It would be hypocritical of me to say that I never believed in ghosts.  Back in my elementary school days, we were scared to death to even go near the abandoned hospital at the back of the school because of the "white lady" stirring a glass of milk by the old kitchen.  During class camping trips at Camp John Hay, we stayed huddled in our tents at night, afraid to go outside for fear that the horses just outside the campsite might turn into a horde of tikbalang.  We were witness to classmates getting possessed by demons.  But while I flinch and scurry away at the mere sight of butterflies (yes, I am a tad… troubled, by the scaly, winged vermin), I am not afraid of ghosts.

   I suppose that everyone has the right to be scared nowadays because of the hype surrounding Asian horror films.  I have yet to watch "Feng Shui" or "The Village," but I doubt they could scare me anymore - the last and only time I came close to fainting from a horror movie was "Amityville Horror," and "The Birds" scared the crap out of me.  So hunting for ghosts is supposed to be scary.  What's the deal?  There are far more scarier things out there than ghosts, like, say, Michael Jackson.

   The funny thing is that I live in the perfect place in the country to go ghost-hunting: Baguio City.  Not far from my place (given that everything in Baguio is well within "walking distance") is the "White House," that ubiquitous "haunted" mansion one passes en route to Botanical Garden or Mines View Park.  I lived here for quite a long time now to know that the place isn't haunted, but is frequented by balut vendors at night, for what reason I do not know.  I've passed by the place all the time, and the only strange thing I have noticed passing by the house is the persistent aroma of dama de noche.  Yeah, real scary.  I don't know about the ghosts of Diplomat Hotel, but believe me, after the many deaths resulting from the 1990 earthquake, there's bound to be a ghost in every corner of the city.

   Of course, I am above criticizing people for their taste in terror - there are a lot more sweet spots below the belt I don't mind... well, I can stop there before I turn this sentence into an innuendo.  What I'm trying to say is that there's a different hocus for a different pocus.  Small wonder "spirit investigators" in here make a lot more money than the people carving and selling contraband barrel people.  After all, the fetish for fear must be fulfilled.

   I'm not discounting possibilities for real ghosts to exist, but there are all the more reasons for me to be skeptical.  I have quite a lot of friends who claim to have a "third eye," and then I go looking for a boil on their foreheads.  I've already seen one of them apparently possessed by the devil in a trip.  What's surprising is that I was there when Satan possessed my friend… quite a shocker, especially for the fact that Satan and I can't be seen at the same place at the same time.

   Possession is another one of those things I cannot comprehend.  I've seen a lot of "possessed" people: camping trips, excursions, even seen one flailing about in a mental hospital.  I do not see anything demonic in possession, nor do I vouch for the authenticity of the out-of-body experiences I have personally seen.  I generally dismiss them for delirium caused by the weather or from drunkenness, although once, I was part of an exorcism because the book called for "innocent children."  The ritual worked, but it would have been a bit quicker if I wasn't there.

   Now who you gonna call?

   Everyone knows Starbucks to be a coffee shop.  No, wait, everyone knows Starbucks serves obscenely expensive coffee.

   I don't go to coffee shops as often as others my age do.  I buy my coffee from the canteen or from a street vendor, since I really suck at making coffee.  I'm not really part of Generation Coffee, since I'm still getting my caffeine from Coke.  Of course, they serve Coke at Starbucks.  At least that's what they told me - I don't go there.

   Not too long ago, Starbucks existed in the mind of the average Filipino from "Star Buko" t-shirts or from tales of relatives in America.  Coffee was coffee, and class and status were clearly defined along the lines of whether one uses milk, creamer, or none at all.  Times have changed: coffee is no longer "just coffee" but is reified through chemistry and economics: differences of beans whether they're Colombian or Arabica make or break your wallet.  "Shots" of cream are, well, shot into a basic cup of coffee and turned into "latte," which is nothing more than your basic milk-and-coffee combination with a fancy name, served in a fancy cup.  Everything is fancy.  It is, after all, a boutique coffee shop.

   Which is quite interesting, really.  A country as "poor" as the Philippines is not of want of a Starbucks as much as it is want of meeting its needs.  I'm not just talking about Starbucks but of boutique coffee shops in general: Mocha Blends, Seattle's Best, and all that.  Is this colonialism?  Is this the cloak corporations drape on society to give it a semblance of affluence despite obvious poverty?  Is this marketing gone mad?  This, ladies and gentlemen, is imperialism in practice.

   Yes, imperialism is given a concrete meaning aside from McDonald's and Dunkin' Donuts.  Face it: both McDonald's and Dunkin' Donuts serve basic needs.  Imperialist?  Yes, both conquered this country through food and spawned countless imitations: Jollibee, Chowking, Mister Donut, Plato Wraps, name it.  Starbucks, on the other hand, is an entirely different thing.  While McDonald's addresses hunger, Starbucks addresses status: a completely immaterial social need.  You don't go to Starbucks for coffee, rather, you go there to be seen drinking coffee.  There's a reason why it's in an island in the middle of an airport (a'la The Terminal) or the shop has big glass windows: it's to enclose the person in an atmosphere of affluence outside of the sphere of the masses.  Furthermore, Starbucks addresses ego: to be able to spend substantial amounts of money on something like mocha java not only gives you a dose of caffeine, but a certain kind of high associated with big spending, much like what one gets in a casino, a bingo game, or an arcade.

   There's nothing wrong with imperialism, however.  There's nothing wrong with the more affluent setting a standard of class and fashion for the masses who drink their coffee from a cheap mug or a styrofoam cup.  There is something wrong when vanity and conceit takes over the collective conscience and hurtles society into a state of distorted meanings, of affluence and poverty, of the truth and the myth.  That you're "poor" when you can no longer afford the cheapest cup of coffee, that the reality of coffee is no longer in its physical composition but in its economic manifestation.

I said it before and I'll say it again: I *hate* math.

The idea is that I am supposed to be, at least in my friends' estimations, a knowledge archivist (I hate the term "walking encyclopedia"). Had I known I suck at math, I wouldn't have taken College Algebra (a.k.a. Math 11) for the fourth, and by god, *fourth*, time.

I can just imagine the scenario come November 9: a college junior entering the hallowed halls of the HS building, armed with "College Algebra and Trigonometry" by Louis Leithold and "Modern College Algebra" by Elbridge Vance, and telling my professor, "Yes, sir, it's me again. Rimorin."

I really don't get it. I mean, I can pull off easy 1.5's in courses that would make other people quake in their slippers (yup, UPians like me don't really wear shoes to school), like theory courses. Math, some people take to without effort and pass, leaving Prof. Rimando choking on his cigarette by the time he's done lecturing on his Math 1 course, which should be aptly entitled, "Society and Mathematics." I'd gladly give up my hair to pass Math, but after taking it four times, I suppose that the value of my hair now proves to be irrelevant and value-less in the market of 3's or 4's. I am, as far as I'm concerned, a hot commodity when sold as a card-carrying member of Five Star.

My last Math teacher, Mr. Aurelio delos Reyes V (I wonder what happened to the last four of his kind), wore this shirt that said, "Think Differentially."  Unlike other people, I *do* understand Trekkie lingo used in courses like discrete mathematics and quantum physics, but the hell I know about them when they start using numbers. Anyway, the mantra for that course (which was, by the way, Math 33) was, "People who do mathematics learn mathematics." To me, that was faulty logic - and I got a 3 in Philo 1. You learn mathematics not by doing it: you learn it by making your knuckles bleed from proving every equation, from 0+0=0 to the many mathematical problems in songs like "Ocho Ocho," "Pamela Wan" and "Pito-Pito." By the time you're done bleeding you get a 5.

Don't get me wrong: math is very important, but I don't like it. Much like my big brother, who scoffs at the beauty of Max Weber and John Stuart Mill.

The funny thing is I never used any, and I mean ANY, mathematical axiom or postulate in my life save for the trichotomy law.

So screw math.