wickedlywarped

                I watch Glee. It’s a pretty good series. For those who don’t know about it, it’s the story of the glee club. And for those who don’t know what a glee club is, someone there described it as a show choir. It’s like theater, but you only do the song and dance parts. The glee club in the fictional school is the subject of much discrimination. They view the members as losers, though they later adopt people from the football team and the cheerleading squad. It would be useless if I spoiled the story for you so I guess you’ll have to watch it for yourself. Like someone said, it’s like High School Musical for adults. What my point in mentioning this show is my appreciation for its returning the interest to Broadway and show tunes. I’m living my life in a different decade. Though I don’t know which one, I can say that I have more than just a passing interest in these things.

                One time, in a school concert, a group of a capella singers came to perform. For those not into music, they’re a group of people who sing without music and make it sound like they do by harmonizing really well. They were around 5 to 6 guys who had really great voices, but they sang some outdated songs. I had no problem with it. Actually, I liked it a lot because I didn’t often hear those songs on the radio or on TV, but I noticed that not a lot of people were listening to them. The sad part of it was that they still continued to perform even if they knew it. After a few songs, they began a set of humorous renditions of popular songs which the audience cheered on. Right before they started, one of them said, “I know this is what you’ve been waiting for. Mukhang bored kayo eh.”

                I was raised on classical music and got interested in theater at an early age. I like the way I was brought up because I can appreciate both classic and modern music. I only wish that more people would because it’s a beautiful thing. I’ve been in a music program for seven years and I’ve been given the privilege of singing classical songs. Some of you may laugh because we have to sing it like you would in an opera, but it’s enjoyable because there are cadences in the melody that you wouldn’t find in what our age group listens to now. How about we go into a more recent example? Jazz and the blues is a really great genre, but the majority of those who listen to it were born in the eighties. Singers like Michael Buble are trying to bring this music back to life and we only view it as the stuff we hear in formal occasions or hotel lobbies.

                I’m promoting classical music. Not just opera songs and jazz, but also those dramatic piano pieces you hear in sad romance movies and piano recitals. Why don’t you try it before declaring it to be boring? Instead of listening to angry emo rock songs in the rain, try violin and piano pieces. The violin isn’t something I want to get into now because I may rant on for another three pages about how I can live with just its music and the guy who plays it well. Watch Glee, they perform some great songs, Broadway and classical. Do you remember when Rachel sang “Don’t Rain on My Parade”? That was a good example of a show tune. Again, I’m not spoiling anything, so watch it yourself. Have fun, and if you like it, we can ogle hot violinists with their sleeves rolled up together.

                Three days of grueling career orientations are finally over. We were dragged through twenty six hours of torture in a hot room with more than two hundred other people inside it. We were not allowed to leave without permission, but at least they let us eat. In all fairness, not all the talks were boring. The dean of the UP College of Engineering, Mrs. Guevara, was an inspirational woman. She’s brilliant and bitchy, a potent combination that was also present in Ms. Maui Arroyo who spoke about her being an entrepreneur. I want to be that kind of woman someday, one who has something to show for her efforts in life and has earned the respect and admiration of her peers. And let’s not forget the evilness. The dean is a force of nature. She got some people to raise the salaries of mining engineers to almost double with a phone call and a visit. I also remember my mom talking about her. The dean complained about the uncomfortable waiting room couches and called the hospital director to get them replaced.

                Being a woman is not easy. Up until recently, they have been treated like nothing more than baby factories and obedient wives. Some countries still view women as second class citizens along with black people. Feminism is viewed now as a double standard, where we want independence and complain when men don’t open the doors for us. See how they twist this into something perverse rather than accept the fact that we can beat the men in everything? For example, one of the speakers that came to our career fair told us that in a certain program, the top 100 boys and top 100 girls based on the exams would be admitted for interview and 20 from both sexes would join the program instead. He said that the college was traditional and if they didn’t implement this rule, a majority of the passers would be female. Most national exam top notchers are female and I’ve heard that even in the murder game, more than half of the total hired killers are women.

                We are versatile. We may not have a physical advantage, but we make up for it with emotional and intellectual strength. There is a difference between emotional strength and stability, in case anyone tries to be smart and says we cry more. No, crying is not a sign of weakness. We vent and get on with your lives. You might say that we hold grudges and you don’t, but it’s healthier that way. You might not hold a grudge on a specific person, but the feelings and the need to get back at someone stay inside you and rots your brain. That’s why men are more prone to heart attacks, because they bottle up their emotions too much. And imagine how fun it is for us to order you around. Girls are scary when they want to be. Any guy with the illusion that they’re in charge in a relationship must have a girlfriend who thinks it better that he thinks he is. You know how fragile the male ego is.

                I’m not saying that men are inferior to women, quite the contrary. Men are superior to women, specifically in physical activities. What I’m saying is that even if we push for independence, women are still the weaker sex and the fact that they stay strong so your wonderful daydreams of being in control are in place makes them, us, admirable. It’s much like giving way to a person you know who is coming back from a long illness and is still weak. The term battered husband was coined as a joke, but a battered wife is real. We are strong enough to stay in an abusive or pointless relationship for the children. We are strong enough to work three jobs so she can put six children through school while her husband is out gambling. Whatever happens, this is something one must never forget, the man might be superior, but the women are in charge.

                School is going to start in two days. This will be the last time I can sleep at six in the morning and wake up at noon. The moment we start classes, we have those two requirements I’ve mentioned already and I’ll have to stay late in school. I have soccer training on Tuesday, both requirements are due on Friday and I have cotillion practice every day until January 30. I don’t know how I can juggle all those on the first week, the rest are easier to deal with. So now I’m stressing, and still depressed over my imminent failure in Physics, so why am I still rotting my brain and degrading my eyes by watching a ‘How I Met Your Mother’ marathon on TV? Do not read any further if you’re not as fond of conspiracy theories like I and my two faithful readers are. Because, obviously, I think this is.

                Media is one of the most debated on subjects. Is it good because of information dissemination and all that, or are they doing it wrong and influencing the children to become rapists, bank robbers and Superman? I support that media is good simply because I need my Gossip Girl fix every week and I can’t give up SpongeBob, but I understand the side of those who think TV and the internet poison their children’s brains. There are some programs which pass themselves off as innocent stuff but are really quite violent. Tom and Jerry, for example, is a well loved cat and mouse pair-up who try to hurt each other. The Power Rangers and the Justice League blow people up and Dora the Explorer is just so wrong. Violence is the main problem here and the use of common household objects to hurt others. I don’t mean that children are too stupid to see that it shouldn’t be done in the real world, just that there are neglecting parents who don’t bother to teach them that it’s wrong.

                The TV is good because of its educational programs and also how to turn around immoral TV shows and movies. Instead of viewing it as harmful, we can say that it shows how not to act. Sure, enjoy the stuff they show, but not to the extent that you try it at home. Anyway, my conspiracy theory is lost under the discussion, so here it is. I have two, one involving the government and another involving inhabitants of the Earth before life was on it. Let’s get on the first one. The military is in need of child soldiers, imitating a crusade in the Middle Ages where children were led to battle, believing that the enemy would succumb to them. And it was mentioned in the Bible about how children are supposed to conquer everything or something like that. If children were turned into violent people controlled by TV and video games, then the government would have an unstoppable army at their disposal.

                The other theory states that before there was life on earth, intelligent beings with a superior civilization and mental powers roamed the planet. The TV was their oracle and guide in everything they did, a connection to the gods, a demigod itself. This civilization flourished for a thousand years before a great earthquake that decimated their numbers and survivors were picked off by dinosaurs and other carnivorous creatures. The TV was lost in the earthquake, to be unearthed millions of years later to enslave the human race and restore the civilization that was lost. You see, TV station people are just actually being controlled by the spiritual essence of the demigod and are mindless zombies. So, be careful not to end up working in one, or at least try siding with the computer sciences people. It was a separate civilization’s link to the gods and it’s warring with the TV’s hold on mankind.

                It’s the New Year and I’m living the first day of it. Personally, the only reason why I recognize time markers like this is because it gives me an excuse to party or it’s a holiday and I can stay at home to rot. New Year is just another excuse to make noise and drink and binge on fatty food. It’s the day where people get their fingers blown off by thousands of pesos worth of fireworks and burn down neighbors’ houses. Fine, it’s also a religious celebration focusing on the motherhood of Mary, but we mostly celebrate it for how it marks the end of a crappy old year and welcome the glorious opportunities a fresh start will give us. Oh, give me a break. Most of the things everyone does on the day itself are enough to ensure that they stay in jail for the next few years. Robbers are timing ATM bombings with firework explosions, random guys with guns hit babies in the head and illegal fireworks backfire and explode on your house.

                A fresh new start is overrated. Everyone thinks that if they forget what happened in the past and start all over again then they can make things right or forget all the bad things that have happened. Well, news flash to those people, mistakes can truly be learned from and if you try to forget your failures, you can never move forward. Yes, I know. Cheesy and annoying it may be, it’s true. Parents weren’t born before us for nothing and some of the things they say can make sense when you don’t turn up the elevator music in your head up too loud. Do you know that quote which says, ‘Failure isn’t the falling down, it’s the staying down.’? I think that’s one of the most inspirational things you’ll hear on the subject. If you give up or hope for a free pass like a clean slate or a new future, you’re only dooming yourself to a case of history repeating itself.

                Keep moving forward, a line you may have heard in ‘Meet the Robinsons’. It’s good advice. New Year is just a period in our lives when we look back and reassess everything good and bad we’ve done. We leave behind the bad experiences and keep the lessons, while the good memories we take with us to give us strength in moments of adversity. It’s a checkpoint, a reference where we go back to and mark the changes in our lives. We have no choice but to face forward eventually to keep walking in the same direction. Distracting ourselves is good for a while, but time won’t wait for anyone and the sooner you figure out how to handle the baggage you’re taking with you into the new year, the sooner you an experience new things and open yourself up to more possibilities.

                Hope is the working theme here, and though I hate to sound like I’m giving you a pep talk, or like I’m just trying to find a way to shatter your misconceptions on age old traditions, my intentions are sincere. I hate it that people cling desperately to the notion that they can do away with the blood, sweat and tears of the ending year. Let’s all take a moment and think about the little moments that make everything worth it- the few hours you spend with your friends in school, the isolated times you feel inclined to wake up at four in the morning to watch the sun rise, the afternoons with your family in a mall and the stolen minutes with that special someone. Tell me that all those things are worth throwing away just so you can forget the bad stuff. Happy New Year, everyone. Enjoy the end of a decade.

                Wow. I said you were going to see more of me and so far, this is only the third entry I’ve posted for December. I also said that I might even post two a day just because I’m positively brimming with holiday cheer and inspiration. Well, I guess I was wrong. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned how apathetic my attitude is towards Christmas this year and my reaction to New Year isn’t any better. In fact, I think it might be worse because school is coming back after a measly two days. I understand that schools have this attendance thing that they have to keep and that the children have to attend a certain amount of days. A quota, if you will. But I feel sorry for myself and everyone who can relate to my problem, because I think everyone’s experienced the vacation blues once in their lives.

                My family doesn’t really get out much and it’s mostly limited to locations within the city and malls. Some exceptions include my relatives’ homes from both sides of the family which are, at most, an hour’s plane ride away. A lot of people’s vacation times are used up by going somewhere, enjoying the different surroundings and culture, then fly home and adjust to the jetlag. Some top spots are the USA to see the snow, Baguio to freeze your ass off, some beach somewhere in or out of the country to get skin cancer and back to the provinces to spend it with the extended family. The people who stay at home, excluding the ones whose actual homes are in the province and those whose extended family already live with them, are bored and the only things left to do are shop, eat, sleep, TV or internet and school stuff which I’m sure we’re all too lazy to start early on.

                The problem with shopping is a lack of money, but that’s complemented by the sales in almost every shop in the mall and can go up to 75%. Another problem to that is the malls will most probably be filled with people who are thinking the same thing and the lines to the cashier go around various corners. Sale items may also be of low quality or it might get broken while you play tug of war with it and another customer. Eating makes you bloated and coupled with sleep and lounging in front of the TV or the computer without physical exercise makes sure that you gain at least ten pounds in two weeks. The food is almost always too fatty or too sugary because of holiday indulgence and it never seems to run out either. TV specials on Christmas shows rerun again and again but you can’t pull yourself out of bed anymore to escape them and the internet will rot your brain.

                It seems like the only safe choice is to go with is school work which I am struggling to do. We have two major requirements due the Friday of the week we get back to school and they’re both group work which is pretty hard to pull together over IM’s and texting. They’ll also take up a lot of time. One is filming a skit on alcohol and smoking which I hate because I’m in charge of the script and I can’t think of anything original. The other is lyrics made up of trigonometry concepts superimposed on a popular song we can dance and choreograph to. See how tortured we are over this vacation? Holiday blues have officially evolved to holiday stress and I do not need my house burning down because of fireworks today of all days. Oh, and happy new year to all of you guys and a belated Merry Christmas.

                You have to feel sorry for the miserable sap who would trust an ATM card with a hormonal fifteen year old teenage girl who lacks an ample wardrobe and hasn’t seen a mall in almost a month. You also have to feel bad when said sap leaves the ATM card with said girl and lets her roam free in one of the biggest malls in the Philippines. Alone. With the ATM card. Which has around twenty thousand in it. Yes, that is the miserable story of my father and how I spent almost half of what was in the account while shopping in Megamall last night. Good whatever time of day it is that you’re reading this essay. I hope you’re half as happy as I was when I unpacked all my purchases last night. Today, I’d like to make myself an example of how you should NEVER trust a teenage girl with piles of money.

1. 4 pairs of pants- an essential. I only own one pair of denim jeans and that was bought two years ago. I usually wear shorts or jogging pants, but the pairs I saw were great. So I bought them.
2. A pair of cargo pants- I love them already. I like how baggy they are and how it looks good with tank tops.
3. 8 shirts- I’m a sucker for designs with abstract girls on them. You know the ones that look like they were drawn by a calligrapher. And any loud, busy design. I also bought a collared shirt like the ones they use in tennis. I’ve always wanted one.
4. 2 pairs of rubber shoes- I lost my indoor soccer shoes recently and my last pair of rubber shoes dated back to fifth grade. I was reduced to borrowing from my mom. So I bought two pairs of my own. One in black and one in white.
5. DVD’s- I bought a Rent video which I was borrowing from some people in school, but they kept forgetting. I also raided Comic Alley and bought what was there of Bleach. It just started showing in Animax and one episode a day won’t tide me over.
6. Books- no need to explain. Just that there were lots and lots and lots of them.
7. Protective film- the one on my cell phone screen was peeling off in the corners and my Ipod film was starting to get blurry, so I got new ones. They were unexpectedly expensive. I also bought one for my laptop, which was even more unexpectedly expensive.

                Okay, I was kidding. I didn’t really spend ten thousand bucks on all that stuff. All of the items I bought were on sale except for one shirt and the protective films. That was it. Amazing, really, that time and effort pay off when hunting for bargains. The pants were all ten percent off. The cargo pants, twenty. The books were all bargains, old stock in Powerbooks, going out at seventy percent off. The shoes were thirty percent, the DVD’s fifty and the shirts ranged from ten to sixty. Christmas is a wonderful time to shop if you’re willing to put your feet to work. The stock may be old, but the quality will still be good.

                God, I sound like a sale commercial. Anyway, I spent around five thousand on all those listed above and almost one thousand five hundred just on food tripping. Yes, that’s right. I ate in Seattle’s Best, Starbucks and Art Cakes. I bought ice cream in a gelato store, had a baked potato in Wendy’s, a slice of pizza from Sbarro, a Blizzard from DQ, a lasagna from Greenwich, bubble tea, a pretzel, cotton candy and a shake from the Big Chill. No, I am not yet fat, and yes, the money was well spent. My parents did not get a seizure and I’m swimming in all my new clothes. Crap, I’m a budding shopaholic.

                I’m sorry my two faithful readers. I took some time off to study and prepare for the exams. God knows I need it. Unfortunately, my efforts are not to be rewarded. I failed my Chemistry and Physics finals badly and I’m sure to fail one subject this quarter. But let’s move away from the grim and on to the happy. Christmas is rolling in and I feel bad that I wasn’t able to write about the retreat and Christmas shopping. The thing is, I really didn’t feel Christmas coming. Even when I was shopping for gifts, I didn’t feel the same thrill that I usually do when I shop. Just recently, our exams finished on the same day that I gave away gifts. I was hurrying to finish so that I could study more for our last tests, so I let other people give most of the gifts instead because I knew most of them would go out that afternoon. It felt weird.

                Another recently, I was talking to Pearl Jam and I was ranting about how he didn’t make enough effort in school and how he wastes space and took away an opportunity for someone else’s future to get brighter. He told me that we just saw things differently, that I looked too much into the future and he just enjoys the present. That’s true, I love planning to the point that sometimes all I can do is plan and not take action on it. I have the rest of my life mapped out, even my death by drowning when I fall in a canal in Venice. My point is that I think he’s right in some ways. Some people work so much toward the future that they forget to enjoy the present. When they finally get what they want, they work and work because they want more and more and it turns into something without an end.

                Time is unbelievable. It goes against your wishes. It feels longer than it should when you’re in a bad situation and vice versa. It’s inspired many theories and experiments and it poses one of the most debatable questions in history: if you go back in time and kill your grandfather, then you wouldn’t exist, so how could you have killed your grandfather in the first place? The time paradox is an interesting intricate problem that will probably never be solved until someone actually tests it which is impossible until someone invents a time machine. That probably won’t happen anytime soon because everyone’s focused on the economic crisis right now. No one would fund it.

                I can’t feel Christmas coming. My biological clock is screwed up because of all the shuffling schedules this year. First the combined first and second quarter and now late starts to the vacations, maybe the reason I’m not functioning properly is because of it. Or maybe it’s because I’ve been rushing around doing so many things that I forgot that Christmas was coming. Not the actual date, mind you. Just the feeling that you have that the holidays are near. It turns out, mine need to build up. You’ll be reading lots from me for the two weeks we’ll be out of school. Maybe even multiple entries in a day just to make up for everything I missed out on. Jessica Zafra has Twisted 8 and a half out, by the way. I know, I was shocked too.

                Some person made me listen to a collection of albums entitled ‘Punk Goes…’ My favorites so far are Punk Goes Pop volumes one and two. There’s an indescribable appeal in hearing rockified (more made up words and statements in parenthesis) pop songs. It wouldn’t work the other way and it’s even more appealing when a male lead singer sings a female song like what The Cab did with Disturbia and Mayday Parade with When I Grow Up. In my personal opinion, guys singing lyrics that are so obviously written for girls is worth listening to, just as long as they’re sexy lyrics and nothing stupid like You Belong With Me which I’ve heard countless times from over amused male haters. I wonder what it is about rock music that makes pop songs better. Of course there are those that don’t sound far from the original but those that do, including my favorite so far- Love Song by Four Year Strong- are mostly better versions.

                This is a direct opposite of what we usually see in the movies. You often hear people say that the book was much better than the movie and most of the time, I agree. There are times when the filmmakers cut out great scenes that were originally in the book or even change things that were so much better than what they replaced them with. But I agree with the precious few who say that these are only technicalities. The interpretation itself where most concentrate their amateur critiquing skills on doesn’t have much to do with how great the movie turns out to be because what you see on screen is the director’s imagination and not yours. Sure there are movies which spark your imagination as well, but that’s the book’s job. Movies aren’t as deep as the written word because you see almost everything laid out already without you having to come up with the imagery as well as the symbolisms.

                Don’t get me wrong, I love movies, too. But my biggest disappointment with them is the characters. If it’s not an actor or an actress who doesn’t look right for the part, it’s a horrible one. I hate it when they ruin a perfectly good daydream with crap acting. Rob Pattinson, for example, and his pitiful excuse for a portrayal of Edward Cullen top my list. I hated the acting, though I am a loyal fan of the Twilight Saga and won’t trash the movie itself. Edward was the second ever book character I fell in love with after Artemis Fowl and his evil little head and it hurt to see someone ruining a two year long unrequited longing for a fictional character with less than two hours of time on a giant movie screen. He destroyed the hopes of many young teenagers, though I believe a lot have forgiven him based on non-existent hotness.

                Directors do have a hard time because they are pressured by the author, producers, actors and many other things, not to mention a limited budget and a screening time he has to stick to so I don’t blame them for cutting out a few cool scenes- and I blame half of the deleted scenes to censorship in the government. What’s unforgivable for me is to change things, even with the author’s consent. I hope that in the future, casting directors will get more decent actors, too. I know it’s hard to find actual talent to match the physical appearances they look for in a role, but that’s where makeup, stylists and costumes come in. Instead of defending to the public that they did what they could with what they had, they should try looking for something else. I’m a decent actress, by the way. Any agents or casting directors out there can just comment on this entry and I’ll be sure to get back to you.

                I am addicted to downloading things now ever since a friend I would like to call Crutches taught me to use bittorrent. Yes, yes, I know that it’s illegal and evil, but those middlemen who make the retail items overpriced are more so. You could say I’m just choosing the lesser evil in this case. I did nothing this weekend but look for good artists so I can download something and I also tried some that I don’t know. I’ve found some decent bands, too. What I do hate about torrent downloading is when you really want something, but you can’t download it because there aren’t any seeds or there are too many leechers. I don’t want to explain the inner workings of torrent downloading so try it out. Aside from the music, I’ve also discovered eBooks and I’m currently raiding all the torrent websites I know to find free ones by authors that I love. I admit that it’s convenient because you don’t have to pay for it, but I agree with the Queen of the Universe when she said that it just isn’t as satisfying as the real thing.

                There’s something oddly comfortable about the sound of rustling pages, the smell of crisp new paper and the general bookness (you can’t do anything about it if I want to invent words) of books. I like it because of my history with it- the many times I’ve sneaked a flashlight under the covers to read after bedtime or used my phone’s backlight to read in the backseat of our car. It’s also more intimate in some ways because you can flip through pages and skip to parts faster and you’re in direct contact with the ink and the paper. I’ve read around seven eBooks this past weekend and there aren’t any feelings of fullness I usually get after reading an actual book. Maybe it’s because I don’t like bringing my laptop in the bathroom with me or I can’t get comfortable lying in bed while reading from a monitor or I’m not close enough with the text because the computer gets hot if it’s smothered in pillows and comforters after a while.

                Okay, so you can put it in a PDA or something like that so you can bring it anywhere an it can be more compact than the actual book, but the facts that you need to be around an electrical outlet at all times and that it’s much easier to open a book than to power up the computer- not counting when it’s on sleep mode- are more than enough to convince me that buying books are better, if not more expensive. I admit that I’ve only been downloading the free kind, but you’d be surprised how many pirated copies there are in the internet. They don’t appear as fast as movies do, when they’re out before the movies are but at least the ones I’ve been looking for are available.

                I know that it’s almost over, but I just wanted to raise a few questions. If the government and a lot of people out there are so against pirated stuff, why are there millions of websites that are available for you to download stuff from? If they’re so high, mighty and powerful, wouldn’t they already have found a way to shut down those websites? I bet even the children of some of those in positions use limewire or bittorrent too. Don’t try telling me that they don’t know about them, either because the websites are practically the first things that pop up when you search for music. It just goes to show that it’s still the people who run the world and not those in the government. Who knows? Maybe they’re the ones running those sites.

                Skittles are haunting me. I hope everyone knows what skittles are so I won’t explain that anymore. I wish there was a pack of only strawberry flavored skittles. I only eat that and the grape ones anyway. So October is ending, marked by my mom’s birthday on the thirtieth. Teachers are torturing us once again by giving us long exams when the periodical exams haven’t been over for more than two weeks and they laugh maniacally as they refer to Halloween as a recurring theme in the exams. Luckily, they will give bonus points for those who come in costumes, so I’m dressing up as a devil. I haven’t dressed up for Halloween for a long time and I’ve never actually gone trick or treating because my mom was overprotective to a fault. The funniest experience was a while ago in Chemistry class when some people from my batch went around trick or treating but gave away candy to promote a slogan too embarrassing to mention.

                I find it hard to concentrate on looking for a seemingly random topic to talk about while gradually giving a biased social commentary, so I prefer to blather incessantly until you decide to stop reading or find out that this entry was a waste of your time. I find myself using the phrase ‘blather incessantly’ more often so just comment and suggest another phrase for my use. The hardest part about writing is when you have an idea and have nowhere to record it. Or worse; you use a few keywords and you forget what they meant. I just thought about how I had such a good topic a few moments earlier, but I was at the dinner table and the food was good. That topic would have saved you from going through the agony of going around in circles and coming out with nothing. Well, instead of typing the next random thought that comes into my head, maybe I’ll put on a few things for the guys in my school without a prom date yet and need some ideas for the big proposal.

                First of all, if you’re going to give gifts, make sure it’s a mix of the long lasting and the short term. A simple necklace or a bracelet that has a simple pendant with flowers or a set of colored pens with a box of chocolates are some examples. Next is that you should try to ask in the afternoon to save her from repeating the story again and again as she has to explain all the stuff she’s carrying around. I also know that some guys think the bigger, the better, but consider the nature of the girl first. If she’s shy, don’t make it too big an affair or she might faint and don’t bring in too much of an audience so she doesn’t feel like she’s pressured to answer in the affirmative or right away. If you want to go for something big, don’t give two things. The clichéd flowers and chocolates would be greatly improved if you would buy her two dozen roses instead of half a dozen with a box of a dozen pralines.

                For the love of God, I know that it’s a personal thing, but please don’t kneel. It’s embarrassing for both of you especially if they say no and it gives us power that we’re not yet confident in using. Unless of course, she specifies that she wants you to. Try your hardest not to ask one after the other or simultaneously because if the first one says yes, the girl is again, pressured to say yes as well. Don’t do it in front of teachers or you’ll never hear the end of it, especially with those fond of poking fun at students. Get her friends to ask her what she likes, they’ll be more than willing to help you out as long as you put in a good word for them with the ones they’re expecting to ask them. Well, out of all that, just remember that it’s her special moment and you live to grant what she wants and not what others want you to do.