Late-Twenties Crisis

Image by Luis Miguel Bugallo Sánchez (Lmbuga Commons)(Lmbuga Galipedia) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0 (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)

When do we reach adulthood? It might be much later than we traditionally think.  -Craig Bennett

While waiting for a video to load, I suddenly had this urge to create a list of my late-twenties likes, dislikes, questions, realizations, and what-nots.  I call them simply my late-twenties crisis list.

I’d like to say that I am writing this list in the hope that they could be of help to others.  People, after reading my list, might live their better lives and have much finer things to write about when it’s their turn to write a late-twenties crisis list.  To be honest, though, I am writing these things down only because they were a persistent itch I had to scratch in order to find peace.

The Christmas Wish

Last Christmas, I saw this beautiful Christmas wish on a wonderful Christmas card. It said (disclaimer: not so sure about how it was worded, exactly):

I wish you the two greatest gifts life can give you: someone you love and someone who loves you.

I would like to propose an amendment, though. My version of that Christmas wish would go something like this:

I wish you the two greatest gifts life can give you: someone you love and someone who loves you – and they’d better be the same person or you’ll be one unlucky sob.

 

The Debut

I got invited to a debut. I was in my sophomore year, I think. I knew mauve was the motif, so I shopped for a dress with that in mind. I ended up with a wonderfully cut burgundy silk dress. I wanted to blend in; burgundy is not mauve, but it’s just a difference of shades. On a side note, I obviously like burgundy, for when I checked my closet just now, I saw at least 5 evening dresses in burgundy.

When I reached the venue, I realized that the tablecloths were exactly the same shade of burgundy I had on. Uh-oh. I wanted to blend in, but not to the extent that I’d be mistaken for a piece of furniture.

But what to do? What else could I do? I swallowed my embarrassment, gritted my teeth and pretended not to notice how the waiters couldn’t tell where my dress ended and the tablecloth began. Soon enough, I really forgot about the problem and started enjoying myself. Of course, I have wonderful pictures to remind me to never, ever, ever dress in the same color family as an event’s motif. 😀

New Quotable Quotes

The following are some brand new quotes, friendster shoutouts or whatever you want to call them.  Feel free to use them (attribution appreciated).

Some people see only bad in others and only good in themselves.

Falling in love is supposed to be painful.  When has falling of any kind been otherwise?

Pet Text Messaging Peeves

Affectations in text messages

Come on! Isn’t text messaging all about keeping people connected? Why then do some people insist on being hard to understand or being downright incomprehensible? Some people give new meaning to “Mahirap ispelingin” (literally, “hard to spell”, but this is an idiom that roughly translates to “hard to figure out or understand”).

As a case in point, why would someone send me a message saying “Eow” where plain “Hello” would suffice (and be more understandable, too). I also don’t understand why some people prefer using unnatural text characters in SMS. Not only are they hard to read, they also hurt my eyes.

I can see how it’s probably a cool and hip thing to do when you’re under twenty, but please, try using complete (where possible) and unadorned (an absolute requirement) when texting the over-twenties crowd. Using “kUmu$t@?” instead of plain “Kumusta?” (“How are you?”) just because you can shows lack of purpose and hints at how you, the sender, likes to waste keystrokes.

Think before You Do It

If you are not ready to have kids, don’t engage in sexual intercourse.

If you just can’t hold it in, then don’t engage in unprotected sexual intercourse.

Dudes and dudettes, here’s one funny commercial that cuts through the BS and gets this point across.

Reader Discretion Is Advised

Some scenes in this show may cause discomfort. Viewer discretion is advised.

Whenever I see that on National Geographic, I can’t resist staying around long enough to see what the show is all about.

I bet you do that, too – at least before you read this post and started deliberately forcing your thumb to press the “Next” channel button on your remote, he he he.

Wings

So this is how it feels like to have wings…

… to feel so light you are floating

… to be so happy you feel like flying

Submitted my Demography 221 paper yesterday after more than one month of moaning and groaning – and, oh boy, was it liberating!  The best thing about this paper is that it really got me thinking ***seriously*** about my thesis again.  The path to my thesis has cleared.  I am seeing it in a whole new light, and I’m all fired up to finish it.  Wish me luck and God’s blessing!  🙂

p.s. Special thanks goes to to Dr. E. Cabegin for giving me so many chances
and for being patience personified through it all.

A Place that even God Forgot

I was researching goodness-knows-what online when I came across the PDF file entitled

Reflections from a Place that God Forgot

A  feeling of such intense desolation and hopelessness crept over me.  I could only stare at the title for a few minutes.  To be abandoned, to be forgotten, to be in some place that even God – supposedly omniscient God – has forgotten… what could life be like in such a place?

A Wedding Entrance to Remember

Do you want to know what “fun wedding” truly means?  Check out the video below.

Wonderful, eh?  It’s fun and leaves you feeling exactly the way you’d want to feel on your wedding day.

I Feel You…

Presidentiables can’t get enough of TV airtime, it seems.  Let’s read between the lines and see what each of them wants to tell us in their “kampamersyals.”  

On an aside, Wowowee seems to be a favorite hang-out of would-be Presidents.  Mar Roxas was a guest once; so was Manny Villar.   I wonder when Gilbert Teodoro and Loren Legarda will make their appearance.

• MAR ROXAS

I am Mr. Palengke turned Padyak Boy and now Robin Hood.  My message is simple.  I do not merely understand what you are trying to tell me.  I can empathize with you and you can relate with me.  I know how to ride a Padyak, after all. 

Demographic Terms that will Blow Your Mind

In the esoteric discipline of Demography, you’ll often find highfalutin terms that will knit your eyebrows, make your head spin, or knit your eyebrows and make your head spin at the same time.

Don’t get me wrong.  You will probably have intuitive understanding of most demographic terms.  Sometimes, though, you should not believe what your intuition tells you.  This is the case in the following terms:

The Braindead Bakery and the Scary Laundry

The Braindead, er, Brended Bakery

In front of the Baluyot and Lt. J. Francisco corner in Krus na Ligas is a small bakery – and I do mean small bakery. The store personnel (there are 2 at a time) only have to take around 3 steps to move from one end of the store to another. They also have to take these steps really slowly lest they do bodily harm to each other.

Anyway, the remarkable thing about this bakery is not its size or its bread, which is good enough but not at all outstanding.  What piqued my interest is its name.

Why, Kris?

June 11

Saw Pinoy Bingo Night; couldn’t take my eyes off the screen.  I was captivated by the walking, gesticulating and screeching exclamation point – or was it a letter opener – onscreen.

*Pictures taken with a camera phone during the airing of Pinoy Bingo Night

Another said Kris’ gown made her look like a bowling pin.  I say it also made her look like a Kaminoan – the people who cloned the bounty hunter in Star Wars.

UP Diliman Adventures

I had quite a day on the 4th of June when I went to UPD.

The Cell Phone

I was rushing to my lunch date (Jabu, it’s with my sister!) when a black thingy on the ground caught my eye. I looked closer at the “black thingy” and saw that it looked like a cell phone in a black felt case. I looked even closer (my nose was almost touching the “black thingy”) and was even more convinced it was a cell phone. I did not take that thing out of its case to confirm that it was a cell phone. I did not want to put my fingerprints all over it in case it ended up under the scrutiny of Horatio in CSI.

Shame, shame. Even after I was 90% sure that it was indeed a cell phone, I had to think about what I should do. I thought, “Should I or should I not?”

You have a dirty mind. I was not thinking about taking off with it. What I was uncertain about was whether I should pick it up and bring it to the Student Affairs Office (where Lost items eventually Find their way) or I should walk on, forget about the cell phone and leave it for a real Girl Scout to deal with.