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Last night my mind went blank while waiting for sleep to come to me. I had nothing of urgency to finish in time for the next day (i.e., today), so I wasn’t cramming for anything. It was the first idle moment of the week. The clock on the TV was ticking so loudly. It was half past midnight, 5 hours shy of when I should be getting ready for the next day. So I coerced myself to focus on something. I became greedily conscious of time itself. I wanted more time to sleep, think… I had this list in my head and here I am recording it.

School-related
Lectures. 11 hours a week.
Student consultation. About a half-hour a day, 2-3 times a week.
Lesson formulation. About an hour, 5 days a week.
Student evaluation. About an hour, 2-3 times a month.
Sit for classes. 3 hours, twice a week.
“Range total” per month: 96-98 hours a month
Roughly 14 %

Self-perpetuation/preservation
Sleep. Generally 5-8 hours, 7 days a week.
Cook. About 2 hours, 3 or 4 times a week.
Pets. About 2 hours, 6-7 days a week.
Time with Ajay. About a half day(5-6 hours?), once or twice a month.
Time with Folks. 2-3 hours a day, 2-3 times a week.
With Friends. 3-4 hours a day, 1-2 times a month.
“Range total” per month: 131 - 190 hours per month
Roughly 25%

Sins.
Boob tube. 2-3 hours a sitting, once or twice a week.
PS2 Games. 1-2 hours a sitting, once or twice a month.
Book indulgence. 2-3 hours a sitting, once or twice a week.
“Range total” per month: 17 - 50 hours per month
Roughly 5 %

Etc.
Commute. About 1.5 hours. 5-6 days a week.
Net. About 1-2 hours a day. 2-3 days a week.
Blank moments. About an hour a day. 7 days a week.
“Range total” per month: 66 - 88 hours a month
Roughly 11 %

So it turns out I don’t really lack time. Meaning I’m only using up about 55-60% ? So where does almost half of all my time go?

Harry Potter Book 6 Launch: Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
Be one of the first 500 customers to purchase Harry Potter�s Book 6 and get loads of freebies! Plus! Come and See the Diagon Alley Set-up and enjoy a whole day fun of arts & crafts, exhibits and Harry Potter items!
Saturday, July 16, 2005
Activity Center

*digs around for her HPBook6 Powerbooks coupon….*

An article on blogging.

Hehe, funny how little things really blow up. Blogs of students caused them suspension from school when they became “blog-verbally” nasty.

We adopted a dog (askal - asong kalye) last Sunday, and Kuya and I named her Sasha. She’s about two months old already.. a dirty brown puppy with a pink nose. I gave a her a bath this morning. Welcome home Sasha

Aside from Sasha, we already have Nikki and Sam, adult half-breeds (i.e., mongrels) who’re really crazy. Sam has purebred German Shepherds for parents and Nikki has some obvious Spitz features. We always had dogs around ever since I could remember… I’m going to try to list them. I should put up pictures online to remember them too.

1. Bronson - Doberman. Was our first dog and guard dog. I was around 4 to 7 years old when he was around.
2. Snoopy (Nop-nop) - Shih-Tzu. We had Nop-nop while I was in early grade school. He was black and white, friendly and terribly cute.
3. Kara - Spitz. Kara lived out longer than Bronson and Snoopy.
4. Buban - Named after Kuya’s favorite soccer player at that time.
4b. ? - (can’t remember…)
5. Tres - Uhm… I think I left out a pooch betweenBuban and Tres. They were 3 that time, so that’s why he’s named Tres.
6. Minnie - Spoof to my cousin’s Basset named Maxi.
7. Nikko - Spoof to my cousin’s Basset named Nikki.
8. Maki - Basset Hound, the closest we ever had to Snoopy the Beagle. Though overly adorable and friendly (and understandably scary to strangers coz he’s a really large and heavy-looking dog, plus he barks so loud) My gosh… spittle, piss and poo everywhere!
9. Maxi - Offspring to my cousin’s Basset Nikki and Spitz Happy.
10. Pixie - Terrier. Gosh this dog vanished to thin air… He was very energetic and incredibly upbeat, ALL THE TIME! So full of life, and often noisy. I have my suspicions that the neighbors… well… Or it could be that he just ran away, ‘coz I think someone left the car door open that night.
10. Jack - Toy Poodle. By far, the only dog who practically lived inside our home. He was given to me as a gift when I turned 18. He lived long… (it really is true, small dogs live longer) considering that he was sickly as a puppy, and had trouble with his organs. I watched Kuya when he buried Jack, with favorite toy — a tennis ball. That was such a sad day for us all.
11. Potchi - recently passed on, two years ago I think…
12. Nikki - (present)
13. Tigger - actually, Tigger’s a cat. but she’s the only cat we ever had, and she thinks she’s a dog anyway. She already ran away. My mom used to like having Tigger around, keeping her company inside the house when she was at home alone. About 2 years ago, Kuya sort of rescued kitty Tigger from the kisame at the back of our house where a cat may have had her kittens, tapos naiwan si Tigger. Our dog Nikki was barking like crazy, and good thing Kuya got there in time, kundi malamang napuruhan ni Nikki itong si Tigger.
14. Sam - (present)
15. Sasha - (present)

Papa has been talking about setting up a dog kennel. It costs to have dogs around anyway, why not?

Other pets we had:
1. Happy - A monkey. It was fun having a monkey around at the beginning. I was about 8 years old, and I played with it often. ‘Til one time it clawed my cheek in an “incident”.
2. Alpha - A hamster. Female. Fierce. This one has a gruesome story behind it. Long story short: She devoured her little hamster newborns, and I do mean DEVOURED as in KINAIN!
3. Bravo - Alpha’s “hubby”. Friendly.
4. Charlie - Alpha and Bravo’s surviving (at that time, he’s gone now of course.) offspring. Male.
5. Delta - another offspring of Alpha and Bravo.
6. Aves - Pigeon. A real homing one. Really smart. But he did fly away and never came back
7. Budgie - Male budgerigar (called “love birds” by some people).
8. Gigi - Female budgerigar. Outlived Budgie by months… I trained Gigi and she’s REALLY smart. I often let her loose in the house, and she walks around and flies to her homecage by herself. Gosh I loved this bird. I was in Grade 6 that time.
9. Turtles - 10 red-eared ninja turtles who we never had a chance to name. My brother started out taking care of them when they were about the size of a glass coaster. They grew to as large as a plate! My brother gave them away one at a time. When we had but one left, he set him loose outside our house. Months later we saw him still walking around, amazingly! Most likely he was living on insects and rodents!
10. Fish - We took care of lots of different fish through the years, though at the moment we don’t have any. It’s really expensive to keep an aquarium, and we used to have two, one for the turtles and another for the fishies. My favorite was the plecostomus(janitor fish). It lived so long it grew to almost a foot! Hehe.

I used to keep a dream journal in college. I can’t find it anymore [much like I lost my childhood diaries... :(] but it helps me remember most of the storylines in my sleeping consciousness.

I want to start another.
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Eerie lifelike robot in recent World Expo in Japan.

Hey Diary aka Blog,

I was looking for your cousins this afternoon, I couldn’t find them! Nakakainis, mga childhood fantasies and private thoughts, all gone… Mukhang naisama sa mga itinapon nuong “spring cleaning”. Mabuti’t hindi naman kasama itong mga pictures na naipon ko mula pa nuong high school. Bukod sa mga diaries, yung mga “slumbooks” tsaka sulat mukhang naitapon din. Ansakeeeet *iyak iyak* ‘tleast now I don’t have to worry about anyone digging up my past, literally.

On a different note, I’ve been meaning to note down what’s been going on with me in the past couple of months. Aside from drowning myself in home-video exile, I’ve gone back to pencil-pushing in a different university. Ajay would most likely call me a traidor (ha! may tinawag ka nang ganun, aminin mo na!) but well, I don’t really see any more room to move in Diliman anymore. Suffice to say, I’m happy to be in La Salle at this time. Not that I’m happi-er than when I taught in UP, but rather because of the chance to handle classes that I enjoy.

Just a few things na napansin ko:

=The school spirit is different, yes. They form lines that wind around a lobby area just to get tickets to Archer-Eagle UAAP mania. It can get annoying when they chatter during class when there’s a coming weekend game. Especially on Fridays! A senior class that I handle offered me tickets, then casually (but abruptly) took back the offer saying “Ay UP ka ngapala Miss…” Hehe, they’re territorial. I don’t follow the UAAP games anymore, and they know I couldn’t care less anyway hehe. Kaninang umaga, tadtad ng Green and White balloons ang campus. Akalain mong may piyesta, yun pala nagpapakita lang sila ng support sa athletes nila. Mejo umambon nga lang, kaya nagulo ng kaunti yung decors. Dami nilang pera. Hehe.

=The students’ demeanor are remarkably different. The freshmen are understandably chaotic. Maski naman sa UP. Di pa kasi naibababad sa kultura. Pero yung mga upperclassmen, surprisingly, they are NICE. Some if not most UP students are snobbish; they come to class, sit, stare blankly, nod occasionally, stand and leave. These Lasallians will help you set up your things, turn off the lights for you (kapag may slides ka). Nagbubura pa ng blackboard yung iba. Private school nga. Ambait ng mga bata. Maski sabihin mo na panlabas lang yun, o pakita lang, mabait pa din ang kilos. May tagapagsabi pa ako kapag malapit na maubos ang oras.

=There’s a school bell! It chimes 10 minutes before each class. Di ito pwede gawin sa UP kasi labu-labu ang class intervals sa iba-ibang college/depts. Sa La Salle, pare-pareho. Unified. Ayus din dahil coordinated ang kilos; makikita mo ang flow ng students maayos din. Iisa halos ang direksyon.

=May Discipline Office. Meron din nito sa UP, pero anong silbi nila? Sa La Salle, visible ang DO. Sila dahilan kaya mejo disente manamit ang karamihan.

=Everything is well-documented; I’m surprised I could be almost self-sufficient, even as a newcomer.Hehe, nakakaaliw. Pati mga proseso ng admin, sobrang ayos. Nasanay ako sa gulo ni Madam Lagring sa UP Math. Ginhawa tuloy nito sa akin. Mas nagiging masipag ako ngayon magtrabaho at mag-aral. Ganun pala ang nagagawa ng kaayusan ng organisasyon. Tsk tsk, naawa ako sa sistema ng UP.

=Palaging may sort-of-”expo” sa main lobby nila. May featured products and services, (kanina may PLDTmyDSL, BodyShop tsaka Astringosol hehe), minsan may mga promos (last week may Chikka giveaways). Parang laging may interesting na tignan.

=Andaming libro sa library! At hindi maalikabok, halos pa bago ang mga editions!! Journal subscriptions nila napaka-dami. (Tanong ko lang, may gumagamit kaya? heehee) Sa UP, pahirapan maghalukay ng pera para lang mag-subscribe sa database ng scientific journals. Pucha, andaling maghanap sa LaSalle.

Andami talagang nagagawa ng pera.