I realize that despite the openness I display in my blog, there are still a lot of things I don't say in these pages but occupy my mind anyway.

I am afraid, I suppose. Seeing as how things on the Internet magically and automatically become public domain (someone managed to copy my blog word for word before), I may be courting trouble once I start to pour out more than the requisite modicum of myself. I have perceptions of myself in others that I want to protect, yet I know I have little actual control over what changes these perceptions will take given future events.

Meow put it perfectly. Here was a regular HCPer (a proud ADIK I might add...don't deny it!), whom I didn't communicate with on a regular basis until just recently, and yet she managed to say quite truthfully that I was the type of person who picked out his words every so diligently. This I did so, she said, because of prudence---making sure that I didn't say anything wrong.

Yet that sort of fear is what I should be conquering in the first place.

I've got to get it into that thick skull of mine that I'm only human. No matter what I do, I cannot and inevitably will not please everybody. I am flesh and blood and as such I have the desires that come with them. Most importantly, I cannot hold myself responsible for everything that goes wrong.

It will probably take me a lifetime to fully embrace my humanity, to stop pretending that I am simply an obedient android. I've seen my innards through X-rays, I've contracted all sorts of diseases, I've hurt myself and others. How long can I keep on denying what I essentially am?

Perhaps I am blessed then, having all these good people around me to help me appreciate myself for what I am---no pretenses needed, no fake personas required. Simply me.

"Love thyself before truly loving others."
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I've been meaning to talk about Denise. Ever since I realized my jealousy back in Bacolod I came to one conclusion.

She will always be like that. She will always attract men. I can't explain it very well but she just makes them gravitate to her because of what she is.

Call it "machismo" or whatnot but every time I see someone swoon her and actually succeed, I get so frustratingly jealous. Perhaps this is because I tried the same thing and failed, twice. Our being friends is good but it's probably just hurting me in the long run. I feel I have to stop being close to her for my own good. She doesn't need me anyway. I figure it's the other way around.

After our thesis is done I should seriously think about getting her out of my life. It will not be easy. I didn't realize it but currently she's a part of all the things I've joined, including Pops.

Haruki Murakami's novel "South of the Border, West of the Sun" suddenly thrusts forth from my memory, having re-read it during my trip. Murakami made mention of removing past experiences, as if surgically removing internal organs from one's body. "Something just dies inside you," he mentioned about hysteria siberiana.

That's something to think about methinks. In a sense, we all have hysteria siberiana...we need it. We have to head to the netherplace "west of the sun" to truly move on.
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In that sense perhaps I need hysteria siberiana.

I am so bad at forgetting past experiences that they keep haunting me into the present. My bedroom is testament to that. Sometimes I wish I can just forget at will...but then the movie "Payback" springs to mind, the process of forgetting whole chunks of memory having serious consequences.

What a bizaare quandary, really.