<thought />

I have a penchant for posting at late nights. So sue me. The never sleeping thing has been commented on by neighbours. Damn you. Maybe I should just turn off the lights but then again wise men on the internets have spouted wisdom along the lines of "Sleep is for teh weak". So I survived Christmas. I think. It is vaguely disturbing that I have turned into a hallmark-ism but what got me out of the funk I was in was the Christmas family reunion. On an unrelated note, my fingers have Tourette's syndrome. Typing "funk" yielded the word "fuck" instead (I did it again). Christmas still seemed to have a special kind of desperation though. Just my observation of people who were out on Christmas morning. Maybe that was just my interpretation of their hope though. Still, I didn't feel much of the purported joy that laces the air in Christmas much like the smell of urine on the streets here. I must be the only person in the world who can be a Grinch past Christmas. I'm supposed to be getting depressed about New Year damnit. Ah well, let's write it off to procastination. Speaking of the new year, the World Pyro Olympics are being held here. Much much much fireworks.

It is officially christmas now. I am posting this at 2:42 am so uhhh. Yeah. I never sleep.

I really do not feel the christmas spirit this year. Just something ineffable. Irunno. Can't pinpoint it.

Anyway, merry christmas k? Still thinking about going back to Singapore next year. Damnit I want to but no one will be around. Damn NS. Collateral damage right there.

I fart in your general direction.

This post is really going nowhere. I guess I'm just trying to stave off this feeling of emptiness. Angst angst angst angst.

K thnx bye.

Listen to her plotting hands. They weave silent dreams, painting the canvas in morose brown tones. Her smile echoes down empty hallways deserted by midnight. Three, the number of times her brushstrokes enslave my eyes. Twice I drown myself. There is only once to recall the promise a heart unsatisfied.

I almost posted that in vocabulary notebook. It has no place there, I guess this space is adequate for it.

I clean out my room and then I come across an article about how getting rid of your junk can make you happy. I can safely attest to that with anecdotal evidence! I was quite amazed at how much paper I had accumulated over a year and a half. Found some interesting things underneath the detritus of my life too.

The story of my recent life in ID cards:

Also found this slightly embarassing partly written letter that was supposed to be adressed to Thomas when I left Singapore. Forgive the gayz0r dude, I was emotional. I also have no freaking idea what the rest of the letter was supposed to say so I guess it will be one of those great unresolved mysteries of life. I was also going to write something for all of my friends but uhm, eh, didn't pan out. I am way too lazy, even in the face of sorrow.

Last night's chat with the #L^P mofos was fun, even if it did lead to Edi's gf Kaori having err gay fanfic fantasies about us. Yes, it was much much much disturbing. Also my deepest sympathies to Edison. Maxtor fucking sucks man.

It has also come to my attention that indeed, this month is National Novel Writing Month or if you are into ridiculous abbreviations, NaNoWriMo. Jeez. That thing looks like a preteen raped a word with spastic caps. Anyhoo, while the endeavour of writing a novel in its entirety in one month seems like an interesting challenge it holds little interest for me.

What is much much much much more interesting however is a parallel event being held by Websnark. NaDruWriNi or in the language of the sane, (inter)National Drunk Writing Night. A night that will surely be marked by splendid debauchery when various people around the globe load up their word processors and then proceed to get loaded up, maaan, on their alcomahol of their choice! I surely will be looking forward to the fruits of their drunken labour. Too bad I can't really take part. Sounds like a fun excuse to get drunk.

In final fun stuffs over the intarweb, drawing 700 hoboes. I'm taking part in it. Also this smexy pirate picture which I have inexplicably opened in my browser.

Here's a fun little list from Behavioural Sciences class:

I may have laughed maniacally when I wrote the last few. I do so enjoy irony (except when it is in the Alanis Morrisette sense). Also mass killings. Some genocides are necessary and even beneficial.

Also, Behasci prof is somewhat uhm... strange. Too happy happy funtime. She's a psychiatrist. She sings in class. Also ambushed me with a tickle from behind to demonstrate sense of touch. "Commandor, I needs a pepp0r spr4y!".

The list is also mostly true.

Did you know you can make reportedly good chocolate mousse with tofu?

On the off chance that someone who drops by actually cares or is much too bored at the present moment, vote Florian Mueller! Just, VOTE DAMN YOU!

Silly meme. I thought you would be much more interesting. Via Flying Backwards.

1. Delve into your blog archive.
2. Find your 23rd post.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.

And here's my sentence: "Man I miss that website"

So so underwhelmed by the result of this. Someone else try it, you're bound to get something more interesting than mine.

I watched Corpse Bride today. Alone. Should have caught the trailers so I could see the one for 40 Year Old Virgin. That would be me in 20 more years! Another significant event today is the consumption of Spam in a restaurant specializing in Spam.

I came away from the experience with the precious knowledge that Spam is overrated.

Just to make things clear that little pearl of wisdom was gleaned from the eating part of the narrative, not the watching a movie part. Just wanted to be crystal clear on this.

Watching movies alone.. sob... alone..

Uhm.. so on to more disturbing things. Aardman Animation (purveyors of claymation, creators behind Wallace & Gromit) had a nice little bonfire at their warehouse. Why bring this up? When I read that this morning, my heart broke in sympathy for Nick Park and his wonderful team of animators down there. I mean.. losing 15 years of such rich artistic history. It's gotta suck. But then I read what Nick Park had to say about the subject.

Even though it is a precious and nostalgic collection and valuable to the company, in light of other tragedies, today isn't a big deal

And then it struck me. I was more moved by a disaster that happened to a bunch of sets in engerland than I was by the plight of an untold millions in the Asian earthquake. It is somewhat disturbing that I cared more about art work than I cared about people. It is something that occurs to me quite often really. I'd rather love an abstract idea more than a person.

So, Semiotheque Guy. Or as I like to call him, Tom Green (this ought to be self explanatory really). Daaaamn Yooooou! The Best Way To Be Broken, Part 1 just made me so jealous with it's earnest honesty and writing that just aches to be made into an indie song. It's just so reminiscent to the lyrics of Deathcab (new album soon wooo!) that I fall in love with it so readily.

And yes, I am aware how disturbing my man-crush on him is. So painfully aware.

I've made up my mind to restart Vocabulary Notebook over the sem break. The new design is pretty much done already, it just needs to be made into a template. I also may change the format to something similar to semiotheque where I will write when I feel like it. Being forced to write every weekday is just plain exhausting. Or maybe I'll make myself write twice a week instead, we'll see.

Oh yeah, the pitifully short sem break is upon us! All shall rejoice and dance without pants! The last few weeks were seriously draining, going into crunch mode to complete the sudden deluge of final projects. Gah.

The UP Cursor party was a welcome release for the stress. Pictures will be posted later. As for the digital art competition, I came in tenth. I'm choosing to look at that positively, focusing on the fact that I got into the finalists.

My results for this trimester is pretty good, I'm averaging at 3.16 now. I can take an average grade for my last subject and still retain a 3.0 GPA. Huzzahs all around as far as I'm concerned.

---

Weird pictar of the whenever:

A CD-ROM drive ghettoed onto a tricycle! It was just so strange to see what a PC component on a normally low-tech vehicle. Another strange sight I saw on the roads here was a pink painted truck euphamistically named "Roadside People Caretakers" (or something to that effect, exact name escapes me now). It had a flower painted on it. And it had a cage inside it. Yeah. Police state scariness.

Like, DUDE! @rte Attack. There was a digital art competition on the theme of "Art and Technology United". And like... TOP 10! Moi!!

They're on exhibit at Melchor Hall 2nd Floor Lobby, UP Dilliman from August 26 to September 2. I may just head on over there to have a look see. Even if I don't get anything its still my work on exhibit. Whee!

One Singapore Minute, a project by Monsieur Brown that uses flickr to chronicle a slice of time in Singapore. An interesting idea. Perhaps I'll do something similar except for the Singapore part.

Why post about this? I came across this shot of the downwards view from a HDB balcony and it struck me how absolutely Singaporean it is personally. It's a simple yet vivid expression of how the Singaporean everyday joe sees life. The majority of people in Singapore live in apartment blocks, living vertically. I only came to see this vertical perspective with the change of my own environment. Over here in the Philippines most people live in houses that at the most will reach four storeys.

Maybe its a strange idea, a national identity based on how high up you live but its real to me. Visiting friend's flats (apartments) on the upper floors and looking down to the concrete expanse below and being somewhat nervous at the thought of falling down. It's a memory that my mind has irrevokably connected with Singapore.

I'm still searching for my place in the world. Philippines is a homeland. I cannot help but identify with the people. From what I see, there is a great potential in the Filipino. There is talent there is boundless optimism and cheerfulness and there is warmth. Then there is also government. The largest factor for the failure of the Philippines in my mind is the administration. There is too much crap in it.

But still.. Singapore. It's my adopted homeland. The cynicism, the competition, the modernism, the multiculturalism and most importantly the friendships that were forged in that crucible. I've pretty much assimilated the language and the cultural protocols. It's another kind of home. It's home in the way that you just love that old shirt. You know it's feel, you know how it wears. Despite of, or because of, all its faults you love it. Or maybe the faults are just peripheral things I've grown to embrace. Maybe Singapore is just home because that is where my heart is (cue crappy National Day song please).

Jurong East is in the Minister's pants! I mean.. pocket! Also.. wtf-alien is going on with those feelers...

---

Look! Random output-orama! My first animation exercise! Simple-ish and rather shaky but it's still animation right? Also, Chortus. Ehh.. I played the bass and sister was on the guitar and vocals. It's pretty much the final push into the finals for this trimester. A few more weeks and I get a break. Hurrah.

EDIT: Wah lew... found satay pic in the photostream. Now damn hungry for Singapore food at 3 am. Anyone can send me Roti Prata?

I think its difficult to accurately describe the vapidness of the Singaporean magazine called Eight Days. Such is its vacuousness that the simple non-existence of matter is not enough, to print out the magazine the theoretical creation of Anti-matter was necessary to allow the editors to publish material of such triviality and non-consequence.

Nevertheless I love it.

Not for the content mind you, I have divested of my feelings and thoughts on it and you should know of my low opinion about it by now. Unless your eyes glazed over while reading that in which case. Eh, why are you reading this blog? My dad came back from a quick business trip to Singapore and brought back that week's issue of Eight Days. It's disquieting how such an inane rag can bring me back to Singapore if only in my mind.

In more exciting Singapore related news, Peepshow won! the Youth Alive Finals. Big mamafuck w00t to Boon and Edmund and the rest of the band. May you guys be as blessed in future musical endeavours and rock out the Esplanade on August 9 baby! National day style!

Wait, its time for Things-You-Did-Not-Need-to-Know-About-Jeiel! When I woke up, I immediately checked the LP blog for news of the Youth Alive Finals and when I saw that Peepshow had won, I celebrated with whoops of joy. I guess most people would find this normal except I was only in my underwear at that time. So Boon, when I was celebrating your victory I want you to know, I was in my tighty-whities. Yeah. Wasn't wearing the Hulk boxers unfortunately.

Blog of the moment: The Retard Patrol. The Friendster community is, unfortunately, a varied one and within this cesspool of retardedness there is a subspecies that is so mind-numbingly stupid that only a few brave men will dare wade into this sewage of humanity and examine it. For science. Well, occasionally the aforementioned men will laugh and poke fun at the Ah-bengs and Ah-lians but this blog is mainly a Scientific Endeavour For The Progressmentiveness Of Knowledge For All Mankind. Okay, so seriously they make fun of stupid friendster profiles. Among other things.

Gah. Freehand drawing is being evil now. Try shading 40%-50% of a 12"X18" sketchpad. And trying to complete it in a few hours. Bleh I say! Oh well, my fault for being a procastinator and not working on it more before today (has to be submitted tomorrow).

Yarrrrh. Today is Sunday and I had a supplementary class at school. Well I was supposed to have a class. Administrative stupidity rocks. It was a digital photography class. Would have been nice to have learned how to make the most out of the digicam but the school administration fucked up. Sweet.

The upshot to the mess up though is that I went to the mall to watch Hitchhikers Guide. Great great great movie. Some changes from the books but eh. I shouldn't have been surprised by the scriptwriters making Trillian fall for Arthur, you always need a love interest in a movie but.. in the books I just found it more interesting when Trillian didn't really express all that much interest in Arthur, even when they were the only two humans in the galaxy left. That part of the book just so stubbornly went against the expectation of the reader that it spiced the book up more.

And besides, the love story that was So Long and Thanks for All the Fish was more romantic. Man I love that song. If I wasn't so self conscious I would have danced out of the theatre to that song.

Ben & Jerry's Ice cream is anti Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone. In my opinion, this is a flawed policy based on fallacies. Anything that may lead to a humans vs. zombie cows war can only be a good thing. Take up your dessert spoons comrades! We will push back the Ben & Jerry's threat pint by creamy pint!

I'm somewhat missing being in a computer course now. I feel so mediocre in Multimedia Arts right now. There is something to be said about the effect of being good at your course of study on your ego.

But the thing is, I know why I'm not at the level that I want to be in. It's all about practice. I've never really stretched my abilities when it comes to art, especially the traditional kind. All I've done are little insignificant doodles on notebooks. I guess with hard work, I could push my abilities to what I want.

But I am le' lazy. And yet I don't want to be. But the battle between willpower and laziness seems to have a bias for laziness. It's just me, I know.

Hahaha. The L^P mofo's look like a damn emo band liao with all those nerd glasses. Also, a big congrats to the Edmund, Boon and the rest of their band for making it to the Youth Alive finals.

Have you ever seen someone who made you wish you believed in love at first sight? The girl of unassuming beauty.

First day of school today. Uhhh. Lets just say adjusting my schedule made it all bitch-fucky. I finally have a full load but at the expense of having to be at school every day at 8 and leaving school at most of the days at 5-ish. With a lot of breaks in between classes. Argh.

No more sleeping at 3am for me.

Nature, coincidence, can often be a heavy-handed symbolizer. She seems at times fairly to club one over the head with significance ... so obvious even in its details that it (is) embarrassing. One is constantly being confronted with a sun that bursts from behind the clouds just as the home team takes the ball; ominous rumblings of thunder when one is brooding desultorily at home; magnificent sunrises on days when one has resolved to mend one's ways; hurricanes that demolish a bad man's house and leave his good neighbor's untouched, or vice-versa; Race Streets marked SLOW; Cemetery Avenues marked ONE WAY. The man whose perceptions are not so rudimentary, whose palate is attuned to subtler dishes, can only smile uncomfortably and walk away, reminding himself, if he is wise, that good taste is, after all, a human invention.

john Barth, "The Floating Opera"

Food for thought the next time I'm all snobbish and elitist about something. I categorically will not apply this philosophy towards stupid songs and/or blogs though.

Dude! So like... dude... I was checking vocab book's stats when I noticed man, like a huge ass spike on like, the stat page and duuuude dude dude dude, guess what, I'VE BEEN BRENDAN'd! Semi-exciting that VB has been mentioned in a blog that isn't mine... so yeah :p Also, fanboyism.

In other news, I'm particularly appalled by the breadth of Wikipedia's coverage on VeggieTales, or rather by the lack of it. You would have thought the "wikipedians" would have turned their rabid love for information onto this great animated series but noooo. And I can't contribute anything either, other than that I <3 Larry.

I've been watching VeggieTales videos, can you tell?

Oh.. and the subjects in school that I love are amongst my lowest scores (if we discount the 0 I got for PE...). Tough love man.. tough love. Okay, so my scores were 3.0 and 3.5. It's still not the 4.0 I got for two other subjects though. I'm too much of a nerd :/

On a very random note, JEIEL HENRIQUE!

It FINALLY rained.

Everything is all right now.

Enrolled into school for the next tri. Have a regular-ish class and an almost regular load. Just need to get a subject added in and I'm good. Sucks that 2D anim was full though. Shame cause I wanted to take that class.

Oh hey guess what, Chronicles of Narnia trailer is out. Production values look great and so does the casting. Hope the movie is as great as the book.

Semiotheque guy makes me want to cry.

I think I'm finally finding my voice in writing now. At least I'm kind of comfortable with Vocab Book now. It doesn't feel too much like a struggle anymore.

I'm weird. I have too many things left half-done. Seriously. I'm looking through my projects folder and I feel like kicking my own ass for doing things in such a half-assed way.

Uhm. I'll try to make my next post not suck so much and not take such a long time either. But damnit, summer is crap. Too damn hot to post. But if you do want to read more of what I'm writing... err drop by Vocabulary Notebook. Sorry. Need to pimp it :P

Here's to hoping for more rain soon!

P.S: Read Count Your Sheep for uber-cute webcomic sadness! I mean, I even wrote fan-fiction about it! It's so damn good. Like C&H with less boy-maniacness and more girl cuteness.

Discovered the rooftop of the school the other day. It's at the fourteenth floor, you climb to it by a metal stairwell accessed through the thirteenth floor (unmarked). It's forbidden to go up there. Went up anyway. Desolate, forbidden and windswept.

Caffeine addiction is back in full swing. Went through about four highs and four lows today. Evil. Vocab notebook is on the fourth entry already. I've officially managed to keep to a schedule! Then again 50% of my entries I had to back date.....

Why I need new friends:

LD: i bet the pope is just playing dead, and theres all these people watching him lying in state but its really jsut a wax dummy made by madam tussauds

LD: and then at his funeral, he'll jump out from behind a curtain and yell "psyche!"

In my younger days, I had an english teacher. I can't remember her name now but she was simultaneously my most hated and most loved teacher at the time. It's a dichtomy but that's life.

Each week she would make us get fifty new vocabulary words each. Each week she would check our notebooks so see how we were doing.

I want to get better in writing. I think it helps with the creativity and the works of the anacrusis guy just inspires me.

To this end, I've created a new forced writing blog which I call my Vocabulary Notebook. Each school day I will go to dictionary.com's word of the day and write a story utilizing that word. I was meant to start yesterday but I got lazy. So I started today with the word Temporize. I drafted the story in school. I actually liked my draft better. For some reason though, I decided to leave the paper in school, choosing instead to fold it and write the URL of my blog down. Shameless self promotion, yes but I doubt it got read anyway. Probably got promptly thrown in the trash.

So yeah. My writing can only get better. I hope. Onward ho!

To paraphrase: It's my birthday tomorrow. I turn 21. I like games.

Biiiiig 20 today. I am officially old. Hopefully I can open a new blog later today about writing. Stuff. Whee.

Oh. Writing to gush about. Go on. You want to gush. You know it.

I want to write something about two-nought. Too many damn things rhyme with it. Poem kind of things. I am the rhyme master.

"Don't just go through Hip-hop, let Hip-hop go through you"

There are too many paragraphs in this post.

This is a paper I had to do for english class where we had to write a memoir. The prof limited us to a single page because we were all whining for a low minimum page count. That was evil but I decided to add more challenge to it by using the format that Anacrusis uses, that is I limited myself to 101 words per part. Click on read more to read the full paper. I don't think it lives up to the standard of the author of Anacrusis but eh, it works.

I collapsed onto my bed, my mind weary but adrenaline rushing. It's 7 am and I'm recovering from a session of wormage. I look out of my window and realize I haven't really watched clouds in over a year. Cloud watching. To some it may seem like time wasted but I never really thought of it that way. I would spend irunno, half an hour or so just lying on the couch in my living room looking out of the window and gazing at the sublime beauty of the clouds and the sky.

Since my youth (which is slipping through my fingers btw, two days left till I turn the big two-oh), I've been fascinated by clouds. I vividly recall car rides where all I did is stare out of the windscreen as I let my imagination run wild. I would visualize myself running in those clouds thinking that they looked solid and big enough to support my weight. That they would be like fluffy snow. Or I would see whole castles, turrets and windows and all in the shadows of the clouds. They're amazing and I always consider them as one of Gods greater works, being remade almost everyday.

As I watched the blue sky and the clouds piled high, an airliner lazily streaks by. For a while it seems to challenge the clouds dominion of the sky. Mans challenge to God. Who can put into the sky greater, vaster constructs. Which is more amazing an artificial being shaped by man from metal and breathed to life with his ingenuity? Or tiny crystals of ice compelled to come together to form majestic sculptures, suspended in the sky for all to see.

Sadly, we as humans are marring the sky. I can recall the flight into Philippines. All the black smoke that darkened the sky as we came in for the landing. It's depressing. Its like throwing paint on the Mona Lisa.

---

A thought: an existence decided by groupthink. If no one acknowledges your existence, do you exist? I act weird when I get attention. A classmate says hi in the canteen and I look behind me to see if she was saying hi to someone else. I think I don't exist.

Unasked and unexpected, someone is haunting me again.

Ohhhh yeah. I'm too damn sexy for my blog.

Blogger targeted marketing meets blogger insanity meets viral meme (via Thomas).

Okay, this is a really really really belated thank you note to my friends back in Singapore. They sent me a care package of really cool stuff and I never posted about it in my blog. I feel like a right bastard really.

So to Tom, Edi, Boon, Delon, Justin and Jamie (her name is bolded as I forgot to write her name in the "card") thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou. I wear the dog tags pretty much everyday. The Geek Pride shirt is my absolutely favourite shirt. And the CD. It made me cry. Miss you guys a butt load. Here's to missing you the whole year round.

Oh, and Tom, about the boxers. WTF? Never thought you thought of me that way. (although I have to admit I'm wearing them now, hence the slightly absurd title.)

Oh. Also via the L^P mofos, The Ladder Theory. It may just save your life.

I'm no Caesar but I have cause to be wary of March coming around. Age has a funny way of sneaking up on you and before you know it, BAM! You've been rear-ended by time out of your teenhood into your twenties. Jeez, I sound like an old geezer. Next I'll be complaining about my bladder acting up or something.

So I'm not that happy about the state of things in my life. Or at least where I am in life now. I'm not leaving my teens with much of a sense of accomplishment. I still have three weeks to work on it though. See, I've managed to move on from crippling pessimism to bleak optimism so I'm making progress.

Oh wait. Could being a guest speaker twice already be called an accomplishment? I guess it only counts if the aforementioned talks given weren't to meh schools and my transference of knowledge made minimal impact. But that's just how I look at it anyway :P Whoops, slipping back into pessimism here.

Midterms was completed two weeks ago. The previous week was college week in my school which was almost a waste if it were not for the seminar that was given by comic artists. It just highlighted so much things that I lacked as an artist skillwise. However, it did teach me things which were useful so that is a great benefit for me. I didn't really know the names of the artists who did the seminar but some of them were working for Marvel (of X-men fame) which is a big thing. I guess.

Comics don't seem to hold that much relevance to me other than being really pretty pictures. The theory behind the storytelling is great and all but I never really personally got into reading comic books all that much. I think it's mostly because I never bought them or knew people who bought comics. I know some of the basics of the comic world and all but go deep and I'm pretty much lost.

I don't really remember much media having a big hold on me though, other than books and computer/computer games. I remember waking up early on Saturday mornings not to watch cartoons but to set up my knock-off NES console and play Super Mario Bros. Watching that little Italian plumber jump across brought me so much excitement as a child. I'd remember literally jumping out of my seat as I played it, stomping on my foes and timing my leaps across the nothingness.

Maybe the nostalgia I feel for video games leads me to froth at the mouth when people attack it and blame it for child violence or somesuch fiddle faddle and nonsense. Bull crap.

Hrmm.. enough of my vapid rambling. I'm probably turning into the people I hate, talking about inconsequential things. Not enough input. My brain has been starved of enriching material. As good as the internet is for a lot of intellectually stimulating activities, I seem to be using it soley for mind rotting entertainment. I need to consume media that is intellectually rich, something to make me think. To this end I have, along with my sister, purchased three good books. Veronika Chooses to Die, Tuesdays with Morrie and Eternal Lightness of Being (much <3 for the latter). I'm on the verge of devouring all of them, if I can find time to curl up with one and actually begin to read. I was sidetracked from starting on Unbearable Lightness from a pretty good conversation I had with sis.

Other lessons learned from Starbucks; I can't pull a prank and keep a straight face and they are making money off addicts. The latter revelation came to me when I ordered a Starbucks DoubleShot (capitalizing the moniker of drink is required, I assure you). It's basically crushed ice, flavouring of your choice (vanilla, caramel or plain) and two friggin shots of espresso. Two. Shots. Maybe it's not the best drink to pick for a long talk cock session in Starbucks but boy does it please the caffeine addict. It's all about taking your coffee addiction to its basest form, dropping all the crap surrounding it. The frappes the mochas and the what have you. They're selling you direct access to your high (cheaper than getting a frappe). And they manage to make it more palatable to the addict; they seek to reassure you, to soothe your nerves that while you're basically admitting that you are an addict, a slave to caffeine, you're doing it in style. You can be assured that you will be distinguished among the sea of anonnymous white paper cups emblazoned with the green Starbucks logo (which still does not make sense) because the cup that you will be holding will be designed specially for your addiction. That the cup you are grasping is used soley for that drink (Starbucks does not have any other special cups as far as I know). And that the cup will look exceedingly cute and disarming that it couldn't quite possibly hold the potent, heady and oh-so-addicting blend that you are hooked on.

On a thought that is off-tangent, I've gotten rid of the faithful stick of RAM that has hung on the lanyards of my ID's from NYP and APC. It feels strange when I think about it. That RAM was an anchor to the world of geekiness, a label which I proudly wear. One could take it as a sign of me maturing beyond labels. Or I could have just gotten tired of it making so much noise when I walked. Maybe Lystra can psychoanalyze me when she gets into the psychology course in DLSU. :P

I let myself down when I didn't complete the script for Art Apre and had to rip off another script from the internet. Feel sort of bad for not getting the script done, like I let myself down the most. I wanted to write it, to have a story done after so long. Oh well. Acting excercises for me this Saturday. I hate acting. Ask Lystra.

Oh March. You herald the culmination of a Year in this country.

I'm not quite confident over my change of course now. Yes, it's more or less my dream course, what I had originally wanted when I came out of secondary school. Yes, it's more or less the course I cried over when I found out I couldn't enter it. But you see during my days in an IT course, I think I developed a superiority complex. In my days at NYP, I was the best at what I did in my class. Okay, so I wasn't exactly the best at it in my batch; and to be honest... noone in my NYP class was really good in programming anyway. But still, I was the best at something! I was godlike! While I occasionally was frustrated by my classmates bothering me with simple questions about programming, it was still a heady feeling knowing for a fact that you are the best.

In IT, I was in my element. I was the alpha geek. I was the guy everyone wanted to be on the same group as. Please hold while I savour that moment.

Wait, come to think of it, they were only taking advantage of me. The bastards! (note to any DIT0316'ers who happens to read this: joke only lah!)

But seriously, I have doubts over this course. I know I'm not the best artist around. I just need to look at over to my left/right/front/back to see evidence of this. It drives me a bit crazy. A bit jealous. And a whole lot of scared. Its somewhat irrational I know. Why should I care about what other people are doing? I should just care that what I am doing is making me happy. I came to this course to develop myself as an artist, to improve. I can't expect to be the best at everything. I'll just end up unhappy.

Yet I wonder if this is what I should be doing. If this is my calling. I guess this is where parental influence somehow comes in. When I was a kid, my parents used to encourage my artistic talent. I remember this one time, I must have been six or seven years old, I attempted to do a sketch of my father. When I showed it to my mom, I recieved the most unexpected response. She laughed. I don't really remember my sketch looking like my father, but that was what she said she was laughing about. She was surprised at how much my drawing looked like my dad.

Perhaps that moment is the one that solidified my interest in drawing. Parental approval. Now, I don't know. I do love visual arts and computers which is why this course seems perfect for me. But is it mine? Do I own this?

Oh, and I somewhat miss writing stories. I've hardly written anything since I left secondary school, and by that time I remember getting lazy and not bothering with handing in my final composition to my english teacher (whose name escapes me now though he was one of the best teachers I've ever had). And we're supposed to write a one act play for finals in Art Apreciation class. I think this will be interesting.

Crushworthy

Jeiel's list of things that are currently crushworthy:

• Stars. Specifically the song "Heart". I can hardly leave my room nowadays without having played it at least once. Gorgeous lyrics, lush chorus' and heartwrenching vocal interplays. Absolutely makes me swoon.
• anacrusis/Cosette. Mia I know you had a momentary crush on the author but read this! Read from bottom up. Because Kronos is reversed in blogs.
• Girls who candidly admit to reading in the lavatory.

oh the silliness!

Grah. I was halfway through writing this post when all of a sudden the school computer asplodes on me and I lost the things that I've written. Augh. Blah.

Oh well, for now advanced happy birthday to you Mia. If you read this before we meet later tonight, yay. If not, oh well.

I'll continue this post later on the day. *twitches* Web Development teacher just talked about the <marquee> tag. Grnff. And she was teaching about the <font> tag before. I can't count the times that I want to scream "GET WITH THE TIMES WOMAN" during classes that teach HTML.

Oh, and I'm reading The Catcher in the Rye now. On a blog I was reading the other day, the writer called teenage bloggers (or, in my vernacular, teen-angsters) cyber Holden Caufields. I thought it was fitting.

GOOD DEITY! SHE'S USING THE <center> TAG NOW

Continuation

Okay, so I've been in my new school for a whole week now. Been okay so far. Don't know too many people yet. Okay, so I don't really know anyone yet. I take a while to acclimatize to new environs and all the classes I go to already have their established cliques. Thats the problem with transferring I suppose. You don't go through that whole get-to-know-you crap (wait that sounds like a good thing actually) and each class I go to, I only see them for one subject. Oh and theres that whole introvertness thing too :P

I'll survive through, don't worry.

I do so like Art Apreciation class because my seat is practically surrounded by girls. Problem is the girl sitting next to me was reading one of those cheap, thin, romance novellas. Books that are worse than daytime soaps with no redeeming quality whatsoever. It was slightly depressing. I know it sounds like an elitist bastard thing to say, but there you go, I question my seatmates intellect just by the book she was reading. I shouldn't be though, seeing as how I have a friendster account. And seeing as how I actually log into it frequently. I think just having a friendster account disqualifies you from being an elitist bastard, what with friendster being practically that place where the proles lived in 1984. Now, on the other hand, if I had an Orkut account...

I guess thats all I can say about my new school for now.

I took the MRT too this week. By myself even. Though I never really worried much when I was riding the train (other than getting lost) this article kinda makes me nervous now. Back in Singapore the only way you'd die in train stations is if you were being a stupid idiot and fell into the tracks. Here, you can get shot at. How lovely.

So tomorrow I go to a whole new school. Good stuff that. I'm not really nervous or anxious or anything of that kind right now, but I probably will be tomorrow. See, I even procastinate nerves. Weird/interesting thing about APC. Students have to wear office attire to school for most days. It's better than having a uniform I suppose. At least you'll be responsible when you look stupid. As I don't really have office attire in my wardrobe, I had to go out and, ugh, shop. Good thing all it entailed was getting the right size and then just picking out colours. No trying out outfits or anything. Oh, and I got a spiffy new bag too, which rocks.

I think I will enjoy APC a lot more than AMA. I hope to anyway. When I was enrolling, I happened to pass by a lab that was totally dedicated to open source! A whole network of 20 or so computers just dedicated to running open source apps. Fantastic! I wonder if I can go in and play around even if I'm not a CS/IT student.

Watched Kung-Fu Hustle today. As long as you don't expect anything more than slapstick humour and great action, its an excellent movie to watch. Great humour and action although the story is a bit on the weak side. I was especially let down by the ending. It just felt very abrupt like it was put there just to end the story. The love interest was also a huge letdown since it never really plays a huge part in the story and the way it was tied up was just too neat for me. The effects work on it is also a study in how 3d effects can be great as long as its done in moderation (Matrix, I'm looking at you). Kung Fu Hustle blended live action and 3d effects way better in its major fight scene. Think Matrix's burly brawl but better.

So I'm out of that stupid school. FINALLY. As I was coming back from the mall, I passed by the school building without feeling the depression I would normally feel. It's a great feeling. Now I'm pondering whether to initiate bridge burning ops (which is likely to take the dreaded 'e' word, effort) or to just leave that place alone. Ah well, since I'm too lazy, I'll probably just leave it alone.

So it turns out that the course I mentioned in the previous post accepts people regardless of colour blindness or not. Happy days! Tomorrow I'll see if they can let me start this semester, which starts on Monday. There may be some problems with the transferring procedures since I'm still waiting for AMA (previous school) to release my credentials but so far I'm happy with APC (Asia Pacific College).

Will I miss AMA? Heck no. Maybe the things around school though. In AMA, there were two malls within walking distance which were nice places to escape from the drudgery of school. APC doesn't seem to be near any place I can entertain myself, but oh well. At least the change of course means that I'll no longer bear a hate for my school. Another thing I might miss about AMA is the Starbucks behind it, near to UAP which was really nice for girl watching. But then again, APC may be good for girlwatching itself.

Well.. maybe I'll miss certain people from AMA. I don't think I'll be able to say a proper farewell to them since I'm unsure if I'll ever see them again.

So tomorrow I go back to school to collect my crappy results. And it will be crappy cause I let this tri go to crap. I'll be checking out another school though, mainly cause it has a course I want to go to. I want to ditch IT cause really, I can self study that quite easily. I want to do something more creative, follow my dreams and take control of my life. Or some crap like that anyway. I wonder if the course has restrictions on colour blind people entering, just like in Singapore. Colour blindness just surprises me sometimes. I was playing a game the other day when my icklest sister pointed out that the bullets I shot out were green when all along I thought they were some sick shade of brown.

Random linking ahoy!

• Clever Logos. Once again I am fascinated by logo designs. I love the way they can communicate so economically. Also, the next time you see a FedEx logo, look at it closely and try to find an arrow. It's so cleverly hidden in plain sight that I adore it.

• Colour Schemes. Some nice colour schemes to try out. And while we're on the topic of colour, how about a colour scheme forecast for 2005? Meanwhile, ColorWhore seems to be back up now, after a little spate of domain stealing. Hurrah!

• Websnark. If you love webcomics, bookmark this blog now. Quite an insightful blog on webcomics. I've found quite a few good new comics to read through this blog.

• The MatrIEx. Just read it damnit.

• Anacrusis. The power of being economical with words. A great little experiment where the author writes a short story, keeping it at 101 words. It reads beautifully.

• Lifehacks. Some really useful stuff there. Right now though, I want one of those Moleskine things mentioned there. Looks like a really yummy notepad. And yes, I'm applying the adjective yummy to a non-edible object.

• Copper. Wonderful monthly webcomic. Fantastic art and the stories told are just imaginative, provocative and heartwarming. My fave among them.

• Talking Cock. I haven't visited the website for ages but when I dropped by just now, it seems an interesting thing happened to the website during the establishment of Singapore as a dynasty. Talking Cock went down on August 11, just before the handover of power to Lee Hsien Loong on August 12. Even though it could be just an innocent little glitch, you do have to admit the timing seems suspicious.

So it's a new year. Some would say its time for a fresh start, for you to start making changes to your life. I say meh to that. Meh to all that new year resolution crap. If I don't follow through on anything else, what makes you think I would follow through with new years resolutions eh?

So yesterday was new years eve (or as the channel German informs me, Sylvester). It was pretty exciting since its the first new years I've had in the Philippines in quite a while. Traditionally here in the Philippines, people set off fireworks during new years eve. And back in Singapore, fireworks are rare. The government hogs all the fireworks for themselves and only sets em off once a year. Here though, its a free for all. Anyone can procure fireworks and have their own fireworks display. I can't tell you how novel this idea seems to me, the Singaporeanised boy.

Throughout the afternoon, you could already hear sporadic explosions as people set off firecrackers in their enthuiasm. Sometimes they would be loud enough to shock you at inopportune moments. The fireworks display at night though, is something else. If you didn't know any better, you would think that you're in a warzone with all the constant explosions surrounding you. You'd hear high pitch screams, sounding eerily like mortar fire. You would see a whole series of explosions lighting up the night sky like flowers blossoming or fire flys scattering in the midnight air. The sound of Chinese firecrackers exploding is transformed into machine gun fire in your mind. The smell of explosives and smoke hang heavy in the air as a mass of fireworks are set off at around midnight. You have to fight the urge to find a ditch and dive into it.

As I walked underneath a tree, I glanced up and happened to see an orange bloom as another rocket lit up the sky. It seemed romantic to me.

In any case, thats how I basically spent new years eve. Here though, it seems to be more a case of quantity rather than quality. The NDP fireworks display is quite a thing to behold, seeing as how the whole display is coordinated. Here though people just set off a lot of fireworks, without any real coordination. I set off a couple of fireworks off too so the pyromaniac in me got to have some fun. Although I did break a new year tradition of mine this year. Since 2000, I've had this stupid little tradition of showering right after midnight. I wanted to be the first to shower in the new millenium, which is how that whole thing started. If you think about it though the whole shower thing seems a bit symbolic. Wash away the old year and start over anew.

So today is the aftermath, the hangover that lasts a whole year.

I wonder how many people blew themselves up over new years eve. Another new years tradition of the Philippines, causing physical hurt to yourself or others in darkly comical ways. You have your perennial classic, the firework mishap; a nice classy way to say goodbye to a finger or two or a hand even. Or you could have the indirect fire gunshot wound, thanks in large part to the fucktards who get drunk and decide to shoot their pistols into the air. Now, I wouldn't have so much a problem with that if they just shot each other and eliminated the problem all together, but when they manage to shoot up bystanders... I think Lystra was quite close to adding a new catagory of new years eve mishaps: the ham cutting accident. There was a dead pig that required slicing and Lystra just happened to be wielding a knife. Which she just happened to lose control of. And quite coincidentally, my hand just happened to be in the way. Close call.

'Tis a new year. The smoke rises and clears from the debris of the past year. Its been a year for new experiences, a year for doing the same old. A year for radical changes, a year for staying the same. A whole damn year for regrets.

I came to my homeland to feel displaced. Wretched feelings of homesickness still grip me.

I refuse the change.

I felt the glimmer of hope, yet I let it go.

I've grown closer to family.

I've grown a little more mature.