Sunday, April 13, 2008

wishes

in a few days time i will be hiking off to Pangasinan for one month, in which our team of three is expected to integrate itself into the lifestyles of our fellow Filipinos who have it hard. Living in the provinces hasn't been much of a problem for me, but i'm really curious of what may happen to my other classmates who have no idea what the rough life is. the best of luck to them. and to us as well. we'll need everything to come up with a comprehensive report to do our job. i hope we do just fine. anything that we may accomplish i hope can be of help to the people who we would be living with.

now, back to my real blog topic. wishes. not that i'm going to talk about wishes per se. i'm just going to have a wishlist. a lifetime wishlist if you may. certain events, and maybe certain items. this marks the first time that i will be going to make a list of such, and publish it in the net. but don't get me wrong, i've long kept a list of things to buy every semester since my 2nd year. these things i hope i can buy, or experience in my lifetime.

here they go! (in no order. well, that is, they are the first to pop out of my mind.)

1. Sony Ericsson's W890i
- the first time i saw this phone, it was absolute love at first sight. i just saw the dummy phone last Thursday. By Saturday, the Sony Ericsson branch at Rob Manila already had their stocks, although they were not sure of the pricing. I even had the chance to test out one. It was the best phone i've ever touched! 2GB memory stick + 30MB of phone mem + 3.2MP camera and then the Walkman feature made me want so much to escape the mall with the phone in my hands. haha.. i'll have this shit after prac. if not, i'd settle for either the w880i or the w660i handsets.

SM Bacoor already has stocks of it.
TAG PRICE: P17,500

2. a digital camera
- preferably, maybe the Sony Cybershot or the Canon Ixus series. not really wanting the expensive ones, those with like manually adjusted lenses. a decently priced digital camera with an internal battery, small enough to be in my pocket, has all the basic features, plus those adjustable shutter speeds and then i'd be happy. i think a lot of shots that i've wanted to take need those precise shutter speeds so there.

i don't really see myself being able to buy one, but if anyone wants to give me a digital camera, then i'd be thankful. :)

3. closet full of Nikes.
- people close to me may know how much of a Nike freak i am. (or maybe people who are really close to me.) i'd like a closet full of 'em, like shirts, jerseys, shorts, even the pants they sell. plus about 4 to 5 pairs of sneakers. i'm not really much of a sneaker head. maybe just 2 pairs of casual shoes and a pair of basketball shoes could do the trick.

speaking of pants...

4. Levi's-Jordan limited edition pants
- super collector's item is what they say. come on, a Levi's red tag pair of jeans with a Jordan brand stitched on them? my goodness

5. a pair of Nike Air Jordans
- if i only had one pair of playing shoes in my closet, this has to be it. Any kind of Jordan. from I to XX3. but i prefer the Jordan XX's. or even the XIV's.

6. a Rolex watch.
- nothing really makes a man more than the watch he wears. and wearing a Rolex basically means you've made it. it also makes you a very suitable target for snatchers.

TAG PRICE: i don't really wanna puke when i see a price tag of a Rolex watch in pesos. so i won't look. :P

7. become a doctor from UP-PGH.
- the one thing which may be the undisputed greatest wish of mine. of course i don't expect it being handed to me in a platter. i'll have to work my damn ass off for this. but i know, once i get that M.D. in my name, heck, even just the nameplate, i think i'm going to be the happiest person alive.

for me this is the culmination of my single, solitary dream since childhood. the road i take is very much different from others, which can be my greatest asset. the journey to which i travel has made me more definitely sure that i wanted to become a doctor and serve my fellow countrymen. at dapat sa UPCM ako. hindi pwede sa iba. it's all in my hands. kaya yan. ako pa. hahaha. :P

8. build my own house
- well, not construct it on my own. i just want to be a proud owner of my own house. i'd be canvassing the plot of land where my house would be built, then i'd have it constructed using my own resources. a simple 2-story house would be nice.

i don't want to put up a house in tagaytay. a lot of land there has already been wasted due to worthless land conversion initiatives. this should be stopped.

9. have a family, and a loving wife of course.
- pretty self-explanatory. haha. :)

10. build my dream pc.
- i need an upgrade of my pc now. since having Windows Vista i have seen how far back my pc is. i want the high end ones. but not really that extravagantly priced. you know, just right for the money.

my dream pc should be like (in today's standards, because tech moves at such a fast rate that 2 years from now these specs would be slower by that day's standards)

-intel quad core processor (or maybe dual-core if we can't afford it)
- nvidia gforce 8800 712MB GPU
- 2GB corsair ddr2 5200 ram
plus the old parts of my cpu, which i love (the blue diodes are sooo cooool) :P

maybe i'd like to have the water-powered cooling system. or the liquid nitrogen ones. lol.




so there. this concludes my wishlist for now. maybe i'll add something else. maybe not. :)

Friday, April 04, 2008

am i ranting? i hope not.

"talaga?"

"weh, di nga?"

"no stir tsong?"

"ang KJ mo naman!"

"totoo ba talaga yan?"

...

enumerated above are exasperated expressions from people around me. Classmates, friends, cousins, former classmates (high school), and maybe more. try bringing me to a neighborhood inuman and you'll see the little known fact about me that drives these dumbfounded exclamations.

I DON'T DRINK. PERIOD.

no, not drinking water and other fluids per se. don't be stupid. what i don't drink is alcohol, and other drinks that people prohibit you when you are young, or in the case of the US, something that is worth getting a fake ID for.

i remember when i was in elementary, the craze when you're young was Cali Shandy. semi-alcohol. it's like the tutorial for drinking beer. it's got a little alcohol content on it, but not in massive amounts like beer. i heard from my friends that it still had a kick (or maybe because we were little kids back then. grade 5 isn't really old you know), and it was a very enjoyable drink.

when i entered college, i presumed that maybe the majority of people in my school drink. and i wasn't wrong. clubs flanked our campus (i study in Malate for crying out loud) and getting a drink was a few steps away. but i wasn't really into this drinking until my classmates started organizing these forays into clubs. it was like a drinking session for the whole block. unfortunately, i only drank water and softdrinks (and a little iced tea) the whole time. people didn't really notice it, since we were like so many (around 20 something).

the time when my non-alcoholism really went into the spotlight was when we were invited into this drinking session at my former classmate's house (name withheld), organized by my current blockmate (name also withheld) because my current blockmate has been experiencing problems of the heart (love for the stupid man who cannot decipher what i am saying).

so there we were, the six of us, minus me of course, who were drinking. since we were really few, my former classmate really tried his best to persuade me to drink. his efforts were vain of course. but this time, they turned on to my girlfriend (who likes to drink by the way), and well, she refused the first time, thinking what might happen if she drinks in front of me. after much prodding however, i relented. the night was one of the most unforgettable nights of my life. in a lot of ways good, and then some bad.

bad. i don't smoke, i don't drink, i don't gamble. practically i don't have vices. if basketball were a vice then that may be my vice. but i don't really engage myself in items which have a "sin tax" on them.

maybe it's really selfish in my part to prohibit someone from enjoying something that she likes to do. but then again, i really hate drinkers. i remember nights when my dad comes home to the house then pukes on the toilet because he was so drunk. thankfully that's over. i remember being texted by someone who was so drunk that she threatened to slash herself because a certain boy did not appease to her feelings (the boy was definitely not me), and the bad part was that in that certain time i was pursuing her. people do a lot of crazy shit when they are drunk. maybe i can attest to some good things crazy people do. but other than that, nah, crazy shit. either being silent or very audacious, wailing and walking in a very unbalanced manner. it would be a really great idea if i had a video camera with me then i'd record the shit they do. but then i'm not a person who would go out of his way to abuse one's alcoholism and ruin their day afterwards.

i don't try to pull off the image of a holy man for not having any vices. it's just that i don't like partaking in activities like that. and the fact that i am allergic to them (tobacco and alcohol) makes me more comfortable in staying as the way i am.

although a dilemma strikes me. do i pursue the selfishness of mine and forbid a person very dear to me from enjoying happiness or do i let the person be? then i'd deal with what happens later. it's still a big problem to me. something that moves me to tears while thinking about it on the bus. haha emote emote pa no?

i'm still buying to the idea of talking to my mom. i don't really know what would happen if i break down in front of her, but maybe she'll be able to talk sense into my head.

or maybe i should just follow suit and drink? nah, not really my style of coping.