Catching Up

Posted on November 25, 2007 at 11:30 am | 18 Comments
Filed under Daily Dose

Sixteen days after my last update, at last, I have a new entry! Sorry for the unannounced hiatus. My blog went to hibernation because of school work. Only three weeks have passed since the second semester had started and I’m already tired. It seems that my professors’ favorite pastime is to give their students loads of assignments, researches, projects, reports and tests. So many deadlines, procrastination is my best friend. My only consolation is that I have a better schedule now, by dusk, I’m already home (except for Tuesdays) and I’ve got loads of break time (two and a half hours of break every Tuesdays and Thursdays and another extra hour every Tuesdays).

Yesterday, I had to go to the mall to get my invitation for the debut party that I’m going to attend on the very first day of December. The debutant is a grade school friend. Yeah, that’s how long I’ve known her. Some of my grade school friends (most are also my high school friends) were there to get their invitations. I didn’t expect that most of us are invited because we haven’t got in touch with her all these years, and if there is, only a little. The biggest surprise of all surprises is that the guy who we constantly linked with the debutant during our grade school days is also invited.

We’ve talked about so many things. We talked about the photo of the debutant in her invitation, we reacted that the photo was Photoshopped. And as my friends really love rumors (actually, most are facts but we still call them rumors), I knew that Friend A is now dating Previous Schoolmate-slash-Previous Classmate A (who’s studying aeronautics) again, Friend C had to stop studying, Friend D is now wearing braces whereas Friend E would have his braces removed sometime this week, Friend F shifted to another course, Friend G lost weight (whom I didn’t recognize until Friend D told me her name), Friend H’s suitor four years ago will be back here in the Philippines soon (he’s somewhere in North America right now, and from what I’ve heard, he’s in the military), and Previous Schoolmate B fathered a child. Ah, time flies so fast, and so many things happen in just a snap. I really miss my friends. I miss laughing hard just because of a small thing that others would not recognize as laughable. Laughing with my grade and high school friends is really different from laughing with my college friends.

As for me, aside from the fact that I’m busy with school, one of my blockmates had wet my clothes last Thursday (long story, and I don’t want to elaborate it), I’m reading “The Thirteenth Tale” by Diane Setterfield, enjoying my Statistics class, my Internet connection is not working (I’m on dial-up right now), Google Reader reports that I have 175 blog posts to read, hating my Literature subject because of my professor who talks very slow (we just finished the introduction), opened a new blog (I’ll be giving the link to a few selected ones), my cellphone started to show signs and symptoms that it’s going to die pretty soon, managed to lost my umbrella in school, and I now strongly believe that the weather reports here in the Philippines are not accurate.

Well, we spent our time mostly in talking (and laughing), we wanted to catch up with our latest experiences, and we’re craving to fill up the spaces that are still missing. But we had to stop because it was getting dark, one of us had other things to attend, while the others wanted to watch “One More Chance.” And because I don’t like watching Filipino movies (I think I have only seen three Filipino movies in the big screen during my 17 years of existence here on earth), I decided to go home1. I would rather pick a boring English movie than watch a corny Filipino flick.

I just hope during the debut of my friend, more spaces would be filled, that we’ll laugh so hard that we would look like rocking chairs, and we could plan an overnight party sometime during our Christmas vacation.

And if you’ve been following me in Twitter, you might perfectly know that one of my college friends is also inviting me to her debut party on the last day of November. Hell, two debut parties in two consecutive days! Euri says that I should attend both because debut parties = free food but debut parties = clothes + gifts to buy. And as of the moment, Christian = broke. Eek!

  1. Corny na kung corny pero corny talaga. Magulo ba? Sorry, pero nakokornihan at nababaduyan talaga ako sa mga Filipino movies, no offense [↩]

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Sisa Kalusa

Posted on November 10, 2007 at 11:01 am | 17 Comments
Filed under School Sabotage • Venomous Vernacular

NOTE: There are lots of Tagalog phrases and sentences in this post. Sorry for those people who can’t understand Tagalog because I haven’t provided any translations.

We were reshuffled, unfortunately again this semester. That means, I don’t know most of my new blockmates and we all need to adapt to the personalities of our new classmates. But then, I already know some of my new blockmates: one of them was my classmate last year, two were my blockmates just last semester, and another two were my friends since grade school. Yesterday, I and one of my friends since grade school that I’m talking about went back here in San Fernando from school together. Nostalgia hit us. We remembered one reason which made our high school life really memorable: Sisa.

Our classmates call her “Sisa”1 or sometimes “Sisa Kalusa.” I don’t know why or when my classmates started to do so.

It all started during our sophomore year, when Sisa suddenly became the top five of our class. It was very surprising to us because we know that she’s just an average student. From what I have heard from my classmates, she really memorize each single line in our books so when you ask her a question, her answer would always be very long, complete with all of the reasons stated on the book. And then, in our second quarterly test, she absented herself. She reported that she was having dysmenorrhea. She was admitted to the hospital. Actually, we even visited her right after our examinations. She repeated this during our third quarterly test and subsequently, she dropped out from school.

And by that time, one of my classmates who is also my third cousin predicted “Magiging baliw ang babaeng yan.” True enough, for us, she lost her sanity. She kept on telling us weird stories like “Kinukulam ako nung kapit bahay namin kaya nagkukulong ako sa cabinet.” Every time, it was always the different story. “Kinukulong ako sa cabinet ng papa ko, tapos, sinasamuri2 pa niya ako.” There was also this incident when we saw abrasions on her forearm. We asked her why she had those. Her first version was that “Kinalmot ako ng pusa.” The next time I asked her, she said, “Nagasgas ako sa yero, e.” And there was also this speculation from my friends that she tried to commit suicide.

She enrolled during the summer of 2003 and luckily for her, she was still our classmate in our third year. That time, we thought that she was already okay and “Nahigpitan na ang tornilyo niya sa utak.” She was not in the top ten students anymore, but she started to flirt with the first year male students. She had lots of boyfriends, usually, younger than her. This led her to be transfered in the lower section during our final year in high school.

But that, of course, did not help her case. She still dated boys. She also earned more enemies than friends. Her studies were not her priority anymore. And by the second half of the school year, she transfered to another school. But before she transfered to another school, she was reported missing. Her parents were really worried about her. They even went to the house of her best friend (whom I’ll name as Betty). They told Betty that “Kapag may nangyaring masama sa anak namin, ikaw ang mananagot.” Hell, I still don’t get it why Sisa’s parents told that to Betty because they were no longer classmates and communication between them had ceased. Betty’s parents advised her not to mingle with Sisa anymore because “Mabubunits ka lang niyan.” Nevertheless, Betty still helped Sisa’s parents to look for her. While they were looking for her, Betty said, “Bakit hindi ninyo po ipatinging sa psychiatrist si Sisa?” Sisa’s mother replied, “Pinapatingin namin kaso hindi siya nakikipagcooperate.” I only know a little information about this, you see, the next thing that I know was that Sisa was found in a gasoline station.

But her insanity didn’t stop there. Sisa spread a rumor in her new school about an ex-schoolmate. She said that this ex-schoolmate smells like tinapa. This reached our school, all of those fourth year students who were angry with her decided to meet her in a fast food chain here in San Fernando. There, they confronted her, they even bought tinapa and talbos ng kamote and threw it in front of her for effects. The next day, these people were called by our coordinator. Sisa wanted to blotter them because “Binugbog nila ako.” where in fact, there was no physical contact of any sort.

But the most shocking news that we received was that she got pregnant! She even asked Betty to be the godmother of her daughter. From what I have heard, she’s now living with the father of her daughter and she’s a first year college student.

I never imagined that I would have a classmate like Sisa. I still don’t know what triggered her to be like this. But one thing is for sure, we need the guidance of our parents and desirable friends to maintain our sanity. To Sisa, I want to say to you that it is not yet late to change. Of course, we can’t erase what happened in the past, but let these experiences that we had to teach us a lesson so we can move on with our lives for in experiencing, we learn more about our life and the reality.

  1. The name Sisa was taken from the book of Jose Rizal (Philippine’s National Hero). Sisa became an insane person after she found out that her son was killed. [↩]
  2. Huwat?! [↩]

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Indie Playlist

Posted on November 7, 2007 at 5:10 pm | 11 Comments
Filed under Random Realities

The Postal Service Death Cab for Cutie
Augustana Snow Patrol
Gomez Imogen Heap
Feist The Fray
Hellogoodbye Regina Spektor

The Postal Service - Such Great Heights
Death Cab for Cutie - Marching Bands of Manhattan
Augustana - Boston
Snow Patrol - Chasing Cars
Gomez - How We Operate
Imogen Heap - Hide and Seek
Feist - 12341
The Fray - How to Save a Life
Hellogoodbye - Here (In Your Arms)
Regina Spektor - On the Radio

You can see more of my favorite indie music in my Last.fm account.

*****

Thanks to Ate Rachel for giving me an award. I’m glad to hear that you appreciated me visiting your blog. It’s really nice reading your blogs about Yohan and your adventures as a mom.

PS: Forgive me for the very nonsense entry. This is just for the sake of updating my blog. Haha.

  1. Try to watch its music video, it’s so funny [↩]

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