selective soliloquy

multitasking

2006-11-30T17:31:00.000+08:00

i'm tired of cross-posting.

this blog shall be inactive starting now.

my multiply account is just so much more fun to access.

so if you're one of the few people who actually read my blog, check out the better site.

tis the season

2006-11-27T19:57:00.000+08:00

less than a month to go, my friends.

and i bet that you guys, being the wonderful people that you are, are up to your knees wondering what to get me for this wonderful christmas. let me help you with that.

i present: reinzi's magnificent and so utterly "cry of desperation"-ish christmas list.

1. novels. anyone who knows me well knows that i'm a novel junkie. get me anything that's worth reading and i'll love you forever. authors? gaiman, coelho, brown, king, koontz, pelzer... i'm a sucker for just about any genre.

2. an ipod (video, nano, mini, original, U2 version, i really don't care). i have succumbed to the powers of mp3 commercialization and i admit it. and i promise to use it everyday to listen to music and not to just show off those white headphones as if they were some sort of ridiculous fashion statement.

3. wireless internet in the condo unit. the only reason i've been able to use the internet here is because somebody in the tower has been too dumb enough not to secure his or her connection. which is an advantage, i guess. but people get smart too. thus, the need for wireless.

4. sweet thingy from batangas. it's like this sweet sugarcane-y thing that's sold in containers that look like the things people cook dimsum in, except they're much smaller. my mom bought some for me like a year ago and i haven't stopped craving for them since then.

5. proactiv. my skin is breaking out like hell and i hate it.

6. ventolin inhaler. the recent asthma attack has rendered me dependent on salbutamol once again and i can't go anywhere without this. and my stock is almost gone. you can get me the one with 200 actuations. or if you're some sort of miracle worker, you could get me...

7. a new set of healthy lungs. which are asthma-and-any-sort-of-respiratory-disease-free.

8. or you could just give me a truckload of money and i'll be on my merry way.

advanced happy christmas everyone. :)

Insecurity

2006-11-10T19:22:00.000+08:00

"There is not one original person in this city."

I forgot what movie I heard that line from, but it seems pretty applicable even outside this city. Like the earth, for instance.

Nobody is a 100% original. I get it, even I wouldn't dare claim that I am. A lot of things I like or do, I got from others.

My fluency in the english language - International School.
My fluency in the conyo language - Miriam.
My fluency in the art of cursing - Pisay.
My tendency to cram - Pisay.
My love for alternative music - Pisay.
My tendency to keep up with every recent online trend - my brother.
My then fascination for Charles and Keith shoes - Chie.
My recent obsession with the color pink - Gelie.
My inclination to the colors lavender and purple - Nicole.
My stubborness - my brother.
My sensitivity - hormones. so maybe i didn't get this from other people.

All I'm saying is that not everything I do comes from "within". Of course people have influenced me. Of course I pick little things up here and there. But I am not about to pattern my own personality after someone else's. I speak differently. I check out other genres of music. I try to study well once in a while. I look for other good brands of shoes. Hey, I even pick out the color blue sometimes. A little appreciation for the actions and good taste of other people is perfectly fine, but why turn yourself into a Mini-Me of the people around you when you're fine just the way you are?

Why do some people keep thinking that everything about them just isn't enough?

masangya's anatomy

2006-10-29T13:43:00.000+08:00

"Oh my God, buong araw kami nangangapa ng breasts."

This wasn't really the kind of conversation I expected when my high school friends decided to do a little catching up with each other last Friday. I cut my NMAT classes [tsk tsk] for the day to go to Mall of Asia with them. Being the big loser that I am, it was the first time I was able to go there.

Masaya. When I arrived at the mall, I tried really hard not to look like a toddler lost in a grocery store. Goodness, the place was huge. And as luck would have it, the first place I wound up in had all my favorite stores. So, shopping muna. Hehe. Then we all met up (me, Oyayi, Danlen, Wilson, Joana, Laurice), and because we were all hungry, we went to Kalye Juan for lunch and left John Paul to look for us. Haha.

Movie watched = the Prestige. See the thing about this movie was that everybody had different opinions about it. Some people told me it was not that good, others told me I would be stupid not to like it. Hmm. I never really liked being stupid. But honestly, I really liked the movie. It was so dark and mysterious, and presented a view of obsession so borderline that it became haunting. And I'm a huge sucker for movies that make me THINK. I don't like just sitting in a theater watching something passively (unless I'm toxic and I just really need a nonsense, feel-good movie). Maganda yung movie. I sense an Oscar on the way.

Masarap palang pagtsismisan ang Pisay. I mean, we spent hours digging up new dirt on all of our batchmates (sorry 04, hehe). Pero it was a really good way kasi to know where all of our batchmates were and how they were doing. Tsaka yun nga, masarap lang talagang pagtsismisan ang Pisay.

The best part was the occasional (actually, more like frequent) talks and references to med school. In the bunch, we had five future doctors (feelingero na kami, sorry) - Me: bio, manila; Oyayi: bio, diliman; Danlen: intarmed; Wilson: intarmed; and Joana: hum bio - so obviously, mapapag-usapan ang med. Parang nasa alternate universe na sina Danlen, Wilson, and Joana dahil med students na sila. And yung mga kwento talaga nila about breasts, ob-gyne, 160-station lab exams, cadaver dissections... haaay, nakakatuwa. I cannot wait to get into med school.

Oh, and masarap pala yung champola ice cream thingy. I vow to return para mabili ko yung belgian cone with strawberry ice cream and almond topping. Yum.

mediocrity

2006-10-26T16:45:00.000+08:00

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit." - Aristotle

Sometimes it's just hard to listen to the words of a man responsible for around half of the academic college load thrown at you.

This was a happy semester for me. It truly was. I know I went on and on about the sheer toxicity of it all, about how I could never get enough sleep anymore, and about how my eyebags suddenly qualified for taxonomic identification. This was the first year syndrome all over again for me.

I have this thing with first semesters. They're always my worst. During freshman year, i couldn't adjust well to Math 17 (who am I kidding - I just really suck at math), and i ended up being kicked into the backseat of the college standings with a CS average. The next semester, I made it to US status. During sophomore year, my parents got separated. Add Comparative Anatonmy and Math 100 to the mix and lo and behold - the perfect recipe for disaster. The next semester, I got my highest average ever (in all my years of being a student). Pity the OCS made an error in the computation of my grades. But all was good.

This semester I told myself I wouldn't let the syndrome kick in again. So yes, I worked hard. But i also wanted to spend the semester without stressing myself out because from experience, I did better when I was having fun. But yes, I do admit, I had way too much fun this semester. I spent too many nights watching movies, hanging out at coffee shops with friends, watching DVDs, and daydreaming about [certain] people.

So here I am now. My average? US standing. Technically, compared to my previous first semesters, I could say that I've beaten the syndrome. But when I look back and think about how close I was to getting a much higher average, and how much better I could have done (trust me on this), I think I'm being perfectly honest when I say that I need some serious soul searching if I really want to beat this.

*sigh*

Someone give me a hug.

tapos na!!!

2006-10-14T14:57:00.000+08:00

well, not really. i do have one last exam on friday.

but what the hell.

SEMBREAK NA!!!!!!!!!

i believe you never really are a UP student until you get at least two week's worth of recurring dreams of finally getting to the sembreak.

*sigh*

i had been so toxic the past few weeks that i had totally forgotten the dimensions of my life that did not revolve around academics. i have 224 unread e-mails, an unchecked friendster account, a two-week long message in my multiply account, and a blog that is under three inches of virtual dust.

i made up for my social life last night though. we (ton + edna + bryan + tomi + joyce + me obviously) decided that couldn't wait one more week to get the kind of detoxification we all so badly needed and deserved. so we thought right away: eastwood. friday night. fun. drinking. dancing. no sleeping. and i think we did just that.

9:30pm - arrival at eastwood. had trouble finding a parking spot, but we managed in the end.

10:00pm - dinner at something fishy. spotted a celebrity who i, not to anyone's surprise, didn't know. ate bunch of meals - calamares, swordfish, chicken pandan, pork sisig, yakitori, and seafood kare-kare.

11:00pm - texas chainsaw massacre: the beginning. for the love of all that is right in the world, DON'T WATCH THIS. it wasn't a bad movie. it was just waaaaaay too gory and disturbing. i've seen some down-right horrid things in my life. this tops my list.

1:00am - bar time. the basement. honestly masaya siya. we started dancing the moment we got in, no hesitations. the crowd was ok, the guys were [very] cute, the drinks were alright, and the music was good. my lungs just didn't enjoy the 20-something cigarettes that were continuously lit across the dancefloor.

2:30am - dessert and small talk at the coffee bean. fun, kasi we were one of the few groups of friends left lounging about the outdoor tables and chairs at the citywalk. we started getting sleepy though, and decided to head on home.

3:3oam - arrival at out condo in taguig. we all thought we were sleepy, but we obviously were wrong because we still managed to cook an early pulutan (sisig minus the beer) while watching dvds.

5:30am - people started falling asleep.

9 to 10am - people started waking up. mama cooked a yummy breakfast, and we helped ourseleves.

11:00am - swimming at the clubhouse. we didn't know what else to do, so we played pinoy henyo. haha. i think we scared some kids off with our decibel levels.

1:00pm - lunch of roasted chicken, and final preparations of the overnighters to leave.

2:30pm - the end of a very wonderful first-overnight-i've-ever-hosted experience. :)

i so want a next time right away.

bleh

2006-09-06T17:42:00.000+08:00

two months ago:

(setting: FortMed medical clinics, makati city)
doctor: you've been getting acute nasopharyngitis and allergic rhinitis quite a lot lately.
me: um, yes po.
doctor: hmm. (looking at my medical chart) alright, let's just start you up on virlix for a week and then if the symptoms don't go away, balik ka nalang dito okay?
me: okay.
doctor: by the way, what multivitamins do you take?
me: um, i take clusivol, sometimes a little bit of extra vitamin c, and vitamin e.
doctor: kasi the other doctors and i had a study on the different commercialized multivitamins in the market right now.. turns out hindi lahat sila bioavailable, meaning your body doens't necessarily absorb them well. so we searched for vitamins na gumagana and we found this, "tegreen 97" and it turns out to be the most effective.
me: (interested) tegreen po? isn't that made by pharmanex? (my mom has loads of pharmanex meds, for reasons i have yet to know)
doctor: oo pharmanex yun. i was just wondering if you'd like to try that sometime. kasi yung sister ko, ganyan din ang problem niya. but when she takes the vitamins, she never gets sick like that again.
me: wow. okay then. (smiles excitedly)

one month ago:

mama: o, eto na yung phamanex na pinababili mo.
me: (looks at the bottle: 30 capsules. looks at the dosage: 1 to 4 capsules per day. looks at the price: 3000 pesos.) WOAH. this really must work.

this morning:

me: (38.1 fever. cough. colds. major headache. missed one day of classes.) vitamins suck.

-----------------

quote for the day:

"DIE PARASITIC PLATYHELMINTHES, NEMATODES, and ANNELIDS! EXTINCTION!" (Mendoza, 2006).

bashing

2006-08-29T17:59:00.000+08:00

everybody is acting all "mean girls" to everybody else.

come on. pati ba naman biogyugan magkaka-issue pa?

they said some things.
we said some things.
they did some things.
we did some things.

i'm not even going to go into detail and defend or refute any point that they made against us or the people involved in the event.

because what's the point anyway? madadamay lang lahat ng tao dito, pati yung mga piniling manahimik nalang.

it's over. tapos na. grabe, both sides: move on.

this is so high school.

win big, get drunk

2006-08-27T11:39:00.000+08:00

panalo kami sa biogyugan.

OH YEAH. :)

rewind to the past two years:

- first year: we didn't know what to do yet. the sophomores told us it was a variety show. so being the gullible freshmen that we were, we listened to them. we even let them watch our practices. we ended up performing a 45-minute long mix of spoofs and cross-dressed dancing.

- second year: we were confident this time around, and a little too cocky. we were convinced we already knew how things worked, and we took comfort in knowing we sure as hell woudn't end up in fourth place. well, rumor is that we did. our music stopped in mid-performance, our props fell down, and our dancers slipped on stage.

and now:

we did it. i mean, im not going to be all humble. we all entered the competition this year looking for some serious way to make up for the two "bad luck"-ridden years. i don't think anyone was really expecting to win though. up to the moment the judge announced the winner, we were all so nervous to the point of nausea.

i can't describe the performance. i'd have to post a video or something. hmm. next time na yun.

anyway, half of the biogyugan is actually the overnight that comes with it. again, we went over to tomi's, with a few extra guests.

- lelet a.k.a. andro's better half
- sir edison and sir jeff - the people who made us look like real performers onstage
- dale and ivan - sophomore buddies (kawawa naman sila. haha.)

and i got into a discussion with dale that led me to try how much it would take to get me drunk, seeing as i never have been before.

my count was 13 full glasses of red horse. tomi said i had more than that.

anyway, masaya pala akong malasing. i kept talking non-stop, and refusing to sleep. but i didn't do anything incriminating. or anything that involved letting out secrets.

thank goodness. or it would have been a very very awkward night. :)

the little things

2006-07-29T09:37:00.000+08:00

"Protozoans or animal-like protists are unicellular eukaryotic organisms without tissues or organs, existing singly or in colonies of a few to many individuals. Protozoa comes from the Greek word "proto" meaning first and "zoon" meaning animals, which shows that early scientists already had some ideas of the possibility that the metazoans originated from the protozoans."

minsan parang ang sarap tuloy maging Noctiluca scintillians. no tissues. no organs.

simple ang buhay.

eighteen

2006-07-23T13:12:00.000+08:00

happy birthday to me,
happy birthday to me,
happy birthday, happy birthday,
happy birthday to me...

so i finally reached official adulthood. i never really thought i'd be spending it the way i did.

some people have debuts.
some people have informal parties.
some people spend a quiet dinner with the family.
others sleep it off.

at 12 midnight of july 21, i was trying desperately to cram for 2 invertebrate zoology exams. enough said. so this is my birthday sked:

12:00 am - had my laptop open, my handouts strewn across my tiny dorm table, was slouching and yawning from exhaustion, saying things over and over in my head like "acantharia - strontium sulfate test" and "podophrya - alveolates, phylum ciliophora, class kinetofragminophora, subclass suctoria". a few people started greeting through texts and phone calls so that kind of kept me awake.

2:30 am - had to sleep. was nowhere near ready for the exam.

5:15 am - woke up. lots of messages. slightly cheered up, although heavily groggy.

5:30 am - birthday call from oyayi. feeling cheerful. finally got into the shower.

6:00 am - birthday call from chie. spent 10 minutes changing while filling chie in on random new details of my life. partially dried my hair, crammed a few more bits of information.

6:30 am - headed down to the AS.

7:00 am - started physics experiment. ran out of graphing paper, had to get bryan to bring some more. had the most frustrating lab experiment of my life. copying and sharing of answers prohibited by professor reminiscent of hitler, hence resulting in three hours of non-stop stress.

10:00 am - had to study away from people - frustrated and stressed out. ended up studying with ron near the chem lab rooms - somewhere i actually felt comfortable in.

11:00 am - invertebrate zoology lab exam. stations. tricky. long. confusing. in short, difficult. some @$$ moved one of the specimens in the microscope so i had to stay behind to finish the exam when all of my other classmates were already getting ready for the lecture exam.

12:20 pm - finally finished the lab exam. close to a breakdown. had a hurried lunch of "burger steak" (which tasted nothing like a burger or a steak). reviewed for the final time.

1:00 pm - invertebrate zoology lec exam. easier than the lab exam, but not by much. fell asleep while taking the exam - twice. was able to answer everything though. got distracted by the screams and yells of all the freshmen enjoying the "handog sa freshman". felt slightly bitter.

2:30 pm - thought the hell was over. apparently thought wrong. surprise quiz-slash-mock dep exam in genetics lec. major mental block. felt CNS neurons gradually degrading.

4: 00 pm - just really wanted to go home. on the verge of crying.

4:30 pm - fell asleep in the dorm while waiting for the driver.

6:30 pm - finally on the way home to taguig.

8:30 pm - stuck in two hours of traffic and wondering why God apparently hated me.

9:00 pm - exhausted. arrived at taguig. was greeted by a fabulous dinner though. and a bizu cake. frustration lessened somewhat.

10:00 pm - finished dinner. remarkably, watched maalaala mo kaya with marielle. which was an indication that something was indeed wrong with my higher brain function.

12:00 am - finally crashed in bed.

*sigh* what a birthday.

nasopharyngitis

2006-06-08T18:22:00.000+08:00

i'm sick again. surprise, surprise. anyway...

feeling ka ba?

naisip ko lang. i'm a person who hates people who pretend. ayoko ng sinungaling, trying hard, and most of all, plastic. kulang nalang maging advocate ako ng pagpapakatotoo. i'd rather shout to the world that i'm a backstabbing bitch rather than smile and bat my eyelashes at the people i secretly wish would undergo chinese fingernail torture.

but there's a limit to how much you can actually say.

in our annual retreat in the sixth grade, i received a palanca letter from one of my not-so-close friends. nagulat ako sa nakasulat. she wrote there: "mayabang". and it stuck with me until now because of all the things, i also do not want to be labeled as that.

people have so many things they can be proud of: aesthetic appeal, good upbringing, intelligence, skill, wealth, success, popularity, prestige, etcetera. and whenever we have any one of these, we can't help but show it - by wearing some sexy top, announcing a perfect score in an exam, showing off a new car, displaying trophies and awards, you know the drill. actually that's all fine with me.

as long as:
1. TOTOO.
2. you don't overdo it.

sadly, some people just can't help violating both.

what is this world coming to?

coz' you had a bad day...

2006-05-30T13:43:00.000+08:00

this is definitely a bad day for me.

we used to have this uber old PC in our house in marikina. it was big, bulky, yellowing, with the smallest memory capacity you could imagine. even so, it held some of the most important things for me (against my will since it was really the only computer i had for the longest time). all my files from high school and early college were there. but again, it was the worst PC ever.

so imagine my delight when my mom decided to do away with it and replace it with first, a better PC, and next, my very own laptop.

the thing is, my brother, being the ever-responsible computer scientist that he is, forgot to create back-up CDs for the files.

needless to say, all those files are gone:
- all my academic files from high school
- a microsoft word diary (yes, pathetic diba?) that i've been keeping since the 6th grade
- a few hundred mp3s
- all my beryllium pics
- all my grav pics except those taken during the "black day"
- my batch mugshot pics and the batch tile wallpaper
- all my freshman college pics
- biogyugan pics

so i'm pleading to you guys.. kung meron kayong copies ng mga nakalagay dito, please send them to me.. or if they're too many, pupunta ako sa mga bahay niyo and ililipat ko yung files sa laptop ko. or something. seriously. this is just too sad.

nahanap ko na

2006-05-29T17:11:00.000+08:00

one of the few perks of having comm3 is that you're actually required to interview a celebrity.

which, of course, we used to our personal advantage.

the thing with having comm3 during the summer is that it's way too stressful. i mean, taking it in a regular semester would have been alright, but cramming all its requirements within a month proved to be almost too much for us to handle. we had extemporaneous speeches, impromptu speeches, communication-model making, group discussions, quizzes, midterms, readings equaling 10 chapters of rubbish, finals, not to mention the ever-important group project.

each group had to find any celebrity or prominent person to interview. i assume this was done in order to test the group's communication skills when faced with a famous person (which almost always serves as enough reason for loss of focus). the problem was, nobody really knew any celebrity worth interviewing. the ones we knew couldn't really converse well in english (which was the whole point of the project).

then i remembered kuya's many atenean connections. and as they say, the rest is history. :)

oh i how i love comm3. :)

my baby

2006-05-29T12:19:00.000+08:00

meet my baby, zach.

um. i meant my laptop.

haha.

it's the weirdest thing that i actually named my laptop. si chie kasi eh. sabi niya she's gonna name her laptop when she gets it, so i should name mine rin. i got mine on the 26th, she got hers on the 27th. she named hers ishi. nice name playing with the brand (toshiba) pero i mean, it can't really apply to mine. what would i name it? dill? doll? dull? haha.

sabi ni chie, zach. she knew that for the longest time, i've adored that name. sabi ko nga sa kanya that's gonna be my dreamguy's name. and since dreamguy seems to be caught in traffic and hasn't arrived yet, si zach muna ang laptop ko. :)

wait lang. i realized i should have posted a picture here a long time ago. about the perks of having summer classes. i'll look for it muna. hehe.

happy... shalalala...

2006-05-27T10:10:00.000+08:00

you know i never thought a new laptop would bring so much superficial joy. :)

i just got it yesterday. dell xps m140. nothing fancy but it's enough for a college student. oh, and i had it spiced up with upgrades and so many built-in devices (thanks to my kuya's computer expertise) so it's actually quite brag-worthy.

apparently my tito got into some sort of trouble while bringing back the laptop from the states. he was asked where he was taking the laptop, and he told the dell technical support people that he was giving it as a gift to his neice in the philippines. and as soon as they heard the word "philippines", the people started saying, "oh, then, you have to fill out these forms and these precautionary documents of blah blah blah".. so my tito asked, "am i in trouble here?" and guess what the technical support staff said?

"no sir, it's just that we have a policy about bringing US technology into a terrorist country."

what the hell?

aren't we supposed to be, i dunno, allies with the states? talk about being tactless. the guy could have at least called it a "foriegn country" or something. we're not a terrorist nation. maybe we are in the list of countries with high risk of terrorism, true. but not a terrorist country.

oh well, i'm supposed to be happy anyway.

my eyebrows are finally nice and contoured so that's a good sign. :)

anybody have any suggestions on what i should add to my laptop? cool software? games? movies? music? bomb-triggering devices? :)

brow talk

2006-05-13T19:31:00.000+08:00

ang kapal na ng kilay ko.

swear. it's bothering me.

ganito kasi yan. i've noticed that you can tell a lot about what mood i'm in or how high my stress level is according to the state of my eyebrows:

1. fine and perfectly sculpted: i'm either on vacation, have just received my classcards, or am very much in love.
2. a little on the bushy side but still neat: i've been busy with schoolwork so i haven't had the opportunity to go to my favorite kilay stylist (yes, i actually do have one) so i took a chance on another salon to do the work.
3. code red/danilo barrios look: i am highly stressed. i cannot even afford to spend half an hour in jesi mendez to have my brows fixed.

i guess right now i'm at number 3.

*sigh*

one week of school left. then, back to perfection. :)

drama queen

2006-04-30T10:58:00.000+08:00

lately i've been doing so much complaining that i'm starting to get sick of it. well, i do have a few options para mabawasan ang stress level ko:

1. transfer to diliman
2. transfer to another dorm
3. murder someone

hmm. the thing is, mahirap gawin lahat yun. i do not want to transfer to another campus kasi as much as i rant and whine about UP manila, i do love it here. i mean the course, the curriculum, the pre-med nature, even the academic stress - i love all of it. it's just that i hate just about everything else.

i have longed to transfer to another dorm since the start of freshman year. i wasn't even planning on becoming a dormer - my parents only got me the dorm in case of emergencies, or if i needed to spend the night in manila. pero it turned out, extern life was way too stressful and i became a full-fledged intern. our dorm is just too... uncomfortable. first of all, we climb five floors just to get to the unit (come on. there was a time when i left my chem lab kit in the dorm and had to rush there and back to school in 10 minutes to avoid being marked absent. worst day of my life, i think). we're also not allowed to cook which is just wrong. we cannot bring guests (although that has never stopped us), and there's not enough room to accomodate them anyway. plus, the atmosphere sucks. really it does. still, i can't really stay anywhere else kasi the location of my dorm is perfect na. my mom's getting me a unit dun sa ginagawa na adriatico towers, but that's not going to be completed until 2008. so i have two more years of suffering.

and murder is just wrong. come on. plus, it's kind of hard to get away with it.

so right now i'm just going to have to learn to deal with everything life throws at me. siguro that's the only thing i can really do. well, besides whine and complain.

but i won't break up into tiny pieces. i promise you that.

breaking me

2006-04-23T09:47:00.000+08:00

UP has turned me into a bitch. seriously.

i find it extremely weird that i actually consider high school life more mature compared to college. granted, my high school was well, sort of different than others. still, isn't high school supposed to that time of life when the juvenile hormones start kicking in and people start doing the most idiotic and childish things without fear of punishment and/or conscience? i don't think so.

let's rewind to pisay days. batch 04, the most "dynamic" batch, in my own biased opinion. we had your intensely grade-conscious crowd, the chemistry geniuses who perfected international competitions, the math wizards who could converse in pure arithmetic, the artists who believed that science was beyond them, the techies who could drool over the latest laptop for approximately three hours straight, the athletes who could turn a 15-minute break into a full-fledged game, the politicians who had seemed to be placed in the wrong kind of high school, the populars who ruled the corridors, a handful of bonafide geeks, and well, normal people (moi).

you'd think that being the school that it was, pisay would be ground zero for all kinds of problems. for me, it wasn't. high school was not one big competition for me. it wasn't about getting the grade, or impressing the teacher, or elevating the social status. if anything, life there was so laid back you wouldn't even imagine it was a high school that imposed subjects that were college-level. life was simple, normal. everyone studied (except the omnescient ones who didn't need to), gave leakage (at least once in their life), asked for leakage (more than once in their life), did their homework, copied someone else's homework, cut classes, escaped from school (in very creative ways i might add), went to parties, and went back to the classroom and became students again.

the point is, we did everything and the thing is, we still knew our limits.

i don't know about you guys, but college life to me is hilariously weird. the competition is so fierce that friendships are put on stake and the line between fair play and plain sabotage is constantly blurred. some people were born to have an average fun level of a singko and grade consciousness of an uno. others are the complete opposite. and what's with constantly trying to climb up the social ladder? please, this is college. nobody is supposed to care about that damn ladder anymore. people compete like five-year olds fighting over the last cookie, backstab like the cheerleaders do in every teen movie the US has made, prey on the hard work of others like a swarm of locusts, and who try so hard for the shot at popularity that it's just pathetic.

almost everything is an intense shade of black or white that it's just so... wrong.

back to being a bitch. it's just that the more i figure these things out, the more i see college life as pathetic. well, not the life, per se, but a big chunk of it that i cannot control. but i've taken things into my own hands and i've decided not to take part in anything in this chunk i hate so much. i'm not the happy-go-lucky person that will just allow herself to be dragged in the whole mess of delayed puberty once more.

get it?

got it?

good.

detox

2006-04-04T20:21:00.000+08:00

well, the sem's over. and yes, i havent updated in a long while. sabi ni gerson update daw, so sige. so what's been happening to me the past few weeks?

1. acads - i am very very very happy. hehe. i don't have my hum2 and natsci grades yet, pero sure na yung US. weeeeeeeeeeeee. i've never gotten grades as high as these in my whole college life. ang saya.

2. friends - happy rin. looking back, the past month has been very... interesting. you could say a lot of people had a few rough patches here and there. actually there was a point that i was convinced that something was seriously wrong with a lot of relationships, including mine with certain people. pero it all blew over, and we're back to being shallowly happy. it feels good.

3. lovelife - i'd like to talk about this when the time comes for me to actually have one.

4. family - magulo. you know how the saying goes "what doesn't kill me only makes me stronger"? hay nako. never did believe that. i guess i still haven't gotten used to life after the separation. the bad thing about separations is that no matter how much each person wishes that it doesn't affect his relationship with another, in the end it still does. i guess i'll just have to deal with that.

i have like, a week and a half till my summer ends and classes start. and while the past month has been kind to me in general, marami parin siyang kinuha sa akin. like the fact that i probably know close to nothing about the present lives of my friends outside UPM. and that i've spent less time with [both sides of] my family than i would have wanted to. i always thought i'd want to spend my entire vacation bumming around and thinking of myself a lot. but maybe i'll work on those things first.

at tang city

2006-03-02T15:10:00.000+08:00

i had a wonderful talk with tonton over lunch today, and i believe i have never eaten so slowly before. it's been a long while since i've had a conversation of depth greater than that of a puddle.

it's funny (though quite pathetic) to see how much people will go through just to make themselves feel that that they belong. even more amusing is the fact that this yearning seems to materialize way way way after puberty. but the truth of the matter is, no matter who what kind of people you surround yourself with, and no matter how much they rub off on you, you can't change who you really are. you can convince yourself you are meant to be with them, but you'll always end up knowing that you are different. well, if you really are.

what's with fitting in anyway? what's with the incessant need for social acceptance?

we all need some sort of group to identify ourselves with. it's a basic human need. but really now, if we identify ourselves with that group, we should take into consideration if we actually belong there. belong in a sense that we deserve to call ourselves a part of it. but there are times when you just have to start out with a clean slate, and try to see if what you had chosen was right for you. and sometimes we realize that it isn't.

i believe that ton and i figured it out over a dish of white chicken and a pot of hot jasmine tea.

we can't keep on forcing ourselves to be a part of something we know we are not. and to continue doing this is to continue fooling ourselves and the people around us. but when we make these mistakes we find out where we really belong. and then suddenly we don't care about the social acceptance but find ourselves wondering why we did in the first place. we know that we are in the right place when we don't have to force ourselves in. we are understood from the moment we step inside that circle. how can people not understand others who, essentially, think like they do?

point is, we all belong. just not in the same places.

hmm. maybe we should have taken up psychology.

what's going on?

2006-02-26T09:13:00.000+08:00

when i was in pisay, akala ko malala na yung batch namin. with so many stupid (yet really fun) things we did, numerous disciplinary cases filed, and so many teachers cursing at our heels, i thought we were the "bad eggs".

unfortunately i was very wrong.

siguro naman we, pisay grads and current students, all know about what's been happening recently. the poisoning of a senior using an acid of pH 1.4. she's suffering so much that she's still confined to the national kidney insitute. eight other jugs were found to have the same sort of poison. eight. what kind of person intentionally hurts eight people? ever since then pisay security has been comparable to that of fort knox. i never imagined that one day baggage checks would even be needed in our school. and since that incident, word is that over 40 disciplinary cases have been filed for this school year alone. cases of drugs and an apparent regular marijuana sale. early pregnancy. even rape.

what is happening to our school? oo, nakapagpasabog na tayo ng CR in protest to the admin. nabuking na natin ang pagka-ahem.. "closet gayness" ng isang certain teacher. we've gone as far as to light firecrackers in front of a teacher's dorm room dahil wala lang. ultimo yung railings hindi nakatakas sa mga kalokohan nating mga taga-pisay. but never in my life had i imagined na aabot sa ganito.

has it gone so bad that we are now actually willing to hurt, and even kill?

right now the pisay community is doing everything it can to help those who were affected by the recent events, especially angelynne fabro. please, we ask for help, in any way that you can. you can check out the regular posts in our yahoogroup for news and contact details. but we also really need your prayers, and your hope that we will get through this. there is a looming threat of actually closing down our school. we have produced magnificent people throughout the years and ending pisay can also mean ending the dreams of thousands of future scholars. do we really want that to happen?

like a fellow alumna of pisay, i am heartbroken. hindi ganito ang pisay na kilala ko. but the thing is, i still have faith that we are strong enough to get through this.

i haven't given back to pisay what it has given me in my four years of high school. and i don't think that in the near future, i could ever really do as much for it as it had done for me. but i can show that i deserve everything that it has given me. i can show that i care.

i hope we all can.

scream

2006-02-19T17:36:00.000+08:00

hindi ako plastic. and thus, it's very easy for me to show what i really feel.

and right about now, i'm feeling really really really pissed off.

how many hours do you think i have in a day? i have 24, just like everybody else. and while that may seem like a big surprise to a shallow mind, i do not find it in the least bit funny. time is a very precious thing, and mine is 24-k gold. i cannot afford to waste it on trivial things like the inability of some to comprehend a virtue so commonly needed that to abandon it is considered plain rude.

and do i really look that gullible? do people think that they can just go about doing whatever they want and not face responsibility? well. to a point, yes. because when it comes down to it, i will not forsake my future on the account of the neglect of others.

damn. this day just keeps getting better and better.

two whole weeks to think

2006-02-10T20:24:00.000+08:00

maybe "life" and "make sense" can never be in the same sentence. unless of course the word "doesn't" is included somewhere in that same sentence.

malabo ang buhay. just when you think every problem has been fixed and every opportunity is right in front of you, some sinister force out of nowhere just has to invade your mind with the two most dangerous words ever brought together.

what if.

lately my inner conscious (mr. karl jung, a little help here please) has been bombarding my daydreams, knocking out visions of badboy prince charmings and replaced them with questions that i guess never left me once i thought about them. one was especially hard to forget. maybe if i answer, it will go away.

what if i had studied in UPD and not UPM?

the only reason i decided to study in manila was because i wanted to make it into med, and i wanted to survive in it. that was it. as one person (who i miss terribly) pointed out, "walang puno diyan". he was right. along with around a 10-feet long list of reasons why diliman was so much better than manila. this is probably what would have happened to me:

1. my grades would have been lower. seryoso. i know for a fact that the bio course in manila is actually more toxic than that of diliman. but the thing is, i was never the grade-conscious type. until UPM came and taught me how the prestige went with the GWA. i have a feeling that diliman is different in that sense. plus, i would have had more time to actually do things aside from just studying always. and that, for me, is a good thing.

2. i would be much healthier. daily UPM life requires that i be exposed to half a day's worth of smog, second-hand smoke, reeks of urea, and disturbing smells reminiscent of moldy cheese. my sensitive lungs would have found nirvana in the hundreds of trees dotted around the diliman campus.

3. i would have been a lot richer. aside from the jeepney fares, life would be a lot less expensive. no dorm fees, no self-bought groceries, and definitely less opportunities to walk out of the mall with lots of shopping bags and a very empty wallet.

4. i would have been more independent. yes, the fact that i don't spend most of my week at home already means that i've achieved some degree of freedom from adolescence, but manila life isn't that much conducive to being able to do things by myself at any time, unles i want to be held at gunpoint in the middle of a darkened street (which actually describes around 90% of all the streets here).

5. wala akong barkada. unless i join some sort of org in diliman, i don't think a barkada like the "dota boys" of manila would survive the non-block-ness system diliman has. i wouldn't have the manila family and that's just sad.

6. but i would have kept in touch better with old friends, the people who had always known who i really was because there was no reason to pretend to be someone else. i haven't forgotten them, but i'm not so sure they realize this. and this, perhaps, is the biggest reason i'm suffering from this "what if" syndrome. maybe i wouldn't be suffering from this right now if i had made that other choice.

and maybe i would have also kept smiling a great deal more often.

it would be nice to have been isaac newton...

2006-01-28T20:28:00.000+08:00

... and have just about everything you've said made into a universal law. plus, to have existed in a time when biochemistry and particle dynamics were terms foreign to any language on the planet. and to never have to worry about taking exams on them which result in lack of sleep, eyebags, crankiness, two new zits, and embarassing hallucinations in the middle of the day.

it's the weekend though, and i'm planning to enjoy it. i have about an inch's worth of readings to understand for the hum2 exam on monday, but that can be put aside for tomorrow. i'm going to get that full body massage i've been wanting for around a month already.

a random thing has just popped into my overworked mind. sabi nila, guys have way bigger egos than girls. i've come to a conclusion, that (at least in my case) this is not true. yes, one will tend to see males as having a greater craving for flattery and self-praise but that's just because, i believe, they have an easier time showing it. i mean, it's perfectly normal for a guy to be makulit, papansin.. and even when a guy acts like he's the king of the world, it's at most just really amusing. well, unless he goes overboard in select cases. but when it comes to girls, we really can't act like that. take this scenario:

compliment: "you look amazing today."
guy's response: "really? ayos. ang gwapo noh?"
girl's response: "really? no i don't... i don't have any make-up nga eh.. tsaka puyat kaya ako.. and these clothes, wala lang to.."

girls have a harder time accepting compliments. totoo yun (although i'm more of a "thanks, ang ganda mo rin today [of course this is meant as an amusing comeback to the compliment]" kind of person), there's just some sort of mentality that we're demure and don't like bringing a lot of attention to ourselves. but the typical girl response above just invites more opportunities for even more compliments. and what girl doesn't enjoy flattery? we can never go through normal existence not having the tiniest inflated idea of our self-importance. no matter what we say, we love those ego boosts.

yes people, we are all highly egotistic individuals.

and i shall rant

2006-01-19T15:05:00.000+08:00

i do not like it when i'm typing something and somebody (no matter how close they may be to me) looks over my shoulder and tries to meddle his/her way into my virtual affairs. no matter nalang if i'm doing some overdue project. what if i were sending a very private message to a close friend about a very delicate issue?

privacy, people. honestly. the filipino craving for gossip has just crossed the border into outright rudeness.

i was spoiled brat. really, suplada ako dati. i was just such a people-pleaser and a downright goody-goody in public that no one seemed to actually notice it. but i never wanted anyone to get in my way, and i never really cared for the advantage of anyone except myself. but i grew up. and instead of being the goody-goody outside and a two-tailed monster inside, i'm just.. me. i do not hide my emotions for the sake of looking good. i grew up.

unfortunately some people just don't. some people stay that way forever. those who really don't give a damn about others and just content themselves with being the most infuriating people they can possibly be.

when will they learn that the world can (literally and figuratively speaking) never revolve around them?

dear franz,

2006-01-14T15:52:00.000+08:00

it's been a while.

i remember the first thing cae and i asked when mikko and mark told us they had found a new roommate. "ano, cute ba?" the funny thing was that chie replied, saying, "uhm, matangkad, maganda yung buhok. hehe."

we met you in november 2004. the day before the first day of classes for second sem, if i remember correctly. the five of us were all huddled together laughing about some story mikko was telling and mark noticed you, in your bright yellow shirt that commanded some sort of attention, sitting at your side of the condo unit.

"franz, sumama ka naman sa amin.. ayaw ka naming ma-OP dito!"

it started there. three games of cards later, we were all acting like we had known each other for years and not hours. we were already commenting on how distastefully tiny your bed was compared to the others, how stony your pillow felt, and how that straight hair made you look weirdly girlish. a few days later, the six of us were constantly in 36b, acting more like best friends than most barkadas i knew of.

a year ago was greenbelt night. the spot-the-celebrity, white noise, troy montero, aubrey miles, vodka ice night. we had so much fun. remember? you were supposed to be home by 10pm, you had said. but you stuck with us until that taxi dropped us off in front of the towers at four in the morning.

we called ourselves the manila family. i can't remember who coined that term, whether it was chie or me. the important thing was that we considered ourselves as that.

one day you asked cae, chie and i to accompany you to pay your (always) overdue electric bill. you had something important to say, i sensed it right away. you were sort of quiet, something that really was not you. you told us about your problem later that night. and we swore right away to help you in any way we could. i still go back to that night, wondering if we had made the right decision.

it seemed that we were doing the right thing. albeit we were breaking so many ethical (and not to mention scholastic) rules, we really didn't care. all we knew was that you needed us, and we were glad to be there for you. for a time everything seemed to go back to normal. we kept hanging out, being crazy, and just being stupid. i didn't realize then how stupid we were really being.

you made a decision one day, a decision to be independent and responsible. i applauded you for that, but i also silently wondered if you could handle it. we trusted you all the same, and never looked at you any differently. until you started drifting apart. we wouldn't see you for days at a time. the last time i saw you, you came home early morning and promptly fell asleep, the dim light not betraying the dark shadows under your eyes. maybe you were stressed, maybe you were new to it. we didn't think much of it.

until you never showed up again.

you left so much behind. you left a truckload of responsibility, stress and baggage for us to deal with. until now your debts are unpaid. but from day one, we never really cared for that. i hope you know that, because if you don't, that would make you really, really stupid.

36b is empty now. mark has his new friends in orcomm. chie's in new zealand now, missing all of us. mikko's still planning on shifting, and has a newfound liking for staying at our dorm. cae and i, well, we're still at the baby tower, although we hope one day to get out and move somewhere much nicer. the manila family is just a name right now, nothing like what it was a year ago.

but you know, it would be nice to be a part of it again.

ram's nth despedida

2006-01-07T23:29:00.000+08:00

today was a day of many new things:

being with the people i haven't seen in the longest time.

realizing that ram would make quite a good daddy.

rekindling old friendships.

as well as making new ones.

realizing that we do like like a pretty nice bunch of people.

until we get hold of the tequila, that is.

of film fests and damnation

2006-01-07T12:27:00.000+08:00

i remember when the metro manila film fest actually had some movies worth having a film fest for. now it's all about showcasing the latest special effects (look filipinos! we actually use green screens now!), casting the most popular (not to be confused with "most talented") stars (not to be confused with "real actors"), and coming up with the most "unpredictable plotlines" (that shy quiet guy was actually the psycho killer? *gasp* i didn't see THAT coming!).

i pity the movie industry that has to cast video jocks, spend thousands on tacky-looking costumes, plaster fake feathers on actually promising actors, copy an x-man's love for attacking using playing cards, work on a lame attempt of a psychological thriller, spoof an otherwise good series of previous movies for the sake of not losing their market values, and have a director make at least two of the nominated films so as to increase the probablility of beating the competition in the awards night.

i believe there was a time when it was all about making great movies, and not winning awards or gaining undeserved popularity.

but that's just me.

my take on the Twisted metro manila film fest damnation challenge:

a rather windy christmas day
found crowds of innocents wanting to pay
for films highly rated
but then turned out ill-fated
take no pity on these souls, i say.

take no pity on mine, for i too am guilty.

number three

2006-01-05T14:38:00.000+08:00

okay, so i got sick of my old template. come on, you can't honestly say that all the green never bothered you or made your eyes hurt the tiniest bit. the pink is still in the experimental stage - i never really figured out how to edit these pre-made templates properly. html is not for me.

i'd like to make my debut post by ranting. all those who know me well won't be surprised by this. it's just that lately i've really felt the need to lash out on something, probably a brick wall. and since that would probably hurt, i've taken to writing instead.

I DO NOT LIKE...

1. the color orange. i can appreciate it, but you can't pair it with any other color. not to mention that the designer of my third year prom dress (which had me looking like a pumpkin sprinkled in glitter) loved that color. thus, my loathing for it. it doesn't help that my mom decided to make her new house bright orange. which goes quite well with our orange crosswind. which makes me hate the color even more.

2. plagiarism. any form of it. i learned about this in high school. in fact, i think life has a pretty good way of punishing me for all those copy-pasted discussions (although we did cite our sources) on our lab reports back then. because the moment i stopped doing this (upon entering UP), fate decided to get back at me in the form of "a big pile of sh*t", as quoted from something i said to a friend.

3. novelty songs. i'm sorry but i just can't find the "art" in them.

4. know-it-alls. those people who just love pretending they know everything there is to know about, well, everything. and it's just plain ironic that these are the people who, in fact, know close to nothing. these people can range from the stereotypical acad-lovers who fool themselves into believing that they have around six times the average gray mater, to your social-climbers who would wear hot pink feather boas around their heads if it meant that it was the next "it" thing.

whew. four rants. this must be an all-time low. or maybe i'm just hurrying because i have this biochem test i really ought to be studying for.

my test post

2006-01-04T14:52:00.000+08:00

hmm..

what to write, what to write..

quoted from my old blog:

happy birthday to youhmm. this blog just turned a year old a few days ago. and i haven't been paying much attention to it.i'll go about the traditional new year's resolutions first. i have absolutely no idea what to post anyway.

1. go out more often. there used to be a time when i could balance acads and my social life so well that it got me the highest grades i've ever gotten in years. of course, medyo madali pa ang college that time. but i'm pretty sure i can do it again. well, i'll have to do it again or i'll be facing a major burnout.

2. quit being the skeptic. i doubt almost everything; i see the fault in any idea. there' s just this great part of me that loves proving other people wrong. i'm ashamed to say i actually take pleasure in doing this but most of the time i hate myself for doing it.

3. lose weight. well, not really the weight, just replace the fat with muscle. hehe. i did some cosmic cycling in the gym a few days ago. that's when i realized how weak my upper body really was. i never knew i could sweat so much. haha. gross. moving on..

4. keep in touch with friends who matter the most. i suck at this. i mean, i always find myself busy doing everything all at once that sometimes i just push them away without me knowing it. i guess nasanay lang ako na parati silang nandito.. just a call away. to all the people i haven't been in touch lately, sorry. you guys know who you are.

5. take chances. i am not a risk taker. and with good reason. i just want out of the monotony.

6. take care of myself. sometimes i just seem to forget.

i guess that's enough. you think?