the ant

one lazy afternoon
it presented itself to me
an ant
slave to sweet sugar
laboring under a load
of breadcrumbs and desperation
i wondered if i should squish it
to bring it out of its misery
and mine
but then an epiphany
are we not but mere ants
in the gaze of the almighty?

Disturb us, Lord

a nice prayer to meditate on this lenten season

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Disturb us, Lord, when
We are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we have dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when
With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wider seas
Where storms will show your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.

We ask You to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push into the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.

attributed - sir francis drake - 1577

top 10 things i would do if i were declared the king of the philippines

this is another top 10 list. aside from the schtick people usually answer, like ending poverty, making education the number one priority, running after all crooks in government, working on lasting peace and order, etc. (which i myself would intend to do, of course), these are the top 10 things i would do if i were declared the king of the philippines:

10. bring back bobot candy

remember those? if you grew up in the late 80s and early 90s then you'll probably remember those. it's one the icons of my early childhood, those little peanuts coated in a sweet sugary layer in rainbow colors. it was one of the few items i could buy in the sari sari store with the 25 centavo allowance my mother usually gave me. cheap but satisfying. makes me wish i was a child again.

9. have people who answer their cellphones in movie theaters beaten and humiliated in public

i was watching memoirs of a geisha at sm once. when the movie was just about to start a familiar ringing sound suddenly comes out of nowhere, and then the guy to my left pulls out his cellphone and chats away with someone who seemed to be his girlfriend. AAARRGGH... for the next 10 minutes me and my fellow moviegoers discovered more about his love life than the movie's story. if i could hurl thunderbolts at the guy then i would've, but all that came out of me was a very pathetic "ssssshhhh!".

8. start a campaign geared toward the extinction of cockroaches

cockroaches. the scum of the earth, the scourge of humanity. ewww. i hate them with a vengeance. do you know that in the event of a nuclear fallout the last creatures to ever come out of it alive would be cockroaches? plus, they're disgusting little critters. everytime i see them in my house the hunter instinct in me comes alive and down comes my tsinelas (slipper) on the little beast. i know, a simple spraying of baygon is more effective, but not as satisfying as squashing that cockroach to mulch.

7. buy a new refrigerator

our fridge has been broken for weeks already, and i haven't been able to get a nice cold glass of water when i wake up in the morning for a very very loooong time now. what makes it worse is that it's summer. if that isn't hell on earth, i don't know what is.

6. order those trendy cafes like starbucks to sell coffee according to what its actually worth

selling ordinary brewed coffee at 150 pesos a cup is simply criminal...

5. have all inconsiderate smokers who smoke in public without even thinking about those who don't smoke arrested

this is one of my personal pet peeves. you're sitting in a jeepney on the way to work, breathing in a healthy dose of smoke from the morning traffic rush, then the guy beside you lights a cigarette and smokes. you try covering your nose, make coughing noises, frowning, anything to get the message through to that man's probably non existent brain that you do not want him sitting beside you with that cigarette, and yet still he puffs away.

we're already choking from all the smoke belched by those jurrasic jeepneys and those monster factories, but do you people really have to add to all that smoke? yes, this is a free country, and granted, you have the freedom to kill yourselves. but do you have to bring us non-smokers closer to hell together with you?

4. declare a moratorium on those crappy lovey dovey pinoy movies

no wonder the local movie industry is dying, all they keep churning out is crap. i hate the manufactured feel of their so called "love teams". they all look so forced, so artificially sweet so that the viewing public will take notice of their "romance" and watch their damn movie. but the public seems to lap it all up everytime, so what do i know.

3. stop the airing of all showbiz news programs

the buzz, S files, different rooms on the same hell on earth, as one fellow blogger put it. why people give a f*ck about Kris Aquino's latest love affair when we have much bigger problems to think about is simply beyond me. a friendly word of advice to all of you suckers out there: get a life.

2. PLAGIARISTS WILL BE SHOT!!! DEATH TO ALL PLAGIARISTS!!!

i was blog surfing one night when i came across the blog of a person who i sort of knew because she was one year my senior in college and who also happened to be the classmate of my former officemate and the former officemate of one my college buddies. skimming over her blog, i came across one poem, which after my reading it seemed VERY VERY familiar. then it hit me. THAT WAS MY POEM. she took most of the lines, added some of her own, mixed and matched some other lines, then voila, it was suddenly HER poem...

WHAT THE F*CK!!!

the great irony of it is, she works in the software industry, which itself is a victim of piracy, a close cousin of plagiarism. but at least pirates don't claim that they developed the software, the credit is still where it should be. so that makes her worse than pirates.

but then again, imitation is the highest form of flattery, so maybe she thinks my poem IS good :) so from the bottom of my heart, dear plagiarist, i thank you.

UPDATE: ms. plagiarist seems to have deleted her blog... hmmm... does that mean she doesn't like my poem anymore? :)


and the number 1 thing i would do if i were declared king of the philippines:

1. outlaw playing and listening to ANY song by air supply.

man, do i hate their songs. not do i just hate their songs, i detest their songs with a deep loathing. people seem to be playing them everywhere, all the time. i hear their songs in my neighborhood, in jeepneys, in videoke bars, downtown, everywhere. once, when i went out with my officemates for some videoke (yes, i now enjoy singing at the videoke. i take back everything i said about videoke.), they sang "i'm all out of love" by air supply. oh how i had wanted to eat them alive.

in one of their songs, their vocalist shrieks, "i don't know what to saaaaaay! i don't know what to saaaaaaaaaaaay!" tell you what mr. air supply vocalist sir, if you don't know what to say, then SHUT UP ALREADY!

pilipinas, february 2006

despair celebrates
in the stomachs of the hungry
apathy penetrates
those who were once angry

letting go of our patrimony
for the sake of the "economy"
economy, economy, economy

i say,
an economy of crumbs
for the hungry to feast on
while the pigs wallow
in a pen strewn with pearls and diamonds

but where is justice?
has she been forgotten?
or are all their crimes
so easily forgiven?

while the usurper sits on the throne
the voices of dissent
have been made silent
through exercise of fear and force
why do we choose
to stay in this course?
our history's endlessly repeating course?
this farce is too fierce
for mine ears

alas! alas!
is this nation's redemption
a heaven so far
from where we now are?
do we give up and flee
as so many of us have done?

i say,
if we only wake up
i say,
if we only open our eyes
i say,
if we only refuse to be bought

but still,
we choose to sleep
but still,
we choose to remain blind
but still,
we choose to be bought

it's a simple matter of choice
to raise a great and mighty voice
to ring righteous and resonant
in the halls of the palace

it's our palace
not hers
not theirs
ours

paranoia 2006

weird experience. i was riding a jeepney on the way home last night when a guy got on carrying a cardboard box sealed in packaging tape. guy looked quite normal, but suddenly, alarm bells started going off in my head crying, "suicide bomber! suicide bomber!". i think it can be proven that the terrorists are actually the most harmless and ordinary looking people, until they blow themselves and the city block they're in to pieces. this got me watching him nervously, detecting any signs of strange behavior. a few minutes later, he reaches into his pocket and grabs a cellphone. the same alarms bells go off again. this time, i was thinking, "holy crap! he's gonna detonate the bomb through his cellphone!" i spent the rest of the ride home confessing my sins before God. fortunately for me, and for you also my 2 loyal readers, the guy got off before I did without incident, which leaves me to blog about it.

note to self, must stop watching the evening news.

damn terrorists, their making me all paranoid. blast yourselves to bits you freaks.

infinite loop

in response to the clamor of my 2 loyal readers, here is my first post for the year. sorry for the delay, either i was too drunk or too depressed to write anything. and thank you also for letting me know that mine is not a voice in the desert.

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my infinite loop theory

watching the news of the events in the past weeks, i have come to the conclusion that the Philippines is a computer program stuck in an infinite loop. to the non-programmers out there, an infinite loop is basically a set of computer instructions that runs forever. if this nation's history in the past 40 years would be written in computer code, it would come out something like this:

People FilipinoPeople;
while ( true ) {
Government government = FilipinoPeople.EstablishDemocracy( );
while ( FilipinoPeople.Tolerance( ) < government.Corruption( ) ) {
FilipinoPeople.StopCaring( );
government.BecomesMoreCorrupt( );
}
FilipinoPeople.GoToEDSA( );
}

this nation needs to change its programming.

i'm back!

new post on my photoblog: http://imageryofkinit.blogspot.com/2006/03/cityscapes-1.html

And Yet Still, I Come Back : Reflections on the Day of the Dead

I pause before entering, greeted by the sight of old women selling candles, flowers, and prayers, and little children scavenging for the wax of melted candles. It has been a year since I have been here. A year since I last went through these gates, a year since I last gazed on his name carved on his tombstone, a year since I last lit candles in his memory.

As i walk the pathways of the cemetery, I see names and dates of birth and death. R.I.P. in memory of Juan de la Cruz, born 19xx, died 200x, remembrance from his loving family. I noticed that some had lived to a ripe old age, some died while still in the prime of their life, while others did not even reach a year, the light of consciousness never dawning upon their minds. Then I wonder, what were their lives? What were their stories? Did they live wretched and obscure lives or lives honorable and worthy of mention? How did they die? Did they die a glorious and heroic death or did they die slowly and painfully on a hospital bed? Were they able to prepare and come to terms with their own death or did death come to them unexpectedly like thief in the night?

Then I am reminded that soon enough, I too shall suffer their fate. Maybe fifty years from now, maybe next year, maybe tomorrow, but for certain, my name is will find its way on one of those tombstones. It's a scary thought for sure, but I have long resigned myself to it. Some may argue that, hey, we really shouldn't be scared 'cause we've already had plenty of experience being dead, for before we were born, we were all dead. Sure, the argument may make some sense, but once you get a taste of what life is, being dead is just, well, scary. We may all try our darndest (sometimes even to the point of delusion) to believe in an after life, or in reincarnation, or in whatever you believe in, but the only thing we can be certain about is this. That when we do leave this earth, the one thing left of us would simply be a memory. The thought does not comfort me. I continue walking.

I finally reach his tomb. My stepfather's. It's a bit too shabby, to say the least, almost blackend by the dust and the soot of candles. I had hired the services of one of the clean up boys in the cemetery, to rid the the tomb of its rubbish, repaint the lettering with gold and give it a fresh coat of white paint. I almost balk at his price, but i'd rather let him do the job, and it is his season anyway, so I pay up.

The boy does his job quite meticulously, almost in a very caring and loving manner. First he wipes the soot and grime off with a rag soaked in acid, and then very skillfully restores the lettering on the tomb in gold paint. He then takes out his little can of white paint and proceeds to very carefully apply a new coating of white, making sure that it does not go beyond the borders of the tombstone.

As I watch the boy clean up the tomb, a question comes to my mind. I had not grown to love my stepfather. I even have a slight degree of contempt for him, having witnessed some of the weaknesses and flaws in his character. But he is dead now, and it is not up to me to judge, as I too am human. He had come so suddenly into me and my mother's lives, and so suddenly he was taken away, so I had not known who he really was.

So, the question. I had not grown to love him, and yet still, every year, I come back. why?

Is it out of a simple respect for my mother's wishes? Maybe. Oh, how my mother had loved him, inspite of everything. I myself didn't get it (and up to now, I still don't). But hey, when it comes to love, people don't usually think right, right? I've read somewhere that falling in love is the closest thing we ordinary people can get to insanity. But even if I think my mother was insane for choosing someone like him, that does not get over the fact that she is my mother. And as a son who loves and respects here, I obey. So I come. Yet somehow I feel it is something else, something deeper.

Then it occurs to me. Could this be why I had been asking all those questions as I passed all those other tombs? Could it be because of my fear that some sort of karma will hit me, that I too when I die will be another forgotten name in an obscure tomb in some public cemetery, unknown and unremembered?

Is this the reason then that we all flock to the cemeteries in this season of candles and remembrances? So that in the passing of the years, as people continue to remember their dead, we too might be remembered after we die? Oh, how hard it is to contemplate being forgotten. All our achievements, all our hardships, everything we have ever been or done would seem to be for naught. So in the face of this reality so hard to swallow, are we merely holding on to this tradition as if it were some sort of security blanket from our fear of being forgotten? For when we are forgotten by the living, then that is when we are truly dead.

Then I remember something I read from one of neil gaiman's sandman books. "What do the dead care what happens to them? Eh? They're dead. All the trappings of death are for the living. It is the final reconciliation. The last farewell." Indeed.

Thus next year, I will come back. And the year after that, and the year after, assuming that I am still alive. I will keep on coming back, as we all have been doing, generation after generation. For it is not just for our dead, it is for us too.

ethereal encounters

my thoughts are like rain, falling to the ground making puddles, as i struggle to form the words. a kind of madness has enveloped me, shaking me to the core, to the foundations of my existence. the sun rises and sets, the tides rise and ebb, the moon waxes and wanes, yet i find there is something amiss in the cycles of the cosmos, something missing.

long have i wandered the streets in search for it, through the backways and sidestreets, in the long winding corridors of the city, yet at the end of the day i come back empty. i ponder what it is i am searching for.

then in the distance, in the emptiness of night, an apparition, whose radiance fills it to overflowing. a curious awe fills me, as i slowly make my approach, like a moth seduced by the flame. there i discover a daughter of the deities.

she greets me by my first name, which stuns me with wonder. who am i, an ordinary mortal, for her to call by name? surely she must be a gift from the heavens. i am dumbstruck, for my speech has left me.

she reveals to me wonders and mysteries that i can only dream of. she made me realize that there are powers beyond what we can see and touch. she made me realize what forces move this world and make life, painful and insignificant as it may seem, still possible.

alas, all good things come to an end. she goes on her way, and i on mine. yet this meeting, no matter how brief, has echoed throughout the vastness of eternity, and it shall be carved permanently into my memories.

...

to her
the object of my silent desires
the yearning of my innermost being
of whom my dreams have set on the highest of thrones
and inhabited my thoughts and my senses
these words i write for you

the sound of a thousand pigs in the slaughter house

i may have one of the worst neighborhoods anyone could ever live in. every weekend, the whole place is filled with the sound of what i can only compare to that made by a thousand pigs being slaughtered. if you're a filipino, yes, i think you know what i mean. i bet your neighborhood has been infested too, at least once, by this scourge of humanity, this evil, evil device only the devil could have invented, the karaoke, and its more modern incarnation, the ktv.

if you think hearing gloria saying "hello garci" is enough to make you sick, wait till you hear my drunk, potbellied neighbors' version of a classic karaoke standard, frank sinatra's "my way". i feel only one word is able to describe their rendition more fully, disturbing. the vexation resulting from their infernal howling is enough to make me want to burn the whole neighborhood down. i think i'd rather be a refugee than be subjected to this inhumanity.

to give justice to the song, i bet even mr sinatra would rise from the grave to try to scare them back to their senses. i can almost hear him say, "the nerve! how dare they murder my song!"

man, the karaoke should be outlawed by the geneva convention. the karaoke can be considered as a weapon of mass destruction, you know. thus, it can be covered by the articles of war.

hey, mr. kofi annan, sir, are you listening? this is a matter of world peace. you should have taken this up in the last UN general assembly.

hey, mr george bush, sir, if you're still sending troops running around in the deserts of iraq looking for weapons of mass destruction, you better come here to the philippines. there's a bunch of terrorists here in my neighborhood.

this karaoke thing has taken over the whole country in ways the abu sayyaf or the npa could never even dream of. today the philippines, tomorrow the world. i shudder at the thought.

but i have to admit, i too have once been on the dark side. and i enjoyed it. now ladies and gentlemen of the jury, before you condemn me to death by karaoke, allow me to plead my case. it was only once you know, during my company's last summer outing. our damned room didn't have any airconditioning, and there were a lot of mosquitoes, so i couldn't sleep. there was no more beer, the bar was already closed. so i had no choice but to spend the rest of the night singing myself hoarse till sun up. but at least everybody else was either too drunk or safely fast asleep to hear my wailing, so, no harm done right? at least i don't do it every bloody weekend for the whole damn neighborhood to hear. not guilty.

smells like martial law

president gloria is starting to really creep me out. first she had the policy of "calibrated preemptive response" against rallyists, which had the militants and leftists declaring it as a violation of human rights. then the plan to take over vital industries had businessmen running scared. now she has executive order no. 464, which is basically a challenge against congress, or the senate in particular, which is currently investigating the controversies involving malacanang like the wiretapping scandal, the venable deal, and northrail project. she may not call it martial law, but it sure smells like martial law to me.

ode to bobot candy

bobot, oh bobot
where art thou?
thy sugary sweetness
thy peanuty goodness
three pieces of heaven
wrapped in plastic
thou has sweetened
countless childhood days

manny pacquiao kicks ass!!!

paquiao wins! wooohooo!!! not just that, the 2 other pinoys in the bout also won! at last, some good news after months of getting nothing but crap from political scandals.

the day i heard about the fight, i had a bad feeling deep in my gut that he'd lose this one. a lot of people were saying that this fight would be an easy one for him. but guess what, people were saying the same thing about the pacquiao vs. morales bout, see how it ended.

good thing the bout didn't last long. i don't think pacquiao has a particularly stellar record with bouts that go the distance, considering his loss to morales and his draw against marquez.

unfortunately though, for pacquiao, morales lost to zahir raheem. that would make his coming rematch against morales sort of pointless. who would want to beat a loser? wait, if eric morales is a loser, and pacquiao lost to morales, then what does that make pacquiao? hehehe just joking...

on a sidenote, what on earth is manny doing starring in his own movie (co-starring the bold stars aubrey miles and juliana palermo and the very jurrasic looking eddie garcia)? does that mean that even a world famous boxer like him also has aspirations of becoming an artista? or is this just a sideline for him, some sort of plan b, in case something happens to his boxing career? everybody just wants to be a star, i guess. this reminds me of onyok velasco. remember him? whatever happened to onyok velasco anyway?

PowerPoint is Evil!!! and Other Matters

PowerPoint: Killer App?

Power Corrupts. PowerPoint Corrupts Absolutely.

They have a point... and to think that we used that a lot in college...

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New entries in my photoblog!

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Meanwhile, an interesting piece of Filipino history from Ambeth Ocampo's column today on how the separation of church and state came about in the Malolos Congress:

“Antonio Luna also became a member of Congress. There he affiliated himself with the faction that we can call Radical. This faction was formed almost spontaneously when the celebrated debates started in Congress over the separation of Church and State, the expulsion of the friars and other religious congregations from the Philippines, and the prohibition by the Constitution of the formation of new religious orders.

“The debates showed signs of dragging on forever because, although it appears strange considering the motives which started the Revolution, one-half of the members of the Congress were adherents of the friars. Eloquent speeches from each group were pronounced, but there never was a voting because both groups were afraid of the result of the balloting. Luna broke the situation with one of those tricks peculiar to his character and which made him famous later.

“He assembled all those delegates of the Radical faction who had confidence in him, advising them to keep away from the sessions of the Congress but requesting them to remain within call at a moment’s notice. With the Radicals absent, the Conservatives constituted a majority during the sessions. Having made a careful count and thinking themselves sure of victory, the Conservatives asked for a vote while the few Radicals present registered a token opposition. The motion to call a vote was carried. Then, at the precise moment of balloting, Luna immediately called all his adherents to enter the session hall en masse, to the surprise of the confident Conservatives. The voting was taken and we won, if I remember right, by one or two votes. In this manner, a provision in our Constitution for the separation of Church and State was secured."

presenting...

please visit my photoblog: http://imageryofkinit.blogspot.com/

wisdom from the not so wise...

a revelation made during my usual morning ritual:

feelings are like shit. if you don't let them out, they won't do you any good. :P

the weird world of pinoy politics

from news.inq7.net:

Anakpawis party-list Representative Crispin Beltran yesterday advised Mikey Arroyo to quit his post and focus on his fledgling movie career.

According to the imdb.com website, Mikey last appeared in the movies "Masamang Ugat" and "A.B. Normal," both produced in 2003. He has a forthcoming movie with Ethel Booba and a host of other congressmen titled, "Sablay ka na, Pasaway ka pa," under Cine Suerte Pictures.

at first, it was the actors who wanted to be politicians. now the politicians want to become actors too. weird. as they say, onli in da pilipins!

but when you think about it, it actually does make sense, when watching the news on pinoy politics is almost like watching "the buzz" and "s-files".

the horror...

the lunch break monologues, or, musings on eating alone

11:55 am. i look at my pc's clock as the grumblings of my empty stomach signal that it is time for lunch. quietly, i rejoice. at last, some rest from the mind numbing torture of this earthly purgatory which i call my job. slowly, i get up and reach for my bag, and take out my packed lunch. i open it to see what's inside. ahh, fried fish and rice. very pinoy.

slowly, with my baon on one hand, i take my cup and my only spoon from my desk, and walk wearily to the pantry. all is quiet. no one is there. it seems like everybody's gone out for lunch, which means i have the pantry all to myself.

i put my baon on the table, then take my cup and spoon to the sink to wash. silently, i stare through the window and look down on the city as the midday sun pours its fiery rays upon the populace. the sun seems to be angriest just when everybody's off for a break. the irony doesn't escape me.

i take the scrubbing pad from the side of the sink, open the faucet, and wet the scrubing pad. applying a small amount of dishwashing detergent, i scrub the cup and the spoon religiously. i open the faucet again, and rinse. i rinse a second time to make sure no soap is left. then i get a weird urge to to rinse it again for a third time, just to be sure. don't be so stupid, i say to myself. could this be a sign of obsessive compulsive disorder? but that's a psychiatric disorder! no, you are not going mad, i assure myself.

i turn around to the water dispenser and fill my cup with cold water, then go back to the table. with my lunch waiting, i set the plastic box containing my food in front of me and open it. with my spoon and the finger of my left hand, i gingerly transfer the two little pieces of fried fish embedded in my rice to the cover of my little lunch box. i take my spoon, then... wait. i forgot to bring my fork again. oh well. so i start eating.

with my spoon holding the fish in place, i pinch out a little piece. then after spooning out some rice, i hungrily give myself a mouthful. i start chewing. and chewing. but something's wrong.

it doesn't taste right. it's so... bland. then i start grumbling. i should've brought some soy sauce with me. or maybe somebody else here has some soy sauce? so i search the pantry, i open the cupboards, i look in the fridge. but to no avail. i guess i'll have to content myself to eating a bland meal.

and then, eureka, an epiphany.

i suddenly get a sense that i'm somehow doing everything wrong. my fried fish tastes bland without any soy sauce. eating with a spoon feels weird without a fork. and here i am, sitting in the pantry table, eating lunch, all alone.

montaigne was right. i really shouldn't eat all by myself.

and i think i need to buy myself a new fork.

more conspiracy theories

All these accidents in the news involving air force aircraft and civilian planes, me smells something fishy. Some theories:

Theory No. 1. The owners of the planes are tax evaders. The BIR seems to have found new energy to start running after everybody for their correct taxes, from business men and corrupt army generals to movie stars and basketball players. So to avoid getting sued, maybe they had to sell some parts. I could imagine this scenario with the plane already in the air:

Pilot: Air traffic control, this is flight xyz123 requesting for landing, over.
Air Traffic Control: Flight xyz123, please begin landing procedure, over.
Pilot: Roger.
Air Traffic Control: Flight xyz123, I repeat, please begin landing procedure, over.
Pilot: Air traffic control, we have already begun landing procedure, over...
Air Traffic Control: Flight xyz123, please release your landing gear immediately. The runway is now a few hundred meters away, over.
Copilot: (To the pilot) Uh... sir... i forgot to mention this, the boss had to borrow the emergency landing gear...
Pilot: What?! Air traffic control, we have no landing gear! Mayday! Mayday!

CRAAASH...

Theory No. 2. This could be an evil plot by some super secretive terrorist organization. They could be testing a new form of weapons system that could be used on any aircraft and make it look as if the crash was due to pilot error. Or maybe I'm just watching too many episodes of Alias. Sidney Bristow, where are you?

Theory No. 3. This is a variation of the previous thoery. It could be a part of an alien conspiracy to take over the planet. They're targeting aircarft as part of their effort to undermine the earth's defenses before they could start their invasion. But better leave this to Agents Mulder and Scully, this is an X-File.

Theory No. 4. How about... if... the Air Transportation Office isn't doing its job and the Philippine Air Force doesn't have money for spare parts? 'nuf sed.

a most unusual predicament

a friend of mine seems to have put himself in a most unusual predicament. he's currently in a relationship, or should i say "relationship", with this girl who seems to be absolutely head over heels in love with him (i think it's safe to say that). unfortunately for the girl, he doesn't share the same degree of enthusiasm. and it has come to the point that because of my friend's... uh... disinterest, she's become so unnaturally aggressive that he's finding her to be rather... how to put this lightly... annoying.

this has been going on for some time now, but still, he hasn't dumped her. as far as i know, he hasn't found the courage. well, according to him at least. and to spice the story up, he just found out that the girl is afflicted with this heart condition. so she's already in a pretty delicate condition, and his dumping her could leave her heart broken, i mean literally. and so, the dillema.

but what i've been wondering is, before he found out about her heart condition, if he didn't really like her, why didn't he just dump her in the first place?

i can think of three alternate possibilities.

possibility one.
he's lying. he really does like her. case in point, last saturday. we went to play some basketball in another friend's house, the girl also came with him. after the game, the two seemed so sweet to each other that you could literally have ants swarming over the both of them. but as to why... i don't know... i don't think he really has any incentive in lying, which brings us to the next possibility.

possibility two
this is a variation of possibility one, denial. maybe he really does like her, but he just can't admit it to himself yet (and to everybody else too, for that matter). this one's pretty understandable. getting into a new relationship can be a bit scary.

possibility three
contingency measure. maybe, he really doesn't like her as much as he would like to, but he's still open to the possibility of him liking her more in the future. so he's just taking a wait and see stance for the meanwhile. if nothing happens, then he dumps her. unfortunately for him, this is no longer as easy as it was.

i'm quite curious how all this'll end up. does he really like her or will he break up with her? if he does break up with her, considering her condition, how? abangan ang susunod na kabanata...