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It's been an interesting week so far.

Friday

Last Friday (lets just include it into this week for convenience shall we), we went out for dinner with the cousins. Well, we planned it to be with the cousins but only Mia turned up cause she lost Joren in some highway. Yay for losing siblings! I want to "misplace" Lystra sometimes. Besides Mia, A (I think the pseudo/acronym so conveniently meshes with my post) joined us for dinner by way of an invitation from Lystra. Meh, I can live with it. I can accept the fact that it was mutual but still... meh.

So dinner. It was really really really really good. I think you should go ahead and insert a few more "really's" in there. It was oh so good. The main course was pasta and we had a bottle of red wine to go along with it. The pasta was quite delectable, I had a seafood variant of pasta which I admit I've never really tried before, but shrimp and pasta are strangely good together. The wine picked out by our very own wine connoisseur, Lystra, complemented the food quite well. Quite a sophisticated dinner and we ordered it by ourselves. Somehow it feels like a rite of passage into adulthood, going into a restaurant without the parental units and ordering expensive food and wine. Yes, I am quite strange to think of that as a rite of passage.

But what's a dinner without conversation? Good conversation all around, despite my unjustified reservation about A's intelligence (stereotypes rule). Love lives, school and intelligence, alcoholism, Indian movies, the results of the US election (of course) and vive la revolution were discussed. More random snippets of the conversation can be perused at Mia's post about the night over here. There was a strange moment in the conversation though, where I had to hurriedly reevaluate some values. Not going to write down what it exactly was, but I need to make a note of it here for posterity.

After dinner, we adjourned to a nightspot. I can't really say much about this. It was loud (we were given a table beside a speaker, ffs) and somewhat rowdy (cue the hardcore hiphoppers) so after staying there for a while (Mia has gone home by this time) we retire to a "spot" as A called it. Somewhere in Antipolo I believe, where we went up hill that overlooked the city. I love the night. The city seemed so serene from up there, so quiet and far removed. At the risk of sounding like an alcoholic, I had my first Tequilla shot at a Padi's Point somewhere over there. Doesn't really have a kick does it? Although I did only have one. Well.. maybe add that on two glasses of wine, a vodka bull and half a bottle of lager and err... on reflection, I seem to be turning into an alcoholic, listing out all the drinks I had.

Afterwards, we head for home to try to catch what sleep we can before waking up for classes at the next day. Saturday classes are teh suck. Okay, at this point, we are quite broke. And we're still broke up to now. I'm going to think of it as a sort of experiment to see whether we can survive without money. So far so good, halfway into the week without much money and still surviving.

Saturday-Sunday

Saturday saw me sleeping most of it away (I can only attribute this to alcohol and extreme lack of sleep), although Lystra did go out with Chubby. Going to go off tangent here for a while. I think I'm as bad as Lystra for going along with giving her boys strange names. Heck, I give them strange names. Chubby seems okay to me so far. I'm giving him the seal of approval. Or something.

Sunday was family day and we packed up ye olde gas guzzler with food and headed off into the mountains, to Tagaytay to be exact. Roughly an hour or two away from where we live, Tagaytay is removed from the noise and pollution of Metro Manila. A very pleasing change of scenery and one that I think I needed desperately. Tagaytay was beautiful, something you'll never see back in Singapore. The air was cool and fresh, almost like having the air condition on. All the time. Everywhere. And the views were fantastic. Go to Lystra's Webshots page and take a look under 'Clubbing & Tagaytay Trip'. Fantastic.

If you looked throught the photo's you'd see we rode the horses. Only thing is I had to ride with Lyshiel so I couldn't go really fast. And I had to sit on the horses spine. Words cannot describe how uncomfortable having a horses spine continuously riding up your ass. Well, maybe two words can do it. Ass. Invasion. Another discovery about myself and Lystra. We are way too urbanised. They were selling kites over there because it's pretty windy over there and Lyshiel wanted to fly a kite. So me and Lystra went off to buy her a kite and then attempt to get it up to the air. Needless to say. We sucked at it. We had to fall back to our Dad to get it up into the air. Sigh.

On the way back home, we stopped by this beautiful little cafe called Bag of Beans. Their seating area is a joy to behold. It's a beautifully landscaped garden that makes you feel like you're in a different world, like you've fallen into a quiet magical nook, hidden away from the world. Each seating area in the garden is unique, one of them even being in an enclosed hut like structure. Add birds, fish, stray cats roaming around and a noisy little monkey and you've got a charming little place. It was really enchanting. Too bad the photo I took of the place didn't really turn out so well.

And here's some photos of the beautiful views of Tagaytay that I took. I just posted my favourite shots from that day and I don't really feel like posting all the pictures.

Limerence

When I wrote this in school earlier, I didn't really have the time or the inclination to write everything that I wanted to say.

The feeling has waned. And it doesn't hurt anymore. A realization that a single word brought home, cutting through the haze of confusion with the full force of understanding. Limerence.

Limerence is a state of mind sometimes referred to as "being in love" (as distinct from "loving" someone) and sometimes called "infatuation." However, the term "infatuation" carries connotations of immaturity that "limerence" separates from the emotion.

All I've been feeling and the way I've been acting. All symptomatic of limerence. No, I do not regret it. The ride was fun while it lasted. Sort of anyway, and at the very least I managed to write a poem I'm not ashamed of. I think I'll enjoy her friendship more now without having the feeling of utter nervousness around her. I do find it easier to talk to her than anyone else in school, I'm not quite sure why but 'tis true.

Etc

So it's Regan's 18th birthday today. Happy birthday you slag. Enjoy the drinking to be had and stuff. And thanks for finding out about limerence.

Political Compass. Cause political stances aren't just Left and Right anymore. I'm a -2.25 on economic issues and -3.74 on social issues. It's also brought to my attention that my position on abortion isn't really as well formed as I would like it to be. I mean, religiously, abortion is bad (mmk?) and I do personally detest abortion. I remember being shown pictures of aborted babies in secondary school and crying. It was just so sad. Yet I also believe in separation of church and state, and of the freedom to make personal choices strongly enough to conflict with my belief in that abortion is bad.

Thomas doing le parkour. Pretty cool pictures, just too bad that he doesn't have videos of it.

On a more serious note, please pray for Paully's mother. Paully is sort of like a big brother to me, and his mother is dying.