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[Jul. 1st, 2008|01:01 am] |
I understand I do have quite a backlog. I was supposed to post (and cross-post) about the convention from two weeks ago, and I really wanted to playfully and thought provokingly respond to some points ix_ made in his Multiply blog. But I guess I'll just have to backdate. They'll have to wait...looks like I've got a job (my very first in fact) that I really have to attend to in the meantime. Surely, I'll find ample blog time once I get used to my new schedule.
Cross-post from a thread on SRK:
Barring any untoward incident, I think I'll be fully swallowed by the workforce monster this week, maybe even as early as tomorrow.
I do like the job specs/offerings a lot (hence I really chased after it), but getting there's a little tough (an hour/a couple of rides away), among other things.
Ah well. The other recruiters/people who offered jobs were total jerks (or worse, scams) in comparison to this one, so I guess I got somewhat lucky.
Tomorrow's my first formal, non-orientation day. I sort of learned the ropes today, and no doubt I have much to learn in the month or so that I'll be training.
I liked the job description alot, I thought it appealed to my fortes and played to my interests. I hope I can remain enthusiastic enough to continue. It would appear that the awesome Chem or teaching jobs will definitely have to wait til I pass the board exam. No doubt, I'd rather be doing those jobs, but given the rat race I've been through all of last month chasing those, I suppose I'll have to be content with the one I've landed first. Working from 3 pm til midnight's no big deal. Judging from today, I still got home in about 40 minutes, and other than my sleep sched pushed forward an hour or two, I'm still functioning normally. I can still eat meals and do most daily rituals (except for the weird job sched of course) at the usual time. In other words, I liked the job description since it won't really force me into becoming a nightowl.
And for those wondering, yes. I got a job two cities away, and it's IT/BPO/outsourcing related (or simply "call center" in the colloquial) to UK accounts. It's directory and SMS assistance. For you US guys, I think I'll be working with the UK equivalent of the 411 hotline.
If you do want contact me for whatever reason (hopefully and preferably important), I think I do know you via forums I'm a member of, or via dat real life and you have my mobile phone numbers.
Just send a PM/a YM offline message or IM/email/SMS me if needed.
Many thanks. |
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[Jun. 19th, 2008|10:46 pm] |
By now, I really should have made and cross posted an entry about the toy convention that I attended last week.
But I haven't. (Still working on that, though.) It's been a really rough week. Aside from personal problems, the job search phase I'm going through is...eh. Yeah. Right now, I'm getting that "going in circles" feeling, and I haven't even started. To be perfectly honest, I am more than a little depressed, but having come this far I'm determined to get myself together and not quit.
I feel overwhelmed. But maybe all I need is a little breather and a little self-reevaluation, and I hope that does the trick. I hope I "feel better" (mentally and psychologically) come Monday. |
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[Jun. 8th, 2008|01:16 am] |
Day was crap. Traffic in Calamba was atrocious. (THREE godless HOURS in a route that usually takes TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES!), and the job interviews (or to be specific, the rejection that comes with those things-- I'm starting to thing that they're really a task and a half) sucked so much.
I'm still coming to terms with many terms this week. As such, I don't want to dwell on the sad and disappointing too much.
So in the meantime, quick distraction before I go to bed.
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
I'm quite happy with this one. I was hoping that she'd be one of the results. It's funny. I answer these things truthfully (I don't know why) and yet hope for some specific character, especially when some of the choices are apparent as hell. |
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| lol |
[Jun. 6th, 2008|09:18 pm] |
Excerpt from a group conversation (paraphrased). While walking to the restaurant to get dinner, some weeks ago. I forget who:
"I'm not comfortable with calling it 'barbecue' to be honest. It's more of of a, 'barbee-stack', you know? Since people normally start eating at the sharp end, it's a LIFO process."
When the bulk of SOMA are CS majors, outbursts of nerd humor such as that are bound to happen.
Sucks that there's only two Chem majors in the bunch. And I'm all alone if you discount teachers. It's a rough world. |
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[May. 29th, 2008|10:42 pm] |
Another whirlwind of activity this week. This afternoon, I was at a tutorial center again for an interview. Turns out, teaching English and some other subjects to Japanese and (mostly, in this case) Koreans is all the rage these days. Turns out there's quite a demand for graduates from my alma mater. Lucky me...I hope.
After the hour-long interview, I made my way here. (Warning- music from that official site caught me off-guard.) It's a large, cozy enough mall. More importantly, there's public transport vans that can take me straight home.
***
Yurika got her spirals curls pushed in... by KK's. Sorry Neo, I let you down today.  I guess this is what Japanese arcades feel like. "You'd best bring your A-game. Else, prepare to eat a lot of bnb's...and in return feed the cab a lot of tokens."
Matches were oh so close. They were also part of the many reasons I'm still not comfortable with being called "really good" at a number of video games/fighting games in particular. Because in the grand scheme and scale of things, I'm really not. Or at least, I'm not quite satisfied with my current skill level. If my current gaming life were like a mall map, the "You Are Here" would be somewhere between "What a Scrub!" and "Actually really good". That point, thought, would still lie somewhere closer to the former, leaving the latter look unreachable.
So I guess, I'll still work on it. All those matches didn't go to final round (it was 3/5) without a reason. The asshole (judging from his earlier matches) with the win streak didn't get to give mercy rounds, either.
And to think, it was something I didn't foresee. As with most Filipino arcades, there's a lot of Tekkens and Marvel games. It was actually a pretty decent looking one too. The populace was sizable and (bar for a few games) pretty competitive. They even had KOF '98 for goodness sake; that was quite a pleasant surprise.*
I looked for the token booth. As it turned out, what was present were token-and-ticket vending machines. It was then that I wondered, "where are the techies?" Little did I realize that that question would haunt me. Towards the last round of the last match, the hk button jammed while I was playing as Yurika. How the hell was I supposed to do anything worthwhile? I just cursed and left, hoping that the cabs would be in better working condition the next time.
*There was also this weird SF2 kiddie game. It was a Ryu-and-Chun whack a mole (or more appropriately, whack a Bison) machine. I should've snapped a photo; (as it would appear that I'll be frequenting the place in the future) I'll take a picture next time.
***
Krispy Diabetes coffee is good, but the donuts are seriously overdrive. After the initial experience (during a post-graduation outing about a month ago), it dawned on me that I couldn't bring myself to finish anything other than original glaze. And even that, their regular, signature one is a task and a half to finish. Worse if you don't have any water or drink on hand.
***
Wow, I didn't realize I wrote that much in just a night. Tomorrow's another day to head off to Metro Manila, I hope it will be as fun as (or even more fun and productive than) my earlier trips. |
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[May. 22nd, 2008|11:22 pm] |
Here we go again, with another "in lieu of a real post" entry.
Animé club f(r)iends had a marathon of the 1990's X-Men cartoon on DVD the other day.
Yeah, it still has it moments, but I suppose it's now aged in the sense that it's a lot cornier than I remember. It's mostly due to a)the lines can get pretty cheesy at times and b)the Fox Kids thing that armed any and all (otherwise) gun-toting person with Cobra-tier lasers instead.
Also, at one point I couldn't help myself:
"Man, Jubillee -is- the Tenten of the X-Men. Useless, annoying, ugly Chinese, grating... and throws a lot of shit that doesn't hit or is otherwise ineffectual." |
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[May. 20th, 2008|12:35 am] |
Well that was an interesting trip, to say the least.
I left LB early morning with the uncle. He was to drop me off at Katipunan Ave. in Quezon City. But first, he obviously had to attend to his work. Before QC, we went to Manila. I have only been to the city via school field trips, so this was one of the rare times that I got to visit there on a non-field trip level. (I've many unsavory experiences with that in that regard, but that's for another day.)
Being in a techie sort of job at his company he was shopping for lights and various electrical wares in the Santa Cruz and Binondo districts of Manila. The latter is the Chinatown of country. The shops were very specialized, and signs advertising sales were everywhere. It was also the first time (in a long while) that I saw some of the local horse-drawn carriages in action too. I was surprised that they were still in use, to be honest.
Before leaving for QC, uncle bought and shared some of the local street food. "The snacks here are awesome", he said. He went on to joke, "It must be because of mutagens in the default water. The clean (distilled, and mineral) water here reaches highway robbery prices!"
I was then dropped off at Katipunan Ave. And as I looked around for lunch there, turns out it's not the drinks reaching golden prices, but the food as well. In all likelihood, it's because the said street is home to this joint which is school to the more moneyed individuals in this country. I suppose I'm spoiled by the nice mom-and-pop eateries here, selling home cooking for cheap. But I couldn't help but think, man, surely even these kinds of people could use such food.
(Then again, I really felt like a farm boy in general in this big, high-priced city. At least, there were lots of Chinese/Fil-Chinese/Korean/and even local babes in the vicinity.)
Thank goodness for a Seven-Eleven nestled in a condo there somewhere.
After lunch I headed to the tutorial center. I had a brief interview, and sat down to take the basic tutor exam. It was not unlike the UPCAT (that's the acronym for the entrance exam at my old uni). So far, so good, I thought.
By one-thirty in the afternoon, the rain was already pretty heavy. This caused a power outage that lasted about three hours. It was pretty dark in the tutorial room, as it was on the second floor, and the skies were quite cloudy. Having no backup power and short on emergency lights.
One of the teachers on the job asked if I wanted to drop by another day. I said I'd continue and finish the exam somehow within the working day. After all, it would've been a monumental waste if I didn't.
I saw the students of the center heading for the ground floor (since it was well-lit in spite of the overcast skies and the power being nonexistent), I decided I'd go there too, grab a chair, and finish the exam.
I estimate that I finished in three-and-a-half hours, well within the four-hour limit that the head tutor set. I left the center with a feeling of accomplishment, and hoping that I was good enough to be considered for the job.
I settled for dinner at a pizzeria, then sent a text message to my other uncle, in hopes that he'd be able to pick me up on the way home from work. My first uncle (whom I had hitched a ride with earlier from LB-to-Manila, then to QC) had forewarned me of the terrible Friday night traffic jams, so I decided I'd spend the night at the pad of someone I knew.
It was still raining heavily when we reached “home”. From all my years there, I was convinced that it was a den of night owls. It was not uncommon for my cousins (and even the aunt and uncle) to go to bed in the wee hours of the morning. In spite of this, I was pretty much drained from the trip and the exam, so I went to bed at around 10 pm.
Saturday morning was idle time. I woke up early, said my his to the house-helps (I wasn't able to say hi to my actual relatives 'til noon. See: the previous paragraph. Hilarious.), ate a heavy breakfast, then proceeded to feed my mind with the funny pages and the cable channels that weren't available in LB.
Early that afternoon, I said my goodbyes, and with the help of the maids, I was able to leave the subdivision via public transport, and I made my way to the MRT station (which meant an easy way home) in no time. I wouldn't ride 'til later, however. I spent the rest of the afternoon loitering around SM North EDSA and the new mall. As per usual, being the addict that I am, I had a good time at the arcades in spite of the oddities. (The call for an SVC: Chaos tournament certainly filled my nerd rage meter. I really thought the game was only pop with the hicks here! I had no idea the city folk still played it, in spite of the vastly superior, more recent games. I guess, in that regard—preference to old, and sometimes questionable, SNK games—we truly are the Mexico of the East.)
I left for home tired but happy. It was, all in all, very tiring, but at the same time very eventful and very enriching. It was, I felt, two days lived to the fullest.
The good news is, I'll probably be able to replicate the experience a couple more times before the month is true. I hope the treasury holds up til them. More importantly, I hope all this leads me to the right job. |
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[May. 18th, 2008|11:29 pm] |
Still recovering from two days in the big city. Day one was trying to land a job here. Day two consisted mostly of lounging around the uncle's house, and then taking a gander at the two huge malls not far from there.
In lieu of the larger entry-to-come, here's an interesting read.
http://www.philstar.com/archives.php?aid=200805091&type=2
It's about my hometown. It lists the perks, quirks, and the notables and memorable from this town. |
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[May. 15th, 2008|08:39 am] |
Ah, the perks of having graduated and finally having some semblance of free time.
I finally got to introduce Marvel to the animé club f(r)iends. They're having a blast with it so far. Well, as far as introducing something new to newbies goes. Some said they've seen the eye-popping stuff in arcade challenges. That, and the roster picqued their interest. Sadly, I couldn't replicate some of the fancier stuff for them. But I am trying my hardest to show them the basics.
Man. Fuck whoever said this shit is easy to teach. Or that it's strictly "just mash" on low level. This shit is rocket science to brand-spanking-new folks. To beginners. Never mind that it's the shoddy PS2 version, but there's no DC or XB in sight, and the arcade that had it here is gone. It'll have to do.
It's not Evo for sure, but we aren't trying to be. It's just something to put into rotation aside from Tekken or the Narutimate Hero games that they usually play. Doing something like this, especially with one of my favorite (if not my favorite) games, was always a dream of mine.
---
Oh and:
girl: Fight games like this confuse me! Right now, I'd rather play an RPG!
me: http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v290/dyango/Macros/I_SAY_SIR.jpg |
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| random post-graduation/jobhunt limbo musings |
[Apr. 29th, 2008|11:23 pm] |
I love this country strongly for some reason. Maybe it's because I've lived here the longest (the only other country I've lived in was the States, and for only a brief time during my formative years) at that. There's a lot of shit going on, but I genuinely believe that we are actually very lucky compared to many, many other nations. I also believe that many people here are really whiney. They don't do enough on their own to try and actually improve the state of things here.
That goes for protest (dare I say leftist?) groups and people in power alike.
I'm staying here, and it's not just because of a clause in the scholarship that carried me through most of college. I genuinely love these islands inspite of all the grief. Even if things get very bizarre, retarded, or just down right problematic and tumultuous. Politcally, medically, religiously, ecologically, meteorologically-- take your pick!
Like this, this, and even this.
***
I'm in the process of looking up jobs in the classifieds. I never quite paid attention to that part of the funnies until now. Looks like there's a lot of demand to for chemists or at least chem graduates, but as of the moment I'm not so sure that I'm up to the task. I've been considering simple office-related, computer-related, or even call center jobs. Some tutoring or teaching jobs as well. The old folks said okay, but also reminded me not to forget my major. They told me I must take the chem licensure board exam eventually.
I just hope more than one of these companies that I'll be emailing (or will be visiting in person) returns a positive response. I guess I really did have to experience the difficulty of this process firsthand so I'd know what to tell others one day.
***
On that note, I couldn't help but laugh at the ad one church put up. They're in need of trainees. Priests and laymen who could go to faraway provinces. They'd preach and generally carry out the ministry in these far-flung regions.
I guess you could say that there were available missionary positions.
***
If Jabba the Hutt can find and stay with a significant other, then I fear that I'm running out of excuses. Must find happy ending in the near to mid future.
***
One current pet peeve: Iori.
Especially, those few "special" people who pull random Ya Otome's from the blue and fourteen times out of ten end up getting blocked or whooshing, and get raped for the mistake. C'mon, man! It's not hard to go low B-> (far C) or C to f+A or even just a damned Scum Gale to combo into the damn thing.
Seeing a LOT of bootleg stickers of him at the bookstores and comic shops at the Mall of Asia didn't help at all.
*I went there for the first time yesterday. The complex was fantastic. Fully furnished bookstores, department stores, appliance shops, and record bars. Better stocked and better armed than most other Philippine malls I've gone to, by far.
It was great on the whole (in spite of the three Starbucks I counted, I jokingly told ix_ and neo).
It would have been even better if the arcades (and more importantly, the arcade goers) didn't suck.
***
I'm still surprised at the fact that I'm now a graduate.
In all, I'm glad Saturday came and went. Graduation was really, really shitty. I don't like really huge crowds or needlessly showy and long-winded ceremonies. My foot ached, and Seven or so hours to go through all 1,500+ graduates. Three hours standing up. A short power outage mid-ceremony, and the general crush and stress of the crowd and the in-traffic campus was horrible. And then I arrived home to a banquet, where I had to address and was forced to be nice to relatives (the who-are-only-kind-to-me-on-special-occasions-such-as-this types) and the little monsters who suddenly infested my grandparents house their kids.
Seeing this shortly after made it all better though:
Best laugh I've had all month. |
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[Apr. 29th, 2008|10:43 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | fandom, gaming | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Hyper Street Fighter 2 AST- Guile's Theme | ] |
I meant to post this a couple of weeks back, after the few days I spent at ix's.
I think I already did on SRK. But whatever.
(playing as Cammy in ST) "...I don't love you anymore! Stay in CvS2 where you are good!"
(plays Cammy in CvS2 but loses anyway) "LIES! Everything is liiiieeeeeeeees"
Well, I guess that after a lot of Marvel/CvS2/ST over the weekend, I am starting to see those who I'm most comfortable with and who I might use as serious mains in the future.
I know many frown on the game but I think I might have some luck with CvS2. I've been meaning to learn the darn thing for the longest time. And now that I'm in the between-college-and-a-job limbo, I just might be able to do that. And given that I'm satisfied with the outcome of the past few casuals (since I did learn more than a
Naturally, I'm starting out with the higher tier folks. Sagat, Cammy, Chun, Sakura to name a few. E.Honda is really really good too. (In fact I am also considering the possibility of just sticking to Honda/Chun/and maybe Boxer as ST mains. But I digress.) Maybe Blanka but I need to brush up on the piano elec a little more. I am also hoping to enhance my game by learning a bunch of mids and high-mids (Chang and Haohmaru and Athena and Mai, for example). I also do need to RC more consistently, and to remember that this is not Marvel and jumping around leads to an early death...
I am usually using C, or N, or K thus far. Trying P buuut... see my gripes on 3s below. I really like A shennanigans alot despite a whole lot of bitching by the lesser skilled (or maybe more appropriately, the "victims" in general) but obviously it'll have to wait til I level up my knowledge and execution.
I was considering 3s, but I've been playing it so long and compared to those other two games, it seems that I've a mountain to climb. In skill terms, the really good players here are leaps and bounds away. Many times, the game just doesn't excite me. I suck at parry, and don't particularly like that feature, and there's some other quirks (maybe the flow of the game and the rush/mixup in general).
I know, LOL PICK CHUN EEZY etc. but it doesn't work for me.
I do respect those that do excel at it, though (particularly those who use the oddball or lesser used characters and still hang). And Urien and Dudley are great.
Marvel... I'm getting the hang of it again. :*) I hope I'm not too old and it's not too late to learn the CURLEH MUSTACHE stuff. |
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[Apr. 23rd, 2008|11:26 pm] |
Dammit. I really, really meant to write a long journal entry about how my college life has wrapped up, and how I'm at the crossroads, at the limbo between uni and employment.
The days leading to graduation have been really busy. I've been emailing people left and right, sometimes even visiting offices here and in the cities nearby to attend to interviews and take screening tests in person. Not to mention I have to pay my dues, remain in contact with the old folks back in Davao and the profs, and make absolutely sure that everything goes well come Saturday.
Oh well. I guess I'll just save the links and ramblings in Open Office, for now.
I haven't done this in a while, so I guess, in lieu of textual content (that will come, I am sure of it):
I'm not sure I like this result 100%. I would like to believe I like frappes and capuccino variants more. The only black-and-strong that I ever did like is this local blend. |
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| I'm probably resting or reflecting somewhere right now. |
[Mar. 23rd, 2008|11:12 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  tired | ] |
| [ | music |
| | the APO Hiking Society tribute album - Kami nAPO Muna | ] |
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| d'oh...D'oh! ...D'OH! |
[Mar. 23rd, 2008|02:45 pm] |
This is what what I get for not keeping an eye out on the sentai scene.
There's this one guy in SOMA who kept typing lines (on the forums), and sometimes even saying IRL, puzzling lines about his granmama and making dirt shine and walking roads to heaven. Or something like that.
It personally annoyed me. I also think it even got him in trouble with the higherups, since he overused it, and it rubbed many people the wrong way. But I was curious as to what his "catchphrases" really entailed.
On a whim, I input one of the phrases in Yahoo search. I got this in return.
Needless to say, it was only yesterday that I got to the bottom of all this. I never imagined the source to be something as innocuous as this. (Then again, the SOTN intro must be very dark and serious to those who don't know the real deal. Same with this one.)
...dammit!
I don't know how to feel other than "dammit" and "not that cool" to be honest. Maybe a few points for running such a joke for so long. |
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[Mar. 20th, 2008|11:30 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  contemplative | ] |
Have a meaningful holy week, folks.
I've no outing plans in particular. I'll just stay put here til Monday, so to speak. In fact, I'll have to hit the uni over the weekend (by way of overtime pass) so I can wrap up the labwork and the thesis. It's kinda rough. No internet access and no air conditioning in the computer room since class it out for the week. But I'm determined to stay the course; I do want to be over and done with the bachelor's degree by the end of April. I suppose it's all in the spirit of sacrifice that's bundled with the March-April Lenten season. A good a time as any to medidate and reflect on one's life and faith.
Despite the nagging, unhealthy solar surplus and heat, it's somewhat easy to do deep thinking on campus today because it's so still and quiet (the usual denizens staying at home or are off to the beaches and/or their home provinces).
When I'm not busy, I do plan on jogging and long walks in the mornings, and then watching the pile of VCD's and DVD's at home, as per my traditions for this week.
See you on Easter Sunday. |
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| I'm hyped |
[Mar. 14th, 2008|07:18 pm] |
As of this writing, the Pacquiao-Marquez II bout is but two days away.
Go Manny!
I'll never understand the people (at least, the Filipinos) who are wishing him ill and praying for a loss. True, I didn't like his move to run for Congress last year. Nor did I like his attempts at an acting career. Such gaffes were huge distractions to his bread and butter-- boxing. More than anything, it seemed like a case of him trying things too early (for, surely, he could have dabbled in these ventures when he retires).
Wishing defeat upon him, however, seems unfathomable to me. In a way, I view people doing so casting doubt on their own race. I view it as an example of one of the Filipinos' most infamous attributes.
I think it's enough that his extra-boxing activities have flopped. I believe they were distractions after all. I just really want him to shun all those for the meantime, choose carefully to who he listens to, and double check his friends and inner/outer circles. I firmly believe that, side-attractions aside, he is truly at par with the world's best.
I just wish the skeptics and cynics would hush, even if it's just for one day. I mean, damn, man. Just look at this one article. If there's one thing the Philippines needs more of, it's such inspirational stories and (in a way) some kind of "uniter" figures so to speak.
Can't wait for Sunday! |
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[Feb. 29th, 2008|09:04 pm] |
Happy leap day. I figured I'd get an entry in this day, since it only comes once every four years. It's actually been a pretty slow Friday otherwise. I guess it's better late than never to field another belated entry.
Feb is also the home of "make florists, bakers and toymakers rich day"- the 14th.
Nah, I didn't do much that day. Since 2005, all I've ever done that day was enjoy a few DVD's, or the games at the arcade, and eat Chicken McNuggets.
It just became a ritual, I can't really explain how.
It's more of Natsu Day for me than V-Day, (and naturally, Shermie Day the day before that). It's not that I've never had a genuinely good V-Day. But at this point, I'd say the bad does slightly outweigh the good. It's also one of those so-called celebrations when I'm all, "man, can't I do this some other day of the year, when there isn't 'heavy traffic' and high prices from everyone doing 'it'?"
I've been quite busy as of late. It's really the final push towards employmentville. The final push to close the door on my college undergraduate life. |
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[Feb. 13th, 2008|11:00 pm] |
10 pm Philippine time
Ah, I'm late, but it should be good to go for the other parts of the globe.
Today is Shermie Day.
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[Feb. 7th, 2008|03:58 pm] |
This short quip was supposed to be an entry last week but left it languishing in a Notepad file somehow. Oh well. Go, copy-paste! A longer entry is forthcoming.
Jan 31, 2008
Today I learned that women can smell as bad as the men.
Ew. |
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photon_shermie's journal
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