Doomsday on the year's first day.

We have told ourselves that we will read novels that talk about the end of the world to welcome the new year. Last year, we read a post-apocalyptic novel entitled The Road by Cormac McCarthy. To welcome 2013, we found a Sidney Sheldon book lying around so we decided to read it. We believe that a review of the book would be irrelevant because first, we're too lazy and second, the review could be summed up in a single sentence: Next book, please. The plot is very predictable (from the beginning we have known who the mastermind was) and we find the idea of aliens annihilating us because they care for the environment very much like stuff from a children's coloring book. Nevertheless we finished the book swift primarily because during the holidays we have nothing to do but eat, and we refuse to do it all the time. It could have appealed to us more if we have read when we were in 5th grade-- the book is essentially aimed at making humanity stop abusing Mother Nature through UFOs and their power to destroy us. One thing though, it sparked our interest in extraterrestrials once again and we spent an entire day watching documentaries about alien visitations in our planet. Not to look for proof. We are convinced that in the vastness of the universe, we are not alone.

JanMell Vanity Scripts #13: What is your brand of humor?

Working in a comedy club for more than a month now, we can say we've clearly distinguished how we make people laugh from that of our fellow comedians onstage. We have decided to be "clean," that is, do away from swearing and profanity just to elicit laughter. We tend to worship the great Jerry Seinfeld, who worked out 10 minutes of material

 from cellphones and bottled water and still be funny. But during one of our gigs, the flow of chit-chat caused one of our fellow comedians to talk about the tongue. Well, as we were expected to be spontaneous, our mind caused our tongue to utter an attempt at a green joke. 

"You know what the tongue is the strongest muscle in the body," we said.

"Bakit?" said the other comedian.

"Because it can lift a woman's body."

Nobody laughed. And nobody seemed to get our punchline. 

The other comedian retorted:

"Dili oy. Strongest na siya kay mao nay mutila sa k*ki ug sa ot*n."

The audience roared in laughter. For a moment we thought we were out of place. Geez. We are such a loser

JanMell Vanity Scripts #12: Parallel Universes and Love

It is our second overnight stay here in the laboratory. We still haven't got over our exhaustion from the previous overnight with barely 3 hours of sleep to re-energize and plenty of activities in the day to drain it out. We have to force ourselves to come here and leave our cat behind despite the strong urge to rest. 

While we are waiting for our samples to dry we are overcome by the feeling of being alone here in a cold, lifeless laboratory. The constant buzzing of the creaky air-conditioning unit seems to remind us of our solitude, like crickets humming in the silence of the night. We tighten our jacket, fold our arms and rested our head on the wall.

Sometimes, we wonder if this feeling is all there is for the rest of our life. It is our honest admission that we have felt alone since we were aware of our existence and we have always been curious about how things might be different if you have someone, who at all circumstances, can make you feel that you are never, never such.

Would life be more enjoyable if we have someone who would be so willing to bring us an umbrella when we're stuck in the rain instead of trembling in the cold while waiting for the rain to stop?

Would life be more worthwhile if we have someone to tell all our troubles to and assure us sweetly and affectionately after running our tears dry, that everything will work out fine?

Or in our case right now, would we be more inspired to finish our work when we have someone to keep us company even through our cellular phones or laptops only, informing that someone about the progress of our experiment instead of tightening our jackets, folding our arms and listening to the sound of silence?

Would life be truly lived if we have someone who would want to do everything for us as much as we desire to do everything for them?

As we stare at the empty beaker reflecting our emaciated face we are reminded of a line from the movie Moulin Rouge:

"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return."

And yet as we continue to ponder we have realized in introspect that we will forever remain curious about these things. We have long accepted that there are questions we can never answer and events we can only experience if we're in a different, parallel universe. There are people like us who believe so, and our fate is best defined by the words of Harold Zidler from the same movie we quoted above, who told it to the main character, Santine who is terminally-ill:

"We are creatures of the underworld. We can't afford to love."

JanMell Vanity Scripts #11: How do you unwind?

I climb up a mountain with my friends. They gather young coconuts for its juice and meat. I stay at the shanty and read until I fall asleep. When I wake up, we're off to our next destination.

Then I go swimming with my friends. They play with the water like children in the summer, toss plastic bottles, laugh. I dip myself slowly until all of my body is wet then get off and sit silently on a rock, watching. When they do another round of swimming, I dry myself and go back to the cottage.

Then we go home at dusk. The moment my back hit the bed, I am fast asleep. I wake up before midnight and I write this vanity script. 

I write about how pleasurable it is for me to be sitting idly in a shanty on top of a mountain facing the vast sea, feeling the gentle wind whisper its journey in my ears. How exciting it is for me to read a book when I'm closer to the sky and how rewarding it is to take an energizing nap away from the hustle-bustle of the polluted city. 

I write about how I am able to have my own moments of silence amid the peals of laughter and gushing water while sitting in a rock and trembling with the cold. How much I enjoy watching the happiness of my friends, how the clear waters overwhelm me and render me silent so that I can hear myself telling me what I need to do with my life.

It may not be bursting with energy or done in the most cheerful of ways but that is how I unwind. After all, enjoyment is not measured by the extravagance of the get-away or the decibels of your laughter and merry-making. Rather, it is gauged upon the silent realization that when you go home, your heart becomes lighter when it once was too heavy.

Our blog sponsors spelling bee event

Last September 28 the Institute of Integrated Electrical Engineering Students (IIEES) MSU-IIT Chapter conducted a spelling bee competition and their president, Jeffrel Hermias invited us to sponsor the event, that is, serve as the quizmaster. We gladly accepted the offer. This is the first time that our blog sponsored a literary event and we were very excited. This serves as an affirmation of our purpose why we made this blog: to promote reading as a way to make more people informed and eradicate ignorance. Furthermore, we needed an avenue to promote our blog and we think this is just perfect.

 We have a book in our collection entitled The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre. Just saying. 

As prize, we gave away one of the books in our collection, Natural-Born Cyborgs: Minds, Technologies and the Future of Human Intelligence by Andy Clark to the champion, Ms. April Faith Manabat, a fourth year Electrical Engineering student. We think this might be an interesting read for an aspiring electrical engineer.

Congratulations to all of us. We hope to sponsor events such as these in the future. We believe engineering students do not fall behind in terms of literary skills but such hasty generalization exists. Thus we must work hand in hand to dispel that idea. Let us make them eat our literary dust.

Kid teaches us cat parenting

We sometimes forget to scoop poop. They stink as hell.. Read it in The Huffington Post.

Paintings, poems and nunchucks

Last September 13 we attended a poetry-reading and art exhibit at the behest of our friend, Seliz. It was organized by Odd Proyekto, and the poetry-reading and exhibit was in celebration of the release of Volume II of Odd Proyekto, a limited ciculation portfolio of visual and literary creations. 

Photos Courtesy of Odd Proyekto

The volume features different young and seasoned contributors from Iligan City as well as from all over the country.

It turned out that the poetry-reading was more casual than we expected. The contributors present were very unassuming to the point of refusing to read their poems because they felt shy. When they ran out of readers they asked us to read. We stood up and read Cityscape by Simon Anton Nino Diego. We think we mispronounced at least two words. Ha ha. 

Our friend, the psychedelic Seliz especially liked Luis Batchoy's Extra Super Special Batchoy with Egg. We think we know why.

Because it's supposed to be Odd, the event ended in a nunchucks exhibition by one of the contributors. 

Congratulations to the organizers. We need more people like you to further strengthen our artistic and literary force especially now when there are only a few of the profound and cultured left and everyone else has nothing in mind but Gangnam Style. 

To those who want to grab a copy of Odd Proyekto Volume II just contact them through their Facebook page. It's here.