Ellipses (The Doomsday Special)

It finally came. The day that everybody feared. Some call it 122112, or for more drama, the “end of the world”. As for me, I’d like to call it “Doomsday” because it sounds like a holiday of some sort. Personally, I didn’t believe that the world would end today. But I guess there is an itsy-bitsy part of me which kind of believes it. I was eager to have a great day yesterday because I wouldn’t want to be my typical lonely self by the end of the world.

I had lunch with my friend-slash-orgmate together with her boyfriend. It was the day she introduced us to each other since we’ve only been seeing each other through video calls. At least I met someone new before the world ceased to exist. After our lunch I watched a good film, Rurouni Kenshin. Although I was alone, it felt really great to see that film. It was very nostalgic. Certain familiar scenes from the animé flashed in my mind as the movie progresses. I was happy that it was the last movie I watched before the world ends. Finally, I wrapped up my Doomsday Eve with a dinner bonding with my kpop friends. We haven’t been complete on get-togethers for a long time that’s why we took our time together even though some of us still had to go to work today. Dinner was awesome – we were really, and I mean REALLY, full – although dessert was not, but you know, we can’t have it all even if it’s almost the end of the world. Perfection is too fickle to achieve.

We were still together when the clock struck twelve, opening the doors to Doomsday. I was just happy that I did not have to spend this day alone. I guess that time, I felt really grateful for spending the not-really last few minutes of our lives together. At least I know I would end my life happy.

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I woke up with 11 hours gone since Doomsday began. I was alone at home but I wasn’t lonely. I had the most extraordinary Doomsday Eve celebration so I had no worries whatever is to come this day. Even though the weather was weird today (it was warm and sunny then suddenly it rained then it stopped and it was cool and windy in just about three hours) and the moonrise was early (fifteen minutes before three in the afternoon and I can already see the moon clearly) it just dawned on me that maybe, just maybe, the world has ended already and a new world has come.

I might have slept through the end-of-the-world happenings but I guess I woke up to a new world now. Maybe it’s time for us to shift our paradigms and look at things differently. Just like an ellipsis, which may mean an end or a start of something new, Doomsday is just preparing us for a better story plot in this book called Life.

The ‘Happy’ Before the ‘Birthday’

Birthdays are probably the best celebrations yet. For an individual, it is the best day of his/her life because it commemorates the day he/she was presented to our wonderful world. It is truly a remarkable day, hence, we often attribute the word ‘happy’ before it: Happy Birthday!

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Based on personal experience, I believe that as we grow older, the meaning of birthdays evolve into something much deeper. When I was a kid, I always look forward to my birthday because it means that I will be receiving new toys or clothes, and my family will bring me to an amusement park or a mall to buy stuff I like. That is how I achieve happiness on my birthdays as a child.

There was a time, around high school I think, that going to amusement parks or buying new toys and clothes do not fill my happy-meter anymore. Perhaps I reached a point of maturity or something like that. I felt happier just by spending time with my friends and family. The mere fact that people I know, special people, remember my birthday and celebrate it with me is enough to keep me satisfied. No need for expensive gifts, no need for melodramatic speeches, just the presence of the people I love already fills me with joy and happiness.

Happiness, as a kid, usually equated to the number of gifts we receive. But we soon realize that as we grow older, those toys will soon be left behind as we begin to long for real happiness, that which is satisfied by good relationships and most importantly by love. We become happy because we know we are loved. And perhaps, that’s what really matters most in our pursuit of happiness, whether it be our birthday or just another regular day.

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I would like to greet my grandma, LOLA NITANG, a belated happy birthday! It was her 75^th birthday last January 12 and as a special gift, I prepared this video for her and presented it during her celebration. I love you Lola, we all love you!

And It’s Making My Heart Cry…

We remember and we forget. It is human nature to keep things in their memories and let some of them slip away. Hence, we miss certain stuff that gets stuck on the littlest corners of our mind that had great impact on our lives in some ways.

Satisfying that missing feeling towards a person is, for lack of a better term, easier as compared to missing a memory. Many would have to disagree on this but (besides the fact that this is my blog and I can pretty much say my own opinion here) I believe this is a general possibility. Here are a few things for you to contemplate on and for me to prove my theory.

We all are capable of divine human interaction. Okay, so divine was not really necessary but I think it is more conspicuous if I wrote it that way. People have the capability to find ways in meeting up with friends long gone and moved on, family based in a random continent, or even pets lost in translation (at least in movies, these are a hundred percent true).

When it comes to memories or all other abstract things, we tend to satisfy that missing through simply reminiscing those times you have access on them. People nowadays have lots and lots to work on. We are living mostly to work for a living. So, there are some who spend most of their time working and the rest of their day remembering how they can do certain things before, the way they wanted to whenever they want.

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I hope by now you realize that my post is not about all those stuff I just mentioned. It is probably a bit connected, but just a bit.

I miss a lot of things – like writing, family members abroad, charcoal drawing, school friends, [bad] dancing, old pets, and eating a perfect spinach ravioli – but what I miss the most among all other things is singing. I will admit I lost the ‘touch’ or whatever it’s called in singing well. But I always keep on wondering, dreaming even, whether I would have the chance to get a big break or work in the music industry some time in my life.

I grew up in a not-so-musically-inclined family. My dad plays the guitar, he taught my sister how to, my mom sang since she was in elementary (I think), my sister dances, I play the recorder, I’m a frustrated pianist, and yes I sang too since I was a kid. I had been singing since I can remember. I had been part of a school choir. I got trophies from singing contests, solo and duet categories. I pretty much sang my life through, well at least until I started college.

People may have noticed that I really like (love actually) watching musicals and concerts and gigs. I enjoy the simplest band performance, and I really love singing along with them or jamming with friends. I really like Glee too, because it reminds me of those days when I can sing in school (as in singing at school activities and such).

I stopped singing at a certain point of my life because of practical reasons. I thought my passion for the arts had nothing, in any way, to help me make a living – at least that was what the world taught me. Your passion can make you happy and help you express yourself, but it can never really get you the things the world demands from [and/or for] you.

My friends probably notice that when I get sulky I tend to bring out my iPod and listen to music. It keeps me sane, really. If I may quote one of my tweets, ‘music is my personal drug.’ Music helps me not to be frustrated with the life I chose for myself. It keeps me from thinking that passion has no room in this world if you want to live the better life. It stops all of my frustrations from bursting from inside of me and killing every practical choice I made.

I love singing and I will never stop doing so. Even though I ceased all possibilities for me to become a singer someday, at least I still have my shower head that never gets tired of listening to my once so amazing voice.

自分の涙

I was a wimpy kid back then. I have a special talent of attracting accidents. When I start to play outside with friends or at school with my classmates, there was never a time I didn’t end up with a bruise or a wound. I guess you already got what I’m saying, I was surely a crybaby back then.

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A certain Korean drama made me learn that tears are actually a symbol of sincerity. These tears usually fall for someone we have true feelings for. It is fun to assume that I have feelings for a lot of things (yeah, not people) because I can easily cry about certain things.

People actually think I never cry. As a man, I am barred to oblige by the norm wherein I must never cry or show my tears to anyone. But that’s just society talking. I don’t really like social norms. I struggle to break free from all of these pulling me down and making me do what is not in my nature. I’m a big crybaby, but I can’t be seen crying. So yeah, fml.

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I always thought that I grew up strong and very resistant to negative feelings. Turns out I’ve been deceived by myself for I have become a very negative being. I thought that it would be hard to make me cry because for a long time, no one has ever made me cry, but I’m actually still a crybaby. I couldn’t believe that simple stories and movies have that special command over my tears and make them fall without my consent. Well, that’s a drag, isn’t it?

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So this post has become more of a confession. I was a crybaby back then, and I can’t believe I still am now. The only difference is, my tears don’t fall because of wounds and bruises but rather of heartfelt movies and songs and stories. My love for the arts has become this strong that it can make me cry at the slightest touch. I guess it’s true, what they say, that only those that you truly love can make you cry.
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here's a must-watch, you'll definitely cry. :) Taiyou no Uta

Nostalgia Attack

This day was relatively long compared to the other days. I was able to finish a whole anime series today, able to feel the sun, able to check different SNS, and able to exercise (for a change of lifestyle). It was really fun all in all. I was also able to witness another ‘sepia afternoon,’ those afternoons when things seem like in sepia mode of a camera and feels like any moment, the people from the past would pop out of nowhere. :)

So yeah, there weren’t any people of the past, but rather memories of my past showed themselves to me. It was fun remembering those old memories where I still have fun playing outdoors with my friends. Those times when life was still so simple, so easy, so light for a child like me, it felt good to have actually experienced that. As compared to today’s fast-paced and technology-driven world, it would have had a simpler feeling if it was still the same as those times. Don’t get me wrong, I do not hate technology, for without which I wouldn’t be able to share these thoughts to the world, or at least the small world that revolves around me.

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I guess all I’m saying is that I miss those times when we can run free along the roads and play as much as we want outside. Those were the times when we play with other kids whom we don’t even know as if we were best of friends from before. I miss the times when you still learn a lot of things and make new discoveries as every day goes by. It was nice to reminisce those moments when everything new seemed so trivial and amazing in the eyes of mere children who have yet a lot to see in this wide wide world.

I love the fact that I was one of the fortunate kids who had been born in the generation who experienced the best of both worlds: the traditional and the digital eras. I do hope that these *ehem* kids, with whom I was born in the same generation, would also appreciate these little things. I know they are just memories, but I do believe that memories are somehow a part of what constitutes who we are now.