Covenant and Updates

I vow to write 500-1,500 words a day.

Just for me and for nobody else.

Why?

To never lose myself again.

Currently, I'm a volunteer research coordinator for a local non-government organization (NGO) studying the labor practices and the welfare of NGO, NGO Network, and cooperative workers. I am really proud to be part of the organization I belong to and if given the opportunity I would continue working there.

So what's the issue?

As easy it is to neglect, I indicated that I'm currently a volunteer. I used to be a paid program assistant to a very competent and considerate boss. She's still my boss, but my job title for a month before this created the illusion that I was my own boss, "research coordinator". Now, I'm a "volunteer research coordinator" and nothing seems lower than somebody whose services aren't paid. Not that I operate on the highly "monetary" measure of the value of one's job, but yeah; my ATM card and wallet are starting to judge me.

http://stupidog112.deviantart.com/art/Poverty-163574071?q=boost%3Apopular%20poverty&qo=4

Another issue is that the topic of "labor practices and workers' welfare" is not my cup of tea. Yes, as "diplomatically" a psychology major whose professional destiny is often outlined as limited to the fork of human resources, education, and counselling/clinical practice, I thought that I had to take the research job in an NGO. It's as close to the ideal job of being a "catalyst for social change" as I will get. I think I could have done better not that it's not already good.

http://fixmein-45.deviantart.com/art/tea-52415941?q=boost%3Apopular%20tea&qo=0

Nor is the said topic my cup of moolatte (sue me, I love DQ's moolatte). Although I'm discovering from an insider's and an outsider's points of view, the very nature of social development work as an NGO worker researching on NGO work, I could imagine better and more subtle ways of achieving the same outcome of learning about such. To make the story short: I wish I had a different job description.

http://greshamdq.com/images/drink/moolatte_lrg.png

Another important thing to bring up is my current occupation as a graduate student of Social Psychology. I've finished 2 semesters, 15 units worth of my hard-earned money for tuition and massive spans of lost time in reading texts, writing papers, and attending class. Currently, I'm on vacation break from graduate school because no worthwhile subjects are there to be taken within my curriculum.

So that's the picture of my professional and academic life as of the moment.

http://kameei.deviantart.com/art/Bored-45800577?q=boost%3Apopular%20bored&qo=10

My contract has long ended and my organization has not been able to secure my financial opportunities. Notice that I did not use "job opportunities" because I had a lot of jobs to do, just without the salary that most people expect that those jobs come with. I do get a volunteer fee that's just half the minimum wage though, but it's not enough to sustain my rather superfluous lifestyle. Good thing I have my parents to live off on.

Yes, if my writing is boring; that's only because my life is so too.

What's there to slice through the humdrum?

Well, there's actually a lot.

One is my VOLUNTARY stint at teaching literature in summer classes for 4th year high school scholars for a scholarship program. HAHAHAHA! Maybe I'm not too fond of earning? Beats me.

Another is a writing class I'll try to enroll for summer which theme's "writing for healing". I love writing even if apparently it doesn't love me back. Hopefully, taking that class will heal the wounds of this broken relationship between me and writing.

I promise: I'll go through all the abuse of going through the traditions of wooing just to get writing to love me! I'll pay all the wedding expenses even if it gets me living in the streets. Being a man by anatomy and physiology, I'll be willing to suffer the labor pains of being pregnant with ideas. I'll even ruin my body just to get the soul out of me. PLEASE WRITING!!!!

http://seetheduck.deviantart.com/art/life-of-a-writer-32629502?q=boost%3Apopular%20frustrated%20writer&qo=1

Although these 2 reasons which revived my love for literature and writing, are reasons for excitement, it has given rise to the very demons that have been bothering me for quite a time.

What demons?

http://browse.deviantart.com/photography/?q=demon#/d18g1de

Because if I recall, I had my superstar moments in college as a literature minor with which I was convinced that I was twice better in literature even if I'm not trying compared to my best efforts (and I mean BEST EFFORTS) in trying to excel in psychology. If I was to try to really understand the implications of such fact, then the degree I'm trying to pursue (Applied Social Psychology) is not the right one for me.

The question is then: to shift or not to shift?

This shift is not just my graduate school concentration, but with regards my career too.

So yeah, things look shady. I'll get off my current volunteering job at the very sight of an exit. It's just that I can't succumb to the temptation of leaving the study I started just because I can't live with the moral blemish that I did not finish the commitment I had with an organization I actually love. The commitment lasts only up to the last week of May because it's the deadline my boss set for me to finish the presentation materials, written reports, and turnover processes necessary to cap off my relationship with my current organization.

In fact, considering the fact that I'm a hater of capitalism, I've even considered a job offer to be a feature writer for a corporate entity. I think it's the writing part that drew me in, but usually the fact that it's corporate should have repelled me already. So yeah, money does talk; even to me.

http://penetre.deviantart.com/art/capitalism-126928215?q=boost%3Apopular%20in%3Aphotography%20capitalism&qo=3

The way things are flowing, I'll stick with the NGO I work for until I finish the study. Yes, way to practice "service" and "commitment". While doing so, I'll indulge myself with teaching and writing.

I have 2 months to decide if I'll continue with my degree and on what job I will take after my current one.

I hope this'll be worthwhile.

I hope I truly find myself as I let loose of my grip on the certainty of how I've always defined what constitutes "me".

http://browse.deviantart.com/photography/?qh=&section=&q=identity#/d1m4oxu

What it means to get tired

If and when I get tired, I believe that I'd rather do something else.

It doesn't always follow that I want to rest or relax, sometimes it's even more relaxing to do a little more work-- as long as it is different I guess. At that moment of decision of changing your pattern of activity from that tiring thing to another, we must find that pivot we call our "hearts". It is just waiting for us to do what comes naturally. 

I wrote something on hope

To hope means to acknowledge the possibility of it all being an illusion and yet having the conviction that this is actually something real.

My friend asked me: Why do we hope? after I posted that message in my ym status.

I answered: the easiest answer is because we just do. But I know you expect something better. We hope because it stems from our insatiable nature to hold on to something that actually means something. It is the by-product of both our nature to doubt which threatens the very nature of faith and and but at the same time necessiates the deepening grip of faith on our very being. Hope is that expectation that there is always something more. Something that makes our very selves make sense, something that makes our lives a little less just because. :D

getting caught up in the details

My mom woke me up and I was reluctant to follow her prodding. I was up all night surfing the net. It was one of those times that I had to say "gmornyt" to my chatmates in yahoo messenger. A 25 degree angle from the shorter arm towards 4 to the longer arm towards 7 reminded me of my need for sleep. With a cyber gesture-- ":-h" that deploys a yellow 2-d face completely armed with eyes, a mouth, and a hand waving-- I found it apt to give one of the most polite ways of saying goodbye in the net. I was able to disconnect and allow myself to dream.

"Aalis na si kuya," my Mom said.

I had to get up. I walked from my bed towards the door- opening it, going through it, and releasing it to let it decide for itself whether it'll close or remain open.

The atmosphere was familiar. It was 8 halfway 9 in the morning and the sun was semi-up. I've just been semi-fired from my writing semi-jobs since it's the semi-scheduled editing period for the research write-ups. All I had were many writing part-time jobs which all added up to full-time writing job that ate up all my time. I had to notice all the details in the world, write about them in the most detailed manner, and expect that the reader got enough of the details. That was all over now. Now, the task was to right the written and all I had to do was wait. Since then, my body clock was downside up. I had to notice that it was actually morning and I was awake. Normally, if it weren't for my brother, it would be otherwise.

My brother was leaving.

It's not like my Father's daily leaving to go play tennis with his pals in his numerous tennis clubs all around the urban vicinity of Metro Manila. Every afternoon, to prevent it from getting lazy, my father dresses up in his athletic wear-- clad with cycling shorts to support the origins of my brothers' and my existence, a semi-dilapidated shirt and 70s type of short shorts to assure the passage of air through his body, and semi-updated rubber shoes to assure the possibility of letting agility or what's left of it come out in game play. It wasn't like that.

My brother's really leaving.

He wouldn't return like my dad for dinner or for TV and sleep which proved to be synonymous for people of semi-age- 50 something, more than halfway 60. Probably, the next time I'll see him is when one of us is already that age.

My mom was hustling and bustling about the house looking for things to do. Anxiously so. Her eyes were welling up, with salty dew that wasn't so subtly drooping.

I remember the time when my brothers were also about to leave.

I came with my parents then to the airport. My elder brother who was much eager to leave to pursue his American dream in Canada was already in the railed zigzags towards the dock while my younger older brother was still officially in the lobby, but about to get lost in the steel. My mom took hold of my brother and held on to more than half of her life. It was emotional, intense to say the least. I did the same. I wasn't one who was known to be sentimental, but I believe it is simply a part of having a soul to be. Mine was only capable of emotional procrastination. I never knew I had those feelings for my brothers. I flared up with them. I was young. I didn't know how to deal with them except through my body. I shook and cried almost the whole time from the arms of my younger older brother from the airport back home. I went well beyond my mom's weeping who was known to weep for the meekest of reasons. I was 15, I had the hormones as an excuse.

I was reminiscing the most salient of details of that part of my adolescence when I remembered that it was making a repeat in the now. Instead of my mom, it was the mommy dog. Instead of me, it was the 3 puppy dogs. Instead of tears, it was cusses of frustration because the dogs couldn't coordinate well with the camera. I don't know why my dad was so intent in achieving for my mom the perfect picture of my brother with the 4 dogs. Somehow I think he wished that he was on that picture. I couldn't blame him.

click!

The picture was taken: my brother, the mommy dog, and the 3 puppy dogs.

"Hindi kita si Mickey!" My mom shouted with her shrill, but forceful voice.

Mickey was the youngest of the dogs and his face wasn't seen in the picture.

My mom maximized her capacity for alertness. She paid attention to everything. She even remembered to give my brother a handkerchief. I don't know why though. My brother is coming from the Philippines and going to Canada. He wouldn't be sweating when he arrives there. My brother took it anyway.

"Ito nalang pala!" My mom interjected while stretching her arms to offer another handkerchief.

"Napunasan ko na ng uhog 'yan." Uttering such a coy remark with the apparent need to mention something about mucus in one of the final face-to-face conversations we'll probably have with him for the next years of our lives. My mother had a very odd way of distracting herself. I didn't see it, but I'm sure my mom brought her own handkerchief. She was probably sort of expecting to procrastinate her feelings again. I picture her again releasing her emotion in the same infantile manner we did before.

As for me, all I had left was a conversation.

"Aalis ka ba?" he asked.

"Mga 3 pa." I answered again in my well-measured manner.

He nodded.

He left so early then and yes, he will leave again. Again, it was too early. I didn't understand how I felt. All I can do was ponder why ask if I was leaving too. Somehow I believe he wanted me to come with him. My answer proved to be indicative of how little I saw into my future. I was one who typically knows exactly what he wanted. I didn't know if I wanted to follow him. What I was sure of is that for the meantime, from 8 halfway 9 until 3, I'll be at home. If this day was a microcosmic metaphor to my life, I didn't know when 3 will actually be.

He said goodbye to me: "Goodbye Timmy!" and I said likewise: "Byebye!"

The mommy dog went under the piano and put her chin on her soft and fluffy feet. My mom was about the house distracting herself with so many details while my dad was already out. I didn't even notice him leaving, but I'm sure he did. Somehow the men in our home simply let themselves out so easily.

My brother went out the door, turned around, and looked through the glass. On my right of the door and his left, he scratched the glass with his index finger muttering "Byebye" to the puppies.

He turned towards the open concrete swaggering away with his bag on his back walking slowly towards his future. To his wife in Canada. Back to the world he wishes to discover most of his life in.

My mom patted my back as she caught up to my brother.

As for me, I stayed home to sort things out.

:-h Kuya!

I just needed to write to feel human again

Hi! Whoever you are who reads. I'm still alive. I've been overworking myself. I don't get where I'm going, but I'm going anyway. HAHAHAHA! I'm going to batangas with my hs friends for a vacation. I forced going despite all the work I needed to accomplish. Anyway... there I go. I hope I get picked for the Sylff fellowship so that I can be a full-time student and pursue being the public intellectual I've been trying to be through this blog. 'til next time I actually have something insightful to say.

http://browse.deviantart.com/?qh=&section=&q=smile#/dnl0xa

I have returned

I just finished all my academic requirements.

YIPEE!


*http://yoenizme.deviantart.com/art/Graduation-Day-133932059

I've been watching TV ever since.


*http://crimson-miz.deviantart.com/art/Rez-Drone-01-98086617

or playing computer games...


*http://moriartadragonheart.deviantart.com/art/Murloc-Theory-Of-Evolution-124102692

Just yestermornyt...

I played Farm Frenzy 3 American Pie from 10pm to 4am

I've also been reading some of my books...


*http://angelica-minier.deviantart.com/art/books-73204194

Nerdily I read social science journal articles on identity politics.

YES...

I am not ashamed.

Now, I'm watching the Simpson's

Talking to my friend in yahoo messenger


*http://bad-blood.deviantart.com/art/Y-o-l-k-s-for-messengers-81900439

Trying to decide between 3 books:

1) Deschooling Society by Ivan Illich which whose first chapter I have read
2) Marxism and Existentialism which I don't remember up to what I read, it's either the second to the last chapter or the last one
3) or kafka's anthology of his works

At this moment more specifically I'm deciding between getting ice cream just because...


*http://isilian.deviantart.com/art/Kawaii-Charms-Ice-Cream-Bowl-99539901

Also, I'm thinking of doing my resumes so that I can actually get a job...

all this while blogging...

I used to problematize all my classes, my organization in school, and the situation of the world in general...


*http://alexiuss.deviantart.com/art/Entropy-32586942

Problems are problems because they are made into problems.

People just tend to be so good at making problems.

I'm not really sure if what they do actually correspond to addressing them...

Being caught in a decision which I found myself in is not a problem...

It actually means that you have the options...

They become problems if you don't do anything about them.



*http://jessicajayjames.deviantart.com/art/restless-138987503

~ I finally got ice cream and currently continuing watching Fox TV which now shows The Moment of Truth. I decided not to make a poem anymore and simply vow to return to the act of blogging often so as to actually do something about the emptiness of my thoughts.

because...

There is nothing more that I can wish for than my thoughts to matter

I simply can't find time to write anymore, but here is a paper I made 2 hours before my class. HAHAHAHA! it's titled "Authorship as Love for Discourse

Why write?

Before I go into this question, I would like to throw in my own personal bet into the discourse I’m going to set up for myself. Being in a situation wherein I will soon project myself upon a world with which I am not familiar with brings me to a very reflective and consequently self-referential state. With that in mind, I will try to not let it determine my discourse since there is a need to focus on the texts of Foucault and Barthes regarding authorship. I believe that putting my own flavor into such a paper that talks about the author is something formally apt. If I were to create a title for the dream profession I would like to see myself have after a couple of years after my graduation, it would have the title of essayist on Filipino political psychology. I would like to see myself studying the Filipino psyche and how it deals with the particularities of the structures and discourses of the political reality it faces.

Enough of that.

This is the move that Foucault and Barthes would probably say to budding writers such as myself. To interrupt the infusion of personal identity and expression might in a symbolic manner express what they have done in their texts of What is an Author? and The Death of the Author respectively. In a nutshell, they said that preoccupations with the author and the notions of work that derive from a conception of the author as a unified internality from which the text originates from hinder the proper consideration of the proper place of the author and the text within discourse.

It is interesting that Foucault quotes Samuel Beckett in usage of his words “What matter who’s speaking?” (Foucault, 117). By posing this question, he questions the importance of putting an identity behind the speaking subject, or for that matter of the realm of writing, the writing subject. This is echoed by Barthes in his words: “language knows a subject, not a person.” (Barthes, 1467). Both Foucault and Barthes depicts that the notion of author which then presupposes that a text is as if a record of the person of the author with which the discourse available in the text should be projected against. This notion derives from a notion of the author as a point of origin which Foucault and Barthes would want to question. For them, The author is merely a function in and of discourse.

According to Barthes (p. 1468): “(The author) His only power is to mix writings, to counter the ones with the others, in such a way as never to rest on any one of them.” No matter what an author writes, what he said will most probably be citing. If any semblance of originality can be achieved, an author can only have this by establishing relationships among other texts-- inter-textuality. This runs contrary to the notion of work which assumes a unity within a certain text on its own anchored on a notion of the author as an expressing person with a defined internality. In a sense, the only unity that a text can assume is the mere physical boundaries of the page/s that is set upon it. If the originality of meaning should be the criterion of unity, then no text should be considered a work. Although it must be mentioned that the text does not lose its integrity via its divorce from a unified creator, but in fact it assumes a stronger and more dynamic integrity since it is now projected upon a framework of authors in the plural rather than an author in the singular. Barthes says it well in this statement: “the text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture” (p. 1468).

Although I admit that this could be a digression, I pursue it nonetheless. This notion of the text within an inter-textuality can be compared to the pluralistic philosophy of the human person wherein the identity of a person is not anymore emerging from an “essence” that reveals itself in interaction with others, but built through and within its interaction with others. The integrity of the human person is not within it, but is always constructed in relation with others. This makes a human person in a position in communion with others.

Foucault develops this point as well when he writes: “authors occupy a ‘transdiscursive’ position” (p. 31). It can be seen here that every author is not an originator of discourse, but merely occupies a position in it. This can be likened to Barthes’ notion that a writer is a dictionary that develops his own idiom so to speak with the usage of language. The writer cannot create a dictionary, but at his or her very best, can create a way of constructing language in discourse. This could be seen in Foucault’s terminology that authors are “initiators of discursive practices” (p. 131).

Personally, I do adhere to what Foucault and Barthes said with regards the author, but the violence with which the usage of the word “death” still strikes as lacking in fairness for my own taste. I do adhere to the notion that due to the author as only occupying a transdiscursive position and being able only to initiate discursive practice rather than starting a whole discourse on their own, they do not necessarily die upon writing. Yes, quoting Barthes: “Every text is eternally written here and now.” (p. 1468), but I believe that the author still lives on after his or her text. If they must die, I believe there should be moments of resurrection made available to them.

I believe that although authors are not able to be originators of their own discourse, but they are still inexhaustible agents of discourse. I would want to relate this to Hannah Arendt’s philosophy of history in the Human Condition that history is not a faceless narrative nor built by main heroes and villains, but a multitude of faces within a confluence of dialogue and inter-action that build a historical narrative. In relation to writing, authors are important in their plurality and the multitude of writing subjects are necessary to build a discourse. I go against the structuralists when they say that language lives beyond its speakers. Latin is still alive today not because of its own strength, but because medical doctors chose to use Latin in their medical discourse. Many languages have died due to the death of its agents and though it could be argued that specs of it still exists via sheer transmission in unknown moments of discourse within history, what of it? If it is unavailable to our scrutiny due to its inexistence to our records and hence our consciousness, why bother with it? Let’s just deal with what we can actually study.

Enough of that.

To say it bluntly: language is still human artifice though the admission of its strength must be confessed. I would like to think of writing as a stake-placing on a gambling table of discourse wherein stakes assume a fluid value ruled by the rules of a game. The rules of the game, we can only know with practice and it might come to us to be as arbitrary as a throw of the dice. But as Mallarme’s poem said “A Throw of the Dice Never will Abolish Chance,” if we use discourse to try to create THE DISCOURSE, it will be futile. We use discourse because we love to be in it. If an author aims to create THE DISCOURSE, then I would say to them: a text in discourse never will abolish discourse. Authors should simply be thankful that they get to join discourse and get their 2 cents worth in the table. We should not fool ourselves that in gambling, we aim to win the grand prize, but at best, what we can get from it is the joy of playing the game. We write not to make THE TEXT, but because we love to write.