This is where it all began

We all grew up watching movies like American Pie 2, Reality Bites, Kicking and Screaming, Animal House, etc. These were all movies set around a bunch a of college kids partying hard while facing the shocking reality of adulthood. Of course the venue for these fictional situations were college dorms, apartments and condos. When I was in highschool, I couldn't wait to bust out into college, get a pad, and get the party started! True enough, my dreams (if you could call it as such) did materialize. But it wasn't always like that. In fact, I spent a little more than a semester traversing the traffic-filled route between Ateneo and Alabang everyday. Oftentimes, I spent an average of 4 hours on the road everyday going to and from Katipunan. The riding was hard, and the driving even harder. Most of us weren't familiar driving so far north. Before then, the farthest I had driven to was Greenhills! We had to contend with traffic at its worst. The Skyway had yet to open, there were no E-Pass lanes, and potholes had never been so big.

As a newly registered freshman, I was invited to join the Alabang carpool by some older friends from Ateneo. I remembered, there was this orientation/meeting in someone's house where all the newbies attended to get the lowdown on everything about carpool. We had to submit our schedules and other information, such as if you were bringing a van or if you had a driver. When school started, riding the carpool for me was like the unofficial ORSEM. I got to talk to a lot off people from the higher batches. They would tell me about their war stories in and around campus, which teachers to get and to avoid, and things to do and places to go in and around Katipunan. I probably learned more here about getting started out in Ateneo than what was being taught in the ORSEM. (which was a totally boring experience)

In general, my trips were fun. In most trips, I was with other freshmen, most of which I knew from highschool, so things were all good. As the weeks went on, you would start to have regular set of people per trip, and we all got to know each other a bit more. I had a different group of carpool people each day, each as interesting and as different as the others. Conversations would range from relationship problems and the latest crush, to bitching out on a prof or some irritating guy in your class. I remember one of the more absurd conversations I had in carpool went along the lines of a single proposition: "Ano pipiliin mo? Isang shot ng uhog, o isang shot ng nana?" Absurd, yet strangely interesting.

Of course, being associated with such a big group of people (we numbered around 60-70 at that time), one could not escape having carpool crushes. Of course I had a few, and there was always a possibility that you could get stuck in traffic with anyone of them. Well, there were a couple of carpool romances during my time, and i guess you could have counted me in. It was through carpool that my last relationship blossomed. Oh boy, how I counted my blessings then.

You could also not escape having dreaded riders in carpool. In some cases, you wouldn't want to be stuck with some heinous bitch or asshole, or worse...a major dorko or a chismosa. Bitches and assholes you could always deal with by just not minding them, letting them wallow in their own filth and pride, but dorkos are rare gems. I remember this guy in carpool who was always avoided. People said that that he was such a relentless geek, and that he had the ability to skin you alive with the most uninteresting conversations. During trips where he would bring a car, it was always near empty. There was this one time I had to hitch a ride home since I was off early, and he brought the only car for that trip. I remember feeling one emotion as I got dropped off at my stop: regret. I swear, I had never met somebody who could talk so much about nothing. (that, by the way, is an unmistakeable trait of an Atenean) He was a nightmare. During the trip, I felt like wrapping myself with a blanket in a fetal position and call out for my mother. It's a good thing I got off first. I pity the other rider who had to endure a few more minutes with him. I'm sure he was flayed to the bone.

It also really sucked to be stuck with a group of chismosas during your trips. Man, did I hate being with these self-absorbed people. They just talk about this guy, or that girl, so on and so forth, and to think topics would usually be about other people in carpool. Conversations with them were terribly unbearable, since if they didn't talk about how bad someone else was, they would talk about how great they were, or how nice their lastest cellphone was, or something to that effect. Everything that had to do with them was so plastic. Sometimes, you would wish that they were all locked in a car while you had in your hand a grenade with the pin off.

In general, these people were the exception rather than the rule. I met a lot of cool, steady and interesting people in carpool, and many of them are my good friends now. Although I had been in carpool for just about a sem before I moved into Burgundy, I thoroughly enjoyed the trips and the company. It was great as a freshman, you got to know a lot of other people you normally wouldn't have had the chance to meet. And since was we all came from the south, the carpool was a spot of familiarity in contrast to the vastness of Ateneo. I heard that the carpool now reaches almost a hundred, and I bet it's all good. In the end though, I just couldn't handle the commute each day. I joined the baseball team, and we had practices MWF both in the morning and afternoon, so I had to come in around 6am in the mornings and get off practices at 6pm. So I had to find a place near Ateneo, and i'll get to that next.

Old friends, old memories

Just last week, i met up with some college buddies whom i haven't seen in quite a while. Chach was in town for a few weeks; she's been studying medicine in the US for about a year. We were meeting up with another friend, Shauna with whom I have been incommunicado since she changed her digits (again). My old roommate Anton rounded out our foursome, himself just arriving from a month long vacation in the US as well.

We all met up at the Museum Cafe right beside the Ayala Museum. Chach and Shauna had a few drinks before we went to look for a place to eat. The original plan was to eat in Chicken Bacolod, to reminisce the old Katipunan days, but I told them that it was already closed by the time we decided to move. So we ended up eating in Recipies in Greenbelt 3. After dinner, my friends wanted to see my new place in Makati, so I brought them to my condo and chilled for a while there. Since we all wanted to have a drink, we started looking for a place to go. Chach suggested Sa Guijo, a hole-in-the-wall rock joint in the lesser-known-albeit-more-dangerous part of Makati. And so we went. The place was OK, it was just like a small two storey house that was converted into a bar on the first floor, and a hobby shop on the second. The bands that night were good, but not particularly awesome.

After a few beers and tequila roses, Anton and I brought the girls home. They both lived in Katipunan. Anton and I used to live there for 3 and a half years while we were going to Ateneo, and it felt a little more than nostalgic being there after so long. Shauna also lived in the same building we stayed in, the ever famous monument of college sex, drugs, alcohol and rock n' roll: One Burgundy Plaza. My whole college life can be summed up to what I call the "Burgz" experience. I'll get into that next time. But I have to admit, standing in front of Burgundy at 2 in the morning brought back a lot of memories. Damn, I think I still have separation issues with that place.

If I may regress, Chach is actually the girlfriend of my good buddy Jay-R, but we usually refer to him as JRBhoy, JRBohoy, J-Dawg, Dominic "The Dominator" Ochoa or JayR "Design 4 Love" Torio. They've been together for some time now, and after graduating from Ateneo they both moved back to Dallas, Texas.

Anyway, I met Jay in highschool, but we only hungout in college. We were both teammates in the Ateneo Baseball Team, and we were neighbors in Burgz as well. I even stayed in his place for a few months while I floated when I moved units in the building. I was actually the one who found him a roommate, my highschool classmate Mihk. They lived in Unit 16-O. I stayed in 12-H for the 1st year and a half, then transferred to 10-D for the last two years.

Anton was my roommate all through out my stay at Burgz. We actually lived just a house away from each other back and Alabang, we were classmates in Southridge since Prep, and we have been good friends even when we were still in diapers (I have pictures of that). This guy is literally my brother from another mother. Eversince we moved out of Burgz, I hardly saw Anton anymore. He had to take an extra year of school while I worked, so we never really had a chance to hangout. So our gimmik last Thursday was one of the few times we actually went out again after college.

On the other hand, the way we met Shauna was curiously funny. She studied in Miriam, but we were in the same batch. When we started living in Burgz around November of 2000, we always used to see this platinum blonde haired girl in a Miriam uniform walking along Katipunan. We were more than pleasantly surprised to find out that she was actually living one floor below us at that time (we were in 12-H, she was in 11-Q). It was during the Edsa II days (that's another story) that my other roommate Stef decided to just go to her place and invite her to drink with us. And to our surpise, she agreed! Maybe it was the fact that she was Fil-Brit and that she had just moved here from Malaysia that made her more open to invitations like that because honestly, I think there's less than a 1 out of 10 chance that someone born and bred here would actually agree to that. Hell, most of the women I know lack any spontenaity. Anyway, she started to hang out with us eversince then. At one point, she used to come by my place everyday after school for about a sem. Anton was on LOA then for the whole semester since he went to Japan. So Shauna replaced him for a while as the 4th roommie of 12-H.

Anyway, being with some of the people that I identify with the best and worst times of my college life, I started to reminisce the good old "Burgz" days. Burgz isn't just a place, a building, or even just a name. Rather, it is an ideology. It is the agreggate of the spirits of the Keng, the Boogerz, the Rock and the Roll, the Drunken Master, the Pukefest, the doobie days, the Blue Ven nights, the Michael Learns to Rock, the TC7, the uncleaned rice cooker when white rice turned to red, the Depression Days, the Mustang nights, the Takuza 2000, the God of Gamblers, the gambling nights, the Godfather, the Scarface, the K.O moment, the Hungry Hippo, the Siomai double rice, the Dannylicious, the Edsa II, the 12H and 11Q drink, the Moo-man, the Wedding Singer, the clogged toilet, the NT, the LBNSU, the MPNC, the PNC, the PPNC, the DKNY, the CBLMF, the PPA...etc. There are just too many soucres of inspiration to mention. But taken as a whole, Burgz is a lifestyle where you walk the walk and talk the talk.

In my next few post, i'm going to set in stone the many yet equally important defining moments during the Burgz days. To be continued.

Ho Hum Days

The days continue to pass just like the whiz of trees on a trip to baguio. I seem to skip entire days, even weeks, when i give conscious thought on how i spent my time. It's Father's Day today, but i haven't greeted my dad yet. I just don't feel like it. *sigh* I think the crux of the matter is that my actions have lost any true value for me. Everything is routinary. I live in a drone-like stasis of working, watching tv and sleeping. Although I make it a point to get a few laughs with my officemates, sometimes, i feel like i'm just kidding myself. It's just a good thing i don't let my personal life get in the way of work.

Speaking of my personal life, i think my break up with Ria has affected me more than i thought. Deconstructed, break-ups are hard because you feel a sense of loss against a feeling of security. Security that someone would be with you to watch movies, have dinner, text you when your bored, and bring you medicine when your sick, etc. Putting all these things together creates an even bigger sense of loss; and in this case, the sum is greater than its parts. The resulting snowball effect brings you down with increasing momentum. The question is, when will it stop? I believe no one can truly put a timetable on the recovery from such an episode, but all pundits would agree that time heals all wounds. I guess the only thing i could do is be patient.

For the past weekend, I have been busy downloading songs through Limewire. It's only now that i began to appreciate DSL. You see, my brother had DSL connected to his own computer so that he could play Ragnarok and other online games all day everyday. I think he's so addicted to it, he's starting to think that online gaming is reality, whereas real life is just a necessary advertisement for his next new adventure. Anyway, my dad upgraded the common computer, and we bought a wifi kit so that would tap in into my bro's DSL connection and enable the other comp to be online at DSL speed as well. But unfortunately, this happened as I was moving out of my house. Since i had no real plans this weekend, i have been stuck on the computer pirating songs and exploring Stalkster...er, Friendster. Downloading songs with DSL is as quick as you could say, "Pirate!' Oh, and i've been writing testimonials all weekend to people that i forgot to write to. Wow, what a great way to spend my weekend.

Ho Hum...

Depression Hits

It's Monday, June 13, a holiday. The sky is dark gray, the smell of wet grass fills the air, and yet not a single drop of rain has fallen. It seems that today my physical and metaphysical planes have intersected, giving me an unbelievable case of depression hits. I'm a bit hungover from an all-nighter just a while ago...had less than 3 hours of sleep, waking up to watch Detroit lose Game 2. No one was around the house earlier, my only company was Spitter, my faithful dog. It was about 10:30am already, and it was getting quite hot outside. I was already sweating profusely while watching the tele, but just felt too weak to take grab a glass of agua, much more take a bath. Well, I was tired as hell, lacking sleep, and a bit naseous.

Try as i might, i could not shake off the truth that i have work tomorrow. Damn, i'm beginning to hate work. Well not specifically my work, but just working in general. It's like I hit a motivational snag. My officemate put it best when he said that we might be suffering a quarter life crisis. My friend Chum said the same thing last night. Hey, maybe i really am having a quarter life crisis? My ex and i broke up about 2 months ago. That may be an underlying factor in all this. Generally though, my enthusiasm level has been on very very low batt since mid summer. People who know me would probably not believe that since i project an image of spontaneity. But I honestly feel chaffed and raw at the moment. Maybe the grind of life has been catching up with me. In Takeshi's Castle, sooner or later, someone's gonna get trampled by the large rolling styroballs of death. Maybe that's me, this time..

I need a vacation. I need some inspiration. I need some kind of motivation.