Jmar.Asteeg.Net

In the mornings, it takes me less than an hour to commute from my home to my university. In the afternoons, it’s a deadly one and a half hour ride going home. Sometimes, the road seems endless, as though the jeepney’s not aground anymore. It’s like the speeding jeep along the highway glides up, skies out, and soars high. And then the fall. Gravity never fails to do its job.

June 16, 2009

First, the excitement. I walk along the the historical grounds of University of Santo Tomas, it was raining and I wish to get in my room on time. Then a few minutes before my time, my heart beats rhythmically with my steps, my shoes striking noisily on the pavement. Anxiety accompanies me as I walk. I don’t know what to expect in the next days to come. In the next weeks to come. And months. And years. I have been told that Architecture in UST is very tough and the idea of sleepless nights and restlessness freaks my gut out. Then I feel like I’m jumping in a deep dark ditch. With it, comes more loud heartbeats. But it’s raining. Thank goodness it’s raining. I don’t want to see myself bewildered under the heat of the sun.

The room is half-full and I seat in the front row. I watch as people, my blockmates, load up the room and occupy the chairs, until we look like a normal class in a normal classroom.

In the first day of college, my first two subjects are vacant. It’s boring, you know, to be really vacant, to have no one to talk to and nothing to do but just to stare out the windows, at the gray sky. It takes me quite a while to get myself accustomed and oriented with my environment — the campus and the people I will be with everyday as I switch classes and eat my lunch. It makes me wonder how much friends I will make, or will I make any friends at all? Until the exchange of greetings and “My name is…” floats up in the room, I think I will survive college. Gravity never fails to do its job, I tell myself.

We are dismissed a few hours early by our last professor of the day. And I go home tired — tired of all the cold sweat, the drag, and the vacancy. But even more and greater things about college magnetize me and make me optimistically look forward to do better in college. Gravity never fails me.

I am curled up in my bed. The sky is gray and the cold precipitation embraces me in what seems to be an eternal slumber. I wake up in my mother’s call, she’s telling me things that sound incomprehensible to my ears. My eyes open. I lie with my back flat on the bed, my eyes on the ceiling.

I wonder: what happens next after vacation? There’s school, of course. In the course of time, everything will change. The almost two-hour commute to my university will be more than the usual. Sooner or later, I will be eaten by awful physical and mental pressure and I will need my eternal slumber again.

I’m bored.
Wake me up on June 15th

I can almost see Lord Voldemort coming out of the curtain. This is the unspeakable horror I am about to face. But still, I’m quite excited to go to college albeit I seriously feel awkward whenever I get the idea of being a certified college student.

Two more weeks until June 9th. If only I can bend time, I will bend it and fold it like a paper.

College is two more weeks away. Two more deadly summer weeks. I can’t wait.

I sympathize, my fellow bookworms. We are all pissed off about the Great Book Blockade of 2009 and we all just wanna kill Finance Department Undersecretary Estela V. Sales for being such a dimwit.

It actually all started when the Customs noticed and consequently got attracted to the success of bestsellers like Smeyer’s Twilight in the Philippine book industry. When an examiner named Rene Agulan opened a shipment of books, he demanded that duty be paid on it.

For Undersecretary Sales, it’s just a matter of misunderstanding. The Philippine law, specifically RA 8047 (Book Publishing Industry Development Act), provides “the tax and duty-free importation of books or raw materials to be used in book publishing.” But according to her, it just lacks a comma after the word “books,” and she argues that only books used in book publishing were tax-free. And what in the world are “books used in book publishing”?

Likewise, in the United Nations 1952 Florence Agreement, which the Philippines is a signatory, nations have agreed the free flow of “educational, scientific, and cultural materials” among countries. And because the books weren’t educational, the dimwits told they were subject to duty. But Robin Hemley argues that “Perhaps they aren’t educational…but aren’t they ‘cultural‘?”

So for five decades, everyone has been mistaken but then now, the Finance Department is suddenly right? “Yes,” answers Undersecretary Sales.

This issue is an utter representation of our crab-mentality. Basically, the book industry succeeds so the government has to pull them down by imposing tax and duty on reading materials.

So just when you thought that our intelligent, practical, levelheaded, and logical government would encourage the Filipinos to read books, they keep us famished for affordable reading materials. Perhaps, what they define as encouragement is actually corruption. Not to mention that facts have it that the most corrupt government agency in the country is the Department of Finance. Need I say more?

Lastly, E.P. Whipple says, “Books are lighthouses erected in the great sea of time.” How much in money is it, then? Nevertheless, it seems the government is overshadowing the light.

I asked my mother if I can do some shirts to sell online. I told her I already have buyers. A long pause. I asked her again. Then, her face held an expression that says: WTF son, get a life!. Then she kept on babling stuff that summarizes to this: No.

Sorry to my buyers. I just can’t push through with that business without my parents’ cooperation. But the camera’s still available for purchase. Just contact me if you’re interested so we could fix things up.

——

A review on The Time Traveler’s Wife (don’t worry, I won’t spoil)

I finally finished Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife last Thursday night as Emong razes the provinces in the north. It’s one of the best novels I’ve read so far.

The novel is divided into three parts and a prologue. The story is very original, touching, and sexy. It has a different way of narration and it’s for you to find out what it is. In fact, I kind of feel disoriented at first but I eventually absorbed it, however.

The story is about Henry, who is suffering a genetic disease that causes him to time travel when he is stressed, and Clare, his lover who patiently waits for him to come back every time his disease throws him out of time.

The first part is actually sort of an introduction to the real story. It narrates how Clare and Henry met and their conflicts as they try to live together. The second part is where the rising action boils up. It tells how they try to endure living a married life despite Henry’s disability. It has a lot exciting parts and yeah, they killed the shit out of me. You’ll see. The third part is the resolution and it ended the story in a lovely way. *grins*

The novel could be associated as a modern version of Homer’s Odyssey. And both novel proves that time is nothing.

I’ve read somewhere in the digital world that it’s been adapted into film and will be released by August this year. Here’s a snapshot of it I saw in the web: