I wrote this piece back in the first semester of 1999 while sitting in at a class of Abstract Algebra, this was in response to the poem in Kahlil Gibran's "The Madman", which I was reading while the professor was discussing ring homomorphisms - talk about multitasking!

I finished writing it in less than an hour, faster than I could prove isomorphic functions. If I had pursued creative writing, I'm sure I would have been pondering on the origins of natural numbers while the professor rambles on about metaphors.

I guess it just shows that we are more than the things we study, more than degrees and titles we add to our names, more than labels and boxes we try hard to fit ourselves into.

We are infinite possibilities waiting to happen, and we can do more as long as we put our heart and mind into it.

my friend, I dream too much of the past,
too much that I've lost myself in it,
unable to wake and live once more.

the "I" in me my friend
would like to leave the house of silence,
for it has been there for too long,
I would not like to be chained forever

when you called me and I did not answer,
my mind was flying over the hills and high mountains,
I was finding myself
I was hoping you'd find me

my friend, you do not understand my wandering thoughts,
but I'd like you to understand,
I cannot fly alone

when I look at the sunset,
you impatiently wait for the break of dawn,
yet even then we bask under the radiance of the same moon,
how I would like you to see my sunset,
as I would love to welcome your dawn

when you swim for the shore, my friend,
I let the waves crush me to the rocks,
for death is the only way I know I could be free.
I wish I knew how to swim
I wish you could teach me

you say I love truth and beauty and righteousness,
yet you do not see how I burn,
how I wish you would see,
but you do not want to,
so I let you believe

my friend, I am not good and wise, no I am not perfect
I would like to shout and be mad for once,
but my walls are too high,
no one will hear me

my friend, you tell me I am not your friend,
help me to understand,
can we not walk together?
I'll let you lead the way,
let me take your hand

i step one side
life esteemed
outside ourselves
we lead our feelings,
rough, rough is the darkness
that i feel
when we feel not ourselves,
come I'll show you heaven,
heaven where angels sing
and people die
where lovers say goodbye
where pain is essential to life
where leaders have to lie,
welcome dear one to forever
welcome to good night
forgotten, forgotten
gone...

so this is how it feels to be free. free of comfort zones, free of people who break my walls only to create taller ones of their own. my heart is so light, there is no need to look back to the past and be sad, nor look forward into the future and worry, this is the ultimate feeling of letting go, its like being set free from prison after decades of captivity. at first i was so uncertain on which path to choose, or if i really wanted to be free at all, some part of me sighed and felt it needed to be in chains in order to have meaning, but the other more tired self just wanted to move on and let things be.

i was thinking of throwing my t68i out the window because hey, what's the use of being reachable when nobody really wants to reach you? nah, im not being overly sentimental again for not having any text message for the day, im just irked by this taxi driver who kept texting while driving me to the office, who could possibly want to text a half human, half iguana with a head full of fake hair? tsk, now im being cruel and bitter, bitter, bitter. very bad. this is what happens when i don't have Relevance.

R-I-I-I-N-NGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

what?! and he gets calls while driving? waaaahhhhh!! nobody remembers me!!! hmmmmFF, i think i ought to change careers, i should continue my driving lessons next week so i can get a license before the year ends, then maybe next year i can be a fully pledged taxi driver, yeah right!! there i go again with my crap crap crap.

its almost 8:30, late again for the nth time this month, im beginning to really hate september, the lunatic broken hearts' people say that july is the best month of the year for romance, and september is when all hell breaks loose and things end, i wouldnt really know, maybe i just think too much, what is love anyway? its just 95% hype and 5% B.S.

"aarrgghhh! sorry miss i forgot to start the meter"

ah well, what a way to start the day, i gave him the perfunctory 40 bucks and got out of the cab.

heh! well at least his phone wasn't polyphonic!!!!!!!

my yahoo messenger status says "bug fixing in purgatory"

yep, that's how it feels like right now. the aircon is malfunctioning and is spewing out molten lava instead of cool air. the heat is unbearable, this almost reminds me of the 3,000 people in france who died of heat stroke. may their souls rest in peace.. dexter, my seatmate has taken off his shirt and i'm almost tempted to do the same =p but i know that would create quite a stir here in purgatory and they might decide to demote me and kick me straight to hell =)

six days to go and we'll be flying back home =) now, that's the only good thing im hanging onto these days, i miss my pillows, and i miss my stupid dog who never fails to put paw marks on my pants when i leave the house for work in the morning.

but most of all, i just simply can't stand this heat. if hell is like this, i better start doing good deeds from now on.. =p

it's summer here in tamagawa,

and the first thing i did was download this really nice song i first heard at the movie "the real cancun", it's simple plan's i dont wanna grow up. well yeah, I DO NOT WANT TO GROW UP. but s%$t happens, so here i am =p too old for turning back, too deep down the road to look back past the street signs i failed to take note of.,

what's new with this place? nothing really, just the heat that seems to flow about like trapped mercury in a bottle. it's 31 degrees celcius outside and the hot air permeates my skin too much that it's not enough to take a cold shower or drown my head in a bucket full of ice to cool me down.

not much work really yesterday, i just had to reinstall the os for the notebook assigned to be my personal friend for the rest of the 27 days left of my stay here. real grunt work started this morning, i was assigned to setup the solaris machines.. so what did i really miss today except for breakfast? not much, i'm still in denial =p reality sets in more slowly these days, like it takes days for things to finally sink in on me, sometimes i find myself saying "did i really do that?!?!" or "i said that!!!?!?!?". i'm probably stoned most of the times or they slipped something on my drink, =p

ah,,, pass me another kamikaze please =) life is good.. but please dont let me be just another drunken mistake..

ok, so let me tell you about siargao.. i have no more time these days to write things down so this entry is a bit delayed,

the boat for surigao left at 8pm friday night, there was a slight drizzle, but the trip was otherwise smooth. the boat docked at surigao port by 4:30a.m. and i proceeded to the hotel to take a shower and charge my soon to be useless mobile phone. the trip to dapa was 3 hours by boat, and by the time we reached the resort, i was exhausted and all i wanted to do was sleep.

but sleep was the last thing on the itenerary, we went island hopping, visited the mangroves, the surf, the yacht building, the sand rifts, we rented bikes and got sunburned, we went swimming at a private island in the middle of the sea.. in between, my glass overflowed of red wine and somebody stole my mule!

i was supposed to be back by monday but there were no boats going back to cebu, so i was reluctantly (yipee!) stranded in surigao. you can actually tour the whole city by tricycle, i went to their airport, which only accomodates 8 seater planes, and their bus station which can take me to the other parts of mindanao.

by tuesday morning i was back to work, sporting a sunburn.. now that's what i get for not wearing sunscreen =)

saturday was a drunken soul splitting moment. it was one of those times when you can close your eyes, and hear your heart beating loudly against you chest, and if you breathe real hard, you can feel the stars...

funny how tequila suddenly becomes a hard to find commodity on nights like this =) we had to go to 3 stores and take 2 cab rides just to get a 500ml cuervo, talk about being in demand =)

guitar music and break up songs filled the house while the shot glasses were kept full, guile asked "mahal ka ba nyang talaga?" while matet said: "deep within i'm shaken by the violence of existing for only you,i know i can't be with you, i do what i have to do"

after much hurling, the show ended, another day was over, four wandering souls looked up to count the artificial stars in my room and fell into the arms of dreamless sleep..

and this is how we make ourselves invincible from pain...

my friends are moving on with their lives,two of them have resigned from this company and found other jobs that fit them better, last thursday was a rather sad day for me, i couldn't help but feel down amidst all the farewells, i wanted to throw caution to the wind, buy the first ticket to somewhere and wander off into anonymity, but the comfort zones kept nagging me and urging me to stay and watch the charade go by, i was silent for the rest of the duration of my ride home and only after i closed the door to my room did i let the tears flow freely.

friday was a rainy day, i love the rain, i love looking up to the sky and letting the tiny drops of rain touch my face, its like the sky opened its arms and gave me a glimpse of heaven.

yesterday, i sat outside the house and watched as rain collected on the rain gutters while drinking mule and contemplating on the complexities of being a caterpillar perched on a leaf while trapped in a thunderstorm. i also twisted all meaning from the phrase "it's better to be alone for the right reasons than to be with someone for the wrong ones" until i've drained all desire from it and i was back to being alone on a rainy sunday afternoon.

everything spins around in circles.

i once asked someone if our friendship, which was generally characterized by leaving and being left behind, would actually survive outside airports. this is the story of my life - staying for a while, moving away again, coming back, moving on, and letting go, letting go...

this sunset picture was taken while on our way home from our 48 day business trip to kanagawa-ken. i've always been fascinated with sunsets, it reminds me that another day is over and it gives me hope that my little tragedies would soon be over too.

today i'm back in the world of bug reports and bastardized english, trying to make sense and finding the hidden meaning in it all. incidentally, today is also the day we get measured up against formulaic standards of excellence also known as the merit rating, as for me, with the tons of bugs i create, i guess i should be given a demerit rating instead =p

*sigh* i'm spilling me all over the place again...

i'm back!!! but i don't feel like spilling out my one week's worth of adventures and misadventures just yet =) maybe next time when the feeling has somehow washed itself out. today i feel euphoric, counting the minutes till 5pm and "jumping off a crane 12 stories high" are the only two things that give me this sensation these days,. =)

last night i had my prepaid sim upgraded to "high memory". this ad at the mall promised my new sim an enhanced phone book and a bigger inbox for only 100 pesos. so i lined up like 10 other suckers, err i mean customers, and filled up the application form. after shelling out my hundred bucks and grabbing my new sim, my friends and i grabbed dinner at the entertainment center. when i finally reached home, i inserted the new sim on my phone only to be greeted with a SIM ERROR message, poof! there goes me and not reading banners carefully. apparently, the sim will work after 5 days of activation =/

oh well, that's the high point of life here so far since i arrived yesterday. my one week vacation seems like a whole other life lived from another galaxy. it's 5:18, time to escape my cellblock =p

i'm back! but only for a while today, i'm leaving again soon. i'll get my plane ticket tonight and i'll leave on saturday, i won't be back till june i guess,

i need to breathe the sea air and collect the shiny stones on the river. cajidiocan is the best place for that. no electricity, no telephones, no cellphone signals, pure nature at its best, just the sun, the moon, the air, the sea, the river, the mountains, the trees... i can't wait =)

in the meantime, we're going to have some sort of reunion with my college batchmates tonight, smirnoff ice and don henricos pizza at tops would be nice but it looks like it's going to rain, so i guess we'll just have to find a new place... hmmm, what's new in cebu anyways?

"I'm on a high I'm on a high
and there's nothing more to it
I have the sun, it's a star
why should I refuse it

and there are so many reasons
I could give you why I should be down
there's not enough money or time
and my love you're not around
around, around

but it's a lie it's a lie -
don't you believe it.
if you're fine then you're fine -
it's all how you see it.
oh, there never will be
no conspiracy of happiness."
- duncan sheik (on a high) -

It's been almost 72 hours since i last laid down on my bed to get some sleep. "it's terrible to work so hard and feel so little about myself" -- these words kept ringing in my ears as i battled yet another pile of machine language.

Tomorrow we're leaving for Cebu, i don't know yet how i feel about that right now. I'm in a state of suspended insanity, and to let a flood of emotions go by would be as strange as looking at the world through a broken glass jar.

I haven't packed my things yet, I haven't even prepared so many little nonsense that I'm sure I'm going to overlook or forget something somehow, i hope not though...

I feel so tired. I want to close my eyes and never wake up again.

yey!!! i made this new guestmap from bravenet and it's really cute =) don't forget to visit it and leave a message =)

hmmm, so well, aside from letting the webmaster wannabe in me take over for a while, today has been quite uneventful. i was late AGAIN for work this morning, and i still havent packed my bags nor mailed that postcard i promised to give to someone. i also havent shopped for things i should give to the people ive left behind.. if procrastination takes over again, i might end up buying nothing at all, which is quite thoughtless of me, i know =,( it's just that by the time we leave work, im too drained to think of anything else (other than sleep) much less rummage the nearest shop and buy things i should bring..

i hope by saturday i will be completely recharged..

so, it was 12:56 a.m. JPT, i just finished my fourth cup of coffee - a cup of coffee for me consists of 1 tablespoon of coffee and 5 tablespoons of hot water - and the top 20 uk countdown was wrapping up when i suddenly felt my bed shake, i blinked once, twice, and thought it was just too much caffeine =) hehehe but then it came back again after a minute, so i switched the tv channels till i saw a flash update, it was another earthquake -- the second time in 10 days, good thing there was no big damage.

i did my laundry yesterday afternoon, and surprise! i got my anklet back after the spinner stopped, good thing the beads were still intact, poor thing.

the group went to tachikawa for a barbecue party and left the hotel at around 9 a.m., i was still in never land at that time so i was left behind, which was quite fine actually.. i needed to catch up and pay for my sleep debt.

i haven't packed yet! but it's ok, six days is still a long long time -- or so i think =) i'll probably have another episode of cram packing as usual..

it was raining when i stepped out of the hotel this morning, i knew it was raining when i opened the window of my second floor room, but the lazy me prevailed, i conveniently forgot to bring the umbrella. it was a nice experience nonetheless, in a daredevil-sort-of-way,

things are better when one doesn't think too much

you just know it's not your day when:
1. you lost your favorite anklet, the one you were wearing for three years now.
2. someone important to you, on another part of the world, lost her job.
3. you have 91 yen on your pocket and you still have 9 days to go in the land of the rising sun... not to mention the pending bills you have to pay during hotel check out time.
4. you set the alarm for seven so as not to be late for your eight thirty punch in time, but you wake up past ten.. how many late do you have this month anyway? 5. diaryland is not loading the images on your page, but the same page shows the images when hosted by geocities. and you've been working on this bug for an hour now..
6. no email.
7. no text.

yes, i know, it's not my day..

"I am a new day rising
I'm a brand new sky
to hang the stars upon tonight
I am a little divided
do I stay or run away
and leave it all behind?"
- foo fighters (times like these) -

10 days to go, =) life is getting better when i'm approaching another transition in my life. i like beginnings, and sometimes endings too.. i hate the in-between.. i don't know when i realized this.. or maybe this is just a passing fancy for now., i just noticed that when i'm starting to grow roots and settle into a place or a situation or a person, i begin to have doubts and fear of attachment.. funny really, coz i used to have fear of abandonment, oh well, i probably had too much coffee, i'm babbling again.. and i don't even drink coffee =)

last tuesday, i watched the movie adaptation of stephen king's IT at around 2 am., it ruined any chances of me getting sleep =) now two days later, my body clock still hasn't adjusted.. good thing there are early morning movies to keep me company =) hopefully not as gruesome as IT. this reminds me of my sesame street entry from way back =)...

im really a night person, i should get a night job =)

so life goes on like a leaky faucet over here. it's 6am and the sun's rays has found their way through the blinds covering the glass windows at the back of the table where i work right now. long sentences without pause nor punctuations seem to appeal to the sleep deprived me today. i'm still knee deep in SIT and bug fixing and the stupid dialog doesn't even show up because of some null value in the response but i know i'll be able to fix this soon somehow. i hope sooner rather than later.

this is the tower of slavery, err i mean this is our main office, this is the view from mukaigawara - the train station nearby. this picture was taken right after we got off the train from the airport.. that was march 31, the grayness of work has not yet penetrated our skins. today, some of us are 15 days away from going home, while others would still be extended up to the end of the month. i look around me and see blank faces, as blank as the cathode ray tubes that project the lights on these monitor screens. i don't remember the time when we were more than just these automatons typing away on our keyboards, with our eyes, fingers and brain in full command, the heart and the others put aside for a while. i wonder how long this will take. i wonder if we will ever wake up from this madness.,

i wonder if it's not too late...

"I don't want you to give it all up
And leave your own life collecting dust
And I don't want you to feel sorry for me
You never gave us a chance to be
And I don't need you to be by my side
To tell me that everything's alright
I just wanted you to tell me the truth
You know I'd do that for you
Why are you running away?
Why are you running away?"
- hoobastank (running away) -

i've been listening to k-lite's streaming radio for the past two days now and this has been a big help in making my working hours less dull. and thanks to tetski my song collection has increased =)

last night i slept at around 4 a.m., my body clock is all messed up, i should do something about this coming weekend.. but then again, i like being a night person, the night is more enchanting, more mysterious.. more foreboding...
the other day, i took this inkblot test at emode, i really strained my eyes from all those images, maybe this is why i got this kind of result:

--- * ---
your unconscious mind is driven most by Resistance

You approach the world with your guard intact because unconsciously, and perhaps consciously, you want to maintain an element of control in your relationships with people. You tend to hold your private experiences just out of reach of others. You're not one to immediately show all your cards, to let people into who you really are until you're ready.

Unfortunately, that sometimes means you also hide things from yourself. You may find that your desire to remain guarded backfires, affecting your self-awareness. Why are you like this? It's possible that you act in this manner because of a deeply-rooted fear of being exposed, or of truly expressing yourself. To protect yourself from this fear, you act in the opposite manner, you are guarded.

There is a certain respect that comes with resistance, an unconscious understanding that the human psyche is very vulnerable. We all feel we have a lot to hide, and you are not one to be intrusive or thoughtless about how you approach sensitive topics with others. Therefore you inspire a sense of safety in others when they are around you. Your psyche is very deep, very rich, and the more you can let yourself know (both the good and the bad), the more you will be able to appreciate who you really are.

--- * ---

the security guard from the main gate is here, asking us what time we'll be going home *yawn* i should finish my source codes soon.. back to the "real world"

it's labor day back in my country, and so they don't have work today, meanwhile it's golden week here in japan, everybody is taking a vacation and regular work starts on may 7, but that exempts us code warriors.. we're stuck here in the office trying to beat the deadline for the software we need to deliver by may 18. it's nice to be knee deep in work when there's so much stuff that goes on in my life. it takes my mind off what's real.. or so i think

i don't really believe in these things, but this horoscope seemed very apt for me today =)

"Usually, dear Scorpio, you have a pretty high level of focus and concentration. However, today you might find that your concentration is lagging. You might find working difficult, and you could even find yourself dwelling on old disappointments from way back in your past. You might want to stop and try to figure out why these memories are coming up. Releasing them might get your concentration back to normal."