Melodies of Life

Foreword: Parts 1, 2, and 3 can be found at [my] Multiply, Blogger, and Black Anime Den pages, respectively.

Congratulations on successfully reaching the final part of my post. (Maybe you skipped. I don’t care.)

I’m sorry to inform you all that this may be my final post on my Friendster blog for a few months or even years. I’ll be posting at Black Anime Den (my new webpage) instead. There you’ll find a poll, a chatbox, et cetera - everything is at your disposal.

Well, that’s all I have to say in the meantime, and see you soon!

FIN

Note: Notice that I deliberately shortened this post. Sumimasen…

Today was the start of my second year classes in college. It felt rather unfair why we had such a short vacation compared to the other schools (Some Ateneans had summer classes, so they can be excused.).

It was hard to believe that my summer vacation was over…

I tried my best not to be late at school today, and I succeeded. With high expectations, and a bit of nervousness, I entered my first class…

FILDLAR

I was wrong to think that FILDLAR was all about writing. From what was discussed earlier,  FILDLAR actually stands for "Filipino sa Iba’t Ibang Larangan at Disiplina." The subject was more focused into research, another one of my weakest skills (in Filipino). Oh well…

Our professor’s name is Ms. Wena Valerio. Just stating some facts…

DEVEWEB

This term’s official terror subject for almost everybody. Our professor was Mr. Allan Chu, and he says that he has bad handwriting. He is a bit of the terror type that knows how to add spice in every lesson.

Who’s scarier? Sir Allan or his wife? Please comment on this. Kaite kudasai…

LBYENVC

My first comment on this subject is: Why is the course code spelled like that? Laboratory Environmental Chemistry? Where is the ‘Y’ in ‘LBYENVC?’

Our instructor is Mr. Carlo C. dela Sena. He gave that out in a surprise quiz a while ago - what is his complete name?

JAPALA1

We first ate at Jollibee and had a tour around La Salle before entering classes; I saw some Uneans around the campus. I guess it was time for us to say goodbye to Andrew and say hello to Gokongwei in the meantime, and also the Science Research Center.

Hajimemashite
Brillo (Brio) desu
Douzo yoroshiku onegai shimasu

…was our professor’s introduction. In English, it means…

Hello
I am Brillo
Nice to meet you

Yoroshiku onegai shimasu… this greeting brings forth a lot of memories… Hai.

He also taught us some greetings:

Ohayoo gozaimasu, which was intended to be uttered on or before 10 AM

Konnichiwa, to be used as a greeting only when the sun is still visible

… and the funniest…

Konbanwa (I remember the time we ate at Tokyo Cafe. I told the story to my blockmates, and we giggled while Brio-Sensei was discussing.) He seemed to most of his sentences (English, Filipino, or Japanese) with ‘ne.’ So…

Minna-san. Kiite kudasai (or rather, read on)…

Readers-ne. I’m about to end-ne. Or maybe not-ne. So douzo…

Anyway, our sensei was rather amusing.

This ends my post. English translations of Japanese words can be found below.

Sayonara.

Douzo - Please
Hajimemashite - Hello
Kaite kudasai - Please write
Kiite kudasai - Please listen
Konbanwa - Good night
Konnichiwa - Good day
Minna-san - Everybody
Ohayoo Gozaimasu - Good morning
Sayonara - Goodbye
Sumimasen - Excuse me
Yoroshiku onegai shimasu - Nice to meet you

This is the last chapter of the 8 parts of ‘1^st Term Break.’

These past two days, everything has gone considerably well…

Friday - I planned to buy the notebook I desired on Saturday; thus, today was my final day of deliberate canvassing. We ended up with two stores. The first is Axis Distribution, the official distributor of Fujitsu and Asus notebooks, as well as many other products. (Thermaltake is also being distributed by Axis; I’m still trying to contact them.) The second one is an ‘I don’t know what.’ My mom’s brother knows someone who can provide us with products at cheaper prices. TByte, was it – in SM San Lazaro, and PC Corner, in SM Manila. There is also a branch in SM MegaMall.

Axis Distribution only accepts cash, and we wouldn’t want to bring a vast amount of money with us. Anyone with a straight mind would agree with me, right?

PC Corner (Let’s just use this name.), on the other hand, would accept checks but the product has to be reserved one day in advance to be able to claim it the following day.

Tough choice: We preferred ordering from the official supplier but their stringy requirements just won’t do. With no other choice left, we settled for second best.

To cut the long story short…

The following day, I was excited enough to get my laptop to bombard it with multifarious amounts of programs to test its limitations. Unfortunately, I had a serious case of laryngitis that day, so I went to see my acupuncturist first. After that, me and my parents headed to SM Manila, where we encountered a lot of problems.

1.       We got lost on the way. The main entrance had already been blocked.

2.       We encountered terrible flash floods that prevented us from returning home.

3.       A heavy rainstorm and heavy mists created a really messy traffic jam.

At home, I installed some programs and then went to bed at 2 AM.

And to think I never slept. From 2 to

7 in

the morning, I was lying down on my bed trying to put myself to a deep sleep. I failed desperately…

Insomnia attacks once again.

One reason may be because my father forced me to drink coffee last night when we were waiting for the rain to cool down. Surprisingly, caffeine never affected my sleeping habits before.

Sunday – Despite of Joanie’s and Nicolo’s ‘betrayal,’ I managed to do all my things at Robinson’s Place. At home, I prepared all my things for tomorrow, the start of the 2^nd term.

Ah yes, school starts once again. I’m so happy! It had been really boring at home. Now equipped with a notebook PC, let us rule the world! Muhahaha!

Yeah, yeah. I know I rarely update my Friendster Blog. I’m updating it today, thank goodness. Just remember that my main blog is at http://gadgetkid.blogspot.com/, so if you want recent posts, go there! Pictures? Visit my Multiply account. The link can be found at the latter part of this post.

Part Two - The day Steve Irwin rocked the planet.

I was bored. So bored. Classes would resume on September 11. I was afraid that something might happen on that day. (Remember the 911 massacre? World Trade Center in US?) That’s also the day I plan to bring my to-be notebook computer (whatever it may be) to school. That’s why I told my mom to accompany me to Ortigas to browse for laptops.

One convertible fascinated me. No. Two. Fujitsu P1510 and Fujitsu T4210. The two are convertibles, meaning that they can be converted from a simple notebook to a tablet PC and vice versa anytime, anywhere.

Tablet PC? You know, like a PDA. You use a stylus to write notes and stuff. Owning one would make people stare in awe. (I was kidding.)

The problem lies in the vast difference between the two models. If you know me, you would know that I prefer a smaller laptop than a really bulky one. P1510 is really small. It’s viewing area is only 8.9 inches wide, making it one of the smallest, if not the smallest (excluding Sony’s handheld PC) notebook computers around. It also possesses a unique touch-screen feature, which isn’t present in most notebooks. Cool!

The only drawback is that this ultraportable doesn’t have a CD-ROM drive installed - not really an ultimate disappointment. I’m glad I bought an external DVD burner a few weeks ago. Also, you sacrifice power for mobility. A letdown.

T4210 is the other way around. It’s "quite large" (around 12 inches - it’s still small for most users) but is equipped with an Intel Dual Core processor, making it one of the most powerful convertibles around. It also boasts of a dual-hinge screen, so that you can turn the screen to any direction, left or right. What saddened me is that, this model still isn’t available in the Philippines. Shucks.

I’ve considered buying a VAIO (Sony) before, but eventually I realized that I have to go for functionality than just by brand. Hey, Fujitsu is world-renowned also.

I wanted to go to Axis Distribution today (the official distributor of Fujitsu and Acer notebooks in this country, but my mom’s schedule was full.

I went with my mom somewhere to take an x-ray of my teeth. After returning home. My dad shocked me with the news "Steve Irwin is dead."

In case you don’t know:

Stephen Robert Irwin (22 February 1962 – 4 September 2006), also known as the Crocodile Hunter, was an Australian naturalist and television personality, best known for the television program The Crocodile Hunter, an unconventional wildlife documentary series broadcast worldwide and co-hosted with his wife Terri Irwin. The pair owned and operated Australia Zoo in Beerwah, Queensland.

Irwin parlayed youthful experience as a crocodile trapper into an international television career, a feature film, and a series of accolades in Australia for his promotion of tourism and environmental awareness. Irwin, who had a fearless image as a wrangler of large, dangerous animals, was a committed conservationist. His cavalier showman’s approach also drew criticism, especially after an incident when he held his baby boy while feeding crocodiles at his zoo.

That was from Wikipedia…

It was really unlucky for him to get stabbed (Maybe? The media still isn’t very clear about this.) by a stingray, considering how harmless that elegant marine species (There is no singular form for ’species.’) is.

At night, we went to La Funeraria Paz to pay our respects just like we did the past few days. We went home fighting against a heavy rainstorm blocking our way. After encountering knee-deep floods and hazy mists, we arrived home safely.

Click here for Part 3 - The day Fujitsu P1510 reveals itself.

I was finally out of titles (in Friendster Blogs)…

Anyway, today, I spent my morning at church, as usual, regretting over the additional careless mistakes I’ve committed in yesterday’s quiz. That was the reason why I felt so down that morning (and yesterday night).

After enduring a few seconds with a flat tire (which exploded for unknown reasons), we transferred to my acupuncturist’s car and went to Robinson’s Ermita.

Sigh… Robinson’s Place again. Why not SM San Lazaro instead? I needed to buy something from Comic Alley…

We ate at Tang City while my father was busy with his insurance business. After eating, me and my mom frequented the usual areas - AstroVision, DataBlitz, Octagon (I bought a miniature vacuum cleaner for my computer.), GigaHertz… Who would forget GBox?

Since Dance Maniax was fixed, I always spend my spare time on GBox. I had my weekly doze of Dance Maniax (4 games consecutive). Hey Lou, do you still think you can catch up? Practice!

Lou was one of my block companions who got addicted to Dance Maniax (because of my bidding). As I’ve said before, she really resembles Stephanie… Like wow!

At home, I organized my Machine Project and managed to complete another part of it. Is it true that there would be a defense? If yes, then great! You can take me on anytime!

Hello there!

I know I had not been posting (here) for so long already. I know that you are (not) anticipating my "weirdest" title in my other blog - http://gadgetkid.blogspot.com/. Anyway, I’m glad that you have come to read my new post.

Since last week, homework’s been increasing rapidly. I can tell you that every day this week, I sleep at around 3 - 4 AM. It’s all because of that machine project of ours - scientific calculator thingy. I’ll upload it when I’m through.

Today’s post won’t be like those sesquipidalian posts I’ve been *group messaging* you about. In fact, I won’t concentrate on today’s events. I’ll be concentrating more on homework.

I’ve spent more than 120 hours (that’s five whole days) working on my machine project. I can tell you that I’m a bit ahead of (some of) my blockmates, who just started working on the project…

Today’s post - Things to note of:

1. MooMedia General Assembly
2. Unean batchmates I saw: Joanie Ipili, Ralph Timtim, Keith Villanueva, Kathy Yeung
3. Van’s doing well after his vaccination.
4. I’ve finally acquired the BeastOut mode in Mega Man Battle Network 6. Just mentioning.
5. Homework time - LASARE1 reflection paper, LSCS description for DLSU website (I’m honored.), Machine Project, and of course…

THIS POST!

Short post, isn’t it?

We had an outreach program called Clip 2006 this morning. I went there, shocked to see that my friends weren’t around…

I went up to the third floor to see if the program had already started. No, they must’ve left without me…

I called up my mom and told her about my current situation. Yna wasn’t there, and Rochelle was nowhere to be seen. I decided to text them…

I didn’t have Yna’s number. Fortunately, I had Rochelle’s. I asked her where she is. Then I sat down at the bench nearest me.

I didn’t know Rochelle was just seated behind me. She called my attention. I asked her if ‘it’ has already started. Not yet…

Finally, Yna arrived. The VP Socio-Civic briefed us regarding our duties - to assist in teaching high school students how to use Microsoft Word. Sounds interesting…

Nine o’clock. The students started arriving… After some preparations, we guided the high school students to their respective computer laboratories…

The first part of the session was listening to a lecture, followed by hands-on work. We taught them about fonts, alignment, paragraphs, bullets and numbering, cut and paste, and the like. My ’student’ was learning fast enough so I decided to teach her about hyperlinks. What a fast learner!

To be continued at http://gadgetkid.blogspot.com/…

I can see that may people are reading my blog. Don’t forget that I have another blog found at http://gadgetkid.blogspot.com/. Visit it also! That’s all for now.

Short post, isn’t it?

Yes, I haven’t been posting as often as you people think nowadays, for a valid reason…

Well, you see, we had this INTRICT (Introduction to Information and Communications Technology) project and we had to report this Monday. Being the group leader, I couldn’t help but feel a responsibility surging up to me. I organized a video shooting last Friday at Portal, the Internet cafe above Yellow Cab near La Salle. We were to take videos and pictures of our blockmates playing their addictive games, namely, Counter Strike, Battle Realms, DotA AllStars, Gunbound, O2 Jam, Ragnarok Online, Warcraft, and a lot more…

Lunchtime arrived, and so we ate at Luto ni Ina. I ordered a Chiksilog. After that, we went back to Portal.

Although, I was late for a few minutes, we managed to achieve our goal, and the finished product can be found here: http://gadgetkid.blogspot.com/

It took me four hours to fabricate that video, and with my video editing skills and a very familiar melody, walla, a job well done. We’re only doing this for INTRICT! (And this is Wazzup! Wazzup! Just Facts.)

The next day, my hopes of holding an organized meeting was shattered as schedules were driven crazy. In the morning, only Veronica was there, but she had to go before lunch. After lunch, we fetched Treisha at Bambang Station, with Aya nowhere to be found. We had a brief discussion of our plans and tactics. Eventually, she had to leave.

Aya never arrived. We could only communicate to her by text messaging.

Sunday, after uploading the files to our INTRICT e-group, and after returning home from Shangri-La Hotel, I coordinated with my groupmates through instant messaging (IM). We ought to finish discussing at least half of our module tomorrow.

The next day, I went through all the trouble by bringing with me my smoke machine, my Altec Lansing 220 speakers (which are no match for my Altec Lansing FX6021), two ‘mountains,’ and the like to La Salle. After meeting up with Shirlina and her peers, Aya was the first one to arrive at school. She helped me with my things and we left them at the guard.

Lunchtime, Vero arrived. I went down to meet her from the Sports Complex. She brought with her two notebook computers. After uploading the necessary files into her laptop PC, I went to lunch myself, spending the least time and money.

Treisha arrived afterwards and taught us our choreography. We then practiced for quite a while. People were looking at us. What do we care?

We begged to our ALGTRIG professor to have us dismissed early. He didn’t mind.

After ALGTRIG classes, I rushed to Gokongwei and set up our props. Most of them (smoke machine and speakers), however, needed to be plugged into an electric socket. I waited for our maid to bring me the things I needed, and then hastily returned to the classroom.

We took a quiz. After that, we had our report. Everything was going on smoothly until our video presentations experienced some technical problems. My head went berserk and my head went blank, forgetting my lines…

It was awful, my groupmates were seemingly mad at me. I promised to make it up. We figured out that we have the option to extend our report until Friday. We did so…

Let’s skip Tuesday…

Wednesday, after editing the script and converting the videos into SWF format, we were ready to go for another shot. We restarted back from the very beginning of our report and ended up with an Internet Timeline game / quiz. Group 3 was outstanding and garnered 14 points. The rest got scores of below 10.

Vero pleaded to our professor to share her insights about our report. At first she hesitated, but we managed to squeeze some information from her. She wasn’t satisfied with our report, and was expecting a major improvement on Friday…

(Starting here, I’ll be more specific…)

Thursday, My father insisted that I ride a jeepney instead of the LRT. Why? What’s the use? I have a trauma for jeepneys, not because that I was held up in one, but because for me, jeepneys are much more dangerous than LRT trains, although the two both pose hazards and risks for passengers.

Here are my reasons:

1. There are far more people in LRT trains than jeepneys. Those marauding incidents ought to occur less than in jeepneys.
2. An LRT train is usually air-conditioned, so I don’t mind standing up for the whole trip. Jeepneys, on the other hand, make you feel constricted. Any time, one would be able to grab a dagger and stab you in any part of your body and then make a grand escapade.
3. I don’t know about this, but I feel that there are more civilized people riding LRT trains than in jeepneys, and so I feel more relazed.
4. Compare the crime rate in jeepneys and in LRT trains, which one posts a higher risk?

I’ve heard multitudes of unfortunate events that happened in jeepneys. Why be one of the victims?

To anyone out there who has a right mind, can you knock some sense into my father? He won’t listen to me. He won’t even listen to my grandma, or my relatives.

It’s better to spend more money in transportation than to be an unlikely victim of snatching and kidnapping.

Back to my story, I arrived a few minutes late for my INTRPRG (Introduction to Programming) and was happy to receive my first 100% in that particular subject (Hands-On Examination), I received another perfect score when I successfully corrected the syntax error in a given source code. Off to lunch.

We ate at La Casita (Andrew). This time, I tried their speribs… I was amazed to see my food served almost immediately after I ordered them… We had a test in ALGTRIG (Algebra and Trigonometry) at 1 o’clock, and so we reviewed…

My day was ruined…

Jump to Friday, we were not sure if we would have PE classes…

Turned out to have none… We didn’t prepare for our reporting today. We only have at hand our PowerPoint presentations, our background music, and our presence of mind.

"Bahala na…"

We started our report. Everything turned out much smoother than expected. We lacked time for games though, but everything went well…

Our professor was glad with our improvement, and she promised us a high grade.

Chavz recognized the music I used, two songs from Naruto Movie 2. I knew it. Yesterday, I accidentally browsed through his profile and saw this Naruto video in his site. Figures.

"Hay salamat, tapos na!"

No, it’s not yet over yet…

On Tuesday (this coming Tuesday, Thursday, or the Tuesday after next week), we would have another presentation. This time, it was SCIENVB (Environmental Biology). I’m interested in how things would turn out…

I never thought college life would be so stressful. Yesterday (or a while ago), I slept at 3 in the morning and woke up at 9AM. This may be the reason why I feel weak today…

Till here. I better get some rest.

It was Sunday again, what do you expect? Time passes by so quickly…

Nicolo joined me today to church, not knowing that we were going to SM MegaMall afterwards. He was shocked when he found out. Well, I thought he knew about it in the first place. Anyway, we had our gospel meeting and Nicolo was so shy that he didn’t want to stand up from his seat…

It was lunchtime. MegaMall time! I want to buy a Ragnarok Lighthalzen CD. No, loads of them. Tons of freebies are waiting to be grabbed, and what’s more, there would be a costume play!

Unfortunately, there was a sudden twist of plans. My uncle wanted to treat me and my family to lunch because soon it would be Moses’ birthday. No! No way! I wanted to go to SM MoA, but not today. No! Never!

What can I do? It was already my 6th time to go to SM MoA, and by this time, I’m getting a little irritated. I suggested that after eating, we go straight to SM MegaMall for the ToyCon. My parents said nothing. Nicolo was silent.

Fortunately, one of my wishes came true. We ate at Sekae Sushi (correct spelling). Good Place, Even Good Sushi. - their motto.

Shouldn’t it be "Good Place, Better (or Great) Sushi?"

Anyway, they ordered food traditionally but I ordered mine through the flat-panel LCD screen situated at the side of the conveyor belt. The food was delicious. I decided to try taking food from the conveyor belt. They taste great. Nicolo was speechless. Eventually, we were all speechless when we found out that our bill amounted up to 7000+ pesos! (1000+ tax can you believe that?)

Editing it again, "Good Place, Great Sushi, Greatest Price!"

After eating, we parted ways and headed to SM MegaMall. Before that though, we had chopsticks fighting, stabbing, and many more. Joanie’s famous picture we also gave to Moses, her beloved.

A heavy embouteillage greeted us on our way to SM MegaMall, and we arrived there at about 4:30 in the afternoon; it was already late.

First of all, we headed to none other than Megatrade Hall 2 where Toycon 2006 is held. Who’d expect that there would be an entrance fee of 60 pesos. Quite expensive, perhaps, until we entered the realm of Toycon.

We (Nicolo and I) wandered on a seemingly endless route. The place was full of stalls selling comics, anime stuff, speaker systems, programs, and many more. Confused with the number of people and the vastness of the area, I directed us to the Ragnarok section. Waaa… no more CDs, and no freebies left. We went around, the place was as confusing as ever. O2 Jam, Dota, and other network games conquered a lot of territory. We left soon after we got bored.

We traversed down into the ice skating rink, and we found out that it was undergoing temporary maintenance. We checked out the skating rates, and we were dumbfounded. Form a previous 180 pesos, the price soared up to 320 pesos! Inflation!

Instead of skating, we proceeded to the token booth of Worlds of Fun and bought 10 tokens for 6 pesos each. We raced first, afterwards, I had to convince Nicolo about something.

After waiting for two people to finish playing, it was our turn to play Dance Maniax. I occupied the left side and Nicolo on the right. We played. Nicolo wanted all songs to be in Mild mode. I asked him how he would be able to catch up with Joanie in his pace. Well, we played…

Shockingly, for an expert player, I was playing very badly. Eventually, I figured out that my upper left sensor was malfunctioning. My rank was staggering. My mom called. I got irritated. Kaboom! Game Over!

What?! No way! This isn’t happening to me!

Another round! I have to show those guys (watching from behind my back) that I am not your typical player. We switched places with Nicolo and we played another round of Dance Maniax. I was really furious, so the songs that I chose were all in Wild mode, namely, Locomotion, Heaven is a ‘70 Metallic Gray, and All My Love. Yeah!

I serenaded my way up to rank S in just a few seconds, while poor Nicolo got a rank F in time. People were watching us, and the audience kapt on increasing as seconds pass by. The number reached to 20. Nicolo felt so conscious. I smiled silently; they were all watching me… *snicker*

I ended with my third rank S on All My Love. The audience was amazed. Nicolo said that he doesn’t want to return back to UST anymore. *laughter*

I didn’t stop there. I found out that TimeZone offers the same game for only 5 pesos. This has got to be a dream. Is there such a thing. Well, there is…

TimeZones in other branches offer the game Dance Maniax for 15 - 20 pesos per game. Wow, that’s a huge proce gap.

I loaded my card with 50 pesos. Nicolo wants to race, so I let him use my card. 10 pesos, expensive. I lined up for Dance Maniax afterwards.

A person was dancing wildly in front of me, using his shin and his hands and his feet, his head too! Someone took out his PowerCard and approached the card swiper. I was honored when he gave me the privelege to swipe first. After all, I was the first one there. Seems like SM MegaMall holds some civilized and educated people for a change.

When it was already my turn, Nicolo was done with his race. I swiped my card again so that he would be able to play. And so we did…

Tubthumping, Boys, and All My Love (again). The first is quite challenging, the second, really exhausting, and the third, no comment.

I couldn’t accept the fact that Nicolo could actually attain a rank A in the first song, S in the second one, and B in the third. No, impossible. Maybe the machine wasn’t working properly… You beat Joanie? How come you didn’t do well in Mild mode a while ago? These are some of the questions that need to be answered.

After buying some accessories for my new cell phone, I looked for my mom in Cyberzone.

"Hey! Watch where you’re going!"

"Pa-English speaking pa diyan," Nicolo commented as the lady continued on her way.

I met Romeson, a blockmate of mine, and he was shopping for laptops. He asked me the same thing. I replied with a ‘yes.’

It was late. After some road problems, we were back again at our house (and Nicolo on his) and that’s all for now.