I watched Harrison Ford in his youth, swinging through vines, dodging arrows laden with Curacao poisons. My sister told me, though, that I should be more careful now with Harrison Ford's face, I should not scratch him, I should not lose him somewhere or pass him around like a commodity.

And I just nodded as I looked at the old man, slipped him inside my pocket, and, later in the day, all I could ever do was to bite through custard cakes as I watch him digging for the Ark of the Covenant.

Yesterday when my younger niece had the itch for some lactum ingestion, we cut our sibling walk short and sped through Mindanao Avenue in hushed engine puffs as the kids sang songs and laughed. And when we reached their home I browsed through racks of DVDs, examining each one with careful flipping and prying, expecting to see Gossip Girl's second season or the latest in the ever unheard TV show, Eureka.

But I found this Indiana Jones Trilogy set, in cold glossy metal case, Harrison Ford's youthful faced splashed over beneath prominen thumb marks. If I didn't watch the 'Crystal Skull', I would never have bothered grabbing the thing, after overcharging my sister's videocam, leaving the screen yellowish and pale, only to find out later that she and her husband quarrelled over such a petty thing. Petty things spurned from my carelessness, petty things that splurted out from the fact that oftentimes, I just don't give a damn about things.

So at day's end I was able to watch one movie, mortified of such horror that one film was more than two hours, even more infuriated because I can't have this Monday as a free day, I have to study for Math and Accounting if I want to make my mother and father retire with convenience.
It then flashed upon me one evening's conversation with my father, from his nostalgic spree in Tabaco, in our house where all eight of us grew up, where I learned to ride a bike, where he always goes back to at late evenings, drunk and near dozing off.

He told me that it will make him and Mama really happy if I graduate Summa cum Laude.

I told him being drunk and being such a providing father didn't give him any excuse to ask from me such impossible things.

He laughed and said it's possible, if only I work hard.

And I didn't bother to say anything again, I just looked at jeepneys speeding through, listened to him laughing again, and mumbled something about me always disliking it whenever he calls all of us drunk and disoriented.

Of course it wasn't my father. It was him and alcohol, it was him and reality, and the lack of obstruction for truth to flow out.

And in this evening I look back at hushed days, suppressed in my own sense of remembering, when my eldest brother called me up telling me how disappointed my father was when he learned I was taking subjects so I can shift to Philosophy. He told me my father can never tell me bluntly what he wanted me to be.

So here I am, borrowing portable DSL connections, slapping the keyboards, glancing at my Math notes at my left side, trying to picture out what becomes of these seconds as the night breezes through. Here I am pouring myself into words, squinting my eyes from the brightness of the fluorescent bulb, unmoved my crickets humming and the promise of what is yet to come.

Here I am looking back, juggling thoughts, repainting memories. Not because I am nostalgic and not because the hours and minutes tickle me to remember.

But because the night seems so barren and long, and the weeks and years seem to dance away too slowly, too silently.

Today I watched 'Wall-E' with my siblings and with my bratty 4-year old niece who thinks Wall-E is an ugly, rusty robot. I have been hearing a lot about Wall-E being so tear-jerky and all, and I felt deceived as I walked out of the theater with popcorn stains on my shirt, how the hell can a movie about two near-copulation robots become tear-jerky?

On that supposed to be primary issue that is 'Is Wall-E a good movie? I tell you: yes, because it's not a waste of money, and to a certain extent it washed away my stress from cramming and caffeine overdosing during Ipil's cricket-laden nights. Wall-E was good because it made me think when in fact I should have been slouching and chewing popcorn. It was good because it was something new and it was about robot love. Thank God for the concept of neo-creativity.

BUT, channelling my sense of world hate and misanthropy, let me answer: Is Wall-E freaking bad? I say with a resounding tone as concretized by the exclamation mark: YES! Simply for the fact that my niece kept slapping me during the earlier parts of the movie because she just doesn't dig the philosophical undertones of the Earth turning into a trash bin! Honestly Pixar, how can you make children contemplate about world causes? By telling them to burn their Barbie dolls because Mattel oppresses its laborers? By telling them a waste disposal robot will be crushed to death because his girlfriend took home a plant?

Still, the verdict boils down into Wall-E being a really good movie, for the fact that I simply love futuristic themes and settings and for the fact that I still cannot escape my Stat exam hangover. So any promise of fun will do.

Besides, my niece later on realized that robot films by Pixar aren't really that bad, since, to my surprise, she got the point about earth-abandonment, futuristic human habitats, sustainability [lol] and most important of all, love. Naks, mana kay Uncle.

***
I just finished my first round of exams for my own horribly stressful exams week(s). First was on Environmental Science which was just a group quiz. Jeez, I ditched my Pi Sigma debate for a group quiz? Anyway, later on, in some screams for joy effect courtesy of Shiela and Jeremiah, we found out our group got the highest score. And then due to the really dehumanizing time intervals between exams, I had to cram myself to study for Statistics.

This meant again, due to my poor sense of time and schedule, ditching Deb Soc required tambay debates just to convince myself that Stat is so important in my plain, unassuming existence. And the evil part in here is realizing that my Stat prof has fantasies of being 'elevated' into the terror prof status, as she took exam problems from a Stat major subject. Dyosko naman Mam, kung bad trip ka kasi hindi ka pa nagswesweldo, wag mo idaan sa exam. Lol, tagalog.

The best part of this week will then be, of course, my new favorite subject: Econ 100.1! Yey!

I don't know, but I feel so lucky that with only about 12 hours worth of studying, I was able to actually feign a sense of confidence throughout my answering. Prior to that I had to coerce Brad, EnvSci classmate-slash-BAA majormate-slash-dorm kapitbahay, into teaching me the Math parts of the chapters since those were the parts Monsod was blabbering about when I was always tardy for class, absent or when I simply cut classes to go somewhere less Econ-ish. So yey, I somehow think the caffeine overdoses had at least prevented me from panicking and from feeling that usual after-stress 'ang tanga tanga ko' effect.

I Love You Economics! I love you na rin Monsod, lol.

Basically, this week was stressful, but since Wall-E and mall skip-and-hopping had neutralized all my potential whinings, I surprisingly end this post in a non-complaining, non-hateful mood.

And all the unnecessary emo parts have been translated into pure love, pure bliss, pure compassion and pure happiness. LOL ulit.

But the issue in here is not me walking out with my Red Adidas back hanging by a strap. the issue here are my mood swings, my silence spells, my kept in, unreleased anger on petty things and my lapses in simple reason, my deviance from dummy logic. What do I want now? What do I want for this week, for next month, the month after? I do not feel like there is a concrete line where I could tread on, jump around, giggle in all the temporal and emotional security. I feel floating, looking around and essentially purposeless in my bigtime charade.

Well yeah, I do feel mediocre, like what I have been blabbering in my blog. But it's not that big, I say that everyday, every minute if I wanted to, not because I feel absolutely mediocre [as if mediocre is not founded upon relative notions], I say that because I don't know where I want to fix myself, or root myself.

I swear to God, maga-Acad Mode na ako. Slap me if I do not do so, cut my throat if I eat at Jollibee again or whatever until 11, as if I do not have prob sets waiting for me.

I am hating how I am handling my life lately. I am hating how I sleep suddenly at ngiht with my books left open at the study, with my fluorescent lamp glaring all throughout the night as I snore and dream of dreamable things. I am hating how things are changing, how things are flying, how life is rearranging itself, or rather, the pace by which it does.

No, let me take that back, I love it how things are veering away from boring dormancy. But if only the world could wait for me so I could breathe, pause for a while, and confidently point at what I want to do, I wouldn't have walked out because of accumulated pissed offness, I would have been changing clothes and getting a Cab to take me to BK Timog.

But no, I feel tired and disoriented, I feel confused with where I 'm going but I feel like I'm compelled to stay put.

I think I could get through this, though. I mean this is me and my irrational stress releases. It's just that, I am so disappointed with how I am handling time lately. Please God help me out with my schedule issues, give me a spotlight or a lightning bolt so I may know what I should do and what I shouldn't bother with. Please Please Please.

By the way, I just won a Palanca award. Weehee.

Over YM, a friend told me to look at the bright side of life, which is so darn theoretical that it didn't really move me at all. It's just that, I miss the optimistic me, the meditating, positive thinking me that I lost somewhere along my acad-OCness journey. And so here I am, contemplating on braving through the rain to watch Mummy and buy pants and polo shirt afterwards or on just staying put at home watching Supernatural [and blogging].

I can still remember the ranting me, complaining on how pimple-inducing my daily stress has become. In fact, I have been getting pimples everyday that I actually began not to care at all, like a splurt of realization that pimples are natural occurences of the universe, not a pubertal punishment of shame and ridicule. Anyway, there, and so again, over YM, I chatted with a high school friend who's now in her 4th year in UP Imed, and I whined about how busy my life has been, and when she told her side of the story, I realized, I whine more that I get stressed. Which is a bad thing.

Right now I am waiting for my niece who is supposed to be here today, playing teacups or whatever or making me run after her all over Trinoma's pathways. I wonder if she'll be able to come since the rain is getting bitchier every second. I want to watch supernatural since there is still daylight, I want to study about STFAP for my Pi Sigma debate, I want to study Economics because I am always late in lecture class, I want to watch Mummy, I want to watch a Very Special Love. I want a lot but I have little time, and all I could do is to blog about that. How efficient is that, ladies and gentlemen.

I think I need to do something revolutionary in my life, like, Che Guevarra-ish. Although the prospect of getting your face stamped on 150 or so tshirts is just darn overexposure!

Things I should do but I am not doing because I am a lazy ass:

1) Watch a 'A Very Special Love' with someone with the same emotional wavelength as I have, Katkat, where are you?!

2) Watch The Mummy TOmb of the Dragon Whatever with someone, with anyone actually! I miss this series!

3) Study about the benefits crap of STFAP and pretend that I like it even if I freaking pay 20 000 pesos for my tuition, all for our Pi Sig debate on Tuesday

4) Finish watching Supernatural Season 1 in broad daylight

5) Study Econ because nothing's getting retained in my brain about capital jizzes, crapola, but hey, I try to love Economics

6) Finish all accounting problem sets, God, make me diligent PLEASE

7) Prepare a time-table on how I can get to JPIA App Outing tomorrow on TIME

8) Consume my 5 day Unlitext benefits

9) Go to Trinoma and buy clothes on sale

10) Go back to Ipil since my siblings are hibernating in the bad weather

I need sunshine. Metro Manila beneath dark clouds looks freaky.

Ever since June I had a schedule. During weekends I'm at home, in Pagasa, net surfing, browsing through multiply, blogging, flirting and what have you [DebSoc ikaw ba yan?]. I go back to Ipil on Mondays, study all day, hear mass at Holy Sacrifice exactly at 6, then eat Bicol Express at Rodic's right after. It's a simple weekend time-table, and for the rest of the week, all I have to do is to make sure I don't go to class late [which I often do], and study until 2 AM, at the minimum.