Facts ‘Bout Me

Posted on April 13, 2008 at 12:01 pm | 16 Comments
Filed under Random Realities

I decided to rewrite my “About Me” page. I started from scratch again and I come up with an seven-paragraph introduction to myself. I decided to post it here so that it’ll get the attention that it will need. The front page is always the best part where you can put stories that you want your audience to notice.

*****

During the year I started blogging, my answer to the question “What’s your ASL?” was 14/M/Pampanga. Now that almost four years have passed since I first encountered that question, my answer is still the same, except for the age part which you have to add to four (that’s equal to 18). But of course, giving you a two-digit number, a letter that stands for “male”, and the name of a province here in the Philippines is not enough for you to know me. So the purpose of rewriting my short description of myself is for you to visualize me better on your head. Feel free to make your own image of myself. I’ve also provided links to my previous posts, that you can freely read (minus those password protected entries) which can help you know more about myself.

I was born three days after Christmas in the year of 1989. December 28, 1989 was the start of my journey here on earth. Eighteen years later, I’m already 18 years old, obviously. Kidding aside, I think, I’ve achieved a lot of things but there are still many things to conquer. Currently, I’m a college student but I still have to learn how to love my course and I still think that college is synonymous to hell.

Reading books has been my main source of entertainment since sixth grade when I first read JK Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Since then, I have read more than 50 books which include the whole Harry Potter series, two of Dan Brown’s controversial books, reads by Mitch Albom which are all talking about death, and even books that are more disturbing like Ian McEwan’s Atonement and Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner which is my most favorite book, by the way.

Other forms of entertainment that I enjoy include watching American TV shows especially Grey’s Anatomy, Heroes and The Amazing Race, ridiculing incompetent teachers, sleeping, surfing the Internet, and most recently, listening to indie music by Feist, Death Cab for Cutie, Snow Patrol, The Postal Service, Hellogoodbye, Jack Johnson, and many more. As a matter of fact, because of my obsession to indie music, I named my iPod touch as Gibbard, in honor of Death Cab for Cutie and The Postal Service’s singer: Ben Gibbard. Just visit my Last.fm account to know my listening patterns.

Oh, I forgot to mention that I also love writing. I was actually the news editor of our official student publication for two consecutive years back in high school. But until now, I still don’t know how I was able to get that position because of my faulty grammar. I know, my grammar sucks. And if it were not because of Firefox’s spell checker feature, I would have committed lots of misspelled words. I need an editor, really. Haha. But despite all of those reasons I’ve mentioned, I’m really thankful for my adviser who trusted me. Writing news never gave me pleasure. You have to be specific with the facts and you can’t give your own points and using adjectives is a big no-no.

Now, I want to tell you what I’m not: I’m neither a singer nor a dancer (I suck at both). I’m not also a cellphone and SMS addict, I can leave even without a phone. I hate PE classes (I’m just glad that I will not wear my PE uniform ever). And oh as some of you might already know, I don’t have the ideal body weight (take a guess if I’m overweight or underweight) and I don’t look like an 18 year old student (I look younger… lol).

I’ve got more things to tell you but I guess, I’m already boring you. Just watch out for the next version of this introduction to myself to know more about me. But if you need something or you just want to leave your two cents, feel free to contact me.

*****

DanHellbound and Dre tagged me to post facts about myself. BTW, Mr. DanHellbound tagged me way back in December of last year. Dan says I should post seven facts, and Dre says that I should post eight. But obviously, I broke the rules. Lol. And oh, I didn’t make this post because of these memes. It’s just coincidental. Of course, everyone is invited to post random facts. Yeah, I’m tagging you everyone!

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2007 in 7 Lists of 7

Posted on December 30, 2007 at 9:16 pm | 10 Comments
Filed under Boggling Blogs • Bulky Books • Daily Dose • Internet Insanity • News Central • Random Realities • Site Stuff

It’s been my tradition here in my blog to post a yearend entry (2005, 2006). I usually post the most memorable things that happened to me from the very first day of January until December in my year ender specials, and in 2006, I’ve also included a list of my favorite entries for the whole year. But this year, I decided to make seven lists of seven. The lists talk about the best of 2007 except for the news category. I’ve also added notes here and there, and some are potential spoilers so be warned!

Most of the things that I have listed below are in either chronological or alphabetical order.

Books

This year, I was able to read 15 books, almost twice than last year. I really had fun reading this year.

  • Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — JK Rowling: The ending of Harry Potter’s epic tale was really fantastic. JK ended it with a fitting finale. How I wish there is a sequel to this book, but then, the time has come to end this very fascinating story.
  • The Kite Runner — Khaled Hosseini: I like this book very much. Furthermore, this is the best book I have read in my entire life. Unlike other fiction reads, this book is realistic. I recommend this to all, but most especially to those people who are not hooked into books and to Afghan refugees.
  • A Thousand Splendid Suns — Khaled Hosseini
  • The Chinese Cinderella — Adeline Yen Mah: [My Review]
  • Youngblood3 edited by Artura, et al: If you’re into Filipino literature, this is the book that you should buy. Very entertaining. And this is not fiction, by the way. [My Review]
  • The Dogs of Babel — Carolyn Parkhurst: The weirdest book I have ever read. It’s about Paul, a linguist, who tries to teach his dog how to speak. No, not because he’s out of his mind but because he wanted to know the real cause of his wife’s death. The words Parkhurst used in the ending of the story were really strong. [My Review]
  • For One More Day — Mitch Albom: Another tale about death. Yes, it’s a good book, but how I wish Albom would explore other topics. [My Review]

If you have read these books, you would notice that most of them are sad stories, but yeah, the characters lived happily ever after.

Songs

Entries

  • Faulty Schedule: My craziest misadventure this year. In this entry, I wrote how I spent almost 12 hours… in the mall.
  • The Perfect Duo: Chemistry and Zoology: You would fail these two subject if you don’t know how to memorize. And would you believe me that I enjoyed them? Haha.
  • The Divine Subjects: A review of my subjects back in first year, second semester. I used Dante’s concept in his Divine Comedy to give the final verdict for each of my subjects.
  • Stinks and Sells: I particularly enjoyed writing this. It’s my own version of what’s in and what’s out.
  • Big Surprises: The story how I acquired my notebook.
  • Let’s Talk About Grades (Part 2): What I realized in these posts was that grades aren’t everything.
  • Signs and Symptoms of Stress: The title says it all. I had a good time writing this and rereading it makes me laugh. XD

I know that the title of this entry says that for every list, there are seven items. But I have to break that because I reckon I have more interesting entries this year. And so we continue…

Web Apps

  • Last.fm: A cool way to discover music.
  • Google Reader: This one is a bit old, it’s been out since like two years ago. But it deserves a spot here.
  • Twitter: Who doesn’t love Twittering, eh? It’s enjoyable even though there is a maximum of 140 characters per tweet.
  • Sxipper: This one is actually a Firefox plugin. It can automatically input your information in every single form. It can also remember and generate passwords for you. A similar service is Clipperz.com.
  • del.icio.us
  • Flickr
  • Google Apps: Sign up and get your @yourdomain.com mail. All of the essential features of GMail are included. There are also other available applications that you can use.

News

Unlike the other categories, this one does not talk about the bests of 2007. These are the breaking news here in the Philippines. Majority of these are bad news.

  • Bus Hostage
  • The Glorietta 2 Blast: What’s the latest developement? Have they solved this?
  • Mariannete Ampere’s Suicide: A very very sad story
  • Erap’s Pardon: No way!
  • House of Representatives Bombing
  • The Peninsula Hotel Siege: Trillanes, please spare the hotels. Lol.
  • Peso’s Increasing Value: How come we cannot feel it?

Bloggers

I had fun reading your blogs! Keep on writing interesting blog entries!

WordPress Plugins

Yes, I know, most of things/persons that I have listed above (Especially in books, songs, web apps, and bloggers) were not published/released or didn’t start blogging this year. But then, this is my blog. Haha.

Well, I suppose, this is my last entry for this year. May everyone have a prosperous 2008! Rock on!

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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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Yearend Entry: 2006

Posted on December 29, 2006 at 10:45 pm | 12 Comments
Filed under Daily Dose • Random Realities

I reckon this is my last post for this year as I’m very busy. I have not even finished doing Choice.

Here are the notable things that happen throughout the whole year!

  • I and my classmates had our retreat back in January. The place and food was so great. I really thought I would not enjoy our retreatÂ… and now, IÂ’m still savoring all of the things that we did there. If itÂ’s possible to have a part two (or even a part three) of our retreat, IÂ’ll join! Aww… I’m being nostalgic.
  • On February 04 of this year, a big accident happened here in the Philippines. The Ultra stampede occurred back then. It was the first anniversary of the number one noon time show in the country, Wowowee. Instead of 20 tricycles, some taxi cabs and two million pesos (about $40,000) of prizes at stake. Lives of many people were in danger.
  • I had my first (yeah, first) camping. It was a requirement for graduation. How stupid is that? Nevertheless, I enjoyed it.
  • March means graduation to me. Well, I landed as the first honorable mention of our batch (without exerting too much effort). I was also able to bag other awards. Oh, I’m not bragging about them. Habemus valedictorian! Can’t we have an another conclave?
  • College is a bit freaky. And I hate it. Can’t we just skip college? Haha. IÂ’m still in the “culture shock” mode; IÂ’m having a hard time doing some conversations with my new classmates.
  • The seventh of September marks the death of my grandfather. I miss my grandfather so much. (Please, stop me, I’m getting a bit teary.) I am so glad that I was able to had a grandparent like him. He was so generous to me. I could still remember during my pre-school years that he brings and gets me to school everyday and if there was a new toy available from one of the two biggest fast food chains in the country, he would bring me there and buy me the toy that I like.
  • I had my luckiest day this year back in November when I got PHP 50.00 worth of pre-paid load and PHP 125.00 in cash! My original plan last Friday was that I would only watch the quiz bee so as to support my blockmates and after it, I would go back home.
  • I got a new domain! (I sent e-mail to those people who regularly visit my site about it.)
  • I had my most boring Christmas. As for my birthday, it was not that good but not that bad too.
  • Starting tonight, we are — as how I like to call it — maid-less again.

This time, my favorite entries during the whole year:

Feel free to comment on these posts!

Happy 2007 to everyone!

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Not your ordinary book store

Posted on November 21, 2006 at 9:58 pm | 8 Comments
Filed under Bulky Books • Daily Dose

These are my experience with the nearest book store here in our place so as it is the only branch of the store that I’m very familiar of, it does not mean that these are true with its other branches. Oh, don’t expect me to give you the name of the store.

This store is more than a book store, it does not only sell books but it also does have merchandises like office supplies, cards, gift wraps and other things that are not related to books whatsoever displayed on their shelves.

During a month before the classes starts here in the Philippines, this book store sells more notebooks than the books that they have. Don’t forget the other school supplies that an ordinary student would need… bond paper, adhesives, pencils, scissors, pad paper, and so on. And now, as the Christmas holidays is fast approaching, a visit to this store is not complete if you would not see their gigantic Christmas trees for sale, Christmas balls, and artificial Poinsettia flowers.

What I don’t like with this store is that there are less titles to choose from compared with other book stores that I have seen. And if you want to look for a good read, you would have take some time to look for a good one. And to make it a little more complicated, the books are not arranged in a very systematic order. Yes, the books are grouped according to their genre, but they are not arranged alphabetically. In this case, the tactic read first some reviews about the book that you want to buy before proceeding to the book store is not applicable as what was stated above, there are less titles to choose from compared with other stores. So your last resort is to take note of the books that you found in the book store that interests you, read reviews in the internet, and go back to the book store to buy it.

They also have this list of the bestselling books, but most of the time, they don’t have stocks of the books that got to the top ten. How stupid…

*****

Last Sunday I and my family went to Metro Manila to have some quality time. We went to the Block (annex 3 of SM North Edsa, picture bellow). Whoa! The mall was so great. And in this mall, I found a branch of Fully Booked.

theBLOCK
State of the art. The Block is one of the newest malls in the country.

I saw thousands and thousands of books! Almost all of the books that I want to have were available on that store! The problem is that I don’t have sufficient funds to buy all of the books that I want. But at least, I was able to grab a copy of the book that I wanted to read since last year. It’s called “About a Boy” by Nick Hornby. The book costs around PHP 500.00!

Here is the updated list of the books that I want to have. Oh, if you want to buy any of these books for me, just notify me, okay?

  • For One More Day — Mitch Albom (around PHP 900.00)
  • Dogs of Babel — Carolyn Parkhurst
  • Eragon
  • The Five People You Meet in Hell (a parody) –Rich Pablum
  • Harry Potter (Collector’s Items) — JK Rowling (around PHP 3500.00)
  • A Spot of Bother — Mark Haddon
  • Other books of Nick Hornby

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