Falling Apart

I never thought it was possible.
I have always, always prided myself in my physical condition. I may not be cut like a 300 Spartan, but heck, I know I'm healthy.

Studying for mid-terms and dance practices everyday just took its toll on me, physically and mentally. Yesterday, I almost collapsed in school due to exhaustion. I spent four hours in the University Clinic, where the nurses, I must say, took real good care of me. My back was on fire, and I never thought back pain from exhaustion will ever hit me.

But it did.

I am taking a break this weekend from studying, and will limit dancing until next week. I hope I get well soon, as REMIX 2008 is already on the 14th of November.

*sigh*

Jay~

Nica is 20

Happy 20th Birthday to our dearest Red Skittle, Nicole Carlos, or Nica, as we all call her. :) Thanks for the awesome pizza party at Yellow Cab Pizza! :)

The birthday girl.

Skittlez Crew, Southside Crew, DLSU-Pops, and LSDC-Street.









Crazy Skittlez boys.




The awesome food!





Aldz is full alright.


Great hangout with friends, great food, and a great birthday for our Red Skittle. :)

Jay~

Trick or Treat?

I'm not a person keen on 'celebrating' Halloween (read up on it from a reliable historical source, and neither will you be, unless you're really into the ghastly stuff), so Gayle and I decided that we'll just do something fun, and try on costumes and masks in Mall of Asia's Halloween Atrium.

OMG. This is just so ugly.

Not enough botox I guess. LMAO.

The cutest witch. :D

I clearly have no idea how to be 'scary'.


Trick or treat? :)

Jay~

I'm Alive! An Update.

Yeah I know, lack of updates.

Mid-terms are coming up this week, and I have been busy working on several goals.

1. Be the star student in American History.
- Kinda done. :) I have not had anything less than a 100% in any quiz, and my lecture in class (a major's class!) received 27/30 from Bro. Gregory Wright, FSC, who's a historian himself.

2. Be the star student in American Economics.
- Very possible, given how I've been performing this term. :) Just needs to pull through with the project draft and I'll be fine.

3. Be the star student in Foreign Relations.
- Very possible, especially with last class's review session, where I answered almost all of the class' questions. :) Jason is pwning!

4. Pass International Political Economy.
- Good Lord, it's tough when politics and economics combine. :( I'm struggling a lot in this one subject.

5. Win REMIX08 with Skittlez.
- I don't know right now. The lack of seriousness during practices, the godawful incompleteness (my fault sometimes), and the too-many water breaks are starting to annoy me. Also the fact that the crew does not stretch before dancing. *sigh* What am I to do? My future with the crew is in doubt, unfortunately.

6. Get fit, fast.
- I need to retain my Competition Team status in Animo Squad (though I was not eligible for the dance team last season, due to foreign athlete status), and I definitely need to work on cutting down my body fat for gymnastics (and the horrifyingly tight Spandex costumes). I'm pleased to say that my calf raises are at 215 lbs for 90 reps (6 sets). NINETY repetitions, people. :D Who's yo daddy?? Haha.. On a downside, I suffered some micro-tears on both my pecs. :( Lesson? Do not bench press 4 sets AND also do incline flies on the same day. *sigh* Cross-trainer, here I come.

7. Get well.
- Colds, cough, and injuries. Another beautiful day in the life of the Jason.

8. Get a good GFX.
- Will be changing my blog address in a couple of months (may be sooner), and I need a nice new header for it. Will probably ask Aaron again. LOL. He's a genius with GFX.

That's all for the update this time around. Will try to blog more later when I get home, but for now, I need to go do some groceries. :) You know, being a bachelor and all.

Jay~

Lunch at Piadina

Always posting about dinners, so I decided that instead of our customary (which is getting rarer and rarer) dinners, we'd go out for lunch instead. We decided to eat at this little Italian restaurant called Piadina, located at the Midtown Wing of Robinson's Place Ermita (we seem to be eating a lot there!).





The food
Pesto soup

Piadina Special

Piadina Padana

Grissini Di Pizza

Iced Tea

Food was rather good actually, except for the penne in the Special. I thought that it was a little too heavy on the tomato sauce. The chicken was first-class though. Also, the grissini (basically long strips of double-baked bread, smothered with cheese and garlic powder) was excellent. It was my favorite of the night, along with my padana. The padana was like a pita pocket, stuffed to spillage with spicy Italian sausages. Yummy!

The place was full of classic Italian advertisements (tourist posters I think) and there's one that I particularly love.

The only thing I did not like about the place was the lack of side dishes, with the meal or otherwise (look at the padana picture). They could really work on that. :)

Jay~

Speak Up!

I am now an English teacher at Speak Up! foreign language center. :)
Submitted my resume last couple of weeks, had an interview last week, and I suppose they were sufficiently impressed that they decided to hire me.

For my qualifications and experience, the pay is rather low, but I'll see in the next week or two if I'd rather be an independent English teacher. :)

The best thing about the place is it's literally 30 seconds from La Salle.


:)

Jay~

Farting Viking Lesbians

No, I did not meet a Viking lesbian who has a bad case of flatulence.
This is about as random as we get. :P

Conversation Guide:
Aldz; Jay

"Bro, did you hear this song called 'I love lesbians'?"
"Nope. Who sang it?""
"I forgot. It's such a dumb song."
"Yeah? Lesbians are hot, man."
"I know man."
"Did you know that broccoli and cabbages makes for the smelliest farts?"
"Really? I thought it was meat."
"Nope. It's the vegetables, man."
"Broccoli? *laughs* They're like little trees. I don't know why kids hate them."
"They're nice actually. "
"Russia was founded by Vikings."
"Huh?"
"Yeah bro. The first Russians were Vikings."
"How the hell did we start talking about Vikings??"

*ROFL in the car*

This conversation happened in the 2 minutes it takes to cross a block.
OMG.

Jay~

Dinner at Reyes' Barbecue

A branch of the famed Reyes' Barbecue food chain opened recently across La Salle (in some ways, God has indeed blessed Taft Avenue), and Gayle and I decided to have one of our dinners there. Not too bad, plus a cam-whore session was in order. What a perfect way to chill after posting rants. :P




She makes faces.

He makes faces.


They make faces.

The food.

Skewered pork barbecue.

Grilled burger patties.

The food was pretty good. We both struggled to finish the meals, which was surprising considering the servings looked small. Deceptive. :) Compared with a lot of other establishments around Taft Avenue, the food is actually rather cheap. However, the choices were really limited (only about 6-8 choices I think), so one would probably get bored quickly with this place. Overall, pretty good, but could do more with a more varied choice of food.

"Hmm.. What should I order..?"

"Barbecue!"


Jay~

Benadryl Please! Allergic to Stupidity!

Did not have a very good week last week in school. Lost my temper quite a bit. Not because of the heavy reading materials, or the long photocopying lines, or the long library queues, not even the bad food and crazy hot weather. Oh no. Those I can stomach.

I am talking about people.
Specifically, dumb people.

Seriously, I do NOT understand how some of the people in my classes (MAJORS classes, mind you) even get in the majors program and courses. I have no freaking idea. The IQ of several of these individuals must be having a hard time reaching triple digits. It's that bad. And no, I am not exaggerating.

--------------------

Exhibit A
Majors class. "American Economy", a very important course for International Studies scholars. Professor was expounding on different economic institutions, and a part touched on industries. Specifically infant industries. She then asked what this meant. A guy sitting at the very front vigorously raised his hand up.

"Miss, an infant industry is an industry that focuses on producing baby products."

HOLY F*CKING COW.
You have GOT to shoot me right the eff now.

--------------------

Exhibit B
Majors class. "American Economy" once again. Professor asked several groups to present a 10-minute Powerpoint presentation on different major corporations, specifically talking about their histories, contributions to the American economy, and where these companies are heading.

Presentation on Boeing Airlines, quotes:
"The Boeing airline was founded by William Boeing from 1916 to 1829."
"The Concorde, which surpassed the Boeing 747 in terms of speed and capacity..."

Was that bad enough?
Let me shatter your world.

Their presentation's first informative slide had over 100 words. Oh I stopped counting at 30, about a quarter into the SLIDE. The rest of the slides had 60-80 words each. This is supposed to be a majors presentation?? Give me a break!

The presentation (finally, hallelujah!) ended, and the professor asked several questions, chief among which inquired why the last member did not speak during the presentation. They said he did the most research. Okay, very well then. So the professor asked him what would be Boeing doing, in his opinion, in the near future.

Awkward silence for five minutes.

I thought this idiot did the research! Dio mio! Shoot me right the eff now!

He should have said, "Making bloody airplanes, duh."

--------------------

Exhibit C
All my classes. Classmates, please stop answering a question with the following formats. I will laugh and ridicule you in my head. And some of you, I have already given the evil eye.

"Um.. Could it be [x], miss?"
"Sir, I'll just try okay? I'm not sure. I think it's [x]."
"Ma'am, I'm not really sure."
"*silence*"
"*looks down at notes*"
"Ah.. Well.. Could you repeat the question?"
"What's that again?"
"Huh?"

Get a freaking clue, idiots! You'll just try? Take a bloody risk! You're not going to get shot if you answer wrong! The biggest losers are the ones who are so scared of being wrong, they're never getting a chance to get anything right. Take a risk. If you're wrong, at least you know what's NOT the answer. DUH! And stalling for time hastens your bad image to the professor.

--------------------

Exhibit D
This just annoys me.
Pages and pages of notes full of highlighted lines in colorful ink. That's it.

It's all fine and dandy if you highlight. It proves you've been at the page. Did you read it? Did you understand it? I doubt it, because myself, among the others who do NOT highlight, but instead WRITE NOTES, are the ones you idiots are asking the answers from.

Write your own notes for Pete's sake. Writing "the allegiance of elite social organizations to the liberalist theory serves as a negative influence to the functions of said elite social organization" does not impress me. Not one bit. You copied it from the reading material, silly. What about making life simple and write (these are notes, not a thesis essay) "businesses don't do well when they follow liberalist theories". That impresses me. You can get the gist of a 200-word paragraph and fit it into words you understand.

Write notes. Save highlighters. Pens are cheaper too.
Plus you all wouldn't look so dumb.

--------------------

Exhibit E
Someone, anyone, beat the living hell out of anyone who suggests to someone to drop a class because it's too difficult.

Losers. Stop whining. Pick up the effing book and read.

--------------------

Ugh. That was a good rant.
I'll go fix myself some chicken soup. Yum.

Jay~

Ateneo Bonfire

Greetings, Ateneo de Manila University.
You are the 2008 UAAP Men's Basketball Champions, beating us, the De La Salle University Green Archers in two games for the coveted finals championship.

Are you, however, behaving like real champions?
We get it, you beat us in two games, though Game 2 was very suspicious, it's okay. You guys need a victory, since the last time you were top was six painful years ago.

The manner you celebrated your victory with a bonfire was not only unbecoming of a supposedly "top" "Catholic" school, it was downright uncivilized and disgusting. So much for your alumnus calling us "uneducated" ey?

**These are REAL pictures of the ADMU bonfire**



You burn our players' and staff's names?
How very sportsmanlike of you!

I am disgusted by your actions, and the fact that supposedly "adult" and "mature" persons were there at your bonfire did not do anything to stop this awful act. Jesuit school? This is more like witch-craft!

I am very proud to say that when we won last year, the worst thing we did to the University of the East (UE) was print shirts saying "it takes a great archer to bring down a perfect warrior" (in light of UE's perfect season streak). Then we partied three nights straight, and printed even more shirts, sent our team to Hong Kong, partied some more, made posters and banners, then partied some more. We did no insulting thing, and that, CLEARLY, shows which side between yours and ours has more maturity.

I bleed GREEN.
Proud to be a Lasallian.
Proud to be Green and White.

Congratulations, "champions".
Actions speak louder than words.

**Pictures from Cokeycyn.

Jay~

In Congress, July 4, 1776

My love for history has taken a climactic point today. :)

I read and reread the American Declaration of Independence replica in our library's American Studies Resource Center.

The best thing about the ASRC is that I usually happen to be the only person there. Either that there are VERY few International Studies - American scholars in La Salle, or the ones who are, are much too lazy to appreciate the 80-square meters resource center packed with hundreds and hundreds of books catering to not only American affairs and history, but a little about everything too.

Anyway, back to the Declaration. I was simply mesmerized. Penned in 1776, it's a brilliant piece of document. :) I had shivers down my spine seeing several names there, such as Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Hancock, Samuel Adams, and John Adams.

History. :) Wow.

Jay~

Back Online

After three miserable days with no Internet.

Thank you, ISP, for taking your time for sure.

Jay~