MEH

Shet, gusto ko ng Lenovo G410. Ack.

FOUR

Loving it.

Off to Laguna

For one of my most favourite tournaments ever.

Bo, let’s chever them all. LOL.

It’s LB IVs again. Yay.

Ill

I have colds, I feel feverishly cold, good thing you have never been cold. 

If gods are always blamed for life’s misfortunes, I’m happy enough to note that I get to have motivations to keep me going amid all this stress. 

We’ll get by.

iDebate.

Everyone knows that, and it’s not even my original, so I neither understand the value added to that line nor why I made that this post’s title. Let’s just make ourselves believe that it’s pertinent. 

I have just realised how I spend my day. I spend my mornings til afternoons in CAL (be it for classes or hanging out with CAL friends), I spend the whole afternoon to early/late evenings with UPDS, I talk to you til past midnight while I’m doing my assignments, and I sleep afterwards.

And I’ve just realised how much time I’ve been spending on debates yet I have so little time talking to you.

I’m sorry. I really am.

***

I wrote in my LJ last week that I have been missing Singapore so much these past few days. There are so many reasons why I miss that cute, sunny island and sometimes I wonder why two countries need to be separated apart. I wish for the Philippines to switch places with the Mainland Malaysia, so I can get to go back even on a weekly basis (hello to the cheap coasters!).

NUS is still emailing me. I redirected my NUS Inbox to my Gmail so up to now, I still get to read all the updates from the school— Nominees for Student Awardees, Closure of Swimming Pools, and even a promotional ad for the NUS Debates (YAY!). I used to ignore these messages when I was still in Singapore, but now that I am no longer part of NUS, I feel awkwardly different. Look at how one semester can change a life of an idealistic student aspiring to become a full-fledged scholar and academician.

And of course, I miss the NUS Library, which has been my second favourite spot in NUS (the first being PGP, where majority of the friendships began and where almost all the fun stuff happened *grins*). I miss my favourite red couch at the left part of the P-Q shelves. I miss the people I don’t even know whose faces I used to recognise because of seeing them on an almost-everyday basis. I miss the self-service borrowing and returning system. I miss the free Internet access and the self-booking system that goes along with it (yay for just typing your student number). And of course, I miss all the books and the online subscriptions— everything I need I see on my web browser. 

Now I’m back to the third world, a library of a freezing air-con, irritating librarians, lost books, limited online subscriptions, and doesn’t even have an Internet connection (at least for my college’s library, almost all the other libraries have lol). But it’s something I have also equally missed when I was in Singapore.

Of course I miss all my friends I’ve met in Singapore. I miss my kiasu Singaporean classmates (at least, some of them are not), the exchange students I’ve met in PGP and even some from Raffles who I met in The Arena haha, my drinking buddies (*coughs* Jason and Bieu!), and of course, NUS Debates.

I just love UP and NUS so much. Although I obviously love UP more because it has transformed me so much, I guess it’s not wrong to miss NUS and Singapore once in a while, right?

***

I’m still waiting for the email from the Pi Sigma Fraternity regarding the semi-finals of the Oregon-Oxford format debate that Bo and I joined. Good thing we’ve reached the semis. We should win this round so we can be in the Grands, and more than the honour and the prestige, we want to be in the Grandsfor the money! Haha. Yes, we really need money for future tourneys! Haha. Bo teammed up with me during the pre-tournament screening when we defended the Human Security Act. Kriska was my partner during the first elimination round (quarters?) when we proposed the commercialisation of UP because Bo had a class that she can’t afford to miss. I’d be with Bo again for the semis, and yes, we need to win this. I think we’d be debating on EPIRA, some electric power law in the Philippines. Apparently, I know nuts about it. I need to research as early as now. 

***

It’s August. Time’s swift.

I love you so much.

I need Red Bull

… and my Red Bull shirt that I got from Thailand doesn’t help convince my mom that it’s a necessity and not a form of some random drug that would lead me to my dependence on it. Wow, that’s 42 words in one sentence, something that you unwillingly learn after reading a helluva pile of references for my thesis, and after revising (read: revamping) the first four chapters of it.

Since June began, I have spent most of my time doing things which I believe are related to my thesis. I read a lot, spend lots of time in the library, read blogs of friends and strangers alike, and talk to my coursemates about the shape of my thesis. Of course I am not the typical geek who would forget that I have a social life worthy to be lived as well, so I made it a point to go out with friends and catch up with them once in a while. This month I have drunk so much, maybe just a little than 10 times of alcoholic escapades with different sets of friends, and as I always say, it’s really easy to please a drunkard.

Last Saturday’s UPDS event was fun. We had cross-training in the morning when I met my friends from MMU again, and made friends with some Korean and Japanese teams, some of which I have already met in AUDC and NDC. MMU’s really a nice contingent; not only that they are good debaters, but because they really are nice. At least they are nicer now than what they used to be in AUDC (not that it’s a bad thing LOL). And man, the kickoff event to our 15th Anniversary in Alchemy was amazing, can I just say. UPDS is love.

But since UPDS took a whole Saturday from me, I am now terribly cramming my thesis. It’s 4:06 PM now and I only have less than 24 hours before I submit the revised first four chapters of my thesis. I estimate that I’ll be done with my Methodology at around 6PM, write new RRL subchapters til 12AM, and create a totally new Framework chapter til 6:00AM. And hello, I have a 7AM Bahasa class tomorrow that I cannot afford to miss.

Why does the desire to graduate with the Best Thesis award (or at least, nomination) seem so hard? I refuse to believe that I am becoming so ambitious; it’s only because I think I can make it given that I am in good hands. My adviser, Ma’am Castro, has always been my dream thesis adviser and now that I’ve got her as an adviser, I don’t want to disappoint her and I just want to make the most out of my thesis experience.

I am stressed, and you are the only one that keeps me sane. Yes, you can hold me to my word cos I’m doing it anyway.

Yay for Freshmen

And now I can say that finally, I’ve had a taste of Sarah.

Friday last week, when people were still high on the post-UP Centennial celebration, I went out with my Comm 3 classmates after our prof didn’t show up. We could have gone out earlier if I just received my prof’s text, but since my sim card got broken two days prior to Friday, we had to wait til 12:00 (since it’s an 11:30-1:00 class) to await whether she’s coming or not. And when the class decided to leave the room and just pass an attendance sheet to her next meeting, my freshman classmates organised some kind of a hangout, for the sheer reason that, er, we didn’t have class?

I went out with three freshmen from an exclusive girls school (since I promised not to name their school) with two more freshmen. Being the senior that I am, they asked me where the “Sarah’s” drinking place our prof mentioned last meeting is, and yes, we ended up drinking there at fxcking 12:00 in the afternoon.

Yes, fxcking 12:00 fxcking in the fxcking afternoon.

I’ve never been to Sarah’s before that since I find the place, bluntly, cheap and dodgy. I’d rather go to Katips or UP Vill for a drinking spree than to drink at Sarah’s. But because I was with freshmen who wanted to experience Sarah’s as part of “UP Culture”, I yielded to their persuasiveness. And so we’ve all tasted Sarah. Haha.

One had to attend her Socio 11 intoxicated and had to fail an exam because of two bottles of Red Horse. One had to cut her Math 60 and her English 1 class. One got drunk with a bottle of San Mig Light, and one had to go to his organisation’s send-off party drunk. Man, it’s such a great experience.

New place, new friends, I love it.

And I think we’re doing this again next week. Sans the need to cut classes. And to our surprise, our other classmates want to try this as well.

Thank you, thank you

For all.

We can do this.

Productivity

Oh yes, I’m so productive and I’m uber proud of it!

This week I was able to do the following things:

1) Finalise my First Semester schedule. I decided to take just 15 units this semester by cancelling English 191 (Approaches to a College English Program), which was my 6th subject supposedly. It’s a teaching course ergo it’s very demanding, so I thought it would be suicidal for me if I take it with my English 200 class (Thesis) this semester. Next semester, English 191 would be my only major subject; all the others would just be electives, general education, and Rizal classes. Yay.

So, this is my schedule this semester:

Tuesdays and Thursdays:

7:00-8:30- Bahasa Indo-Malay 10-11 (Integrated course, hence 6 units)

8:30-10:00- English 30 (English for the Professions)

Wednesdays and Fridays:

7:00-8:30- Bahasa Indo-Malay 10-11 (yes, everyday!)

11:30-1:00- Comm 3 (Practical Speech Fundamentals)

English 200 meets at most once in two weeks (as it has traditionally been conducted), and I only meet my adviser by appointment. I might reserve my Mondays for it, so I expect my semester to be a bit manageable than my English 199 semester. Yay. The only bad thing is that UPDS trainings start at 5:30 normally, so I would have to wait for hours just to attend trainings. I have to get ready for NDC.

2. Write drafts of my letter of application for credit transfer and written report to the Office of Institutional Linkages re: my NUS semester. These letters are so irksome cos I don’t see the point of writing them to begin with. For the credit transfer, I could just give them the class syllabus for my NUS modules, and as if they wouldn’t want to credit my units which came from the 3rd Best University in Asia. This is why bureaucracy really sucks, because it just delays the inevitable and complicates the simple. But yes, being the nice student that I am, I decided to follow the system since I’m requesting something from them anyway. I can’t imagine the resulting situation if I demand for a simpler process— that might just create negative impressions about me which might end up in the non-crediting of my NUS units. Haha. For the OIL report, I have already written an outline and have conceptualised a creative way of doing the AVP that I promised. Now I have to buy a pirated ULead Video Studio installer so I can start working on my AVP.

3. Help the UPD Australs team train. Because Alvin is one of my closest friends in UPDS, and because I was the former Executive Officer of the Training and Tryouts Committee, and because I am just inherently nice, I help our team train by debating with them. I have attended one training when we debated about clinical trials in the 3rd World. Our team was expecting something about immigration policies so we were totally wafazed by the setup that talked about medicine testing. Haha. We won anyway despite my impromptu arguments (sigh, the things that only an LO experiences) and our almost non-existent matter. So two reflections: first, I should matterload more so I can rebut Alvin’s Namibia matter head on; and second, I should train as LO more. I promised Alvin that I’ll train with them the whole morning tomorrow, cos I have something on in the afternoon. Yay to Australs training even if I’m not going.

4. Clean my room! Self-explanatory.

5. Spend time with you. After weeks of dormancy because of our preoccupations with other things, I’m so happy that finally, we’ve got uninterrupted time to talk. Let’s keep things working this way. There are so many promises to keep and so much more hopes to fulfil, but each step would definitely lead to somewhere. And that somewhere’s already enough to make me happy.

“A long december and there’s reason to believe
Maybe this year will be better than the last” (A Long December, Counting Crows)

I am singing. Does this make me productive as well?

The calm before the storm

My academic semester in NUS has been finally put to an end last Saturday, when I saw my grades in the four English Language modules I have taken there. I don’t really know whether I should be happy with such grades since I don’t know the NUS standards. Albeit I feel mediocre that I didn’t get an A+ even though I really worked hard for some of my modules (haha), and because I got a B (in UPD, maybe a 2.25?).

I’m posting them here just for fun, and because I so love my new version of Photoshop which I have just freshly-downloaded from Limewire. I super love piracy, something I missed so much when I was in Singapore. Haha.

I just hope they mail the official grades to UP soon, so I can apply for credit transfer easily.

(more rants about NUS grades in http://phonologist.livejournal.com/2008/05/31/).

***

And now that NUS semester has finally come to an end, my first semester as a Senior in UPD starts tomorrow. This is one of the very few times I’d be enrolling as an ordinary, unprioritised student and not as a Registration Assistant, so I expect it to be very stressful and tiring as it has always been. Good thing I’ve got 18 units now, so that sort of lessens the stress that I have to undergo tomorrow.

I dunno, but I don’t feel encouraged to enrol tomorrow. Primarily, it’s because my vacation was too short. Though psyching up myself by believing that my whole NUS semester is a vacation in itself sometimes proves to be effective, most of the time it doesn’t work. Also, my friends from English Stud. have already graduated. My batchmates are still there, but because I was advanced (and was supposed to graduate this October before NUS came which led to me graduating next March instead blah blah), I became more attached to the ‘04 Students than to the ‘05, my batchmates. UP will really be different without my ‘04 friends. Good thing there are still other ‘04 people who are still in UP, some of them are in Law School and some of them are still in CAL haha. So this means I would really have to catch up on my batchmates.

Sorting up souvenirs from Singapore is also stressful. Too late for me to realise that I wasn’t able to buy enough. No Haldiram’s for Ma’am Castro and no souvenirs for the ‘06 English majors. Wuuuh I don’t know what to do. Hiding in UPD won’t work, especially they know where to find me. I’m either at the CAL Library or in the School of Economics with my UPDS friends. Of course they wouldn’t literally hunt for me, but you get the idea. Haha.

See? Enrolment stress begins as early as now.

***

Good thing I get to talk to you frequently. You always make me happy regardless of whatever you say. I wish you all the best, and I hope to see you real soon. We‘re getting okay with our plans, right?

“We“, okay that sounds excellent.

You‘ve just knocked me off again.

***

Okay, scoliosis attack again. I need to sleep the back pain away. Fuck the fucking foam of my bed. Yes, that’s how I hate it. Haha

edit: I’ve read this post after I posted it, and it sounds so rubbish. But I don’t edit blog entries, so I’ll just leave this in peace. Talk about stress and hunger and back pain and stress and hunger blabber blabber.