Paul's Pantulog Birthday Party last night was fun!

Sadly, I was pretty horrible at securing booze, so I wasn't able to get drunk.

However, I think I still effed-up answering Zuri's phone. This is why you shouldn't try to make me do other stuff when I'm playing my DS. :P

Sorry Zuri!

Statistically speaking, unless you are a total hermit, a social retard, or ugly as a putrid bum, there is at least one person in your multiply network that has a crush on, wants to date you, wants to sleep with you or simply just wants to kiss you. So... let's play "No Guts, No Glory!"

The rules are simple.

   1. If you want to date the person who posted this, send a Personal Message, not a reply to this post, saying "Coffee?"
   2. If you have a crush on the person who posted this, send a Personal Message saying"You're hot!"
   3. If you just want to sleep with them & stay friends, send them a message that says "Nice shoes!"
   4. If you simply just want to kiss the person who posted this, send a Personal Message saying, "I do!"

SCARED?

The only rule is that, you must not make anyone who sends you a personal message feel stupid for feeling that way about you. Acknowledge. Say thank you. Move on.

IF YOU'VE READ THIS, YOU HAVE TO REPOST THIS, EVEN IF YOU'RE TAKEN & see who replies.

SO... re-post this as "No Guts, No Glory", as it doesn't matter if you're married, in a relationship, or single.

You opened it so you HAVE to repost it! A test of your bravery!

Thank you for making my life more complicated. 

I had a really weird dream last night. It was almost like I had a remote and switching back and forth between the different "story lines". I could remember at least 3 different stories, each of them distinct. I'll try to share them.

In one world, I was a model at a runway show. It was a weird show for a combined formal wear/sleep wear line. I would be wearing a combined tuxedo/pajamas version, or a suit with a bed cap. I do remember wearing my sleeping mask at certain points, and apparently surviving the catwalk with it on.

Snippets of me going through outfits, trading stories with the other models, and walking the gauntlet of photographers would get interrupted whenever I'd "flip" and go to a different "channel". But nothing much happened in this story - not even a heroin-addicted hermaphrodite model going berserk on the runway.

A more interesting story was the one where I was part of a boot camp for what seemed to be either a SWAT division or for a search-and-rescue operation - think less this and more of this. It was pretty grueling, and I could remember it  being really tough and emotionally painful - we had a deadline to aim for, as there was a Big Occurence of Ominous Proportions looming on the horizon, and we would have to finish our training before that happened. I also think we were going to be the last squad trained, ever. Sadly, this dream did not go on as long as I wished it would... sigh.

The last dream was really weird. I was both a fitness instructor/gym trainer - and a TV personality making a recruitment video for the Army. I guess I was that popular?

These dreams are interesting - all of them showed me doing stuff I would never consider as serious career prospects in real life. These were all very, very physical work that didn't have much writing or talking involved - and all of these put great emphasis on my physical condition too, which is something my ego and laziness would probably have trouble with.

I guess somewhere in another universe is a male model, or an emergency service specialist, or TV's most popular fitness expert, wondering what would've happened if they stayed in college instead of dropping out?

I do not know what is worse when dealing with emo friends - the one who loudly announce that they have a problem, but refuse to tell you what it is or accept your help, or the the ones who talk to you about it, agree that your advise is the best way to deal with this, and yes, your help would be greatly appreciated - and then proceed to continue being emo, as if you hadn't come to a solution yesterday.

Whatever. I'm too angry to be emo for you guys. Enjoy this song, emo kids, this is exactly what I would say to you if I were face to face to you right now. Except I'd probably be swearing a lot more, and possibly drinking as well. And if you ever want to come out of the ruts you're in, if you need me to bury any bodies, or you just need someone to talk to, I'm here.

I dreamt I was on a Star Trek-ish space station. I was part of the permanent crew stationed on the ship. A ship had come in which had mutinied, and they took over the space station as well, putting most of the crewmen in holding (along with their crewmates who they had ejected) and left a skeleton crew running the space station.

However, thanks to sabotage on our side, they were unable to leave the space station, and had to spend time for repairs. I began to bond with a pregnant officer from the mutineering ship, and soon we were getting pretty intimate.

But I was also part of an operation from the people in the holding cells to re-take the station. Thanks to some Spock-y kungfu and really awful/awesome Kirk overacting, we were able to stop the mutineer leader's evil plan of switching bodies with the officers in the holding cells and letting them take the punishment.

And then it turns out that the reason why the mutineers were able to successfully take over the ship and the space station in the first place was thanks to the help of the girl I was sleeping with. Whether she was aware that she was helping them or not, she got arrested as well for her complicity in the whole mess. Bonus points, the baby she was carrying was fathered by the right-hand man of the mutineer leader.

This is the part where I woke up.

Saki is one of my favorite authors, who specializes in short stories. When I was in Grade 3, my mom bought a lot of Oxford Progressive English Readers books, which were condensed and slightly sanitized versions of great (and not so great) works of literature in the English language. The books had a lot of impact on me - it exposed me to a lot of authors and genres I would not have had access to, from Shakespeare to Burmese horror stories, and greatly influenced my writing.

One of these books was a collection of Saki's short stories. Man, how to describe Saki's style?

His style reminds me why I hate the term "speculative fiction" so much. He is a bit of an absurdist - things happen in extremely unusual circumstances just to make a punchline. He's also a magical realist, but with a mad bent for humor. But his humor is really dark - especially since it draws upon his life as a lonely, closeted homosexual in Victorian England who'd gone through so much hilarious tragedy at an early age. Seriously, how many people can honestly say they lost their mother to a tragic accident involving a runaway cow?

But judge his writing for yourself - I've included one of his most famous stories after my overly-long writeup. It's "The Open Window", one of my favorite stories as well, and you might notice has a strong resemblance to some of my earlier fiction. To see the rest of his work (which is all, thankfully, now out of copyright), head to Project Gutenberg.

The Open Window  by Saki

"My aunt will be down presently, Mr. Nuttel," said a very self-possessed young lady of fifteen; "in the meantime you must try and put up with me."  

Framton Nuttel endeavoured to say the correct something which should duly flatter the niece of the moment without unduly discounting the aunt that was to come.  Privately he doubted more than ever whether these formal visits on a succession of total strangers would do much towards helping the nerve cure which he was supposed to be undergoing.  

"I know how it will be," his sister had said when he was preparing to migrate to this rural retreat; "you will bury yourself down there and not speak to a living soul, and your nerves will be worse than ever from moping.  I shall just give you letters of introduction to all the people I know there.  Some of them, as far as I can remember, were quite nice."  

Framton wondered whether Mrs. Sappleton, the lady to whom he was presenting one of the letters of introduction, came into the nice division.  

"Do you know many of the people round here?" asked the niece, when she judged that they had had sufficient silent communion.  

"Hardly a soul," said Framton.  "My sister was staying here, at the rectory, you know, some four years ago, and she gave me letters of introduction to some of the people here."   He made the last statement in a tone of distinct regret.  

"Then you know practically nothing about my aunt?" pursued the self-possessed young lady.   "Only her name and address," admitted the caller.  He was wondering whether Mrs. Sappleton was in the married or widowed state.  An undefinable something about the room seemed to suggest masculine habitation.  

"Her great tragedy happened just three years ago," said the child; "that would be since your sister's time."  

"Her tragedy?" asked Framton; somehow in this restful country spot tragedies seemed out of place.  

"You may wonder why we keep that window wide open on an October afternoon," said the niece, indicating a large French window that opened on to a lawn.  

"It is quite warm for the time of the year," said Framton; "but has that window got anything to do with the tragedy?"  

"Out through that window, three years ago to a day, her husband and her two young brothers went off for their day's shooting.  They never came back.  In crossing the moor to their favourite snipe-shooting ground they were all three engulfed in a treacherous piece of bog.  It had been that dreadful wet summer, you know, and places that were safe in other years gave way suddenly without warning.  Their bodies were never recovered. That was the dreadful part of it."  Here the child's voice lost its self- possessed note and became falteringly human.  "Poor aunt always thinks that they will come back some day, they and the little brown spaniel that was lost with them, and walk in at that window just as they used to do. That is why the window is kept open every evening till it is quite dusk. Poor dear aunt, she has often told me how they went out, her husband with his white waterproof coat over his arm, and Ronnie, her youngest brother, singing 'Bertie, why do you bound?' as he always did to tease her, because she said it got on her nerves.  Do you know, sometimes on still, quiet evenings like this, I almost get a creepy feeling that they will all walk in through that window--"  

She broke off with a little shudder.  It was a relief to Framton when the aunt bustled into the room with a whirl of apologies for being late in making her appearance.  

"I hope Vera has been amusing you?" she said.  

"She has been very interesting," said Framton.  

"I hope you don't mind the open window," said Mrs. Sappleton briskly; "my husband and brothers will be home directly from shooting, and they always come in this way.  They've been out for snipe in the marshes to-day, so they'll make a fine mess over my poor carpets.  So like you men-folk, isn't it?"  

She rattled on cheerfully about the shooting and the scarcity of birds, and the prospects for duck in the winter.  To Framton it was all purely horrible.  He made a desperate but only partially successful effort to turn the talk on to a less ghastly topic; he was conscious that his hostess was giving him only a fragment of her attention, and her eyes were constantly straying past him to the open window and the lawn beyond. It was certainly an unfortunate coincidence that he should have paid his visit on this tragic anniversary.  

"The doctors agree in ordering me complete rest, an absence of mental excitement, and avoidance of anything in the nature of violent physical exercise," announced Framton, who laboured under the tolerably widespread delusion that total strangers and chance acquaintances are hungry for the least detail of one's ailments and infirmities, their cause and cure.  "On the matter of diet they are not so much in agreement," he continued.  

"No?" said Mrs. Sappleton, in a voice which only replaced a yawn at the last moment.  Then she suddenly brightened into alert attention--but not to what Framton was saying.  

"Here they are at last!" she cried.  "Just in time for tea, and don't they look as if they were muddy up to the eyes!"  

Framton shivered slightly and turned towards the niece with a look intended to convey sympathetic comprehension.  The child was staring out through the open window with dazed horror in her eyes.  In a chill shock of nameless fear Framton swung round in his seat and looked in the same direction.  

In the deepening twilight three figures were walking across the lawn towards the window; they all carried guns under their arms, and one of them was additionally burdened with a white coat hung over his shoulders. A tired brown spaniel kept close at their heels.  Noiselessly they neared the house, and then a hoarse young voice chanted out of the dusk: "I said, Bertie, why do you bound?"  

Framton grabbed wildly at his stick and hat; the hall-door, the gravel- drive, and the front gate were dimly-noted stages in his headlong retreat.  A cyclist coming along the road had to run into the hedge to avoid an imminent collision.  

"Here we are, my dear," said the bearer of the white mackintosh, coming in through the window; "fairly muddy, but most of it's dry.  Who was that who bolted out as we came up?"  

"A most extraordinary man, a Mr. Nuttel," said Mrs. Sappleton; "could only talk about his illnesses, and dashed off without a word of good-bye or apology when you arrived.  One would think he had seen a ghost."  

"I expect it was the spaniel," said the niece calmly; "he told me he had a horror of dogs.  He was once hunted into a cemetery somewhere on the banks of the Ganges by a pack of pariah dogs, and had to spend the night in a newly dug grave with the creatures snarling and grinning and foaming just above him.  Enough to make anyone their nerve."  

Romance at short notice was her speciality.

Over the past 3+ years since I started studying Geography, I've asked for, borrowed, or stolen around a dozen copies of the Geography curriculum...

Well, to give something back, I retyped it, and placed it in table form for easy subject enlistment planning! It's downloadable at the link below this entry.

I even put in a space for "Semester Taken" since not everyone ttakes their subjects on-time :P I also put in a place for you to put a grade. However, since I don't know how to put a formula to coughup your GWA, I guess you'll just have to Copy+paste the tables into Excel.

To use it, follow the format in the 1st entry - GE (AH)* - English 10) - to fill it out. And good luck to all of my fellow Geog majors.

To non-Geog majors, you can also use it as a template, but obviously you'd have to change the subjects and the footnotes. If you do, do us all a favor and upload a copy as well!

EDIT: I fixed some minor typos and a major mistake - I had forgotten to include the 6 units of summer field work that's required. The latest version of the file with corrections is now geog gurriculum 2.doc If you see any more errors, please let me know. If you have other suggestions, go ahead and say it.

WTF is wrong with you?

If you can read this, and you know that I'm talking about you, text me. Call me. Heck, misscall me and I'll call you back. I'm worried about you, and your replies (or lack of it) aren't reassuring me.

Apparently being away from daily Internet access killed off my what was left of my laughable HTML coding skills. I deleted my previous multiply entry rather than attempt to fix it - the moment was gone.

So, yeah, I'll be extending my stay here for a few more days - we still have a lot of work to do.

I wish I could stop thinking about you everyday.

Hung out today with a friend at UP inbetween field work preparations. I was so amused by our long conversation today - this was probably the longest I've ever talked to him, and on such serious (and cracky) topics, to boot!

In a way, our talk reminded me of how much time has passed since I entered UP - he's practically a freshman - and how much I've grown and matured since then. He's going through a similar situation and troubles that I was in 2-3 years ago... and I tried to give him advice that I wish someone had given me back then - Stop being Emo and miserable, get out of your room because there's a world outside, and, most importantly, stop second-guessing yourself and GO FOR IT.

In matters of love, what we regret most are not the wrong moves, but the ones where we didn't do anything at all.

Anyway, to my friend, who I shall not name here because I know you're going through a tough time right now, I'm sorry for teasing you so mercilessly kanina about being so Emo. :P Trust me, if you go through my entries from that time, you'd see I was so Emo you could practically hear the Linkin Park/Sum41 music playing in the background while I was writing about how lonely I am and how NO ONE UNDERSTANDS MEEE HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN TO MEEEEE??? -_-;; Don't worry, you'll get over it.

I hope all the rest of you who read this blog/LJ got something out of this too. :P

And while I think you're making heaven a lot more fun than it used to be... we still miss you down here, Ricky.

I finally finished encoding my cellphone's phonebook into my pc. Now I can delete all the numbers on my sim, and on my phone, and switch to a new(-er) model.

This is an accomplishment for many reasons - I've been concerned at the latest iteration of "My cellphone got stolen/broken/eaten by a 2 year old llama" stories, and I sure as heck don't wanna lose contact with any of you guys.

Well, most of you.

But now I can have a phonebook online which I can keep as a reference in case, god forbid (knocks on wood) something bad happens to my SIM or phone. Or for the numbers I think would like to remember, but won't fit on my cellphone or SIM phonebook anymore.

It's been hell, since I had to manually encode each number. I have a typing speed last clocked at 69 words per minute, but this is SO BORING to do, and I keep getting distracted by the Internets. I think that putting the numbers back in would be hell, too. Oh well, that's the way it is.

Not because of any stalking issues or identity theft issues, similar to what had prompted some of my other friends to do so. Not because of any emo issues, either.

I just got bored with it. I barely check it anymore, and it doesn't have the functionality that Multiply, LJ, or Facebook has. I found maintaining my Friendster to be too much work.

Adios Friendster. It's been 5-6 years. You failed me when I really needed you back in 2006.

1. Remove INC in Geog 321. (Thank you Sir Mel for not failing me!!)
2. Get a 6 pack (Wish ko lang.)
3. Buy clothes that fit, or, at the very least, get rid/get altered all my clothes that don't fit me anymore. (Sorta related to # 2).
4. Finish writing Mina story, tentatively titled "Path of Ispiration".
5. Finish writing Spy story, tentatively titled "Department Q".
6. Finish kitbashing a Superhero RPG system using New World of Darkness rules.
7. Find a part-time job.

Just got back from BJ's birthday party. That was fun!

My thesis that my house is 2-3 rides away from everywhere else has not been disproven yet. It took me 2 long jeep rides from BJ's house to my home. Which, btw, is not a kariton along Taft Avenue, thankyouverymuch. :P

I kinda feel guilty for how wasted BJ's younger bro got. We really should've kept him away from the mudslide and the tequila. And the vodka. But we were so worried about other people we thought would have weaker constitutions, like Mike, or Coro, or BJ's sister, that we didn't notice that the mudslide had disappeared. Younger siblings are always evil.

Overall, I like the way my bartending skills have improved. I managed to survive wielding a blender tonight - next time I may attempt to make cocktails!

I'm updating my phonebook so I can switch phones and stuff.

Along the way I've been renaming names and regrouping people. For example, classmates who've been upgraded to friends have gotten their subject/course removed from the end of their name. Likewise, fandom friends who I am now more familiar with don't have "Star Wars" or "Harry Potter" at the end of their entry, too.

I also just realize there are names in my phonebook who I have to delete now for the sake of my sanity.

And there's gonna be a couple of names that'll be tough to delete - when are you supposed to delete dead friends from your phonebook?

‫‬‭‮‪‫‬‭‮҉Whoot. I'm having so much fun with this!

‬‭‮‪‫‬‭‮ I bet you guys are confused on what the heck is happening, right?

It's simple, actually...read this to understand what happens, since it is in Unix programming talk and that is out of my league. :P

... can someone repair them for me?

I had the most frustratingly realistic dream last night.

I went on a road trip with some friends, along with someone who I had dated for some time but never got anywhere with. We spent the trip seated together in a very cramped car, then we shared a room in an inn together, and had much fun with the sights, the sounds.

AND ABSOLUTELY NOTHING HAPPENED, JUST LIKE IN REAL LIFE. No sex, no relationship upgrade, not even drunken fumbling around in a dark parking lot.

Sheesh, even further proof that my brain hates me.