Travel journal, Twitter style

Thu Sept 17 5:00
I may have dreamed about a bus ride from Vancouver to Seattle. I dunno, I was asleep the whole time.

Thu Sept 17 11:50
Flight from Seattle to Houston. Continental Airlines is not for the are-we-there-yet traveler. No on-screen flight maps.

Thu Sept 17 19:24
Flight from Houston to Guatemala City. My textbook-filled, 20-pound backpack is breaking my shoulder bones.

Thu Sept 17 22:45
Why do I keep calling this apple-vodka-with-vitamin-water concoction a rum coke?

Fri Sept 18 11:30
I’m in Iximche, an archeological site. Google it, go.

Fri Sept 18 13:00
Having delicious hilachas and much-missed papaya (juice) at a truck stop en route to Quetzaltenango, aka Xela.

Fri Sept 18 15:30
Now in Xela. Will be here 8 weeks. My room rocks. Bricks, colorful wood. If only for the windows, it’s the best room in the hostel.

Fri Sept 18 18:30
Went to the bank, got a local cellphone number, bought groceries and food. All transactions done in Spanish. Win.

Sat Sept 19 08:53
Just woke up. Alarm was set for 7:45. Call time is 9:00. Phone says it’s 20:53. Duh.

Sat Sept 19 13:30
To market, to market, to buy pineapple marmalade and bread. Yeah, I’ll do real cooking, but not now.

Sat Sept 19 22:00
People, activities, life. Is this happiness I’m feeling?

The Fisherman

I’m probably just dizzy, or dreaming. He turned and saw that the things around him were exactly as they were five minutes ago – his clothes, his fishing equipment, his boat, the lake, the park, the horizon. Yes, the horizon looks normal.

But just two minutes ago, he saw his boat tipping over the horizon, as if it were an insect crawling from one face of a cube to another. Although his entire belief system confirmed with certainty that the Earth is a sphere, he knew that it really happened. His boat really tipped.

The boat rocked a little, and he looked around to see if there was another boat on the lake. A running motor might have caused the disturbance on the water. What he saw instead was a boat exactly like his. There was a man aboard it. He froze when he realized that the man looked exactly like himself.

10 poems I like

1. Is/Not by Margaret Atwood
2. We Real Cool by Gwendolyn Brooks
3. Dream Deferred by Langston Hughes
4. Sonnet XVII by Pablo Neruda
5. Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll
6. an untitled poem by ee cummings
7. The Congo by Vachel Lindsay
8. Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost
9. The Tyger by William Blake
10. Preludes by TS Eliot

Championships

After Liverpool got knocked out of the Champions League, I rooted for the only non-English team left: FC Barcelona. I especially wanted them to win the finals because I don’t like Manchester United. I mean, if it came down to Barcelona v Arsenal, I may have been a little more indifferent. (If it were Barcelona v Chelsea, I’d so be rooting for Barca too.) Anyway, the game was quite boring. The only thing worth seeing was Messi’s header. I watched it live on ESPN with my cousin and he was like, “Do the fans always sing?” Hahaha. (The answer is yes.) I’d like to watch an awesome soccer game right in the stadium, in the future. Maybe a Champions League match at Anfield. Or a Spain game in the Euro or the World Cup. Oh by the way, Torres scored a hat trick for Spain against New Zealand (Confederations Cup)! Awesome. So excited for the World Cup next year!

The Vancouver Whitecaps actually seem pretty good; I saw a few of their matches on TV. I hope they do well when they join the Major League Soccer in 2011. There’s not much buzz around North American soccer, though.

So the Pittsburgh Penguins won the Stanley Cup. I wanted them to win over the Detroit Red Wings. It was a good game, too. The Wings kept Fleury busy but he held his ground, letting only one goal through. It came down to the last six seconds, Pens 2-1 Wings. In those six seconds, the Wings took four shots or so. But they didn’t get the equalizer, thus no overtime.

I’m excited for the Canucks next season. I wonder what the roster will look like. I hope they re-sign the Sedin twins. I want to watch a Canucks game at GM Place, too. This shall go on my to-do list for when I come back from Guatemala. Oh no, it just occurred to me: How am I going to watch hockey while I’m in Guatemala? I’m gonna miss the first ten weeks of the season.

And the LA Lakers beat the Orlando Magic. I think they had a 14-point lead with 3:35 left on the clock. Magic could totally have caught up at that point, but they seemed to have lost their motivation for some reason. I don’t know why; they were playing at home. Anyway, it looked like they weren’t even trying anymore. And then the last ten or so seconds of the game were, well, funny. The Lakers were all just standing and smiling at each other, lazily dribbling the ball. The shot clock buzzed for a 24-second violation, with three seconds left in the game. The Lakers just laughed and started jumping and celebrating. The clock didn’t even count down from three to zero anymore. Haha.

Fight.

Exterior, midday. She closes her eyes.

– What are you doing?

– I’m wishing on the sun.

– Shouldn’t you wish on a… Oh.

1% of the LA trip story

Transcript / May 19, 2009 / 2:00 pm / Seattle Tacoma International Airport

I eat my honey-garlic chicken alone, and I wonder if I’ll see him again. I met him about five hours ago on the bus I took to cross the border (Vancouver to Seattle). When the driver hit the brakes, Trevor’s water bottle jerked forward, under my seat and to my feet, from two rows back. Later, at the bus terminal in Seattle, we both stood around a while, poking at the public transit maps. A couple of nice gentlemen directed us to the bus stop where we could catch the 194 or 174 to SeaTac airport. We walked around and got a little lost even if the stop was just two blocks away. We also had to go into a bank and a coffee shop to get US$ change for bus fare.

We parted ways on check-in. He has a United Airlines flight to Denver; I have a Virgin America flight to LA. He gets back to Vancouver from his hometown Denver in August (three months from now), before school starts. He goes to the same school as my brother. By the time he’s back in Vancouver, I’ll be getting ready to leave for Guatemala for a three-month term. In the meantime, I shall proceed with my lunch. My flight to LA leaves in an hour and a half.

Victoria

Downtown Victoria is a pretty small area. We ran into this guy 4 or 5 times in one day. He’s from South Africa, moved to Canada 5 or 6 years ago. Speaks English and Afrikaans. Gave us a sample of his native tongue, told us about his day. Said (in English) that it was his first day as a Kabuki Kabs driver. There are a lot of them in Victoria. Pedicabs, I mean.

He’s cute, right? :D I think he’s the first South African I’ve met. I wanted to talk to him about growing up there and moving here and stuff. International cultures interest me, especially those I’m not too acquainted with. And cute guys interest me too, hehe. But we had museums to go to, and only two days to spend in the city. I don’t remember what his name is.

Ayoko na.

I had a dream. In it, I know I’m in a relationship but I know not with whom. Walking in a big group, I randomly hold Jude’s hand. Wrong guess. Mike shoots me a death glare. The boyfriend is Mike, not Jude. Completely guilty, I try to make it up to him for the rest of the dream. He gives me the cold shoulder.

I had another dream. In it, I’m part of a group with a plan to blow up a hospital. In the hospital, I hesitate and I don’t do what I’m supposed to do. Instead, I tell one of the doctors about the plan. Guilt-ridden, I tell the doctor that the explosion won’t happen anymore because I didn’t do my part. The doctor is unwaveringly cold and unforgiving. Unfortunately, I don’t know how but the hospital blows up anyway. I watch the hospital building crumble as my friend Donald drives us in a getaway car.

Ayoko na. I wish this guilt thing would stop eating me up. But the part about Mike and me together? Totally fine by me. Gwapo. Hahaha.

A Country On Its Knees (written June 2007)

I

“The Philippines’ flamboyant former first lady Imelda Marcos was acquitted of tax evasion [to the tune of 39.4 million pesos] Wednesday after a court ruled she did not receive any tax notices because she had fled into exile.”

Her defense implies that she didn’t know that she had to pay taxes. I’m sure that’s not true; and even if it is, ignorance of the law excuses no one from compliance. I can’t believe she won this case.

II

“Starting this school year, the Department of Education is implementing Executive Order No. 210, which calls for the use of English as the primary medium of instruction in public and private high schools. The order is aimed at improving the English proficiency of students and their chances of landing a job in call centers, a fast-growing industry in the Philippines.”

I wish that there were accompanying steps to improve the quality of instruction of the local languages as well, so that students would be proficient (and not half-baked) bilinguals. And speaking of quality of instruction, how about improving on science, math, and the rest of the subjects too? Especially for public schools.

III

The first buildings of the University of the Philippines in Diliman were positioned thoughtfully. The administration building was at the head. The library was at the heart, representing the desire for knowledge. On both sides of the library were the College of Engineering and the College of Arts and Sciences – the arms – because the arts and sciences should extend society’s reach. Next to them were the College of Law and the College of Education – the legs – because society should stand on justice and education.

So much for standing.