// Quarter Life Monologues

I went to my niece’s debut last week (oh wow, my nieces are turning 18 alreadyyy!! I feel oooold!), and since I went straight to the party from the apartment, and would not have time to fetch the hamsters before going home to Caloocan, I had to take them with me.

As for the weirdest things I’ve ever done, bringing two restless hamsters (caged in a huge bright green plastic thingy) to a semi-formal event has definitely climbed the charts.

Fortunately, the debut’s motif was green, and I happened to be wearing green, and the hamster cage was green too. So I guess we pretty much blended with the decorations, and the table cloths, and the balloons, and the debutante’s gown.

I hid the hamsters under the table during the program, as kids would swarm around the hamster cage everytime they catch a glimpse of it. Of course I didn’t want the friggin hamsters to take the limelight away from Eunice, the debutante, who was really stunning that night, by the way.

When the party was over, though, it was the hamster’s turn to party. Read the rest of this entry »

I finally gave in. As of the start of last week, I am (once again) a proud mommy to two cute little teddy bear hamsters named Chichi and Chuchu. (Okaay, I know these names are lame, but can I help it if those were the first syllables that came out of my mouth when I first saw them? Hehe.)

I contemplated on it for a while–for a looong while, actually. It started back when I was still working with these girls, back when they couldn’t stop talking about their hamsters and I could only look at their pictures enviously! So for a time, I was weighing the pros and the cons (you know how obssessive-compulsive I can be sometimes), thinking if it’s an investment worth making, or if I have time to feed them and play with them and take care of them, or if I’m ready to be emotionally attached again (LOL. Seriously, I cried for nights when my first hamster died!). But just like many other impulsive decisions I’ve made in the past, my contemplation turned out to be a waste of time, because the moment I laid eyes on the hammies, logic was the last thing I could think of and all I wanted was to take them home with me.

Consequently, I bought the hammies at a time when my eyes were all strained from the glare of the computer, and my head’s all stressed out from all the overanalyses I’ve been doing the past few days. (In short, when thinking rationally was the last thing I could do). The only concern I could think of at that time was if I should buy just one hamster instead of two. After asking some experts (LOL), I learned that hamsters, too, might become depressed, and I didn’t want that for my babies so I had to buy him/her someone to share his/her world with (in the form of a plastic hamster cage worth almost 2000php! Grr).

Meet my hammies, Chichi and Chuchu.
(Chi’s the brown-ish one, and Chu’s the grey-ish other).

Here I go again. While more responsibilities is supposedly not an option for me right now, I found a stress-reliever in the form of another responsibility. Don’t you just love ironies? c”,)

View their Hamsterster account here and here. (Lemme just say, I was just curious at first if somebody already thought of making a social networking site for hamsters, after all, dogs have dogster, and friends have, well, friendster. So I keyed in “hamsterster” and lo and behold, there is. Crazyweird.) More pictures here.

I’m currently the featured New Maria, and I’m not so sure until when so I captured the moment in pixels while it’s still there:

Why? Beats me. Hehe. In any case, thanks, Liz! And the lovely crew of New Maria. More power (to us)! :)

A few weeks ago, I joined the group mainly because Joni was there–and I think I’ve been pretty obvious about how big an influence that girl is to me pfft hehe–as well as a couple of female webmasters I’ve always admired and reverred. As I kept on reiterating back there at PinkSEO, I’m an advocate of girl power, of women making a difference and being exceptional at what they do. And with NewMaria’s concept, registering wasn’t a hard choice to make.

# New Maria is a non-profit web site with a purpose to showcase Modern Filipina talents in writing, web designing, software developing/programming.

# New Maria is a Modern Filipina, someone who got the confidence to show to the world her skills and talent.

So here I am, one of the newest members of New Maria (and proudly too). If you’re a girl, and you think you have what it takes, come, join New Maria NOW. c”,)

* * *

Now this one’s from out of the blue. I have a decision to make before this day ends (er, more specifically, before Megamall closes tonight): Ang hamster ba, pag mag-isa, nalulungkot din?

(Why does it feel like I have to take cobwebs off this site everytime I decide to press the “Write Post” button? Pfft.)

Hey. Look where I am now.

I didn’t expect that a time would come when I’d fall prey to the “elite” coffee shop culture where one pays around 150php worth of iced coffee and 200php worth of GlobeQuest credits in exchange for 2 measly hours of wifi connection and some snazzy ambience. So. Not. Me. (Or so I thought).

But living in an apartment with no telephone lines (and other related technology) to offer, and with the nearest hotspot in the form of Starbucks just few blocks away, I have to say, I don’t have much of a choice. Taking DELLilah the Laptop (his, not mine) whit me to Starbucks Pearl Drive, I suddenly hate myself for being judgmental of those people who hang out at coffee shops with their cute little laptops while sipping their fraps. Gag. I’ve crossovered.

Anyway. Since I’ve paid 400 bucks already (eww), I might as well make the most out of it and blog about, er, things I thought of blogging about but was not able to blog about because I’m so full of excuses (lame, I know). If only I had the time, and the will, and the internet access, I would have extensively blogged about:

(1) Pinkseo.Info getting banned out of Statcounter. My bandwidth has gone way beyond the limit that free accounts provide, hence, it’s either I upgrade to paid account, or they cut me off. It’s irritating and thrilling at the same time. Averaging around 9,000 unique visitors a day (where did that come from again??!), it would have been more exciting if the Ituloy Angsulong race was still on. My Google rank is still going up, see? Haynaku. I really should do something grand about that site. Think, think, think. (Suggestions, anyone?)

(2) Importing my four years worth of blogposts from there to here, following Joni’s step-by-step Importing-Tabulas-to-Wordpress initiative, to no avail. After successfully transferring my ten most recent posts, I came to accept the grim reality that I’m not (and never will I be) as patient as she is, and it’s gona take me 10 years to transfer all of them in. It did help, however, that I at least tried. You see, my attempt gave me no choice but to browse and read through four years worth of icky melodrama–making me realize in the end that it’s really better to just keep them there, after all, that’s where they should be–archived forever, haha. (I’m taking the “leave the past behind” mantra literally here, come on, help me out).

(3) Being tagged by some (online) friends–one I finally met face-to-face and one I was reunited with through the Ituloy Angsulong Night–to help out in the Stage and Decorations committee of Philippine Blog Awards 07. The pinoy online community is creating some noise, one big event after the other. (Watch out, The Third Iblog Summit is next.) And I feel honored to be part of it, in a way. At least this time they know me as “Riz”, and not “Pink”.

(4) Trusting people, and work issues, and Michael Scofield (coz my post about him has brought me quite a number of hits from search engines, coolness), and how much I love Music and Lyrics, and other mundane things I used to enjoy blogging about. Ang tamadtamadtamad ko na talagaaa.

Okaay now. My time is running out, and I’m getting kind of sleepy, and there’s work tomorrow, and I’m blabbering again, so I have. To Stop. Now.