10/30/2010 ‒
The grocery instinct

I'm in a conference room, seated with at least seven other people, and all of us are asked to define our attitudes and personalities through a series of quantitative tests. After all, quantitative data beats qualitative data in one thing: keeping the playing field perfectly even.

Of course, there's a catch: defining your personality through those tests, purportedly devised by psychologists and the like, will never reflect those little quirks you have. Or that's what we think. They are doctors! They should be trusted! They spent all their lives trying to figure out how our brains work, never mind that they only get to play with electric pulses routed from some wire attached to your head, and not your actual brain, because mucking about with a living person's brain is fatal. Of course they know how our brain works. Of course they know that the subtlest of decisions say a lot about ourselves. Or something like that.

So surely, they have this fool-proof way of figuring out who I am depending on what boxes I check. One test has a statement that goes something like "people always ask me for advice" and it triggers this fairly complicated series of thoughts in my head. Sure, I think, people always ask me for advice, but it's the romantic sort, and it doesn't happen frequently. But they always ask me. I check "fairly often". Surely those doctors have that figured out.

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10/21/2010 ‒
This supposedly tumultuous decade

Fifteen minutes past five in the morning. My phone starts playing the first few bars of Maxïmo Park's "Going Missing". I rush to get my phone and tap it a few times to keep it quiet. No, I'm not angry; it's just what my phone is built to do.

Thirty minutes past five in the morning. Someone will wake me up. I, apparently, overslept again. Then again, you can't really call it oversleeping, because I don't go, "shit, I'm late for work!" when I wake up. But, being the incurably nice guy that I am, I drag myself out of bed, trying to convince myself that I've slept enough for the night. Sleeping seven hours is no biggie, I tell myself, because some adults only need six hours of sleep. Now, eat your breakfast, take a shower, and go to work.

I feel sleepy on the way to work. I can take a nap, really, but you have to remain alert when you're in one of those shuttles. Most of the time I go with my dad, though. It doesn't feel good, sleeping on the passenger seat, leaving the person driving to keep his eyes open.

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10/11/2010 ‒
"It's all about picking the right bra"

After lunch today, I realize that I cannot be a radio DJ.

I met up with Icka earlier today. It is, frankly, the one thing that made my Monday. After all, in the two years since I graduated we've chatted a lot, from American Idol to Japanese tentacle porn. That, and I've been inviting her to coffee for so long, but things haven't always worked out.

Icka is one of the few people who I can really be comfortable with. Sure, that sounds totally clichéd, but we've been throwing stuff at each other all these years and it's like nothing's really wrong. Maybe it's because she's not like everybody else, the sort who'd tolerate me doing (or, in these cases, saying) what others would frown on.

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10/09/2010 ‒
My life in eleven books

I found myself killing time, again, at Fully Booked last night. Yes, the one at Bonifacio High Street. As expected, it triggered all these idle thoughts, spurred by seeing ladies wearing plaid jackets and really short shorts, or seeing all those books that you suddenly have interest in. What else do you expect when you're alone, accompanied only by a pair of earphones and a half-decent take on a funky-slash-jazzy playlist?

"I love that bookstore," Gwen replied. At least she replied, I thought, else I'd feel a little more terrible seeing all these shelves. I've written about this before - that feeling when you're in that particular bookstore, surrounded by all these seemingly self-assured people, the sort who spend time drinking expensive coffee and talking (in English) about art. It still makes me feel a little iffy about myself. I just had to send that text message, although I'd think minutes later that I sent it to the wrong person.

Still, the conversation continued. "I'm intimidated," I said. "What to buy?"

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10/07/2010 ‒
Brittany Pierce explains my heartbreak

"I totally forgot to return to YM after lunch. And now you're going."

Thirty seconds.

"Yes. In four minutes!"

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