Out with the OLD. In with the NEW.
In what seems to be like a lifetime gone past, in that moment wherein one is about to fall into deep slumber, I have to get up…unlock the already bolted door (three locks), open the door, shut the door, seal it shut, and then go back to sleep…I had to do this 5 times before I can sleep.
Time brings change, and now I don’t bother to check. Instead, this odd behavior is replaced by closing a glass window (third from the left) and then open and close it again thrice, before I can sleep.I have to sweep the floor in my room every hour by the hour.
I don’t have to anymore. I have a maid to do that for me…not up to par with my expectations though. So I have to do it before I sleep. Twice.
When I was living with my grandmother at her apartment, I was always paranoid that “somebody” is watching. I imagined red eyes staring into the apartment. For this reason, windows are always either half-closed (or half-open. Whatever floats your bubble) or shut. I went to such lengths as telling lies like “Tai-ma’s afraid of people. She’s the one who wants the windows closed!”
Now…the hell I care. Stare if you want, that’s as far as you’d get.
In my years spent in an educational institution, before typing or writing for that matter, I have to clasp my hands together and squeeze thrice before I start.
I find that this requires too much effort so now I just need to run my thumb twice across my fingertips before I launch into what I would like to call as “finger action”.
I have to animate the Microsoft Office Assistant ten times after writing two pages.
Now I just find the darn object on my screen really annoying. For math equations, once I’ve found the solution, I have to do it again four times (three would do, but once more just to be sure!) before it’s perfect enough to be considered as my final answer.
I don’t do math anymore.
I made it a point not to study for any exam. I wait until 8 hours prior before I start flipping and loading my brain with the scarce notes that I take down during class. I give myself an hour and a half. Anything more will most definitely cause me to flunk it. I only revisit it 20 minutes (a.k.a. Recess Cramming) before the exam. Furthermore, to ensure that I pass the exam, I have to sing “Smells Like Teen Spirit” or “Lithium” in my head. Any other song returns mediocre results. This, of course, didn’t work with my
Noli Me Tangere and
El Filibusterismo exams. Oddly enough, it worked with
Ibong Mandaragit tests.
I don’t do quizzes, exercises, or any exams now. I didn’t think I’d live to see the day wherein I’d muse, “I miss those.” The stagnant brain welcomes any challenge to its capacity to produce fluids.
My bathing habits were not spared. Before I start, I have to lean my forehead onto the cool tiles on the wall parallel to the shower curtain or whatever the entrance is to the shower area for approximately 7 seconds. Anything less will cause me an unpleasant bath and an extreme bad hair day to a higher degree since everyday IS a bad hair day, and anything more than that will cause me to prefer sleeping rather than bathing. Moreover, I have to shower facing the shower curtain. Exception of course should be given to situations wherein I doubt the sanitation of the facility. In those cases I limit myself to the tiny space wherein my feet touched the floor.
I shower normally now. I just can't stand to stay long enough inside the bathroom until all the water evaporates from my body.
I have to pee twice in the morning or else everything will go wrong for the rest of the day.
Now, I’m too busy dragging my ass to work and NOT be late.
Every time I see bubble air on the wall, I have to peel it off until nothing is left to peel off. In my freshman in year in high school, I was seated in front of the very spacious teacher’s table in a laboratory class (GSR 1!). Needless to say, the paint on that table was half peeled by the end of the school year. The paint on the wall beside my bed is always ruined to the chagrin of my parents who paid for the expensive paintwork.
I’m still at it.I have remote control issues. I hate reverse scanning. It has to move forward. If I miss a channel due to uncontrollable muscle twitches, well, tough luck. I have to go through the entire cycle of channels. That or manually enter the channel, but since most remote controls go bonkers on me for no reason whatsoever (who are you kidding? Back when you were still watching wrestling religiously, 1992-2001, you threw it across the room whenever you’re upset!), the remaining buttons that work are the scan buttons.
My remote control works now, so I make the extra effort to remember channel numbers and punch them in.
I used to watch tennis. I prefer watching it alone because I mumble at the start of the game, which would eventually escalate to a running commentary/coach lecture by the end of the game.
I don’t watch that much tennis anymore. Besides, Patrick Rafter’s retired. Bjorkman and Kafelnikov, are they still alive? Still, a recent attendance in a racquet sport tournament has evoked this habit of mine during one game. I feel ashamed. I was sitting alone in the bleachers and muttering to myself.
If I take the bus one day, I have to take the bus again the next. Two days in a row. If I take a cab, though, I’m allowed to do it three times in a row. No more, no less. So what I do is take the bus Mondays and Tuesdays, and then revert to cab the remainder of the week. Ergo, I prefer to schedule my extra-curricular activities on the last three working days of the week. Saturdays and Sundays are exceptions. I do not like riding public transportation (Taxi cab rides are not considered as a commuter medium) in the weekends. I didn’t commute before. My world, then, was limited to walking to and fro my limited area of living and private transportation.
I don’t drive with any footwear. I don’t trust myself to drive when I can’t feel contact between my epidermal cells and the pedals.
I haven’t driven anything since September of last year. Hmm, I should get my license renewed.
I have to play FreeCell in every instance I use my computer at home. I have to win 6 times in a row…or else I consider myself a failure. Since I’m beat when I get home nowadays, I allow myself the leeway of just playing up to 3 streaks a day.
This habit abruptly stopped when my PC conked out on me mid last year. But now that it is resurrected (Hallelujah! A part of me is restored!) I make it a point to do it everyday except Tuesdays and Fridays.
I don’t like the top or the bottom of the pile. I don’t like the middle either. If I have to pick from a stack of something, I have to pick midway between the top and the middle.
I don’t care anymore. As the picker, I close my eyes (or squint if it would seem strange to the “pickee”) and then hesitantly grab the first thing I make contact with.
When I eat, I made it a point to try to eat the right way on my first bite (spoon on the right, fork on the left). This annoyed me. I think I did this because one elder person (can’t remember who) shook their head with disapproval at me when I ate with my ambidextrous way.
But it’s like asking a fish to eat with their fins. So for the past 10 years, I’ve done away with the spoon.I’ll eat any of that disgustingly sugar coated flower things on cakes (toothpick as a stem, mind you), except for the blue ones.
I don’t eat them at all.
This is embarrassing. When I start reading a book, I had to read it on the toilet. While taking a dump, taking a leak, or just sitting there, doesn’t really matter.
I’m mature now. I just have to read it standing on the foot of…something…anything…before I get comfortable and reading it at any comfortable, or compromising, or awkward position I choose.I always made sure that anything I wrote had a proper conclusion. I wanted it to end with a bang.
But lately its more fun to leave things hanging.
What was the point of all these? I needed to make fun of somebody. Nothing like the self to send you into hysteric fits.
Weirdo.
But, I like this one better...
