For the sake of myself
being remembered by my short-term memory I write lines--overly non-sensical
lines of random thoughts burning with pessimism, nauseous hopelessness, spoofable
reflections, gibberish rants and sometimes retracting suicidal grains of food
cravings, insane cursings... I don't write to be appreciated. My fiction deserves
no attention. I type blank-spaced blahs of words, similar to forgetful lines
if ever you are reading these words, forgive yourself on why the heck you've
thought of browsing this page. You might feel depressed as I ponder my thoughts
on my life... so you better exit now and save yourself from insanity. Bow.
Sheethead
Queen
This is a blog written by the queen of Sheetheads. Wondering what that word
means? Sheethead is a clay mineral powder which is used to absorb oil and
grease from non-washable fabrics. Or maybe it means a head full of bright
semi-shitty crappy ideas. Or maybe Sheethead doesn’t mean anything.
This blog is
full-heartedly dedicated to Smokey’s hotdog, isaw, hematophobics, Master
Splinter of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, to people strangled by the Sheethead,
to anti-posers, to the late Luis Taruc and other Pinoy liberalists and nationalists,
to the Visayan nephew, to paranoid loving parents, to siblings and relatives,
to Christian Bautista, to Iranians, to Quentin Tarantino, to UAAP fans who’ve
mistaken this blog as their idols’ fan site, to the wondrous sights
of the Philippines and of course, to YOU! YIHEE!
Quote
for the day:
If you do not know who I am, maybe you do not know who I am.
Thus, I’ve
crafted “Ten Magnificent Random Things You Should Know About
Me.” Only 90% of this is authentic. 1 is a lie.
1. I am a 24 year
old IT analyst in denial. I am an MIS graduate of the Ateneo de Manila University. I have been blogging since 2004 and developed my asthma while being bored with corporate life.
2. I am afraid of blood and roaches.
3. I am currently addicted to Damien Rice's, Up Dharma Down's and The Beatles' music.
4. I have mild amnesia and I am a fulfilled insomniac.
5. My dream is to be DOT's secretary someday.
6. I still dream of becoming a rockstar someday.br>
7. I crave for lobsters, isaw, kilawin, Meatshop's steak, more prawns, oyster, Lord Stow egg tart, Philadelphia cheesecake, aligue, calif maki, leche flan and tomato soup.
8. My knight will soon take me to Sagada, Mt. Pinatubo, Camiguin, Siquijor,
Sorsogon, Siargao, Isabela and Sulu.
9. Horsebackriding was my passion. Surfing is my dream.
10. I love singing DJ Alvaro's songs on videoke.
Wishlist:
Condo in Makati, Canon EOS 40D, Wii, TV Stick Tuner for iMac, stone driller, Godfather original DVD, P.O.A dress, violet Chuckies, free one month massage, Kitkat, Choco Mallows, Lord Stow egg tart lifetime supply, JBL sound system, B Series MB, violet Samsonite luggage, gold Rolex watch, all expense-paid trip to Batanes, Tokyo, Mt. Pinatubo, New Zealand, Siargao, Marinduque, Guimaras, Swiss Alps, France, Himalayas, Africa
Book-o-rama
Great Reads:
Alan Lightman, Nietzsche, Freud, Jessica Hagedorn,
Randy David, Conrado de Quiros, Dave Eggers, JD Salinger, Mark Haddon, Lourd de Veyra,
Doug Lansky, Michael Cunningham, Frank McCourt, Harper Lee, Gabriel Garcia
Marquez, Ramil Gulle, Bill Watterson, Roald Dahl, Nick Joaquin, Robert Fulghum,
Neil Gaiman, Citiatlas
Music-worthy
Lokals:
Dicta License, Up Dharma Down, Urban Dub, Sugarfree, Cynthia Alexander, Rivermaya, Radioactive Sago Project, P.O.T., Imago, Razorback, Wolfgang, Orange and Lemons, Brownbeat All Stars, Bamboo, The Bridge, Sugar Hiccups, Sheila and the Insects, Sponge Cola, Sandwich, Sponge Cola, Session Road, Kjwan, Kapatid, Barbie’s Cradle, The Teeth, Eraserheads, HYP, Joey Ayala, Gary Granada, Brownman Revival, True Faith, Side A, Parokya ni Edgar, Freestyle, South Border, Christian Bautista, Michael Cruz, Gary V.
Music-worthy Foreign Invasions:
Smashing Pumpkins, The BEATLES, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Damien Rice, Nirvana, Moonpools and Caterpillars, Aida Broadway, Foo Fighters, Oasis, 311, Our Lady Peace, Pearl Jam, Incubus, Deftones, System of A Down, Jars of Clay, Fra Lippo Lippi, Depeche Mode, The White Stripes, Janis Joplin, Boyz II Men, Silverchair, The White Stripes, Caetano Veloso, Tracy Chapman, No Doubt, Vertical Horizon, A Perfect Circle, Snow Patrol, Ne-yo, Regina Spektor, Keane, Sarah McLachlan, Ben Folds Five, Third Eye Blind, Usher, Live, Rage Against the Machine, Cold Play, Alanis Morisette, 50 Cent, Cranberries, Jewel, Tori Amos, Staind, Blur, Stevie Wonder, At The Drive-In, Nat King Cole, Goo Goo Dolls
Movie
Mania
In
The Mood For Love, Big Time!, Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros, Reality Bites, Legend of 1900, Gattaca, I am David, Endo, Juno, Kite Runner, Schindler's
List, , Olivier, Olivier, Fight Club, City of God, Chungking Express, Cinema
Paradiso, Malena, Children of Heaven, Children of Paradise, Primal Fear, American
History X, Fahrenheit 9/11, Ganito Kami Noon, Paano Kayo Ngayon, Karnal, Fallen,
Catch Me If You Can, Fallen Angels, La Jette, Y Tu Mama Tambien, Amores Perros,
The Crime of Padre Amarro, Legend of the Falls, In America, American Beauty,
Snow Falling On Cedars, Amelie, Run Lola Run, Talk To Her, The Rainmaker,
Seven, Life is Beautiful, My Best Friend's Wedding, Confessions of A Dangerous
Mind, How To Lose A Guy in 10 Days, Kill Bill, Godfather 1, Motorcycle Diaries,
Godfather 2, Closer, Mulan, Shawshank Redemption, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's
Nest, The Others, Practical Magic, Chocolat, The Matrix 1, Shrek, Monsters,
Inc., Almost Famous, The Pianist, Girl Interrupted, Lost in Translation, Cider
House Rules, Devil's Advocate, Dead Man Walking, Philadelphia, Citizen Kane,
Not One Less, Minority Report, Sixth Sense, Big Fish, Kill Bill 2, Godfather
3, Artificial Intelligence, Killing Me Softly, Vertical Limit, L'Appartement,
Au Revoir Les Enfantes, Osama, The Adaptation, Imelda, Queen Margot, American
Rhapsody, La Vida Rosa, Before Sunset, Waking Life
I get tired easily with my 8:00-5:30 job. Work in this company does not do any justice to the sky-scraping tuition fee of my Jesuit education. Without my education plan years ago, my parents should have paid at about P420, 000 of 10 semesters of high-quality education. P420,000 plus allowances of at least P306, 000. Now I earn a meager 15,000 a month salary minus the taxes and other health plan fees.
But 15,000 is how much a family earns in a little-known barrio for two years. They toil at about 20 times harder than I toil (if toil is to describe 8 hours of sitting in front of the computer). In Negros, for example, kids as early as 6 years old start to carry harvests for more than 8 hours and get only as little as P10-P15 per week. At Hacienda Luisita, sacadas earn P9.50 a day. I pay P130-140 a day to the sweat and hard working piece of land in Makati for the parking fee of my car. A public school teacher earns less than P250 a day but teenagers these days could spend more than that on a daily basis for texting rumors, senseless jokes and love pranks. Our underaged maids from Zamboanga earn less than P3000 a month while my sister, as a medical doctor, spends P15,000 for one colored three-inch thick book. The playmate of my nephew, at age 4, enrols in a Montessori school with an annual tuition fee of P180,000 while numerous grade schoolers quit school at an early age because they could not pay their public school’s less-than-four-digits miscellaneous fees. Ayalas, Tans, Aranetas and other tycoons could spend their “centavos” for yachts, beach titles, private airplanes and Rolexs. Vicky Belo could effortlessly give away Louis Vuitton bags to her endorsers while nameless Moms couldn’t even buy a decent P20 clothing in an ukay-ukay store. Our family spends at least P400 per week for chocolate ice cream or cheesecakes while an ordinary Class D family of eight budgets as little as P30 for their food per day. My cellphone costs P 17,000 while a worker in a mining company bears deep wounds from working and receives as little as the cost of my cellphone for his five months of hard labor. In order to go to Manila, I have to pay P52 for toll rates in North Luzon Expressway—enough for one streetkid’s ambition to taste Budget Meal #5 at Jollibee. One gown of Tessa Prieto may have a lofty price tag higher than 200 dilapidated books of Balara students. My cousin, a year ago, splurged P450 for twelve tracks of cannot-be-understood F4 music compact disc—again, enough to buy medicine for a feverish child. Congressmen spend at least P2 million for one of their Fords, Jaguars, Mercedes Benzes—adequate to pay for hospital bills of poor cancer patients at the Philippine General Hospital. A less than two-hours movie ticket in Gateway costs P110-P130—enough to pay for potable water for a family for one month. A breakfast buffet in cozy Shangrila Hotel amounts to about P850 four years ago—enough for one vaccine of a sickly child. Artists and businessmen could spend more than P1 million for a longlasting wedding—sufficient for the construction of roads in remote villages. A nose job or silicon implant could have educated one bright kid full of potential. An iPod storing gazillion of songs could have amount to five monthly rentals of five families. A land title in Masbate costs at least 30 times lower than our land in Quezon City while a land title in Forbes costs at least 10 times higher than our land. America spends billions of dollars for an imaginary war for a cause—enough to build one poor nation deprived too much of America’s super powers. Hip hop stars in US display bling blings, lavish high-tech gadgets and sports cars in The Crib that could have been used to solve Philippine Athlete’s financial woes. V Bar, Temple Bar or whatever hot bar there is in the Metro exhibit parades of models and kolehiyalas flaunting their Mangos, Replays, RLs, Rustans or the trendiest of the trend outfits as bars in Olongapo expose underaged girls’ luring boots and fresh nipples for the love of less than P100 crispy bill. My family of six owns six cars while a family of twelve in Pagadian cannot buy even one of three-for-one-hundred Kia Pride car.I just bought a P1300 paper cutter for cutting P1000 photo paper for photographs captured by our P26,000 Sony Digicam. Compare it to daily expenses of high-class society, our family spends only one eighth of their “centavos” while people living in a squatter area few blocks away in our house could live a lifetime with our travel expenses.
Lucky that I am to be born into a world as a middle class citizen of a third world country. Being lucky isn’t always a good thing especially if you do not deserve all of these blessings. It is heart-wrenching to come face to face with poverty, knowing that you spend lavishly for what they should have been receiving to survive life. You see sampaguita children knocking air-conditioned Land Cruisers and Benzes as the government considers “giving alms” as a crime. Figures should tell you more of this life, transcending what is material, insignificant, lavish. Guilt shouldn’t stop you with apathy. Next time you swipe that credit card, think again. Beyond the I-am-blessed and that’s-the-way-life-is-so-lucky-for-me-unlucky-for-you realization, we should all put into action what we should have been doing as a human being—created, temporary, united with other people and full of potential.
I cannot blame people for spending money for the growth of their senseless lavish life. But, as my Theology teacher put it into words, “Ang kalabisan ay may kaugnayan sa kawalan.” Yes, we may try to live simply so that others may live.
