A Better Tomorrow

Well, here we are again, the last day of the year. The 365th page of this 365-page chapter. The day where everything ends and restarts again. The end of 2015.

Earlier in 2014, I made a bold claim that 2015 would be "the year where everything changes" because Windows 10 will be released, I will be off to college and will be leaving high school, and so much more. The claim I made a year ago was a bold claim, but it was nonetheless spot on: 2015 would soon turn out to be a huge turning point in my life.

There's a lot of things that happened this year, and a lot of new things were introduced into my life. While most of the things that were introduced were good, it's also given that some bad stuff is going to be introduced into my life. Anyway, here's a lot of most (if not, all) of the significant things that happened in my life in 2015 (in chronological order, of course).

• I started to implement "OS updates" to myself.
• The Girls' Generation "Girls & Peace" logo is officially my main go-to profile picture.
• I started to focus on improving my proficiency and fluency in the English language.
• English became my default language (my "mother tongue," so to speak) whenever I would post online and whenever I would think to myself.
• I turned 16.
• I took an entrance exam at Asia Pacific College and chose Computer Science as my major.
• I graduated from my high school.
• I stopped ALL gaming-related activities and abandoned the gaming industry in favor of academics and other activities.
• I enrolled for the first semester at Asia Pacific College.
• I met my new set of classmates ("blockmates," as they're called here) and made new friends.
• I fell in love with my professor.
• I slowly learned that I had a skill for public speaking and joined APC Speaks, the debate and public speaking organization at Asia Pacific College.
• I competed in the finals of the Inter-Class Public Speaking Competition and got to go up to the auditorium to deliver a speech.
• I learned that I wasn't good at calculus and trigonometry.
• I started focusing on programming and web development.
• I got a lot of developer tools, signed up for Microsoft DreamSpark, and I signed up for the Microsoft Student Partner Program (my application has yet to be reviewed).
• I learned that I should be closer to my true friends since high school and I became friends again with Big Sister, +Elaine Avriele Santos.
• I started to blog again (albeit not that much) and I made a joint blog with Big Sister.
• Without someone to have a crush on, and with multiple failures of asking a girl out, my heart defaulted back to my professor.
• Since I didn't have a crush for so long, my life slowly became more dull and lifeless, and I soon realized that love (and close human relations) was a key ingredient in keeping the color in life.
• I had made a new "universal OS numbering update system" and I wrote a program in Java that could print out OS update numbers and such.
• I decreased the number of my friends list on Facebook from 500+ down to just a maximum of 148 (I'll discuss this in a future blog post).
• I focused more on my online activities and started utilizing various parts of the Internet rather than just going on Facebook and Twitter.
• I became friends (on Facebook) with my professor :^] (This just happened today, seriously. The year is about to be over and it still had one little, amazing surprise in store for me.)

Now, I have a lot of things on that list that I could've made a blog post (or two, three, or more) about, but I just wasn't able to because I was either too lazy or too busy to do so. Not to worry, I promise I'll make more blog posts in 2016, as, starting January 1, this blog of mine will be the centralized place where I would post ALL updates. Yep, that's right, every single story from my life will now be placed here, meaning that I have little to no use of posting updates on Facebook anymore.

The stories and significant bits from my life in 2015 are just a handful of things that happened to me in 2015. I'm planning to see a longer list once 2016 ends as 2016 will be the year of.. [drum roll] massive improvements and refinements! Okay, that might be a little too long, so I'll just make it "2016: The Year of Refinements" instead.

I'll post my plans, hopes (and dreams), expectations, and the things I'll do for the year 2016 once the new year rolls in. Happy new year, everyone! :)

Talking about how fun is not in my life anymore might seem like a childish or as a somewhat "immature" topic to talk about, but it has (personally) been bothering me for the past few days or so, and it's something I can't keep shut anymore.

Before I continue, I believe that you must all get a proper definition of what the word "fun" really means to me, and not just by some online dictionary explanation. For me, the word "fun" is often associated with emotions and time (more specifically, moments). Fun may seem like a mixture of both, but I often think of it as a box—a box full of emotions, that is. Whenever I experience fun, I experience a lot of emotions in the same time as well: happiness, joy, enthusiasm, and bliss are just some of the emotions I feel when I'm having fun. The second thing I find interesting about the word "fun" is that I almost always relate it to a particular place, person, or, mostly, time. Whenever I try to use the word "fun" in a sentence, I always think of something similar to this, "February–June 2014? Man, those were fun times." It might not be correct, but I almost always associate the word "fun" with something.

Now that's out of the way, I believe it's time to tackle the elephant in the room, the burning question that made me write a blog post early in the morning: Where did all of the fun go?

Moreover, why is everything mostly boring now? Why has my day-to-day life become more bland compared to high school, even though it's an entirely new experience to me? What's missing from my life? I tried looking for an answer, and it was hard to do so, but I finally found it and I found it in the most unexpected of places: my old blog. Before starting this blog (and my blog for the all-English term), I had another blog here on Blogger. Despite making and publishing posts under a different alias, my friends (especially my close friends) knew that it was my blog and I was responsible for all of the content in it. Meaning that, to my dismay, if I post something a friend of mine didn't like, I would be held responsible for it. I was an expressive kid back then, and I often took time to pen down and blog about the things I often found interesting in life—whether it'd be gossip, news stories about Girls' Generation, or anything else. If it's interesting enough to be taken a good look at, it was definitely worth making a blog post about.

Now, having a few friends who easily got offended with the slightest thing about them (even if they misunderstood what they read about them) and being an all-out expressive person through blogging proved to be a horrible combination. For starters, certain people would ask me to take down a blog post, even if it's what I (and some people) believe as the truth. Next, this also limited how many blog posts I made, and the topics I talked about—further limiting my ability to get out the message I want to say and the messages I can say. Lastly, these series of events has made me scared to ever make a blog post again, and it has made me lazy in making them.

I'm pretty sure you might be wondering, "Dart, we know you had all of these things and there have been occasions where you weren't able to blog about the things you liked, but so what? What's their significance in taking away the fun from your life?" The most honest and proper answer I could give to that is actually very simple: that I love blogging. I personally take joy in taking a look back at what my life has become or the things that happened in the day and giving them a second look, it provides me a way to looking back and analyzing what made the day interesting, and it was also a way for me to share my stories with everyone.

So, after all that being said, what did I really find in my old blog? Well, I found posts about the things I liked, the things I found interesting, and the new things I tried. I read posts about my experience with my big sister and how much I love her, my general gaming experience and the things in games that I found interesting, and I also talked about my life. I soon found out that, over time, I made less and less blog posts everyday until, one day, they all stopped. I guess this is a representation of something you loved to do, but then someone close to you wanted you to stop what you're doing, and, because of that, you just stopped.


That's how it went. I just stopped blogging and writing stories online altogether. I stopped sharing my experiences and I was forced to retire my blog and delete most of the posts that had been considered controversial. What's odd about all of this is the domino effect this whole hoopla has caused. By stopping me from sharing stories about the new things I tried, I stopped trying out new things. This might be somewhat hard to understand, but just think back to what I said earlier, "If it's interesting enough to be taken a good look at, it was definitely worth making a blog post about," and this proved to be true vice versa. If I didn't have a place where I could talk about the new things I tried, why try new things in the first place?

In the end, what happened? Here's a simple explanation: I found out I loved blogging and talking about the things I liked, then I ran out of things I wanted to talk about, then I tried out new things and this proved to be an enjoyable experience, then I tried talking about my life and the people in it, then some people got mad and forced me to take down posts or stop blogging altogether, then I got scared, and then I stopped blogging. I got scared of my close friends, and the people close to me and I got this idea that they were watching everything I post online and they would ask me to take down something they didn't like.

Because of all this I got scared posting stuff online and, well, I just kept everything to myself. I stopped trying to form new experiences as a result and this mentality has got to stop. The only solution I see to this is to continue blogging and I need to learn how to reaccept it as a genuine form of expression. Still, there are some things I still wouldn't and shouldn't talk about, but that doesn't mean I should stop talking about things entirely. I believe that learning these limitations while, at the same time, learning how to live and coexist with them is the most obvious and best solution to all of this. As for the people who just want to take down posts because they find it offensive or they don't like it (even if it's the truth), such as this post I made about my friend who kept on asking favors and making me do their schoolwork. As for them, I plan on just ignoring them; however, if they can prove to me that what I posted was not the actual truth, then I would gladly take down the post—provided that it isn't the truth. But if it is, and if that person is caught red handed, then they have no right to take down what is actually the truth.

Who do you think you are to make me do this? What makes you think that I find this activity enjoyable? When did you began using me? Where did you get the idea that you can just use me like that? Why can't you see that I'm suffocating me under all of the work you're making me do? Please, I beg of you, stop doing this.

Before I start, I want to ask you all a question: When your best friend needs help with something—a schoolwork, a project of some sort—would you help them? What if you knew, in advance, that they are going to make you work for 5-8 hours a day, and you will be doing most (if not, all) of the work while your friend is just criticizing your work and making you do it again if it doesn't match their expectations; moreover, your friend will make you stay up all night the day before the deadline and your friend will make you work until you've finished (which happens to be on the day of the deadline itself). If you knew those those things in advance, would you still help them?

The most likely answer would be a solid "No" and you'd immediately decline the offer, unless your friend will pay you, or repay you (in one way or another) for what you did. Unfortunately for me, I didn't know those things in advance. But before I start, I believe I should give you all some necessary context about my friend. Oh, and this post might be a little "too lengthy," but I'll make some parts easier to understand so that you all easily get this post.

You see, I have this friend—a friend that I've had for a solid 3 years. Like most friendships, my friendship with that person started out small, we sometimes talked during late hours of the night talking about various topics, and, through those conversations, that person slowly got to know me. We grew close to each other, and a full year into our friendship, that person became the most influential person in my life. We did what most friends do as well; we hung out, we talked to each other when we had problems, and we had little arguments every now and then.

Over time, that person got to know me more—what my skills are, and the things I'm good at—and I got to know that person as well. Soon, that person began asking favors from me when it came to computer-related problems, but, for most of the time, I was glad to help that person out with a smile.

I'm not sure if this is an accurate representation, but I think my constant helping and agreeing to certain favors slowly made my friend realize that I was some resource they could use—a material that they could exploit and use in times of need, and only in times of need. I'm not sure if that's accurate, but I soon started to have that mentality over time. But still, my friend was asking me to do these small (but easy) favors until that person's first major offense.

I was in high school back then, and my friend was a freshman in college. I was minding my own business—watching YouTube, reading articles online, and so on—until my friend messaged me, asking me that they need help with an online quiz they had. Luckily for them, it was an online quiz, and the thing with online quizzes is that you can just take them and cheat, but that's not what that person did. So my friend needed help with this quiz in some IT-related subject, and I was glad to help this person out at first. I ran Skype and soon I was in a call with my friend.

It was already nighttime and I had classes the following day, but the call lasted up until 1 or 2 a.m., which is way past my bedtime. After helping my friend with their work, I was obviously tired and exhausted, but I felt that this wasn't going to be the last. I knew, deep in my heart, that things were only going to get worse, and so it did.

My friend's second major offense came in the form of a DOCX file through Facebook. It was the 6th of April and I had just graduated from high school. Since it was summer, I was doing the things I would usually do: play games and watch YouTube the entire day. Then I soon got a message from my friend asking me if I wanted to help them with proofreading a document from them. My friend said that it was (sort of) urgent because they don't have someone in their team to proofread everything, and now my friend (and their team) are needing me to proofread just one document from them, just one document. Because of the idea that it was just going to be one document (I figured it was a book report of some sort that only consisted for 2-3 pages), I agreed to help out. What happened next was something I didn't expect and it completely shocked me.

I had to proofread ALL OF THESE by myself.

This was no laughing matter as their document consisted of 15 pages (roughly about 3,000 words), and all of them used technical jargon. Plus, I barely knew what the project was for, or, more importantly, why I was tasked with proofreading THEIR TEAM'S ENTIRE FINAL TERM PAPER in the first place. It was a grueling task to do as their entire team of 3-5 college individuals barely knew how to properly proofread their own document themselves, and they were so bad at it that they needed help in proofreading an entire document from a high school student who just graduated. Adding insult to injury, I didn't get paid for doing the entire proofreading myself; adding more insult to injury, I wasn't even thanked, and that person didn't message me until he/she needed me again.

I had to proofread 15 pages and I basically had to proofread around 3,000 words, and I wasn't even a part of their team.

Despite all of those bad things, I still did it, and I did the entire proofreading all by myself, without the help of some other person in their group. I only messaged my friend when I needed clarification with something because there were sentences where I couldn't understand what they were saying because the grammar and the order of the sentences were so unclear, and they were so bad that I almost reached the point where I just wanted to block my friend and drop this entire project.. but the thing is, I didn't. I didn't block my friend and I continued to do all of the proofreading. I finished the document, passed it, and my friend just straight up ignored me for the next few weeks or so. Ignored in the sense that my friend didn't message me, or even talked to me about thanking me for my work on their project. Heck, my friend barely talked to me about anything else for the next few days.

After that experience, the favors the constant asking for me to do this just came pouring in (over a period of months). I helped my friend with an assignment about people in the IT industry, and, while I was doing that, my friend was browsing 9gag. 9gag, ladies and gentlemen, 9gag.

I'm busy researching and I'm basically doing your homework for you while you're just browsing memes on 9gag? I'm sending you my findings and you're sending me links to memes on 9gag? Are you serious?

My friend's third and final strike was about a month ago, around the time of All Souls' Day. My friend first asked me to make a background for their project in WEBPROG (Web Programming) using Photoshop. I agreed, considering that it was particularly easy for me to make a background; however, I soon found out that my friend has barely starting coding their website.

I then offered to help them code the website, but the thing is, my friend didn't know how to code the website. So now, the entire fate of the project itself relied on me, as my friend didn't know how to code. I now have this entire project (this burden, really) on my shoulders and the outcome of this project is now my responsibility.

So, yeah, work soon started on the project. I made a background, a basic design consisting of a few semitransparent boxes, and I began working on the links. Now, I have to say to you all that, as I was coding these, my friend was, once again, browsing 9gag. I shrugged it off, but I was still annoyed at doing this. Still, I just continued working on the project. After I showed my friend the layout and the design of their website, my friend complained about the background. My friend didn't complain that the background looked bland or that the background looked horrible, but my friend complained that they envisioned to use different backgrounds for each page, and my friend wanted to use pictures they took.

This proved to be a HUGE pain in the head because the 4 pages I made only used one background and one CSS file, which is a pretty common practice for today's web programming standards. Adding more headaches, my friend wanted to use a different highlight color and a different article background color for each webpage to match the colors of the background. So I have no other option other than to just make 4 duplicates of the original CSS file, and customize them to match my friend's intended design for each web page—and that wasn't even the annoying part. The annoying part of it all was that my friend took a lot of time looking for a good background for each page, and this process took about 2 hours or so to finish. Can you image that? Roughly 2 hours of looking for 4 background pictures.

After days of exhausting and grueling work, and a million revisions later, I finished the project and I was ready to give it to my friend. The project started out with only 4 pages, but it then expanded to 7 pages, with 4 unique styles for each page (the styles for the other 3 pages were borrowed from 1 page because I was so lazy and I was so annoyed at that point).





It's not much, I know. It doesn't look very classy nor does it confine to any design language (it only has a bit of minimalism), and the design doesn't look spectacular overall. It also doesn't use as much JavaScript elements as this blog of mine. The reason behind those is because I knew that I was going to be used, yet again, and I won't be thanked for what I did, so I intentionally lowered my performance and exerted less effort into designing the website, but it still took a toll on my health and general wellbeing.

Anyway, by the time I was ready to give my friend the final version, it was already 2 in the morning, and I had classes the following day. To make things worse, it was the week where I would have midterm exams, and I didn't study for any of the midterm exams I had that day. It was 2 a.m., I had 3 midterm exams that day, and I didn't study because I was busy helping my friend with their project for their midterms, and I was extremely exhausted after working for 5-8 hours for the past 3 days.

8 hours. You make me work for 8 hours on your project. You were doing this to me for the past 3 days.

It's a no-brainer to say what happened to me hours later. I was still extremely exhausted, sleep-deprived, and I felt used. I checked my messages on Facebook to see if my friend thanked me and, guess what, my friend didn't thank me. In fact, the last message I got from my friend was a RAR file that contained the icons for the social links. Just by looking at the screenshot above, you can clearly see that my friend didn't thank me on Skype either. I checked everything, I checked all my inboxes and there was no messages thanking me for what I did—none, nada, zip, nothing.

Tired, sleepy, and on the verge of tears, I still proceeded to attend my first class. Upon arrival at APC, I realized that I can barely make it to my classroom. My eyes were colored with a shade of that perfect bloodshot-yellowish red, the bottom of my eyes were almost pure black from the lack of sleep, and I only felt like hammering my head to the nearest wall because I was so cranky from all the work my friend made me do. I headed to the library and took a good 30-minute nap, and then I went to the air-conditioned part of the library (because it wasn't open by the time I got there). I took a nap for an hour or so, and I consulted a close friend about this problem of mine. Oh, and I also forgot to mention that I wasn't able to take my midterm exam for one class. I skipped a midterm exam and I wasn't able to take it again.

Going back to my friend that I consulted with, this friend was unlike my other friend (who was constantly using me). This friend (who I consulted with) was understanding, and she was willing to help me out with my situation. She told me that I should just straight up block my old friend from every single social networking site, every site where I found my old friend; remove my friend's phone number, pictures, and contact information; and I should think as if my old never existed—completely disregarding and destroying the friendship we had. It was the perfect solution, although I had trouble blocking my friend on Facebook. Luckily my new friend borrowed my phone, logged into my account, unfriended that person, and blocked them.

Almost immediately, a sigh of relief rushed out of my mouth and I felt as if a big weight was lifted off my shoulders. Thanks to my new friend, I was now free from the clutches of my old friend, and I was finally able to sleep peacefully that day—knowing that my old friend won't bother me again.


Here I am now, retelling my experiences with about my old friend. Just by reading the post above, you might think I'm starting a hate campaign against my old friend, or I'm going to try to bash that person in this blog post, but the main goal of this blog post is to share this experience I had with that person and to call out the wrongdoings of my friend. Quite frankly, I just want to voice out my story and opinion on this person, and how they've affected me as a whole throughout the entirety of our friendship.

Now, there are people who are going to take advantage of you in one way or another, but, as my new friend said, "You have to be selfish every once in a while. Not because you don't want to help them, but because you want to take care of yourself first." My friend does have a point considering that I agreed to the offer of working, and I personally became a slave of my old friend.

Up until now, I still hate my friend for all of the things they made me do, but I have to agree that it was partly my fault of accepting the offers in the first place. Still, my friend should've known not to take advantage of others.


At the end of the day, we are in control of our lives and we can choose to live them the way we want. If I want to live a life without my old best friend, then that person should accept it; if my old best friend wants to live a life without me, it's completely fine and I don't see anything wrong with it. Nevertheless, I think the best way to end a post like this something that my old friend said. Coming from the mouth (or fingers, really) of the person who has used me and has taken advantage of me time and time again, I think this is a solid, yet ironic, statement from my ex-best friend—one that perfectly suits this post. I hope you all liked reading my story and I'll see you all soon.

I couldn't have said it better myself, ol' pal of mine.

Today, I'd like to share an experience—an experience during a particular part of the year, really—that I really love and wish to happen someday. Just by looking at the title, you can clearly see that it's none other than the monsoon season. Other people have different terms for it, some people call it "rainy season," "rainy weather," or generally "wet season," but, in my eyes, it will always be "monsoon season." Ah, the monsoon season, how I love it so much, and yet I didn't experience it this year.

For me, the monsoon season formally starts when schools here in the Philippines start suspending classes for 5-6 days straight, or something like that. I don't really know what's so magical about the season itself, but it makes me feel so much at home. During this beloved season, I kick back, relax, and download some Japanese movies, or I watch any movie that has extremely gloomy weather, or something like that. I'm not particularly a fan of Japanese movies during the other times of the year, but that's (probably) because I love the country so much whenever monsoon season comes around. I don't know why, but Japan and its cities look best (for me) whenever it's the monsoon season.


Another thing I enjoy the most about the season itself is the smell of rain and the general feeling of coldness I experience during the season. For those who don't know, my room doesn't have an air conditioner, and my room is unbearably hot (especially during summer) all year round, and the feeling of coldness, that feeling when your environment is so cold, you just want to lie in your bed wrapped in a blanket is what makes the season extra-comfy for me. Still, that's not to say that I don't experience the coldness of air conditioners, as I experienced it quite a lot during my kindergarten, elementary, high school, and even my college days—basically, all of the schools I've attended have air conditioners.

But I digress, there's just something about the pelting of the raindrops on my window, the smell of the rain, the generally-cold atmosphere, and the suspension of classes that just makes the season itself so magical. Like I said before, I watch a lot of movies this season and the movies I remember watching were Death Tube 2 and Man, Woman, & the Wall—oddly enough, I really liked Death Tube 2 back then. I even liked it so far as to make its main protagonist my wallpaper.

Ah, Windows 8 and this wallpaper brings back so many memories.

And, believe it or not, that's just for 2013. I don't really recall much of what happened during the monsoon season in 2014, probably because it didn't happen or I was busy with a former romantic interest of mine. As for 2015, this year, the monsoon season never really happened.

While I do remember classes being suspended after our EGRAMCM class, I don't really remember classes being suspended for 5-6 days straight. Although I didn't watch any movie during the days when classes were suspended, the weather was still very lovely. I even made a blog post in my memoir because I thought that the monsoon season was finally about to start, but still, it never really took off.

Oh well, it's already the yuletide season and the weather isn't that much different, honestly speaking. The weather will still be a few degrees colder, but it won't rain. Adding insult to injury, my last day of classes is on December 23, and classes resume on January 3, meaning I only have a week or so to really enjoy the yuletide season. On January, the weather will get hotter and hotter, reaching its climax on April-May.

Finally, after months of drought and warm, humid weather, the clouds with gather all over the tired, dreary city, and soon, the raindrops will fall.