| July 13, 2009 |
 deathcabforcutie |
ANIMAL OF THE DAY. so cool.
this is a stickied post.
I couldn't seem to put this up on Multiply with any success, so I'm putting this here despite the total lack of exposure of this old site.
Enjoy! I think I'ma sticky this.
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Sponsored by Funny animals
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currently listening to hey jude - the beatles
currently feeling chipper
| deathcabforcutie roadkilled at 03:09 PM |
| November 30, 2010 |
deathcabforcutie |
moving day
It may seem superfluous to put up a brand new web log while I have a perfectly good one right here, but there are just some things here I cannot change.
Like wholly irrelevant site names, for example.
Anyway, the musings I have been getting lately nearly always--and to my utter delight--coincide with certain themes I'm encouraging in the new blog. So. If you feel an itch for some faith-based discussion (yup, you heard me), join me at:
http://thesalmonmaking.blogspot.com
I am way too sentimental to let go of this site and all it holds... plus my highschool entries are always a good source of shameful laughter. Probably nce in a while I will still want to check in (as if you care, imaginary reader).
But for now, I will see you there, or I will see you on another time!
currently reading Trees in Canada - John Laird Farrar
currently feeling pooped
| deathcabforcutie roadkilled at 02:41 AM |
| September 3, 2010 |
deathcabforcutie |
same old?
Humans need reminding for every little thing--items needing fixing around the house, putting up the toilet seat after doing one's business (for guys, at least), the preciousness of certain people in our lives... What I didn't realize was how I'd been chasing the ghost of my passion for a while now, to the point of not caring at all about the beginning of the new school year. Dread and/or irrepressible excitement, I would welcome with open arms, but indifference?
Between looking up tips for urban composting and thinking up a birthday treat for Mum, I somehow got to looking for new wallpapers since David Archuleta's had his turn for a while now. And this is what I found (a few of my favorites):
"The Storybook Wolf" by Jose Luis Rodriguez
[One of this picture's comments is about how it reflects man's relationship with the wolf throughout history. This guy's got wicked stuff. Check out his Flickr photostream: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jlrodriguez/]
Jim Bradenburg, National Geographic (May 1987)
[So desolate, severe. Survival at the extreme. Arctic wolves rule.]
Michael Nichols, National Geographic (December 1997)
[Maybe it's the tigers but this picture is so oriental. The tones are beautiful.]
David Doubilet, National Geographic (March 1987)
[Australian sea lions. Makes you think it's unfair that they get to live in a world like this the way we never can.]
Ben Osborne, Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2007
[African bull elephant, a la Jackson Pollock.]
"Boto Water Polo" by Kevin Schafer
(Fellow Canadian) Paul Nicklen, "Animals in their Environment" category winner, WPY '07
[Narwals coming up to breathe and trying not to hit each other with their tusks. You immediately notice the heartbreaking thinness of the ice; I later found that the photographer was trying to highlight that very thing.]
Diving into my studies during my first year at UBC gave me little reason to look back at things like these--the inspirations. Documentaries and pictures and poems and prose... gateways to the large and small scale processes in this magnificent, blessed world that I (at the moment) couldn't see, couldn't fathom. I guess part of me was scared that if I did look back, there'd be disappointment in knowing I jumped in for the allure of the art, and not considering the science.
But then one of the more delightful things I learned during our 11-day Michigan stay was that old feelings never return the same, therefore any and all efforts to flag them down--as you once remembered them--when they're lost... get you lost. I certainly didn't know back then that loving nature came with all these little requirements from your life and mentality that aren't as pretty (e.g. composting, constant re-washing of Ziploc bags, etc.). Yes, I might've simply wanted to be a wildlife photographer all my life, wanted to experience what they did, recreate what I saw, and never asked for all the other things. But didn't I still see something then that was worth saving?
The only difference between now and then is that I have the means to do it, and I have no fear now that I'd ever lose my passion for this. It's never going to be the same as it once was, but that's the beauty of it.
Michigan is another story to tell, but I'll get there. I can't even get started on whom to thank for what I learned, much less know where to begin on what I learned. From the experience, I'm loathe to use terms like "refreshed" or "rejuvinated".
I'm "reminded". As an old, faulty mind that's learned other things since then.
currently reading ray charles: the birth of soul
currently feeling at peace
| deathcabforcutie roadkilled at 01:57 AM |
| July 17, 2010 |
 deathcabforcutie |
emancipation
In the span of three days, I've been able to talk to two of my closest friends. Really sit down and listen and talk as though looking straight into the heart of each other and of the situations brought forth.
Can an attempt at illustrating this sort of happiness be achieved?
These are people who I never would have thought to become friends with, much less impart so much of myself to. And now it's this unlikely and un-contrived connection that liberates me the most from my own ill control to put it in the Hands of One who brought it all together.
I also never would've guessed how much all my recent struggles were necessary to aid them in their own. Therefore, in all of this, I place credit where credit's due.
currently watching gatekeepers (for old times' sake)
currently feeling tired
| deathcabforcutie roadkilled at 11:11 PM |
| July 12, 2010 |
 deathcabforcutie |
astronaut
I slept under the trees of Minoru Park on Saturday and woke up with a blunt, a heavy yet liberating sort of resolution. A kind of feeling that there's a promise in the waiting but not one I'd totally expect, or want for that matter. At least, not right now.
But one of the greatest and most precious lessons I've learned from that bittersweet afternoon is that of cherishing. People talk all the time about stopping and smelling the roses, or of appreciating all the little things in life, but that doesn't come close to the strange thought I'd been endowed with by Someone who'd apparently been patiently listening.
Cherish all. Learn to love the sunny days as well as the clammy grey when you hardly know where the skyline ends and the sky begins. Love comprehension as well as confusion as there is a glory that is achieved not without one or the other.
I've never felt as lost as I have the past few weeks, and try as I might, I can't get it to be over soon. Still, finally knowing (and not figuring) it's all happening for a reason has given me respite in the erratic pulls of an open sea, and I can live in a kind of peace that endures where it isn't supposed to. Somehow I feel it's that kind that makes the most sense.
currently feeling everything, and nothing.
| deathcabforcutie roadkilled at 12:35 AM |
| June 15, 2010 |
deathcabforcutie |
serial time killer
I'm at the IK Barber library discreetly (at least, I think so) side-eyeing the activity in the immediate perimeter. I don't like studying at Barber. It's not bad... the building's very pretty; there's just always this feeling of... superficiality I get when I sit down and try to concentrate. Weird, right? It's not the people, I'm sure they're sincerely hacking away at their academic duties like the good, scholarly individuals they seem to be. Maybe I'm just not used to people seeing me study (haha).
Meanwhile, I look out the spanning windows and the angle from the 3rd floor tricks me into thinking there's a ginormous tree growing on the lawn outside. There's probably four of them, if I look down and count the trunks. Green leaves everywhere, thronged and swarming among branches bobbing in the wind. It looks like they're doing little jazz hands up in the very tops. Sheeny, like snake scales.
Better look for something else to gawk at; the girl by the window is starting to fidget something fierce.
The trees remind me of the times I used to climb one in our old backyard during summers to pick mangoes. And of a recent visit to the park when I went out for a jog on a whim. Went a few rounds around the track oval but strayed off to hunt down a water fountain, and stumbling back decided I just had to lie down the fantastically wide, manicured field for a few minutes. Yes, it was probably bad for the heart and circulation. Yes, there could've been geese poop between blades of grass for all I knew. Yes, I was begging to be knocked out by a cricket ball from the game a hundred meters off. It felt nice to risk them all for a few minutes.
I missed open fields, and the shameless lack of inhibition of the sun in the old country (HAHA). The sweat on my face and neck was baking. I had my iPod on. Bill Doggett's Honky Tonk came up and never did I expect gritty blues riffs and soil and grass and sky to all together make as much sense as they did.
It's really unfortunate I haven't had the time to see nature in its true... well, nature. I never have, and really, I probably never will. And that's fine with me. If there were ever a strip of forest or a square meter of bogland or even a little bit of iceberg on this planet that has never been touched by human hands, I'd like to keep it that way.
Urban nature is nature, still. I'm immensely happy I get to appreciate the very life that courses through dandelions growing through cracks in the pavement. Can you grow through a crack in the pavement? Didn't think so.
I'm studying outside the next opportunity I get. Even I wouldn't sit on wet grass in my jeans.
currently reading classic philosophical questions
currently feeling groggy
| deathcabforcutie roadkilled at 02:55 PM |
| June 12, 2010 |
deathcabforcutie |
epicurious
I'm still reeling from a fiction novel* I just finished that depicted the rise of a wizard born with extraordinary powers. It's a story set in an alternate universe, in a world with its own geography, cultures... one where dragons exist and talk and where each aspect--living and non-living--had a name (in the Language of the Creation) unique to itself that didn't just serve the function of naming it, but in a way was the named itself.
I find this a very intriguing idea which I'd totally want to look into. Not today, though.
The author wrote the book in a very epic style--the genre epic, not "epic" used in everyday speech today. Despite the radically different setting, it still sort of mimicked the Pre-Columbian period of our history and made use of cultural snippets of various races of the time, adjusting for how it would be if magic was possible. The hero is an epic hero in every sense of the term, and right from the beginning he already has the inborn power that sets him apart from all the rest. After a cathartic event, changing him for life, he is practically flawless (or with at least permissible flaws). Songs are made in his name after certain victories; every turn of chapter had the author reminding us of his eventual greatness, basically spoiling the uncertainty with shameless praise.
You still bite your nails to the end, though, simply because... it's epic.
Of course, the central presence of magic naturally made me think of "Harry Potter" and many of the elements of its own hero. I remember in 5th grade when the little Harry Potter fan club I was in (yes, you read that right; surprise, surprise) was gravely deliberating the possibility that Book 7 might be retitled "Ron Weasley" from the continuous brushes of death Harry barely lived through; we were worried Rowling would run out of excuses for why Harry never dies.
Harry isn't perfect. He goes through an unattractive angry phase, his magical prowess is nearly average, he never would've (SPOILER ALERT) defeated the Dark Lord if not for the help of his family, friends, and allies--not to mention truckloads of luck--yet he makes for a very compelling hero. And it isn't hard to see why. Harry doesn't have a lot to work with except his gnarly broom-flying skills, but he has a heart of courage which sees him through to his seemingly final moments.
It made me think of how Courage is treated for its value these days. I mean, okay, people would rather be brave than cowardly, but if you could choose from a list of traits to be imbued in your core, or perhaps answer a JoHaRi window, would Courage be among your picks?
We all need a certain amount of courage to get through the choices we make everyday, to be sure. But I'm talking about Courage in its most profound (although not necessarily grandiose) sense. Things that happen to these heroes in epic tales hardly find their way into real people's lives anymore; as a passing thought one knows which is the courageous path to follow, but does that mean one would follow it when they least expect that high-stakes situation?
In theory, yes I would like to (SPOILER ALERT) knowingly walk to my death in the Forbidden Forest as the sacrificial lamb if my friends' lives depended on it. But I'm not sure if I actually would.
Here's to hoping.
* "A Wizard of Earthsea" by Ursula Le Guin. Great read. One of the many I'm juggling with stuff I really do need to read.
currently reading henri burgson
| deathcabforcutie roadkilled at 07:05 AM |
| June 4, 2010 |
deathcabforcutie |
turn and face the strain
Last Saturday marked the first year passing since our move to the True North (strong and free!).
I'm not very good at remembering things like that... anniversaries, milestones, events, what have you. My own birthday sneaks up on me sometimes. It was hard, though, to ignore what last Saturday's occasion meant for me as both an immigrant and as a person still trying to figure things out (whatever that phrase may mean) because of some queer timing.
You know larger Forces are at work when this 1-year anniversary comes up during a long-awaited reunion, and it did strike me as such when I realized the coincidence. Some of my closest cousins visited from Manila for two weeks, an awfully bizarre time from when they emerged from customs until our moseying around at departure, trying to delay the inevitable. This was a family that I'd grown up with, cousins privy to nearly the whole spectrum of my personality. They were there during the buck teeth, during wild hysterics in Christmas presentations, during my strange fixation with the role of CEO playing office...
It couldn't be helped that in every place we brought them to it was always at the back of my head to wonder about what they're witnessing now. Not the wet, new land the ___-es are in, but what this wet, new land has done for (or to) the ___-es. Here was a chance to step back from my tired point-of-view and survey things with new eyes, new appreciation. It put forward the very question of how much I might've changed in the year we were apart.
A friend asked me the same thing on my pseudo-birthday. How different did I feel since the time I turned 19?
So many valid answers, but I gave none. At the time, all I could think of were changes of adaptation, those I necessarily had to go through to find my footing in the new setting. What I felt he was asking for though were changes of resolve, those from lessons learned and from genuine knowledge of self, which I felt I didn't have.
The last two weeks forcefully brought up those changes of adaptation to mind. I could now navigate the public transportation system with relative ease. I can manage at least some small talk. I walk faster. I am now able to go through the motions of those that brought us around last year.
But what kind of changes have I gained from resolve?
This is a list I'll be adding to as I go along figuring them out.
- Realized I'm the only thing keeping me from my God.
- Begrudgingly admitted to myself that I do not know anything. At all.
- Stopped caring for middle ground. Acknowledged there's always a side that needs to be picked.
- Can almost tangibly feel my limits (in all of its aspects: mentally, physically, emotionally, etc.). A terrifying idea that gives me the willies.
- Takes greater effort (with varying degrees of success) to be more honest to others and to self.
(Note to self: Noticed some changes in the cousins too, of course, but was immensely glad that in them, I can always be home again. Although, I'm wary to use the word "home" anymore... but that's for another time.)
currently reading the big picture - david suzuki
| deathcabforcutie roadkilled at 05:13 AM |