:Six Feet Under… and then some.

Part of the process for applying for residency involves receiving rejection letters (if your scores are like mine, that is).  It becomes routine, actually, getting these notices in the mail.  However, it wasn’t enough for a certain institution to reject me once.  They sent me a second e-mail basically saying the same thing.
What was that?  Did they think I didn’t get the message after the first letter?  Did some back-room conversation go something like: "Hey Bob, send this kid another rejection letter.  He might still have some hope left in him…"
I found that hilarious, at least.
Its a good thing that e-mail also brings acceptance and validation in many other forms.  Goodness knows how many times I’ve been pre-approved for this or that credit card, or won a car, or a house, or a free subscription to whatever, or fast-cash, or…….

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I’ve been thinking of changing a few things in my profile - specifically the part about "favorite TV shows." 
If I recall correctly, some of the shows listed there include CSI, Mythbusters, and American Chopper.  I used to watch those things regularly back in Manila, and when I moved here, I started worrying whether or not I would get the scheduling right.  To my pleasant surprise (at least back then), I found out that those shows had frequent re-runs and marathons.  On most any given night, one can see a channel with at least one form or another of CSI.  During my first few weeks here, when I was doing nothing, part of my morning ritual would include watching an hour of Biker Build-Off followed by 2 hours of American Chopper.  On Friday nights, the Discovery Channel would run a Mythbuster marathon.  If that wasn’t enough, you could just catch back-episodes through  Comcast’s On-Demand!
It was fun at first, but then after a few of those, I found myself switching off after just a couple of hours, then later on just totally skipping the marathons.  I found myself more and more behind the computer and just staring at it - once again entranced by the curse of eBay.  After a couple of purchases, I reached a point where swinging by the post office after work became pretty routine.  At the very least, now that I’m heading home next week, eBay surfing has once again become a purely academic pursuit.  I intend to keep it that way for a little while longer.
I guess its back to TV for a while.  No need to change my profile then, I guess.

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With the passing of each additional day without updating this blog, it begins to feel more and more like going to class in college - or rather, not going to class.  Back then, I used to occasionally skip a class or two (or more…)  Some time around the mid-terms, I’d start thinking "Hmmm, I need to go to class…"  However, because of my absences, I wouldn’t know what point exactly the class was in, so I would feel hesitant to come to class "unprepared."  So that class would get skipped until I could "catch up" - which of course was hard to do, since I wasn’t in class and had no idea where I needed to go or what I needed to do.
In a similar manner, this blog has devolved into something like that.  Its not for lack of topics - goodness knows there’s a lot of that around.  Its just that, well, there’s so much stuff going on, but I can’t write about it yet because I haven’t written about the stuff that occurred before that - and so on and so forth.
For example, there’s the story about how I feel about automatic flush toilets.  I mean, its a great idea and all, but they have to be careful about sensor placement, because if you so as much lean in the wrong direction, your ass could be subject to an impromptu splashing from an automatically flushing toilet.
There’s also the observation that I actually have more anxiety crossing roads here than in Manila.  As it happens, my complacency has increased because I now rely on the other party (be it other pedestrians, cars or buses) to obey the law.  Sometimes, I catch myself just automatically crossing the street when the walk sign goes on regardless of the oncoming buses and cars - because I have faith that the cars would follow the rules too and stop at the red light.
Other potential topics which come to mind involve the quirks of acclimatization, the ease of commuting, the awful (AWFUL) spelling of a number of people, Midwest politeness and quirks (such as using "how are you?" as a greeting instead of just a plain old "hello!"), the isolation of the individual in spite of all the gadgets around designed to help them connect, the (mis)adventures of miss Maya, and the perils of eBay.
There are so many other potential topics which shall alas remain just vague concepts in my head. Just as I did back in college, there came a time when an inner voice would just say "Aaah, screw it…" and I would just end up in class (and still realize that I actually didn’t miss much at all - except in chemistry of course.  And physics.  And calculus.  But the others were generally okay).
So here I am again.
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Feliz and I have brought up our maletas from long term storage in the basement.  Nine more days to go.
Salt water…

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In the tradition of marking non-events, here it is:

*MARK*

Move along now, nothing to see here… move along.

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I finally got my dog tags today!

I’ve always wanted dog tags.  While they were readily available in Manila, they usually came unmarked.  Engraving in Manila meant someone scratching out whatever info you wanted put on the tags.  I didn’t want that.  I wanted mine STAMPED like official issue tags, and so now – after all these years – I finally have what I wanted.  Now that I’ve got them, I’ve yet to decide their final disposition, but at least I know I’ll be using them for diving.

These tags are one of the many little items I’ve ordered on eBay in the past few weeks. For the past two weeks, I’ve been trooping to the post office to purchase money orders for my various little purchases.  Sometimes, I half expect the clerks there to call me by name – just like in “Cheers.”  Funny thing is, the items I purchased before these tags still have to arrive.  I fully expect Christmas will come early for me next week.  And if not, there’s always the one after that…
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One more day before my exams.  Just another day at the office.

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