I wish I could write

This is pathetic. I've been cramming too much. Now I've lost all sense of... writing? Cohesion? Literary cohesion? See?! Curses, much?

It's been a boring two days so far. I was looking forward to sembreak for so long, and now that I'm stuck in its muck of myopic, idle hours... I feel like gouging my eyes out. Or something. For the past 2 days, I've been waking up some time between 1 and 2pm, and I just feel like puking. I hate it. I hate this interminable stretch of time all laid out before me like some sex-crazed, funeral banquet. Right, my metaphors are f*cked up. But there it is. It's like... it's done. It's just crazy-done. I'm finished with it all. And it's over (just crazy-over).

My god. I'm just depressing. I'm catty and depressing. I've been making my poor father suffer (well, at least I think I am; for all I know, he doesn't give a flying shuck) because I don't want to be nice. That's my only reason. I don't want to be nice to him. And I don't even know why. My brother's going to Japan. And that's great. I'm happy for him. It's what he wants. I'm not sure if this is what I want. I want the bigger world, the cleaner city, the first-world cliche. I feel like a worm. My country is beautiful. I just can't stand it. I can't stand the rot, the smells, the sounds. The grayness that speaks of misery so embedded, suffering so entrenched that it's become practically cultural. I had to teach at this public school for an English class last week. And it was just horrible. The school building wasn't horrible--the building's an erected testament to some deadend politician's edifice complex. But inside. There was this teacher (old hag) who was just... cruel. The classroom where I taught was annexed to a bathroom (imagine that, each classroom had its own bathroom) which was flooded, so it had to be periodically sopped up or something. Come lunch hour, she dragged in these boys and told them to start sopping up the toilet water with these rags. She had them strip off their school shirts and get on their knees to clean the floor. And she was just screaming at them the entire time.

There was this one girl, Ericka. She was beautiful. She had long hair, long eyelashes, bright eyes and this indomitable smile. She clung to me like a burr. She said she'd miss me when we left, and told me how happy she was we were there. She said we were nice. She made me feel... proud. Like I was worth something. Her family lives under the bridge. She hadn't eaten lunch (the kids usually go home to eat) because there hadn't been any food at home. She made me feel... god, I don't know. That day was beautiful. And exhausting. I don't want any part of this. Not right now. It feels like I'm escaping, and I am. I reallyreally am.

I don't understand the lot of it. This collective misery and poverty. I don't understand Darfur, or Payatas, or why children like Ericka have to crawl their way out of sordid futures. I don't understand the kind of evil that deprives people of lives worth living. I can't grasp the concept of civilization, of civilized societies. I don't understand contingency. It makes me feel like shit.