What is Christmas?

A recurring theme in my college experience (or simply my growing up experience) is that I look at old beliefs and old habits with new eyes. Of course, the old thing I'm going to talk about now is Christmas. Now, I've always been a big fan of Christmas. And what's there not to love? Good food, good friends, good family and new stuff. Plus my birthday is right next to the thing! Whenever anyone says that Christmas is their favorite holiday, I always thought that it was like claiming that your favorite hobby was breathing. It's a fact that Christmas is the best shit ever plain and simple. However, recently, I'm not exactly sure why (maybe because of Philo and Theo), Christmas has kind of become a scam. Maybe even a sham. A scham.

It's been building up for a while but I guess it hit it critical mass when I figured that Christmas was just one big marketing ploy. You've heard these messages all over. On the radio, in mall speakers, on food packaging, on TV, the internet. You name it, they've done it. And they started early on too. As early as October, they'll be playing Christmas music on the speakers so you're reminded of your Christmas shopping, changing up their packaging on their products to make them more festive, adding peppermint oil to their ridiculously overpriced coffee. And I'm sitting there wondering how these marketing executives fucking sleep at night. Then I think to myself that the meaning of the holiday must have been objectified or given an objectivated meaning from the people that celebrate it. And a quick run through of the history of Christmas tells me that it could mean whatever people wanted it to mean.

Last night, I was tweeting about my struggle to find the meaning of Christmas. I guess for a lot of people it can mean ham, hot chocolate, puto bumbong, presents or all the new stuff they buy themselves for Christmas. And in the end, I guess that's okay too. But then, we all have to acknowledge that it means that this season is no season of giving. It's a season of buying, spending and eating. And we're all in on it.

What of family, friends and love and togetherness? Well, I thought about that and I know that those things are precious to me. But I still hold them dear, regardless of whatever season it may be. If it serves as a reminder of my love for them, it's not doing a very good job. A lot of the time, we don't give presents out of love. We do it for show or because we don't want to offend anyone.

So what's my conclusion? Christmas can mean whatever you want it to mean. If you don't mind being controlled by marketing firms, then keep on listening to mall Christmas songs and ridiculous radio ads featuring atrocious puns (Merry Cremas, indeed!). If you're talking about generosity, I don't know. Do something generous. Might be good if you can sustain that past the season but if you can't, well, don't bullshit yourself into thinking that it's anything more than Christmasurbation (how's that for a pun?).

Happy holidays! I guess.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cglLJJ0Czo8

One Last Sembreak, Becoming a Loyola Mountaineer and What Comes After

It's one of those times where I'm bored with everything else and I feel like it's a good time to reflect and write something. Also, I've been meaning up update my blog given recent turning points in my life. As you probably inferred from the title, it is indeed my final sembreak for college. So far, I'm using this time to think about everything that's happened and what happens next.

Also, you probably noticed that thing about LM. Well, you guessed it. I'm finally an official member of the Loyola Mountaineers! It was a long and rough journey. It took me to places I thought I would not go both emotionally, mentally and physically. All those talks I had to attend. The tree-plantings and cave explorings. The training climbs and skills tests. All of them left their mark on me and all of them changed me into the person I am now. Or maybe they helped me learn something about myself.

I'm sorry if this post is a little vague, this past sem with the Loyola Mountaineers has been one of the most action packed semesters of my entire stay, if not THE most. I don't know if I'll ever be able to recount the entire process with its minute details complete with the small triumphs and defeats. Maybe in a future blog post, but now now.

Now, I want to talk about what comes next. I guess since this whole sem was devoted to getting into the org, the feeling that I need to make a decision hasn't sunken in. The decision for what comes after. After graduation. The decision ALL Health Sci students are faced with. To med or not to med?

It's a question that plagues us all in my course. We're always nervously looking at each other, asking each other if we want to put ourselves through the hell that is med school. The deprivation of the best years of our lives. The endless nights of studying.

Finishing the application process for the Loyola Mountaineers, left me almost, without a purpose. Just getting in was one of the toughest things I've had to do. With that out of the way... I felt like an Obama supporter after Obama won.

However, this feeling of not knowing what to do also comes with some revelations for myself. I think the many things, I've been put through helped me understand myself better. Some of those things are quite recent. During the induction climb preparations, I really wanted to be medic. Even though I didn't get the spot, I still wanted to help out with the medical related things. They consisted of mostly cramps and hurt knees but I still tried to help them out in whatever way that I could whether that meant, stretching out their muscles or asking others to help lighten that person's load. Another thing that happened, was how one of the members, a doctor, patched up my friend's bleeding finger wound and said that it wasn't actually a big deal. She said that after we were all like, "Is he gon' die?" Then she told us about how she's seen people without thumbs so this really wasn't a big deal. I thought that it was awesome how she took control of the situation and knew just what to do.

When I tell this to people, I tell them that I realize that it's shallow but at least now, I have some feelings to draw from. Maybe this is an unfolding of myself. But then again, it could just as easily be me deluding myself into taking a steady path.

I do think though that in the end, we're never going to know if we feel this way or if we're really just doing whatever so we feel safe. And in the end, we'll have to take a leap into the unknown with what little we have. Whether we like it or not, we'll have to take that leap of faith and trust in the future. In the end, all the advice, the constant reminders that you're following the crowd, the ever-present recommendations for future careers will boil down to your decision to take that plunge into the wide blue yonder.

I think I'm taking that leap of faith right now.

Here's to the future.

The Sea of Clouds at Mt. Pulag c/o Dako Bagano

Last year of College: Loyola Mountaineers and my Mom

Good Lord... How did I get here?

The fact that I am actually called a senior and yet everything still seems to run at the same pace is concerning. Often times, I find myself doing things and then stopping to remind myself that this would be the last chance I'd ever have at trying to do something like this...

Real life is just around the corner...

Fuuuuuck...

I'd be more energetic in my cries of despair if I weren't so tired from my last 6km practice run for LM. Something I have neglected to update you guys on for some time now.

Yeah. This year, I've set myself up to have a meaningful last year. Actually, this year seems to be all about my LM (Loyola Mountaineers) application. Yes. LM application. I've been trying to get into that org for 2 years now but I've always discontinued application or quit open climbs because of several reasons. The first was plain physical fitness. Joining LM means being super fit and takes a lot of time and effort to train. The first time I tried a 6km run was during the actual test itself on my second year. Before that I had never run so far in my life. By the time I finished, I was just concentrating all my efforts in trying not to shit my pants. That's why for this year's application I've invested a lot of time and energy for training and I like to think that I'm doing pretty good for myself.

Click this to see my last run!

The second reason was the steep requirements that LM has for membership. Aside from being physically fit and mentally prepared, I need to have a lot of weekends sacrificed for LM activities. This was problematic because of the NSTP and JEEP requirements for 2nd and 3rd year. Those were uncuttable which meant that LM had to be dropped.

The second and without a doubt the most fearsome opponent to my application is my own mother. Woohoo! Lord knows that she and I have gone through many and episode and joining LM was just one of many things we did not agree with. I remember just a month ago at dinner, I was talking to my sister Toni about how I was applying to Loyola Mountaineers. Then she asks me if I even asked permission from my mom first. Puzzled, I told her that I didn't need to ask permission because she let me join when I was second year. Then she tells me that I should have asked first. Then I repeat what I told her and explain to her that I really didn't need to ask permission. Looking for approval from my mom, I turned my head to find her giving me a look that probably went like, "You better get what I mean already or I will drive my thumbs into your eyes!!!". As charming and endearing as I am I still proceed and tell her that I'm going to join Loyola Mountaineers. Then she goes, "Why don't you like to listen to me?"

And then I'm like this.

And she asked me that without even saying anything... Mothers...

Anyways, I am so fuckin' determined, I'm gonna push through anyway. One way or another, I'm gonna get there baby and there's nothing that's gonna stop me!

I've already been training for weeks now and I've made the 6km within the specified time limits multiple times. I'm gonna hit even bigger challenges when I start figuring out ways to tell my mom that I'll be gone for some weekends to go to the mountains. Wish me luck!

For What It's Worth - Buffalo Springfield

The Greatest List of Freshie Advice (not really)

Okay. So just a while ago, Aimee showed me her write-up in progress for the coming ORSEM planner. Going through some of them, I could see the good ones and the really fucking stupid ones. Some of them were the usual open your world things like: "Try everything." While others like, "Ateneans are known for being conyo and maarte. Prove them wrong."

Yeah. That one I had a beef with. I mean, if you're gonna base your personality on what people want you totally didn't fucking get the point of college.

In my opinion, high school was the worst shit ever. The kids were dicks. Bullies were everywhere. You're less able to explore and you leave it thinking that you know exactly who you are when in fact you have a LOT of growing up left to do.

College is a whole 'nother jungle, baby.

So I decided to try my hand at making my own list of tips and tricks to survive the jungle known as college.

It's not complete and I'm not sure if you'll find it useful but whatever. Also, this list is designed for Ateneo freshies so whatever.

Here it is.

1. Try new clothing. This is for those freshies who, like me, always wear just pants and shirts. I've been wearing pants and shirts my whole life and have only just recently realized in my senior year that wearing shorts is so much more comfortable. I feel as though I've suffered the heat of Manila summers innecessantly. And oh boy, did I suffer.

2. Don't let people tell you what you should be. As a freshie, the peer pressure and pressures from your parents will be absolutely tremendous. During my first year, it took me to dark places and I ended up resenting so many people. Ultimately, you're gonna have to find a way for you to ignore these influences and figure our who you wanna be. Know when people are starting to control you and then put a stop to it when you can.

3. Don't think that college is about work. If anything it's quite the opposite. My Pol Sci prof once told our class that college is your last reprieve from the real world of enforced monotony and non-creativeness. You don't go to college to be good at a certain job. Everything you need to know for your future job, you'll learn on your first days there. You go to college because you need to expand your goddamn mind. You need to explore ideas that will make you question who you are and why you do these things. You'll appreciate the amazing world of fiction and poetry. Philosophy will make you think about what it means to truly love.

4. Make sure to use your offline password for EBSCOHOST. It's an online database of millions of journal articles, studies and books that will prove invaluable to research. Amazingly, some people reach senior year without ever once utilizing it. Also, if you find that an article you want is not readily available in full PDF form on the site, use the document delivery service form the lib and the staff will email you a copy.

5. This may sound stupid as shit but take pictures! You'll get through the 4 (or 5) years fast and you'll need those pics to take you through the tough times. They'll remind you of your friends and a more innocent age.

6. Exercise your management skills! Become a leader at something. There are two types of people in this world, the shepards and the sheep. The sheep follow the shepard around and are stupid as shit while the shepherd takes the sheep wherever he wants to go and sometimes gets to fuck them when nobody's looking.

7. In spite of what you may believe, people don't give a shit about you as much as you think.

8. Learn how to drive and park anywhere.

I'm gonna blast through the rest of these now.

9. Don't eat fatty food. JSEC serves the fattiest food in all of Ateneo. Do not get trapped in that cycle. Seriously JSEC food administration, get your shit together.

10. Read about science news.

11. Start to look for something you're passionate about.

12. Think about what you wanna do with your life.

13. Be good to your friends.

14. Know who your friends are.

15. Take weights as your PE. It may sound tiring and painful but you will seriously tack on serious mass.

16. Be an honest person. Phonies are like... bad...

17. Don't go home right after classes. (This advice came from the 2010 ORSEM manual. I found this to be very useful especially if you have helicopter parents)

18. Don't be stupid. Always put on a condom.

19. Religion is such a first year issue. Move on to more important ideas.

20. Complain about profs that slack off.

21. Sanuks look like preppy shoes but they're not. You can dress like a cool kid but still be a surfer.

22. Join LFC. Films are so good for appreciating music, art, stories and life in general.

23. If you're bad at sports, be proud of it. Basketball players have been having it too easy for far too long.

24. Yeah seriously. Fuck basketball.

25. Get a tablet and learn how to design. A useful skill in any project. The world is evolving a taste in design. Bad promotions for orgs will not be looked upon with favor in this environment.

26. Move out of your comfort zone. You might find that some of your decisions were stupid but it's these decisions that define you.

27. Find a way to stay cool. The Philippines is a hot country if you hadn't already noticed.

28. Take walks. Ateneo is a beautiful place. You'll be amazed at all the things you'll find if you penetrate it deep enough.

29. Exercise. You may not appreciate it on your first two years of college but once you hit your 3rd and 2th year P.E. will be something you'll miss sorely. Without P.E. gaining weight is too easy.

30. Once again, document. Take pics of even the mundane days. Blog. Write a journal. Plot your journey. Everyone says it but college is fast. You're gonna wanna go back to these things.

I'm gonna end it here but hey if you have questions, leave a comment or something.

Singapore 2: Night Safari

The evening after the City Tour, we were set for a Night Safari Tour. We rode a bus on the way to the place and the tour guide briefed us as to what would be happening. He was another Indian guy who had a very dramatic speaking voice. It was dramatic in the cheesy corny kind of way. He went like, "When I went on the Night Safari, the tapirs were so cute! But if you reach out and touch them, I'm afraid that your fingers will be... (hushed voice) missing in action..."

When we got to the place, we first had a buffet dinner which was part of the package deal. I stuffed myself with the tiny baby octopuses, naan bread and strawberries.

This is what the place looked like. Also, you can't see them very well but there were tons of Australians here.

A cool thing about this place was the bathroom. You'd open the door into the bathroom and find that it the lights were off. Step inside and the lights would magically come on! I was so impressed by this that I actually took a video of the lights coming on as I walked into the room. All the while I was thinking it sure would have been funny if someone were to walk in and see me taking a video of the lights? It just so happened that someone did and I had to quickly make my exit.

Even in Singapore, I'm a noob.

We left the buffet to go to the tour and we were greeted by a long line of safari-goers. Just then, Gabriel decided that it would be a great time to begin to whine about wanting to go home and about how he was so tired already. God, you can always count on this little guy to make a vacation difficult.

After much waiting in the hot humid line, we made it to the tram and as soon as we found our seats, we were off. The tram itself was a long series of cars connected together. The only protection we had was a roof over our heads, the rest of the thing was open air. Somewhat disappointingly, safety wasn't an issue though since the animals weren't free to roam around as I had previously imagined. Their areas were designed with water surrounding the enclosure or deep ditches on all sides for animals that were afraid of heights. Only the tiger pen had a full on glass divider between the tram and its enclosure, a testament to this animal not giving a fuck about heights or water.

The night safari itself was pretty cool. We got to see some Asiatic Lions and the much more majestic African Lions. I think my favorite animal was the Indian Rhino. It looked so powerful and the thick skin folds on its body made it look so impenetrable. I don't think even full-grown tigers would wanna mess this this guy.

Taken fron Wikipedia

It looks like it's wearing ass armor!

I also like hippos because they're so badass and they're the closest living relative of whales!

That enough animals for now.

I'll talk about Universal Studios next time since it deserves a post all on its own.

The Final Chapter of College and My Life Decision

Alright. I promised a Singapore part 2 but I gotta write about this now since it's a more pressing issue.

My life decision.

If you know me then you probably know that I've been in limbo for the whole of my college life. I never knew if I was gonna go to med or not. To be honest, it was never originally part of the things that I thought to do with my life in my senior year of high school. The only reason I even thought to go into medicine was because I thought that it was a great compromise between getting to study about biology and getting a "real" job as my mom and dad would look at it. After all these years of Health Sci and subjects like Org Chem, Biochem and Cell Mol along with the occassional med school horror stories of students that previously did well in college only to have a shitstorm of studying and mediocre grades in med school... It did not have the glamor of what it looked like when I was in high school. That isn't to say that the idea of becoming a doctor was ALL bad. I also saw the good things in med school: a chance to help people using science, a seemingly cool job where I tell people how to get better and a means to earn a decent living...

After all these things being put into consideration, I often end up getting no where with my decision.

In this final chapter of college though, I gotta decide fast and work so I can get there.

The best I have so far is a plan wherein I study to become a biologist and at the same time work a regular job for my dad. The idea came from one of my Philosophy teachers, Ma'am Nicole. She told me about how she went through similar experiences as I did where her parents would brush away the idea of her getting a masters and getting into academia. Eventually the glamor died down and she found herself wanting to make a little extra money along the side. So she worked for her family business while working for her masters. The idea of me working for my family business is about the last thing I wanted to end up doing but Ma'am Nicole assured me that it does become exciting as you get into it.

So here I am trying to work out a similar plan in life. I guess the next step at this point would be to find the right connections in the kind of work that I wanna pursue. I remember a tweet that I managed to get form Sir David Attenborough himself. He said that the cutting edge of biology was genetics. While I have had experience in Biochem and Cell Mol, my line of interest really lies in zoology in general. Maybe as I study biology further I can find something that really sparks my interest and then I can find a way to make a real contribution to society. Wishful thinking.

So these are my goals now:
1. Find out how I can make the most out of a career in biology.
2. Find out what I'll be doing when I work for the family business.
3. Work out a clear plan for the next few years (what masters to take, what school to go to, what classes I need)
4. Pull up my grades so I don't look like such a jabroni when I apply.

Hope all goes well.

Here's some Akwafina.

Singapore: Day 1

Jesus, my last post was September of 2012!

Anyways, Singapore. (I'll make up for the lack of posts sooner or later. I still have a Hong Kong post and a Batangas post pending.)

So just last week, my mom, Toni, Karina, Gabriel, and I went to Singapore! Amazing thing too since we had just recently gone to Hong Kong last Christmas. However, unlike the previous vacation, I did not lose my shit in anticipation and excitement. I guess all the thesis work that came before it as well as the Theo Orals made it impossible to see anything beyond those things. God, remind me to make a dedicated Theo Orals blogpost. One of the darkest hours of my life...

Where was I?

Singapore. So on the eve of March 24, I packed my stuff and got ready to leave for another country. This was totally not as exciting as the Hong Kong trip packing. I just picked up a few things from closet and stuck them in my bag.

We left for NAIA terminal 2 at 3 in the morning and proceeded with our checking-in and waiting. I wish I could have gotten some sleep but sleep was impossible since there were no comfy places to sleep and I was already pretty excited to get on board. So I busied myself by enjoying the free internet and munching on a rather buttery coffee bun.

When we did get on the plane, managed to score a seat next to the aisle and two other empty seats. This meant that I had a lot of room for my legs since I didn't need to stuff my laptop and other carry-ons under the seat in front of me.

The flight there was pretty pleasant. Managed to get some delicious chicken (or fish?) curry for lunch and watched an episode of the first season of Dr Who c/o Andy Go.

Being a former flight attendant, my mom always has former co-workers chatting her up for extended periods.

Activity books for the little boy

We then made it to Changi Airport. Woohoo! I had mixed feelings about this because of the way the last travel agency meetup went. I'll have a dedicated blogpost for that but in the meantime suffice to say that we could have ended up taking down a few travel agents and getting thrown into Hong Kong jail if the situation had escalated any further. So for this occassion, we were wiser and I was on alert to keep things cool. I was the Sheriff of Abacantown.

Keepin' it cool

We made our way down to immigration and all the while I was documenting the first few minutes of Singapore. As I was very touristly filming everything, an immigration security guy comes to me and tells me to keep my camera. He points to a sign saying no picture-taking and he asks to see what I've been filming. Like it's some big fucking secret. Like I'm gonna use it to smuggle in drugs. It wasn't bad though, I have to admit. The guy was real nice about it. Just told me not to do it again. God. MAJOR difference from the goddamn Hong Kongers!

Okay not all of them... Just this one guy...

Anyways, we found our driver who would be taking us to our hotel and then we were off. One the road we made some nice conversation with the guy. We talked about durian and about what language people spoke. He said that people mostly spoke Mandarin but he was part of the minority who spoke Malay. Real nice guy. Not bad.

The surroundings were really clean and pristine just as everyone made it out to be. It looked like I was still in one big country club and for a while I was wondering when we would be leaving whatever compound we were in and entering the public highway. Turns out we were there already.

I have to say though, people should stop hyping up places like they're fucking paradise! I mean Singapore IS really clean but I was still able to catch cigarette butts and empty wine bottles in their reservoir! I also caught a man spitting some chewing tobacco on the street. And, yeah, he was a local. Moral of the story: no place is perfect. That isn't to say that Singapore is not a big deal. Far from it as I will elaborate on further in this blogpost.

So we made it to the hotel. Parc Sovereign. It wasn't very far because Singapore is so very small. They identify places by street which still amazes me. As me made our way down the van, the bellboy (I should say bellman or doorman), whose name I forgot, helped us with our stuff and he was a really upbeat and happy to help. My mom asked him how he was doing today and he just beamed and said that he was doing great.

We got to the hotel room and set our stuff down. While we waited for our scheduled city tour, we made our way to some local shops down the road to get some food. On the way we saw this really amazingly designed college campus. It was Lasalle College of Arts and the whole place looked like a designers dream. The students were sitting around doing some yoga on artificial grass and the building was so full of angles that defied traditional non-angular buildings. I couldn't help but think about how boring the Ateneo Campus was in comparison.

Click for a better view of the campus!

Here's another panorama pic. Notice Toni and the rest of my family to the left of the pic.

After a heavy dose of admiring, we came upon this foodcourt with lots of different kinds of food. and Each stall was labeled according to the type of food. There was "Chicken Rice", "Indian Food" and even the aptly named "Pig's Organs" stall. We all got different dishes and I settled with some Indian food. And oh man. Let me tell you. This shit was something else. I got the lamb biryani with two pieces of naan bread. The owners told me that the biryani was only "medium spicy"... God. Never in all my years have I had food that was so amazingly sweat-inducing, face reddening, throat swellingly hot. It was so hot that I was crying and my jaw muscles were literally swollen. You could see it on my face and feel it because they were hard to the touch. I sweat so much that I looked like I had run a marathon. I mean. It was delicious food but GOOD GOD!!! WHEW!!! I'd definitely go for a second round the next time I go there. Great first meal!

Even just looking at it makes my mouth go all watery and mucus-lined. Also there was a non-spicy version available but it was a boring brown color.

After I recovered, we made our way back to the hotel to get picked up for the city tour. The city tour itself was pretty okay. We went over to the Merlion, a Taoist temple, and then a jewellery shop. It is interesting to note that the singaporeans do not have the marketing powers of the Hong Kongers or the Chinese. On our trip to HK and Shenzhen, China, we visited some jade factories and the people were so aggressive in their attempts to take your money. They would talk about fortune and mystical energy and whatever. They had whole spiels prepared. The efforts of these Singaporean jewel sellers were lackluster and really easily defeated. There was this one display full of badly carved jade animals and a woman approached me. She said that the animals ward off evil spirits and they're good for your office and stuff. That was the end of her spiel. In China, the saleslady went on about how the thing she was selling, a baby dragon known as a Pichou, symbolizes good fortune and yadda yadda. She even went on about how it has no asshole (or if you prefer, anus) because good fortune goes in and never leaves your home. She had a good 1:30 minute speech. This Singaporean lady was like "Okay..." when she finished. This was a good thing because after that trip I was so fed up with people trying to sell me bullshit fortune products!

Here's a pic of her pathetic product

This one looks like something from the Nightosphere!

There were some nice things though. Like this pagoda which was part of a giant mural  made from semi-precious stones.

Here are some Merlion and Temple pics.

The next stop for the tour was the National Orchid Garden. Not a big deal actually. Just lots of orchids. The best thing about it was that I saw real life squirrels! They were so cute and so inquisitive looking and adept at climbing! I was so close to them and they looked right at me. I was afraid that one of them would jump me but they just hung out on their branch, hugging themselves. D'awwww.

The last stop was Little India, a place that I wish I could have explored more thoroughly. We couldn't find any nice shops to buy from (probably because we didn't actually see the Little India marketplace but we did manage to find some nice buildings and a lot of pigeons.

Trippy

And that concludes the City Tour.

Since my writing gas has been depleted, I'm gonna go continue the rest of the Singapore trip in the next blogposts to come!

Like whatever, y'know?