Seize the Night!!!

Goodbye, Friendster Blogs. Thanks for the time, but I need better features.

My new blog address: http://roninvampire.blogspot.com/

See ya!

Things have not been going well for me this past month. Everything just went tumbling down like a pile of bricks hit head-on by a Chevy Suburban.

I’m usually a very resilient fellow and always found ways to be able to stand up to struggles, but I do have my limits. I mean, c’mon, I don’t think even the most patient person could withstand being jobless with the added "bonus" of parents breathing down one’s neck, looking for any screw-ups as proof of one’s worthlessness.

I’ve been unable to sleep properly for almost a week because of so many things going on in my head. In my desperation to rid myself of those things, I had to force myself to go over the edge and just plain break down. It wasn’t easy; I had to think of everything wrong about my life (there are a lot, but I guess I got so resilient that it’s actually not enough), down to the minutest mistake of leaving the toilet seat up. Finally, after a few hours of self-defamation, I did it. I broke down and slept like a baby.

I woke up later that morning, feeling completely refreshed. I guess I just needed to reach my utmost limit in my emotional pain threshold, so I could actually try and break it. It does make sense, right? Going to the limit and breaking it. And that’s what I’ve been working on ever since this morning. The past few days, I’ve been seeing so many signs that point towards Bushido. I’ve been seeing a lot of Japanese Kanji that meant, Courage, Honor, Honesty, etc., which are actually part of the Seven Virtues of Bushido. I also saw The Last Samurai in one of the cable movie channels and it reminded me about Musashi Miyamoto’s Book of Five Rings eBook that has been lying around my hard drive. Obviously, I read it… again.

Although I’m only half way through the book, I’ve already learned a lot from it and gained a lot of comfort through the wisdom it has given me so far. Yes, it is mostly about combat, strategy and how to wield a sword but one can’t discount the fact that its lessons can be used for everyday life–on how a strong spirit could make a big difference on how we live. I’m not gonna go into a detailed lecture here, so just take my word for it or try reading it yourself.

I am in a phase where I think of myself as a failure for now, but learning more about Bushido is helping me cope with that. At least I’m not someone who gave up even before I started. I know that I am someone who is trying hard to change my situtation.

It’s like I feel how the Samurai of the olden days felt. To be of service to their Lord, they must be ready to fail and die. And they accept that with full pride.

When they die, they die with honor knowing that they never ran away and did everything to serve their Lord. To quote Musashi Miyamoto, "This is the truth: when you sacrifice your life, you must make fullest use of your weaponry. It is false not to do so, and to die with a weapon yet undrawn."

I first would like to greet everyone a Happy New Year.

My overly analytical mind is acting up again. I wasn’t able to sleep a wink last night because I’ve been thinking too much about what the future holds for me. Proof of this is that I’m writing this at 7:30 AM. I don’t usually get up until around 11:00 AM.

It’s already a new year and I still don’t have a job. Although I have been trying to look; passing my resume around and stuff. I still haven’t received any calls. It’s kind of scaring me, really. I don’t know. Am I not qualified for any of the jobs I applied for?

My usual response to a problem like this would be to say to myself, "It’s not yet time. Just wait. Be in sniper-mode… blah blah blah…" but I have to face the fact that I’m not getting any younger. And in this competitive job market, age is definitely a factor.

I’m 23 years old. In Human Resource terms, I’m not considered as a young upstart. The preferable age nowadays is 20-22. 23 is when companies actually expect work experience from an employee. Something which I don’t really have because I only dabbled in freelance stuff; nothing really groundbreaking.

This fact alone made me size up what I may face this 2006. I’m not gonna lie. It’s overwhelming me and I am pretty afraid of the challenges about. It made me think a lot about alternate sources of income; like a small business of sorts, or a website, or whatever. These made me think even more about the risks involved in engaging in such endeavors.

Yes, I am definitely afraid of what I think the future holds for me. But that doesn’t mean that I’m just gonna run and hide. I’m not really looking forward to facing these challenges but when time comes that I do face them, I have no choice but to give it my all to get through.

I just pray to God that I will have enough strength to take on this new year. And I also pray that I stop thinking too much. It stresses me out a lot.

Sheesh… Talk about being paranoid.

It’s been a month, I know. Sorry If I haven’t been able to update in while. I guess I was just trying to catch up on myself recently, especially in my love life.

Warning: this is gonna be the most fucked up post I’ve ever written.

I’ve been hanging out with this girl (name witheld for security reasons) for the past month. I don’t know but I just suddenly found myself trying to find every excuse to spend time with her. I’ve met her even before I graduated, but during that time, she was just another face in the crowd. It was only during the past month that I started getting drawn to her and I really don’t know why. But who cares?

She’s just the most amazing woman I’ve seen. A smile from her makes my whole day happy. The mere sound of her voice is like an orchestra resonating in a chamber of perfect reverbaration. And everytime she hugs me, even for just a second, I feel as if I’m in a period of stasis that I don’t want to get out of. It is with these facts that I’ve confirmed that I am in love.

I’ve always had a fear of confessing my love to someone unless it’s a sure thing. Yes, I am a risk taker in the all aspects of my life, except love. But she is just so different. She is the kind of woman that I’d risk anything for. She’s not someone that I’d die for, but live for instead. She is someone who has made me forget about the fear of hurting, and that made me not fear love either. So I did confess to her because I am not afraid anymore.

Her response was something that left me hanging. I asked her… "So… do I have a chance?" She replied, "I can’t answer that right now…" I actually don’t know what to feel. Although, I can tell that she is not ready to take our friendship to the next plateau. She is still young and quite sheltered, to be frank. As I’ve mentioned… I am stuck in limbo awaiting her response.

Oh well… whether her decision is favorable or not, I still somehow gained something from it. At least I was able to love someone without fearing anything. I was able to finally take a chance on love. This is the best Christmas gift that God has ever given me. And I am eternally grateful.

Oh well, sorry if you all had to sit through all that mushy stuff. Merry Christmas.

It’s been a while since I last updated. Been suffering from another case of writer’s block lately. But it’s not that bad anyway. I just didn’t feel like anything important is worth telling.

Right now is a different thing though. It seems that ever since that I hoisted up my sails and left port, I felt more alive. I just feel so happy, especially with the people around me (as mentioned in earlier posts).

I just returned from a 2-day retreat in Tagaytay and I had the most wonderful time. I’m not really a religious person or anything, but the place was just so conducive for contemplation and inspiration. And best of all, I got to spend those days of learning with people that I really love.

Upon my return from Tagaytay, I’ve realized so many things. So many changes have happened to me ever since I got rid of my apprehension in taking risks and finally setting sail. I’m more mature in dealing with problems, learned to take responsibilty and realized my accountability in my own life. Taking the helm of my little sailboat helped me learn that "If everything we wanted out of life was given to us in a silver platter, what’s the point of living?"

Yes, I do experience a lot more storms in life’s treacherous seas than back at port. But it’s so much better than being stuck back at port, doing nothing but think about what-could-be’s. At least I know that by going on this journey, I am going to get somewhere; probably even find my own heaven.

I know I’m just rambling incessantly like a drunk-out sailor, but it is exactly how I feel. I’ve never felt so alive, so happy, and so strong. I feel like I can take on the world! And nobody is saying that I can’t.

I just heard from my friend and fellow Fatal Frame fan, Claire, that Fatal Frame 3 is finally out!

I can’t wait to play! I’ve been waiting for this game since like ever!

It’s been a really great week. I’m feeling extra happy these days because of the people around me. I dunno. Just being around them makes me so happy.

To make things better, a lot of my old skills are coming back to me. I can (somewhat) draw again and I’ve also been practicing some of my digi-art. Seems that my muse is starting to whisper in my ear again.

The only thing that could make this all perfect is if I get a job. Oh well… better start looking for one then.

Today was such a nice day. I had the most wonderful time helping my bestfriend, Elaigh, clean up her room. She’s been busy lately and really needed somedoby’s help because she has neglected her room’s cleanliness due to the fact that she’s being slave-driven at work. She took a leave so she could have the entire week off and try to just relax and get back to her life (and room).

I have trouble waking up in the morning, so Elaigh called up Ate Taleng (our crazy maid, but I love her because she’s insane) to ask her to perform the arduous task of trying to get my sleepy ass out of bed. After some prodding and probably some screaming in my ear, I finally woke up to smell the aroma of the new day.

I got to her house at around 1030. I went into her room and I just screamed in my head, "Damn!" She wasn’t kidding when she said that she needed to clean her room. I have a pretty messy room, but compared to hers at that time, mine was like it was maintained by the Fab Five themselves.

We never wasted anytime and got started cleaning up right away. It was so much fun rummaging through her old stuff. There’s just so much crap that she had to get rid off that I actually took some for me to keep. Talk about being a scavenger.

And so we worked on until we decided to take lunch. Her house wasn’t that far from a Mickey D’s, so we went there to eat (we were both too lazy to cook). It was so much fun just taliking about random nonsense. That is something that we haven’t done in a long time. It’s just so nice being able to hangout with her again without the burden of suddenly being bothered by a phone call from one of her suppliers, clients, or whatever. We even had our traditional Bestfriend Sundae’s: the Caramel/Chicana sundae for her and the Hot Fudge/Nigga sundae for me (no offense meant to any race by the terms used).

We went back to her house to continue working. And we had to work on one of the worst parts of her room: The wires of her PC Setup. It was a complete jungle of wires. Even Tarzan would think twice in Vine/Wire swinging in it. It was so friggin’ hard that we wasted around 2 hours to complete the whole thing. We even lost a little bit of our tempers for a moment, but it was OK. At least we got it done.

At the end of the day we were able to fix everything sans her closet because we didn’t have time. I was so tired that I slept on her floor after I took a shower. Although I really didn’t get much sleep because of her Shih-Tzu, Wuffles, always licking my face (Eyuch! Doggie slobber!).

Her mom then arrived from work. I’ve never seen Tita Julie in a while. Last time I saw her she had really short boyish hair. And now she’s sporting a ponytail. Now, that was quite a long time. She gave me some dinner and also gave me a shitload of paperbags because they have quite an abundance of it and it’s becoming a space-hog. Shitload of bags + Big bag of hand-me-downs = …

I went home looking a like a Downtown Baglady minus the stolen grocery cart. It was really hard to get a ride and when I did get a ride, I had to really squeeze myself to get in. I’m not exactly a small person, so my size combined with those two enormous bags of stuff resulted in a pile of scavenged stuff with legs.

I was able to get home in one piece; tired and very harrased but I don’t mind. I had a blast! It’s been a long time since me and my bestfriend were able to spend the whole day (and I mean THE WHOLE DAY) together. So this day goes down into my life’s history book as one of the days that I shall treasure forever.

People who know me would often say that I’m a very confrontational person; always looking for reasons to get into an argument, throwing tactless comments into the air, etc. But these days, I’m devolving into something different; something much worse. Instead of looking for verbal battles, I’ve been looking for fights. Real ones.

I guess this is another demon a have to face in my backtracking expedition. I dealt with this particular aggressive demon two-and-a-half years ago but I never really had a problem containing it because I was in a "Fight Club". I was somewhat able to unleash some of my pent-up rage and open up a can of whoop-ass. Even though I didn’t really win that much since I was one of the weaker fighters (if not the weakest), it did it’s job in training me and containing my unexplained desire to pummel someone.

As mentioned, I am facing this demon again. Only problem is: I’M NOT IN A FIGHT CLUB ANYMORE!!! So what am I to do? I can’t just go around challenging anyone I see on the street. That can only lead to two things: 1) I get my ass whooped; 2) I kick someone’s head in, get captured by the police for disturbing the peace and get my ass whooped. Former or latter, it doesn’t matter. I lose.

I decided to do some retail therapy. I bought the Batman Begins DVD and the Marvel Knights: Elektra Trade Paperback; two items that I oh-so-coveted over the weeks. Upon watching the Special Features disc of the Batman Begins, my attention was immediately captured by the featurette about the martial art they used for the movie, the KeySi Fighting Method.

The KeySi Fighting Method is a very tight close-quarters martial art. Unlike other martial arts which look beautiful only when choreographed and lethal only when executed crudely, KeySi is as lethal as it is beautiful. It is a mixture of many types of martial arts and is still evolving. The primary stance of KeySi is the "Thinking Man" stance which is very defensive, but it uses the stance’s awkward position to it’s full offensive advantage by getting in really close and using a lot of elbow and fist strikes. To support this technique, the footwork involved in the art always aims to dodge an opponent’s strikes and/or get as close as possible (and I mean in-your-face close). It also has some nifty grappling techniques that often lead to a neck-break, choke, or headlock. Basically, it’s built to end a fight quickly with very serious injuries to your victim… errr… opponent.

Ever since then, I’ve been researching everything I can about KeySi. I’ve also been trying to train myself (as much as I could train watching and imitating the movements in the featurette) to learn it. So I ended up buying boxing gloves, a punching bag, and a new pair of nunchuckus (Okay, the nunchucks are not really part of the KeySi Fighting Method. I just use it for dexterity training). The training is also a good way for me to release tension brought about my sudden attacks of ruthless aggression. The timing for my interest to learn something has never been so perfect.

Aside from KeySi training, I’ve also tried to express my aggression through the clothes I wear. Everyone who has seen me can attest that I always wear black. I wanted to take it to the next level by using the hue as an expression of rage and intimidation by combining it with shades of red and other gothic elements. The perfect opportunity for me to try this out came in the form of an event: the grand launch of Shades of Gray: Split-Second Eternities, DLS-CSB’s Literary Folio.

The event had a corporate-punk theme. So I came in a black collared shirt, black pants, and black Chuck Taylor’s. I enhanced it by sporting a dark violet duotone neck-tie, mismatched earrings (one hoop and one dangling), mismatched finger-gloves (black on the left, black and red on the right), and 3 wrist-watches on my left arm (pink and circular, blue and squarish, red and triangular). I was happy with the way I looked, especially with the wrist-watches+finger-glove combo which looked like a make-shift gauntlet. I was even happier when I was awarded 2nd-best dressed person in the event–I lost by (a) hair, literally. Dianne, the 1st placer, had really wild hair that I can’t compete with. I got a really cool charm bracelet for it as a prize. It looked really cool. Me likey.

Aggression Deterrents. Yes, I do need anger management.

Shiny New Nunchuckus. The newest addition to my armory: Equilibrium. I shall paint it soon.

Charmed. The bracelet that I won from the Shades of Gray Launch. I likes it very mucho.

I’ve been out of commission for an entire week because of a stupid boil that grew on my armpit. I know, it’s disgusting and it’s too much info but who would’ve though that something as mundane as a boil could put a halt to my activities.

I went to the doctor to get it checked and he told me that my ailment is a kind of boil that is known as some three-word medical name that probably only exists in the secret world of doctors. It’s basicaly the most painful kind of boil. I couldn’t put my arm down for an entire week.

He gave me some medicine that hastened it’s "ripening" and boy he wasn’t kidding when he said that it would hasten. After a few days of taking the medicine, the boil suddenly inflamed like crazy and popped. I won’t go into detail what happened after that anymore; what’s important is that I’m better now and I can finally go out without looking like an idiot with his right hand in the air.

I missed out on a lot of stuff because of my stupid condition. I wasn’t able to bike, nor twirl nunchukus or any other weapon. And since my brother recently bought a new TV and Playstation 2, I was doing nothing more that exercise my fingers on the Dual Shocks. I also wasn’t able to go to my friend’s Ultimate Frisbee game. I really wanted to watch that and probably join, too, so I could at least get some exercise.

Speaking of exercise, my dad seems to think that I desperately need it so he suddenly bought me a Nerf Football. It’s really nice and soft. I can’t seem to let it go. It’s always by my side, getting tossed around or just being held by me. Oh well, I guess I just miss my running back days.

Recently, I also went to UP-Diliman and Ateneo de Manila to inquire about second-degree programs. I’m planning to study again, this time under journalism-related program. In UP, I was able to get an application form but they’re only accepting applicants during April. So I’ll have to get a job for now and wait for April.

Ateneo was weird though. When I inquired, they said that they don’t accept graduates from other schools who want a second-degree and only accept applicants for MBAs and Doctorates. Not that I’m biased because I’m Benildean, but isn’t that quite discriminating? I mean, come on. Just because I graduated from another school I automatically don’t deserve a shot at getting in a regular Ateneo degree-program. Not that I’m angry at them, but I’m now starting to see why most of my friends don’t like Ateneo (and some of them are Ateneans).

In every sailing trip there will always be storms that you have to pass by. These storms could often cause a ship to sink, especially if they strike at the same time. Fortunately, I faced them when I’m still not that far from port.

Just this week I wasn’t able to sleep properly because I heard from my colleagues that Sir Randy was leaving. I asked about who said it and they said that it came straight from him. At first, I was just silent; thinking about why he would leave. Out of I-don’t-know what, I took my laptop and played the video of Do As Infinity’s Tao.

When I saw the video it reminded me of the disbanding of Do As Infinity, which happened last September 30, 2005. The video showed Tomiko and Ryo riding in different vehicles going their separate ways. It also kind of made the entire Randy-is-leaving news sink in a bit more. I suddenly found myself crying in the SPO. Good thing Nick was there to cover me and no one saw me burst into tears.

I know that it seems weird that I cried because someone is leaving. I’m really no stranger to that scenario and I’ve dealt with it somewhat-gracefully in the past but this was just different. Sir Randy was like a mentor, a father and a friend to me. Although I don’t really show it that much because I often make fun of him, I have so much respect for him. He is the one who gave me the final push to become a writer. He believed in my abilities and he always said that I have what it takes to become a journalist. I’ve learned a lot from him and he helped me improve in my craft. He was such an inspiration to me that the mere fact that I know that he was going to read something that I wrote made me try my best to write better.

So I struggled on for 3 sleepless days. Only to find out that what I’ve been weeping over was just a joke… Yes… you read it right… it was all a joke. Sir Randy confirmed it himself. He was just joking when he told the people in the SPO. They all took him seriously, though. It was just a joke… A really bad joke.

Oh well… I can’t really incarcerate him for that now, can I? I fell for it hook, line and sinker. So I guess I’ll just let the issue go. At least he’s not leaving anymore. That’s good news to me. Now I can try to raise my anchors so I could get back to my journey.

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The commencement exercises for my graduation happened just this Saturday. Of course, it was as boring as hell. But I was shocked when I heard Br. Armin Luistro, the President of the De La Salle System, call me by my nickname and pen-name, ‘BJ’, when he shook my hand as I got my "diploma" even though my real name was annouced. I guess he’s been reading my column then. It’s really nice to know that some people at the top actually are interested in what I have to say.

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I wasn’t really able to raise anchor yet. I don’t know. I guess I just got drenched too much by the rain that my new-found appreciation for it erred once again. It’s not that I hate it. I just don’t feel as enthusiastic about it anymore. I always seem to feel depressed whenever it does rain. So depressed that I actually bought a DVD of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, planned to buy new shoes (since my old prestos got destroyed by the rain), and fixed my room.

It’s kind of funny though. My room looks like an office now (pics shown below).

You know that it’s bad once I start fixing my room. At least I learned to appreciate the rain even for just a while.