JCLA

Twitter History, Part II

yay for Vegas and not paying for drinks at Pure. boo for the douche who stole my cell phone while I was losing money playing poker.
3:30 PM Jan 25th from web

MLK Weekend 2009 was my 4th time in Vegas since turning 21 (6th time overall). This time it was for my homegirl Kathrina’s 21st. Good times as always. Stayed at the Pink rooms of Flamingo. Tao in the Venetian for night one. Pure in Caesar’s Palace for night two.

While at Pure, Kuya & I met this dude from HK that seemed like a creeper at first but ended up being pretty chill. He was with this baller party that had bottle service for some HK kid’s 21st, and he kept sneaking us drinks. Straight liquor on the rocks. I don’t know why he did it, but it saved me money that night. Small gestures like that make me appreciate the goodwill of humanity, a quality often taken for granted and hard to come by these days.

Case in Point: Earlier that day, while playing Pai Gow at Flamingo, I put my phone on the floor by my seat on the casino floor (since cell phones aren’t allowed on the table or in plain sight for that matter) for a split second to rearrange money in my wallet and reorganize everything in my pockets. I go to pick up my phone, and it’s gone.I leave the table even though I was winning, call my phone incessantly with my Kuya’s phone, but the douche who took it eventually turned it off. I went back and forth to the Lost & Found a handful of times until we left Sunday morning, but no dice.

Some Mexican guy called my Kuya with my phone that Monday. He found my phone on the side of Las Vegas Blvd. I didn’t want to deal with finding a way to have this guy send my phone from Vegas to LA, so until this day, I’ve been using this archaic red garage opener as my cell phone. Hurts my pride to use it, but oh well. Woe is life.

busy weeks, busier weekends, I am addicted to the fast life.
2:28 AM Feb 2nd from web

Spring Semester Senior Year. 18 units. 14 of which were upper division Engineering classes. Probably my hardest semester academically, but that didn’t stop me leading an unreasonably busy lifestyle. I enjoyed performing a juggling act with my priorities. I came to terms that my dedication to my workplace and to multiple Filipino-American organizations ultimately superseded my increasing disinterest in Biomedical Engineering with Bioelectronics/Computers emphasis.

At this point of the semester, I was on point when it came to going to all my classes and finishing all my work, but I soon came down with a two month-long cold/flu that, compounded with sleep deprivation and outdoor PACN practices for the better half of the work week, I eventually gave up on the semester.

By April, I was kicking myself in the ass, trying to catch up on all my classes, turning in impossible projects, putting myself through academic hell, hoping this hell would eventually transform into an odd sadomasochism when I finally found passion in my major.

I initially hoped to major in International Relations (what up, NJ Governor’s School of International Studies 2004), but an innate desire to please my irrational Filipino parents who uphold an impractical Filipino tradition of practicality over passion made me take an academic U-turn from IR to Biomedical/Electrical Engineering on a Pre-Medical track.

I have always been the rebel of the family, but I have no idea why I never switched out of a major I never found a passion for while I was an undergraduate.

bme302L midterm 8-930. ee357 930-11. bme402 11-1230. ee357 lab 2-4. pacn dress rehearsals 5-forever. sleepless nights, busy days. holla.
10:05 AM Apr 2nd from web

An example of my Wednesday schedule. During PACN H-Week. I didn’t sleep the night before thanks to that BME 302L midterm. And that night we had dress rehearsals at Bovard Auditorium for our show that Saturday. I made college fun for myself.

Perusing my old Tweets, I write most about 1. sports (USC football/NY Yankees in particular); 2. insomnia; 3. the gym/working out/running; 4. food; 5. Vegas.

Man, I miss Vegas.

Twitter History, Part I

Since insomnia rears its ugly head every time I don’t take my sleeping pills, I decided to go through my Twitter account to delete any facetious updates where I cannot recall the context which merited the Tweet.

While going through these text message-sized updates, I realized how convenient Twitter can be to relive moments in your life that you wanted to declare to the world at the top of your lungs.

Since I don’t blog as often as I hoped (even while being unemployed and having all the time in the world at the moment), I’ll try summarizing my past year in a series of Tweets.

First tweet:

Mara owns me.
4:39 PM Nov 6th, 2008 from txt

This was me trying to figure out Twitter while at a home USC football game against Oregon State (Dam the Beavers!), meaning it was Homecoming 2008, one of the few games when I did not get too trashed tailgating prior to kick-off. I remember taking a picture with a bunch of Troy Phi seniors at the game and wearing my black USC basketball jersey. I’m pretty sure the JFAV rally was that Saturday as well. Before the march, I was hanging around my pledge bros from TDB, and some of the pledges from UCLA kept coming up to me trying to “Sir” me, then me replying with, “Don’t f*cking ‘Sir’ me.”

(Excuse me for the reverse chronological backtracking. I’m writing according to my train of thought.)

FUCK YOU TICKETMASTER
12:16 AM Dec 17th, 2008 from web

haha! This was the night I was supposed to go to a Knicks/Lakers game at the Staples Center. I thought I bought four tickets during Laker pre-sales, but when I went up to the ticket booth, they told me that I had bought the tickets for a pre-season game in October. I was so pissed off. And confused. And embarrassed. I had taken Eric, Mike, and Kuya — somewhat as a birthday present to the first, an “I’m sorry for being a dick” present to the middle, and a Christmas present/”Thanks for being an awesome Kuya” to the last — and we spent an hour outside of the Staples Center trying to figure out WTF was going on. After going New York on TicketMaster over the phone, I gave up. We ended up going back to my apartment to watch the game on TV. The Knicks lost, of course, as did my pride.

The next day I missed out on Vince’s 19th birthday because I tapped out early. The day after that, there was a Secret Santa/White Elephant thing at my apartment that I did not take apart of ‘cuz I was still fuming from the game. It rained that night.

The next morning, Vince & I trudged up Bear Mountain’s icy roads at 4AM to go snowboarding at Big Bear. We got there just when the lifts opened at 8AM. FRESHEST POWDER I HAVE EVER SNOWBOARDED ON. I also got to use my new snowboarding gear for the first time. Awesome.

However, later that day I found out the I-15 was completely closed off ‘cuz the roads were covered in snow. This news freaked me out and kept me worrying all day because I was supposed to drive to Vegas the next day to meet up with Rich then fly back home on Sunday night. Thankfully, after going on ~12+ runs and snowboarding for 6 straight hours, then splitting $30+ of food from Popeye’s (an insider between my car & Vince’s car from Ski Trip 2008) between the two of us, on the drive back from Big Bear, I found out they cleared up the I-15.

We hit traffic on the I-10W from everyone trying to get home from Vegas. Near Alameda, there was a really bad accident where a tractor trailer flipped over, blocking the entire freeway, causing a traffic jam pretty much from the SGV to DTLA.

Running on 2 hours of sleep the night before, I packed everything I needed to go home (aka my laundry and my North Face), drove to Irvine, crashed on Ferd’s couch once I got there, then we left for Vegas at 7AM that morning. We got to McCarran Airport right when Rich got there (perfect timing!), checked out the Stussy/UNDFTD stores on Paradise, did the usual Vegas Jollibee run on Maryland, dropped off Ferd at Ateh’s condo, then proceeded to rock The Strip.

I forget what we did during the day (I think we tried gambling at Imperial Palace for some reason but giving up quick ‘cuz the nice Tita that was dealing to us didn’t give us any luck), but we somehow ended up at the Flamingo that night and stayed there. I didn’t do too hot, but Rich sat at the same Blackjack table for like 6 straight hours and was about to get us 2 comped nights. We checked into our room around 6AM. I knocked out, but Rich decided to gamble some more.

I woke up that morning and found him still gambling. I was pretty hungry, so we drove to Rio to do some early morning gambling before their brunch buffet started around 10AM. All the money Rich won that night was gone by then, so he more or less sulked the entire time we ate.

We decided to stay at the Rio to gamble. Rich taught me how to play a bunch of games. I guess I felt inclined to play Caribbean Stud Poker ‘cuz it looked easy. And I ended up winning $700+. The dealer that kept rotating in and out of the table watching me win asked me what I was gonna do with my money. I triumphantly told her, “I’m going to Raising Cane’s!”

We drove back to Ateh’s place, picked up Ferd, and went to Raising Cane’s for their dope chicken strip meals. It was my first time there, and damn I was good. We went back to the Strip, bought 100 ounce Yardsticks from the Rock House, then watched the water show at the Bellagio while sipping on our yardstick and smoked cigarettes (yeah I smoked at the time).

After the show was over, we went back to the Flamingo to try to finish our yardsticks. Fail. I ended up knocking out from all that alcohol while Rich & Ferd watched some cop reality show busting people who cheat on their boyfriend/girlfriend on TV. Rich kept gambling. Again. I think this time Rich went to meet up a homegirl that recently moved to Vegas at one of the off-Strip casinos.

Sunday morning, we checked out of our free rooms, went to Church at the small Cathedral next to the Wynn, drove around, ended up at MGM for some reason, watched Rich gamble some more, then picked up Ferd from Ateh’s place (again). Went to In-N-Out to satiate Rich’s itch for the west coast delicacy (wow, I did not eat well at all that weekend).

This time, Ferd dropped us off at the airport. His car was still getting fixed in Irvine, so the deal was that I’d drive my car out to Vegas if he drove it back to Irvine (I later found out that he got pulled over in Irvine ‘cuz my registration had expired in October 2008, but was let off with only a warning because the Filipino cop knew Giselle, a mutual friend of ours from Eagle Rock that also went to UC Irvine). Rich and I watched the Giants game at a bar at McCarran, and this annoying girl in a pink Giants hat kept shrieking and calling one of her girlfriends every time the Giants did something good. Rich & I then separated, as he flew back to Queens via JFK and I flew back home to cold ass New Jersey to Newark Airport.

All in all, an awesome weekend.

…

I didn’t expect to write that much on 2 Twitter updates. Will continue traveling back in time later. Until then, thank you, Twitter, for helping me reminisce about times past.

Interview for a potential job, or go to the Philippines? The answer is obvious.