zee had the chance to see our class picture for the first time last night. after a quick glance, he lost no time in identifying which ones were the losers (who probably banded together to protect themselves), the emo ones, the uptight brains and the IT girls/boys.

of course he wrote me off immediately as a loser from the hair alone. yeah, i was a loser and very emo (and still am) at a time when EMO was non-existent and ANGST was the latest buzz word for loser kids who wanted to redeem themselves by acting all cool about it. hm, actually it was a time when angst was starting to go stale, because the 90s were almost over. (i think i’m already contradicting myself but who cares - free speech in the freaking blogosphere is sooo in right now, it’s okay to blurt out irrational statements, fallacies and grammatical errors.) i guess we were just lost - neither Gen X nor Gen Y. i don’t remember us caring about adjectives and labels, at least the angsty ones like me.

but i can clearly recall the utter need to belong, like it was the be-all and end-all of high school. yeah, i cared about that shit a lot. heck there were times i felt ashamed of my family ’cause they might not be good enough for my friends. i also used to conspicuously attach myself to a certain clique so i’d look like i wasn’t too-out-there or invisible or just plain 100% total loser, the person nobody would talk to or be in the same area within a 5-mile radius. my trying-hard act eventually caught up with me and there was a time when all of a sudden, i became an outcast in that barkada-that-refused-to-call-itself-barkada. i don’t blame them, hell, i know i was annoying - i think i still am.

and so floating from one friend to another - at least those who’d still talk to me despite drifting to other cliques - i quietly withdrew to the library and spent the last days of high school answering incomplete crosswords and reading the classical section - the only shelf in the library with fiction books. by some divine providence, this whole fiasco turned out to be a blessing, for in those 2 meager rows of books i found Holden Caulfield (thanks to Rhea who recommended it).

perhaps my classmates were never really lost. i was the one who’s lost. after reading Catcher in the Rye, i took comfort in the fact that there were others like me, albeit only figments of somebody’s imagination. and it made waiting for graduation less lonely.

[postscript - this was supposed to be a post on how we were in high school, but my pen took a life of its own and insisted we talk about the self-centered bitch that is me. i think as much as i hate taking pictures of myself (or getting my picture taken, as shown above), i like talking/writing about myself. to the point of manipulating any topic to revolve around me. i am so good. am i vain or what?]

and so people are getting married, having babies, finding their purpose, climbing the ladder of success, raising a family, finally finding a great hobby and excelling at it.

and as for me, as for me

i just want a nice, clean keyboard, all of its keys complete and working perfectly, without a sleepy letter or space bar or a Shift key stuck when i’m not touch typing. i was never a touch typist anyway.

if only i got around to reminding you

if only i got around to squeezing in a hurried prayer for you

for z:

” Here’s the day you hoped would never come
Don’t feed me violins
just run with me through rows of speeding cars.
The papercuts the cheating lovers
The coffee’s never strong enough
i know you think it’s more than just bad luck”

for k:

“There there baby
it’s just text book stuff
it’s in the ABC of growing up
Now now darling
don’t loose your head
none of us were angels
and you know I love you yeah”

i’m not even sure if this is a self-imposed sin. or if this is just me being selfish. asking for forgiveness, apologizing is a selfish thing, i think. i can’t explain it, but i feel it is. so i will say sorry but you don’t have to forgive me. waiting for absolution should be my penance. but for self-imposed sins, will forgiveness ever come?

…asking hypothetical questions when i was 12.

funny how i can cry by a song.

i downloaded “rainbow connection”, versions by lea salonga and kermit the frog, and suddenly, after listening to the first few bars, i miss my childhood. my siblings used to sing along to this and other kiddie songs (it’s a small world, tomorrow, someone’s waiting for you, where is love, etc.) when we were little and this was one of our favorites. so yeah, images of our innocence, freedom and sanguinity flooded my head while my heart was being crushed.

i tried singing along to the song, but i forgot some of the lyrics. the words were very familiar, but the most i can do was just finish kermit the frog’s lines. my version was also a bit off-key and i was hearing myself catching up to the young lea.

hey, i used to be cheerful, optimistic, young, unpretentious. in a span of 20 years, i’ve become cynical, old, multi-tasking, stressed and trying to keep those ugly things from showing. is this what being a grown up is like? did i grow up wrong?

ang corny ko talaga.

do you know about the proust questionnaire that’s been simplified by James Lipton on “Inside the Actors Studio“? it’s supposed to be a questionnaire that will ultimately provide answers about your personality, which, in my opinion is really dumb. i liken it to a self-help book about finding yourself or whatever the heck personality issues that you need because your life is devoid of problems. but because it’s on “…Actors Studio” and angelina jolie, hugh laurie and natalie portman gamely replied to the questions without being snobbish like me, i decided to take it as well.  it’s French, done by celebrities, how could i resist?

fine, i really did it because i was procrastinating again this afternoon.

- - -

1. What is your favorite word?
obscure
2. What is your least favorite word?
Love
3. What turns you on creatively, spiritually or emotionally?
melancholy
4. What turns you off creatively, spiritually or emotionally?
WORKarrogance - other people’s not mine.
5. What sound or noise do you love?
the sound of bubble wrap popping
6. What sound or noise do you hate?
my own whining; it sounds like fingernails scratching against the chalk board
7. What is your favorite curse word?
birat ka tim iroy (waray for “you are your mother’s cunt”), but i rarely use this because nobody around me would understand.
8. What profession other than your own would you like to attempt?
maid ni JAZA; but seriously? ian wright’s job or pulitzer-prize winning photojournalist
9. What profession would you not like to do?
anything that has to do with animals, caves, swimming, or high places with unstable footing
10. If Heaven exists, what would you like to hear God say when you arrive at the Pearly Gates?
“i forgive you”. i kinda hope i also get a hug.

it is almost the funniest thing in the world and the saddest thing at the same time - crying in a comfort room stall while peeing; texting loved ones while eating while working; screaming cusswords in my head on a stupid situation while chatting with a friend about how cool the Civil War series is, saying grace while thinking what’s for dessert, reading the bible while doing crunches…must i always multi-task my life like it’s work? is this the part where i should cry and laugh at the same time?

i’m not obsessed with James McAvoy

i’m not obsessed with James McAvoy

i’m not obsessed with James McAvoy

i’m not obsessed with James McAvoy

(trailers from his latest movies)

Wanted

Atonement

Becoming Jane

Starter for 10

i’m not obsessed with James McAvoy

i’m not obsessed with James McAvoy

i’m not obsessed with James McAvoy

i’m not obsessed with James McAvoy

he had a noticeable lisp that i immediately observed the moment he started introducing himself. but that is not the reason why i could still remember his name and his face. it did help that he had a cute, boyish charm around him. but that was not the reason why he still registers in my memory either, ’cause then he’ll just be one of those nameless faces or first-name acquaintances (if he’s lucky). it’s simply because he remembered by name.

as anybody who knows me enough can attest, i am someone who’s usually content to sit anywhere around the middle of the class and i always try to blend in to lessen the chances of being called on to recite. naturally, i also had mediocre scores. this can be perfectly explained by the ff:

1) i’m too scared to fail at being the best so i settle for mediocrity ’cause that don’t hurt too much (awww…)

2) i was raised on conditions where i cannot make autonomous decisions that led me to always underachieve, lack initiative and have no sense of leadership whatsoever. but that’s just Freud talking so let’s not go blaming my parents now.

after being in their classrooms for a few months, teachers could barely remember my name. i’d be lucky if they could even remember my ever-forgettable face (my grade school teachers are an exception here, but only because my aunt is a terror teacher in our school).

so here comes this cute, charming Hum II professor with a lisp who would suddenly call my name above the din of rushing students as we pass by each other behind Oble. i never wanted to call attention to myself so i’d suddenly get embarrassed like a kid whose parents would call him out amid the in-crowd. hello?!? it was only the Humanities bldg. where all elbi kids have their hum classes.

on the surface, i naturally thought, ‘what the hell? stop calling me by my first name around these CommArts-Socio org people or they’ll spot me from the uncool crowd, start nitpicking about my clothes, call me names and before i know it, they’ll be flashing numbered cards measuring me against their uncool meter - except on Mondays when i’m wearing my seal shirt, ha-ha.’ (to the unindoctrinated: seal shirt means a shirt bearing the seal of an organization, usually a fraternity or sorority). internally, though, i was a bit glad of the implications that, despite HumII being over a year ago, he could still remember me, not as “Katrina”, “Trina” or “Rina” but as “Karina”.

but now that i think about it, he did forget who i was the first time he called me to recite, thanks to his “random” shuffling of 40 index cards bearing our names. the scene went on like this:

DBC: ano ang kahulugan ng dahon na nakatakip sa ari ni Oble? (’course i made that up. i forgot what the question was, since that was 7 years ago. duh)

(DBC shuffling cards…)

DBC: um, Katrina? (looks around)

me:… (waiting for eye contact for 3 seconds)

me: sir, Karina po.

DBC: oh, Karina pala.

me: meron siyang castration anxiety kaya pinakiusapan niya si Guillermo Tolentino kung pwede niyang ipangtakip yung dahon ng halaman niya sa tabi. gagawan na lang daw ito ng mga taga-UP ng kahulugan balang araw. at yun na nga ang ginagawa natin ngayon. sir.

i guess the mistaken name (misnomer?) explains why he remembered my name, and NOT because i struck him as very witty and thus, special, with redeeming qualities despite the sardonic attitude. it was only because he always had to correct himself everytime; imagine: DBC thought, ‘hm, this girl’s name is NOT Katrina but something close to that and it started with a K…aha!’. DBC shouts, “uy, KaRina!”. dang it.

i planned to wrap this up for once with a perfect red bow made of positive vibes, full of hopeful and inspiring notes that there’s always a favorite teacher, a mentor who’ll believe that you can be more than your mediocre self. if i weren’t writing this thing, and if i weren’t racking my brains out a while ago for an anecdote with him in class, i would never have been able to remember that mistake EVER and my mental image of him will forever be that of the remarkable teacher who had no prejudices on his students.

but all i learned from this is an affirmation that memory is a tricky thing-we somehow filter out the parts that don’t really matter to us in the long run. and if there are gaps to fill, we make something up so that the meaning will not be lost on us.

EDIT: major blunder! it should’ve been Guillermo Tolentino instead of Napoleon Abueva. haller! haay, i shoulda looked it up in wiki first before i started name-dropping. i always get the 2 confused, see, ’cause the former created the original (at UP Manila) and the latter, who was Tolentino’s mentee, created the replicas for the other campuses (later bastardized by splashing Oble in gold, or dark bronze. eew.) dang it.

i don’t get:

1. most girls’ obsession with designer bags
2. why most girls go to the bathroom in droves
3. why my hair becomes outwardly wavy when it reaches my shoulders
4. what the big deal is with havaianas. they’re just colorful versions of spartan tsinelas for cripes’ sake.
5. why most Pinoy guys pee against public walls
6. why other people pay their jeepney fares upon disembarking; the worse thing is when they pay in purple, gold or blue bills. dang it.