Bye Bye Tita Cory

I have very few recollections of my childhood, possibly selective amnesia as a result of post-traumatic stress disorder, but my parents have gone all out reminding me of all the weird stuff I did and said.

One of these stories stands out particularly vividly today as I watch the massive throng of people surrounding former president Corazon Aquino’s funeral march.

I was around six or seven years old when I had to do some sort of interview at the Bureau of Immigrations (I’m a foreigner, remember?).  I had to answer questions and prove that I was, in fact, born and raised here in the Philippine islands.

The question was simple: who is our president?

Being the bright kid that I am, I supposedly answered without batting an eyelash: “Eh di si Tita Cory!”

It’s not a particularly cute anecdote.  It’s not funny or charming or anything.

It’s just that, this anecdote from childhood perhaps sums up everything I feel today.  That woman, whose presidency was far from perfect, who failed to live up to expectations, who wasn’t able to break the stronghold of the rich over the poor — this woman is MY president.

She wasn’t perfect.  People more qualified than I am have already pointed that out several times.

The thing, though, is that perhaps her performance as a president isn’t the only issue that matters.

She was genuinely a good person.  I never knew her personally, but from what I saw, she was nothing if not a decent human being.

The most important thing, of course, was her constant defense of our democracy.  She may have failed in a lot of respects, but she did stand up time and again to fight any threats to our freedom.

She made mistakes.  She was human.  But she tried.  God knows she did.  We all know she did.

She shunned fame and power, stepped down when her mission was done.  She may have failed us in a lot of ways, but she never had anything more than the welfare of the Filipinos in mind and heart.

Beacon she was.  Beacon she will remain.

Goodbye, my president.

Goodbye, Tita Cory.

This is an Emergency

Somebody save me.

Perhaps it’s my scathing review of Jollitown that did me in.

Why on God’s green and often pestilence-filled earth  did I ever even touch that show?

Now in case you need to know, I am deathly afraid of bees. Not just afraid “afraid”. Bloody fucking afraid.

Granted I’ve never been stung by the little bastards, but still. I know all about the pain these things can inflict, so I totally will NOT allow any of these wee beasties to touch me.

So yesterday morning I went freaking ballistic on the bus.

I was semi-asleep when the assassin entered the window to my left and start hovering beside my face. I sucked my face in, hoping that it would somehow ignore me if it couldn’t find my face anywhere in the vicinity, but I failed. Apparently, my Ostrich Theory (people cannot see me if I can’t see them) isn’t exactly fail-safe.

Maybe it only works on humans.

So then I slowly inch away from the foul thing, hoping it would take the hint. It didn’t. It just kept hovering around me, checking my bag, my sides and my so far semi-non-existent face.

So I took drastic action.

I called the bus conductor to help me out.

To say that I scandalized the bus is quite the understatement of the year. I certainly lost all coolness points I might have earned when I jumped onto the bus earlier. People were laughing AT me, mainly because I froze and begged and nearly wept because of the disgusting yellow-and-brown murderer hovering near my being.

Now why would a bee attack me on board a bus for no good reason?

Certainly it was because of Jollitown: bastion of the King Bee himself, Jollibee.

At this point, there are only two phases of Jollibee’s revenge plot that I’ve come across.  First, the winged ass-needler sent his minions to comment on my posts, using atrocious grammar to weaken me. They failed, of course, since I’m used to dealing with stupid people. You don’t get to 26 without working with a few morons.

I’m a veteran. I still get PTSD sometimes.

Second is the suicidal attack of one of Jollibee’s kamikaze pilots.  Certainly the butt-heavy douchebag did not count on my magical charm and its powers over hapless bus conductors, hence the foiling of its nefarious attempt on my life.

I don’t know how many more plans the honey-sucking bastard has up his sleeve, but I wonder how long I can stay alive in the face of its attacks.

So somebody, come on. Save me.

I need a hero.

Preferably one not scared of bees.

Best Wishes George and Betty!

So I suppose this means I have too much time on my hands.

After sending my thesis proposal draft to my adviser this morning, I finally got the chance to recreate my sims George and Betty, who unfortunately disappeared for no good reason (though I think it was the software update) last time.  I was too busy being a good grad student that I sort of forgot about my happy virtual couple for some time.

So then, after a few tweaks here and there, I finally got George and Betty live and running again.  These are 2.os, by the way.  I removed George’s commitment issues and made Betty prettier, all just so I can manipulate them into marrying each other.

The wedding was held this afternoon, with me officiating of course.

To celebrate the depths of my fall from human being to lifeless shell, I have chronicled the saga of my dearest George and Betty in video format, so that you may all enjoy the fruits of my lack of a social life.

Check it out y’all.

The Nerdvana Induction

It’s official.

I’ve always known that I’m a nerd. You don’t get to thrive in the academe without being one in the first place.  But then again I wasn’t a nerd’s nerd. I’m just really into research, and I don’t brush my hair regularly, and I have trouble matching clothes, and I happen to be interested in things most people find nerdy…

Which is why you get the picture.

But then I never did think I was nerdy enough.  Not until today.

I’ve mentioned several times on Twitter (where I microblog nearly everything, as odious as that sounds) that I’ve gotten hooked on comic books. The Doctor Who comic books didn’t really do the trick. It was re-watching my Buffy DVDs and learning of the comic book-form Season Eight that really got me started.

So I downloaded stuff. 

Vuze is your friend, by the way.  Don’t shun it.

So I got the entire Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season Eight collection (all that’s out anyway), as well as Angel Season Six, even though I never did watch the series.  I have a thing against David Boreanaz, who scared me into making amends with the lovelorn schmuck I tortured daily in class after watching Valentine.

I don’t fancy drowning in a pretty tub like Denise Richards did, so yeah.

So that’s where it all began.

That’s what I’m going to tell my doctors when the walls start talking to me and the dogs start dancing funny.  That’s what I’ll tell the therapist when they take me away in a white van and keep me in a room with fluffy walls.

Because it’s over.

I’m officially nuts about comic books.  I’ve since downloaded tons of stuff by Alan Moore (who is a god I should have worshipped sooner), as well as Y the Last Man.  I also got Spike: After the Fall, of course, because I wouldn’t be watching Buffy if Spike wasn’t there.  

But it gets worse.

Because I finally have, in my hands, an actual comic book.

I bought it. The first comic book I bought with my blood, sweat and tears. Melodramatic but so fucking true. (Can I get a woot from fellow office drones?)

As for what I bought, may I remind you that *ahem* it’s not good to judge books and their covers, so I don’t want to hear it.  Where do you get off being so judgmental anyway?

I got SPIKE, the collection of three one-shots about my favorite undead being.

There.

I had comic books when I was a kid, because I was sort of Miss Hand-Me-Down. My male cousins took over half of the house, and it was through them that I learned of nerdy sci-fi stuff like Star Trek, Star Wars, Dungeons and Dragons and Sea Quest (which is a story in itself).  

They left me some of their old comic books: the first issue of Ghost Rider and some dark Batman comic book that I didn’t like because I loved the campy Batman Adam West played.  I don’t remember where they are, but I’m sure they’re still in my drawer somewhere.

But yes, this is my first comic book, which officially inducts me into the Nerd Squad.  Crown me nerd queen and all fucking hail.

PS: Shout out to everyone who was instrumental in getting me down this path: Lizzy, Paolo M., Mary Ann M. and Lauren C.

Baby You Can Light My Fire

I probably will be living on salt and rice in the next few days, but goddamn when you’ve got something as good as this, starvation really isn’t a bad thing:

He is currently nameless (but I’m sure it’s a “he”), so help me out kids.

 

Aha! Moment

I realized something today, at approximately 2 in the morning.

After two days of wrestling with a stupid idea that took a foothold in my brain, I had a pretty unnerving discussion with my pseudo-mentor Siege M.

Unnerving, mainly because I realized something.

See, I like to think I write about the things I know. I write about the things I like, or am interested in. I like to think I write the way I want to read.

It’s not very comforting to realize that that’s not exactly true. I’m discovering something entirely new about writing, and it’s not very pretty. I just realized that it’s possible to just be a vessel for the words and the ideas.

See, I wrote something I wouldn’t read if it had been someone else’s. I wrote something I wouldn’t watch if it had been a movie.

So the fear, actually, comes from a very ginormous WHY.

Why write something you don’t even want to think about?

I don’t know.

Essentially, the story took form on its own, and I’m just the means of transportation.

Which is not a comforting thought for control freaks like me, but I suppose I’ll learn to deal.

Other than that I’ve decided to stick to the light and the happy, so expect more stupid installments from The BB Project.

The BB Project – A Primer

EDIT: Episode 3 is up!

So you know how sometimes you get all delusional and figure you can do something then your imagination starts running wild and you start thinking, “Good God, this is it, I’m gonna be filthy fucking rich”?

That’s what happened.

I say it started while I was on my Buffy marathon, though the idea had been running laps around my head for years.  Watching Buffy on DVD triggered me, like I’m some sort of sleeper writer.

In non-psychotic terms, I figured I could write a story.

Nothing fancy, just something fun.

So I posted it on my LJ and forced people to read.  They did, thankfully, and the response was kind enough to prevent me from jumping haphazardly out the window.  So now I’m on the third episode, and it took me several agonizing weeks to even get the thing right.

My writing process is crap, if you need to know.  I fantasize while commuting (unless I’m sleeping, which is often) and I get this stuff running my head.  Then I sort of play it on constant loop, and finally get all the kinks right before writing it down.

Which doesn’t mean I’m a genius, okay?  Let’s not get ahead of the cow. Or horse. Or whatever four-legged beast rocks your socks.

So what I’m actually saying is that The BB Project is finally available for your viewing pleasure here.  Check out the link up there.  It’s LOCKED, though, so you’ll have to ask me for the password (I’m insecure. And a paranoid android).  The page currently has only the first 2 episodes, with slight variations from when they first appeared in LJ.  I had to change some stuff to fit the main arc I’ve got going in my schizophrenic head.

BTW, I’m still working on Episode 3.  Should be up in a few days.

Leave a comment and I’ll send you the password via email, text, twitter, etc.

PS: I welcome criticism okay? Give me a kick in the proverbial nuts if you think I deserve it.

Putting the Ass in Assertiveness

So before I was sidetracked by the rude commenter I mentioned in the previous post, I was actually gearing up to let you all know that yes, I have improved.

Physically I appear exactly as I did this morning, but don’t let your stupidity fool you.

This is the new me.

The new and improved me, to be specific.

I joined a workshop on Assertive Communication, and man has it turned my life around.

Behold, the new and assertive Miss Choi!

I have to say it wasn’t as painful as I’d feared it would be.  We did have a short getting-to-know-you bit, where we all had to share something unique about us.  I briefly considered suicide after hearing the other participants’ life tidbits.  Consider:

• I improved my life by joining the Speech Club and winning a declamation contest. Hooray!
• I find public speaking difficult.
• I nearly died of drowning when I was seven. (Way to go existential there, Michelle.)

Maybe I should have gone with the classic “I sold my soul to the devil for a can of beer when I was eight” just to shake things up.  But I didn’t.

Instead I wrote, “I was a fan of Kenneth Peralta in the late 80s”.

So lame it could have competed in the Special Olympics and won.

The workshop itself was actually useful, though, and I think I learned something helpful.  Here’s how it works: when attacked, simply repel it by reverting the force back to the opponent.

Sort of like Tai Chi Boxing, but less exhausting.

If I apply my newly learned assertiveness on the situation with my latest hater, it would go something like this:

Hater: Miss Choi is a bitch.

Miss Choi: Interesting. In what ways would you say I have acted bitch-like?

See what I did back there?  Totally fucked up the dude’s mind is what I did.  If I thrown in a polite little “fuck you” in there, the thing will be so assertive you won’t even have a mind left for me to blow.

But to be honest, I think it’s really done something to me.

This morning, before this all started, I was just a bitch.

Now, I’m an assertive bitch.

That’s got to count for something.

Someone Hates Me

I know I’m not a nice person, and people are not obliged to like me, but I certainly didn’t expect the amount of vitriol I received from a particularly hateful comment today.

I’m not popular and most of the time the only people who drop by here are people who know me to a certain degree.  What’s weird is that the comment  really wasn’t commenting on anything.  It didn’t criticize any of my posts or opinions.  It did warn me: “huwag kang magpiling“.  Of course.

Let me just say that since I’m in a very nice and friendly mood today, I would like to give my new found hater a bit of an acknowledgment:

Dear anonymous commenter,

I hope you understand why I had to delete your comment in my post about Jollitown.  It was filled with so much anger that I simply could not let it stay and befoul my domain.

Let me just say that I understand you. I do. Sometimes when people bitch about the stuff I love, I get angry, too.

Was it something I said about Jollitown?  Did I hit a sore spot deep within your heart?  Perhaps I had been too hard on Hetty.

In any case, I do hope we can get past this.  Who knows, maybe one day I can return the favor and leave hateful comments on your blog, too.

Only it won’t be anonymous, because unlike you, man, I have balls.

Love and light,

Miss Choi

Buy “Roles” or Be Square

I guess you can’t get any more direct than that.

I’m taking a break from my self-imposed blogging hiatus (also known as laziness) to tell you, yes you, to go out and buy a copy of Siege Malvar’s controversial first novel, Roles: A Not Quite Unreal Novel.  Being the powerful and influential blogger that I am, I just know that you, dear reader, will be halfway out the door right now, tearing down the streets at top speed just to do my bidding.

But should some of you be unreliable infidels who need more cajoling, let me give you a few reasons why you should leave the house now and buy a copy.

1. Because I said so. 
2. You want more? Well okay. Crash, the sequel is about to be come out, and you need to read the first novel and get ready for it, of course.
3. Because Siege Malvar is a fantastic writer, and you would be missing out.
4. Because local writers deserve our support. 
5. Because if you do so, Siege will owe me a favor.  Muahahaha!