...made my day. again.
19 units, good schedule, a 2.25 in tenpin bowling. no cwts, but that can wait.
and i was thinking of signing up for an RA slot. there was no need for that, apparently.
CRS loves me, i guess - i know some freshies who are still waist-deep in the "underload" mire.
next up is this "manual online" enlistment, which sounds like the newest oxymoron to me.
and more good news: tri-coll priority. but that's bad news for everyone else, 'no?
earlier this day i brought josh (the bunso) with me to UP to do a few rounds around the academic oval. to facilitate his "jogging," i set the pace for him by brisk-walking a bit. however, the boy slowed down after a quarter-length, and by the halfway mark he was looking for a shortcut. well, at least he made it to three-quarters...
then we went to the tennis courts and waited for tim and ronald. that was when a text message informed me that no one will be bringing tennis balls along. good thing the club had some, and let us borrow them (heck, tennis without balls? that's frustrating).
josh was hilarious - his memory storage is limitless, much to the demise of his kuya; tim and ronald just kept on feeding him with the latest chismis about kuya gab, most of which even i am not aware of (i prefer not to disclose them here). but i had fun, and in the end, that was all that mattered. maybe i should bring him there again sometime else.
anyway, here's a nice site which i had knowledge of through mica, a vocabulary quiz formulated by the United Nations World Food Program; every answer you get correctly donates 10 grains of rice to the UN "to help end world hunger."
ten grains is almost negligible, see, but a hundred grains fills up only a fraction of the standard size cup. i tried counting and got up to five, maybe six hundred - but even that much was not able to account for a half-cup. they've collected a grand total 420 million grains as of yesterday; how many sacks would that make?
it's not enough to feed more than 85% of the world, but it's a good avenue to do your part in achieving the dream of eradicating poverty. hmmmm.
by this afternoon, troops of vehicles will be making its way down Himlayan Road and into the cemetery it leads to. i want to go out somewhere, but i don't want to be stuck in that logjam during the return trip.
so i ended up being talked around by my dad to, well, "make our house look like a home," whatever he meant by that. actually, i'm not finished doing that yet. just nicking some time off.
anyway, here's everyone looking forward to the halloween/all saints' weekend, but i'm thinking about yuletide. dunno why, but christmas signals new year, and new year... makes me feel older. blah. i'm blaming the paint fumes again for this.
about the previous poll, uhmm... a friend of mine told me that the results were distorted. still haven't thought of a new one.
i'm goin' blog hopping now. i wish i had something to write about as well, just like the others. hoooo. a friend commented, "there's no emotion in your posts. what happened?"
is she right?
i feel for you, so try some of these:
1) Happy Tree Friends. i'm not a fan of cartoon violence, but... there was simply no choice.
resistance is futile.
2) Jessica Zafra. what's not to love?
3) Reader's Digest. ohh, there's always room for something new.
4) banana chips and milk. chill before serving. best before sundown.
still bored? get some sleep. but before that, i'm thinking about another poll. suggestions would be most welcome.
true happiness is when you expect it not. -anonymous
and of all things that could make me happy, here's a very unlikely source: CRS. yep, the very CRS which we [UP-Diliman chumps] all condemn for its slothly behavior and unrelenting favoritism [to those who have priority status].
well, it hasn't let me down yet, out of my five tries at the system. 16 out of 19 units isn't bad at all, and i got them in one solid run. but the better part? ahh, two days ago, i checked the View Grades section, and it brought mixed reactions out of my innards:
german 11 (3 units): 2.0
geog 1 (3 units): 1.25
a 2.0 in german? that's very much undeserved. i got a 4.0 in one of her exams, and, well, it was like i gave up on that subject even before the semester's halfway mark. but then... 1.25 in geog? that sucks. i took this subject a bit more seriously than one of my two majors. and i get this out of a virtually uno-able course? damn you sir!!! [haha, kidding :)]
last night, i checked it again, and it had me dancing on my heels.
psych 108 (3 units): 1.0
lingg 1 (3 units): 1.0
psych 110 (5 units): 1.50
this sem was supposed to be my worst, in terms of motivation and effort, especially in my two majors. but given the fact that i learned a lot while having loads of fun, i didn't care what happened to my grades. until now.
psych 110 was a major bummer; well, i didn't like statistics that much. but i did in his exams well enough to earn that grade. but psych 108? heck, he gave me a flat 1 for my half-page papers and awfully below-par quizzes? and lingg 1 - i computed my projected grade here, and it stood between 1.25 and 1.5.
nothing short of a miracle, but i'll take it. (thank You Lord!!!! GWA after 3 sems and 1 summer: 1.314)
just like that, and my morale is on a high... but then again, it always is. (",)
[Fully Updated Week Slam, accomplished!]
my dad arrived early, but he forgot to pay some bills. since he was already tired, he asked me to do it for him... and i had no choice but to comply, gladly - it's been two days since i've gone outside.
while waiting for a jeep, one long-haired guy wearing a yellow sando and cargo shorts approached me and asked:
"boy, anong oras na?"
"ah, sandali lang po..." the kind-hearted yours truly replied as i took my cellphone out from my pocket (i don't wear a watch) to answer his question. "...alas-tres po."
"alas-tres? okay, salamat." he then looked up to a dark sky, and muttered under his breath, "naiwan ko kasi cellphone ko eh... baka traffic na mamaya..."
then out of nowhere, a thought hit me: he's after your cellphone.
it was a completely baseless notion, but it made me chill nonetheless. a jeepney finally came, and so i entered. to my horror, he followed suit, and even took the space by my right - on which pocket i had my phone.
i told you, he's after your phone. he asked the time to find out where you placed it. by this time i was starting to feel stupid for being such a nice-ass.
seconds after, we both paid our fare. according to that sequence, i'd be going down first, so that cooled me down a bit, and i was ready to throw the whole issue out. until the driver slowed down upon seeing a bearded guy hailing his jeepney.
it turned out that mister beard-o was an acquaintance of yellow sando guy. furthermore, it happened that the only space available was between me and his friend, thus he took a seat there. the only comfort that i had was knowing that i was sitting closest to the jeepney entrance. if ever things went whack, i could make a jump for it.
while pondering on my options, i felt fingers grasp the right side of my jeans, as if it was pulling something out. even through the cold and windy ride, icy sweat was rising from my chest.
"bayad po," grunted the beard-o. i heaved another sigh of relief within me. minutes later, i breezed out of the jeepney intact. then i realized that the bills were clutched in my hands. my heart stopped thumping for a moment as i checked my wallet for the money. after rummaging for a bit, i cracked into a wide smile, nearly laughing at myself.
what in the world was i thinking? i wondered, as i looked out from a jeepney window on my way back home. that was plain judgmental and overanalytical, harsh even. hmm...
by this time i was almost zoning out. a thin, lanky, loosely dressed guy yanked me out of it, though, pressing a pointed thing unto my ribs. i stole glances at other passengers - one guy wearing all black, another donning a bandana. both were equipped with sharp knives. the rest were obviously shocked at the turn of events.
"boy, cellphone mo lang. bilis."
=======
purely fictional, don't worry. that's what happens when you're stuck at home forced to breathe paint residual odors together with your usual oxygen.
anyway, to my QueSci colleagues, i found out Sir Lorenzo's new raket: writing/editing sudoku puzzlebooks. he has a 5- or 6-edition series, currently out in bookstores near you.
i'm two posts and two days away from a Fully Updated Week Slam. sembreak's this uneventful, see. especially when your dad requires you to stay indoors while the sun shines in its brightest outside.
gawd, can't imagine my life without this pc. at least i have Yahoo! or Peyups or Friendster or YouTube as accommodating acquaintances.
other than that, i'm officially boooh-red. toodle-oo!!!
dad: guys, i saw a sign of the Second Coming.
me: seriously?
mike: ano naman yun?
dad: gabo's eating fish! (eyes widen, approach my plate) look!!
ahhh. i love my family. hahaha.
had to rise early this morning, running a few errands again for my dad and sibs. went to their school, and lo, behold, my eyes were met by dozens of schoolkids, parents, and educators, half of them waving flaglets of different nations.
me: kuya, ano po meron?
guard: ah, United Nations Day. pumaparada na yung mga bata ngayon.
wow, what a sight. these kids don't know anything about chaotic world written in today's newspapers; one guy was holding an Israeli flag and a Syrian one in one hand, an American and a North Korean in another. and more of the sort. pretty cool, and the costumes were hands-down awesome. one thing i noticed though: no Filipino flags. how realistic.
after that, i went back home and slept before heading to a 2 pm bonding session with some co-apps. i swore to my dad that i'd leave early... ended up spending 4 hours and all of my money. but i had fun, though.
anyway, i'm dead tired. i'm even surprised at how much i've written given the exhaustion. now off i fly. tschus!!
random chaos eventually molds into perfect logic - anonymous
two days ago i opened my own Multiply account, mainly so that i have access to others' pictures and whatnot, but otherwise it's virtually empty. what caught my attention, however, was Mutiply's conception of a network, something i haven't seen anywhere else yet. it distinguishes a friend from a colleague, neighbor, life partner, family, and business partner. so american, pretty much like my attempt at eenglisch. funnily, however, it's the latest fad, even in the confines of the Filipino context, which is good proof of the existence of neo-colonialism. hmmm.
i sent my first five drafts to my employer-slash-benefactor today. if everything goes well, i get paid; but if there's even one typographical or grammatical error that i overlooked or was unaware of... my pay gets cut in half. and my full pay goes at Php400 per 1000-word set, which is more or less cheap labor, given the quality of write-ups that they expect... but here's hoping that i get a bonus for passing my drafts three days ahead of schedule. (heh!)
ahh, that's all thanks to this damned rain. i planned to play tennis or jog in UP today. worse, weatherpeople are hinting 'typhoons' as of presstime. (lesson learned: sembreak + rain = stagnation) so i planned to please myself by watching Prison Break's season 3, but video streaming sites deleted them all (i can clearly imagine hearing one atenean friend of mine - copyright issues? CHE!!!). same went for Heroes, and i don't want to download videos yet, i fear that something might go wrong...
which reminds me of something that actually went wrong: 1st Semester, AY '07-'08. you see, Geog 1 and 1.25 don't sound like they fit to be next to each other, right? then there's that German 11 choke - i had to take a final exam! heck. and i'm not talking about my majors yet!
anyway, enough of that. tell you what: don't mess with ol' Grampy Time. you'll end a loser - i adjusted all our house, mobile, and computer clocks to half an hour advanced; same with all the personal wrist watches. this morning i was supposed to pay some bills for my dad in the bank; me, being the ultimate procrastinator, completely forgot all about it until 2:30 pm, when he called to ask me about the payments. i lied to him, then after the call ended, i rushed to the nearest bank, which was a half-hour away from the house. banks close at 3:00 pm sharp; when i arrived there, i learned that it was just 2:00 pm... and that i was a big sucker.
with that all said, i'm off to play 3D ping pong. auf wiedersehen!
Mona Lisa had eyebrows. [GMANews.tv]
Ginagawang Ocean Park sa Luneta, nasunog. [GMANews.tv]
Dumbledore is gay. [Inquirer.net]
Nalbandian stuns Federer in three. [Yahoo! Sports]
Ladybugs kill pests in NY. [GMANews.tv]
Donya pala si Marimar. [GMANews.tv]
Britney's all over the news... again. [Yahoo!]
85% of RP health care professionals now abroad. [PhilStar.com]
Glorietta death toll up to 11. [ABS-CBNNews.com]
DOT: RP still a safe tourist destination. [ABS-CBNNews.com]
Sam denies Piolo? [ABS-CBN.com]
seriously, today's world news is the most boring and factual tragicomedy ever written. you'll find more details by clicking on the source links, but you might have to do some searching when you're there as well. i did try direct-linking, but i'm afraid it won't work (it didn't in my dad's laptop, see).
anyway, i set my personal sembreak record just this morning, when i slept for 11 hours and 5 minutes (10:50 pm last night - 9:55 am today). next attempt to extend the record later this evening. and... did i mention my index finger? it's blackish-blue right now from the knuckle joint up. spells trouble for my part-time job and my just-blossoming tennis career.
you'll hear from me in a while, regardless.
in response to your having limited experience with life in general, it is, alas, a truism that all writers have to deal with. either you're in front of that desktop writing, or you're out there having experiences. since you both want to write and have experiences, you'll have to do more with less - and that is practically the essence of writing.
this, a paraphrased quote from the movie Ask the Dust, hit a bulls-eye smack into my soul.
and so, hello again, bloggy. this time i offer no excuses for my negligence, as it was my choice to supposedly allot time for this site's maintenance. please accept, for the umpteenth time if you can even remember, my apologies.
anyway, sembreak - the three-week gap between your last exam or project and the registration period, the grace period before another nerve-wracking and physically demanding term, the days when daily allowance is nil, the age when ennui rules over its dominion of students - is here.
i don't want this break to be wasted; it's too precious and rare to be taken for granted. thus i laid out my agenda 4 an UPbeat 4th sem:
plump up the previous term was a flame short of hell, and i felt that i took a toll on my once-improving stature. now's the time to sleep early, rise late, and eat plenty.
tennisUP ahh, yes. my newfound love will not waver even if we're three jeeps apart. final rites are just lurking around the corner, my dear co-apps.
write-ups it's this simple: i need cash, and a peso for every word ain't that bad, i'd say. the job's to inject some sense into it, right sirs and ma'ams?
cheer up! definitely not the time to smart a frown - i have at least 5 more semesters for that. so show me some love and that cheeky, toothy, contagious smile!
the title sounds like one of those promising yet currently stagnating SONA platforms that our dear President promotes year by year. here's hoping that mine doesn't turn out likewise. lady luck doesn't seem to be that lenient towards me, though - earlier this afternoon my youngest bro whacked my right index finger with a badminton racquet, albeit accidentally.
with that said, i fly off to bed. *swoosh...*
