Inexchangeable (Old Vineyard Chronicles #2)

Special wine made form a well-aged friendship.
March 2, 2008, Sunday, I met with Vichell, Malou and Cyril, three of my 52 high school girl classmates. We had a mini reunion in Alabang Town Center with me as the only guy around. Felt quite a bit awkward at first. And as much as I wanted to hear something about my highschool guy friends, they're just too inactive even for a Japanese seismograph to detect.
Me bill-less but penny-ful, which doesn't count much if one wants to treat long unseen friends, felt quite disappointed especially that I actually have a part-time job, but money doesn't really trickle down on me one drop. Yeah, blame that on over-extraction of labor from a competent underpaid laborer. Anyhow, I ended up being treated instead! hahaha. Pains and gains.
It was in Shakey's that we just talked, shared stories over a pan of pizza combo meal and mojo so as to catch up with each other's lives spent with contact so scarce that each sentence we utter tells a whole lot of stories, substories and other interesting digressions. And speaking of that Shakey's! I'm pissed off with the waiter whom I think regards himself very handsomely, while the fact stands out that he'll not stand out from a pile of cow dung. For we were still enjoying sitting on the couch not longer than an hour, and this certain creature approached us with an impish tone: "Sir, Ma'am, are you still going to order something?" Logically it follows "then if none you could now pack your things and leave." OH MY! I've never been treated that way before, not by a dung-esque persona! Anyhow, I kept my cool and said we need none and we left. If only I have money at that time I'd buy a family size pizza and bottomless iced tea and I will piss him off by making the thing refill my glass over and over and over. Anyhow, us four left ATC and hopped to Festival Supermall. We finished our chit-chat at the 4th floor near the cinema, with Vichell telling more than the three of us combined. Filled with plans for March, we parted ways expecting to see again. This time, with money to keep our activities floating, and of course, more fun. Realistically speaking, it's always fun with money and friends around. hahaha.

And yeah. Don't worry my friends. I am not exchanging your for anything, however intense and lugubrious (at times! hahaha) I am particularly with my experiences in Korea.

Shard Struck: A Precious Wound (Kimchi Pot Chronicles #1)

Every click of My Pictures folder, every hit of Play button of WMP, every Korean song I play-- are the shards that keep my gaping wound open and as fresh as the first day that everything that has been had been...
Since I've been back from Korea, I found it very hard to move on. I'm now inflicted with a chronic laziness that my thesis had been stalled for two months; I've never produced anything that amounts greater than a bug's fart. The stasis has been formed and it's where I'm living now. I think what's more serious is that I am participating in my self incarceration. I know that if I stay inside for long, I'll just rot inside with the memories and friendships I cherish. And these fragments of life had already given me a hell load of joy and lessons learned; they have done their purpose. They are now expired. Should I stay longer, I'll expire too..And clearly, doing that is committing intellectual and interpersonal suicide. So starting tomorrow, I'd start moving in for the kill. I'll work for my future, leave the stasis behind in my growing museum for memories.
My wound will not close, for I will never permit it to.
The certain throbbing sensation will forever remind me that I have lived once in a way that I never will live again...

1st Fragment: The Stasis Forms (Korea Chronicles #1)

My most dreaded day has come. I am about to leave for Korea. That night, I borrowed a weighing scale from my neighbor who sells rice and vegetables. This time, however, it is not the rice nor the vegetables that will be weighed—it would be my clothes. Two of my closest friends Ej and Jabez, whose houses are 2 hours away from mine went that night to help me pack my stuff. It felt the real essence of farewell when I saw them folding and compressing my clothes, praying that my luggage would just weigh all right. As they are graduating this month (March), we spent our last few hours together watching TV, reminiscing college life in UPLB, in the Purple Room (Jabez' dorm unit where we usually hang out). I also fixed Ej's PC for I was their only technician who never asks for fees. Everything that night was not at all an emotional experience for me--perhaps not yet. The atmosphere was such in a state of ambiguity-- that one second I felt like I'm leaving and then in another second I felt that it's just like any ordinary night for me and my family. If there's anything sure, it would be that it was the longest moment in my life. The Waiting. It is the time of my life where I felt that the past, present and future all converge into one uberly cramped time frame. It was a deluge of stimuli of what I had been, what I am now, and what I'm going to be and what will it be in Korea. Agony, excitement, assurance, anxiety, anticipation were all mixed in my head and it's definitely disorienting.
Time to rest. Tomorrow will be the beginning of something really special. It was around 3am that we all slept... Looking at the clock, fixing my eyes on every second that passes by, knowing that I would spend 10 months in a different time zone...the thought made me all the more more jittery. I fell asleep on my bed for the last time. I prayed a lot, close to sweating blood. Next night I’d be in the Land of Kimchi--unseasoned, perhaps a bit bland, but will get savory as each day begins and ends.

The Beginning of the Start (Kimchi Pot Chronicles Prologue)

I hated number 4. And I have the Chinese Feng Shui to blame for that. It says it means death and illness. But it was just now when I'm writing this blog entry that I came to realize that the day my life has changed--where my real self was rubbed out of the cramped, imprisoning lamp--was 4-14, March 14, 2007.
Not everyone would be celebrating March 14, 2007. For me, it is the highlight of my life so far. And it would be harbored in my dear hypothalamus for many years to come. 4-14 was the day I flew to Korea to study in DJU as an exchange student. I never thought that my 10-month experience there would be so life changing, as it was so much fun beyond all the betraying adjectives man know of.
From this point on, I'll backtrack from the point when I was packing all my stuff, emptying my drawer, watching movies for the last time with my best friends...yeah, I'll try to recollect all the memories before all my neural connections snap off.

Try To Remember

Flavor is the memory. Scent is the heart. I shall always try to remember, way back from the start. The good, the bad, and everything in between, like shades of color, all are part—beautiful memories—a brilliant, eternal stream.

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This is the original Dedication entry but I decided to just place this in my banner. ^^;
There are things that, keep as you may, still become a distant ember that even the slightest touch of wind can extinguish. This blog is dedicated to my 10-month stay in Korea, where my memories with my friends I'll always try to remember...