chimazing.

on a day like today.

2006-10-18T21:42:00.000+08:00

i'm in a crummy mood. my temper's been insanely short since this afternoon, i'm tired but i don't wanna go to bed, i need to do stuff and study but i'm just too lazy. i honestly feel like taking all this anger out on something.

maybe it's cuz our only game right now is live 07 and it's fricking horrendous and made me lose all faith in the nba live franchise but i keep playing it anyway cuz it's the nba live franchise and i get more and more pissed off at the glaring flaws this game has and i'm totally ticked off at it na. something tells me that i'll play it again tomorrow, but that would piss me off even more and i don't want another day feeling like this. gahd i hate nba live.

maybe it's cuz for the first time this sem, i actually had to wait for the driver to come from la salle and pick me up in ate. yeah, i think that was the first time that happened this sem. so i waited there, tired and totally forgetting that i had to kill a mockingbird in my bag to help me pass the time and i was really bored and it pissed me off. and to piss me off more, i remembered right when i stepped into the car that i actually HAD brought to kill a mockingbird. great. usually i wouldn't get pissed with this, with waiting for my ride, but maybe cuz it's been a long time since it last happened or maybe cuz i was pretty tired or maybe cuz i was in fricking business attire and the afternoon was warm or maybe a combination of all of these made the wait annoying. haha.

it felt good to laugh there. even if they were just strokes on a keyboard.

i know i'm running the risk of being an ass here when there are people all over the world who don't even have a roof to live under or food to get them through the next couple of days, but you're being relative if you think that. and you might be right, but let's take relativity again and say that relative to chino's happy, ever-cheerful, loving-life disposition, i'm really really down right now for what seem to trivial reasons but there might be some real cause for it that i haven't consciously pinpointed, but what the heck, i'm in a crummy mood. sorry. please bear with me.

oh, i was also pissed off with rudy ang kanina and i think it sort of kickstarted the steep slide down the slippery slope (naks, alliteration) of my crummy mood cuz before that i was okay naman. or maybe i wasn't. i dunno na. haha.

anyway rudy ang sucked kanina. we had to wait like 30 minutes to consult with him cuz he was late as usual, so that was a pretty sour note na right there. then when he does come in, we try and go into his office but his secretary says to wait lang and let him breathe and settle down daw muna. so siiiiige, wait kami, let the dean relax. and then a minute later, he calls us in an annoyed tone, "aren't you gonna come in?" as if we were stupid and this was our fault. jeez. the secretary goes, "ah, ayan na pala.". nice one som office. great job. at that time i just laughed it off and kept on smiling cuz i wasn't in this crummy mood yet but now i obviously am so i'm ranting about it.

and so we consulted and it went well naman, our study's coming together but rudy was really brimming with negative energy today, nakakasira ng araw talaga. init ng ulo, very snappy. what the hell, he's the dean and he's smart and he's gay so he can do that, but it's not very nice and i didn't like it.

wow this so isn't like me. ranting about the smallest things and looking on the dark side of life. and being redundant with my choice of words. i guess it just goes to show you how out of it i am right now.

i lost rin my pilot ballpen here at home and i can't seem to find it. great. of all the days my ballpen could've chosen to get lost, it chose this day. nice one ballpen.

gahd. i hate it when i'm this way.

yeah, maybe it's nba live, maybe it was the business attire on a warm afternoon, maybe it was the fact na di ko pa napapaayos slacks ko and they're still baggy and they suck and i had to wear them kanina and the maids at home noticed the bigness, maybe it was cuz i could've finished to kill a mockingbird kanina but i forgot about it, maybe it's cuz i should be doing the stat right now but i'm really too lazy and crummy to do anything about it, maybe it's cuz i just need sleep, maybe it's the stress.

or maybe maybe maybe it's cuz, yeah. maybe that. or maybe not. oh well.

i think i need to sleep this off. things will be all right in the morning. they always are. i'll be happy in the morning. i always am.

right?

wasting time.

2006-09-12T21:06:00.000+08:00

i was supposed to blog earlier, like nung sunday night or something, but i was tiiiiiiiired so wala. haha. so now na lang. and i actually have no requirements to submit or anything tomorrow. wow! haha.

last thursday, after watching satirika, i walked alone across the parking lot, air cool and soft on your skin, a light breeze rustling the leaves of the trees and sending a friendly chill down your spine. everything was quiet, no one was around. and so i walked to my car, i walked under the pale glow of the moon and the understated brilliance of the starlight. and as i walked, my pace was slow, purposeful, unhurried. i walked with relaxed strides and my face towards the sky, the trees and the leaves silhouetted black against the stars and the sky. i walked and took deep breaths and allowed the wind to touch every inch of my body.

i walked liked i relished every step and every second and every star in the sky.

because i did.

that night, one of those rare times when i'm just alone with my thoughts and my heart and my mind, i walked and was just happy to be right there right then.

i guess what i'm trying to say is that i'm just happy right now. it gets depressing to hear everyone else say about how life's a bitch and how each day sucks and how they wish they weren't here right now --- and i took a step back, took a look at my life and i realized that i'm okay, i'm happy, i'm having the time of life --- and that i've been really blessed. and i'm thankful for that.

i'm happy where i am right now, and i'm happy with how my life has turned out so far. things get rough often, but heyy. that's life. face the challenges and try and beat them. if you don't, well then that sucks. but everything will be okay. there's a lot to be found in life --- if only we tried and turned away from our books and tests and allowance shortage and shit lovelife and loneliness to find it all.

and so there it is. there isn't a place in the universe and in time that i would want to be aside from right here, right now. my life is good. i'm happy. i love it.

is that such a bad thing?

***

ended up hanging out with jay at his place last friday night. was lots of fun. we hardly did anything aside from watch dvds, blog-/friendster-/multiply-hop, and talk about people. haha. it was cool.

it's funny, cuz we always rant about how we waste so much time on unproductive activities --- like that friday night at jay's.

but down the road, really, what matters? i won't remember doing my accounting homework or reviewing for psych or attending sci 10 plenaries. i'll remember the times i wasted time --- friday night at jay's, drew's and anina's with the block, saturday nights out. because i'm happy then. and i love the people and really, these are the times we'll remember.

and so, stay. and waste time. it won't be a waste of your time.

the memory never will.

2006-08-06T16:36:00.000+08:00

was going through old albums and i got nostalgic.

mon and i, circa 1995/6, grade one, mtap.

me, bree, mon. circa 1995/6, grade one, mtap awarding.

me, mon, bree, ken, mikey torres, jay, ralph, filemon. orig a-boys. circa 1996, grade one, recognition day.

me and greg, circa 1997/8, grade three, class pic.

(clockwise from bottom) me, butch, mon, jay. circa 1997/8, grade three, father and son camping.

me. circa 2001, grade school graduation.

6a-boys. l-r: kim, joel, mon, bree, me, mama, dre, greg. circa 2001, grade school grad.

me, james, jay. raraavis application pic. circa summer 2002, e-mazing race days.

superfreaks. the only complete picture. joel, jay, greg, james, me, mon. circa 2002/3, prolly second year.

me and dre. circa 2003, third year, one day near the end of the year.

the payoff. high school grad. from l-r: (top) jaypee (now known as "jeffy"), ralph, kriz, greg, kim, me, ken, fil, mike. (bottom) jeron, jay, jau, brother bernie, bree, mon, tim.

a big reason why i want so badly for mon, greg and i to graduate bmh is not because things will change if we don't --- they won't, we'll still be the best of friends.

i really wanna graduate with them cuz finishing bmh would just be such a nice, fitting, and proud ending, such an emphatic punctuation mark to what has been a truly memorable, life-shaping journey. and i guess that's why.

the day the music died.

2006-07-30T20:34:00.000+08:00

my ipod is broken. the peeps at apple center confirmed it for me. it can still play music, but it's stuck the way it is forever. can't update, my comp won't even detect it --- either in itunes or as a drive. i've tried resetting and disk-only-ing endlessly, i've tried two different usb cords, two different usb ports (quite useless --- my bro's nano works perfectly) and countless prayers to no avail. it's broken.

bummer.

this comes one year, seven months and six days after i purchased it, on christmas eve 2004, at ambassador appliances shangri-la. this comes 1908 songs since that day, when i think i had 180+. this comes three earphones (original ipod, hideous black jvc's, original ipod video), an itrip, and a ruptured nike sunglass cloth case later.

this pod's been to the pines of baguio, to the sands of bora, to davao and to pearl farm, to the green grass and hallowed halls of la salle green hills, to the blue skies and open space of ateneo de manila. this pod's been lost in jay's car (causing a night of restless, anxious sleep), been dropped here and there, and it's finally given up.

it would be stupid and shallow to wax poetic and shed tears for a frickin white rectangle. haha. but i just wanna say that my ipod, this fourth-gen/blue backlight/monochrome/twenty-gig white minimalist thing, has been incredible. it's been like a pet, like a brother, like a confidante. it's always been there for me. and looking at it now, boy, it's beautiful. the video doesn't come close. this one's a classic. oh well.

so thanks, chino's ipod. it's been a great ride.

and so i left apple center with a heavy heart, but before i did, my conversation with the lady behind the counter ended with me asking a question:

"so, magkano ba yung 60gig ngayon?"

my father's son.

2006-07-24T17:39:00.000+08:00

i should be studying for stat or doing my fil paper or studying for histo or doing accounting homework or starting on our histo paper but what the heck. it's raining and i'm not in the best of moods today and there's a lot of stuff i should have written some time ago that i didn't cuz i wasn't in the mood and i guess it's funny now that a crummy mood is the thing that gets me off my butt to write. and yeah, i was trying to be cool and experimental and artsy and avant-garde in those first 2 breathless sentences. hopefully this inspires the creation of a new kind of literature, something like post-postmodern-faux-colonial. or something like that. anyway.

we took this nice, ingenious guidance test last monday, which actually helped me discover a lot about myself and shi - crap. (i was about to curse there but i remember that cute people don't curse. yyup, new rule for all of you - cute people don't curse. hi mich.)

basically the test givese the starts of sentences, like "when i think of women i" and "i work best with", and you're supposed to continue the sentence with whatever comes to mind first ("i think of beautiful women" and "my friends", respectively, in case you're wondering, haha.). it really tells you a lot about yourself. and it's pretty good inspiration for a blog entry. weh. haha.

anyway, there was this one item there, the first one pa nga if i remember correctly, that went, "i feel my father seldom".

and i wrote the first thing that popped into my head, which was, "shows affection towards me". and a fraction of a second later, i just stopped and said, "what?"

because nothing could be farther from the truth. my father has always, always made it a point to tell me how much he really loves me and cares about me. i was almost embarrassed to have written that there, because my father really really means so much to me and it seemed so unfair that i even thought that.

i think that such thinking stems from a societal stereotype of fathers --- stern, harsh. my dad's like that in some ways --- he has his flaws, after all --- but he has never, ever, ever lacked in affection or love for us. never. that is one thing that i, or anyone, could never say about him.

i remember the last time i truly, truly cried --- as in sobbing uncontrollably. it was when i read a palanca/birthday card/i'm not sure which from my dad, and it was because of a line that went something like: "when you were small and we would play, i realized that you looked up to me, that i was something like a hero to you. and now, even as you have grown up and we don't spend as much time together anymore, i just want you to know that i'm always here for you."

i'm tearing up just having typed that. it's so like my dad --- wholeheartedly sincere. and he was a hero to me. and he still is. and he always will be. i dunno, words aren't enough to express the amount of love and gratitude i have for my father, because he has never failed me and he has always been there for me, truly, in every sense of the phrase.

there's this line i love from the movie road to perdition, when the son of tom hanks' character is talking about him after his death:

"when people ask me if (he) was a good man or if he was a bad man, i tell them:

he was my father."

and that's it really. my dad's one of the best persons i know in the world, morally upright and unshakeably strong in character, but his meaning to me lies more in the fact that he's my father, and that he's been the best father he could have been. and i am forever indebted to him for that. and i would like nothing more than to make him proud. and i wouldn't want to be anything other than his son. and i love him.

***

i think i've talked about this with marianne, mich, brian, rey, nicco and ralph. so baka medyo redundant na dito, but whaev.

as i've constantly been reminded of, i got an 83/100 in the first accounting long test. that's the highest by quite some margin, and my friend mama has been spreading (most probably false) rumors that the previous record for honors accounting was a 72, which of course gained me more notoriety. anyway. i won't pretend that i'm not more than a little proud of this, or that i'm not impossibly relieved. i'm also infinitely grateful to the Lord, because all things come from Him, and really, i'm nothing without him.

but the night after we got our results, i was truly, very very sad. a lot of my closest friends in manegement-h are either shifting out (kimyao, boogie, anina), thinking about shifting out (nicco, rey, mich, bev), or said they'd never shift out but are now thinking about it na rin (mon, marianne). and i was really really bummed out.

i guess it's partly because i just love being around people i enjoy being with and care about. i believe that a big part of my success throughout schooling has been because i've always had great people around me that i could relate with and rely on --- mon, greg, jay, dre, jau, bree, joel, mama, all the other a-boys --- i was with them from grade 1 to fourth year. and so i don't know how i'll make it to the end with the classrooms and the course list so empty. because what i've really really enjoyed about school throughout my life has been the people i've been with. the best.

i guess i was sad also partly because i didn't think it would end this way. i thought we could do it, you know, that we could make it, because i really really really believed in everyone and i thought we could do it talaga. and i was just really really sad to see a lot of the people i care about do poorly.

i've always thought that i was a relatively selfish person, but now, after this, i think that i care about other people a whole lot more than i give myself credit for. because i really do.

in the guidance test, there was an item that went, "the thing people don't know i'm most afraid of is".

i answered "failure".

i thought i wouldn't be able to handle failure in anything, that coming up short in any aspect of my life would crush me and shatter me permanently.

but after the accounting debacle, i realized that it really wasn't failure i was afraid of. because i was a lot lot more down that night than i would have been had i failed instead of topped the exam.

i guess what i'm really afraid of, more than anything, is being left alone.

***

stay cool see ya.

all the umbrellas in london.

2006-07-15T17:09:00.000+08:00

it's been raining for the past week or so. rains all the time. haven't seen the sun in a while. might forget what it looks like.

the rain has always been an extremely metaphorically potent image, something so rife with meaning and interpretative potential. in reality it's fairly simple - evaporation, condensation, voila.

but it's funny how this evaporation-condensation-voila, fairly everyday event can be so visually moving, emotionally powerful and - i dunno how to say it. it's just a nice thing.

there's a peace, a comfort to be found in the drone of the rain beating down on your roof, in early-morning coasting down highways as the cars kick up sprays of mist, in the solitude of a sedan's cabin at night as the drops scatter the lights of the city before you, in the cool that seems to envelope you. it's a nice thing.

one might say that rain has been much too associated with sadness, but there's good reason for that - the rain IS for sadness, it is not for celebration or jubilation or exultation. the rain, it's something that makes you think. it's something that reminds you of how alone you are in the world.

and that's all right. it's life. you can't be happy all the time --- the sun can't shine perpetually. but it will shine again. and it will rain again. and there's peace in this arrangement. there's peace in sitting down alone and seeing, hearing, FEELING the rain around you and being wrapped in sadness, because you know that this is a beautiful thing. because this quiet gives meaning to everything else.

maybe what i'm trying to say is that sometimes it rains.

and that sometimes, it's nice to just sit down and be alone and think and know that you have a beautiful life. and that everyone does.

***

it's funny how writing can be the hardest and easiest thing in the world.

like now it's hard - i dunno, nothing's really flowing, i don't know what to say. it's so different when your game's on.

when you're on, when that elusive dame called inspiration has finally smiled upon you, there's no feeling like it. the words flow through your heart to your fingertips, and the feeling's positively electric. you type faster than you thought was possible, the keyboard's rapid staccato clacks echoing the speed and the wealth of your ideas, and yet you're always a sentence ahead - the physical world can't keep up with the stream of your thoughts.

writing when you're genuinely, truly inspired, kapag ginaganahan ka, it's something that's genuinely fulfilling, something that brings you simple, yet complete joy. your thoughts, not pictures or words, but just THOUGHTS, they come out on the computer screen perfectly - somehow, you've been able to mold language, limited and flawed as it is, into something that expresses yourself. completely and perfectly. and it's a beautiful thing.

you know when you've written well. you just do. your work has an aura about it, a sort of swagger that tells a reader that when you wrote this, you knew it was great. and you did. because the feeling tells you you did. the electricity at the tip of your fingertips, the lucid, warp-speed flow of your thoughts --- you know you've poured your thoughts and emotions completely and converted them to words perfectly. the feeling's never wrong.

i know i haven't written all that well here. it's been too forced, too stunted - not enough flow. and so, fuck. haha.

stay cool. see ya.

talk tonight.

2006-07-06T21:38:00.000+08:00

i wrote this for my history class. it's here partly because it made me write (something that, as evidenced by the glaring lack of substatial blog entries, hasn't been the case recently), partly because i like the way i wrote it, partly because i like the way i wrote it a LOT, and partly because it reads like a blog entry. haha.

don't mind the part where i explicitly discuss the movie na, i kinda forced that so it's pretty boring. i don't like it. haha.

***

“There can be no objective interpretation and involvement in history without eventually shaping ourselves and others.”

Objectivity, that value held in such high esteem by accountants and figure-skating judges, debaters and sportswriters, college professors and dozens of other occupations, has always been a strange creature. After all, objectivity requires human beings to, well, stop being human beings for some period of time. It necessitates a temporary suspension of emotions, of preferences, of attractions and repulsions, of biases and prejudices – many of the beautiful and shameful things that are inherent parts of our humanity. Objectivity is, to use a formal term, innately contradictory – and to use a cruder phrase, quite insane.

And so, we come to the question and the gist of this paper: is it possible to delve into the creation and study of history (traditionally considered to be built on objectivity), and emerge unscathed and untouched – is it possible to be unaffected and unchanged, to be an unfeeling, completely professional, impeccably objective son of a bitch?

The answer, of course, is no.

In the Oscar-winning, multi-nominated 2005 film Capote (based on a true story), such is unmistakably clear in the relationship between the two major characters, Truman Capote and Perry Smith. Capote is working on what would turn out to be his definitive work and one of the books of the century, In Cold Blood, which deals with the horrific murder of a family of four in Holcomb, Kansas – a murder in which Smith was one of the two suspects and is sentenced to execution.

Capote attempts to approach the story like any highly regarded, self-respecting journalist would do so: as an outsider, a completely uncaring observer. He would capture the suspects’ story and watch as reality provided the ideal coup de grace to his work: an execution.

He set out to preach the gospel of objectivity, to look face-to-face with a couple of young men sentenced to death (to death!) ,casually write a story of their demise that would be one of the definitive works of his generation and somehow not shed a single tear or lose sleep or feel any ounce of pity as he escorted the pair to their death.

Capote’s plan begins to unravel, however, when he is drawn to the quiet, mysterious Perry Smith and develops a deep and genuine friendship with the man. It is here in which the conflict of the matter lies – the fact that the relationship he has with Perry is genuine. At the beginning of his research, Capote planned to feign friendship with Perry, to make Perry think that he was his best friend in the whole wide world, to make Perry confess his deepest secrets – enabling Capote to write what would be a massively impressive book – and then, as has been stated earlier, watch as Perry was put to death by the state of Kansas – which would be the fitting end to the aforementioned massively impressive book.

But no matter how hard he tried to be impartial and professional, Capote could not erase the fact that he was irresistibly and inexplicably drawn to Perry, that he actually truly cared about Perry, and, no matter what ending his book would require, the feeling of loss he would experience if Perry were to be executed would be unbearable. Capote was torn – between seeing his book to its fitting end or doing everything in his power to do what he felt was right.

Here, being torn was being human – Capote’s humanity irrepressibly took over. He felt a genuine affection for Perry, a true desire to help, a real, actual connection with Perry. Whatever his claims to objectivity, he could not fight what made him human – the fact that he could not be truly, completely objective.

Perry, too, was inevitably affected by Capote’s pursuit of cold, hard objectivity. Perry viewed the writer as a true friend, someone who was doing his best to save Perry’s life, or, at the very least, portray him not as a murderous monster, but as an actual human being. And at the end, when the fact that Capote had used Perry, that despite the relationship they had, Capote chose to see his book through to the end, this left Perry alone – before he was executed he asked if any members of his family were present (there were none); surely, there are hardly any more terrible ways to die.

And it was here, in fighting his humanity, in fighting what he felt in order to ensure the literary success of In Cold Blood, that Truman Capote was completely, utterly broken. In his effort to remain objective throughout, Capote destroyed a friendship that was deep and real – his friendship with Perry – and changed his own life forever. In the moments leading up to Perry’s execution, Capote’s anguish was almost unbearable to watch – it seemed impossible that such a man, a man of intellect and wit, of bravado and mental ability, had succumbed to his emotions so thoroughly. So shattered was he by the experience, by the way he sacrificed himself and another human being for critical acclaim and universal appreciation, that after In Cold Blood, Truman Capote never wrote another book.

And so, yes, it can be said that no objective interpretation or involvement in history is possible without eventually shaping ourselves and others. Capote’s relentless, heart-wrenching pursuit of objectivity left a man to die alone – Perry – and another to live the rest of his life shattered – himself.

But perhaps, more importantly, we can derive from Capote and from our own experience that OBJECTIVE INTERPRETATION AND INVOLVEMENT IN HISORY IS NOT POSSIBLE, PERIOD. Objectivity, like perfection and ideal physics, is a myth, a lofty ideal that is ultimately, unquestionably unattainable. Objectivity is such because humans are not objective – we were not built to be objective, we were not meant to grade gymnastics absolutely unaffected by awe or inspiration, we were not meant to argue as convincingly and with as much conviction and bite in favor of an issue we do not agree with as in favor of one we do agree with, we were not meant to watch as a man we had grown to care about quite deeply was executed under the law and casually write a book about the whole thing, unchanged. We were not meant to be objective; it is wholly contradictory, it is completely opposite to what our humanity is all about.

Our humanity is about emotion and feeling, opinion and expression, insight and affection – the whole point of being human is that we are never neutral. We feel love for certain people, hate for others. We approve of certain ideas and look with disdain upon others. We admire certain figures and loathe others. It is a part of what we are – no, it IS what we are. We are human. Truman Capote, journalist extraordinaire, as much as he tried, could not fight this – he was human, after all. Nature did not build him as an unfeeling robot.

And so, one might say that history – built on and reliant on objectivity – is inherently, irrevocably flawed. And this would be true. And one might say that this is a crying shame.

I don’t think so.

I think it’s all right. I think that this flaw, however undesirable, is undoubtedly meant to be present. After all, history is our story – it is about humans, by humans, for humans. And as long as it remains that way, objectivity will correspondingly remain a myth.

The fact that we are incapable of objectivity is not a crying shame. It is not necessarily our finest hour either. But it is our most human characteristic – for it is in this, in this frustrating and permanent disability of ours, it is in our lack of objectivity that our humanity becomes incomparably, blazingly clear. We love, we think, we say our piece, we argue, we are speechless in awe, we are inconsolable in anguish, we are moved by emotion, we marvel at the incredible, we denounce the horrific – it is here, in the presence of our feelings and intellect and values and experience and humanity, that we are separated from animals and supercomputers.

We are human. And limiting though that may be, it is also a beautiful thing.

And I would not take that splendor away for anything, even if I were to be the most biased and prejudiced jerk on the face of the planet.

***

i talked about this with marianne yesterday. and a day after, i still don't have the proper words for it.

next tuesday is the first accounting long test. and to be standing just a few days away from it, the feeling is

indescribable. i dunno. it's just incredible.

the first accounting test has been hyped up since we signed up for mgt-h, it's been likened to the day of judgment, it's been described as the moment that will kill the h careers of many of us. and so, it's taken a sort of mythical air, like it isn't really real, that it's some far off land in an alternate universe.

and yet, it's five days away. how does it feel? i don't know. we're finally looking it in the eye. so close i can almost taste it.

it's exhilirating. i can't believe it. and i'm terrified to death.

this is it. it's incredible. THIS IS FUCKING IT. the term "moment of truth" has never been more appropriate.

the rush is amazing. and the pressure, the knowledge that you just can't can't can't fail this OR ELSE, it's unbearable. i can't take it. grabe eh.

how does it feel to know that by next friday, you could be staring at a d in your paper and that feeling, that sick reality that you won't make it, that you're leaving h, it creeps up inside you. it's unbearable. what a moment. what an experience.

that being said, i could be out. but let's get this straight:

i have no intentions of lying down and dying on this. no one should. we will not fail.

***

france 1 - 0 portugal. france - italy finals!

i've predicted 8 matches (starting with france - spain and brazil - ghana in the round of 16), and i've been right on 7 --- and on 2 occasions, i've gotten the score exactly right (brazil 3 - 0 ghana and italy 2 - 0 germany). sadly, i did not make any money despite my predicting skills. haha.

i would have lots of analysis and commentary here, but i'm one of those crappy moods where i'm thinking way way way too deeply for my own good and i'm thinking so much so intensely that i'm wobbly when i walk and i bump into things. I'M NOT KIDDING. wah emo. haha. but i'm not kidding.

***

happy birthday to my good friend dre (july 7)!

***

still thinking way way way too much. i wanna talk tonight.

it's funny, cuz i've said a lot here, but there's still so so so much i want to say, but i can't. and i dunno. i just wanna talk tonight. there's a lot on my mind. i'm not as happy as i should be. or maybe i am. but i don't think i am. i'm just rambling now. so so much on my mind.

grabe ang sad na ng blog ko. haha.

stay cool. see ya.

boys will be boys.

2006-06-01T18:34:00.000+08:00

i have spent half of the past five days with daboise. loads and loads of fun. there's a reason i've been buds with most of these guys even before i knew how to multiply --- we've grown together and there's just so much fun to be had with one another. it's been a blast.

of course, spending so much time together in such a short interval with guys like these will fry your brain out. things got so crazy and insane that mon proposed that we not see each other for a few weeks or so. haha. but at the peak of our mental disorder-ness, we were able to formulate equations for one another --- yes, potek, equations. haha. greg "the bomb" camacho and i spearheaded this campaign, which attempted to sum up each of the daboise (even daboi in absentia joel sy) in 4 distinct people, real or imagined, or objects that embodied certain qualities or momentary inside jokes of a certain daboi.

it was a grueling screening process, with such characters as cookie monster, a leprechaun, urbandub, the wrestler umaga, a bag of chips, the biblical figure samson, poseidon king of the seas, barbaro the horse, carlo malixi (wha?), and la clippers center chris kaman being axed by the brutal selection process (though these characters may make an appearance in the uncensored, extended versions of the equations once i get the time to make them. haha.)

so without further ado, here are the daboise. broken down. added back together. (if you can completely explain at least one of the equations, you get a prize. haha. siguro kiss from a daboi of your choice.)

game! print the pics out, grab a pencil and start dissecting the meaning. though i doubt anyone can come close --- a lot of the stuff here define the term "inside joke". haha.

oh well. hope you enjoyed. haha.

stay cool. see ya.

behind blue eyes.

2006-05-02T18:54:00.000+08:00

recently got a trial run on greg's oakleys, which i'm considering buying from him.

they look absolutely kick-ass --- minute model, pearl-white frames and cool aqua lenses. they don't really do anything to dim sunlight --- those blue-green lenses are practically see-through. what they do do is make everything appear a chilled, calm light blue. everything seems softer, quieter, more tranquil, so cool.

after wearing the minutes for quite some time and taking them off, the world around you suddenly seems so warm, so hot and harsh, so... real. i dunno. you take the aqua lenses off and you realize that that summer sky isn't so vividly blue after all. that the clouds aren't actually immaculately white --- more like a yellowish, hot white. your surroundings seem so orange, so in-your-face. everything seems so hot. it's like you've been transported from your place behind the oakley's blue eyes, where everything was cool and peaceful, to a place outside the blue eyes, the real world --- hot and burning.

it's sort of like the end of innocence, those first pangs of jaded-ness you get when you realize that the world isn't perfect, that happy endings are hardly ever assured, that ideals and courage and honor stand no chance against money and success. and it comes as a harder blow because you thought that the turquoise-tinted, chilled view of the world you had, you thought that was real. that that was the world. and it wasn't. and it's a bummer.

such cliche-ish thinking, such commonly used words as "jaded" and "disillusioned" are considered cliche-ish and commonplace because the world has given us no other choice. it really has failed to live up to the fairy tales and chivalrous ambitions of our youth; it really has come to a point where it smells like something very, very far from roses and baked bread. "welcome to the real world" is a statement that is so connotatively negative because that's what the world has come to represent. in the world, people are stepped on, used, violated; principles are spat at, values cast off into outer space and morals made to walk the proverbial plank over shark-infested waters. that's just the way it is.

sports are a powerful, iconic symbol of the human spirit, of courage and honor. and we can only look at sports now to see how far the "real world" syndrome has spread in its epidemic conquest of civilization. recent investigations into illegal steroid use in major league baseball have revealed that mark mcgwire and sammy sosa's historical, momentous, captivating race for 70 home runs at the turn of the millennium may have been juiced. that barry bonds' post-35-years-old 73-homer season and current chase for babe ruth's all-time figure may have been juiced as well.

it's sickening. achievements and feats in sports are celebrated for the sole reason that they are testaments to the uncanny abilities and skills of certain people --- they are considered pure expressions of success. and here they are, having been invaded by performance-enhancers, by unfair advantages, by the decimation of the very values and principles that sports are established on. asterisks beside bonds and mcgwire and sosa in the records and history books will hardly be enough to alleviate the severe disappointment and disillusionment that sports fans have experienced because of the steroid scandal.

but just as you start getting pissed off and weary with it all, you remember why you loved the whole thing in the first place. kobe bryant drains two big shots to give the lakers a win in what was most certainly the greatest game in recent playoffs memory. the clippers beat the nuggets to get their first playoff series win in 30 years. the edmonton oilers knock off the champ favorites, top-ranked, first-seeded detroit red wings in the stanley cup playoffs in a true underdog classic. albert pujols belts a record-breaking 14 home runs in april. arsenal fc overcomes a horrible domestic campaign and their own inexperience to make the champions league final. thierry henry curls in what surely must be the most beautiful goal of the season.

you realize that the heroes of old, the stories of your youth, of spirit and heart overcoming adversity and inconquerable odds, you realize that everything you believed in still lives on. and that everything is all right.

despite the orange heat and glaring walls, everything is all right. and despite the steroids and one-year uaap suspensions and dirty politicians and rampant corruption and widespread moral degradation and global warming and every fucked-up thing going on in this fucked-up world, you find yourself once again behind blue eyes. and everything is beautiful again. and, again, you realize that you still believe.

in the heat of summer sunshine.

2006-04-07T22:06:00.000+08:00

yes. mainit mainit. haha.

i've managed to keep myself busy and sane , thankfully; the sun and the humidity haven't completely melted my brain.

with jay touring south america, mich freezing over in san francisco and cruising off LA, jau hopping around southeast asia, kimyao visiting red china and getting reacquainted with the motherland, and marianne in bora (what else would partygirl abella do?) partying, the arsenal of peeps i could hang out with or talk to or brainmelt along with was significantly lessened. damn you people. haha.

so, to cope with this sudden social misfortune, i decided to be gay.

yyup.

first off was last friday. nothing to do. decided to pick up mon and head over to greenbelt. stayed in max brenner for a couple of hours. talking. trying to look cultured. hot chocolate. talking. seeing kimyao with her friends --- she promptly unleashed a volley of homosexual taunts at mon and i. thank you, kim. haha. talking. left greenbelt to go to starbucks metrowalk. good lord, what were we doing? talking. trying to look cool. talking. haha. really fun. love you mon. haha.

next was dinner in power and poker at greg's house nung wednesday with the remaining bois: gerg, mon and dre. i won the first game, forcing dre to give up the "mr. money in the bank" title (you earn it upon winning two straight games), but mon won the second --- meaning i didn't get the oh-so-coveted "money in the bank" moniker. bummer.

yesterday, i had another date: this time, pao and i headed over to the manila motorshow sa world trade center by the bay. it wasn't exactly the greatest thing on earth, but the ford gt, yes, the FORD GT, good lord, made it all worth it. simply amazing. gave me goosebumps when i saw it. the ferrari f430 was there too --- unbelievably momentous aesthetically. it just looks so fast. i want one even more. my realistic, practical dream car was there too, and how --- bmw m3, massive rims, carbon ducktail spoiler. i want one i want one i want one.

had dinner sa tosh courtesy of pao (they kinda part-own the place), then it we went to starbucks metrowalk for the requisite emotional conversation. hahaha. fun as usual.

over the past week, i've been going to different malls --- shang, powerplant, podium --- in search of some nice quiksilver or billabong tees for the summer. much to my pissed-off-ness, almost all of the tees are now ridiculously expensive (quik reaches almost 2k! for a tee! good lord! mag-ax ka na lang.) and the designs are horrendous. gone are the simple, understated tees with a simple logo or brand name smack in the middle of the shirt (think greg camacho quik/billa tees). now, they have to all be in some graffiti/grunge/splatter/dirty font, splashed all over the shirt. sucks.

so today, i decided to go on an internet crusade to find my beloved classic surf tees. i found quite a few --- hurley seems to be the one that still does classic logo tees. along with some astigation boardshorts. hopefully mabili ni mommy when she goes to the states. haha.

why did you need to know this? actually, you don't. that was completely pointless. haha.

anyway, it's my turn to leave manila and enjoy the good life. take that people. i'm off to pearl farm, davao. take that people. hahaha. kayo kasi, umaalis pa. haha.

oh, and happy 14th birthday to my bro chip (today, april 7). woohoo.

stay cool. see ya.

die another day.

2006-03-30T13:59:00.000+08:00

i don't want this blog to do a "summer 2005" and die for 3 months or so again. so i guess i'll just write.

my freshman year in ateneo's over. just like that. it's exasperating and cliche-ish to keep on saying this, but i swear, that was the fastest schoolyear ever. ever. it just went by so so quickly, you hardly noticed it zooming past. i dunno how to say it. parang yesterday lang, it was orsem. god! was it that long ago? wow wow. i'm just rambling incoherently here, but it really really really was impossibly fast. i can't believe it.

in other news, arsenal 2 - 0 juventus. fabregas and henry the scorers. the gunners are on an absolutely torrid run right now. fourth in the premiership will be ours, and i'm growing in confidence that we'll get the uefa champs league cup too. let's go, arsenal. never outgunned! haha.

bon voyage to jay-ar abastillas, mico jauregui, and mich wong, who all left today for, respectively, rio de janeiro, singapore, and san francisco. take care. don't forget pasalubong. haha.

formula 1 season is underway. after a good start (where kimi went from 20th on the grid to 3rd at the end and montoya finished 5th) in bahrain, mclaren decided to choke again in kuala lumpur. gahd. this despite having the quickest and most flamboyant, kick-ass car in the field. oh, and thanks to james gab for the f1 loot bag (is that what it's called? haha.).

uhhh, yeah. that's basically it. haha. gahd, useless useless entry.

but heyy, i guess the blog will die another day.

live forever.

2006-03-09T21:34:00.000+08:00

and yes. this is my 50th blog entry on chimazing. boy oh boy how time flies.

and so, 50 blog entries and more than a year and over 6500 hits and a new school and a new hairstyle and a driver's license and a flipflope craze later, here i am. what has changed?

a lot has changed.

i feel like i've grown so much as a person - like there's lots and lots of stuff that i've learned about life, like i now know the value of hard work, like i now know that hardly anything comes easy. i felt like the past year has enriched me so much, that i'm so much fuller as a person, that my sensibilities and thinking have all been broadened, widened, expanded. i feel so different from the fresh highschool graduate i was this time last year.

but then again, nothing has changed.

i still think i'm pretty much the same. my mentality is still there: do what you have to do, do your fucking best, always do things for God, always do what's right, always have fun, don't do anything that wouldn't make your momma proud - and do all of these in style. i also think that, even if i've grown leaps and bounds, there's still so so so much i don't know, still so so so much that i have to learn and experience. i still know nothing. 50 blog entries aren't gonna change that.

so where do i go from here?

there's this toyota commerical that i love, it says: "there's only one way were moving - forward." and that's where i'm going. forward. wherever the road will take me. whatever life has in store for me. i'm excited and i'm nervous and i'm just loving it, because being alive is such a great great gift.

i'll just try to enjoy, cuz what everything has made me realize is that life is just going by too fast. first year's almost over. that's the fastest schoolyear i've ever had, by far. it's sad. but that's the way it is.

and i'm pretty much happy with the way my life is going right now. i'm okay. and so i'll just ride with it, continue learning and growing and trying to be of service to the human race. and i'll follow my heart. and i'll be myself. and that's life.

(and if you're wondering why this didn't come during my birthday or nung new year or nung 1 year anniversary ng blog, well, i don't know either. haha.)

***

as of today, i have a new rule in life: NEVER EVER LISTEN TO OASIS BEFORE A TEST. their songs are just so powerful and anthemic and addictive that while you're supposed to be answering your test and determining whether may or mayroon should be used in the given sentence and whether or not the place comes after the publisher in the mla format, you'll actually be singing songs like live forever ("maybe i don't really wanna know how your garden grows/'cuz i just wanna fly") or slide away ("slide here baby/together we'll fly") or supersonic ("'cuz my friend said he'd take you home/he sits in a corner all alone") or acquiesce ("because we need each other/we believe in one another"). the fil test was so secondary to oasis. haha.

***

f1 season starts in bahrain this weekend! finally. excited excited.

***

NEVER OUTGUNNED. arsenal drew with real madrid 0-0 to beat the galacticos 1-0 on aggregate. oh yes. finally a right turn in arsenal's season. they progress to the champs league quarters. only premiership team remaining. all the way na 'to. haha.

***

birthday ni jay-ar on saturday. this guy's been one of my best friends ever since we were 7 or 8 or so. and he's turning 18. yey for jay. best wishes.

***

that's all peeps. stay cool. see ya.

re-runs all become our history.

2006-02-26T21:03:00.000+08:00

i think i should be doing my fil notecards right now, but i can't. i'm really really concerned and ticked off about the latest chapter in philippine pulitika.

classes were called off last friday due to an attempted coup. i woke to the sound of my brothers and sister bounding up the stairs, running across the hallway and whooping for joy. but when i turned on the tv and got acquainted with what was happening, i said to myself,

"give me classes anyday over this political bullshit."

i was really, really pissed off. i just wanted this people to leave our nation in peace, dammit. unti-unti na nga tayong bumabangon, the peso's knocking on 51 to a dollar, gas prices were slashed by half a peso, and the current administration's problems seemed far off in the rearview mirror. until of course certain people decided that they wanted once again to shoot our country in the kneecap and bring us back to hell.

i'm angry 'cuz it's become a bad bad political habit. we always think that we can just topple whatever government is in place. we just always always want to take to the streets and say, "fuck this administration, edsa na 'to!". i'm angry 'cuz we never seem to go anywhere because every time something good is developing for our country, an alarm seems to go off in our collective consciousness that tells us to stage coups and rallies and edsa 's.

i have nothing against free speech. and yes, maybe gloria screwed our country over during the elections and if she did then she deserves to go down. but i've grown so so sick of the vicious political merry-go-round that is omnipresent in our country that i just want to move on. i want everyone to leave the philippines alone, let us be and maybe we'll get ourselves out of this mess. i want some stability for 20 years or so, no more dramatic political shit. i want the best for our country, and the arroyo administration is massively flawed, but quite frankly it's on the right track and i'm okay with that because i feel like maybe our nation can be saved here. maybe.

i wanted to go out for lunch and a movie nung friday, as i would fry my mind out of boredom if i was at home lang, but then the state of emergency comes into play. from my standpoint, bad, bad move by the arroyo administration. this just gives all those people protesting in the streets and all those opposition pigs more ammo, another reason to take to edsa or mendiola or whereever and call for a change in government.

and i don't like the sound of the state of emergency. nicco and i were chatting about it on ym, and it doesn't look good: warrantless arrests, takeover of utilites, stuff like that? you gotta be kidding me, that's fucking close to martial law. i don't like it. i think it would be best if they lifted it as soon as possible, kasi in my view, the longer it stays, the more volatile everything could become.

thankfully, things simmered down yesterday enough for me to go out and come home without incident at around 230am. which brings me to my next point.

my buddy rey and i were talking about the whole thing, and he said that maybe this "leave the nation alone" and "the economy's doing well" attitude is only for us, para lang sa upper- and middle-class. sabi niya na maybe we aren't experiencing the injustices that the masa are, and so we can't see why they're taking to the streets and maybe they have very very good reasons for doing so.

well, i guess he's right. and maybe the things i've been saying have been selfish and all. but this is where i stand, and from where i stand, this is doing our nation so so much harm and it can't possibly be good. maybe my interests and perspective aren't a match with the common tao, but that's the way it is. and i think this is all bullshit and we're killing ourselves again here. and it makes me angry.

ah well. so now there's this incident at the marine camp. it's supposed to be an internal marine affair, but of course the mindless opposition imbeciles are turning it into another fanfare and all. gahd. please. get this thing over with tonight, so that maybe the peso can rebound and get back on track tomorrow and the stock market can arrest the freefall it's in. please.

please. skewed, elevated point of view and all, i just want to say:

PLEASE. LEAVE OUR COUNTRY ALONE AND MAYBE THEN WE CAN GET OUT OF THIS. enough enough enough. pota. hindi na tayo natuto, hindi tayo mapakale. i hate it. i just want the philippines to be great again. and really, this isn't the way to do it.

trip.

2006-02-22T20:45:00.000+08:00

all of a sudden, i remembered the directors' list dinner sa ateneo last year. for the top 2 percent of acet qualifiers. mass at the gesu. campus tour. speeches. pretty fun.

i was there with greg, mon, joel, mama and bree. that's 7 of us 6a boys; actually, 1a boys. okay, so si greg 2a. haha. but the 7 of us were there at the beginning. and we were there that night in ateneo. near the end of it all. and now, when i look back, i feel like i wanna cry, cuz i realize now that it was such a powerful moment.

all 21 boys of 6a were accelerated to high school in 2001 (jay abastillas, jp amores, jo-gel austria, ernest buhangin, greg camacho, me, mon gelvezon, bree jalijali, mico jauregui, ralph laforteza, ken lascano, tim magtoto, jeron manzanero, ryan monje, filemon pestano, kim pullante, pops sanchez, darryll santos, andre suarez, joel sy, mama tuason). yes, i remember every one. because you don't easily forget people like this. people you were with for 6 years of schooling, where you're given an academic life that tries to kill you until yan, bente-uno na lang kayo --- when each class is supposed to have 45. i love these guys.

of the 21 6a boys, 14 survived to see it through to iv-a. me, jay, greg, mon, joel, dre, jau, ken, mama, bree, ernest, jo-gel, ryan, kim. count it --- 10 years yan. okay, so si greg at dre at jo-gel sa grade 2 and si jau sa grade 4 pumasok sa a. but they've always been part of the "original group", cuz what we've been through has been enough to make up for the small differences in years.

of the 14, 7, that's seven, nasa director's list. and i will tell you without batting an eyelash or missing a beat or flinching or ever doubting my conviction, that jay, dre, jau, ernest, jo-gel, ryan and kim all deserved to be there too, because i have the strongest faith in their abilities.

anyway. so 7 kami dun. and now that i look back, as the 7 (or 6 --- ken was sa sose ata) of us were standing under the dramatic lights of som and we sipped that cheap alcopop drink and laughed our asses off as we did for 10 glorious years, we really had come a long, long, long way. we who were so naive and childish and ridiculous in our grade 1 shorts and carefree attitudes, there we were in the som garden, decked out in striped polos from celio and esprit, hair fixed, considering the future ahead of us, signed up for management-h and legal management and yes, yes, we really had come so far.

there really is no other experience quite like going with a bunch of guys from grade 1 up until high school grad. nothing close. we did it. we were together at the beginning, and that night sa som garden, kahit hindi kami kumpleto, there we were, still together, at the end. i'm shedding a tear or two right now. grabe. it's just really really amazing. i cannot begin to describe the feeling i had when we were there among the brightest students in the country, we who had been together for 10 years. or the feeling i had during graduation, where 13 out of the top 20, kami yun, orig' a. i just felt so much pride and happiness and accomplishment and elation to see us there, after 10 years, reaping the fruits of our journey, proving all the haters and doubters wrong and living up to all the hype that has surrounded us since we were 6 years old or so.

we were there. at the end. just like we were there at the beginning. we were there. we could say, "after 10 years, heyy, everything turned out all right, didn't it?". and we could look at one another and beam with pride and look back and never even imagine that we'd be here. it's just so so so amazing.

i love you guys. and i can't put into words how proud and happy i am for all of you. you're all world-beaters, you're all the best and you're all some of the hands-down best people i've ever known. and i'll never forget.

***

NEVER OUTGUNNED. real madrid 0 - 1 arsenal. thierry henry in the 47th minute. it's amazing amazing. stuff i thought i only dreamed of. i dreamed it up like this! henry shredding the madrid defense and silencing the bernabeu. and it happened. amazing. hi carol.

***

that's all. i know medyo short ung space from my last blog entry, but i just wanted to get my thoughts down as soon as possible. and i've always believed that time or requirement should never dictate your writing. your emotions and your thoughts and your heart should.

stay cool. see ya.

for true.

2006-02-18T19:07:00.000+08:00

watched jay's play (a re-run of his summer rep play) with greg, mon and dre last night. great performance, but there's something about plays that makes them weird to watch again. parang nawawala ung appeal. i dunno. but anyway, congrats jay.

went to teriyaki boy eastwood after. on the way there, as we were along EDSA, we passed by la salle green hills. turns out the gym has this cool new uber dramatic lighting. more on that later. and yes, it's pretty much a requirement for this blog to contain an emo reminiscing high school confessional every 3 entries or so. but again, more on that later. haha.

after a late, late dinner at teriyaki boy (believe me, we were starving for around 3 hours), we decided to crash at greg's and play some poker. let's just say i haven't played poker that badly since, um, ever. as in. ambobo talaga. the worst game ever. haha.

afterwards, of course, was another 130am-emo-talk-while-going-home with mon. (it's funny when we talk serious, cuz it's so not like us. minsan nga we have to say, "naks emo!" or "o, easy ka lang" to break the tension and keep us sane. hahaha.)

we were talking about little, seemingly insignificant moments. moments that might seem so ordinary and not really momentous and shouldn't really be such a big deal. but that's the thing. they are. standing in silence together, a smile, a mundane conversation, eye contact for a couple of seconds. we shouldn't be remembering these things. the way history is written, what should be remembered are big events, like proms and balls and dates and parties and proposals and whatever. but we remember the moments anyway.

and we don't just remember them. they make our day, they move our hearts, they, in a way, decide for us. because in such little moments, you feel what you need to feel, you throw whatever logic dictates out the window and just trust in your emotions and just let yourself be washed away. washed away and carried off by the irresistible force of that small moment.

okay. way way way too emo. haha. as to what we got out of this conversation, well, here.

mon: "for true na ba yan, chi?"

me: "oo. for true na' to."

for true na 'to. haha.

***

i was in la salle again kanina for my brother gio's baseball game (they won, sending them into the playoffs). and as usual, i couldn't help but get all sentimental and shit about the whole thing. it's just such a sweet sorrow to see my alma mater. it's a joy cuz the place reminds me of all the great, great, great times. and because it makes me so so so proud to have come from la salle. like the new dramatic lighting of the gym that we saw, it just emphasizes how iconic the gym is. there's are few other structures in any school that are so evocative. it's just so purely la sallian.

but going back to gh is also a pain. a pain cuz it reminds me that life really does pass by so quickly. a pain cuz it reminds me of all the times when we had not a care in the world, the days of innocence, youthful recklessness and abandon. we were just so happy. and the times are gone.

nung wednesday, my es classmate asked me, "ba't ka ba nagateneo, hindi la salle?"

of course i gave him the reasons: great environment, mgt-h kicks ass, impressive student quality, proximity to house, barkada.

so he replied, "but asan ung heart mo?".

i paused for a moment.

"nasa greenhills. my heart's in la salle green hills."

and you know what? it always will be.

stay cool. see ya.

lights will guide you home.

2006-02-12T15:41:00.000+08:00

ever since i started bringing a car, i've realized something. (a lot of you have heard me talk about this na). i've realized that driving alone, at night, is perhaps the saddest thing ever.

yes.

excessively dramatic as it may sound, it's frickin' true. malungkot talaga. haha. you're sitting there, stuck in ayala ave traffic or cruising along c5 or waiting on a stoplight in the fort, all by yourself. bright lights from streetlamps and signs and buildings flicker in the distance and zoom by. it is completely dark in the cabin, with the only light coming from the audio head unit and the digital clock. ipod beside you, transmitting some random song via itrip to the radio. and you're all by yourself.

i will tell you now, i have never felt more alone than when i'm driving alone at night. it's sad. going to greenbelt or rockwell or eastwood when everyone has transpo so walang sasabay sa iyo. going home after a long day at school after watching some required film or play or attending some meeting or whatever. going home at 2am after dropping off your friends. lights pass by, orange and red and green, bright and lonely against the black of the night.

it really is very very lonely. you feel so alone talaga. that's the best way to describe it. so so so alone. especially when best i ever had (grey sky morning) by vertical horizon plays, or the scientist by coldplay, or songs like that. the whole power of the moment just makes you, and i'm not kidding, lean back in your seat and exhale and just say, "pota, why the hell am i just so alone?". so it's sad. haha.

so peeps, pag may gimik, sabay na kayo sakin. hahaha.

***

i'm supposed to be doing my journal entries for fil. pero pota, wala akong maisip eh. so i dunno. haha. i just want to go away or something. the weather's beautiful; soft afternoon sun gives a warm glow to everything, mildly cloudy skies, gentle breeze, the palm trees in our yard gently swaying. i want to disappear. i'll just imagine being in some island in the sun, immaculate beaches, bright, vivid azure waters, not a care in the world.

hay nako. hahaha. back to reality, chino.

***

we were supposed to play poker kagabi at greg's, so there were supposed to be a couple of paragraphs here describing what happened.

well, apparently, ginamit nung kuya ni greg ung poker set, so we just hung out sa room ni greg and played xbox and watched the scope dvd and played "leo (greg's bro)" in a skit mon and i made (mon played greg). uber uber laughtrip. i haven't laughed that much and that hard in a long time. fun fun fun.

***

just downloaded hed kandi's beach house 04.05 as well as es vive/base bar 2005, hed kandi rin. two excellent excellent compilations. 04.05 is classic beach house goodness, while es vive/base bar's 3 cds offer a whole night's listening pleasure, as it goes from chillout downbeat house to midtempo house to hands-in-the-air club house. cool cool cool. the two albums cost around 3000php siguro combined (that's considering es vive/base bar's 3 cds cost roughly the same as other kandi compilations), so if you're young and loaded (hi rey) you could get them sa musicone or something. or, you can, like me, download them via torrent. basta. worth your time. great cds.

well, that's all. seryosong estudyante mode na. haha. stay cool. see ya.

sweet other days.

2006-02-05T21:38:00.000+08:00

was with the bois minus jau last night (that's me, mon, greg, jay and dre) in powerplant. we did almost nothing there. haha. just talking talking talking.

greg tried to steal ice cream from pazzo, but being the good people we are, we notified the authorities who subsequently turned him to justice. okay, that basically just means na nagbayad si greg eventually. haha.

we then went to the arcade, where we watched dre fail in his many attempts to win a stuffed tiger, a johnny bravo cap, and other assorted crap goodies. and, they have this new gimik called "breeders' cup" or something cheesy like that. basta, it's this horse racing video games displayed on pc monitors. mon expressed his concern that this was a "dotahan".

mon: "pota, ano 'to? dotahan?!"
chino: "no. BREEDER'S CUP yan. yeah!"
jay: "onga eh, mukhang dotahan."
chino: "sayang ba jay? excite ka 'no?"
jay: "oo eh, akala ko dotahan! sayang!"

yes, we were going crazy. afterwards, we spent around 30 minutes outside/watching these chinese dudes who are prolly from xavier (you can just tell) very intensely shoot fake guns with imaginary bullets at a screen showing computer-generated zombies. and subsequently die. and leave when their mom has run out of money. yes, we couldn't do anything.

we finally decided to go to jay's house, where we watched the simpsons dvds and looked at jay's old photos.

first the nice part. there were photos of that hot jap exchange student chick, um, girl (magagalit sila bev, franke and mich sa "chick" eh. haha.) who lived with sila jay nung 2nd year. we indeed confirmed that she was hot.

chino: "pota naman jay, ba't mo pa pinakawalan iyan?!?"
jay: "oo nga eh. haha."
chino: "are you guys still friends?"
jay: "she writes every christmas."
chino: "ask naman for her ym!"
jay: "hindi uso ym sa japan eh."
chino: "then, um, ask for her, um... hand in marriage!"
(wild laughter)

hahaha. anyway, not all that was shown sa pics were nice. take, for example, mon circa 3-4 years ago. that mon is not the pogi mon we know today. let's just say he looked funny. haha. sorry, mon. we had loads and loads of fun laughing our asses off at the old mon. mon, being mon, diverted the attention to the old fat greg and the old dre (a combination of a nerd and william hung, sabi. haha.). he even referred to the old me as a "sickly, frail boy". thank you, mon.

mon: "what would have happened kaya if i didn't lose all that weight and i still looked the same?"
chino: "siyempre we wouldn't be your friend anymore. haha."
greg: "oo noh. we would have kicked you out of the group."
mon: "thanks guys. hahaha."

which made me realize something. that even when we all looked funny and horribly fashion-challenged back then (oversized shirts, anyone?), it didn't matter. kasi we were friends and we enjoyed each other's company. and it was fun. even if mon did look like a freak. haha.

we also saw old high school photos, back when my hair was crew-cut spikey, and then, in 3rd year and 4th year, longish. i looked idiotic. haha. anyway, wala lang, it just made us miss those times. the beach trips to bauan, all the silliness, blah. and bree's wildness. hahaha. bree's f4 phase was the best, when he would wear that colorful headband and the yellow shades. hahahaha. sobrang funny. especially when he would pose using the "f4/boyband look". classic. gahd. i miss the times. haha.

***

i just remember our trip to biak-na-bato nung acp. and the absolutely classic happening that never made it to this blog. so here.

we were making our way through the insanely unpassable terrain of the caves, holding on to rocks. this happened.

chi: (behind mon) "mon, faster! you're holding everyone up!"
mon: "wait lang. mahirap maglet go eh!"
(silence)
chi: "ano mon? hahaha. mahirap ba mag let go?"
jay: "onga mon? mahirap ba. okay lang yan. move on. what's past is past."
greg: "okay lang yan mon. get over it."
(laughter)
mon: "you idiots. haha."

after the caves and stuff, it was bridge rappelling (spelling?). line was long, so jay, mon and i were just sitting talking about our wall climbing pe days back in la salle.

chi: "and what do you say when you've reached the top? ung you want to go down na?"
jay: "'down', diba? and then 'slack' and 'tension' para maadjust nung belayer."
chi: "ah yeah. pero ang hirap nun eh, yung releasing and then freefall and then suspending in the air."
mon: "yeah yeah. nakakatakot maglet go eh.
(silence)
chi: "ano na naman mon? nakakatakot maglet go?"
jay: "ayan ka na naman eh. okay lang yan mon."
mon: "pootek, eto na naman eh."
chi: "ba't ka takot? baka walang sasalo sa iyo?"
mon: "oo eh."
(laughter)
mon: "you idiots."

hahaha. you're the best, mon.

***

mon, greg, dre and i are going back to la salle tomorrow! excited excited excited. can't wait.

***

about what happened yesterday sa wowowee. i dunno. it's just really really sad. i'm not going to point fingers, cuz enough people are doing that, blaming the peeps for being there instead of working, blaming abs-cbn for poor management, blah; heyy, they're all valid accusations, but it really is everyone's fault.

of course the incident is being turned into another talking point about poverty, and i'm not going to point fingers here either, cuz you can blame the government or the poor people or globalization or george bush or whatever, and what you're saying would probably be true, but again, it's everyone's fault. everyone. and instead of bitching and pointing fingers, let's all work to get the hell out of this mess. everyone's fault, everyone's responsibility.

and about the deaths, i must say na talagang it's just a sad, sad way to die. you're not supposed to die like this. the old people, they're supposed to die with their relatives around them, peaceful and all. the kids, they're supposed to have bright futures, they're gonna change things, they're gonna be great. but they died there sa ultra. lining up for a variety show. it's just really really sad. no one deserves to die like that.

***

a lot of my blockmates joined some amazing race-like thing nung friday. which brought back memories of the e-mazing race back in summer 02 with james and jay. loads of fun yun. youngest team in the competition (god, we were 14 and 15. everyone else was in their 20s and stuff), only all-same-sex team (earning us an hour's penalty), but heyy, we were young and raring to go, and we felt like world-beaters. we were in this to win. okay, sure, it was mainly for the experience, but i don't go into a competition without doing my best and giving it all to win. cuz ganun ako, hypercompetitive.

well, we lost that, haha, cuz we had probs finding the puzzle station (james: "asan po ung puzzle shop?" customer service: "ah, sa second floor." (sa second floor) chi: "shit, FOSSIL 'to eh!") which delayed us a lot, but it was fun and we finished respectably. i wanna do something like that again soon. tara tara. any suggestions/teammate volunteers? haha.

that's all, i guess. stay cool. see ya.

impossible is nothing.

2006-01-29T18:37:00.000+08:00

it took me so long to decide on that post title. i've had that in mind na from the start, but it's so adidas-cheesy that i was pulling my eyes out trying to get a nicer title. but nothing came, so, heyy, here we go. haha.

KOBE BRYANT 81 FRICKIN' POINTS. can i just say something? this wasn't supposed to be possible. aside from wilt's 100, no player has ever come close; if i recall correctly, ung 73 ni david thompson is the closest.

no one ever thought anyone would get to 70 again. until kobe scored 62 points, through 3 quarters, against the mavs. 80 was beckoning then. but the black mamba decided that it would be "unsportsmanlike" to continue, so we were left with the 62, and disappointed. haha. ironic.

it was written that kobe passed up a chance at immortality; that people would soon forget about his selflessness, but if he reached 80, he would be remembered forever. it was said that the mavs game was a once-in-a-lifetime chance. and that he would never come close again.

oh boy, was everyone wrong. a month later, kobe scores 81. 81. EIGHTY-ONE. goodness. never mind that he hogged the ball to the point of obscenity, never mind that his teammates were relegated to glorified rebounders and kobe-feeders, never mind that the game was against toronto (said to be the "least talented" team in the league) in january, never mind that lamar odom was so sick that a player of his caliber was being so neglected that he looked like he wanted to throw up and hurt kobe, never mind that kobe only had two assists, never mind never mind never mind. at the end of the day, the 81 points are all that remain. and it's incredible.

MANNY PACQUAIO DOWNS ERIK MORALES. as patriotic as i wanted to be and as much as i wanted manny to win and bring glory glory glory to good old 'pinas, i had a bad feeling about this. the logic in my head pointed to a morales victory; it seemed as if the mexican was too technically sound and tactically adept for our dear boy manny to knock him silly.

boy, was i wrong.

my bro and i watched the first couple of rounds of the match in shangri-la, outside an electronics store. with loads of people. seated on the floor, leaning on the railings. watching, through the store glass, around 10 widescreen tv's displaying the bout. it was loads and loads of fun. ang saya talaga. everyone was cheering and screaming and holding their breaths. when morales was driven to the ropes in the 2nd, our little crowd erupted. ang sarap ng feeling to look totally stupid with a 100 other people you don't even know and not care about it.

we got home just in time for the last 2 rounds, and for manny to do us all proud. pota, nakakaiyak. i was so proud of him, and i was so absolutely happy for the filipino people. di lang nila alam. pinoy pride, baby!

BLOCK Q1 HAS A NIGHT OUT. yes yes yes. we did. power plant, friday night. fun fun fun. haha. afterwards, some of us had, as rey and i call it, "seryosohang usapan" sa place ni franke. had a blast. let's do this again some time. sabi nga namin ni franke, let the good times roll! haha.

MICH WONG HAS TWO (CONSECUTIVE) NIGHTS OUT. yes yes yes. friday sa powerplant with the block, and nocoo yesterday. okay, so they were both in rockwell (otherwise known as mich's house) and she went home by 1030 both times, but hey, it's a start. haha. this was so momentous franke couldn't contain her excitement in the car papuntang rockwell nung friday. haha. congrats, mich. i'm proud of you. haha. let the good times roll!

MARIANNE ABELLA FIXES HER HAIR. yes yes yes. 2nd biggest shocker of nocoo (next to mich's presence) was this. haha. congrats, marianne. she was still late, though. haha.

I OVERTAKE PAOLO ESGUERRA. yes yes yes. i'm so proud of myself. hahaha. on the way to metrowalk, nag-convoy kami ni pao. of course he was always ahead, crazy bus-cutting driver pao is. but at the intersection of shaw-pioneer, while he stopped for a stoplight, i cut through the gas station and make it to the turn way ahead of him. hahaha. momentous event.

I RAM MY NEIGHBOR'S TRIKE. yes. as i was backing out of our house to go to school. haha. this sucked. haha.

anyway. what can i say? fun fun weekend. thanks to everyone i was with. sa susunod ulit.

stay cool. see ya.

reality and not.

2006-01-17T19:26:00.000+08:00

i had this crazy idea recently. the hardest math long test so far is coming up, along with the midterms, along with the english research paper we all thought wasn't in the cards for oh-so-lucky m04, along with the es investigatory project, along with the fil research paper that i'm still hoping maam forgot about, along with all the ominous tasks that will surely come along as we approach the end of our first year.

well, i wanted to get away from it all. so i thought, why don't i grab all my boardshorts, my sunglasses, a couple of pairs of havs, steal the car, pick up my friends and just drive off, going where the wind takes me, eventually to some island in the sun, some far-off pristine paradise.

oh well. so much for that. hahaha.

***

speaking of islands in the sun, help me choose my desktop layout. (this is of course part of my campaign to empower you, the readers. yeah! hahaha.)

the first one is the one i've been using since i got konfabulator and objectdock. the second one, i planned to use when summer came along, but it looks nice too, so i'm using it na rin. which is nicer? the minimalist, sophisticated one or the beachy, summery one? (both wallpapers from deviantart.com)

***

whenever i don't have tennis training and my brother doesn't have baseball/basketball practice, and we're both home on afternoons, we usually step out to play basketball. most of the time, it goes like this.

we go out, each guy takes a few shots. then, the first game of one-on-one starts. race to 30, 2's and 3's. when someone reaches 30, there will be a 10-second, "crunch time" catch-up period, where the guy who's behind will try to catch up, scoring hurriedly and fouling the other guy to force him to shoot freethrows. when the first game of one-on-one is over, the second one starts. my brother and i hate losing very very much, so this second game is for the loser to get back and for the winner to solidify his dominance. when the second game is over, the free throws begin.

you see, my brother and i are both hyper-ultra-competitive; as i said, we hate losing very much and we love the big moments. a lifelong dedication to and passion for sports will do that to you. we were born and bred on the basketball court, on the soccer field, on the baseball diamond, on the tennis court. as long as i can remember, i was playing sports.

plus, we love shouting, "bang!" or "wooooow!" after draining 3s in the other's face, or burying stepback and pullup j's, or completing a reverse layup. this all means that after these two games, our tempers are usually flaring and we want to hurt each other.

so, after the one-on-one games, we shoot take turns shooting freethrows. simple. you keep on shooting as long as you make the shot. this is all done in silence. the hurt of a loss is still felt. we just keep taking turns, shooting shooting shooting. we do this until it is dark, past when the sun sets below the horizon and its last traces are dabs and glazes of gold and orange and pink in the darkening sky, until our only light is the orange glow of the nearby streetlamp. construction workers pass by after a weary day. we just keep shooting.

usually, one will go in first, saying, "'yoko na". the other will remain, shooting, getting the ball, shooting again. after around 10 minutes, he goes in as well. when we meet upstairs, it's as if everything's okay again. the game's forgotten. it never happened. everything's fine.

it's amazing. and it's so routine, so ordinary. we never talked or planned the whole routine, it just always happened. it's intuitive. amazing.

***

was with dre in max brenner gb last saturday night, talking for almost 3 hours. jay was stuck at home, jau was incommunicado, while mon and greg had a block thingamajig, so it was just me and dre. talking.

we were talking about standards, about all the boxes we tick when we consider the perfect girl. it was appropriate and timely, seeing all the 8 things you look for on the blogs of rey, gino and brian, as well as because i was just talking about something like this with another friend of mine (who'll remain anonymous, as i might give away her identity, obviously. haha.) the day before.

we were saying that we think have this tick-the-box thing when we look for someone, that they must "score high" on our "test" for what we're looking for. we think we have that.

but in reality, everything, all our standards and are preferences, aren't really consciously there. when you meet a person and you spend time with them, you'll just feel it if you're attracted to them, no matter what you said you wanted. you'll just feel it, and there's really nothing you can do to get away. sure, it might turn out that a considerable number of our preferences are in the person, but when you feel the attraction, when you feel it pulling you in, you really don't think anymore whether the person has short hair or plays a musical instrument or is maputi or is funny or anything. you'll just know.

okay. i will stop now. way too emo for this blog. haha.

***

in more ridiculous news, team intense! officially ended its iac campaign with a loss. yes. how surprising. we lost in the iac inter-division super-tourney, to the osa champions, the cads team, a conglomeration of uber-talented former high school varsity upperclassmen. needless to say, it was a massacre. we lost by 57. hahaha. but heyy, ready-steady-go lost by 60. with a more talented team than ours. ha! we beat them. hahaahah.

well. that's all. stay cool. see ya.

some things will never be different.

2006-01-09T19:10:00.000+08:00

college has a way of bringing out your weaknesses, of exposing them and making you utterly suck.

that being said, it is common knowledge that i truly, truly suck at filipino. just read my blog; it's no coincidence i write in english.

back to truly sucking at filipino, fil 12 is just showing me how crappified i really am. i was not cut out for writing and reading and discussing in filipino. no no no no no. i just can't express myself with the same amount of ease and clarity and exactness and flow that i can do with english.

yes, i admit, i won the bronze medal for filipino nung 4th year. and i will tell you right now with no hesitation at all and with absolute truth, it was a fluke. that bronze medal tells you nothing about my filipino skills. it just shows you that i got high in filipino, which, in turn, had nothing to do with filipino skills.

so, chino, what did getting high in filipino have to do with, an intense reader like yourself might ask. well, let me enumerate:

1. knowing the key parts, details, symbolisms and themes of el filibusterismo. sounds hard? not so hard when you discuss each chapter intensely as only miss bongiad can and have everything you need on the blackboard to copy, without thinking and figuring things out by yourself.

2. joining (and winning) the sabayang pagbigkas contest. this ensured we got perfect project grades for half of the year (ensuring that i, aka anti-work activist, got the same project grades as, say, gello cera and james gabrillo). plus it ensured that we were on miss bongiad's good side for the whole year.

3. hardly really any writing tasks that would show your strength or expose your boboness in filipino. my pinoy vocabulary is limited to 2-3 words per meaning (if that makes sense), compared to much much more in english. let me demonstrate: happiness/kasiyahan. filipino: kasiyahan, katuwaan, kagalakan. that's all. english: happiness, joy, mirth, gladness, rapture, ecstasy, bliss, delight, cheer. see see. i can absoutely not write with any amount of style, charisma, creativity or conviction in filipino -- had this been the major chunk of our fil 4 work, i would have been utterly smoked by the james gabrillo's and rey de la cruz's of this world.

4. an unlikely and unexpected high grade on the final argumentative paper for me and mon. seeing that we wrote very bobo-ly and without any sense of flow, this could be attributed to our thorough research (naks), rigorous analysis (naks) and intense diagrams (which took up valuable space).

all these ensured that i got a bronze medal, instead of someone like james gab or rey or gino caparas or some other person better than me in fil (believe me, there are loads).

and now, surely facing a c or c+, i try to claw some points back by trying to intensify my journal writing and studying for the ominous long test on thursday. haha. well, that sucks.

***

was in mama's house last friday for the honors peeps reunion. loads and loads and loads of fun. great seeing everyone again, as well as playing poker till the wee hours of the morning. bree (aided by fundador and absolut vanilia) was back to his insane best. it was just so much fun to be with the guys again, relive all the great times and just enjoy. love ya guys (naks). haha.

after mama's, greg, mon, marc taro, jay and i went to tapa king libis for the requisite detoxifying hot meal. marc had other plans though, bringing with him a bottle of pepsi twist, acting utterly drunk and disappearing for around 15 minutes to barf his guts out in the cr. haha. fun times again.

***

new game addiction: need for speed most wanted. massive fun. i'm loving it.

***

that's all, i guess. stay cool. see ya.

always new depths.

2006-01-03T20:53:00.000+08:00

happy new year everyone. 2006 na! yeah! haha.

gahd. it's been sooooooo long since my last entry (arsenal lost 2-0 to chelsea, by the way). that's cuz my pc's power supply gave out and was in the hopelessly inefficient shop for more than a week, then when it did get back we had no internet, then when we did get internet i was packing for baguio.

just came home from baguio via bus (my family's coming home tomorrow pa). i went home ahead cuz it would be so irritating and bobo to miss a one-cut class (es lab). haha. gay nerd.

anyway, i was all alone on the bus, which was a deluxe (which means i had a single seat, no seatmates, and the bus had a bathroom! amazing!) victory liner (which means i went to a spanking-new massive terminal in baguio). i tried to fry my brains out by listening to the ipod, reading grisham and stealing glances at jennifer love hewitt (in the tuxedo) and rosamund pike (in die another day) on the tv. all i succeeded in doing was to give myself a colossal headache. i felt like vomiting. again and again. i'm okay now, though. whoever invented biogesic is a genius.

i love baguio so much. not because there's so much fun stuff to do there (aside from bowling and ping-pong and mini-golf and john hay bumper cars), but because it's beautiful. and it's frickin' cold! love the bright sunshine and the clear, impossibly vivid blue skies and the pine trees. love the fog descending. love your breath inducing "smoke". love going to starbucks at 10pm with cousins to have hot chocos, be cold, give ourselves weird names like "chad", "jasikevicius", "carter verone" and "cisse" and hide out of sight so the starbucks peeps would have to call us out ("one tall hot choco for -- ano 'to? jesi -- ano? jesikiv -- ano?'). haha. love it love it love it love it.

***

thankfully, my plant is still alive. i don't know why i said that.

***

partly because i just bought an itrip and partly because i envy those people with "now playing:" segments on their blogs, i give you seven songs you must absolutely get.

1. remind me by royksopp - very very nice. the same sort of sophisticated, cool-aura chillout house you get on chicane's autumn tactics (which, i think, is the most played song on my ipod).

2. two more years by bloc party - bloc party. need i say more?

3. hounds of love by the futureheads - more brit rock, more, um, nice music. yeah!

4. estelle by a man called adam - an absolute beauty of a song. very very very nice. summer-y, beach-y and a great, great peace of music.

5. heartbeat by tahiti 80 - tahiti 80 is very much like one of my all-time fave bands phoenix: french electronic rock. this is their song i like the most.

6. a better life (ft. esthero) by ian pooley - fave 'to ni pareng greg, eh idol ko si pareng greg. haha. plus ian pooley's great.

7. penelope by pinback - graced with one of the greatest melodies i've heard recently. it could move you to tears every single time you hear it -- if it weren't about a fish. odes to aquatic life aside, this is great great music.

***

kobe bryant was suspended for two games for elbowing some guy (mike miller ba?), meaning he missed the home-and-home against the jazz. i was deeply pissed off by this, as this would take around 80 points off my fantasy team this week.

but i know that, somewhere in america, when the news broke, my friend rey de la cruz was very, very pissed. i'm truly sorry rey. sayang. when you absolutely adore kobe and you have tickets to see the lakers live at the staples center on new year's day and then he's suddenly suspended, it cannot be very nice. again, sorry rey. next time na lang.

that's all, i guess. stay cool. see ya. (okay lang yan, rey).

the battle's almost won, and we're only several miles from the sun.

2005-12-17T15:54:00.000+08:00

homestretch na, baby. last two schooldays before christmas break. yeah!

yeah my ass. haha. i still have two long tests; es on monday (damn it) and math on tuesday. oh well. at least there's the english block party.

yyyup, the english block party. watch 20-something college freshmen dress up in a wide array of high school uniforms, exhange gifts and witness the return of their incapacitated teacher. haha. gonna be fun.

yyyup, es. it sucks so much. i wanted to take chem, because i've always felt like i've understood chem pretty well, but we were again offered only es and physics this sem, so hello crap-subject-of-the-world. i hate es. my book (which i only bought yesterday, since test na, haha) is right next to me, along with a pink highlighter and i hate it. i hate biodiversity and ecological niches and whatever. grrrr. i wish i was back in physics discussing vectors and watching mr dailisan karate-kick the door. haha.

yyyup, math. it's gonna be a bitch to study for this, as usual, and i need to get good here; i don't wanna go into the final 3 long tests without being able to afford to drop a test.

oh, and for es, i want myself an a, because it's es dammit. so, no pressure. hahaha. fun fun fun!

in other news, i had an absolute-crappification of a pe 101 long exam a couple of days ago. 5 essay-type questions! for pe! it sucked! why couldn't we just have had body-fat tests like everyone else? or push-ups? or sit-ups? or the mile-run? or a combination of all? that would have been better than thursday. and i've arrived late for around 4 straight pe classes. haha. buti na lang sir vargas doesn't take attendance.

in more other news, i'm off to watch king kong tonight. yeah! haha. and i need to buy a couple of gifts pa. bah, humbug. haha.

oh, and tomorrow: ARSENAL - CHELSEA. it's at 1130 pm, so there's no way i'm sacrificing es to watch it, but i'm just giddy with anticipation. i just love the big games. and if my fifa 06 schedule is accurate, ARSENAL - MANCHESTER UNITED next week. yeah yeah yeah. watch henry smoke john terry and rio ferdinand two consecutive weeks.

uefa champions league knockout stage draw was yesterday. there are some uber matches (which suck, cuz not all of the big clubs will progress) like CHELSEA - BARCELONA and BAYERN MUNICH - AC MILAN, but then we get a match like RANGERS - VILLAREAL. are you kidding me? this is so rigged. imagine, barca or chelsea out already and rangers or villareal go through. god. those just might be the two worst teams left in the competition.

oh, and it's ARSENAL - REAL MADRID, which means that come february, carol and i prolly won't be friends anymore. haha. can't say it's gonna be an easy gunners win, cuz real's always difficult, but i'm kinda happy. it's gonna be a cool matchup, and i think arsenal can win this one. it's fun to think of arsenal coming to the bernabeu and smoking real, with henry making a mockery of the poor excuse for a central defender known as jonathan woodgate. haha.

anyway. that's all i guess. stay cool. see ya. happy holidays! haha.

deck the halls.

2005-12-09T19:31:00.000+08:00

i honestly have no idea about what to write.

usually, when i set off to write a blog entry, i know what i'm gonna write about na; some things that happened, some things i've been thinking of, ganun. but tonight? i dunno. i'll make stuff up as i go along. haha. bear with me.

christmas naaaa. it's so funny, cuz each and every year, before you know what hit you, before you can actually prepare yourself, kabooyah, suddenly "it's that time of year again" and whaddyaknow, christmas na ulit.

christmas is cool. people all around, for no apparent rational or logical reason, go about decorating their houses with lights, christmas trees, garlands, santa figurines and whatever. diba nga, "deck the halls with boughs of holly".

plus, the air is cool and you get gifts and cash and stuff. it's a nice time of year.

so nice, in fact, that we all pretty much forget that there are millions of peeps out there on the streets who care little about whether it's christmas or not, are worried about their next meal and think the cool weather is a big f-ing hassle since they don't have clothes. and we don't seem to be doing anything about it.

i dunno, i wanna do something good this christmas. make some guy feel that the season is special. kahit donations man lang; they're gonna make someone happy. we all wax poetic about "getting involved" and "touching lives", but honestly, sometimes you just don't have the time for that.

so guys, even if we can't share in the lives of the poor peeps on the streets, even if we can't experience their hardship, let's do something. donate toys, clothes, cash, whatever. those will go somewhere rin naman eh. you're doing your part.

***

speaking of getting involved, yesterday, my cousins and i were at the ephpheta foundation for the blind complex near katipunan. it was my lola's birthday yesterday, and for the past couple of years we've spent a few hours sa ephpheta before eating and salo-salo. there was a little prayer service, then we helped distribute the food to the blind peeps and stuff. it was nice. my lola's always been active sa ephpheta, and doing something like this every year is nice. it was also good to see how the blind have minimized their handicap; i've been there 3 times already and it never ceases to amaze me how they can walk and find rooms with no problem at all, how they can play the guitar and piano, how braille is actually quite effective and stuff like that. it's cool; they aren't limited at all.

***

i remember a conversation i had with tala, kim and brian after we watched harry p. we were talking about how obvious cho chang and her friends were; when harry came into sight, one of the girls in cho's clique would whisper, quite loudly, "cho! it's harry!" for all hogwarts to hear. cho would then turn to look at harry, smile and giggle uncontrollably with her clique. harry smiles embarrassedly.

now, this is just stupid. does this actually happen? or just in magical boarding schools in england that most probably don't exist? because if this actually happens in the real world, everything would be so easy.

imagine, you would know instantly who among the many people in arneo liked you. so, no problem; just pick the one you like and you're through: instant mu, so you basically skip a stage or two.

does this actually happen? please. or are cho and her clique just extremely stupid? or, for that matter, harry? i mean, it was so obvious that cho "extreme obvious-ness" chang was into him, why didn't he attack at once? diba? instead of letting the cedric "big man on campus" diggory beat him to cho.

sure, they can do magic and all, but they're pretty dumb. and unsmooth. haha.

***

happy birthday to my lola and anna canlas (both dec 8). best wishes to both of you.

that's all i guess. dami ko ring nasulat. haha.

stay cool. see ya.

too young.

2005-11-30T21:17:00.000+08:00

was in la salle green hills nung sunday for my brother's baseball game.

the whole place looks fabulous as usual. the anhs have their own classrooms now, in the new building together with the new k2 classrooms; it looks really really nice.

i miss la salle so much. i was walking around, from the fantabulous new caf to the fantabulous new lobby, and i just realized that i was so blessed to have spent 12 years of my life there. it really is a great place to grow up; lasallistas are so much fun, and the school is just a school you can be so proud of.

there are few more evocative things than to see the high school building bathed in the warm orange glow of the sunset, to see the gym's dome gleaming under the sunlight and to walk the track oval when everything is completely still. and you know that your time has passed, and that it will never come again. and you know that that kinda sucks, and that you can't do anything about it. and you know that you just loved the days when you were clad in white-on-black and had probably little concern other than mr david's next do-it-two-minutes-before-submission assignment. and you're just happy to have been through it all. and you know that this place was your home and your life. and you know that the colors may all fade, but the memories never will.

***

it was pretty cool, cuz nung saturday night, the night before i went to lsgh, we were riding in jay's car and greg and jay and i were talking about it all, about the time past.

it's funny and sad, cuz just yesterday we were graduating, taking pictures, all smiles, no cares as to what the future held. and then now, we're so much older, and time has cheated us once again. doesn't that suck?

i didn't cry during grad. i felt the emotion, but i didn't really come close to, to coin a high school term for the fun of it, /me crie-ing. haha. but after grad, maybe two days after, that's when the tears came.

cuz during grad, reality didn't really settle in; it was like everything was suspended, that time and the universe stopped for it. but after, alone at night, staring at the dark (naks emo, haha.), that's when it settles in. you realize it. hey, it's over. never again will you walk the corridors in fear of jomo doing fearsome things to you, never again will bree stand on his seat and flap his ajss jacket as the awful wings of the geryon monster, never again will you trudge up the ramp to the cac for another morning of homework cramming. it's all over; the days of youth and abandon have come to pass.

anyway, enough reminscing about high school. just wanted to let that out. la salle bois, let's see each other some time, for old times' sake. miss you all.

stay cool. see ya.

children of the sun.

2005-11-21T21:14:00.000+08:00

was talking over dinner with my mom. my cousin's in a fix right now, cuz his parents from the states are asking him to go there since his dad was confined; the prob is that they promised him a long time ago that he'd go there in feb pa.

he has no beef with going there for his dad; it's the right thing to do. what's bugging him is that they're asking him to go there for good, as in permanently. i've talked with this cousin of mine so many time before regarding his future and all, and he's always said that he'd go there in feb for masters, but he'd want to come back to good ol' 'pinas.

so do i.

no matter what dire straits the philippines is in, be it political, economic or whathaveyou, i dunno, i just feel like i wanna be here. gas prices are increasing, corruption is rampant, but what the hell? i'm enjoying life here, i love the people i'm with.

and i don't want to abandon this country. i feel like there's hope, like the filipino is capable of righting things. everything's just got to turn out all right. we'll survive. and if not? i'll go down with this ship.

i don't love this place because it's the best place to be per se (singapore would get my vote on that one). it's just that the lifestyle here is great, and pinoys are some of the happiest and fun-est people in the world. and there's so much i'd be leaving here. i can't even begin to think about going away for good.

yes, i'll prolly go abroad for masters. yes, i might not say all these idealistic bull when i'm old and tired and jaded and lining up for my green card. but for now, pinoy ako, and i love it.

and i have faith in the filipino. we'll get out of this mess.

sabi nga sa classic na pelikulang dubai:
"ang pinoy, kahit sa'n mo man yan dalhin sa mundo, d' best yan. d' best yan."

d' best yan.

***

i'm officially hooked on star wars knights of the old republic 2: the sith lords. why?

first of all, it really is an incredible game. the story is fantastically engrossing; you are totally immersed in it. it has a really epic and mythic feel about it, so much more than the movies, cuz this is a game in the time of the jedi knights and the sith and all that. no chewbacca/ewok/princess leia crap here. another thing is that you're completely in control of what you do, the decisions you make, what you say, the relationships you have; it's really really great. take the way of a jedi and be a guardian of the light, or be corrupted by the power of the dark side. so cool.

but a big big reason why i love this game so much is that i've always been a star wars geek. i would want nothing more than i my own lightsaber. one of my ultimate dreams is to stand in an empty hall, with a cloaked sith lord directly across me, then he throws back his hood and his cloak falls to the floor, then i take off my jedi robes, then we hold our lightsaber hilts to the side, parallel to the floor, then we ignite them at the same time, blue and red, then we move them into attack positions, and the battle begins. all this time, john williams' duel of the fates crescendos to its climax in the background. amazing!

i've been dreaming of things like these since i was a little boy. i was so happy when i first used the line "may the force be with you" in the game (to a refugee on the moon nar shadaa); jedi na jedi ako nun. haha.

and now i'm, kinda, living my dreams out. on a computer screen. haha. it's all good.

***

in other news:

1. buy from better chocolate than never sa ama mall. affordable, kick-ass quality chocolates.

2. at 2am last sunday, i barfed on the sidewalk in front of my house. yes. it was quite disgusting.

anyway. stay cool. see ya.

still faster than you think.

2005-11-11T12:28:00.000+08:00

new look, same chino.

whaddya think?

where the air is rarefied.

2005-11-06T22:05:00.000+08:00

in the span of 6 days, from 12nn of last sunday to 12nn of yesterday, that's 144 hours, i spent a grand total of 11 hours at home. yes. home was a very distant concept to me this week. so i'm kinda glad to be back.

first off was baguio till wednesday with fam and cousins. very nice, very cold. got home at 10pm. 2 hours of computer, 8 hours of sleep, and an hour of packing and getting ready and i was off, this time tagaytay with jay, greg and mon.

loads and loads of fun. haha. crazy times talaga with the guys. we were introduced to this new board game called cranium, which requires the participants to border on insanity. plus we included a bottle of lambanog in the game to, um, spice things up. it was loads of craziness.

went home nung friday, but it wasn't over, cuz mon, jay and i decided to go to greenbelt, hook up with dre and watch waiting. not one of the greater decisions of our lives. anyway.

mon and i crashed at jay's place, where there wasn't much craziness cuz we were kinda tired na. haha. there we discover joel's "legacy" to us: a red polo sport backpack with a weight greater than the three of us combined possibly. the contents: joel's fhm, uno, and maxim collection. hahaha. thanks, joel. i couldn't believe it. haha.

yesterday night, back in manila, it was coy's debut, where i was with adrian, brian, juanchi, annacan, mara, jo-anne and other peeps. finally, a formal debut. i'd been dying to get into a suit.

so i was ready, looking sharp, except for my tie. i was waiting for my dad to get home so he could do it for me, as he always does. well, whaddayaknow, he calls and says chip's game isn't done yet and they're not going home yet. hooray.

so there i was, 15 minutes before coy's debut started, without a single clue as to how a tie should be done. lord. thankfully, we live in 2005. panic-stricken and all, i turned on the computer and, get this, i searched "how to tie a necktie" in yahoo. how to tie a necktie. lord, so stupid. pootek talaga. so stupid, i reenacted how it looked last night on my monitor.

goodness. ang bobo talaga. hahaha. i feel so pathetic ngayon na tinitingnan ko. but that was just the beginning. i popped a site up, and went to work. 10 minutes of getting a hold of the process. this was pathetic. haha. i locked the door of my room, cuz sobrang stupid if someone walked in and saw me, dressed up and all, standing in front of a computer screen trying desperately to do a four-in-hand knot. haha. grabe.

i was choking. the tie almost always ended up too short. but, suddenly, nakachamba ako and voila! not perfect, pero ayos na. haha. i grabbed my coat and rushed down. it took me 30 minutes to learn how to do it. hahaha.

anyway. grades tomorrow. pootek 'to.

stay cool. see ya.

when the worms come.

2005-10-23T18:26:00.000+08:00

i can't think of anything, but i want to update. so. i don't know. kwento na lang. haha.

when i slept last thursday, i had by far the freakiest dream ever. it was a normal day, then suddenly, my sister, who apparently had a third eye of some sort, claims that a freakish old lady ghost named emily said that i, yes, me, that i was going to die that day.

i was rather freaked out. or at least my dream self was. i became very scared, i was going mental, crying out of desperation and stuff. freaky shit. haha.

i woke up in the early morning of friday, god knows what time it was, and i was seriously disturbed. i was freaked out. come on. this was no laughing matter of a dream. anyway, i went back to sleep and tried to forgeddaboutit.

anyway, so friday came. i kinda forgot about the freaky shit of a dream, but it was lingering in the back of my mind, you know? i thought something like that was preposterous, but it just might be that rare occasion that spawns headlines like : DEAD BOY RECEIVED PREDICTION OF DEATH IN DREAM. haha.

my brother and i were bored at home, so we decided to catch a movie sa eastwood. schedules weren't working in our favor, so we ended up watching doom 3. wow. more killing. i expected a mindless shootfest, and hey, whadduyaknow, i got a mindless shootfest.

the highlight of our eastwood trip though, had to be floyd's ice cream whatever. god, it was good.

***

nung monday, i played tennis for the first time in ages, around 2-3 months siguro. it felt great. i loved it. i wanna try out for the varsity next year. miss ko na ang buhay-varsity; it was cool. you had this great feeling of accomplishment and fulfillment. i wanna go back to that.

***

back to el freako dream. i've been thinking, why was my dream self (and my real self) so afraid of dying? why?

because i still have regrets and i still have that sense that i haven't really lived a good life. i guess that's it. there's still stuff i wanna do and stuff i wanna change. and i don't wanna die yet. i don't.

there's this third eye blind song i really love, "i want you". there's a part there that goes, "there'll be no regrets when the worms come/and they shall surely come".

***

enough emotional dramatic stuff. haha. happy birthday to jo-anne lucero (oct 19). thanks for the great great party.

that's all. stay cool. see ya.

nothing at all.

2005-10-14T21:22:00.000+08:00

the sem is over, baby.

plans for the sembreak? i dunno. hopefully we can string some out-of-towners. four weeks! fun fun fun.

greg said something about going to batangas, so i'm hoping that pushes through. kimyao said something about going to tagaytay, so i'm hoping that pushes through as well. my mom said something about going to baguio, and that's prolly gonna push through, cuz it's my mom and she's obsessed with planning stuff. haha.

reg is on nov 7, if i'm not mistaken, and we're gonna get our grades on the same day rin daw. gahd. that's so far away. i wanna see my grades. get it over with. if i'm on track for cum laude, cool. if i'm on the dean's list, cool. if i'm not, then that sucks. if i lost the scholarship, then that really sucks. just let me know na. haha.

finals were kinda okay. math was challenging but cool naman, lit sucked as usual (the story was so pointless until i read the guide questions that i couldn't believe it ended; i was waiting for another page) and physics was cool.

***

i would like to thank my trusty companion throughout hell/finals week, nba live 06 and my mavs dynasty. here's kobe with a bounce-off-the-floor-self-oop.

i've dismantled the team na, though. kobe and dirk were getting old, so i didn't resign them. it's time for chris paul, who's been the most improved player awardee for 3 straight years and was on the all-nba first team, to take over. sorry, kobe and dirk. 5 championships in 6 years was a good run, though. so i'm on a rebuilding year, though i'm still the 3rd best team in the league. haha. more big contracts have been offloaded (such as quentin richardson and josh howard) and more will be in the summer (rashard lewis). hopefully i can sign someone big in the offseason.

it's gonna be a new era for my mavs dynasty, a changing of the guard. young guns chris paul, chris wilcox and my promising shooting guard "horace folkes" and small forward "a.rouse" (forgot his first name) will finally get the limelight, with the core of the team (kobe, dirk, rashard, quentin, josh howard) gone. emotional time. haha.

ang cool sa live, some of the players can actually do a shawn kemp on you. i had this promising big man, a really good young guy, "akinlabi earl" (stupid name), who was developing well, 73 to 76 overall in his first two years. but then, he reports to training camp the next year overweight, the player evolution showing his weight upped by 25, TWENTYFIVE pounds, haha, and his body type going from medium - uncut to heavy - uncut. three years have passed since then and his development has stopped, 75 overall. haha.

***

my good friend bea angeles and i have recently displayed the proper way to have a productive ym conversation.

[bea's status: where's the fun?]

Chino Esguerra: i'm here now. you can change your status.

Chino Esguerra: hahaha. kapal.
Bea Angeles: omg. the vanity.

Bea Angeles: (lol)

Chino Esguerra: haha

Chino Esguerra: just trying to answer your question

[my status (linked to blog): something beautiful.]
Bea Angeles: am i in your blog?

Chino Esguerra: huh?

Chino Esguerra: haha

Bea Angeles: malamang right coz it says something beautiful

Bea Angeles: (lol)

Chino Esguerra: hahahaha

Chino Esguerra: galing, galing

Chino Esguerra: sige sige

Chino Esguerra: i'm writing an entry right now.
Bea Angeles: okay hahahaha

Chino Esguerra: haha

haha. ladies and gentlemen, take notice.

***

belated happy birthday to marianne abella (oct 8), great party. also, to beebop arrogante (oct 13). best wishes to both of you.

that's all, i guess. stay cool. see ya.

an end comes to all things. good or bad.

2005-10-10T16:25:00.000+08:00

when i finished and submitted my filipino takehome long test, an hour before its deadline, my mind let out a whoop of joy and i felt like jumping. i was ecstatic. the semester was virtually over. two final papers, one report, one final test and a helluva lot of other stuff i don't wanna remember. the most demanding two weeks of the sem had passed, and hey, i'm alive. i survived, baby.

sure, math finals are tomorrow, lit finals are on wednesday and my last physics lt is on thursday, but i'm happy right now. relax. loving it.

***

all right, la salle lost. by 2 points. again. damn it. haha. it could have easily gone 2-0 to la salle's favor and the archers could be champs again. oh well. that's the way it is.

i will miss this team. this team was a lot of fun, and, after watching a dvd of last year's cardona-led team, this team is a lot better to watch. so full of confidence, flawless execution and killer instinct. they were the defending champs, and they played like champions. plus the swagger, brashness and cool confidence that they had. this was a fun team. thanks, guys.

and as the buzzer sounded last thursday, the de la salle career of joseph yeo ended and an era in archers basketball came to a close. for all his struggles and inconsistencies, the final 4 games of the season, which saw him score 20, 28, 26 and 18 points placed joseph yeo back where he belonged: as a hero among the la salle faithful. he stepped up when it counted, dismantling opposing defenses, scoring at will, playing incredible defense, giving his all and showing immeasurable heart and passion.

joseph yeo is, and probably will forever be, my favorite la salle basketball player of all time. he is the only player i have watched play for 5 whole years; i watched cortez, cardona, gaco, gavino, vainio, cabatu, aquino and sharma for their whole careers, but gaco was gone after 2 years, cortez and sharma after 3, cardona after 4, gavino and vainio spent their 5th year in up, while cabatu and aquino only broke into the team in their 2nd year.

i watched joseph yeo from his beginning as a small, little-played, but promising rookie. i watched as he added move after move to his arsenal, the daredevil drives, the fadeaway j's, the pullup 3's, until he eventually became the ninja, the shyeostopper that we all know and love.

what makes joseph yeo special, though, is the fact that, among all the archers i've watched play, he is the best and most ideal representation of a la sallian. always plays hard, plays with a lot of flair, style and adds supreme confidence and a little brash cockiness to go along with it. he just made it easy for you to love the fact that he was playing for la salle. and he still remains the most stylish player i have ever seen play.

so another season is gone. the wars are over. next year will come, and with it, new battles and new heroes. what did 2pac say? the one that was quoted in the horrible movie xxx 2? oh, there. "wars come and go, but my soldiers stay eternal". and that's it. no matter the players or the team, the archers will still be archers, still be la sallians, and i'll be there next year to cheer them on.

stay cool. see ya.

fantasies and all.

2005-10-05T17:48:00.000+08:00

during english period kanina, i played "tala's ipod love story game" or something like that with tala.

it's pretty cool, actually. you guys make a story about your lovelife using the songs that come up on the ipod. really fun. haha. especially when succeeding titles click together, or when a funny situation comes up (like how the question "how will i meet my love?" was met by the song "collision").

the story i came up with is much too complicated to remember so i can't put it here (as much as i want to, and believe me, i do. haha.), but, apparently, the love of my life is an incredibly malabo chick who's apparently quite hot (my "reaction upon seeing her" was the song "oh my god"). we break up around thrice, and i fail in proposals twice as well. fantastic! haha. fun fun.

now, on to the cars.

***

DREAM CARS PART TWO. the pinnacle of ambition. if i had all the money in the world, i'd get these. exotica. the finest pieces of machinery on earth.

1. ferrari f430 (0-100kph in 3.9 secs, 483 bhp v8)

if i could have just one car for the rest of my life, without a doubt, hands down, it would be this. fantastically fast, utterly beautiful. desire, style, and speed personified. look at the damned thing. lord, i want one. if you can buy me one, i'll be your friend. i'd like mine in silver.

2. lamborghini gallardo (0-100 in 4.0 secs, 500 bhp v10)

the perfect compliment to the f430. the yang to the ferrari's yin. sant'agata meets modena once again. also viciously quick, also utterly beautiful. called perhaps the greatest lambo in history. you can see why. i'd get mine in black. oh wow, you can imagine it. gallardo and f430, side by side, black and silver. wow wow wow.

3. ford gt (0-100 in 3.8, 500 bhp v8)

i'm actually content with just the two italian exotics, but let's add this to the mix as well. the ford gt. american engineering at its finest. not just pure muscle, but with loads of finesse and flair to boot. it's actually a little bit quicker than the two italians. and it looks very, very, very nice too. i'd get mine in white, with twin dark blue stripes down the middle.

that's all for now, boys and girls. english and lit beckon. damn them. haha. stay cool.

sweet dreams.

2005-10-03T19:08:00.000+08:00

DREAM CARS PART ONE. as in cars i literally dreamt of in my sleep.

1. Nissan 350Z (0-100kph in 5.5 secs, 280 bhp v6)

i remember being somewhere like pier one or dencio's, right after an ajss dinner or birthday party or something. i was looking for a ride home, and my good friend sarah lopez was kind enough to offer me one. and then, lo and behold, her car was a magnificent nissan 350z, just like the one in the photo, gleaming silver. somewhere along the way home, she let me drive it. nice, but probably not as fast as in real life. haha. i was dropped off at my grandparents' house for some reason, and i go upstairs to find my uncle looking out the window and saying, "uy o, 350z!". (note: some weeks after this dream, sars tells me that her brother in the states just bought himself a gunmetal-grey 350z. wow. time to join the circus and try my hand at fortunetelling. haha.)

2. BMW M6 (0-100 in 4.5, 507 bhp v10)

in this dream, may gimik kami ng the bois, and i asked mon gelvezon to pick me up. i step out of the house to see the world's greatest grand tourer, the m6, parked on the street, resplendent in burgundy (as in the picture). apparently, it's mon's new car. wow. haha. he tells me that i can drive, and i happily oblige. again, not as fast as it should be. haha.

3. Toyota Celica (0-100 in 6.6, 180 bhp inline-4)

this was actually my car, in this dream. i was with my fam in baguio, supposedly, but it looked more like the mountain tracks in gt4 or the initial d arcade game. came in japanese racing white. i drive around with my mom. still, not as fast as it should be. haha. sweet dreams have that price, i guess.

there are still supposed to be parts two and three, but blogger isn't allowing me to upload anymore, plus tamad akong magupload and maglink sa photobucket. haha. those will come soon, hopefully in the next few days. haha. as if, with all the papers due and the exams pending, i needed anymore distraction, since i got nba live 06 a few days ago. haha. that's the way it is, i guess.

happy birthday to my brother gio (october 2). he's now all of 8 years old.

stay cool. see ya.

nobody said it would be this hard.

2005-09-26T19:09:00.000+08:00

i have tons of stuff to do, which is why i have no idea why i'm actually writing this entry. parang there's some kind of magical, invisible force that's pushing me against my better judgment to do stuff like this. okay, i wasted way too much time, space and effort writing that sentence. okay, that too.

fun run yesterday. shout-outs to jau, nikki, running block j, kimyao, marianne, tala, pat, cheska, miggy zab and mara who probably know that the "fun" in fun run was placed there by some sadistic masochist of a man. haha. clocked in a 59:49 for 10km, which is disappointing considering i got 56/57 during our pe classes, but it was pretty good considering i had:
1. 5 hours of sleep
2. cough
3. colds
4. lbm (yes. haha.)

that last one was particularly fantastic. i wake up, annoyingly short on sleep, with a runny nose, coughing and all, then i go to the bathroom to take a bath. then i feel the need, so i sit on the throne. then, kaboom. i am telling you, this sucked very, very much. my reaction was "oh, shit (pun not intended). this sucks, very very much."

oh well. that's all done and said.

***

no, i didn't forget. haha. animo la salle. 74-57.

prior to the game, jau, mon and i had a collective bad feeling about the game. i mean, 5 straight wins by blowout? this had to end. and it was almost certainly going to end on this fine sunday afternoon.

it didn't begin promisingly. i couldn't find my intense "animo bandana/wristband" so i dejectedly trooped to araneta without it. 1st half ended 25-22, in favor of ateneo. first time arneo had a lead over us this season. i was getting very scared.

but it soon got better. pep squad hyped the crowd up with a collective ryan arana jig at halftime, and the 3rd quarter was barely a minute old when la salle reclaimed the lead. and then, sooner than an ateneo fan could say, "oh my sweet heaven, here we go again", well, sweet heaven, it happened again.

joseph yeo redeemed himself with a monster 28 points, sparking the rally and the kill with goodness-lord drives. rico maierhofer is slowly turning into a basketball god.

this team looks like it might just go all the way. they look very much like a championship team. fantastic camaraderie, including the coaches. the whole team looked very, very happy. and they were having plenty of fun, especially with the crowd-pleasing "photo shoot" at center court near game's end.

this is the best i've seen this team play. yeo, arana, tang, cabatu, aquino, casio, maierhofer, benitez, villanueva. all members of last year's champ team. these guys all know how to win the games that count, which is, i believe, what sets them apart from the blue eagles. these archers know oh so well how to keep their opponents in check, how to kill off a game. unbelievable. i'm loving it. see you in the finals.

***

do you enjoy, care about , or know about at all the pasyon of felipe salvador? no, no, and no? yyyuup. didn't think so.

haha. that's all. stay cool. see ya.

green and white dynamite.

2005-09-17T16:10:00.000+08:00

another thursday for the ages.

the last time i cut class on a thursday, half our batch left school and trooped to araneta to watch jv casio drain the 3 that would give de la salle the championship over feu. the archers finished the year with a 10-1 record in their last 11 games, peaking at just the right time to beat ateneo three straight times and finish off the tamaraws.

fast forward almost a year. it's a thursday again, half of the school cut, and it's probably the most important game of la salle's season to date.

sounds familiar.

standing at 8-4, we would need to win against ateneo today and against ue on sunday to get #2 and, more importantly, avoid feu.

well, we all know what happened. 72-55. fifth straight win of la salle over arneo, fifth straight blowout. again, the archers seem to be peaking at just the right time.

before the game, though, there was plenty of doubt. lewis alfred tenorio had just come off one of the best performances of the season leading the eagles over feu, and ateneo was playing pretty damn well.

but people took little notice of the fact that la salle was quietly playing its best basketball of the season as well. only a 1-point loss to the tamaraws blemished the archers' second round record, and we were coming off a 30-point blowout of adamson. and, oh yeah, WE'RE STILL THE CHAMPIONS.

it just amazes me how these boys seem to come up with their best games against ateneo. ty tang (18 points) was clutch from the get-go, knocking shots all over the place. ryan arana (18 points) embarrassed the arneo defense with around 249023785093527 reverse layups off backdoor cuts. jv casio (13 points) sparked the run that would kill the game with his deadeye shooting and fantastic defense. jun cabatu and rico maierhofer once again had stellar games. pareng joseph yeo choked once again (4 points of 1-of-12), but his league-leader-in-steals defense was solid as usual and he chipped in 4 assists.

the archers had razor-sharp focus right from the tip, where it took all of 3 seconds for tang to uncock a jumper that would give la salle the lead at 2-0. aside from deadlocks at 25-25 at 27-27, they would never relinquish it. killer instinct and championship poise.

watching the game with jay, greg, mon, marc and jau was a blast as usual. i never get tired of watching the games, cuz there's just so much to look forward to. when you hear the sound of the drums, feel the crowd jump around you, and just get lost in the momentum of it all, you forget everything. everything else is gone. you're just another lasalista, just another atenista, screaming at the top of your lungs at what is perhaps best sporting event in the universe. there is no other thing in the world that will stretch your emotions so extremely to opposite poles; elation and anger, hope and despair. the camaraderie and the joy and the triumph.

a la salle-ateneo is always a classic, always a beauty.

you just have to love it.

much has been said.

2005-09-11T18:39:00.000+08:00

so much has already been said about the political situation in our country. in fact, we've been oversaturated with constant bitching about the crap that is philippine pulitika.

well, i've been in the mood lately (thanks to the godforsaken english editorial) so indulge me and allow me to say my piece. mabilis lang.

the problem with politics in this country is just that: it's politics. governing shouldn't be about politics, it should be about service, dammit. look at the recent impeachment hearing. it wasn't about doing one's duty to the people, it wasn't about getting the job done in the best possible way, it wasn't about anything remotely related to what the founding fathers of democracy had in mind. it was all politics. all bullshit. keeping power, seizing power, looking good for the cameras, enhancing one's public image. politics. politics. that's the problem. politics is being politics, and that's not a good thing.

***

speaking of my english editorial. since it will probably destroy my currently nice-ish english grade (which stands at around b, b+), i decided to make a movie about it! yeah! haha. it's called THE GLORY AND DEATH OF CHINO ESGUERRA'S ENGLISH GRADE.

i'm working on the script. haha. i've written the final scene na. it goes something like this:

[Editorial points gun at Grade]

EDITORIAL: It's over for you, Grade.

GRADE: No, please! Noooooooo!

[Gunshots. And then silence. The sounds of latenight traffic fill the air once again. Blood is splattered on the wet concrete. The traffic lights and streetlamps are reflected in the puddles on the road. Editorial slowly puts down the smoking gun. He fixes his trench coat, light a cigarette, and walks away.]

[Fade to black. Roll ending credits.]

Ayos, no? Film noir. Haha.

***

THE LEGEND REBORN.

yyyup. bought replacements for my classic, ever-faithful all-white tops kanina.

i'm now on the hunt for white-lightblue traditionals, which i've only seen sa the loop at abs-cbn, tomas morato. last time i checked, la silang size eh.

anyone know where i can find them? i'd be SO thankful.

anyway. that's all i guess. stay cool. see ya.

the tipping point.

2005-08-31T20:19:00.000+08:00

i was playing power pusoy with my brother chip the other night. we were on our 15th game or something like that, and i was shuffling (as i always do). and then, right before i dealt the cards, i took the top card and moved it down to the bottom. and this small action, consequently, switched the cards we would get completely. chip eventually won the game with 3 two's and 3 aces.

think about it. if i didn't fatefully move the top card to the bottom, i would have gotten the 3 two's, i would have gotten the 3 aces, and i would have probably decimated my brother.

i guess this little card-playing experience teaches us all the significance and impact of even the smallest of matters. one shot can win or lose a game, a season, a championship, a career. one person can be the difference between victory and defeat, between bliss and sorrow, between dying another day and falling into the jaws of death. one word can change a life, one word can lose you a friend. one moment can forever define you as a being on this earth. everything is a part of the greater scheme of things; everything happens for a reason, and everything will change everything.

***

great great party at greg's last friday. loads of fun with the guys. happy birthday greg.

team intense versus potato chips tomorrow. my first game. losers to lax by 35 against losers to lax by 32. haha. wish us luck.

save the whales, guys. haha. stay cool. see ya.

that's hot.

2005-08-21T18:34:00.000+08:00

la salle has just lost by a solitary point to feu. goodness.

that could have been anything. one of many rico maierhofer/mark benitez missed free throws. oh god. i'm so...i dunno. i'm just mad. sayang. instead of being 6-3 and having beaten the best team in the league, the archers are back in mediocrelandia at 5-4. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrgh.

anyway.

so where have i been?

school, basically. and out on weekends. i've been so busy that i've gained 2 pounds, i think, cuz i haven't been able to play tennis in the past two weeks.

where should we start?

last saturday, anina's birthday at embassy cuisin in the fort. great party, great place. sayang lang my drink stubs went "beer, beer, beer" instead of "absolut citron, tequila rose, amaretto" like some other peeps got. haha.

mondaaaaaay. had this debate seminar/class thingamajig for english. wala lang. haha.

tuesday. math long test number two. this was chino at his academic worst. frenzied, panicky, magulo ang utak, always incredibly unsure of his answers. i fucking bombed the test (as you will see later). i hate it. oh well.

wednesdaaaaaaaaaay. was in school for 13 hours. haha. 7-8. math midterms. this was chino at his academic best, probably. i dunno why. parang i was, like in sports, in the zone. my mind was fantastically clear; as soon as i looked at the questions parang alam ko na kung ano yung kailangan gawin. it was great. hopefully i get a good score.

after the midterms, ate sa world topps with jau, mon and dre. there we discover from martin prado that team intense's next game is against l.a.x. (first game victors over drolots by 32 points). we try to poison martin. we fail. more updates on assassination attempts on l.a.x. members soon.

thursday. actually had math class, which was super-bummer considering NO ONE FRICKIN' ELSE has math. gahd. after was sagala ng mga sikat, where mr jacobo informs us that 30% of our filipino grade will be an A thanks to our stellar showing. that's hot. kudos to everyone in fil class.

fridaaaaaaay. no class. meet up with jay, dre, jau, peej, mon and greg sa green hills for dinner. at around 1045, we leave for a party in paranaque. shortly after we get on the road, we are informed that the party has, um, ended. at 1045?!? jeez. so it's off na lang to greenbelt to eat sa kroco grill and watch the skeleton key. it was pretty cool. kate hudson was pretty hot.

saturday again. intact immersion/exposure activity in escopa, quezon city. volleyball/basketball/chatting with the kids there. after, kain sa mcdo with blockmates. pretty fun. ayos ung jeep ride. lots of fun. in the evening, watched spanglish with the fam at home. it was nice, actually. cool movie.

todaaaaaaaay, it was off to tagaytay and breakfast at antonio's for (yep, you guessed it, ang galing mo) breakfast with the fam. yummy food. nice bathroom where there's this big open window where tagaytay natives could observe you do your business. hooray. hahaha.

gosh, i've still got english/lit stuff to do. pootek. this sucks.

no classes daw tomorrow? that would be pretty hot. but very very little chance of that happening.

almost as little as the gap between la salle's defeating the best team in the league and getting on their way to another championship and la salle's slump back into mediocrelandia. oh well.

stay cool. see ya.

and we never say a thing.

2005-08-07T17:01:00.000+08:00

some things are just weird.

like the times when you've got a lot of stuff on your mind, those are the same times when you can't find anything to say. everything's just, i dunno, there.

yesterday, i thought to myself, "what if i think? what if i think about things?" so that's what i did. haha. i just lay down and thought and thought about everything: people, life, events, places, meaning, relationships, happiness, EVERYTHING. just to see what would happen.

and some things just made me feel frustrated and sad and asar and i kinda went into a bad mood cuz i realized that there are a lot of things that just aren't going my way and there are even more things i can't control and i have to pretty much live with them.

but then, there are just so many other things that will make you smile. so i thought about them. people, moments, meanings, significance and everything in life and they just made me smile. wala lang. just the thought or the remembrance of some things can make you happy.

and i guess there's a time for everything. and you can't have everything. and everything will fall into place. and everything happens for a reason. and everything you want is not everything you need. and everything will be all right.

matter of fact, everything IS all right, when you think of it. it's nice to think sometimes. but it's better to enjoy. just have fun, guys. and everything will be all right. remember? served chilled.

everything will be all right.

not complaining.

2005-07-31T21:30:00.000+08:00

almost two months into college. wow. time flies.

busybusybusybusybusybusy.

not hassled-busy, mind you, but more of lotsofstufftodo-busy. big diff.

haaaaaaaaay. wala akong masabi. haha.

life has been good to me. haha. last saturday, on our way to greenbelt, i kinda, KINDA, bumped a car. sobrang liit lang, just some paint chipped off sa kanya and on the altis, nothing at all. it shouldn't have been such a big deal. but the middle-aged corporate professional mehns decided to exchange contact info and insurance blah. oh yay.

luckily though, my parents took it well and the middle-aged corporate professional mehns seem to have dropped the matter altogether as they haven't contacted me yet. my theory now is that they were just toying with me. haha. i'm not complaining, though.

the week was busy, i guess. i attended the shindig meeting stuff and the gawadkalinga ga nung wednesday, then the ama ga nung friday. naks. org man. naks. well-rounded. naks. hahaha.

got our yearbooks yesterday sa la salle. it was nice to be in familiar territory with familiar faces for even just an hour or so. the yearbook itself was pretty great; kudos to the scope peeps. afterwards, went out with jay, greg, mon and dre. first sa powerplant, where we decided to eat in a "happening" resto. the choices: burgoo's or dencio's. our first choice was burgoo's, but it was too expensive for mon, who left his wallet at home for a nice, useless reason (mon: "nagmumukhang bulky kasi ung shorts ko na 'to kapag may wallet."). so it was to dencio's, where mon's shorts caused the decimation of everyone else's funds.

after, we decide to go to eastwood. what do we do in eastwood? watch greg eat his mcflurry. YES. and poke fun at high school boys. hahaha. sorry. college kami ehhhhhh. hahaha. so after the amazing sight of greg consuming an oreo mcflurry, it's off to jay's house for booze and pusoy dos. get home at 245ish. i'm not complaining.

anyway.

since my last blog entry, the green archers have gone 2-1; wins over adamson and ust until the loss to feu kanina. we now stand at 3-3. how mediocre. makes me miss the good old days. anyway, champion pa rin ang la salle. mark my words. DE LA SALLE WILL BE CHAMPIONS. hahaha. i seriously believe that. i do. every year.

can you say EIGHT-GAME WINNING STREAK? haha.

stay cool. see ya.

serve chilled.

2005-07-22T20:42:00.000+08:00

i am looking forward to this long weekend. no homework, baby. oh yeah. sarap. relax.

i have been impossibly hassled this week. our homework finally reached college-level and chino esguerra (aka man who despises homework oh wait work in general) got very pissed. haha.

monday night. i had to read 18 pages of filipino poems for the next day and do 4 essays (one of the four requiring 750 words) and a total of 21 guide questions which required essay-like answers anyway for english/lit on wednesday. oh fantastic.

oh, it gets better. during filipino nung tuesday, it turned out that reading the poems did not at all matter and what we did involved a homework our group hadn't finished yet. oh yay. hahaha.

as for english/lit on wednesday, we were all debating whether to cut the godforsaken class or not. i said that i had done too much work to spend another 2 hours in english/lit. but, most of us had more or less finished the godforsaken assignment, so we decided to attend class na lang, lest all our efforts to accomplish the insanely inhuman assignments go to waste.

great decision.

turns out that doc lulu doesn't even check ANY of the 4 essays or 21 guide questions; it was another useless english/lit period. oh boy, we looked stupid. not wanting to cut so our efforts wouldn't go to waste. oh yeah.

later in the afternoon, i attended the ajma general assembly, which was also pretty useless. they oversaturated the event with sponsors, meaning that the audience was bored to death with brainless gatsby wax makeovers and such, and by the time the "real purpose" of the event came around, more than half of the peeps, including me, had left. (mon: [leaves room] lady at door: "uhm, hindi pa kayo pwede umalis, you need to meet pa your department-mates." mon: "oh, were not leaving, kuha lang kami ng water sa labas. balik kami agad." lady at door: "oh, okay, sige sige." mon: [to me, waiting outside, very loudly] "oi chi, asan ung water?")

thursday, with a free cut in filipino, was an okay day. it would have been a great if not for the godforsaken math long test. gahd. brain-melting stuff. haha. i'm pretty confident that i passed, but i'm not sure whether "passed" will mean a 55 or a 100. oh wow. hahaha.

the good thing is, through all of this, i was never at all stressed. life is too good to be stressed about; just have fun, laugh it off. stay cool. enjoy. everything is best when served chilled.

again, no homework for the weekend! gimik time. hahaha.

oh, happy birthday to mich wong (july 19) and franke mendoza (july 22). thanks for the food.

stay cool. see ya.

for the moment. for the years. for the laughter, for the tears.

2005-07-17T18:51:00.000+08:00

argh. schoolwork starting to pile up.

not to catastrophic proportions, mind you, but certainly beyond the point chino esguerra would want to have it at. which is zero.

so, naturally, i have decided to distract myself from the task at hand. that means ym and blog entry. yes.

went out with joel for the VERY LAST TIME nung friday night. he's gonna be gone for 4 years at least and we're not even sure if we're gonna see him again. knowing this, we made him drink gin so old it had become green (joel: "ilang percent ba 'to? 40?" mon: "yes, 40% POISON"), he almost slid down jay's rooftop into certain death in the street below, and he let us paint his arms and torso with water color. yes. the man was drunk slash poisoned slash both.

throughout the night we constantly tried to make him break down, become emo and cry, only to have our efforts (playing an array of songs ranging from our class song "this time" to the memorable "trip mo ba?" and other uber-emotional songs) thwarted by mon or i saying, "ayan na. he's breaking down. emo." hahaha.

anyway. goodbye, joel. we'll miss you. good luck sa lahat.

***

talk about coincidence. since my last blog entry, the sappy emotional go la salle essay the reason, the green archers have dropped two straight games to up and ue. up and ue. oh my god.

are we sure we are still on planet earth?

please. grab the lamp on your desk now, feel it and make sure it's real. when la salle starts casually losing to up and ue, we know something's wrong. take hold of the drawer beside you and pull it open, push it close, repeat 385972 times. do we still exist?

la salle is 1-2, below .500 for the first time since, gosh, i can't even remember. my goodness. grab a stone and throw it through your bedroom window, just to make sure glass still breaks. la salle is losing; other perfectly normal everyday things in our world have surely changed as well.

SEE.

i just turned on my faucet and the water started flowing upwards from the drainage up to the spout. i KNEW it. aliens, after seeing how the archers pummelled ateneo, decided to say, "oh, look. la salle's surely gonna win the league now. let's turn things around.". they then shot their ultra-radiation-isotope-mechanized-whatever cannon at our planet, and, voila! everything's different. i knew it.

or maybe i'm just insane.

the reason.

2005-07-12T18:44:00.000+08:00

a lot of people were asking me, "why are you for la salle, and not ateneo?".

during that glorious game last sunday, i said to myself, "this is why." i pointed at the scoreboard with seconds remaining in the first half. DLSU 50 ADMU 17.

haha. seriously, though, i would love la salle even if the score was the other way around. i love la salle unconditionally, i love it because it is a part of who i am. i love it even though no one of us 15 green hills bois boisterously cheering last sunday actually study in dlsu (in fact, most of us study in ateneo). i love la salle because you cannot take away twelve years. i did not just study in la salle; i grew up there, i lived there, i became a person there, i forged my friendships there, i learned the value of relationships, pakikisama, loyalty and just living life there. i loved my stay in la salle; i enjoyed it tremendously.

but the truth is, i do not just love la salle because i went to school there; it is something bigger than that. it has, as i have said, become a part of me, it frickin' flows through my veins. dugong lasalista. every single person wearing green pumping his fist to the alma mater in araneta cheers for la salle not because he studied or is studying in la salle; it's because he's a la sallian. (the same goes for ateneo and ateneans.)

i am not an atenean who came from la salle; i am a la sallian studying in ateneo. maybe i am an atenista in a way. but, 'till kingdom come and the world has been washed away, i will always, always be a lasalista before an atenista. always.

and, ladies and gentlemen, that is why.

are you hoping for a miracle?

2005-07-07T20:52:00.000+08:00

yes. yes, i am. was, actually. the miracle has now been achieved. upper a, baby. 3 days, baby.

haha. so where have i been?

i know where i haven't been. i haven't been home before 730 in the past four days. wow. busy. but fun fun.

monday, went to shang with mon. looked around, ate what is perhaps the greatest buy in food history (p50 hotdog at that nacho place). mon and i are still debating whether or not to get the celio polo shirts we like. pro: extremely amazing. con: php1700. ouch.

after shang, training sa valle. naks. training. galing.

tuesday, after school, went to podium naman. celio had a sale, which brought down the prices of the shirts. php750 for celio! come on. ate what is probably not the greatest buy in food history (p60 adobo pandesal in cinnabon).

wednesday, signed up for orgs na. ama and ajma. i'm still thinking whether or not to join a "real" (read: socially oriented) org; i'm considering gawad kalinga. i'll prolly join on monday or something.

after school, training sa valle. naks. training. galing. and guess who was there, playing with us? aliya parcs. yes. aliya parcs. yes. pretty cool. haha. coach randy has plenty of celeb friends, apparently. we thought it ended with derek ramsey being his roommate, but, no. aliya parcs. yes.

thursday. almost fell asleep in math. seriously. my eyelids refused to open. i was dying. my goodness. there was NO, get it right, NO, absolutely NO energy in that classroom. we were corpses. gahd.

ama interview with greg and nicco after that. it went pretty well (aka, accepted). seems like i was the only guy who wasn't asked the "3 reasons we shouldn't accept you" question. that's weird. i prepared for it naman, cuz everyone said that was, like, the highlight of the interview. but, hey, i'm not complaining, dude. haha.

went to shang again after school to buy stuff. then to galle as well. wow. i'm pretty tired. i miss getting home at 5. but as i said, fun fun. haha.

***

HOW TO GET TO TOMAS MORATO WITHOUT KNOWING EXACTLY WHERE IT IS, CONSULTING A STREET MAP, OR ASKING FOR DETAILED INSTRUCTIONS.

1. drive around the horseshoe area in qc/new manila.

2. make a (wrong) right turn into a narrow street into a unscrupulous-looking neighborhood with dangerous-looking tattooed men.

3. ask a man who looks like a "family man" in aforementioned neighborhood how to get to tomas morato. (he will tell you to turn back, go straight, turn right and ask there).

4. turn back, go straight, turn right and DO NOT ask there.

5. at this point, make a resolution to follow whereever the most cars are going.

6. find a civic or lancer. follow it. malamang it belongs to a "cool dude" na "gigimik sa morato" and has to "impress his chicks and friends" with his fast, reckless driving and cool dude car. follow the cool dude car.

7. after a few turns, lose sight of the cool dude car. he is prolly driving way too fast and reckless in order to "impress his chicks and friends".

8. a few seconds after you realize you have lost the cool dude car, you will stop an intersection. you are now at tomas morato.

9. it will turn out that a dilapidated toyota landcruiser with rakrakan men inside have led you to tomas morato. not the cool dude" na "gigimik sa morato" and has to "impress his chicks and friends" with his fast, reckless driving and cool dude car.

thank you to jay and jau for their priceless assistance in the making of this indispensible guide.

***

stay cool. see ya.

we could be heroes. just for one day.

2005-07-03T15:44:00.000+08:00

i am SUPPOSED to be doing my english paper right now. i don't need to tell you what the operative word was in that sentence.

mmeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhnn. nakakatamad.

so, to distract myself from the task at hand, i decided to make a list. yes, a list. a list i've always wanted to make (ask my brother; he's grown tired of hearing me repeat it to him orally time and again). a list of my top 5 athletes in any sport.

intro muna. haha.

i grew up playing sports. i grew up enamored with sports. sports and competition have always been a part of my life. soccer, swimming, basketball, tennis, you name it. i follow almost all pro sports from the NBA to euro soccer, from tennis to baseball to american football to formula 1 racing.

and sports have always been about heroes. so, without further ado, here they are. from five to one. para may suspense as to who my fave is (if you know me, you can prolly guess who he is).

NUMBER FIVE: Roger Federer (tennis).

you need to actually be a tennis player to appreciate this guy. cuz otherwise, he's like the yankees or shaq; too good to be loved. but that's it; he's SO GOOD. shotmaking ability, poise, grace under fire are all top-notch. the ultimate.

NUMBER FOUR: Allen Iverson (basketball).

heart and soul. if competitive drive and will to win were an athlete, they would be this guy. there is no one more competitive and passionate than the answer. pound for pound, the best in the league.

NUMBER THREE: Carlos Beltran (baseball).

the most complete player in baseball. five-tool star; hits for power, hits for contact, dazzling in the field, cannon of an arm and quicker than pretty much everyone. if the baseball gods dreamed up the perfect player, this would be the result.

NUMBER TWO: Kimi Raikkonen (formula 1).

the iceman. forever cool under fire. impossibly consistent and focused. blindingly fast and incredible high-spped balance. never fazed. if there was an opposite of "choker", this would be it. robert horry would prolly be out of a job if kimi ever took up basketball.

NUMBER ONE: Thierry Henry (soccer).

this should have come as no surprise. the ultimate in football. loads of pace, loads of creativity, loads of style, loads of class. striker par excellance. the mere mention of his name exudes fear and awe. the pinnacle of skill. always supremely confident, cool under fire and extremely lethal.

***

okay. if that doesn't show you how bored i am, then, dude, i don't know what will. haha.

happy birthday to bree jalijali. GREAT party.

stay cool. see ya.

"Hostage 'to!"

2005-06-30T18:26:00.000+08:00

in mid-july of fourth year high school, the octopus entente remnant, or more popularly known as the mafia, composed of yours truly, bree "the black enemy of the world" jalijali, mon gelvezon, joel sy, mama tuason and apol esquivel, decided, as we had grown weary of school after only a month, to entertain ourselves and the class.

the plan: to come up with a daily quote of the day. the criteria: the most incredibly hilarious, ironic and crazy quote of the day would win. the process: the QUODA (quote of the day association) made up of yours truly, mon and joel would come to a consensus regarding the quote of the day at the end of a school day. the winner would be written on the blackboard at the back of the classroom the next day. (the mafia, like the octopus entente of third year, were strategically seated at the back of the classroom, as to not draw the teacher's attention to activities such as this).

the result:

notes:
1. the bean de joya quote "(P.M.,) ...without the comma" occured during english class. we were orally answering exercises in english, which involved choosing the correct option to complete the sentence. this particular item read something like, "john is coming home at 8 (P.M., PM)". hahaha. hilarious.
2. the classic marvin haduca quote "hostage 'to!" came during a presentation in filipino (i think). marvs was roleplaying an abu sayyaf or something, kidnapping a couple of peeps. and that's what came out of his mouth. haha.
3. the memorable norbert quote "sarap pitikin..." came during in-between periods (i think). bree, who sits beside norbert, was er, exposing his, er, crotch through his pants, er, to norbert. then norbert says that, with corresponding "pitik" action. hahaha.
4. the quote "verto." was adressed to norbert by the mafia. it officially became norbert's nickname for the rest of the schoolyear, no joke. it also reinforced the theory that all the lines, words and hirits in class na naging "uso" were started by the mafia.

sadly, after a month, quoda closed shop because, um, natamad na kami. haha. but it was hilarious.

maybe living, maybe dying. we always think we get more time.

2005-06-28T18:14:00.000+08:00

My Hit and Run
Third Eye Blind

Feel the speed through the intersection
In sheets of rain I seek out cars
Hands in gloves grip handlebars

Ride alone to the pub in the dark
I get a little wet but I don't have to park
And the lights start flashing green to red as I ride
A car turns left and I slide
I can't turn back
I make contact
Blinkers smash into mosaic
Then I start flying

Always think we get more time
Now flying through the air
Maybe living maybe dying
In this motor crash it's you who comes to mind
Don't we always wish we had more time

I'm thrust slow mo through time and space
Details smash and I protect my face
And then I see yours
And go to a time when we just knew

Mister death in the car below
Doesn't even slow
And away he goes
In the majesty of a motor crash
You skid into my darkness forming
Sex and death, heartbreak and strife
They give no warning

Always think we get more time
Now I'm flying through the air
And it's you who comes to mind
And the red lights like cathedrals they're a sign
Do we always think we get more time
Here it comes, my hit and run
Always think we get more time
Then I'm flying through the air
When it's you who comes to mind
And the shattered glass reflections there's a sign
Cause you were there
And I wish we had more time

Come down hard and roll to my feet
And rain washes blood now off concrete
People turn away and I just had to laugh
Cause I'm still flying
Living and dying
Always think we get more time

Now I'm flying through the air
There's someone on your mind
If this motorcycle crashing is a sign
Cause you were there
And I wish we had more time

And I'd like to thank mister death for what he's done
Cause I got to walk away from my hit and run
Mysteries are not so empty now as they seemed
Cause I saw you
On my hit and run
On my hit and run

***

(songwriting at its best. writing from personal experience about a truth about life and humanity.)

the truth is, we never know when we will have to go. when we will finally come to the moment where all those we have come to love and everything we have come to love about this beautiful, shattered world will finally come to pass. the smiles and the times and the tears and the laughter and the passion and the simplicity and the beauty and the love and the life. one moment, one slip of the steering wheel, one errant step, one absolutely trivial thing can take everything significant away.

death defines life; life is so precious and beautiful and fleeting and frustrating because of death. the fact that everything can be over in an instant.

it's scary to think about. but let's not think about it. let's just enjoy. go out into the dark streets, with the road wet from the rain and the clouds low and gray and breathe the smell of life. it feels so good. there is nothing greater than life.

so the next time it's 3am and you're sitting down, the music is playing in the background, empty beer bottles areon the table and the greatest friends on earth are seated around you, just smile and love it. the next time your walking on the white sand with the sun setting orange and pink in the distance and the waves crashing, just look to the sea and love it. the next time you're walking under the moonlight with the cool breeze and the warmth of the one you have come to love completely and madly and with every ounce of your being beside you, just close your eyes and love it.

love it.

***

(yes, brian, this entry probably exists kasi nag-feature ka rin ng song sa blog mo. hahaha.)

one tall hot chocolate. with raspberry syrup.

2005-06-26T15:16:00.000+08:00

my alternate favorite drink. ordered when it is:
a) raining
b) night
c) cold
d) all of the above

grabe. ang sarap ng raspberry syrup. it is one of the greatest things to exist on this earth, without a shadow of a doubt. dude, TRY IT. yum yum. i need to buy it for myself; question is, where do you buy the torani syrups? when i was in forest house sa baguio, i asked the guys there and sabi nila it can't be bought at normal retail stores and has to be ordered from a supplier. boo. i'm dying for raspberry syrup of my own. the mint wouldn't be too bad, either. if you do know where to buy torani syrups, please, please please, tell me.

anyway.

happy birthday to joel sy (june 22), and james gab (june 24). joel, thanks for the drink. wink wink. haha. oh, and happy birthday to ate pam abastillas (june 25). thanks for the food.

saturday was the diagnostic test for math. hopefully i passed. and hopefully i aced it. if i did (what a miracle that would be) it would take SO much pressure off me to do well sa math this sem. it's counted as the first long test kasi. so sana i got a good score.

after the diag test, i had breakfast with the bois minus greg and joel (meaning jay, mon, dre and jau) sa mcdo eastwood. there we learned from jay that there are little numbers on the sides of the ketchup packs and that they actually mean something. 1 to 8, 1 is the least sour while 8 is the tangiest. haha. sabi ni jay that the even the mcdo people don't know about it. this is amazingly trivial.

anyway, sa gabi i went to jay's house for his sisters birthday with the bois minus joel, mon and jau (meaning jay, greg and dre). after eating there, tumuloy kami ni jay and greg to g4 to meet up with joel. dre was malabo, as usual.

in greenbelt, after buying tickets for the movie, dre calls and says that he and aica are gonna join us for the movie. when they get there, ubos na ung seats. fantastic. basically, dre went from goingoutwithaica-goingoutwithfriends-aica-neither-friendsandaica-nomovie in the span of one night. favorite ko talaga si dre. haha.

after the movie, we went to the kroc grill cuz joel was hungry. ok. thanks for the drink again, joel. wink wink. haha.

got home at around 245 and, as of this blog entry, i have been awake for a total of three hours. yay.

stay cool. see ya.

one grande chocolate cream frappucino. with raspberry syrup.

2005-06-23T21:08:00.000+08:00

my most immediate goal for my college life is to replace saying the above line in starbucks with, "the usual". haha. dude, come on. ang cool nun. haha.

anyway. what's going on?

la lang. i've kinda settled into a routine.

physics class will be swelteringly hot, mind-numbingly boring and it will seem that you have been sentenced to eternal damnation at kingdom come. plus, i feel a surprise quiz coming. gahd.

english and lit class will be like your second sentence to eternal damnation at kingdom come. they're not as boring as physics, but the workload is hell. read like a million handouts in like 4 days. come on. and have you seen the course outline? goodness. we'll be doing inhumanly insane amounts of essays. and they don't look easy. fantastic.

our running PE is pretty intense. i thought it would be a pansy PE course, but hey, it's pretty cool. great workout. tama nga ung sinabi nung coach during the first meeting, "kung tamad ka, boring ang running".

filipino is ok. airconditioned classroom. funny and entertaining teacher, with the drawback of homosexuality. haha. ok naman.

math is incredibly boring. i don't mean to sound mayabang, but parang it's too easy. i'm used to mr david and him making our math lives as hard as possible. you were always alert and sharp with mr david cuz you had to. he would not make it easy. our math now is boring. our teacher is boring. but let's bet i won't be so lackadaisical when the diagnostic test is over with and the real math begins. i plan to die.

is that all? yep, i guess that's it.

stay cool. see ya.

chill.

2005-06-20T19:24:00.000+08:00

let us consider this moment and see that it ranks among the launch of sputnik into space, early man's discovery of fire, the invention of the computer. let us ponder my words and see that they are peers with neil armstrong's "one giant step for mankind", archimedes' "eureka!" and gloria macapagal-arroyo's "hello, garci?".

yes. i am back. try to act as if you care. please. if you can't there's always the "hey sexy" audible in ym.

***

so i'm in college. in ateneo. you know what they say.

keep your friends close. keep your enemies closer.

animo la salle. haha.

***

at this time of the year, people are writing about college life in their blogs. and i'm thinking i will. wait lang.

***

white has surpassed blue as my favorite color after 16 years. maybe because my ipod is white, my havaianas are white, my adidas sambas are white, my lacoste sneakers are white, my algebra book is white (maybe not that last one).

white. yes, the absence of color (if you ask the painters) and the presence of all colors (if you ask the physicists). how can you not love white? it's amazing. think ipod white. think xbox 360 white. think japanese racing white. think ibook white. think modern minimalist interior white. think imac white. think havaianas white. think a course in freshman algebra white (maybe not that last one). it's amazing.

oh, and the cool, subdued white on electronic gadgets such as apple products ('book, 'pod, 'mac) and the xbox 360 is apparently called, yep, you guessed it, ... chill. so cool. chill.

***

lots of fun over the weekend.

boom's debut nung friday. happy birthday boom.

joel reunion nung saturday. welcome back, bowel. (he's here. who? the FATman.)

jay, mon, jau, joel and i discovered our newest "chunks" place. cucina in fort. you shall never again go hungry.

fete. no comment.

***

ok. college. physics is godawfully boring, math is godawfully boring, our filipino teacher is a fag, intac doesn't exist. oh, and i have to make a joke for english. wow. as my seatmate said, "hirit-based ako."

***

that's all for now, i guess.

stay cool. see ya.

no ordinary morning.

2005-03-03T09:38:00.000+08:00

just got home from my physics exam.

and high school is over.

the beautiful game.

2005-03-02T21:37:00.000+08:00

wednesday morning. last pe period. before i leave la salle green hills, i get to play the first sport i ever fell in love with, then fell out of love with, then now regret falling out of love with and worship as the greatest game to ever grace the soil of planet earth: soccer. one last time. here we go. (ole ole ole)

sun blazing, grass green, oh wow. you really live for this stuff. the kickoff gets underway and the ball rolls along the blades of grass. i'm disoriented for a second. it's been so long. anyway, i get into the game. striker, as usual (naks). been a striker since grade 1, since i learned to kick that damned blackspots-on-white ball.

ball moves up and down a few times, till i get the first chance of the game (naks). goal dead ahead, just on the edge of the penalty box. defender is a few feet away. i line up for the shot and unleash, a la frank lampard. it flies straight and true, straight for just below the crossbar. oh yeah. i can feel it. it's over. goal time, baby.

pootek. skilly go jumps up, bats the ball down and catches it in one fluid motion. idiot.

anyway, game progresses. couple of chances for our team. jay forces another bat-it-down-catch-it save from skilly. kim heads the ball with his (get this) bandaged-stiched-up head. almost trickles past skilly. but he picks it up before it crosses the line. idiot. then he laughs. goodness. this guy, grudgingly, is quite good in the net.

soon, the other team scores a goal, courtesy of kriz andres. yay. we're losing.

i try to pull the goal back immediately, but i lose the ball. galing. it goes up to our end, and good lord, they score again because (get this) we had no goalie since (get this) jomo was "whining" about not wanting to be in goal. yay.

so, 2-0. how humiliating, especially since i'm uber intense competitive man. anyway, the game goes on. some changes occur in our lineup; jau subs in for an exhausted greg, while jomo and argie join the attack up front from the back.

one of the best moves i've ever done in any sport happened. ball comes in high. i'm at the halfline with a defender right behind me. i let the ball bounce. it comes up, then comes down. when it's just below my waist, with the defender pushing me from behind, i kick the ball over both our heads and make a quick turn. voila. the defender is behind me and i have a clear path upfield. too bad i couldn't control the ball that well when it came down and the defender somehow manages to get it back. yay. haha. ang feeling ko kasi.

we press more, attacking almost relentlessly. jay hits the post with a shot. a few moments later, jomo has it on the left side of goal. i'm open on the far post. jomo shuttles the pass over. i extend my foot and make solid contact. ball flies and sends a ripple through the roof of the net. goal. boo-yah. thierry henry.

i had forgotten what it felt like to score a goal. when i did, it reminded me why this was such a great sport. when you score a goal, it feels like you're flying; hence, the much-imitated ronaldo airplane celebration. it feels so invigorating; i ran the length of the pitch from the opposing goal to the halfline on adrenaline along. when i stopped, i felt like vomiting. i was exhausted.

the game went on as we pushed for that elusive equalizer. jomo threads me another fine pass at the right post, only to have skilly save a tap-in attempt from my weaker left foot.

the game ends 2-1. we trudge back to the stands, unbelievably exhausted but exhilirated as well. great game. the consensus was that maybe it WAS worth giving up a last basketball game. i certainly felt that way.

it's fitting that this soccer game only happened because of a cancelled basketball game. when i stopped playing soccer back in grade 4, it was because basketball stole my heart from it. well, for one last time, i was a grade 3 kid clad in ancient apes red once again. i remembered why i loved this game. it almost felt like i was meant for this. the beautiful game got me back.

yo, yo, yo. wheredidyago?

2005-02-21T20:58:00.000+08:00

ah. finally.

computer's been in the shop for a couple of weeks now. the harddrive was reformatted. meaning, no live (and otehr ea sports titles), and a lot of other games. i still have, though, the drive D games, like jedi knight, mafia and gta. and na-backup naman ung save files of all the games. thank you.

anyway, this blog has been painfully not updated. which is why this entry exists.

lots of stuff has gone on in the past two weeks. the other weekend, feb 11-12, kabihasnan fair and the overdose concert. pachinko, our seemingly hopeless booth, sold amazingly well with the little kids. concert was cool. saturday night-sunday morning, kain/booze in chicken inasal (goodness) in metrowalk with jay, greg, mon, joel, dre and peej. whadahell. this is all prolly old news to you.

so, anywayz, today, after our early dismissal in school, delmy and i travelled all the way to taft avenue for our dlsu star scholar interviews. kain sa mcdo. interviews are kinda fun. i like talking (like you didn't know that already). so, it was a relatively cool way of spending the first half of the afternoon. afterwards, lrt-mrt to shang. frap in starbucks, go home.

so i sit here, automotive homework not done, physics homework not done, english monologue half-memorized. haha. but i'm happy to have a damned computer again.

***

last week of high school. feb 21-25. last two regular class days of high school. wednesday and thursday. we really are upon the final dawn. here we go again.

i feel excited and happy. i'ma shout for joy when classes are over on thursday. dude, come on. sa wakas. another year's work has paid off. exultation.

but beneath it all will be some resignation, some quiet sadness as we look back at the days that we said we hated but basically made up the past 4 years of our lives. we, secretly, grudgingly, absolutely love the typical monotonous high school day.

i will miss the assignment rush hour before class. i will miss the daily trek up the ever-increasing flight of stairs. i will miss taking my seat beside mon yet again. i will miss playfully telling joel and mama to kindly acquire lives. i will miss finding some distraction from the drone of [insert teacher]. i will miss the cramming, with bree, aka intense-man-of-cramming-and-deadline-extensions leading the way. i will miss breaktimes at the gazebo. i will miss iPod time during pe. i will miss the tests where everyone so surely predicts failure and everyone aces it anyway. i will miss all the kalokohan and the samahan. i will miss saying, "putek 'tong araw na 'to! sana hindi na mag-exist!". i will miss walking home under the blazing sun on the clay-red track with mon and jay. i will miss occasional mcdo meals with pao and mico. i will miss conferring with classmates over ym. i will miss preparing that oh-so-beautiful white-on-black uniform before another day. i will miss walking sleepily in the cool air and the gentle sunlight during another morning. i will miss pumping my fist to the alma mater song. i will miss the beauty and glory of the school i called home.

yes. i will miss the days that i repeated over and over again for a thousand days. you never do get enough.

rest, eat, drink, be merry. for tomorrow we die.

2005-02-03T18:46:00.000+08:00

last few days have been tons of fun. we're counting the days 'till everything's over, 'till we say goodbye. and parang because of that, la lang, we're just having lots of fun.

lots of medalist exams going on. there are basically two types: essay-type tests that don't require studying, and normal-type tests that do. i'm pissed with both of them. the normal-type tests 'cuz i don't study at all, and the essay-types 'cuz they deprive my hand of existence.

yesterday, science period was just flat-out crazy. half of the time we were studying physics, the other half... well, that's where the crazy part comes in. kalokohan talaga. guys inviting ms yky to the gradball, mike-in-a-palda as a character in a physics problem, ernest-and-ray-of-light in a physics problem, basta. crazy. enjoy.

xanadu was medyo useless. we "critiqued" some articles and plan for our feb16 last meeting party. but mostly, mon and i just sat around, iPods and reading lalaki sa dilim. haha. i guess i'll miss writing for xanadu. these three years for the mag have been good. i'm grateful 'cuz xanadu gave me a reason to write.

automotive today was pretty cool. we arm-wrestled with torque wrenches and got "oily". haha. the oil feels good. nice. ask the guys. haha.

later, we had the grad song contest. it really surprised me how we've got so many talented musicians in our batch. most of the songs were really nice. galing talaga ng lasalista. haha. kudos to salamat for winning. thumbs up to this time (our very own), stay, eskwelahan, checkered flag of youth, and whatever song mikey ascalon and the 4-i dudes performed. really cool. someone remind me what the title was. the songs really reflected the times everyone's had, the camaraderie and the friendship; we'll miss 'em.

after school, learned na we had no training at the club today, so i walked with jomo and tim "noji" magtoto to galle. there, i find joel, who i walk around and window-shop with.

anywayz... high school's really coming to an end na. it's so close. the end's gonna be here before we know it. buti na 'to, we're having fun. 'cuz fun's what life's about, really.

see ya.

welcome back.

2005-01-31T20:17:00.000+08:00

haven't blogged in awhile. dunno why. not much has been happening, but a lot's been on my mind. i guess i just can't get off my ass to write.

feb 1 na bukas. damn. another month has passed. so quickly. it's amazing. before we know it, we're in college. we have jobs. we have kids. we're old and wrinkly. we're dead. and we won't realize, even then, that everything has come to pass. it's sad. it's amazing.

elektra was one of the worst movies i've ever watched. sure, the characters were mildly interesting, but everything else was... goodness. i don't even have words to describe how i feel. jeez. up to now, i STILL DON'T KNOW WHY WE FRIGGIN' WATCHED that movie. i'm sure jay, mon, joel, greg and jau don't know either.

was at csa nung saturday for the ista awarding ceremonies. coach randy was there too, kasi champions ang miriam; he had his nice huskie puppy that was too cute to exist. seriously. people could just die looking at it. your internal organs would constrict and you'd spontaneously combust because the puppy is just SO DAMNED CUTE. seriously, grabe. ang cute. haha.

what else is there tom say? lots, actually, pero 'la akong masabi eh. thoughts are just so hard to put into writing at times. naks. deep.

haha. see ya.

the calm AFTER the storm.

2005-01-23T14:33:00.000+08:00

highlights of the exam:
1. cl test. otherwise known as eternal damnation.
2. filipino test. otherwise known as the fuck, bro?!?.

thursday. after the exams, it's glorietta and shopping for me. had to get my outfit fixed up for the merit scholarship cocktail thing. (yes, i really did buy new clothes for that). so... pink/maroon striped polo from M&S Sp., new leather shoes (have you seen my old leather shoes? they are ugly as sin. these i really needed.), and the matching pants for my suit jacket. okay. why am i saying this? masyado kasi akong feeling. okay.

friday. an hour of window shopping in shang before heading to dre's. found a couple of things i will spend my money on in the near future. why am i saying this?

so it's to dre's place to hitch with him going to the woodrose soiree/party/whateva. riding with peej, greg, tiammy and carly to alabang, we find that the "traffic" dre told us to expect has ceased to exist. so we pass the toll gate of alabang finding ourselves an hour ahead of schedule. to save face and not be *atatsintensehots* men, we grab a bite at brothers burgers. apol, aka hikaw, holds down the fort at the party place together with espanol. there were spoken concerns about this.

party was pretty okay, dancing and i-have-never game. ok naman. our group was the last to leave, mostly because of dre. haha. you know what i mean. i get home at 345. happy happy. thank god the prada tournament, which was supposed to be on sat, was cancelled. thank you.

saturday. i wake up late, meaning no barangay community service. nice. in the afternoon was the ateneo merit scholarship gathering thing, so i get dressed (naks. i really just had to say that, no?) and head over. lots of aj peeps, lots of GO ATENEO speeches (my dad and i were nauseous), good food. pretty okay. i kinda enjoyed myself. except for father nebres' 45-minute-long good-lord-of-a-speech. jeez.

after the dinner was the concert sa up theatre with jay, joel and greg.. cool, great performances, particularly from rivermaya and nyoy. only beef was that rivermaya played a grand total of 2 lines from my fave song (ulan). the fuck, bro?!?.

i get home at 1230. only because my folks didn't allow me na to hang out. if that pushed through, it would be "ahoy" to 345 all over again.

anyway. see ya.

the good news. and the bad news.

2005-01-18T16:38:00.000+08:00

the good news: exams. just 2 hours of tests then you're free the whole day. saya.
the bad news: EXAMS. studying. argh. unless you like that sickening feeling of knowing nothing remotely close to the things on your questionnaire. which i don't like.

the good news: my hair. nice and long.
the bad news: my hair WAS nice and long. until sir medro caught me. damn him. now i had to have it cut and i have a vr. wow. happy.

the good news: i'm eating chocolates. heaven.
the bad news: you're NOT eating chocolates. that is so sad.

the good news: i updated the blog.
the bad news: i can't come up with more to say.

see ya.

sunday morning, rain is falling.

2005-01-16T14:13:00.000+08:00

actually, it's a sunday afternoon. and while it's cloudy, it hasn't rained yet.

friday. after a mr.david test, a science period that could've been named "iPod listening time", a filipino period where i did NOTHING, and a music period which was one half filipino period doing NOTHING and one half music, mon and i hitched with jay to go to his house to (damn the term) chillax. putek yan.

joel followed afterwards, and we had tremendous fun. highlights:
1. us forcing jay-ar to finish metal gear solid 3 just so we could see the ending. jay-ar snaps thanks to joel shouting, "the fleshy area!" over and over and over again.
2. our feasting on mcdo food. literally. we stuffed ourselves full with mcchicken sandwiches, double cheeseburgers, chicken nuggets, spaghetti, ice cream sundaes and twister fries. beef prosperity was nowhere to be found, though. maybe next time.
3. emo talks while eating mcdo. naks. emo.
4. supersize me after eating mcdo. we are crazy. after watching about half of the film, i can conclude that i still enjoy chicken nuggets even after the mash-the-big-breasted-chickens-bones-and-all thing. come on. how can you NOT enjoy chicken nuggets?

saturday. in the morning, i go to csa for the ista finals. we were undefeated in the season, so we were saying na dapat champs na kami. but csa is the host, so they decided to give themselves a shot at getting the title. how considerate of them.

without raymond, we lose the finals. the kang guy scares me by celebrating weirdly while everyone was come since ista isn't such a big deal naman. this is the second straight year we have lost ista while having the best damned team. oh well.

night, i go to greenbelt to meet up with mon, jay and joel (yes, them again). after eating in d'mark's (utterly making my money cease to exist) where i pour water on mon's hand, we go and watch kung fu hustle. joel was kind enough to buy me kitkat chunky, after i complained to the cashier ladies on their lack of m n m's crispy in the damned store. fools. how can you NOT have m n m's crispy in a damned candy store?

the movie was pretty hilarious, aside from being mind-numbingly predictable at times. fun. after the movie was our customary walk around greenbelt to check out hot chicks/count how many hot chicks checked us out. jay and i counted 8 each. mon and joel aren't that vain and egotistic. haha.

after, it was jay's house for booze, nuts and 50 first dates. ok movie, though the man of a woman/woman of a man scared me. got home at around 230.

oh, and did i fail to mention that we have exams tomorrow? haha. see ya.

this couldn't possibly end.

2005-01-13T21:07:00.000+08:00

for a second, pretend you're me. or pretend you're any fourth year high school student on planet earth who's about to graduate in a couple of months.

okay.

now go back a few years, maybe your freshman or soph years. now think. think of a normal day around that time. you're in school. friends laughing. unfinished homework. pending tests.

okay. now here's the good part.

did you ever, ever possibly conceive that you would be standing here? a mere 2 months away from saying goodbye to it all. did you ever, ever think that the times could end? ever?

if the answers are no, then welcome to the club.

so here we stand, a step away from the end of the journey. this is it. you can scream all you want about, "may 2 months pa tayo! matagal pa!", but really, THIS IS IT. this is the end. this is the moment we never thought about until we suddenly found ourselves on the brink of it. this is the moment that stayed buried underneath the fun, the friendship, the hardships, the trials, the times.

a lot of people are happy that high school's finally over. sa wakas, grad na tayo. college pare, chicks na 'to. but come on. you cannot help but look back with some sadness at the friends who laughed with you, cried with you, made sure you stay afloat. you cannot help but look back with some deep breaths at the place that was your home for most of your life. you cannot help but look back with some melancholy at the everyday events and the marquee landmarks that defined what was the time of your life.

the time of your life.

these are the people. this is the place. this is the time when you surveyed at a distance, hesitantly dove into, got burned and gained bliss from the joys and pains of growing up. this is the time of the freedom and carefree living of youth; there was nothing else to do but enjoy.

this was the time of our lives. and it's over. how can you not feel sad about that?

so the next time you laugh with your friends, clamber down the stairs hurriedly after a mind-numbing session of mr.david math, walk the track oval in the blazing sun after a hard day, groggily taking steps in the cool morning air of a new day, donning your white-on-black-driver uniform, crazily cramming and doing assignments ... take a deep breath. suck it all in. remember the faces and the places.

it's hard not to have regrets. you will always have them. but it's never too late to appreciate what you're part of, before the moment slips away.

i'm happy i'm going to college. excited. but i will miss high school. always.

enjoy guys.

lifestyles of the rich and famous.

2005-01-12T18:03:00.000+08:00

yesterday, i was casually eating in valle verde country club before training.

i see loren legarda. drowning in make up.

i see richard gomez. a regular. super bench shirt. haha.

i see lucy torres-gomez. reed-thin.

i see this hot povedan chick. haha.

you damn well know which one i would have wanted to meet.

haha. i am SO right now. SO. haha.

yun na muna. see ya.

too fast.

2005-01-10T19:23:00.000+08:00

as in 2Fast2Furious. haha. fun day.

in the morning, we went down to the promenade during flag ceremony to receive our Intrams Overall Champion (more popularly known as Uberol Tsampyon) trophy. two words: GOOD MAN. we were eliminated in the major sports (basketball, soccer, volleyball), which garnered us 9 out of our trophy-winning 80 points. we won a bit in track, but we flat-out dominated swimming. mark sarmenta winning EVERYTHING. 52 points. GOOD MAN. so advice to future classes: get a varsity-caliber hustler of a swimmer and win all the events. you could NOT JOIN the others and still win champion. GOOD MAN.

vdp ceased to exist and primarily consisted of provoking apol to do extremely, er, graphic and *intense* things. i refuse to say anymore.

pe was the usual: watching my classmates do silly volleyball things while iPodizing and saying, "Sorry, varsity." haha. yabang nampotek.

english was the classic "this period might well have never existed" chafely group-yourselves-then-report. borefest, yes, but mon and bree kept me sane. and hey, doing nothing is fun. in school, at least.

after lunch, the good stuff poured in. mr nolasco, aka "good lord", was absent and mr. ft sison, aka "do not afraid", came in with a dvd player and a dvd. i quipped to mon, "2fast!". note that i said this in the same way i would say "star wars!" in a physics class.

but the gods shined upon this day. 2Fast2Furious it was. good man.

poor acting by everyone: tyrese, ludacris (reminded me of dmx's horrifying performance in cradle2thegrave), "su ki", everyone. but hey, cars and shit. can't go wrong with skylines, evos and NFSU-but-movieness. enjoyable.

***
Quote of the Day
"Totoy Mola!" -bree and apol. what this means escapes me. they could have said "ashduas juasdhydg" and i wouldn't have recognized the diff.

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you're faster than you think.

2005-01-09T22:12:00.000+08:00

this is where we start, people. don't touch that dial.