I haven't posted in such a long while that I feel myself very detached from my blog already. Oh well...since my dear Ate Pam's been badgering me about updating my blog for quite a while already, here I am back in my little home on the Web.
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I've had the worst luck with my computer...it's been the cause of so many headaches. Every time I use it I can only do my things for 30 minutes, after which it automatically goes suicidal, freezes and hangs itself. I can't get it to reboot until 20 minutes after the dreaded crash.

What complicates it even more are my circumstances. When you're working on a thirtysomething-page Sociology paper with all your relatives crashing your house for two successive weekly parties, and you're constantly nagged by the responsibility of entertaining your cousins from America, and you're stuck with a heinously uncooperative computer, and finally you're stuck with a dreadfully slow dot-matrix printer, you can imagine how I felt. I was practically pulling my hair out in despair, begging for God to let the typhoons stay and call off classes longer. What's worse, when I submitted the damn thing, I didn't get to study for my Sociology midterms that day.

I managed to persuade my parents that I had had enough of my work interrupted with frequent computer crashes. Just last night I got home to a new CPU unit, although my Dad hadn't set it up yet because we couldn't find the activation code for Windows. Strange thing---now my old computer behaves properly.

Very very weird.
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Speaking of computers, my parents have expressed grave concern for our Internet bill. I personally managed to make our bill shoot up to 65 hours---15 hours beyond the limit. Now I feel really guilty because we have a bill that's almost double our normal monthly charge.

Maybe I should seriously consider getting prepaid Internet instead...and hide it from my parents...
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Auntie Carole, Uncle Butch, and my cousins Czasha and JB left for South Pasadena two Tuesdays ago. Despite my computer troubles, I was happy that they stayed at our place and actually had loads of fun, despite their being here only for a couple of weeks. I had so much fun with JB that I forgot how traumatic our first encounter was back in 1997, when we stayed at their place. The kid was very skilled with Dance Dance Revolution, about the same skill I have with Percussion Freaks. One Monday we even went to Alabang Town Center and played almost endless games of DDR and PF. My right arm was aching so much afterwards.

Czasha and I were a little more civil now, seeing as we actually were quite similar in temperament (we both had short tempers). I learned a lot of things about her when I accompanied her to buy a prepaid calling card and took a very long detour to avoid the traffic in our suburbs. I was sorry I delayed her for so long, but I was happy I actually got to talk with her.

Uncle Butch and Auntie Carole were great company. Their jokes and stories were enough to keep me sane. I'm going to miss all of them, since the next time we see each other might be five or so years from now.
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I've been spending more time with Pam on the phone lately. What's weird, though, is finding out that her faraway significant other even got jealous of me. (I have to say...that's a first.) I won't spill the details to protect their privacy though. Just read her blog.

I am so proud to say I successfully made a fool of myself in front of her. It all started with my penchant for remembering the most useless trivia---things such as termites eating wood faster when exposed to heavy metal music, or my remembering watching the movie "The Fly" and not remembering most of the plot except for the main character having had his first sexual encounter at five years old. (Jeff Goldblum's character matured very quickly, that at 11 months of age he was already a boy of five years old.)

Then I said that mosquitoes have an attraction to the color blue. Looking out the window and seeing my blue Honda, I remarked that I found it weird that despite my choice of college, I never liked green and liked a rival college's blue instead. I innocently remarked that perhaps I was a mosquito in my past life.

I never heard the end of it. Now my name on her phone's contact list is "mosquito." She even told me, "Now I know what the M in JM stands for." Well, she laughed so heartily that I guess I didn't mind.
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Argh, I had my accounting midterms just this morning. It was such a nerve-wracking experience, since we didn't have much of time on our hands. I was so pressed for time that I forgot to do the simplest and easiest part of the test: making adjusting entries. That's an instant 20 points down the drain...

Not that I'm aiming for Dean's List this term anymore anyway. I just don't have the same zest I used to have. At this rate I'm going to be very lucky if I even get a 3.05 GPA.
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Sent my little blue Honda City to Honda Cars Makati for a biannual tune-up. It was such a harrowing experience. I came in at around 9:30 am and dropped my queue slip at one of two little boxes. Ninety minutes later I realize I dropped my slip at the wrong box...it was for those who had set appointments. I swapped my slip and put it into the walk-in box.

I already managed to finish watching the film Cool Runnings when I realized nothing yet had happened to my slip and it was still swallowed under the big swath of slips. I went out for lunch...only to come back and find out that I had already been called and my slip had been marked "No Response, 12:40." I waited another two hours until I was so tempted to snatch my slip and have my turn cancelled. They finally noticed my slip---it was number 99 in a whole swath of 130s and 140s---and asked me about what I wanted.

I seriously don't enjoy having to do that again. The next time, I'll set an appointment instead of losing my cool after five hours of wasted wait.