new semester, new gripes, new fascinations

ah! the 2nd semester is finally kicking into my system. For the past 3 days, i've been forcefully enforcing the 8-hour sleep rule (who, until now, people still idiotically follow without doctrinal evidence... really, why 8? why not 9? and have you heard of the 3-hour cycle theory?) on myself, which means sleep at 3, wake up at 7.30, battle it out at school, come home at 1, hit a carbo-high, but delay sleep until about 2 or 3 (because somebody once told me not to sleep in a full stomach. makes sense? well in Manila, sleeping on full stomach = nightmares = die in sleep. so yes, you don't have to believe me, but don't tell me that i didn't warn you.), and wake up at about 5 or 6, which i just did.

of course, life won't be as luxurious once all the activities kick in. For one, I have resolved to join a choir/a cappella group at NYU, until I saw the two horrendous words "sight reading" on top of all the requirements. I say i'll wait it out until I get more comfy with whatever miniscule ability I have with the above skill.

So what's new? A LOT. For starters, I actually had a very very interesting conversation with my roommate today. YES. we are finally talking. and not "hi, when are you leaving?" kind of talk, but it was more like "Albert, was I talking last night while I was sleeping?"

To those who are interested in my response, it was like this:

"yes, you were, and believe it or not, you were singing too. in a very very very high pitch. Then you called somebody a liar, I think it was your mom, etc etc etc"...

Because really, he didn't have a short spurt of sleeptalk, like he used to, uh uh. This time he had a monologue, and even leaning over to being a musical at that! He confessed that it was probably due to the Dreamgirls soundtrack pounding on his eardrums, thus his brain, while he was sleeping. Yeah, no more Justin nowadays, Beyonce's in.

And that simply means that no matter how badly i try to be nicer to him, we would never never ever concur in our music appreciation.

Our random conversation even led to his confession (to my shock and elation) that he might undergo the knife this semester to remove his unnaturally large tonsils, which, he believes, is the cause for his equally unnatural snoring. So I guess that would be one problem down for me. But it is also a good statistic to keep that in the first three nights of the semester, I have already conceded trying to sleep in the room and have already gone to the living room once to avoid the buzzing sounds of slumber in my room. 1 out of 3. ouch.

Also, my body hasn't been working right the past 3-4 days, because last Monday, I played a game of basketball with a bunch of dudes in the gym, and man, they were good. and they played just the way I like it - lots of hacking, pushing, shoving, and of course, rear-ending, the last being my forte. I used my backside so much to create space that day, for about 2 hours, my backside could have pushed away enough people to create enough space to re-position the Statue of Liberty. But the joy ended the next day, when my gluteus maximus suddenly failed me. As I tried to turn out of bed, my assets jolted a shock of pain throughout my lower body - its effects still prevalent in my lower body until this very moment. ouch.

Let me see. what else is new? hmmm I guess I'm beginning to have a problem with this girl in my floor. Nope, I hadn't had any romantic encounters, and believe that I will not have any again. No chance. It is simply because I abhor big babies, as most of you might know from my time in Singapore. Those big 20-yr old adolescents who can't seem to get over the fact that they were supposed to stop watching and imitating what they see in chick flicks about 2 years ago. And of course, they have to talk baby talk. It completes their image. She's a nice person. In fact, she's together with one of the nicest guys on my floor (my apartment-mate), but when she goes into big baby mode, I sometimes have the urge to throw her out of the window. But hey, peace.

My microeconomics lecturer should have thought I was a possessed man. He was some German dude who had a weird-looking hairstyle, but nonetheless a nice guy and an effective lecturer. In the midst of his lectures, I would go into a wide grin and laugh at the stupidest words that he says, like "scarcity" and "real price". Why, you may ask? because I never ever imagined that I would ever face another lecturer after Mdm Rahimah. Really, the moment when the first word appeared on the screen "limited resources", flashbacks flooded my head, and immediately my mind went auto-pilot, going into A-levels mode, taking notes like "choice," "resource allocation," "allocative efficiency," and "social efficiency" within the first minute of the lecture. I was so happy that I even can still remember all of them so clearly. The guy sitting next to me kept on leaning over to look at my notes, perhaps thinking "what a geek!" but i don't care. while they were looking into what monopolies are, I was happily drawing my graphs and scribbling about government regulations.

madness, i know.

but every now and then, I hear her screaming into my ear, and that alone makes me feel as if I'm unworthy of anything in life. Then i get off that couch and start whipping myself with belts, books, and bottles of water.

My new writing teacher is a very interesting fellow. Let's just say that I have a deep feeling that he is also a member of The League of Extraordinarily Gentle Men along with my dear roommate.

Overall, I'm really trying my hardest to be involved in campus ministry this semester. Perhaps they might be the real bunch of people that will grow with me for the next 3-4 years, so why not invest my life in them, right? I'm also feeling that the reopening of school has had an effect on my spiritual life already. Days become long ang burdensome, and at night quiet times become a chore. But yes, as George Michael (what a model!?!?) said, I've gotta have faith-a-faith-a-faith-ah!

I'M OUT!!!