Boring Brunch

i've just finished writing my write-up in the wittiest way i could write it. i want people reading the yearbook to make a good impression of me... ;p

tick tock.

maybe i should go back to batangas earlier than expected - boredom is materializing and the air stinks... and my gimik-partners are not making any contact so i'd better seek them out in batangas. one of my best friends recently acquired a new love life. good for her. me, im stuck with my old self and my old (but loving nevertheless) laptop. hay when will i get a love life?

it's a beautiful day today. good day for traveling. if i leave now, what time will i arrive in lipa city?

-welcome to the life of the bored-

Flabby Racist

please... for the last time, don't mistake me for korean. i know sometimes it's supposed to be a compliment (considering colonial mentality prices high on filipino society) but there comes a point when mistaking someone for another race simply signifies ignorance of hybrid culture plus ignorance to recognize a compatriot...

i was in shakey's a while ago buying dinner when a big fat lady approached me and told me "hello??" (with arms flailing...) "could you please move to somewhere else coz we need this table..." apparently she brought her whole family of fat-flabs and she wants me to give them space. well at first i was more than happy to move since i didnt want their family day be destroyed, but the fat girl whispered under her nose "dapat sinesegrate ang mga resto dito eh, ung mga koreano sa labas na lang..."

wow. the nerve.

it was obvious that she was a bit of a patriotic slab, but the racism??? in defense to the koreans, they rank higher in terms of political correctness compared to americans or the europeans even to us! and there's nothing really much to hate about them. but what bugs me more is that she didn't even care if i was just a korean looking pinoy half-breed or whatever, she just blurted out, not knowing that i am more tagalog than she is...

i didn't have the courage to bite back, coz she has her army of big flabby teletubbies in tow, so i just left the restaurant after i got my to-go pack.

sometimes filipinos tend to cross the line. and they hurt their fellow filipinos in doing so.

...

i was in multiply a while ago, and i read a post from one of my best buddies in town. it says: "confessions of a metrosexual" and it's about him going out to the public proclaiming that he's a metrosexual. he even recounts a number of things that makes him one. it says there he has like 2 kikoy kits full with stuff i don't even know exists... he has lip balm, tongue cleaners, body lotions, lip gloss, etc. he has an arsenal of moisturizers, from facials to hand to body moisturizers.. man. it's crazy.

this is all due to powerful media. what with david beckham and marcus schenkenberg and brad pitt... hay. soon there'll be a legion of metrosexuals and all woman vanity will be reduced to dust.

but im not judging. it's just that i can't find the way to appreciate uber-vanity just yet.

-bored-

Japanese Language

hello!

to ward off boredom i started downloading the famous (well at least for the kids) animation series Naruto. it's fun! it's no longer the usual japanese cartoon series because it has a nicely weaved storyline and the animation is cutting-edge. they use a lot of saturations now, and i noticed the lines and constrasts are more defined.. anyways.

so the series is subtitled in english, but i found it hard to shut off my hearing mechanism to just focus on the english subtitles. and then i have to watch the cartoon attentively, in case i miss a visual glitch that turns they story around (it happens often). therefore after every episode, i congratulate myself for successfully managing a multi-task endeavor. ;p

anyways, my polyglotic self is playing on me again today... i find the japanese spoken language a bit interesting. sometimes it's screechy, but most of the time it's candid and ponderous... i want to sort of... learn it. OH! okay here we go again.

did you know that i started learning the french language because i heard two people conversing in french and i had a moment's time talking to myself, describing how it sounded like? i remember, i told myself it was so romantic, that every phrase reminds me of the cream puff that a high school classmate was selling. and it flows, and flows, and it's smoky at its best, with a hint of luxury and delicateness... hmmmmmm.. c'est une langue tres belle.

iniwiz, this time the japanese language intrigues me because it's a bit "robust" compared to the french language. i thought maybe learning about the language would give me an idea how... the japanese people eventually rose the economic ladder. ? i know it's pretty far-fetched, but, well let me explain this: i have a notion that the success of nations are partly determined by their culture, including the language they speak. the japanese have been very japanese all these times. they even closed the nation from international trade once. they were poor then, but when they came out of their invisible prison, they never looked back. they're now at the top, intact and patriotic and all. now compare te japanese case to our case. we filipinos are so disintegrated. even our language is not as defined. the Filipino language that linguists have known from textbooks is not really the filipino that we used to day. the more prevalent language for communication nowadays is the Taglish, an amalgam of the filipino and english languages. it's very partial, and it doesn't give justice to both languages (but i didnt post this entry to reprimand the filipino people for not using the filipino language properly, i mean, even i speak taglish most of the time..)

well back to the japanese language, since i was so interested at learning more, i hurried to national bookstore which is just a hundred steps from my condo. i went there to browse the language books in the farthest corners of the building (i wonder why they had to be put there, they should be more up front, coz language is a very interesting matter..) the polyglot in me was driving, and guess what, i only looked up one book about kanji, and spent the remaining two hours looking at MANDARIN instruction materials. yes, now the chinese language. i thought i could help reading the books as long as it's not all phonetic.

and then my polyglot self suddenly died out. i realized the only reason i got far in my french studies is because it's just a language with new word spellings, and that's it. yes maybe there's a new syntax and phonology, but it is closely related to the english language, which i already know. this is also the reason why i get to understand some spanish, and even some italian and portuguese. that's also the reason why i don't know any east asian language: they are hard to learn due to the fact that i have to learn them first by letter, as they use phonetics when writing. symbols and whiffs and whahaveyous. no. i told myself. that's gonna take some time.

so no oriental languages for me in the near future.

but that's okay. i have plenty of time to learn another language or two. im just twenty.

and still have plenty of time to enjoy Naruto. but for now, i'll settle for simply immersing myself with the constant displays of candidness in their watashiwas! and sasukes! and haruko kanatas! ...

-japonais-

One Seven-Five

okay so far all of my grades range between 1.75 and... 1.75, harhar, so ok im still safe, im not in danger of getting any probation again.

i was surfing the net for the top universities in the world and i came across some of the sites of the ivy league universities... made me want to apply for a scholarship so i could study there. i want to study modern languages since im doing relatively good in the field and i have an innate love for culture and humankind. ;p

oh and did you know, english is a germanic language?? yeah, it's one of the two biggest germanic languages in the modern world, alongside deutsche of course. and so this is why they call german the broken english, coz they belong to the same language family and they almost sound alike. of course im talking about english english here (not american english) and modern german.

hey i just watched pinoy big brother and it's really interesting to watch coz one of the hosts just got trapped inside the house and cannot exit, thus she becomes another housemate... fun!

although i still think pinoy big brother is too timid for contemporary and liberal minds like mine. australia's big brother is a lot more... carnal. but im not saying we should put nympho's inside the house and promote sex or sodomy whatever to philippine television. i just think the claim of the program to represent all the faces of the pinoy is an overstatement. believe me, there is an underground society thriving in our midst that remain untouched my reality tv. the mini-cultures, the life of the very high end, the existence of tribal pinoys, the marginalized sector, the fisherfolk, or the expats. yes, a bohemian society has yet to be portrayed on tv. in the meantime, the show invests on multiracials, if not model-type hot species, to hoard the ratings and gloss-over the true filipino personna.

...

i just ate sisig a while ago and i think i might have to jog again tomorrow. sisig makes my heart go jiggy. maybe i should start drinking heartvit... haha!

yes! another 1.75! im hoarding 1.75's this sem...

-a whiff of juniper in hazelnut macchiato-

Flooded Mailbox

and my french-loving, rizal-lambasting sem has come to an end. the only thing i have to worry now is again, boredom, but as i dug into the flooded recesses of my cyber mailbox, i realized it wouldn't be a very monotonous sembreak after all.

let's start with the cheating anomaly that sprouted in the midst of our otherwise impeccable batch. an issue is currently circulating around about the cheating incidence during an exam for a business administration subject, coincidentally entitled "Law on Business Transactions"... would you believe that? cheating under the law? haha. but seriously, it is a very defaming, if not plainly controversial, matter as it happens in the school of economics, the center for excellence in economics in the philippines. and as i heard it, one of the cheaters is actually a candidate for a summa cum laude! how bugging is that?? does this mean she kept an impeccable gwa buy stuffing cheat sheets under her jacket while taking an exam? my, what a bummer. anyways, as for the exam, it had to be retaken to maintain consistent and un-cheated test scores.

this issue has been promoted into the internet by the enraged students (who had to retake the exam thanks to the cheaters). it's a cyber word-war out there. hate mails, appeals, and calls to whistle-blow keep coming by the minute. meanwhile, the effect on me of the whole incident is... a very crowded mailbox. what a messy messy issue that our school (and my email) had to be involved with. this has to be cleared at once, before things get dirtier and reach the disciplinary tribunal.

...

another thing thats gonna keep me busy this sembreak is the editing of the yearbook writeups. you see, as the associate editor of the graduating batch's yearbook, one of my main tasks is to put all feature write-ups into final drafts before they are layouted. since there are only two people in the very efficient editorial board who are concerned with the write-ups (me and lex, the features ed), final editing will come really hard. there are almost 120 econ students in our school, each of which will pass 2 write-ups, leaving the two of us 120 testimonials each to edit. the thing is, not even a third of the batch has submitted their write-ups yet. we're not only under pressure of time and under-capacity, deadlines are also posing a nuisance. our penalties are not working, instead they became perverse incentives; people started thinking they could afford to submit write-ups late. why? because they'd only lose Php10 a day from the pockets. and hell these people are pooping pesos from behind, if you know what im mean. tsk. ah these people.

...

third, i must also exercise my charming abilities, as i will be soliciting for three different activities this sembreak: 1) the publishing of the yearbook 2) the publishing of the school paper and 3) the raising of funds for the council. god, where will i get all the money??

...

and lastly, there's an impending planning sem for the yearbook editorial board, but there's no fixed date yet. tsk.

...

k. thats all for now. i'll just check if there are new hate mails on the batch egroup. ;p

-organizing-

One Last

Whoohoo!! tapos na econ141 and french... econ121 na lang (although im still thinking if i'll take the finals..) im almost ready to enjoy my one last sembreak. wow, my very last sembreak. after this, wala na tuloy tuloy na. there's no going back! yikes.

malapit na ko mag-goodbye to school life. haaay.

-il me manquera-

Une Testimonie

tres longue, le temps, il me mis en ennui. le temps de cesser de la semestre n'arrive toujours. je ne peux plus l'attendre.

mais cepandant le temps est tres longue, c'est supportable. j'ai reçu une testimonie d'un des amis les miens, est elle m'a fait meilleur. chuis heureux qu'il y ait toujours des amis qui me connaissent bien. ah, la vie...

-j'aime avoir des amis...-

Des Examens

waaaaah! je deteste ce jour!

j'ai commencé le matin avec un examen oral pour français quinze. j'ai pensé qu'il s'agissait des outils pour conversation, mais non, voici ce qui s'est passé:

ma professeur m'a donné une pièce de papier ou un loi était écrit. elle m'a demandé y réflechir. c'est horrible. j'ai été horrible. si j'avais etudié comment repondre plus vite, j'aurais eu un conversation plus bonne. tsk.

et après, j'ai passé mon examen pour le science physique. c'est plus terrible! je n'ai pas etudié tous les leçons et alors je n'ai pas pu repondre bien aux questions. hay quelle dommage.

et maintenant je ne sais pas ce que je dois fait. je suis perdu blop blop.

je rendra plus tard...

-blanca-

Fait Froid

hay. je ne peux pas dormir. on aura notre examen oral demain et je suppose qu'il soit bien si je dors bien. mais il n'arrive toujours.

il est tres embêtant de perdre mon parapluie. c'est le plus convenient. maintenant j'ai besoin d'achêter un autre. quelle histoire.

errrr. le climat froid ne me plait pas. il est different. maintenant c'est tres froid, ou peut-être je suis été seulement tres épuissé par l'academe. huff. je ne peux plus d'attendre le sembreak. combien jours...?

alors au revoir. je vais me brosser. peut-être le sommeil arrivera.

-à demain-