More time, more money, more ways to get it all out

I always feel like I should be doing more. Like more money in the bank, more time killed actually doing something besides sleeping and waiting for something to happen, productivity, published work, more STUFF and ways to put myself out there actually adds up to a life well lived–

(Okay, baby’s crying. gotta go.)

So there, I keep feeling like I always have to be puttering around and keeping busy because this, in some way, validates my existence. Like most women, I have an extremely thick copus collosum which makes it perfectly natural for me to multi-task. Focusing on one single thing makes me uncomfortable.
Like this blog entry, as I was typing this I had to run out and tend to my baby brother who was screaming his lungs out in the bathroom.
My brother’s another story. He’s hit his emo/existential crisis a decade too early and in his words, he “doesn’t want to do anything.” He claims he’s tired, not physically, but of life itself. He doesn’t want to take a bath, eat, or brush his teeth because good hygiene and adequate nutrition can be equated with succumbing to the norms that maintain his place in sane society.
And he doesn’t want that. He’s only 6 and he doesn’t want that. We can’t even bribe him with toys and TV anymore because he doesn’t want any of those either. He just wants to do nothing (besides maybe wallow in self-pity).

The clincher is that dealing with him is time consuming and tiring. Afterwards, our (me and my sister’s) efforts prove fruitless and we’re actually tired. Not average “Oh, I just went for a jog around the block” tired, but shoveling coal on the White Star line tired (Haha I’m reading an essay about the Titanic).

I’m not exactly one to talk about raising kids, I guess it’s a different story when you grow one in your own ovaries and shove it out and put it through college. Me, I’m just a much, much older sister in a series of slightly vague relationships. A while ago during one of Budi’s temper tantrums he screamed at me that I’m “not his mother” to which I exhaustedly shot back that “No one here is your mother” which I’m still feeling really bad about.
But it’s true. I just don’t want to give the kid issues because even I’m having trouble dealing with my own–and I’m 22.
Anyway, screw everything I said about feeling like I’m not doing anything with my life. There are three of us here, plus one yaya, and we still can’t seem to get this whole child reaing thing right.

I’m Amazed at how my Little Brother

…managed to cover the entire floor area of our living room with drawings of dinosaurs and racecars. Actually I’m amazed at how anyone can get anything done in this infernal heat.
Me, I’m currently rediscovering the healing properties of talcum powder. Talcum powder’s the shizz! I don’t care what those crazy coconut oil people say, we breathe cancer into our lungs just walking out into the streets anyway. Well, that goes without saying that I have nothing to do at home–or rather I have a million and one things to do but I break a sweat just thinking about them because of THIS HEAT.

Yesterday I was at school for my second to the last semester.
I like waiting in line. Waiting in line is fun. If I had to choose between making babies and waiting in line, I’d choose waiting in line because you kill time in the name of slooooowly progressing towards the inevitable. And you get to read! AND EAVESDROP! I love eavesdropping, especially when the conversations being had are about waiting in line. Eavesdropping: +5 :: Making Babies: 0.

So yeah, yesterday, wahttawaste. What I could have gotten done in an hour took 6 hours because after 100 years, the enrollment process in UP Diliman is still medieval. Of course, on my first year in UP it took me three days to secure 15 units, so progress is good. We are now about 50,000 paces closer to building rockets and finding a cure for hangovers (a cure that does not consist of more drinking, mind you).

Most of the time was spent waiting for the program coordinator to talk to me. I don’t know what’s up with the department now but somehow there was only one adviser to oversee enrollment for about 50something CT students. MY program coordinator is awesome (but not as awesome as waiting in line, nothing can beat that, except maybe eavesdropping). When she’s done checking my papers, she crosses the sheet in blue ink like this with so much conviction, it’s like her pen has to rape my Form 5 because she’s a woman of authority, a trained professional.

So upon sitting down in front of her and passing her my enrollment junk she goes,
“How was your practicum.” And I’m like it was a life-changing experience that I will forever be thankful for blablabla, and all that jazz.

Then she goes, “I hear Ms. Gozum had a problem with you, she said you seemed far away.”
Which is baffling, considering I had to be present to be able to talk in class, which I did A LOT because ME, I NEVER SHUT UP! I just can’t! And I was talking about the subject, not randomly brain farting.

So before even signing my papers she looks me straight in the eye, and attempting a Star Cinema moment she goes, “You’re very difficult to understand, Alice.”
Which I brush off with “Ma’am, I don’t expect to be understood by everyone, and neither should you.” which come to think of it is pretty arrogant, but honestly, the world is full of facts and phenomena that some may not understand, but makes perfect sense to other people. Did we not learn anything about niche markets? I mean, how else can we explain this?

(That thing’s pretty awesome though, I want one in yellow)
So there, in our program coordinator’s mind, I am probably the human equivalent of the splatter-proof-ramen-headband-thing. I guess it’s okay to get piping hot soup in your eye, but don’t dare get it on your forehead. And that’s fine, because in my mind, she’s the human equivalent of the medieval enrollment system in UP.