I don't know... I don't know how I've been doing for the past few exams. I'm pretty sure I bombed the last two, and the the third one is... I don't know. It was a slapdash mess of incoherent tripe, and I don't think I properly proved that I'd even studied the Constitution at all. AT ALL.
And I'm fairly sure I'm going to fail Persons and Family Relations. I need to memorize the provisions. Memorize them word. for. word. Because the Prof is a tightass like that. And I totally bombed the last two tests. And when I say bomb, I'm saying that Hiroshima and Nagasaki's bombs went and had mutant, exponentially-more-powerful crater-babies together, and made a nice, radioactive nest in my Persons grade.
And Criminal Law. OH CRIMINAL LAW. I like Criminal Law. Reading about murderers and rapists and conmen can be quite entertaining, but the Prof here is notorious for making near-impossible tests. And while I can honestly say that I've read a lot of the stuff here that needs reading, I can't comfortably confirm that my defective brain properly absorbed and processed it so that I can regurgitate it to the Professor's standards.
And then, if I manage to survive: The Bar.
Gah gah gah gah gah...!
I've gotten this far. But the few times I'd actually worked up the gumption to actually Get My Shit Together and read my readings like I'm supposed to, is likely to be too little too late. If I get through this semester, I SRSLY need to pull my head out of my ass for the next semester. If I don't, I have the beginnings of a back-up plan. Only the beginnings. But at least said beginnings fit into the larger scheme of what I want to do with the waste of resources that is my insignificant little life.
As for the practical choices I may have to make in the future (i.e. which island I'll be living in, given the fact that I have no steady revenue source and may no longer have an excuse for my parents to help me stay here if shit hits the fan --and honestly, if it gets to that, it's likely that I'll shame spiral into destroying the few connections I've managed to maintain here anyway. So what the hey, why not just scurry back home with my cowardly little stub of a tail between my legs like the self-destructive part of me has been wanting to do since I graduated anyway?)... I'll leave that to the future.
::breathes::
::fights self-destructive part of self for general control over motor functions::
::breathes again::
K. Back to
/Obligatory Finals Week Panic Post
Because it's Aramaic. So there. Brownie points for me for being both pedantic and cryptic. Yay.
Well, OK. Part of it is frustration and a fierce yearning that refuses to die or at least stay quiet until I finish what I've tasked myself to finish. I lacked the courage of my convictions before. I know that now, and to continue to lack that, would be my responsibility and my regret.
And look, a link!
Auditions for 9 Works Theatrical's production of RENT.
What else? Ondoy aftermath: unaffected. UP hardly flooded at all. I slept through most of it; which, if you know me, is very in character. Personal opinions concerning how the whole matter is being treated --whys and wherefores and such- shall remain cautious, half-formed pseudo-concepts/theses until anyone pokes me about what I think about the whole thing and is willing to hear stuff they might not like to hear.
Current state: pre-Finals for my first semester of law school. I have not been as good a student as I ought to be. I have frequently allowed my natural laziness to win out, and two years' worth of post-college brain-sleep can be difficult to shake off. (That, and twenty-two years of brain-laziness and a growing sense of my own lack of competence in just about anything) There's also a near-constant cloud fogging up most of my mental processes. Not that excuses would make much of a difference in the overall scheme of things anyway. So.
Here and now? Oscillating between Zen Mode and blind panic, and groping for the space between.
Money-wise? I'm fine. Client finally ponied up my dough, and I have a new client, although whether or not I'll continue to be his writer-monkey is uncertain. For the most part though, I can at least afford being alive for the next month-or-so, with a bit of wriggle room for my inner brat princess to gasp for breath every now and then.
Also homesick. But I usually am at this time of the year; mostly because I can almost taste Sem Break looming in the horizon. And... y'know. Missing my family and such.
Also watched The Ugly Truth with
My kitty's been sent to the farm for being a slut. There, she shall be free to slut around all she wants, like the skankiful skank that she is. And so can her daughter and her many many many other descendants thereafter. Amen.
In other news: there's a LOLcat bible translation out project out there. I closed the tab and am too lazy to look for it again. So if you're interested, google it.
Leyte Town Goes Green With Bamboo Taxis
( Text of the article )
- Music:One Short Day (from Wicked) - Idina Menzel, Kristin Chenoweth, Ensemble
I read a few private journal entries of mine from around two years ago, and I thought: damn, I was a fool. No other word for it. Just "fool."
I was completely in my head, and I was being bufetted about by my emotions like a little kite being whipped around by a gale. Or rather... I took an emotion/set of emotions, and intellectually ran them into the ground so that I could barely tell which way was what or where. (Translation: in trying to dissect said emotions, I'd get more and more tangled up in them, that I'd often lose sight of myself altogether)
I can't say that I've stopped actually being a fool, because that would most likely prove the precise opposite, but I think it's definitely safe for me to say that the little me-kite has a slightly better grasp of aerodynamics now. (Translation: I figured out that sometimes, it's just PMS. Or me being a drama queen. Of course, the realization is an ongoing process, and I can never fully say that I'd catch myself at the right time, i.e., before I make a total ass of myself/before I work myself into such a tizzy that a falling leaf could reduce me to inarticulate sobs)
Has this made me a more fun person? All signs definitely point to an unequivocal "no," given my sudden plummet in people skills/interaction. (although I suppose I can blame that mostly on said Fool-ness and the isolation of post-adolescence) However, I will say that it's made me a little less prone to screaming bouts of Stupid.
I think.
- Music:Don't Stop Believing - Journey (playing in my head)
- Weekend=DnD final boss battle for the Heroic Tier. Awezums all around. And much stress-relieving, which has been muchly needed.
- Met with various relatives who were on the way back to the States from Bacolod. I'm like their side-quest: Leave Bacolod for Manila. Meet weird neice. Buy weird neice food and groceries. Head to airport and fly back to America.
- This morning, I woke up to SURPRISE, YOU HAVE A ROOMMATE! ...and here I was thinking that I had the room all to my lucky lonesome. But no. I have a roommate. Who looks like she's in her 40s (the awkward age-gappy part where I expect I'll be patronized and made to feel like a fucking child again), and is taking a PhD in Anthropology (the cool nerdy part). Agh. And me with my People Skills missing. I don't know how I'm going to deal with this.
- Wisdom. Tooth. WAI NAO.
- GROUCHY SAI IS GROUCHY.
Everyday, I find it harder and harder to give a crap.
I mean, I feel the pressure to not sail away on my academic and social Failboat again, but other than the pressure, I'm actually not quite feeling anything at all, other than an intense desire to be Elsewhere.
Not surprising? I suppose not. I've got some shit on my plate (acads, family dorama), but really, I ought to have overcome my constant mini-senioritis already.
Also... I hate people. It's official. I can't bring myself to give a shit about any of my classmates, I feel icky just thinking about making nice-nice with the people living with me in the dorm, and I just... don't bloody care.
What's happening? T_T
Mirasol versus Court of Appeals
Once you get past all the legal vagaries and fancy schmancy sugar tax bullshit, the case can be summed up in pseudo-bullet points:
- My grandparents owned and managed sugar-land. It's what most families from Negros Occidental do. From 1973-1975 PNB financed their crop-year (the costs of planting and harvesting and labor and such amount to somewhere around the vicinity of the BUTTLOAD. [rant: All you Marxist-posers who snorted at me and said that I was some spoiled azucarera sugar-baby who lived off the pain and strife of the "common tao" can kiss my perky brown ass: there's more to farming than swimming around in the money milked from the sweat and blood of the disenfranchised farm-peon. There's taxes and management and agricultural experimentation and a whole WORLD of difficult bullshit that my mother has to take care of singlehandedly, while running a household, taking care of my aging grandparents, and running a struggling food concessionaire business. It is NOT easy, and when I go home, I hear her worrying about how we wouldn't be able to make the next payroll unless she took a loan from me. FROM ME. HER PENNILESS, LACKADAISICAL, PSEUDO-UNEMPLOYED DAUGHTER WHO IS STILL IN LAW SCHOOL. I'm not saying this because OH POOR ME MY OWN MOTHER IS TAKING MONEY FROM ME, but because OH POOR MY MOTHER. Because the payroll has to be given out, because otherwise, the hacienda-folk don't get their rice. But the household expenses have to be made too, and my grandparents' meds don't come cheap. Yes. It's THAT close to the bone. But she manages to make it work, all in the face of wildfires, hungry goats, drought, global warming, incompetence, and FUCKING CANCER. So fuck you. When you say that the good things in my life are the product of cruelty and social injustice, you disrespect my mother.]) through a series of loans that would be payable through the profit made at the harvest.
- Marcos passed a law that screwed the sugar industry over and basically gave said profit over to one of his cronies (through PNB, no less!).
- My grandparents got screwed.
- PNB STILL held them to the loan and foreclosed a bunch of their properties. After the foreclosure, they STILL owed PNB a shitload of money. We're talking in the millions. T_T
- The lower court said that the law Marcos had passed was illegal and told PNB to give back the profits that my grandparents lost (but didn't tell PNB to do away with the debt/interest incurred by the fact that all that shit went down in the SEVENTIES)
- Of course, since my grandparents wanted to defend themselves and their descendants (who would inherit said debt... possibly myself included GAH), they took the case to a higher court. And there was a bunch of mumbo-jumbo, and it reached the Supreme Court. In 2001.
- From what I understand of my um... skimming of the text (I don't have to read it for class, so I'm not going to bother trying to hash out every single bloody detail) the Supreme Court basically took away whatever financial salvation the lower court might have offered, and plopped my grandparents back on square one: scalp-deep in debt, and profoundly screwed over.
Because procrastination needs to be shared, I offer you, oh Internet, a link.
She, by Charlie Kaufmann
...is it THAT Charlie Kaufmann, of the screenwriting fame? I don't know. It certainly sounds like him, with his fourth-wall breakage and his snarky, back-talking metacharacters. And I could see and hear the whole thing in my head as if it was a short film. All in all, a cute and fun bit of brain-meltage.
I'd recommend poking through the rest of the website, it's got a lot of interesting stuff.
GAH DAMMET. My writing's nonexistent. More beginnings without endings.
It's all about the Follow Through, Christina. Just remember to keep moving until you get there. Think "hypergraphia." Turn it into a compulsion. Write write write! You'll need it to stay sane through law school.
- Location:Sanggumay
- Music:electric fans
I've been feeling all weird and restless lately. I've also been feeling really homesick. Maybe it's around that time of the month/semester/year/karmic cycle or something, I don't know, but I feel like bolting. I want to fly off to some beach or take a bus ride and disembark wherever.
I like to think that I'm taking law school in stride, and there's generally nothing wrong with my life (other than my burgeoning lack of an income source, which I know I'll rectify in due time).
I guess I just miss my family. There's some stuff going on back home, and let's say that it's enough of a big deal so that relatives from America have come flying in much more recently. MUCH more recently. Hell, two of my three maiden aunts (yes, my family has the Norns/Fates/Wyrd Sisters thing going) are back home in Bacolod right now. And the third one's coming in from New York this Monday.
I guess I'm just edgy.
Gratuitous icon-inspired non-sequitur: Fear my robot head.
- Mood:
weird - Music:rain
Scratched my right eye with the nosepad of my new glasses (yes: apparently, if one is klutzy enough, it's actually possible), so now I have a corneal scratch that matches the one that Gorby gave me back in 18B. Gorbykitty mew. Stupid itchy eyeball.
Otherwise though, I'm pretty OK.
School=relatively light this week
Work=MUST COMPLETE ARTICLES AND FIND MORE CLIENTS GAH
Money=What money?
Right Now=Sitting in Dorm commons, eavesdropping on the 11pm news and some lady student ranting mutter-ranting on the phone about the government and how the "Movement" is constantly beset by the "Imperialist Menace" or something to that effect. Also, there seem to be man-shouts coming in from the building next door. Dunno what THAT'S supposed to mean though.
Today I went off to Makati for Mica's birthday dinner. (Bwaha legalness) Had some very yummy pasta. And espresso. A BIG shot of espresso. It's the reason why I'm still awake, despite my roaring headache, nausea, and general crapulence.
Well... OK, I'm also cramming. More. Despite said general crapulence. Presumably brought about by my glasses requiring an upgrade. And maybe motion sickness. Although the headache and the nausea keep on coming back, so I'm going to go with the I Need New Glasses explanation.
But dammit, that means having to go to an optometrist, and Kfyn, there are a couple of optometrist's clinics barely a spit away from the dorm, but I've got Shit To Do, dammit. I don't want to bother.
On the other hand though, I NEED my glasses to function properly. Zoning out and getting nauseous and headachey after fifteen minutes of reading texts in Font Size 5 is NOT a recommended path to Passing Law School. Glargh. K fine. Weather and circumstances permitting, I'm hightailin my ass off to the optometrist tomorrow after Bibliography class. Or Wednesday, at the very latest.
Srsly Christina. Stop being a butthead and take care of your eyes. You need them. A LOT. They don't have the Supreme Court Reports Annotated in Braille here. Or anywhere, as far as I know.
- Location:dorm
- Music:crickets and cats mating
I have more links, but I'm too lazy to do the standard html tag/copypaste routine.
GLAH. I've seen more extra heads/limbs/THINGS growing out of babies' butts than I think I'd like to see for the rest of my life. But I can't... stop... staring!
...That's what I get for playing Follow the Wiki-links for two hours.
::really ought to be devoting more time to useful pursuits... like sleeping and such::
Taking a break between case-readings.
Saw this article on seasteading, and yes, it's exactly what it sounds like: occupying a patch of "built" land/old oil rig/old ocean battlewatsits for residence.
Sounds ridiculous?
The comments are hi-larious. And occasionally insightful.
Ex: "You don't wanna piss off Cthulu"
...Interesting thing about living on-campus: (no it's not the Frat Rambols... I haven't seen one here yet so far, although they DO have emergency procedures posted for it, so LAWL) if there's a concert nearby, I hear it. Whether I want to or not. And there can be some CRAPPY bands out there. T_T
Also, Sai getting grouchy about not getting rice regularly anymore. Have been subsisting on bananas, Gardenia bread, cereal, and Chiz Whiz. Srsly, I need some variety in my diet. Stupid lack of a rice cooker. Stupid broken gas pipes. STUPID FUCKING POVERTY. Sure, there are plenty of places to eat here, but on average, a meal still lands between the 40-65 peso range, and I would like very much to spend less than that on something sufficiently nutritious and filling (no, isaw+rice/fishballs+rice are NOT healthy). Or, alternatively, to actually be able to AFFORD fucking NORMAL MEALS. ::grumbles::
Of course, despite my complaining about not being able to afford better food, I spend a lot on school supplies, readings, and taxis; and I do occasionally splurge on some PhP150 monster of a meal somewhere "posh" (i.e. NOT a cafeteria). Hypocrite much? What? I want to keep safe and well-supplied, and I need to let out my epicurean steam SOMEWHERE. Also, when I go out with people, I am often tempted into buying something I can't afford (and what I can't afford pretty much encompasses EVERYTHING IN EXISTENCE) because the food just looks so yummy. T_T
Also, before I eat up your bandwidth, can anyone out there in intertubes-land lend me/sell me a copy of Aeschylus' The Orestia and Plato's The Apology?
I need them for next week's Legal History class. Yes, the professor is an Atenean Humanities grad. (Also THANK YOU HEATHEN GODS, readings that are literary-ish and easier to read than cases!)
I don't want to jinx it, but I'm actually kind of having fun in Law School. It's a constant game of catch-up with the readings, but I'm not having a bad time at all. XD
And now Quiz results!
( What Part of the Brain are You? )
( The Mind Self Control Test )
- Location:dorm
MABUHAY ANG EXTRA JOSS!!!
Your result for The Subatomic Test...
Neutrino
Extremely elusive
Take The Subatomic Test at HelloQuizzy
Your result for What Kind Of Gamer Are You?...
TSPE - Puzzle Adventurer
6 Twitch-Fluid, 7 Simple-Complex, 8 Planning-Acting and 10 Entertainment-Difficulty!

TSPE's get into puzzle adventure games because they appeal to both their fast fingers and their quick minds. They thrive on fast-paced gameplay that requires more than just button-mashing. Even though they do enjoy fast gameplay, they don't rely on reflexes and rather like to have a strategy ahead of time. TSPE's also don't like memorizing things, such as learning combos or remembering complex menus, so they instead prefer that the game directly tap into their brainpower with puzzles. Puzzle Adventure Gamers like to be entertained by their games, not punished by them. Puzzle adventure games do rely on some quick skill, the heft of the challenge comes from the puzzles, which in a worst case scenario means looking up something in a strategy guide.
Games TSPE's like: Portal, Braid, The Legend of Zelda
TWITCH
You have a strong twitch reflex, which means that your muscles tend to move in very quick jerky movements. This makes you especially adept to action games, since they rely on that very same jerky motion and quick button pressing. You probably beat the pants off of others in minigames using the "tap A to run" mechanism, and you hold your own even in fighting games that you've never played because you can execute the moves very quickly. Unfortunately, you also have trouble with games that require precision movements like shooting games. Your thumbs are just too fast and that little analog stick is so sensitive! And games that require precise timings like the Mario Bros 3 extra life slider give you trouble as well.
SIMPLE
You remember the good old days, when Atari was cutting edge with a joystick and ONE BUTTON. This is not to say that you can't handle more complex controls and concepts, but you prefer that your games didn't require half a novel's worth of instructions. You do best when all the controls and options are right at your fingertips. You probably feel right at home with older games because they inherently have less to work with. Newer games either frustrate you with too many buttons and options, or they just annoy you because there are simpler ways to climb a ladder than jumping on, holding L, and then pushing forward.
PLANNING
When it comes to the actual act of playing, you're a no-frills flawless machine. It's a good thing that video game characters don't actually carry all the stuff in your inventory, because they'd probably suffocate underneath it all! You've got your armies all highly trained and equipped with rocket launchers and jeeps with gatling guns. You didn't even have to be in the same room as your PS2 to finish the final boss of Final Fantasy XII. You're prepared for anything because you've got it all figured out ahead of time. But even the best plans backfire sometimes and that's where your weakness shines through. You're so used to having enough healing potions that when you actually run out you're a sitting duck.
ENTERTAINMENT
You play mostly for the fun of the game. Whether its the story, the gameplay, or just the overall feel of the game, something about it draws you in. You'll find yourself popping a game in years after you completed it to revisit the characters, locales, and gameplay. You probably own at least a few game soundtracks and maybe a few posters. You appreciate games as art and a way to pass the time. You may also play competitively (either professionally or amateur) but that's not the reason you'll be playing them 40 years from now.
Take What Kind Of Gamer Are You? at HelloQuizzy
...yep, that's me. Except maybe for the "fast reflexes" bit. Reflexes? Who, me?
- Location:dorm
OK. So Lots of stuff happened.
- I'm in law school, and yes, UP Law IS tough. We've got readings up There and it's only been the first day. Happily, with a bit of self-control and a little less sleep, I should still be able to squeeze a bit of a social life into the cracks between work and studying. ...not that I've had much of a social life to begin with anyway. XD
- I now live in one of the dorms in UP. Yay for state subsidies making me able to afford this on my own!
- I'm on the lookout for more freelance writing/drawing/voice talent-ing/whatever work out there; my income isn't as stable as I'd like it to be.
- Grandfather's sick, so I might be going back to Bacolod randomly.
- Erm... (huddles underneath blanket to study some more)
- Location:Sanggumay dorm reception area
...again!
Will be returning to Manila at the end of the month. ...again. To enroll and stuff. Got most of the pre-enrollment skuel whatnot out of the way, but I've still got prereg, and teh Skuel Interwebs haven't been very cooperative.
But, ah well. I was told it would be interesting like this. LOL. So. What to do in the interim? Rest a bit, I suppose. Chill. Work. Make some extra money so I'll have a bit of extra when I'm in school.
Oh yeah. FINALLY finished reading Atlas Shrugged. Damn. That was a LONG book. Ayn Rand made some very good points, but she has the subtlety of a gas-powered jackhammer. I'd recommend it though. It'll take a bit of willpower to slog through, but I think it's totally worth it. Even though I'm not too big on her political views, the core of her premise is something I can't say I disagree with.
Also, STAR TREK FTW.
Applied to UP dorms (upon my mother's insistence), but I KNOW I won't get in (anomalous application processes and missing requirements can do that to a person), and I already have a back-up residence in Katipunan waiting. It's at the very upper limit of my price range, but it's Katipunan, and I'll be living with another (former) law student, so at least I can mooch readings off her and get some help from her if I'm in a pinch. Unfortunately, I can't confirm anything until the results for the UP dorm applications show up, so... that's still technically up in the air.
What else? Oh yeah, in Bacolod, a funky-looking bird slammed into my grandparents' bedroom window and flapped around on the floor, completely stunned. It was a brown bird with a tiger-stripe pattern and wings and a tail built for speed and endurance. It was about the size of a pigeon, only sleeker and slightly longer. After getting its bearings a bit, we gave the bird a perch and the option to fly out the window whenever it damn pleased. It didn't it just kinda... hung out in my brother's room. The cats (Dobbie and her kittens decided they wanted to colonize my brother's room too) didn't pay the bird much mind, and they seemed to have developed an odd sort of alliance. ...mostly because they ignored each other.
We took the bird in overnight, and then donated it to the Negros Forest Environmental Institute the next day. No one in the house could identify the species, and we were concerned that we might have an endangered specimen. Our first stop was to the DENR, where the only thing they could confirm was that the bird was a species of cuckoo. Also, they had no cages or veterinarians, so we had to take it to NFEFI. It was finally at NFEFI, where our oddly tame (it just perched on my brother's finger while we were showing it to the DENR and NFEFI folks; we didn't cage it or anything) specimen was identified as a female Oriental Cuckoo; a migratory bird that winters in Southeast Asia. Not endangered, but certainly an interesting specimen nonetheless; especially considering how calm she was around humans.
Then again, it might have simply been concussed and too out of it to fly away.
Either way, it's at NFEFI, eating bugs and getting vet-treatment, and possibly being bullied by the serpent eagles and the Visayan Tarictic hornbill (a critically endangered species of hornbill only found in Negros; NFEFI has a few specimens for breeding and education), but at least it's with people who actually KNOW what to do with it.
Wala lang. Funky bird. Hee.
- Location:Skyland Plaza, Makati
Also, this is awesome. It's a really cool site that sums up Dante's Paradiso, Purgatorio, and Inferno in Flash watsits. I read Inferno cover to cover for Western Lit I, but if I'd been feeling lazy, this site would've been REALLY useful. XD
And 10 genetically modified critters! ...Y'know, I thought GOD had a funky sense of humor when he made the platypus.
Things I've been watching?
- Nodame Cantabile (Live Action)
- Kung Fu (the one with David Carradine [Bill, from Kill Bill])
- Farscape Season 4
- Boondocks Season 2
- Shigurui Death Frenzy (yes... it IS a frenzy of death, and no, I didn't like it very much. Very visually pretty though. And... Japanese. Really Japanese.)
- Samurai Champloo
- assorted movies.
Also... One of my brother's kittens died. The one without a confirmed name yet; the one my brother really liked. T_T I feel bad for it, but it was a few days ago, so at least it's not raw anymore. MOVINGON! The other kittens still need homes. Otherwise, they're getting kicked out. Srsly.
Mou, sige Christina, magtrabaho ka na. Kailangan mo rin ng pera. Wag kang bulakbol.
- Location:Home, Bacolod City
- Music:Yes Man ending sequence
