The stench of cigarette smoke hung heavily in the air. I took a sip of my latte, trying to fan away the clouds of death as I did. The man with the beautiful raspy voice was singing about green fields and blooming red roses, as the rain poured and the wind howled. Over cigarettes and sips of espresso we talked.

This was the kind of scene I lived for. Rains and coffee make a potent combination for me; the cold and the soothing wisps of slowly rising steam have a way of making you think. The wind continued to blow, and I zipped up my jacket and took a long sip. I want a small paved space in my backyard, I said, surrounded by shrub walls and furnished with a simple wooden table and chair. In the afternoon I could settle down, armed with a fountain pen, and write; in the evening, I would light the gas lamp and go on. If it rained I could bring my notebook, pen, and cup of coffee inside, and continue my writing in a desk by the window, where I would allow the sweet drops of rain pelting on and rolling down the glass to do the arduous task of courting my muse for me.

The music continued, to hell with the raging sky. Shit, the trumpet, it was romantic, it was beautiful, and although I’d spent almost 300 pesos that night, it was bliss.

Love, I said, as the raindrops kept falling, and with them nostalgia. Love’s a bitch.

Did I tell you I find bliss in rain? The water cascading down to the ground, it’s glorious, the way it falls, beautiful, divine. I love the rain.

Rain makes me think of Hemingway. Old man and the sea. Famished fisherman in a rowboat all alone in the open water, with a massive fish he caught that’s still struggling to pull away. It’s an exquisite scene to behold in the theater of your mind, especially at night, when the moon is full and its reflection glowing in the water. I am all alone in the world, as are we all.

I don’t know why I connect rain to sweet, sweet writing, and sweet, sweet writing to Hemingway. He was introduced to me by a mentor, and I fell in love with his writing. Ernest had a gift: no one could say so much as simply as he did.

He shot himself in the head. Probably overburdened by the thought that we’re all going to die someday. You can’t fire me, he must have yelled at the heavens with a raised fist, I quit.

Coffee. The aroma is erotic to the sentimental nose. The assault to your lungs is so full it’s indescribable. Much better than a cigarette. The puffs of smoke continued to billow towards my face. I continued to try to blow them away.

Raspy-voiced man was no longer singing; it was now tender woman, but we continued to drown in the music that I can only describe as harrowingly humanizing—a term no one apart from myself will be able to understand in the context in which I mean it. Harrowingly humanizing. There are certain things in life, such as sips of caramel latte, ceaseless rain, and Hemingway’s style, that are so enchanting that all you can do is close your eyes and let the feeling smother you. They make you feel human, if to be human is to feel.

Favorite movies. I say Notting Hill. Maybe because I haven’t seen enough movies yet to make an informed decision as to which one is the absolute best ever, but Notting Hill is definitely up there. In Bruges is good, too, probably because Bruges is just so damned pretty, like caramel latte and Hemingway.

Katy Perry sang something about men reading Hemingway under the rain. “You’re so gay and you don’t even like boys.” Fuck Katy Perry.

Romance. Romance is silly. Sometimes I think life would be a whole lot better if romance didn’t exist. Granted, it is part of what makes life worth living, but I think it’s more the pain and anguish than the euphoria of raging hormones that makes that so.

One of the things that happens to you when you enter the University of the Philippines in Diliman is that your sense of space-time becomes distorted. The jeepney drivers are the agents of this change. The Ikot jeepney can be filled to the brim, have students tied to the roof and the hood, be so packed it comes close to violating the fundamental laws of matter, and the driver will always say there’s space for two more, “umayos lang tayo sa pagkakaupo,” goddamit, Mister Driver, I would sit more properly if I could, but I don’t even think anyone is seated anymore. Maybe this is why we have the best Physics program in the country: we’re challenging norms, not only in our theories, but in real life.

Another thing that happens is you become given to participating in deep conversations about nothing in particular. You kind of have to wonder whether your thinking has become esoteric beyond belief, or so shallow it’s ridiculous. Everyone in UP is high—on the spirit of enigma. Duuuuude.

Back in the dorm, on the short walk back to my room, there was nothing but silence. The noise of the outside world is what is normal to us, but in utter silence only your thoughts chatter away, and there is nothing noisier than that blaring in your head.

There is only one way I know to shut my mind up: sit Indian-style in front of my laptop and listen to music as I write.

Tuesday marks the day I can officially call myself a college student. Today I bade goodbye to my hometown and hopped on a plane to NAIA, thence on a car to UP Diliman. I spent roughly an hour and a half in Kalayaan, filling out forms and stuff (red tape for the win), pausing every once in a while only to walk to the nearby Shopping Center to buy index cards, papers, envelopes, and whatnot. I will make the necessary payments and have my forms notarized on Monday, but for today I threw all my stuff in my dorm room (basement, baby!) and headed to SM North Edsa to buy things I needed for the dorm.

Kalayaan’s state is deplorable, to be honest. You’re lucky if your locks are broken—at least they’re not missing. The wood on the cabinets is rotting. Vandalism has soiled the walls, although artistically so. All things considered, though, the place is livable, because these days all you really need is electricity, running water, and, most important of all, WiFi. It could be much worse.

Tonight I’m in a hotel in Pasay City. Tomorrow will most likely be spent in MOA, primarily jejebusting but also finishing my pre-school-year shopping. Then in the afternoon or evening, I will go back to Diliman to spend my first night as a Kalayaan dormer.

Above is a picture of everything writing-related that is in my bag. I have many more books at home, and I wanted to bring all of them, but as I was packing I realized that space is scarce and that I’m not keen on the idea of bringing a boxful of dead trees with me to a small dorm room, so this is all I brought:

• Green Apple spiral-bound notebook, where I do most of my writing.
• Moleskine ruled notebook, for journal entries.
• “Basic Journalism” by Estrada and Nem Singh. You’ll have to squint really hard if you want to see it in the picture. I bought this two or three years ago, although I’ve been referring to it since elementary.
• “Feature Writing For Filipinos” by Genove. As an elementary and high school campus journalist I participated in the Feature Writing category.
• A small copy of the 1986 Constitution.
• “Twisted V” and “Twisted 8 1/2″ by Jessica Zafra. I read her blog and just started following her columns on the Star. I’m a firsthand victim of her viciousness, but she is entertaining to read nonetheless.
• “Youngblood” and “Youngblood 2.0″, anthologies of the popular Inquirer column.
• “Killing Time In A Warm Place” by Jose Y. Dalisay, Jr. My thoughts on the book.
• “Stainless Longganisa” by Bob Ong.
• Barron’s Book Notes of Ernest Hemingway’s “The Old Man And The Sea.” Perhaps the best book I’ve ever read.
• My small fountain pen collection: a basic Pilot and a big-nibbed Parker. The Pilot is a pump converter; the Parker is one of those newfangled ones that use refill cartridges. My Quink inkwell is not in the picture because I forgot to pack it.
• Canon PowerShot A650 IS. I love this camera. Sadly, months ago it went priapic. Its lens won’t retract. I’m hoping I can have it repaired tomorrow, although from what I’ve read online it can be cheaper to buy a new camera than to send an old one in for fixing.
• Sterling daily planner.
• That little orange guy that keeps the pages in place when I’m reading a book. Given to me by a very good friend.

In less than a week I will leave my hometown to pursue a degree in Journalism at the University of the Philippines in Diliman. As a kind of countdown, I thought I’d take a look back at the past few years of my life throughout the week and connect them to what lies ahead for me. Specifically, I’ll be linking to blog posts or websites that I think are worth pondering on and discussing them briefly.

* * *

“NSPC 2009: Notes From Naga City“, published here on February 25, 2009; “NSPC 2010: The Tagum Invasion“, published here on February 28, 2010.

I have been a campus journalist since the fifth grade in elementary. Ever since I started I have been a feature writer, and thankfully I’ve won several awards in that category, including two at the national level.

In UP Diliman I will be a student of the Department of Journalism of the College of Mass Communication, working under the tutelage of some of the Philippines’ brightest minds in journalism. For someone who has regarded himself as a “budding journalist” for so long, it’s a great honor to be studying at the CMC.

I often think about how lucky I am to be able to pursue my life’s interest. Opportunities like these don’t come to many people, nor do they come often. I will try my best not to make fortune regret knocking on my door.

I’m happy to say that I have more or less regained my appetite for reading, prodded as I am by the rotating brownouts that give me five hours away from the computer everyday. I’ve been buying issues of TIME magazine regularly now, although I’m a bit embarrassed to admit the fact since I essentially kill trees with every issue I buy. (I would subscribe to the online version of the magazine, but apparently they don’t offer a Zinio-like e-mag service, which they really should.)

Speaking of TIME magazine, last Thursday I got hold of a copy of their April 26 issue, on the cover of which is Noynoy Aquino. The cover story sadly confirms my long-held view that while his campaign sits on the solid foundation of his parents’ legacy, the matter of whether it can be convincing on its own merits is another story entirely. (Yes, even though the piece sounded quite biased. Haha.)

* * *

I was in Cagayan de Oro last week. Of course I bought books. (Butuan is sadly devoid of good book shops. We have two relatively respectable bookstores, Newsies and Book Nook, but they sell only a handful of Picoults, Coelhos, and Sparkses, as well as weeklies and monthlies.)

I decided to finally grab a Twisted book. I’m a fan of Jessica Zafra’s blog, but I haven’t read any of her Twisted books yet, so I picked up “Twisted 5″, the only Twisted they had in stock at the SM CDO branch. Don’t judge the book by its hideous cover. (Voltes V? Really?) Ms Zafra’s wit and humor are easy to digest with her fantastic style. There are more movie reviews than I care to read, though.

My Twisted purchase must have pleased the universe, because a few days after buying “Twisted 5″, I won the weekly LitWit challenge on Ms Zafra’s blog! The two new additions to my already-insurmountable reading backlog are now sitting in a National Bookstore somewhere in Manila waiting for me.

***

Over the past week I’ve been killing time in a warm place (the warm place being my bedroom in the sweltering summer heat and with the absence of airconditioning, owing to the brownouts) by reading “Killing Time In A Warm Place”, a novel by Jose Dalisay Jr. about life during the Marcos years. I didn’t think I would be able to finish the novel—a few years ago when I tried to read a Nicholas Sparks I swore off writing in the first person—but Dalisay’s style is enjoyable to read. I’m afraid I have to say that the novel lacks something, though; I didn’t feel connected enough to the protagonists. Novels like “Killing Time…” are expected to paint a vivid picture of the event or struggle they deal with. This novel does so to my satisfaction. However, considering that the Marcos Years were a pivotal era for our country, I, a Filipino who was born almost a decade after the overthrow of the regime, was looking to much more than just see the picture in all its detail—I wanted to feel like I was in the picture itself. People like Dalisay who were in the heat of the action would have found it easy to feel what I wanted to feel. But there are people like me who never had to go through those turbulent times, and I’m sad to say “Killing Time…” didn’t make me feel what Dalisay’s contemporaries must have felt as they read this novel.

***

It’s back to reading Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged”. Every time I pick that book up (I have the 50th anniversary edition) I have to wish Rand would have given future readers more consideration and shortened it, or at least split it into two or more volumes. (She would have made more money that way, too.)

***

I say this with a certain amount of hesitation, but I will once again ask for your book recommendations. My quest to discover the classics, which you can read about in previous posts under the Opinion / Books category, is not yet over; my brother seems to have joined me on this quest, as he’s read Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and is now on “Adventures of Tom Sawyer”, another Twain. I want so badly to start on “Huck Finn”, but when I think about it I can feel my copy of “Atlas Shrugged” staring at me with a look of betrayal.

Oh hey, and Goodreads apparently has a Bookmooch-like feature now. Goodreads, by the way, is a website that allows you to share what books you’ve been reading and gives you suggestions on what to pick up next; Bookmooch lets you swap books for points—send a book to someone and you get points, which you can use to request for a book from someone else (so it’s both cost-effective and environmentally friendly!).

When I first learned that Tagum City in Davao del Norte had won the rights to host this year’s National Schools Press Conference—the last one I would be eligible to take part in—I wasn’t sure what to feel. To be frank, I wasn’t so sure an NSPC in Mindanao was worth looking forward to. Even though I call the island home, I’m no stranger to its history of violence and unrest, and with the contest being held against the backdrop of a tumultuous political season and the Ampatuan Massacre still fresh in the nation’s mind, not only were I and my fellow participants faced with the prospect of boredom in a city relatively alien to us, we were also followed by the unwelcome fear of violence and danger.

By the time we settled ourselves in our billeting quarters in Tagum, however, the worst of my apprehensions were gone. The Tagum City government, headed by Mayor Rey Uy, took every measure to ensure our security and comfort as we participated in the five-day event, which centers on a timely and relevant theme: the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals and the need to achieve them by 2015. The result was a smoothly conducted, well-organized competition that brought out the best in all those who participated, and one that is definitely one for the history books.

Over the next few posts on this blog I will recount my NSPC 2010 experience day by day, from the unusually long opening parade to the kickass sendoff the genial people of Tagum prepared for us. Stay tuned for my account of the National Schools Press Conference 2010 in Tagum City.

I’m back in Butuan after participating in the 2010 National Schools Press Conference in Tagum City.

I am pleased to report that I placed fifth in Feature Writing – English Secondary and third in the online writing contest sponsored by the Philippine Online Chronicles. I was also awarded as one of the country’s outstanding campus journalists along with 16 other writers.

A detailed blog post chronicling the prestigious event is in order, of course, but I’m still weary from all the stress and the traveling, so it might take a few days for me to come up with one.

In the meantime, stick around for a short letter I wrote to a girl I, uh, met, while I was in Tagum.

Today, my colleagues and I hopped aboard the early morning bus bound for Tagum, arrived at around 10, spent a couple of hours in NCCC, retreated to our quarters for some much-needed sleep, left later in the afternoon so my colleagues could attend mass, and ate dinner at Chowking. We’re resting up tonight to prepare for the National Schools Press Conference 2010 which commences tomorrow.

Thank goodness the school we’re billeted in has WiFi. It’s not school-wide, but it’s loads better than nothing. I will probably be able to go online a lot more during this year’s NSPC than I did in Naga last year. Stay tuned for constant updates; if you’re looking for results, I’ll try to get them posted here once they’re announced (closing ceremonies are this Thursday, I think).

Excerpts from pp. 57-58, dated 02-01-2010.

Today I fell in love.

I first met my new muse indirectly, on the Internet. Jessica Zafra copied JD Salinger’s “Before the War with the Eskimos” [by hand] as a way of remembering him (he died on Jan. 27, Wednesday, at the age of 91). Ms Zafra’s penmanship is remarkably elegant and I couldn’t help but notice how nicely the ink looked on the paper. This led to a bit of exploration which led me to the Montblanc website. (Montblanc is a renowned writing instruments manufacturer.)

And then I saw her.

The Meisterstück 149 fountain pen. Gorgeous. Elegant. Seductive.

Yes. I just called a fountain pen seductive.

Unfortunately the Meisterstück costs upwards of $500, way beyond what I can afford. However, the offerings of Parker, another popular premium writing instruments maker, are quite beautiful, too, and much more affordable. Some of their fountain pens can be had for below $30.

This afternoon I floated the idea of buying a fountain pen to my dad. I did so quite sneakily, too—I simply asked him if he had an unused fountain pen lying around. He told me there wasn’t much of a point in purchasing a fountain pen towards the end of the school year (he’s right), but that he wasn’t closed to the idea of buying me one for college.

I’m not going to hope for a Meisterstück 149, but a nice Parker with a refill bottle sounds delicious. Hopefully I will acquire one over the summer.

* * *

Look at this. Just look at it. Now, tell me that isn’t gorgeous. Here’s a beautiful Parker, too.

Do you use fountain pens? Any recommendations?

JD Salinger of The Catcher in the Rye fame passed away in his Cornish, N.H. home last Wednesday at the age of 91. The famous recluse who has lived away from the public eye since 1953 died of natural causes. Read the New York Times obituary. Another interesting piece on how fierce Salinger’s neighbors were in protecting his privacy.

JD Salinger, 91. Rest in peace.

School has been suspended until next year to give way to Christmas vacation. The weeks leading up to the break have been unusually full of activity for me as well as for my classmates. I and my colleagues in the school paper were in a frenzy for almost a month preparing to send our first (and probably only) issue to the press, but thankfully all the copyreading has been done and the layout finalized and the paper is now ready for printing. Now that that’s all over with, I can finally sit down to blog.

***

A quick update on my reading. My journey through the classics of literature continues. I finished reading two notable works since my last blog post—”Lord of the Flies” by William Golding and “Of Mice and Men” by John Steinbeck. Both were very interesting and very impeccably written.

“Lord of the Flies” plays on the concept of man’s inherent savagery which surfaces in the absence of order (which is to say, when man is stripped down to his bare essentials). I found it very easy to root for Ralph and despise Jack throughout the story. The gripping finale, when rescue arrives on the island just as Ralph is about to be killed by Jack and his men, manages to be both amusing and sobering at the same time. Golding succeeds in demonstrating through the novel the immutable fact that man is cruel and savage by nature.

“Of Mice and Men”, meanwhile, paints a pitiful yet inexplicably beautiful picture of America during the Depression. I can only imagine George and Lennie in their soiled clothes, denim jumpers and tattered straw hats bucking barley in a California ranch, dreaming of a carefree life tending to rabbits and living in their own simple home. The saddening truth that the farmhands will never earn enough money to realize their ambition is rivaled only by their admirable ability to believe otherwise. Also remarkable is the irony that breathes life into the two protagonists’ partnership. Imagine a heavyset man who often acts like a child taking orders from a short, wiry fellow who talks to him condescendingly.

Allow me a brief moment of unbridled sexism so I can mention the matter of Curley’s wife. A solitary woman in a masculine world is bound to cause trouble—Curley’s wife is definite proof of that. Only she and her locks of smooth, silky hair are able to lay waste to George and Lennie’s humble dreams of hakuna matata. This concept is far from new, of course (Genesis is an enduring example of how woman is often thought of as mankind’s ticket to damnation), but no portrayal of the idea I’ve read—so far, at least—is quite as heartbreaking as Steinbeck’s in “Of Mice and Men”.

***

My dad started teaching me the basics of driving recently. I’ve been doing most of my practice driving on the relatively deserted city bypass road—mostly just learning when and how to switch gears, all the basic stuff. On two occasions my dad let me drive the family car on long (long for me anyway) stretches of national highway. One time, I lost my concentration to the frenzy of a busy intersection—I had come to a full stop to allow perpendicular traffic to pass, and when I was clear to go, I switched to second gear directly from neutral (from a full stop, you must always go from neutral to first). Of course my engine shut off on me.

My three-point turn skills need more sharpening and I’m yet to learn to parallel-park.

***

In nine days, we will bid adieu to 2009 and say hello to 2010. 2009 was a crazy year, wasn’t it? We said goodbye to too many influential people (MJ, Tita Cory and Ka Erdy, to name a few), went through Typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng, and stood witness to a vicious murder that was committed in the name of greed, power and money. The year that was 2009 was nothing short of trying for the Filipino, but we successfully braved the storm as we always do, looking forward to the promise that the new year brings.

***

We had our annual year-end Thanksgiving at church today. I certainly have so, so many things I am thankful for and it is impossible to name each one. More impossible still is to fully repay the good Lord for the boundless blessings He has showered upon me, my family, and the Church throughout the year. Glory be to God!

***

[Image credits: "Of Mice and Men" book cover from Wikipedia]