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.

fizzle, sputter - extinction

It's officially 2011~

I knew it the moment a shower of sparks popped out barely 500 meters to my direct right, shocking me for a moment, our neighbors' screams doing nothing to calm me down. At that time, I had been the only one left awake in our house. 11-ish, my father suddenly complained that he was feeling sleepy, and went off to take a 'nap' in the nearest unoccupied bedroom. Rosaline, after two straight evenings of standing guard during her grandmother's funeral, was barely awake while we were washing the evening's dishes. Manang Em rushed to her hometown earlier, presumably to watch Miss Gay Bobuntugan 2010, leaving us three inexperienced chefs to fend for ourselves the night before New Year's. And my mother, of course, is pining a continent and a half away, my only contact with her having been Facebook chat. Pathetic holiday, altogether. I suppose it sounds blasphemous, but I really don't see much in Christmas anymore. I'm sorry, dear Jesus, but seriously... you weren't born in December, were you?

Scared that a firecracker might suddenly swoop into the house and set my mother's prized curtains on fire, I closed all the windows I could reach, and even turned off all the lights. I even considered not waking my father up, even though it's his habit to make a racket (I kid you not) while welcoming a fresh year. And for some time, I actually thought I would spend the turn of the year alone, sitting in front of my laptop, waiting for my latest Torrent attempt to load. But then my father woke up, grabbed a red shirt, and started pounding on the car horn to make noise without his highly detested pyrotechnics.

I suppose, in the end, you can't escape merrymaking, whatever mood you're in.

Uh, my laundry.

I've run out of comfortable jeans, so I've resorted to wearing those uber-long, ultra-girly, spinster-worthy skirts my mother gave me over the summer. They're actually quite cool to wear - except when people make it a point to comment on my chosen outfit - but I think I've gotten too used to wearing pants.

Um. In case you haven't noticed, this entry isn't going anywhere. It's just a random blog post. See, I've just entered the main lib's computer room, and it's embarrassing to just leave when I haven't even been here for half an hour. I was hoping to get the call numbers for textbooks I have to read by tomorrow, see, but then it turns out even if I did get their access codes today, I wouldn't be able to borrow them, not tonight. So gah. I'm stuck. Worse, I don't have three chapters' worth of readings for tomorrow.

And it's not even my fault! I'm not being lazy or anything! Our professor had left e-copies of our readings with the PolSc department, but for the past three instances that I've tried saving them in my USB, they've been corrupted. And I doubt I can save the thing in a CD, 'cause the department might not even have a CD burner, not with an OS like that. Sigh. Sucks worrying about material. I'd actually love to start working, instead of just moping around, pondering what else I could have been doing if I had the proper stuff to read.

On a lighter note, an American kid reported on Rizal today. (Not altogether surprising, since our shared class is on Rizal, after all.) He actually put up with the rest of the class' antics quite well; I don't think a normal person could have maintained a cheerful expression while his classmates giggled at his inability to pronounce Noli Me Tangere. To think, at the start of his report, I even saw his hand shaking as he handed his report outline to our teacher - and I was sitting in the second-to-the-last row. Pretty strong character that kid's got. Moral fibre, Ludo Bagman would call it.

I wonder how I would have fared had I studied in a foreign country?

Bah. Anyway, since I can't read any 'proper' stuff tonight - not having the right material, as mentioned previously - I'm going to skim through La Corda d'Oro Chaps 70-71. I hope, pray, sincerely and fervently that Len finally confesses to Kahoko. Pleaaaase. End the manga NOW.