so here it is folks. three months worth of rants and stories all in one freakishly long blog. get yourself a supersized cup of coffee because you're going to need it. (unless you happen to be interested in what i am saying. gosh, thanks!) don't worry i'm going to break it down so you can take regular bathroom breaks.
i have forgotten how much fun the holidays are in manila. i went there for a two week action-packed vacation. i met up with friends from high school and had multiple reunions with the family. there was something going on every single day of the week. shopping one day. visiting relatives the next. more shopping. partying with friends on the weekend. 'twas great fun! also i forgot how exciting new year's eve was. fireworks displays are everywhere! and by everywhere i mean E V E R Y W H E R E. my head didn't know where to turn to see the awesome fireworks.
i love going back to the Philippines but i do NOT enjoy the plane ride. almost a day door to door. i hate that the flight attendants wake you at the most inopportune times to serve food. it's not enough that they bring around the massive and loud food carts, they have to turn the lights on, too! so if you just nodded off to sleep, you're S.O.L. it's not like the food's great either, but i have to eat just so i don't get extremely hungry when i get off the plane. and if that's not bad enough, i was seated next to a baby that cried all the time. and a dad who was already drunk before take off. he was not a happy drunk. niiiice...i'm just lucky, aren't i?
february went by unnoticed, except for a few blips in the birthday calendar, and after work bar nights. no need for me to go off in a valentine's day tangent. i did however stick to my guns and is still not talking to the girl in the office. i'm civil with her now, but i realize that i cannot hold a conversation with her without me rolling my eyes afterwards. i've given up on figuring her out and tolerating her demeanor. i am done. that is all i'm going to talk about regarding her.
march! yes, my birthday month and the official start of spring. also a new daylight savings time start date has been implemented which coincided with my birthday. that event therefore caused me an hour of valuable birthday time. i only got 23 hours to celebrate instead of the normal 24. i don't mean to whine, but if you watch that show 24, you know that 1 hour is precious. aside from that yearly anomaly, there have been a lot of up's and down's.
let's start with the downers, i.e. grad school rejections. when you see that thin envelope in the mail, or these days, the email with the subject line "admission decision," your heart starts pounding and you brace yourself for the bad news. yes, i did see three rejections. all of them via email. first rejection was from precious princeton. their email had the audacity to say towards the end,
Realizing that a timely response to our applicants is very important, we have chosen this less-than-perfect method of advising you of our admission decision electronically, since that is the very quickest way of communicating this important information to you. We apologize for the informality of this email, knowing that past practice would have you receiving a formal, signed letter from my office (I would, of course, be happy to provide such a letter if you so desire).ok, let me get this straight. you want me to request a rejection letter from you guys? for what?! so i could laminate it and put it up on my loser wall? no, thank you. is it just me, or is this method tactless and absurd? i would understand if their excuse included some reference to the whole eco-awareness issue, but it isn't. this email actually made me laugh at the end. oh, pure ivy league comedy. but seriously, i was actually expecting to get rejected since it was my crap shoot school. plus, it made me feel better that everyone who i knew applied (and these are people who had better credentials than me: longer work experience, near perfect GPA and GRE scores, better presented portfolio) was rejected right out.
second rejection was from uc berkeley. this was much harder for me to stomach because i really wanted to go there. well...to california to be more general. again, rejected via email. the one good thing about being rejected via email is that it seems to soften the blow. they tell you what they need to tell you, but it's all still in cyberspace. it's not quite as tangible as holding that one page letter with the admissions director's signature. it's easier to shake off, say "eh!" and move on. (i guess they did a study on that stage of the admissions process. hey, look, they'll be less likely to hurt themselves if we do this.) oh, and here's another fun quote from that rejection letter. you think princeton's excuse was pretty lame. well, berkeley started my email with "Dear Applicant" and ended with,
My apologies also that we were unable to send you a personalized message, unfortunately our current email system does not allow us to do so.yes, let us blame the IT department on that snafu.
rejection three via email is from UCLA. by this time, i was a little desensitized by the personal potshots i've taken from the two previous schools. (hahaha!) i admit i was a little shocked to find out, but hey i guess the universe has other plans for me.
i am not out here to badmouth these schools. i understand that they have better use of their time than to sign and send rejection letters to highly-acceptable-but-didn't-quite-get-there applicants. these are some of the best schools in the country, and people who get in deserve the quality education they provide.
i'm just so glad that i got that acceptance from parsons (in nyc), which is now calling itself "the new school," before the back to back to back rejections because after that i knew i was going to grad school somewhere. after the UCLA email, i got a huge heavy envelope from rhode island school of design (RISD). i was really psyched to get that decision from RISD. come on, it's the former home of seth macfarlane, creator of family guy - quite possibly the most genius cartoon on tv right now. (more on my visit to RISD later.) then an email from cal poly pomona came with good news of my acceptance. sometime in the middle of that, i received a "wait-list" decision from southern california institute of architecture. so in summary i was 3-3-1. not bad for a grad school rookie. (see next post for post admission decisions "drama")
even though i only had 23 hours for my actual birthday, i did have a whole weekend to celebrate it. starting with a hot pot/game night at my friend's place. it wasn't planned to be for my birthday but it was happened to be scheduled on that friday. it was fun talking to friends i've not seen in a while. we didn't actually get to the games because the food was so good and the company, even better. then on saturday (3.10), i got an invite for a movie night at my co-worker's place. since i didn't have anything planned, i agreed. the movie we saw wasn't great. actually it was downright horrible. it was a disaster of a film and a waste of money. the plot and acting are both sub-par to say the least. we ended up laughing at the most absurd moments. mind you, this is supposed to be a serious thriller. riiight, the only thrilling thing about it is the one car/truck crash that obliterated a brand-spankin' new sports car into a thousand metal and glass pieces, which i've already seen from the tv previews. but the evening was good and it ended with a midnight "happy birthday" greeting. so sweet. sunday was reserved for the family. it was actually a joint birthday lunch. my uncle celebrated his a couple of days before mine. caught up with family news. all in all a relaxing birthday weekend. nothing too big and extravagant. just the way i like it.
the weekend after was st. patrick's day. my co-worker threw a "scotch and whiskey" party. i didn't actually get to the good scotch nor the expensive whiskey because i was nursing my second beer (which was forced into my hands) until the end of the night. i was seriously afraid to leave a floater. i did get to mock the host as we asked for a scotch and whiskey 101 lesson. it was fun to ask him silly yet seemingly innocent questions as he went about answering each one in the most serious manner. it was a fun party even though the last half hour got quite a bit out-of-hand. no worries. cops were not involved in anyway. everyone was responsible enough to not disturb the peace.
the next friday, i earned an extra $26 for winning two bets. one was to drink a shot of prairie fire (hot sauce and tequila) and the other (double or nothing) was to drink the remaining hot sauce used as dipping sauce for the chicken wings. advice: if you are ever involved in a bet to drink hot sauce, i suggest you do it in a single gulp. much easier to deal with and the heat only goes up to your chest for about a few seconds and disappears. but i am proud to say that i am able to cross that off my "things-to-do-in-life" list. (not that it was ever there in the first place.)
alright....on to the next post.