Trips Down Memory Lane

My sister wants to have the heavy desk removed out of her room. To lighten the load, drawers must be removed.

Among the contents of the drawers, they've discovered some memories of my childhood years. Some Our School awards, drawings, and other stuff were unearthed.

My Mom bought a new VCD player to replace the broken one in the "activities room." The player, apparently, could play games using the CD and two controllers that came along with it.

And the games in the CD were old NES games. Apparently, people now have the means to convert NES games into VCD format. Rockman, Double Dribble, Contra, Adventure Island, Legend of Kage, Mappy, Bomberman, Super Mario, Tennis, Pro Wrestling are among the few games included in the CD. Wow, childhood.

These games never get dull.

The Fork in the Road

Throughout my stay in college, I've used two strengths in my life namely writing and computer designing.

This morning, a few events occurred that placed me back in the fork of the road I thought I already passed by. Apparently, I was going around in a circle.

Saturday Events:

My story proposal was rejected in my Filipino Creative Writing class. I have to revise it further.

I've seen the finished Mario tarps along EDSA walks, and the Mario flash ad in the Ateneo Placement Website. They looked amazing, too good to be true.

Teef told me that I should become the IT chair in the Placement Office next semester.

Now, I'm beginning to doubt again if I am in the right course. I know that this is a bad time for it to happen since I'm already in my senior year and the head of the Fine Arts Festival, but my work in computers seems to be more appreciated and used.

Appreciation in IT

Became the AVP for Website design in COSA for two years

Designed three websites - Jen Someone's Official Website, SOH Thesis Primer, AteneoCOSA official site, and more upcoming (Arete, Parada, co-designer of Placement Website, etc.)

Most, if not all, appearances of Super Mario for the next week in e-mails, tarps, flyers, and advertisements.

In all groupworks, I always handled the computer aspect.

"[I've] set the bar", "It's going to be hard to top", comments I've heard quite a number of times already in the Placement Office.

Appreciation in writing

Sir John Labella liked my essay, "Watching Cherry Blossoms."

Sir Vince Serrano liked my short story, "Seven Days."

Ma-anne Escobar's testimonial in my Friendster account.

I hope to resolve this as soon as possible.

---

I hope that this does not become my other dilemma, another fork, I've been avoiding to face. I like this girl, but I fear rejection and I think I still like my "ex". In a world where it is conditioned for men to make the first move, I'm having a hard time deciding.

Playing teacher

Apparently, some people in the Placement Office were impressed with my designs for the tarps, flyers, and the flash ad for the Team 1 talks on Marketing and Sales that I "taught" some IT people how to use Photoshop and Flash today and last Wednesday.

Now, they know a closely-guarded secret of mine and is now a main weapon in the Placement Office. I wouldn't be surprised if almost everyone in the Placement Office has their own senior's page in Flash.

Anton keeps on telling me that team 1 has set the standard, a high standard. It made it harder for the other teams to raise the bar even higher. Sorry, guys!

We've got something kinda funny going on...

Yesterday, I had my senior's photoshoot for the AEGIS yearbook.

I entered the room and surveyed the scene.

All make-up and hair artists were gay except for two ladies.

I had my make-up and hair done. The first thing "he" asked me is, "Puwede bang akin na lang ang isa sa contact prints mo 'pag lumabas na siya?"

Later, "Alam mo, ang cute mo."

Later still, "Anong pangalan mo?"

Afterwards, when the "happy people" heard my name, one said "Hi Ovaltine." Another said, "Hi Milo, ako nga pala si Nido."

Soon, "May cellphone ka? Anong number mo?"

After my pictures were taken, the one who decorated me with Avon accessories looked at the previews in the computer and said, "Ay ang ganda naman niyan."

Gad... O_o

Tarp Stop

I'm currently stuck in the Ateneo Placement Office making/designing fourteen huge pieces of tarps (measurement in 3 by 6, 4 by 4 feet). They all have to be done by today.

Give me a strong computer, it can be done, but with my laptop, it'll take me a week.

Galing.

Ken Zhu is dead

I've done the unthinkable, I've killed Ken Zhu.

I suddenly feel cold, as if I was left shirtless in Siberia after wearing three layers of wool coats.

It would be printed in the pages of Aegis. I have my photoshoot this coming Wednesday. Everyone would see that Ken Zhu has disappeared. Is this good? Honestly, I still do not know.

Friends, teachers, officemates would immediately notice this when I return to school tomorrow. It is virtually impossible to cover up this deed. I'm expecting a lot of words thrown at me.

Well, I just have to face tomorrow with a smile. It is my rebirth in ways, a new era in Fine Arts history is about to unfold.

Be ready.

*smile mo kita ko feel ko!*

6 colors, 1 destiny

While I was moving around National Bookstore in Cainta yesterday, I located something that I've never solved back then in my childhood, a Rubik's cube. Ok, laugh if you may, but this three by three cuboid wonder suffered at my hands back then, usually ending up in pieces or missing stickers.

I bought one, just to relive that childhood memory, just to see if twenty-one years and a month of living in this earth had made a difference in my ability to understand this cube. I started solving it this morning, around 5:00 a.m. I even toyed with it during my two meetings. Don't worry, I know what happened during the meetings.

Well anyway, I finally solved it around three hours ago. Geez, finally, yippee! Now, if I could do it quickly enough to amaze friends. 10 hours to solve a cube isn't going to cut it especially since in the Guinness Book of World Records, the fastest time to solve one was clocked at around 20 seconds.

Babaw ko 'no?

Ok, back to lit writing.

Never ApART anymore

I can't wait for the Fine Arts GA where all of the Fine arts majors from freshman year to senior year would conglomorate into one venue. I finally got my wish (that I've been clamoring before) to meet with all the people who have the guts to enter a course as stable as a platform of clouds in the job market.

I wanted a link to each FA year level so that we all could support each other -- freshies adjusting to the requirements of the Ateneo, sophies searching for their respective genre, juniors looking for the right electives, seniors needing man power for their practicum.

I wanted a place to ease a main problem of the Fine Arts people, which I experienced before and even up to now, the fear of writing. A huge chunk of pressure is placed on the shoulders of the FA students since more or less, we are expected to write better than students from other courses, a pressure I experienced when Sir Labella back then in En 11 constantly compared our lackluster descriptive essays (*sorry to brag* but I did manage to impress him with mine [it is found online in Skylab Magazine in aplomblue.iscool.net entitled "Watching Cherry Blossoms"]) to a person in his other class who wrote about eating a baguette. In his description, he could almost taste the baguette in the essay.

I wanted to share my experiences as a 4-year mainstay in the Creative Writing course so that the future doesn't shock them that bad. This is not an easy course, as some students may think. We must develop an ability to be able to write, and write creatively at that, and our writing prowess cannot be quantified in a single answer. Unlike a math solution where 1+1 is always equal to two, writing has different styles and different results. No one is forced to write the "Shakespeare" way, the "Remoto" way, the "Yuson" way. We are individuals, each providing his or her own answer to that problem, that 2 in 1+1.

Here's hoping that unity will reign in one of the most oppressed courses in the Ateneo.