I had a rather interesting day at the office. Some slight squabbles are brewing between the north-south factions; I dare not get into particulars. Rumors cannot be helped, can they? And some people just don’t grow up, no matter how old they are. There was an Indian woman who came by, and left me afflicted with accent mimicry for the rest of the day. A friend told me I write like a younger version of Jessica Zafra, which I don’t know how to take since when I read her I can’t understand half of what she’s saying, albeit the fact that she is good with words. I spent a good hour of my life folding receipts while wondering how the UPD CRS will opt to destroy my life, armed with the seemingly harmless words “Priority: Regular.”
In other news: They have started taxing books. I thought it was a joke designed to annoy those of us who happen to like long strings of words bounded between titles and blurbs. Alas, it is not. This means higher prices for imported books (read: 90 % of books in this country) and a longer wait for new releases. Thank you, Department of Finance. You’re brilliant. I blame Twilight for this. Rowling didn’t do this damage... Or is it just the recession, now also known as zeitgeist?
In other, other news: The Manny Pacquiao craze has promptly left the country like a less-destructive version of Emong, only to be replaced with another craze, this time in the form of The Two Davids.
Mom: Andito na yung dalawang David!!!
Me: *monotone* Yey...
Suddenly, swine flu threats reputed to be extremely high in populous areas all but vanished in a puff of fanaticism. A lot of people went to the malls and watched their guest appearances, which I didn’t because (a) I had to go to work, and (b) even if I didn’t, I’m not a fanatic. I have yet to discover a cause for which I will brave the long lines toward a totem of pop culture.
Little thoughts from the randomness I like to call my life:
The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald. A little dragging at the beginning, gets to the action towards the end. Sometimes shocking. Fitzgerald’s artistic ability shines through in every page. Serves up money, pain, haunting images and an unlikely friendship.
Slaughterhouse Five, by Kurt Vonnegut. My new favorite book. All I can say is BRILLIANT. Of all the World War 2 novels I’ve read, this is the best so far. Because it’s different. It’s filled with old ideas presented in new ways, and new ideas that make it unforgettable. Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time, indeed, and makes you wonder if you haven’t. MUST READ.
I am not finished with Lolita (Nabokov), and Conversations with the Devil (Jeff Rovin a.k.a Tom Clancy). Curse the human necessity for sleep.
...
The SpiderPigs have been talking incessantly about Meteor Garden, now that Boys Over Flowers is out. (Note: SpiderPigs is a collective name for the officemates, since we burst into “Spider pig, spider pig, does whatever a spider pig does” when we’re suffering from paper shock. If you don’t know that song, go watch the Simpsons Movie.)
So, what about Meteor Garden and Boys over Flowers? The consensus is that MG is the better version, although that might just be time sweetening the recollection.
Personally, I think the delivery of MG was better, not to mention the dubbing. But what do I know. I’ll leave this up to the real fans.
One SpiderPig thinks she wants to become a nun. I think that is in all plausibility, since I go into anaphylactic shock every time she talks about her church, i.e. every five minutes. She’s way too nice for her own good. She loves children, and she talks about it a lot, which is always enough to make me throw myself towards the nearest exit, where her words will not reach my aural cavities. Sorry, dear, I really can’t stand little runts, neither in 3D nor in spoken word. (Psycho-logist says I hate kids because I didn’t have playmates. I concur. Slightly.)
In Idol Land: Danny Gokey is out, Kris Allen and Adam Lambert are the final two. Is it me, or is it not as interesting as last year? I have all but lost the will to keep watching. I have nothing against gays, so that isn’t the issue. It’s just that Lambert does the same screechy thing over and over. Kris Allen, on the other hand, has a morsel of talent and a healthy helping of pretty boy charm. I want neither to win. See bitterness and negativity dropping from that sentence?
Sigh. I’m just a regular Simon Cowell with a dash of Ebenezer Scrooge and a pinch of Ambrose Bierce. I can’t help it. If it’s optimism versus pessimism, I’d rather be either proven right or pleasantly surprised, than be mistaken at the top of my lungs.
Showing posts with label rants. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rants. Show all posts
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Saturday, March 28, 2009
The Chemical Kinetics of Flings and, oh, Happy Birthday Dear!
It's official, Rowane Fesalbon is eighteen. That means two of the thirteen Dears can already go to jail. :))
She had her party last night at Club Mwah, which, as my friend Chito says, probably cost enough to pay for our tuition fees for the rest of our college lives. Chito studies in Mapua, so in my case that already includes my Masters Degree.
Dress count was five or six. She looked gorgeous, by the way, just refer to the Multiply sites if you know her. My favorite part was the Egyptian dance. She seriously looked like Cleopatra there. Worst part? Well, I don’t know if it was that bad but to me it was pretty crazy: the 18 candles’ dance number, a (con)fusion of Rowane’s friends, family members, and members of Kundirana, to the tune of Sexy Love. Modern day cotillion.
On another note, I shall now attempt to explain the development of a fling through Chemical Kinetics. No reason, really, I just feel like it.
A fling is a quirk in the fabric of space-time, defined by Webster as a brief period of pleasures. It is often preceded by flirting and succeeded by Step 6 in what I like to call the extended edition of Levinger’s ABCDE model of intimate relationships: Forgetting.
For a reaction (the fling) to take place, the reacting particles have to collide. As we all know, not all collisions are effective (that's why some people get stood up, and some others get dumped, etcetera). Now, for a collision to take place, there has to be proper orientation of the particles (same mindset, same interests, same purpose for being in a certain place). There also has to be sufficient energy to make the reaction happen. (When everything's hyped up by internal or external stimuli, then that part becomes easy.) This is called the activation energy, and it has to be present during the reactants' transition stage (in this case, the flirting stage). The presence of a catalyst also helps, because it speeds up the reaction without detriment to itself. (In fling development, the catalyst is usually another person.) I'm talking about the extremely fast reaction because like I said this is a space-time oddity. But when the fling does happen, it will eventually fail because the reaction does not become stable. It is a law of nature that for things to become stable, they must have low energy. By orientation, flings are emotionally charged, and thus the energy is too high. Blame the dopamine and the notable absence of oxytocin.
Segue, the chemical patterns of love and certain mental illnesses like OCD are alike. Not that I’m saying “love” is present in most flings, because people are not likely to recognize the emotions present in flings as “love.” And what is it if not a social construct anyway.
Okaaay. I'm taking the train back to reality now. I have to face one more paper and two more final exams (Math 14-Trigonometry and Social Science 3- Gender and Sexuality) before my summer officially starts on the first of April. I want everything to go as planned, heaven forbid another episode of Murphy’s Law... Did I mention I was ONE HOUR LATE for my French 11 finals? Ouais. I took it in one hour whereas my classmates took it in two. Here's to hoping I passed. On a less depressing note, I'm already exempted from the Nat Sci 1 (Physics-Chemistry) finals. On another depressing note, the results for the Math 3rd test are already available, I’m just not looking at them. I don’t want the excrement to hit the ventilation just yet.
I seriously just want all of this to be over... The only bad thing about the summer is the heat. Otherwise, I'm perfectly fine with it, because it means I will be taking that much needed break. No summer classes!
Again, HAPPY BIRTHDAY ROWANE MAY AUSTRIA FESALBON!!!!!! We love you so much. Your debut was definitely something special. :)
Advanced "Happy Birthdays" to my only sister, Wakee (April 16—it’s her fifth) and to Marie Francoise Therese Portillo Salcedo (April 19—her eighteenth).
She had her party last night at Club Mwah, which, as my friend Chito says, probably cost enough to pay for our tuition fees for the rest of our college lives. Chito studies in Mapua, so in my case that already includes my Masters Degree.
Dress count was five or six. She looked gorgeous, by the way, just refer to the Multiply sites if you know her. My favorite part was the Egyptian dance. She seriously looked like Cleopatra there. Worst part? Well, I don’t know if it was that bad but to me it was pretty crazy: the 18 candles’ dance number, a (con)fusion of Rowane’s friends, family members, and members of Kundirana, to the tune of Sexy Love. Modern day cotillion.
On another note, I shall now attempt to explain the development of a fling through Chemical Kinetics. No reason, really, I just feel like it.
A fling is a quirk in the fabric of space-time, defined by Webster as a brief period of pleasures. It is often preceded by flirting and succeeded by Step 6 in what I like to call the extended edition of Levinger’s ABCDE model of intimate relationships: Forgetting.
For a reaction (the fling) to take place, the reacting particles have to collide. As we all know, not all collisions are effective (that's why some people get stood up, and some others get dumped, etcetera). Now, for a collision to take place, there has to be proper orientation of the particles (same mindset, same interests, same purpose for being in a certain place). There also has to be sufficient energy to make the reaction happen. (When everything's hyped up by internal or external stimuli, then that part becomes easy.) This is called the activation energy, and it has to be present during the reactants' transition stage (in this case, the flirting stage). The presence of a catalyst also helps, because it speeds up the reaction without detriment to itself. (In fling development, the catalyst is usually another person.) I'm talking about the extremely fast reaction because like I said this is a space-time oddity. But when the fling does happen, it will eventually fail because the reaction does not become stable. It is a law of nature that for things to become stable, they must have low energy. By orientation, flings are emotionally charged, and thus the energy is too high. Blame the dopamine and the notable absence of oxytocin.
Segue, the chemical patterns of love and certain mental illnesses like OCD are alike. Not that I’m saying “love” is present in most flings, because people are not likely to recognize the emotions present in flings as “love.” And what is it if not a social construct anyway.
Okaaay. I'm taking the train back to reality now. I have to face one more paper and two more final exams (Math 14-Trigonometry and Social Science 3- Gender and Sexuality) before my summer officially starts on the first of April. I want everything to go as planned, heaven forbid another episode of Murphy’s Law... Did I mention I was ONE HOUR LATE for my French 11 finals? Ouais. I took it in one hour whereas my classmates took it in two. Here's to hoping I passed. On a less depressing note, I'm already exempted from the Nat Sci 1 (Physics-Chemistry) finals. On another depressing note, the results for the Math 3rd test are already available, I’m just not looking at them. I don’t want the excrement to hit the ventilation just yet.
I seriously just want all of this to be over... The only bad thing about the summer is the heat. Otherwise, I'm perfectly fine with it, because it means I will be taking that much needed break. No summer classes!
Again, HAPPY BIRTHDAY ROWANE MAY AUSTRIA FESALBON!!!!!! We love you so much. Your debut was definitely something special. :)
Advanced "Happy Birthdays" to my only sister, Wakee (April 16—it’s her fifth) and to Marie Francoise Therese Portillo Salcedo (April 19—her eighteenth).
Friday, February 13, 2009
Friday the Thirteenth, February Fourteenth
Excerpts from two of the books I’m reading. (Yes I read based on my mood.)
“The great adventure of our lives. What does it mean to die when you can live until the end of the world? And what is ‘the end of the world’ except a phrase, because who knows even what is the world itself? I had now lived in two centuries, seen the illusions of one utterly shattered by the other, been eternally young and eternally ancient, possessing no illusions, living moment to moment in a way that made me picture a silver clock ticking in a void: the painted face, the delicately carved hands looked upon by no one, looking out at no one, illuminated by a light which was not a light, like the light by which God made the world before He had made light. Ticking, ticking, ticking, the precision of the clock, in a room as vast as the universe.”
--- Louis (Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire)
“There are two kinds of visual memory: one when you skillfully recreate an image in the laboratory of your mind, with your eyes open (and then I see Annabel in such general terms as:
"honey-colored skin,"
"thick arms,"
"brown bobbed hair,"
"long lashes,"
"big bright mouth"); and the other when you instantly evoke, with shut eyes, on the dark inner side of your eyelids, the objective, absolutely optical replica of a beloved face, a little ghost in natural colors (and this is how I see Lolita).”
--- Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
Friday the Thirteenth
I don’t want to spend too much space on retelling my day, so I’ll stick with the highlights.
---Lost a Scrabble game. Another Scrabble game, I should say.
---Our professor in Pan Pil 12 didn’t show up; turned out he wasn’t boycotting us (this time) ---because he was also absent from the other class.
---Failed a Math long test. Again. Ugh. Math is NOT a four letter word, people. I know being bad at Math doesn’t automatically make me dumb, (or does it?) but it’s just so annoying that I can’t get it right.
---Inducted a new member into the “SINGLE CIVIL STATUS FOREVER MOVEMENT:” Demi. Founder: me. Members: Katrina, Demi, and Kim. (Kim, you are in, right?) Finding members for this kind of group is not such an easy feat. It takes a certain ideological orientation. :))
---Lent Demi five books (Crichton, Brown, Sheldon, Deaver, Grisham), you know, basic bestsellers. So she can get out of the Twilight phase her peers over in PUP have led her into.
---Spilled hot gravy over my left hand, courtesy of a loosely capped thermos. HOMO ERRONEOUS.
---Got scolded at by my parents for failing Math. Doesn’t even matter that I got a 99 over 103 in Pol Sci, does it? (91, technically, since there were 8 bonus points: 5 for perfect attendance, 2 for corrections, and 1 for 3 political rights. I LOVE MY PROFESSOR :D )
---Saw a very dead person on the sidewalk. Not kidding. His body was positioned at an angle which suggested he either jumped, or was flung toward said sidewalk by a speeding car. Because normal spines don’t form shapes like that. (This was on the road between Shangri-la and Starmall).
February Fourteenth (or, Why I Don’t Like Valentine’s Day)
I’ll also try to keep this as short as possible.
“St. Valentine’s Day — a day to declare your affection for that special someone.
And what did Saint Valentine have to do with love notes and affection? Absolutely nothing! In fact, there’s a good chance he may never have existed.” (Brown P. Origin of Valentine’s Day may surprise us. The Enid News & Eagle, Enid OK, Published: January 16, 2008)
I am not a hopeless romantic. More accurately, I am not a romantic at all. When most people go “awww” I go “ewww,” and when they go “ewww” I go “bwahahaha!!!”
I think fairy tales are the worst expression of patriarchy, “Prince” should never be used in conjunction with “Charming,” and romantic comedies are a waste of resources.
I cannot utter the word “love” allowed without cringing, and I’d rather watch paint peel than read a romance novel.
I am also not the best person to discuss Valentine’s Day.
But since everybody is celebrating/ stressing over it, I thought I should at least contribute to the discourses.
So what do I think about Valentine’s Day?
It’s a highly commercialized holiday (which begs the question “Which holiday isn’t?”) with roots that have absolutely nothing to do with the inane romantic nonsense that people today associate it with.
Valentine’s Day is said to be rooted in the Roman festival Lupercalia, celebrated in honor of Lupa, the she-wolf who suckled the infant orphans Romulus and Remus. Romulus and Remus are said to be the founders of Rome. (Lupercalia literally means “Wolf Festival.”)
During Lupercalia, in honor of Juno Februata, the names of young women were put into a box and names were drawn by lot. The boys and girls who were matched would be considered partners for the year, which began in March. Yes, that means partners they’re supposed to be making babies with. You have to give the Romans props for creativity.
If you’re going to argue that the “names drawn by lot” that they did to pick their sexual partners was the “romantic” part, just picture yourself in that setting. Yes, veeeery romantic.
To Christianize this (in their eyes) decidedly pagan ritual, the church officials changed the name to St. Valentine’s Day, and replaced drawing the girls’ names with drawing saints’ names. No, they don’t make babies with the saints. They emulate the life of the saint they get. Nifty, huh? Unfortunately, this didn’t work and fell out of practice soon after.
“SAINT, n., a dead sinner revised and edited.” –Ambrose Bierce
Another proposed provenance of V Day is the story that Europeans believed that on February 14th the birds began to choose their mates. “The tradition of birds choosing their mates on St. Valentine's Day led to the idea that boys and girls would do the same. Now when a youth drew a girl's name, he wore it on his sleeve, and attended and protected her during the following year. This made the girl his valentine and they exchanged love tokens throughout the year. This practice had many alterations and changes through the years.”
Let’s go to Saint Valentine, and just why he’s supposed to be a hopeless romantic.
“Until 1969, the Catholic Church formally recognized eleven Valentine's Days. The Valentines honored on February 14 are Valentine of Rome and Valentine of Terni. Valentine of Rome was a priest in Rome who suffered martyrdom about AD 269 and was buried on the Via Flaminia. Valentine of Terni became bishop of Interamna (modern Terni) about AD 197 and is said to have been killed during the persecution of Emperor Aurelian. He is also buried on the Via Flaminia, but in a different location than Valentine of Rome.
No romantic elements are present in the original early medieval biographies of either of these martyrs. By the time a Saint Valentine became linked to romance in the fourteenth century, distinctions between Valentine of Rome and Valentine of Terni were utterly lost.” (Wikipedia)
“St Valentine was persecuted as a Christian and interrogated by Roman Emperor Claudius II in person. Claudius was impressed by Valentine and had a discussion with him, attempting to get him to convert to Roman paganism in order to save his life. Valentine refused and tried to convert Claudius to Christianity instead. Because of this, he was executed. Before his execution, he is reported to have performed a miracle by healing the blind daughter of his jailer.” (Legenda Aurea)
There. That’s probably the part people found romantic.
Fast forward to why Valentine’s Day is as eerily cheesy as it is today.
“The reinvention of Saint Valentine's Day in the 1840s has been traced by Leigh Eric Schmidt. As a writer in Graham's American Monthly observed in 1849, "Saint Valentine's Day... is becoming, nay it has become, a national holyday."[28] In the United States, the first mass-produced valentines of embossed paper lace were produced and sold shortly after 1847 by Esther Howland (1828-1904) of Worcester, Massachusetts. Her father operated a large book and stationery store, but Howland took her inspiration from an English valentine she had received, so clearly the practice of sending Valentine's cards had existed in England before it became popular in North America. The English practice of sending Valentine's cards appears in Elizabeth Gaskell's Mr. Harrison's Confessions (published 1851).”
But that’s not all. Do you know why the world (well, the capitalists, at least) cannot afford to disillusion the populace about the truth regarding Valentine’s Day?
It’s an industry in itself.
“110 million roses, the majority red, will be sold and delivered within a three-day time period.
California produces 60 percent of American roses, but the vast number sold on Valentine's Day in the United States are imported, mostly from South America.
15% of U.S. women send themselves flowers on Valentine's Day.
About 1 billion Valentine's Day cards are exchanged each year. That's the largest seasonal card-sending occasion of the year, next to Christmas.
One-third of all Valentine cards are accompanied by gifts.
Romantic cards are the best-sellers. Victorian era-influenced cards are prominent this year.
More than 50 percent of cards are sold the week of the holiday, with the largest and most elaborate Valentine cards sold 48 hours before February 14.
70 percent of those celebrating the holiday give a card, followed by a telephone call (49 percent), gift (48 percent), special dinner (37 percent), candy (33 percent) restaurant meal (30 percent), and flowers (19 percent).
Teachers will receive the most Valentine's Day cards, followed by children, mothers, wives, and then, sweethearts. Children ages 6 to 10 exchange more than 650 million Valentine's cards with teachers, classmates, and family members
Hallmark has over 1330 different cards specifically for Valentine's Day.
Conversation Hearts: In 1866, candy manufacturer NECCO made the first "Conversation Hearts." According to NECCO, eight billion of these little candies are sold between January 1 and February 14.
More than 35 million heart-shaped boxes of chocolate will be sold for Valentine's Day.”
Translation: Moneeeeeeeeeeeey.
Now really, think of how much people would lose in stocks if people suddenly refused to celebrate Valentine’s Day. Oh those poor, poor capitalists. Oh the irony.
I refuse to celebrate “Valentine’s Day” because:
--- It brings about increased levels of insecurity and insanity in single people who actually care about these so-called relationships. These people’s friends *cough, cough* then receive their wailing calls, bottled tears and uber irritating text messages about looove. Which then makes the said friends throw their communication devices against the wall in disgust. Then, when said devices break, they will have to buy new ones. Which obviously sucks for these friends.
---It brings about the worst of the sexual binaries. Seriously. Some people *cough, cough* become prone to shuddering and are forced to suppress their gag reflexes when they hear female peers talking about what they “expect.”
---People who do not conform to the couples-are-happy-singles-are-sad trend are thought to be abnormal. Which some people don’t mind, since they are almost, but not quite, entirely unlike “abnormal.” But it would be nice if stereotypically-minded people opened their eyes for once.
---Genuine sentiments are reduced to cute little sayings on Hallmark cards; efforts are based on how much gifts cost, and normal relationships are incited to fast-forward in time for this non-legitimate holiday. “V Day deprives people of their fundamental right to choose when to express their feelings.” (Jessica Zafra)
---For a lot of people, V Day means sex, and sex (unprotected, that is) means an exponential growth in population. More hotel and motel profit, definitely. RH Bill much? I don’t care what your bible says, I care about practicality.
---Relationships are (or so I’ve observed) incredibly complicated fragile things with many stages, such as denial, anger, fear, bargaining, acceptance—okay, so those are the stages of death. But V Day introduces a new factor into the equation, which makes even the well-adjusted among us unleash their inner neuroses.
---PDA alert!!! So much pheromones being made during the days leading up to V Day! I don’t know how many couples I saw HHWW. Or HHWD -- driving. Or HHWE—eating. Or HHWR—reading. Or... you get the idea. (Top tip from Nat Geo: drink an anti-depressant like Prozac so your dopamine levels return to normal. It dampens the sex drive and dulls the libido.)
---Traffic. Road traffic, network traffic, etcetera traffic. I don’t even know how to explain why lines are quadrupled and public transportation becomes more of a hassle than usual.
---I further capitalism enough as it is.
---So. Many. Hearts. On the windows, on the walls, on people’s clothes... The “heart,” as far as I know, is a gross looking pump whose arteries get clogged from fat. Not a cute little shape THAT IS EVERYWHERE.
Me: We had to hold little plastic hearts during the Sharon taping...
R: Really? So what was it like coming in contact with a heart for the very first time?
Touché.
--- And my main reason: I DON’T UNDERSTAND IT. I have made a resolution since last year to not celebrate/observe anything I don’t understand. Because that’s pretty irrational. “Let’s observe Ash Wednesday.” “Why?” “Because the church said so.” Okaaay. And V Day is one of those “celebrations” I just don’t get. Like Christmas—but that’s another story for another time. (P.S. The V Day reason “it’s a celebration of love” doesn’t work because you can celebrate love everyday, as opposed to, say, celebrating your birthday, or Easter Sunday everyday. Argument: if you celebrate something everyday, then it isn’t very special anymore. Counter argument: Whatever happened to “love will never run out,” and “infinite love,” and “I will always love you”? Why not celebrate it everyday instead of concentrating all your efforts in a single day? It’s like, celebrate on February 14 and you can be insensitive for the rest of the year... You had a great V Day anyway. That’s also like saying, “Let’s celebrate Independence Day on one day by wearing the Philippine flag, so to speak, and be Brown Americans for the rest of the 364 days—It won’t matter, we had a great Independence Day.”)
---People who then proceed to talk about the foolish qualities involved with V Day are declared bitter and loveless. As for me... Bitter, no. Loveless, yes. It’s either biological or psychological: either I can’t sustain the levels of dopamine needed and my serotonin level cannot leave ‘normal’, or I’m just too wrapped up in myself to notice anything else. See, the mantra is: unless everything in my life is up to par, I have no business meddling in others’.
I’m not about to coerce anyone into not celebrating this event, since that is purely your prerogative. (Aaand you can file a case against me in court if I did. A human rights violation case is not easy to talk yourself out of.)
So. Have a joyous celebration of the Roman (pagan) holiday of Lupercalia, and/or the mating season of birds, and/or St. Valentine of Rome/Terni’s feast day.
Why so many people want to celebrate a she-wolf, the founding of Rome, avian practices, and saints that have nothing to do with romance as "heart's day" is way beyond me.
“The great adventure of our lives. What does it mean to die when you can live until the end of the world? And what is ‘the end of the world’ except a phrase, because who knows even what is the world itself? I had now lived in two centuries, seen the illusions of one utterly shattered by the other, been eternally young and eternally ancient, possessing no illusions, living moment to moment in a way that made me picture a silver clock ticking in a void: the painted face, the delicately carved hands looked upon by no one, looking out at no one, illuminated by a light which was not a light, like the light by which God made the world before He had made light. Ticking, ticking, ticking, the precision of the clock, in a room as vast as the universe.”
--- Louis (Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire)
“There are two kinds of visual memory: one when you skillfully recreate an image in the laboratory of your mind, with your eyes open (and then I see Annabel in such general terms as:
"honey-colored skin,"
"thick arms,"
"brown bobbed hair,"
"long lashes,"
"big bright mouth"); and the other when you instantly evoke, with shut eyes, on the dark inner side of your eyelids, the objective, absolutely optical replica of a beloved face, a little ghost in natural colors (and this is how I see Lolita).”
--- Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
Friday the Thirteenth
I don’t want to spend too much space on retelling my day, so I’ll stick with the highlights.
---Lost a Scrabble game. Another Scrabble game, I should say.
---Our professor in Pan Pil 12 didn’t show up; turned out he wasn’t boycotting us (this time) ---because he was also absent from the other class.
---Failed a Math long test. Again. Ugh. Math is NOT a four letter word, people. I know being bad at Math doesn’t automatically make me dumb, (or does it?) but it’s just so annoying that I can’t get it right.
---Inducted a new member into the “SINGLE CIVIL STATUS FOREVER MOVEMENT:” Demi. Founder: me. Members: Katrina, Demi, and Kim. (Kim, you are in, right?) Finding members for this kind of group is not such an easy feat. It takes a certain ideological orientation. :))
---Lent Demi five books (Crichton, Brown, Sheldon, Deaver, Grisham), you know, basic bestsellers. So she can get out of the Twilight phase her peers over in PUP have led her into.
---Spilled hot gravy over my left hand, courtesy of a loosely capped thermos. HOMO ERRONEOUS.
---Got scolded at by my parents for failing Math. Doesn’t even matter that I got a 99 over 103 in Pol Sci, does it? (91, technically, since there were 8 bonus points: 5 for perfect attendance, 2 for corrections, and 1 for 3 political rights. I LOVE MY PROFESSOR :D )
---Saw a very dead person on the sidewalk. Not kidding. His body was positioned at an angle which suggested he either jumped, or was flung toward said sidewalk by a speeding car. Because normal spines don’t form shapes like that. (This was on the road between Shangri-la and Starmall).
February Fourteenth (or, Why I Don’t Like Valentine’s Day)
I’ll also try to keep this as short as possible.
“St. Valentine’s Day — a day to declare your affection for that special someone.
And what did Saint Valentine have to do with love notes and affection? Absolutely nothing! In fact, there’s a good chance he may never have existed.” (Brown P. Origin of Valentine’s Day may surprise us. The Enid News & Eagle, Enid OK, Published: January 16, 2008)
I am not a hopeless romantic. More accurately, I am not a romantic at all. When most people go “awww” I go “ewww,” and when they go “ewww” I go “bwahahaha!!!”
I think fairy tales are the worst expression of patriarchy, “Prince” should never be used in conjunction with “Charming,” and romantic comedies are a waste of resources.
I cannot utter the word “love” allowed without cringing, and I’d rather watch paint peel than read a romance novel.
I am also not the best person to discuss Valentine’s Day.
But since everybody is celebrating/ stressing over it, I thought I should at least contribute to the discourses.
So what do I think about Valentine’s Day?
It’s a highly commercialized holiday (which begs the question “Which holiday isn’t?”) with roots that have absolutely nothing to do with the inane romantic nonsense that people today associate it with.
Valentine’s Day is said to be rooted in the Roman festival Lupercalia, celebrated in honor of Lupa, the she-wolf who suckled the infant orphans Romulus and Remus. Romulus and Remus are said to be the founders of Rome. (Lupercalia literally means “Wolf Festival.”)
During Lupercalia, in honor of Juno Februata, the names of young women were put into a box and names were drawn by lot. The boys and girls who were matched would be considered partners for the year, which began in March. Yes, that means partners they’re supposed to be making babies with. You have to give the Romans props for creativity.
If you’re going to argue that the “names drawn by lot” that they did to pick their sexual partners was the “romantic” part, just picture yourself in that setting. Yes, veeeery romantic.
To Christianize this (in their eyes) decidedly pagan ritual, the church officials changed the name to St. Valentine’s Day, and replaced drawing the girls’ names with drawing saints’ names. No, they don’t make babies with the saints. They emulate the life of the saint they get. Nifty, huh? Unfortunately, this didn’t work and fell out of practice soon after.
“SAINT, n., a dead sinner revised and edited.” –Ambrose Bierce
Another proposed provenance of V Day is the story that Europeans believed that on February 14th the birds began to choose their mates. “The tradition of birds choosing their mates on St. Valentine's Day led to the idea that boys and girls would do the same. Now when a youth drew a girl's name, he wore it on his sleeve, and attended and protected her during the following year. This made the girl his valentine and they exchanged love tokens throughout the year. This practice had many alterations and changes through the years.”
Let’s go to Saint Valentine, and just why he’s supposed to be a hopeless romantic.
“Until 1969, the Catholic Church formally recognized eleven Valentine's Days. The Valentines honored on February 14 are Valentine of Rome and Valentine of Terni. Valentine of Rome was a priest in Rome who suffered martyrdom about AD 269 and was buried on the Via Flaminia. Valentine of Terni became bishop of Interamna (modern Terni) about AD 197 and is said to have been killed during the persecution of Emperor Aurelian. He is also buried on the Via Flaminia, but in a different location than Valentine of Rome.
No romantic elements are present in the original early medieval biographies of either of these martyrs. By the time a Saint Valentine became linked to romance in the fourteenth century, distinctions between Valentine of Rome and Valentine of Terni were utterly lost.” (Wikipedia)
“St Valentine was persecuted as a Christian and interrogated by Roman Emperor Claudius II in person. Claudius was impressed by Valentine and had a discussion with him, attempting to get him to convert to Roman paganism in order to save his life. Valentine refused and tried to convert Claudius to Christianity instead. Because of this, he was executed. Before his execution, he is reported to have performed a miracle by healing the blind daughter of his jailer.” (Legenda Aurea)
There. That’s probably the part people found romantic.
Fast forward to why Valentine’s Day is as eerily cheesy as it is today.
“The reinvention of Saint Valentine's Day in the 1840s has been traced by Leigh Eric Schmidt. As a writer in Graham's American Monthly observed in 1849, "Saint Valentine's Day... is becoming, nay it has become, a national holyday."[28] In the United States, the first mass-produced valentines of embossed paper lace were produced and sold shortly after 1847 by Esther Howland (1828-1904) of Worcester, Massachusetts. Her father operated a large book and stationery store, but Howland took her inspiration from an English valentine she had received, so clearly the practice of sending Valentine's cards had existed in England before it became popular in North America. The English practice of sending Valentine's cards appears in Elizabeth Gaskell's Mr. Harrison's Confessions (published 1851).”
But that’s not all. Do you know why the world (well, the capitalists, at least) cannot afford to disillusion the populace about the truth regarding Valentine’s Day?
It’s an industry in itself.
“110 million roses, the majority red, will be sold and delivered within a three-day time period.
California produces 60 percent of American roses, but the vast number sold on Valentine's Day in the United States are imported, mostly from South America.
15% of U.S. women send themselves flowers on Valentine's Day.
About 1 billion Valentine's Day cards are exchanged each year. That's the largest seasonal card-sending occasion of the year, next to Christmas.
One-third of all Valentine cards are accompanied by gifts.
Romantic cards are the best-sellers. Victorian era-influenced cards are prominent this year.
More than 50 percent of cards are sold the week of the holiday, with the largest and most elaborate Valentine cards sold 48 hours before February 14.
70 percent of those celebrating the holiday give a card, followed by a telephone call (49 percent), gift (48 percent), special dinner (37 percent), candy (33 percent) restaurant meal (30 percent), and flowers (19 percent).
Teachers will receive the most Valentine's Day cards, followed by children, mothers, wives, and then, sweethearts. Children ages 6 to 10 exchange more than 650 million Valentine's cards with teachers, classmates, and family members
Hallmark has over 1330 different cards specifically for Valentine's Day.
Conversation Hearts: In 1866, candy manufacturer NECCO made the first "Conversation Hearts." According to NECCO, eight billion of these little candies are sold between January 1 and February 14.
More than 35 million heart-shaped boxes of chocolate will be sold for Valentine's Day.”
Translation: Moneeeeeeeeeeeey.
Now really, think of how much people would lose in stocks if people suddenly refused to celebrate Valentine’s Day. Oh those poor, poor capitalists. Oh the irony.
I refuse to celebrate “Valentine’s Day” because:
--- It brings about increased levels of insecurity and insanity in single people who actually care about these so-called relationships. These people’s friends *cough, cough* then receive their wailing calls, bottled tears and uber irritating text messages about looove. Which then makes the said friends throw their communication devices against the wall in disgust. Then, when said devices break, they will have to buy new ones. Which obviously sucks for these friends.
---It brings about the worst of the sexual binaries. Seriously. Some people *cough, cough* become prone to shuddering and are forced to suppress their gag reflexes when they hear female peers talking about what they “expect.”
---People who do not conform to the couples-are-happy-singles-are-sad trend are thought to be abnormal. Which some people don’t mind, since they are almost, but not quite, entirely unlike “abnormal.” But it would be nice if stereotypically-minded people opened their eyes for once.
---Genuine sentiments are reduced to cute little sayings on Hallmark cards; efforts are based on how much gifts cost, and normal relationships are incited to fast-forward in time for this non-legitimate holiday. “V Day deprives people of their fundamental right to choose when to express their feelings.” (Jessica Zafra)
---For a lot of people, V Day means sex, and sex (unprotected, that is) means an exponential growth in population. More hotel and motel profit, definitely. RH Bill much? I don’t care what your bible says, I care about practicality.
---Relationships are (or so I’ve observed) incredibly complicated fragile things with many stages, such as denial, anger, fear, bargaining, acceptance—okay, so those are the stages of death. But V Day introduces a new factor into the equation, which makes even the well-adjusted among us unleash their inner neuroses.
---PDA alert!!! So much pheromones being made during the days leading up to V Day! I don’t know how many couples I saw HHWW. Or HHWD -- driving. Or HHWE—eating. Or HHWR—reading. Or... you get the idea. (Top tip from Nat Geo: drink an anti-depressant like Prozac so your dopamine levels return to normal. It dampens the sex drive and dulls the libido.)
---Traffic. Road traffic, network traffic, etcetera traffic. I don’t even know how to explain why lines are quadrupled and public transportation becomes more of a hassle than usual.
---I further capitalism enough as it is.
---So. Many. Hearts. On the windows, on the walls, on people’s clothes... The “heart,” as far as I know, is a gross looking pump whose arteries get clogged from fat. Not a cute little shape THAT IS EVERYWHERE.
Me: We had to hold little plastic hearts during the Sharon taping...
R: Really? So what was it like coming in contact with a heart for the very first time?
Touché.
--- And my main reason: I DON’T UNDERSTAND IT. I have made a resolution since last year to not celebrate/observe anything I don’t understand. Because that’s pretty irrational. “Let’s observe Ash Wednesday.” “Why?” “Because the church said so.” Okaaay. And V Day is one of those “celebrations” I just don’t get. Like Christmas—but that’s another story for another time. (P.S. The V Day reason “it’s a celebration of love” doesn’t work because you can celebrate love everyday, as opposed to, say, celebrating your birthday, or Easter Sunday everyday. Argument: if you celebrate something everyday, then it isn’t very special anymore. Counter argument: Whatever happened to “love will never run out,” and “infinite love,” and “I will always love you”? Why not celebrate it everyday instead of concentrating all your efforts in a single day? It’s like, celebrate on February 14 and you can be insensitive for the rest of the year... You had a great V Day anyway. That’s also like saying, “Let’s celebrate Independence Day on one day by wearing the Philippine flag, so to speak, and be Brown Americans for the rest of the 364 days—It won’t matter, we had a great Independence Day.”)
---People who then proceed to talk about the foolish qualities involved with V Day are declared bitter and loveless. As for me... Bitter, no. Loveless, yes. It’s either biological or psychological: either I can’t sustain the levels of dopamine needed and my serotonin level cannot leave ‘normal’, or I’m just too wrapped up in myself to notice anything else. See, the mantra is: unless everything in my life is up to par, I have no business meddling in others’.
I’m not about to coerce anyone into not celebrating this event, since that is purely your prerogative. (Aaand you can file a case against me in court if I did. A human rights violation case is not easy to talk yourself out of.)
So. Have a joyous celebration of the Roman (pagan) holiday of Lupercalia, and/or the mating season of birds, and/or St. Valentine of Rome/Terni’s feast day.
Why so many people want to celebrate a she-wolf, the founding of Rome, avian practices, and saints that have nothing to do with romance as "heart's day" is way beyond me.
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