11:30 Discussions with My Family

My parents and my siblings are all here. Watching TV, scrutinizing the shows and commercials on, and whatever we have. My brother makes fun of my dad's shorts because it's sooo firey red. Then Sanny made Nestea Iced Tea. You know the new Nestea Fit? Yeps. So my dad became curious about it. My brother told him, "Dad, healthy yan. Nestea Fit, yung may Lycopene."

I know what you're thinking. It's L-Carnitine, but we're twisted just like that. "Amuyin mo, Dad. Amoy paa diba? Nestea Feet eh." Then my dad poured the iced tea and was holding his tummy back, "Wow super effective lumiliit na kagad tiyan ni Dad, pero dapat paa eh." "Para kay Mei talaga yang Nestea Feet. Para lumiit naman yung paa niya. Laki eh." My mom laughed ridiculously or annoyingly, so did my sister, then the rest of us. Domino laughing effect. I told my mom, "Ganda ng tawa ah." She said she's just reading the balance sheet-like report-like something. "Wow, kailan naging funny ang numbers?!" Yeah. Twisted people.

Right now we're watching The Correspondents, and the topic is Retreat. You know those retreats you were made to attend during highschool? My brother just told us about his friends' retreat experience. Let's call them Friend A, B, and C. Friend A has a crush on someone in YFC. They're going to a retreat. Friend A invited my brother, Friends B, and C. However, my brother knows about it so he said no. So Friend A invited B and C and told them they're going to a vacation, they'll be swimming and meeting new people. B and C agreed and at the start were pretty much convinced since there were a lot of people and all. Then they were welcomed with praise and worship songs and the sharing part. Friend B and C scrambled to leave the retreat area when they had the chance. These houses usually have gates (just like all houses in the Philippines) and they climbed over them. They threw their bags and stuff. Friend C forgot his shoes inside, and he repeated the ordeal. Both left the area and good thing they just live in Antipolo, so it's manageable. Friend A was just surprised he can't seem to find his friends around.

Then we saw the Mar Roxas commercial wherein he's riding a pedicab. It's so annoying, and we were throwing comments. "In the first place, sumakay silang dalawa ng kasama niya sa pedicab na alam niyang bata ang pumapadyak?!" Then there's the, "At nakipagkwentuhan pa siya habang umaandar sila!"

Wow. Political commercials are so much fun.


MORAL: Nestea Fit doesn't have Lycopene. It has L-Carnitine. However, if you just keep on drinking them, you'll just accumulate a lot of sugar and it'll make you fat and diabetic. Drink water, then try to make yourself fit. Not just because it's summertime, but because you have to take care of your body. You have to. Unless you have a perverted Ordo Amoris.

The Evil Application

DISCS (Department of Information Systems and Computer Science) teachers and a couple of MIS graduates in my virtual restaurant when I was just starting. Yeah, memories.

I've never been a fan of any social networking sites. Multiply is just for uploading pictures you are willing to be scrutinized by everyone (contacts or non-contacts). Then Facebook. I made an account there because people kept adding me up or something. So Facebook, okay. Multiply, okay. I'm not adding Twitter or Plurk. A blog and two sites plus YM are enough to keep me busy. Haha. But what makes Facebook different is that it has applications. Such a smart-ass. So before, I'd just be playing Pet Society and Battle of the Bands and uhmm, just those. Then during my OJT thing, one groupmate introduced Restaurant City to us. The Evil Application (TEA) is born. TEA or Restaurant City. Evil. Tempting you to keep on checking your Facebook and your restaurant.

My restaurant from the street view. Formerly known as Dyosa Restaurant, JSEC, DISCS Faculty, and Faculty Lounge. Now known as Faculty Slaves. Wooot!

Restaurant City. You'd probably be wondering how come I have accomplished this entry if Restaurant City is soo addictive? It's because the game is down again, maintenance or something. I blame my blockmates and friends who have just started playing as the main cause of the downtime of the game. Moving on, you make your own restaurant, hire your contacts to be your slaves, oh, employees, decide on which food to serve, and decorate your restaurant inside and outside. Think it's easy? Fear not! After getting the hang of it, your desire to have a fabulous restaurant begins to lurk. You'd talk to your friends about which ingredients you need and then the slyness begins. You try to sell/market your Lobster (an ingredient in the game) or any other ingredient you have in abundance so that they'd trade it with their item that you so desperately need. Then you invite your friends who either have or do not have Facebook to play Restaurant City so that when they already have a working restaurant, you could visit it and have a free ingredient. Then you talk to them next time just to check if they'd want to trade with you. Haha.

My employees are all my teachers. Haha. Faculty!

My friends have been so competitive in playing this game. You can't leave your restaurant unattended for so long because when you check it again, your slaves, err peasants, errr employees would be KO'd and be sleeping on the floor, unable to serve customers, and your popularity rating would sink down to the Marianas Trench. Then you'd work and wait again so that it'll have a rebirth, just like a phoenix. Just like Easter Sunday. So I don't know how my blockmates manage to stay up so late to check their restaurants and keep their points going. Haha.

MORAL: Facebook applications and flash games available over the Internet have become such a hit because well, I think it's because of the simplicity of the games and the accessibility. You could play it in your netbook or any other computer with access to the Internet, no more installing stuff, and/or when your teacher is discussing something in your computer class you could play and pretend to be listening. (FYI, I don't play games during class. I know a lot of people who do that but I'm not one of them.) I hope after I click the Publish Post button, Restaurant City is up and running already.

New Learning and Trading Game

What have I learned from all the wedding preparations and all the time playing Restaurant City in Facebook?

1. Wedding Rituals - Pamamanhikan (you effing bring the best-looking members of your family and present them to your future in-laws for the relief that a good-looking family will emerge from the union of two wicked families). Well, that's what my mom told me. And I believe it. So if you're going to do pamamanhikan, you can hire us. My family would be willing to pretend that we're related.

2. Villains/Antagonists - They fail in killing/eliminating the good guys because they explain everything. They are too proud of their work, their evil plans, and the likes. So when they have the good guys in point blank range, they start expressing how they really feel. All the negative or the sad emotions they have kept inside of them gets to be spilled out while the captured good guy works his/her superior vena cava, quadriceps, and biceps out to try to break free from the evil grasp of our villain. Aside from the emotional ranting, the supervillain explains the complexity, the profoundness, the beauty, and all the time spent in doing his plan that is 90% effective only if he has pressed the button already. So spectators drop their jaws in awe while the protagonist still tries to break free. After discussing the greatness of the machine/device/plan, good dude successfully rigs the chains/whatever and either runs for his life or he whacks the evil nerdy dude to far far away, only to be heard of in the next movie or episode. Take Mojo Jojo. Emo to the Nth Level + Discusses all of his greatness = Sucktart. Never got the Powerpuff Girls.

3. Restaurant City - baby, you can't please everybody. No matter how hard you try, how much you spend, there'll always be someone who'll give you the thumbs down. So much for popularity ratings.

Restaurant City has been a really great distraction. You get stressed thinking of your employees, if they still have enough energy in them so your slaves could still feed and serve money-generating hungry, obese freaks. A new entry will be dedicated for Restaurant City. YES. Restaurant City is thaaaat evil. Haha.


MORAL: Learning never stops. After graduation or sem, it starts all over again. It's the only thing that is 24/7, after all, you can't say which knowledge is useful, because at one point in your life, you'll be needing it. Algebra? Yes, you'll need it. Trigo? Geom? Social Studies? PE? YES. Maybe just not now, but you will.

Before April Fool's

Someone asked me, "Why is March 31, 2009 an important date in your life?"

I want to share the knowledge on why March 31 is an important day in my life. Then I reveal that the certain someone who asked me that question is myself. No, I don't have any disorder at the moment.

March 31, my high school friends planned on an outing or something for the continuity of our relationship. Whuuut? Anyway, so sunny Tuesday was the only free day for most of us, so we're pushing with it. I have a meeting with the Executive Board after the outing because we have to decide on whom to get for the AVP positions available. Not only with the AVP positions, but also a very deep and intellectual discernment on whether we'll get one or two AVPs for some clusters.

Social Relationship + Organizational Development aka the Future of MISA = March 31.

Well you know, what's great about March 31 is that after we made fun of each other in the "continuity of our relationships moment", we went back to San Juan already. I decided to ride a cab, get my laptop on the way and go straight to Katipunan for the meeting. It could've gone the way I wanted it but it was the graduation of Dominican College. DANG! All the tricycles and taxi were being sucked into a blackhole. Congratulations to the Graduates! But I really need to hail a taxi for myself, not for your parents who worked their carcasses off to pay your tuition fees. Even the tricycle I got was "snatched" away from me. Congratulations!

So what's the best thing to do? Call my dad. "Dad, I didn't know today's the graduation of --" LOW BATTERY. No, my cellphone was a goner. No more. Not even 1%. Nadah. Null. Does not exist.

So I finally got to go home after some time, got my charger and my laptop, then arrived in Katipunan more than an hour after my own planned time of arrival. Crap! My VPs didn't look like crap, which is good, but I was like crap because I haven't slept since Monday. I had little sleep for Monday then no sleep for Tuesday (fake departure time! Whatever happened to "5am sharp"?! We left San Juan 7:30am!). I rode a cab without texting the plate number because my phone was dead, and I think my mom has been thinking the whole time if I'm still alive or something. I was trying hard not to doze off in the taxi because I might wake up somewhere else, in a slaughter house or something. Nooo, animals.

Arrived in Katipunan and started the meeting. I really looked like crap. After much deliberation and objective assessment, we arrived at a conclusion. The tribe has spoken. Then one of my VPs' mom wants to talk to me about the formation seminar her daughter has to attend (because I really can't! Waaaah.) There, it went well. Her mom seemed to buy the idea I was selling. Hoorah for me and for the organization! Or something like that. Then CompSAt President tells me of really sad/bad/unfortunate news. More like gossip. I refuse to believe her.

I still refuse. I. Still. Refuse. This can't be happening.


MORAL: Do not bite the hand of the one who feeds you. Rally or do a freedom wall instead. Is it really true that "tell me who your friends are and I tell you who you are"? In one way yeah but if you go with "troubled" friends, you're not troubled yourself. Maybe you just want to help them or something. SO, don't believe what others say especially when April Fool's is just around the corner. The Nile river. (That is Denial River if you don't get it. :p ) I still won't believe.

You Belong With Me

[Edit (March 30). About the CD.]

So here's to everything
Coming down to nothing
Here's to silence
That cuts me to the core
Where is this going?
Thought I knew for a minute but I don't anymore

Now the 2nd sem for my junior year is all over (yeah you don't know if you have passed some subjects or you have to repeat them but technically my junior year is still over). The past week is not a blur but a heavily darkened exciting week. More like a necessary journey that masks itself as exciting because if you don't feel anything during the entire course, either you don't really give a dam with an N about your grades, or you're just the king/queen of self-confidence. After all, self-confidence is the key to World Peace.

What makes this journey so much better is today, when I tried to read the newspaper from a long time of abstention, I saw an article on Taylor Swift. I thought it would really be a late review since her album has been in circulation since Abraham was still a baby. The picture of the album was different, not the usual "look to the right" album cover, but the UK Edition one. My cousin and my aunt were not able to buy me my copy, so if ever, I can still have them around May, when my other aunt comes back from the US.

If ever I'll have a battle song for my journey in life - acads, orgs, the complexity, simplicity, irony of human relationships, the philosophy of life - it'll be Change from Taylor Swift. It wasn't chosen to be one of the tracks for the AT&T Olympic album something for no reason. I miss swimming, running, and tennis. Summer.

So I bought the CD. Something like this. My sister said Taylor Swift looks pretty nice. I don't care. I just like the curly hair. (Wow, it rhymes!)


EDIT (Mar.30) : I just opened the CD of Taylor Swift and checked the album cover. Then I accidentally dropped my umbrella from my laptop bag and it went straight down to the CD case. Great. A lot of things came into my mind. a.) I hope my aunt can bring back the CDs I requested to be bought in the US b.) I could buy another CD because it's just 355 Pesos c.) I could just replace the CD case as long as I learn how to properly dismantle this jewel case. You could see the pretty big nasty crack I created. Waaah.



MORAL: Patience is a dang virtue. Don't just pass through time. Try to find the beauty in the experience. It's not always about the good times or the bad times, sometimes it's about the experience itself. The way you get so stressed, the feeling when you passed the final requirement, the moment you feel so annoyed with your groupmate, etc. Everything.

Serena and I Think Alike

Why am I not surprised to death that Kim Clijsters is returning to competitive tennis after 2 years of family time (aka she retired because she said tennis is not the only thing she wants to experience so she left the professional tour, got married and had a kid)? She became world number 1 and had a Grand Slam title. Since her arch nemesis, who's also a Belgian, Justine Henin retired whilst on top of the game. Justine was ahead of high 2,000+ to low 3,000+ ranking points from the 2nd best player at that time, Maria Sharapova/Ana Ivanovic (they only had a hundred points apart and the points fluctuate). Now Justine's gone, now that she has experienced family life, she decides to go back to the one thing where her life revolves or used to revolve. Like most professional tennis players, she started out early. So ever since she was an infant, tennis was her ABCs, well, until she got married. You've been attached to tennis since the Dinosaur Age, decided to "stop" doing it in your early twenty's, what d'you expect? It wasn't a surprise that Kim would pick up a racquet and start whacking balls again or chase after them. Retiring in 23, back in 25. Maybe 2 years of changing nappies (running after her kid won't be much a problem for Kim) and waking up in the middle of the night because of crying. Why? 'Cause it feels so good to wear tennis clothes. Okay, aside from the clothes, doing sports really makes you feel better because of all those endorphins and what nots.

It's not headlines but I just wanted to say it. I've heard/read of it earlier in the week but I was just busy as 10,000 bees stinging each other for a flower.

From Yahoo! Sports. I'm not plagiarizing so I'm citing it. Right.

“I still have that craving,” the 25-year-old Belgian said Thursday. “I look forward to the challenge.”

Clijsters, who retired in May 2007 to get married and start a family, announced her comeback at the tennis facility where she has been practicing. She plans to enter the U.S. Open, which begins Aug. 31—her first competition at Flushing Meadows since winning her only Grand Slam singles championship there in 2005.

She asked for a wild card into the U.S. Open, along with WTA hard-court tournaments in Cincinnati and Toronto earlier in August.

The U.S. Tennis Association is setting aside a spot in the main draw for Clijsters, who won 34 career singles titles overall and was the runner-up in four major finals.

Clijsters accepted a wild card into the Rogers Cup Toronto, tournament officials said Thursday. She won the tournament in 2005.

Top-ranked Serena Williams said she wasn’t surprised Clijsters is mounting a comeback.

“It’ll be great for the game, because she had such a great spirit and she’s such a good player,” Williams said in Key Biscayne, Fla., where she’s preparing for the Sony Ericsson Open. “And also, she was just so nice. It’s good to have people like that around. It’ll be good to see her again.”

Rising to the top at the same time as fellow Belgian Justine Henin—who also retired early—Clijsters held the No. 1 singles ranking for 19 weeks.

“I am not coming back to lose in the first rounds,” she said. “Otherwise, I might as well go on holiday."

She asked for wild card entries (this means you don't have to endure the elimination rounds for lower ranked players usually lower than 32) for tournaments where she had won, so it's acceptable for everyone and they'll say, "she was a good tournament winner then." Well, this would make the tennis tour better, an added bonus after Maria Shriekapova has sunk down to 30 because she hasn't been playing. Maybe she's doing a movie, "Shriek the Freak" or whatever she wants. Or maybe she's pregnant. OH.


MORAL: You can't turn your back on something you really want to do. It would just be like a punishment, an everyday torture when you try to persuade and convince yourself that you are sick of doing it, that you want fresh air. Well, you can breathe fresh air once in a while, but you'll still be swimming underwater afterwards because after that breath of fresh air, it makes the whole experience better again. It's supposed to be really profound but somehow I got lost typing the words again. Guess I can't really express the intimate person inside of me.

Korean Ginseng Tea Chinese Version

Just now, my dad is offering me to drink tea. He is really proud of his box of Korean Ginseng tea something. He was drinking some a while ago and he told me to taste it. So, being a tea person, I took a sip. It's okay. I even asked him if he put any sugar/honey/sweetener in it and he said no. So it was Ginseng plus hot water only. Okay. I asked for one. He volunteered to make one for me.

When the water was ready after a few minutes, he emerged from the kitchen and was holding my cup and a coaster. He was really egging me to drink it already. "Oh anak, bilis, inumin mo na habang mainit-init pa yung ginseng tea." Take note of "mainit-init pa."

He added honey. Okay. I'm not a fan of tea with anything else but I can get used to it. He was really urging me to drink it right away or even taste it. Well, maybe because he put honey in it or something.

I found it really sweet that my dad offered his Korean Ginseng tea and he made me a cup of it with honey. Then when I held the cup and looked at his work of love all I said were:

"DAD! The water just boiled! You want me to drink it na?!"

Dad was just concerned that I do not fall asleep (every night he mocks me, "Natutulog ka ba?!"), "Eh diba ayaw mo makatulog? Siguradong gising na gising ka sa ginseng na yan."


MORAL: Drinking boiling tea is not good for anyone. Unless you want to see and feel your tongue melt in your mouth, not in your hands. Or if you want to experience a third degree burn firsthand without leaving the comforts of your home, you may opt to do so. It would work even if you don't have Korean Ginseng tea.

Teknomo & Tacolito

My last entry said something about our Pattern Recognition class. Assuming you have read it, this is our class picture a while ago. There's our lovable teacher, Mr. Kardi Teknomo!


I don't know how you call small tacos. Taco-lette? Tacolito? Tacolita? An even smaller tacolette? Tacolitito? Tacolitita? Crap. I have to really concentrate on doing our deliverable. Then at one point our house smelled funny. Everyone reacted to it while I remained indifferent to the smell. Ahh, the beauty of multi-culturalism. We found out Sanny (the cook) was in the mood to make some evening snacks (can't call it midnight because it's just 8pm or something). Merienda 2? I don't know. I don't care. She was preparing tacos (the funny smell emanated from the seasoning)! Yuuuuuumeh. Of course you know tacos have beef as a component, right? Fear not! Sanny is my yaya since I was less than a year old so all is fair. I have my own "component" so it's back to fairyland. Much time has been spent preparing my tacos, so there was a lot of time for eating it, too.

The bottom rightmost "beef-like" ingredient is me-friendly. Ngaha.

Taco Counter:
Big Taco - 2
Tacolito - 4

Just to have an idea on the size of this freaky tacolito which is bite-size (my sister was like, "Diet-size tacos!!"), here's a picture of it.



MORAL: If you eat much, well, you'll really eat much. That's life. Time flies when you're having fun. Having fun preparing your food, and having fun eating it.

Siroma Odro

Baby, say hello to my little friend, Max Scheler.


Siroma Odro. The opposite of Ordo Amoris. Okay.

Do you know what Ordo Amoris is? It's your destiny, my dear! It is only one. So, better have a personal assessment of what you have at present (those you haven't chosen) so you could know your destiny based from it. Well, you could still push yourself into doing what you think you are good at, no one's forcing you, but don't think of anything why you fail, don't progress, or anything. Gar. So, I'll just start this entry with... last night.

My friends and I were going to completely answer the thesis statements for our Philosophy oral exams scheduled March 19. Mark was doing their Systems Analysis and Design final deliverable, and Jean was... Hmm, I really don't know (say this with the Clear commercial accent). So I told them we'll start like 10pm, so I put green nail polish instead. Yes, when you don't want to study or do your project yet, you'll look for different activities to freakingly kill time.

Includes but are not limited to: Eating, watching tv, Internet surfing, eating, volunteering to do chores, playing with the dog, taking a bath, eating, brushing your teeth, exercising, eating, or even painting your nails.

So I did the last one. Imagine how am I going to type my inputs for answering the thesis statements if my nails still haven't dried up. So what did I do? I took a nap. Yep. Loser. I woke up around 2am. Then fell asleep again. Woke up at 4am, tried to read notes, then fell asleep.

I was supposed to be in school before 8am, so when the department releases the sign-up sheet for Operating System project defense, I could pretty much choose a decent schedule. However, I woke up at 6:30am and I haven't read anything yet. I have studied some thesis statements the day before, but you know, sometimes my brain acts like a RAM chip. It's volatile. I just asked good friends to sign-up for me. Haha.

So by 9am we had our final presentation for Pattern Recognition. Impromptu report but not-so-impromptu slides, and I explained our group's name. Our group is called Sextans. Yep. Others commented about it, felt violated and scandalized, so the last part of our presentation was about our groupname. I told them this true crap that we had a vision for our group, turned to the celestial bodies, and thought of something that would suggest pattern recognition. Before learning about K Nearest Neighbor, Bootstrapping, Naive Bayes algorithm, the only thing we thought of when we heard pattern recognition is : Constellation. So the next thing is to look for an appealing name. Orion's Belt? Big Dipper? Andromeda? Lynx? Nope. Those constellations are not worthy. Sextans is the name! Instant attraction!

All I can say is that Pattern Recognition is fun because the people you like being with are around you. And your teacher is Indonesian. You also have bibo foreign classmates. Ahihi.

Ok I'm getting tired. Let's end this. So we went to Matteo Ricci Study Hall to fully punish ourselves and at the same time enlighten us more about the philosophy of life values. After a lot of spraying saliva, graduation party invites (c/o Rachel), hunger pangs, stress, noisy people, we were nearing our time. Ten minutes that will decide 30% of your grade. Ten minutes that encompass what you have learned the entire semester.

Then our teacher called. The oral exams were postponed because he has to bring his dad to the hospital.

The anticipation of death, is far worse than death itself.

Unless you are Chuck Norris.


MORAL: Know your fate so you could determine your destiny. Yep, there are events/objects in our lives we never asked for. They just come to you, attract you, and there's nothing you can do but fulfill your destiny. Your ordo amoris. Your... but I really want to talk about co-responsibility and the collective person. Next time. :)