Ghost story?

When I was thirteen years old, I began to have bouts of insomnia. That was around the time I heard footsteps going up the stairs near my room. I've been hearing it ever since but these days I've gotten used to it so that it never really frightens me that much. I guess to my mind it would seem like a sound the house would make (if it knew how to make sounds).

Last night I crossed the hallway after doing my quiet time in my sister's room. As usual I heard the footsteps going up the stairs and as I expected, no one was around. When I closed and locked the door to my room my brother relaxing in bed. He said something to me I looked back at the doorknob, someone turned it out of nowhere. Someone turned the locked doorknob! It couldn't have been my dad cause the lights were off and I'd have heard him shut the door to his room opposite end of the hall.

Oh well don't mind me, I'm just bored. :p

To Do list

Out of sheer boredom I have decided to recount a list of productive activities this summer in order to pressure myself to do something productive:

1. Finish at least 3 books
2. Master Doctor Gradus Ad Parssanum by Debussy
3. Help Revamp the Youth L.I.V.E. website
4. Co-write a script for a short film at church
5. Have at least 2 more sleepovers
6. Write any piece of literature (poem or fiction)
7. Rearrange email inbox and computer desktop (digital OCness!)
8. Blog more!

These are the productive activities I am currently occupied with:

1. Frontline Bible Study every Wednesday (starting today)
2. Driving Lessons (kinda late for this but yeah)

That's about it :p

Upcoming events
1. Camp reunion!
2. DVBS (Daily Vacation Bible School)--this would be around my 7th year of teaching!
3. Bodi's swimming party (to swim or not to swim?)

Weeeeeeeeeeeeird day

Last Apiril 21, 2007 was a weeeeeeeeeeeeeird day. It starts when I troop to Metrowalk from church listening to some outlandish tunes from Massive Attack (as usual). When I get to Metrowalk, I see a policewoman sitting lazily in one of the chairs in the turo turo area. Dismissing any paranoid notions from my thoughts I head up to the dvd area and stick around for a bit. I'm about to purchase a Hayao Miyazaki 3-disc collection when shutters start closing up and people quickly stuff their contraband into their big bayongs. No sign of police yet but I completely ditch the place. Bad things tend to happen to me for apparent reasons and nonapparent ones. Sometimes I think I'm God's idea of a joke.

Moving forward a few hours into the future, during LINKS (That's the evening service at church for youth) I get a phone call from my mother:

Mom: Why didn't you go home with your sister and cousin from church
Me: Cause of Links
Mom: I want you to head home right now. We visited your lola at the hospital. You weren't there!

Well that's the general patronage version anyway. Don't worry the real version is only bordering on pg but it's not like we're shouting or cursing or anything.

A soon as I arrive home, the maids tell me my parents aren't home. I figure my mom was annoyed and didn't bother to tell me they went to they visited the hospital again. "They just left. You can still catch up if you hurry" they tell me. I break into a sprint and head for the guardhouse, which isn't far from my house considering we have a small subdivision. So I get there finding no car in sight. I shrug off the fatigue and hunger and run the way to the jeepney stop hoping to head my parents off at their destination. As soon as I get off the jeep at the hospital I call my Dad:

Moi (X_X):What room is lola in?
Dad (?_?): *name of room* We're not there.

Oh well at least I get to visit old gran when I get to her room and she seems okay. My parents pick me up at the lobby and we head to a relative's wake. After pigging myself out on the food I sit beside my parents on one of the pews. They start conversing with some of my relatives. My uncle, a very stocky bodybuilder inroduces my parents to this spartan dude, one of his friends. "This is the Philippines' strongest man," he says. "He competes internationally and wins a lot of gold medals." The big guy sat quietly in the adjacent pew like a kid waiting for his parents, not the most intimidating sight at the present moment.

Hours of banter pass, and perhaps the cherry on top of my day was this one comment:
"You know your tita so-and-so over there? She used to go after your dad."

EEEEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYYNG?! 0_o

A Poem for the summer

I had a craving for some poetry today so I decided to look this author up. I used to have one of her poetry collections but a friend of mine who lives in Cebu (and is currently studying in Japan) borrowed it from me permanently hehe :p

A Dream of Trees

There is a thing in me that dreamed of trees,
A quiet house, some green and modest acres
A little way from every troubling town,
A little way from factories, schools, laments.
I would have time, I thought, and time to spare,
With only streams and birds for company.
To build out of my life a few wild stanzas.
And then it came to me, that so was death,
A little way away from everywhere.

There is a thing in me still dreams of trees,
But let it go. Homesick for moderation,
Half the world’s artists shrink or fall away.
If any find solution, let him tell it.
Meanwhile I bend my heart toward lamentation
Where, as the times implore our true involvement,
The blades of every crisis point the way.

I would it were not so, but so it is.
Who ever made music of a mild day?

Mary Oliver