Perio Week 2

Sounds like a sequel to some B horror movie. It may as well be one for the fear it strikes into the hearts of the people who fail and struggle to run away from/defeat the title character. This quarter though, it seems like I have lost all will to be afraid or worry about these Periodic tests. Passiveness could be one word to sum it up. Laziness could be another.

This leads me to think about my identity in school. I get high grades. I study at times. I work when I feel like it. In the end, I get grades that I'm happy with.

Please don't bombard me with "Oh but Joaq, you're smart, you get such high grades, you don't need to study and you still get high". Sometimes okay, I admit, you can rub it in, you can tell me that I'm a nerd. Sometimes though because of these comments, and because of my lack of self-esteem, my accomplisments seem empty to think that all I can do is be good at my studies. I'm not someone who is really talented like other people in our batch, or someone who can do amazing extraordinary things with whatever. I've always seen what I'm capable of doing as something normal and something not worth praise.

Domo Arigato Mr. Roboto.

Go Study Math

Darn I've wasted too much time today. I have to study math now. I don't even know why I'm blogging this. Maybe just to remind me that I need to study already.

Go Joaq. Study.

Hell Morning

Today we had the most hellish morning in the history of Magnesium. Well, maybe not the most hellish but it comes pretty close to it. Lets go through the day shall we?

It's Comp Sci right now, blogging.

First subject was Math 4. We had a Sir Nat Speed Test. Hooray for Sir Nat! Not hooray for us. At least how he teaches us is effective. He teaches well, and it's only through our hardwork and quick mindedness can we pass his subject. I lack both. That's why I believe I failed this Hell Morning Requirement.

Second subject was Bio 2. We had a Natural Killer Long Test. As I was eating my lunch today, the other classes who came out were swearing with Bio attached to it. Must be my fault that Bio was hard. I barely studied last night for I was watching the latest episode of Heroes. Waaaay better than studying for Bio. I paid the price for choosing happiness over work.

Third subject was English 3 LT. It wasn't so bad. Pretty easy actually. Good thing I read it. Moving on.

Fourth subject was Chem 2. We had our practical test. I have a feeling Sir Manoop is out to get me. I made a mistake with computation and he accused me of wasting the reagent (which I kinda did for getting too much).

I hope I can make up for these requirements in the Perio. I have to be able to finish "Kitchen God's Wife" this weekend as well.

You just lack self confidence and motivation. Go Joaq!

Recently on

Lets randomize shall we? Okay uh, so something random.

What's been happening recently? Well, I've been sleeping late and that's not good. Just a while ago, I fell asleep in Physics class, not that it's a big deal, but I rarely do fall asleep. It's not something I've done since, well since the Xavier China Experience, where we had really boring teachers who you could barely understand.

Imagine being taught Biology in an accent you barely understand, plus with grammatical errors and strange Chinese-English fusion syntax. I'm sure you can barely understand me as I try to desperately explain it, so yeah, something like that.

Back to the main topic, yeah, I've been falling asleep. So the most obvious cause to that would be because I've been sleeping late. I don't think I've been sleeping late because I stay up too late to do requirements. Sometimes, I just don't feel like sleeping. I have no discipline to sleep. It's like, sure sleeping feels really good and refreshing, but my laziness has gotten to the point where I don't want to get up from my computer seat and move to my bed and just sleep. I never thought that was possible, until Pisay that is. Hypothesis is, its messing with my common sense.

Oh and I hope I get to watch that new Heroes season soon. My internet is too slow to watch anything as of now. It's a wonder I'm able to post this blog entry.

Periodic High-ness

There are times when I type gibberish for no reason. Now is one of those times.

Blue parakeets fly with my glitter glue
Why should we care?
They are eating away at the bright blue hue
No one wants to spare

The ocean is eaten
The sky is being eaten
The land is eaten

What of the blue that devours my soul?
Coins, clicking in my pocket
What of the glue that keeps it whole?
I'm flying high on a super jet rocket.

Super Jet Rocket. Rocket!
Jet to deep blue.

Persian Restaurant

Yum yum. Persian food is good. Straight from the Middle East.

I'm just posting this because last week, the Persian restaurant at our building finally opened. They have really good food at cheap affordable prices.

It feels good to eat foreign food, especially when you know that its somehow, authentically foreign. We kinda know the owners and stuff, and yeah, they used to be from the Middle East, but moved here. They've been living here for quite a while now.

Oh, and you can never go wrong with Pita Bread. And Hummous. It's delicious.

Visit some time at Corner Tomas Morato, E. Rodriguez.

Stress and Responsibility

I feel like stress just keeps piling on and on. Usually, I'm not that affected by all that work and studying and etc. But it seems that this year is different. It's not only taking a toll on my mind but it's also wearing out my body. I've been sleeping late and I have been tired for the past few days. It's almost come to the point where I don't really care much about anything anymore.

Now see here, the problem is most likely in me. I've been lazy and been irresponsible for quite some time. I feel like I should pick myself up and become the second year hardworking, idea-spewing, random, energetic and reliable me.

I guess it's also because I haven't been keeping my priorities straight. I should focus more, of course I should still have fun.

Identities

I saw this on Bing Bong's Blog. Just because it's one of those survey things doesn't mean that it's not a blog entry. I mean, I am writing something about myself right?

Rules:
List the names that you are called by and name the people who call you by these names. Tag ten others to do the same thing, paste the link of your entry on their guestbooks.

So that I spend more space with this entry, I'll say why they call me that name (if I know why).

1. Nico (and its various derivations)
   Who:Only my family calls me this. The various other versions of it are attributed to different relatives
   Why: My parents watched some movie when my mom was pregnant with me. I believe the name of the main character was Nico and they thought it was a cute name I guess. Nowadays, to shorten the explanation, I say that it roughly sounds like a reverse of Joaquin (Niuqoaj). :))
   
   
2. Joaquin
   Who: Anyone who knew me before Grade 5. Barely anyone calls me Joaquin anymore. My mom does sometimes.
   Why: I guess just because it's my real name. There's something about calling someone by their real name. Ahahaha.
   
   
3. Joaq, Wak, Wack, Waaaakkkkk
   Who: Everyone
   Why: Before the 5th Grade, I was only known as Joaquin. In Grade 5 though, I met someone who decided to call me Joaq because Joaquin was too long. The name kinda stuck in our barkada and spread to my other classmates eventually. Right now, it's my most common identity.
   
   
4. Wax, Waks, Joaqs
   Who: Sir Martin and Joanna
   Why: I have absolutely no idea. Maybe it sounds fun to say for them.
   
   
5. Waki, Joaqi
   Who: Ma'am Capundag (Comp Sci), some other teachers, and one former classmate
   Why: Like the previous name, there's no apparent reason, maybe it sounds cute. I don't use it because ALL the other Joaquins in the world usually go by this nickname.
   
   
6. Carlos
   Who: At one point in 2nd Year, a few Rosal people.
   Why: Because it's always fun to call someone by their second name.
   
   
7. Peanuts
   Who: Rainier Gomez
   Why: He said I look like someone from "Peanuts" the comic. The one with Snoopy.
   
   
8. Kevin
   Who: Franco del Rosario
   Why: Franco is never good with names.
   
   
9. Kuya (Nico/Joaq)
   Who: Younger Siblings and Cousins. Various other people.
   Why: Self-explanatory.
   

Wow. I didn't think I was called this many names already. Brings me to the conclusion that people are known differently by different people. That's pretty deep if you think about it. I think the whole identity thing is also a big concept in Buddhism. Do you remember any other names you've called me? :)))

Sense of purpose

Some old Pisay batches had a reunion concert thing recently. It was an interesting sight, not that I haven't seen a bunch of old Pisay graduates do some musical numbers in a concert. Last year, I performed with Himig Agham in another similar concert. This time though I was something else for this concert. I'm making it sound so dramatic the way I'm going to say it, but anyway, this time, I was an usher for the event. Joe kinda persuaded me into joining and being an usher for the event, along with him, Sam, Gaby, Nico, Cam, and lots of other people.

The day before the event, we had "practice" by going to the venue, PETA Theatre Center, which is around 5 minutes away from my house. What was really fun was going there, since we fit around 9 people in a little Rav4 by lots of "kandong" and shared seats. After a few awkward silences and noisy comments, we got to the actual venue.

I guess practice also means taking a look around the place. The actual theatre where the concert was going to be held looked pretty cool and modern. There's this small stage in the middle of a bunch of chairs, but what was unique was the second floor of seats. It seemed really close, even though it was on a different floor. You have to see it for yourself.

What I found kinda strange was that ushers really can't practice since, well, there's nobody to practice on. I mean, what does an usher do? He/she leads people to seats and looks at their tickets. Obviously, on the day before the actual concert, no one aside from the people who were practicing were there. So yeah.

The next day was the real thing. At the first few parts of the concert, I was ushering people into their seats inside the theatre, but later on, Gaby and I switch roles and I became the ticket boy for majority of the night. It felt really lonely being the ticket boy. I was left behind, alone to take care of the tickets and check the people who were coming into the concert hall. At one point though, doing this repetitive action of taking tickets and ripping them gave me a sense of purpose for the night. It made me feel important. In some strange little way, it made me feel like I was important, even if I was alone and lonely, I had to do my job to help..oh who am I kidding. I was just bored and lonely that I got delusional after a while. But still, my job still felt kinda important and I'm glad that I was able to experience being, well, an usher/ticketboy person.

Eraserheads

Last night we watched what was probably the biggest event in Philippine Music History. The reunion concert of the Eraserheads. They broke up around almost a decade ago, their music being a huge symbol of the 90's in the Philippines. Enough with the formal-ish blog entry. I did so much before watching them, so I think that I should go through my entire day.

Lets start at the beginning of my day. We had auditions for the Miriam fair concert show thingie with Bearzero. We did pretty good, I think. At least hindi sabog ung sound ng instruments. I asked sina Cueto if they wanted to watch e-heads later that night, since my tito said he got more tickets. And so, I was able to invite people to watch. I was also able to invite Francis, even if he already bought another ticket.

Afterwards, I had classical guitar lessons. I finished the first page of Canon in D. Hooray!

Then we had Dikum practice in Dan's house. Dan's house again, meaning games, then work, then games, then more games. At least we had fun. HA and I beat Jaymari at Pokemon Cards twice. At least I know my deck still challenges people.

Sometime during the practice, I found out that Joe was also going to be able to go to the concert. So after practice, we went and picked up Joe from his house. In the car at the time was around half of magnesium plus Joe and the driver. After a trip of teasing and noise, we got to pisay to pick up Andrei, Cueto and Kevin. As usual, Kevin was late by an hour and so, and we left pisay at around 6:20. Note that the concert was supposed to start at around 7:30.

So after a few more stop overs (my house) we finally got to the open field in the fort. Fast forward to before the start of the concert. There was a big countdown timer ticking down seconds till the start of the show. While waiting, there were lots of free drinks and free food at stands in our area, SVIP :D. Whee.

The countdown finished, a collage of pictures of the band flashed on the screen until showing one word, ERASERHEADS. The cround cheered. Then we heard a sound: Bass notes being plucked by Buddy Zabala. Platforms rose out of the stage and out came the four original members. Instantly, the song was recognized as Alapaap. It felt amazing, first song and it was already great. I was finally experincing live, the band that changed filipino music. Towards the end of their first song, fireworks and pyrotechnics lit the sky, a symbol of how legendary this concert was going to be.

15 songs later, and the concert could've ended already, and alas, it did, due to Ely's heart condition and emotional stress due to the death of his mother. I can't believe that it was going to end. There was supposed to be 2 more sets of songs, but it seemed that Ely couldn't do it anymore.

It was worth it even if we only heard 15 songs. The fact that we were there made it magical.

I hope that next year, we'll be able to go to whatever they're planning to continue this concert.