Wakasan

When i was 6, my ate used to read to me daily dosage of comics, our pasalubong from our lola, who used to go to the palengke daily since we had then a mini sari-sari store. My ate would read aloud stories from Wakasan, Hiwaga, Funny. So I got to be acquanted with comics stories like Morgan, Zuma, Piyok, Ayaw Matulog ng gabi, Urbano, Planet of the Aypes, Supercat, etc. Some digression -- when I was six, i was still not being taught how to read, be it in Filipino or tagalog. But hey, my son, only six years old, can now read fairy tales (he read Mats by Frace Arcellana, and i'm happy for that!), and can now read ads flashed on tv, both english and filipino. I just realized how competitive the world has become. I wonder if these days, there's efficient time managemnt such that children at a young age are taught the rudiments of reading, or these children are wasting the opportunities of their being children -- i.e., playing endlessly in the form of babaran, lubig, taguan-pung, piko, syato, sumpak, lukong tinik, tumbrang preso, and all those games i played when i was young. This is a good debating point for child psychologists.
Back to the comics. The story that struck me most was a story in wakasan comics. After a quarter of a century, the story was still lucid in my mind. Nevermind those claiming to be critically acclaimed stories, i just don't know why this story stuck in my mind. I even don't know if the author's plot is original. Here goes the story.
A man got hold of a time machine. He thought of the places he may want to visit. He can go to the future and get hold of sweepstakes number comninations so that when he get back to the present, he can be rich. But he decided to go elsewhere -- he decided to go to the Jurrasic age where dinosaur roamed mightily. So he set his time machine and zoom, he was there standing beside the dinosaur. He could not believe in what he's seeing, so he went nearer to the dinosaur. As soon as that big fella noticed him, it swung its head and in an instant he was eaten.
I don't know the moral of the story then, I still don't know up to now. But just the same, the story has been residing in my brain for a very long time now.

Back in Business

Been a while....... No, am not coming back home as Beth put it, but it's just that time is so scarce these days -- or to put it more bluntly, in the order of priorities or necessities, whichever comes first, blogging is at the lowest rung. So much has happened. New year came so fast -- be it the Gregorian or the Lunar , wowowee became a tragedy of the desperates, Faeldon's lovestruck affair and his subsequent capture, the government's inability to see its moral bankruptcy and its lost of direction (wawa naman anak ko), Kris and James b-days, the list goes on.
I'd really like to post some senseless poetry which i penned while in New york last june. I planned to call them, Salvage Poems from New York (remember Emman?), but again it remains a plan til now. I planned to re-read Sophie's World, but I haven't gone past the first page -- quite ambitous to think i can't get past the first 20 pages of Bob Ong's Paboritong Libro ni Judas. Anyone, pls give me the synopsis. And more ambitous, just took a side trip at National Bookstore and I almost grabbed Eco's On Literature -- which if i had given in to my compulsion, i'm sure that book will join others gathering dust in my mini library.
I'd planned also to write an application letter to some schools who may need of my (lack of) knowledge in Economics and may offer me some parttime jobs, since teaching's been one of the profession -- or vocation -- i enjoy the most. But Weekend seemed so very elusive these past weeks. Last week, t was Sam's monthly visit to her OB -- yes Sam's been preggy with our second child. 2 weeks ago, i acted as ninong to a child -- poor boy that he is (imagine me a ninong?). While at this, the sociology of baptism is surely a fascinating one. Like election, it is regarded as a ritual, a process which is required to have, but its essence is lost among the callous voices in the videoke, the flowing sea of beverages, the constant worries of budget overruns. Some weeks back, the magnet that is majhong is simply irresistible. So much for introduction.
Am just again being besieged by existential drab, the fucking big question of why am i here, wasting more than 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, without even making a dent to the meaning of my fucking existence. How to come to terms with your identity? Anyway, what is preferable:

Being the mediocre among the best
or
Being the best among the mediocre.