You think...

You think you know me but you don't. You never took the time. I own a thousand masks. None of them true. You think you have known me but you never did. You never had the time.

"The man who insists on seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides."

If you constantly seek perfection, you will never be happy. You will be constantly looking for flaws in everyone and everything. Nobody is perfect. Nothing in this world is. You will never be satisfied here. But dying is one way of meeting Perfection Himself.

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

what is up with you?

well, this has been what's 'up' with me...

i finally have Internet connection at home (hello bato and onemanga).

i'm teaching at a university here (economics and statistics - the last one is giving me nosebleed no matter the incentive). teaching is just like studying. had i though to f that before i made the plunge, it would have made all the difference... i'd still be stuck doing research. and my students.... help me God...

i believe i am getting infamous for being such a terror teacher (and i'm too young to step into the shoes of miss tapia, really). i was telling popin that my new theme song is gives you hell by the all american rejects...

"when you see my face hope it gives you hell hope it gives you hell;
when you walk my walk hope it gives you hell hope it gives you hell."

very apt...

i am a student again. i'm on a bridging class for my MIT and i'm having serious thoughts (real serious) about ever passing it. programming is so darned tough no matter how many times they tell me it's all about logic... i need a B+ on my C++ course but now thati'm thinking about it, just getting a C is helluva hard already what more of getting a B+!

i don't think i've used my brain this much. hmm...
it's overused and over utilized. it's filled to capacity. too much information is causing it to stall and shut down. i need an extra 400Gb of HDD, an extra 8GB memory... and a quadcore processor to make the processes run faster...



The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office. - Robert Frost

He who is dying of hunger must be fed rather than taught. - St. Thomas Aquinas

i was in nato last Friday and Saturday with my bosses. our group was conducting a focus group discussion (fgd) on gender and development with mothers and teachers in the barangay. we were suppose to head to Atulayan island the next day for another fgd but because of bad weather we had to cancel.

this fgd was probably the root of that outburst yesterday... hmmm....

it's depressing work... i know you're not suppose to take it home but it's hard to not to think about it. you learn things that now that you know about it, you'd rather not have known. now i know why there are many cynics here in research.

nato is a coastal/fishing barangay in the municipality of Sagñay. it has great beaches. like any other fishing community, it is plagued by one problem on top of the another. poverty, hunger, malnutrition... the usual group. but life goes on and the people make do with what they can.

the most depressed area according to the residents is la purisima. some settlers in this area came from parts of albay like misibis, tiwi, etc. we never made it to la purisima but the older residents refer to it as the squatter's area of the barangay. shanties right next after the other. problems with teenage pregnancies, couples as young as 13 or 14 already living together having kids more than they can afford to feed (most have more than 5 kids). infant mortality is alarming. one mom lost 4 babies aged between 2-8 months.

some of the teachers we interviewed said that the barangay doesn't lack educational facilities. although some of their students' desks are.... well never mind. it's not their fault.

their barangay has a daycare center, elementary, high school and a community college. but there are parents who cannot afford to send their children to school. kids as young as grade 2 and 3 help their parents earn money. those who are too young to fish, go around the village selling fish. teachers said that absenteeism is rampant especially during lean months when there is little fish caught. kaldero's (pots) with cooked rice disappear never to be seen again.

kids going to school on an empty stomach is common. no dinner the night before and no breakfast to be had before going to school the next day. so the teachers said they solicited funds to feed about 20 students from poor families so that these kids can continue going to school. if they go to school they get to eat.

there is a story that after a severe storm, the governor once gave the residents roofs (made of galvanized iron sheets) for their houses. since fishing is seasonal, there are times when there is very little fish caught to feed the entire family. when hard times came, queues of people were seen carrying those same sheets to the centro to sell their roofs. after all, what good is a roof if one is about to pass out from hunger?

the stories are told in such a funny humorous way, that at the same time i laugh while i cringe inside. these people are caught in such a vicious cycle. that whatver that happened to the father and the mother may well be the very fate of their sons and daughters. it's sad to always end up where you've begun.


After all is said and done, a lot more will be said than done. - Unknown

familiarity breeds contempt... and the road to hell is paved with well-intentioned golf balls

after an interrupted ym conversation with jade, i realized that may mga hassle nga naman ang New Testament. sana hindi ako tamaan ng kidlat dito pero...

dapat may mga moments na pwede namang i justify ang an "eye for an eye and an ipin for an ipin" no? pag binato ka ng hollow block, babatuhin mo ba ng tinapay?? i guess it depends on several factors (ceteris paribus, lalo na ang factor na di ka sana napuruhan dun sa binatong hollow block):

a.) malapit ka ba sa panaderia
b.) masarap ba yung tinapay? (sayang eh... a tasty tinapay is hard to come by lalo na paglibre)
c.) singtigas ba ng bato ang tinapay (if yes, kebs na, proceed with the throwing...)
d.) mabilis ka bang umilag at tumakbo (importante to, mahal ang mag pa ospital).

hindi ko alam kung bakit ganito ako mag isip. hindi naman ako pinalaki ng ganito ng mama ko. hay... bakit ang hirap magpakabait sa panahon na'to.

tulad ng... bakit hindi ko makumbinsi ang sarili ko na magsimba. ang lagi kong binibigay na rason sa aking tita ay ang panget magsermon ng mga pari dito sa naga. hahaha! turuan ba magsermon ang pari. pero hindi ako matamaan. o kung matamaan man hindi ito sapat para ako ay tumakbo at magbalik sa simbahan. sabihin na natin na para pa rin akong naglalakad sa buwan.

hindi naman sa tinalikuran ko na at hindi ako naniniwala sa Dios, may lq lang kami. disillusioned lang ako - parang magdalo. pero hindi naman ako mag aalsa o magku coup d'etat. i'm just thinking out loud.

on the upside, kung matatawag man itong as such, buti na rin lang siguro at ito ang kinalakihan ko na relihiyon. dahil kung ako ay napunta sa iba, baka matagal na akong itinumba. kahit papano nagpapasalamat pa rin ako at nagkaroon ng Vatican II.

hindi ko mawari kung kelan nagsimula... at kung sinong ahas ang nagbigay sakin ng mansanas na nagmulat sakin sa mga tunay na realidad. the death of innocence heralds the birth of a cynic. siguro ganun talaga. hindi rin ganun kataas ang pagtingin ko sa mga pari (pulis at kung sinu sino pang nakaluklok diyan sa taas). para na rin kasing mga politico kung umasta. halos wala na akong makitang pagkakaiba.

habang tumatagal ako dito sa mundo, mas lumalawak ang pagkadismaya ko.

bakit ang simpleng maniwala sa milagro nung bata pa ako? sana nanatili na lamang akong bata at hindi na lang ako lumaki, para hindi na nasira ang tiwala ko sa tao. lalo na sa mga taong akala ko ay kakampi ko. ang hirap makakuha ng kakampi dito sa mundo. kahit kapamilya mo pwedeng magbago. pano pa kaya ang ibang tao na hindi mo kaano ano? hindi ka pa nga nakatalikod ng todo, inuulan na ng saksak ang likod mo.

mahirap magpakabait... dahil ang daming nang aabuso. at bakit din halos lahat ng mababait ang mga unang kinukuha ni Lord no? unfair! kaya siguro di ko makuhang magpakabait. medyo over the top ang incentive. ang dami tuloy nagliliparang masamang damo kasi high na lahat ng kabayo...

Eto pa, kaninang tanghali habang sinasabayan kong lumamon ang pinsan ko, naisip ko rin na...

It's easier to gain weight than gain money. Pero... it's easier to lose money than to lose weight! Takte namang buhay to.........



The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis. - Dante Alighieri
(lagot!)

Everyone has a purpose in life. Perhaps yours is watching television. - David Letterman

i was in couch potato heaven from the 2nd week of september until the end of october. i was living at my aunt's house and jacking up her electric bill because of my tewwible, tewwible tv habits. (happy birthday auntie Len, mwahhh =) i wake up at around 10 am or 12 noon, play with my adorable dog choco, eat when there's food left for me in the fridge, and watch tv on and off until 3 am. Before the first week was over, i was a full-fledged bum.

thank god television and computers were invented since going to the beach during the typhoon season is a no go. by the end of september, i was best friends with animax and knew every character of my favorite anime series. i stayed up late/early (depends on how late or early 2am or 3 am is for you) just to watch reruns of my favorite animes, especially those that were shown while i was catching some zzzzzz's. i had so much fun watching kyo kara maoh! or god (?) save our king! i've never seen so many good looking guys in one anime. add some gay undertones and you're in for quite a ride. i wish jade had a dvd of this so i can watch it all over again.

gunther, wolfram, conrad, yuri and gwendal

speaking of the divil, no i'm not going to singapore and taking your detective conan dvd with me but i believe inday is leaving on wednesday night. hahaha! i spent 2 days watching the detective conan dvd i borrowed from him. i ate, slept and dreamt of nothing but kudo shinichi aka edogawa conan. it's a compilation of 10 detective conan movies which they release to every year from April 17, 1997. there's now a total of 12 movies released, most recently was on february 2008. there are over 500 episodes of the tv series and i want them all... (demanding!) i hope you're reading this jade, hahaha!

kudo shinichi

shinichi is actually a famous teenage detective. but after being forced to drink a poison by 2 henchmen of the black organization, he shrunk and became a kid again. my favorite episodes were the episodes he ended up teaming up with the thief, kaitou kid and his rival detective, hattori heiji. there's one forum on the net that says that the kaitou kid is related to the kudo family which could explain how he came to know of conan's real identity. i'm trying to pick a favorite from the 10 movies but i'm quite torn among magician of the silver sky (where he teamed up with the kaitou kid), the phantom of baker street (where he played a virtual detective video game on sherlock holmes' turf), and the private eye's requiem. i've yet to see the 11th and 12th movie because i don't know if jade has them yet. Hahaha! tigas!

another anime that i'm really hooked on right now is blood+. i can't wait to see what would happen next. saya is a vampire. she was born in 1833, survives on the blood of others, and is destined to destroy chiropterans and her twin sister Diva. it's so bloody interesting now that saya has made a chevalier out of her own younger brother and the appearance of another group, the schiffs, a breakaway group of artificial chiropteran created out of diva's (saya's twin sister) blood. the schiffs attack both saya and diva's groups, believing that blood from the 2 queens or any of their chevaliers can stop the Thorn.

saya and her chevalier haji

during the weekends (although everyday was a weekend for me then), i watched reruns of gunxsword. but due to some change in my habitat, (thanks to my grandma's hypertension, i had to temporarily move to slopes of mt. isarog but sadly they have cartoon channel but no animax.), i think i only got as far as episode 10 of the gunxsword series. unfortunately, i couldn't even remember where it left off...damn! i guess i'll just have to watch it all over again.

van of gunxsword

the first time i watched this anime, i didn't even like van. he's not your typical anime hero. he's a reluctant hero, even slow at times and rude to wendy but like any hero he pulls through when he's needed. i think i got as far as the episode when wendy saw a glimpse of a blond and then everything is blank after that. wendy's brother, michael garret, was taken by the some baddies who attacked her village and then sold him to the same guy van's looking for (a man with the clawed hand) and now wendy is trying to track michael down and get him back.

Van has a white Armor, Dann of Thursday, or just Dann. it's held in place over the planet in a crucifix-shaped satellite, and is launched to his position when he twists his hat 180 degrees and swings a 'V' with his sword in the air. it is one of the strongest armors on the planet, and uses a sword as its primary weapon. as one of the "original seven" he needs to enter his armor once a week to regenerate. if he doesn't, he will die plus he does not age due to his being one with Dann.

anyone here got any gunxsword dvds? i'll donate the chips and the popcorn if you'll let me watch it, pretty please with cherries on top.






Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them. - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

To believe is to know you believe, and to know you believe is not to believe. - Sartre

it must be one of those rare days because i found eva online. she's one of those people i'm lucky to meet in this lifetime considering the distance and the language barrier. her lingua franca is german while mine is filipino. on the side she knows some french and very good in english while i speak a little mandarin and also good english (me thinks, anyway). i 'met' her when i was i don't know maybe on my 5th or 6th grade. these days we keep in touch through email and chat. but she's on msn/hotmail and i'm on ym. isn't it great that you can combine your ym and hotmail accounts? very cool... =)

i can't remember exactly when she and i became friends but i know it started with IYS (international youth service). i'm not even sure if IYS still exists but it gives you a penfriend for the cost of a dollar. but that was a looooonnggg time ago (when the exchange rate was $1 = Php 27 or 30 something). so if they still exists, it might cost more than it did 10 or so years ago. anyway her brother was suppose to be my friend but she said her brother's not really much of a writer so i ended up with her. i still have the old letters back when we haven't really discovered the wonders of the world wide web. but i sure miss getting the letters. i mean you can't beat snail mail, even if it's slow. it's got character that emails will never have. there's so much you can glean by just looking at the stationary or the handwriting (even the erasures) and the pictures we sent each other. it was fun. i mean it's hard to put into words the feeling i get when finding an envelope with my name on it and seeing the stamps. i'm getting nostalgic.

the letters became sporadic. or maybe we just grew up and got preoccupied with the usual things - school, work, life, and love (or lack of it). so whenever we see each other online we trade stories about school (my plan to go back but she's going back to school next week), work (or lack of it, since we're both unemployed at the moment), life (oh yeah... lots of it), and love (definitely drew blanks on this one, some strings on the side but not exactly the real thing as eva said so it doesn't count).

it's strange how our lives sort of mirror each other. we're both out of work (by choice). we're now back where we came from - home. i'm in naga and she's in neustadtl since it's closer to her new school. we're both drifting (somewhat, but at least you know what you want to be eves). trying to figure out where we are in our lives and where we want to be, which is not easy (the figuring out thing). we're at the point in our lives where we evaluate the relationships we've had or lack of it. what stops us from having one and what keeps us from moving out of "unhealthy" ones.

i told her that i will prolly be a spinster. i will be THE eccentric tita (aunt) or ninang (godmother). good friend that she is of course she said it's not true!

but my mother's death was a culmination of sorts. i questioned a lot of things. the 2 F's - fate and faith. so f*u*c*k both of them. her death made me realize that i'm not capable of trusting others or more importantly subjecting myself to the vulnerability brought about by loving too much. there are dimensions, depth and degrees to love. losing my mother gave me more than a glimpse of what i could lose and even that was too much. so i decided i'm not going to live on to my 30's if i had to endure another loss. just thinking of my dog dying is too much. i now have a 'deeper' understanding of the parokya ni edgar song "buloy."

i can write all the synonyms of how it feels to have your heart ripped out of your chest (it's a cliche but i never loved cliches more until i finally had a chance to appreciate this one first hand). it's crippling, paralyzing, stunting, mind-numbing... blah... blah.. blah...blah... although the love i have for my mom may be different from romantic love since the latter is more of a choice. i've always felt that love is a choice. so if you get hurt in the process, it's a consequence of that choice. i've seen some really good friends with really good heads fail miserably when it comes to this thing. it's not something they teach you how to navigate in school. or if they do, they give you the theories but you won't know how to go about it til you're there. you either go with your heart or your head. my emotional iq must be lower than the average, tsk, tsk... i don't want to get hurt again, so it's a no brainer. nip it in the bud, yeah, cold hearted biatch.

i'm not particularly good in math. god i hated math. but i can appreciate ratio and proportion this way: when it comes to falling in love, some people say that your head/brain is inversely proportional to your heart. the more you use your head, hello loneliness for you cold hearted fiend. the more you use your heart, the more stupid you become. so you have to find an acceptable proportion where love and money intersects with acceptable opportunity cost for both the heart and the head. good luck with the math.

i don't believe in love at first sight either, or the you-had- me-at-hello-kind of thing from jerry macguire. lust at first sight, yes. they said that if you're unlucky in love, you're suppose to be lucky when it comes to money. i must be an exception to that rule. crap. maybe you're one of those lucky fools, good for you.

don't trust them not to cheat on me or not to die on me; which is preposterous since humanity is fallible to these things. unless i want to commit myself to a penguin, my heart and my sanity just might be safe... but i am not a penguin. i can't imagine being in a long distance relationship either. awww shucks, serious trust issues... and abandonment issues.... hmmmmmmmmmmmm

for some reason our conversation drifted to kids. i suddenly found myself a godmother (**shudder** shudder**) to 2 boys. my cousins are spouting boys. i wish one of them would beget a girl. really, i want to dress them up like barbie dolls. you know, in pink and purple clothes. you can't do that to boys unless you want to incur the wrath of their fathers.

a few sundays ago, i found myself at a birthday party of one of my college friends. his wife is 6 months preggy. they're having a boy, to the delight of my friend. cheers! (no purple and pink gifts unless i want the friendship to be over... hmm lemme get back to you on that arvs lol). seriously,i'm going to be a ninang again when that boy comes out... ohhhh dear. i remember a conversation i overheard from some of my high school classmates when we met at Wok's that mom's expecting boys look chaka (gay linggo for "ugly"). so love and i agreed that arvs wife, kati, must be an exception.

anyway if i were to get myself pregnant (omg knock on wood), i think i'm going to look like an overstuffed peking duck and carrying 9 months of excess weight is beyond me at the moment. when god was giving out the genes for slender bodies, i was busy. busy snoring at lala land. giving birth sure looks like it hurts a lot. i know i'm a bit of a sado-masochist at times but we'll leave pregnancy to the experts. besides, it's not like the world is lacking babies!

a few hours ago i met with my friend, love, who just arrived from a seminar in Subic. she brought me chocolates (vanhouten with almonds yummm... no melamine i hope). we realized that it seemed kind of strange that it's the males from our batch (our college block) who are getting hitched before the females. but then we realized there were only 3 of us girls in that block. the economics society is sadly facing extinction in AdNU. i'm not sure what measures the University has done so far as to attract future econ majors. there is a stock market crisis faced by the US (and just about every economy in the world) so for sure there's no lack of topics to discuss in the classroom. which reminds me that i must be in trouble since if there's a recession, my chances of finding my dream job will be slim. ouch...

but it's not like i'm the only one. welcome to the unemployed statistics puds =) it's not so bad when you're not alone, is it?



The reverse side also has a reverse side. - Japanese proverb

The only people who find what they are looking for in life are the fault finders. - Foster's Law

there is an ungrateful and self-centered part of me that can't forgive mama for dying. not that mama had any choice in the matter (of dying) but it's there. i felt like i've been robbed.

but mostly there's guilt... and anger. a lot of it directed at myself. i've always wanted to resign, i felt like mama died just so i could do it. it seems that her death gave birth to this other side of me. or maybe it's always been there.

i feel like i am two persons fighting for existence for this one body. i've always been a responsible daughter. didn't really get into much trouble. but after she died, i felt this compulsion to be reckless, unreasonable, irresponsible, and dangerous. an immense propensity to self-destruct. all the self-directed anger and this guilt weighing heavily on my shoulders had to have some sort of outlet. i wanted others in my family to hurt the way i am hurting; and if those other than my family gets affected, it's collateral damage.

obviously i did not inherit mama's gentler nature. of the 3 of us, it's my brother who inherited it while my sister and i turned out be bitches. shobe is more practical. she deals with emotions the same way she spends her money. once it's spent, it's gone. but i seem to have a well of it. it's always half full so when the storm comes, i rage.

one of my friends asked me once which would be a lot easier, "losing you mother because she died or losing her because she left you and you do not know why?" it hurts either way but losing her for the second reason will most probably scar me the most. if only because she had the choice to stay but she didn't.

people tell me it gets easier with time. but it doesn't. but i tell them what they wanted to hear anyway. the pain never really lessened, more like you find other ways to numb yourself to it. ways to never be that susceptible to that kind of hurt again. you learn to build forts.

Sometimes the appropriate response to reality is to go insane. - Philip K. Dick