STORIES, STORIES

1-0-0 makes me think of Dilbert. *** It's my 100th post. For some reason, I think of 100 as a huge number. It has more of an impact on me than 200 does, or 1,000, or even 1,000,000. I promised myself I'd do something significant on my 100th post. But my word is, it turns out, not good. *** This blog has survived 3 months. It would be such a shame to cancel it. I owe it to myself to keep it going for at least a year. However, I've been entertaining thoughts of deleting it. One of the reason is because I feel like instead of growing as a writer, I've actually regressed. Even I find my posts boring. Repetitive. I try too hard to write. What I really need is a break.  So instead of cancelling it impulsively, I will let it sit for about a month, untouched. And only then would I decide. Thank you for reading me, friends. I will be back.

I remember the yellow light bulb on the staircase landing of the townhouse I used to share with my brothers. Walking towards it always meant I had come home too late into the night (or too early in the morning) minus that feeling of dread that always accompanied the practice of having to explain yourself and your whereabouts.  I don't see how people don't see themselves, when they spend the most time with themselves.  I want to be doing 200 things at the same time, not a moment to catch my breath. I hate intransitive verbs. They are so negative. I don't remember graduating from university.  I have never seen the sun rise. Too many people talk about it in that wistful manner. I'm sure it's overrated. I wonder how you walk, your gait, and what volumes it speak. I love the idea of freedom. It makes me feel pretty. I have always wondered what would have happened had I not missed that bus. Would I have bought that pair of shoes? Would it have felt awesome? I know now the...

If you are a Filipino voter, you might be interested in this . The elections are in 2010. It's the Obama-esque speech that won the people over. Are you voting?

You know how I've been trying to fix my sleep? Yeah, not working. I tried for the past few weeks to force myself to sleep at 2 a.m. Sometimes, I would fall asleep, but then wake up promptly a couple hours later. I'd spend the rest of the time reading until a half hour before I have to go to work, when I start to feel sleepy.  Other times, I just don't sleep at all, until that half hour (around 8 a.m.) when I feel sleepy and then take a short half-hour nap until Driver calls my phone and I make him wait another 30 minutes outside while I get my shit together. So since it's clearly not working for me, these normal hours, I've decided to change my approach. My new solution to the problem is this: Jason Bateman.

Meme-ing. After watching an hour long history on internet memes , I was reminded of some of the memes we've had in our family for a long time.  To this day, when my brothers and I get together, we are on the lookout for memetic expressions, video clips, sounds and pictures, either from our friends or from ourselves that evolve into something that we customize for lols, depending on the situation. Most of the time, it's very exclusive, as in we are the only ones who find it funny, but sometimes, it leaks out to our very close friends, and some of our cousins. It's almost like an inside joke gone wild. One of these popular inhouse memes is the one about E, a freelance driver that used to take my brothers to and from their Arabic school here in Jeddah. E had a habit of being on his phone while driving. There was also a certain way he answers his phone, where he changes his voice into a 'bedroom drawl', as if he were suggesting sexual relations to anyone who calls him. ...

It's a tragedy what happened to Filipino journalist Ted Failon and his family. I hope the Failon family gets through this. *** The Filipino Channel (TFC) is on at our house almost 24/7. It is, after all, our only connection to the Philippines right now. When we heard the news about Failon's wife, it started the discussion on suicide and depression, two things that are unheard of, uncommon and of course, unacceptable in our (Maranao) society. These are signs of weakness, something that is taboo and never talked about. A Maranao should have no weaknesses.  Like my friend T said, "We are the Chosen People. Haha. We THINK we are." I never thought about my parents' views on this would be. Now I know to them, it's mostly some form of ignorance. They didn't know about this, and now they do. Which is a good thing. My mother thought that depression was just someone being "maarte". (Let's see, that would probably mean whimsical in English? I'm not ...

My favorite word at the moment: Etho I read something about this in university, in one of the libraries at the AS Hall. It was raining that day, very hot outside. The lady outside the library who made photocopies for 25 centavos per page I think it was, was on her lunch break. I didn't have money for lunch. I had a shitload of reading backed up for 2 literature classes. I had one highlighting pen, neon green. I had a couple of cigarettes in my crumpled Marlboro soft pack; I was saving them for a colder moment, when I would need a smoke.  I remember all of this vividly, because I wrote it all down on a piece of yellow paper. Pretending I was writing a paper, like everyone else in that library. I felt like I was the dumbest, stupidest, most brainless piece of kak within a 500-mile radius. I wondered how I got into the university when there I was, already struggling with my studies, freshman college, and all my batch mates seem to be breezing through every single fucking class. And th...

a) because I am addicted to Twitter. I follow people who double as my daily newspaper reading. Twitter = Zeitgeist. b) because there is a bug in my room, specifically under my bed, and although it might be sleeping right now, it could just decide to come out and scare the goth make-up out of my face at any moment. It's weird, hey, why people are so scared of bugs, especially the harmless ones. c) because I know it's ok for me not to sleep properly for the next few days, knowing I don't have to wake up real early because I don't have work! Well, only in the mornings. And only for next week. Not even all of next week. Just for 2 days actually. Ah, fuck, that's depressing.  d) because at this hour, I really, really feel like a pizza. Man. e) because I can't wait to watch Memoirs of a Geisha (again) after reading the book. And then afterwards, I can't wait to pick up Dune again and continue reading it. 

You turn my world 90 degrees around. I gotta hand it to my Baba. The other night, he accidentally clicked something that caused his screen to rotate like so. He tried, as much as he could, to find a way to get it back to normal. He used his laptop like this for a whole half-hour, browsing online, probably looking for an answer to his problem, before asking me to fix it. As much as it annoys me that I have to teach him one thing over and over and over again, especially when it comes to his computer, I'm very proud of him for at least trying. :)

That Lovin' Feelin'. What makes you so special when you're in love?  Whatever it is you're feeling isn't the first time EVER it has happened to someone in this world, even though you think it's so. You know, you get that really special feeling where you can't stop smiling when you look out the window. And you bury your face into your pillow every morning; ah, life is beautiful, la di da. "No, THIS is different. THIS is just amazing." People in love hear a song (about being in love) and they nod their heads and sing along to it and wonder in amazement how other people could so accurately describe the things they are going through, the way they feel about another person, at that very moment. Wow, it's crazy. I could've written this song. The truth is, when you are in love, you DON'T become special. You become ordinary. You become like every other person in love.  So, love? In combination, love is an activity, not simply a feeling. *** Hur...

Woman. Goth. I've just attended S's birthday party, theme: goth. While it's very easy for us "regular" people to think up themes like this one, we almost always find it difficult to even try to understand the culture we are (mocking) emulating, erm.. mimicking.  It's an interesting subculture. Subcultures, like belief systems and relationships, need hard work. People have to keep up and exert effort to maintain it. *** I had fun at the party. Not partying, but taking pictures. I like event photography, and in fact, I have slowly come to terms with (and accepted) the obvious fact that being an event photographer means I would very rarely be in the pictures.  It's not easy, telling myself that not everything is all about me. You know? That's one step towards selflessness, people. And as the great P. Diddy tweets often: "LET'S GO, PEOPLE !!! LOCK IN !!!" *** It's true. Once you lock in on something that you really, really want, you inch...

This is my Last Good Configuration. In case of any future malfunction, I should go back to these points and Start Repair. 1. No more than 3 idle, lurking hours online. No FB on Sundays and Tuesdays. The internet may be my biggest trigger yet, as it has an overflowing amount of great things and people that I could have been, or would never be. Insecure people such as myself should not be allowed on FB at all, as it is ultimately a popularity contest, and I always feel like I'm the least popular on my network. 2. Bring out the Do-Not-Cross-The-Line tape roll. I kept it away much too long, and now, even the Positive People have become Negative People. And they must be kept out at all costs. Negative People, also a trigger, cancel me out, because they clash with my Crazy. Maintain safe distance. (No clear description on what Negative People are, so I'll play this one by ear.) Do not cross this line. You may toe it. 3. No more sulking at work. My job is a huge trigger. I get no joy ...

In another stroke of pure genius, I decided on impulse, ONCE AGAIN, to restore my laptop's factory settings. Sounds simple enough, yes? No. I have forgotten how to do it. I was gonna put it off until the morning, when I can call my cousin TN to come over and restore the settings for me, because she knows this stuff, and I DON'T COZ I'M A FUCKING idiot. I've done it before, and it was a very simple process, but do I remember how to do it? Of course not. Of course I don't. But I couldn't put it off, because I couldn't sleep from wanting to RESTART my computer's system, from anticipating that feeling of a fresh new clean slate, no files, no programs, no screensaver, no personalized anything, nothing. Good as new laptop. I was gonna change its name, too. A fresh start. My whole life depended on it. This was my restart. I was gonna change my whole outlook, I was gonna start my whole life and let go of all the bad stuff hanging around me. And it was all gonna ...

Even me. Obviously, Twitter isn't as popular in Jeddah as it is elsewhere, like say in the US or the UK. Here is where we can see a very good example of how we over-react to almost anything. When someone from here is linked to the Twitter website, or hears about it, they suddenly have this look of disgust, and I'm sometimes afraid they might actually gag in front of me when they incredulously yell (at me, of course), " What the hell is it supposed to do? What purpose does it serve? Why do people waste their time on something as stupid as that? I mean, who THE HELL (gagging starts here) would actually DO THAT?" You'd think I mentioned something about gutting Taif baboons and feeding their red butts to the wild cats that roam the streets of our neighborhood. I can't judge. After all, I had the same reaction. I mean, seriously. But I find that with Twitter, I am forced to be more creative about what I'm thinking about, what I'm doing, what I'm seeing...

Yes, that IS what she said. I think I broke the following: 1. My head. I'm not a headache person. I never understood why a lot of people couldn't just wave away a little headache. I mean, yeah, it's annoying, but to interfere with your daily activities? Bah. Nonsense. However, I think I had one of those today. I squinted my way through 3 classes. 2. Olaf, my laptop. It's not working right. There are funny noises coming out from its sides, there was no audio from any of the videos I tried to watch online, it takes forever to load anything, and I am missing some icons. I am tempted to restore faculty settings. Did you hear me, Olaf? RESTORE FACULTY SETTINGS. THIS IS A WARNING, GOTDAMNIT. 3. Sleep. I fucked it up all last week. And now, it's broken. I slept at 11pm the other night. That's crazy. 4. Burkina-Faso, my cellphone. The cursor is going all poltergeist again. 5. My ashtray. Well, I really did. I dropped it and it broke.

I wasn't feeling particularly well today: Headache, et al. But these things made me feel much better. They go very well with Pepsi. Courtesy of, you guessed it, L.

Meester Easter all the way from South Afriker. So I bit off the ears to check if there was, in fact, an Easter Egg waiting to be discovered, inside bunny man. And I was strangely relieved to find that there wasn't. We don't celebrate Easter Sunday. But who says no to a nice little choco bunny? Thanks to L who brought the goodies from South Africa. I asked for a nice, home-grown, marriage-able South African mister, but she brought back a bunny instead, which was probably much better. Eh? *nudge, wink* Hot Cross Buns. I've never seen these, and I didn't know what they were, until L brought some for breakfast this morning, and man were they good. PS, I don't heart raisins at all, but I didn't mind them. PPS, L spoils us senseless. Can't wait for her next trip.

Dearest. Manifestation of all my fears. My projection of myself, who I become in a few years. If I'd have the power to ignore the unnecessary, and to identify which side IS unnecessary and if I'm on the right side. If my face has lines of bitterness from the highly-revered melancholy - yearned desired because it magnifies emotion, because that's what makes me a writer, magnifying of emotion. How the depth of my relationships are explored. The things I'd do for a friend. What I'd sacrifice, if I'd hold his weak, dying hand, if I'd visit regularly. If I'd continue to speak in my superior speech. Because I'm tired of saying clean . When I can say scrub wipe wash sweep clear brush cleanse scrape dust purify . PURGE. Just so you understand that I am not that easy to understand, and that unfortunately, you will remain just outside that door, and that there is, in fact, a stopper, so no. The people I consider my friends, and how much of my family is neglect...

I started a new project ( which may be accessed here ) since I'm always online anyway and always griping about Maranaos. Not even 24 hours had passed when I received an email from an anonymous (and presumably) elder Maranao who warned me in the diplomatic-est way possible about saying something that may ruin the Maranao people's good name. As if I can single-handedly achieve that. Also, I'm not the person he should be emailing. (Or am I?) *** Let it not be said that Jeddah does not (try) to respect its expatriates' lifestyles. Living in a compound is very much like living everywhere else in the world. People who live in them should be thankful for what they have.

.. not exactly my chosen profession. It's one thing if people laugh at you and the jokes you make. It's another if they make fun of you. What does "all in good fun" really mean? I'm sure it means "something that is not hurtful, humiliating or insulting in any way." Disqualified from this category is the boyfriend who, for April Fool's Day, knowing that his girlfriend wants a marriage proposal from him, does everything for her that she loves, and then gives her a "mysterious box" that opened to reveal not an engagement ring, but a note that says "April Fools!" Oh, haha. That's funny. Or the guy who pretends he passed out to April-Fool his friend, who thought he had a heart attack, panicked, had the fright of her life, and then was told, "Haha, fooled ya." (True story) That is just abuse of another person's hopes and fears. And ok, that's funny, haha. Until it happens to you. I can take a joke. But I know when ...