< hmmm... time for a romantic experiment >

   Platonic love is a bummer.

   The fact that some people are "inspired" by their crushes to do well irritates me.  I have a few freshie crushes (cradle snatcher daw) and I'm not inspired to do well with my academics at all.  About the only thing motivating me is a thesis and a chance to get out of UP without getting into Maximum Residency Rule.

   You know what, I don't think that some people in Platonic love are even inspired.  "She's my inspiration, that's why I'm trying to do well" is faulty logic for me.  It defies the very purpose of meaning.  When you love somebody always on your mind, you know the love is not meant to be.  I should know: that's exactly how I got over my ex.

   Nay, even Marocharim the Infallible is prone to Platonic love but I'm over it.

< hokey pokey, pinoy style >

   When I was depressed, half-listening to my dad about my "negative attitude" towards Math, a name came up: Queena Lee-Chua.  A brillant mathematician who tells everyone math can be fun.

   I've run my little scruff with Jessica Zafra and why I don't write like her, but now I'm running into a little scruff with Queena Chua about why I completely and utterly disagree with her.  You see, all the math I know can be summed up in a single bullet point: that 1 + 1 = 2, 2 + 2 = 4, 4 + 4 = 8, doblehin ang 8.  The little that I know of math didn't save me in statistics.  Now that I'm born to live a life of illusory happiness because I cannot count my change and I'm a philantrophist to storeowners and taxi drivers everywhere, I'd like to revisit my first entry in the Experiment.

   It's about Math 11.  College algebra.

   My parents are Accounting majors, my brother is a computer geekazoid to the nth degree (positive tone).  I never inherited a single degree of mathematical aptitude from anyone.  Math is the bane of school, the penultimate academic nightmare, because algebra, to me, is useless.  I don't do polynomials counting my change, I don't do trigonometry when I admire a mountain, I don't do calculus brushing my teeth.  I don't factor perfect square trinomials when I take into account the factors of social phenomenon (at least that's what I'm good at).  I don't do anything mathematical with anything.

   That's what I think, though.  What about you?

< hmmm... >

   My brother, who I always supposed would rather kiss the asses of a horde of dead Huns than to work in a call center, has turned in his resume to PeopleSupport, a call center that opened - you guessed it, or so I think - right next door to my school.  UP is right next to a call center I haven't heard of.

   During the time I was terminally (cough) depressed, I heard my dad talking on a positive tone about PeopleSupport.  Everyone at school - or so I think - is now looking at it as a Mecca, a dream job.  Basically, I look at call center jobs in the same negative tone as my bro.  I'd rather be a literal asshole - the rectal orifice to an unwashed hairy, uh, Canadian, than be an asshole selling DVD's on the phone or advising the customer on simple computer know-how.  But like my bro, beggars can't be choosers.

   Nah.  They can, I just saw one awhile ago.

< was from my dad >

   "So what?"

   Not that my dad said it, but he had a point in comparing me with a blind accountant.  My problems aren't that bad.  The one-legged guy in an ass-kicking contest has it far worse than me.  The bearded man in the freak show is on far worse straits.  Me?  I just happen to not graduate on time and I am sick.  Big deal.  So what?

   Much as I hate to admit it, there's this certain part of me that plays the crowd pleaser in a real world that doesn't give shit if I'm sick or if I am delayed for graduation.  I always want people to look at what I can do.  Too bad, the world doesn't care.  I'm always out to impress people.  Much as I don't like it, I have to take shit.  I don't like it as much as the next perv who gets off on scatological fantasies with housepets, but it's the Tao of life.  It's what I have to do to get ahead.

   "So what?" brings upon me new opportunities.  I don't have to be anybody's keeper in the way that I have to impress them and to do things the way they want to.  I have a life, plain and simple, and I should live it with the cards Fate dealt me and the way I dealt them.  Plain and simple.

   I know my dad is reading this right now.

< hmmm... >

   Technically, for the past few days I've been suffering from a serious bout of depression...

   For absolutely nothing.

   Must account for the dearth of long entries.  A serious joke, I might add.  The thing was I was a bundle of nerves ever since I thought I was not to be accommodated in my Thesis Proposal class.  I was - that is, if the Dean and the instructor would be adults and stand by their signatures.  I was so depressed I cried in front of my parents complaining about my, ahm, illness, and thinking that the whole thing was the end of my world.  It took a good word of wisdom from my Dad, to whom I am eternally thankful for, to get me back on my own two feet and get the nervousness out.

   This, from a guy who for two years told the whole world depression is not in my line of thinking.  Take that down for a note in general hypocrisy.

   I am, however, fascinated with the physically manifested symptoms of depression: the twitching lower lip, the nervousness, the perpetually long face.  I looked my worst during that point in my life where I was depressed.  I sort of lost weight now (given a quick step in the weighing scale and I lost a full three pounds being depressed) and I should - given my condition - but the worst I feel is the perpetually happy image is long gone, disappeared.  I need to get my happiness jizz back... which brings us to the next experiment.

   Happy thoughts, happy thoughts...

< hmmm... >

   Today was Christmas Tree Decorating Day at my house, and suffice to say there is more to a plastic tree, strings of lights and Freudian Christmas balls.  Christmas is around the corner... yet again.

   Nah, I'm not in a celebratory mood.  After all, it's about a full month and a few weeks away before Christmas season and I'm in anything but the Christmas spirit, that's unless we celebrate some other holiday at this time in November.  Which, of course, we don't.  I don't know what commemorative holiday exactly befalls us this day.

< hmmm... >

   You know the world is coming to a verge of a great discovery - or maybe some class of stupidity - when people start selling chicken parts for a living.  The gizzard being the most popular one.

   I was munching on chicken gizzards awhile ago and it got me thinking about stuff like the meaning of life from the probenticulus of a poor chicken now sold in a Magnolia shrink bag.  Don't get me wrong: chicken parts taste good, although they're no substitutes for KFC.  I've been so used to the idea of eating chicken that it becomes somewhat "chicken" for me to eat it, but parts take a bit of getting used to.  Like, does vinegar make for a good dipping sauce?  What is found in the true diet of the philosopher king?  What is the question, is it the punctuation mark or the verb "What?"

   Truly, chicken gizzards make for an interesting segue into the many aspects of forlorn truths that escape us.  Like, why not sell the chicken instead, contenting one's self only with the small deep-fried pieces sold at a buck a pop?  Why do OFW's wear maong gear or leather jackets?  What is in a Marlboro Lights that makes it so popular among the smoking youth?

   Today happens to be the second year anniversary of the Experiment.  All those questions?  Damn, they will be answered.

< second year anniversary boonkaka >

   So there, I've been around for a couple of years.

< hmmm... >

   By the way, November 9th is the second year anniversary of this here blog.

   Anyway, some pharmacist friends are suggesting that I take herbal medicines instead of chemicals to cure my, uh, psychosis.  They swear that a regimen of pito-pito will cut short the exacerbations associated with my illness and I'd be get-up-and-go by the time I steep said herbs in hot water.  Right now, I'm taking major tranquilizers, which can really get to my system and have me shivering in the middle of the night.

   Which is precisely the reason why I also hate taking in medicine.  Unless they come across beer-flavored pellets of goodness, I'm good.  However, since that can't happen I have to stick with the medicine I have now.  Now I know what my Pokemon feel whenever I'm drugging them with all sorts of boosters.

< hmmm... >

   It seems that I'm constantly on the verge of anything from a great discovery to a stupid day.  This is a stupid day.

   Today I queued up for two hours to pay my tuition fees and it was a good thing I planned it for the morning, or else I'd be pelted with rain this afternoon.  I still was, on my way to SM to buy a binder notebook.  Well, it's not exactly my fault that things aren't turning out the way I hoped...

   Oh well, 'tis experimenting time.