Azkals Not Making the Headlines

Had the Azkals won over Kuwait's Al-Azraq, they would have made it to the headlines, SONA or no SONA.

But they failed, 3-scruciating-O against the football Gulf champ who has just beaten Saudi Arabia and Iraq. But stop right there. That isn't so very bad. No, not at all. Kuwait could have beaten us black and blue and would have scored more than we scored over Sri Lanka two weeks ago, 4-0.

It may be true that 80% of the time, my estimate, it was Kuwait foot kicking or head butting the ball, but that's all. I think the Azkals did a pretty good job in the first half of the game. It was in the first half that they could have scored twice, almost thanks to Phil Y.

The second half was a terrible half, though. The second goal for Kuwait came in after a tangle of a lot of white jerseys and only a speck of blue scrambling for the ball too close to the Kuwaiti goal post. Azkals goalkeeper Etheridge could only gawk at what seemed to be a game of "agawan ng buko." Then a swift kick from a blue man sent the ball to the goal and Etheridge bowed and let the ball in, like it was "His Highness." That second goal sent me to my room to sleep, leaving my brother and father behind.

The Azkals DID show potentials and quite a promise. With more support and less of a little-too-much adulation, they may just make it. Next time.

Then they can have all the headlines worshiping them across the Pacific and the Arabian Peninsula.

The First Poem I've Fallen In Love With

This is the first poem I have ever fallen in love with. I was in second year High School.

To the Man I Married
by Angela Manalang Gloria

I

You are my earth and all that earth implies:
The gravity that ballasts me in space,
The air I breathe, the land that stills my cries
For food and shelter against devouring days.

You are the earth whose orbit marks my way
And sets my north and south, my east and west,
Your are the final, elemental clay
The driven heart must turn to for its rest.

If in your arms that hold me now so near
I lift my keening thoughts to another one,
As trees long rooted to the earth uprear
Their quickening leaves and flowers to the sun,
You who are earth, O never doubt that I
Need you no less because I need the sky!

II

I can not love you with a love
That outcompares the boundless sea,
For that were false, as no such love
And no such ocean can ever be.

But I can love you with a love
As finite as the wave that dies
And dying holds from crest to crest
The blue of everlasting skies.

Newspapers Going Irrelevant

Shockingly, the Philippine Daily Inquirer today features two old articles. I can't call them "news" because...well...they're old.

First, the 2011 Space Odyssey in its final landing at Kennedy Space Center. Sheesum! This piece of article, and everything that could be extracted from it, was all over the net days and days ago. Hasn't the PDI desk heard about the internet? That thing that gives you news and information and gossips the second they happen?

I know there is reason for the delay. There has to be one to commit this huge a blunder. But if it is SOP they are bothered about, time to change it and be relevant.

Second, Emma Watson, Hermione for those HP idolaters, is going back to Brown University. Not that I give a hoot about this piece of info. It is just I've known this a week ago. Now, PDI, please, please, give me something I don't know yet.

Ms. Marixi Prieto has to start holding some honest-to-goodness mancom meetings.

Something Borrowed Debunks Stereotypes

I wanted a light weekend so I went to the bookstore and grabbed some light reading. I ended up with Emily Giffin's Something Borrowed.

My verdict: it is worth the time and money. Better than She's Come Undone which has given me some headache. The latter bordering on the grotesque; the former on Cindi-fuckin-rella. (Oh, I just love the Kit character in Pretty Woman!)

One of the reviews (Yes, I read the reviews on the extra pages when the book impresses me to find out what other people have to say.), says it is "a modern fairy tale." Good thing I had not read the reviews before reading the novel or I would have figured out right away what the ending would be.

The novel talks about putting oneself in a box with a label that says "average" on it. I am average so I expect to attract average things - men, work, life. The average female meets a god-turned-human male and she goes running away. She comes in contact with him knowing and believing no-can-do. I'm too plain. He is perfect.

It reminds me of a reply on a query trending on twitter last week - #relationshipsendbecause "you come into it thinking it won't last." It is the curse of the stereotype.

This "I'm not good enough" mentality has caused a lot of people where they are now: unfulfilled, unhappy, alone.

It is as if taking chances kills. It is as if believing in oneself is a crime.

I love the way that the ending is fairytale-ish but the author is unlike Beecher-Stowe who leaves you empty. The ending is happy but not after having the characters undergo realistic pursuits to achieve it. The happy ending is not manna from heaven. The happy ending is a full meal after a whole day of relentless toil.

I guess I'm going to the bookstore to get its sequel: Something Blue.

Disappointing Ending of Uncle Tom's Cabin

I finished reading "Uncle Tom's Cabin" a week ago and I have been thinking what to make of it. It is a hard candy, but candy just the same. (Not to be mistaken with today's bubble gum Bieber songs.)

Uncle Tom, the main character, dies after riding on a tide of life's high and low. And everyone else lives happily ever after having been ushered to paradise conveniently via deus ex machina.

Eva, the beautiful angel child is too good to be true even for fiction. The gold lock co-incidence with that brute Simon is way too much.

If you are to believe historians, this book inspired Rizal to write Noli and El Fili. I wonder if Rizal was turned off too by the ending. I'm so glad, Rizal ended his differently.

"Uncle Tom's Cabin" is a dark fairy tale. But not so good as Royce Dark Chocolates.