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Funny Face is one of my favorite Hepburn movies. Not only does it remove Ms. Hepburn from the classy, rich, socialite roles that she is known for (Audrey Hepburn is quite the beatnik in this movie), the film also introduces a concept that I fully understand, whether or not it is a real and accepted concept—“empathecalism.” Empathecalism promotes understanding and communication through putting yourself in the shoes of another.

This, I know too well. Recent events have rendered me heartbroken for brief bursts because I am surrounded by a lot of people who have had their own hearts broken. One moment, I was the single jellyfish in the sea of fish swimming in a sea in tandems, and the next, I am the single happy jellyfish in the sea of sad, heartbroken girl-fishes. And this is a surprising change. For the people close to me who recently lost someone, one moment they’re happy, skipping, so in loooove, with “Teenage Dream” playing in the background, and the next thing they knew, literally the next thing they knew, whoosh, they left hanging in the air, and they’re falling, falling, falling, and “Thinking Of You” is playing in the background. And then thump, they land, and it hurts. And all their bits and pieces are left for the world to marvel at.

So you can say I can fully empathize, not just sympathize. One morning I woke up to heartbreak and ended up crying out of nowhere. I knew I was “empathicalizing” so well because it’s like a slideshow of all the guys who broke the hearts of those close to me ran through my head, and every time I’d think of one of them, my heart would hurt a bit, and I cried. True story. And  I knew that this wasn’t really about me, because when I felt like I was done crying, I laughed at myself and got on with my life. It’s like I shared a bit of their heartache, in what I hope was an effort to alleviate some of their pain, and I cried for them so all the pain would go away.

Because when your heart is broken, it’s like your heart is split in half, and then tiny miniature minion-versions of the boy who broke it is like stepping on the tiny pieces on the floor, making it bleed some more. You are, for the moment, paralyzed, and there is nothing in life that you want to do but to just sit there and take everything in. How did everything end up like this?

At the moment though, I don’t think I understand the half of heartbreak. I just know it hurts, for realz. The scale, I can’t really describe, except until that minion-stepping part. Past that, I wouldn’t know, because I haven’t felt it in a long time. And because luckily, I never had a boy deliberately break my heart.

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Posted in Reflections, Relationships | 2 Comments »

“Maybe all the men I ever become infatuated with will, first and foremost, be wildly learned, highly talented, and passionately eloquent, with crenelated brains. I can’t imagine myself falling for a man who can’t cite at least 10 proverbs, 5 philosophical allusions and the names of at least 3 composers.” 0151Wei Hui, Shanghai Baby

Economically, this isn’t a very realistic proposition for me. First and foremost, my demand is too high, and my supply is too low, perhaps bordering on… well, 0. The consumer is also not in good condition, she just successfully gained her Freshman 10. Well, irrelevant information, but whatever.

Of course I don’t really care for a man who can cite at least 10 proverbs, 5 philosophical allusions and the names of at least 3 composers! That is so 1998.

So, to guide all future suitors and prospective boyfriends, here’s a list of 10 ludicrous things Vicky will ask of her future “guy.”

1. That you can do at least 3 different accents (I can do Bisaya, Cowboy, Indian, and Ghetto boy/girl spectacularly well, to name a few).
2. That you know at least 5 pop culture allusions. Or 5 topics that will make my eyes light up. (For example: Marla Singer)
3. That you can cite at least 10 lines from that Mumm-Ra song in (500) Days of Summer. Yes, this is a trick question. If you didn’t know that it is, get out.
4. You must know all the rules of Fight Club.
5. I ask that you do a 10-page, 1.5-spaced paper on any of these topics: The Implications of a Vulcan Salute, Kung Papaano Minikaniko ni Moniko ang Makina ng Minika ni Monika, How To Achieve Self-Actualization As Told By Mia Thermopolis, The Importance of Lady Gaga to Current Society (or simply any paper on Lady Gaga would do), Why Clover Chips Is The Best Chips Ever. DO NOT USE COMIC SANS. Other suggested topics are allowed but are subject to (for?) approval. Put suggested topics in ¼ sheet of paper.
6. That you know how to dance the Q-tip and do the various household materials dances (i.e. the screwdriver, the blender, the chopper, the hammer…)
7. That you know big words, like adamant, nihilism, Machiavellian, ostensible… you know, words that would make me reach out for my electronic dictionary. Better yet, use ordinary words in a humongous way—I would like to pose the proposal be proposed in such a way that the proposed proposal is purposefully proposed.
   
8. You must appreciate The Princess Diaries. If not, it’s over between you and me, you heartless buttwipe. This. Is. Not. Ludicrous.
9. Now, this is not too ludicrous (I just realized that Ludacris’s name might have been derived from this word. Awesome.), but I kind of would like someone who would argue with me. Not a lot of people argue with me, and I’m awfully attached to that victorious feeling of being right, so it would be rather refreshing to have someone out-critically-think me. I know I won’t like it, but my subconscious would be jumping for joy. You have to be comforted by that thought, because I will literally bite your head off once we start arguing.
10. The last ludicrous thing that I would ask of you is that you ask to hold my hand, that you ask to be my French navy, my sailor mate. That you tell me that you would trade your mother to hear my raspy, man-voice sing. I want you to ask if it’s out of line were you to be bold and say, “Would you be mine?” I want you to tell me that you want everything with me. That… wait! They don’t love me like you love me.I want you to tell me that you want my loving, my revenge, and that you would willingly write yourself into a bad romance with me. That *cringe* my love is your drug.

…

Nope, not really. I just want you to enumerate all the song titles (5 pts) and their artists (7 pts) that I alluded to. Bonus points for album (10 pts) and year (13 pts). Put your answers in a ½ sheet lengthwise sheet of paper. Grades will be posted online. Right minus wrong. F is not a respectable grade for any man.

I dare you to spot my redundancies, my grammatical errors and my syntactical errors throughout this whole list.

If your answer is zero, you could be my man.

Still. I expect all requirements to be submitted in a short brown envelope with a half-naked picture of your full body. Which half is naked could be up to you. Bespectacled boys not only get plus points, but advance to the next round. Congratulations, Napoleon Dynamite. Remember, DON’T USE COMIC SANS MS in your computerized outputs.

Vicky

Posted in Lists | 8 Comments »

The irony of listening to Lady GaGa’s “Monster”(which is, without exaggeration, my LSS song for more than a month now) while my roommates are talking about insanely scary stories is not lost on me. (It’s not a particularly strong irony, but I had to have a pseudo-striking first sentence.)

I don’t like scary stories, okay. I don’t like being scared. I have a hyperactive imagination. Tell me a story and it goes on in my head, complete with the outfits, setting, how the character looks. I don’t watch scary movies. There’s a reason why my list of favorite movies include Princess Diaries, Amelie, and Pretty in Pink, okay. They’re all happy movies. Girly movies, even. All mildly escapist in nature. (I think I got this from my mom)

But this is not me denying that such things can exist. I’d like to think that they do if only you want them to. I choose not to. I’ve got too much in my life going on to be bothered about the supernatural stuff.

Which is another irony, because… well, I like reading comic books. Sandman is all about the supernatural stuff. As is Lucifer (which I’m willing to continue reading again, Ger), and Batman and Superman and anything by Grant Morrison. I actually noticed that I hold back on being disturbed. I refuse to let my head be perturbed by the insanely disturbing stuff, because I really will lose sleep over them, I’m not kidding. After watching Inception (which wasn’t even disturbing in an insane level) I remember waking up and wondering some weird stuff, with conspiracy theories forming in my head while brushing my teeth, while shampooing my hair. And I don’t even remember them because, well… I got disturbed by my “disturbedness.”

Case in point: The Killing Joke. I refused to let it penetrate me, so it didn’t take. ‘Di tumalab. I read it again, this time lingering on the disturbing images, and that’s where the steady stream of horror ran through my body, courtesy of the visuals provided by Brian Bollard. If I close my eyes, I can see The Joker’s breaking point where he just looks at you and maniacally laughs. And my pseudo-favorite scene is the one with Gordon with a selection of pictures of Barbara Gordon (you can’t just say Barbara) focused in certain body parts, in state of undress, bleeding and twisted.

In fact, I think that if I really wanted to, I can really get nuts. I live in my pretty much live in my head sometimes.

Which is why I don’t watch scary movies. I don’t care if people find cowardice in that. I don’t care if I’m called KJ for not wanting to watch a scary movie. My head can produce its own scary movie.

I get my kick somewhere else. I don’t get why people watch scary movies, but perhaps my Lit prof was right in saying the scary movies are cathartic. Release for intense emotions.

Perhaps I find catharsis in romance movies.

Might as well say I do find catharsis in horror.

Posted in Etcetera | 2 Comments »

Expectations:

1. Mall-hopping: Rockwell, Greenbelt, or if not maybe cheap stuff hopping – Divisoria, Ukay-ukays sprinkled over the metro, Cubao X. This is my idea of “getting away”.
2. Seeing my geeky dorky crush in one of aforementioned malls.
3. Getting to buy stuff “because it’s my birthday”.
4. Seeing a movie.
5. Spending good quality time with my family.
6. Spending good quality time with my high school friends at home, in an overnight double birthday bash (ish).
7. Getting by with a couple of birthday greetings, as with last year, because most of my friends were on a spiritual retreat, where cellphones were banned.
8. Getting an iPhone.
9. Not getting much gifts.
10. Being swept off my feet by my knight in shining Nike SBs, complete with a rendition of “French Navy,” and an incredibly beat-around-the-bush, highfalutin, but ultimately useless poetry (although I do prefer bantering) filled with inside jokes and loaded with allusions to comics, music, film, and all modes of geekery.

Reality:

1. Too much stuff to do, so much that I can’t imagine enjoying hopping around malls worrying about aforementioned stuff. So I grudgingly opted to stay home, perhaps telling myself “this is a sign of a lifestyle change”. I actually felt like crying in the morning. One of the strongest ironies about me is how I’m a homebody, but I’m never actually really home. I always want to be out and about.  But still, I’m a homebody. Would rather stay home with a good book than party. (pushes glasses up her nose)
2. The universe does not know how to deal with desperation (well, according to Andrew Matthews), thus even if I went to any mall, this wouldn’t happen anyway, since I’d be looking for him in all the wrong places. Even if he were there, I wouldn’t see him. (This is just me comforting myself).
3. I need to use my “Getting To Buy Stuff Because It’s My Birthday” card soon because it will definitely expire.
4. The last movie I saw was “The Expendables” which was in a level of gory which I didn’t enjoy. I want the nitty-gritty, not hints. Sure, he blew you up, but I want to see the macro pieces of your used-to-be-whole self. (See: 300, Watchmen and Kick-ass) I’m not very interested in Sylvester Stallone’s 60 year-old abs, okay. It’s pretty remarkable, but no.  I haven’t seen Salt, I haven’t seen Despicable Me… I know, it’s disappointing for someone who’s such a cinema rat.
5. I did spend good quality time with my family. We went to mass, had lunch together at home and just talked. And talked. And talked. As we always do.
6. I did get to spend good quality time with my friends, just not overnight. Does having four guy friends left ‘till 3 AM count as overnight-ing? Still, good laughs, all is good.
   
   Some of my closest gal pals
   
   Not the geeky dorky guy I was talking about, but I love him all the same! Yay, Domeng!
7. Getting over 200 greetings in Facebook! Makes me wonder if people have this “Birthday Greeting Generator” app. People I haven’t had conversations with just greeted me! Still, this makes me happy People took a couple of seconds out of their precious time to type “happy birthday!” or in my friend’s case “HBD”. Wala pang exclamation point.
   
8. I didn’t get an iPhone, but I’m equally happy getting a brand-new spankin’ phone of my own! Grabe, when you’ve been degraded to the level of Cherry mobile-phone (the calculator-looking one) anything is an upgrade! I’ve named it Alejandro (which is pretty much what I name everything these days), because… I one day dream of breaking three hot Latin hearts! (Is Mexican Latin American? Yes?)
   From
   
   to
   
9. I don’t know if I got a significant amount of gifts, but I did get really good ones! A Lego headband w/a flashlight for when lights turn bust, a Spongebob lunchbox of goodies, a cheesecake from my roommate, and a little stuffed-toy (which is supposed to double as a cellphone-pouch thing but it doesn’t) which looks like me! I call it Isabel.
   
   
   
   
10. Getting greeted in Facebook by pseudo-crushes! (Defined as: boys I get kilig over when they greet me in Facebook, but not necessarily in real life. Also: boys that I crush on, but not in that way if you get me. Could also be: boys that I used to crush on.)

Life is good.

♪♫ Park that car, drop that phone, sleep on the floor, dream about me. ♪♫

V

Posted in Lists, Red-Letter Days | 2 Comments »

1. Math
   Ah math. Always adding the “in” to the sanity of my existence.

   Math has never been my thing, okay. I gave up early in life, when I started getting really confused with greater than > and less than < (I only fully comprehended this concept in high school). Still, I ended up joining contests and getting in the Advanced classes. I guess Trial and Error goes a long way. Even my Learning Style test, courtesy of the guidance center, informs me that I have a tendency stink at subjects with problems that can be solved by well-established methods (i.e. Math and Physics). It says I am an Intuitive Learner, and that I prefer discovering possibilities and relationships, therefore inclining me to more abstract subjects like Philosophy and Theology (which I aced in high school).

   To add salt to the wound, our Math professor is a trained theoretical physicist (well, that’s what he said). Why he’s in the math department, I’m not really sure. Suffice it to say that being a theoretical physicist, he’s prone to giving out-of-the box exams, problem sets and even solutions. He doesn’t go about it traditionally, so not listening doesn’t really work. I won’t classify him as terror (although a lot of students probably will) but his biting, sarcastic wit is rather terrifying at times, especially when you have to ask something.

   Scared of out my socks, I start studying. My Fs from my previous long exams made me study for one whole week, sleeping after midnight just so I can get an A in my midterms. I even gave up my Tuesday and Thursday afternoons for tutoring.

   I got a C+. Go freaking figure. The adrenaline rush got the best of me. I seemed to have managed to forget to solve one problem, forgotten tons of (-) signs, and distributed a value to the denominator of a fraction as well. As in 3(1+x/1-x) became 3x+3/3x-1. Ain’t I generous.

   Still, comfort stems from the fact that I could have done it, you know.

2. The Demands Of College Life
   After failing not only the first, but the second long test in Math, my blockmates and I came to the shocking realization that “Holy Crap! Nothing That You Did In High School Works In College!!!” Study two days before the test and you’re really really lucky if you get a C. Purely relying on downloading your prof’s lectures online and not listening while she’s discussing also gives you a mere C. Cramming never works, and it’s a sure-fire way to fail in college. A C is mediocrity, and if our school teaches anything, it’s always striving to be “the more”.

   So now, everyone has to shut their mouths and adjust. And close their Facebook windows. I close my laptop altogether, the temptation to stalk is just too strong.

3. Ardent Pursuit Of Interests
   On one of my self-exploration journeys while tooth-brushing (the only time I can truly think, it’s the only time my mouth is shut), I realized that I spend a huge chunk of my time on boys. How I do that boyfriendless, I know not. I realized that I haven’t been spending time doing the things I love, or trying to do things I love (as is the case with drawing), sometimes it’s so bad I don’t do things I should be doing (like homework) so I decided to stop thinking, and do “something“…not boy-related. So I started reading comic books again (HAH, we’re reading Batman for Lit while everyone else is suffering through Charles Dickens HOHO), took pictures, drew, wrote(ish), watched DVDs (you guys should check out Community, it’s makes you laugh without the cue from the invisible audience)… that I forgot everything else not related to schoolwork completely.
4. Existential Questions on Blogging
   I’ve always been a blogger. I was there when Blogspot was “the” Tumblr. I used to blog religiously, regularly, had a steady stream of readers… and then I stopped. It felt good to stop.

   But now I want to begin again, for some unknown reason, because something inside me compels me to. (Perhaps because a certain magazine told me to make a journal of my journey before I turn 18. A really sweet magazine.)

   So I try. And somehow I’ve forgotten how to.

   I look at my Tumblr and it’s not as compelling as my old one. I look back on my previous blogs here, and I can only think of one thing: “holy crap, that’s a lot of words.”

   I felt pressured, and wrong, and just not in the mood. When you’re a writer, you kind of have to be in the mood, or else you produce a completely crappy piece o’ work. I ask myself why I shall blog, what I will write about, am I worth it reading? How do I make it worth the reader’s time?

   And this is just blogging. Don’t you wonder how I fare in life?

   Well, I’ll see you guys regularly this September.

V.

Posted in Lists | No Comments »