0170: "For some reason all the names I was sure I would be writing down flew out of my head."
[June 29, 2007: Edited to add more to the lists.]
[A dream induced by cramming and deprivation of many good things.]
You know, I dreamed a dream and you were in that dream.
In that dream, you were holding something in your hand. You spoke about what you held passionately and of worlds beyond while my current classmates listened intently. I, even though you were speaking directly to me - even looking at me with those dark eyes of yours and your words surrounding my being completely, I couldn’t understand anything.
Why? It’s not unheard of to see you in my dream, you being one of my everyday classmates (not like some others that should be but aren’t due to scheduling conflicts and different instructors).
You know what’s remarkable about this, about you, about you appearing in my dream?
You’re the only person who induced me to write about you in the dream itself.
I remember the purple prose flowing from my black pen’s nib: The boy-man using his carefully chosen words, simple yet with hidden depth, that evoked a glorious virtual wonderland for his listeners, making them forget what he held in his right hand. I remember you smiling knowingly; it’s like you saw the words as they appeared on my purple PI 100 notebook’s sixth blank page.
He looks at his audience, transfixed by the visions dancing in front of their eyes. Letting his voice trail off, he contemplated the mysterious verdant substance in his hand I wrote feverishly, unable to stop moving my pen and making coherent marks on my chosen page. Oddly, no one but you notices my questionable actions; you’ve woven the web around them so well that they don’t even feel bound.
In a blink of an eye, you toss the substance at me. I hold the notebook in front of my face, and the substance hits the page with my scribbled words soundly. I slowly lower the notebook and look at it; my prose has gone with the verdant substance I had written about.
You smile, and I realize that everyone else has gone. You raise your hand, the one that had not been holding the questionable substance, and you speak. Almost every word I had written earlier tumbles from your lips and I drop the notebook, wincing as it follows the law of gravity.
When I look at you, I see nothing but your mocking grin. You pick up the notebook and I protest feebly. I need that, I said, I still haven’t finished my essay on Veneration Without Understanding and the questions are there. You smile, a sardonic smile that I have seen but once back in the days when my hair was shorter and your hair longer, and whisper the last sentence of my purple prose now struck from the page once full.
”The boy-man, secure with what he knows, will get a higher grade in Stat Lab than the long-haired girl in front of him.” With that he disappears, and I am left with nothing but pavement, a black pen, and some statistics formulas in my head.
// I speak of this classmate in the platonic sense, let this be noted. Certainly this is a questionable dream, what with an unknown verdant substance (maybe related to the fact that I’m taking up Organic Chem next semester?) and disappearing classmates (Disillusionment charm from the upcoming Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix movie?) after they are bound in a woven web (Spider-man 3 influence?).
// And why must he taunt me with my laughable knowledge of Statistics? Bah. Bad classmate.
Epilogue:
When I take my seat, one glance to the right, then to the left and you are there.
Would I have dreamed of you before if not for your sitting next to me on the day of the test?
Stranger things have happened.
Conclusion: if I have a weird shot-to-hell dream about someone that person will sit next to me in the near-conceivable future.
***
Things that my hair has gotten caught in/on/(insert possible appropriate preposition):
1. A plant (in a pot - actually has happened two times, I end up lurching and having to double back and yank it -my hair- away from the shrub)
2. Doors (when I or someone else closes the door too quickly, I end up releasing a squeak conveying pain)
3. Car doors (still counts, different type of door)
4. UP chairs (I remember taking a test and realizing that my hair had er, found a great friend in my chair and didn't want to let go when I was about to turn in my paper :()
5. Balloons
6. Combs (Noooooo)
7. People's arms, butts, general appendages (>_< this sounds so wrong)
8. Dingdong's hair (his spiky hair can snag some of my hair if he bends a bit)
9. Bags, in general (hair gets caught in the bag's zipper, strap, what have you or it gets trapped under bags)
10. Drawers :(
11. My laptop/keyboard (owww)
12. My pants (my hair can now be tucked in my pants :) :) :))
13. Curtains
14. Books/Notebooks (they get trapped in the pages sometimes)
15. My saxophone case/piano/saxophone
16. Doorknobs
17. The clasp that closes plastic envelopes*
18. Pizza boxes*
Things that has gotten (caught in)/on my hair during the day:
1. Pieces of tape (and I just find out when I'm about to go to bed)
2. Glue (very hard to remove :()
3. Ballpens/pencils/writing implements (has happened even when I had shorter hair)
4. Correction fluid (everytime I see a white hair in my hair, I wonder if it's a real white hair or a correction fluid colored one - it's usually the latter)
5. Gravy/Spaghetti sauce/any food sauce (I am seriously thinking of tying up my hair before eating.)
6. Bubbles
7. Combs (at least I can find my comb easily)
8. Dirt, dirt, and dirt (found out when I fell many times in Banahaw)
9. Ice cream :(
10. Toothpaste
11. Formalin (boo, hair stinks after that and makes my eyes tear up)
12. Blood (>_< Red blood cells adsorbed by my hair strands)
13. Gamu-gamo (er, at least it is not a cockroach)
14. Price tags (once a 1000 peso price tag got caught in it, so does that mean my hair was worth 1000 pesos at that time?)
15. Seatbelts in general (whether I use them or not)
16. Paint, of the water color, oil, and for buildings kinds.
Things that my hair has not gotten caught in/on/(insert possible appropriate preposition) but will eventually get caught in/on/(insert possible appropriate preposition):
1. Windows
2. Car windows (apparently they attract hair somehow, something to do with static electricity? I have been warned to keep hair away)
3. The Refrigerator (cold)
4. The Elevator (eeeeeek please no)
5. The toilet seat (eeeeeeeeeek again)
6. The piano seat that opens >_<
7. My lyre case
8. Boxes, in general
9. THE Stapler
10. Printer (eeeeeek nooooo)
11. Pencil Sharpener (kind that has a handle)
12. Gates of any kind
13. Tupperware
14. DVD/CD drives or DVD players
15. Blinds?
16. My scientific calculator
17. My lyre, in general
Things that have not gotten caught in my hair and will hopefully not (but will likely be):
1. Gum
2. Nail polish
3. Alcohol, in general
4. My computer mouse (its cord?)
5. My cellphone charger/laptop charger?
6. (my imagination is exhausted)
* added on June 29, 2007
***
I exercised my right to vote, and I have nothing to show for it but the stain on my right pointer finger. It’s purple, highly conspicuous, and I’ll see a similar stain on a few of my classmates the next day. My mother told me that I should be proud of the stain, but she herself removed it with acetone hours after she voted. (I should think that this “indelible” mark should not be so easily removed with acetone, of all things. Anyone with a full acetone bottle can vote and vote and vote with the current marking liquid) The stain had gold flecks on the first day, but constant washings of my hand has removed these and I am left with the dull purple stain.
Stepping out of the car, I am ambushed by many people of the male persuasion. They instantly offer me gray papers, which on further inspection are sample ballots with names filled in. These papers go into my bag and are forgotten.
I cough as I step in the gymnasium donated by the father of the man convicted because of the Vizconde Massacre. It’s funny that my first time to vote will be in a basketball gymnasium (conveniently two streets away from my house) but it’s been the place of voting for my family and neighbors for a long, long time.
I look for my district booth (there must be at least 30 different booths) in the gym, hoping not to be squished on the way. It’s only 9:30 am, but it seems like everyone in Paranaque is here voting.
I have only one id (since the good COMELEC has not seen it fit to give me my Voter’s ID), my UP id, and I show it to the man and he smiles. I sign next to my name on the list he proffers (which interestingly has a color picture of me, this picture supposedly for my Voter’s ID). He then points to an ominous black strip of sorts, and I realize that I must press my thumb to it so it’ll be inky. My first try is unsuccessful (the thumb is still flesh-colored) so I try again and overcompensate (the thumb is completely black with ink clumps stuck to it). The people managing the booth laugh and point to the places (on the 2 papers given me, one being a master list of sorts for them and the other being my ballot) I must press my thumb to. I do so and they point me to a monoblock table with monoblock chairs, pens, and ballot secrecy folders.
A ballot secrecy folder seems to me like those special foldermade things that we used back in Zobel to keep other people from copying our answers in exams. (I forgot the name -is it testcover or something?- , but it was the vogue to use special paper -e.g. gift wrapper- to cover those things so they wouldn’t be boring. I also remember that we weren’t allowed to take tests without that thing.) This folder was opened and standing - there were around four of these on the table so four people in my district could vote at the same time. Affixed to the inside of the secrecy folder was the list of congressmen and mayors and vice mayors and councilors I could vote for. An unattached stapled list placed on the area covered by the secrecy folder gave me the names of the senators and the party lists I could vote for. Unfortunately, my thumb was still not dry and I got ink on this list. >_<
I looked down at the ballot in my hand and my mind went blank. For some reason all the names I was sure I would be writing down flew out of my head.
I reconstructed my list, mentally listing the achievements and scandals of each person/party list on the given papers. I wondered if the pen provided me would give out, run out of ink because of the long names of the candidates. (Thankfully, no.) I wondered if I was going to be shouted at for taking too long, but thankfully my tablemates weren't quick voters either. (Not to mention that while there were a lot of people voting at that time, hardly anyone from my assigned district was voting.)
Finishing, I stood and offered my partially folded ballot to the man in charge. He laughed and folded it correctly (leaving the small stub at the bottom visible) and told me to tear the stub off. I did so and I attempted to place the ballot and stub in the box yet my eyes failed me (for some reason the noise escalated and I was overwhelmed with colors). My brother (who had already voted) pulled me closer to the box, I succeeded on both counts, and we walked out into the bright sunshine.
I wonder if my vote will really matter. Will it be used by others (among millions of other votes) for spurious means or will it remain untainted, clean?
My thumb is clean, and this purple mark will disappear soon. (Maybe I should pick up a bottle of acetone.) 2010, and I wonder who’ll I’ll vote for President (is Mar Roxas really running with Chiz as his vice-president?) and if I’ll even get a chance to vote for President as Miggy said (what if our system becomes a parliament?).
I wonder if this was worth lining up from 11:00 am to 8:30 pm one December day for.
Well, time will tell. My PI 100 teacher tells me that there’s been cheating again, both of the pre-election and post-election varieties.
***
From my contest:
I met you in third year, but we were never really formally introduced. Your third year section is Rubidium. I admire your programming skills, they're phenomenal. You are really skilled with music :) I'm surprised you friended me on lj.
Belated happy birthday Kido-san! :) I hope it was a great day for you :)
***
I can't wait to watch Block 14's (and a Nursing block's) play "Isang Bakla sa Hukbo ni Aguinaldo." :) I'm sure you've all seen the poster with Ardynne-san on it (as Trebor-san, Lara-san, and Joanne-san have each posted it) :) When a copy first appeared in UP our block crowded around it and identified all the people we knew on it.
If anyone's watching on Saturday (May 19) at 2pm, you'll see me there :)
[A dream induced by cramming and deprivation of many good things.]
You know, I dreamed a dream and you were in that dream.
In that dream, you were holding something in your hand. You spoke about what you held passionately and of worlds beyond while my current classmates listened intently. I, even though you were speaking directly to me - even looking at me with those dark eyes of yours and your words surrounding my being completely, I couldn’t understand anything.
Why? It’s not unheard of to see you in my dream, you being one of my everyday classmates (not like some others that should be but aren’t due to scheduling conflicts and different instructors).
You know what’s remarkable about this, about you, about you appearing in my dream?
You’re the only person who induced me to write about you in the dream itself.
I remember the purple prose flowing from my black pen’s nib: The boy-man using his carefully chosen words, simple yet with hidden depth, that evoked a glorious virtual wonderland for his listeners, making them forget what he held in his right hand. I remember you smiling knowingly; it’s like you saw the words as they appeared on my purple PI 100 notebook’s sixth blank page.
He looks at his audience, transfixed by the visions dancing in front of their eyes. Letting his voice trail off, he contemplated the mysterious verdant substance in his hand I wrote feverishly, unable to stop moving my pen and making coherent marks on my chosen page. Oddly, no one but you notices my questionable actions; you’ve woven the web around them so well that they don’t even feel bound.
In a blink of an eye, you toss the substance at me. I hold the notebook in front of my face, and the substance hits the page with my scribbled words soundly. I slowly lower the notebook and look at it; my prose has gone with the verdant substance I had written about.
You smile, and I realize that everyone else has gone. You raise your hand, the one that had not been holding the questionable substance, and you speak. Almost every word I had written earlier tumbles from your lips and I drop the notebook, wincing as it follows the law of gravity.
When I look at you, I see nothing but your mocking grin. You pick up the notebook and I protest feebly. I need that, I said, I still haven’t finished my essay on Veneration Without Understanding and the questions are there. You smile, a sardonic smile that I have seen but once back in the days when my hair was shorter and your hair longer, and whisper the last sentence of my purple prose now struck from the page once full.
”The boy-man, secure with what he knows, will get a higher grade in Stat Lab than the long-haired girl in front of him.” With that he disappears, and I am left with nothing but pavement, a black pen, and some statistics formulas in my head.
// I speak of this classmate in the platonic sense, let this be noted. Certainly this is a questionable dream, what with an unknown verdant substance (maybe related to the fact that I’m taking up Organic Chem next semester?) and disappearing classmates (Disillusionment charm from the upcoming Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix movie?) after they are bound in a woven web (Spider-man 3 influence?).
// And why must he taunt me with my laughable knowledge of Statistics? Bah. Bad classmate.
Epilogue:
When I take my seat, one glance to the right, then to the left and you are there.
Would I have dreamed of you before if not for your sitting next to me on the day of the test?
Stranger things have happened.
Conclusion: if I have a weird shot-to-hell dream about someone that person will sit next to me in the near-conceivable future.
***
Things that my hair has gotten caught in/on/(insert possible appropriate preposition):
1. A plant (in a pot - actually has happened two times, I end up lurching and having to double back and yank it -my hair- away from the shrub)
2. Doors (when I or someone else closes the door too quickly, I end up releasing a squeak conveying pain)
3. Car doors (still counts, different type of door)
4. UP chairs (I remember taking a test and realizing that my hair had er, found a great friend in my chair and didn't want to let go when I was about to turn in my paper :()
5. Balloons
6. Combs (Noooooo)
7. People's arms, butts, general appendages (>_< this sounds so wrong)
8. Dingdong's hair (his spiky hair can snag some of my hair if he bends a bit)
9. Bags, in general (hair gets caught in the bag's zipper, strap, what have you or it gets trapped under bags)
10. Drawers :(
11. My laptop/keyboard (owww)
12. My pants (my hair can now be tucked in my pants :) :) :))
13. Curtains
14. Books/Notebooks (they get trapped in the pages sometimes)
15. My saxophone case/piano/saxophone
16. Doorknobs
17. The clasp that closes plastic envelopes*
18. Pizza boxes*
Things that has gotten (caught in)/on my hair during the day:
1. Pieces of tape (and I just find out when I'm about to go to bed)
2. Glue (very hard to remove :()
3. Ballpens/pencils/writing implements (has happened even when I had shorter hair)
4. Correction fluid (everytime I see a white hair in my hair, I wonder if it's a real white hair or a correction fluid colored one - it's usually the latter)
5. Gravy/Spaghetti sauce/any food sauce (I am seriously thinking of tying up my hair before eating.)
6. Bubbles
7. Combs (at least I can find my comb easily)
8. Dirt, dirt, and dirt (found out when I fell many times in Banahaw)
9. Ice cream :(
10. Toothpaste
11. Formalin (boo, hair stinks after that and makes my eyes tear up)
12. Blood (>_< Red blood cells adsorbed by my hair strands)
13. Gamu-gamo (er, at least it is not a cockroach)
14. Price tags (once a 1000 peso price tag got caught in it, so does that mean my hair was worth 1000 pesos at that time?)
15. Seatbelts in general (whether I use them or not)
16. Paint, of the water color, oil, and for buildings kinds.
Things that my hair has not gotten caught in/on/(insert possible appropriate preposition) but will eventually get caught in/on/(insert possible appropriate preposition):
1. Windows
2. Car windows (apparently they attract hair somehow, something to do with static electricity? I have been warned to keep hair away)
3. The Refrigerator (cold)
4. The Elevator (eeeeeek please no)
5. The toilet seat (eeeeeeeeeek again)
6. The piano seat that opens >_<
7. My lyre case
8. Boxes, in general
9. THE Stapler
10. Printer (eeeeeek nooooo)
11. Pencil Sharpener (kind that has a handle)
12. Gates of any kind
13. Tupperware
14. DVD/CD drives or DVD players
15. Blinds?
16. My scientific calculator
17. My lyre, in general
Things that have not gotten caught in my hair and will hopefully not (but will likely be):
1. Gum
2. Nail polish
3. Alcohol, in general
4. My computer mouse (its cord?)
5. My cellphone charger/laptop charger?
6. (my imagination is exhausted)
* added on June 29, 2007
***
I exercised my right to vote, and I have nothing to show for it but the stain on my right pointer finger. It’s purple, highly conspicuous, and I’ll see a similar stain on a few of my classmates the next day. My mother told me that I should be proud of the stain, but she herself removed it with acetone hours after she voted. (I should think that this “indelible” mark should not be so easily removed with acetone, of all things. Anyone with a full acetone bottle can vote and vote and vote with the current marking liquid) The stain had gold flecks on the first day, but constant washings of my hand has removed these and I am left with the dull purple stain.
Stepping out of the car, I am ambushed by many people of the male persuasion. They instantly offer me gray papers, which on further inspection are sample ballots with names filled in. These papers go into my bag and are forgotten.
I cough as I step in the gymnasium donated by the father of the man convicted because of the Vizconde Massacre. It’s funny that my first time to vote will be in a basketball gymnasium (conveniently two streets away from my house) but it’s been the place of voting for my family and neighbors for a long, long time.
I look for my district booth (there must be at least 30 different booths) in the gym, hoping not to be squished on the way. It’s only 9:30 am, but it seems like everyone in Paranaque is here voting.
I have only one id (since the good COMELEC has not seen it fit to give me my Voter’s ID), my UP id, and I show it to the man and he smiles. I sign next to my name on the list he proffers (which interestingly has a color picture of me, this picture supposedly for my Voter’s ID). He then points to an ominous black strip of sorts, and I realize that I must press my thumb to it so it’ll be inky. My first try is unsuccessful (the thumb is still flesh-colored) so I try again and overcompensate (the thumb is completely black with ink clumps stuck to it). The people managing the booth laugh and point to the places (on the 2 papers given me, one being a master list of sorts for them and the other being my ballot) I must press my thumb to. I do so and they point me to a monoblock table with monoblock chairs, pens, and ballot secrecy folders.
A ballot secrecy folder seems to me like those special foldermade things that we used back in Zobel to keep other people from copying our answers in exams. (I forgot the name -is it testcover or something?- , but it was the vogue to use special paper -e.g. gift wrapper- to cover those things so they wouldn’t be boring. I also remember that we weren’t allowed to take tests without that thing.) This folder was opened and standing - there were around four of these on the table so four people in my district could vote at the same time. Affixed to the inside of the secrecy folder was the list of congressmen and mayors and vice mayors and councilors I could vote for. An unattached stapled list placed on the area covered by the secrecy folder gave me the names of the senators and the party lists I could vote for. Unfortunately, my thumb was still not dry and I got ink on this list. >_<
I looked down at the ballot in my hand and my mind went blank. For some reason all the names I was sure I would be writing down flew out of my head.
I reconstructed my list, mentally listing the achievements and scandals of each person/party list on the given papers. I wondered if the pen provided me would give out, run out of ink because of the long names of the candidates. (Thankfully, no.) I wondered if I was going to be shouted at for taking too long, but thankfully my tablemates weren't quick voters either. (Not to mention that while there were a lot of people voting at that time, hardly anyone from my assigned district was voting.)
Finishing, I stood and offered my partially folded ballot to the man in charge. He laughed and folded it correctly (leaving the small stub at the bottom visible) and told me to tear the stub off. I did so and I attempted to place the ballot and stub in the box yet my eyes failed me (for some reason the noise escalated and I was overwhelmed with colors). My brother (who had already voted) pulled me closer to the box, I succeeded on both counts, and we walked out into the bright sunshine.
I wonder if my vote will really matter. Will it be used by others (among millions of other votes) for spurious means or will it remain untainted, clean?
My thumb is clean, and this purple mark will disappear soon. (Maybe I should pick up a bottle of acetone.) 2010, and I wonder who’ll I’ll vote for President (is Mar Roxas really running with Chiz as his vice-president?) and if I’ll even get a chance to vote for President as Miggy said (what if our system becomes a parliament?).
I wonder if this was worth lining up from 11:00 am to 8:30 pm one December day for.
Well, time will tell. My PI 100 teacher tells me that there’s been cheating again, both of the pre-election and post-election varieties.
***
From my contest:
I met you in third year, but we were never really formally introduced. Your third year section is Rubidium. I admire your programming skills, they're phenomenal. You are really skilled with music :) I'm surprised you friended me on lj.
Belated happy birthday Kido-san! :) I hope it was a great day for you :)
***
I can't wait to watch Block 14's (and a Nursing block's) play "Isang Bakla sa Hukbo ni Aguinaldo." :) I'm sure you've all seen the poster with Ardynne-san on it (as Trebor-san, Lara-san, and Joanne-san have each posted it) :) When a copy first appeared in UP our block crowded around it and identified all the people we knew on it.
If anyone's watching on Saturday (May 19) at 2pm, you'll see me there :)