happy new year! will be outta here anytime soon, will go to new mexico for a trip with the family :-) can't wait! anyway, as promised, i'm ending the year with abbie's survey thingie.

enjoy y'all!

what did you do in 2004 that you'd never done?
i moved in to a new place by myself.

did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
i don't even remember making any! haha!

did anyone close to you give birth?
nah, didn't have any pregnant friends.

did anyone close to you die?
not really close, but my friend earlene's husband died, seven weeks after they got married. and her mom just died last year.

what countries did you visit?
the philippines! was able to visit the PI last august, only for ten days, but worth every freakin' minute.

what would you like to have in 2005 that you lacked in 2004?
i dunno. um, maybe a car, but then again, i don't drive. ewan.

what date/s from 2004 will remain etched upon your memory?
hmmm... wala e. had a boring year, haha! nothing much happened.

what was your biggest achievement of the year?
knowing myself more especially after deciding to live by myself.

what was your biggest failure?
my year might have been boring, but i'm pretty happy i didn't have big failures this year. maybe when my GPA dropped to 3.5, thanks fucking income tax, got a C.

did you suffer an illness or injury?
yeah, tonsilitis plus a fever with colds and a cough. happens every year.

what was the best thing you bought?
my notebook, i guess. i actually started the year with a new cellphone. got a great printer slash scanner slash copier, too.

where did most of your money go?
food and cds.

what did you get really, really excited about?
trip to the PI, and this trip to new mexico!

what song will always remind you of 2004?
more of what songS! lots! there's jamie cullum's all at sea, keane's somewhere only we know, liz phair's little digger and favorite, maroon5's she will be loved... lalala....

compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? happier.
ii. thinner or fatter? thinner! any objections? you want me to break my foot up your ass?
iii. richer or poorer? richer.

what do you wish you'd done more?
sleep and exercise. talk more to friends.

what do you wish you'd done less of?
loaf around.

how did you be spend christmas?
well, was at work the 24th. called up my mom so she could be with me when the clock struck midnight, christmas. slept a bit that morning, then went to my dad's place, had fun with the kids. went home and slept again, had to work that night, too.

did you fall in love in 2004?
i wish. but then again, it's a good thing i didn't, i always have a hard time falling out of love e.

how many one-night stands?
none! been trying this new thing, this thing called celibacy, hahaha! almost a year now, i can't believe i did it. can't wait for my "anniversary", will have sex to celebrate, haha!

what was your favorite TV program?
the ones that were ended, sadly. like sex and the city, friends, frasier...

do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
i don't hate anyone anymore. i've learned that hate is wasted energy.

what was the best book you read?
dan brown's angels and demons and deception point, david hewson's a season for the dead.

what was your greatest musical discovery?
maroon5! i remember not paying attention to them when they came out with harder to breathe. then came this love which i went gaga over, bought the cd and sang in the shower. ex-roomie heard me, like every night, and told me to listen to she will be loved. i fell in love with the song.

what do you want to get?
hmmm... a great job in denver.

what was your favorite film of this year?
kill bill vol.2! and the dreamers.

what did you do on your birthday and how old were you?
i turned 23 this year. me and jess went out that night, i think, or maybe the other night, i'm not sure. see, jess' birthday is five days after mine, so we just had a great breakfast at denny's around two in the morning.

what one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
this trip probably, and the visit in the philippines, of course.

how would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2004.
iba iba e. had business-like attires every now and then, mainly because i'm in the business school. i tend to dress down, too, especially in art class.

who/what kept you sane?
the past six months? art class.

which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
kiera knightley.

what political issue stirred you the most?
US election, of course, and to all americans out there, i'm sorry bush won. we are all fucked for the next four years.

who do you miss?
i have a long list.

who was the best new person you met?
not really met, but maya angelou. she was in my college this year.

tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2004:
that i should always feel short next to the towering height of my ambitions, that i am small next to the coloradan mountains, and that i should always give faith a fighting chance.  ¶ 9:46 AM 0 Comments

  next year, jamie cullum next year,
things are gonna change,
gonna drink less beer
and start all over again
gonna pull up my socks
gonna clean my shower
not gonna live by the clock
but get up at a decent hour
gonna read more books
gonna keep up with the news
gonna learn how to cook
and spend less money on shoes
pay my bills on time
file my mail away, everyday
only drink the finest wine
and call my gran every sunday
resolutions
well baby they come and go
will i do any of these things?
the answers probably no
but if there's one thing, i must do,
despite my greatest fears
i'm gonna say to you
how i've felt all of these years
next year, next year, next year
i gonna tell you, how i feel
well, resolutions
baby they come and go
will i do any of these things?
the answers probably no
but if there's one thing, i must do,
despite my greatest fears
i'm gonna say to you
how i've felt all of these years
next year, next year, next year
  ¶ 8:20 PM 0 Comments

  one is the loneliest number i'm lonely. no, i'm not, i just like the statement. i'm not trying to end the year in a sad note, i'm actually thinking of copying abbie's survey post to cap the year.

but back to "i'm lonely". i like the statement because it kinda announces itself. it does not require an explanation. it's not like "i'm in love" which follows "with who?" or "i'm happy" which follows "why?"

"i'm lonely". lonely. lone. alone. "i'm lonely because i am alone." see my point? when someone says "i'm lonely", it states silently that it is because s/he is alone.

i think anything positive (e.i. "i'm in love" and "i'm happy") requires reinforcements. they need statements to quantify and qualify the happiness or the being-in-love-ness. but being lonely says it all. it does not require follow up questions, but rather emotions of sympathy or pity.

sigh. i love being a linguist. also dark humor.
  ¶ 10:19 AM 0 Comments

  merry christmas!

had christmas at my dad's place, and the highlight of course is the gift opening.

saul was pretty much psyched with what i got him. got him some yugi-oh trading cards which is his current obsession right now (notice the red marks on his cheek? iya gave him those!):


angel started with her fake nails set slash make up set thingie which she got from her mom. understand that them are the only two girls in the family, haha! got her an art set:


iya showing off his toy trucks. got him an RC and marie called last night to tell me the batteries already ran out! and dang, could that boy drive:


marty was just happy ripping of 'em gift wrappers:


aunt berna and cheryl swung by too:


we all got robes from granma and granpa (who couldn't make it since it was pretty darn cold for granpa). here's me and angel switching robes, then angel showing off her purple girlie robe. all us guys got black or blue:


and don't forget the food! everything was home made, no bought food. marie was cooking for like three days nonstop for the christmas dinner:


and marie made this great dinner table set from logs, wreaths and candles. she is like the asian martha stewart.


t'was great. 'nuff said.
  ¶ 9:43 PM 0 Comments

  a booger story tried calling bibba last night while at work, but i don't have her number. all my friends' numbers are at home and aside from my mom's number, the only other number i remember is hane's place. called her place up, alisa answered (hane's niece). was able to talk to hane for a good half an hour before she had call waiting and i was cut off (to her defense, she didn't pick up the other line but we ended just shouting to each other, "hoy, hane! hane? hello? hane? andyan ka pa ba?", so hell, i hung up).

the sad part of this is when i asked about the guys. apparently, they haven't met for a while, like since-i've-been-home-back-in-august in a while! she told me that they tried organizing a christmas get together, but only her, bibba and leo seemed to be eager about it, so they decided to drop it.

this is so freaking frustrating! it is so reminiscent of my last visit when they told me they haven't been together since i left the country. it was flattering when papa bidge told me that he went all the way from san pablo to meet up with us, when joel snuck out of military training school, when deej took some time out from the seminary, when leo quit his job to see us, when hane opened up the bank in a mall branch so we can hang out with her, but it ridiculous that they can't find time to at least sent text messages to each other. hane even told me that divine, her sister slash girl friend, didn't even text her to greet her a merry christmas! oh, divine did actually text hane to get angel's number, but that's it. and hane hasn't seen angel in three months! by the way, angel completes the hitad trio - ji (that's my hane), divineski, and angel.

sigh... maybe leo was right: i am the kulangot that binds us together.
  ¶ 10:12 PM 0 Comments

  ho ho ho it's almost christmas! wala lang, not really excited but just the idea of my bros and sis tearing up them gifts like hyenas caged for months without food then being released next to a wounded gazelle is enough happiness for me (i'm more graphic than i thought i am).

gotta work though, so i'll just probably call up mom while at work. it'll be slow, i'm guessing. have to work straight seven days, too. i'm kinda happy slash sad about it, but i'll pull myself together, i'm a big boy.

side bar: was chatting with fay and made a comment, bad daw ako.

NYAHAHAHAHAHAHA - ubo - HAHAHA!

what an understatement. since birth! when the doctor slapped my ass, i slapped her back with my gooey placenta-covered hand. she had it coming.
  ¶ 12:10 AM 0 Comments

  thoughts while listening to bush live over cnn i'm beginning to think that somehow, we meet the people we meet to learn a lesson and eventually lead on to our separate paths. it's nice to know that i still learn from some friends i have since i was five. but it's sad that the deeper and shorter friednships i've had seems to reached that fork of separation.

it is so predicatable: one will dare make the move, one will start the awkward conversation of semi-casualness until the awkwardness takes over. somehow, i don't want the friendship to return. maybe i've already learned the lesson needed to be learned. now, it's time to move one. even if we want to, it'll take one day at a time, but that's a luxury we both can't take.
  ¶ 10:53 AM 0 Comments

  one sick bastard for five days, i stayed at my dad's and nothing was wrong. then come friday morning, my tonsils were acting up again. it's a seasonal thing, only happens like once a year but when it does, it brings me down big time. usually it goes with colds, cough and sometimes flu.

so friday, i could barely talk and i had to work that night! since it's pretty difficult to look for a replacement if i called in sick, i decided to go ahead and work. what bad thing could happen anyway? one: a drug bust.

apparently, some girl was doing drug dealings in our motel! jologs naman o... and it happened on my freaking shift. got to work about half an hour early, and brandie was doing the late afternoon shift. i grabbed something to eat in burger king just across the street. saw some narcotics guys handcuffing some guys along the streets. apparently, they were in the motel trying to run away but the narcotics caught up. the narcotics (by the way, they don't wear uniforms and they have unmarked cars) stayed in that particular room so anyone knocking is pretty much a suspect. i was instructed to not transfer any calls in the room but instead, tell the calling party that the phone was unhooked in the room, and i could only take a message for them and get their names. galing, entrapment. they stayed in the motel til 3am.

slept most of the saturday morning, then went to the motel around 4pm for a christmas party. was fun :-) finally met some of my morning co-workers. went back home and slept til it's work time.

got home sunday morning and slept til midnight. technically, it's monday morning now :-) still feel kinda sick. the swelling of my freaking tonsils are down, and i don't snifle anymore. but my dry cough developed into the phlegmy kind, bad trip, pare.

well, i can't sleep. might as well read.
  ¶ 3:01 AM 0 Comments

  while waiting for my ride here's a quick recap of my past week:

got at my dad's place last sunday. did nothing basically. spent most of the time doing one of these:
(1) setting up dad's pc. the problem with dad is he never reads instruction manuals. none. zilch. it wasn't only dad's pc i had to set up - there's the atomic clock (a clock that doesn't need time settings! it's radio controlled from fort carson, feeding us the exact time and date and temperature outside and inside the house. pretty neat); the new tv, setting it up with the satellite and the dvd player and the sound system; the printer slash fax machine; the internet.
(2) decorating the place. marie is a decorator freak, this year's theme is garlands. every door frame is decorated with garlands and acorns, or garlands and mistle toes, or garlands and christmas balls. my balls are the only ones not decorated with garlands.
(3) assemblying dad's desk. now that was A project. took us about three hours or so, how would i know, i stopped counting after two hours. lemme see if i can find a pic...


still need to buy a chair though. and to fill 'er up with books and papers and what not.
  ¶ 5:18 PM 0 Comments

  i'm back i'm back home, but spent most of the day sleeping since i have to work tonight. will blog tomorrow before sleeping :-)
  ¶ 10:50 PM 0 Comments

  will be out it's nine in the morning right now, and i haven't had sleep since yesterday at four pm. am packing stuff away, will be at my dad's place for the week. probably til thursday. that means no blogging for a while, no YM, no blog-hopping... teka, i think i'm gonna cry.
  ¶ 10:56 AM 0 Comments

  my tattoo at last, after searching for i dunno how long, i already found the meanings of my tattoo. i could barely read kanji, and i just basically trusted my ex-roomie japanese junichi that my tattoo says KIKO. the first character, KI, i was pretty sure it meant spirit:



but the second one:



i was kinda clueless. what if it means crazy? hahaha! a mind that's crazy. but like i said, searched for all the kanji tutorials available online and amen, i found it. it means success. buti na lang, positive ang meaning ng name ko! haha!

it kinda looks like this on my lower stomach:

         
  ¶ 1:52 AM 0 Comments

  scattered thoughts a milestone in my academic life - it took me an hour and a half to finish a two and a half hour test. it should have taken me only an hour, but i guess my brain cells aren't as active as they were. but nonetheless, i'm done with the semester. i am absofuckinglutely officially happy. this has got to be the worst semester ever, and i'm not alone. i haven't met anyone who had the semester okay. maybe just for us in the business school, had a big decline in faculty this semester.

got an A in art class, as expected. i'm pretty much happy with the outcome of my law classes. got a high C (yes, kiko gets Cs every now and then!) in cpa, and a C in income tax! i am so relieved! at least i'm sure i can take corporate tax next semester, haha! and i think i prefer corporate tax anyway :-) was pretty surprised that i got a 53% (65% class average) in the finals. imagine that... 53%... fuck. good thing my 100% current tax issues papers (all eight of 'em) and my term paper on a fed tax case pulled that final exam grade. cost, i had a high B, so i'm pretty much happy with that. this exam i just finished, intermediate, i'll probably get an A, worst case scenario, a low A. I just hope my cumulative GPA stays in the 3.5 to 4.0 range.

man, that intermediate exam kinda spooked me out. i had four cost allocation multiple choice questions (two depreciation, one depletion, and one amortization), and my answers won't come up in the choices! i re-did all four, at least thrice (no wonder it took me an hour and a half to finish the freaking exam), and all my answers are at least a hundred dollars off from the choices. i asked professor wink, she said all answers come up exactly. i re-did them all again, and by golly, all my computations are missing a year. no wonder my answers are off. so, in about an hour, i'll know how i did in the test.

ho-hum... oh, dad's picking me up tomorrow since i do not have any classes anymore. i've noticed that he's been wanting (or at least marie, maybe the kids) me to stay there whenever i can. he even picked me up last friday after class FROM SCHOOL, brought me back home before 8:30 so i can get ready for work that night. then the following day, he picked me up around 4:00 and offered dinner and to bring me to work by 10 that night. i told them i have nothing to do starting the 13th til the 17th, dad and marie asked me to stay with them during that week. marie's been asking me to stay with them on christmas, but i think i have to work that night, else my manager, eva, decides to give me that night off since i'll probably work the whole week when yvonne, the other night auditor, takes her vacation (that's our deal: i can take whichever nights that work for me, but she has to has her christmas week vacation). lately, dad's been asking what i want to do after graduation, where to work, where to take my masters and all that, and asking where am i gonna stay. then marie said she thinks it's cheaper if i live with them to save rent, and then buy me a car (it ain't by the way, it's more expensive to pay monthly on insurance and make car payments as compared to taking the bus or a cab plus pay rent). it's sweet and all, knowing that they want me to be around, but i'm not just used to living with other people. i'm not saying dad, marie and the kids are "other" people, what i meant is i'm not used to living with other living things. i don't even have a plant at home. and marie started teasing my sister that i'll probably be living in denver when i finish college, so i won't see them anymore. what a commotion that was, saul and angel crying, thinking i'm leaving them.

sigh... damien rice has been singing in my head all day. i can't take my mind off of you... til i find somebody new. drama. i think i like it better when damien rice is singing acoustic in my head, it drowns the other people talking in my head. and man, are they really chatty! but it's okay, i've learned to tune out them voices in my head, i can't understand them anyway. i don't speak spanish.

been cleaning my place up. it has to be the cleanest since i moved in in the apartment. only three plates and a few forks and glasses in the sink. trash bins are empty. just need to vacuum. cool.

five months of action-packed days, and now, i have nothing to do.
  ¶ 4:26 PM 0 Comments

  for comparison
  ¶ 12:10 PM 0 Comments

  it is not as scary as it seems

this is how i spent my sunday night :-)
  ¶ 12:03 AM 0 Comments

  got bored at work
  ¶ 4:12 PM 0 Comments

  autobiography Got stains on my t-shirt and I'm the biggest flirt
Right now I'm solo, but that will be changing eventually, oh
I laugh more than I cry
You piss me off, good-bye
Got bruises on my heart and sometimes I get dark
If you want my auto, want my autobiography
Baby, just ask me.
  ¶ 5:10 PM 0 Comments

  statistics nine out of ten men prefer women with big boobs or plumpy behinds.

the other man prefers the other nine.
  ¶ 5:07 PM 0 Comments

  feeling hot yesterday, after my cost accounting class, some of my buds and i grabbed something to munch on, on our way down the business school's stairs, lo and behold, a burning car.

yes. a car. burning. in flames. smoke and all that.

photo op:



it was an old car, been there for at least the whole semester. it's nothing new, really. i think it was last year or the year before that when someone burned the apartment manager's car in walking stick (where i used to live at).

then got this mass e-mail:

The Sheriff's Office at CSU-Pueblo is attempting to locate two males that were seen leaving the area of the car fire at the time the fire started, which was about 3:50 p.m. The males are described as:

1. White male, approximately 5'7" tall, 150 pounds, dark hair, beard, wearing a light brown jacket and a ball cap with Hawaiian print.

2. Average build white male, dark hair, no coat wearing a white t-shirt with a rock-n-roll band logo.

If you have any information regarding these individuals or witnessed the incident please contact the Sheriff's Office at CSU-Pueblo at 549-2373.

Thank You
Sgt. Brown

i love college.

  ¶ 1:25 PM 0 Comments