I started writing in a notebook journal last weekend. I will post here one of my entries. It will explain why I might not post here that often anymore.

…I was thinking, what really made me start this notebook journal? On the way to school, I was thinking over that thought while listening to my cd.

My online journal habit of writing stuff about my personal life might be reduced starting now. I remember way back when I first started more than three years ago, I wrote about EVERYTHING, without inhibitions. The only people who read that obscure diary-x journal of a 12 year-old kid were some foreign strangers. My ’secrets’ were safe with them. They do not know the classmates and the other people I used to talk (badly or nicely) about.

But see, things are very different now. ESPECIALLY NOW. Before, at the most, only a handful of close friends in class knew my online journal. Now, there’s Toff, J-boy, Jake, Rychus, Rene, Jona, Andrew, Erik, Raf, Kenny, Ira, Josh, Alix, Alfie, Francis, Pendix and probably some other classmates (who don’t wish to let me know they read all these crap) actually read my journal already. (How about if one day, I feel bad against them, how can I vent it out?). A lot of people from school also have come, seen, and continue to read my site. My other friends, and their friends, and my classmates’ other friends read my site. Even my teacher reads my site. My website statistics are inclined to tell me that I’m going to reach 3000 unique visitors by the end of this month (that’s about a hundred a day! I’ve never had that much traffic and audience before!). That figure will probably increase in future months. It’s inevitable that more and more of the people I know personally, will get to know my site. I can’t possibly continue being too personal anymore…

…But still, I need an outlet for my real thoughts. Somewhere were I can write with the least inhibitions. That’s why I started this paper journal…

I’m not entirely abandoning this thing. Maybe you’ll just see less of written stuff about people in my personal life. I don’t want to write (badly or nicely) about people who could actually have the chance to read it.

A classmate of mine found an interesting article from Popular Mechanics while we were at the library:

“The Changing Face of the Philippines”

…Education in the republic is booming as nowhere else in Asia. Far Eastern University’s 25,000 make her the largest in Asia and in the first 10 worldwide… And for a leavening of tradition, Sto. Tomas is older than Harvard… I saw why the bustling archipelago was chosen for Asia’s $20,000,000 nuclear center.

…’They have a stable government… They’re friendly and they’ve got technical talent that can make this the industrial heart of Southeast Asia.’

…’We start them [investments], create interest, and the rest… is carried on by the people through mutual help.’

…The nation’s $25,000,000,000 timber wealth is efficiently protected by a smart forest-management plan that enforces a selective-yield logging.

…The farm boom was spearheaded by an energetic government dedicated to fuel enterprise.

…Oil is the open sesame of Philippine prosperity… The keen eyes of a many Philippine financier are focused on those slender holes that dot Luzon’s northern hills.

…Hidden in the craggy Philippines hills is the wealth of the Indies… The U.S. has found 550 million tons of nickel-bearing laterite in the Philippines — the world’s fifth largest source. Surigao’s rich billion-ton iron deposit is one of the largest in the world… ‘You can ladle the mercury right off the ground!” And most pulse-quickening of all is the news of uranium in Camarines Norte.

…Japan’s steel plants need seven million tons of ore a year. She get’s 1.5 million from the Philippines… Filipinos look to the day when their own integrated steel industry can feed the factories of Asia! Steel makes sense here, with ore, limestone, manganese, chrome, coal and charcoal available — and abundant potential hydro-electric power.

…’A Raytheon study predicts… the Philippines will rank sixth in the world production [energy production].’

…The Philippines may be the land of Moro outlaws… but she is a modern sovereign power, too, impatient for her rich land to fulfill its destiny athwart the trade lanes of the East.

…The Little Giant of Southeast Asia is on the march!

The article was from the May 1958 issue. Oh Philippines, what happened?! This is depressing.

Oh God, what will happen to my TD kids! I know it means raising the standards among students, but… raise the quality of education they receive first!

A report yesterday said two organizations of public school teachers are worried that raising the passing grade from 50 to 75 percent could mean flunking at least 90 percent of 17 million students in public schools. In the not too distant past, students who got 75 percent often became the butt of jokes. When did the passing grade sink to 50 percent?

There was a kite-flying contest today in school. I couldn’t care less — I didn’t know how to make a kite and fly it, and I had no enthusiasm since our class kites didn’t seem to have any chances of winning anyway. I just had a lazy time on the vast grassy field with some classmates taking some pictures.

I had to stay after school because I had to take pictures of the cast and crew of a play whose program book I was requested to make. After that, I went home. I commute more than the average high school Atenean (most of whom don’t commute at all), a lot of whom equate the word with just taking a taxi, but tonight was only the first time I saw and had one of those infamous street kids suddenly entering the jeepney wiping everyone’s shoes and then begging for money. Sad.

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