This Is Why You Need To Sleep

Dear blog, I missed you.

Vacation's been kind of fun (from a bum's perspective, that is), but with school looming back into the picture, I think I'm cracking from the stress. There's so much to be done and seemingly so little I can do about it. Seriously, I've been staring--intently--at those journals for 30-minute periods over the course of three days. I don't know if I'm just plain lazy, but well, I have been itching to get started on that damn literature review. I just find I have insufficient information, that's it.

Hence, I've taken to blogging again. Fat lot of help for my group mates. Haha. I didn't blog at all for Christmas since it wasn't much of an affair this year, but expect a year-ender by tomorrow or by early next year if my mood--and my ever-looming deadlines--allow it.

  Me on Christmas Eve.

What other news is there? Well, I've also been pretty depressed lately, I guess. Surprisingly, I'm a bit more off than last year, with all the single-ness drama I was pulling. This year seems sadder, I don't really know.

No scratch that. Actually, I do know why. It's an abstract concept, nonetheless it's been keeping me awake for the past couple of days. I've been having trouble sleeping again. So for those of you who may have noticed how...different I am lately--well you know why. Not so worried about that though, I roll fine with depression. It'll pass quickly enough. In the mean time I just try to stay away from people so I don't drown them in my misery. Haha.

Probably the main reason why my season's been so lousy is the absence of something to look forward to. And I mean something positive. Sure, deadlines are things to look forward to--along with graded recitations on articles I have yet to read, and the paperwork waiting for me when I get back to school. I just need something to spark some excitement, some drive.

WARNING: The following paragraph is too depressive for the season. You may want to skip it.

The thing is, starting a new year with the same old setup isn't an exciting prospect. I'm sorry, but towards the end of this year things have just been so static and lame. And in these sleep-deprived, work-anxious yet boring hours, it's hard to hope that things will change for my definition of better just because it's the new year. The bad vibes couldn't spare Christmas. Will the new year be any different?

So anyway, I meant for this to be a short entry, not a two-page wallow-in-misery thing. I'll stop now, find something to eat, and cheer myself up however. Got to keep going. *Toodles*

In the words of Natasha Bedingfield: I [am] pocketful of sunshine.

The comic strips are from Garfield Minus Garfield. Never knew it would be that depressing without the cat.

Something's Mi si g

You can ignore this post, doesn't make any real sense, well maybe except for me.

So I've been perpetually hungry and restless and all that. I have about 5 movies waiting to be watched, 7 and a half of the Demonata books to read, and some Chuck Palahniuk ebooks to try out too. I have several games on this laptop, from Plants Vs. Zombies to The Sims 3. I have cable TV. I have a guitar, and several gigabytes of downloaded songs in my hard drive. We have a refrigerator, which my mom has wisely stocked with an assortment of snacks. I have my Facebook account, my Plurk page, and I have enough cell phone credits to last me for the week. I have one or two friends nearby whom I can call to invite out, or crash with. To say that I've laid out some boredom-prevention methods is quite an understatement.

And yet, I'm fidgety. I can't sit still long enough to get anything done. Whether I'm reading or playing or watching TV, I can't seem to stop myself from getting up every ten minutes, heading downstairs to the refrigerator. I open it, stare at its contents, craving for something I just can't define. I grab one snack or another, and then halfway through finishing my food I decide it's not really what I wanted.

I can't believe it took days and a Facebook post to figure it out.

Maybe it's because this has been going on for a while, that I'd somehow assumed I was used to it. But now it's getting to me once again. Maybe it's because of the break, a time when I don't have school to worry about, or  idyllic tambay hours to fill my day. Maybe it's that Christmas is just around the proverbial corner, and everyone talks about being with the people they love, the people they care about—the people that matter.

Maybe it's because I've had to say goodbye in different ways to a couple of people just recently. And probably because there's someone I've been wanting to be with for so long now.

I might have a lot here, it's a good life. But something's missing—aside from cash of course. Haha. Seriously though, sappy as it is—I'm missing you, and you, and you, and most of all, YOU.

Raiding the fridge is my way of showing you how much I really care.

Photo shamelessly stolen from Definitely Filipino.

 To all the people I miss (whether you're halfway around the world, or just 30 minutes away from my house), and to all who share this feeling of missing, let's still keep Christmas merry okay?

All right, I'm going back to reading now. No wait, lemme check the fridge first.

Post Drinking Session Dissonance

As I've learned in my interpersonal communication class, there is this thing called post-decision dissonance. If I've learned anything right in class, this simply pertains to the doubts one encounters after making a particular decision. This is usually where rationalization kicks in, and you find that you're defending yourself against, well, your own arguments. Happens to all of us, doesn't it?

In class, we were given the compulsive shopper example. But since I am among the rare subspecies of females/human beings in general who do not derive utter joy from draining my wallet in one shopping session--I'm more of the type who takes light years to decide on whether or not to buy even just a shirt--I really couldn't relate to it. Last Thursday night/Friday morning though, I realized that I might have found another common illustration.

You've probably heard of the Latin phrase in vino veritas, translated in English as in wine there is [the] truth. The most common explanation for why people do the stupid things they do when they're drunk is that it's their natural self coming out, with all their repressions thrown out the window.

Cuervo not included in this shot.

After all, it's so easy to say "oh, I was drunk, I didn't even know half of what I said". I don't know, but I'm still pretty unsure about that one. I'm certainly no expert when it comes to drinking. Sure, I might forget more than half of what I say when I'm drunk, but the things I do remember, well, they are all true.

Case in point: so I got emo-drunk at our batch party and I ended up doing a monologue of sorts. It's all hazy, but thinking back I realized that a lot of the things I said were honest as hell and that it was the first time I had ever shared those kinds of thoughts to a group of people I barely knew.

 

I know the alcohol had probably killed way too much of my repressive brain cells at the time, but I don't lay the blame on it entirely. I know I made a conscious decision to start talking, and I know for a fact I was still able to filter what needed to be filtered (well, with some people anyway).

So I don't know. Maybe alcohol is what leads us to betray ourselves. But we shouldn't absolve ourselves from all responsibility for the things we do or say. (Unless, perhaps, you've drunk enough to be in a coma, but  then at that point you can't really do or say anything, so nevermind).

The thing is, we wouldn't even have to worry about this if we weren't hiding so many things in the first place. As for myself, I was embarrassing, but ask me right now and I can tell you the exact things I shared that morning. I wasn't really hiding them, just not so keen on sharing them to everyone.

But seeing that the world is so full of people who are so good at hiding and not expressing what they really feel, maybe we should all hold a worldwide drinking session so we can let it out. I'm kidding, of course. I'm pretty sure that would do more harm than good--imagine learning that your best friend is harboring some secret desire for your mom or something like that.

All I'm saying is that, if it's not really criminal, abhorrently immoral, or devastatingly hurtful, try letting it out. Don't wait for the empty bottles to betray you into spilling what you've kept  bottled in for so long.

Cheers to a Merry Christmas folks.

And regards from me and my drinking buddies. They'll hate me for this. Hahaha.

CREDITS: All photos in this post (and in the one before this, too) are courtesy of Ria Landingin.

December-Ender

Yay it's Christmas! Well, not really, but it's the Christmas break for me anyway, and I've managed to start it in the craziest way possible. Since I'm too lazy for any kind of story telling, I'll just give you a quick rundown of my school December-ender.

There was the UP Manila Lantern Parade, most of which involved running along the streets and chanting my lungs out. I'd hoped to attend the parade with my ComSci friends this year, but due to some last-minute night out planning and a general feeling of laziness, I ended up going alone. Fortunately I met up with an OrCom friend and we had a couple of hours of lantern parade fun. Our college never wins, but well, I love CAS all the same.

I didn't even get to finish the parade since we had to leave for Pateros, where we held our OrCom batch Christmas party. Turned out to be one epic night. I can't really go into any details for the sake of our reputations. Suffice it to say that we spent the night (and the wee hours of the morning) having mini-concerts and embarrassing ourselves in ways we never even thought we knew how. Watch out for my next post for my personal experience about this. Hahaha.

This batch is love.

The last few moments of the morning were a blur for me, all I know is I woke up at noon with nearly all my batch mates gone. I ate a very late lunch at my friend's house, then set off to find my way home and got lost on the jeepney ride from Pateros to Guadalupe. I missed my stop and went on a round trip with the super-friendly driver, Manong Vicente. We sort of bonded and I think I gained myself a new friend, as well as a tour of Kalayaan Avenue and the Guadalupe Makati area.

What else can I say, except it was a pretty good way to end the year with my school friends. Sometimes, my life is just awesome.

The Flip Side of My Pillow

Oh boy did I miss my blog. This time the hiatus wasn't due to any introspective revelations or personal issues and all that shit. Simply put, I am now officially an OrCom major. With just about a month since sem break, I  already have reams of photocopied reading materials, deeper-than-ever eye bags, and loads of papers and reports coming up. But hey, it's the life I chose. Apparently there's just no avoiding stress in my life, so I'd just go for the stress I love. No quitting now. This is really it.

Aside from trying to study seriously I've also been busy tying to build relationships with the new people around me, and maintaining the ones I already have. I guess it's been good, although I really need to bond more with my batch mates. Will make sure to get to that this sem.

Other than that there's nothing very new on my end. Well, other than my regular haircut (which my mom still hates), and a renewed state of poverty--the likes of which I haven't experienced in months. I'm broke as ever. But well, life goes on.

So let's go to today. Today is a lazy day. I wanted to go out but I decided against it, and as a result I'm stuck home in a restless, perpetually hungry sort of state. I can't even sit still to finish this movie I'm watching, and  I don't know if that's due to the fact that I've downed two cans of Coke Zero and too much chocolate in the last three hours.

I don't know. I think I'm supposed to be worrying about something right now, but incredibly, I'm not. I don't know if it's just the Christmas chill in the air (this, by the way, is my favorite kind of weather), but I feel hopeful. I feel as if life is just chock-full of possibilities at this point.

Sure, I've got problems. I'm the kind of person who never seems to run out of them, mostly because I like to make them. But at this moment, I think things will either settle, or fall apart so something better can come together. And that's all right with me.

On second thought, maybe this is just the Coke Zero talking. Oh well. ;)