a new home

after a long time of silence, here it is...


the eden has moved to the dreamworld.


~~~

moving on...

there's this song that keeps playing in my head. i haven't memorized the whole of it yet, but i'm putting the lyrics here.

The Scientist
by Coldplay

Come up to meet you, tell you I'm sorry
You don't know how lovely you are
I had to find you, tell you I need you
Tell you I set you apart
Tell me your secrets, and ask me your questions
Oh let's go back to the start
Running in circles, coming up tails
Heads on a silence apart

Nobody said it was easy
Oh it's such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said that it would be this hard
Oh take me back to the start

I was just guessing at numbers and figures
Pulling your puzzles apart
Questions of science, science and progress
Do not speak as loud as my heart
Tell me you love me, come back and haunt me
Oh and I rush to the start
Running in circles, chasing our tails
Coming back as we are

Nobody said it was easy
Oh its such a shame for us to part
Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be so hard
Im going back to the start

Call me a latebloomer, but I just came to appreciate Coldplay recently. I had the chance to watch this film called "Wicker Park" last sem break, and the song above was part of the movie's soundtrack. The song was played at the very crucial moment that the guy and the girl - who had been kept apart by 'selfish forces' for soooo... long - finally met once more. They, or at least the guy, had this intense longing to meet her again, especially since they had been separated in a very cruel way. Somehow when you watch the movie you see how hard it is to wait and wait and wait without any assurance from the one you're waiting for. I don't actually know if the guy waited for the girl. But even if not stated outright, you somehow knew that he was still longing for the girl who seemed to have vanished in thin air, and that he was still waiting for the day when they could meet and talk again.

But the reason why I'm posting this and pondering upon this movie and this song is because I've decided to go back to the start, that is to say, to move on to another blog. Ain't it weird that I had to rant about Coldplay and Wicker Park before getting to my point? But I think you should also go back to the start, that is, the title, and so we can laugh about this weird play of words. Haha! English majors rule! :P

And so, dear Reader, thank you for taking the time to read my memories, my rantings, my blunders, and loooonnnnnggggg lists. *wink wink* This shall not be a sad parting because it will be just be another leap toward something better (hopefully...) A very wise mentor of mine once wrote to me: "...and remember that it's not what happens to you, but inside of you." I don't know if anything has changed inside of me during the past two years, but I'm deciding (and convincing myself) that it's time to change. It's time to dislodge some stuff which aren't really nice. These days, I'm praying how to become nicer to people. I'm choosing my friends over myself... whew! Nasabi ko rin. That was difficult to say and admit. But I hope that you pray for me in this. You know how terrible I am at relationships. :P

And lastly, let me just paraphrase what the Wind-Listener told me when my emotional levels went high again and I couldn't stop myself from crying: "You just love others no matter how hard and painful it is. Jesus loved us without seeing what He could have had in return. If someone loves you back, then look at it as a reward." Thank you, Wind-Listener. I wish there were more people like you...even if you say that there'd be chaos if that were the case. You listen very well and you give wise advice. And you made me remember something very crucial, something I knew the moment I accepted Christ into my life, but which I occasionally forget: to be able to love is a reward in itself, because we wouldn't be able to love if God had not loved us first.


i'm coming back to the start...


~~~

announcement

the postpins link is no longer working. i just noticed now. apparently, somebody already got the url postpins.blogspot.com which is why i'm confessing now that i had changed the url for my poems blog a long long time ago. hehe... sorry... can't tell you where it is.


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sad song

someone sang this song to me a long long time ago. we were on the hospital fire exit, looking down at the empty street below.
i only understood him now.
i'm afraid i'll have to sing this too...


Diary
Bread

I found her diary underneath a tree.
And started reading about me
The words she'd written took me by surpise
You'd never read them in her eyes.
They said that she had found the love she'd waited for.
Wouldn't you know it, she wouldn't show it.

Then she confronted with the writing there,
Simply pretended not to care.
I passed it off as just in keeping with
Her total disconcerting air
And though she tried to hide
The love that she denied,
Wouldn't you know it, she wouldn't show it.

And as I go through my life, I will give to her, my wife
All the sweet things I can find.

I found her diary underneath a tree.
And started reading about me.
The words began to stick and tears to fall.
Her meaning now was clear to see.
The love she'd waited for was someone else not me
Wouldn't you know it, she wouldn't show it.

And as I go through my life, I will wish for her, his wife
All the sweet things she can find
All the sweet things they can find



.

sigh..

hmmm... i've been thinking a lot. and somehow i don't like what's happening with my life. with myself in particular. i don't exactly know why. somehow i want to escape from these big circles where i belong. because most of the time i don't feel that i belong. and somehow whenever i feel this feeling, it gives me the sense that i'm being irrational. some have asked me why i feel this way. some have asked for concrete instances in which i have been made to feel out of place. and actually and honestly, my answer to these questions is "i don't know." i don't know what has brought me all these feelings. but i'm sure they're not self-induced. and they're not there just because i feel like feeling them. i don't like feeling these feelings at all.



~~~
i've been keeping in touch with some of my high school classmates. i dreamt of some of them once. that dream made me realize how out-of-the-circle i'd been back then. i never really had close friends.




~~~

for cl 111

Character and Theme Analysis of Guy de Maupassant’s “The Necklace”

Character Analysis of Madame Loisel
Madame Loisel was an unhappy woman. She wanted more than what she already had. Somehow she knew or she thought that she was made for better things. She was born into a family of artisans. This meant that although she was very pretty and charming, she could never be married to a wealthy man and she could never afford the luxuries she had often dreamt of. She was married to a clerk from the Ministry of Education. She lived in a shabby apartment in (very aptly!) Rue des Martyrs. She did not have any exquisite gowns or expensive jewels, which was why when her husband got them an invitation to a ball from the Minister of Education, she felt disheartened all the more because she had nothing to wear. Monsieur Loisel was earning just enough money for the two of them, and by the happy tone of Monsieur Loisel when he saw that their dinner was Scotch broth, they seemed to have an average household—not too rich but not too poor either. Nevertheless, Madame Loisel was still dissatisfied with these apparently satisfactory conditions. Her “feminine heart” longed “to charm, to be desired to be wildly attractive and sought after.” Curiously, this longing is juxtaposed with the longing for the “only things she loved”—clothes and jewels—which she felt were made for her. This dissatisfaction was further emphasized when days before the ball, she already had a beautiful dress (thanks to Monsieur Loisel who yielded the 400 francs he was saving for a gun), yet she was still unhappy because she did not have any jewel to wear with her dress. This led her, under her husband’s suggestion, to borrow the diamond necklace which would later cause her and her husband more misery.
The diamond necklace which Madame Loisel wore to the party made her very beautiful and very much sought after. Curiously, there is no mention of any reaction from Monsieur Loisel when the male guests and the important people wanted to know Madame Loisel’s name and waltz with her. The complication came when Madame Loisel lost the necklace when they got back to their somber apartment. They had to look for a replacement which cost them 36, 000 francs. It took them ten years to pay off all the debts and the interests, and after such time, Madame Loisel had become old, unattractive and rough. She had learned how to work hard, how to do the chores without the maid around, how to save up every penny, and how to be contented with the garret where they moved into. Although she was then poorer, she had become less demanding, and she somehow lost her longing for jewels, clothes and luxurious stuff.
I think it was no whim for the author to choose the Ministry of Education for Monsieur Loisel’s occupation, because after all Madame Loisel learned a lot from her experience. Monsieur Loisel somehow served as a contrast to Madame Loisel. When she was dissatisfied with the average lifestyle that they had, he was very much contented. When he announced joyfully that he got an invitation for them, she cried. When she lost the necklace and just sat motionless and unable to do anything, he went out to look for the necklace for her. He also looked for money everywhere just to find a way to replace the diamonds. At a glance, he seemed to love his wife very much, especially since he was the type of guy who would be “broken-hearted” upon seeing his wife cry, who would give up 400 francs just for his wife’s dress, and who would not mind if so many guys were attracted to her. But somehow, they also fall into stereotypes. He was the doer and the rational. She was the whiner and the emotional. Somehow, Madame Loisel’s character was intensified because of this martyr-like characterization of her husband. But also, the experience itself had caused her character to change. She changed upon having experienced poverty, ironically for nothing more than an imitation.
Theme Analysis
I think one theme of the story is the fact that individuals are always dissatisfied with what they have. Somehow they always want more, and with this longing for something more, they create a certain emptiness within them. They strive to fill in this emptiness with material things. Underlying this emptiness though is the reality that they are just longing to be accepted and to be loved. Somehow they think that this acceptance and love will, in the end, make them happy.
Another theme of the story would be the fact that life is ironic. “How strange life is, how fickle! How little is needed to ruin or to save!” Madame Loisel thought. And indeed, the little diamond necklace had caused her a fleeting moment of victory and then led her to a ten-year life of poverty. The little actions that an individual does everyday can lead to bigger consequences in the long run. If Madame Loisel had told the truth to Madame Forestier in the first place, she would not have had to experience poverty. But then, she somehow had to experience poverty to know how silly she had been. It is not really wealth or a good marriage or a good name which makes a person respectable. What makes a person respectable is the honesty and the courage to accept what he or she is and be contented with what he or she has. Nevertheless, this is no reason for one not to strive to be the best that he or she can be. This striving though does not mean one should pretend to be other than what he or she is.

snippets

"Love is not love 'til you give it away... wait a year or two."
-Maria in Repertory's The Sound of Music

~~~
Extra Latino Penguin: "You have such a very big ego, you know."
Ramon (Latino Penguin, Robin Williams): "Wait, wait! I hear the people wanting something..."
Silence.
Ramon: "ME!!!"
-Happy Feet

~~~
A thought upon observing my brother's courting cycles:
Not all guys are visual... but I hope there are more of them.
-me, of course

~~~