laurganism.com |

Whenever we run out of things to do, Pat and I resort to watching South Park. In the middle of today’s random episode, Douche and Turd, I thought it’d be damn funny if I somehow managed to play this at school before the next student council elections. The idea was short-lived - not because I feared that the Jesuits would send me to hell, but because I remembered that that kind of scenario just won’t apply to Ateneo student council elections.

In Douche and Turd, the school chooses to change the school mascot and asks the student to vote for the mascot they like best. Kyle comes up with the idea to have everyone write “Giant Douche” as their mascot choice. Cartman finds that pretty clever, but thinks that a “Turd Sandwich” would make a funnier mascot. Cartman and Kyle start campaigning around school for their preferred mascot, but Stan thinks it’s stupid to have to choose between a douche and a turd. He decides not to vote, and ends up getting banished from South Park for not exercising a basic human right that so many people have died for.

The scene that really made it for me was when a PETA guy told Stan that most elections have always been about voting between some douche and some turd. They’re the only people who suck up enough to make it that far in politics.

Now, the reason why the douche-turd scenario doesn’t work when it comes to Ateneo Student Council elections (at least, for last school year) is because there’s only one person who runs for every position in office.

That’s right. One person. As in, one person running for President, one person running for Vice-President, and so on. That’s how unconcerned we all are about campus politics (me included). There were more posters begging the students to show up and vote than posters campaigning for the candidates. Even if there’s only one candidate for the position, they still need a certain percentage of students to show up and vote. I don’t understand how that matters, since I’m pretty sure they’ll all end up in office whether or not 50% of the student population vote for them. That’s democracy, I guess.

What I found really entertaining about last year’s elections was this little booklet given to the voting student body from Comelec. It featured a picture of the candidate, a list of his/her promises, and a description of his/her official platform. (Seriously, though. The candidates weren’t the most creative bunch. Aside from the usual crap about how they want to serve the student body, couldn’t they have promised something more useful? Like free coffee during hell week or more xerox machines all over campus? Now that’s a candidate worth voting for.)

I’m guessing ComElec gave us those booklets so we could see that the candidates are human beings, just like us. However, I think it turned the voting populattion off more than anything else. Below every platform was a random fact about that candidate, which was supposed to make them look cute until you realized that your next student council officer…(parentheses mine):

* Enjoys watching the OC. (This is a guy)
* Was mistaken for a retard when he was a kid.
* Didn’t learn to tell time until her junior year of high school
* Seems vulnerable and weak, but is quite the oppsite (orly?)
* Plays goalkeeper for the Ateneo futsal team in spite of complete absence of talent
* Is an occassional somnambulist (For those who didn’t know, a somnambulist is a sleepwalker [I had to look that up]. I hate it when people use the thesaurus to sound smarter.)

The sad part about the whole thing is that I actually voted for these people. I’m not sure why. I was going down the library steps when I happened upon a voting booth and thought, “Fuck it. I’ll be a responsible student and vote.” Well, at least I think I voted for someone. I can’t remember if I abstained or not. I’m pretty sure I abstained. I think.

But the real tragedy about elections is that a douche or a turd would’ve probably ended up in office whether or not I took that moment to vote/abstain. Let that be a lesson to me: when passing an election booth, don’t bother stopping! Ignore it all and move on with your life.

People should watch South Park more often. There’s actually a lot of wisdom underneath all the insults and crass sex jokes.

I didn’t make it to the Dumaguete National Writers’ Workshop. It was a little expected, considering that I’ve only begun writing fiction last December and have had no professional training whatsoever. Still, the rejection came this close to breaking my fragile writers’ ego. What I’m particularly miffed about is that the bastards didn’t even bother to notify me through email or text. I had to find it out the hard and painful way - looking up the list of accepted fellows at the website and realizing with a sinking heart that my name wasn’t there. I also happened to note that this pretentious (assholey) person I know made it to the workshop, which made my rejection all the more painful

The crushing blow of my defeat made me swear off writing for the rest of the summer. Not that that’s going to be difficult to do. Instead of spending the last month starting the novel that would change the course of Philippine literature, I wasted my time on the Internet and other similar things that ultimately culminated in brain suicide.

“What do you think went wrong?” Pat asked me after I told him the news.

I shrugged listlessly and responded, “I suck.” And then I declared my intention to not write a word of fiction for a while.

Instead of trying to comfort me with cliches (never give up on your dream, you can always do better, etc. etc.), he told me to take my time. Any form of defeat hurts and it will take a while for me to get over it and get on with writing. See, that’s why I love this guy. He skips the lectures and moves on to saying the right things at the right time.

Since my ego still needed some more validation, I saw some of my writer friends the next evening and told them that I failed to make it to the workshop.

“Eh. Don’t worry about it,” my friend Pam said. “Writing workshops seem to be a space for all the pretentious people to go in and assure themselves that there isn’t too much competition, for one. Or to stroke each other’s egos.”

Hearing that made me feel so much better about being a National Writers Workshop Reject. I mean, come on. My rejection actually makes me better than all the other writers who made it into the workshop!

On the other hand, I’d probably think more along the lines of, “you’re just jealous” if I had made it to the workshop and some random person had told me that. Not that I’d deny the accusation. I need to some ego-stroking, damnit. I want writers of note to tell me that I’m good and that I have a brilliant future ahead of me. I want professionals to correct my mistakes and teach me discipline. Why else would I have applied to the damn thing in the first place?

Obviously I still feel quite bitter about being rejected and will be spending the rest of the summer playing Suikoden V and doing other non-writerly things. Sure, I will get back to writing eventually. Maybe a few years from now, I’ll kick everyone’s asses with the novel that will change the course of Philippine literature. But today, I just want to waste away in the living room and get boiled alive by the summer heat.