Arctic Beetle

As the traditional image of the Genesis dictates, Eve offered to Adam the forbidden food which takes the shape of a prominent fruit in Death Note, in a popular portable music player’s icon, in G-Dragon’s recent solo album, in my stomach tonight, amidst other things. Because of luring a man to sample the said fruit, Eve was sentenced almost instantly to carry the lifetime burden of conception, which is really ironic in contrast to most women’s idea of giving birth as a blessing. So by the power of He-Man and the masters of the universe — God I mean, the whole humanity became fated to be somewhat transient. Everything is evidently Eve’s fault, isn’t it?

The affliction soon flung itself to Adam and Eve’s sons Cain and Abel. In the course of time, both decided to please God without even the knowledge of His preference with two different offerings; the produce of the land Cain tilled and the firstborn of Abel’s flock. As a result, God had regard for Abel and as a product of God’s spontaneous reaction, envy guaranteed itself a spot in the Seven Deadly Sins list as the first fratricide or as an added grim effect, the first case of murder occurred. But really, who wouldn’t feel bad if you were in Cain’s shoes or bare feet?

Don’t get me wrong, I believe in God’s existence and I don’t simply believe, I’m a believer. But a part of me– a large part of me– doesn’t want to believe the Bible. Even though the process of flipping a random page and eyeing a random verse is oft an effective way to come up with a prompt remedy, I still somehow think that these books compiled to form both the New and Old Testament are works of writers unusually inventive to subdue the facts with overtones of God’s mashed up characteristics and some patriarchal views (as exhibited by Adam and Eve).

Truth be told, this is the reason why I’ve always refused to delve deeply into the nitty-gritty of the Bible. It’s just that I have a different image of God and it’s definitely not what some of the books of the Bible establish — the absolute, the extra dreadful and the fairly selfish God when it comes to offerings and worshipping. God, permit me to express my deepest apology for a lot of things, things which I need an apology for, whether or not I thought they’re were liable to deserving punishments. Wait, by the way, this post is among them.

I’m glad that my parents are not aware of my blog’s existence or at least, its URL or so I think?

Oh how I wish to write — write about something else other than my wish to write. But the most I can do now is wish some more and write about that wish, and hope that by writing about it, my wish to write would no longer be a wish. Survival is a feat and half of my neurons still not undergoing apoptosis in the next few days is an even greater feat, I’m telling you.

Despite the fact that I haven’t gone through nearly 50 percent of both Chem and MBB, I can still find some ways to scat from their grip, even if scatting from their grip means writing this post so that the who person visited this almost barren webspace in the past week would find something new when he presses f5. Pathetic, I know.

I severely need an incentive. Offers, anyone?

“The President and the Vice-President shall be elected by direct vote of the people for a term of six years which shall begin at noon on the thirtieth day of June next following the day of the election and shall end at noon of the same date six years thereafter. The President shall not be eligible for any re-election. No person who has succeeded as President and has served as such for more than four years shall be qualified for election to the same office at any time.” – Article VII Sec. 4 of the 1987 Constitution

This is the snippet of the Constitution that both Mr. Estrada (and his minions who probably sought for this provision when the law-newbie-and-will-always-be-a-newbie Erap voiced his interest to take a second shot at presidency, which I doubt will be any better than his first dig) and his antis who want to save the masa he loves from madly falling in love with him even sweeter the second time around, hold on to. I am not an aspiring lawyer nor someone who is any different from Erap as I am also not versed in the ways and whatnots of the Philippine law, but for someone who resigned accordingly because he is “unable to exercise the powers and duties of his office”, I don’t think he has the right to shove into everyone’s face the last sentence of the snippet of the Constitution I posted above and say “Ha, I only served for 3 years and therefore, I can run!”.

Also, correct me if I am wrong, the pardon GMA granted him did not annihilate the plunder case appended to him. He is like a ubiquitin-tagged protein which the proteasome decided not to digest because it decided to go against the physical laws and interfere with karma’s eagerness to show its bitchy side. (Sorry, I know it is wrong of me to compare Erap to a protein which evidently has a use. So much for analogy!)  Then again, we go back to the fact that Erap is still tagged and thus the Supreme Court can label him ineligible to run. With the possible confusion Erap can cause, the COMELEC may label him, on the other hand, an eligible nuisance candidate. Dear Mr. President, this is what you will possibly get for trying to rectify your mistakes or maybe, for attempting to farm a large amount of dough again.

This then makes me want to compare the Constitution to a large program saturated with complicated “if-else” statements. By all means possible, the programmer – the Constitutional Assembly – should have expected every possible condition that could arise. Syntax is the key to both.

In the end, the decision is still with those who were and are being given the chance to vote this coming Presidential elections. As much as I’d like to trust the Filipinos (which in many, many ways hold my future in contrast to Jose Rizal’s popular statement), we err and history is bound to repeat itself. You know, like the case with Marcos — though he was known to be a strongman back then, the mass which revolted against him is the same as the one which put him in that pedestal (not that I’m saying that he flunked as a President).

Somehow, I can heave a sigh for not having the right to vote yet, especially with such set of presidentiables.

jen_shwa: @WGyenny I know y u girls can’t speak English. Most of ur non-Korean fans r from 3rd world countries & can’t speak proper English either.

WGyenny: @jen_shwa well, yeah i’m not that good at english, and u may think we (my fans & I) don’t really understand each other. but we do even if our english isn’t perfect. bcuz we love each other. that’s what matters. thanks anyway!

jen_shwa: @WGyenny Yeah sounding unintelligent is nothing to be ashamed about in the 3rd world (Thailand, Vietnam, philippines, ecterera)

WGyenny: @jen_shwa there is ABSOLUTELY nothing to be shamed about, there are some things we should learn about. if u feel ashamed about ur lack of second language, you won’t be able to learn. and sounding intelligent is not only depending on how well u speak, but also what u speak.

jen_shwa: @WGyenny Yeah, my first language is Korean and I’m too proud of a person to make myself look stupid speaking improper 3rd world English

WGyenny: @jen_shwa what u’ve said to people DOES NOT really look intelligent even though it’s ur first language. sorry.

Before anything else, if you happen to be an avid fan or just a fan of Ye Eun of the Wonder Girls or an individual who fights for equality between languages (praise me, I just coined a term), please do not stalk, add, call and flame jen_shwa because one, those are noncivilized acts and being a civilized person, you would let karma put down his gavel himself; and two, her hater and Ye Eun for that matter hacked her Twitter account. I doubt I needed to tell that to the former, because as a person who would willingly give up his current citizenship for a Korean one, you have probably read this post on allkpop or have seen with your two eyes these updates while refreshing your Twitter home page and yes, I know what you do since I am speaking from experience.

Getting down to business, I firmly believe that there is nothing wrong about making grammatical mistakes, although the embarrassment you derive from it is an entirely different matter altogether. As far as I recall from my Filipino class, a superior language does not exist, but I guess that statement is slowly becoming elusive as English is being branded by some as the key language to success and as the universal language, being used even by characters from the His Dark Materials series, in which I would like to take note that they hail from different worlds and of course, by me as I write this post. It is indeed a nifty idea to have an ecumenical language you can turn to everytime there occurs a communication error, but I don’t think that English is the leader of the pack nor is the White Man’s Burden a burden really.

Being a language that is on the same pedestal as everything else, why then is a little subject-verb agreement slip an effective grounds for inferiority? Sure, it is funny but that trivial fault doesn’t make English less of a language or that sentence less of a communication tool, does it? No matter how botched up the English you have come across is, I am quite certain you, more or less, grasped the main thought it is sustaining. Language, if I am not mistaken, exists solely for the conveyance of gossips, news, LOL stuff, among other things.

Let’s see what a native speaker and a writer no less has to say:

Joseph Devon, first of all, is the author of the book Probability Angels. Instead of being freak-crab hybrids, why don’t we retract our sharp appendages and try to conjure a warm fuzzy feeling within ourselves? Meaning, rather than being a miserly Grammar Nazi or a lady clad in black, one should take the time to elate those who need a bunch of attention on their spelling, sentence construction and most importantly, subject-verb agreement. Then again, for those whose heads are still wrapped around the idea that a person’s worth varies directly as his English proficiency, let me ask you then why countries like China and South Korea are making giant leaps, economically, when their Engrish/Konglish is kilometers (or maybe meters) away from passable?

I can’t think of a better way to seal this post than iterating what Ye Eun remarked: Sounding intelligent does not only depend on how well you speak, but also on what you speak.