, but we made our own poetry night right then; out of notebooks and the backs of Haruki Murakami printouts, out of screaming schoolgirls and big-eared, bespectacled janitors. Out of the cars passing by, painting trails of light in the blackness. Reez’s lines are italicized.

9:30 pm in McDo when you’re bored.

The street is filled with cars in caution
Denizens, brisk walking, always in a flurry
The world is a hive-
But here I am, eating spaghetti
With my eyes glued to glass windows
With my ears plugged into the blues
And I think I’m in deeper than a submarine
So I type the hours away on my laptop of doom
Thinking that the guy with the mop is lonely
So I put on this smile and say, “I’m the hot friend.”

It was pretty simple. We’d observe, write down words. A fat girl was wearing this T-shirt that said “I’m the hot friend”, another girl wore a Yellow Submarine shirt. The janitor mopped the floor beside us, and beyond the glass walls, cars. Easy, no?

The next poem was kind of weird and sad and funny all at once.

“MEMORIES” 8D

I can’t believe you lost me on a train
So I sat on the roof and watched
The sky explode instead.
So I’m drawing on my shoes
The things I hated about you
While someone on TV cried about
How she got Hepa-A from isaw.
I napped on you and
Dreamt about Flo-Rida and
We rolled like lumpiang shanghai
Down the grassy slopes of
The sunken garden (in the afternoon)
You know I can’t dance
But I hope you teach me
How to boogie so fast that
We can reach Jupiter today.
Running after the balut man,
cause we’d be tired and hungry
And gift him with Hershey
Kisses divine. (for he is just awesome.)

–

“Your phone’s vibrating.”

I lifted my pen, just about to continue one of Reez’s paragraph for a joint story, this time. It was 10:45. Dad was calling.

“Dad?” I rose from our table and glanced outside. “Yeah. Okay, I’m coming.”

I gathered up my things, and gave Reez a hug. “Are you SURE you’ll be ok?” She smiled at me, “Yeaaaah, I’ll text you when they pick me up.” Her parents were somewhere along EDSA at the moment. “Alright. I’ll see you on Wednesday!” I walked towards the door and looked back at her. She waved a bit, I think. “Bye Hammie!”

Heh. Friday ended awesomely, and in the most unexpected way.

—

We like our fun and we never fight
You can’t dance and stay uptight
It’s a supernatural delight
Everybody was dancin’ in the moonlight

Yes, I Lost My T-Square.

Hannah, barging into the room: “How does one lose a  t-square?!”

Patricia: “When one is Hannah.”

Crashed Trains (of thought)

Writing this down before it all goes away.

Very hesitant to post this. Here it goes.

Abby: Teacher Mac and Teacher Jen want to have twins.

Hannah: There should be a sort of pregnancy belt that has options for babies. Like, there’s a dial on the belt, and you can choose to give birth to a girl, or a boy, or twins, and have traits that are based on the available genes from the parents.

Dad: You should write a story about that.

Abby: Wasn’t Kira like that?

Hannah: Kira, Gundam Seed? Yeah. Coordinators, except they’re programmed to able able to go into SEED mode, etc. etc.

—-

Hannah is now washing the dishes. Here is her train of thought.

Hannah: *thinking* Pregnancy belt.

No, instead of the pregnancy belt, scientists should invent a pill that dictates how DNA strands connect to form the correct alleles producing the desired trait. The mother has to take the pills regularly to assure a positive result.

If this becomes possible, humans will have gained control over what is supposedly a predestined result. Will parents be able to say to their children, “God planned you before you were born!” ?

God. We attribute the random things in life to God. We call them random because they cannot be explained by any pattern, cannot be pieced together to form an explanation that the human mind can fathom.

Like nature. Nature spawned from random atoms clustering together, etc. etc, forming giant Acacia trees and cells and human beings and dogs and rats and horses and Bill Murray.

Drift back to Tuesday this week.

Lunch with Cy.

I asked him what exactly he believed in. He said,

not an agnostic, but I believe God is a mechanism. a mechanism that lies behind things humans can’t explain, like nature.

Now that I think about it, his view sort of makes sense. Who determines what babies look like when they are born? Who made the particles collide and birthed this planet into the universe? A mechanism, there is some sense to the randomness, perhaps. Probability has something to do with it. The fabric of the universe.

Then, now, humans gave that mechanism a name because they couldn’t explain it any better, made it a being, personified it somehow. Called it Him. If nobody believed in God, would he exist?

Or what if humans never thought of naming that mechanism anything? It’d continue to be there, constantly creating, controlling the variables, making things happen, but everything looks random and scattered and everything looks like chance, to us.

Ah, the randomness in creation.

So, some people have it easy, others have to work hard, others are dying, and all this is caused by circumstance, which is caused by birth, which is caused by? God, the mechanism? So we can’t really blame anyone but God/the mechanism.

We could wait to watch where it would go. We can control small things, decisions, who we marry, why. Toss a coin and fall in love with the next person who walks into the room.

Mind-skip.

Conditioning. You see things only if you’re conditioned to do so. Artists see shapes in random lines smushed together because..I don’t know, they just do. A rock is beaten into shape by erosion, constant chipping, People are beaten into shape, minds are molded, but by other people

Or by a book. D:

I have finished washing the dishes.

Hapless Broccoli Giants Eat Bangladesh

Stumble upon that pebble drop,
(In front of the space between AS and FC, that tricky, damp spot.)
That grey, loose stone,
It makes her trip.
(Because she wasn’t paying attention to the ground, silly girl. And her muddy lilac shoes grow muddier.)

White, soft palms on the gravel ground,
(Or at least, they used to be soft, those palms. I can’t remember anymore.)
You tip your hat,
And wish her luck. (For the heck of it; I was too preoccupied at the moment.)

Three minutes into the roaring din, (The tin can rattle of the people-packed vehicle.)
She steps off,
The rain begins. (It’s a good thing she had an umbrella.)

Fingers push metal
And glass, and cloth. (The cloth was the softest, and nicest to feel, of course. It was blue.)
They smile at each other. (I fail to describe this part.)

It’s awkward, at most.

On AI.

Tonight’s hideous boxing metaphors were absolutely ridiculous, and cheapened the quality of AI. I think David Cook, being more original, dynamic, and flexible, deserves to win, as opposed to the two-dimensional Archuleta. As an artist, you need more than just soaring, gooey vocals to make it big.

Young David fits the bill of the standard AI winner: soaring vocals, money notes, and the object of affection of ten billion pre-teens. Marketable. Puppetish. And like some of the previous winners (except perhaps Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood) he’ll probably cough out a prepackaged, ballady album with identical-sounding songs, and then die out afterwards. Poor thing. He deserves better. :/ Unless of course, his gargantuan screaming fanbase stays loyal and true, which I don’t doubt.

David A. has a good voice, and a cute face. That, and Simon Cowell’s approval. I like him. But I like the other David better. Cook has originality, talent, personality, and artistry. If he wins, it’ll be a huge upset, possibly aggravating the judges and the AI producers (but a sweet, slightly funny victory it shall be~). If Archuleta wins, well, no surprise there.

Bleh. The finals suck. :/