it's a little task i set for myself over the past week: change my mp3 player playlist. which entails spending hour after grueling hour downloading songs at grassgrowth speed on my dial-up connection. which means after around 4 hours, several failed attempts and faulty files, i've only successfully downloaded 4 songs out of the 20 i've planned out for the night. and since i only have net access until tomorrow at 4 pm, i'd be damned lucky to even reach half of my quota. i swear, i'm seriously determined to finish this tonight.

on an entirely different note, today has at least been interesting from a spender's viewpoint. i spent the afternoon mulling around sm north, eventually ending up with over 1.5k worth of purchases for myself. not have i splurged like this since almost a year ago when i went wild on pants at the sale in up dil. after this, it'll be the no-spending-of-stipends-for-forever routine until i'm satisfied with the new levels my bank accounts reach.

today was fruitful, with new shirts, shorts, and sandals added to my wardrobe. it's just a pity that i only bought the shorts now, when the summer is about to end. i went through an all-shorts-outfit-throughout-summer vow cycling through only 6 pairs of shorts. at least i get to use the new stuff on my upcoming trip.

finally, with reference to my previous entry, i thought of turning it into private status, after seeing the *almost* scandalous way some of my friends reacted to it (haha, a gross overstatement). but anyway, just to clear the air, or at least to fan the haze around a bit, nothing's really happened. i may have sensationalized on my part as well, but only on the implications. i'm not expecting anything, since i know of several reasons why it can't really happen. it's just fun, and i can hope for at the least that a friendship come out of the whole thing.

oh well, that's that. have to return to my awaiting endeavor. wish me luck.

haha, this is definitely a first.

coming into intarmed meant entering into the nearly-inaccessible manila campus of the university of the philippines. with our home in qc being nearly an hour away when travelling by mrt-lrt or fx, it was in my best interest (not my dad's, definitely, as 4k+ monthly for my living quarters isn't an amount to throw around haphazardly) to move into a condo much less remote. with having two choices for living quarters spread throughout metro manila, you'd think that'd be enough for a freewheeling college student like me. but no, i just had to have one more option. well, maybe not so much as *my* option, but it was for this week, at least.

a whole week in manila for summer classes, without a single night spent in my shared condo (well, technically, one night spent there, but i came home so late that it might not really count). 15 minutes away, at a secluded building known as arcadia de manila, our classmate mac graciously offered us free room and board, electricity, water, pc, and study time at his unit. my only stopovers at the condo were to bring home my launderables, eat lunch and dinner (austerity measures due to last weekend's splurge), and get new clothes for the next day. i swear the new security guards at our condo wouldn't believe i was actually a resident, with my stopovers only being an hour at a time.

from monday to thursday, it was a nonstop, jampacked, full-blown study party. you heard it right, study party. what, with 2 consecutive exams for statistics (lecture 3rd dep and lab finals) and another one on monday, we needed all the study time and habits we could muster. and if there ever was a perk to living in dirty, grimy, smogy manila, it would be having the leisure of study groups. because it doesn't always turn out to be all about the studying (thought don't get me wrong, it does help immensely, with discussions and problem-solving and whatnot).

true to word, studying was at the most a second priority for most of the nights. much more hours were spent chatting, joking around, playing red alert 2, cleaning the house, playing poker (a new craze, at least for us over at mac's), foodtripping, finding places to sleep, and actually sleeping. since droves of us would come over at a time, sleeping areas become limited, much less the actual ones. the choice sleeping areas include the single bed, the folding cot, and 2 overstuffed chairs in the "silent room" (silent room: the second bedroom of the unit, converted into a sanctuary for those who actually want to achieve something), and the not-so-desirable slumber choices being the floor (with a carpet covering), leaning against the wall, inside a closet (the inner sanctuary of the silent room, where only the nerdiest of nerds *ehem*alikoy*ehem* hole up in and direct full attention to the reading materials), the dining room chairs arranged into a makeshift bench, or the wooden benches in the tv area.

monday was night 1, around 2 hours spent flipping through modules and walpole, talking about normal distributions and z-scores. since there were only 4 of us then, i had the luxury of sleeping by myself on the single bed in the bedroom, despite my generous offers to the others in the silent room. tuesday, eve of the stat finals, night 2. with impending doom coming the next day, we had to get serious with the study part of the night. mostly spent answering random problems from walpole with migz and alikoy, but at least a brief respite when alikoy treated the whole group to 2 half-gallons of ice cream. dulce de leche... *slurps*. wednesday, night 3, lec dep exam the next day but everyone was too worn out from last night to even bother with the idea of studying. soon as we got there around 9:30, nearly everyone made themselves comfortable in the sleeping areas and went straight off to sleep. i spent a nice hour playing text twist, then finally claimed an overstuffed chair for myself. last night was night 4, the full-blown poker party night. with no exams for the next day, we spent the night calling bluffs, betting big, and putting on our pokerfaces until 3 am.

this morning we woke up around 9 am, a really stupid move since first, we had plans to watch star wars at 10, and second because of our plans, we couldn't cook the big breakfast we planned to have that morning. we finished morning rituals at hyperspeed, and headed off to rob around 10:30, well behind the first showing. we decided to settle for the 11:00 show, and as it would happen, we were first in line for tickets, and the first to get inside the cinema. pardon me for being a bit shallow, but the feeling was unimaginable. the whole moviehouse was empty except for us, any seat we wanted was ours (we claimed the entire second row from the back), and thinking that this was such a high-profile, much anticipated movie like star wars, just being first was such a rush. and at least the 100 we paid was well worth it. i'd have to say i liked the movie more than the first and second installment of the prequels (i honestly can't remember the first 3 movies, have to watch them again somehow). the graphics and environments were amazing, the pacing was well-kept throughout the film, the story was grabbing and the dialogue was smart, witty, and emotional.

and since then, i've come back home, and about to resume my task last week: music piracy. just downloaded limewire and i hope it works better than kazaalite.

again, wish me luck.

tuesday morning was a project defense in stat lab. turns out we wouldn't officially be sophomores until friday morning, when we can email the revised paper to our prof. it all seemed like a casual school day, which was in fact our last until the first sem for second year starts in less than two weeks. it thus came as a surprise to some of my friends that i would be leaving for the states that very evening.

it would be my second trip alone, and my first trip without any sort of assistance from anyone, aside from my transpo to the airport. my flight was at 11 pm, but for some unconceivable reason, i left the house at 4:30 and arrived at the airport around 5:30 pm, nearly 6 hours before my flight, and 2 hours before the check-in counters for my flight opened. i then burned that time listening to jam 88.3 on my mp3 player, while constantly glancing at the airport clock and feasting my eyes on the psp a fellow traveller brought out at the seat in front of me.

when check-in finally started, i was able to skip lines using the silver elite card i finally earned, and got entrance to the miascor lounge in naia. now, since business class and elite status are usually reserved for or bought by elderly business-like people, it must have been quite a change to have a 17-year old mooching on the free stuff available at the lounge. what's funny is that even if there were tons of food and drink available at the lounge, the other visitors didn't even so much as sniff at the food, but usually just take a can of beer or a glass of wine and hole up in their newspapers or magazines or at the news on tv. i, on the other hand, am not one to pass all that up. repeated servings of pansit and arroz caldo, two slices of mocha cake, several cans of mango juice, and a cup of hot tea later, boarding time finally came and i had to leave the sanctuary that was the lounge. that beat spending time at the regular passenger lounge.

the rest of the trip was snoozeworthy at the least. after cramming our stat paper on sunday night and having our last poker party for the first year on monday night, i had only scraped out less than 10 hours' sleep for over two days. and as it would happen, the 24-hour trip would be the perfect way of catching up on much-needed sleep. regardless of the waking dawn, blazing sun, or silent night going on outside the window, i just slept through it all. nothing like cross-global travel to mess up your internal clock. the only times i held awake was during layovers, 3 meals i had throughout the trip, and the filming of little black book and elektra.

the only other noteworthy event during the trip was a panorama at 35,000 feet, one only nature could have provided. at the start of the honolulu-houston leg, we were sent off by the setting sun off the hawaii horizon. the flight continued through the night until the captain called our attention to the right side of the plane, where an amazing view would be awaiting us. out of the blackness, a crimson disk seemingly melted into the horizon, then drifting up into the night sky while shifting to a beautiful golden hue. it appeared like a phoenix, rising up from a sea of darkness, basking in all its fiery glory. a moonrise like no other, visible only from the heights we were on.

it's just moments like those that i wish i had a digicam.

who'd ever thought the day would come when televised poker would have me all hot and bothered.

but alas, that time has come. world poker tour championship games on channel 66 took the spotlight over eating, reading, and exercising yesterday afternoon. hand after hand was dealt, blinds were posted and antes were set, with the players raising to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars, all happening with me on the other side of the screen, cringing and squealing with excitement. it was just all such a rush, knowing how the game plays and being in with the terminologies. learning to read bluffs and gaining new strategies also came as a sweet treat to the whole scenario.

if there was something i was proud to learn this summer, that would have to be our own brand of imed poker. with having countless sleepovers and study groups, it only seemed natural that some sort of group leisure would be the next rage in the class. and so poker parties were born. i was there since the start, and i'd have to say i'm not such a shabby player, albeit a little traditional. there's just something about being labelled as a conservative player and being dubbed "mr. predictable" that makes my blood simmer a little. maybe the driving force towards my sudden interest in the tv series.

i can only hope to be able to return to manila with a brand new pokerface and surprising new tricks and ploys, to blow everyone else away during the next gathering.