Saraah!

I just got back from a symposia on legal activism at the Far Eastern University (FEU). UP Law Dean Raul Pangalangan, our professor in constitutional law 2 and the program’s guest speaker, in his capacity as the chair of KILOSBAYAN and Bantay Katarungan, interested us with alternative and modern methods in staging a real and lasting socio-political revolution.

Incidentally, and not without irony, Sen. Trillanes, along with a company of wayward soldiers acting on his capricious behest, just took the Manila Peninsula hotel hostage.

Reports of an ongoing coup d’etat in the midst of an engaging lecture on progressive action generated a din of laughter among the incredulous audience. I was not amused. To say that the recent pother of misguided principles, opportunists, smoke and guns in Makati is theory in practice, is to vindicate an atrocious act of indecency and immaturity by the bogus champion of people’s interest in the person of Mr. Trillanes.

I understand where this guy is coming from. Like him, I too have been consistently and vehemently passionate about certain ideals. Yet I can not, in all good conscience, place the lives of others, certainly not the country, in peril for the sake of expression.

No matter how strongly I should feel about anything, I do not rely on the strength of numbers to make my stand. If other people should decide to take my side and stand up for a shared sentiment, it should be guided by their very own personal convictions and not because I indoctrinated them with mine.

The problem of collective action is the question of concrete individuated preferences. Who’s to say that everybody involved in the coup attempt acted in their individual accord? Is their individual participation merely a product of esprit de corps gone awry? Do they even have an inkling of what they are getting themselves in? Or are they blindly obeying orders from their superior just as they were trained to.

Until their case is lodged and decided on by the Supreme Court, thereafter surface in the photocopied pages of SCRA (SC reports annotated) assigned as homework, I do not have the answers just yet.

For now I give them the benefit of the highest doubt in their favor. Might I suggest, although belatedly, that they attend Prof. Pangalangan’s lectures on revolution first before parading the streets with empty words and loaded guns. So then they would be perfectly intiated on the proper way to do it.

Am I inciting them to sedition and/or rebellion? Nah. If they succeed, as assuredly they will (what with the guidance of the brilliant wisdom of a UP Law professor), there’s no crime committed but simply a genuine revolution excuted in the grand manner.

My goodness. How did I ever pass the first semester?

Eto yung URL nung nag coup sa makati kanina.

Integrity is a virtue or a concept I have to continually struggle with inside the classroom. It either gets in the way of a good recit or it’s the only thing that keeps me together after the inevitable aftermath of a bad one.

Integrity is knowing exactly who you are and not pretending to be otherwise. Recit wise, it’s knowing that you haven’t read the case you’re being called for and standing up to the professor anyway. It’s taking that risk of appearing a complete fool and at the event the gamble fails, still rest easy knowing for a fact that you are better than the grade you will get.

However I’m still decided on selling my soul to the devil. I could get a bargain if I offer it on the market wholesale. I’m just worried I won’t be able to buy back self-respect afterwards. Who can pay the interest of one’s soul compounded and complexed ten or twenty years after being pawned to no less than hell’s crafty minions? Noone really. But who cares.

Passing is the only thing that counts now. I’ll figure out a way to get my life back in the future. Hopefully, just wishful thinking, there’s a bit of sanity left at the end of the tunnel. Yet the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel is the glow of a burning furnace the size of speck in the far distance. Red, yellow and hot.

* it’s called an imaginary number.

Who am I kidding? A minor computer problem should not prevent me from writing, much less persuade me to throw away a future of worldwide renown just like poof. Just because my pc failed me, doesn’t mean I couldn’t turn to other means to access the internet to blog away.

If I could spend hours owning dota noobs online, stomping them down like the pieces of kilobyte redundants that they are; conscripting them onwards a march to oblivion, using someone else’s pc, then why can’t I invest the same amount of time doing the same thing with a better objective of rinsing the online world of insufferable, revolting and ignoble thoughts?

My duty here is clear. I started a war against utter ignorance and I’m here to finish it victorious. Strong words for someone who has not proven a zit of his claims. Yes, indeed. But take a tiny notice of this one fact: nobody went to battle carrying a brlliant resume. The most interesting fire-starters I know of in history started out as farmers, peasants, carpenters, drunkards, gamblers–in other words, inconsequential unknowns. That until they decided to act postively on a crazy idea and realize the vision, that have long haunted them in their sleep, of surmounting the impossible.

This is not a gimmick to lure people into reading my blog content. Although having a regular audience will certainly help in the cause, I shall refuse to indulge the avid visitor whose main objective is to read on until a major flaw in my plan is discovered, and so the same can continue to believe that everything’s just right in the world, thereafter dismiss me as another raving lunatic helplessly deluded with faux-grandeur.

I’m sorry to disappoint the skeptical. I am the golden child and this village is due for a huge leap in progress.

So my pc won’t start. I’ve been up all night trying to fix the problem. I did procs for cold boot but still nothing. The way I see it this setback will surely affect my daily routine considerably. The prognosis isn’t looking too good either. I guess this means an end to my blogging spree, for now or forever, which might be a good thing because I’ll have more time to study and read.

Well, here’s me going on a sabbatical. Leave me a message while I’m gone. Until later. Adieu!

A YM transcript.

Pleasantries and preliminaries removed.

CarLJon Mucho: i know what to write tonight
nivniw_nikki: ano?
CarLJon Mucho: it’s on how the heroes series is founded on the wrong premise that people with advanced genetic make-up and superhuman abilities will go out of their way to save the world–vis a vis the book by Dawkin’s, Selfish Gene.
nivniw_nikki: ah, but they’re saving the world to save themselves
CarLJon Mucho: if the law of nature is to die or survive, sans the notions of morality, it is against all intuition that they will lay down their lives for others. The truth is, they will use their superpowers to further their own selfish ambitions.
CarLJon Mucho: yun nga
CarLJon Mucho: tama.
nivniw_nikki: huh? akala ko kinokontra kita
CarLJon Mucho: but see, even hiro nakamura, who went from japan to new york, all by his own voluntary (altruistic) choice to prevent a nuclear bomb from going off, did actually compromise the whole operation to save a girl who liked him in the space/time continuum loop he created.. The whole Oedipus paradox was a clever touch to the story btw.
nivniw_nikki: *chuckles*
CarLJon Mucho: cut and paste ko na lang to, wala ng energy para magsulat. hehe
nivniw_nikki: hmmm…
nivniw_nikki: you sir, are an idiot
nivniw_nikki: you forget about sylar. the selfish doof who had the gall to turn the natural order inside out
nivniw_nikki: as with all great human achievments, sylar was the chimera, the big challenge that the real heroes had to neutralize to bring back the balance of the scheme of things. perhaps without the likes of sylar, then there would no need to respond as heroes do. but the story was not remiss on this point.
nivniw_nikki: precisely because of sylar there existed an urgent need for the Heroes to rise up against him
nivniw_nikki: it’s the greatest evolutionary process. great people become who they are because of the villains that threaten to waste the whole world into a pile of rubble.
nivniw_nikki: the whole schmaz is called the batman phenomenon. evil begets evil, but more often than not, evil begets the untiring human spirit to quelch it. so to speak, without evil then there would be no evident proof of good. it’s when everything turns dark that the inconspicuous scintilla of light shines the brightest.
nivniw_nikki: without lex luthor, superman is a joke. without the gotham villians, batman is just like any other eccentric billionaire: pompous, irrelevant and suffers a surfeit of unworldly extravagance. without the sand guy, then spiderman is merely a roach with a ridiculous sense of spider fashion.
CarLJon Mucho: …
CarLJon Mucho: i don’t know what to say nivniw_nikki: i take that with your, refusal, nay, inability to debunk my arguments you accept defeat.
nivniw_nikki: sigh.
nivniw_nikki: yet again, i can not bring myself to relish my victory over your inferiority because it has generally become way too often and too easy.
CarLJon Mucho: i’ll try harder next time.
CarLJon Mucho: hey…
CarLJon Mucho: thanks to my stupidity I make you look smarter. *winks*
nivniw_nikki: needless to say.
nivniw_nikki: the worst thing about being a genius is that I have to put up with a lot of your dumb flattery.
CarLJon Mucho: ouch.
CarLJon Mucho: sorry.
CarLJon Mucho: i’ll try to keep my mouth shut from now on…
CarLJon Mucho: um, ano na ginagawa mo?
nivniw_nikki: *rolls eyes* duh.

* italics supplied for text that have been added for theatrical purposes.

Tomatokick definitely gives you the perfect picture of what a great eating place is and should be. Nikki and I had dinner there for the nth time and the food just keeps getting better. Not to mention the service is superb. By great service, I mean that they have creative ways to keep you pre-occupied while you wait for food to be served. More than just back issues of food magazines and the usual free nuts to whet the appetite, the place offers a wide array of casual games like pong, pinball and our favorite: pick-up sticks.

By no means does this imply that the order takes a long time to get to your table. I think the only reason why they have them there is to draw your attention away from ordering everything in the menu! Because the food is that good. Fine dining can’t get better than that.

Pick-up sticks is a lot of fun to play. We played two rounds and sadly, I lost in both. Somehow my DOTA reflexes availed me nothing. However, assuming, without conceding, that Nikki out-classed me fair and square, it was only because my side of the table was shaky and everytime I had to pick up a stick everything else moved. And, had this been a real DOTA game, I would have been Faceless Void, activated chrono and swept ten games of pick-up sticks in less than six seconds. Big HAHA to those who understand.

I ordered Liempo something and chicken alfredo for my date. Haha again! Masticating the meat was no chore at all, none of that, but at every chewing moment it felt like a hundred thousand flavors exploded inside my mouth. The food was so good I had to think of something extra to say to go perfectly with the sumptuous meal. So I did in fact. I shared my thoughts on the admixture of foreign cultures embedded in the interstices of our own social structure. Quite profound, yes, just as the food was.

It is a wonder how the Filipino is a collage of every other nationality. The Filipino, as we know him/her–us, loves Korean novelas, watches Japanese anime, buys in to Chinese superstition (New Year’s and Feng Shui), adheres to Spanish customs and mores (i.e. Relihiyon), graduates with a degree in American B.S., speaks inggrish, patronizes pan-Arabic discounts on DBD’s, falls for the Indian 5/6 scheme (all rights and patent reserved) and so on. No wonder why everybody in the world loves and hates the Filipino both at the same time. S/he is everything of every country which has its own particular adherents and, verily, detractors which declare war against it too!

This is the part where we burped to our satisfaction. I always appreciate an earnest discussion of great ideas alongside a great meal with a great person. Needless to say, I had a perfect day today. Thank you. Godspeed on our study marathon.

Oh yeah, as an after-thought, I just realized Tomatokick serves a motely of Italian gourmet, Mexican deli, British cuisine and, if I’m not mistaken, German hotdogs. Case in point and proven. May it thus rest in peace.

Don is turning 21 today. I see his pictures in friendster and I’m glad he has, like me, perhaps realized that there is more to life than the worries we’ve had ourselves funnelled in before. We haven’t spoken to each other for the longest time, but now I wish only the best for my best bud. And like kids or true men, there’s no need to spoil the occasion with words. A pat on the back and prayer for godspeed will more than suffice.

Happy birthday Donitz.

The weather has not improved since yesterday. Unfortunately, local news on the net says nothing about class suspension or a holiday break. Chances are remote for a reprieve on today’s assignments. I should have known better than to dilly-dally yesterday with the cases.

I did manage to get a copy of the material for Legal Profession and then spent a few minutes stuffing them inside my bag in a way they won’t crease or crumple. Funny how I invest so much time organizing my stuff in neat rows and piles only to forget to actually read them later. I may have increased my efficiency theoretically by a large percent with all the arranging here and there, but all I’m doing is stacking my books in one corner so I can have more room to move about for useless activity: sleep, rolling around and perhaps do a couple of leg stretches.

I have less than two hours left of rest and relaxation before I bring myself back to the daily grind. Looking at the huge pile of homework and realizing I’ve not the slightest idea what they are about, definitely beats coffee in jolting the body to heightened senses any day. I shouldn’t find this hilarious at all but hey, we all need a seriously sick sense of humor in order to survive law school. Right?

What’s the shortest distance between two points? It’s the line circumscribing the space-time continuum through a string-like knot of a dozen Pi’s raised to the power of zero. Alternative answer: Ikot jeep from my place to Malcolm hall. Aah. I’m losing my mind. I’m going to hell insane.

I got home late in the evening. It was already midnight dark. I opened the door and trudged in weary of the day’s battle. Inside, all I could hear was the erratic whir of the poor fan working itself to death. Somehow its tireless struggle to perform well reflect my very own.

I sympathized for the euthanasian cause a bit before turning the broken fan off with less ado. All involuntarily, the brouhaha of human rights-based discourse did a jack-in-the-box, sprang forward at myopic range and spat theoretical framework after theoretical framework at my face, one on top the other ad infinitum. I hurried to turn off my thoughts, lest I relive my monstrously dull day today.

Dizzy, I unpacked my constitution, obligations and contracts and codal books. Meanwhile I thought about gravity, and wondered why I wasn’t crunched into a dense quantum singularity with all that weight I’ve been dragging around the whole day.

I went upstairs, had a change of clothes and picked up my room.

In bed and at the grips of passionate romance with my pillow, I finally fell asleep.

Much later in the evening:
I wake up. Air is colder. I’m blogging this. It’s 230 and I really should get some rest.

I’m off to school. I don’t have enough time to write anything much down. It’s quarter past nine and my class starts at ten. So I thought I’d write down the topics I like to write more about after classes finish at 7pm. I was thinking, just off the top of my head: zombies, manila, politics and perhaps a belated review of ratatouille. Hmm. Anyway, this is a temporary post. Whoever catches this unrefined entry before it’s transformed into something more serious is lucky.

Ah. Time to go.