i realized that people do care about the shit that happens to you. not everybody is dying to be apathetic. this world we live in may have a chance after all.

i am surrounded by a lot of wonderful people who believe that i am indeed worthy of living. ever since, the thing that i lacked was friggin' appreciation.

the great stacie orrico said "i have it all but i feel so deprived...". she's damn right. i have it all but i feel so deprived... but i ain't!

wake up! markie, not everything in your life needs to be a poem swimming in an ocean of melancholy. you need some whacking in the head sometimes.

remind me again that telling the truth doesn't automatically mean that people would accept it, let alone cut you some slack for having the gall to come clean with it. i can be so stupid sometimes.

yeah, yeah. i know that not everybody can understand but i can't be blamed for feeling disappointed at the whole situation. here i was thinking that the few months were enough to support me. you never know people until you know them. i can be very wrong at discerning people. that's tragic.

i am not that good with rejection. i need not know that one. i feel it.

i'm a damn registered voter!

i woke up quite early today to have myself registered to vote for the upcoming presidential elections. as the usual markie goes by his appointments, i clocked in a little late. good thing my friend of many years is quite used to the "markie time". the two of us immediately rode a jeep to the pasig city hall. the queue for the registration was so damn long! well, i couldn't say that i was entirely surprised.

while my friend and i stared at the long line, we saw a highschool friend of ours there. it was nice. at least we had another person with us who felt miserable. he instructed us to get a number from the office person loitering around the hall. geesh! i got the number 388 and was instructed to return by past three in the afternoon... and it was just past eight in the morning! i was in the philippines, alright.

surprised again, we saw yet another of my highschool friends. the body count of youths who are in the state of hopelessness rose to four. our pack was left with the dilemma of not knowing how to spend the waiting time. through a decision headed by me, we dragged ourselves to megamall.

the short trip there was so reminiscent of highschool---back in the days that going to the mall capped whatever half-day activity our highschool had for us. it was like the time when all we had in mind was an escape to the movies and the arcade. so unlike now.

my first instinct was to go to powerbooks and revel in the bookworm haven as i always did. i rummaged through the endless fiction books shelved everywhere, looking for a good read. wow! anne rice has a new book out---an erotic one. i moved on to my other interest of books, the occult. not of a lot of new books there. tarot card books... i considered studying them but due to financial constraints, i scrapped the idea for now.

i went to music one after and ran upon albums upon albums. i did a manhunt search for the god jason mraz and the goddess that is stacie orrico. i was reminded why i satiated myself with downloading mp3's from the net when i saw their price. so much for patronizing real music.

did i tell you that stacie's song is my theme for this moment of my so-called friggin' life? i relate to her words, body and soul... i say that with a burning penchant for melodrama. there has got to be more to life than this. i'm putting up the lyrics:

there's gotta be (more to life)
stacie orrico

i've got it all, but i feel so deprived
i go up, i come down and i'm emptier inside
tell me what is this thing that i feel like i'm missing
and why can't i let it go

there's gotta be more to life...
than chasing down every temporary high to satisfy me
cause the more that i'm...
trippin' out thinkin' there must be more to life
well it's life, but i'm sure... there's gotta be more

(than wanting more)

i've got the time and i'm wasting it slowly
here in this moment i'm half-way out the door
onto the next thing, i'm searching for something that's missing

there's gotta be more to life...
than chasing down every temporary high to satisfy me
cause the more that i'm...
trippin' out thinkin' there must be more to life
well it's life, but i'm sure... there's gotta be more

i'm wanting more

i'm always waiting on something other than this
why am i feelin' like there's something i missed....
always... always...

there's gotta be more to life...
than chasing down every temporary high to satisfy me
cause the more that i'm...
trippin' out thinkin' there must be more to life
well it's life, but i'm sure... there's gotta be more

more to life
there's gotta be more to life (more to life)
there's gotta be more to life (more)
more to my life

this song just hits home. it really does. i could swear that i made this myself.

i missed eating at wendy's so i effectively convinced my three friends to have lunch there. they increased prices. it was a bummer but i was dead-set on gobbling down my fat french fries and bittersweet iced tea. yum!

before we realized it fully, it was time to head back to the city hall for our registration. we hurried back to find a smile-inducing shorter line. great! an hour or so passed and the four of us were already inside the registration room, readying ourselves for the digital picture. i was randomly selected to be the first one for the picture-taking. seeing the image taken from me on the woman's laptop made me wince. heck! it was the most grotesque picture of me i have ever seen! it was horrible! i just calmed down a little when i remembered that these kinds of public things always had ugly id pictures in them. i was glad. the universe didn't single me out.

here i am. a certified citizen of the republic of the philippines. i am ready to wield my right. but will that count for anything with the fact that these fucking politicians use their power to corrupt this into something of their personal gain? i almost forgot. i live in the philippines.

kiko is here!

our laundry woman just dropped by very early this morning the brown-spotted, chubby bundle of joy named kiko. he is one cuddly puppy! i could swear that he could easily pass as one of those stuffed creatures you buy in gift shops. i really crack up whenever i see him wiggle his butt while walking. he also has this very charming gesture of resting his head on his forepaws and looking so lovable with the puppy eyes staring at you. he's definitely won me over.

it's funny that he's like the new baby of the entire household... and trust me, he knows as well. he is one bratty, spoiled pup! when he gets the hungry feeling he moans around like crazy, chasing you around until you succumb to his demands. after being coaxed into feeding him, you'll just see him in a corner quietly taking a luxurious nap. when boredom takes over him, he barks his small canine bark, urging you to play with him. he loves being petted and scratched behind his flopping ears. i especially adore the incessant wagging tail whenever he sees me.

he is such a crowd pleaser. if this goes on, i might as well be ousted out of the house because of him.

just came home after a geeky but rocking birthday of a friend.

it didn't start out that good. i met up with a friend before going to the small party. geesh! we waited for roughly one and a half hours for a ride. we jogged around to three public transport loading spots. it wasn't until we navigated through the use of my friend's "cerebral map" that we got where wanted to go.

when we crashed the place, they just finished dinner---you know, they were engaged in the post-gobbling gab. good. there was still plenty of food for the appetite that was called in by the tiring commuting.

as expected, my friend and i got thrashed for clocking in late. that was no biggie. my stomach mattered more.

i strategically positioned myself near the spaghetti. it would be a mortal sin to not have a taste of one of my most favorite meals in the whole wide world. i scooped myself very generous amounts of the pasta. yummy! i snacked on the tasty caldereta as well. finger lickin'! i didn't leave out the creamy leche flan with oozing arnibal (sweet brown sugary syrup). i'm going to the path of the obese? i hope not.

after stuffing ourselves too much, my rowdy group lounged in the sofa. we watched "the american pie wedding" through a pirated vcd. though i already had that flick, it was more loads of laughter for me because of the company.

since this party was actually a meeting of highschool geeks, what better way to party than to grab a thick dictionary and play a word factory game. geesh! put a bundle of snotty nerds in a room to play a word game and the atmospehere becomes uber-competitive. good thing that i was one of the better word geeks (modesty thrown miles away). my team and i won! my winning words? even if you aren't a tad interested, i'll tell it anyways: deluge, delete/deletes and delegate/delegates. woohoo for me!

the cat is finally out of the bag. my sister already knows.

after my class, i immediately rode a bus home. as always, the two hours of idle "me" moments i had were spent on my being pensive.

as soon as i reached home, i scampered my way to bed. a few yawns after, i was utterly surprised to see my sister enter my room, all the while donning a thoughtful expression. she held in her hand a copy of my mail-delivered grades from my previous school term. the scene was just all too morbid. it gave off the stench of death.

she asked me about the grades. she mused about the situation being unlike my doing. what was i to say? it was then or never.

i told her all the volatile dilemmas that brimmed inside of me, all the arguments i desperately tried to sort out in my head, of the nights when i did nothing but try to find my way around it all. i battled with them but i always ended up as confused as when i started---my spirit doused with cold disappointment.

an insignificant twenty years of my life and i feel that one of my major crossroads---a path that only forked into two choices. it was a toss-up between the blue and the red pill.

i'll cut the bull shit. i want out of my course. just six words that caused me to lose a good number of sleeping hours---fucked my head crazy.

stuttering, i was nowhere near eloquent when i groped for the answers to her queries. i was damn afraid. i was shivering. there stood in front of me, the woman who took on the responsibility of looking after me the very moment my mom died---all of it she heaved on to her shoulders, no questions thrown. the last thing i wanted to do was put her down. i cried. i cried with shame that i didn't meet her expectations, that i trashed the trust that she gave me, that i failed... that i was stupid enough to be caught in a situation of my own doing. never did she falter in her faith in me. it hurt me that i wasn't able to pay that back.

i won't forget the way she looked at me. she wasn't full of well-justified spite or remorse for having a brother like me. she wasn't seething of stygian fury. if unconditional love could be painted on a face, this was it. she felt for me. instead of passing judgement, she understood. instead of enumerating all the things that i bungled up, she told me that it was okay. instead of leaving me with disgust, she sat by my side.

i'll stop school for a few months. i'll transfer next year. it would be just enough time for me to decide on what i really want to do. it was never part of the plan to leave behind the good friendships i made. i just have to do this.

i love my sister. i don't deserve her but she surely does a pretty damn good job of making me feel that i do.

you never do always get what you want. you can't have it all, so they say... but i'm not asking for too much. alms of happiness would do.

sometimes you have to accept the fact that some things are better meant for other things. acceptance is an easy thing compared to the feelings you have to temper and contain. i never had problems with receiving the not so better end of the deal. after a few of them, i began appreciating the downs---in my life, i had to learn this. i had to take it with little resistance, embrace its thorns. maybe this is the reason why i like movies ending with crushed hopes... i dunno.

i have always been thoughtful of other people's misery and their walks to find elusive happiness. i'm an altruist. sometimes i think that this is my curse... and sometimes, i just know.

life doesn't pamper you. you don't get the priviledge to subscribe to the utopian life you want. you need to play the cards you are dealt with.

rub it in---this ain't the first time

i crave!

my friend and i were killing time by burning our phone lines when our topics suddenly switched to food. together, we realized that our palates were in dire need of a stuffed crust pizza, a tall glass of iced tea and a healthy bowl of macaroni salad.

since the advent of feasibilty projects and such, my friends and i were denied the chance to have our almost weekly huddles. with this thought and a nagging desire to munch merrily, we called up all our other friends and organized a trip to the mall nearest us.

a few text messages and some phone calls later, we got news that only another friend was added to the food trip log book. it was just unfortunate that the others had toxic schedules. we were slightly saddened but we kept our mettle---we were going to pig out no matter what!

the triumvirate of us met around three in the afternoon at pizza hut. we were elated to see each other, knowing the fact that the situation was definitely a precursor to a yacking marathon. we sat there not bothering to look at the menu for a good hour---every dirty scheme unearthed, all shady activities given the leeway to stench profusely amongst ourselves. we didn't mind ordering until somebody took notice of our absence of orders. perusing through the menu, we laughed to ourselves. heck, we were so adrenaline-pumped that we slightly failed to consider bringing the apt amount of money!

nevertheless, we asked for a regular-sized pizza and three bottomless glasses. it was just enough to feed our appetite, our wallets not completely dessicated of monetary stuffings. as expected, we did a three-hour gab fest.

we headed off to the arcade because my friend wanted to satiate his first-person shooter game craze. i wasn't in a mood to play so my other friend and i just settled adjacent to our friend and continued to pry into each other's life, thank you. boy, was my friend obsessed! i think he took about five rounds on the thing. when finally he finished, we decided to stroll around the mall.

the place was littered with people. it was not until a small stage with a mammoth banner that read "jolina magdangal" that we knew what the pandemonium was about. our instincts told us to seek refuge inside the department store, quick!

we had peace inside the store. no giggly fans, no rowdy spectators. i bought cheap perfume. it was not a simple act of just buying it. in a way, i wanted to relive a bit of highschool. you see, the perfume was the same one that i used to bathe myself in during my adolescent years. but let's not get too sentimental about this. exhausted, we decided to find a place to exchange more stories. we decided to eat chocolate fudge sundaes at mcdonald's. another forum ensued until our saliva dried up. we capped off the day and headed happily home.

it was one of those days. it was a another good day of bonding.

My latest obsession: Friendster.

Add me, please?