Migration

If anyone still checks up on me or is interested to know where I am writing these days...please check out my new blog:

Melancholy Parades

Thanks much! :)

Don't Call Me Lazy

For a while now, I haven't had the same enthusiasm for school as I used to have. It's not that I'm not interested in the material or that I don't care, because I truly do, but I'm still not sure how I can exactly explain myself.

I do find it difficult to focus on the intensive reading and writing that grad school brings. Ironically, I lack the willpower to write a sentence. Papers that have been handed back to me are marked with critiques over the simplest things--punctuation, grammar (things I have always been exceptional with) and word choice is often confusing in my creative works. The simplest things are now the most problematic.

I wonder what has brought about this lack of motivation. While researching something to pinpoint my feelings, the search engines often pointed to depression or a depressive episode but that is far from it, at least at this present time. On the whole, I'm in a good place.

As a student, I'd always needed a little push to study because I relied too much on my natural instinct and existing intelligence. I was "lazy," but don't call me lazy. I skated by on this quite frequently. It didn't work too well in high school, when I actually had to study and put some real effort into my schoolwork and it was clear that my grades suffered because of it. It is only in recent years that I began working hard again, with diligence, with care, with attention. I remember there was a point in 2007-2008 when I was a full-time student and spent entire days at school, studying, reading, yet never felt drained.

Somewhere between Fall 2009 and now, that care and that willpower escaped me.

Should I point fingers and is it even beneficial to do so? At the corporate job that slashed at my soul and toyed with my spirit for three months? At the continuous plow of schoolwork that urged me on everyday (in a good way)? I'd like to pinpoint the source of this inner conflict...

In recent school-related news, CSUN has removed the master's program's thesis in the English department. This will eventually affect the entire campus and possibly the entire CSU system by next fall semester. All independent studies are gone as well. The reason for the removal of the master's thesis is simply this: a money issue and a lawsuit. An unwillingness to compensate the thesis committee for the hours they put in as advisors and readers. That's the long story short. I wasn't sure how to feel about this at first. I was obviously very eager to write a thesis when I first entered the program, but with my recent disillusionment with grad school, this put many things into perspective.

I know this probably happens to many [grad] students and that I have to simply plow on, no matter how mentally difficult. Yes, I realize I bitch a lot when things don't always 100% emotionally-mentally gel for me. But it sure does feel good to write about it. :D

Restrospection on the Year 2009

I haven't done much writing in a while; at least the type of writing that inspires me or makes me think. After the harrowing experience of my temp job from August-November, my brain needed a rest. It had turned to mush and it was tired of thinking. Even when I forced it to think, to read, to work on homework, it would not comply. Like a paralysis but one of only the mind. I didn't want to believe that I had lost my drive to write or that I had lost my motivation for everything. I am usually quite motivated despite my general laziness.

But it was burn out. I used to believe the term "burn out," used to describe the mental and physical breakdown of the body after a period of extreme stress, was a cop out for laziness. A mental roadblock to convince oneself that "I have been procrastinating because I am burned out," but this was a real and true condition. The temporary paralysis of my brain: I would force it to move for me. Listen to me, brain, you are going nowhere!

Since after leaving West Hollywood, I have indulged myself in brainlessness. I've lost passion for many of the things I strove for and believed in. I used to stare out at the fantasy and wonder of the world, conjecturing about people and their stories, hoping to collect the pieces of information for the next writing project. Not now, no. I find comfort in the recluse of my bedroom. It is only recently that I feel compelled to take control of myself again and remember who it is that I am and what I believe in.

Selling portions of your soul to corporate goons really messes up what's left of it.

I found myself emotionless for some time, unwilling to do much beyond indulging in self-detrimental behavior. I reacted this way because I thought I was violating my sense of self, but in reality, I still hadn't truly formed who I was as a person, who my character was, for lack of a better term. I suppose I'm still in the process of figuring all of that out, and sorting out all of my sordid complexities and contradictions.

Despite all of the self-grappling and external issues (concerning school, family, home life, finances, other personal matters) thrown at me, I had an amazing year 2009: co-head editor for The Northridge Review, graduation, getting published in Tayo Literary Magazine, being employed after college with a job pertaining to my degree, seeing my two closest friends move away (an act of separation, which, will only each of us as individuals to grow as a butterfly emerges from its cocoon), and oh...finding a nice boy to spend some time with (a story for elaboration later).

I welcome the highs of the year because they were wonderful...and I also welcome the lows because those are tests of my strength. I can take something away from each experience and that, my friends, builds character.

I'm Lucky, Maybe

I'm lucky...maybe.

I'm lucky to have lived my entire life differently, with a lot of difficulty, knowing pain and the reality of life at a young age. A life filled with turmoil, disturbances. I'm lucky, maybe.

Someone weaker than me would have collapsed by now, but no, I plow through. I leave the house when it's dark. I come home when it's dark, and in the time between, I hope to see the sunlight through haze of an unclean bus window or through the blinds of a frozen corporate office.

Too much abstraction? I know. I tend to do that.

In plain language...(This is a bit of an exercise in creative non-fiction, as well. My brilliant professor has always stated that every occasion is an occasion for writing, so I might as well run with it)

Feelings I had felt three months ago when I started my new job and grad school have not taken a positive turn. Dad had been dropping me off to work and school, but he began to be physically worn down from doing all of that. Plus, all the trips he was taking, to and from work and school, were getting expensive. I was tired of paying for the astronomical gas. In the last two weeks of my job contract, I resolved to take the bus, which is more or less, a 2-hour ride from home to work. I leave the house when it's dark and I come home when it's dark. I'm exhausted at work. Today, in fact, I was so tired that I felt like vomiting.

I'm tired of people telling me, "suck it up," and the like because no matter how much I can explain, words will never be sufficient enough to sum up the sum of my experiences. What I don't understand is why I can be fine one minute, and then completely shut down the next. There are times when I don't even feel present. It's a strange feeling. There is my physical body, there is myself, but it is detached. I see nothing directly in front of me. I hear nothing. I snap to again, only because there is a bump on the road and it jolts me awake.

Then there are my fits of high energy and I feel ambitious. I type at astronomical speeds and spit witty phrases on AIM. I do my work quickly. I am invincible. I am a star! Yet soon, the detached confusion sets in again and I shut down. For reasons I cannot explain.

On the weekends, I indulge in my vices. The drink, mainly. I spend money that I should be saving and I have nothing to show for it. There are sexual curiosities. I feel bolder than usual and I wonder why men find me more attractive at this lowest of lowest points in my life than when I was on top of the world from January-July.

2009--this was supposed to be the best year of my life and it had begun that way. I lost control of my life somewhere and I think about that cliche phrase "Why do bad things happen to good people?" Why? Is it because I sometimes say mean things, that I talk back to my father, that I've got a snappy tongue, that I'm not grateful for even having a job, that I'm not the shining person I once was, only the lifeless shell of me encasing inside, a rotted soul that deserves intermittent months of misfortune?

I arrived home at 7 pm. Reconstituted ramen noodles for dinner. Tonight, I think I'll masturbate to the remembrance of memories of times past to help me sleep, since I've been having great trouble falling asleep. Goodnight.

Remember November 6. This is the date of my salvation.

I don't like the coinage of 'FML'.

When people add 'FML' to their complaints, I don't doubt that they are going through a difficult time. They are obviously voicing that for a reason. Yet I cannot begin to believe that a life is truly "fucked" unless one is in a serious hole that he or she can't seem to dig out of.

I have been to the moon and back of ups and downs in my life, many downs, and ups that have been rewarding. I thought of this year as one of the most rewarding years of my life. I put together an amazing senior portfolio for my final semester. I was the co-head editor of the Northridge Review. I graduated college. I got into grad school. I got a short story published in a Filipino-American literary magazine. I got my first real job three months from graduation.

And that is what brings me here. Somehow, these upward trends in the graph of my life only suppress the things that makes me fall to the floor and brings me to tears. One wrong move, and my depression comes running back to me, always present, always with me, like a ghostly reminder that something is never going to be right...unless I fix it.

So I thought things like that I had listed above would fix me, but it only made things worse.

Am I that spoiled, that I'm never satisfied, that I always want something more? That I should be grateful to even have a job during these times? I swear I'm grateful, but to wake up every morning to tossed aside like sludge on a sidewalk, while I write profiles for septic tanks and air conditioners is not my idea of an experience where I can learn and grow at work. I have learned a great number of things while at work, however, concerning office culture. And the job has taught me a lot about other towns, and I've even got a few places in mind that I might want to visit someday.

But it's so hard to feel motivated in such a limiting environment.

For the past two years, I've been in the cocoon of CSUN's English program, where the world was far and wide, and we were free to roam, imagine, think, play. We were encouraged to push boundaries--no--kick them down and trample over to the untouched side. I thrived in that environment, I did so well. I was free.

And then...I sold my soul because I thought it was the right thing to do. I sit at a desk in a room with fake air, hoping for someone to talk to me, and wondering if gouging my eyes felt better than torture of complete lack of brain stimulation. Do you wonder about caged animals? The lions at the zoo, pacing back and forth? They're bored. They are not in the world they belong. And that's what I am.

My life at home has suffered. I get into fights with my dad, and my brother, when I don't mean to. I shouldn't push the people away who have done their best to help me even with all the bullshit. My car is broken, in case I forgot to mention, and it has been broken for over a month. I'm terribly lonely and I miss all my friends, yet I push people away, time and time again, especially when I'm depressed. No one wants to talk to a pessimist.

Soon, my contract will end, and I can go back to the life I want to lead. I've had the taste of the commute, the corporate atmosphere, the office politics, and I don't want any of it. Never, ever, ever again.

It's the same old emo shit out of me, isn't it? I'm sorry. I have nowhere else to turn.

Found My First Book (Novel Attempt?)

I just found the first novel/book I wrote that I wrote around the ages of 9 to 12, perhaps. It's called The Triple D Mortuary and Graveyard. HA! Emo much? I read a lot of R.L. Stine at that age... :/

And in this story, a 10-year-old boy named Tim who is fascinated with graveyards receives a ghostly visitor. In the cemetery by his home, he finds the grave of his father. He never knew much about his father, barely knew his name. His mother never explained much, and she was a coarse lady, not very nice to Tim.

Late one night, when he's visiting the cemetery, a ghostly spirit appears to him and then later appears in his home. This frightens Tim terribly, and he's afraid that he's disrupted the status quo of the cemetary, for whatever reason.

Along the way, he meets his sidekick while visiting the cemetery at night. The sidekick turns out to be Clint Eastwood, who becomes a father figure to Tim. He also helps Tim figure out how to shake the white demons that follow him.

Somewhere along the way, the story twists and Tim and Clint become separated. This is when the writing gets particularly hazy (I might have been 11 or 12 at this point). He steps into a house, where, in an almost Nabokovian (though I didn't know it was Nabokovian at the time!), Lolita-esque way, a young girl coaxes him to have sex with her. She's being coy, she's being cute.

And then the story ends because I was probably either too shy to write sex or develop the story further. It's kinda odd, random. And goes to show that even kids at that age think about sex. It's unsettling, perhaps. Maybe a little disturbing, too...LOL But ya know, we writers are disturbed people. Edgar Allan Poe, ya know?

That is all. LOL. Thought it was interesting.

Red Sun Morning: The Last Week in Retrospect

A sun-themed blog today...

I pretty much stuck to the schedule (from "Persevere, Clare") but there was one hitch in the entire ordeal and that was that my car broke down. On Tuesday night, I was driving home from CSUN and somewhere in Sun Valley (an area I'm not familiar with, and very shady-looking), the smell of something funky began surrounding me. I wondered if it was my car, but deep down, I knew it was my car.

I had made it home, at least the exit of the freeway near my place, and that's when the car shut down. It shut down like a Windows platform. I was burning pure oil in that car.

The combination of the terrible triangle of a commute, the hot weather, and the fact that that car has been giving me problems since the beginning of time caused the, quite literal, burnout. I wasn't even in a foul mood when it happened. I was just tired. I wanted to sleep.

Thank goodness for weekends, though, as they give one the time to recuperate. Although, this weekend started off just as stressful, what with Jen Ni and Mi Ra Flo leaving (that's Jenny and Myra, lol) and Saturday being an overall bad day. I won't go into that.

Oh yeah, didja hear about the fires? There are evacuations going on right now in the Glendale-Tujunga-La Crescenta-Pasadena area, because of the brush fire in the Angeles Crest that firefighters are having difficulty containing. It's very serious.

I remember a year ago when I posted some diddies about the fires in the valley. Man, it happens every year. Oddly enough, even though I'm close by these fires, I haven't smelled much smoke or ash. The overall heat doesn't help much, either.

Through the smoke in the early morning, the sun is a tiny red dot worshiped by the smoke clouds. It is something awe-inspiring but only occurs in times of disaster. The red sun is altogether beautiful and ugly, frightening and gorgeous, a symbol of how relentless and unforgiving nature can be, but so utterly pure that one cannot help but be stunned by the rare treasure in the sky.

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