I suppose this is the right time

...to write a year-end post and to do some kind of recollection. However, I am very sleepy now and I feel like I'm going to get sick.

Will be going up the roof to watch the fireworks later, though. I wish I had someone to watch them with. Maybe in 2014. This coming year, I intend to find love again. That's right. I don't think I'd ever give up on that, you know. Hahaha.

Anyway, happy new year, everyone. Here's hoping 2013 would be kinder to all!

I still find myself hoping for it sometimes

He sits in front of the TV playing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare on the Xbox 360. An hour and a half later, he saves his game, turns the console off, and gets his ass off the floor. Outside, rain falls in tiny drops, making a tip-tip-tip sound on the roof. He takes his iPod out of his backpack and plants it on its dock. With a press of a button, music blares from the speakers. Music so familiar you begin to hum along as you watch him plod off to the kitchen. You roll out of bed to follow him out of the room, Jack Johnson expertly plucking the strings of his guitar in the background. It's Banana Pancakes—your so-called perfect rainy day song.

He is in the kitchen making breakfast. Your eyes search for the dusty clock hanging on the off-white walls. It's 3:50 in the afternoon. Yawning, you open the fridge and take out a carton of low-fat milk and a previously opened bag of Honey Bunches of Oats with Almonds. There is bread in the toaster, bacon in the fryer, coffee in the maker. It's a perfect morning, except it isn't really.

He takes a seat right across you and glances at your bowl of cereal. You scowl at him and he grins. You try not to smile, so you end up snorting. He laughs.

Post-breakfast you wash your bowl and let him do the rest. You march back to the room and lie on the bed. Jack Johnson's been replaced by The Kooks. Sway is playing. You sing along. Five minutes later, he comes into the room, grabs the iPod to turn the volume down, and switches the TV on—Animal Planet. He plants himself beside you and the two of you watch a bunch of mating baboons as if a game of basketball were on. His eyes are fixed on the screen, yours on him. Your mind flashes forward to tonight.

Tonight you are going on a quest together to hunt wyverns for rares. The thought excites you. So does suddenly remembering that it's his turn to cook. Dinner's gonna be good for sure.

You rest your head on his shoulder and take his hand in yours. The rain's still going tip-tip-tip and your ears catch Ben Folds' The Luckiest . You close your eyes and slowly fall back into a shallow river of sleep. It's supposed to be cold but you feel snug. There is warmth all around.

Warmth all around.

Warmth all around.

I Fucking Hate You

I wish you weren't so perfect.

I wish you didn't seem so right for me and that you didn't have everything on my goddamn checklist of what a wonderful guy should be like. I wish you didn't make me laugh with your silly antics. I wish I never knew what your voice sounded like, or that you liked to draw, or that you also happen to be into a lot of the shit I listen to.

I wish you weren't so fucking awesome. Because your awesomeness only makes me wish the universe made copies of you and hope I could have one of your clones to myself. Although, to be frank, I would much rather have you.

Oh boy. I fucking hate you.

You make me miserable without meaning to, without knowing you do. You make me wish I were special (as if I don't wish for it enough). You make me want to read novels and write a few myself, only to be reminded that you write even better than I do, so I scrap the idea for someone who will happen after you. Someone less bright, probably. Who won't notice the lapses in my grammar or comment on the mediocrity of my style.

You are just an episode. A really bad episode of an even worse sitcom airing on my mental TV. You are a one star record blaring in my ears, a B movie playing in my subconscious' cinema.

I fucking hate you. I fucking hate you.

I really really really wish I hated you.

Nothing is Lost

At the end of the day, the one who gives more is the one who wins on this bloodless battlefield.

Getting Better

Slowly becoming comfortable with being alone again. I still long for company from time to time, of course, but being by myself's fine. I think things will get even better once I get paid. Haha. I'm getting through this sober.

Apparently, I've been certified already. So this week I started doing real work. And it's fucking tough. On my first day I was only able to do ten evaluations when my goal is twenty four. Goddammit. Today though, I managed to finish twelve and then do twenty sort-of-evaluations to meet my daily goal. The system slows me down. The program we're using is as slow as fuck, operating as if the workstation was running on Windows 98.

Anyway, I spent Sunday afternoon with some of my college friends and we had a shoot on my roof. That's right. The roof is mine. Here be samples from said shoot.

Well? What do you think? I'm quite happy with the outcome. Not satisfied, but happy. I don't think I'll ever be satisfied with my work. Which isn't at all a bad thing. Dissatisfaction should lead to a desire to do better, if dealt with properly. I want to be the kind of person who takes a single shot and it turns out awesome. I should really try using a film camera. Should help me learn to make every shot count.

Sure, maybe I'm far from talented. But I'd like to think I can take photographs that people might find beautiful. Yay motivation!

Here's a picture of me and my friend Natz, who's also a hobbyist. :)

End of the World

Obviously, the world didn't end. But something in my world did. I'm not going to talk about it in detail. All I'm going to say is it's over, I'm doing all right, I'll recover. And that it hurt. Like the end of the world. Haha.

Training period is almost over. I'll be working once I get certified. I have a lot of spare time in my hands, some of which I intend to use to hone my skills in photography. Skills. I talk like I have them. But whatever. Doing something creative should alleviate, umm, the pain. IDK. Yesterday afternoon I had a shoot with a friend. Totally fucked up some shots though. I really am rusty and it makes me sad.

Still, I'm happy to be in Manila again. Once I get paid I should go somewhere and take random photos. Hopefully that should help me improve. Maybe I should also start writing again. Remind myself I only have this life to live, so I should make the most out of it. Whatever that means.

Got another shoot with friends later. I really like having friends around. Not that I'm bothered by solitude. I quite like being alone. It's just that, after what happened on the eve of the supposed apocalypse, I couldn't help thinking about him. And I don't like it because it depresses the hell out of me. I'll get by with a little help from my friends.

I want to make new friends, to meet new people. But as always, I don't know how to go about doing it. Sometimes I wish I were more extroverted. And more coherent. Bah.

Broken

I need a mechanic. I have a heart that needs fixing.

12.05.2012

I need someone who feels like home.

A sort of review: Durarara!!

I spent the last couple of weeks watching all sorts of anime, one of which is Durarara!! Categorized as shounen, action, and supernatural, Durarara!! is based on a Japanese light novel series by Narita Ryougo and follows a bunch of characters living in modern day Ikebukuro. I honestly did not know what to expect from this anime, as I didn't read any reviews, although I may have checked out the plot summary, just to see whether or not it would interest me. And it did, so I watched it.

As I've mentioned above, the story follows several people in Ikebukuro: a dullahan named Celty Sturluson, high school students Mikado Ryuugamine, Kida Masaomi, and Sonohara Anri, a shady information dealer named Orihara Izaya, his arch nemesis with superhuman strength, Heiwajima Shizuo, and Kishitani Shinra, an underground doctor who lives with Celty. Alongside these are a number of supporting characters including various members of Ikebukuro gangs Dollars and Yellow Scarves, students who go to the same school as Mikado, Kida, and Anri, Shizuo's brother, a woman who is in love with his brother... It's an insane cast of characters, really. Quite entertaining, though. 

I haven't watched anime in a long time. I think the last one was Ao no Exorcist, which I saw last year. I watched episodes of Slam Dunk from time to time, but that was all. A couple of weeks ago, though, convinced that I need as many distractions as possible, I started searching for new anime to watch, starting with a shoujo anime called Kamisama Hajimemashita and another one titled Tonari no Kaibutsu-kun. Both are really good, but are still ongoing, which means I can only watch one episode a week, so I decided to download completed anime.

One of the things I find most important in an anime, aside from the story, is, of course, the art. I love bishounen so much that I can stand watching a boring anime so long as there's plenty of eye candy in it. Anyway, there aren't any bishounen in Durarara!! and the art isn't really that pretty either. It's more on the simple side, if you get what I mean. It ain't fancy, but it's not bad either. It's okay. But the story more than makes up for that. It's so good that I went "Ooooooh." after almost every episode and couldn't help moving on to the next. I didn't watch it in one sitting though.

I'd like to think of Durarara!! as one of those stories where the characters are the plot. It's not too heavy on plot, and focuses more on the lives of the characters, how they act upon the things that happen to them and to the people around them, as well as the consequences of these actions. What I find most appealing about it though is how these characters turn out to be connected to one another, how these connections gradually unfold as the story progresses, and how complex the characters are in terms of their feelings and motivations. I am drawn to their humanity, to their darkness, even (I guess a part of me will always be attracted to certain dark things, although, to be honest, I find most frightening). The possibility of real people having such dark tendencies strikes fear into me. For some reason, though, it wasn't very disturbing. Probably because there's some humor in it too.

The dynamics of certain character relationships also sparked my interest, particularly that of Shizuo and Izaya (okay fine, this is just my fujoshi side talking). I seriously cannot help myself from imagining those two having violent, angry sex (just to be clear, this isn't a fetish of mine or anything; I'm a complete fluffball). Ships aside, I like how relationships are explored in the anime and how the characters developed overtime. This didn't apply to every character, of course, there's too many of them, after all, and even some of the main characters didn't undergo any real changes. Still, I find them human enough to relate to. Am I making sense?

I'm trying not to talk about anything specific to avoid spoilers, but in turn this review is becoming rather useless. Haha. Ultimately, Durarara!!, for me, is all about how complex human emotions and relationships can be and how they are the driving force behind our actions. I also like how the lives of these characters are connected, and at some point, intertwined in ways I didn't really imagine. And maybe that's one of its major appeals: it wasn't predictable. I consider Durarara!! one of the best anime I've ever seen and am therefore giving it a rating or four stars out of five.

Yes, just four. I'm stingy with my stars, so shut up.