After the Shock, or I Am Going to College

Last week, Wednesday, I woke up earlier than usual, about 6:30 a.m. There would be Latin later at 10:30. For some reason I picked up my phone and — you know what, I'll stop with the narration; I feel terribly inauthentic. (If I were narrating this aloud, the story would be littered with "uh"s and "um"s.)

Anyway, I got accepted into my first choice college, Wheaton College! 

"Dear Yuri Ben, It is my deep pleasure to inform you of your selection for admission to Wheaton College as a new freshman." That was great news to wake up to, really the news I'd been hoping for all college-app-season long; and I breathed a heartfelt prayer of thanks to God. I had been getting ready to prepare for college in Manila or even Davao, but along came this.

My goodness, my face, how my face must have looked.

Probably like this. This is as ecstatic as it gets.
He whip his hair back and forth.

As it turns out, I was very nonchalant outwardly ("It later transpired that I had said none of this out loud." - Sherlock). Maybe a sotto voce kettle-like hiss, but nothing more.

But anyway — I, am, going, to, college.

(Hey, cool effect. Jose Garcia Villa, whom I have not read, is famous for sticking a comma in front of every word in some of his poems.

Anywaaaayy...)

It's unreal. The idea of college was previously stuck up in theoretical limbo, and I couldn't feel it in my gut. I simply walked around thinking — knowing, somewhat — that I would be going to college some time in the abstract future. Which when pondered on often dissipates into wisps, and the idea of the future floats imperceptibly away —  but what? no matter. Intangible facts are so much easier to deal with than those that are palpable.

But after the unreality comes, insolently hopping and skipping, the visceral reality. I cried once, realizing that I would have to leave the city I've called home for an on-and-off fourteen years. But that was in a dream (I do my utmost to not appear a sissy in waking life) and I couldn't resist my subconscious in my dream. Thanks for nothing, Freud. At least I will be going to a place just a few miles from another place I have called home. I went to the DFA and picked up a passport renewal form. I never knew a piece of badly photocopied paper could be so intimidating.

Beyond that, I will have to start taking care of stuff. See? Look at that. I call responsibilities "stuff", not some concrete moniker, like cooking, or washing clothes (thank You, Lord, for the staggering technological advancement brought about by the laundromat), or — I shudder — talking to strangers. Ugh. I will have to grow up.

And beyond that, I will have to wear multiple layers of clothing. Because Wheaton is situated in the cold, bleak, flat, and beautiful Midwest. Snow jacket and scarves and snow pants and snow boots.

Because summer avoids the Midwest like the plague, right?

yep

And yet beyond that, I will have to start taking GPA seriously. And the fact that there will nearby be a legit library means that I will have to exercise temperance, because yes, that poetry collection is very enticing but
YOU HAVE A CALCULUS ASSIGNMENT TO FINISH, YOU SHIFTY NON-STEM MAJOR!

I plan to study English at Wheaton, because on the campus lies a collection of Inklings, Sayers, and Chesterton memorabilia, including the selfsame desk on which Tolkien wrote The Hobbit, and because, based on what I've checked of the course offerings, there will be tons of opportunities to study some of the authors I've loved in high school. There's also a chance of me double majoring, and I think I hear Ancient Languages calling my name. There is also a smidgen of a possibility of triple majoring, but that would take a whole lot of work, prayer, and coffee. But that's all tentative. Switching academic plans is quite easy, unlike in the Philippines, where a student will be penalized both financially and in length of study for shifting courses.

.

.

The reality of college is overwhelming at the moment, but I will have to get going.

To close this rambling... thing, I quote the opening of one of e.e. cummings' most famous poems:

"i thank You God for most this amazing"

thoughts on college no. 5

bathed in the crepuscular beauty
of a lamp's lonely dying light

a boy at the piano
sits and sees the last notes on the page


morendo




morendo






morendo





it is the movement's end
but not the end of movement


it is the beginning of another movement
but movement has never ceased for one moment

crescendo






crescendo

not yet



crescend

no!


any louder the boy can
not




but it is the beginning of another movement
although before his eyes a final somber
dance macabre

and it is the beginning of another movement
and the next pages are written

but not yet for him
pages blank without blotches

he must enter the movement
begin the movement

and play
without knowing the blotched end

knowing the theme but not
the end

the beginning but not
the end


"at the still point"


but he must enter the movement
for movement never stops

not even in
stillness


he knows not
the end

but he sees
blotches

he knows not
the end

but he knows he must
begin

Two poems

Thoughts on college no. 4

In the blinding daylight
Of gilded future,
A boy releases a bird –
Two birds, five birds, and another –

And sits and stares and bathes
In the undulations of the daylight,
Blank-eyed, bleak-eyed, dead-eyed;
And the daylight dims as vision vanishes.

And out! a whirlwind – and a bird
Bearing a branch half-withered,
And another a twig, and another the same,

And another a branch bearing buds –
Almost alive, as though struggling to be alive –
And another a branch which had atrophied
Suspended in purgatorial stagnation –

And a last bird (a dove were it not trite)
Bearing a branch, a bird that told of the
Quiet deluge, that the flood was nearly over,
And that there would soon be dry ground –
For the boy hung in empyreal daylight –

And that the boy must soon descend
And dig his toes into the earth,
And grasp his fear and toss it
As a handful of wet dust,

And taste the fruits of the kingdom
And realize that the kingdom is not yet,

And feel the limestone edifices
And feel the marble, holy columns,
And feel in his heart a half-satisfied longing,

And feel a hand come over his eyes
And feel the earth come into his eyes
And feel the deadness come out of his eyes,

And that he must See
Into the gilded future, and See
Inside the gilded future, and See
Beyond the gilded future –

That he must See
And become a man.
____________________

Why I read fiction

On deep blue bedsheets
I knock on the door of a paper house
And open it, unbidden,
For no one is inside to let me in;

And in I go.

Sometimes I knock
On the door of a house
Not of paper, but of pixels;
I knock –

And in I go –

To Spain, to the gothic South,
To be excited, to get depressed;
In I go
In order to be moved

Without moving.

Coping with my being wait listed

From here:

At super-selective schools, where there are many more qualified applicants than can be accommodated, applicants are wait listed as a consolation. Instead of being turned down for admission, they are put on the wait list, the implication being, “We wish we could have admitted you, but there wasn’t room.” Diplomacy lives.

thoughts on college no. 2

there's a guy who stands
solitary on a beach and
the dreadful thing is
it's not so much that he
approaches the water
as the water inches
closer to his toes
his feet are blocks of
dried and dull cement
the sand long since like an
antswarm has been
devouring his feet
the sand is a fact
he is a grain of sand
abraham's sand
but even facts can be effaced
and the comfortable order upheaved
by the geist of change
the facts of sand in the horizon of his vision
are gone and eaten up
with greater velocity than
the sand had earlier concerning his feet
and the fluctus aequoris
begin to reveal their threat
the old japanese painting
of the monster tidalwave
and inside the guy
the germs of fear
and of despair
and of seasickness crack
open and
open and
open and
out shrieks suffusing rapidly
the nauseating burden of
responsibility

but there is such a rider who
the foamy horses of the sea
who on the backs leviathan
in easy calm yet glorious rides
and of the man's dead feet shall be
reviver not of feet alone
but of each sinew and the wave
of change himself does spur not for
a drowning void of meaning but a
death and undeath into life

thoughts on college no. 1

yesterday I had a gig it lasted the whole afternoon up to eight p.m.
before that a family friend texted that I was accepted at one of the two philippine colleges I applied to
when I got home after the gig I checked the college's website and yes I saw it for myself Bernales, Yuri... Status: Accepted
I checked fb and a few friends had greeted me and the internet did not cooperate and I wasn't able to respond to the congratulations yuri until around ten o'clock I probably looked like a snob and when do I not look like a snob
but I'm not elated and I feel I should be why am I not
did I expect this yes I did
I had trouble with the other phil college and I had no trouble with this one and today I have problems with the other and this one accepted me
am I scared maybe
it's the end of the tunnel and I have the faintest of ideas of what awaits me on the other side
"for he will command his angels concerning you"

Hydra's Too Strong

Got rejected by UP. That was fast. Time for others.

I Begin Facing the Hydra

Just completed an application for the University of the Philippines College Admission Test. UP was never a first choice, but, hohoho, it's the first college I've applied to. We'll see how I do on the test (which, unlike most of the other admissions tests here, includes two sets of Filipino).
One down, but a lot more to follow. And the only fiery torch I have is to finish all the exams and applications. But it's exciting, nevertheless.