morning
knocks on my door
only to find me lost
in my slumber, dreaming my dreams
of you

Fri, 29 Nov 2002 17:14:10

lights underwater
casting moonbeams on our skins
reflect back sorrows
troubles we've cast to the wind
leave me i beg, let me die
leave me to be, let me cry

11-29-2002:16:22

2 am, the moon shines bright and i
scan the heavens for the
tiny gossamers of golden thread
shedding off their bright gazes

and you, infinitely beautiful,
infinitely far, and unreachable
blinded my skies with a
million spears of light

leaving me so soon, waiting
for three decades more
to come again

11.19.2002

sunsets align themselves through the trees
as you lay far away, weaving your dreams
across the patio of my recollection,

and while i watch the dust settle
on the streets that no one listens to,
i wonder about how it all was.

i think about the tears and the moonlight
on the crumbling admin building.

the silent prayers awaiting dusk
under the batibot.

the all knowing acacia whispering
the secrets that countless have shared
under its branches.

i remember the charcoal vendors
near the jeepney stop across sanjercasvil,
and their stony stares as you screamed
at my childishness in frustration.

the hot sauce tripping
on valentine's day at jca,
and the poem you let noone read.

sky rockets in flight..

serving two masters,
talking on the phone
and reading an essay

dunkin, movie marathon...

"here and there, old things
want to remind me of their existence,"

the night is waiting to claim me
in its utter stillness and melancholy.

and yet you refuse to leave and let me be...

tonight will be no different from any other.
i will be lost like so many others are lost
everyday.

"in the deepening shadows"

i will move like air,

"in between bridges on the highway"

and i will pretend not to hear.

"every pavement stone
echoing the music of your step."

eleventeen shots of tequila,
vodka
mule
southern comfort
baileys

this is therapy.

ndg.09.11.2002

catch my eyes tonight
lets paint with music and madness
and moonlight

im drunk with your wit
and your charm and your smile
(or maybe its just caffeine..)

and as i wish this night to go on forever
dawn breaks too soon
(you havent even sang that song)

i shall leave you once more
my court jester, my jeweler of wit
my secret friend

until one more night finds you smiling my way...
good night, sweet dreams,
good night

08.21.2002

Moved to a new house last Sunday, this one sat on top of a hill. Last night i counted 1,042 steps before i found my hand on the door knob of my room. My legs were aching and i said - this is the price of peace and solitude, a burning sensation on the sole of my feet. not that much of a price really, unless i accidentally slip and get a bump on my head - now that would mean i paid a tip.


I've always thought that if I walked really really slow, I'd be going against time and it would stop for a while - enough for me to make still frames of the moment in my mind. I tried this yesterday as I climbed the hill. there was about half a dozen other people of different shapes and sizes who seemed to have thought of the same idea as I did. we all got off from the jeepney at the foot of the small mountain and proceeded to climb up in slow motion.

There were two teachers walking and they talked of their children's future.. there were junior high school students discussing their plans for college, there was an old man carrying a plastic bag of vegetables, there was a white dog lazily licking his paws,..

And there I was, watching the first quarter moon watch me back.

My mom left for Germany two Sundays ago, She'll probably take my younger brother with her next school year. Papa is planning to go to Canada late this year, and Kuya might follow soon after..

Hmmmm. why are they all moving away? Oh well, at least I can have a room all to myself just like back in college. I'll crank up my PC and play Jars of Clay's "Goodbye, Goodnight" while making (or unmaking) palm apps and watching some dumb TV reruns on my PC's TV Tuner software.

Hah! And you thought I'd be sad. I'm through with sad.

Life is. That's all it needs to be.

YEAH! I finished my task early! Now I can proceed to reading project documents and making code revisons, prototype report and... nah!! Laziness got the better of me, so I spent the next two hours just reading my previous posts. Hmmmm, if I didn't know me, I'd say I was a melancholy person. Probably someone with really deep thoughts. Someone who's always sad and lost and searching.

Good thing i know better.. I'm just some shallow nobody with a penchant for words and things that rhyme. Anger and Sadness and Boredom are like keys that fit the doors of my wordbank, that's why I usually write when I'm sad or bored or angry. And my posts almost always reflect that.

I'm a happy-go-lucky kind of person, I take whatever comes, and well, leave everything to the wind. So, just imagine me wearing my happiest smile when you don't see a post here. Think of me being shallow and eating ice cream from a straw. Wish me to be out there picking up bottle caps, tying them together like beads of pearl. Better that than the reality that I may be stuck between server startup and wrapper classes. (",)

Wish me luck for my journeys, my fellow wanderer, though I don't really believe in luck, it's the thought that counts.. And maybe tomorrow, we'll find each other crossing the same road, or rounding the same corner..

Until then, it will just be this space, this void, and these words between us..

It's so nice to be shallow once in a while =)

Summer is just around the corner. And when i walk out of the hotel to get something to eat at the local convenience store, I could almost smell salt in the air. The kind that starts with your nostrils and end somewhere at the tip of your tongue.

My friends decided to go to the beach today, being their last weekend and all. They decided to have a taste of the kyushu sea, which, though its just a 5 minute walk from twins, we never had the time to really explore, till now.

There are many people at the beach today, I presume. collecting beachstones for memories and washing away their souls with whats real and whats happy.

And i am here, typing away on my notepad.. wishing myself to be far.. far away from here.

four bags - two for check in and two for handcarry - the sumtotal of my four and a half months stay in the land of the rising sun. there are no feelings really, anticipation, excitement, they all died down a long time ago, all that's left is the weariness, and the unbearable waiting.

i should be sleeping really.. in six hours ill be up and about adding finishing touches to the prototype we've been making, making reports, and doing some last minute file cleanups and sorting.. and yet im here.. finding comfort with ms notepad and a japanese keyboard that types a different character from what i expect it to.

lately ive been reading some of my works posted on this site, and it bothers me that i have not made progress. i dont know if feeling nothing is better than feeling pain, or if watching sesame street at 2:30 in the morning could possibly make a difference.. but thats what ive become... a stoic and an insomniac. funny that i can label myself now.,

i remember one time, a thai classmate went to this site and read some of my notes posted on the chronicles, he emailed me and said he was having a fine day until he came across my writings.. and thats when he remembered how miserable he was.. gee! i didnt know i sounded that miserable.. much less, i never thought i could make someone so miserable just by thinking my thoughts out loud.

anyway, this isnt about that. i dont even think i have a point here.. its just something i need to do. i need to write, if only to make me be able to sleep at night. i have to write, even though i dont have a story to tell... its a compulsion. a habit. and sometimes i dont realize that i actually am conveying a message.

where is this going really? i dont know... maybe packing bags just depresses the hell out of me.. or maybe im afraid that im going back to a place where everything else is different.. except me, or worse, maybe nothing has changed.

its irrational.. why must someone fear the coming of the night, when it is the light of the moon she wants to see.

the lights are low
and the wind
high over the distance
if i
breathe too deeply
i could float
into
the
nothingness
of
forever

close your eyes
the time
i have feared most has come
picking up my bags
filled with
a thousand
memories over
and done
with
in
my
mind

now i leave you
for yet
another day or
another lifetime

hold me awhile,
smile
i belong to the waves
of the sea
and now
it has come
to fetch me

It`s still raining in Fukuoka. It`s been raining since I came here a week ago. The JAL pilot promised an 8`C ground temperature, but it felt much lower than that when i disembarked from the plane. If I walk too fast, I could feel the numbing cold enter my bones like a spider waiting to sneak upon its prey. and yet if I walk too slow, I know I`d die of pneumonia even before I reach the hotel room.

Today I came in early to work. I wanted to watch the waves of the sea from the window. How carefree those waves, letting themselves be led by the wind, to any direction it chooses to blow.. Do they ever feel lost? Is there such a place as home that they strive to return to? If so, how far are they from that place? Or do they ever care?

Waves, wind, water, when, where, why... The w`s are filling my brain with clutter. I went back to the vending machines.. it`s too early for musings.

Its almost spring, dozens of people at osaka jo taking pictures of flowers starting to bloom is just one sign of it. Tomorrow we will be leaving osaka, after 6 weeks of language and cultural training, at last, real work is about to greet my mornings. And soon I will be home, wherever home may be. But somehow, a tinge of sadness is in the air. Something that i cannot touch has come to hurt me. And i feel it in the pit of my stomach, like rushing head first into the deep deep sea.

This place is quiet at last. devoid of hurrying footsteps going to the shokudo or the taisoukan, the uketsuke hito has nothing more to attend to, and the konpyuta no heya which is usually filled with people, now contains about 2 or 3 persons. It's almost dusk. The lights from nearby buildings are fighting against the dying light of the sun. And the intangible hurting, the sinking feeling has once again overtaken me.

Soon i too will leave this place. And it is not so much the leaving that saddens me, but rather the uncertainty of where i would be going next.

For now i close another chapter of my life's stories. Tomorrow, a new page is about to be written. And this sad feeling will leave me soon.. I hope.

It's been a while since I last wrote an entry here. December and January passed by like a breeze. Preparations for my travel to Nihon, parties, celebrations, gift-givings, goodbyes --- each has a story of its own. And it would have easily filled up ten pages of this chronicles page, had I mustered enough dilligence in me to write them all down here. But the lazy me prevailed and instead I confined my entries for those months in my little notebook of thoughts.

Today, I found a freeware html editor. At last I can continue editing my site wherever I am, and whatever PC I'm using, even without my favorite FrontPage editor. Now, I'll have no more excuse for not updating this page. Zanne'n desu ne. Oh well, you win some, you lose some =)

I'm in Osaka right now, and the weather is dull and cold. My friends here are out for the day --- home stays and home visits filled up their itenerary for the weekend, leaving me alone with this computer. I woke up this morning expecting snow, but only the cold chill greeted my face when I opened the door to the terrace. Soon winter would be over, and the flowers of spring would greet me when i wake up. It's a pity, I would not be able to see snowflakes before the cherry blossoms.

Months ago, the thought of learning a new language sounded interesting and fun to me. But now there are just too many words to remember, and too many rules to understand -- that it takes away the life in me. Every week, aside from learning hundreds of words and rules, and writing them in kana, we are required to pass an essay in Nihongo. I used to love writing essays, but now it's the one thing I dread most. There are so many feelings and observations I wanted to write down, but the lack of words to express it with, stops me and frustrates the *^%$ out of me.

Argh! Someday I will visit this place again for leisure, and not for work nor study. Then I can enjoy all the lovely sites and faces without having to worry about the hundred other things that I should be doing. I will not have to sleep at four in the morning pouring over words and phrases that means nothing to me. I'll have enough yen to buy the things I want, and not just stare at them on the shopping store windows. I'll be able to go to the places others have been to, and not just content myself with their stories and souvenirs.

Someday, my time will be mine, and not some else's. Telephone calls and emails, listening to songs I can't understand, tonight I'll sleep my aches away.

Oyasuminasai.