“Roomkeeping” Series: Books I’ll Probably Never Grow Out Of

Much as I like reading, I admit that I got rid of books that I felt I would no longer read in 10, 20 or 30 years time. I had a lot of Sweet Valley Series (Twins, High and University) and Archie Comic Digests, Sweet Dreams pocketbooks, some R.L. Stine and…ah, I already forgot. The operative term here though, is “had”. All of these books are gone now.

I suppose it’s reasonable since as one grows up, tastes in genres change and basically, one grows out of the general “juvenile” theme. However, there are exceptions…^_^

The Sesame Street Library Series. I have six volumes of these, not chronological, unfortunately. I don’t exactly remember how I got these but each volume is great. It’s like “reading” (as opposed to watching) Sesame Street and it’s not thick at all. But the content is good—both graphics and texts. I remember one story that was serialized—it was called “The Perils of Penelope”. It was a nice recollection because at the time, it was the first time that I encountered the name Penelope, hence, always read it as “pe-ne-lowp” ^^; It was also nice since Bert was in drag, LOL! Anyway, since my books were incomplete, I never found out what happened to Penelope and how Ernie was able to save, um, her. Oh, I can sniff why-can’t-I-quit-you between these two! Hahaha, just kidding.

Charlie Brown’s Super Book of Questions and Answers Series. These books are a lot thicker than the Sesame Street ones and are straightforward, in a sense that it’s format is Question and Answer type. I think my cousin gave this to me and it was not complete…and I lost one volume (I’ve always regretted misplacing the book—and it was about outer space! *sulks*). I never found these books boring since what else could be more fun than reading about rocks while the Peanuts gang perk you up with their witty remarks? The comic strips and Peanuts gang illustrations made it for me. AND using these books as reference, I learned how to draw Snoopy and realized that certain select canines can use the typewriter.

Throughout the many roomkeeping sessions I had (as time would permit), I’ve always come across the above books and not once have I considered throwing or giving them away. I suppose if I can describe these books, it would be “timeless, classic and priceless”.

“Roomkeeping” Series: Memory Box

At least 60% of my room is clean now, although I still have two messy tables, several drawers, my closet, my cd/dvd collections and my hard drive to fix and rearrange. Ultimately, I hope to wax my floor before summer ends. *crosses fingers* But this post is not about the cleaning, instead, it’s about the items that I found that reminded me of my uber-uber-UBER late childhood experiences. Hehe. XD

First was this comic that came with my very first (and last) gaming console. The characters read “Korega Family Computer Da!” I’m only sure of the “Family Computer” part since it’s in katakana but my Japanese dictionary says that the hiragana characters (all characters in the first line and the last character in the second line) is read as such. I just find this amusing since, technically, this would’ve been my very first manga ^.^. It’s read from back to front and everything is in Japanese so many years later, I still don’t know what the plot was about.

Next was the mandatory autograph/slum(sp?) book. Seriously, I think a lot of kids go through this, during my time at least. I think this was my official autograph/slum book—I used to have one in grade school but I made that up by filling up the questions by hand in a notebook. This one was official in a sense that its actual use was to get dirt, I mean, data—er, information about your friends and some seniors so you can look cool during your sophomore year and brag that “I got [insert senior's name here] to write in my autograph/slum book!” From my POV now, it was silly but normal at the same time and I wouldn’t really change it even if I had the chance.

Then there’s this diary that I used to log my day’s happenings. Let’s see…so I did attend some sort of leadership training during the summer prior to junior year…it was also that same time when I got my own room. Hm…and my usual Friday night routine included watching X-men, Batman, Doogie Howser, M.D. and Baywatch. (So Ghostbusters, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Beverly Hills 90210 must’ve been in the earlier years.) Ooh…and my brother and I sneaked out to watch a local film on a Holy Tuesday ^^;; It was also documented the time when I applied for MOCC (what did this stand for again…Midshipwomen’s Officer—something—something. I already forgot ^^;) and its highs and lows (mostly when assigned to a senior class section). Also, I’m beginning to recall the use of the expression “Wow, heaven!” to express exasperation…although I don’t remember how it sounded anymore. I can’t make sense of the expression now though.

Finally, my org’s newsletters—such a feel good experience just browsing them. See, when I joined, NKK started off as an “okay” org, not really outstanding. But since it catered to my interest, I joined freshmen year and became an officer the next year. It was during that year that things fell neatly into place. All my co-officers worked really well together and our president was just A-W-E-S-O-M-E. Hence, we became CLA Best Prof Org that year. Sigh, those were the glory days…(By the way, just because I did not write about my other org, doesn’t mean it wasn’t as memorable—it’s just that the literary folios are already in my bookshelf as a clear reminder of the Malate moments).

Since I don’t have an actual box, I placed all of them (and some others I decided to exclude in this post) in a drawer instead. It didn’t feel right to arrange them so I just dumped them inside. Reminiscing can be somewhat random, right?

Word of the Day

POLYGLOT - knowing, using or written in several languages (Oxford Dictionary)

This word got my attention on some stuff that I was reading--I just had to post it ^^;

To the Twilight Zone and Back

Have you ever had the experience of looking for something when you know exactly where you left it but it’s not there? Like you were really, really, REALLY sure you left it there (especially since you just touched it three minutes ago) and then it’s gone?

That happened to me last night and I was close to thinking that something was playing tricks on me. Of course, the rationale side of me persisted that I stayed up until 3AM looking for the lost item.

The lost item was my eye medicine, Tobradex—a rather expensive one like all other eye meds. I usually place it along with the old depleting cotton buds container inside my closet. Before I use it, I have to have a lid scrub using baby shampoo so I picked the eye med from the container, set it aside in the pile of clothing beside the container and brought the container to the sink for the lid scrub. I opened up a new container of cotton buds and after that, I went back to my closet, sifted through the pile of clothes and looked for the eye med. Just as I was about to put it, I noticed it felt different. I checked the label and it was a DIFFERENT eye med!!! (Yes, I have many eye meds lately…)

I sifted again. There was no other eye med there. I was like…WTF??? I kept checking the name of the other eye med—it was not Tobradex. Then I thought…was I using the wrong med this whole friggin’ week?!?!?! But no, I tested the consistency and what I put in my eye the night before had a different consistency with the current eye med I found. I even went as far as turning my closet upside down—TWICE— (the second one was when I decided I cannot sleep until I find that eye med which has no logical reason why it should disappear just like that) to no avail. And yes, I came close to thinking that perhaps, something supernaturally funny was going on. Finally, I gave up. There was a stray cotton ball on my floor from all that clothes turning and throwing so I went to the trash can to throw the cotton ball.

Then I decided to check the trashcan. The Tobradex was there.

Again, I was like, WTF?! How the hell did that get in there? I still can’t remember until now but maybe it was when I opened the new container of cotton buds and threw away the plastic seal around it. But I still don’t remember getting the Tobradex med so how did it end up in the trash?

Oh, and it didn’t help that before I went to bed, I drank a small bottle of vodka mudshake. I mean, COME ON—I didn’t get drunk on such minimal alcoholic content!

Seriously, I wasn’t drunk. Dimmit. >.<

Series Rave

[Begin rave.]

I confess…I officially like Avatar: The Last Airbender. I further confess…I’ve been watching it since it’s first season.

I don’t care if it’s a pseudo-anime. Hell, its animation can make some of the animes out there make a run for their money. The plot, character design and development, the animation—I really, really like it! ^__^ I’d say it’s a refreshing change to see an American (it’s Nickelodeon) animation using this approach, something that I’d see in Japanese animation. And the concept of “bending” the four elements was really good! ^o^

In case you’re wondering what this series is about, I’ll leave you to this site with really comprehensive take on the series: AvatarSpirit. (Warning: MAJOR SPOILERS)

Did I mention the awesome animation (oh, them fighting moves!) and character development? ; )~~ And Zuko’s character, I like! *sigh* Why do scarred men make the most interesting characters? I just had to put this pic up from season 2. (Better make the right choices, boy… ; )

If this were a book or a graphic novel, I’d read it! Wah…there’s still a third season on the works…I want a DVD o_O.

Pic credits to (mostly to) AvatarSpirit, as well as Answers.com.

[End rave.]

On another note…looky-looky! I got an Easter Egg. The folks and I ate at Harbor View again (the toitle is still there, btw ; ) and they had Easter Egg giveaways. I don’t know what’s inside…I don’t want to open it and ruin the pretty sticker ^^; I hope it’s not food, hehehe.

Places

Scenic places can certainly help in stress detoxification. Recently, I’ve been to two places that momentarily removed the hectic aura of city life.

First was a colleague’s family resort, er, I mean, house in Tagaytay. The house itself wasn’t very big—one can’t get lost in it.

But the, um, backyard can get tricky ^_~. Here are some pics. Notice that since their house is actually settled in a mountain, a “skyway” was built to get to the other side.
This area of the yard was what made it for me—a mini golf putting valley ^^;; The grass portion is actually much elevated than it looks.
They also have these cute Bengala chickens (that looked more like turkeys than chickens) as pets. They don’t bite ^_^.

This trip made me want to own a place in Tagaytay. One needs no electric fans, let alone, ACs here.

Then just very recently, my folks and I had lunch at Harbor View in Roxas Boulevard. The ambiance was really nice as we ate overlooking Manila Bay.

On the way to the dining area, they have aquariums with fishes in it, along with this. I took a pic of this toitle =3 I hope it won’t get eaten anytime soon. (Who eats toitles anyway?). Cute ^_^.

Moody + Tired

Today is the last regular class day of the term. After today, I’ve never felt so exhausted—which I couldn’t really explain why. I mean, I had more ‘active’ days (all I did today was to talk with my lab group presentations for two hours—sitting down), like going to school for the whole day, then playing tennis afterwards, then staying up really late.

I guess it’s the summation of all these things:

- The mental exhaustion of paneling
- The emotional exhaustion of making group compromises regarding work effort
- Running late for reasons beyond my control
- Raining at the wrong time and getting stranded when my ride is just a freaking block away (seriously, the school should make a roofed(?) walkway to the Sports Complex)
- My charm and alien powers not working with the guards who won’t lend me an umbrella just so I can go to the other building and return it there. I ended up going back to the lab to borrow an umbrella. When I got back outside, the rain outside got a little less than I can actually make a run for it without the umbrella
- Unable to accompany Quiaps who paneled with me to snack because I’m running late, which made me feel…um, “un-right”, since it looked like a Panel and Run kind of thing.
- Almost a road woe on the way home—always look at the bloody right side mirror, dammit!
- Didn’t get to do the x-ray as planned because of the holiday, I won’t get the results until Saturday—which I think would be the same thing if I get the x-ray on Saturday morning and maybe get the results in the afternoon.

At that point, I was tired when I got home. There was NO traffic, by the way—no road idiots either (this time, the idiot was me, actually). I was supposed to go to GH after school but I decided not to. Unfortunately, my mom thought otherwise that she made this itinerary on going to the bank so I can sign some docs, then to Megamall for bill payments, then to GH. I groggily tried to go along but after mom paid the bills, she finally noticed how messed up I was and we decided to detour back home. But not after we dropped by some establishments inside the mall that added to my list of moody factors above, specifically:

- Inefficient account executives who tell you to call back today only to find out that today is her f*kcng day off! To make things more irritating, two months is not enough for her to process the “un-freezing” of my account?! B.S! Account executives like her, who only become oh-so-accommodating when your contract is about to expire and religiously texting you of promos just so they can get their commission, should be…I don’t know, exiled from this planet or something. Really, I try to understand that it’s their job and all—but someone should add “continued accommodation during existing contract” in their job descriptions. As we walked away, I kept saying to myself, “Calm down, calm down! If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.”
- Just when I needed a convenient Internet Card kiosk, I don’t see one that I had to go to the fourth floor to buy one.
- The eye medicine I need is out of stock on two Mercury Drugstores we went to, where the location cost me the commute via FX and had to do a long walk. Normally, I wouldn’t mind the long walk but I was unusually tired, remember?

After all those things, I napped the moment I got home. Like K.O’d nap. This is such a weird day.

[Me want Djokovic-Canas Sony Ericsson Final Match replay!!! ]

The Finish Line

Seven terms in the making. Seven bloody terms. That’s how long it took me to get to the finish line. That’s how long it took for me to remove the “Cand.” at the end of my name.

Unless, of course, something gets f*kcd up at the last minute that voids all my effort to beat the March 31 deadline. But it’s the start of the week and so far, I haven’t received any gloomy news…but then since the registrar already accepted and received my requirements, I guess I’m 95% good. Unless the CDs didn’t work…(but darn it, I checked that—I did, I did! Stop being paranoid, jennai!!! >__<).

So there. *cricket sounds*

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I don’t feel any different. On the contrary, I feel the bodily symptoms of whatever illness my immune system suppressed during the course of my writing are coming back. I guess all things will really sink in when I march on June, or maybe when I fit (and pay for the rental) my toga.

In the meantime, I’ll enjoy my new shoes ^_^ A gift to myself that made my wallet cry and my superego slapped by my id for not listening to my gut feel (when I should’ve bought the damn shoes at Tagaytay on SALE price…but nooo, I just *had* to double check if it’s worth it, etc., etc., then I ended up buying it anyway on a regular price two weeks later in Manila...where I further ended up drooling on how cool it looks that I don't think I'll be able to use it to its full potential because it won't look as pretty anymore @__@). Oh dear.