TxtMates!

Earlier today I received a text message from +639396211731. Here's how our brief exchange went.

0939...: helo poh! [hello]

Me: Hi

0939...: kaw poh ba c nikay? [are you nikay?]

Me: Nope, wrong number

0939...: cnu poh u? are u boy or girl? [who are you? are you a boy or a girl?]

0939...: bat di ka na txt? [why aren't you texting?]

Me: I'm a hermaphrodite. I wasn't vsure how to answer

0939...: ganun,pwde ba taung maging txtmate? u speak in tagalog? [is that right? could we be text mates?]

Me: Um. You better find you nikay

0939...: no nikay is my frnd,so can u be my frnd 2? [no, nikay is my friend. so can you be my friend too?]

Me: no

0939...: why? i tnk u r a gay! right? [why? i think you're gay, right?]

Me: What do you have against gay ppl?

0939...: bcoz 4 me,they are monster,like u [because for me, they are monsters, like you]

I didn't reply after that. How dare he call me a monster.

looking back, I realize that I'm a butt. oh well.

Presidential Forum

After another night at EGI a couple of us GnW staffers went to get breakfast. I decided to drop my bag off at the office first, but when we walked through the plaza we came upon the line.

"Is this line for the Presidential Forum?" my friend asked.

It was, and it was a long time. Stretching from Yuchengco all the way to ZaiDe. (around 70 meters) If you think about it, it's probably not that bad of a line. What's shocking is that it was 9AM and the forum started at 2PM. The doors weren't suppposed to open till 1030AM.

My friends and I waited in line (let me point out that the line was narrow, as in we lined up by twos). We ate breakfast, played a game of chess, and I read my book. It was a long wait, and by 11 o'clock we were begging for the doors to open. Well, the doors opened. And when we looked up we start 70 meters of groups of people. The lined widened into barkadas and blocks. There was no chance we could get in, we thought. And we didn't.

We abadoned the line around 1130AM and found another venue where they were showing the broadcast live. My hopes of seeing the candidates in person crumbled as I sat down on a bench. the one constellation we had was lunch. (the people who got in - those who lined up at 8AM - didn't have lunch) The problem we had at our new venue was the audio and video weren't working. (this is at the college of computer science) So when the forum started we abadoned Gocks and made our way back up to EGI where we watched the whole thing online.

Terrible day. (the forum was in straight tagalog too -- no hope of understanding it)

After the forum we went back to school to pick up our forum stubs (proof that we watched the forum). And after a few minutes of just bumming around, the candidates came down to the lobby. Yayyyy

We took pictures and shook hands with the candidates (we mobbed them actually). I can't express how much that bettered my day.

But I got to say, Gibo has doughy hands. All the candidates look like claymation characters up close. Creeps me out.