Destination Unknown

I just got home from graduation, and Lord, to call today a wonderful day is to give the word "wonderful" too little weight.

We started early. People wearing togas gathered around PICC and awaited instructions before entering the ceremonial hall. While the program flow itself is nothing special, each and every participants, most especially the graduates, could care less. In fact, it’s this kind of simplicity that I appreciate the most: no blasted inspirational song duets, no nasty-tasting "lobster dinner" (I don’t eat lobster as well), no superbly flashy and pretentious fashion show, but just some plain simple marching with occasional long-winded speech - ofwhich happens to be my least favorite part.

It’s kind of sad how, even though 5 years sound quite long, it really only took short period of time and experience before we get out of our school. Most of us are not all that prepared to wear toga. I would bet that even the late graduates would still find themselves hesitant to leave school, though maybe not hesitant to snatch their diploma out of the hands of some school administrators.

But enough of those sentimentality. The speakers did enough to communicate those during the graduation, and to continue to dwell on it would only make any sort of sentimental melodrama overstays its welcome. I for one am tired of all those whiny "life-goes-on/time-is-short/life-is-short/its-time-to-say-goodbye" statements getting flinged around during these kind of occasions. Even PGMA got certain mention (in a not-so-dignified light) by some of our speakers. Indeed graduation speeches are inspirational, yet they are still rife with pessimism.

One of the funniest occurence today thankfully didn’t happen from me, but from my seatmate. You know, there’s this really pretty girl that went on stage. My seatmate said very loudly and overly smugly (uncontrolled, I suppose) that this girl looked like Barbie Almalbis (formerly the lead singer of Hungry Young Poets/Barbie’s Cradle).

His other seatmate told him "Idiot! That’s THE Barbie Almalbis!"
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Even though I knew way back then that Barbie Almalbis belongs to our school, I have never got the chance to see her in person, not until today. Call it a sense of intuition, but I sensed it when she was on stage that she’s someone BIG - not literally, of course. Sure enough, that’s Barbie.

I have seen her on TV few times, but this is a celebrity who I can truthfully say look way better in person than in TV/Newspaper/Publication. That’s quite a rarity. Others, like Sarah Geronimo in my opinion, looks nothing special when in person. Barbie simply looks stunning.
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In other news, I got my US non-immigrant Visa delivered to our place today. Now that’s even more things to be happy about. For those who wondered, this Visa of mine spans 5 years, which means it would expire on 2010 when definitely PGMA is no longer a president, something I’m looking forward to.

If only every single day is as good as this.

I am graduating tomorrow, October 1, 2005.

I’m so happy! Whee!

And outside, it’s raining cats and dogs. I guess cats and dogs are pretty glad about me ending my college life.

Luddite, as defined in WordWeb, stands for anyone who is an opponent for technological progress.

Philippines is one of those countries who rate the fastest when catching up with the latest trend. I know. I heard of this from my brother who had read this in a survey from a magazine that he has forgotten. Information can be transcended in the most complicated cycle, as was just demonstrated a while ago. So Luddite is probably a rare species in our country

ANYWAY, let’s prevent everyone from straying to far out of topic. The reason why I suddenly want to speak of Luddite is because there will always be a person who prefers the OLD to the NEW, no matter what kind of progresses/advances the NEW had/have/will have provided. Examples? Take Videogames, Movies, Fashion, or Music. Surely, lots of Filipinos, and generally lots of people, will want to catch up on the latest trend; yet, there are those that prefer the OLDs.

So when am I a Luddite? Wouldn’t it be blasphemy if I protest against technological progresses for the mere fact that my course, engineering, mainly deals with technology? Isn’t Luddite = blasphemy for my part?

In ways, yes. I would pretty much be. But my individuality dictates that there are things that are better left the way they were in the OLD as opposed to the way they have changed until the present.

I’m referring to friendster’s new interface, which in no way flabbergast me.

Why? What’s there not to like about new friendster look? First, the aesthetics. I have always prefered the old school BLUE look as opposed to the new NEON ORANGE. I don’t know about you, but something about NEON just doesn’t appeal to me. To me, it’s just some sort of cheap exaggeration of certain colors to give more life to it by giving it high amount of contrasts. The thing is, not only does neon fail to give more life to colors, it also gives viewers more inclination to visit his favorite ophthalmologist. Any NEON website doesn’t get lots of visits from me. And it’s no surprise why this ended up being one of the factors why I’ve been logging on to friendster less frequently these days. On the other hand, the old school BLUE is easy to the eyes.

Second, is the way every information is cluttered in the front page. When friendster started, all you get to view as you enter the home page was your picture, your friends, the bulletin boards, and some random people. Now, in addition to what was mentioned, we have some crappy (because they are too blindly optimistic)  horoscopes. Then you have something about RSS feeds. Then there are snippets of your blog, snippets of your profile, some advertisments and, get this, people who has been viewing you! To make things worse, a great amount of texts are in green font color. Since when did orange and green become a good color combination, i.e. especially NEON ORANGE and ARMY GREEN? Thank Lord they have removed the popular searches in your network, which sometimes include embarrassing search keys (is that what you call it?) that you don’t recall ever having been finding, such as Angel Locsin Scandal, Flirt with Singles in your Area, etc.

Lastly, I’m not too hot on the idea of posting MP3’s, Video’s, .swf’s (and the likes) in your profile either. Now we can start worrying about "friends" or guests complaining about our tastes in video, music, etc. That’s actually the least of how bad of a devolving this addition is. Friendster administration have apparently saw fit to make friendster some freak show, instead of maintaining it’s original purpose of establishing networks among friends. Do I need to mention that there are good number (including me) of friendster users that use 56K Modem? And need I also mention (since I bet everyone knows this) that those videos take forever to load?

But the most questionable/objectionable addition is the "Who’s Viewing You" addition, which puzzles me, since it contradicts certain values and qualities friendster administrators were promoting. Weren’t they firm on the principle of protecting/respecting friendster users’ privacy? I recall reading that in the help section of friendster, which was now changed, so that I can’t (cross) reference! Isn’t this like a way of getting people to accuse others as stalkers and isnt this also a way of getting people to pay attention to potential stalkers? I know how un-fun it is to get accused of being a stalker.  I don’t want to imagine a conversation from two viewers that goes like this:

Mr. Has-hots-for-your-photos: Hi, I saw that you’ve been vieweing my profile
Ms. I-thought-you-were-someone-else: Err, yes, and now you have also viewed mine
(Creepy exchanges of messages ensues)

But, well, who am I to speak? I don’t have the power to redefine friendster’s direction. I’m just pretty puzzled how they added so many unnecessary featuress that really don’t do much to gear Friendster toward becoming an excellent Networking-Site. Don’t they realize that there certain things that DO not need to be implemented in this site, and certain things that DO need to be, but were not yet, implemented in this site? Seriously, does Friendster really need a search network? Isn’t GOOGLE gargantuan enough? And don’t Friendster people think they need to implement the horoscope better, and maybe include some personality tests, instead of, you know, adding the "Who’s Viewed Me" feature?

And my conclusion is that there are no conclusion to this kind of freak-show devolving until certain amount of people become vocal about removing the unnecessary features Friendster administration have added. So, until that time, I will remain the sole voice that speaks in favor of the OLD to the NEW Friendster ways. And in case anyone is going to start accusing me of being a Luddite, well, I won’t hold it against you. I just thought certain things are better left untouched.

After having spent almost a
month bum… err, vacationing, at home, I was finally able to revisit school
yesterday to get my toga, take graduation pictures, and have a rehearsal on our
commencement exercises.

This is a day where Charles
Dickens’ famous paraphrased line can aptly describe. “It was the best of times;
it was the worst of times.” Indeed, yesterday was a mix of both euphoric highs
and dystopia-like lows. It’s like a boxing match where you know you’ll
eventually win, but you still do not look forward to the blows that will land
on you, however few.

To be exact, (almost) everything went
accordingly. The schedule didn’t understate anything. Most of the events
started on-time, and some even ended early. Plus, it is also nice to again see
people you used to hang around with. Some of my friends actually went all the
way back from elsewhere just to get their toga. Basically, this was among one
of my last opportunities of seeing them, at least in an educational institution
setting. I know that it will be a long time before I get to see them again, and
the mere fact that I still got that chance today makes this day worth more than
any ordinary day of me staying at home and wasting time with 24 Hours DVD’s
(though it is a good waste of time).

Seeing two (among my three)
favorite “eye-candies” was also very worth it, though the quality of time spent
with them this day was not too satisfactory. But hey, that’s better than not
seeing them at all, right?

But not all’s well either,
aside from the fact that my writing today is pretty sloppy and that I used the
word “see” too many times. For one, I’ve spent too much money on stuffs that
are unnecessarily overcharged by our school. And when I say overcharged, I mean
it in a lack-of-quality way, not the typical too-high-price-on-good-items way.
To be more specific, I’ve spent money, quite an amount on that, on mediocre
services. The photoshoot costs P300, yet the photographers made no effort in
taking the picture the way we wanted it. I remember almost shouting “wait” to
the photographer, because I was still grooming my hair when he took the
picture. It’s like the photographer are in too much of a hurry to get their job
done, compromising the quality of their pictures on that process. Considering
that this is a very important event in all graduates’ life, I have to say what
they did was completely thoughtless of others. I’m not the only one who
complained about this as well. What’s up with that?

Second frustrating ordeal is
the money spent on delivering the transcript of record. What I really can’t
understand is why our ID is not validated when in fact we did pay our tuition
fee. This resulted to all graduates not being able to enter school except on
required dates, which means I have lesser chance of seeing Seulki. What does this
have to do with our TOR? Well, since I can’t go back to school on ordinary
days, I opted for the courier service where the school will assign people to
deliver the transcript for us. And guess what, the courier service is
overpriced as expected. The last time I used DHL to deliver a document (which
was 5 years ago) I’ve spend P70. This courier service costs P125. I don’t know
what’s the price of DHL now, but even in the unlikely scenario of DHL being
twice the cost of that courier service, I’d choose DHL any time of the day, for
one reason: DHL delivers on the next day. We are paying courier services that
take 2 months to deliver a transcript of records that take 1 week to finish!
Just how overpriced and inefficient is that?

Suffice to say, I was glad
to have gone to school that day, and was also glad to go home after all the
rehearsals and money-spending. At the end of the day, there’s only one comment
I can give about the whole experience of wearing toga over business attires
while taking pictures on a non-air-conditioned space (yes, space, the DLSU
admin felt too encumbered to give us a room): taking a shower never felt so
good.

(Note: I wrote this while I was insomniac)

You know what many people say about mainstream? Mainstream music like Backstreet Boys, Spice Girls, N’Sync, Britney Spears? Mainstream TV shows like American Idol? Mainstream movies like Bad Boys? Mainstream Video Games like Final Fantasy VIII? Well, it’s that they are pretty crappy. So what do these people resort to? They go find some alternatives. And the most obvious is when a person prefers to listen to alternative music instead of contemporary ones - No real offense to alternative music, because some of them are good, even though they have devolved over the years.

And it’s pretty funny that these days, the mainstream is actually the alternative. Yet many, especially people of college age-brackets, insist that it’s an expression of their uniqueness and individuality. They jump at every opportunity to see a "rock" concerts, dress in "rock" fashion, jump in moshpits and scream in euphoria (or mere insanity) as in "rock" performances, and use the \m/ sign to express their "rock" identities. Is all of this supposed to be cool? Notice how overused the word "rock" is these days?

There’s another. As an alternative to contemporary sports, a group of people have managed to make extreme sports recognized as professional (where you can win trophies, credibilities and even, if you’re from this country, elections). Extreme sports are fun to watch. Extreme people are grating to the nerves. And when everything else becomes just an attempt to cash in the extreme sports fad, like XBOX 360 or Megaman Xtreme, individuality and uniqueness gets pretty lost - ironic to the fact that most of these things/people are trying to establish an identity of their own.

What societal impact does this have? Well, for one, people - take note that I don’t want to sound like an old man nagging the present society - especially the youths, misbehave, just so they can be different. They get angry for no reason. They sneer or show an agitated and angry face, not to scare people, but to look cool in ROCK assemblies (or similar things) when in fact they do scare people. They do stuffs that "breaks ground" (but really, it just more of break ethics) just so they can get the EXTREME identity. I have no problem with being rebellious becuase of expressing disatisfaction with the norms. But to be rebellious just to look like some sort of extremist is just plain sick. It’s also annoying. And it’s also illogical to the point that it cause people to do something they regret later on.

What’s pretty funny is that I used to belong to these crowd.

Then I realized that all of this is pretty childish and does nothing but further my lack of immaturity.

Well, bad news. The "ROCK" you get to hear on radio is actually not Rock, but sellouts. The bands that mostly consist of pretty boys or artists that consists of "GOTHIC", not-smiling woman, is actually singing music that’s just pretty mainstream-ish if hardcore standards of rock is to be imposed. (Note: HARDCORE is getting pretty overused as well). To have electric guitars, bass guitars and drums certainly don’t automatically lead to a band with musical decency and ingenuity. To pose as "ROCKERS" definitely do not make a person ROCK. And to post a profile in friendster that describes the self as (sorry to those who get offended) "Simple but rock" - what the hell is that supposed to mean? All it does is to furtger complicate the ’simplicity’ of a person, because not only is the phrase vague and meaningless, it also doesn’t have a unique identity.

To continually call oneself "EXTREME" is also to make the word EXTREME pretty tame. To continue to cash on Extreme Sports Popularity by labelling everything with hardcore/360/extreme is to give Extreme Sports a bad name, because last I checked, extreme sports is supposed to be a seclusion from the contemporary. And besides, here are some excerpts from gamespy regarding XBOX 360:

"Ladies and gentlemen, we present you with the next generation of
Xbox… the Xbox 360! Come on, 360’s are cool, right? I mean, nevermind
that the literal interpretation of 360 means "a complete turn leading
to the same place one started" for a second. Actually, for that matter,
let’s also ignore that a 360 these days in any athletic competition is
laughable. Tony Hawk can pull off 900’s, kids, and most any decent
skater, snowboarder, or even bike-jumping guy (the technical term) can
pull at least a 540. So yeah, uhm… Xbox 360, ladies and gentlemen! EXTREEEEME!"

And here’s another that came from the indie comic "Same Differences"

"Look, unlike some people I know, I don’t constantly follow the latest "alternative" fashion trend to express my "individualism". How hypocritical is that?"

So the next time you think that extreme are cool, well, sorry to break the news, but extreme are extremely berated by the public these days. That site, plus this indie comic, only further proves that. And if you’ve been following Reader’s Digest, one short anecdote from the joke corner states that one of the most overused word that should no longer belong to the dictionary, is, you guessed it, extreme. So, who’s still gonna make the \m/ and shout EXTREEEEME?!

Abiding by Jack Black’s "You’re not hardcore unless you live hardcore", you’re not ROCK and EXTREME and whatever unless you live from deep under and manage to get through it. So if you’re from a fairly prominent family, don’t even try to belong by simply shouting "ROCK!" or "HARDCORE!" or "EXTREEME!". Living under sparce condition is the real initiation rite to HARDCORE. Nobody is EXTREME until s/he breaks records (and not breaks stuff). And ROCK certainly doesn’t describe posers/misogynists who has nothing better to do that to shout, bang heads, dressing as clowns, wearing black lipsticks, doing the angry face posture, and most of all, the \m/ sign.

Lastly, if you hate the mainstream, don’t do so just to act cool. Hate it because you know of its lack in quality. Strive for an identity by creating your own, and not followig the lastest "alternative" trend. Or just go crazy imitating the mainstream.

At least you do no one harm.

The most shameful moment of
being a Taiwanese is when watching the Taiwan news with people of another country. Every Taiwanese
who have read this should know what I mean.

Every time I see ANY scene
of House of Congress, I get red-faced. Taiwan’s House of Congress effortlessly knows how to
embarrass their countrymen. I kid you not if I say that to compare the
transcript of any House of Congress proceedings to a script of ultra-cheesy
soap operas is to give a script of ultra-cheesy soap operas a very bad name.

What exactly happens in
House of Congress, you ask? Well: 

1. The congresses shout at
each other, which makes their debate more like a shouting match.

2. The congresses box with
each other - maybe part of the required quality of a Taiwan congressman/congresswoman is that they need to have
loud voice and adept hand to hand combat skills.

3. The media seems to like
it even more when such event happens.

4. Believe it or not,
sometimes those fights that take place in the House of Congress are just
scripted to get the media’s attention, as a way of telling the Taiwan population that indeed these people are doing
something.

My message to those
congressmen/congresswomen: get a life, and try to control your temper while
you’re at it. I think it’s fair to presume that part of your oath is certain
promises to make your countrymen proud. Fulfill that promise at least once in a
while by just acting like a normal level-headed person for crying out loud - of
which I know is something you do so often. We don’t need a country that plays
continuous reruns of badly-scripted courtroom drama (trauma); if you can’t do
much when it terms of achievement then at least do our country a favor by not
embarrassing us. Is getting featured in The Most Shocking Video Caught on Tape part
of your idea of patronizing our country? 

Please, at least give Taiwan a good name!

I am friendly, congenial, amiable and bordering (sometimes) on huggable. I like to add friends and be added as friends just as much as the guy/girl next door (I don’t mean my neighbor; he’s a real grouch-potato).

But what I don’t like is when people force you to add them. In general, I hate running errands, especially for people that are not related to me by blood. Sometimes I receive messages that go like:

Add me.

My name is (blank) add me please thank you. <– without punctuation marks

Then they would post e-mail addy that sometimes are just plain ridiculous. For the benefit of all humankind I will refrain myself from posting those ultra-cheesy, squirm inducing e-mails.

Why do I hate it when people do this? Because first, they probably got attracted (for some reasons) to my profile. If they do read my profile, they would bear in mind that I travel places and thus, know probably more people than I’m willing to admit. If I just add people indiscriminately, how can I tell a person from others? Is friendster all about adding people whom you will not remember anything about? Is friendster just a popularity contest? If it is, I beg to be excluded.

This would be cool if they give me a short introduction of themselves. Most of them do not. Yet instead of just typing my e-mail (which is posted in my profile) they would send some manner-lacking and grammar-unabiding messages COMMANDING me to add them. Then, if by chance I did indeed get to see their profile, nothing spectacular is written in it. There’s no substantial description of the self, and favorites are just the typical, sometimes smarmy ones. How would I even know WHO or WHAT kind of people I am adding?

Others who do just type my e-mail and request to be added fail to reply when I send them message asking who they are/give description of themselves.

A particularly perplexing situation even occured: One girl messaged me, asking me to add her. After about a few weeks, I DID add her, then replied to her messaged in my other account saying I have just added her. Then she said she doesn’t even know me, even if i repeatedly stated that I am on her other account! Would it really have hurt that she view her list of friends and see who are the people she’s adding?

Once again, as much as I want to accomodate some friend’s request, I can’t help but feel beleaguered by people who don’t observe basic mannerisms/etiquette when sending friend requests. But who am I to speak: the internet is populated with people who lack netiquette. Any word of protest to it is like fighting dogfights with the world.

I’ll just say it once again: if friendster is a popularity contest, count me out.

I sometimes
wonder how it would’ve been if I’ve studied at Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU)
instead of at De La Salle University (DLSU). (e.g. Would my e-mail be admuchou
instead of dlsuchou?)

Honestly,
it wasn’t far-fetched. I DID pass the entrance
examination, even though it was inconceivable. What will
remain in my memory as a question eternally unanswered is: How could I have
passed?

It
certainly has got nothing to do with my mental capacity. Throughout the duration of the entrance examination I was so angry, flaming,
fuming, overwrought, distraught, agitated and unnerved -please, just how many
adjectives do we need?- that it would’ve been impossible for my mind to
function at its optimum. Among the four college entrance
examinations (UP, ADMU, DLSU, UST) I was so certain I flunked this one
that I was determined not to find out about my results from other school, and forget the
examination ever happened.

You see, I was in Bacolod then. The examination took place in USLS,
or University of St. La Salle (Oh! The Irony!). It really wasn’t
that the venue was theoretically incorrect; it was the situation where the
proctors, examinees and "uninvolved" students place it.

First of all, it really couldn’t have been prevented that the electrical suppliers of Bacolod
really blows. Not a month pass without power interruptions occuring at least once. But what people of
USLS could have done was to provide generators. I really don’t buy whatever alibis they would make to explain how USLS, a part of an educational committee that claims "world class" like a mantra, cannot afford to supply temporary
electricity for entrance examinees. We were supposed to take the test in
an auditorium where light is as essential as water is to human body. With the
lights out, we can’t see anything!

After experiencing one power failure, examinees were forced
to transfer to a classroom. Not only was this classroom lacking
ventilation, but also silence. No amount of
sound-proofing can muffle the next door’s gymnasium’s hodgepodge of chants,
cheers and commentators of an ongoing basketball game of the now defunct MBA.
The noise was bothering me so much that I couldn’t even understand any section of the reading comprehension
test, which consists of some writings that could’ve been passages of Brothers
Karamazov (the Timbuctoo material haunts me to this day).

As if it didn’t bother me enough, the power resumed and we
have to scramble back to auditorium without any appreciable time
extensions. This mean we have to answer 50 science questions in less
than 20 minutes. As if all hell hasn’t even broken loose, the
power failed again!

By then we went back to the classroom, and stayed there, oblivious
as to whether or not the power will restore (and it did). It’s bothersome how a generator can be supplied to the ongoing MBA basketball game and
not to the auditorium where people are taking up what might dictate their
future. Isn’t Saturday supposed to be a day when electrical power consumption of
a school is kept below average? Why so deliberately cost-cut on examinees but
not on basketball game spectators? All pretenses aside, can anyone honestly tell
that a basketball game is more important than an entrance examination? It’s not
even a playoff, elimination or championship game!

And if that wasn’t good enough, some examinees don’t seem to
know how to lower their voices. They keep shouting questions to the
proctors, startling fellow examinees uninvolved to their “uncertainties".

As you can probably think by now, the ADMU entrance exam
experience of mine was devastating, factored by nonchalant,
self-important losers. After a few months and after completely losing hope
of ever passing the test, Tara, a friend of mine, phoned me and said the result of
ADMU entrance examination is now online. She also said that I
passed the exam.

After logging on to the internet, and visiting ADMU’s site,
my mouth jaw landed on the floor.

There was my name. I passed. This was the first time all logics and rationales betrayed me.

The only reason why I didn’t choose Ateneo over La Salle is due to the course they offered. I’m not particularly interested in becoming an Environmental
Scientist because I don’t enjoy nagging - and I even find it stressful. If I did pursue my education at ADMU, regardless of whether
or not I shifted midway, who knows what my college life would’ve been like.

To these days, what could’ve been had I studied in ADMU, is a subject where I often play my imagination with.

So I was surfing the net and visiting random discussion forums when I came upon a link that generates your cyborg name.

(It’s J.O.U. as in Justified Observation Unit)

This is so cool… hehehe… Now there’s one more reason as to why people watching is one of my favorite pasttimes. Ok, so maybe that’s not a reason, but you all got to admit that it’s pretty coincidental, no?

Anyway, I was supposed to write a longer entry today, but it seems like my head is not functioning on its optimum, so I have to put it off to some other time. Bad… habit of… procrastination!

(Note: this entry, for most part, can only be understood by Pinoy readers. This is my first Pinoy-exclusive entry)

I believe everyone is unique; as one of my t-shirts suggests: God made everyone special in their own way. Let it be in appearance, opinion, attitude, sense of humor, and dignity, nobody’s the same.

Yet, I can’t help but get aggravated every time the masses have to imitate the annoying expressions that should’ve just been left on the TV, magazine, or where else they came from.

Just what is it with mass suggestion that compels many to bear insurmountable and blind obedience? I’m willing to bet that most people have greater tendency to obey what’s practiced by many than what’s suggested by their parents. Among the many, five mass suggested words actually gave people the impression that whoever is using them is cool. If lambasting words is what they call cool, I’m blessed to be excluded.

The five mass suggested words/expressions that annoys me the most are:

1. Joke joke joke! - I wonder where this expression came from. Was it from contemporary comedy shows our country has no lack of? Was it from the Ocho-ocho music that, thankfully, has diminished from DJ’s memory? In any case, I don’t think a word is meant to be used thrice in succession. Because because because if if if that that that is is is the the the case case case, it it it would would would be be be really really really confusing confusing confusing. See, Bill Gates (as shown in his MS Office) doesn’t acknowledge that as a proper grammar usage, and for the first time in my life I’m with him. To aggravate the annoyance is the way the expression is pronounced: with effusive stress or intonation. Every time I hear a person say joke Joke JOKE, I feel very ungrateful of my ears not having enough earwax.

2. Pwede/Tama pronounced as pwe-DE! or ta-MA! - Actually, pwede or tama is as standard a Filipino word as anything you can think of (for example, babae or lalake). It’s just that lately, people have grown too fond of pronouncing it another way; this alternative being so overused the original pronunciation actually became the real alternative. Just what is so cool about saying pwede or tama (and probably other two-syllabled Filipino words) with the exaggerated rising intonation? Whatever happened to simplicity and minimalism? For a testament of how popular the word pwede has become in the recent year (of course, due to its rise of the stupid pronunciation), an eatery by Taft Avenue, near St. Scholastica, is actually named "PWEDE!". In all caps, no less. And I bet you 10 dollars that the boss of this eatery has every intention to pronounce it "pwe-DE".

3.Kap Xiao, Cha Xiao, So Xiao, or whatever Xiao I can think of, or even just Xiao - this is actually a pseudo-Chinese word. Pseudo, because I’m compelled to believe that most of the prefixes attached to Xiao do not, actually, exist in the Dictionary. Xiao actually means sperm cell. Cha means noisy (Huh? Noisy sperm?). Kap, So or whatever other prefixes, are actually invented by people desperate of make new swear word. I’m looking at a certain loathe-inducing classmate of mine, who majors in BS Swearology. He IS that desperate intern from my previous entry. He’s not in my list of friends, either, because he is not my friend. For unknown reasons, Philippine’s Chinatown populace find it cool to put swear words in their conversations, as if our Chinatown do not have enough horse dung. It’s annoying, because not only does it grate to the ears, but it’s actually dirty words that I have even lesser respect of than the "internationally-coveted" four-lettered ones. Whereas fuck or shit (don’t gasp. I’m just describing the words) actually came with a rich etymology, Xiao is something that sprang from those with no better things to love but his own sperm. AMAZINGLY, over half of the people who use Xiao actually do not know what it means. Please, oh please, let sperm only come out in testicles, and not in the head above shoulders. And a note to all Filipino’s who want to learn Chinese: if you don’t want to lose respect, never use the Xiao word. That’s coming from a Taiwanese.
As for how annoying the pronunciation: replace the way you say shoo with Xiao, which makes it even more vulgar. Because people would say shoo when they want something out. When you say Xiao in the same manner, heaven knows what you want to let out.

4. Grover - I shamefacedly admit of having used this expression once, and only once. This expression was from way back. Back in the early 90’s when I was in my elementary days - loathed by teachers, grover is one of those overused expressions. Remember the scene in the movie Mean Girls where Lindsay Lohan accidentally combined the word great and cool into "Grool"? It was kind of cute. Now, think "Grover", being kind of cute as well. Then spin it around a thousand times and I bet it gets tiresome - kind of like Celine Dion music, except Celine’s music was never kind of cute. Grover, like Grool (which, thankfully, only stayed in the movie/HBO/TV/DVD/VCD/piracy/people drooling over Lindsey) is the combination of two words, except that it actually made less sense than grool, because the words grabe and over literally means the same, while the magnitude of difference between great and cool depends on its context. Probably the least unnerving of the listed expressions, grover still annoys me, because it really isn’t a word! It’s a name! It’s an adorable Sesame Street character! Every time I hear people fling the "grover" expression I get reminded of a certain blue Sesame Street’s monster, or a certain plant that, when with four leaves, brings luck. That, however, isn’t all. It’s funny how every time people have to say grover, they say it like "Grabe! Over! Grover!" It’s synonymous to saying "Torture! Tune! Tortune!" Yeah, thanks for reminding me the atrocious origin of the word! Well, at least "grover" has an etymology.  As for the pronunciation: rise and fall intonation, respectively, makes grOW-VEr sounds completely awkward.

5. Heller - in English dictionary, heller is a rowdy and mischievous person. Rowdy and mischievous is the person who had the effrontery to induce nausea by using "Heller" in the same context as "Hello". This one is the most annoying and the most overused expression of those I’ve listed. Whatever happened to the plain and simple "Hello"? In this country, people who say heller are revered to as people of high social status. They would greet people with heller. And whenever something really senseless occurred to them, they would say heller instead of hello! And because in this country so many people have the tendency to try so hard to look like they’re from the high culture, heller become used EVERYWHERE! I’m really blessed that Renee Zellweger never said "You had me at heller!" Hear it on local (and most of the time, senseless) TV programs. The local TV channels even had no shame as to dub "heller" in Korean telenovellas. The annoying DJ’s of Love Radio use "heller" excessively. Heck, I’ve even encountered a blog lambasted with heller, and therefore I wish that she read this so that she will stop using heller, because I want to tell her I got so embarrassed I couldn’t bear to read her blog anymore. Hear it in my school, your school, your vain sibling/s, your maid, your seatmate in school, office, FX, jeep, your government, your professor, your academically stupid but street-smart classmate’s term paper, your rival, your girlfriend, or even boyfriend, your news commentator, etc. I’m not lying if I tell you that almost never does a day pass without me hearing the word "Heller"! To further illustrate how distorted people’s illusion of how heller is revered, one time I was asked to help youths on a skit. I commented that a character has to act like she’s rich.

So the scene comes and she was to make a phone call.

The girl, in an unconvincing attempt to sound rich, said, "Heller!"

Please, make it stop!

6. The dishonorable mention: a chew-chew-chew! Please, Boy Abunda, I’d rather you be chewing Chewbaccas (or your own words) than hear you use this expression again.
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Every language has its own rich history. It was stated in a certain issue of Reader’s Digest that there’s some sort of word association (for any given language) that decides whether or not a potential new word or a new meaning to a word should be added in the dictionary, and one big criteria for this to happen is the commonality of usage of a certain new word, or a word’s new implications. But for these five overused words/expressions, I hope our country’s word association committee never decides to put them in its dictionary. Otherwise, I’d stock up on correction fluids and efface its every entry on every dictionary! Yes, whereas office workers are desperate for love, I’m desperate to stop the proliferation of certain words.