Coke slushies

One thing you can say about me: I'm a sucker for Coke slushies.

You know how you can mix everything up in the Slurpee machine just so you have a wicked cool-looking fucking Slurpee? Not for me. I'd run to the Coke dispenser and fucking fill my cup with it. No, no Slurpee art with double straws for me. Just plain Coke. Not even Pepsi either. But that's a different story.

My friends go, "You're boring." and I just reply with an apathetic "You don't have my tongue. Fuck off." I like to keep things as simple as possible. If it can be shortened, it will be shortened. That's why I write small, I'm trying to conserve paper. Trees are a valuable natural resource, you know.

They deserve more treatment (idk, maybe like cleaning the air we breathe) than being transformed into paper that you wipe your ass with.

And with that, it kinda makes me sad today. I feel... alone. I try to bypass it by reading about the ramblings of idiots posting in Facebook groups, or the crazy stupid banter of a message board. I looked into my Tumblr profile, played hopscotch with the janitor, watched 2 episodes of my TV show, but something still feels incomplete.

Sometimes being so simple can be so sad. Sometimes... I wish my life would have a shitload of colors, a fucking rainbow of memories and experiences with people who range from the utterly droll to the annoyingly obnoxious. Sometimes, I just wish my Slurpee cup would be extremely huge with fucking slushie art in it made with all the fucking colors of their fucking store.

But then again, I only have a coke slushie.

And I'm perfectly fine with that.

Maybe somewhere out there, someone also likes plain Coke slushies as much as I do.

I still have mine to share.

I'm on fire.

Thing is, I never get bullied. I guess I'm one of the lucky ones who don't. Most of the time, I just sit there, watching everything that's happening. But I'm not a clammy type shy-guy student either. Here's the plaintext.


I don't get bullied because everyone knows me. Yea, I'm one of the popular kids at school, but not to a walk-down-the-centre-of-the-aisle kind of popular. I... just am.

I am smart. Perhaps this is one of the reasons behind my popularity, but who knows? I always come up with clever ideas and comebacks ranging from the witty to the utterly sardonic. One of my classmates confessed being too shy to talk to me because she was afraid I might "diss her off".

So much for Mr. Popular Nice Guy right there. But seriously, I'm a nice boy.

--this is where I start talking to the people this blog is dedicated to--

The Internet is another thing. It's where the roles are reversed. A feeling of online superiority dominates everyone on the Internet. In real life, they are the kids who are oppressed, belonging to a group that is considered the "other guys".

Sorry but I don't need to participate in your acts. Yes, that guy doesn't deserve to be on the Internet, but it's a different thing to band together and shame the fellow.

Everything can be posted on the Internet, and anonymity is why everyone can comment about anything. To that I agree, however, there is a degree of moral decency to which airing your thoughts is limited to. Post too much criticisms, and you'll be merely seen as a jerk.

Besides, most of you might even be posting just because you're riding the bandwagon.


I understand your insatiable need to be known, your desire to be popular. I think it's bad rep though, if your popularity is just earned because you are a "insecure jerk-face who is so full of himself he'll never go hungry."

A little insult here and there is good, but there is a limit to everything. I could stop being such an ethical prude right now and go start bitching on people online. Trust me, you would not like that. So I should stop ranting right now about how wrong you guys are, and retreat to the shadows again.

Sorry, but my Biology teacher told me to be kind to animals.

P.S. Someday, that attitude is what's gonna crush you. 

Star light, star bright.

This is the Pleiades. It is so bright it can be seen even in the busiest cities of the world.

Only thing is, this star cluster is so far away that light itself takes 391 years to reach Earth. Yes, when we look at the Pleiades, we are looking at the light of a star cluster which is older than us.

Even the Sun is quite far away. The light of the Sun takes 8 minutes to reach Earth.

The closest star from our solar system, Proxima Centauri, is so still so far (4 light-years) that if you made a scale model of the Sun with a radius of 30cm, Proxima Centauri needs to be 8514 kilometers away to be accurate. The distance between New York and Los Angeles is 3961 kilometers.

Stars shine so bright and they illuminate our night sky. But what's actually happening is we're looking back in time. Looking at the Pleaides means looking at the light generated 391 years ago. These are the lights of a time way before us, back in the day when we were still young, or probably nonexistent.

And who knows, the star might be a supernova now and we wouldn't even know. If Proxima Centauri dies, we would not know it did until 4 years after, when its light stops shining.

So all these years--since when?--he had been seeing the light of dead stars, long extinguished, yet seemingly still in their appointed places in the heavens.

I am looking at a dead star. What I thought was shining for me, beaming at me, is actually the remnant of a love long due. It's the light from years ago, way back, probably even more. I am looking at the light of a dead star, of a love lost and forgotten.

I remember the memories we had, of the good times we shared. They're all gone now, the light of my sweet little star will vanish sometime.

I look out the window and see the light of Pleiades from 391 years ago.And I think to myself,

It's time to move on.

Fill in the blanks

Get this. I'm not into these blog memes where you have to do shit and spill something about yourself, but this person I know made her answers so impersonal but interesting at the same time I was encouraged to do the same. 


Here's me at an attempt for a meme: Fill in the blanks with what suits you


1. Burgers -- the best food to take on a picnic.
2. I remember the last time I watched a movie back home. It was 500 Days of Summer.  
3. I find how flip flops could mean either footwear or digital circuity computer stuff, funny. 
4. To love someone is to find someone who is so close to you that the line between "him" and "her" becomes very fine.
5. Life is a long hike and it is up to us on what route to travel.
6. When I crave food, it's usually a slab of prime rib of beef au jus marinated in red wine and served medium rare over seasonal vegetables and chicken parmesan.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight (Thursday) I'm looking forward to my parents letting the issue slide, tomorrow my plans include having a blast at the CSSS kick off party.. without busting my wallet that much, and Sunday, I want to be the bastion of academic excellence. 

Puppeteer

I can see the strings, the cross-rods way above me.

I move a leg. And another one. In a few moments, I begin to do something my puppeteer calls walking. He smiles. As he twitches the cross-rods, his audience is entertained, dazzled by this wondrous thing that moves.

He pulls strings here and there, and I realize I am not alone. There are hundreds of us - perhaps even thousands, all moving, all doing stuff - to the delight of the audience. My fellow puppets seem not to take notice of the strings connected to them: it's like they haven't seen it yet.. or just prefer not to give a damn.

I look at the audience. A massive plethora of myriad individuals, watching us, studying us. Then I see something above them - strings. They are puppets as well, puppets who are currently just watching us do stunts. Eventually my eye catches one of the stage puppets move ot of the stage to be replaced with someone from the audience. After a few moments, I feel my legs being walked out of the stage. I am now being made a part of the audience as well.

All of the motions, all of the people watching, makes me wonder who moves these many puppets, who controls them. I squint up toward the light to take a glance at the puppeteer's nametag. His name is Society. For the past few hours, I keep seeing someone go to Society and help him move the puppets. A few hours ago, there was only one. Now there are hundreds of them, each making at least 10 puppets move. They all have the same nametag: Technology.

Now Society doesn't always control the puppets by himself. Sometimes, he crushes them, destroys them, throws them into a fire for reasons I could not comprehend. Sometimes Society just cuts off a puppet's strings, rendering the poor wooden figure lifeless, laying in a heap of wooden uselessness on the floor. He occasionally wipes out puppets of a certain color, of a certain height. There are times when he threw an entire region of people away.

Both the puppeteer and his group of sidekicks with the name Technology take part in this horrendous display of destruction. But there are times when they actually improve some people. They polish their wooden eyes, make them more attractive, make them do more actions. Sometimes, they augment the puppet's capabilities.  They help them be the best puppet they can be, for the delight of the audience.

I take a look at myself for a second and I was shocked with what I saw: right there, on the dull tin plate pinned to my chest, is the name Society.

White crayon

The white crayon doesn't show up until you have a 16-pack of crayons.

What is it for anyway? Crayola said it's for 'advanced coloring techniques', where you were supposed to highlight glossy surfaces or emphasize a chiaroscuro, but what kind of pre-schooler would come up with such a concept? I don't even see a kindergartner saying chiaroscuro correctly.

The white crayon. Basically useless, very neutral. It sits at the edge of the 16-crayon pack, waiting to be used. No doubt that after some usage, the white crayon will be the sharpest, most crisp, while all the other crayons have shown dullness due to repeated use.

The crayon has its own brilliance though; a hidden one. Just like how it was supposed to be used to emphasize shading, the white crayon serves a higher purpose. It is not meant to be used or even understood by normal people. Only a chosen few can understand the significance of the white crayon, and when they do, they unleash a masterpiece.

It has its own time, when some artist uses crayons to work on something extravagant, something life-like. It is when the white crayon becomes essential. It rises above the purpose of toddlers using it to create rugged crayon drawings and becomes a tool to enhance, to accentuate, to beautify. It has its own time, when art finally becomes art, an authentic appreciation of the visual world, a symphony of colors orchestrated in the hands of the artist. And in between this mélange of hues and shades, the shades of the white crayon bind them together, make them cohesive, or draw the boundaries between one color and the other.

It is then that the white crayon does its job. Unfortunate as it may seem, the white crayon is the underestimated knight of the crayon box, whose real purpose is only known to a few. Often misunderstood, the white crayon symbolizes everyone whose real potential haven't been tapped, those whose brilliance will someday break the twilight of the world's dismal, repetitive drudgery.  A day will come when all the world's hidden talents will emerge and bring forth the real ability mankind has.

What was hidden shall be seen. The white crayon, inert as it may seem, does actually have a purpose. And it's one that is the most artistic of all: to impart beauty onto the world.

Like Frankie said, I did it my way.

Regrets, I've had not a few, but a lot. Like tonight.
So guys, here's the plaintext.

It's the first day of school, and as always, I traversed the hallways alone. Typical immigrant non-native-English-speaking freshman dude. Three classes passed, and I never met a soul. Or maybe it's just me, trying to rush myself into things? Maybe it's just me not taking one step at a time.

Maybe. That's the same thing I thought when I attended my first class on campus, last summer. But whatever, maybe this term, I'll have to meet people. Maybe joining student organizations would be a great tactic after all. Maybe just pulling up all the courage I can get to say, "Hi, I'm Leonard" would get me places. After all, it's a 300-seater lecture hall and I could just move to another seat far away from one where a failed introduction occurred.

Two paragraphs of maybes. Just like any other typical youth blogpost, full of what ifs. What I hate is asking myself what if questions, unless I'm doing science. This post is intended to be one of those sleepy thoughts that I have while at school, or the myriad scattershot opinions I have at night. But no. Tomorrow, I will speak my mind. No more thoughts to myself.

Tomorrow, the world shall hear my story.

P.S. F'Real's strawberry milkshake is so fucking good.