Running is a Solitary Sport (formerly Running in Circles (formerly Running For Your Life))

Why do people run? A lot of people do it for health reasons. Some are known endorphine junkies who are in it for the post-run rush. Maybe a few even do it for fame and prestige, these douchebags who treat running events as venues to see and be seen. Me, I run simply because I want to look good naked.

Even when I was more than 15 years younger and healthier, before I even puffed my first stick of cigarette, I could not stand any form of running whatsoever. I did poorly in running-intensive street games like agawan base and patintero when I was a street urchin in Caloocan and I always finished last in 50- and 100-meter dash races in grade school. In high school, I could not ever finish the 15-minute run warm up portion of our PE classes.

It took me another 15 years or so to finally get the hang of this godforsaken activity. Almost exactly three years ago, I started going to the gym—because I wanted to look good naked. I began using the treadmill regularly, although running the treadmill is not really running but just jumping in place, as Jumi always pointed out then. When my gym membership ended a year later, I was forced to run outdoors around the Ateneo because, even if I had not realized my aesthetic goal yet, renewing gym membership was beyond the means of a pauper college teacher like me.

It had not been easy in the beginning; when I was running the treadmill, I could run nonstop for 12 minutes and I was already so proud of myself. But when I first tried running outdoors, I could only do 6 minutes straight. I just continued to run, twice or thrice a week, usually just around the Ateneo campus. The improvement was slow and gradual; my continuous running time improved to 10 minutes, then to 16. I became confident enough to join running events, starting in July 2008 when I joined the 10 km event of The North Face 100. I finished the race in around one and a half hours, which to my mind was not bad for a beginner and a heavy smoker. I guess this was when I first fell in love with the sport; I can still remember feeling utterly exhausted and completely euphoric at the same time. I guess it felt a little bit like sex, but without the guilty feeling which almost always comes after. I joined a string of five or six events in the next few months; my time for 10 km improved to around an hour, but it had pretty much plateaued at that level. I knew I needed to do something drastic to improve my time and my performance, and almost instantly, I knew that that something would have to be giving up smoking.

My love affair with tobacco is a topic for another blog entry, so it should suffice to say that I was able to successfully quit, in April of this year, because I wanted to be a better runner (because I wanted to look good naked). That’s how much I love running: only running was able to make me quit smoking, something none of my past girlfriends were able to do. The improvement was pretty much instant after that, in terms of both time and endurance. I now average 25 minutes for 5 km and 55 minutes for 10 km; in my last event run (Ateneo Big Blue Run last December 6), I was able to run the entire 10 km without stopping for a walk.

I run regularly two to three times a week, from 7 to 9 km per run. I enjoy running the most when I am alone, when I run as fast as I can, when I push myself to the limit, when I strive to beat myself with each try. I love running in the rain, in the dark, in my own little world. I love losing myself to the euphoria and the music. The ache that I feel in my feet, the strain in my legs, and the burning in my lungs, are what make me feel most alive when I run. I run because I want to look good naked. I am thankful that it has not happened yet because I still do not want to stop.

A Probabilistic Model for Friday Night Ins

Until about early this year, you most probably would not see me the way I am right this very minute, sitting in front of the computer at home on a beautiful Friday night, trying to pass time writing an inane blog entry like this one. In all likelihood, I’d be out with friends drinking, playing poker, or doing other things most thirtysomething single guys like me would do on a Friday night. But these past few months I find myself spending more and more of my Friday evenings at home, spending an hour or two on the Internet, reading a novel I’ve been trying to finish for weeks, or listening to heavy metal music with the volume turned way up. As I spend another Friday night at home tonight, for the nth time in the past so many weeks, I begin to ask myself perhaps one of the most profound and important questions of my adult life: how and when have I started to become such a wuss?

Looking at the issue objectively, from the perspective of a rational and objective thinker, we should perhaps start by defining this aspect of “wussiness” more specifically as the probability that a person would stay at home on a Friday night, which we will denote as P(W). What factors contribute to this likelihood? Why would a reasonably healthy and sane man find spending a Friday night at home more appealing than a night out with friends? In this article, I posit that the probability P(W) is a function of the six variables stated in the equation below and defined in the succeeding paragraphs.

is simply the number of drinking buddies one has. Clearly, the higher this number is, the more reason a person would spend Friday nights outside. I have lost quite a number of drinking buddies this past year, both inadvertently and consciously: April’s in Europe and Jumi’s out of the country most of the time; I’ve finally gotten tired of the antics of Doti, so I lose Selena and Weng in the bargain as well; I don’t get to spend as much time with Mabs, Nicole, and Tatcee anymore, I don’t really know why; Nolan’s not as fun to be with anymore (hahaha, kidding dude) and Hap’s, well, Hap.

m is money. Obviously, the less of it you have, the higher the motivation to just stay home and watch TV.

is a Boolean variable indicating whether someone has a girlfriend or not: 0 for no girlfriend, and 1 for with girlfriend. While the existence of the relationship between P(W) and is already widely accepted, the exact form of the relationship is still intensely debated in academic and social circles. One argument is that having a girlfriend is one of the most important reasons to go out on a Friday night, particularly to dine out or watch a movie. But other experts contend that the opposite is true, that people in relationships would tend to spend Friday nights at home having sex than go out. Unfortunately, this space is too constrained for a more in depth discussion of the arguments of both sides; what can be done to finally resolve the matter is to investigate how the effect of on P(W) is affected by another variable which we will initially call , or the probability that the girlfriend will put out on any given Friday night.

α or alpha level is the degree of alcoholism of the person in question, measured by the average number of bbes (beer bottle equivalents) the person can drink on any given night. The special case where α = 0 is often referred to as β (for βoring) in some circles. The higher α is, the higher the P(W). Two years ago, my alpha was around 7 (with a standard deviation of 3 bbes); since I started driving two months ago, it has gone down to 4 (with a standard deviation of 1 bbe).

ln y is the natural logarithm of the person’s age y in years; as age increases, ln y decreases gradually, decreasing the probability of going out on a Friday night at the same rate. A simpler way of stating this relationship is that the older one gets, the less fun one becomes.

Finally, we come to the last determinant of P(W): or “loser factor,” in layman’s terms. Stated as any number from 0 to 1, has an inverse relationship with P(W), which means that the more of a loser one is, the less likely he will have a reason to go out on a Friday night. There is no one clear definition of this factor as it is still the focus of ongoing rigorous research and experimentation, but based on initial findings, geeks and nerds would tend to have high loser factors than “normal” guys. Last year my was rated at around 0.5; after writing this article, it shot up to the high 0.9’s.

Using the model described in this article, it is clear that the fact that I’m home on a Friday night is the combined result of a variety of factors, which may be summarized as: I’ve got fewer drinking buddies now and little money as always, I’ve no girlfriend, I now drink less than before, I’m now really quite old, and I’ve become such a loser these past months. Of course I wish I was home for other reasons (like to have sex), but I guess my luck has already run out. Oh well.

The model is far from complete. Aside from the topics of further studies mentioned above, the covariance of the proposed variables should also be more deeply considered: for example, what’s the relationship between money and having a girlfriend, or between age and loser factor? Empirical data should be gathered from primary sources and secondary data used to reinforce initial findings. FML, I’ve such a high !!!

Life on the Road: Confessions of a First Time Driver

Okay, so the title is a bit of a stretch; I haven’t been really “living on the road” since I bought the car two months ago. 80% of the time, I just drive the car from the Pollock parking lot to SOM for a solid three minutes of pure driving pleasure. So yes, because I’m someone who can walk from the house to his place of work just as fast as drive, I don’t really need a car. Yet I bought one, my first car, a second-hand 2003 Toyota Corolla, complete with manual transmission and windows (I’m just realizing now that the latter’s a real pain in the ass) and that I-look-new-even-if-I’m-not look that I immediately fell in love with the first time I saw it. And another funny thing about this love affair is that I bought the car even before I knew how to drive.

I know I have done a number of stupid things in my life, but I’m quite sure that this is not one of them. As early as a year ago, I have already made up my mind that I will buy a car and learn how to drive soon, for reasons as simple as to have a dependable ride for my weekly trips to Rustan’s (imagine carrying 10 kilos of groceries back to the Ateneo when there are no tricycles around) and as profound as to not have to depend on utterly useless and completely unreliable friends for important trips (to an out-of-town wedding that I can’t miss or be late for, for example). The buying part, I knew I was already prepared for, to a certain degree at least: had I decided to buy a new car, I knew I had enough financial capacity for the downpayment and monthly amortizations. I always knew that the learning part would be trickier because I would need to buy a car first before I could learn how to drive: I did not benefit from father-son driving lessons when I was still living with my parents and I don’t have anything to practice with now that I’m living on my own. So when the opportunity presented itself, when a distant relative announced that he was selling his car for a reasonable price, I took the bait. Three days later the car was delivered to my parent’s place in Meycauayan. The next day I enrolled in an 8-hour driving program in a driving school right across Katipunan. After a month, I applied for and immediately received a driver’s license. The following day I drove the car from Meycauayan to Ateneo: it’s been parked at Pollock ever since.

The road to a more conifident and competent driving had been quite slow and bumpy: in the first few days of driving it around the city, I lost momentum in the middle of a steep ramp twice (both instances, I had to roll back down and try again), got wide-eyed lost a couple of times in places I once thought I knew like the back of my hand, and the engine died on me countless times in the middle of the road. But every passing day, I do feel barely-noticeable incremental improvements. So I’ve started using the car for more useful and challenging trips, to odd destinations within and around the metro: the watering holes I and my friends frequent in Matalino and Maginhawa, Trinoma, Antipolo for MACA’s evsem, Jun’s new pad in Manila, and just yesterday, Makati for GMAT. The coupe de grace for me, of course, would be Tagaytay, a destination I’m planning to head to before my next birthday (Baguio for me is still a couple of years and maybe a handful of accidents away).

I know what I’m feeling now is not a big deal for most of you; you’ve gone through the same thing what? 10? 15 years ago? I’m just happy that I was able to do these things, even if belatedly: buying a car with my own money and learning how to drive on my own. Doing something for the first time is always exhilirating. Ever since I started driving a month ago, I’ve just logged a total of around 400 kilometers: there’s still much of the world that I have yet to discover, still many roads that I have yet to traverse. I still don’t know what I’ll do next, but I can’t wait to see where my next decision will take me. I’ll see you when I get there, okay?

2 Days in Paris

2 Days in Paris is a 2007 film written and directed by Julie Delpy of Before Sunrise and Before Sunset fame. It tells the story of Marion and Jack, a thirtysomething couple played by Delpy and Adam Goldberg (you might remember him as the primary bankroller of the movie Medellin in Entourage). Jack, a heavily-tattooed American interior designer, and Marion, a French photographer who has a history of mental disorder, decide to spend two days in Paris with Marion’s equally dysfunctional family after a not-so-memorable vacation in Venice. Once there, it doesn’t take too long before Jack discovers Marion’s colorful and prolific sexual history, a discovery which eventually leads to jealousy and paranoia. The ensuing cornucopia of negative feelings, unfortunate coincidences and misunderstandings, and the host of sickeningly perverse French men from Marion’s past and present threatens to destroy the couple’s already-precarious two-year relationship

I loved the film. It was funny when it needed to be funny. Goldberg’s humor was there, of course. The French characters were hilarious! I’m pretty sure that at some level everything’s exaggerated, but in the movie all the French thought about was sex and flirting seemed to be the national pastime. In one scene, this was how Marion described to Jack a Frenchman they bumped into: “We met many years ago and we had a little thing. I think I gave him a blowjob. No big deal.”

Julie Delpy was great. If you’ve seen Before Sunrise and/or Before Sunset, you know what I’m talking about. If you’re twentysomething and you still believe all that cheesy crap they say about love and romance, go watch Before Sunrise. After a few years, when all your unrealistic notions about love and relationships have been completely washed away by the passing of time, watch Before Sunset. I’m sure you’ll love both films and you’ll definitely adore Julie Delpy.

Another reason why I love this film so much is that it is able to portray mature romantic relationships realistically; it is able to eloquently articulate ideas and notions about relationships that the even the best of us have a hard time understanding by ourselves. Here are some of the more thought-provoking lines I have painstakingly transcribed from the film, as narrated by Julie Delpy’s character Marion near the end when the shit was just about to hit the fan:

“I confessed to Jack that the toughest thing for me was to decide to be with someone for good. The idea that this is it, this is the man I’m going to spend the rest of my life with, to decide that I will make the effort to stay and work things out and not run off the minute there is a problem is very difficult for me.”

“It always fascinates me how people go from loving you madly to nothing at all. Nothing.”

“Here it is. One more, one less. Another wasted love story. I really loved this one. When I think that it’s over, that I’ll never see him again like this. Well yes, I’ll bump into him, we’ll meet our new boyfriend and girlfriend, act as if we have never been together. Then we’ll slowly think of each other less and less, until we forget each other completely. Almost. Always the same for me: break up, break down; drink up, fool around; meet one guy then another, fuck around to forget the one and only. Then after a few months of total emptiness start again to look for true love; desperately look everywhere and after two years of loneliness, meet a new love and swear it is the one. Until that one is gone as well.“

This last one almost perfectly captures what’s been going on in my life these past few years. I really don’t know what else to say after this.

It’s a great film. Go watch it.

Turning Thirty-two

Two years ago, in the months leading to my thirtieth birthday, I have constantly pestered my friends with my apprehensions and complaints about my age. I felt old and a bit depressed: I was turning thirty, and I felt like I had nothing to show for it. Well, I’m now just a few hours away from thirty-two: I’m still dirt-poor and single, but far from wallowing in dejection and misery, I now feel nothing but excitement and have nothing but optimism for what lies ahead.

This past year has probably been the most eventful in my life. I was able to do and experience things, visit beautiful places, and meet unforgettable people, all for the first time. It’s like having a “bucket list” of things to do before one dies, without the dying part; like being Jim Carrey’s character in “Yes Man”, without the slapstick comedy part.

Of course the ride had not been perfectly smooth; I had to do things that needed doing and unavoidably hurt some people and burn a few bridges along the way. But I don’t regret any of the things I've done. I guess part of the growing up that happened this past year is realizing that, ultimately, I am the only person who should be responsible for my actions and myself, selfish as it may seem. That I should do things that result only in my well-being, without a shred of selflessness or altruism; and yes, even at the risk of other people and some of my friends calling me an asshole for living this ideology.

Now that I’m about to turn thirty-two, I feel like I’m in some sort of personal and emotional equilibrium, a fancy term for saying that while I’m not perfectly happy, I am very much contented. I am thankful for the few material things that I have, and cherish the select people who are important to me; life is too short and time is too scarce to waste even a few moments on negative emotions and people who seem to inexhaustibly radiate negativity. I can’t wait to see how the seeds that I’ve planted this past year will bear fruit (not that kind of seed) and witness how it will all unfold.

Who Watches the Watchmen? (Spoiler Alert!)

Like I usually do whenever a highly-reputed literary work is to be turned into a movie, I bought (and immediately read) a copy of the Watchmen graphic novel a few months back. I saw the film earlier today. As expected, there were discrepancies between the graphic novel and the movie, borne both out of the inherent limitations of film as a medium and the artistic leeway filmmakers bestow upon themselves. Almost all of the novel’s numerous sub-plots (Hollis’ “Under the Hood”, the newsstand vendor and the black kid, the collection of artists and scientists ala “Atlas Shrugged”, etc.) that were only indirectly tied to the main storyline were omitted in the film version, and several “trivial” inconsistencies were evident throughout the film (Rorschach and Nite Owl traveling to Veidt’s Antarctic base on foot; the missing big, badass motherfucker of a monster). But the whole plot is there, stretched across three hours of film; and moviegoers, especially those who have read the novel, will see the film makers’ efforts to stay true to the original material (note the homage to the newsstand vendor and the black kid when the New York bomb detonated).

Is Watchmen for everyone? Well, the graphic novel definitely isn’t. Some friends I’ve lent the book to were overwhelmed by either the enormity of the story or the complexity of the plot. But give the novel a shot and you’ll see that a significant portion of the pleasure in reading it will come from the sub-plots, these seemingly inconsequential narratives that lend color, life, and substance to both the characters and the story itself. At first glance, these details will seem unimportant; but as Alan Moore’s intricate web starts to unravel, the realization that each small part is related to every other in ways both subtle and brilliant will ultimately leave you breathless. As for the movie… Purists will definitely hate it (they always do), most of those who haven’t read the novel will not get it, and conservatives will be turned off by the excessive gore Zack Snyder is known for.

I personally liked the film, in general. But I do have a few gripes about my movie-watching experience earlier.

1. It is my humble opinion that the local movie industry, or this country for that matter, will never ever prosper as long as higher ups treat us like frigging children. I mean, come on! You’ll show a disintegrating body in all its bloody splendor and then you’ll cut portions of a love scene between two lead characters? Who the fuck are you kidding? Well, it’s probably the fault of the local distributors (sellout fucks), but that’s not the point, is it?

2. Again about this crap we call the local movie industry. What’s up with those grainy and dirty film negatives these mall theaters keep shoving down the throats of their patrons? It’s not like they’re one of those fly-by-night provincial movie houses which show local “R” rated films “double with” unknown foreign B-movies. I paid 175 pesos to see the film in your theater (I’m talking to you, Eastwood Cinema), and I expect to get my money’s worth, film-quality wise. How can you expect us to stop patronizing pirated films (which reportedly now cost a measly 10 pesos per film in Divisoria) when you keep giving us crap? Assholes.

3. In the film, Adrian Veidt looks eerily like David Spade, hair, nose, build and all, which is so unlike his masculine, Aryan-looking counterpart in the graphic novel. At one point in the movie, I almost expected badass Veidt to deliver a stand-up routine. Now that would’ve been definitely worth watching.

Have a nice day!

Heads or Tails

At the risk of sounding like a Haruki Murakami fanboy, I would like to announce that I had just eaten the 100% perfect Spicy Oriental Spareribs. Actually, it fell just a tad short of perfect because it was bit too salty and the cut of the meat just wasn’t quite right. Nevertheless, despite its shortcomings, I still think that it’s the 100% perfect Spicy Oriental Spareribs—mainly because I cooked it myself.

As men, we take so much pride in creating things: wondrous, beautiful—and in this instance, passably edible—things. Giving life to something, from conceptualization to realization, from something as trivial as Spicy Oriental Spareribs to something as complex as Ratatouille, is perhaps the closest we can ever get to godhood. The desire to create, the impulse to fashion something meaningful out of virtually nothing, is what separates us from other forms of life; it’s what makes us what, or who, we are.

Unfortunately, we also take so much pleasure in destroying things. No other species on earth can destroy and kill as efficiently as we can. And it’s not even a simple retribution thing: it’s not like we only smother and smite our enemies and obliterate only those who have hurt us. What’s peculiar about our insane passion for utter destruction is that we often don’t care who our unwitting victims are—we still do what we do even at the risk of hurting the innocent, or worse, the ones we love.

What’s so beautiful about it is that this concept of man’s dual nature—creator and destroyer as two sides of the same ugly coin—is totally consistent with man’s concept of God and of himself as God’s poor surrogate; you know, “He giveth, so he can taketh away.” Or some shit like that.

So what the point? The point is that sometimes we feel a nagging urge to create something, anything, like this blog entry for example. And almost always, as soon as we are done, we feel an equally strong desire to click “delete.”