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.