Lifecatcher

I’ve been surfing this @$#$&^! website and the fangroups and such all contain self advertisements.

"Add me up! [stupid e-mail withheld because of sheer idiocy@yahoo.com]", several, majority even of all the posts in ALL the groups I checked out.

Supernatural is a good show people. Jensen Ackles is pretty beyond human comprehension and therefore must have a coherent, thinking fanclub here as well. So must Jared Padalecki.

I’m going to make my own. BOO friendster, boo.

The adults believe that
it is for the good-
that we must go to distant lands
to gain a better future.
For now, I can only remember
the laughs we shared,
steaming mugs of instant
coffee staining dirty-white
plastic surfaces, and
promises shared over abandoned
fire exits. I still remember
the last day we were allowed
to catch a glimpse of each other-
I crossed fast concrete for
the first time in my life
to get to the dusty green
cement of your apartment
and got there too late, a woman
in white was cleaning the place:
she told me you had already gone.
I vividly recall still the
time when we were sent
to the principal’s office
because we insisted that
the store clerk and school guard
were having an affair;
and it still echoes in my head:
the kind words you would say
every conversation, when you
would laugh and cry simultaneously
while talking to me about
your father and his latest
woman. For now, I can only
be left to ponder, if your
hair is still as long as before,
if your irises are still that deep-brown,
and how you look now, chatting
with friends on the phone until
late-night, or drifting into
dreams while nodding into
papers of philosophy.

(For Katherine)

I recall.

I have no idea.

The afternoon here is so pretty and beautiful and just laid back that I have no idea if I’ve suddenly warped into Pleasantville or if I’m going to die of boredom and just drop DEAD HERE.

I’ve been doing the normal cleaning stuff, that HEY, I’M FEELING LIKE AN OLD PERSON ALREADY.

Thank God for Maritime, rock music, internets and MS word.

Question of the day: Well, how do you while away afternoons?

Answer me.

FINE. I do not want to sound all huffy and emo and sad about the camp experience, so I’ll also talk about the fun part of camp.

Or, should I say, the other camp I went to. KIDS CAMP! YAY!

No, I am above 13 years old, thanks so much. I went there as a counselor, and this was not entirely forced on me. I was, to begin with, fine with the thought of going as a counselor on the kids camp. I LIKE WORKING WITH KIDS. They’re real, unpretentious and so much more genuine than any adult you’ll ever meet. Unless you meet an adult who is, like, emotionally genuine.

All righty. Camelot was asking for my thoughts on kids camp, and YES FINE I WILL POST OKAYS?

Kids camp: AWESOMENESS X INFINITY.

The day before kids camp was a day at home, the day after the uber-stressful older people’s camp. HA.

The day at home involved cleaning, packing new stuff into the traveling bag, looking around for the things that were needed and then internet. But internet connection totally sucked and therefore I had a week full of internet anti-socialness. WHICH IS NOT SOMETHING I DO ON A REGULAR BASIS.

The day of the camp invovled me being late. Again. Because I slept so deep (this being said by me, who is afflicted with a bad case of insomnia) that I did not hear the alarm, my mom’s first holler, and had to be shouted at for the nth time to wake up.

Same old thing, grab the traveling bag, jump into clothes, rush rush rush! And of course, life was being utterly hateful that day, and it sent a big wave of traffic jams our way.

I feel bad that I was late and i think, i think, that the bus had to leave late because I was late. On the way to the church I was frantically calling, texting, attempting to communicate wit hanyone who was there. WHOOPS. No signal, they could’nt hear me, or something.

Life was probably pms’ing that day.

The bus ride was so much more eventful than the first bus ride! I sat at the back, with the noisy kids who were not annoying at all. Honestly. And everyone was just so talkative and fun and HAHA, I’m probably immature because I find that I get along with most kids consciously than I do with people who are my age.

Then again, I instantly get along with older people. At the youth camp, I was talking to a woman counselor (around 30s, or 20s, she was an engineer and in a company and had taken up her masteral at the UP) about business, work ethics, management, and such, and we talked for a good 2 hours. WOULD YOU BELIEVE THAT?

Back to the matter at hand.

Kids camp was fun, I loved herding the kids around (I suspect many of them have developed a Pavlovian response to the whistle I brought), teaching them about God *cue holy light and angel choir music* and just being there in general.

BUT. What I enjoyed most was after 9 pm. 9pm was the kids time to sleep, and the young counselors (US!) stayed up until late-night for the two consecutive nights and talked and laughed and was generally awesome and fun! I made good friends there, (the young counselors were from the youth- Well, I never thought i’d see such fun and down-to-earth people from that group.) just being ourselves and laughing until beyond mid-night.

In short: he kids camp was one of the best things I had ever done! And i’m quite happy that the not getting into UP made me go to that camp instead- I wouldn’t have gotten the chance to speak to those impressionable (i can’t think of another word) people, who otherwise, I would have just ignored every sunday.

Kids camp=AWESOME.

I know i said that already. SHUT UP.

In other words, giving up.

I for one, have never felt the overwhelming feeling of alone, alone, alone in the bad way and now, now, now! and urgency and the feeling that maybe life in general is leaving me fast behind and the only way I can catch up to it is if i keep moving.

Keep riding the train, the jeepneys, the cars, ride on airplanes, boats, buses, walk on, and just catch up.

This is a horrible feeling, like you’ve got to see the whole world, meet the real people who’ll actually listen, meet places where you’ll feel as if you never left it to begin with.

But at the same time it feels crazily enthralling.

Hmm. I wonder if it’s just my traveling side acting up.

There is such a thing as giving up, when everything you’ve got ends up old and gone.

Before I begin my hopefully short account of the reformation camp youth camp I went to, I would like to ask all Filipinos who are reading this at this exact moment:

HAVE YOU VOTED?

Vote people. I would if I was of legal age, but I am not. Secure this country’s future, just a little at least. Partying can wait, especially for the "young" ones. There’s still a liquor ban. Until today only. COME ON. Vote first. If you have voted, then you have my, um, approval?

Right. My own account of the trip.

The morning started especially wrong, because I set the phone to alarm at 5:30 am. It either did not ring or I was too tired to even hear it. Anyway, my mother hollers at me to wake up, and tells me to hurry. That was around 6 am. The bus ride was supposed to leave at 6:30. Being screamed at 6 am is not exactly the most feel-good thing to happen to anyone.

Blah blah, I hurried to dress, grabbed the one traveling bag I packed, took the MP3 player (for which I will be glad for later), my elder brother’s digital camera and promptly forgot the charger for its battery. (Way to go.) That fact (the forgetting the charger) was especially sad because I saw some REALLY GREAT sights there. I mean, the places where there were no people.

The bus ride took long, but I snapped some okay/nice shots of the mountains. Take a look at my profile photos to see them. I’ve only got one picture of me there, the rest are sceneries.

By the time we got to the retreat house, my ears were already ringing because of the altitude, and partly because of anticipated boredom. There was walking down the cemented trail to the assembly place, which involved heat, sweat, and around 5-10, maybe 3 minutes of walking. Whatever. My sense of time was already screwed by the time we got there. I kept checking my cellphone watch to keep me sane. We were already divided into groups before we left the church, and we were further divided into a semi-different group for the rooms. WE GOT THE ROOM BESIDE THE FRICKIN’ BORDER!

For that, I am happy.

The moment we entered the room, I got first dibs on a spot (I was the first to enter the room) and picked the bed beside the window at the back. If that made sense. Then there was singing and general praise and worship, and incredibly un-stimulating, small groups. Go religion.

But small groups was okay. ("okay" meaning tolerable, no intended insult to anyone) The small groups left me disinterested, even uninterested in whatever concept they were trying to forward to us. Every small group session had me thanking the communication skills we had been taught in our subjects and the speech-making things I had to learn, because i knew that it was crucial for me to at least pretend to listen and communicate back. There was no exception. I credit that kind of habit/thinking to the fact that I am not a group person when it comes to places/people I’d rather not go to. Again, no offense intended to anyone.

I was coerced, after all.

Free time and the "Date with God" (which involved you, and God, and probably a bible and meditation.) was the only parts I preferred the most. One date with God had me climbing out to the freeway to take a look at sunlight, dirt roads, asphalt, concrete, blue sky and the feeling of freedom. I felt so regenerated after the few hours that had drained me, body and soul.

The times I was alone, without any people around me, at the mountain, made me feel so recharged. I felt alone, but not lonely, and I think that was the most important of all-

This in contrast to the fact that during the times I had to be around the people there (around 60-70 people who were my age) i had never felt more alone. That camp was the first time, after a LONG number of years, that I realized how painfully possible it was to feel alone in the middle of so many people.

In my point of view, I had no energy to even try to talk anymore. I did try at lunch of the first day, but everyone looked so masked, so interested only in a good time, that the only part where the concept of group activity and the concept of no pretensions actually happened was during the two evening praise and worship. People there actually seemed to suddenly function as people living out their own lives, free from dictates of society (saying this, while ignoring the fact that an organized group of people under a single belief will usually create its own dictates within the society it is situated in and the society it has created) and the intent on impressions.

I really liked though, the sermons given there. There was the one about impressions, and how the impression you make God is so much more improtant than anyone else’s approval, and that you can’t really impress God. And, I’m too lazy to try to remember the other sermons, but it was fine.

If you’ll notice the God topic here, it’s because it was a religous retreat, if you haven’t gotten the hint yet and are still thinking this is the type of camp where you run, jump, fly and crawl.

The times that I had to be where the people were (and I did not participate in the non-religous group activities, by choice) I whiled away by listening to the handy-dandy, trusty old MP3 player. I put my roadtrip playlist on it, so the whole mind-numbing situation would at least spur my brain to think about better things, like wanting to be out of there and in the road, free. And stuff.

That place was the most traumatic in terms of socialization for me. And i know that sounded weird. But it was! I have never been to a place where everyone is much more likely to be real but ironically, I’ve met more genuine people, who are my peers, outside the walls of a church.

No. I did not get into The University of the Philippines. I am going to stay in the University of Saint Thomas. Or Santo Tomas, for you Filipinos.

I could’ve, perhaps, gotten into fine arts, but my mother thinks that it is unprofitable. Or at least, that writing is so much more important than art.

I must say i’m thankful for that. I’m planning to concentrate on my writing. I’m getting good reviews and such. Hopefully i’ll be good enough to get a book published in the soon future.

Hopefully. Have I told you guys that i was sentenced to reformation camp coerced to go on a youth camp from the church i go to?

I’ll write an entry about that! YES.