D’Arvit!

You turn on your TV and wince unconsciously as a reflex to unsightly visions that suddenly pop up your screen. When I say “unsightly visions”, I am referring to teenage It-girls, ex-It-girls, It-girl wannabes, and anti-It-girl wannabes. Fed up with the TV bull, you sigh with relief as you hear your cellphone beep: a text message recieved. You open the message and your annoyance builds up as you receive yet another electronic proof of the bastardization of the English [and also Filipino] language, a grammatical abomination as uncouth and as uNbECuMmiN’ &’ uGLy aS diSzzz. You walk past a magazine store and for a split-second, was able to glance at an American teen gossip magazine with “Backstreet Boys” look-alikes on the cover. So boybands still do exist right here, on our era, the ’00s. You’ve outgrown buying YM Mag or Teenbeat or Candy or Meg magazine [good for you, young padawan]. You utter phrases such as, “oh the kids these days!” with matching clucking of the tongue and shaking of the head. You turned eighteen years old in 2005, and one of your hatest yet inevitable realizations have dawned upon you: you’re getting older, dammit!

I, among millions of teenagers born in the year 1987, am one of those who will take a look at this year in a whole new different light.

We’re turning 19 this year, and if you still don’t get it, 2006 is the last of our teenage years.

We’re approaching the Age of Twentysomething-/Twentynothing-dom.

*GASP*

One thing about the year 2005, folks: we’ve grown a year older.
This is also partly what my new layout is all about. Sucked Out. To be honest with you, all the lambasting and the angst that are characteristic of my blog entries have noticeably declined, as you can see from my entries of late. The angst of teenage youth has washed away, I guess. You should’ve seen the stuff I wrote back when I was 13, 14 years old. Maybe it’s just my mood, or something else, but there’s only one thing I know: the fire of anger has burned out, and so I wonder along with rock band Superdrag, “Who sucked out the feeling?”

“Who sucked out the feeling?” The fire of careless and blind teenage angst has died down, but its embers have gathered to form a new fire heating up: the fire of drive, dedication and our ultimate goal, success.

2006 is our last year, my fellow eighteen year-olds. Our Teen Age is coming to a close. We must make this our best year yet, so that someday, when we’re all old geezers [ew], we shall look back on this year and say, “D’Arvit, man! 2006… that was a GREAT year”.

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The above 2005 year-ender/2006 year-starter could also be viewed as an excuse NOT to write another award-winning [yabang!!!] The D’Arvit! Year-ender List Thingymajigger edition for 2005. *wink* You decide.

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On a personal note, I’d just wanna let you guys know that I’m sorry if I haven’t returned any of your text messages [Christmas and New Year's greetings]. My family’s Christmas celebration could not be rightly called as such, because we never celebrated–and I’m not exaggerating. When Filipino friends dropped by on Christmas Eve, it cheered up a bit, I guess. But nevertheless, my parents were gloomy, the sudden death of a Filipina here in NC has made the rest of the Filipino community here gloomy, the irritating nonstop Christmas song marathon on all radio stations was more depressing than uplifting, and so I ended up feeling really really really really depressed. You never knew how much. That was the worst Christmas ever. And I mean it. I can’t wait ’til we reunite with my siblings again. I really miss being a whole family so so much. It hurts. I try not to think of it that much, but each time I do [like during nights like these when I'm the last one awake], I just catch myself crying. And I’m not the crying type of person….. I hate crying. It makes me feel weak. For me, crying shows weakness. And I don’t wanna look weak. I don’t want to… Never…

We all just want to be happy.

“Strive to be happy,” as Steph always says.

PS: I will be going to New York to visit relatives around January 17th [tentative date]. Yesterday night, at New Years’ Eve, we spent media noche at a Filipino family’s residence. I was given a copy of the academic catalog for the University of North Carolina at Pembroke and from what I’ve learned [and at the rate my UP Manila transcript is going], it is quite next to impossible for me to enroll at Pembroke this January, so my parents suggested that I go to New York for a two-week visit. I’ll be going with my great-aunt, so that’s great [weird, haha]. PPS: We had dinner today at another Filipino family’s residence. It’s good to see the Filipino community tight and very close-knit.