“I miss your smell. When you left I couldn’t wash the sheets because I didn’t want to lose that completely – you. And it fucked me up for a long time because I’d wake up and I’d smell you and I’d think you were there, and my heart would break all over again.”
- Hank Moody, Californication, s01e05
I hit the pause button on my media player just so I could scribble down these lines. Sure, it may not be literature with a capital L, but this passage was simple and raw in a way that I found utterly beautiful. Every time I stumble upon writing that stops me dead in my tracks, I ask myself why I can’t come up with anything remotely as good. It’s not because I’m too busy – while my old day job ate a lot of my time and energy, I still managed to find ways to capture my working class angst in words. It’s not that my life has become any less exciting either; it’s still very eventful in ways the Internet can never know. As I was basking in the jouissance of this passage, the answer hit me out of nowhere.
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Today, my mom reminded me that it’s been thirteen years since I started my blog on Angelfire. I was ten then and I am twenty-three now, and while blog may have changed URLs and platforms over the years, I never really stopped putting my life on the Internet for all sorts of normal and creepy people to read. The fact that I started my blog when most people didn’t know what the Internet is and kept my blog for this long makes me the “first Filipino blogger”. Flattering as that might be, I’m going to be honest here – I still don’t see why people make such a big deal out of it. I feel awkward whenever people introduce me as such because the title carries so much weight and makes me seem more important than I really am. The truth is that I haven’t done a single thing to shape blogging into the way it is today. I never encouraged other people to start their own blogs, nor did I help foster the sense of community now present in the local blogosphere. In fact, I resisted my mom’s early attempts to introduce me to local bloggers when Abe and Jayvee started organizing meet-ups in 2007, not to mention I viewed the increasing use of blogs as an advertising platform with the disdain and disappointment of my youthful idealism. This blog isn’t even particularly relevant – just the collected apolitical ramblings and interests of a Filipino girl in the age of the Internet. You know those teenage girls on Tumblr who post all these pretty but useless nothings? That was me, thirteen years ago, and still me to some extent.
I was an ugly child at 10
Part of the reason why I very rarely ever write in here anymore is that too many people know who I am and know where to find this blog. As I mentioned earlier, I started keeping a personal blog when hardly anyone in the Philippines knew what the Internet was. My blog used to be my haven from our conservative, family-oriented society during the height of my teenage angst. Thirteen years later, everyone and their mother is on the Internet, which means I can’t be as open about who I am anymore. While I still don’t give a shit about what people think of me, I do care about what people think of my mom, and I don’t want her critics to use my unusual interests as ammunition against her.
I suppose that’s the most important lesson I learned after keeping a blog for so long: don’t get too personal. Keeping an impersonal personal blog seems to defeat the purpose of personal blogging, but unless you can manage to keep yourself truly anonymous, be your own censor. If you’re a fiery person with not so “normal” interests, keep your blog PG, because there are people out there who will use your blog to hurt you or someone you love.
So yeah, I learned a bunch of other things too!
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Dear High School Boys Who Ruined Our L4D Campaign,
I’m sure you guys haven’t had much experience playing anything else but Counterstrike and DoTA, but you don’t have to be a video game geek in order to succeed at an L4D campaign. All you need, really, is to be a little bit smart, alert, and LEARN TO PLAY WITH YOUR FUCKING TEAM. I’m no expert, but here’s a couple of pointers so that you might actually win a campaign without pissing off your teammates in the future.
1) L4D does not fucking play like Counterstrike. Sure, they may have the same controls, but don’t bring in whatever tactics you learned from Countestrike cos that won’t make you survive the zombie apocalypse. You running amuck behaving like alpha male assholes sure as fucking hell didn’t help us win the campaign, did it?
2) You don’t just run out in the middle of open space and start shooting the fuck out of the zombies. If you’re going to attract a horde, at least be prepared to deal with them by staying on higher ground, or equipping yourself with pipe bombs.
3) Speaking of pipe bombs, don’t fucking throw them when there aren’t any zombies in sight. Sayang eh. Also, basic common sense.
4) When you see your teammate getting attacked by a Tank, Smoker, or Hunter, fucking run to their aid and shoot at the Tank, Smoker, or Hunter.
5) When you see that your teammate has fallen because you failed to save said teammate from the Tank, Smoker, Hunter, or zombie horde, don’t be an ass and run the other way. HIT E TO REVIVE YOUR TEAMMATE.
6) The right-click button? It’s the command for swiping at zombies with your arm. Very useful for when you want to keep them from climbing up to where you are.
7) Don’t get in the fucking way of my line of fire. When you see the gun pointed one way, it might be a good idea to pass *behind* the person pointing the gun. That way, you won’t get shot at, zombies will die, and everyone will be happy.
DON’T FUCKING SHOOT YOUR TEAMMATES JUST SO YOUR HEALTH BAR AND KILL RATIO WILL BE HIGHER THAN EVERYONE ELSE’S, ASSHOLE.
9) If you don’t know how to play the game, DON’T FUCKING JOIN SOMEONE ELSE’S ONLY TO BEHAVE LIKE AN ASSHOLE AND RUIN THEIR EVENING.
I would have had a killer score in that campaign because I shot at so many Hunters and Smokers. If you had only assisted me when the Tank attacked, we all would have gotten rescued. Instead, you went off your merry ways throwing pipe bombs when there weren’t any zombies around, and hurling yourselves right in the middle of the zombie horde. I really wanted to fucking win that campaign, and we were so fucking close. I hope you never get laid until you graduate from college. And when you do get laid, I hope you get herpes.
Sincerely,
Lauren
