i need help!

my high school batchmates and i are organizing this speed-dating event as a fund-raising activity. i am currently looking for interested participants. please let me know if you're interested. i need to get the finalized list early next week. for more details about the event, please check this out! :)

525,600

sadly, not forgiven. definitely, not forgotten.

hero or fool?

Today, i was on my way to Starbucks in Valero as i was not getting any more work done at my apartment without coffee. I had my laptop, my bag, dressed very comfortably which may just indicate that i live in the vicinity, and i was alone. Just a few steps away from Starbucks, a guy walking on the opposite direction (towards me) stopped me and asked for help. He's asking if he was in Salcedo Village or Legaspi Village. Of course, i was willing to answer and give directions, saying that we're in Salcedo, and Legaspi is on the opposite side of Ayala Avenue, blah blah. He looked like a fairly decent and educated guy. He was talking to me in English the whole time saying he's a balikbayan and it's his first time in Makati. He seemed very distressed, saying he's been lost the whole time (since 9am, and it was already 5.30pm when we met). He introduced himself, Andrew Smith, and he said he's staying in Ayala Alabang. He was supposed to meet some friends and/or family in Legaspi park at 10am but he was lost. And he doesn't know how to contact them since he does not have their number and he's still using his Verizon number. And all this time we were talking, he seemed like he was about to cry. Ok, so my heart goes for the poor guy and i was thinking i'm even willing to walk with him to Legaspi park so he won't get lost anymore. But somehow i feel very uneasy with the pity story. Then he asked if i could lend him some money so he can just take a cab back to his place in Ayala Alabang. That's when the warning bells in my head started getting louder. He said further that he only had a "few useless Philippine coins" which he "does not even recognize". And he's going to pay me tomorrow, asking me what's my name and where he can find me. So what am i supposed to do? Sigh... I gave the guy 250 (or it could be 270) pesos, saying that's all the cash i had even though he was asking for about US $10. I think i even said "sorry" because that's all i can give, and he seemed grateful. And then i said good luck, and we parted. And so, now that i'm supposed to be working, i can't help but feel a bit guilty. I feel guilty that i was so distrusting. Although my common sense is saying that it may have been a modus operandi and he was just trying to swindle some money out of me, well what if it wasn't? What if he really needed help, and i helped so half-heartedly? About 2 years ago, an old roommate of mine met a mother and child pair near our place. The mother was begging for some money in order to buy some medicine for her child, and to buy a bus ticket back home to their province. He asked how much the ticket was, and if i remember correctly they said it was about 200 pesos. My old roommate only had a 500 bill that time, so he brought the mother and child to the Mercury Drug outlet near our place and fell in line to buy medicine. But the line was long and my roommate got impatient, so he just gave the money to the mother, wished them well and left them in the store. As he was telling me what happened later that day, i can't help but think that it was a modus operandi, and that as far as i know, it has been going on for a long time. But my roommate was proud and really happy that he was able to help, and i didn't have to heart to even suggest that he was just fooled. So which one of us is better? One who is either a complete hero or a complete fool, or one who is neither one? I don't care about the money that i gave away, whether that man's story was true or not. But i feel sad that i am so reluctant in giving help because i'm afraid to be fooled. And the even sadder truth is, it seems to be a relatively normal behavior now for people to be this skeptic. Why do we think this way? Why is it so hard to just give help?

everything

i have to watch the Lifehouse concert! is there anyone out there who's interested to join me? huwag lang Upper Box B, masaya na ako. :D i once said that i'd be willing to pay 10k just to watch this band. thank God the ticket prices are not that expensive. i'm still broke from my Hong Kong trip. this is probably meant to be! :D

i am back

... from Hong Kong and Macau. And i'm dreading the week-long meetings, trainings and discussions that is coming my way. I think i would need another vacation after that. I'll be doing a more detailed post about my trip later. For now, here are just some things i would like to get out of my system already!

• most of the people there keep talking to me in chinese. i cannot believe i look chinese.
• 4 days and 3 nights out of the country, 3 different hotels -- i am not doing that again!
• i am not drinking again for a month! i woke up this morning and i was still drunk. good thing i didn't have my laptop with me and i was on roaming, so drunk blogging and drunk dialing were not options.
• for someone who didn't pay for any of the hotels and rarely paid for the food and drinks, i spent waaaaay too much. i won't be eating for the rest of the year. thanks to my friend Richie for all the treats!
• but on spending again, i just want to say i love all the things that i bought. and of course, my "prized finds" were DVDs! wahahah! i bought When a Man Loves a Woman, When Harry Met Sally, Lost in Translation, and Il Mare. :D
• i gambled for the first time in Macau, and i actually won a bit. but again, i already spent all my winnings.
• while in Macau, i received a text from Bibliarch that Fables 10 and Absolute Sandman Vol. 3 which i reserved last week were already available. and they were on sale until Sunday (20% off!). so i asked my sister to claim them for me, and now they are here. triple yay! new babies. ;)

It was tiring but it was also a fun vacation. Now, if only i can find my brain again and get my head out of the vacation cloud...