Labor Day

It'll be May 1 in a couple of hours. It never used to make any difference to me, until this year.

May 1 is the day I promised myself that I will start taking this jobhunting thing seriously. May 1, Labor Day. Hahahaha. (Promise, I didn't really realize that I was starting my serious jobhunting thing on Labor Day. I just promised that I'll start when May begins, and it didn't dawn on me that it was Labor Day, until a friend pointed it out to me.)

One hour until I bid goodbye officially to the stress-less part of my summer. (Not that March-April was a total vacation, but, you get what I mean. Hahaha.) I've gone to all my planned trips, and I've at least spent time together with all my groups of friends out of town. (Except for my real high school barkada. Out of town trips are impossible with them.) At least I can say that I HAD a summer vacation, even though I didn't get to go out of the country. I feel like I satisfied my threshold for travelling, AND, I feel like I've gotten my feet full of sand already. I'll stop going to the beach for now. Hahaha. :)

Next destination? Jobstreet. Seriously. I need to get a move on.

Frenemies

Frenemies.

They're the people who are technically your friends, but are not afraid to become your enemies when the situation calls for it. At least, this is how I want the word to mean. Urban dictionary just does not do it justice.

I'd like to say that I am your frenemy. I tell you things right up front that no one would dare tell you. I tell you when you're getting on my nerves (which happen really often nowadays), and when you're making yourself look like an idiot in front of everyone else. I'd like to think that I have your best interests at heart. No, I do have your best interests at heart. What I'm just ranting about is that in keeping your best interests, I come off as a bitch to other people.

Well, not that I deny that I am a bitch sometimes; its just, perhaps, I don't want to be labelled a bitch and a backstabber. The things I keep ranting about you to other people, I tell you too. You know pretty well what I have against you.

Heck, I don't even know why I'm writing about this. I don't really care.. do I?

On Philosophizing

Perhaps one of the things I am most thankful to the Ateneo for is the opportunity to have Philosophy classes. Not everyone is able to have the opportunity to have the same kind of experience with Philosophy as we, Ateneans, have had. Four classes, 12 units. That's more than any school requires.

I may not have enjoyed all my Philosophy classes, but I am sure of one thing; that the lessons I learned especially in Ph103 (Philosophy of Religion) and Ph104 (Foundations of Moral Principles), will remain with me until I grow old. You know why? For the simple reason that finally, someone tried to answer all my questions about life.

Why believe in God? What's the use of all the symbols? Why do we have to believe in anything at all?

Who dictates what's right and wrong? How does one define what is morally right?

In the end, it did not matter if I believed what was being lectured or not. What mattered was that someone tried to explain it to me; someone tried to answer my questions. Their answers were of no use to me. It was the process they used to reach that kind of answer that made me enjoy philosophizing so much.

While having coffee this afternoon, Allan and I got into another heated discussion about morality and its grey areas. The issue of morality is a whole sheet of grey. There's no exactly right or wrong answer, it depends on how you explain it, on how you justify it. This just goes to show that maybe, philosophizing really is a personal thing. People like Kant, Tillich, Marcel, heck, even Plato and Aristotle, philosophized by themselves, probably using their own experiences or thoughts as a jump off point. Even they don't provide exact answers. If anything, they just provide you their own musings on the certain subject. You philosophize by yourself.

Real Life

I wish I could go back to college.
In college you know who you are.
You sit in the quad, and think, "Oh my God!
I am totally gonna go far!"

I wish I could go back to college. Seriously.

I think its very ironic that when you're young, you look forward to working, to actually being on your own, and then when you actually get there, you want to go back. I guess it has something to do with how adult life is glamourized when you're young. When I was a kid, the movies I watched taught me that adult life meant being tech savvy, being able to have your own car, have your own place, be in a competitive arena where everyone appreciates your worth, being able to go out to parties whenever you want to and having dinners and lunches with your friends at really nice restaurants.

Well, they're sort of true. But these things were stripped off its old glamour, and that's why it's not fun anymore.

It's the real world. Inasmuch as it can be fun, it's also very REAL.

And today, I got my first taste of the real world. Sad to say, I wasn't very happy about it.

There are so many things to say, so many stories about how the interview went. But, in the end, the important thing to say is that I think I'm not ready for it. And, the fact that when I got out of the back entrance of the building, the first thing that caught my attention when I looked up was the building of the Ateneo Professional Schools definitely did not help.

Was it a sign? Maybe.

Big Fish. Small Fish.

Today, my friends and I went to Manila Ocean Park, just behind the Quirino Grandstand, to see what the buzz was all about.

Okay. A little disclaimer here -- I'm not a fan of fishes; or any kind of marine life, for that matter. I don't mind seeing them from afar, but when it comes to interacting with them, well, I'd rather go somewhere else. However, I guess curiosity got the best of me this time. How can I let something like this pass, when I know that this is like a milestone for the Philippines. Finally, we're beginning to have the things that Singapore has. Haha.

So anyway. An adult ticket costs Php400, and a ticket for the kids cost Php350. No student discounts whatsoever (I was counting on this, even though technically, I'm not a student anymore. Hahahaha. They won't know anyway, right?) I think they had a senior citizen discount, but I didn't really pay attention to that.

The whole place is divided into 7 areas: Agos, Bahura, Laot, Buhay ng Karagatan, Ang Kalaliman, Overhang Tank and Pating. Well, from what I understood, Laot had all the freshwater fishes, including this gigantic fish, the Giant Arapaima, that welcomed us and shocked me by its sheer size. Bahura was where all the cute little reef fishes were. You know, the kind that you put in aquariums and stuff. Buhay ang Karagatan was where the bigger fishes were, and you can see them through this tunnel, just like what they have in Sentosa.

Ang Kalaliman had the big fishes that you see deep underwater, the Overhang Tank is where you can see the Pagi swimming above you, and the Pating is where (duh) the sharks are.

Perhaps the thing that I liked most about the whole thing are their labels. They have interactive labels which have trivia about the fishes, which were very eyecatching. I just didn't have much time to read them, because of the sheer bulk of people who were there with us (on a Wednesday! The horror! I wonder how crowded it gets on weekends.)

All in all, I enjoyed it. I may not be a fan of fishes, but this was a great experience. A lot of things need more work, though. Construction is still going on and I think, the area, especially the Laot and Bahura parts, are not equipped to cater to a LOT of people. People crowd around the tanks, and you don't really get to see the fishes with everyone taking pictures of everything. Maybe it would be better to go back after the hype has died down, and when the construction has finally finished.