I hereby declare today my downfall.

Of course the PV just had to be about long-distance relationship, what else?

As he retires from the NBA, two kittens will continue his legacy.



Note the resemblance:



Will post better pics in the future.

In the middle of a hearty family lunch yesterday (minus Mommy who, as she is two days a week, stationed to monitor telecommunications in North Cotabato), we heard three successive grunts from Tess, who had retreated a couple of minutes ago to a certain corner she's been inspecting for the past few days. The kittens finally wanted a taste of daylight.

 

I have to introduce Maritess, or Tess as we call her, named, I think, after a neighbor way back when we were still in our old cramped, rented place. I was too young at the time to remember her now anyway, but when Dandy told me about the new pussy Boogie brought home pregnant my dad named Tess, I just had to roll my head back and cackle on the phone.

 

When I got home about two weeks ago after graduation she was already heavy and bulging at the sides. We became friends immediately.

 

We've been uneasy in the house for the rest of the afternoon yestereday, checking on Tess every few minutes—like fathers outside the delivery room burning a hole in the floor. It was a first-time experience for me.

 

There are now two Boogie Juniors (the two look a lot like Boogie, with a black patch on the head that looks like an inverted heart when seen from the top and a black tail, the rest of the fur white). We've agreed to name them Dikembe and Mutombo, after the NBA player for the benefit of whoever reads this blog who isn't into basketball. I'm excited to potty train and feed them, and especially to squeeze the little fur balls with love.

P.S. Will post photos of the new family as soon as Tess allows it.

---

The thing with blogging is the longer you don't post anything, the harder it is to attempt. So I'm gonna be crude and just try and list down and summarize the things that have happened to me after my last post, what I'm doing now, and what I intend to do in the coming days.

 

On the 31^st of March Mommy and Dandy arrived in Iligan to attend the pre-commencement program, where each college would award its outstanding students (I can't help but snigger at the sound of that, sorry). I graduated with honors and with the institute journalism award. I liked the cum laude medal, and I've always thought the school logo was neat. On April Fool's Daddy and Pai and two of my uncles and a cousin arrived to attend my graduation.

 

The best thing I can come up with for not being very emotional about graduation and the things that come along with it is that I've said good-bye so many times to so many people that long before it happens I've readied my system for it. In short I've accepted, acknowledged and understood farewells at this point in my life. There will be future permanent farewells that will tear me up but for good-byes that have to do with people going their ways, I'm—well not inured, but maybe I've attained the EQ for it. And technology helps too. Who isn't an IM or SMS away nowadays.

 

What I remember about graduation is that it was a happy event. The grad song was kinda infectious: Reach for the Stars by (wipe that smirk off your face please) S Club 7. I know, I rolled my eyes too but at least we could dance to it, an advantage to those tearjerker songs that would leave us with ruined makeup. I was in good spirits—not ecstatic, but happy enough—but I knew I couldn't party with my friends and classmates since I was scheduled to celebrate with relatives in Marawi (the same went for everybody anyway; we all celebrate with relatives first). The grad ceremonies finished at noon and after lunch at Sunburst we checked out of the inn, dropped by the dorm to get some of my stuff, and drove to Marawi right away. Marawi isn't my dream place for a celebration, but again, in this country relatives come first. At least my brothers were there to entertain me with my kind of humor.

 

There was one thing that was giving my day a sour twist. I don't even know how to go about describing it or writing about it, but along with my relatives someone else (uninvited as far as I'm concerned) tagged along, and that was this old guy whose family has been bugging my dad to marry me to their boy for as long as I can remember. My life can't get any crazier than it is now: a marriage proposal was present on my grad day. I've made it clear to my dad that the answer will be duh, NO, but my dad, ladies and gentlemen, finds it hard to say no to relatives and close friends. That's why that family keeps coming back to ask even if I haven't shown the least bit of interest in getting hitched to a boy I'm ten years older than (when I said my life was weird I was serious as a heart attack). So even if I know for a fact that my dad loves us to the point that he gets nightmares about people harming his family, and that he will never coerce me into doing anything that isn't my decision, these "people" still scare me. And that is why I don't intend to work on the same island as they are, but that's another story.

 

My family went home the next day and I had two days to pack my stuff, finish all school requirements, and hang out with my friends. Not enough time, that's for sure. We spent our last night together raiding Booksale. It's ridiculous and makes perfect sense to me at the same time.

 

I spend my days lately just playing PC games, watching movies and True Blood, helping around the house, seeing old friends (or rather they come to the house), taking care of the cats, listening to music and forcing myself to go through all of my unread books (which there are a lot of, I'm guilty to say, and which I haven't been very successful at finishing so far). I also jobhunt on the net. I'm not aiming too high, but I'm so out of Mindanao. I've gotten over my permanent homesickness, I've learned how to live with it. As much as I love my family, if I will stay here in this city I will go insane. My favorite people next to my family aren't within miles. So dorks, see you guys soon.

I finished The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood today. She is my favorite author (along with Milan Kundera), though I'd already decided that even before I laid my hands on The Blind Assassin.

I've bought so many books in the past two—now turning three—months, but the only books I finished are Margaret Atwoods, a Milan Kundera, and the usual Agatha Christies when my brain screams for light reads. The only book I've gotten to finish ever since all academic tasks had been taken care of (and that was already about two weeks ago) is the book I finished today. Knowing I started on it weeks ago (I'm being vague with how long so as not to reveal how lazy I have been, since this post, if not totally about it, will mention my giving in to lethargy ever since our last day of classes), I read this one slow. I did it deliberately in two senses:  one is that I didn't want to finish it too quickly and regret not having taken my time with it, and the other is that I often got distracted by other useless things.

As everybody who's read my Plurks know, I'm graduating soon. On April Fool's Day at that, which I somehow find unsettlingly ironic. I imagine fate mocking my six in years college. But nothing's stopping me now, not my own self-seeking, which has caused me a lot of packing and moving, and I'm graduating.

But it's not really the idea of getting a degree that makes me... not ecstatic, but relieved. It's finishing this around-90-page monstrosity:


It's not that I'm not proud of it. How can I not be when it's the closest I'll ever get to publishing something that resembles a book. This final requirement to all degrees which the purpose of I still haven't fully made myself understand yet has caused me much, much anguish. So much that I cannot bring myself to feel affection or any semblance of it towards it. Had I known that the road to fulfilling a thesis would have brought me to THIS end, I would have done things differently. But then again, I will never do it again even if you strangled me. But it's all done now. I longed so much for retrospection, to get to the point when all this would only be something to look back on, not something I am PRESENTLY doing, and now I have it.

I'm not stoical. I cry during sad movies, scream when I'm ecstatic. But I'm not anxious or excited about graduation yet, not in the amount that you'd expect from someone's who's been in college longer than normal. Maybe I'll feel it on the day, but for now no extreme emotion. Am I in reality just afraid that something might go wrong and thus no celebration on my part yet? Maybe. I've always been the suspicious type when good things happen in succession. Am I subconsciously repressing the sadness I know I'll feel the day I'm gonna have to kiss my friends good-bye? I've already admitted to feeling sadness about it so I think not. Even if I know that I've long accepted that partings will occur inevitably in life, I won't be in denial of feelings to preserve myself. Am I anxious of the life ahead of me, the scary independence of employment, or worse, not finding any at all? Yes, but not so much. Maybe I'm exhausted and thus numb. I really don't know yet, but I'm expecting to discover, realize or feel it soon.

---

After lunch with the Dorks we came across this in the City Proper. I unthinkingly shrieked expletives in the presence of the children who were selling them.


Add this to the list of things that make me misanthropic.

When your teacher is one of the country's best poets and creative writers, you get a week off school when he attends some gettogether by the country's literati. So this week has been a rollercoaster ride, or to be more precise bus rides.

So last Tuesday after exhausting all possible outlets for boredom with my friends, I was somehow able to convince Faith to just go home to her family in Cagayan de Oro that night instead of the weekend, so we could go to the beach on Saturday instead. All of a sudden, Ken decided we should go with Faith and go back to Iligan Thursday afternoon. After much of his hyper prodding I finally managed a nod. The rest is history.


The dorks and I have been dreaming of going to the beach for ages, and yesterday we decided to stop the dreaming and get on that bus to Initao. Beach, booze, buds, and karaoke—woot!


Yesterday was the best beach trip I've ever had. Looking forward to more. (^___^)

I got back at the dorm last night to find my roomies all getting dressed to go out to spend the night elsewhere. In short, my roomies having lives I was to spend the night alone in the room for the first time.

Okay it wasn’t really the first time I was going to spend the night alone. There were times my roomies went home ahead of me for the break or when I was the first to arrive in Iligan when classes resumed. But this was the first time I had to be alone on a regular weekday with classes.

I don’t really have issues on being alone. In fact I’m someone who can have a good time even without company. But the thing is I’ve gotten so used to having roommates here in Iligan that I know I wouldn’t go back to having a room to myself again.

The main issue was IT. Yes, an “it” (not that hairball character from the Adams Family). I’ve had some weird, read: UNEXPLAINABLE  experiences in the dorm, like an object disappearing for weeks only for it to turn up on my bed one morning, safe and sound. And no my roomies weren’t playing pranks on me. And something you just can’t ignore was the time the shower knob TURNED ON ITS OWN while I was washing my hair. I had to wait for my roomies to all finish using the bathroom before I told them, the scaredy cats they are.

But I don’t get scared easily, and by saying that I’m not just defending myself or trying to make myself sound cooler than I actually am. I was the first child in the family able to sleep alone in her room.  I’ve stayed up late watching horror movies by myself more than once back home, and our house could be a good setting for a thriller or horror flicks involving either serial killers or the supernatural. But horror movies annoy me to death and I don’t watch them anymore. Of course I’ve gotten scared when I was younger but I grew over it and realized the stupidity quickly.

So what happened last night? I’m sorry to disappoint but there were no floating objects or weird noises. Just the dogs howling at one point (I did get scared, but the fear was more on someone trying to break into our dorm again, give me ghosts over possibly crazy thieves any day). And I just skipped reading Ala Paredes’s post on dwende and kapre and all. LOL.

...no I don't want to view your profile.
...no I don't need you to share your application (thanks).
...no I don't want a "13th friend".
...no I don't wanna be kissed/hugged/poked/whatever-ed by someone I don't know.
...no I don't want fans.

Daming social networking sites (so why do I keep approving invitations, stupid me). In fact in my confusion I still wonder whether it's only logical that I should post things I post here on my Multiply blog too.

(But if you get the same lines as subjects in your e-mail too, I wonder if you could tell me how to turn off alerts from said sites. I don't mean to appear akala mo kung sino in this post, but I'd appreciate it if you could help. I'm kind of low tech, thanks.)

Just wanted to get that off of my chest.

So everybody knows I'm the Japan freak. If you didn't know that then we're not that close. Well here's a funny video I found on Youtube. It's by this Japanese comic duo called Ramenz. This isn't my first Ramenz experience but the "make a funny face and produce a loud noise" bit just had me in stitches. You'll get it when you watch it.

The Japanese Tradition of Dating

There's a volume 2 to this but I trust you can find that on Youtube.  And anyway who am I to assume you'd be that interested to post volume 2 beforehand (as if I'm not going to post another Ramenz video after this).

How to Eat Sushi

This is the more popular. If the jokes don't tickle you maybe at least their faces/facial expressions will. And note: if you decide to take the previous videos seriously then it is up to you, and I feel sorry for you if you choose to do so.

And just because I love Mr. Children that much and will make any excuse to refer to them if I can, one of the Ramenz guys (the long-haired crazier looking one) is in this Mr. Children PV. I've been LSSing on this song for quite some time now.

Esora

Enjoy!

If not for my brother's girlfriend's observation I would never have realized it. I'm America's first sister whatever that is.