Misdirected

"Hi, could you tell me the way to the _____ Building?"

I grinned like an idiot, and I answered like an idiot. "Sure, just go straight and turn left."



I smell fresh meat in the air; a few thousand of young, wide-eyed, naive freshmen walk around campuses with their eyes fixated on the tall buildings that dwarf them. I smell fresh meat. Smells like enthusiastic youth. Smells like cheap perfume, a sickeningly sweet smell that permeates every gap between every molecule in the air, lingers too long and goes bad too fast. I smell fresh meat, and it brings a smirk to my face.

On Monday, there was this club fair, and I was suppose to be with my club, trying to convince the fresh meat to swear allegiance to my club and fealty to me. It's all one huge ego trip, they all look at me, wide-eyed and amazed, and definitely a couple of them were intimidated by my presence. Over the course of many events in my life, I've learnt the art of lying, and more often than not, I've always added half-truths and whole-lies generously. And I envy those students; not only do they get the gist of things, they also get the Truth with a handful of Lies thrown in on the side. No one told me anything when I came to NYU. They should be thankful for what I do for them.

It's all a grand art of misdirection; to f*ck with young minds and screw them over, so that one day they'll be pretty much like me, an old grumpy men who tells lies to young children to scare the hell out of them. And seriously, more often than not, it's amusing. Very amusing.

A good day

There are many things that can make my day, and many things that can break my day. Nothing says a great day, to waking up in bright sunshine, and a lovely view of the park outside the window and having something to look forward to in the day. However, no one ever said anything about a great day to me, when it was in the early hours of the morning, when a loud engine carrying the largest hi-fi blaring Spanish lyrics, revs by the studio I live in, in a grand demonstration of the true meaning of over-compensating. Oh yeah, and I live opposite an industrial warehouse.

Nothing says a great day, when checking your e-mail and noticing that there are 19 new messages, and realising that someone out there is thinking of you and sharing some words of comfort with you. Then reality bites with 18 strange advertisments for things you've never heard of or positions you've never thought possible or even want to know, with the 19th just some reminder about some bills you have to pay.

Nothing says a great day, when at the end of the day, you put your thoughts on your blog, reminiscing the day you had, having this feeling of accomplishment. Then you bang your head against the keyboard, realising that you spent the entire day, waiting for the phone company to come install the phone line, while watching cartoon reruns. AND while banging the keyboard with your head, Internet Explorer decides to show you the finger... I mean, the critical error and it must shut down, and you lose all your unsaved data thing, after you've typed about a thousand words with your forehead and eyebrows.

Nothing says a great day, when you finally see something you like online, and decide to purchase it; in this case, a really snazzy camera phone, with the promise of next day delivery. A week later, the phone is bouncing somewhere between New York and Los Angeles, and I have to think about extra shipping costs because of some incredible muck-up. And I'd rant more about it, but then I'll run out of keyboards before it's over.

Nothing gets you more pumped up than the montage song, when Rocky Balboa is training for his heavyweight championship matchup, against Apollo Creed, and thinking that if you go to the gym, you'd be able to flex muscles in places you swear there shouldn't be any muscles. So far, I'm disappointed.

To be honest, life gets me down in many ways, most of the time. Life's full of bloody disappointments. Life's full of crap and life's full of the kind of gunk you find at the bottom of the sink after doing your dishes. Life's full of having to do your own laundry, which I cannot complain enough about. Life's full of all of that. So what exactly did the person have in mind when he said, "Live life to the fullest"?

But all in all, today isn't exactly a bad day. I turn on the news and I see a cease-fire in the Middle East. I see good ol' Dubya smoking some strong sh*t and declaring a victory over Hezbollah. I see a comfy couch when I get back to my apartment and five dollars my roommate lost to me in a bet that I'd go drinking tonight. I see me, doing what I want to do, being who I want to be. Now, I better end here before Internet Explorer doesn't disappoint me by freezing up, hanging and destroying all that I've just typed. That's pretty much how I live life today, a good day.

Infinitesimally Insignificant

This blog would start just like how all life begins: random and without a purpose.

I write this on the brink of another sorjourn to a different world. And I think how it always feels like this, no matter how many times I've been through it. I feel as though today is my last day, and the moment I step out through that door, I'm in transition, stuck between worlds, and when the doors of the plane opens, it's like being reborn again. It's like my life here is put on hold; I take off one mask, and I put on another. Kinda superhero-ish? No, I'm not that conceited. It's a kind of dual life, where one dies and the other lives, and vice versa in a never ending cycle.

Suddenly I'm tempted to stand and sing, "It's the Circle of Life!" and stand on top of a rock and face the sun. My life is a collection of movie clips, that I'm living out.

Huh, change is good? I wonder what's holding me back? Just pure sentiment I guess. Everytime this happens, I wonder if I'm ever going back again. One way street. That way. It's hard to look in the rear view mirror. All things change, and sometimes there's no way back into the moment where you felt most comfortable.

It is the spoken words that signify the end, the occasional mention of the word, last. Last meal, last tv show, last hour, last words. Kinda like last supper, where the last guest arrived.

But it is the unspoken words that carry the most meaning. The awkward gestures that sort of reaches out and pulls back. The odd gift that seems out of place. The strange action that seems to want to hold on.

This is a moment. Just another moment.