Multiply is currently down. Since they blocked tabulas in the office, that's where I've been posting (donmarfori.multiply.com) everything from blogs to photos and links to funny videos in YouTube. In many ways, it's superior to this site. But somehow, even after 7 months since my last tabulas post, and the fact that I already announced my permanent migration to Multiply, this site still feels like home.

I started blogging here in 2003, after finding out about it from user "ophelia," who has since moved on (to livejournal) as well. I wrote everything here. Poems about friends I was mad at, crushes whose names I didn't even know, musings on life after Ateneo. Literally everything.

I don't know where I'm going with this entry. I guess I was just thinking that since I haven't been able to write good stuff lately (and I'd like to get back into the habit), I'd start by posting something in the blog where I'm most comfortable. There's something about Multiply's announcing each and every new post that gives me writer's block. You can't say what you really want to say, 'cause you know that as soon as it's posted, everyone (whether they want to or not) will know it's there.

I like tabulas 'cause you choose to read your friends' stuff; you manually have to click the link to view your friends page. You read their stuff 'cause you want to.

I think I'm a bit rusty. I don't know whether what I just wrote above makes much sense to you, dear reader-whoever you are, but I know that it felt really good.

Here's to more posts in tabulas; I'm back home.

So the Blue Eagles lost.

Masakit, yes. But no complaining, no excuses. UST played a better game. The UST Tigers played a helluva game, and if not for Chris Tiu, a blowout victory for UST (sweet revenge for them after Ateneo's first round blowout) would probably have been the endgame story. Nevertheless, it was a tense fight to the finish, which saw the Eagles bow down to the Tigers 88-80 in OT. Two proud institutions, and for good reason.

A loss is a loss. This one hurt because it broke a streak and waved goodbye to the possibility of an eliminations sweep and the succeeding automatic Finals slot. But I'd take a loss at this time over a loss in the last game of the eliminations. Right now, the Eagles still have games against NU (September 2), FEU (September 7) and UE (September 9) in which they can regain their winning form heading into the Final Four (where they are already assured a twice-to-beat advantage), and hopefully the Finals. I'd prefer for them to be humbled now if it will mean that they don't go into the playoff period with inflated heads and egos. But a loss is a loss, we can't change that.

The loss aside, Chris Tiu really is emerging as next season's player-to-watch-out-for. 24 points on 5/9 shooting from the three-point arc is just great basketball. His one-year hiatus seems to have unleashed his potential (which no one doubted to begin with), but more importantly, his heart. Anyone on the team can score. But Chris Tiu has shown he can score when it matters. When it is needed. He will be, in my opinion at least (and I doubt if many will protest), next year's King Eagle.

"Fly high, over the trees, make known through the breeze our victories. Spread wide each wing for you are The King, Blue Eagle the King!"

"Win or lose, it's ATENEO I choose." One Big Fight!

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Spent the whole day with HER yesterday. Tambay lang, konting kain (fine, medyo maraming kain, I admit it), lots of laughter. Sometimes I forget we've been together for a year and a half. It still feels like just yesterday, with all the giddiness and the kilig moments.

We've had our share of tampuhans, with arguments about the little and not-so-little things. But at the end of the day, it still goes back to the two of us, and that desire to make things work.

It's all right to be kilig. It's fun. But you have to want to make it work even during the times when the kilig seems to be missing. And I thank her for that.

I won't give this one anything less than that...

I don't know how long I'll be able to stay in advertising. Take note, not just in events, as you all know what I really want to do as of the moment is shift to the creative department. I've actually been looking around already for reference books that I want to buy: stuff on graphic design, a compilation of the best ads from recent years, books that exercise the imagination and teach someone how to start thinking of writing great copy based on a client's brief, the whole set.

Marshall McLuhan (yes, he of "the medium is the message" fame) once said that advertising is the definitive art form of the twentieth century. But is it, really?

Art is an expression of what is inside the artist. Hopes, dreams, frustrations, musings on nature and life in general, observations, cries of desperation, shouts of joy, proclamations of love. I'd like to believe that art comes out of the artist, and while artists sometimes like to detach themselves from their work, art is like a pesky little Mini Me (a la Austin Powers) that follows you around and claims that you are its creator (sings: "She's just a girl who thinks that I am the one, but the kid is not my son"). Something like the Frankenstein monster chasing Victor Frankenstein around, sans the on-the-side stories of the novel.

Think about it: what we write, or paint, or draw, or compose...they're snippets of our childhood, our first kiss, our biggest disappointments, our pet peeves (and any other slumbook categories you can think of). They're our very own Frankenstein monsters. Hard labor put them together, our very own hard labor. The opinions of others only INDIRECTLY influenced our art, through our mere exopsure. Nope, no client briefs there.

Advertising is an art form, only to the extent that everyone involved (client, account team, creative team) are credited as the artists. Most creatives would say that they feel no ownership of their work any longer, despite being billed as the copywriter or art director behind this and that TVC/RC/print ad. Is it art when the minute it is done, there's someone telling you why it's not good? Or that it's good, but it would be better if done in a certain way?

Real art is evaluated and judged after it's done. It may be good and it may be bad, but what matters is that the artist does not change anything involuntarily at the whim of a client.

I don't know, I may join the creative department anyway, even after a realization such as the above. Or I may choose to do something else, to keep all my writing pure.

I have a strange fear that if I write copy for a living, I may lose the desire to write it purely for desire's sake.

You almost forget, and she reminds you of
Why you wanted it in the first place.
And then everything comes rushing back to you.
Words that shouldn't have been said,
Compromises you said you'd never make but did,
Heart (or some other thing) over mind when
You knew what the right thing to do was to begin with.

You cry, and cry, and cry some more,
'Til you think about where your body gets so many tears
(but you're still crying).

It gets to the point where you know
You shouldn't cry anymore, and you stop.
You begin to do what you must.
Sometimes it's not quite clear what that is,
But you know you're prepared to do it anyway.

It's funny, the cycle of forgetting and remembering.
Sometimes you wonder why the cycle gets shorter.
Then you realize that's what's called growing up.

Reach for my hand;
I promise not to let go.

Stroll with me along yellow brick roads and strawberry fields.
Let me walk with you near streams and through golden gates,
And I promise to carry you through muddy roads and swamps.

Life may be easier walking alone on a red carpet, but I choose you,
Even if it means stumbling across a back road to heaven-knows-where.

Of course, this isn't all about me. Nor you.
Two minds, two souls praying for the same thing, that's it.
Wanting it, desiring it, imagining it to be real, and it just might come true.

LS presentations na lang bukas, 8-9 a.m. Matapos lang yun, tulad ng kanta, I'll be "free as a bird."