Now that it's finally the start of my (long-awaited) summer vacation, I think it's high time to start focusing on myself—with a great amount of that focus on the topic of improving the mistakes and errors within my (so-called) system. It's actually great to say that my real summer vacation has started and I can now focus on improving myself and fixing the errors that other people find annoying. This post won't actually put up all of the annoyances in my system in great detail; rather, I will just highlight some of the key problems—bugs, if you will—that need to be addressed/fixed as soon as possible. Let's begin with the elephant in the room—the reason why this whole self-repair thing began—the actions I make towards any girl I have a crush on.

1. Actions I make towards any girl I am infatuated with
Right off the bat, I just really, really want to state that my current state of "actions" toward someone I like may/may not be changeable, and, even if I did try to, it would require weeks—if not, MONTHS—of hard work, self-discipline, and human interaction lessons from professionals in the respective field of human interaction. The blatant fact that it would cost a lot of money just to have someone teach me basic human interaction is actually quite pathetic as, in my opinion, I don't have a good enough skillset to do it myself.

So, with that out of the way, I have come up with a simple and easy-to-implement compromise for this: don't tell others about it. In my previous foray into romance, the main problem wasn't that I didn't have a plan in case things went wrong; rather, it's the fault of me telling it to everyone. Basically everyone who knew me in college (with the exception of my blockmates) knew the girl I had a crush on. In the long run, it ended up ruining my name further in front of the girl, my best friends, and the people who knew me. It was my WORST foray into romance yet. Nevertheless, I have a saying that goes along the lines of, "Bad decisions make good lessons," and it is the saying I will apply here.

After days of coming up with a solution, I have finally came up with the best solution (compromise) to this problem—to not tell anyone (except really, really close friends) who my current romantic interest is. I'm afraid to say it, but I won't be telling any member of APC Speaks about it, nor will I tell my two close friends, JR and Capacia about it. The time of hiding away some parts of me to everyone else has finally come.

Just like how "encapsulation" works in programming, I'll start to hide "unnecessary" parts of my life from others and only let others see the parts of my life that they might be interested in. You might be wondering who will I tell my current romantic interest to, and, for the time being, I will not disclose the identities of those whom I'll be telling my romantic secrets to. Let's just say that they're really supportive individuals who'll really teach me the proper way or courtship, and I'm sure they won't prod me on to do this or that.

The saying, "Ignorance is a bliss," highly applies here, as well as, "If you don't hear about it, it probably doesn't concern you," or something like that.

To conclude, telling any part of my romantic endeavors to certain people is a no-no and should be kept as a closely guarded secret.


2. Making peculiar actions toward any girl I am infatuated with
As with above, the compromise applies here as well. Furthermore, since I will be keeping the identity of my current romantic interest a secret, any and all actions I make out of love (or what have you call it) will also be kept as a secret.

So, for the next few months or so, you will never notice that I have a crush on someone else, nor will you hear anything about it. I am going to do everything in my power just to keep that information, and my actions regarding the topic of romance, as a secret—one that I will only tell to selected people.

That's basically it, you won't hear anything about me having a crush on someone else nor will you see me acting all strange over some girl, and that's the singular truth.

(Oh, and in the case where you hear that I have a crush. I will most obviously, under all circumstances, KEEP IT A SECRET. You might hear a few details, but not the full name, or any revealing info for that matter. After what happened, no, not again.)


3. Disrespect towards others
I highly believe that this problem only concerns the members of APC Speaks as I do have to admit that I don't treat the elders there with the respect they deserve—and they have the right to call me out for it. Regardless, based on my observations when I'm interacting with other people who are older than me, I have to admit that I do treat them with necessary respect.

The only people who might bring up this problem to me are my elders at APC Speaks and (quite possibly) the members of the APC Campus Ministry (excluding Ms. Pam, of course, as I always make sure that I treat her with respect). The root of this problem is the set of actions I make towards my elders in Facebook group chats and, possibly, in person. I have a feeling that this is all caused by me feeling too comfortable with the elders, thinking that they're my usual friends—ones I can say stupid stuff around.

After days of thinking, I have found that the best way to remedy this is to drift away and keep a distance—a line, if you will—between me and my elders, and it's a line I shouldn't even dare cross. With that, I will also start to treat my elders in APC Speaks and in the Campus Ministry with proper respect, and the same goes (of course) to all of my elders—especially towards Miss Mina because I am thinking of forming a friendship with her. For those who don't know, I have a plan whose goal is to befriend the best mentors I had and learn from them and their life experiences. I can't state all of the names of my past teachers/professors who I'll be befriending, but I can state two of them: Sir Jep and Miss Mina.

With that out of the way, I would like to state, once again my propose solution for this: keeping distance from elders while treating them with necessary respect. For those who still don't know yet, I often make rash, stupid, and childish actions when I'm with people I'm close to; additionally, that side of me only shows when I'm people I deem close to me.

I believe that distancing myself from elders will prevent me from showing that childish and happy-go-lucky side of me. While I can't fully confirm if this solution works, I see that I don't act childish towards people I'm not close to, and this is "good enough" evidence for me to conclude that keeping the necessary distance between my elders is a good thing.


4. Not having maturity and responsibility
These two don't often come hand in hand with one another, but they are, in a way, linked. The problem with me not looking mature enough also comes from how I act towards any of my close friends and blockmates. Sometimes, I say things that are out of hand, and sometimes I say things that are downright childish, while (as I see) most of the things I say is just me having fun.

Personally, I don't know how to properly remedy this because I don't know where the line between "having fun" and acting immature is located. Which begs the question, "If I make jokes and show my fun (yet goofy) side, does that make me immature?" Furthermore, if I make jokes about/at people, does that make me immature? Lastly, if I try to act serious and not show my goofy, fun-loving side, is that a good thing?

Still, as I've read on the wonderful world wide web, maturity is having the necessary decision-making skills to act in an appropriate manner in a certain environment. And, with that in mind, my time at APC Speaks is fun, sure, but it's mostly about preparing me for serious things in the future with regards to various public speaking activities. Since it's a training ground for me to improve my abilities, I believe that I should take it seriously and to act as serious as possible when it comes to activities.

To wrap up the maturity part, I guess the proper course of action to take is to just stay serious and lessen the fun and goofs when I'm with my elders—while heeding to the solution of distance I said a while back.

I guess it'll be a long time before I crack a joke when I'm with any of my elders. So, yeah, killing the fun side it is and showing its mangled and yelling-to-be-fixed self to certain people in my life.

As for my problem with responsibility, the only solution I could ponder up is to just handle the tasks I've been given with care and to just do them as best I can, that's all.


With the major problems and solutions above, I believe that most of you might be getting the general tone of my solutions—keeping distance from others. While it's not really the main tone of all my solutions, it is the general tone of them. You see, the image I plan to output for the years to come is who I want to be professionally, with special emphasis on my abilities.

I'm trying my best to not focus on romance for the coming months or so, but, if the right one will enter my life, then I should pay attention to romance as well. However, for the time being, I believe I should put it on hold; rather, to just cut all romantic connections completely and keep a blank slate for the time being.

Even though this is the first time I will be making repairs based on feedback from others, I will make sure that I will do everything I can to find and rectify these problems as soon as possible. Hopefully, by the time that my sophomore year has begun, I have already fixed most of the necessary problems within my system.

So, wish me luck as I try to initialize repair upon myself and start to make necessary changes and install updates. Let's hope that, the next time you see me, I'll be a completely different person compared to who I am now—in a better way, that is. With that said, let's begin the repair.