I really enjoy living in my new house. I bought this house up on a hill where i have the view of the bay and right on the front of my verandah is my pool where i just can relax and enjoy the sunset and watch the boats as they make their way out of the habour. I am really happy with my buy and now looking around for another place to buy so i can start investing it.

Happy Monday

I woke up early in the morning like I'm what I'm doing everyday. I took a bath, put on my clothes, comb my hair and check my things for school. I don't usually eat my breakfast at home. Instead, I make sandwiches, if not, I just bring cookies. I'm kinda used to it. My mom even scolded because it was already 6:15 and yet I'm still packing up my things. She knew that I will be late for school. So I rushed up. I don't wanna be late either. ^_^ Then I asked for my allowance which only costs a hundred pesos. Of course, I can't go to school without my "baon". I was walking [just a few steps away from our house], a lady asked me, "Neh, san ka pumapasok??". "Wala raw pasok ang lahat ng estudyante ngayon. Both elementary and high school". I was telling myself "huh?!?". Then nagmadali akong bumalik ng bahay. Laking tanga. It was my fault. I didn't turn on the TV or even the radio. Big thanks to that lady. I was really not informed. In our school kasi, whenever there will be holidays,they inform us as early as possible. Dapat nung Friday pa nila kami sinabihan. I called up my other classmates. They had the same incident as mine. nyahahah :0

Eto pa, unexpectedly, my cousin called me a Ass. I answered the phone. Then she asked for my name. So  said, "c jezza 'to!"... You know what she told me? She said, "Kala ko ba nasa Singapore ka nah!?!?" Ako naman, "ano?!? Cno may sabi sa iyo??". At the back of my mind I 'm saying "'Pag ako di nakaalis, lagot kayo sa aking lahat! Bakit kayo masyadong nag-e-expect na makakaalis ako??"..... waaaahhhh!!!!!!!!! That made me remember the day I took up the test. It was so duh! Pero syempre, I am still hoping na makakaalis ako. Sana.  Dear God. :)

 

I'm not the kind of man who needs a woman. I never have been, nor do I think I ever will be. There was one woman though, or girl I should say.

I was sixteen, played football, wrestled, drank, smoked grass, and lived in Indianapolis. It was October of my junior year in high school. My best friend, Carey, was dating a girl from a local Catholic high school, and she was dead-set on finding me a girlfriend. She would set me up on a blind date almost every weekend, often without my knowing. Then one weekend, quite by accident, she introduced me to the love of my life.

Friday night, my football team lost our first game of the season. We normally had practice on Saturday morning, but our coach was so angry with us that he told us he couldn't stand to see our faces the next morning. So we had Saturday off for the first time in ten weeks and I went with Carey to watch his girlfriend's volleyball team play. At the game, I was introduced to Erin.

I know I met her then, but I don't remember it. I was pretty upset about losing the night before; when you're sixteen and being hailed as possible state champions, it seems like the world has ended with your first loss.

Apparently Erin thought my friend and I were funny and somehow or another she ended up coming out with us that night. It was late October so we went to a Haunted House in the basement of an old warehouse on the East side of Indy. It was a little chilly out and there was a slight drizzle. We had to stand outside in an alley for about twenty minutes, and there was one small light over the door. Erin reached up, grabbed my ball cap, and put it on her own head. I'm a big guy and she was quite petite, so this oversized hat on such a small girl was quite a comical image, but in an instant I caught her eyes and fell in love.

I fell for a pair of blue eyes, an angelic face, and a sweet voice.

We dated for a while, but it was difficult. Her parents made it nearly impossible for me to see her. Then I started getting in trouble, and had a harder time convincing my parents to let me see her, or anyone else for that matter. We've stayed in touch over the years, but the distance has always been impossible.

She went to college in Chicago. I moved to Atlanta.

She was the best thing that could have happened to me, and I wonder if I'll ever find anyone else who touches me in that way.

I don't think I'll ever stop loving her.

 

Introduction, Apologia
I have read Stephen Burt's essays and some of his poems with pleasure for quite some time. His enthusiasm for Randall Jarrell is commendable and a much-needed tonic to much of the nonce phrase-ridden, begging-the-question poetry criticism of, say, the past 25 years. Then there is a moment when I saw that Burt was in fact "the new guy," the heir apparent to Vendler or perhaps more accurately Jarrell himself.

This has forced myself, as a reader, to focus much more on Burt's ideas and belief systems, since Burt's new guy ideas will take on a queen- and king-making quality, not unlike Vendler's take on, say, Jorie Graham and attempted dismantling of Philip Levine et al.

And so when I got my issue of The Believer in the mail the other day, and Burt's article "Close Calls with Nonsense: How to Read, and Perhaps Enjoy, Very New Poetry," this to me was a classic moment of double-consciousness: reading a poetry critic in a left-of-the-dial magazine offer what the cover copy describes as "primer for all of us" of enjoying "new poetry." This is a high water mark of a sort for recent poetry--an article in a hip magazine, lots of readers who could possibly have their interest stoked by the articles' tips and tutoring. This feeling is not new; most poets have this expectant feeling whenever poetry dashes into the spotlight, often with high hopes of poetry becoming hip and maybe even lucrative.

So I'm gonna offer some notes that are basically expanded marginalia over the next couple of days, provided my day gig stays slow. I hope this endeavor is helpful.