jars of clay

(this is a very late post, but for posterity's sake, i shall post this.)

jars of clay is a good band. they are not the best, but they are most definitely not the worst. they are just good. they play music that they believe in. they compose songs with a purpose in mind, a purpose to which everything comes second. and so long as they stick to this purpose, to this belief, to this overriding theme of universal truth expressed in childlike tones, they will to me be a good band.

when the band came to Cebu last february 28 (i told you this is a late post), most of the city did not know them except for some of their popular hits. popularity, after all, is never indicative of genius. but for the rest of us who 'knew' them, it was like a homecoming. finally, a sign that the universe does indeed look after us (zafra). finally, a validation.

i first 'met' joc last Christmas of 2002. nanie decided to give each blockmate a christmas present: a cd with 12 of our favorite songs. i couldn't decide what 12 songs to include, so i just played familiar tunes in my head. one of them was a repetitive song i heard somewhere and began to like immediately - unforgetful you.

while listening to the song, i couldn't help but notice the undoubtable Christian theme. "i never minded calling you a king/ if that meant that i could count on you to give me everything". "you never minded giving us the stars/ and then showing us how blind and unaware of you we are". i told banne about it, and after a couple of google searches, jars of clay, the band, turns out to be christian. we were thrilled. we were hooked.

(it is not a surprise that some Christian bands crossover to contemporary popular genre and have people singing their songs without knowing they are praise and worship songs. this is a common practice, debated upon among the faithful. i would like to subscribe to what jon foreman of switchfoot, yet another Christian band, said: "I think the role of the prophet (not to say that I'm a prophet) is to say the eternal truths in a way that their generation can understand. That's what we're all called to do here on earth — speak truth in relevant ways.")

since then, i only owned one joc album: 1999's if i left the zoo. it was stolen from the SC office. i never recovered it. admittedly, most joc albums and tracks i have are downloaded from various peer2peer systems.

there concert in cebu was wow, amazing, great, hooah, right on, aaah! the band struck me as very expressive. i was really convinced they were quite bold in terms of their music (hey, any band who uses the sound of an old telephone ringing as a background for a track could technically be considered bold), but i wasn't expecting they would be as bold as performers. they would kneel onstage, prostrate themselves and then jump up and down in true rockstar fashion. when dan haseltine sang "You were there when the skies broke wide, wide open", he spread his arms wide and gazed up the midnight sky. he made me feel deprived: i never thought 'five candles' is best enjoyed by acting it out like a church song.

actually, we got the cheapest tickets. as we were about to bemoan our economic status and contemplate cheating by jumping over the barricades, the producers declared an open gate. in a sudden burst of excitement, we ran to the foot of the stage. we were probably 5 feet from them (hence the pictures). all these as they played 'love song for a savior'.

jars of clay is indeed a good band. and any good band knows they must always end their concerts with a love song ('tea and sympathy') and a different kind of love song ('jesus' blood never failed me yet'). listen to joc. they're good for you.

old picture = new picture + sepia

with too much time these days, i am able to browse through computer files that i have accumulated for the past three years. most of them of course were useless, a reinforcement of that new-agey adage that 90% of everything is junk. i, however, chanced upon this old picture of UP Cebu lying idly in a corner of my disk drive:

if you are from UP Cebu this picture should be of interest to you. notice the absence of the concrete "square" that so attempts to give the university symbol some degree of importance by giving it the more regal-sounding dwelling: the oblation square. notice too the existence of the two palm tree-like plants on the opposite sides of the administration building. in the name of progress, these trees have been promptly cut -- once stately, they are now reduced to irrecognizable stumps on the ground. the building is also still fresh and bright, a far cry to the almost Adams Family-like dread the building invokes today. the Oblation, however, is still the same as it was before.

now notice the picture below taken just recently during one of the block's hysterical pictorials. with a little sepia effect, we are taken almost decades from now when this photo shall have been old and, uh, antique-looking:

digital pictures continue to be as fresh and crisp as the day they were taken. we no longer have to deal with the ugly stains and discoloration caused by the acidity of paper and some good 'ol wear and tear. a sad fact as i like the look of an old picture. the browns and the scratches add an entirely new dimension: age -- the feeling that so many fruitful years have passed, been survived and lived through. that no matter how many decades passed by, the people in the photo, like the Oblation behind them, would continue to be strong, unwavering, and loyal, except that they make funny faces and strike pa-model poses once in a while.

egg vendor

i meet a lot of people in those 04L rides i take on my way to school. most of them are USP students, some IT park employees, the rest a motley crew of individuals who make up the filipino working class. of course we never talk to each other, no two strangers ever do these days. in fact the only interactions we have are the usual "palihug..." ("pass my fare, please...") and the occasional strands of someone's hair that whip the face. 04L commuters, like other filipinos who commute by jeepney, have to deal with sitting close to each other, too close, in fact, depending on the driver's mood. this inconvenience (or convenience, depending on seatmate's attractiveness) may be the very determining factor why the filipino is the way he is -- the personal bubble, upon regular invasion could really alter the psyche.

the last interesting person i "met" in an 04L ride was an egg vendor. he was a big burly man complete with unkempt beard and pot belly. he was tall too, and there was an obvious hint of machismo in his gait. it's not so much on the way he looks that makes him interesting, but on what he carried along. he was carrying a big, big basket of eggs filled all the way to the brim, forming a sort of pyramid on top.

when he was about to ride, he courteously asked the USP girls near the entrance/exit if he could take their place so he would be able to get out easily. the girls slid aside, and in an amazing feat of dexterity, the egg vendor maneauvered his basket-full of eggs inside the jeep all the while smiling. "sibugi pa gamay tawn day kay mapisa akong itlog (move a little more please or my eggs would crack)," he said in a deep burly voice in the verge of laughter. the sexual innuendo was not lost in everybody in the jeep, and pretty soon we were laughing with him.

while we were cruising down J. Luna street, the egg vendor had everybody's attention. well, at least his eggs did, as they were unsafely wobbling about with each driver's brakes. once the driver abrubtly braked, an egg on the top of the pyramid rolled down the pile soliciting various degrees of "ay..." and "uy... uy...". when this happened the egg vendor was in the middle of a familliar song he was humming.

the egg vendor got off the jeep near IPI. a guy got off before him to help him with the basket. the egg vendor said his thanks and smiled. he continued his song.

near TESDA, a middle-aged yuppy-type rode the jeep. she was in her complete yuppy regala. not once did she smile.

proof that when you are an egg vendor, you can never take life seriously.

all we need is love...

i know, it's pretty late in the month to post something valentine-y, but all it took was a pre-dinner with some UPS people to get me in the mood to blab about the stuff that makes the world go round.

there, seated amongst cebu business park's giant commercial edifices, in front a miniature lagoon (which we feel is home to the real loch ness monster), the group decided to direct its collective attention to the one person who is obviously too in love for comfort : april (poor soul). you see april recently found herself passionately smitten by another passionate individual, whom we shall not name for fear of further discomfort. later that afternoon, while the group was on its way to ayala, we saw the current object of april's hormonal desires. suddenly, april maneuvered her sturdy physique some 50 meters away from her crush in a span of seconds. this amazing feat of human prowess was performed in front of our group, who was just as bewildered at april's sudden action as all the other people seated in a nearby tambayan were. when april's beau was safely out of anybody's field of vision, april promptly returned to us with a biko in her hand. (the biko she bought as a result of the sudden upsurge of adrenaline, which really could cause hunger.)

what is this thing that would drive perfectly normal people into uncontrollable fits of unpredictable actions? what is this? as far as april, and all other people who has seen it close and looked it in the eyes, 'it' could only be love.

jason said that real love will last a lifetime. that since man is created in the image of God, it is inherent in him (or her) to emulate the true nature of God. and just as God loves humanity, we must pick one person to love for the rest of our lives. anut prays for the man God has set for her. she also prays that the man not think like gian, who thinks differently about the whole love business. the rest of the group (predominantly psychology students, interestingly enough) all had their own little ideas. as we delved more into the very meaning and existence of love, kids ran around us, fishes swam in the lagoon, rats scurry about in the garden, stars went out to listen.

i feel that true love doesn't have to last forever. that sometimes it ends, sometimes it ends too soon. when it does end, wait for the next one to begin. and if indeed love comes again, you don't have to make sure it's going to last forever, just make sure that it's true.

do not go on dismissing all previous loves as 'infatuation' or simple mindlessness (except when they really were!). those, for all you know, were true. they just end, and just as love comes suddenly (by fate, not by choice!), it can go.

but love, when one knows it well, is never untrue.

The Orange - Benjamin Rosenbaum

An orange ruled the world.

It was an unexpected thing, the temporary abdication of Heavenly Providence, entrusting the whole matter to a simple orange.

The orange, in a grove in Florida, humbly accepted the honor. The other oranges, the birds, and the men in their tractors wept with joy; the tractors' motors rumbled hymns of praise.

Airplane pilots passing over would circle the grove and tell their passengers, "Below us is the grove where the orange who rules the world grows on a simple branch." And the passengers would be silent with awe.

The governor of Florida declared every day a holiday. On summer afternoons the Dalai Lama would come to the grove and sit with the orange, and talk about life.

When the time came for the orange to be picked, none of the migrant workers would do it: they went on strike. The foremen wept. The other oranges swore they would turn sour. But the orange who ruled the world said, "No, my friends; it is time."

Finally a man from Chicago, with a heart as windy and cold as Lake Michigan in wintertime, was brought in. He put down his briefcase, climbed up on a ladder, and picked the orange. The birds were silent and the clouds had gone away. The orange thanked the man from Chicago.

They say that when the orange went through the national produce processing and distribution system, certain machines turned to gold, truck drivers had epiphanies, aging rural store managers called their estranged lesbian daughters on Wall Street and all was forgiven.

I bought the orange who ruled the world for 39 cents at Safeway three days ago, and for three days he sat in my fruit basket and was my teacher. Today, he told me, "it is time," and I ate him.

Now we are on our own again.

-------

i wish i could write like this. more on mr. rosenbaum.

J-O-Y

J-O-Y deep in my heart, deep, deep down in my heart.

This little song wakes me up every morning these past few days. If this song is not familiar to you, then you obviously have not taken part in the amazing institution that is the Sunday school. This song brings back memories of Sunday mornings when my mother would leave me and my brother and sister in the care of some lay minister to play games and sing quaint little songs, while Sunday sermon is delivered for the bored elder people. The same mother now finds new purpose for this song – she sings it to my four-month old nephew Wacky who, surprisingly, would only stop crying when the J-O-Y song is sung. Around six in the morning, the house would be filled with mama’s singing and Wacky’s goo’s and gaa’s – an endearing dialogue of lola and apo, of experience and innocence, of strength and vulnerability – all dedicated to the proposition of finding JOY deep in the heart.

job hunting

Job hunting

“Natawagan naka? (Did they call you yet?)” this, along with “Mantayg nakapasar ko uy (I hope I passed)”, are two of the most common lines you get to hear among my blockmates these days. yes, it is that time of the year once more when graduating compsci students of the university are recruited to work in various IT companies all over the philippines.

for some, it has always been an issue of passing the company exams and interviews for the sake of the compensation package. for others, it has been an insecure crusade of self-assurance, that i am just as competent as anyone and just as 'hire-able'. but for all, it has been that endless battle of landing in a perfect job -- whatever definition of perfection one subscribes to.

who doesn't want a great job? after slaving for personhours trying to perfect all the software projects in college, after sweating blood struggling through the dreaded calculus series, after sitting through annoyingly boring STS reports, any blockmate would undoubtedly want to be properly compensated with a great job (or any job, for that matter). as if that is not enough, there are the proud parental units whose expectations are just all too high, you can hardly see where they end from the ground. yes ma, i know i am from UP, but please stop telling people i have a job waiting for me after i graduate because, frankly, i didn't do well in the last technical interview!

a great office, a five-digit salary, perhaps a company car (why not?) -- we want them all.

why?

a story was retold by the jesuit corporate leader chris lowney in his forum "heroic leadership." he talked about a jesuit novice whose assigned job was to be a doorman. the job description for the young fellow was to open the closed door whenever someone knocks from outside, and then close it behind the person who just entered. as you may know, it is not the perfect job in the world -- the compensation package is most likely not that competitive (a favorite term of HR people worldwide), and the task is simply too monotonously numbing. imagine yourself sitting quietly beside the door, and then hearing a knock. you would then have to get up your chair, unbolt the door, make out some form of interaction with the people in a hurry to get passed you, and then bolt the door back again.

the doorman was simply unhappy with his job. that was until he started assessing why he was doing it. after thinking and praying about his intentions, he begins to start a little ritual whenever he starts to hear a knock on the door: he quietly whispers, "Here I come, Lord Jesus."

think about it. the doorman has the worst job in the world, but he has the best intentions. no doubt, he was the best darn doorman in the world!

happy job hunting guys! and remember, wherever life may take us, our worth is not measured by our paychecks. that would be too preposterously cheap.

ding dong!

jars of clay

jars of clay is coming to cebu! yay! it's in their website. they will be performing in banilad (B.R.I.G.H.T. Academy, where is this?) on feb 28. in their website, you can volunteer to post posters and distribute flyers for the band. apparently, they don't go by the laws of commercial events.



let's hope there will be no change of plans.

i have herpes zoaster

just when you thought you are living a pretty normal life, it hits you. you start scratching, your skin feels hot, you get little small blisters in random places. you start feeling something is not right.

you finally manage to overcome your well-founded fear of medical diagnoses, and visit the school physician. at the first sight of the pink developing blisters, she begins asking you standard questions she probably learned in medical school,

"when did this start?"

"what have you been doing?"

"is it painful?"

"i'm not gonna touch you, okay, it might be infectious. are you okay?"



after some last-minute O(n) searching in what seems like a database of medical symptoms all arranged in efficient hash-tables in the physician's mind, she utters the haunting line: "You have herpes zoaster."

herpes? isn't that an STD? turns out, the herpes virus has many cousins. this particular kin, zoaster, resides dormant in everyone who just had chikenpox, until stress excites them. it's perfectly normal, the good doctor informs me, except that there has been no known cure for this virus strain and there have been reported cases of people being blind after the virus infected their eyes. WHAT?! it's bad enough that i have a sex virus' relative living in me, now i'm at risk of being blind!!!

after i broke the news to my friends, they looked at me quizzically and began asking what sort of sexual activity i have participated in during the weekend. i kept repeating that i did not have an STD, and that no, i have a sex life of a ten-year old child thank you very much for asking. they dismissed my protest, and safely concluded that i might have been drinking to much to remember anything. great.

the virus is localized in my right arm. my blisters are now healing and are succesffuly developing into dry scabs. that, however, have not changed the fact that people look at me and turn the opposite direction in a heartbeat. neil took one look at my arm, and screamed, "disgusting!" i miss touching my eyes, as i have not done it for two weeks now for fear of contaminating them with the virus, thereby making me blind.

but in case i become blind, i pledge to start the Worldwide Herpes Zoaster Foundation for Unfortunate People Who Would Have Done Perfectly Well Without The Damn Buggers.

it's been a while

it really has been. the last time i did this was last christmas. i've been incredibly busy these past few days, plus the fact that we haven't had our phone reconnected yet. i'll try to write down as many things as i can, but in case i can't do that... well it's not like people are going to start killing me.