STAY HERE 4 LIFE

my first post about doing a whole lot of nothing ... some quick updates about my status quo

Hi everyone.

I hope you have been well and good, as I always wish you to be. As of a few days ago, Mercury is in retrograde. The meaning of that is pretty much lost on me, the significance of it even more so, but I do know that these are not peaceful times. With this in mind – you been alright? Sleeping enough, drinking enough water? The longer I live, the more aware I am of the constraints of my own body. I don’t mean to sound too gym bro-y when I say that. Reading week just wrapped up two weeks ago, and all at once my body reminded me of how far I was pushing it these past few months – for I have spent all my break doing nothing but slumber. I’m not talking about that productive rest neither, I’m talking about straight up bed rotting, doom scrolling, Instagram-reel-sending slumber. Slumber, yeah. That’s a good word. I have been slumbering. At the very least, I’ve been getting good amounts of sleep. I’m only now amidst the process of still waking up; what was once an outpouring of scholarly work has become a sputter of its former self. Took me a while to fill up the ol’ engine, but I’m getting back into the groove of things, even if it does feel like its at the cost of my social and academic wellbeing. If you’ve been cooking along at home, do not follow my example. Live well, rest well, eat well, train well (if you are so inclined, and… perhaps… maybe… in that order.)

Speaking of all that: there is a beautiful snippet on rest that Byung Chul-Han wrote. My buddy Luke¹ showed it to me this morning:

God blessed and sanctified the seventh day. The rest enjoyed on the Sabbath consecrates the work of creation. It is not mere idleness. Rather, it is an essential part of creation. In his commentary on the Book of Genesis, Rashi thus remarks: ‘After the six days of creation, what was still missing from the universe? Menuchah [inoperativity, rest]. The Sabbath came, the menuchah came, and the universe was complete.’ Sabbath rest does not follow creation; it brings creation to completion. Without it, the creation would be incomplete. God does not rest on the seventh day simply to recover from the work he has done. Rather, rest is his nature. It completes the creation. It is the essence of the creation. Thus, when we subordinate rest to work, we ignore the divine.

– Byung Chul-Han, The Dissapearence of Rituals (2019)

To that end, I make a distinct break between BCH’s rest and my slumber, on the grounds that I don’t like the idea of thinking of this time with such tenderness. Feels as if I’ve taken the Divine out of the seventh day and stretched it out to the point of disfigurement, of unrecognizability. If I were to find something tantamount to the essence of creation in these past few weeks, I think I’d find myself blasphemous. Though perhaps it is because of how deeply ingrained into the systems that be, that have forced me into reducing myself into nothing more than an output of work, of contributing to perpetual production, that I find myself so disgusted with the thought of doing nothing.

Truth be told, I have not been doing nothing – I have been doing a whole lot, I think. In between shifts and the labour of… deciding what grad school program to go into… I’ve been cramming in as much time as possible to see the friends who are close to me locally. I try to remind myself that this is the last semester of my undergrad, that I ought not to be so future-focused, that these will be the days I will look back at so fondly in the same way I’ve viewed these past few years with such sentimentality. There is a part of me that feels that I ought to be making something of myself with how little time I have left on these campus grounds. Having those you love die will do that to you. Though – I must admit to you, as much as I love my dawgs, I’m pretty introverted. You might find that hard to believe, considering how… ya know. If there’s anything these past few months of seminars and letters of intent have taught me, it’s that much of my life is a kind of performance². A performance that I love doing, that I think I’ve done a good enough job of enmeshing my very essence into, that I take as seriously as I do my physical and academic well-being, but a performance that is, by and large, still a performance, still something that demands out of my being a certain amount of labour.

speaking of labour, look at how fire this dinner i made for my friends the other day. braised short rib, roasted asparagus on a bed of polenta, topped with some gremolada and some parm. yum yum yum!

This is all to say: I’m writing this to procrastinate on a 1500-word essay. Out of respect for your time³ and mine, let me update you on all the exciting things that have happened to me since this year started.

I GOT INTO GRADUATE SCHOOL!

I’m typing this as if I haven’t been loud about it already. If you’re reading this, you probably already know that. I just wanted to document it here for posterity’s sake. Hahahaha. Not too bad for a guy like me. Big win for the Filipino community.

I HAVE OFFICIALLY MATRICULATED!

This one is a bit more new. If you haven’t heard, I got into all the masters programs I wanted to get into. My most trusted of advisors are well aware of the circumstances that I was deliberating upon. Maybe it is the Libra rising⁴ in me that is so contingent on making sure that I weigh my options as carefully as possible, or maybe it is just a normal thing for people to want to make sure that the next two years of their lives are going to matter in the best ways possible. Who knows?

After spending these last few weeks deliberating⁵, I will officially be matriculating at the University of Toronto this Fall for an MA in Curriculum & Pedagogy, under the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

Truly, it is a blessing to be given the opportunity (and, quite frankly, the money) to pursue research in a field that I have so much reverence for. I’ll write more about why this means so much to me at some point this summer, but those of you who I hold close probably already can put two and two together.

These two things are, of course, downstream from a bigger movement in my life:

I’LL BE GRADUATING FROM MY UNDERGRADUATE DEGREE!

Thank God for that. Took me long enough. Get me outta here. Ahh. Just kidding. Well, kinda.

IT HAS BEEN AN INCREDIBLE YEAR FOR MUSIC (THAT I LIKE)!

• Ca$ino by Baby Keem

• Don’t Be Dumb by A$AP Rocky

• Nothing’s About to Happen to Me by Mitski

• The Super Bowl 60 Halftime Show by Bad Bunny

• Sinners having a record-breaking 16 Oscar nominations

• Vanisher, Horizon Scraper (The Extended Cut) by Quadeca⁶

• a new album from underscores is dropping this year

I’m probably missing a few projects, but these are my favourites thus far. That Baby Keem album has zero skips, front to back. The halftime show has exposed me to Bad Bunny’s discography. Oh man, that Baby Keem album is so good. So, so, so good. The title track alone has been blasting non-stop since it released. If you’ll listen to one song recommendation, listen to the song Ca$ino by Baby Keem. Audio dopamine. Feels like I can lift skyscrapers every time I hear those synths kick in. So good.

Dishonourable mention to the newest Bruno Mars album, The Romantic. Pains me to say it as a fellow Filipino person, but I don’t think I’ve ever encountered an artist so simultaneously talented and contrived. His vocal chops and his production are some of the best out there right now, but whether its out of respect or marketability⁷ he owes way too much to the artists who have invented the sounds he is trying to recreate to the point where every single he releases just comes off as derivative. At least with Silk Sonic and 24K Magic, his two prior releases that also come off as parodies of the genre, they have immense vocal and production chops. The execution for this latest release feels just okay, which saddens me to say considering how much potential this dude has. One day, we will get a messy, introspective Bruno Mars song. This is not that day. Also, I Just Might is probably one of the worst songs he’s ever released, ever. Okay, enough hating.

JUJUTSU KAISEN SEASON THREE IS THE BEST ANIME HAS EVER BEEN

At least, when it comes to shonen. I might be a little biased, considering JJK is one of my favourite manga series of all time and the Culling Games introduces some of my all-time favourite characters⁸, but you’d be hard-pressed to find another serialized show that is filled with this much love, labour, and attention to detail. Every episode that drops feels like the best episode to date, until the next one releases. The episodes dedicated to Maki and Higuruma’s introduction are some of the best television I’ve ever watched, ever. You gotta catch up to JJK man. Oh my goodness.

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Okay, that feels like an okay amount of writing. In short: I’ve been good! Busy, for busy’s sake, but also for good reasons. I hope you’re doing alright out there. I’m hoping to do something special for the month of April. If you didn’t know already, April is my favourite month of the year. It is, of course, a month for lovers. Expect to see an abundance of my writing next month. In the mean time - have fun out there! If there is anything that we can learn from multi-Olympic Gold Medalist and future world champion Alysa Liu, it is that anything worth doing can also be done in a way that is, above all else, fun! I don’t know how true that is, and I don’t think that’s the ultimate takeaway we should be getting from her incredible performance. It would just feel off to not mention how much her victory has rippled into the lives of many, mine included.

Go out and have fun, guys! Until next time.

1. from hong kong

2. something something judith butler and gender

3. to be fair, if you’re going out of your way to read this, you must really wanna read this… so… thanks!

4. ugh… gross… so performative…

5. editor’s note: deliberating is a much nicer way of bashing my head into a brick wall over and over again

6. my AOTY from 2025 got a deluxe edition… yippee

7. the latter, most likely

8. higuruma, hakari, kashimo, takaba (the actual GOAT), the weird sumo guy, other characters that aren’t technically new but come back in huge ways (won’t spoil) … ohhh my goodness