For once, I am begging you to look my way

If you resist reading what you disagree with, how will you ever acquire deeper insights into what you believe? The things most worth reading are precisely those that challenge our convictions.

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Trying the reverse bungy

“Every man has the right to risk his own life in order to preserve it. Has it ever been said that a man who throws himself out the window to escape from a fire is guilty of suicide?”

G-max is open until 2 am.

You pay at the ticket booth. They offer special packages including momentos for the ride i.e., video recording, shirts, caps, etc.

Two gantry towers mounted on a platform.

The video recording was not working when we got there so we could not avail of their combo package (which included the momentos) so we just paid for the ride.

We were on a queue and found my legs weakened as I watched the passengers inside a metal spherical car being thrown into the air. I heard people’s scream faded into the wind as they were being vertically catapulted at 200 km per hour in a dazzling height of 60 meters from the ground. “What if die?” I told myself. Fear was painted all over my face. I looked around and found that, it was just me, Oki, and a White kid on the queue. Nyar! There were more spectators than people wanting to try it. Not far from us, a group of young Filipinos were cheering us. “Go, go, kaya n’yo yan!” (Go, go, you can do it!). I tried boosting my puny confidence and convinced myself that everything would be okay. Besides, our rides have already been paid. We didn’t fly all the way to Singapore just to chicken out!

It was actually Oki’s idea to try the G-Max Reverse Bungy. She obviously likes the fun thrill. She signed up to skydive in Subic last year and will probably fly to Chang Mai this year to bungee jump. I will try to see first if she’ll come out of it alive and maybe convince myself to do it too. But for now, reverse bungy/bungee is more than enough.

“Who wants to go next?” the guy who was assisting the passengers asked.

We live only once and NOT being able to do it when I already had the chance is way beyond me.

I gulped as we went into the platform. The guy had our safety belts and latches locked. I asked the guy who was assisting us if someone had already died from this ride (a stupid thing to ask really) and he said, “G-Max is 100% safety record.” He said it like a template, which worried me more. Crazy hell, my head was in a fuzz as we waited for the launch. Right at that moment, I was thinking of my poor, innocent mother. She doesn’t even know I was in another country with a half chance of (maybe) not coming back to her alive. It amazes me how imaginative and exagerated I could I be when I am freaked out and scared. Wah!

I believed they’ve arranged us by weight for stability. I was in the middle. On my left was Oki and on my right was this kid who was being chatty and made sure this ride would be my most memorable one. I was so caught up with my own fears that I barely understood what he was telling me. All I got was that, it was his second time riding the bungee and he was all so looking cool about it.

The kid was counting from 1 to 10 while the operator waited to turn the electro-magnetic latch that would launch us into nowhere. After the “go sign” we were catapulted into heights with a g-force. It was then that I started screaming. At 200km/hr I was belting on top of my lungs. I was hoping not to die that night. No kidding.

Oki and the kid were looking so damn cool about it. What the heck. After three throws, and several bounces, we were lulled into the air 60 meters high and the kid would talk to me, saying: “What would happen if by bad luck the ropes malfunctioned and separated from the passenger spheres? We would fall and then all of a sudden a big bird would come and get us!” He was describing the ‘what if’ to me so vividly that abruptly I told him to shut up. But he would not. He continued to torture me with his vivid descriptions. Ah, kids!

Until finally, the ropes relaxed and we were lowered back into our launch position. The ride was chaotic and disorienting. The force and the strong wind completed the thrill. My heart simply would not pacify. I enjoyed screaming though. God, I had a nice belting power!

I didn’t have the stamina to take pictures but basically, this is how reverse bungy works.

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What I love about the night...

... the paths and streets seem more challenging to traverse.

...some moments just pass you by like a ghost and what remains are fading lights.

...how lights changes every now and then without warning.

...and how dynamic everything seems to be whereas in some parts of the world, everyone is asleep.

...or how in the solitude of the night the sight pleases us because it suppresses idle details, just as our memory does.

...my mind is fully awakened by this stereophonic little noises from the other side.

...I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.

...it shows even those that we thought are hidden.

...and just like the night, it smiles back!

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Night—
makes a poet out of a bum
a nearly comprehensible moment
making every possible sights
subtle, if not vague and enduring.

My night, such darkness, hiding a portion
of everything I forebode in a day.

Falling leaves, my Chucks, and me in a waiting shed

The best thing to do is not doing anything.

Sorry about my Chucks (often) getting the exposure. I just fancy this shot a lot. And the dry leaves falling at the tips of my shoes are just the great mood booster. A guy at the office saw me once in this kind of mood and asked me (with a serious look as if i am sick in the head or something), "Why do you always photograph your feet?" By the mere fact that he mentioned the word "always" it means he often see me doing it. I was shaken there a bit. So anyway I told him, it's not the feet that I like to shoot but the Chucks. My affinity for this shoes goes way beyond my normal psyche. And then thinking about it now. Maybe it wasn't the Chucks that I like to capture but the mere moment of it. The moment of dilly-dally, where I just lay there languid and I see great works of nature unfolding before me. It's not everyday that dry leaves blew at the tips of your feet and you're just there, waiting for the bus to arrive. It's not everyday that I wish and stay. Oh well. Now this is me becoming utterly cheesy and weird.

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I discovered that I can't write poems anymore. that is what i get from digging in to too much pop. i am starting to hate writing the scary stuff. i want the cheesy, fun stuff now.