secret-keeper

I've realized that it will be the biggest mistake of my life to break up with my boyfriend. Not that I had any concrete intention to do so, but he's amazing, and I remind myself of this everytime I try to sabotage my relationship due to my own personal hangups. I've never met anyone this mature when it came to relationships. I'm immature when it comes to fights but when we work things out in the end I feel like we're closer than ever. It blows me away. 

I've realized that I'm not as good a hotshot as I think I am when it comes to work. And people in my line of work usually think that they're the shit. So I'm trying to be the opposite, simply because it's the truth: it's my first job, and I don't know squat. The things under my initiative fall away. So my leadership skills aren't the best.

I realized that for my dreams to come to fruition, I better be damn clear with where I'm coming from and with what I want to do. The basic idea is to build things. I want to build! I see a city of progression and rising skyscrapers and I so want to be part of the foray, realizing visions, changing the landscape of the city, establishing economic stability brick by brick. I want to remove the slums. I want to create communities.

I've been told that I'm too idealistic. But I think that the more important thing is, motive. What is my motive? Right now, I just want to build for the sake of building. I just want to build because it's possible. I just want to build and see my ideas come to life, like an artist, like an architect. I want to build because I want it to be my way of putting the world in order. Motive is always the question to ask when you want to be a religious/political/leader. It's easy to want something, but the harder thing is pinpointing why. Self-interest is a hard thing to admit to, and it's mostly the one reason why people shouldn't be doing what they think they want.

So, I hope my dreams and ambitions and impossible ideals exist for all the right reasons.

If only I could hack the math, I'd definitely be an architect.

I want to start a chapter of Architecture for Humanity in my area. And if ever, hopefully, I super want my CSR initiatives to be all about slum abolition, community development, and entrepreneurship. 

I've been fickle my whole life, but I hope this is it. I hope this is *the* dream, I hope this is *the* vision. I hope these dreams are the final blueprint upon which my life will be fashioned. 

I am impatient. I can't wait to start building, I can't wait to hit the ground running, but the truth is I haven't even begun to learn to crawl. 

I'm awake at 2am in the morning. I had a couple of revelations just an hour ago, and woke up just to get everything off my chest, but I hear there was an explosion near where I used to stay in college. So now I'm surfing the internet to see what everyone else is up to. Wow, people are still awake at this hour. I suppose I'm the only one who works ten-hour days.

I want to get my boyfriend an iPod shuffle for his birthday / graduation, but I'm balking at the price. They're not that cheap, for their tiny size. Oh well. Can I give it to him for his birthday/graduation/Christmas? 

--

I was in my REM state just a while ago, thinking about work in my sleep, when my eyes suddenly flew open while I was worrying about some mistake I might've committed. It sucks being dedicated to your job. As an employee, you're basically paid to worry, but I'm pretty sure that you are by no means obligated to think this much about it. Not at this pay. Not as an entry level worker (I say entry level because it's my first job.)

And whatever irrational grudge I had at the time against God, I gave it up. I was simply too exhausted with sleep deprivation, which my mom said I had, because I didn't pray. As much as I hate to admit it, she raised a valid point. So I just basically surrendered right there. Sleep is a basic need you know, and I haven't had a good one since... February of two years ago. It was the beginning of a string of personal disasters that extended up to just this summer, but I have never felt so sure of myself in God. I never felt so close and so free. (It's three am now, and I can feel a headache coming.)

Then I started thinking about work. I'm worrying way too much about it and I'm sure even my boss doesn't lose sleep over it. Heck, I have nightmares and dreams about work. This is crazy insane. I've drenched my thoughts with work because outside of it is just a gaping, endless void. And then, I realized, the only thing I should be losing sleep over is my business, not someone else's. My dad and I were discussing this when I was thinking about starting my own business. With the things I want to do tied up into relatively long-term projects, I had been warned about losing sleep just trying to make ends meet and making sure things go smoothly. I've been obsessing over minor details at work because my boss is so meticulous. Why couldn't I obsess over the minor details of a business plan, overseeing everything, bossing everyone else around?

I took this as a sign. I'm a workaholic. My work ethic has been affirmed by bosses and teachers -- when I'm driven, I'm driven. I know I can make it work, because to turn away employment is to leave you with no choice. My friend had a "no choice theory" -- she procrastinated come hell or high water, but at the last split second, she got things done, because she had no choice. When you have no choice, you'll find a way to make things work, no matter what. And they work out, eventually. Because there's no other choice. 

Come to think of it, isn't the reason so many people are experiencing a quarter-life crisis right now is the fact that they have too many choices and they don't know what it is that they want exactly? They are paralyzed with options, and by their indecision, they end up not doing anything with their lives.

Somewhere in my train of thought, work and God collided. I felt the "goosefrabah of affirmation" (to prevent people from thinking I have the crazies, I mentioned something crazy in a twist of irony.)

Gigapedia is the best site out there for book lovers and nerds. It's safe to say that it's the most comprehensive collection of ebooks online to date.

My parents never thought it was a good idea to spend money for books when I can borrow my friends', and I was much more interested in food than books to save up for them, plus books are mighty expensive here.

When I found Gigapedia, and torrents to boot, I spent hours downloading media that you formerly had to pay for. I read books I couldn't have accessed even in local bookstores. I was reading a book a day, and I was instantly exposed to a library of exciting possibilities. For an interdisciplinary nerd like me, I was in knowledge utopia. I could read books on media studies, urban planning, or simply even update myself with the latest literary fads like Twilight, Dan Brown, Sookie Stackhouse.

My last summer was spent reading entrepreneurship books and the tales of Sandman by Neil Gaiman. I came across literary jewels like Time Traveler's Wife, Water for Elephants, Guernsey, and others. Books have left me richer in every sense of the word, and I don't feel like I wasted my money when I end up reading a bad book.  I no longer had any excuse to be bored, and the television was neglected more and more each day. My eyes still hurt at the end of the day, but now I'm conscious to rest them every once in a while.

(When I move into my own place, if I must have a television, I don't plan on getting cable, and I'll have it wired to my desktop. Or, I'll get an IMac and place it in the living room.)

Of course, even though Gigapedia is about as popular as Fight Club (rules 1 & 2: You do not talk about gigapedia), I'm excited to share my find with friends. I don't understand when people are self-confessed book lovers yet they're turned off by the premise that books can be read on a computer. It's understandable when your eyes get tired easily, but overappreciating the tactile sense of having an actual book just sounds snobbish. I mean, you read books for the content. You don't possess books merely to flick your hands through the pages, and run your fingers through the ink. You read most books once (because there are so many more wonderful pages to read) and books spend most of their time sitting pretty / gathering dust on a bookshelf. You might like the paperbacks more, but I can assure you I've read more books than you have since the time I found out about gigapedia, and my wallet is not injured by it. So -- that tells me what kind of book lover you really are.

There are still some books I really want that I can't find on Gigapedia. Rilke's Ahead of All Parting is one such example. I love Rilke's poetry and I wouldn't mind going through his words again and again. I'd appreciate the simplicity of rummaging through the pages and wonder what new revelation I might stumble upon next. So I can say that some books, at the very least, are worth keeping around on your bookshelf for.

With that said, I would really like to own an ebook reader one of these days, because reading all day on my CRT does get to me.

I've been using the free time reading. I love how gigapedia has a lot of the books I want now but wasn't able to find a couple of months ago. Yesterday, I finished two books. So, this lethargy can be fought off. I'm excited to be reading the whole day, but the boss is coming later, so.... I'll try to handle that when it comes. Nothing wrong with being more productive than surfing.

I think i've been at this stage of stagnancy for more than a couple of weeks now. the most I do is turn away sponsorships or process them and handle special orders / sales which isn't even in my job description. My bosses trust me so much, I'm the one doing everything.

So. Work sucks. I've been lacking sleep lately because my usual paranoid little self is getting extra scared of all the things that go bump into the night. After watching a little bit of Paranormal Activity, I've started wondering if all those weird noises were really something otherworldly, and not good. Most nights, I would hear thumping on the stairs as if someone was going up or down them quickly. On particular evenings, the house sounded like someone was opening our glass doors. And sometimes, we receive phone calls beyond midnight. Once, I answered it only to hear a creepy soundtrack playing on the other side.

Today I had my first bangungot. It was like lockjaw but for the whole body, with a weird grating voice when I tried to say something. Eventually, I actually said something and it woke me up.

My mom says this is all happening because I stopped praying. Well, she has a point. If God has to bully me into praying...

After everything I've been through, I don't know what to expect from him anymore, and I don't know the remedy. All I know is, my hands are completely off religion now. No more church, no more talking about God, no more whatever. Occasionally I belt out a worship song, or read some theo/sophical post, but that's it. I don't know what I'm waiting for, and I don't know what I want from God.

Let's just say we aren't on speaking terms right now. I'm pretty vindictive right now, which is probably one trait that will send me straight to hell.