The Four-eyed Journal

Aside from my new academic load, I have bought a new book. “Doctor on the Boil” by Richard Gordon is hilarious story about a hospital, old men who refuse to give way to the future, and nurse’s skirts getting shorter and shorter. I’ve only started reading the first 4 pages and I’m already close to laughing my head off. Another good excuse to stay off line and not update this blog of mine and enjoy the rest of the semestral break. (Yeah right! Right?…again?)

Speaking of enjoyment, I’m savoring the latest news that the Supreme Court has ‘killed’ the already dead “Malacañang-backed People’s Initiative” spearheaded by the Singaw….Sigaw ng Bayan. At least SC Chief Justice Artemio Panganiban will retire with something to be proud of this coming December.

It did work, for it controlled, styled, and maintained nearly all hair types to achieve the desired effects; look ‘hip and cool’, attract the most number of girls in campus, declare a sense of being a rebel, and finally aid in the winning over the significant other’s affection and love.

A hair sytled with hair gel can be likened to one’s crown, or more so, one’s ego. So if it gets disturbed, ruined, wet or out of shape - even by single strand, either by mere accident hell is most certainly to break out. Most school brawls during my time were actually set-off by this little hair-related mess ups.

However, there is another rule, this time one that is truly written in the school handbook, zealously enforced by the school administration and deeply scourned by almost every hair-gel wearing student in school. It reads, “Hair gel is strictly prohibited from being used on campus.”

I know that it would not most likely happen overnight, (unless of course I come up with that Digg-inducing phenomenal post that would catapult me to big blogging sucess) and I would have to slug it out by working hard to improve my craft, writing, relating and dealing with my fellow bloggers and readers. I would have to adapt continuosly to the ever-changing landscape of the blog-o-sphere, the readers and audience, and the web for that matter. Come up with some innovations, twists and strategies of my own and master SEO to stay near the top of this blogging game.

Expanding into learning and eventually mastering some under-the-hood blogging like designing my own theme from scratch, hacking WordPress or even writing my own plugin to combat spam and other neat stuff.

I bravely answered with a matching facial expression, “Growing old and all wrinkled up.” We all broke out into laughter and when the laughing subsided, everyone listened in to hear the second half of my answer. “Growing really old quite scares me because I’ll loose my hair, teeth and my skin would shrivel like a raisin or a loose bag or something. Looking at my grandparents today, I wouldn’t want to end up looking exactly like them.” Laughters resume coupled with a few cheers and jokes. I quickly quipped to wrap up my turn with a punch line.

“Besides, I want look good and young when I get buried.”

As I scratch my nose in between the keystrokes of writing this piece, memories and thoughts about noses run through my mind. (Qui-Gon Jinn was right, “your focus determines your reality”.) I remember a classmate of mine back in my freshman highschool days who was brave (foolish really) enough to stand up and get himself into a brawl with a senior. Things got ugly, his face, rather his nose got really ugly. It recieved a kick from the senior he picked a tussle with and the result was a broken, nearly deformed nasal bridge, preceeded by massive bleeding of course. He was rushed to the hospital and was discharged after a few stiches. He fully recovered but not the shape of his nose. It stands out and simply attracts quite an attention from anyone who happens to sees it.

To illustrate what I am driving at, one must simply look at Owen Wilson’s nose and I’m sure you’ll get the picture.

Among them is paying a visit to my relatives living in Chicago, Illinois and spend my vacation with them. Most of relatives are already living in ‘the windy city’ ever since my grandparents migrated to the US long before I was born. They settled there, found a very good living and have lived the ‘American dream’ - to a modest level at most. Still, it was enough to support us who were still here in the Philippines.

Sometimes I cannot help but wonder that twenty one years of being continents apart would’ve done something profound to our families. It’s a long time and this I could clearly see in my grandparents’ faces in the pictures they send, usually sometime after Christmas.