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Last November, I quit my useless office job at iWebmasters to pursue grad school and the Dream of Becoming A Member of the Academe. Despite my sometimes self-deprecating humor, which is really just for show, I don’t have any real issues about myself and my abilities. Not this time, though. Lately I’ve been plagued by the thought that I might not smart enough to do this grad school thing.

My frustrations come from the fact that I think and view the world in what the structuralists would call “ordinary language.” (See what I did there? I’m using words that end with -ist to make it appear like I’m learning something!) I don’t use fancy terminology, I can’t quote academics because half the time I forget the connection between the idea and the name and the other half, I just plain don’t get what they’re trying to tell me. Put an academic text in front of me and my mind shuts down. If I were given the same text in the original French or German instead of the English translation I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. It’s as though these damn literary critics think on an entirely different plane of thought and use a language only academics understand, and for the life of me I can’t grasp how that language works and therefore, how their thoughts work.

Well okay, maybe I exaggerate. After crying a lot and smoking a lot, I go back to the text, read and read and read until my head is swimming in concepts I only have a vague understanding of. That’s the thing that bugs me. I only have a vague understanding of everything I read.

When I was in college, I used to roll my eyes at people who would freak out over their school work. It’s different now. This Dream thing is all I have and I feel pressured to live up to it. Unfortunately, I’m just an ordinary person with an average mind who would like to understand literature and the world and so far it’s looking like I’m not even competent enough to do that.

What I find really funny is that despite my plummeting self-esteem, I know I’m going to keep on crying and trying. Not necessarily because I want to achieve The Dream (at this point, I’m just keeping that on the distant horizon so I can fool myself into thinking that my life has some sort of purpose and direction) but because the only other alternative is to go back to being an office monkey, and I would rather kill myself than be chained to a cubicle again. That, and I have way too much pride to allow myself to get defeated by academic essays written by dead guys.

So yeah, I guess I’m going to cry some more then go back to studying. Maybe this time I’ll be able to make sense of whatever I’m reading.

Think of a small bar, less than a hundred square meters wide and maybe about four hundred square meters long. It’s so small even its roadside sign seems to apologize for its size; you won’t be able to spot the place when you drive down Shaw Boulevard unless you know where to look. The bar doesn’t have air conditioning. What it has for ventilation are three large windows, waist-high up until the ceiling. The windows have no glass nor a screen, giving you a clear view of the narrow gated alley beside the building.

You enter the bar through a glass door. In front of you is a stage. It’s a very, very small place.

This is Cuerdas Bar. This is where I spend some of my Friday and Saturday evenings.

It’s not the kind of place you and I would go to unless you have a friend or a boyfriend playing there tonight.

I am the only female in the room who isn’t an audience member.

Zoo and friends

The second band just finished playing their set. They’re called Bittersweet and they sound like 90’s Green Day. They’re also the only band I listen to here. Everyone else sounds like a ripoff of a ripoff of My Chemical Romance. Angry teenagers and college freshmen too young to know how shitty life can get. My eardrums ring with the sound of their pubescent screaming. For the life of me I can never figure out just exactly what they’re screaming about.

At Cuerdas, nobody really listens to your band so much as they wait for their turn to play.

This is how I spend some of my Friday and Saturday evenings. Waiting for our turn to play.

Our band is called Zoo and we play the same set of four original songs every time. Until our last gig, I didn’t know what the lyrics to our songs were about. So I had our other guitarist write them down because I wanted to sing back-up. I changed my mind when, during rehearsals, my elementary Tagalog made me sing like a dyslexic child.

It’s already ten-thirty pm and I’m writing this down on a piece of paper I took from the bar because I am bored. We’re tonight’s main band, which means we won’t be playing our set til way past midnight. The next band is setting their equipment up, and it looks like I’m in for another round of indecipherable screaming. I’m amazed that I can still think above Paramore’s new song blaring from the speakers.

In a sea of stripes, skull-patterned canvas sneakers, and checkered fedoras, I amuse myself by giving the seventeen-year old bassist of Bittersweet a long lecture on the importance of going back to school and graduating from college. I am completely sober while I do this. That is how cheerful evenings like this make me.

I go here because our band plays here and I want to get used to playing in front of people so that when I start my own old school punk/grunge band, snarling like Courtney Love will come to me naturally.

During my first performance with Zoo, I set up my equipment with cold hands and pretended not to know which jacks go into which sockets as an attempt to delay the inevitable. I don’t remember when or how I stopped being nervous. I don’t remember why I used to get nervous to begin with. Playing on stage is a safe, legal serotonin fix.

Tonight, I set up my effects with the swift, practiced movements of a guitar veteran of five or six performances. I’m bursting at the seams with four hours worth of waiting time and eardrum death.

Bottles of cheap beer make our skin three shades redder than they should be.

On stage, nothing else matters. Not the papers I haven’t started, not my insecurities, not the constant dread of the future. It’s just me, my four chords, and an audience made invisible by strong stage lights.

Ten minutes and four songs fly by and the fun part is over too soon. I’m still grinning from the rush even though my stomach is starting to sink. I stick around for high fives, a couple of laughs, a gulp from someone’s beer bottle, and a picture. Then I go home.

This is my life. This is one of the things I live for.

We’re playing at a bigger, air-conditioned bar next month.

EDIT: At band practice last night, I found out that Cuerdas Bar closed for good when the karaoke place next door ratted on them to the police for not having to a permit to serve alcohol. WTF.

Word has reached me that I completely punked out after breaking up with my ex sometime last year. I guess I got so used to him keeping me from having my own friends and forbidding me to live my own life that my world completely shattered when I finally dumped his possessive ass. But since I didn’t really have any friends when I walked away from my two year prison sentence relationship, I turned to the cool kids and tried my damned hardest to fit into the scene. Hence the piercings, the dyed bangs, the weird haircut, && the band.

Didant you know? The way I am now is me coping with an empty, sorry life without my ex.

Just can’t function no more

I thought I’d celebrate Blog Action Day by giving the world a little more than an environmental message. This entry is a guide on how to achieve the uber-hip scenester look should you ever find yourself in my situation. If you can’t snort coke && party with the cool kids, you can at least look like you do because you’re s0o0o0 heartbroken.

Get busy living or get busy dying

Recycling is a hardcore thing that everyone, scenester-wannabes or not, can do to help save the environment. Reusing old things prevents wasting useful materials, cuts down on the consumption of our dwindling raw materials, && reduces energy usage. I personally do my share of recycling by shopping at thrift stores, or as we call it in the Philippines, ukay-ukay. Not only do I get to save these awesome finds && give them a better home in my overstuffed closet. I get to assert the fact that I am indie && non-conformist by refusing to buy clothes where normal people get their stuff.

Don’t you know who I think I am?

You’d be amazed at all the chic, glamorous finds you can grab from your neighborhood ukay-ukay. Ukay-ukay stores are usually located on nondescript streets and dingy old buildings. They may look dusty && dirty on the outside, but believe me they are treasure troves of hoodies, leather boots, calf-high sneakers, baggy tops, skinny jeans, && black dresses. My favorite haunts are the ones in Cubao && across the street from Robinson’s Galleria Ortigas. But unless you’re a good friend, I’m not about to reveal their exact location because I don’t want everybody to start shopping there && become as cool as me. Sry gais.

The key to putting together a genuine scenester outfit is to dress like you don’t give a shit about what people will think of your fashion sense (or lack thereof). Throw together pieces with loud patterns && behave like anyone who isn’t wearing mismatched clothing is a disgrace to the fashion gods (see above). Wear tops at least two sizes too big for you so that it looks like you’re wearing a sack. It will also help if you cover your mane with hair wax so you achieve the look of a teenage junkie who hasn’t seen a shower in days. Trust me, resembling a hobo will give you that “I’m cooler than you k?” vibe. Only those who are born with style have enough confidence to go against the grain && look like a calculated mess.

A beautiful girl can make you dizzy

See what I did there? Animal-print clothes are so 80’s && this country doesn’t have the right climate for boots - but that’s precisely why I chose to put that outfit together. I’m making a statement here by refusing to wear what everyone else is wearing. Believe it or not, that whole outfit cost me less than a thousand bucks!

Boots - I can’t remember how much I got them for because I’ve owned this pair since high school. I’m guessing it only cost me around 400, 500 pesos.
Shorts - 100 pesos
Black tank top - 50 pesos
Leopard-print hoodie - 100 pesos
Shades - 50 pesos
Looking totally rad && unlike everybody else - priceless

Shopping at ukay-ukay stores is the only way you can reduce waste generation while simultaneously working on your hxc (hardcore) image. Nothing screams arty rebel like odd pieces of worn-out clothing strategically put together to create a look that’s part-grunge, part-luxxe, part-heroin chic. Make sure you ask your friends to take tons of pictures of yourself thrashing around at a party with a bottle of beer on one hand a lit cigarette on the other. So when your ex finally sees you looking oh so hot && oh so scene on the intarwebz, his messiah complex will kick in && he’ll try to find a way to save you before you spiral out of control. Then you can have the pleasure of walking away from him a second time!

thx 4 tha mmrs