Destination Unknown

Mood
Dysfunctionally listless. It will change, but, believe me, I need to rest.

Purchase
Batman: Crimson Mist. Got it for P100. Now all I need is vol. 2 to complete the Batman/Dracula trilogy.

Read
Grapes of Wrath (progressing really slow, as though reflecting my life these days)

Love
Fiction

Excitement
Next monday

Discovery
Rediscovering soul music.

Favorite
Notice I’ve been blogging very often these days? It’s become one of my favorite pastimes.

Movie-to-watch
Transformers
Zodiac (on DVD), which I’ve yet to purchase

Series-to-watch
Monster

Craving
Sleep!

To-shop-for
Fables vol. 4
Y the Last Man vol. 4
American Psycho novel
Fight Club novel
The Road novel
Kite Runner novel
I’m trying to control my spending though, so send gift checks. ^_^

Saving up for
Xbox 360

Mannerism
Rollicking

Whim
Books. Somebody please confiscate my wallet!

Want
More time. I need to read: Grapes of Wrath, I am Legend, Chronicles of Narnia, The Confession of Nat Turner,
Slaughterhouse-Five, The Wind Up Bird Chronicle, Pride and Prejudice, Heart of Darkness, etc. I’d be surprised if I do manage to read all of this within the year!

Need
To better my photoshop skills
To polish my writing skills
To go back to sketching
To put Elements of Style into practice
To reread Verbal Advantage
To get more time, dammit!

saina108: and you are an ultimate fan of sam oh ei?
Kristopher Jou: I’m more of a supporter than a fan
Kristopher Jou: I know her, personally.
Kristopher Jou: why?
saina108: wala, i just read somewhere in your blog kasi… and i visited hers too and you always drop by. hehe
saina108: you came frm the same al mamater right? or naging classmate talaga kayo?
Kristopher Jou: Yeah. she’s the rare kind of celebrity.
Kristopher Jou: We came from the same school
saina108: agree.
Kristopher Jou: Same alma matter
Kristopher Jou: But we talked to each other often
Kristopher Jou: Although at that time when we were in school, I didn’t know that she was an excellent writer
Kristopher Jou: All I knew then was that she was korean.
Kristopher Jou: And that she’s about to have a career on TV
saina108: haha. i didnt even know her since i dont have cable until i read your blog… i thought she’s an international celebrity talaga kasi i saw her in cosmo. *wink*
Kristopher Jou: She has a presence on ETC
Kristopher Jou: But it’s not her status as a host there that makes me supportive of her
Kristopher Jou: Frankly I hate watching TV, I hate most celebrities
Kristopher Jou: and I think TV make people stupid
saina108: haha. and sam is such a celebrity with brains
Kristopher Jou: So who would’ve thought that underneath all those Paris Hilton, Kris Aquino, Ruffa Gutierrez and Britney Spears, someone with brains larger than a peanut could actually emerge on TV?
saina108: yeah. i agree. not to mention she is beautiful too. and mabait.
Kristopher Jou: Of course, I haven’t got started with her writing skills yet
Kristopher Jou: She’s fantastic
Kristopher Jou: She’s a role model
Kristopher Jou: Not just a ramp or runway model
saina108: so you’r all over sam oh, ei?!
Kristopher Jou: If you’re saying, do I have a crush on her, then no
Kristopher Jou: But if you’re saying, do I love her?
saina108: i agree, she’s more than just a pretty face.
Kristopher Jou: Absolutely, and with tremendous amount of respect.
saina108: and i didnt even mention about attraction here
saina108: hhhmmmm…
Kristopher Jou: If it was merely attraction I wouldn’t be blogging about her, really
Kristopher Jou: I know myself well enough to ascertain that I’m too shy to admit my crush on someone on a public domain.
Kristopher Jou: So it’s not just attraction; it’s respect and awe.

I habitually check the birthday
reminders so that I can greet the day’s celebrants. I send greetings and they do
not always come in the form of Friendster messages or comments; if I have the
person’s number, I send by SMS. 

It was a dark and stormy
night (don’t you just love that line?) when I have sent an SMS birthday
greeting to one of my college acquaintances. I had forgotten then that only a few of my college
acquaintances know of my current number. After all, it is different from
before. I didn’t expect him not to know about it (and he still don’t know about it). So he promptly replied with a question
of who I am. I was tired then, that I went to bed without responding to him. 

Big mistake! 

As one of my idiosyncrasies,
I spell everything out whenever I send SMS’s (and as you may have noticed, I
don’t write SMS as “text messages”). Call it societal stereotype, but common
perception says this attentiveness to details is feminine. A “real” guy would
“typ lyk dis!!!!!!!”, wouldn’t compose messages in full English, and wouldn’t compose
messages without plugging “astig” or “dudez” or “pare”. The criteria themselves
are fallible, yet people don’t leave room for doubts that some may defy
categorization. 

It comes as no surprise that my friend
thinks it was a girl who greeted him. Alas, he has the reputation of eerily pushing
too hard, without much forethought, to be close to a girl; he’s the poster boy
for desperate. Here’s an example from past experiences: a girl we didn’t know of belonged to my group
when our class, along with a few others, attended a mandatory seminar. Despite
not belonging to our group, the guy approached this girl and asked for her
phone number. That he could do it even if he hadn’t spent any time with her is
a proof that his courtship methods are downright bizarre (and lame). 

I’ve seen loneliness making
decent people do mad things, and the world couldn’t be lonelier than nowadays in
spite of progress and technology. But though he bears empathy, gee, SLOW the hell DOWN!
Somebody needs to practice restraints by remembering the first step to a
relationship: self-introduction. 

I haven’t introduced the
owner of my number, but it’s amazing how he just assumed that it’s from a girl who
showed momentary thoughtfulness on his birthday. And now, I’m subject to his
advances. How? Everyday, operating under a laughable concept of flirtation, he sends
me unabated waves of SMS’s, and they’re making me brainsick! 

Gee, just how many quotes do
I need per day? He sends around 3 per morning and 3 per night! Even if I was a
girl, I won’t like this excess! He tries to enlighten me by throwing zillions
of Biblical quotes and so-stilted-I-could-barf Paolo-Coelhoisms. He ingratiates by discharging
“cute” verbal diarrheas and hokey pseudo-jokes. I tried to stay quiet, but the
last straw broke when he sent me a frizzy logo of teddy bears and hearts. Ugh!
Won’t he ever stop?! I haven’t sent him an SMS since his birthday, so where the
hell did he get all this aggression? His messages don’t receive my cursory
glance before I summarily delete them, so he’s really just wasting his money!

It’s so risibly pathetic
that someone can waste countless pesos courting a girl that isn’t even there
(a personified The Man Who Never Was?). If we can learn something from this,
it’s that he needs love.

And, dammit, it’s not coming
from me!

1.
I have a collection of Gundam Wing assembled toys.

2.
I do drive, but unlike most guys, I don’t jizz all over my pants for
the next car show.
3.
No offense to and nothing against FHM, but I think its publicity is
blown way out of proportion. For a pinay celebrity to sustain a career in show business these days,  all she has to do is to pose on FHM.
4.
I want to write better. It’s the reason why I keep reading books.
It’s the reason why I bought (and just read) Elements of Style. It’s
the reason why I’m even blogging.
5.
I also want to draw better.
6.
The only time I have fallen asleep in the cinema is while watching
“The Awakenings”.
7.
I constantly get mail invitations to an expo event in Hongkong’s
World Trade Center. I don’t know why.
8.
I sometimes get spaced out and start imagining things. This has
happened a while ago while I was walking home, and my daydream was
interrupted by a chance meeting.
9.
Though I do write emails, sometimes I still write letters in
longhand, and I see the beauty in doing so.
10.
I can burp by will and can recite the entire alphabets using burping
sounds.
11.
I tend to like the second track of an album (see *appendix for the complete list). Again, I don’t know why.
12.
Though I’m into jazz, I hate smooth jazz. So if you want to watch a
jazz concert with me, please make sure it’s not of Kenny G, Dave Grusin, Lee
Ritenour, David Sanborn, Dave Koz, Fourplay or Al Jarreau.

Regarding
number 4, there are moments when I write without hesitation and
pause. Unfortunately, three weeks pass and no such moments occur. If
ideas are liquids, my mind has a dam.

So
I resort to visiting my favorite blogs. But as it is here, they have
become ghost towns: one guy is too brokenhearted to function, another
is too engrossed with PC games to open his Word, and one girl is
swamped with TV shows and interviews…

The
silence could’ve persisted, but I want to respond to a comment on
one of my previous entries:

“You,
are interesting at one point, scary at one point, and a little geeky
at one point.“

I
think that girl is cool (though her blog is also quiet) and I want her to know that I’m not upset with her. What I’m
peevish about is being labeled scary… yet again! I’m frequently
regarded as weird and scary, and this time “scary” is a byproduct
of listing 12 facts that make me unique. Now that I’ve listed 24, I’d
probably be called homicidal.

Scary
is when someone has a tendency to harm others. Scary is the
cold-blooded Kazuo Kiriyama from Battle Royale, the homicidal Patrick
Bateman from American Psycho, the brain-eating Hannibal Lecter from
Silence of the Lambs, and the vengeful Oh Dae Su from Oldboy.

So what part of my 12 insane random facts make me scary?

When
people are sipping frappucinos and yacking on Dan Brown and Paolo
Coelho, I am drinking brewed coffee and reading Fahrenheit 451. When
people are singing praises on Spiderman, Shrek and Pirates 3, I’m
singing praises on Pan’s Labyrinth, Bridge to Terabithia and
Sideways. When everybody dresses gothic and acts emo, I ridicule
them. When people have left cubicle-land to talk about Kris Aquino
while having their watercooler break, ask me if I care about such
topic.

Granted,
I do not deny being eccentric, unconventional and unpredictable. I don’t share
everyone’s views and don’t look at Fashion Magazines or FHM’s as a
guide to lifestyles and preferences.  I’m unaffected by media hype
and I do not to dive into the cesspool of passive conformity.

Do
people hate different so much? Is different bad? Are we all forced to
act the same so as to be socially accepted?

I’m
different, but that does not make me a lesser man; that’s what makes
me an individual. If this is disdained as scary, never mind that I’m
a pacifist I don’t even eat animals, then let everyone misrepresent
me. At least I prefer that to living a life blindly obeying the standards of "what’s hot".

*Appendix: List of second tracks that I love (interludes and introductions
not included):
Heaven
is 10 Zillion Light Years Away by Stevie Wonder in Fulfillingness
First Finale
Super
by Joss Stone in The Soul Sessions
Jet
Lag by Joss Stone in Mind, Body and Soul
A
foggy day by Billie Holiday in Songs for Distingue Lovers
Lee
Ann by Richard ‘Groove’ Holmes in Blue Groove
Love
for Sale by Cannonball Adderly in Something Else
Black
Math by White Stripes in Elephant
Fat
Mama by Herbie Hancock in Fat Albert Rotunda
De
Camino A La Vereda by Buena Vista Social Club
In Walk Bud by Thelonious Monk in Jazz Messengers with Thelonious Monk
Come On, Come Over by Jaco Pastorius
Doralice
by Stan Getz and Joao Gilberto
Dedicated to You by Johnny Hartman and John Coltrane
Global Warming by Sonny Rollins in Without a Song
The Red Blouse by Antonio Carlos Jobim in Wave
Devil’s Pie by D’Angelo in Voodoo
Spirit in the Water by Bob Dylan in Modern Times
Girl from North Country by Bob Dylan in The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan
Motivation by Babatunde Lea in Suite Unseen: The Summoner of the Gods
Speak Like a Child by Herbie Hancock in Speak Like a Child
For Everyone Under the Sun by Jimmy Smith in Root Down
Feel No Pain by Sade in Love Deluxe
Express Yourself by Madonna in Like a Prayer
Mood
Indigo by Frank Sinatra in In the Wee Small Hours
Something
by The Beatles in Abbey Road
Norwegian
Wood by The Beatles in Rubber Soul
My
Sweet Lord by George Harrison in All Things Shall Pass
Crippled
Inside by John Lennon in Imagine
Hold
On by John Lennon in Plastic Ono Band
Isn’t
it a Lovely Day by Diana Krall in From This Moment On
Jeru
by Miles Davis in Birth of the Cool
Visions by Stevie Wonder in Innervisions
Jean De Fleur by Grant Green in Idle Moments
Captain Senor Mouse by Chick Corea in Hymn of the Seventh Galaxy
I Guess I’ll Hang My Tears Out to Dry by Dexter Gordon in GO!
Cousin Mary by John Coltrane in Giant Steps
State
of the World Today by Janet Jackson in Rhythm Nation
Take
Me With You by Prince in Purple Rain
The
St. Vitus Dance by Horace Silver in Blowin’ the Blues Away
Tenth
Avenue Freeze Out by Bruce Springsteen in Born to Run
Have
You Been Making Out OK by Al Green in Call Me
Cornbread, Fish, and Collard Greens by Anthony Hamilton in Comin’ From Where I’m From
Used to Love You by John Legend in Get Lifted
If You Want Me To Stay by Sly and the Family Stone in Fresh
A Foggy Day by Michael Buble in It’s Time
Seven Years by Norah Jones in Come Away With Me
Rip This Joint by Rolling Stones in Exile On Main Street
Crosstown Traffic by Jimi Hendrix in Electric Ladyland
So Far Away by Carole King in Tapestry
Enchantment
by Corrine Bailey Rae
Real Love by Mary J. Blige in What’s the 411?
You Bring Me Joy by Mary J. Blige in My Life
Ex Factor by Lauryn Hill in The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill
Do Something by Macy Gray in On How Life Is
Rock
With You by Michael Jackson in Off the Wall
I
Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For by U2 in The Joshua Tree

This one doesn’t.

A picture is worth a thousand… WORDS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BITCHES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And we can’t hear/read the first time! It’s urgent to multi-post even at the risk of sounding hypocritical to the ilks you so vociferously despise!

Cue collective groan.

I don’t know how this dude got on my friend’s list. Of the 5% of my friendster friends I haven’t met, why should I even have affiliated with this hoodwink? Sozy? Surely someone "sozy", colloquial term for people with predilection to partying, would have an iota of social grace and cosmopolitan sophistication, eh? Can’t stand flooding? Welcome to the internet, buddy!

Maybe it’s a deceiving header hiding a subtle yet poignant statement that we shouldn’t take things at face value. Maybe we can find wisdom from his actual discourse:

Or maybe not.

At least he sounds excited just talking to ugly people.

Oh, and good touch on the multiple exclamation points. It is important!

No one will wonder why this "account", dedicated to converging party people, has only 300+ friends.

My most recent chat with my colleague Ian went on like this (disclaimer: this is in Tagalog):

(9:31:46 AM) kris jou: snabero!
(9:31:49 AM) kris jou: pogi ako!!! X-(
(9:31:55 AM) kris jou: jack and poy tayo!
(9:32:03 AM) kris jou: kung sino nanalo pogi
(9:32:10 AM) kris jou: jack and poy!
(9:32:21 AM) ianlopez_hb: O< (scissors)
(9:32:21 AM) kris jou: O (rock)
(9:32:23 AM) kris jou: yay panalo ako!

1. I’m a lacto-ovo vegetarian.

2. I’m 23 years old as of writing this, and the span of time I’ve known how to use a computer has been more than half of my life. I can use DOS, and I type around a hundred characters per minute. ^_^

3. Zhuang Zi is one of the best place to live in when you’re in Taiwan, and I bet you don’t even know what and where that is.

4. Emo is way overrated, and should be called "Pursuit of Whinyness". I’d rather get the blues.

5. I can’t believe people are making such a fuss about Dan Brown! And "The Alchemist" by Paolo Coelho didn’t give me any enlightenment either.

6. 10% of the time I would use my non-dominant hand - which is my left hand - for spoons, chopsticks or for writing. I do it just for the sake of it.

7. Romeo + Juliet, the one starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes, is the worst movie I’ve ever seen!

8. My book preferences: Newbery-winning children’s books, sci-fi books, and some slice-of-life books. Dystopian books are welcome too. And I so love graphic novels.

9. I’m very partial to non-American movies.

10. I believe that obnoxious celebrities should be sent to outerspace, and I bet they’ll love the attention once that happens. Wait, better yet, they should sign an agreement to never appear on any form of media unless they do something that’s actually important. Obnoxious celebrities to me include, but are not limited to, Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson, Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes together, Kris Aquino, and Ruffa Gutierrez (good Lord, will they ever quit broadcasting her annulment case with Yilmaz? 3 words: I don’t care!) I simply don’t like people who think the world revolves around themselves.

11. The less you tell me about Philippine politics, the better my day becomes (though just so you know, I’m not really left in the dark not knowing what’s happening)

12. My most preferred type of music: jazz, funk, and R&B. In that order.

For those who have been tuned in since last year, you’d remember that I was on a jazz-lust more than half a year ago. Well, as much as I still love the music, there’s something that I’ve been devouring on a much higher frequency lately. I’m on a book-lust. I’ve become a bibliophile.

I mean, yeah, I was considered more bibliophilic than the average person. When you sum up the total number of books I have read, it’s higher than the average Filipinos. However, never before in my life have I ever consumed so much book within a short span of time. Within this two weeks, I’ve finished reading FOUR books! That’s more than the number of books I actually got to finish on some previous years! And what’s even surprising is that instead of feeling depleted from all the reading, I feel even greater upsurge to keep at it!

The books that I read all the way through in the past two weeks include: Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury, Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White, and Ubik by Philip K. Dick. Of the four, I like Fahrenheit 451 the best, although Ubik comes really close. All of them were pretty good though and I don’t regret finishing them (unlike Digital Fortress by Dan Brown and Bait by Karen Robards, which happen to be the worst books I’ve ever read).

Right now, I’m reading Toni Morrison’s Beloved. Yeah, I know. I’ve mentioned elsewhere that I’ve got this book since my last Birthday, but I just kept procrastinating from reading it. For some reason I didn’t find enough motivation to keep reading the book for a long time; half a year later, I’ve decided to restart. It’s become a lighter read for me now since I’ve somehow gotten more used to devouring pages and pages of literature. Delightfully I’ve learned that if reading has become a habit then reading heavier work wouldn’t be so much of a challenge. So I hope to finish this story soon, so I could move on to I am Legend, Grapes of Wrath, Siddharta, Of Mice and Men, etc. And maybe, just maybe, I’d finally get to Brothers Karamazov.

(Pardon the rather impetuous language, as I haven’t been composing my thoughts well while writing this entry)

Gee, remember the last month when I was gushing praises on how much I like it on First Academy?

Well, I still think the school itself is great and that the curriculum from their courses is more than terrific; but I haven’t been keeping up very well. See, last week I missed a class because I had to go to Boracay with our officemates. As good of an excursion as it was, the brutal lapse I now have with the rest of the class is starting to make me regret not attending a session. Not to mention that while I was perhaps the second-best student when it comes to HTML coding (which happened to be my previous subject), everyone else seem to best me in Photoshop. What a shame, considering that all I had to do was to bother my brother to teach me a few Photoshop concepts.

And now that I have an assignment, I have two greater adversity: lack of inspiration, and procrastination.

Good lord, what happened to my enthusiasm?! Repeats "must get motivated" like a mantra. Oh well, at least I haven’t slouched when it comes to reading various works of fiction.

I’m brokenhearted. It’s not because I’ve been rejected outright by a prospect — I haven’t even tried winning a lady for like a billion years. It’s because I feel like I’ve been betrayed by someone who I thought was going to be an amazing friend of mine.

Being that this is a public domain, I will not mention names and I do not have interest in letting anyone know who she is exactly. Nor am I even going to give you a clue, so if you’re wondering how long I have known her, then sorry to say this, but you’ll be left wondering. I think this is the best way to discuss this issue, since it hurts me much less when I’m vague.

The sequence of events were, at the very best, bewildering. This girl was pretty cool to me before, and I thought we were at the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Then we had to drift apart because we had to, umm, go back to work. And snap! Suddenly, she refuses to talk to me. She refuses to answer whenever I send her text messages and even try to call her. She refuses to add me on friendster. And while you may think I’m being pathetic for being persistent, all I have been trying to do is to thank her for the good times we’ve shared before. That’s just how I am and I haven’t once got treated badly because of this.

If it had been clear to me that I have done something terribly wrong to her then I would be willing to accept and take full responsibility of why I’m being spited. However, that’s not the case. As far as I know, I haven’t done anything and we’re not even at the stage of relationship where we would just tolerate each other once either of us does something horrible. So it makes even less sense to me that after being warmly receptive of my company for several days, she’s been avoiding me. I just don’t get it and it’s not like curiosity will get me any closer to answers either. I hate this confusion.

And thus, I’m getting the blues. Every time I find someone who I can hang on dearly to, I get extraordinarily happy. And every time I find someone who I thought I could hang on dearly to, only to find out later that I couldn’t, I get distressed. It’s like finding out that you’ve won lottery, only to learn later that you actually haven’t. It’s thing like this that easily makes me forget the concept of a "bright life" again. I might as well go back to my jaded self as the world spins madly on.