My Blog

Two things:

1. Whoever said that learning is fun is a retard stuck in kindergarten.

2. Mind games are for wimps who have no balls to say things straight in to someone else’s face.

I was googling something for an article and I stumbled upon the blog of a friend’s ex.. The net has indeed made the world an even smaller place than it already is. I was thinking I’d save it for myself, as a personal reminder, but I figured some people might benefit from reading it as well. The entry makes sense so I’m reposting it (without permission, I’m afraid, although this seems like something lifted from somewhere else anyway).

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Don’t date because you are desperate.
Don’t marry because you are miserable.
Don’t have kids because you think your genes are superior.
Don’t philander because you think you are irresistible.

Don’t associate with people you can’t trust.
Don’t cheat. Don’t lie. Don’t pretend.
Don’t dictate because you are smarter.
Don’t demand because you are stronger.

Don’t sleep around because you think you are old enough & know better.
Don’t hurt your kids because loving them is harder.
Don’t sell yourself, your family, or your ideals.
Don’t stagnate!

Don’t regress.
Don’t live in the past. Time can’t bring anything or anyone back.
Don’t put your life on hold for possibly Mr. Right.
Don’t throw your life away on absolutely Mr. Wrong because your biological clock is ticking.

Learn a new skill.
Find a new friend.
Start a new career.
Sometimes, there is no race to be won, only a price to be paid for some of life’s more hasty decisions.

To terminate your loneliness, reach out to the homeless.
To feed your nurturing instincts, care for the needy.
To fulfill your parenting fantasies, get a puppy.
Don’t bring another life into this world for all the wrong reasons.

To make yourself happy, pursue your passions & be the best of what you can be.
Simplify your life. Take away the clutter.
Get rid of destructive elements: abusive friends, nasty habits, and dangerous liaisons.
Don’t abandon your responsibilities but don’t overdose on duty.

Don’t live life recklessly without thought and feeling for your family.
Be true to yourself.
Don’t commit when you are not ready.
Don’t keep others waiting needlessly.

Go on that trip. Don’t postpone it.
Say those words. Don’t let the moment pass.
Do what you have to, even at society’s scorn.

Write poetry.
Love Deeply.
Walk barefoot.
Dance with wild abandon.
Cry at the movies.

Take care of yourself. Don’t wait for someone to take care of you.
You light up your life.
You drive yourself to your destination.
No one completes you - except YOU.

It isn’t true that life does not get easier with age.
It only gets more challenging.
Don’t be afraid. Don’t lose your capacity to love.
Pursue your passions.

Live your dreams.
Don’t lose faith in God.
Don’t grow old. Just grow YOU!

When you give someone your time, you are giving them a portion of your life that you’ll never get back. Your time is your life. That is why the greatest gift you can give to someone is your time.
Relationships take time and effort, and the best way to spell love is T-I-M-E because the essence of love is not what we think or do or provide for others, but how much we give of ourselves.

Call me judgemental but there are certain faces I just can’t trust. Look at Benjamin Abalos. I’ve always wondered how much of what he says through the media translates to moolah, and I don’t mean the meager salary that he gets as Comelec Chairman. Poor soul.

Anyway, he was on Mornings@ANC earlier to say that the extra 100,000 votes posted for two candidates were "just clerical errors" and that the public "should not make a big deal out of it." Right. Maybe there’s not too much fuss cz the candidates involved are relatively good bets. But what if those "clerical errors" were made under the names Victor Wood (I know, I’m picking on him too much already), or some other lame candidate? And what if they discovered the errors too late? Are we just supposed to take things as mere clerical errors? Beyond (or beneath) politics, isn’t the election a serious clerical job?

(People usually ask me why I’m so thin. One: genes. Women in my family are teeny-tiny until around 40]. Two: I lose appetite over the simplest things. Like, for instance, after I saw Abalos on tv, I had to put the block of mozzarella cheese back in the fridge.)

Just another observation from the counting that I watched..

As I’ve said, the election staff in one of the precincts couldn’t care less how close the watchers are to her turf so my myopia didn’t stop me from reading the ballot in her hand. I’d say the voter simply has a penchant for nicknames, or he’s just really too lazy to write. His ballot reads something like, "Kiko, Joker, Trillanes, Chiz, Escudero, Mar Roxas." The silence in the room was a serious yet funny indication that the ballot got everyone confused. I left the place laughing to myself.

I have earned my right to complain.

I only learned last Friday that I am officially registered to vote, thanks to Globe’s Comelectxt service, and to Ipe’s texting credits. I have no idea how I ended up registered.

I checked candidates’ websites and had my list of senatorial bets ready by Saturday morning. 

At around 10 a.m., I walked to the school where I studied until Grade 4. Me, my mum, my aunt, and my uncle were all voting in one classroom - the Home Economics "classhome" which I managed to avoid when I was in elementary. I was never cut for household chores, crochets, sewing, etc.

The school was quiet and there weren’t so many people around. We did not even have to wait for our turn to vote. I hope it didn’t mean that people have totally lost their hope in the electoral system, as dismal as it may seem.

I finished writing down the names of my favored candidates. I felt like only nine deserved my trust. I stared at the three blank spaces and contemplated a bit but I decided that I won’t take the risk and vote for candidates with questionable experience, or those who have pending judicial cases, much less to those who should just remain in the movies or in music. Pardon my ignorance, but I really had no idea Victor Wood had legislative aspirations.

I was also not so keen on wasting my ink on people whose previous performance or future plans are alien to me. Hence, I skipped most of the spaces for the local candidates, except for the mayor and vice mayor. They make a good tandem - with the mayor focused on the town’s local businesses, and the vice mayor focused on youth-oriented projects - and there has been some degree of progress in our small town. No one was stupid enough to run against the mayor. A former mayor, however, was going against the vice.

I did not vote for the incumbent governor who was running for another term. He has been in that post for as long as I can remember, and Zambales still looks the same to me.

I did not vote for my mom’s friend who’s running for vice governor. She’s just the wife of a long-time politician from the next city, and I believe her selling point is merely her looks.

My mum was making a fuss near the ballot box when I got to it. Apparently, some guy dropped her ballot for her and she said she should be the one to do it since she’s the voter. When it was my turn, I did what I should and walked out happy.

I was reminded of my childish clumsiness when I crossed the pedestrian lane on my way home. When I was six or seven, I challenged a former classmate/neighbor and now best friend to a race while crossing the street. I ran as fast as I could and ended up chin (yep, not face, thankfully) down the asphalt. I must have cried all the way to our house.

I was trying to clean the black ink on my right thumb with a sample ballot as I walked home when it hit me - my index finger was clean. Someone was careless enough to sabotage my first-time voting experience, and I was not going to let him get away with it.

My aunt was patient enough to accompany me back to the precinct. I showed my finger to the teacher, went to the ink guy and said, "Kaya pala ang daming flying voters."

I was sincerely worried. How many election staff would forget to put that grotesque stain on a voter’s finger? I mean, of course it’s not really as indelible as it claims to be, but it is still a safeguarding measure against the "bad guys."

I went back to the precincts at around 4:30 p.m. Some rooms were still preparing their tally sheets while some were already ready to start counting. It bothers me that some watchers had no discipline to keep their asses at least a few meters from the ballot box, even if they have no bad intentions on it, and that some election staff had not seem to mind it. Manual counting is just too slow and it takes at least three minutes to read a ballot. Too much time, too much space, and too much room for possible fraud.

It took me about 45 minutes to observe in seven different precincts, taking happy note that Chiz Escudero was leading. Victor Wood had one vote.

Since I’ve already used up my official foreign business trip for the year, I can only look forward to domestic travels, which shouldn’t be less exciting. However, that’s not stopping me from dreaming of destinations outside the Philippines.

The top on my list is Ha Long Bay in Vietnam.

The UNESCO World Heritage Site is about fours hours from the capital Hanoi but I’m sure it’s worth the butt-numbing trip.

I remember seeing it for the first time on Discovery Channel presented by Megan, I think. She was on the junk boat and they were getting large fish and lobsters right off the water. Of course, they could have just planted those for the shoot Then they just sailed on with the best view of the sunset. It was love at first sight.

I had my second helping of the Ha Long view in a movie. I think it was Indochine. I can no longer remember the plot of the film but I have vivid images of the bay in my mind. When the mist starts descending on some 3,000 limestone islets (some say it’s just 1,600), the place simply turns into something that looks almost ethereal.

Siiigh….

Ha Long will have to wait.. Maybe I’ll see it next year.

I just submitted a story about the third season of a series on Cinemax. After a teleconference, the PR called to ask if we could embargo the story until July. Hello? Have you checked the calendar? It’s just May. By July, I’d have forgotten about everything already.

Call it an issue of timeliness. Fine. But coming out with the story tomorrow or on Tuesday is just as significant because the cast will start working on Season 4 on Monday. A Season 3 story is just too old already because it’s been shown everywhere else except in Asia (okay, maybe I’m exaggerating here.. like, what about Timbuktu?)

Besides, what if the world ends on July 13? (Not that it’s Friday the 13th or anything.. It’s just that our entertainment page comes out Tuesdays and Fridays.) The interview would have been a total waste!

I know it’s not some market-moving, earth-shaking news but it just pisses me off to get this embargo order from someone who says that my paper "is not really a priority because of its low circulation" compared to the Big 3. Am I just being too sensitive? I mean, if it’s so low, why would you worry if we come out with the story early?

Oh well, maybe I’m just pissed cz I had some sort of a nightmare connected to it.

I should chill. I wouldn’t exactly know until much much later if my story will come out or not. And it won’t, shouldn’t, better not kill me.