On Vday

Usually, when people know that you're single on Valentine's Day, they automatically assume you're bitter and ask you to join the Anti-Valentine's Day Movement.

Well, I've been single on Valentine's Day for seventeen years, and I've never really felt bitter about it. Maybe  because I like the holiday. I may not receive sweet nothings, chocolates, and other tokens of a person's affections, but I like looking at people who do receive them.

I don't know. Just because you're single, you don't have to hate on people who aren't. And just because you don't have a Valentine, doesn't mean that Valentine's Day is going to suck. It's a fun holiday, with love all over in the air. The least you can do is enjoy it while you can.

And if you don't, well, just boycott VDay altogether.

Happy Valentine's!

On Filipino E-books

I guess you've all heard of Wattpad.
If you haven't, it's a website that hosts stories made by their members, whether they be original or fanfiction.
Basically, everybody who's been on Fanfiction.net moved to Wattpad, so thanks to Wattpad, Fanfiction.net is pretty empty.
Anyway, a large number of Wattpad users are, not-so surprisingly, Filipinos! They've coined the term 'Wattpaders' for themselves, and most of their stories are written in popular Tagalog/Filipino, the kind of language used in everyday conversations.
Most of the stories are actually read via phone and are called 'e-books', which are actually just different text files (like PDF, .doc, and .txt files) of the whole story. They are then read via cellphone or whatever electronic device available.
How do these stories become so popular? Simple. They're shared via Bluetooth to one friend to another until the story gains so much popularity, it hurts.

Anyway, I actually have a thing for these Filipino e-books. They're kind of like a guilty pleasure of mine.
The stories are so light, and the narration so relatable, you can't stop reading.
But then there comes the part where authors need to have an editor for their stories.

I recently finished one e-book that I honestly thought was amazing until the ending. Everything was so good, so real and relatable, then- BAM! Stupid cliche events. Stupid plot twists that don't contribute to the growth of the story at all!
I felt so cheated! I was actually thinking "Man, these e-books are pretty funny. Sometimes they're better than all those really pricey novels", but I was so wrong! Just when I thought that I had found an alternative to my craving of Meg Cabot-ish chick lit, I was wrong.

These Filipino e-books are actually nice, if you turn a blind eye to everything cliche in them, and if you want a light read when you're commuting home. But trust me, if you're a fan of the written word, don't trade your novels for these babies just yet.

badum tss

Isn't it scary how hours become days, days become months, and months become years? You know it happens, how time slowly slips away from your fingers, but you don't really realize it until suddenly you're pretty much left with no time at all. You tell yourself "I'll do this tomorrow" or "Let's do that later", yet tomorrow never comes, later never really happens.
We keep on putting things off because we think we have time, when we never really had time in the first place.

So, this blog pretty much exists to document thoughts about certain issues in certain times. This one is going to be a bit more public, a little bit more formal. But if you've read my blog since who-knows-when, then I guarantee you that it's still 100% Pat Gallardo.
Or what remains of the Pat Gallardo you knew.

Because I want to look back in this blog five years from now and laugh at myself. Laugh at how young I am as of this writing, and laugh at how much I've changed and remained the same.
Five years is a long period of time. But it doesn't really feel that way when you think about it.

So I hope this blog does its job: being a keeper of the thoughts of a growing and changing person.
Because if it doesn't, well, dang.