natatakot akong lagyan ng title. hahaha.

in drugs or in violence
or in endless sex penitence,
they try to soothe the bruises

of their souls that were
punched and slapped in the hazing.
they’re friends, anyway,
friends by the vapor

hanging in the window,
clogged by heavy moans
or cloudy, organic breaths.

drifting, their world seems weightless.
because nobody knows about gravity, that is.
plus, dust is hardly seen

in black clothes hung together
at one side of the cafeteria
where we do not notice

the applicants walking by.
later in room 204,
they’d take off his heavy cloak.
and there begins the chain of penitence
just to have the access.

Victories, or are they?

update:

i’ve uploaded my homework. click the link to download it.

CL 113 (2)

My poetry professor, a first-prize Palanca awardee, liked my poetry project, and he liked it enough to ask me if he can keep it.

Imagine my jump from frustration to gladness, from not finding my paper at his door to seeing my work clipped in his folder. One of my proudest moments in life. (by the way, he gave me a 1.5. I’ll post my work some time soon.)

###

The proudest moments in my life have been happening this year. Yet to come and think of it, only three months have yet passed. (Nine more months till the world ends and I can no longer shed awesomeness!) There was the Hybrid Technica second-place essay, my 1.0-graded paper in a higher English course, our *outstanding* English11 drama, then finally, a work so amusing my professor wanted to keep it.

Right now I feel so good and proud about myself. It’s like finally, every effort in this sem has made a pay-off. Though I’m very much physically alone right now, I’m generally satisfied. Academic excellence is an intellectual orgasm. It’s enough to know that I’m awesome. Haha.

However, I still do wish for a little company around here, a company with whom I can share my victories and someone who can understand how much these mean to me. Penetrate my heart, my body, my mind, my world. As for my relationship status with Kevin, things are going great. Every morning I wake up with more love for him and a feeling of attachment. I’m happy with the way our relationship is going, though I can’t say it’s perfect given the boundaries set by distance and time. (but I am pushing them, yes, I am.) I’m not going to make a request to Kevin to exert a little more effort, though I just want him to fucking do some things sometimes. I do feel, however, that he is being serious at his best and is doing all that he to make us work out. (read my tweets – a glimpse of everything.)

Indeed the semester is ending, and I’m getting the bright-day feeling. Later this afternoon we’ll be discussing at Sarah’s. Maybe I’ll drink a little amount of alcohol or maybe not. XD I wish Kevin finally finds the guts to secure the reality of our relationship, and appear, right now, in front of my eyes. I wish the worst doesn’t happen on our workshop later. I wish my college application gets accepted and everything flows smoothly.

I wish I’m not alone and writing this post because I’m holding hands with someone and making plans for the next five years. I wish life isn’t just happening inside my head. I want to see life happen in front of my eyes. I wish somebody is taking photographs of me, of us. I wish the word “alone” is deleted from my pragmatic lexicon. I wish I can see, hear, touch, smell, taste — not just think. I wish to be alive in the outside world, not just in the inside world I designed for my own comforts.

Now to come and think of it, where are the real victories in life?

HOW TO WRITE A 1000-WORD CRITICAL PAPER WITH 5 SOURCES

1. First things first: take note of your topic, know your professor’s prescribed paper format, read the prescribed primary readings, schedule the deadline and your work period in your calendar.

2. Gather your sources. I know it’s stupid because you’re supposed to think first and then find the supporting literature. But since we don’t want to think that much, we do the process backwards. I suggest you use print media above any other media. Go to the library, find the shelf, get all the books you can. Know what kind of books you need. Do you need a compilation of critical essays? A book that discusses the context of your topic? A biography of the author? An analysis of the work you will criticize? Get all of these. You will use them all.

3. Now that you have the books, select the possibly useful texts. You don’t have to read them yet. To know if a text may be useful, it has to at least mention your topic. It doesn’t matter what it says about it. Just get it. You may discard what you will need later.

4. Take note of the author/s, book title, publisher, publishing date and place.

5. Begin your pre-writing. Look at your sources and take note of their general topic. Will it help you in the subjective analysis? Historical analysis? Objective analysis? Enumerate them and arrange in an outline format. Don’t worry about the chronology of your contents. This will get settled later.

6. Get a highlighter and read your texts. Highlight key sentences. List them as sub-bullets in your general outline.

7. Now you have the fragments of your paper’s content. What you will do next is EXPOUND the main ideas you have extracted from your sources. Remember your word limit. Do not RE-STATE. You can paraphrase but make sure to cite your sources. After this you will have individual paragraphs about different ideas that point to one huge topic — your paper.

8. Write an introductory paragraph. This should be easy. Just give it a good opening. You can make a little summary, rouse an inquiry, lay the facts, connect and then ask the reader, etc.

9. Look at your individual paragraphs and select what would best follow your introduction. The trick here is making good transitions. Don’t jump from one idea to another. Make it smooth. Connect ideas and form a whole. Shape your paragraphs and manipulate your data. Always re-read and re-write. You will notice that you will have to discard some paragraphs and some sentences and gather new ideas to fill empty spaces. I then suggest you use the internet. However, if you’re still in the process of giving it a shape, leave blanks and highlight them. Return to them later, when you’re sure of your flow. The flow is the key, dudes. The FLOW.

10. Fill all your blanks and re-read and re-write to your heart’s content. Create your citations page or bibliography. Get your paper printed out. Submit it to your professor with confidence and hatred because he burned your vacation.