Hard to believe it’s been exactly 2 years since I left home. Did I change? Absolutely. For the good? In some ways. I still make mistakes. But don’t we all? I’m still moody as hell (like that will ever change). I remember reading this quote back in high school.. “If you don’t like my attitude, quit talking to me.” Nice.

Anyways, I’m looking forward to going home this december. Finally! And I’m celebrating my birthday in San Jose/San Francisco with a friend. I figured, what the hell. After two years of emotional rollercoaster, I deserve a break. Oh. And I’m coming back to SF on October 18 for the Dashboard Confessional SOLO show. SWEET. Yeah…there’s something about Dashboard Confessional songs that just suck me in and I couldn’t get enough of it. Almost every song (and I mean, right from the first EP cd to the latest album) hits home. I even freaking cried when I listened to Dusk and Summer. And did I mention that Christopher Ender Carrabba (Chris Carrabba for short), the founder of Dashboard Confessional (D/C) is DROP DEAD GORGEOUS and ULTRA TALENTED? yeah. If I’ll ever ask a guy to marry me it’ll be him. LOL. But since I have no intentions of ever getting married, the possibility of me asking him (not that he’d ever say yes hehehe) is negative percent.

I finally put my site back up again… it’s not finished yet though. I’ve decided to not concentrate on the design/graphics. It’ll be like my other outlet on the online realm. I can’t remember exactly when the transition from writing a journal (as in, notebook, not a online blog) to writing poems to express how I feel happened. But I don’t write as often as I used to in my journal and I don’t blog as often as before. I find it easier to just write a poem about how I feel. Anyways, that’s just about it. I’m pretty much just taking it one day at a time.

Here are my top 30 DC songs (all from different albums) in no particular order…

1) Hands Down
2) Stolen
3) Vindicated
4) Again I Go Unnoticed
5) As Lovers Go
6) Ender Will Save Us All
7) Dusk and Summer
8) Remember to Breathe
9) Rooftops and Invitations
10) If You Can’t Leave it Be
11) Several Ways to Die Trying
12) Don’t Wait
13) Best Deceptions
14) Rapid Hope Loss
15) Ghost of A Good Thing
16) The Good Fight
17) Screaming Infidelities
18) So Long, So Long
19) Heaven Is Here
20) Am I Missing
21) Currents
22) Slow Decay
23) The Secret’s in the Telling
24) Bend and Not Break
25) This Bitter Pill
26) The Places You have Come to Fear the Most
27) Carry this Picture
28) Reason to Believe
29) The Sharp Hint of New Tears
30) The Swiss Army Romance

until I get to see home again. Time seem to move sooo slow. And I’m burning out fast. I need to reorganize my time. Badly.

6.20PM. I was already in the apartment’s compound when I decided that I absolutely *need* cashew nuts (go figure) so I turned the car around to go to Fred Meyer. The exit was uphill and I have always been careful driving there– look left and right, slow down– but for some reason, I didn’t see the car coming, I hit the gas and bam. Good thing it was a private road so we both parked on the side. When I got out of the car the driver, an Indian, was standing there staring forlornly at the passenger side of his car. I was so freaked out (it was totally my fault) and didn’t know if we should call a cop or something. He didn’t know what to do either so I asked for his info (name, number, address, policy# and license plate) and gave him mine in return. I was so rattled that I couldn’t find my insurance card… so I promised I’d call and give it to him once I’m in my apartment.

More than half of my fender bumper has deep, big scratches on it due to the impact, and the license plate was totaled. But it’s nothing compared to his damage. His passenger side was a mess. It’s amazing that I got off with major scratches on my fender bumper while he has this huge ugly dent on his passenger door. I felt sorry for him so I assured him that my insurance company will cover all his expenses. And they will. I called my insurance agent right away and he assured me they’ll cover it. All the guy need to do is call them, give them my name and policy# and they’ll take care of it.

I was so relieved to see that inspite of the hard impact, there were no additional dents on my fender. I can’t help but think that may be this is one way of telling me to ”Get the damn dent on your fender bumper fixed already! It’s been almost a year!”. I kept holding it off but I guess I have to take it to the shop this time. I can’t drive around without my license plate. If I do, I’ll get pulled over and fined and that’s the last thing I need! Anyways, I hope it won’t take more than 2 days to get the fender fixed. I need my car… on second thought… may be it’s high time that I learn how to take the bus here. Anyways, I’m just thankful that there were no major damages (not on my part anyway) and most of all, that no one was hurt.

On a lighter note, HEROES is getting hotter and hotter (and only 3 more episodes until season finale). Other things that are hot on TV: Blake’s performance on tonight’s AI episode, and Apollo and Juliane’s dancing on Dancing with the Stars! I never understood why the judges kept criticizing their dancing and then gave Laila/Maksim a perfect 30! oh well. Back to reality: work still drives me crazy, and I’m still waiting for my vacation leave to get approved. I sent an email and didn’t get a reply back. I mean, c’mon already!

** Photos UPDATED *** May 01 *** 

I woke up this morning with my legs aching…specifically my thighs. I had my (Networks) final exam yesterday morning (11am - 1pm) then went with the COMPRO (computer science) Feb ‘06 batch to lunch @Red Robins and a *little* hiking @Snoqualmie Falls afterwards. The little hike turned out to be over a mile as the (uphill/downhill) river trail was half a mile — one way. When we reached the end of the trail, we had to climb over the rail, then down the rocks because there was no trail going down the falls. It was fun but man— talk about being out of shape. My aching legs sort of remind me of the morning after my first tae kwon do class (where my ENTIRE body hurt for a couple of days). Anyways, they went to the park this afternoon to go in-line skating and I was like “um, no thanks, my legs still hurt”. After running a couple of errands (I wake up at noon on weekends), I took two Ibuprofens for the pain. Hopefully when I wake up around 10 PM (yes, 10 in the evening) the ache will have gone down a bit so I can take a shower and eat dinner (again, yes, at 10 in the evening). I’ll post some pics from the Falls later. Right now, my bed’s calling me.

     

   

 

***SPOILER ALERT***

I wasn’t able to watch the first 30 minutes straight up because of Dancing With the Stars but… I can always catch it again on nbc.com. So… Linderman turned out to also have some powers, Suresh and Peter escaped —with Suresh thinking that Peter died while saving him… and Peter did die. Remember when Claire had a tree branch stuck in her head when a guy almost raped her? She couldn’t regenerate so she *died*. It wasn’t until she was lying in the morgue and the coroner removed the branch that she was able to regen. Same thing with Peter. He had a piece of glass stuck in his head (courtesy of Syler) and everybody thought he was gone for good… until Claire pulled out the glass. Anyways, other turning points in tonight’s ep. are: Isaac (the Painter who can paint the future) was killed by Syler; Niki/Jessica’s son, Mika, was kidnapped by Linderman; Ben, Mike and the “radioactive” guy all escaped and were planning to go to NY to destroy the tracking center; Hiro and his friend were still in the future (5 years from now) and met his *future* self; and… Nathan’s on the verge of joining Linderman’s plan to blow up NY to “save the human race”. I know, Linderman’s delusional — and very persuasive at that, since he’s able to convince Nathan that they need to sacrifice a small portion of the population for the betterment and to save the human race! uh… right.

—————————————————————————————————————————— 

I have a finals (Networks subject) coming up this saturday, work still drives me up the wall, and… I just received the hard copy of my working status approval. I have to go home and have the embassy change the stamp on my passport from a student visa to a working visa. I’M GOING HOME! whooopeee!

Yup! Yup! Yup! I got an email from the company’s law firm that my working visa status just got approved. That was quite fast. I was informed just this Tuesday that I’m one of the 65,000 applications (out of 200,000+) that will get reviewed (that’s what I meant by winning in the “H1B lottery”). 2 days after, it’s approved! Wow! I’M GOING HOME!!!!!!!!!! Okay…I have to file a vacation leave first, hope it’ll get approved, then buy my tickets. It’s over 6 months away but I’ve been dreaming about home since I first set foot here! I haven’t told my family yet hehehhe. I want to know whether my vacation gets approved first before I tell them. Oh wow. Suddenly, all the tears, school and work stress – the emotional roller coaster I’ve been on since day one – don’t matter. I have something to really look forward to! Wow.

 *Thank you, God*

Got a nice surprise this morning in my email — I got picked on the “H1B lottery”! woohoo. Ok…so it’s not really approved yet… just that it’ll get processed/reviewed. still…. *fingers crossed*. And if/when I do get approved, I’ll file my vacation leave for December, wait for my Director and Manager’s approval, and then buy my gaddamn plane ticket! But until I’m holding the plane ticket in my hand, I’m not telling my parents and aunt back home. I don’t want to get their (and mine) hopes up.

*Thank you, God. 

…okay— so i haven’t really been myself since i came here in the US. but since yesterday, i’ve been more pysically and mentally tired than the usual. i didn’t go to the office yesterday because i wasn’t feeling well. and today, i wasn’t really in the mood to handle tickets. i couldn’t think straight…or rather, i couldn’t think at all. i was working on an issue that involves MS report server and i couldn’t concentrate. i ended up passing it over to one of the other software support engineers. there were 15 tickets that came in today. and man…. we’ve been told not to select which ticket/incidents to handle, to grab the earliest ticket that’s still unassigned. and lo and behold, somebody’s still selecting tickets. wtf? damn. as usual, since i’m on the afternoon shift, i ended up picking those ”skipped” tickets. *sigh* i’m sooo tired. i know mostly because i’m not getting enough sleep due to insomnia. oh well. 3 more days til weekend.

i just remembered i have a dentist’s appointment this thursday. at 7.30AM! *arrrgh* that means i have to wake up at 6.45AM at least (i could barely open my eyes at 8AM). I can not miss this one… it took over a month to get this appointment. *sigh* life… *shrugs* …and did i mention that i still haven’t updated 1 of the tickets that i picked up today?  that means i have to work tonight…at least just for this ticket.

What a major bummer. I was looking forward to coming home this december but the working visa quota has been reached after only 2 days. A memo came out that all applications submitted April 2 and 3 will be raffled/randomly picked on who will get approved  (mine was filed April 2). Great. I’m not really worried about getting out of status… my visa don’t expire until I graduate next year and the school can always extend it. I’m just worried that if I go home this december, they’d question my visa (paranoid). One Filipino student got his student visa revoked after he went home december 2005. The university had a hard time explaining the situation to the US embassy in Manila and his visa wasn’t reinstated until after March or April. If that happens to me, not only will I miss my final exam on January 2008, I’d miss graduation! If I don’t go home this year and decide to wait next year, it’ll be over 3 years since I’ve seen my family. gawd… I hope, hope, hope (100x) that just this once, I’d get to win something in a raffle. I miss home so much.