just dreaming

Today, I glimpsed my future condo.

Well, not really. Because first of all, it wasn't really a condo, it was a residential hotel in the middle of Makati. One of those hotel-type apartments that cater to foreign business people assigned to Makati. It wasn't mine, because a company rented the room for the entire month for one of its expat professionals. The expat left early, before the end of the month, which was why BF and a few others were allowed to sleep and basically crash the place.

It was spacious, with a bed wide enough for three people, a kitchen, a sala, a dining area complete with a round dining table, a TV, DVD/VCD players, very soft sofa seats, and a striking view of Makati and the Roxas Blvd coastline (it was on the 19th floor). It was like a demo-unit of a dream one-bedroom condo unit. Perfect for parties and friendly get-togethers, or just for relaxing and chilling out. Kulang na lang ay wide-screen flat TV, and solve na ako.

I liked it. A lot.

Top Ten Words for the day

Earthquake
Ponti
Shakers
Arctic Melon
Open Bar
Amazing Race
Supply Plan Web Entry
Flickering Monitors
Snacku
Puyatan

paying the price

I am paying the price for losing a laptop.

My laptop's screen is flickering, sometimes blanking out to a pure white background. It is frustrating when I am trying to finish up some work and I can't see a damn thing. Sometimes I make do with the flickering and the jumping up and down of the screen. It's like watching a TV screen trying to catch a channel signal. It is annoying and irritating as hell.

Patience is a virtue, they say. So I try to be patient. I try to remove and re-install the video driver everytime my laptop screen acts up, but this is more of a hardware error more than anything else.

Right now I am making do by attaching my laptop to a monitor. Ideally, they should give me a new laptop. This one is old, second-hand (or maybe even third-hand), and acts up a lot. But some clever thief got away with my laptop and I am paying the price. They may not have deducted it from my salary, but definitely it is taking its toll on my patience, my thoughts on how my employer perceives my value, and it is taking its toll on the quality of my work.

Then everybody loses.

what didn't happen (don't take it seriously)

Today, I didn't get to watch Dodgeball, a True Underdog story. Emotions run high, and low. Very low. All past transgressions relived and remembered. Men are scum, and men will leave you at the slightest inconvenience. Irrational thoughts, yes. Emotional thoughts, definitely.

I cry like I haven't cried in a long time. With emotion, with heartache, with resignation.

So I stay home, postpone work, and get to watch AutoFocus: The Bob Crane story on cable instead. I stay for the next movie, Vin Diesel's cocky Xander Cage and Samuel L. Jackson's Augustus Gibbons in Triple XXX, the movie. Quite ironic. Bob Crane was really into porn, and the next movie they show after his biography is Triple XXX?

So the question is, why? I try to be good. I try to be a sport about it. I get stuck in traffic for 3 hours. I try to make nothing of it. I haven't slept well since Wednesday, go on an 8-hour hike up a mountain, get really tired going down the mountain, fall flat on my face, get my head bonked on overhanging trees, have body aches all over, slam my face on the restroom door, and still I'm not rich enough or good enough to buy my own car and condo and live in a terror-free and economically successful society.

Xander Cage says, "I live for this shit." Maybe, the shit lives for me.

http://www.pbase.com/xieurx/mt_binangonan&page=all

running deep

Still waters run deep, so they say. So this time, I am trying to be still. Or rather, trying to be silent. Doesn't silence equal stillness?

I have been silent in this blog for the past week. I've been making progress in my work project, although my work is still delayed and I'm still cramming to catch up. I'm not just fighting against my own laziness, I am also fighting against my laptop's tendency to hang, to flicker, and to show me a blank white screen at inappropriate times. There's something wrong with my video display driver...although I think I'm getting my boss's old laptop (since he's getting a new one). Oh, the wonders of hand-me-downs.

So anyway, in the relative silence of the past week, here are some realizations I have had:

• "Integrity" -- integrity is keeping one's word, but integrity does not just refer to how you keep your word with others. It also involves keeping your word to yourself. If you tell yourself that you're going to do something, and you end up not doing it, you have no integrity. You don't respect yourself enough to keep your own promises.
  
  I learned this while attending the Effective Communications seminar we had earlier in the week. The whole seminar was not really worth it, everything they taught was a summary of what we learned during college Comm1-3. But the definition of integrity was one of the things that struck me (during the times when I was actually listening). I really needed to keep my own word. And do the things I said I'd do.
  
  
• "Positive thinking" -- realization while browsing through the self-help books at Powerbooks. Yes, you actually have to visualize accomplishing your task, and reaching your goals. It all starts in your mind. If you can't visualize it, it can't happen.
  
  
• "Tempus fugit" -- Time flies. It's Sunday again. Isn't it amazing? Plus, I've been browsing through my old notebooks earlier (looking for a scratch paper to use), and it turns out it has been exactly one year since I enrolled for IS2 (Thesis Defense) for my Master's degree. Time really flies; one year later, I still haven't done anything. BUT...I will do something about that. Sometime later, when I'm not so busy and not so trying to kill myself with worry and work.
  
  
• "Work Out" -- We're going to climb again next week. I'm totally out of shape, haven't gone to the gym for more than a month now. Well, I'd have to start this week then. Since they say the climb is difficult, lots of river-crossings and 90-degree climbs.
  
  I do remember the first time I climbed a mountain. I was hungover from a gimik the night before. Too much booze and smoking, so while I was climbing up this mountain, my head was aching, I was sweating like a pig, and I was running out of breathe. And that folks, is not something I'd like to feel again.
  

Okay, my laptop's screen is starting to flicker again. I gotta go. Ciao.