A Better Tomorrow

I'm sure that most people look up to their parents, and so did I. My dad was the first parent I looked up to, and for a good reason. He was the primary "breadwinner," and it seems that he's the most skilled person in our family. He is also good at working with computers—a talent that I admired a lot when I was young (as I wanted to be good in working with computers). If memory serves, he took me to his workplace when I was young and I remember watching Spongebob on the computer all day, and I got to see what the working world was like for the first time. You can pretty much say that I looked up to the guy.

Early Childhood

My time with him during my childhood was quite great, to be honest. He was a cool guy for buying a computer (making it my first PC) and I played a lot of fun games on that XP-powered device. He also took us to Singapore—a trip I'll never forget—and I got to see a lot of new stuff there. I went to Sentosa (or whatever that place is called), studied in a Singaporean kindergarten (where I learned some Mandarin Chinese), and got to live in a condominium! During my time there, it seemed like every day would be akin to heaven on earth, and nothing bad would ever come, cause I knew he was always there.

Until he left us. Without ever giving a proper explanation as to how or why things happened, he just abruptly left, and my parents were eventually separated. Rather than having explained things in detail, both of my parents played "the blame game" and neither one of them wanted to tell us what really happened. So, growing up, I thought that my dad was out for work, or something similar; eventually developing a weird misconception that my parents are separated, but not really separated.

It was a weird and incoherent time for me, I know, and I was still unable to understand what happened to them as I was young. My dad was still there (for the most part) of my childhood, as I can recall him visiting me during my birthday, and handing out gifts. He was the guy who gave me my two (now broken) PSPs. He was still there, of course, but he was just far away and out of reach..

Early–mid teen years

During my early teen years, I eventually learned what happened. He left us and had set up another family in Australia and he has another son. Learning all this from a simple Facebook profile picture broke my 11-year-old heart. At that time, I couldn't fathom the thought of my own dad leaving for another family, and I struggled to understand why he could have done it.

At this point in time, he began to drift away from us. We'd notice him visiting us less and less, and we eventually stopped asking mom what had happened. He was still paying for our education and was still supplying us with money every month, so we were good in terms of our financial status. But still, the thought of losing contact with one of the persons you admire the most was depressing for me, at that time.

Still, I grew up without him in my early teen years. Life went on without him, of course. I was still studying at IMC and I still lived a normal life at school, it just wasn't the same at home. Sure, I only lived with him when I was very young and I haven't been living with him for almost a decade, but the thought of life without him was something that haunted me in my early teen years.

Around my 4th year of high school (my senior year), he stopped paying for our tuition fee in IMC, and he had stopped sending us money every month or so. Eventually, the thought that he had left us for good dawned on us. He wasn't communicating with us, he wasn't supporting us, it seemed like he didn't know us anymore.

This didn't immediately translate to my financial problem per se, but it was as if a snowball was thrown down a snowy mountain. My mom had trouble paying for the tuition, and she wasn't able to pay our expensive tuition in full, and she was the only parent earning for us plus her salary wasn't much. This was why I really wasn't supposed to attend my senior prom, but the family of a friend of mine offered to help.

Mid teen years

Life kept moving onward without him and my first year in college started. I was still very much well off and living life greatly at this time, and no problems arose yet. I made the most out of this year without him, and so did my family. At this stage, I started to stop caring about what he was doing and started focusing on my own life. It seemed like things were about to get better.

That was until my college tuition started to pile up, and my mother started to have problems with her work. During the start of my second year in college, I started experiencing some forms of financial trouble. I wasn't able to enroll in APC early, and, when I enrolled, the classes I was supposed to be in had already been full. This was the main reason why my flowchart, at that time, was a little irregular. On Mondays and Thursdays, my class started at 1:30 and ended at 5:30. This was also the reason why I was in MI151 for GUIPROG, and why I wasn't able to take MANPRIN and EWORLIT that term. Yeah, I had some problems during my first term of my second year, but, trust me, this was just the calm before the storm.

My second term of my second year in APC was the precipice of my time in APC. At this time, I really felt my financial problem in full-on force. There were days when I would go to class all hungry, and my blockmates started to notice. Eventually, through my blog posts, they knew that I had some form of financial problem, and some offered to help me by buying me lunch every now and then.

I struggled so much this term, and I learned of the doom that loomed ahead of me. Paying only 5,000 of my 40,000 tuition fee, and with my mom experiencing major problems with her work, I knew my fate was set. I thought that this would be my last term in APC, so I enjoyed it with my blockmates to its fullest extent. I became closer to my blockmates this term, and just had fun with them. I also went back to gaming, and sometimes played CS:GO with some of them.

One day, a weird thing happened. Dad had messaged me. At this time, he wanted to get talk to me and get close to me, I believe. I helped him sometimes with whatever kind of graphic work he needed done, and he gave me some money in return. I thought that this was a great period despite my problems.

When I had talked to him about my financial situation, it seemed that he wanted to help. I mean, he (obviously) had the resources to do so, so I had faith in him. I had little hope that I would still study in APC and I would get to see my blockmates in a class setting again. "I knew he would eventually help out!" I thought, and I believed that to its fullest extent—until I learned about his conditions.

He had a few, but unreasonable conditions, to be rather honest. For him to help us, we would have to fulfill 3 conditions. The first one was easy, to respect him. Sure, I can give the guy respect—even though he has barely contacted us in the decade he was gone. I wasn't eager to give him respect first, but I eventually complied. His second condition was the hard one to fulfill, which was to think that he never left us. I can't really recall the third one because I never got past the second condition, but I believe it's something related to sending us to Australia.

I'm quite sure this was what he wanted because the guy wants to only help us while we are with him, and away from our mom. He already told us before that he didn't want to help us while we were in the Philippines with our mom's family.

I got irritated at this point, and I was extremely annoyed, stressed, and frustrated. The guy went on rambling about how he really wanted to help us, and all I had to do was to comply with his conditions. I didn't want to think that he hadn't left us, because all of the pain and struggle we experienced without him would all be in vain. Sure, if maybe I accepted, he could've been more eager to help, but I knew, deep in my heart, he just wanted us to comply so that he could send us off to Australia.

The night ended with me not wanting to talk to him anymore, and the day after that, we had a small argument, and he decided to block me on Facebook. He didn't send us a single Peso and I soon met my fate. I ended the term only paying 5,000 of my 40,000 tuition fee. It seemed that the snowball that was thrown off a mountain eventually caught up to me at the very bottom.

Present

I really didn't think I was going to study in APC anymore, and my belief that he would help us again ended that night. Thankfully, and by some miracle, my belief didn't hold up, and was immediately disproven, and that belief was that I wouldn't study in APC anymore. As I said before, the family of my friend that helped me out during prom eventually offered to help me in my studies. They offered to answer almost any problem I had, my budget, my food, my tuition, almost anything—and with barely any conditions at all.

I'm now staying at my friend's house along with their family until I graduate. I suppose I might not really focus on my family for the time being because I'm now busy with my studies, and other activities. As for my dad, I don't know.

He knows about my blog and about my situation, and he still doesn't want to help. This is what really angers me. He tells my sister that he knows my condition and wants to help, but I highly doubt it to be true. I'm SURE that he reads my blog to know what other horrible thing has happened in my life because of his actions and inactions. I'm pretty sure he gets that necessary "ego boost" when he sees me posting stuff that implies I'm suffering, and he gets triggered when someone decides to help me or when something good happens, that's why he's been messaging my sister lately, because he knows someone else helped me.

If he really wanted to help, he would've done it. Other people—more generous and kind than he will ever be—already helped me. Whether it be in small or large ways; talking to me about my situation, giving me lunch at school, or helping me out with my tuition. If he really wants to help, why hasn't he done so? Others have helped me already, why couldn't my own father?

That's what I hate the most about him, it's that he's very dishonest, and even slimy in a way. He thinks that his lies, advertised as "truth" or "sympathy," seem genuine, but it really isn't, and it shows. It's quite obvious that he's faking his sympathy in order to make him seem less of a bad guy.

What angers me the most about him is that, when I made the post that I might not study anymore, he didn't seem to care. I checked the moderation queue for the comments, nothing. I checked my filtered messages in my two Facebook accounts, nothing. I check my emails, nothing. This guy really didn't care that I wasn't going to study, and I'm sure he knew it. Other people knew about my situation and offered to help me in some way, small or big. After realizing this, I finally learned something.

To be rather blunt, I don't really care whether or not I will be able to keep in contact with him, and I couldn't care less about making a connection with him. I'm tired, depressed, stressed, and problematic. The last thing I need is another problem in my life.

He claims that we have to adjust to him in order to help us, but he doesn't realize that it's the opposite. He has to adjust to us before helping us. In reality, helping someone is an act of extreme kindness. It's easy to say that you'll help someone, but it's hard to really help someone. Often, you have to adjust yourself in order to help others. I learned that when I moved in with my friend's family, as they all have adjusted their lifestyles in order to accommodate another person in their house. This is what my dad will never understand.

I could go on and rant about my dad's irrational choices, and his horrible personality, but I don't want to waste that much time on him. He can't even give me 30 minutes so that he can talk to me and help me, so I don't see a reason for me to give him my time as well.

In the end, if he really wants to change my life and make it better, he has to change and shed his attitude. He has to remove his ideas of infallibility, self-righteousness, and step down. Because, if he didn't, nothing will ever change. This reminds me of a cartoon I saw.


I don't know what he's going to do after he reads this, but I'm quite sure he has no control of me. If he decides to talk to me so he can berate me and lecture me about life, well, there's nothing stopping me from clicking the "block" button on him. If he can do that to me, then I'm highly sure I can return the favor.

I don't need another hypocrite in my life, and I'm sure I don't need a horrible parent either. I have no reason to even regard him as a parent anymore. Sigh, I just hope that, no matter what happens in my life, I don't end up deserting my kids the same way he deserted us.

Get out the fire extinguishers because there's fire's burning (on the dance floor, whoah). No, not that kind of fire, I'm talking about a smokin' hot new album from Girls' Generation's own maknae, Seohyun.

So the rumors were true, Seohyun was the next member of SNSD to release their solo album. And, just like Taeyeon and Tiffany (and Jessica), her new album has got me rockin' to the beat. In all seriousness, her album was officially announced (if memory serves) around January 2017 and—can you believe it—the entire album, as well as the music video of "Don't Say No," was released on a very special day of mine!



Now, as for the music video, it looks like your typical weird Korean k-pop video. It's flashy, the concept looks great, and there's some sexy cutscenes here and there—as well as general weirdness that you'd come to expect from a modern k-pop video.

The video itself does have a storyline, believe it or not, but it's kind of implied. Unlike Taeyeon's "11:11" where the storyline is just blatantly slapped across your face, you'd have to pay attention to the video itself to get what's really going on with the story. But not getting the storyline is okay, as it's not really the main focus of the video (and this entire showcase). I believe that this whole showcase was set up the way it is to show a different side of SNSD's otherwise quiet maknae.

This belief of mine can be backed up by the fact that the video contains some really "provocative-looking" dance scenes and some scenes that implies Seohyun is making out with the guy in the car. Sure, I admit, I'm not a huge fan of the whole sexy concept, but this whole "role switch" of SNSD's sweet-looking maknae really suits her. It's surely to turn heads, and I sure did turn mine.

Unlike previous solo albums from SNSD (including Jessica), the song, and the album itself, seems to be very centered on a party setting. Tiffany's "I Just Wanna Dance" seems to be mainly set in a party or club setting, but it isn't as thorough as Seohyun's album. With tracks like "Don't Say No," "Magic," "Bad Love," and "Love & Affection," it's surely going to be party hit.

I don't know about you, but the entire album just gives me a sparkling rich feeling. Maybe it's because of the cover, or the rhythm of the songs, but they all just come together beautifully to form a kind of rich tone and it just gives me a pristine feeling overall.

My take on Seohyun's first solo album would be extremely positive. I just love every song in the album so much, and I've been playing them in my long walk home. They surely add a beat to my steps and I sometimes find myself saying "meomchuji ma neon namanui Magic" or "baby don’t say no mideo yeojeonhi" on the walk home. It's seriously one of the best albums I've ever heard in a while and it's refreshing to see a new (albeit sexy) side from SNSD's usually-quiet and disciplined maknae.

(Also, between you and I, Seohyun NAILS the sexy concept. Damn son.)



P.S.
Also, while looking at the video from my blog, I noticed that the official music video wasn't filmed in a 16:9 aspect ratio. Nice job, SM Entertainment.

It's only been 11 days? It's been 11 days. Whoa, in just 11 days, my life has turned around so much—quite literally. The last time I posted here, I was on the brink of tears, unsure of what to do in life, and scared of the uncertain road ahead. For a while, I thought that I'd never sit with my blockmates in class anymore, and that I might leave Asia Pacific College for good. My life 11 days ago looked very grim, and my situation was extremely hopeless, but I had hope and looked up. I gathered all the hope I had left, stuffed it into a small jar, and threw it against a wall—sending it on its way.

And it worked.

A day after I published my "Flying High" post, I received a message from someone. They asked why I wasn't going to study anymore, and I told them about my situation in life. They offered to help me and cover my tuition in APC. They also agreed to help me with my daily budget, as I had told them that, even though I may be able to study, I'll still have trouble going to and from APC because we literally can't even afford going to that place on a weekly basis, much less affording the tuition fee. (I'd love to talk about my financial situation and how bad it's gotten, but it's best to keep it between the people I'm close to and I.)

At this point, I was feeling very ashamed to receive help for them but I genuinely had no other choice. I doubt I'll get anywhere with the current skillset I have (even though people claim it's good enough), and finishing my degree in computer science is one of my main goals in life. So, obviously, I didn't even hesitate to take the offer.

Fast forward to today, I'm comfortably living here with them. Sure, you can say that I'm sort of (in the loosest sense) adopted by them, but I don't really want to put a label on my situation. I'm just glad that, rather than being sent into the slaughterhouse with no one willing to help, I was helped and got offered an alternate path in life.

I'm now studying in APC again! And my family's doing their best (and by "my family," I mean my mom) to get out of debt and help restructure the family again after what happened. They're now finding ways on how to help with my sister's education for the time being.

And no, I wasn't helped by my dad. He hasn't helped me since... he hasn't helped me at all. He's here in the Philippines, he knows about my blog, he knows about my current situation, and he's doing literally nothing to help me. (Gee, thanks.) Now I hear he's making some stupid, cockamamie, half-assed plan to "help me," but it doesn't involve helping me financially, physically, or even morally.

I don't know what my dad is going to do, but I'm sure it will only frustrate me, and only prove how much of a sham his words really are. Sigh, I'm just glad that not everyone in this world is like him, and it's actually heartwarming to know that there are genuinely good people on this earth—people who'd help and act out of their own goodwill, asking for little to nothing in return.

With that out of the way, what now? I don't really know, but I'm here to study. I'm not really suffering here, quite the contrary. What's just relieving to me is that I don't hear about money problems every single day or week, nor do I worry about where to get the money I need, nor whom to ask lunch from later. It seems that I've (finally) been offered a place where I could just focus on my studies and improving my skills in peace.

I'm still unsure of the road ahead, but it's looking bright, and I'm keeping my head up. I have no reason not to do well, as my family—and my new family—(and no, that doesn't include you, dad) is counting on me to do well, and put my best foot forward. I'm just really happy that I finally got another chance at studying in college again.

I'm glad to be back 😄

Okay, so I'm almost through the first two weeks of 2017 and already I've hit rock bottom. When I asked to start off the new year in a different way, I didn't ask for an extreme tragedy. Nevertheless, I asked for it, and life gave it.

So, status report: I'm out of school, I still have some kind of unpaid debt to the school, I doubt I'm going to study soon (until I pay off my tuition), and I don't know where to go from here. It's a rather scary but exciting feeling to actually take my first steps into the working world. But I'm having trouble progressing from where I am now.

There's a voice inside me saying that I should not work, I should not continue studying for the time being, and I should just rest, play games, and watch movies at home—and that voice has been whispering in my ear since December. On the other hand, another voice is shouting at me. It's very loud and commanding, asking so much from me when I have so little. It shouts "GET UP! IF ACHIEVING YOUR DREAMS IS IMPORTANT FOR YOU, YOU'LL FIND A WAY!" to me all day.

And, just when I thought that this was the end of me, I got this weird feeling. This feeling to do well, to improve, to help myself. I'm not at all too familiar with this, but I suppose it's called motivation. I then stood up, shook my head, and exhaled saying "everything's gonna be okay," when I knew, deep in my heart, that everything's not gonna be okay.

Here I am now, still at the same place—at rock bottom—but I'm a little different. I have this burning feeling within me to want to get out of the house, find a job, and genuinely do well. Sure, it's a stretch to say that I'll immediately find a job, but there's no harm in trying.

I've since assembled a roadmap of goals and places I want to get to this 2017, and the list is as follows:

• Find a job.
• Find some good online courses on the English language, graphic design, and programming.
• Learn how to draw.
• Lose all the excess fat and get a healthier body.
• Learn how to properly proofread and edit articles.
• Set up a YouTube channel and fill it with interesting content.
• Get the necessary hardware I need and eventually build my own computer.
• Learn how to read, write, and speak in Korean.
• Become a better graphic designer.
• Go on, at the very least, 1 date.
• Get my bed fixed.
• Write a good story that I know I've put my all in.
• Earn enough money at the end of the year to, at least, go outside of town (or out of the country).

I'm pretty sure you're looking at that list and thinking "there's no way Dart can do all those in a year," and I can say the same thing either. There's no way I can do all those in a year—although, I can try. And no one's going to stop me from crossing down every item on that list.

The first two items in my list are the ones I plan to cross off first, but I can also cross off the others in my list. I'm feeling very hopeful in crossing them all out by the end of the year, because I trust myself not to just laze around for once.

I also heavily plan to crossing out the "become a better graphic designer" part very soon. Already, I'm learning more and more about the importance of typography, iconography, color contrast, shadows, and much more. I still have a long way to go in terms of my designs becoming professional-grade, but I'm getting there. It's slow progress, but I am a computer science student after all, and I'm not that well in arts. But hey, I'm willing to learn and practice.

And sure, what I'm about to embark on is challenging, and it's very difficult for someone like me. But I believe that, if a journey towards something is a hard, grueling, and painful experience, it's worth it.

I have people right now that are like the voice I mentioned above. They want me to fail, do horribly, and get nowhere in life. I got people who just write me off as another worthless, stupid teen with no talent and will never get anywhere in life, but I intend to prove to them otherwise.

Still, I have a long way to go, and a lot to accomplish before I do so, but I'm taking the first steps. That's better than doing nothing, right? The list might be too much for me, but those are my dreams, and accomplishing them is really important for me. I trust myself to accomplish them because, if they are really important for me, I'll find a way; otherwise, I'll find and excuse.

I'll have to leave you with that. Here's to the start of a difficult journey.


(By the way, the "post image" of this post didn't go as planned. I had a somewhat different design in my head but I kinda lacked the motivation to finish it. I still pursued on, and eventually got to design the image you see above. It took a while for me to make, but I just had to turn the image in my head into "a real one." Below is a screenshot of how I made the image above and the one after that was the original "ugly" post image.)

It's a "meh" to me.

Aigoo, it's already a week into 2017? Since I have no specific topic to talk about, and I don't want to talk about another problem in my life (ugh), I might as well talk about anything else. I'll just be myself and talk about whatever. So, um, bleh, I don't even care anymore :^)

Anyway, it's been a week since I've played Overwatch and I'm dying to play it again. I seriously miss playing on the Hollywood map, and the sounds! I just downloaded the official soundtrack of Overwatch and, whenever I play the "Hollywood" song, I get teary eyed (not really) because I miss the game so much.

I'd do anything to play D.Va again (or Mei, pat pat pat). D.Va is obviously my favorite hero in the game because: 1. She's Korean. 2. She has this Iron Man-like suit that I love using. Like, ever since I first played Overwatch (on Osh's laptop), I used D.Va. I also like her boosters a lot and it's something I'm always looking for when I'm playing as another hero. I've tried playing Zenyatta many times before and he's so frickin' slow, hay. The same goes for Mei as well, like, what the hell, can't these heroes get to Objective A faster? No wonder no one's on the payload. Also, D.Va is bæ 😛

I really need to get a new computer soon, lmao. Back when my laptop was fully working, I was using Photoshop like a madman. Whenever I install it on this laptop back then, I first go to the Performance option in Preferences and just turn that GPU setting to "Advanced" and Photoshop would run as smooth as butter. It's almost criminally smooth back then, as I was able to edit files that used almost 2 GB of my RAM. Heck, I even made the entire Intrepid Pen layout back in '15 in the heat of the summer and my laptop just pushed on through.

Oh, and my gaming life was full of color when my GPU was still working. I fondly remember the days when I'd get a flat ironing board and place my laptop on there and hook it up to my (extremely unused) TV using an HDMI cable. On some days, I'd play Outlast or The Stanley Parable and eventually, once I got a Steam account, Portal and then Counter-Strike: Global Offensive.

Sadly, I made the horrible decision to upgrade to the Windows 10 Technical Preview and, well, my laptop's life went downhill from there. My laptop was made in 2009 and it has this switchable graphics thingee that you can use to switch from the (peasant-grade) Intel Graphics 3000 GPU to the AMD 6470M GPU. So, when I upgraded, the switchable graphics option wasn't available. A few months after Windows 10 hit RTM, there was still no graphics driver update for me laptop, which was weird because it did get an update when Windows 8 was released.

So I formatted my laptop and installed Windows 8.1 on it. The moment that it tried to install the AMD drivers, it crashed and gave me a BSOD. I tried it again and same results. I tried to get another Windows 8.1 ISO and same results. At this point, I was on the verge of tears because I knew, deep in my heart, that I had lost a good friend.

Now, my laptop can't even detect the AMD graphics card, and I have no money to replace it. #1SentenceHorrorStory (The Intel graphics card still works; albeit, it's extremely underpowered and I just do light Photoshop work on it.)


SNSD was on the Trending list on Twitter a few days ago. Apparently, it was for this, uh, "best fandom" thing, I don't know. I was shocked to see that SNSD is still going strong even after, what like, a year without any news of the group's comeback (or if Jessica is coming back). Hay, I miss those days when I'd spazz about SNSD all day on Facebook. I'd see memes like Jessica's Miss Korea or Seohyun not being able to properly wink and I'm just left in stitches. SNSD makes me happy, I just laugh automatically, mehehehe.


I'm starting to watch shows again, hooray! I just watched Ed, Edd n Eddy yesterday and I watched Mimi a few days ago. Rewatching Mimi was such a fun time because I get to look back at the things I overlooked or I got to understand the storyline a little deeper. The story of Mimi is soooooooooo good! It's so romantic as well. The way they were so sweet to each other when they were in high school was seriously some of the best parts of the drama. Sigh, it makes me jealous because I didn't have a similar love story in high school (which is sad, lmao).

I also looked back at the things that creeped me out as a kid. I first looked back at Space Ghost Coast to Coast because I remember being terrified by it as a kid. I remember it being aired late at night in Cartoon Network and I was just horrified by that show. The look of the show is just weird and the dialogue was extremely hard to understand (for a 3~5-year-old Filipino kid who could barely speak English). Hey, I watched Samurai Jack at the time and it didn't scare me, and I quite liked it because I remember imitating this scene where he tried to stop walls from crushing him by using his feet and hands.

And, since I'm talking about cartoons that freaked me out, I should also mention Courage the Cowardly Dog. I was addicted to this show, and I liked the humor of it. My favorite episode was the one where they went inside the computer and tried to fix him because he was sick. (With me being a computer dork, it's obvious that I'll like that episode, Hard Drive Courage.) There were also episodes that freaked me out so much. Like that episode where they stay at a hotel and courage is opening doors and he finds this girl alone inside the room. The girl turns around and is revealed to be a monster and, my God, that shit scared me.



The episode about King Ramses saying "Return the Slab" was the episode that traumatized me the most. The animation of him is just so... off-putting, and the way he says "return the slab" is downright horrifying. I remember this being showed and I noped out of the room faster than you can say "return the slab."




I might as well end here. Well, see you next time then :^)

Ah, 2016, what a ride it was. At this time, I can pretty much say that 2016 was one memorable year for a lot of us—some more than others. The events that transpired over the course of this year have, as I'm sure, made a significant impact for the most of us. This was the year that Brexit happened, Duterte got elected, Trump got elected, Harambe died, Overwatch was released (I love playing the game, by the way), shootings and bombings happened, and a lot more. Aside from those events that somewhat shaped the human race, this year was also memorable for me.

Early–Mid 2016

To be fairly blunt, I kind of went on a date with someone... kind of. At around the beginning of the year, a friend of mine asked for "help" and I agreed to help her. We arranged a time, date, when, where, and all the other specifics. We met, I treated her at Starbucks, walked around for a bit, ate Starbucks again, talked about her life and her current situation, hugged, and parted ways. Now, I don't want to look like some wealthy person, but that whole "arrangement" cost me around 2,000, and the money mostly came from my savings over the past year and from Christmas gifts.

The funny thing is that, after our small "arrangement," we barely talked. I messaged her every now and then to ask how she was doing and I'd often get one-liner replies or very slow replies. I believe I asked her about a second arrangement, and she agreed, but I things didn't go through. At the near-end of the year, I was so strapped for cash, so I kept on messaging her when can she return the money because I needed it and she just kept ignoring me. Eventually, I learned that I was just used, sweet. I just blame myself for being so dumb and falling into a ruse like that. We don't talk anymore, although I can see her post on Facebook and on Instagram of the somewhat (I believe) expensive food she eats.

Around February to late March was the highlight of my friendship with my brothers JR and Loy (Capacia). I still remember those times, JR would usually call me or find me during my vacant period (which was 4 hours) and we'd go to La Salle to visit our friend there. We also went there to hang out, drink, and even catch up with our other friend who was also studying in La Salle. I remember that this was the time when we just went to this café and the four of us would just talk and rest there. At this time as well, the three of us participated in the APC Epidemic along with my love interest at that time, C. We also joined another horror-themed event at APC, which was No Escape. The fun part was helping Loy (my friend who studies at La Salle) enter APC without getting noticed or caught. We were successful in getting him to APC for APC Epidemic, but he was caught for the No Escape event. He was still allowed to participate in the event with no stipulations or anything of the sort. I miss these times.

We won first place in the No Escape challenge, whew!

February to late March was also the time I was with my friends from other blocks the most. I regularly played Counter-Strike: Global Offensive during my free time with my high school friends from other blocks. My social interactions this term were mostly focused on my friends from outside my block, and finding out new places with them. This was also the time I was doing good in APC Speaks, and befriending some of the people there. I hung out with mostly Diego and EJ, and we either ate curry or just ate outside of APC. The picture below was taken around this time.


Around mid-February to early April was the time I started trying to court someone, C. I started off strong, as I believe. I joined this ministry (like a church group) at school because I knew she was there, and I tried to get closer to her. I shared every detail, every chat log, almost every message to my friends and frequently asked them for help, tips, and advice. Some tips were successful, and some were not, but it was all good. Despite that, I didn't get the girl my heart was beating for. Her decision had both good and bad effects, but, to be honest, I'm quite glad with her decision. I can explain in-depth in a future blog post, and I'll leave it up to your imagination on what happened to me during this time.

At around late April to early May, I joined this overtly-religious summer camp and got to meet the members of the Carolet team. I've made a small series about my time in camp, and overall I could say that it was an extremely great experience for me. I still miss the members of the Carolet team, and I personally want to tell them that I miss them so much and I love all of them for caring for me during one of my lowest points in my life, but, as you all know, I'm a shy guy who has difficulty expressing his genuine feelings.

I miss them.

Mid 2016

Not much happened in May aside from me lounging around in the house, so fast forward to June. The months from June to August was the time I was really distanced from my blockmates. Because I failed to enroll early due to "problems," I wasn't able to take 2 classes, and the classes I had with my blockmates like GUIPROG were all but full. So I placed myself in the class of MI151. This was, I guess I should say, one of the heights of my academic life because I performed so well in my programming classes—especially my GUIPROG class. I would often start the day learning about proper UI design and some online graphic design classes because my class would often start at around 1:30 p.m. or 9:30 a.m. I did horribly for the first part of the term because my GUIPROG class mainly consisted of eating up PowerPoint lectures. However, at the end of the term, I excelled so much in the class, and I often had others messaging me for help and tips. It was such a fun experience helping others and being of great help to those who were struggling in the subject. I made a lot of great (I believe) programs during this time, and here's one of them. (Oh, and majority of my work during this time can be found on my Behance profile.)

The "base" of the design I made in Photoshop.

The final program. Took me around 6~7 hours to make this in Visual Studio.

Late 2016

My second term of my second year in APC was the "rocky" one, and it was from September to mid-December. This term was the beginning of the end for me.

The term started out well, with me being in the full comfort of my blockmates once again, after many terms. This was the term I spent the most time with them as I had 4-5 classes with them, and I saw them almost every day of the week—even Saturdays. I started getting closer to some of my blockmates, and I grouped up with some of my friends in the block for some subjects.

Eventually, I started acting irrationally and, at times, even monstrously in a bid to fit in with them because I was scared that, since I wasn't exactly "with them" for many terms, I thought I was going to get alienated or ostracized from the block. I desperately tried to fit in with some of them. If some of the guys in the block were perverted, then I tried to become more perverted than them. If they were lazy, then I'd try to be lazier than them. If they were failing and are doing bad, then I'd try to do horribly as well. All of those were in an effort to fit in with them and to relate to them. I don't exactly know the reason why I wanted to fit in so badly, but it's probably because I never really did "fit in" in my classes in high school and elementary, as I was usually the lonely kid in the class.

Those months were also the time my "problems" showed up. I was constantly strapped for cash and the 150 Pesos daily budget I enjoyed in the terms before were now down to 50 or sometimes 40 Pesos. There were also days where I'd only ask for 20 Pesos and I'd use the remaining money I saved the days before as my budget. So, on some days, (or more often than not) I would ask my blockmates if they had some spare food just so I could eat lunch.

It was also at this time when my depression started showing up again, and my addiction to Steam and gaming resurfaced. I stopped using Steam since March, and I last used it to play Counter-Strike with my friends from high school, but I wasn't really quite addicted in collecting games (I've stopped in 2015 due to various reasons) or gaming. I often found myself depressed and resorted to just asking for games online to fill the void within me. To be fair, I was super efficient in asking for stuff, as I got Overwatch, Slime Rancher, Stardew Valley, Formula Fusion, and Fallout 4 (which I gave to my friend) among others in this time period.


So my addiction + depression + some bad influence + problems eventually brought me down. It even went to a point when I tried to ask my dad for help and it resulted in me breaking down even further. Nevertheless, I showed a happy face towards everyone, but, deep inside, I had a deep hatred of my life and who I am—and who I had become.

I managed to talk to my dad at this time, and I thought that he really wanted to help. After getting to know him, talk to him, I eventually learned that he's a man a thousand times more pathetic than I am. The more I talked to him, the more I learned who he really was, and the more monstrous he looked. With his self-righteous posturing and intense delusions of infallibility and grandeur, I slowly started to hate him even more.

Great, now I was addicted, depressed, horribly influenced, problematic, and infuriated. My meltdown occurred at the end of the term, when my groupmates didn't even care to help me in the final projects. Thankfully, in one subject, one of them offered to help me out (and there were four of us in that group). I was doing so horribly in the other subjects, and I focused on playing and having fun with my "other" blockmates. I constantly found myself a part of every perverted joke, every famous Facebook scandal (rapbeh, that R-Breezy model), and other unspeakable things.


Thankfully, my guiding starlight eventually found a way through the smog and saw me through. I was still unbelievably lazy for the remaining part of the year, but I started to heal. Because I was so unhappy dealing with "problems" everyday in my household, and because I wanted to "escape" from all the things that, I believe, were dragging me down, I decided to spend time with the family of my best friend over the holidays.

I was able to rest and, well, get healed. I actually feel very thankful and I have a heavy sense of gratitude towards them as I've thought of them as my family for many years. They've also done so much help to me over the years just for being there for me, and for bringing me along with them in their family trips. I've went to Pangasinan with them, watched Train to Busan with them, spent my past Christmases there, and so much more. To be quite honest, there wasn't a single second where I didn't feel loved or cared. The family of my best friend always made sure that I ate or was doing well, and that means a whole lot to me.

For a while, I actually felt like I was part of a family. I felt what it was like to have a dad who actually cared, and a family that wasn't all about berating you on how dumb you are. The best part was that the father of my friend was more of a father to me than my real, biological father. And that means so much to me more than words from my real father ever could.


I ended 2016 and began 2017 at their house and with their family. I went through a lot during late 2016, but I'm thankful that I managed to get the necessary love and support to fuel me through 2017.

Sure, 2016 was a bad year for me in retrospect, and 2017 might be worse because I might not be studying in APC anymore, but I'm hopeful. I plan to make the most out of 2017, even if it's the last thing I do. I just wish that, for the many years to come, I should take note of the little things in life that bring me joy every once in a while—even after the worst things have happened to me.

And that's my 2016.