Love is Hershey’s.

My sister just turned 18, and to celebrate her coming of age, she had this semi-grand debut with the dresses and catering and all that. Guys weren’t really required to be in a tuxedo or anything, but nevertheless, it wasn’t your run-of-the-mill birthday party.

I found myself recalling my 18th birthday and how I would have settled for a simple party with all my friends there, a few bottles of (tequila?) drinks, chips, perhaps a guitar or two for people to sing along to. But yeah, I had one of those catered dinners as well, with the 18 this and 18 that. After a few years, all you have is pictures and a dress you find you can never wear again.

What a conundrum human festivities are. But really, life isn’t life without them.

After four long years in UP, I have finally reached a point in my college life that I can start saying I’m going to be busy with Thesis. Maybe because it’s a marker indicating I’m ALMOST at the end of the seemingly dark and endless tunnel that is college academics, or perhaps it’s the thrill of something unfamiliar, but I am actually looking forward to starting the school year not so afraid of starting the sem this time. I know sleep will be a rare gift, and that I might find myself questioning my survival mid-semester, but this is my last chance and there is no way in hell I’m blowing it this time.

I WILL GET TO MARCH ACROSS THAT STAGE AND GET MY DIPLOMA NEXT APRIL. I WILL. IF I HAVE TO SACRIFICE EVERY LAST DROP OF SWEAT AND BLOOD TO GET IT, I WILL.

That I can PROMISE you.

It’s Summer Vacation. I’m taking 2 classes and working on a database project as part of my OJT. It’s turning out to be quite a busy summer and my only relief is that I have a new laptop to have faster downloads on and tv show marathon my days away! :)

Plus it’s either sweltering hot or raining cats and dogs right now. The weather’s making this summer an even worse bust than it already is.

Yesterday was one hectic day. Did not get to sleep the night before because my 192 groupmates and I were finishing our software for final presentation the next day.

To blog my day in all the wrong ways one can write a story grammatically:

Went home at around 2AM, continued coding, left again at around 7AM, got to school 9AM, we went on coding, finding more and more bugs as our presentation schedule drew nearer, ended up screwing up the entire thing before AND DURING the presentation, were given a second chance to present at 4PM, did debugging the entire day until 3:30 — my OTHER project presentation, aced that presentation thanks to Paolo Sy, went back to coding for 192, presented to Ma’am Weng who told us that we have to meet with our client before she gave us a final grade, went home, oh wait, went through a 3-hour traffic jam on the way home, got home, didn’t eat dinner, worked for a bit, worked even more, fell asleep, woke up at 2:30AM to find out my phone had run out of battery and when I plugged it in, got a flood of work and acad related messages, couldn’t go back to sleep, watched American Idol, tried to sleep, failed, watched 24, had breakfast, worked again…

..and now I’m blogging.

I’m excited for this database project I’m gonna be working on this summer that would probably somehow turn out to be my OJT/internship. I’ll also be taking up summer classes — thinking of whether to get some interesting G.E subject or a foreign language elective.

A lot of stuff in the road ahead. It’s partly scary, partly exciting, but I am starting to like every minute of it. :)

For the longest time now, it feels like I have nothing else in the week to blog about besides my Sundays — Sundays with family, Sundays with friends, Sundays alone.. and I relish this day. Everything else in this world is so irregular that something constant is like the cherry on top of any kind of sundae in life.

Went out to meet friends this afternoon, planned our summer get-away. Glad there’s something to look forward to this summer. :)

A while ago, I misplaced the cap of my flash drive, and I was running about the house trying to look for it. I got quite a bit frustrated at not being able to find it. It’s like when you’re late for school/work and then your keys go missing and you just curse every little thing that comes in your way while you’re trying to find them. That was how frustrated I was getting that I almost tripped over a chair.

A chair, ladies and gentlemen, as I JUST realized a while ago, had had been in front of my doorway for a while now. Looking back, it seemed to have been there since last week. It had no place being there since it USED to be in the living room.

the freakin’ chair

It then hit me that I have been going AROUND the chair when I go in or out of my room but it had never occurred to me to move it, ask my mom why it was there, or even be BOTHERED by the fact that this thing had been in my way for a while now.

The next thing that comes to mind is something most of you would find extremely corny, if not plain ridiculous. I realized that maybe life’s being clever and blunt about some similar stuff that’s been going on in my life. The cryptic version of that story would go something like: there was this thing, it was there for a while, and I did not know what a huge OBSTACLE it was until eventually something snapped. And now that it isn’t there anymore, well, it’s just somewhat of a huge relief.

Yes, dear reader, I just realized all that now. So sue me.

Now THAT’S what I call a life lesson.

My friends and I went by this Ice Creamery at the Pergola Mall in BF Homes yesterday evening in search of a simple ice cream treat.. but lo and behold! We discovered the very curious and unique ice cream flavors of Elfav! BEER and WASABI were among the odd choices, as well as Turrones and Choco Chili.

Claude, myself, and Juancho enjoying our Beer Ice Cream cones. :)

I’m not a fan of Beer, but that was definitely a treat. Although the cones didn’t really seem to go well with it. LOL. I had a sampler of Choco Chili as well and it was just as amusing — very chocolatey with a spicy aftertaste. Talk about and unusually pleasant mix.

I googled Elfav and found a few other reviews from southbound.ph and A Bugged Life.

Apparently, Elfav serves a local brand of Ice Cream, “El Favorito”. Hooray for the creativity, not to mention QUALITY, of this restaurant! And it’s local too! :)

Aside from amusing ice cream flavors, they also serve full meals like T-bone steak (that’s just 99 pesos!) and Fish Fillet. They also have FREE WI-FI!

I’ve found a new place to hang out in BF Homes. Yehey!