Russian Poem of the Day:

БУРЯ
Александр Пушкин

Ты видел деву на скале
В одежде белой над волнами
Когда, бушуя в бурной мгле,
Играло море с берегами,
Когда луч молний озарял
Ее всечасно блеском алым
И ветер бился и летал
С ее летучим покрывалом?
Прекрасно море в бурной мгле
И небо в блесках без лазури;
Но верь мне: дева на скале
Прекрасней волн, небес и бури.

Translation

STORM
Alexandr Pushkin

Do you see the maiden on the cliff
Above the waves, dressed in white
When the sea plays with the coasts,
Raging in the stormy haze,
When the ray of lightning struck hourly
With it's crimson brilliance,
And the wind beats and whips
Her fluttering shawl?
Isn't it wonderful--the sea with the stormy haze
And the sky without the azure luster;
But believe me: the maiden on the cliff
Is more beautiful than the waves, the sky, and the storm.

Another Pushkin poem! I love translating his works because they're beautiful in any language. Sometimes, when you translate a work, it loses it's spark. Not with Pushkin. He was brilliant.

I want the complete collection of Pushkin's poems. Can anyone buy that for me? It has to be in Russian though...

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I am pissed off. Seriously.

( Reason I'm pissed #1 )

Hold on. My wallet is going into shock from excessive loss of blood money. I have to resuscitate it by brain-whoring. $10/hr, $15 if you want a cram session ergo "my test is tomorrow and I don't know a fucking thing!" I also give violin and guitar lessons, $10-20, depending on how musically ignorant you are. Any takers?

( Reason I'm pissed #2 )

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Another reason I am pissed: Read this, from the magazine Newsbreak. It's about the Opus Dei's supposed influence on the future scientists and leaders of the Philippines, ergo Pisay students. This pisses me off because it's just mudslinging. First the poisoning incident, now this. And look, oh look, they managed to implicate the Opus Dei, which just happens to be a hot topic right now because of The Da Vinci Code. No, the disclaimer does not fool anyone. If Newsbreak stuck to the budgetary quantity over quality shit, I would have believed it. But no. They just had to go into religion didn't they?

I disagree that the Opus Dei is infiltrating Pisay for the purpose of converting the future scientists of the Philippines into bible-thumping, religious conservative hicks. The article totally ignored the fact that the Philippines is a predominantly Catholic nation; therefore it is obvious that any school will be predominantly Catholic, even if it is supposed to be secular. (Unless of course it is a special Protestant/Buddhist/Moslem/Hindu/etc-only school). So guess what? The Opus Dei don't need to convert Pisay students because tadaa--a lot of those who come into pisay are Catholics anyway, maybe even Opus Dei to boot. These Catholic Pisay students, being the devout little people they are, will obviously want to practice their religion. They will want Virgin Mary statues to pray to, crucifixes on the wall, pictures of saints hanging over their beds, rosaries to thumb, and all those other monstrosities Catholics want.

The few who do want prayer mats or Omitama boxes exist (like me, when I rediscovered my Shinto faith); however they are largely unnoticed in the tide of Catholics. No biggie. They don't mind. The minority who are non-Catholic Christians don't mind either. Just because other religions are in the minority doesn't mean that they are marginalized at Pisay. The non-Catholics were never made to feel pressure to convert to Catholicism nor adopt Catholic beliefs. The non-Catholics were left alone in their beliefs or non-belief. When Catholics have masses and retreats, there are also corresponding non-sectarian retreats and prayer-meetings. I myself chose the Catholic retreats though, as more of my friends were Catholic than not. There was also the choice of not going to retreats, but when the retreat involves 4-days in Tagaytay amidst the heavenly mini buko pies and espasol, who would have wanted to skip out? Of course you'd choose to go to a 4-day, whole-batch sleepover! As to the question “Why isn’t there an imam or a representative of indigenous peoples?”, I don't think any imam or babaylan would waste their time on the measly 3-6 Moslems, 0-3 pagans in the school.

Another thing that the article ignored was the fact that many Pisay graduates actually become non-believers. If anything, Pisay removes all the religion out of you. Take me, for example. When I entered the hallowed halls of PSHS, I was a semi-practicing Catholic. When I took my final step out, I was part-agnostic, part-Shinto. Yes, I had Opus Dei teachers who breathed fire whenever we were caught not wearing chemises under our semi-transparent uniform (M*j*r*s anyone?). Yes, I attended 4-years worth of "religious" retreats and recollections. Yes I sang in the choir at Catholic masses. Yes, some teachers made us pray. Yes, we had a baccalaureate mass at our graduation. So why am I still a past-agnostic, part-Shinto heathen who will probably go to hell (if it exists)?

Because I had the option not do do those things. I ignored admonishments from M*j*r*s and kept on wearing noting but a bra (sometimes a colored and printed one visible from miles away!), under my uniform blouse--sin of lust be damned. I only attended the retreats because they were 4-day, whole-batch sleepovers with heavenly mini buko pies. I only sang at masses because I was desperate for a music fix and even religious songs were starting to sound good to a song-deprived music junkie like me. I had the choice to completely disregard religion, which I did.

I think most Pisay students have done, and are continuing to do, what I did during my stay there: concentrate on the secular. Religion becomes almost unimportant in the face of the myriad requirements we have. Besides, teachers also concentrate on the secular. Yes, even the Opus Dei ones keep their bible-thumping to a bare minimum. All the scientific topics were given fair, accurate, and non-religious explanations. In fact, some of the Opus Dei teachers were the ones who were the most conscientious about separating religion from science. There is no Darwin-bashing, Freud-stomping, Leonardo-hating, and Galileo-tramping going on. To those who believe otherwise, consider this: Pisay does not have a "Religion" or "Christian Living" subject. We have values education, but that isn't really religious either. And yes, we are fully encouraged to "embark in intrepid explorations of the natural sciences."

So to the conspiracy theorists at Newsbreak: lay off Pisay, won't you? So the Philippine political scene is boring because everybody knows that every Juan de la Cruz in office is corrupt. Why did you have to turn your attentions to religion at Pisay, which really, is not a big deal? Is there really nothing more important you can cover? Maui Taylor farting perhaps?

Stop practicing your one-sided "journalism" on poor Pisay, lest you want an army of robots and genetically mutated bacterial cultures to invade your offices. Go back to bashing politicians.

Consuelo de bobo: Newsbreak also has this, which is actually funny and a better commentary on Filipino life than the dyaryobasura article about pisay.

P.S. Dear Newsbreak, collecting libel suits is not something "the most credible news and current affairs magazine" does. Journalism is good, but there is a fine line between reporting the ugly truth and sensationalism. Mudslinging is mudslinging, no matter what form it takes. Ok?

P.P.S. Dear "Kevin the recent graduate", why did you talk to those people at Newsbreak? It would have been better if someone more articulate and more in line with the majority had done so. That would have prevented the gross misunderstanding that is the Newsbreak article. Tsk.

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On a brighter note, the Suns won against the Mavericks, 121-118. I wasn't able to watch as it was on cable, but just reading the recap and watching the highlight clips excited me. The last few minutes would have kept me on the edge of my seat, had I watched the game in its entirety. The Mavs have another reason for cursing themselves for letting Steve Nash, MVP go. Hahaha.