Steve is on (to) something

I always look forward to when summer comes around. The young Maria Claras come out to cool themselves in the shade of the lubi. Reclining on their chairs, their bosoms subtly heave as they fan the humid air from their faces. Others prefer to lounge by their windows, mamintana what we call it, and as they lean out to catch the breeze, their breasts strain against the cloth, and then some hapless young man walks right into a lamp post as they giggle in delight.

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You were standing there so lonely. Hands in your pockets while you leaned on the fence, your icy gaze somewhere not here and a cigarette dangling carelessly from your lips. It spoke volumes of your sadness, you should know, the way the nicotine crept into your lungs. The way the wisps of smoke rose lazily in the air, rolling about as if they were dancing the waltz you danced last night with the woman who was not your wife.
There is a reason our fathers tell us to hood our eyes: in that single unguarded instant, your soul glimmered, your lashes trembled to the beat of her young heart, and a million miles away, your weary wife cried out.

This is the fruit of my harrowing experience coming home for sembreak. Imagine a 28-hour wait at the airport, nothing to get you by but a notebook and a pen (of course, stupid me impulsively did not bring a novel), and loads of inspiration just standing around. I came up with two essays and two comic strips. Not bad for my first time.

i still can’t get over how going away for a few days and learning about Organizational Development has got my head filled with all these great ideas. well actually, not so filled. i did put them down on paper so as not to get stuck in the attic. but to tell the truth, although i do love paper, i’m not such a great fan of keeping stuff there. i mean, paper gets lost! it gets tossed around in the wind, it gets wet, it inadvertently ends up in the trash bin, it gets crumpled, you get the drift.

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While fooling around on Digg today, I came accross something really amazing. And I found myself agreeing with someone who posted on the discussion forums over there: “Why can’t everyone see this?” So here I am doing my little part.

Dove’s take on beauty here. Now that’s what you call corporate social responsibility.

One of the greatest ways to end a sem is to throw a party as a last big hurrah, and that is what we just did. Thanks to Kylee, who is 17 today, and who treated all of us to 10 boxes of Cheesy Volcano pizzas from Pizza Hut (I swear, I’m probably not eating another pizza for a whole month). The party was a blast, we started off eating and playing cards, and then we had a few rounds of Werewolf or Cry Wolf or whatever that game is called. Then someone had the great idea of playing Marco Polo (in which the It has to grope around blindfolded to catch someone) which was pretty fun. We got a lot of footage that was pretty incriminating. Then we all moved outside where we just talked around and took more pictures and then everyone started drifting off at around 12. A few of us stayed behind and played I’ve Never and talked our hearts out, but I’m not allowed to tell anyone anything that happened so just content yourselves on knowing that we talked about a *lot*.

Now I really don’t have anything to worry about, save for my last paper for Leadership and Strategy. May lightning fall on people who promise interviews and then not give them after all. I have to bullshit my way through this thing instead. But oh well, shit happens. At least I had fun!

this is going to be the first post in my collection of essentials for the [student techie], [techie student], student, whatever…

1. A PDF converter

So you’ve drummed out the last few words on your laptop and your paper is ready to go. You save the file to your USB, and hand it to the guy at the counter for printing. He rudely asks you what file to open and then *gasp* the cover page comes up all wrong! The beatiful fonts you were sure would impress your Literature professor don’t show up!

This happens because word-processing applications save only the font information, and not the font itself. Meaning, if the document specifies “Kirsten ITC” and does not find it on the computer it will not be able to display your text correctly. You could always carry around all the fonts you use on your USB but that would be a hassle, and the people waiting behind you while the guy copies your fonts won’t be happy.

For this very reason [and many others], the Portable Document Format was created. Aside from the fact that it is very convenient to carry around (it makes your files smaller), and that it is compatible in any computer (with a PDF reader), it stores your fancy fonts so that what you see is what you print!

One drawback to all of this is that you can’t edit files in *.pdf format, but then, you’ll have edited your paper by the time you bring it to school, wouldn’t you?

The OpenOffice.org suite comes with a “Save to pdf” function. For other stuff, you can search for a “free pdf converter” over at Google and you’re bound to find something. I personally use OpenOffice.org so I’m not very familiar with how reliable these things are. If you’re not willing to try something potentially useless, then switch to OpenOffice.org too!

I just love it when I learn something new from assigned school work. Here’s a valuable gem I realized from reading A Short History of Nearly Everything for Science and Society.

More than changing the way we live life, science has changed the way we look at life. This is what has allowed our race to prosper. Not simply that our ancestors discovered fire. Our ancestors realized the implication of having fire, and used it to their advantage.

This is really an important point to keep in mind as we Filipinos revel in our being technologically unignorant. We boast of being the text capital of the world and of having an internet cafe on every street corner. Enter any one of these, though, and majority of the users will be gaming, the rest logged on to social networking sites and chatting. And damn me if they were chatting about significant issues and current events instead of the latest telenovela or whatnot.

Our country’s communications infrastructure is very well established. Imagine what an impact on literacy it would make if every hour we spent learning about the latest [mis]adventures of our favorite actors and actressess could be spent learning about something at least more important, like understanding how economy works, for example. Instead of chatting with foreigners to try to seduce them as an easy way out of the Philippines, why not chat with others about what needs to be done here instead, and with this new knowledge be empowered to effect change in our communities?

There really is no point in having technology if we do not use it to advance our ideas and our intellect. It is like being given a Cray supercomputer and using it as a simple calculator. It is as good as if we do not have science at all. The main point of technology making our life easier is so that we would have more time to dedicate to more lofty pursuits. Our opportunities are not only abroad, they are right here, everywhere, and we just don’t see it.

If only every other Filipino would realize this, our nation would not be far from greatness.

walang umiiyak na hindi malungkot.
sabi nila
na ang luha ay para lamang sa
kanilang
hindi nakakatunton ng kagandahan.
walang marikit na hindi masaya
at walang
umiiyak na hindi malungkot

no one cries who is not unhappy.
they say
that tears are only for
them who
do not comprehend beauty.
there is no beauty without joy
and there are
no tears without sadness.

a very abstract poem. [in other words, is nonsense].

when i die
bring me to where
my forefathers died.
bury me where
my forefathers lie.
bind me to her,
the earth that brought me forth
and let me as
rain to the parched soil
of my motherland.

I wanted to write a poem /
but the words would not come /
Hush, my heart said /
wait for it.

I wanted to write of the sugar /
like copious tears I cried /
like tiny diamonds in the light /
Glittering.

I wanted to write /
the dance of the butterflies /
Yellow wings aflutter /
as around they chase each other.

I wanted to write the beauty of a bruised flower /
Its chaste form violated /
by a bruise on its petals.