Rainbows

I turned 18 today. It rained buckets the whole afternoon, but rainbows kept popping up everywhere that it made me think that maybe unicorns do exist!

1. I treated my high school friends to lunch today and made them wear ROYGBIV colors because I felt like it. And they did. Here's a pic!

(L-R: Jom, Vincent, Jermy, As-as, Jason, Max, myself) [incomplete because Elyse and Tim left early. :(]

2. Asrielle gave me a gift wrapped in rainbow-colored paper with lotion inside!

 (wrapper only; gave up on tearing it up neatly;

got thrown away already but picked it up from the trash for blog post's sake)

3. My dear friend Maxine compiled a bunch of messages from my high school class, and put them into this jar filled with rainbow stars!!!

4. And in one of those messages, Abigail wrote to me and told me my smile is like a rainbow. :">
5. And THEN, while we were getting back from the mall, "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" played on the radio. It was this version. ;__; Beautiful. So beautiful. :((

**

I laughed until I cried with my friends today.
We karaoke-d at a Chinese restaurant called President Grand Palace Restaurant (not the tea house) and some of the lines were cut midway like "Please don't stop the mu" and "Keep bleeding L". Yes, we sang the way the videoke told us to. Please don't stop the MOOOOO. :)) We had great food and it was wonderful. And then we learned that the rain was starting to pour and we knew it was our fault. We went to Robinson's Place afterwards and hung out with no worries in mind, just spending quality time teasing each other and making fun of my friend ******* who had found love in her life. There were so many things to celebrate today.

I cried until I laughed with my family tonight.
I came home to find that my family had already eaten dinner (which were leftovers from my lunch with my friends) because they thought I had eaten out, and so I threw a fit like a little girl that I was not supposed to be. I was raging and all, but my family calmed me down and actually sat down and ate with me again. And then my dad threw the cake box on the table and they sang me happy birthday and my mother said a prayer for me and I cried.

And then we ate a quarter of it and my sister and I turned it into Pac-man... with pockmarks. u_u

(Thank you As-as and Max and Jermy for the chocolate mousse cake!)

Now I'm crying again. I may be eighteen now, but I'm really just a big baby who cries over every little beautiful thing. But rainbows are beautiful and rainbows are here again. Rainbows are for when the rain has stopped, and now, so should my tears. Happy 18th to me!

Feelings

After reading my dear friend Tin's most recent blog post, and after answering quite a number of sad-ish questions on my Formspring, I realize that I rarely talk about personal affairs and feelings to anyone at all, not even on this blog. Metaphorically, it seems that I don't want people to see what's inside my soul; I don't want to be read. I wonder if this is because I was brought up this way, or I feel like sharing doesn't help, or I don't like being the subject of pity and concern? Or all three? I don't know.

Usually I describe myself as an extrovert. I like to talk. I've read a post about introversion on my friend Ren's tumblr, which said that introverts think smalltalk is useless. And well... all I ever do is smalltalk. I like to make people comfortable around me. I like to see others smile. In every conversation, I would always want the other to be the focus, and I would listen to his/her story and relate some of my experiences with it instead. And if it were my turn to tell a story, I would always choose trivial, happy matters to tell. Maybe I don't want to make my friend feel uncomfortable or unsure as to how to react. I like ONLY good vibes and happy times when with my friends, then ironically, that's what causes me to become somewhat distant from them.

I may seem all happy and shallow and gullible and dumb most of the time, but that doesn't mean I don't reflect about life and take things the hard way too. I always want to be around people in order to push those problems aside first. I don't want others to feel bad because of MY problems. By the way, I am a non-confrontational person, that's for sure. I always find a way around confronting people and problems head-on. Perhaps I'm being a coward for always running away. But thanks, Aimee, for telling me it's not true. I guess I have my own way of solving problems.

I think I have trust issues. I used to have the tightest circle of friends that was formed back in grade school. We grew up together. We've known each other since we were five. We knew all of each others' secrets. But slowly, one by one, those friends started to replace me with others. Yes, it's been confirmed to be true. One of them told me herself, that last day of exams week in fourth year high school, that she would rather hang out with her other friends, than with our group... right when all I ever did was to try to keep the group together throughout high school. It broke my heart. It really did. So I gave up.

And that's a completely different issue from my love life back then too.

There was only one person in that group who really stuck with me through those years. Thanks, Max. :)

I guess that explains why now, I refrain from 'investing' too much in friendship. "Friends come and go", eh? No, no. Please don't misunderstand. I don't take you for granted. Now I just take it less personally when a friend leaves. I'm still trying to understand myself, really, so please don't judge me because of this post. It's what I'm afraid of the most. And if you're starting to worry about me, here's one promise I will always keep: I'll be okay. :)

Thanks for reading this far. Thanks for caring. Really, truly... Thank you.

Not a cloud in the sky, got the sun in my eyes...

And I won't be surprised that it's a dreaaaam...

Hello, friends! I HAVE RETURNED.

Summer is getting me burned out. Literally. My arms and feet have the most epic tan lines ever. You should see them. You'd be amazed! Hurr hurr.

Anyway, hellooooo! It's been a while. I'm sorry for making you miss out on my life, since I'm sure you're all terribly interested in everything that I do. Kidding. Urgh, I annoy myself when I'm being sarcastic. Here are some things I should talk about today (but probably not in great detail because you may lose interest uh huh oh yes that's how it goes: an increase in supply = decrease in equilibrium price given equal demandas;ldfjkasl;dfj):

First of all, I have been to... Singapore! The Lion City! The 'fine' city! Where every time you do something wrong, you get fined! Where the only two seasons there are hot and hotter! And the only kinds of food there are also hot and hotter!!! Okay, well, maybe not. :)) Singapore really is a nice place to be with virtually NO pollution! We went all over the city in all kinds of transportation like by private van, by subway, by monorail, by FOOT. My feet died some time within those three days.

There were so many things to see in Singapore! And so much food to eat! Oh, and I finally got my bare feet on to a beach in Sentosa! A REAL beach! With real salty water! (Yes, I just had to taste it.) Then the sky got all dark and thunderstormed on us a little while later but hey, I'm happy enough with wading in knee-high seawater for a few blissful minutes. There was also this amazing fountain show in Sentosa that made me go omgit'ssoawesomeicandiehappynow. It's called Songs of the Sea. It's wonderful and dreamy and magical. If you're going to Singapore, you have to watch it.

Other places we've been to are the Merlion Park (Singlish, 'Muh-lah-yun Pawhk' so we thought it was the Malayan Park), the Night Safari (which was really cool too!), the Singaporean Flyer (giant ferris wheel with a great view from the top!), Orchard Road (nothing special for me. It was just a bunch of malls), Esplanade (a concert hall that looked like twin durians from the outside but they were meant to look like a halved microphone), Gluttons Bay (yummy food), foodcourts (more yummy food!), other malls like the Bugis Junction (our hotel, the Summerview Hotel, was actually quite near there).

My dearest friend Maxine celebrated her birthday five days ago! BELATED HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MAX!  Note: celebrated. Her birthday was April 24, Easter Sunday. How holy can she get? But she treated us to Banana Leaf last April 30 and it was awesoomeeee! The curry was so good I had to bring home the leftover sauce. And so I did. After lunch we went to buy socks!! So fun!!! =)) No, no, silly. We bought socks to play bowling! And then after bowling, we went to Tom's World, this kiddie arcade with REAL TICKETS! Then we exchanged the tickets for prizes and got Max a super adorable stuffed ducky with the words 'You're so ducky!' written on it! Then after than we went to play ROCK BAND. WHOO. I loved the mic. I sang Poker Face and Just Dance and Bad Romance and it was so embarrassing because my guy friends must now think I'm some sort of trying-hard diva but what the hey! My friend Arnie was a pro at the drums AND the guitar. Just sayin'.

In other news, I have successfully passed my scholarship form along with all the chorva required with it! Actually, I had a bad dream last night that I was rejected for the scholarship. :| That is bad juju right there. But no, I shall never lose hope. :D

Thanks for reading this far! :D I never write coherently anymore, so thanks for bearing with me! I should go take a shower now. Hasta luego!

Summer Class!

"Summer class is an oxymoron to me." - Julian Balmaceda, Mar 2011

Summer classes started two days ago. So far, all has been well. I gave myself a pat on the back for enlisting myself in great classes! Two out of my three classes are actually held in air-conditioned rooms. I guess I really am the chosen one. Should have known, should have known.

My teachers are also really kind, especially my Psych teacher! For some reason I feel like a kindergardener in her class... It's probably because of the really cute clip arts and gifs she uses so much in her powerpoints! Awww. My Economics teacher was awkward like the awkward turtle at first, but nonetheless cool! He gives two-item daily quizzes that are so darn easy and he attempts to conserve paper by letting us use the same 1/8 piece of pad paper for two quizzes. As for my Spanish teacher, well... she gives me headaches. She can't use the computer nor the OHP very well. And she unconsciously speaks in Spanish all the time and I can't understand most of what she is saying. Thank goodness for the lunch break afterwards.

I found new friends this summer and I'm happy about it. Hihihi. Or maybe I'm just fooling myself.

Did you know? AJSS Batch 44 has their English class in the same class as my Economics class! Right before my class starts too! I look at them and I realize it has been two years since I joined that seminar that changed my life forever. I was happy then. *faraway look in the eyes*

Anywayyyy, I just love my block and how close we are. Even when we all have different classes and schedules and stuff, we still try to eat lunch together as much as possible to hang out and play cards! And everyone with FLCs starts conversing with each other in Mandarin or Spanish or French. Sometimes I like to just keep quiet and listen to you guys talk and try to memorize your voices. Do try it! :D Actually it was my friend Arielle who did that with me during our last days of AJSS, and well, do try it! It's nice to remember the voices of your good friends and read their FB messages in their voices! K. Senti momeeeeent.

I'm trying to keep my summer really busy to keep myself... so here's a bunch of stuff I signed up for this summer!

1. I am going to Singapore this Holy Week!!! And miss THREE DAYS OF SCHOOL! Woohoo! *tear* We are only allowed three cuts per class this summer sem. .__.
2. I joined the Ateneo Book Bench! It's an org made by students that aims to make the library a more fun and lively place! :D I joined the Alt-Lib 101 Committee that focuses on making a nice, entertaining manual for bewildered freshies like I was--almost destroying the microfilms and panicking over my research papers.
3. I am going to attend the BIRDWALK next month, sponsored by the AEMC (Ateneo Environmental Management Coalition) and ABES (ADMU Bird Ecology Study Group)! I just love looking at the birds around Ateneo, because they are so many of them that you can't see anywhere else in Metro Manila! Like overfed maya birds in Manang's, for example. Nah, I'm kidding.
4. I have also set a long-overdue appointment with the Guidance office. At LAST they have a slot for me. :| I have gone there more than five times, asking to have an appointment but always being sent away because scholars and people who have real, major problems should go first. THANKS A LOT.
5. I have been neglecting the Aluminum Folio. I am ashamed. Actually, all of us are neglecting it. There's school now so it's much harder to write anything decent. :(
6. I shall hang out more at the lib. I wonder if that's going to happen at all.

So yeah, that's it! All links exist because they are meant to be clicked. Go on, don't be shy! :D

Fun Friends are Fun

I went to school to pay my tuition fee last Thursday. I met up with my friend Aaron and his two coursemates Patrick and Aya (they're all from CS, btw) who paid online but needed to apply for an ID too. It was nice walking around the almost empty Ateneo with friends and nothing important in mind. We met some of their upperclassmen who invited us to go audition for this year's O-Film! I didn't dare, but Aaron, Patrick and Ia did! The audition process itself was rather boring, honestly. They just make you read a script (with feelings). It takes a while per person so we waited outside the room while playing Pinoy Henyo and getting headaches from it. Oh, and guess what I found out? The O-Film is going to be a parody of Scott Pilgrim! ... plus 500 Days of Summer, which is a rather old movie, but I still can't wait how it turns out! :D

Yesterday, WDG went to Glorietta/Greenbelt! Only Maxine, her sister, Jom and I were present that day though, because As-as had violin lessons. Good for you, girl! I've always wanted to learn to play the violin. WDG stands for World Domination Group. Yes, you heard me. It's composed of myself, Maxine, Jomarie and Asrielle. The idea started from Maxine, actually. Our Miss Independent who hails from UP Diliman! (Kidding, Max.) Whenever we would get our hearts broken, she would tell us that men are worthless and that if we never get married, we would someday take over the world instead. =)) No offense, men.

Anyway, we spent most of the day walking around Greenbelt and taking pictures! Here are a few of them:

We all shared one cream puff there in the Food Court because none of them wanted to eat anything.

No, we didn't watch that movie.

That place with the cross in the background is a chapel!

Greenbelt has a really nice garden area where there are ponds with fish and even ducks in them! It's all part of the reification effects malls have.

We had lunch at John&Yoko - Cosmopolitan Japanese Cuisine (named after John Lennon and Yoko Ono, but not opened by them.) which is located at Greenbelt 5. It's a really posh place with really posh customers and annoying waitresses who are very judgmental. I knew I should have worn something decent! But anyway, the food was great! We weren't able to take any pictures of them though, so I'll describe them to you instead! There was... Spicy Tuna Salad which has big chunks of raw tuna mixed with lettuce leaves and topped with spicy chili mayo and crispy tempura breading! Next, we had Dynamite Rolls. It was six pieces of maki with salmon and mayo and seaweed wrapped inside! But the real dynamite effect is in the sauce. We had to dip them in a red sauce that's mildly sweet and sour at first but then gets really really spicy after swallowed. But it was good. There was cucumber water (like lemon water, but cucumber. yes.) served, it was all a unique experience. We shared a well-done steak laid on top of a bed of french fries and served with lots of mushroom gravy with three kinds of mushrooms in it. It was kind of tough, but still amazing. @-) We ate the steak with a paella called Japaella. There isn't much sahog in it but it was topped with grilled chicken and big garlic shrimps! And the rice itself was fragrant and tasty enough on its own. The servings were big too, so the prices were okay at 200-300 per entree!

I hope I did not get you guys hungry. Or did I? :> I'm kidding. I swear I will start my diet... after my family takes me to have steak at Robinson's later. :> Hahaha.... :|

We went to get some ice cream at the DQ in Glorietta. Glorietta and Greenbelt are connected by an overpass so it's all very convenient. The mango blizzards were great! And then after ice cream, we went to Timezone! Glorietta has the HUGEST Timezone branch ever! We played a bunch of stuff I sucked in such as basketball shooting and skee ball, so I felt better when we played the two feet high ball shooting game for kids instead and got 10 tickets from it! We also played this drum game with yellow drums, and this texting game with metal payphone keypads and the buttons I pressed would not register. :| It was fun though because we were screaming each letter at the top of our lungs and people were shooting us strange looks, but we didn't care. :)) We got really tired took a rest at the Food Court and took vain pics and then left soon afterwards. My thumbs are still sore from the texting game. :))

I guess that's about it! I have to go now. We're leaving for RP soon. Bye!

I need a life.

One week left 'til school! Can you believe it? I'm counting down the days 'til school! Can you believe me? :| I'm sorry to say this, but I think I have rested enough. I need to get up and moving again. Maybe I'm starting to love work (like my friend Tin here. Hahaha.). And I have somehow developed a sense that time should not be wasted. :O

Skill learned: Reflection!
Maturity +3
Wisdom +2

Today was a relatively productive day for me, by the way. I woke up at around 7:30 today feeling like I had no bones. My body clock has gone kaput, because I usually wake up at noon. I had to crawl out of bed and force myself to eat breakfast because I had to go to our old house in QC with my grandmother! I had to go with my grandma because she's ninety, and well, her legs aren't doing very well anymore. Our household help had gone with us, but I had to be there to serve as a translator! Anyway, there's this Buddhist holiday today called 清明节 which I think commemorates the birthday of the Earth God or something. *Edit* Whoops, sorry. It's the Buddhist All Saints' Day pala. *Edit* So there. My grandmother is Buddhist and had to celebrate the holiday every year. We brought a lot of food to the altar on third floor/roof deck of the house where the food was laid out as offering. We also had to burn some 金 (literally meaning gold) or pieces of paper with golden designs on it because it was believed that the 金 burned would go to the heavens and serve as the souls' money. You can scoff at the practice, but I think it's interesting, although the smoke it makes does well in making me cry. (Global warming. Aaahh.)

No one has ever lived in that old house for almost a decade. My Fil 12 classmates would know about this, because I wrote about it for a personal essay in class. It was the house that was completed the same time I was born. My friends, the trees, have all been cut down now, by the way. I rarely go back to look around, and when I do, I'm always shocked by how small everything is now. Hahaha. Have you ever felt as if a place you used to frequent as a child had shrunk, but really it was you who grew? :)) It's a strange feeling to remember all the things I used to do in that house. The whole place was really dark and dusty. It almost resembles a haunted house, but no. I spent good years there. :) I guess that's what happens when things are abandoned. They shed their colors and blend into the shadows and disappear from memory. The house reminds me of the theater in the movie, "Cinema Paradiso". Hahaha. I wonder if we would ever use that house again. Maybe I will. Someday.

Sooo... enough about my reflections and on to other news! Online enlistment for summer class was yesterday. It was exciting! You see how uneventful my life is for thinking it was fun. Yes. Anyway, I'm really looking forward to summer class! Honestly, I don't think it's much of a big deal because I have studied every summer for my entire life! </3 I studied the usual stuff like Math and English and swimming and piano, but I also got enrolled in stuff like Chinese Calligraphy and abacus classes. ABACUS. I'm not kidding. I now realize how bizarre it is in retrospect. (Hi, Jeth!)

Oh, speaking of Jeth, I'm signing up for scholarship this year! I'm not rich, and if I'm really pushing through with being a doctor, I might as well save some money for my parents, right? I can only apply for a maximum of a 50% scholarship now, though. I do hope I get it. :)

It took me a while to churn out this new blog post, because my blockmates, Aimee, Rap and I have started a literary blog! We sort of gave up on the 50,000-word essay, so we gave ourselves a different challenge instead! The rules were to post something that passes as literature everyday. It's hard to allocate some inspiration for this blog too when I had to use all I have for the other one. Hahaha. Go check it out, will you? :D And you can contribute too, if you'd like! :-bd

Summer is...

... fattening. :))

I'm not kidding. Summer life basically equates to food. I've been gorging on a whole bucket of caramel-glazed clusters (yes, clusters) of popcorn with pecan and almonds since finals week (It's how I cope with the stress. :(( ). Then my good friend Maxine gave me a whole bar of durian candy from Davao which gives me bad breath but I eat it anyway! And I made French toast with my sister this afternoon, which got really, well, toast. (I can hear my blockmates wehhh-ing me right now.) Some slices got badly burned. It's my first time eating French toast. I'm not even sure if we did it right, but they were really gooood. That's the only thing that matters anyway. :))

I've been trying to make up for my massive food intake this summer through exercise. Guess what I've been doing? I've been climbing some stairs. I live in a condominium, you see. And what we do have a lot of is stairs. :)) I climb from the 11th floor to the roof deck (27th floor) around 2-3 times, so that would be 16 floors times three! But our building has no 13th floor, so technically I just climb 15 floors per round. ...which reminds me of a funny story about my stair-climbing thing that happened last summer.

I take breaks between every few floors so I wouldn't get too tired and collapse from being out of breath. So that one time, I was walking around the 22nd floor, I think. And I saw a REALLY HUGE doggie. Maybe if it stood up, he'd be tall enough to reach my shoulder. It was so big and so brown and so fluffehhhhh. It was asleep behind a metal door inside one unit, so I was brave enough to go up close to stare at it. 8D Okay, I didn't just stare. I made some "psssst" sounds (I have no idea why) at it, and suddenly the doggie raised its head and HOWLED. At me, I wasn't so sure. I was so shocked, I ran away. And I was too scared to look back. =))

... I need a real form of exercise. Swimming! Yes. I want to go to the beach! :(( You know, I have never been to the beach since I was four. How sad is that?

On a completely unrelated note, our grades came out today. It was simply nerve-wracking, because our English grades were uploaded late! But now that they're out, all I can say is that the results were more than satisfactory! :D Everyone is still reeling from the shock of not being a freshman anymore, including me! It makes me wonder how much I have learned this year. As I was cleaning out my readings and test papers and lab manuals the other day, I was shocked to find how much MONEY I have wasted photocopying readings some of which I have never even touched. =)) Kidding aside, my experience as a freshman is pretty much the just the beginning of a loooong college life ahead of me. I do hope I'm prepared enough to grow up and become a sophomore! No one will baby us anymore. :)) I am really glad I was able to meet loads of wonderful friends and blockmates and classmates and professors and ates and kuyas and photocopying ladies and janitors and Kirk Long and Ryan Buenafe who have all helped me, in one way or another, through the struggles of being a Atenean n00b. One big THANK YOU to all of you! >:D<

I miss my high school friends. I need to spend time with them as soon as possible or I may just start losing my mind. It's always easiest to be one's self with people one grew up with. And I can not wait to give my friends a piece of my mind for losing touch! Hello, As-as! :|

Actually, summer for me is... a time to think. With so much free time on my hands, it is so easy to get bored and just space out and think about things that often pass me by. So it's PERFECT for writing a novel! Aimee challenged me (and a few other friends) to write a 50000-word novel in a month! The challenge starts today, and I have already started! But after a hundred or so words, I got stuck. Already. XD

What's summer for you?

New Blog! \:D/

Happy Summer, everyone! It has been a year since my last blog post and it feels great to be back! I'm so excited to get blogging again!

The past year was a dark one for both Multiply and Friendster when Facebook started to take over the internet! As you can see from what I initially wanted to call my Blog Graveyard (I changed my mind.) to the right side of this page, well, my old blogs really are old. No one hung around Multiply any more so it had to retire. I tried posting a few "notes" on Facebook, but soon enough, I realize blogging on Facebook is just... not for me. I thought I would stop blogging for good, but thanks to my dear friend Aimee for egging me on to make one, here I am again! Hello, you! >:D< Yes, Aimee. You. :))

There's nothing much on my blog yet, as you can see. The template is also really bright and annoying, so help me find a new one, please? :)) So... I guess that's all I want to say. But look at all that SPACE! All that space must be filled!

Alright. I guess I'll just explain my URL and blog title and About Me because I really like talking about myself! 8D (I'm kidding.)

Sho Shmart came from one of my PE mates back in the first semester when I kept correcting her that the Ch-sound in my name is read as "Sh" like "shells" and not "Ch" like "churros".  So she started to call me Sheryl Shong. The Sho Shmart part came around when she found out that I got good grades in Math. Soon enough, the nickname spread across my block and people would sometimes attach a "for the win" to make it "Sheryl Shong Sho Shmart For The Win." And I would be like, what the heck. But I secretly like it. Hihihi. Now it's not much of a secret any more.

Uh... Paper Hearts does sound cheesy, but whatever. :)) I got the inspiration from last Christmas when my course's home org, the Health Sciences Society, launched a project where people can order cut-out paper hearts for a small fee to send to their loved ones. It's a really cute fund-raiser! Also, you know, real hearts are like paper. They start off like a clean sheet of paper, and they can be colored in with dreams and memories, then one day the owners can just give them away to the people they love. :) They're really fragile too, like paper. We should always be careful not to tear them apart. TNE. :))

My About Me is even cheesierrr. But I guess you should know that bit about me. I am CHEESY. I'm an ahh-the-wind type of person. I'm a romantic. An optimist. And idealist. I love the world! You are nice. Everyone is nice. The world is nice. :)) So yeah! I keep myself happy that way. Of course, I do know how to keep my head out of the clouds when necessary.  要脚踏实地。But listen to this anyway, so you would know what I mean. 8-> *EDIT* By the way, "Cher Bear" also came from my blockmates. I've never had a decent nickname (people called me Chongerz and Chonakerz back in high school), so they gave me this cutie-patootie one! XD Honestly, I love this nickname to bits too.

Yay, first blog post in long time! I enjoyed writing it. I do hope you enjoy reading it (given you read this far)! Good night. Enjoy summer, because I sure know I will. :D