yet another crazy away message turned poem

I don't think I can say it any better than the title of this post so here you go. For your amusement and bemused wondering:

red roe rubies:
such sweet silliness
that there, though through
unstable, utterly
volatile vixens, visibly vexed
wolves would wildly want.

© 2008 Emilio Gandara

the Reals

Hey all! Here's the latest haiku series. You may or may not know but I occasionally will do a series of haiku instead of the usual daily kind. This one was special in that it follows a story rather than a theme. I present you, the tale of numbers.

why would a number
have any reason to fear?
they can be consumed

in the realm of Real
there is a lack of nothing
naught is but a thought

yet the negatives
live a cursed fate and war
bearing the curse-mark

and so they battle
positives and negatives
endlessly dying

until finally
the king of the positives
stepped forth to battle

the legendary
the never-ending ruler
is infinity

but to oppose him
negative infinity
came to decrease all

one by one they ceased
at their own hands or the kings'
only kings remained

a final face down
two endless powers clashing
a new king is born

fear is but a thought
in this world there is Nothing
he is the new king

© 2008 Emilio Gandara

Hope it made sense and you all enjoyed it :D Hope I'm not breaking too many haiku rules XD

You are not safe in the elevator

So, hilarious. Last night I went to Jill's place with a few friends and we hung out and saw Newsies and ate cookies and just had a good time in general. Afterward, Steve dropped me off at my place at around 2:30AM. Well as I was going up the elevator to my 8th floor apartment, it stopped at, I think the 4th floor and a guy and girl come in the elevator. The door is practically opening when the guy gets reeeeally close to me screaming in my face 'nobody loves me!!!' and then goes on a quasi-unintelligible rant about how he went to a gay bar and got no attention. Subsequently asking loudly not only the girl he was with but probably myself too 'do you know what it's like to be gay... in a sea of gays?' Well the girl was rather drunk too (ok that's a soft way of putting it, they were both hammered) and she answers 'not really, no'. But that's all the short trip up to the 6th floor gave us a chance to share. Then as they're stepping off the elevator the girl extends her hand for a hand shake as she wishes me a good night. Of course I oblige and wish her a good night in return. The door closed and my elevator ride continued for two more floors while I laughed in disbelief that what just happened actually happened.

Alternate title for this blog: Drunk Elevator Quotes

Now Listening to: Death And All His Friends

you should watch (or maybe you shouldn't): IOSYS magic

picnic among other things

Today was the company picnic that I almost melted at. Yeah, that one in particular sans the somewhat bad grammar. It was pretty fun. Went down with most of the people from the team and had a good lunch. Of course since it was an all-you-can-eat, I ate more than I should have but oh well, no problem. I'm sure I sweat half of it off the following hour. I also got some random carnival prizes (without playing carnival games coz apparently people weren't really playing for them or something in that vein. hah. Of note was the diablolo, which works like any plastic, surplus toy would (read: it doesn't). Or maybe I'm just not very good with it. Today was also pretty nice at work coz I actually had things to do for most of the day and then got to leave a half hour early!

So yeah, here's a cool little run down that I'm gonna start doing at the end of blogs (if I remember):

now listening to: Corneria from Star Fox (Super Smash Bros. Brawl OST)

ordering you to view (though in reality this is only for immi lovers like I):

Growth Group

I won't go into much detail but growth group was excellent last night. Growth Group is a small group from church I go to and we hang out and study the Bible. Well last night we had a bit of breakthrough, you could say. I really feel as though God spoke to all of us last night. It was truly a life changing experience. I kept praying that we wouldn't just go about our lives the same way after last night. That we internalize and not forget what we learned. To face our lives, to see ourselves in the mirror and step away from what we know isn't how it should be.

In other news, I've decided to blog like a blogger. What I take that to mean is I'm just gonna do posts about whatever more often than before. This isn't a biography and it shouldn't be. If something tickles my fancy, I'll drop a line or two about it. Put a video or a picture up and say something about it. I like that. Let's see if I can actually do it.

June

As usual it's been a good long while since my last blog actually detailing my life. Even still, I would like to keep this one short and just give a rather quick update of how things are going. I'll assume it's been roughly a month since my last update and since July just started, I'll recap June.

The highlight of June was, of course, my lovely vacations in Puerto Rico. Visiting family and friends is pretty much always a good time. I had a great time, ate a lot, got to see Cris' graduation (which we made a lot of fun of afterward), and had a good weekend in Fajardo (even though we couldn't actually go to Culebra). The rest of June really ain't much a big deal. The co-op's officially over so I've pretty much slipped into a support roll at Sherwin, which is fine by me. I'll still be working there until November, at which point I'll be moving back to Rochester, as most all of you know. I'm pretty excited to go back and finish up and get on with my life, particularly so because it may mean my going to Japan next year and that excites me more than anything right now. I hope I can have Maru-sensei as my prof for Adv Jap 2 as well as 3. She's 最高 (the greatest).

Well now that I've properly digressed, hehe, June, in general was a fun month, also because I was Mr. June at the gym. So amused by that. Speaking of which, my body seems to refuse to go below 170 pounds. Fine enough, so long as I continue to get in better and better shape as I strive for the elusive 6-pack. Yes, that is (shamelessly) my new goal. And with that I leave you my fellow friends, family, bloggers, dreamers and poets.

Newest Haiku Series

Can you guess what the theme is? Most of the people that read this will already know but whatevs.


quick as silver light
though not cold quite hot its air
hot like blacksmith steel

love, twin of the earth
life devoid the shade doth have
release your arrows

life of the party
the spring of activity
o, busy blue sphere

the flames of war rage
beat the drums that call "BATTLE"
tainted scarlet stone

gargantuan gale
the willow's wisp so crimson
restless maelstrom sky

setting moons all day
and despite the company
she is desolate

dangerous dancer
a clock-work bull's eye turning
child of newer days

seas frozen in time
secrets of the great dark storm
grandiose tempest

the smallest has gone
no longer one of our own
a new family

© 2008 Emilio Gandara

contrast

I stood in utter darkness. Almost suffocated by the very density of the thick black shroud, I kept my eyes wide open. Then a distant glimmer with no warning and the breaking ocean of night crumbles as the shine washes over me, then through me and blinded by the light...

I sing a new song

scene of a morning treason

More random right-before-bed poetry! This one's a tad morbid...

shivers the air
throbs once more the wave
weakening seal

keep a watchful eye
o, hawk circling
this dawn awakens

tearing ribbons
piercing sharply
the blade has found you

haunted day, hunted prey
rings the breaking chalice fallen
death has reaped no finer spoil

© 2008 Emilio Gándara

Free Thoughts

Life is a complex mechanism. If one thinks of the human body, depending on how much head knowledge on the topic you may possess, you may name at the very least 2 or 3 intricate systems, all part of one single organism. All working in unison, all with a purpose. Yet, even within that marvelous complexity, living is a simple action. In many ways we choose to live, but at its core, we are alive subconsciously. In the same vein, there is a simple-complex analogy about the workings of our emotions. Some may argue that what we feel is no more than impulses within our brain, nothing but electricity running through connectors inside the gray matter. Be it that or not is outside of my authority to say, but I do know that emotions that carry names, such as anguish, love, happiness and the like, are as simple in their core as they are complex in their execution.

If we take the most popular, love, the average adult mind needn't go far to find a veritable library of memories upon which to draw conclusions with. Nevertheless, to take an unbiased view of love, while nigh impossible, may in fact reveal something unknown to even the eldest reading this. At the risk of sounding poetic, who can truly say that love is something that can fit inside a logical equation or that it is bigger than our imagination? Obviously these are rhetorical questions of quality, not quantity. What I may perhaps be getting to is that love may fit snugly within the confines of our understanding or reside squarely set on a shrine far beyond our reach at the other side of a limitless chasm. And even then, given the plurality of what people deem love to be: romance, sacrifice, determination, resolve, attraction, passion; a clear definition cannot possibly be given. Therein lies the complexity of this particular system. However, what I would like to clarify, if I may, is the simplicity of it.

Perhaps in a fit of naivete, or maybe a struggle with denial, I would almost blindly believe that there is a core facet of love from which all other complications arise. If only out of the natural pattern and order of things, perhaps, do I deduce that this exists at all. And yet, I insist that it does. It might not be the best approach but it may shed some light to strip away layers from the whole idea in search of an indivisible center. My first instinct is to remove romance although it may present me as some bitter commentator. Regardless, I would understand love to be far deeper than what most take romance to be. My short life has met me with little experience, but I'm an avid observer and have seen the many motions of others reacting to the motions of romance. I am convinced that love must be stronger, deeper, darker than something that brings two people together only to find them riven within half a month. Not to belittle romance, of course, truly a beautiful thing in its proper place and time, but truly, though romance may be part of love, love is truly a far cry from being nothing more than romance.

So then what is truly left? Ever since I was young I was taught that there were three kinds of love: agape, filial and eros. Eros being romantic love, filial being the love one feels for ones family and agape being the love we have for/from God. So would love then be trine and separate or a whole with three subsets? I would gamble to say it is a whole. Who's to say all three kinds of love cannot spring forth from the same essential source? Ultimately where does that leave us? After digging past the romantic layer, we can be met with either the filial or agape layers and honestly I don't believe it would be far fetched to consider love from God to go beyond what human love can conceive or offer. Truly the love of a mother towards her children surpasses the love of lovers on a merry day or the swelling heart of a father whose boy won the race weigh heavier than that of a woman being asked for her hand in marriage. Again these are situations begging for a quantitative measurement though never being conceded one and as such, my humble opinion is all I can muster to present. But I would like to believe that given a moderate amount of thought, many would agree with me.

Finally, can we say that there is nothing left but God's love? My perspective being that of the Christian faith, that along with my rearing and development, I know this would be a point of careful study and scrutiny and it very well ought to be. Regardless, this is the point to which I have gotten to: at its simplest, the very fount and source of love is none other than God. If one were to believe God's words then it is as simple as this: we love because He first loved us. Far be it from me to try to convince anybody of God's love for us or His sovereignty therein. And so, what does that truly say of love? Given the traits of God, we could say the love we have is limitless and powerful, among too many things to mention in this short analysis.

Conclusively, the simplicity of love lies in the overwhelming sense that it springs forth from our souls fed plainly from the everlasting source. Whether we love our brothers and sisters or lovers and friends or return as much of it as we may to whence it came, we can rest assured that if there is any complication in what we call love then it is simply the human element adding onto a pure essence. The clarity through which we can observe love comes at the price of the conscious disregard for ones own preconceived notions and learned reactions to what it truly is.