July 2004
1o things i thank the G Friendship for:
1. All the times you listened to my senseless complaints – academic or otherwise and my nonsensical tales of men with bad nails, doctors with nice hands, marriage proposals from psychos
2. For popping in my office so that you can imagine me writing you, for all the dinners, beers, vodka, scotch, and the conversations that range from bizarre love triangles, amusing tales of kabadingan, extremely puzzling tales of stalkers
3. For pulling me around when I can’t swim in PG
4. For putting up with what many people think are my eccentricities
5. For reading my long emails
6. For introducing me to so many wonderful people I’ve never known before(i.e., Murakami, Coetzee, Gramsci, Todaro, and well, even Peou, Aglietta, Wallerstein & Braudel, to name a few)
7. For putting names into my father’s long time unknown ‘friends’- the sensation of being home when I hear jazz which my father plays every Sunday morning for as long as I can remember
8. For watching films that fail to evoke happiness
9. For trusting me enough to share how you feel about many things in life
10. For believing in me when I can’t even trust myself
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Carlos-ian Wisdom (From CRC)
Thanks for the lovely photo...when I see pictures like those, I always lament that one of my unfulfilled desires is to photograph LIFE, people, places, things...I am 6 years into retirement and I may yet fulfill this dream...as in second wind...
So, what's in a number? 27? 28? 29? Remember, they only have meanings because society constructed meanings for them...Note how our so-called debutantes at 18 years are "presented" to society in elaborate debut balls...
Do you know the historial antecedent of the debut in Europe ( which we don't share...)? 18 years used to be the time when their women are ready to become wives/mothers and are presented to the eligible males to be chosen... sus, how can you "present' somebody at 18 when they are having sex at 9???
I am re-reading a book now by Levinson titled Seasons in a man's life. It details the psychological, physical and hormonal changes that happen to women/men and how , because of the constructions and strictures of society, they are "expected" to do certain things at certain ages...this is where failed expectations come in, the angsts, the sense of failure, despair...
Why do singers/rockers kill themselves at an early age? I guess it may have something to do with the dog-eat dog life in the entertainment world where you have to sell your soul to be ahead of the game. It is also on account of the ungodly hours that they spend on the road, practising , etc so their body clocks have to be adjusted by drugs...the road from there is a slippery slope to a sense of hopelessness and despair and a sigh away from self destruction...Just a hypothesis...
Will be in US on 17th. Let's have lunch when I get back...
So, what's in a number? 27? 28? 29? Remember, they only have meanings because society constructed meanings for them...Note how our so-called debutantes at 18 years are "presented" to society in elaborate debut balls...
Do you know the historial antecedent of the debut in Europe ( which we don't share...)? 18 years used to be the time when their women are ready to become wives/mothers and are presented to the eligible males to be chosen... sus, how can you "present' somebody at 18 when they are having sex at 9???
I am re-reading a book now by Levinson titled Seasons in a man's life. It details the psychological, physical and hormonal changes that happen to women/men and how , because of the constructions and strictures of society, they are "expected" to do certain things at certain ages...this is where failed expectations come in, the angsts, the sense of failure, despair...
Why do singers/rockers kill themselves at an early age? I guess it may have something to do with the dog-eat dog life in the entertainment world where you have to sell your soul to be ahead of the game. It is also on account of the ungodly hours that they spend on the road, practising , etc so their body clocks have to be adjusted by drugs...the road from there is a slippery slope to a sense of hopelessness and despair and a sigh away from self destruction...Just a hypothesis...
Will be in US on 17th. Let's have lunch when I get back...
Freezing in Beijing
Its 1 am and i just arrived from a long cold walk in Tiananmen Square. Beijing is wonderful at night but is a cold, almost dead and bare country in the morning. This is my last night here and i am now convinced that school is such a hassle. I have to get back to manila tomorrow in time for my exam on friday (yes, i am enroled in the DPA Program in NCPAG). I am thinking of skipping that exam, getting an incomplete and staying here for two days, hah! It would be worth it, am sure. I remember we wanted to wander around Asia together but things changed, eh?
On Finding the "Civil" in Civil Society (Letter to KL)
I have serious problems with CSOs being preoccupied with the Weberian-type bureaucracy, but I'd like to think that the common objectives directed to MPA management, the "sense of belonging" to a single cause and the relative flexibility of their "rules and procedures" qualify them as CSOs. Was it Ostrom's group who wrote that 'conventional' theories are not sufficient to explain the dynamics of managing the commons?
A French technocrat, Aglietta(?) used some of Marx ideas in developing some sort of a regulation theory and compared society to a balloon, the burgeoning middle (representing the middle class) makes it possible to float in the air but widen either the base or the top and it immediately falls down. There's more of us going down to the base.
There's no shortage of brilliant minds interpreting the world in various ways, but only a few are up to the challenge of actually "changing it". The vanguards of the proletariat are now part of the executive that manages the affairs of the bourgeoisie. They're in Congress engaging in self-referential monologues.
You have to see To Live, an interesting perspective of China during the Communist Civil War, the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution, told not in an overly political and dramatic sense. There's no car chase but a lot of chasing counter-revolutionists, you can't tell the difference.
A French technocrat, Aglietta(?) used some of Marx ideas in developing some sort of a regulation theory and compared society to a balloon, the burgeoning middle (representing the middle class) makes it possible to float in the air but widen either the base or the top and it immediately falls down. There's more of us going down to the base.
There's no shortage of brilliant minds interpreting the world in various ways, but only a few are up to the challenge of actually "changing it". The vanguards of the proletariat are now part of the executive that manages the affairs of the bourgeoisie. They're in Congress engaging in self-referential monologues.
You have to see To Live, an interesting perspective of China during the Communist Civil War, the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution, told not in an overly political and dramatic sense. There's no car chase but a lot of chasing counter-revolutionists, you can't tell the difference.
A very long story (letter to a friend)
"Life is never too short, its just that you've been dead for so long", says the shirt of a teenager. Here's how i've been resurrected last December and since i am too lazy to write, might as well post an edited version of my email to Rae.
~~~
Just came back from a long holiday in the province (no internet, no malls, no frills) and I was able to recharge, sleep 12 hours a day and hopelessly answering bizaare questions from 4-year old cousins while watching national geographic and cartoon network, so here’s a long account.
It seems to be no life at all but it was what I needed. I regret not being able to catch up with anyone during the Congress. Every email i receive starts with "although we were unable to talk during the EAS Congress..."
I wanted to give you Pablo Neruda's Memoirs (you would've loved the book!, i swear)when we got hostaged to the SOA-PEMSEA dinner (again!) which lasted until the wee hours in the morning. Some parts of the "dinner", I no longer remember, thanks to Anchor Ice Beer and Great Wall Wine (?). I discovered that I can really get drunk to the point that my brain would stop taking in more memories, dangerous, eh?
My friends were teasing me the next day about my "obsession" with my shoe laces. They said that I kept on stopping along the way to check on my shoe laces (which were fine, by the way), but I really can’t recall any of it. The months of exhaustion may have finally taken its toll. We were all so drunk so i am not really sure if they were just bluffing or imagining something or what.But i couldn't dispprove their claim...
I woke up feeling like a zombie on 17th of December and realized that I just missed talking to people I would’ve wanted to talk to! So much for building partnerships...But the worse part of it all is that I couldn’t take a morsel of food without the feeling that I was gonna throw up . It didn’t help that I am not such a big fan of Chinese food, i just don't know why I can't get it in my system but don’t tell anyone.I lose a lot of weight when i'm anywhere in china, even hongkong for that matter. No one appreciates KFC and McDonald's more than I do when i am in China...
We left Haikou for Hongkong on the 19th and got to visit the Peak. Last time we went there, it was still being constructed, and well now, aside from the stunning view of the Victoria Harbour , it’s a good coffee place . There’s the “cute” WWF Office along the way and I contemplated dropping by to say hi to Andy but I decided against it knowing full well that they may be very busy wrapping things up before the year ends and besides I am not well acquainted with him so he may not remember me at all. Darn, missed that chance, Fra____r!
We were actually making an inventory of people we know so we can all give them a call but we can’t seem to come up with any names, hah! I visited the space museum and the museum of art, out of a freakish obsession with museums and anything that reeks of history, especially when it’s teeming with “communism”, hahaha. My friends enjoyed the shopping, they went to every nook and cranny buying every conceivable gif while I was fighting the impulse to buy another SLR camera. It’s a sickness really, camera shopping, tsk, tsk…i should see a shrink.
~~~
Just came back from a long holiday in the province (no internet, no malls, no frills) and I was able to recharge, sleep 12 hours a day and hopelessly answering bizaare questions from 4-year old cousins while watching national geographic and cartoon network, so here’s a long account.
It seems to be no life at all but it was what I needed. I regret not being able to catch up with anyone during the Congress. Every email i receive starts with "although we were unable to talk during the EAS Congress..."
I wanted to give you Pablo Neruda's Memoirs (you would've loved the book!, i swear)when we got hostaged to the SOA-PEMSEA dinner (again!) which lasted until the wee hours in the morning. Some parts of the "dinner", I no longer remember, thanks to Anchor Ice Beer and Great Wall Wine (?). I discovered that I can really get drunk to the point that my brain would stop taking in more memories, dangerous, eh?
My friends were teasing me the next day about my "obsession" with my shoe laces. They said that I kept on stopping along the way to check on my shoe laces (which were fine, by the way), but I really can’t recall any of it. The months of exhaustion may have finally taken its toll. We were all so drunk so i am not really sure if they were just bluffing or imagining something or what.But i couldn't dispprove their claim...
I woke up feeling like a zombie on 17th of December and realized that I just missed talking to people I would’ve wanted to talk to! So much for building partnerships...But the worse part of it all is that I couldn’t take a morsel of food without the feeling that I was gonna throw up . It didn’t help that I am not such a big fan of Chinese food, i just don't know why I can't get it in my system but don’t tell anyone.I lose a lot of weight when i'm anywhere in china, even hongkong for that matter. No one appreciates KFC and McDonald's more than I do when i am in China...
We left Haikou for Hongkong on the 19th and got to visit the Peak. Last time we went there, it was still being constructed, and well now, aside from the stunning view of the Victoria Harbour , it’s a good coffee place . There’s the “cute” WWF Office along the way and I contemplated dropping by to say hi to Andy but I decided against it knowing full well that they may be very busy wrapping things up before the year ends and besides I am not well acquainted with him so he may not remember me at all. Darn, missed that chance, Fra____r!
We were actually making an inventory of people we know so we can all give them a call but we can’t seem to come up with any names, hah! I visited the space museum and the museum of art, out of a freakish obsession with museums and anything that reeks of history, especially when it’s teeming with “communism”, hahaha. My friends enjoyed the shopping, they went to every nook and cranny buying every conceivable gif while I was fighting the impulse to buy another SLR camera. It’s a sickness really, camera shopping, tsk, tsk…i should see a shrink.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)