Living on a prayer.
Warning: Flood of emoness within. This is what happens when Joseph finds himself with a couple days of "free time", with real-life interruptions coming only from bills and application worries.
Oh. And I'm sorry I haven't been reading anyone's journals!! I'm such a frigging leech. T_T I swear I will try to within the next couple of days, whenever I can find time to access the Internet in the tiny room downstairs at the apartment complex... or at SMC or wherever. I will. Really.
Firstly,
WHY IS IT ALWAYS SO FRIGGING COLD IN THIS COUNTRY?!?!?
Secondly,
I just checked my bank account and realized I'm in no position to be lending money for an advance on rent. In fact, I'm quite a bit short on this month's quota - short enough that I'm going to have to drop into work and pick up my paycheck from last month today. This is a trip I am not looking forward to since I really, really didn't want to have to spring back into existence there till starting again on Friday or whenever I decide to waltz in and take back the espresso machine.
Oh, and SMC tuition as well. Not enough money for that. Not nearly. Hopefully my paycheck is fat and juicy, like the burgers I won't be eating until I wake up and find that some charity organization has mistakenly wired a jillion dollars into my bank account.
Ah. And then there's the subject of food. I'll eat anything as long as it's good, but both of my roommates have peculiar tastes. It's not just unfortunate that I can never find the time, will or ability to cook for just myself, or that my concoctions often end up disastrous, it's the fact that I find myself worrying about the other two erupting into a cold war at the worst of times over petty kitchen problems. I'm amazed they survived two weeks without me, given how each has been quietly stewing about the other eating their food and et cetera, not remembering or even noticing at all how I bought plenty of food before I left for each of them. Maybe next time I'll put little pink post-its on everything and write their names on them with sharpies. Responsibility sucks, but it's something I'm naturally inclined to put upon myself. That's a bad thing, by the way.
And last, but certainly not least, there's these essays I have to do for UCLA (due on the 25th) in the off-chance that I'll be one of the lucky 3.8% of students that they take into their Film program. Fun. It would help if I wasn't Asian, but no luck there (I really have to stop hating myself for my ethnicity), I want very badly to write a detailed analysis on Michel Gondry's The Science of Sleep but perhaps that's a bit over my head. Or maybe unwise since the movie isn't very well-known and a mere space of five pages, double-spaced, font size 12 just won't do for me. Perhaps this is a good thing. I don't know.
It's strange how little I really know.
You'd think that a two week vacation to your tropical island of a home country, complete with three delicious and full meals every day, would help you recharge your batteries, but I'm not too sure if that's the case. The whole trip back home I just felt like I was in the middle of extracting a venom worming up through my veins, and I realize now that maybe I haven't quite sucked it all out yet. This particular poison has a name. I dare not speak it, but let's just say that I vividly recall nightmares of spilling popcorn butter and ringing up endless lines of people coming in to see that movie about the Loch Ness monster.
I woke up with a sore throat every morning from being unused to the dry air conditioning, but glad for the comfort I found in my family after enduring such frightful dreams. It was such a loving environment that I could barely stand it. After a few days of this I found that I had a short temper, and I couldn't quite tell what I was angry at. Was it myself - for indulging in the comforts of my home? For the months of torturing myself for a little bit more than minimum wage in order to secure some kind of living? Was it at my family, whom I have secretly hoped would support me throughout college, and maybe make good on their promise to buy me a car?
Add this existential mindfuck to the constant feeling of my time in the Philippines, my pool of mana, rapidly running out - a dreadful feeling you get in the gut not unlike being an insignificant particle of sand at the top of the little pool in the top half of an hourglass under heavy gravity - and you might just be able to imagine to some extent the enormity of the fear and stress that has been paralyzing me.
Is anyone still reading? Yeah, I know. It's getting pretty bad. :-(
Anyway. My thoughts were frantic and scattered. As much as I loved them, the pressure of meeting up with all my friends back home was overwhelming to the point that I was driven to desire an unattainable isolation, away from even my dear siblings. Frightfully, I began to notice that I wasn't quite needed around the house anymore. This bugged me to no end, and the fact that it bugged me bugged me even more. Am I secretly desperate to having people depend on me? Or am I jealous of the success, the carefree lifestyle of my younger siblings and the comfort and security and unconditional love that our home offers them? Am I angry that I was so sheltered from the responsibilities and secret pains of my life here?
I have a crippling defect that begins and ends with uncertainty. This may sound ridiculous as hell, but may make some sense to any Quantum Physics majors out there. Have you ever heard of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle? That locating a particle in a small region makes its momentum uncertain, and that pinpointing the particle's exact momentum makes its location uncertain? No? Well, you have now. Of course, the Uncertainty Principle applies to the highly probability-governed world of Quantum Mechanics, which to most people is almost as much theology or even science fiction as it is Physics... but ANYWAY, in a roundabout way that's kind of how I feel right now... that as soon as I think I've found the solution to my sadness, I've lost track of the problem, and vice-versa. Am I just trying to grow up too fast? Am I not, as my dad suggests, 'playing hard enough' for the amount of work that I do? Perhaps I hold too much anger in my heart against some of the people I work with (and for), and this anger isn't being properly filtered and cleansed. Some college students get drunk and high and party and have sex. And most of them don't even work hard. I don't think that's quite my crowd. I'm more of the sit at home and marvel at the perverseness of human existence through the Intarwebs and then unwind with my loving girlfriend over some strawberry lemonade kind of person.
Alice: Oh, but going back home is always a good thing for you.
Joseph: *sigh* I know.
Alice: There were some happy memories, too.
Joseph: I wish it were easier to exorcise this ridiculous sadness.
Alice: It's like the end of the 9th Pokemon movie. You're not all right yet, but...
Joseph: ...I will be.
There were some awesome times. Mountain trails at Banahaw with Michael, Aaron, Dad and Muskie (our dog). Playing 'poker' underwater. The exploding glass on New Years, and the marvelous fireworks shows visible from our roof and from our water tower. Seeing Tim and the other guys again... although Moe is starting to get on my nerves. Tim is a true friend though. As always. Swimming with Tim and Ange and Myra. Learning that at least I was still better at enduring the sauna than anyone in my family. Heh.
WOW some people are walking by the computer room at my apartment complex. Speaking Tagalog. What are the chances?
Alice: Not that bad, actually. I think a good 0.8% or so of SoCal is Filipino. And there are over 200 rooms at your complex, and so...
Joseph: ...whatever.
Alice: ^__^
What the hell is this? Could this be premature homesickness?
Change topic.
I'm kind of proud of myself in some ways. I think I handled learning that my younger brothers are quite simply going to surpass me in social skills and popularity (Aaron), sports and videogames (Michael) and probably life, pretty well. I was stewing inside the whole time half-jokingly about Michael being taller than me, but eventually I think what others might call humility prevailed... and plus I realized with some help that if I really practiced at 8-ball and bowling and chess again I could beat anyone. Just like the old days, I guess.
*sigh*
I just finished Lord of the Flies - which I supposedly had read in middle school, by the way - and, well, it was sad. Gah! I don't know why, but novels that deal with dark material always seem to put me in a somber mood... as if I can't accept that it is the natural tendency for a human being to be selfish and evil and stuff. Which is preposterous... because, hey, humans are evil, right?
OH GOSH LACK OF FOOD HEADACHE. These are the worst. They're when your stomach has so much hurt that it has to pass it on to the head, and then the head drains your body of heat so it can warm itself up, and then you can't close your eyes all the way 'coz there's this pain in the back of them as if your temporal lobe was thirsty and wanted to suck all the moisture out of your eyes and then your fingers get cold and you want to die.
I think I'm going to try and eat something. I don't care what it is. I'm wasting too much time just sitting here and stewing when I should be feeding myself and preparing for the day to come. All this... It's not healthy, I tell you!
Man, I really want to work on my UCLA thing as soon as possible... I read over what I submitted to CalArts and it is NOT UP TO MY STANDARDS. I wanted to go back in time and bitch-slap myself and be all like "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!?"
I wonder what I'll do if I don't get into any of my choice colleges. I'm not getting into USC, that was my mistake. CalArts is ridiculously selective so I probably killed myself there. UCLA is even more selective. I might get into the Arts Center in Pasadena but heaven help me when it comes to paying the tuition... it's an intensive and relatively fast program too, so it'll be bloody murder. Will I be able to work and study at the same time?
Now I'm about ready to quit movies entirely and focus on, I dunno, writing a fantasy novel or something. Maybe I'll rewrite the disaster that was Alice in Neverland, try to make SOMETHING out of it.
Alice: See, now there's a sliver of hope. You should edit that new movie you were making with your brothers.
Joseph: I should. There are a million things I should do.
Alice: And they won't get done until you commit.
Joseph: Maybe I'm disappointed because I thought that my trip back would just stop everything in its tracks and I could reflect on where my life here has taken me over the past year or so. But it sped by at such a ridiculous pace. And I was so worried the whole time. And now I come back hoping for a welcome or something, and instead... financially... I'm fucked. And I somehow have no time or energy to do the things I have to. Or to be the person I want to be to the people I care about.
Alice: It is a bit of a jerk in the pants.
Joseph: I'm cold. And hungry. And I want to curl up in front of a fireplace and eat marshmallows and watch some Speed Racer or something.
Alice: I know you do.
Joseph: It must bother people that I'm such a kid.
Alice: It doesn't bother me.
Joseph: I wish I could afford that Advanced Screenwriting class this semester. I mean, I know it probably won't help THAT much, and a lot of the other students will be annoying as hell...
Alice: Oh, but that's a given among film classes.
Joseph: True.
Alice: I sense that you're getting tired.
Joseph: I think I want to eat something.
Alice: I know the feeling. I thought we might have some spam and chili and rice and kimchi.
Joseph: Or maybe just a bowl of oatmeal. Something. I really don't want to go out today. Not to that place.
Alice: We'll be back home before you know it. And you're seeing a movie with Ioan tonight, that always helps, right?
Joseph: I guess.
Alice: So is this goodbye for now? We haven't had a dialogue in so long.
Joseph: Well... I did want to say one thing to everyone. I wanted to apologize for these stupid journals, which serve as cesspools for my venting about my inner emotions... and not really being very clear on my life, which is filled with a great deal of blessings. I have a truly awesome girlfriend, and my roommates are great friends of mine in many ways. My job isn't completely horrible all the time, it just seems that way because of the management and whatnot. Oh, and I love my family back home. My direct family and my grandfather, at least. And a couple uncles and cousins. Various other relatives can suck my--
Alice: You really suck at goodbyes. Damn.
Joseph: ...Well, why don't you do the honors, then? Gosh.
Alice: Goodbye, everyone. And remember to brush your teeth twice a day.
Joseph: ?
Alice: :-D
Oh. And I'm sorry I haven't been reading anyone's journals!! I'm such a frigging leech. T_T I swear I will try to within the next couple of days, whenever I can find time to access the Internet in the tiny room downstairs at the apartment complex... or at SMC or wherever. I will. Really.
Firstly,
WHY IS IT ALWAYS SO FRIGGING COLD IN THIS COUNTRY?!?!?
Secondly,
I just checked my bank account and realized I'm in no position to be lending money for an advance on rent. In fact, I'm quite a bit short on this month's quota - short enough that I'm going to have to drop into work and pick up my paycheck from last month today. This is a trip I am not looking forward to since I really, really didn't want to have to spring back into existence there till starting again on Friday or whenever I decide to waltz in and take back the espresso machine.
Oh, and SMC tuition as well. Not enough money for that. Not nearly. Hopefully my paycheck is fat and juicy, like the burgers I won't be eating until I wake up and find that some charity organization has mistakenly wired a jillion dollars into my bank account.
Ah. And then there's the subject of food. I'll eat anything as long as it's good, but both of my roommates have peculiar tastes. It's not just unfortunate that I can never find the time, will or ability to cook for just myself, or that my concoctions often end up disastrous, it's the fact that I find myself worrying about the other two erupting into a cold war at the worst of times over petty kitchen problems. I'm amazed they survived two weeks without me, given how each has been quietly stewing about the other eating their food and et cetera, not remembering or even noticing at all how I bought plenty of food before I left for each of them. Maybe next time I'll put little pink post-its on everything and write their names on them with sharpies. Responsibility sucks, but it's something I'm naturally inclined to put upon myself. That's a bad thing, by the way.
And last, but certainly not least, there's these essays I have to do for UCLA (due on the 25th) in the off-chance that I'll be one of the lucky 3.8% of students that they take into their Film program. Fun. It would help if I wasn't Asian, but no luck there (I really have to stop hating myself for my ethnicity), I want very badly to write a detailed analysis on Michel Gondry's The Science of Sleep but perhaps that's a bit over my head. Or maybe unwise since the movie isn't very well-known and a mere space of five pages, double-spaced, font size 12 just won't do for me. Perhaps this is a good thing. I don't know.
It's strange how little I really know.
You'd think that a two week vacation to your tropical island of a home country, complete with three delicious and full meals every day, would help you recharge your batteries, but I'm not too sure if that's the case. The whole trip back home I just felt like I was in the middle of extracting a venom worming up through my veins, and I realize now that maybe I haven't quite sucked it all out yet. This particular poison has a name. I dare not speak it, but let's just say that I vividly recall nightmares of spilling popcorn butter and ringing up endless lines of people coming in to see that movie about the Loch Ness monster.
I woke up with a sore throat every morning from being unused to the dry air conditioning, but glad for the comfort I found in my family after enduring such frightful dreams. It was such a loving environment that I could barely stand it. After a few days of this I found that I had a short temper, and I couldn't quite tell what I was angry at. Was it myself - for indulging in the comforts of my home? For the months of torturing myself for a little bit more than minimum wage in order to secure some kind of living? Was it at my family, whom I have secretly hoped would support me throughout college, and maybe make good on their promise to buy me a car?
Add this existential mindfuck to the constant feeling of my time in the Philippines, my pool of mana, rapidly running out - a dreadful feeling you get in the gut not unlike being an insignificant particle of sand at the top of the little pool in the top half of an hourglass under heavy gravity - and you might just be able to imagine to some extent the enormity of the fear and stress that has been paralyzing me.
Is anyone still reading? Yeah, I know. It's getting pretty bad. :-(
Anyway. My thoughts were frantic and scattered. As much as I loved them, the pressure of meeting up with all my friends back home was overwhelming to the point that I was driven to desire an unattainable isolation, away from even my dear siblings. Frightfully, I began to notice that I wasn't quite needed around the house anymore. This bugged me to no end, and the fact that it bugged me bugged me even more. Am I secretly desperate to having people depend on me? Or am I jealous of the success, the carefree lifestyle of my younger siblings and the comfort and security and unconditional love that our home offers them? Am I angry that I was so sheltered from the responsibilities and secret pains of my life here?
I have a crippling defect that begins and ends with uncertainty. This may sound ridiculous as hell, but may make some sense to any Quantum Physics majors out there. Have you ever heard of the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle? That locating a particle in a small region makes its momentum uncertain, and that pinpointing the particle's exact momentum makes its location uncertain? No? Well, you have now. Of course, the Uncertainty Principle applies to the highly probability-governed world of Quantum Mechanics, which to most people is almost as much theology or even science fiction as it is Physics... but ANYWAY, in a roundabout way that's kind of how I feel right now... that as soon as I think I've found the solution to my sadness, I've lost track of the problem, and vice-versa. Am I just trying to grow up too fast? Am I not, as my dad suggests, 'playing hard enough' for the amount of work that I do? Perhaps I hold too much anger in my heart against some of the people I work with (and for), and this anger isn't being properly filtered and cleansed. Some college students get drunk and high and party and have sex. And most of them don't even work hard. I don't think that's quite my crowd. I'm more of the sit at home and marvel at the perverseness of human existence through the Intarwebs and then unwind with my loving girlfriend over some strawberry lemonade kind of person.
Alice: Oh, but going back home is always a good thing for you.
Joseph: *sigh* I know.
Alice: There were some happy memories, too.
Joseph: I wish it were easier to exorcise this ridiculous sadness.
Alice: It's like the end of the 9th Pokemon movie. You're not all right yet, but...
Joseph: ...I will be.
There were some awesome times. Mountain trails at Banahaw with Michael, Aaron, Dad and Muskie (our dog). Playing 'poker' underwater. The exploding glass on New Years, and the marvelous fireworks shows visible from our roof and from our water tower. Seeing Tim and the other guys again... although Moe is starting to get on my nerves. Tim is a true friend though. As always. Swimming with Tim and Ange and Myra. Learning that at least I was still better at enduring the sauna than anyone in my family. Heh.
WOW some people are walking by the computer room at my apartment complex. Speaking Tagalog. What are the chances?
Alice: Not that bad, actually. I think a good 0.8% or so of SoCal is Filipino. And there are over 200 rooms at your complex, and so...
Joseph: ...whatever.
Alice: ^__^
What the hell is this? Could this be premature homesickness?
Change topic.
I'm kind of proud of myself in some ways. I think I handled learning that my younger brothers are quite simply going to surpass me in social skills and popularity (Aaron), sports and videogames (Michael) and probably life, pretty well. I was stewing inside the whole time half-jokingly about Michael being taller than me, but eventually I think what others might call humility prevailed... and plus I realized with some help that if I really practiced at 8-ball and bowling and chess again I could beat anyone. Just like the old days, I guess.
*sigh*
I just finished Lord of the Flies - which I supposedly had read in middle school, by the way - and, well, it was sad. Gah! I don't know why, but novels that deal with dark material always seem to put me in a somber mood... as if I can't accept that it is the natural tendency for a human being to be selfish and evil and stuff. Which is preposterous... because, hey, humans are evil, right?
OH GOSH LACK OF FOOD HEADACHE. These are the worst. They're when your stomach has so much hurt that it has to pass it on to the head, and then the head drains your body of heat so it can warm itself up, and then you can't close your eyes all the way 'coz there's this pain in the back of them as if your temporal lobe was thirsty and wanted to suck all the moisture out of your eyes and then your fingers get cold and you want to die.
I think I'm going to try and eat something. I don't care what it is. I'm wasting too much time just sitting here and stewing when I should be feeding myself and preparing for the day to come. All this... It's not healthy, I tell you!
Man, I really want to work on my UCLA thing as soon as possible... I read over what I submitted to CalArts and it is NOT UP TO MY STANDARDS. I wanted to go back in time and bitch-slap myself and be all like "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!?"
I wonder what I'll do if I don't get into any of my choice colleges. I'm not getting into USC, that was my mistake. CalArts is ridiculously selective so I probably killed myself there. UCLA is even more selective. I might get into the Arts Center in Pasadena but heaven help me when it comes to paying the tuition... it's an intensive and relatively fast program too, so it'll be bloody murder. Will I be able to work and study at the same time?
Now I'm about ready to quit movies entirely and focus on, I dunno, writing a fantasy novel or something. Maybe I'll rewrite the disaster that was Alice in Neverland, try to make SOMETHING out of it.
Alice: See, now there's a sliver of hope. You should edit that new movie you were making with your brothers.
Joseph: I should. There are a million things I should do.
Alice: And they won't get done until you commit.
Joseph: Maybe I'm disappointed because I thought that my trip back would just stop everything in its tracks and I could reflect on where my life here has taken me over the past year or so. But it sped by at such a ridiculous pace. And I was so worried the whole time. And now I come back hoping for a welcome or something, and instead... financially... I'm fucked. And I somehow have no time or energy to do the things I have to. Or to be the person I want to be to the people I care about.
Alice: It is a bit of a jerk in the pants.
Joseph: I'm cold. And hungry. And I want to curl up in front of a fireplace and eat marshmallows and watch some Speed Racer or something.
Alice: I know you do.
Joseph: It must bother people that I'm such a kid.
Alice: It doesn't bother me.
Joseph: I wish I could afford that Advanced Screenwriting class this semester. I mean, I know it probably won't help THAT much, and a lot of the other students will be annoying as hell...
Alice: Oh, but that's a given among film classes.
Joseph: True.
Alice: I sense that you're getting tired.
Joseph: I think I want to eat something.
Alice: I know the feeling. I thought we might have some spam and chili and rice and kimchi.
Joseph: Or maybe just a bowl of oatmeal. Something. I really don't want to go out today. Not to that place.
Alice: We'll be back home before you know it. And you're seeing a movie with Ioan tonight, that always helps, right?
Joseph: I guess.
Alice: So is this goodbye for now? We haven't had a dialogue in so long.
Joseph: Well... I did want to say one thing to everyone. I wanted to apologize for these stupid journals, which serve as cesspools for my venting about my inner emotions... and not really being very clear on my life, which is filled with a great deal of blessings. I have a truly awesome girlfriend, and my roommates are great friends of mine in many ways. My job isn't completely horrible all the time, it just seems that way because of the management and whatnot. Oh, and I love my family back home. My direct family and my grandfather, at least. And a couple uncles and cousins. Various other relatives can suck my--
Alice: You really suck at goodbyes. Damn.
Joseph: ...Well, why don't you do the honors, then? Gosh.
Alice: Goodbye, everyone. And remember to brush your teeth twice a day.
Joseph: ?
Alice: :-D