I don't say goodbye

Animation: Ryan Woodward

Song: The World Spins Madly On (The Weepies)

I let the day go by

I always say goodbye

I watch the stars from my window sill

The whole world is moving

and I'm standing still

What drives me to social pariah-ness

This.

This.

These crystals are driving me mad! Not that I've already done a lot. In fact, I'm still 14,500 words short of my write-up 21 days to the deadline. Seems like I've still got a lot of time in my hands. Sure. Problem is, I often find myself spacing out in the middle of attempts to try to figure out how to interpret my ridiculously-looking, all messed up results. And I mean that literally...

like THIS!!! ---------------------->

To be honest, I've spent more time thinking and worrying about what to do than actually doing something. So now instead of merely staring at my monitor, I choose to just write a dorky blogpost.

I'm sometimes socially awkward, alright. But please don't turn me into a total social pariah, like most serious science people are. Harhar. I just can't wait for all these to be over and done with and me to move forward already.

Moving on...or just out?

After my landlord broke the news that he's shooing me out of the house, I've been worrying about finding a place to stay for next month, which is also my last month here in the land of Her Royal Highness. My contract actually ended last June, so in principle he had already been considerate enough to let me stay until this month. But why?? Well he said because new students will start to flood over the city in September, he naturally would want to rent out the rooms to people who will potentially stay for at least a year. Fair enough, business mogul.

I've been asking some friends (and some random people, for what it's worth) about it for a while now and finally I'm seeing some light at the end of the tunnel! I'm not quite there yet, but I'm getting there, fingers crossed. A good friend, Kayo, brought some good news today! It's great coz the last thing I want to worry about is having no place to stay a week before my dissertation deadline. That would be madness. So anyway, Kayo said that her friend's place has a guest room where I can stay for a month. And what's better news is that I could possibly even stay for free! Universe, pretty please let it be...

Somehow, I'll miss my room when I move out...a kind of moving on.

End it the Greek way

It was a memorable journey with the gang and I've grown to love the happy-go lucky Cappie as the show progressed. But Rusty (aka Spitter), the resident polymer science geek, has been (and still is) my favorite since the pilot ep. And I'm so glad that he and Ashley ended up together. Ash had Spitter at "I don't date roommates". Yay.

It ended with a blast and you wouldn't really expect it to be full of so much emotions, making you realize that it's not just another college-themed series, but a story about relationships, family, and meaningful friendships. The finale was a total tearjerker! Or maybe I have been so attached to it that I just got carried away. Not to mention, the finale OST was perfect.

• Jack's Mannequin - "Spinning"
• William Fitzsimmons - "After Afterall"
• The Weepies - "Living In Twilight"
• The Courteeners - "Take Over The World"
• Andrew Belle - "My Oldest Friend"
• Youth Group - "Forever Young"

Plus, I discovered my newest duo to love: The Weepies!

Yesterday when you were young
Everything you needed done was done for you
Now you do it on your own
But you find you're all alone, what can you do?

You and me walk on, walk on, walk on
'Cause you can't go back now

Some things are just meant to end....like Greek. But life goes on.

TheLazySong-inspired

Ironically, the funky tune that says "...today I don't feel like doing anything *whistle whistle*..." makes me wanna do otherwise.

. :

Ergo, I was pepped up by this song to do a bit of tidying up in my topsy-turvy room. :)

From time to time, my maliit na room would look something like this - a complete disaster, à la Payatas.

I just need to open up my curtains, see the light (by light, I don't necessarily mean the bright shining sun in England...if you know what I mean), and listen to the right song to keep me from lazing around. After-cleaning pics next time. ;)

The good, the bad, and the ugly

How did I end up having two notebooks and one monitor??? Thanks to my good friend, Alex, who wanted to save a summer's worth of rent. Because he had to spend the summer back home in Lithuania, I was kind enough to adopt some of his stuff and in return I held his monitor, speakers, and woofers hostage. Bad-ass, huh? ;)

The other notebook was from my thesis adviser. Because I needed a software that doesn't function well in my vista-operated notebook, he didn't want me to go through all the trouble of installing a virtual xp machine on my notebook. The quickest way he could think of was to lend me a notebook, which was not bad at all.

I now label my three screens as the "good" (entertainment portal), the "bad" (all other web-related stuff), and the "ugly" (dorky matters). Now I get to multi-task even more! Wicked, init?!

Magda-drive ako hanggang...

…Paris! Sabi yan ni Ate Budz oder? :)

I never would have thought that I’d finally pass my driving exam on my second take, aber zum Glück habe ich es ja geschafft! Woohoo! Real luck! I’ve only done 6 hours of driving lessons before my first exam last April and 4 hours before my second exam last June. I haven’t practised driving since September last year and I’ve only been driving since January of last year, so I wasn’t positive about it. Luckily, the police examiner was so nice to us two girls who took the exam. (You bet, yes, it was our charm!) No seriously, they were all nice — my teacher, the examiner, and the other girl whom I did the driving exam with. They sort of worked together to let me pass the exam. To my dearest future riders, don’t freak out, though. I am not that bad in driving. It’s just the loads of street signs in Vienna that I unconsciously ignore sometimes (well yeah, that’s quite dangerous, eh?), which is the most important part of the driving exam. I failed my first one because I entered a one-way street from the opposite side. I mean, I know the signs, but for some reason I just don’t notice them sometimes. Also because the examiner at that time asked me to turn right in an apparently one-way street going to my left. Busted.

My Q&As were about the car tires.

Q: How would I know if it is a summer or a winter tire?

A: A winter tire would have the letters M/S on the tire suface.

Q: How would I know if I need to change the tire?

A: If it has deep cuts or if the tire depth is less than 1.6mm and 4.0mm in summer and in winter, respectively. Measure the tire depth with the tire depth gauge or check the tire depth indicator.

Q: What risk should I be careful of when there is road flooding? What should I do in this situation?

A: Aquaplaning. Hold on tightly to the stirring wheel. DO NOT BREAK!

Some mistakes during the actual 30-minute driving exam:

- watch out when driving in narrow streets with bicycle lanes

- failure to do oscillating glances in one of the intersections with a priority sign

- use of clutch

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The next day, we went to Therme Wien for R&R and to test my driving skills. Here’s Mom riding shotgun, with Wynn, Kuya Carlo, and baby CW in the backseat of Dad’s car. (Photo courtesy of Wynn)

Namatayan ako ng makina mga tatlong beses (yikes, fail) at naligaw konti dahil nag-inarte si TomTom Nav pero still…we survived!