End of the Whut?!?

As I type this post, it's December 21, 2012, 10:32 AM PHT in my clock, I haven't noticed anything unusual yet. I don't think I will. Of course I do not believe this Mayan calendar predictions. I know the end of time will come, but it will happen when we least expect it. I find it amusing that a lot of people are all over this. I saw a documentary in History channel yesterday about people preparing for the big day, which is today, well they are Americans, so it'll be in a few hours to them. Last night I saw on the news, there are communities somewhere (provinces) here in the Philippines who are also making preparations. They made this large boat obviously mimicking Noah's Arc so I'm assuming they are Catholics or Christians. I wonder if there are atheists who believe in the end of the world though? 

My belief of apocalypse is obviously religion based. The preparation I work on is not physical but spiritual. Every now and then, it will hit me, am I prepared? Sometimes it scares me. It's also one of the constant theme of my dreams. Once in a while, I would dream of the destined day happening right before my eyes. In every dream,  it happened in different weird ways, but it also seemed so real so it always get me really scared. The last I remember was celestial themed. It went something like this:

It was all over the news that a huge asteroid is hitting the earth. My family and I were watching the news (and of course, scared), we didn't know what to do. Nobody did. But everybody's home, the streets were silent. Suddenly I stood up and headed to the windows. I stared at the moon, my eyes widen up when I realized the moon is getting bigger and bigger and bigger. It was  the asteroid heading to my direction. I screamed on top of my lungs "RUNNNNN!!!!!". And I ran, we all did, without looking back. Suddenly I realized that the asteroid was not as huge as I imagined, but definitely larger than life and it was chasing after me alone. I turned my head around to get a glimpse of this huge thing. It turned out to be a white round thing with eyes and a huge mouth widely opened, so ready to eat me. It was a giant Pacman! I was still scared to death by this time, by the way. And I just kept on running and running.

Then I woke up.

I look back on it with amusement, but did I mention, at the time, I was so scared? But the good thing about my end of the world dreams is that I'm always with my family. My mom used to to tell us, a family that prays together stays together. We did pray together. We still do, though not as frequent as before. 

I think that I'm not totally prepared for the end of time, but in a way I am. I believe that all things that I see, hear and touch, everything in this world are all temporary. This life is temporary, but when we all go, our destination is eternal. I don't think I will go to hell. And I'm not saying I'm a saint, I'm not even a do-goody type of person, but I'm definitely not evil. Everyday is a journey to be a better person and a true follower of Jesus. Everyday is a preparation, to the the real end of the world.

I've been wondering why after a series of trivial dreams -a friend playing Scrabble with my kins, a 5 year old Japanese girl which I don't even know if she exist, a not so possible scene from a popular American TV series, myself waiting for a cab in front of our house at 6:45 AM- ended the week with a very heavy dream -United Nations announced that we're officially having a World War 3! That's not really good for -ahem- a pacifist like me. In the end, I can only associate it with my recurring dreams of apocalypse theme. Dreams that made me pray and repent the moment I wake up. Then last night, as if Mr. Sandman was trying to make ammends with me, I dreamed about a particular scene from Cooking Masterboy which stimulated my appetite for Crab Omelette all day long. As of this moment, I'm still thinking about TRYING to make a Crab Omelette. One of these days I swear...

Don't you think it's amazing how dreams can affect one's behavior for a certain period of time? I've been writing down these dreams in my planner, who knows, they might be pieces of puzzle to my soul searching mission. Right Morpheous?

Feline themed dream

I was walking in an unidentified mall, the closest I can associate it with is Adriatico Wing of Robinson’s Place Ermita. I was walking endlessly. I don’t know why I was there, I can’t remember the purpose but it’s just like any ordinary day at the mall. Then suddenly, a weird stray cat looms before me. It’s actually an ordinary cat if you’d look at the size, the way it walks and the way it meows. But what makes it weird is the color scheme. It’s black and white, STRIPES! It looks like a cat cosplaying as Zebra! But nobody seemed to bother. It looked like it’s nothing out of ordinary. Our paths crossed in matter of seconds and it was gone. I moved on when I saw another cat with weird color scheme. This time it has the scheme of a Panda. And I was like, WTF?!? But anyway, being a Panda fan, I followed it, but I lost it when it mixed with the crowd gathered at the Ice Monster stall. When I gave up looking for it I saw another cat, and this time it’s has the color scheme of a Siberian Tiger. That day at the mall felt like a day at the zoo. I saw different sorts of animals– Dalmatian, Cheetah, Crocodile, yellow duck - in the form of a cat…those are what I could remember. When I finally accepted the fact that it’s a normal thing to see, I suddenly realized that I am being followed by the king of the jungle. No it’s not a big cat, in a Lion color scheme. It’s a real lion this time. It was following me silently, more like stalking. I walked as fast as I could to disappear from his sight but he noticed it and he started calling his allies. Then every lion was after me. I felt like a fugitive and yes I’m still in the mall. I can see lions riding escalators and the people didn’t really mind. But these lions were after me! How could anyone not care! I ran as fast as I could, the lions were not chasing after me, but everywhere I ran to there’s a lion stationed waiting for me. Then I started to lose the anxiety. I grinned and told myself, heh it’s time to fly! I started to lift myself from the ground. I suddenly smell candies. Yummm!!! I looked up and realized it’s raining gummy worms. I’m starting to have fun when I suddenly heard Doraemon’s Tagalog voice saying “ANG MAHIWAGANG MENSAHE!!!”

-sigh-

It was my cellphone’s message alert tone. I picked it up and read the message. It was Nagi, greeting me good morning –sigh- I wonder what happened to the Panda cat…

Sad Dreams Lead to Sad Thoughts

As stated. Last night I had a sad dream that made me think of sad things that happened. It went like this:

I just returned from abroad, the country I went to was not stated but it appeared that I worked overseas for years. That was the premise but the scene showed that I was actually standing beside a tree in a vacant lot. I don’t have any idea where that was, but it’s definitely in the Philippines. Under the shade of the tree, I started to dig. I was looking for something. After about 1 ft deep I started to feel something. Yes that was it. A big capsule, typical drug capsule as big as an average size of a pineapple. Guess what, it was a time capsule. I opened it and a stack of letters loomed before me. I started reading one of the letters and I was shocked to see words of hatred addressed to me. I read one after another and I couldn’t believe it, they were all hate letters! There was no sender for each letter but it seems like they came from different people. I never realized being hated could feel so depressing….

Back to reality.

When I woke up, I knew it was one of those weird dreams. But I can’t help feeling lonely. It made me think of all the people I’ve hurt in the past, friends and relatives alike… it’s not like I really wanted to hurt people. I never intended to hurt anyone, but I know I did it. But in the process, I also got hurt. I wonder if they’d ever realize that they were not the only ones who bled. I’m also human and I have the right to have a fragile heart. Thinking about those things made me want to cry. Am I the only one to blame for everything that has happened, were they all my fault? Maybe… Maybe not. If only I was a little wiser, if there were more options, if I was a little more mature… but everything had been said and done and there’s no way to bring them back. No what ifs and regrets can change the present. I can never correct my mistakes, but I can atone for them. I can start anew and be a better person. But I don’t have to change. If people can accept me and my frailties then that would really be great… but if people can’t bear the real me then that’s fine. I just have to be more mature. Surely, I’ll get through this…

Dreams

Sleeping is a necessity for every living creature. It’s a time to recharge our exhausted body. But for me, sleeping is something to look forward to. A start of another adventure. A new world that may sometimes be better than what I have when I’m awake – through dreams.

“if it’s my lucky night I’d dream of you”

I’ve always felt that my sleep is wasted if I don’t dream of something wonderful or interesting. Sure having no dream is better than having nightmare, but not dreaming at all is just like being dead for a certain time. I don’t want that. I want to use every bit of my time to have fun.

Dreaming is like watching an anime or reading a manga. You get to see a fictional story from different genres: romance, adventure, suspense, horror, etc. But in my dreams, I get the chance to be the lead character (most of time). I get to experience so many things that I know I can never do in wakeful times. I fly, I travel in time, I pin down a nemesis in a flick of my finger, I do magic, I meet celebrities and even anime characters.

Of course there are times when my dreams can be really weird. There was a time when I dreamed that I killed Arnold Swachnegr using a lethal injection. I had a birthday party where every food prepared was chicken – fried chicken, stewed chicken, chicken pastel, lechon manok, etc. I attended a Soujiro Seta cosplay shoot and met different kinds of Soujiro – fat Soujiro, Tall and thin Soujiro, sleepy Soujiro, smiley soujiro, punk soujiro… My 1/100 Mastergrade Strike Rogue gundam is alive and is stalking me! A random face at my college school married Aga Mulach and asked me to be a godmother of their child. Weird, weird stuff that made me wonder, what was that all about?

There are also dreams that made me want to stay sleeping forever… these are scenes from the past which I never wanted to let go. Things that could have been, if only…

But there are some dreams that I couldn’t get enough of only for a certain time. Something that makes me want to sleep more UNTIL I see the end of it. My only regret is that I don’t have a writer’s talent to describe in details these wonderful dreams I had, but in anyway I wanted to share them with my readers.

Here’s something that I dreamed of a year ago and until now, I still wish for a sequel hehehe.

A Wish to Change the Future

It was the near future and the technology advanced a great deal. Ren and I run an unusual business. We have a “wish-granting” agency wherein our clients ask us to change their current state by fixing the mess they did in the past. How do we do it? We travel back to the past, bump into our clients’ lives, and make sure that they won’t do the mess they did that led them to their unwanted future. We travel the past by going to a “time terminal” wherein riding buses with “year” (i.e. 1999, 2000) signboards is the means to turn back time. It’s exactly like commuting in EDSA. But not everyone can ride in a time bus. You need a license to do so.

One ordinary day at our office, we had a not so usual client. It was my brother Richard. His marriage with May did not push through because he had done something that broke off the engagement and he’s asking us to interfere the past and make the wedding push through. I sighed at Ren because this is another “thank you” job since it’s my brother. But we went off anyway. We rode the bus with a signboard 2007.

And then I woke up. Ugh!

Reality check: Richrad and May’s wedding did push through last January and the newest member of Madarang clan is 5 months on the way. It’s a good thing that my dreams has really nothing to do with the future or I’d really freak out.

One funny thing about that dream was, Ren and I wore that traditional detective costume. When I told Ren about this dream, he laughed but he never commented. I want more of this dream but I want an interesting client. Someone like…-sigh-

Manatsu No Yoru No Yume

The worst part of having a good dream is waking up. To think that it’s so damn hard to fall asleep because of the summer heat, there I was having a dream of my life, a dream that, if only I had the choice, I would prefer to stay for as long as I shall live…I was right there, in the exact place that I long to be. Somewhere that I need to be, more than I need air. Where I felt more alive than being awake. But then, I had to go back, in this so called reality and face all those miseries again… and wear that smile again… Oh dear Mr. Sandman, please sprinkle those magical dust unto my eyes again, I wouldn’t mind getting all those mutt in the morning… in fact, I wouldn’t mind if Death would take a year of my lifespan… for a night of that dream…

Haha, this must be the effect of The Sandman: The Dream Hunters by Neil Gaiman. Though it was against my policy to purchase a western graphic novel, I thought it’s in accordance with my Japan only policy because this publication was illustrated by Yoshitaka Amano, character designer of various Final Fantasy installments. Besides, I’ve heard good remarks by fellow comics enthusiasts about The Sandman. Besides, one of the reason I bought it was because Power Books was on sale hehehehe….

This morning Frances and I finally realized the early morning jogging that we have been setting long ago (and postponed so many times). Damn the summer heat just won’t give me enough sleep that I need, I was up so early that I decided to work out than staying in that oven! I was a little frustrated though that I couldn’t keep up with Chy’s speed. Jogging together with her also made me realize how weak my stamina is and how easily I give up. No wonder I rarely achieve my objectives (short term and long term) –sigh- I really need a change or should I say evolution… also this morning I met up with 3 friends who are artists – Mike, Mark and Romer. We were supposed to go together at Anne’s place (another artist friend) because she’s coming up with an art exhibit this coming August 2007. Meeting with Anne was a good thing, I learned that having so many connections with different kinds of people opens a lot of opportunity for you. And it’s even a give and take relationship. There are so many information which she seemed to miss that I can feed while she has a lot of connections I need, to make a leap in career that I’ve been waiting. But I’m looking forward to this exhibit, I am motivated to draw. I just hope this keeps up.