unpacking issues

I used to think I liked to pack and unpack things. When I was a freshman in college, I had so much fun moving out of my first dorm, and living somewhere new. Three years, three dorms and a handful of unforeseen trips later though, I've realized I really don't enjoy task of uprooting myself and all my belongings at a predictable interval of five months. And it's not just because I have enough stuff to fill more than ten bags and containers. It's because I've realized - how could I not, given my complete antitheses populate my tiny social sphere - that I'm a couch potato. Really.

I've also realized though, that this is the lifestyle I'll have to learn to love if I truly am to become my ideal FSO [Foreign Service Officer]. If my mother's job is any indication of how my future will look like, then it probably means living in a different house - in a different country - every few years, adjusting to all sorts of weather and terrain, etc. Oh yeah, and being game enough to eat absolutely all kinds of food. [And this is where my mother fails, because she's a picky eater, and the fish she likes best are in our hometown.] Not to mention, I'll probably never get married. Ha. Ha.

But whatever. This is my life, and this is what I want to do. So everything else can just suck it.

Househunting

I couldn't sleep tonight. And no, not because I had a dream two nights ago - dawns, to be specific - involving an older me in a devilish white dress staring back at myself, knowing full well dreaming me was watching. Sounds complicated, but it's simple, actually. I had a nightmare where I saw my doppelganger. But again, no, despite the frightful nature of that dream, it is not the reason I'm awake now, two nights - dawns - later.

I'm looking for a house. [Online, yes.] More accurately, a place to stay in. I'll be graduating a couple of days from now, and as I intend to stay in MManila, I need somewhere. I've ruled out staying in a univ dorm, as I doubt overstaying for a second degree makes me an actual dependent of the UP system. I'll have to admit though, that the clincher was the kitchen. I really want a kitchen. I've already been imagining all the dishes I'd burn, all the wine I'd stock, if I had my own kitchen. God, please send me a house with enough space for a kalan at least? And maybe, a mini Coleman?

And haha, don't even ask for my budget. Truth is I've actually enough money for one of those one-bedroom flats that are ubiquitous in the student world, but again - the kitchen, it calls. Good thing my friend Ate I wants a place with a kitchen, too. We can split the bill, and share the happy moments that I'm praying, honest to goodness, we'll have. Because I'll be staying in MManila for what seems like yeeeears. And she has her MS - and likely, PhD - to finish.

Housey, housey, housey.

Heree come, housey.

heartache

When I’m depressed, I tend to eat a lot of noodles. I know they’re difficult to digest, and so they clog up in one’s intestines, but it’s either that or coffee – and there are times when I’m just not in the mood to see coffee. Take tonight for example.

This morning, my thesis partner S and I went to this Stata workshop our batch representatives organized. It was truly fascinating, taking all those commands in – one of those rare moments when I found joy in my course. Although I understood most of what our speaker had been explaining, however, it seems – irony of ironies – that I’m still unable to apply a certain theory on my own. That one crucial theory. And the worst part is, my thesis partner doesn’t know what to do either.

Stupid dummy variables. To think it’s just a case of dividing the data into responses from males and responses from females. It’s just a case of labeling one 1 and labeling the other 0. It’s just a halving of answers. But it’s giving me such a heartache – hardly a headache, really. My pride can’t accept having come this far into my course yet still being unable to execute this simple step that should be standard knowledge for someone of my educational background.

I could always just ask for help, of course. Problem is, I don’t have too many friends in my own department, and the friends I do have aren’t familiar with Stata either. So maybe, just maybe, in a fit of dramatic depression, I’ll just sit here in my hard wooden chair, and try to keep myself from adding one more pack of my noodles to this evening’s mistakes.

kittens

There's a kitten screaming for help through my dormitory window. Sometimes, I think it's not a kitten - sometimes it sounds like a mother cat giving birth. Sometimes it shuts up, and so I think it's died and has gone to kitty heaven. Just as I start thanking the heavens for that though, it renews its racket, and I bury my face in my pillow.

It's hard being alone in the dorm during weekends. Normally, I wouldn't mind, because I like the silence. But sometimes, I have sleepless nights, and I toss and turn, and my bed creaks as wooden stairs do in horror movies. If you add something as crazy as a cat yowling away within your hearing range, it's nearly impossible to fall asleep, even after reviewing half your class notes.

Last night I heard someone knocking. At first I thought it was that weird insert ad they have in Yes! Fm, but then, I heard it twice - the sound of someone knocking from the other side of my window, but knocking on wood and not knocking for me. What was freaked me out above all was the fact that the whole knocking sequence happened just a little past 2 in the morning, a while before the usual roof-banging and furniture rearranging noise-making happened.

The loneliness I like in Kamia comes with a price, it seems.

And for the record, I realized of all the early morning noises Kamia can provide, the one I despise the most is the sound of a kitten meowing unceasingly. It reminds me of its helplessness, and my own helplessness as well.