Writer's Fix

I do not really have any idea about what I intend to write today.

I have been surfing the net for another job. A job which would provide me with a better disposition and more satisfaction.

For a week now, I tried convincing myself that I feel okay with teaching and somehow, I was able to delude myself quite successfully.

Because now, I could say I love my job, without batting an eyelash. But what I a, doing right now? My subconscious led me (yeah right) to this internet cafe. It made my fingers surf the net and read several job opportunities related to what I have always wanted to be.

What is that?

To become a writer. I have always wanted to become a writer. The problem is, I have never been successful at it.

Well, I do write. I was once a writer in our college publication. I wrote journalistic articles but we also have our bid on the creative since I was able to have 3 poems, two essays and a short story published.

Back in elementary, I used to spend my time writing tagalog plays which I often read to my friends. In highschool, I wrote plots on possible romance novels but I was never able to finish a manuscript.

I do not know why is that. I have wondered about my uncanny ability to plot things out but I find it difficult to sustain them. I used to tell myself that I can do better when I have the time.

Now, I have a second hand laptop, and some time. I also have the resources since I am already a professional teacher employed by the local government. But, somethings wrong...

I tried my hand at a novel. And i feel depresses because I did not have the guts to finish it. I wanted to finish the things, yes. But somethings blocking me and I do not know what it is.

I got stuck with chapter four where the characters are having arguments about how to raise the kids. Oh, they were not married. The lady was the hero's estranged bestfriend whom his aunt hired to watch over his two children.

These children were not really his own but his deceased wife passed it off as his (sounds like a gothic melodaram huh). Now, I do not know what to do with it.

I have been curiously blocked for over two weeks now.

Maybe I should dumped it. Like all the rest.

But I already feel like a bad mother who gave birth to several children whom she later on abandoned.

I really do not know what is wrong with my creativity. How am I going to solve this weirdo problem.

Reading does not work. Long hours of sleep never helped. Drinks, food, thinking time, reflections.... they simply blocked me down further.

What is a writer to do. Huh?

Or am I even a writer?

Watch Out

I have been idly toying with several post its ideas. I mean, I enjoy expressing my feelins here but sometimes, I don't like rereading all the mushy stuff I write. It makes me want to go puke my guts out.

I have not watched anything really satisfactory lately. I have been bingeing on a diet of animated fables and I have immersed myself on the familiar...all safe. No fringe lit, no fringe movies ( I don't watch indie films anyway) and no nothing. ( I live my life totally on te fringe!).

But, I have discovered a rather dirty past time. Huh. You just have to believe it.

As a fringe faculty in my old time Alma Mater, I have been treated to a lot of live shows lately (sometimes, it involves me, but usually, it involves others.) And what funtastic shows they were. They often range from the hilarious to the downright grotesque.

Teachers do have penchants to burst out once in a while and head teachers are more human than they would care to admit. Besides, a hair-challenged principal could not really claim his total fame to notoreity unless he lives up to his underlings expectations (ie. be hair jealous).

Anyway, my stay here at my beloved Alma MAter has been a definite eye opener. Haha.

I was passing by the notorious watchman who trains the school band about lunch time earlier. I still had to log on to the ever-respected school bundy clock and Mrs. Bund Clocks husband (the great watchman) was busy checking department logbooks all the while muttering inanities to himself.

Huh.

You might say that our official watchman (as in he watched men log in and out daily) was the perfect eye of the hair-challenged principal. Yes, what a perfect eye. He is always there, in the guard house during log in and out times, his hawklike eyes watching over us in fear that a kindly co teacher logs on for another (it happens anyway).

But, as the saying goes, when hair-challenged god goes away, the bundy clock husband will play.

(Am I trying too hard to be satirical here? In truth, I am afraid. A co teacher just might read all this crap and reveal me for a lambaster that I am. They all think I am a nice, cute and quiet harmless little mouse.)

Anyway, Mr. Watchman would often leave his wife alone for hours on end when the boss is out. And the rest of the people? Of course, they'd have a good time. Helping their fellows meet the required working hours without even going to schools.

And Mr. Watchman? He'd be standing guard of course, when the boss has come back once more.

Human nature. Is it not fun? I mean, we tend to be really self-righteous all the time believing ourselves as uncanny arbiters of the one and only truth.

I guess, I'll be spending most of my time watching colleagues at work. The watchman is not really an easy target.

You see, I really did not care about him. I just did not like his bossiness earlier.

Someday, I'll tell you about the bundy clock and how it helped the teachers shake lose the guilt they would ordinarily feel if they don't do their duties well.

I might also tell you about my own self-discoveries. But that would come later.

Anyway, right now, I am rereading a Paulo Coelho book. It really is different to read something after several years. I was only eighteen when I first read The Alchemist. Five years later, I realized I missed a lot of things from my previous haphazard reading.

Anyway, I hope I can share my thoughts about this one later. Working in an internet cafe where battle cries and sounds ring all over you is not really good for the concentration.

It makes one wish that the player gets hit by the rain of bullets. Bratatatatat!!!

The Pulp Demigods

I feel sick.

I have been surfing one big romance publishers website for over an hour now. I was checking out books descriptions and I am starting to feel a bit dizzy.

The most common hero archetype in pulp romance,especially the ones I buy are actually the hot-blooded Mediterranean (hey, did I speel that correctly. I always stumble on that word!) men.

I have always made a point of buying titles with rich, Italian, Greek, Sicilian and whatever -ian creatures you have there as heroes.

It was, honestly, an unconscious choice. I usually get hooked first by the description in the back cover and before I knew it, I end up with a romance novel with a rich Greek tycoon or an Italian prince of a pretty obscure kingdom.

They usually are dominating men, good in bed and quite the hero. I always feel excited aboiut them. And before I knew it, I have now developed a fascination for Greeks and Italians.

However, after my one hour tour, I am wondering, aren't they overrated? I mean, no ones perfect.

So, why are there a lot of Italian and Greek romance heroes?And why do they always have to be rich and influential and not just like ordinary people?

Secret Dirt and Bad Habits 3

So things got worst.

I found out about the Prince and his girl Kate Middleton. I found out how heartache feels after I saw how sweet they are together.

I have nothing against Kate. She seemed a sweet girl and my Prince seems to be in love with her. In fact, I grew quite selfish and desperate at one point last year where I sent a sort of note or post to one website about the Prince and his Kate.

I believe what I said there was that the Prince was too young to even contemplate marriage at that stage...that he ought to see more of life...that people change or whatever crap I manage to type in back then.

Then, a month or two later, I found out that they sort of cooled-off... oooh, what joy! and then, blammm... I mean, I started wondering... what kind of guy would drop a girl whom he has been with for more than 3 years? Someone unwilling to commit that is...

I started feeling sorry for Kate. I started hating myself for wishing that the Prince would leave her and think things over for a while. I started feeling sad and unhappy and I started doubting the goodness of the Prince.

I finally realized-I did not know this guy. Who is he? What was he really like. I started noticing the difference in the way he looks in his photos.

He used to smile with a sweet innocence and shyness. Now, his smiles are pretty, I don't know, pretty fake...unreal, untrue...but they are so unlike the smiles I fell in love with.

Now, his smiles never reached his eyes.

He and Kate eventually made up as we all know and I decided to give the whole thing up and start looking for Mr. Ideal (my ideal that is, they do not fit the world category at all).

I did find an ideal but, sadly, he was seven years my junior..

I thought I was so over him. I was able to keep his files under lock and key for more than 3 months. I have given him up to marital bliss with his Kate. I prayed they'd have a happy time of life despite the ugliness of our world.

One day though, I was not able to help myself. I started surfing the net about him and found several unfortunate news about him and Paris, other blondes and biking trips...

Now, I am wondering, what happened to the Prince? The young prince I so adored, the one who sent tissues through the bathroom door for his crying mother, the one who wanted to be a policeman so he can protect his mom, the one who had the shy and innocent smile... my prince of hearts?

I can't believe that a merciless, heartbreaker Cassanova would replace him. We have enough handsome heratbreakers nowadays.

And now, I learned one thing again, courtesy of my Prince William experience... you can never really tell who or what one person is.

And sadly, for me, who always wanted to unearth mysteries and learn things, I want to learn more about this Prince. I want to know what he thinks, what he feels, what is he really like?

What is he like? Is he the Cassanova he is now? Can I still find my little shy Prince lurking somewhere in the shadows of the heartbreaker and ladiesman he is?

He must be... he should be....or what are dreams for?

Secret Dirt and Bad Habits 2

I do not know how to start this, too. I mean, I have already encoded Part 2 of SD & BH but due to power failuer, I was unable to save the changes.

Anyway, when I talk about my hauntings, and my bad habits, I was actually referring to the odd fascination I developed about the fame, power and prestige of the Prince I was talking about. He was handsome, he was rich and he was on top of the limelight.

What made me like Prince William of Wales (yes, I was talking about that near-balding Prince of the British throne in Part 1) is the picture I had of him. The first picture of the shy and innocent looking 15 year old boy and later on the sensitive-looking picture of an 18 year old or something young man who was sort of looking for a frim anchor in a rocking world.

Since I came from a less than priviledged family and my parents had to scrape dirt for a living, I cannot afford to buy magazines about him. I had to content myself with the occassional newspaper clippings that I can get from my grandmother who uses them as wrapper in her dried fish selling business.

It was funny, really. I would cut out the picture and the article and compile them on a folder labelled "My Elusive Dream". My bestfriend who also fancied the Prince (and who could afford the mags) would show the magazines to me. I stared in fascination as the mags tirelessly featured him and his family, what they do, how they live, what are the latest mess in their lives and what women would eventually made it as Princess of my Prince. I've met words such as the vamp for the first time, and I started thinking, "Wow, the world is not all about running after some geeky classmates who'd make fun of ones ponytails or pigtails."

I got hook with England and the United Kingdom in general. I studied London in a pocket guide I bought from a second hand bookstore. I got totally crazy over historical romances set in medieval and regency England. I fell in love with Scottish and Irish heroes in those romances thinking of them as the Prince .

Then, I grew up. I made my bestfriend believe that I was so over Prince William because I did not want to hurt her feelings. I could always treasure my Prince in secret. I have my Journal to share the feelings with anyway. Besides, I like learning more about him from my bestfriend. To torture myself, I would help bestfriend conjure up fantasies about her and the Prince.

Then, when my bestfriend and I parted, I owned up to the feeling, again. And once more, I haunted the library fro more information about United Kingdom and England. I found history as a reliable and entertaining source.

3 years later, I met up with another classmate who was also a self-confessed William fan ( William is very popular in the Philippines, hehe). We did not exactly team up, I mean, we were not that close and once more, I pretended that I was over him (why did I keep doing that?).

During our class graduation ball, I even wrote a class prophecy featuring lovely classmate and Prince as a couple. I even read that in front of the whole class (yeah, I was so duh).

I tried forgetting Prince William when I reached college. I had a degree top finish and I had a lot of thinbgs to learn. But, William has left his indelible mark upon my person. Through him, I discovered a lasting love of English literature (and literature in general), a fascination with English history ( and history in general) as well as an interest in the world.

Through him, I learned that I am not the only person who existed on earth and that I really have a lot to learn to prepare myself for whatever repsonsiblity lies out there for me.

I went through college with the Prince as a sort of inspiration. Everytime I fell out of crush with several college guys, I would turn to my elusive dream files and dream. Then, I would find another man who would fit my criteria and I would hide my files of the Prince.

This became a pattern. When I would feel sad and loney, I would talk to his picture, the one where he was wearing a tie with duck images on it, and where he looked so like MY Prince.

I was unhappy. I never had a boyfriend. I grew really fat (obese)actually and I made myself believe it did not matter at all since I will never be able to meet my Prince anyway.

It was bad. After college, I thought it would all get better.

Tsk.

Things only got worse.

Secret Dirt and Bad Habits 1

I do not now how to start this one. This is one issue that I have always kept to myself.

I am a superficial idiot. Yep. Superficial in a sense that I fell in deep fascination with a guy so-out-of-my-league for about 10 years now.

As a child, I was pretty unromantic (in an innocent manner). I never believed in fairytales and princes and princesses. I mean, I just knew they could never be real.

I grew up in a very practical household where hugs are so rare I have become allergic to human touches. I never played with barbie dolls and I never owned a teddy bear. What I had where my strictly followed-up coloring books with all the spaces numbered accordingly. Number 1 for red, 2 for blue, 3 for green and so on and so forth.

My mother strictly watched over every phase of my education. She bought me tapes to help me speak well, sing well... my doting grandparents sent me to a ballet school hoping that I would grow up into a little ballerina who can twirl around for them, I even joined the school band where I played the xylophone and started to long for piano lessons which was never realized (alas).

And I discovered the beauty and wonder of reading. I read a German airlines mag, I read my mothers college books and I read everything I could get a hold of.

One of the magazines that my mother used to subscribe to was a Christian mag. I loved the comics portion. The drawings were so fascinating. I mean, they were just like the Japanese cartoons we were not supposed to watch.

Unexpectedly, that was where I found the spectre that haunted me for most of my life right now. The spectre that became an inspiration and eventually a bad habit to break.

I found a prince!

Damn, at 11, I honestly believed that princesses, pirnces and kingdoms never existed. Ghost probably, spectres maybe...but a prince. Hell no. Frogs exist. Not princes.

But there he was, smiling a shy toothy and endearing smile... a fifteen year old kid who was so fascinating... He was featured in the Youth for All Seasons portion and I thought...tsk, sayang. He's already dead.

I mean, I thought he was featured because he died heroically. ( I am a Jose Rizal fan and I believed that you should only be featured in mags if you did something really great and that you died doing it...hehehe).

I cut out the picture, his skecth and copied the article. Wow, a prince. A dead prince but a cute one, anyway.

Then came the shock. My dead prince was actually alive.

Hell. He was the living son of a princess who passed away in a car accident in Paris. And I thought, Huh? A princess also exists...err, used to exist?

I grew curious. I did not know that my world actually extends to a wider network of land and seas and systems. My world is not just limited inside the four walls of a boring classroom, with sseven awe-and-fear-inspiring teachers taking charge of everyday lessons.

I found out that Britain existed. That the monarchy is a real form of governement and that a globe is useful.(At least, twirling it aroung and in pointing out Britain everytime social studies lectures get stale and boring.)

I also found out that I am not the only person with a beating heart. That a bestfriend can also love (er, its really not love, honest) the same person.

Well, this bad habit haunted me everytime and until now, after 13 years, it is still haunting me.

Time for Sale!

I don't really know. I may just be lazy but I realized one thing after a very long, long time.

I hate what I am doing.

I am a teacher in a public school here in my sometimes-not- so sleepy-hometown. The school I am teaching in is my very own Alma Mater where I first learned that life has a pattern.

I am not yet a regular teacher but at least I am receiving a regular salary once a month from the local government.I have been teaching here for almost 15 months now and I have seen a lot, heard a lot, learned a lot...but sadly, I also lost...a lot.

When I graduated last March 2006, I was not the regular graduate. I was bitter yes. Bitter in a sweet way.

However, I had so much hope for the future. I had so much idealism, enthusiasm and optimism inside I was almost bursting with it. They were the remnants of my college days, the ones I kept inside for safekeeping.

During my first year, I was so full of IT. I thought I could do everything and no one, not even myself, can stop me. But I was so wrong.

It took me only a year to lose my enthusiasm and some of my ideals. At least, I wised up enough to understand that I need to tuck my ideals somewhere deep inside me so as to preserve it from total destruction.

I thought that after another five months, I have nothing more to loose to the system. But, it is know killing my optimism. I can feel the invisible force of the system strangle the little baby of optimism I hold within.

And, I also realized, lately, that I was actually losing something more important...something that no amount of money can ever buy back for me:Time.

For P60.00 an hour, I sold my time to the system I used to hate in college... I allowed it to take from me the chance to grow and spend my time the way I want to...for security and comfort, I let a portion of my life flit away from my grasp.

For what? So that when I retire 50 years from now, I can enjoy my time without any worries because the government will pay my pension every month? And what use will I be then?