going korean



for months now, this certain korean tv series has been having the fair share of attention from me. why? it's an understatement for me to say that i was able to relate to it in so many levels, to live vicariously through the characters in their moments of humanity.

it's the usual story but not really quite that. hmm... can i be more vague? try this:

girl meets boy1 then makes friendship with her. boy1 realizes certain emotions for girl. girl then meets boy2. girl and boy2 encounter conflicts that endear them to each other. boy1 reveals his feelings for girl . girl does not reciprocate. boy2 also declares love. girl feels the same for boy2. boy2 and girl are happily together. boy1 is left all alone.

i know what boy1 felt. i have been boy1. i may end up being boy1 all my life. suddenly, "all my life" loses its romantic connotations with that statement.

i watch this koreanovela together with my elder sister and my nieces in the living room. this is a good contraceptive for getting mushy, so i've always thought. amidst the horsing around with my nieces and my sister's brandishing me of her anecdotes about her patients, amoreux de paris reached out to me and told me that those similarly fashioned parts were real enough to be used as a plot designed for public consumption.

hurting for love unreciprocated is nothing anyone would comprehend unless you were scathed by it first-hand. you can never emphatize sufficiently and say you "exactly how it feels".

boy1: (lashes out on girl as she was consoling him)
"you will never know the pain i feel inside because you are with the person you love!"
how true.

just the other day, i was surprised to find myself feeling like minty vapors suffocated my eyes while i was watching it. i know i can be a crybaby but me freeing tears from my eyes in the living room, open for everyone to see and comment on? come on!

there was a scene that hit me so hard. boy1 pretented to have no memory of everything that transpired among the couple and him. hesaid goodbye to them, then when he was already by himself, he poured out his heart, as he was released from the complications that may arise upon another soul hearing him.

boy1: (in tears, pain painted across his face, quivering)
"i love you... i love you so, so much! how i want to tell you that i love you still!"
it sounds cheesy and icky and puke-inducing here but the scene was just so raw. it was also so helpful that the actor, lee dong-gun was so damn fucking good! he relayed the emotions and i was so receptive to usher them, let them seep into me.

damn it. i've had that. there were times in my life that my feelings were so volatile for the people concerned that i chose to bottle them up, painful as it is. but as is with all things we opt to shun away from the truth of its existence, it looks for a way to pop out, assertive and sincere. how many times have i wanly whimpered those exact words, shutting my eyes close in an futile effort to dull the feeling?

boy1: (begging)
"all i want from you is one smile... just give a smile that is for me alone and everything will be all right. please..."
what i hate about the girl in the series is that she did not give boy1 a chance. she casually shrugged away his affections for her because she did not see it apt for her preference. why not give people a damn? is it cowardice? is it for fear of possibilities? i am not well-versed in this side of the coin to lay down an exposition.

be certain that i make long posts on something that strikes me in the right places.

make me a house of happy

as i was bored to high heavens one early evening after a gruesome toxic school week, i gallivanted around our house looking for a worthwhile activity. i saw the videoke and to me that fit the "worthwhile activity" label. in that situation where i feltl only my opinion mattered, i conceded to the call of the microphone.

i breezed through a number of artists (a term i'm using loosely in this one) like air supply, eminem, aiza seguerra, frank sinatra, destiny's child, jolina magdangal, ric segreto, norah jones, among a slew of others. one name roped me in: the carpenters.

my mom loved them. my earliest memories seem to have their music playing on the background. i know a lot of songs from them by heart, if truth be told. i am very much familiar with karen carpenter's hymns but this song, i got re-acquianted to...

goodbye to love
the carpenters

i'll say goodbye to love
no one ever cared if i should live or die
time and time again the chance for love has passed me by
and all i know of love is how to live without it
i just can't seem to find it

so i've made my mind up i must live my life alone
and though it's not the easy way
i guess i''ve always known
i'd say goodbye to love

there are no tomorrows for this heart of mine
surely time will lose these bitter memories
and i'll find that there is someone to believe in
and to live for something i could live for

all the years of useless search
have finally reached an end
loneliness and empty days will be my only friend
from this day love is forgotten
i'll go on as best i can

what lies in the future is a mystery to us all
no one can predict the wheel of fortune as it falls
there may come a time when i will see that i've been wrong
but for now this is my song

and it's goodbye to love
i'll say goodbye to love
the word "poignant" was created by wordsmiths for this song. wow. it's nice that despite having a good amount of pessimism flowing in it, the probability of things turning around is given space. to be morbidly blunt about it, it's like committing suicide without actually dying.

this is something is should be allowed to sing every once in a while. give me the passes that never expire.

the funny thing is that i am not even heartbroken nor even remotely sad. weird.

flashbacks or backslashes?

i think i got caught up in the post-christmas and pre-new year hybrid parties that all my thoughts blew up into cosmic dust along with the pricey fireworks of our rich neighbor.

so much for flimsy excuses. moving on...

just last week, i participated in our overnight highschool reunion cum christmas party cum new year party cum thrifty birthday party of sorts. that assigned eventful day of the party, my friends and i cooked a little later than planned but nevertheless, we made yummy things. of course, i'm throwing some of the objectivity out the window since i was responsible for some of the food.

since we didn't finish cooking on time, as soon as the finished "gourmet" was done and set on the table, people started eating---not minding us, the people slaving at the kitchen, at all. i was not too happy about it.

for more than four hours, the "kitchen team" fought with the tear-jerking fume of the onions, charred ourselves black with the barbecue, tormented and exhausted our tongues with a battery of taste tests, chopped and minced the spices silly, gutted out and dressed the chicken to make it tasty, busied ourselves with the flour contraptions for the soup and forrayed into the world of violent cooking oil explosions. all i would have wished was for them to have waited a few damn minutes for us. i wanted to be of use but i didn't sign up for a feel of servitude... not to them, at least.

i just hate the way people just assume that things are ok... just because. oh, how funny that some things never change.

i followed my advice. i did grin and did bear with it. nobody said about not bitching about it, right? i thought so.

search and disarm exercises

amidst the raucous and the pandemonium of merriment and celebration in the party, i was able to talk to a friend i've not swapped stories with for quite some time. boy, did we talk about some stuff!

always trust that tales about heartbreaks liven up the party.

after a few drinks and when the adrenalin rush sobered down, we got so entangled in a discussion full of melancholic sighs and comforting taps on each other's person. there were thoughts that floated in my head, each one ramifying like a spider's web.

why do people have a hard time finding the one? it is, oftentimes, a play of fate when two individuals don't meet halfway. they feel around the situation, looking for portents that may eventually lead them towards what they want but in the end, they get lost in all the digging up for resolution.

we all are willing prisoners in our own little worlds that we personalize with trinkets of victory and scars of tribulation. why is it so arduous to see that person who is frivolous enough to let his or her guard down so that your worlds merge in an almost preternatural alchemy?

sigh.

am i frantically looking for it like i always did? not really. you see, when you actively do so, you end up wanting everyone to be the one that you force them into that label. it's just sets everything up for frustrationsville.

we don't have a magical genie to shortcut the process. i guess you just meet them as they come.

hear me, hear you

i think i may have created little opinionated (and sometimes whiney) philosophers out of my nieces.

mom reared me up that i am always entitled to voice out my opinions. whenever she used to scold me for anything, i had the right to speak up for myself and be my own lawyer, provided that i had valid arguments. it was quite liberal compared to other households which shut out children in favor of the norms of politeness and conservativism.

that's how i grew up, unrestrained and at the same time, tempered with the rule of mutual respect.

for the longest time, i was quite the debater. somewhere along my growing years, the older ones here grew tired of engaging in a game of logic and rationale. suddenly, i noticed that there already sprung two new "players".

do you hear that? they say that's the sound of a quite disturbed yet undoubtedly proud uncle.