I'm in a conference room, seated with at least seven other people, and all of us are asked to define our attitudes and personalities through a series of quantitative tests. After all, quantitative data beats qualitative data in one thing: keeping the playing field perfectly even.

Of course, there's a catch: defining your personality through those tests, purportedly devised by psychologists and the like, will never reflect those little quirks you have. Or that's what we think. They are doctors! They should be trusted! They spent all their lives trying to figure out how our brains work, never mind that they only get to play with electric pulses routed from some wire attached to your head, and not your actual brain, because mucking about with a living person's brain is fatal. Of course they know how our brain works. Of course they know that the subtlest of decisions say a lot about ourselves. Or something like that.

So surely, they have this fool-proof way of figuring out who I am depending on what boxes I check. One test has a statement that goes something like "people always ask me for advice" and it triggers this fairly complicated series of thoughts in my head. Sure, I think, people always ask me for advice, but it's the romantic sort, and it doesn't happen frequently. But they always ask me. I check "fairly often". Surely those doctors have that figured out.

Another one of those tests has me deciding which of the two adjectives provided I am more of. Those adjectives come from a pool of ten or so, and the test provides a big handful of permutations. (I'm not a doctor. I find it difficult to explain this test. But you get the idea, right? You will get the idea, right?) Sooner or later you'll get the hang of the test and you'll form an automatic narrative of sorts. I'm more gloomy than resentful. I'm more resentful than argumentative. And just when it gets a little easier to decide, it gives me two completely contradictory adjectives: "sociable" and "shy".

I'd like to think I'm fairly sociable. I can talk to people effortlessly, especially when I'm fairly comfortable with them. But I clam up as effortlessly. And now, I have to choose one of those adjectives, and judging from my answers so far I'm either more sociable than something, or I'm more shy than something. So I start pondering my response - there is no time limit, but I can't spend five minutes deciding that, and in the thirty seconds I did spend deciding, I looked up and glanced at the six other people taking the test with me. I can tell if they're sociable or shy just by glancing at them, I thought. Woman with dark-framed glasses and Mitch Albom book: shy. Man with teen actor-like grin: sociable. Woman with that elegant air around her: a big snob.

I'm in a bookstore, flicking through magazines, when I chance upon a particular upscale magazine's society pages. You know, the sort that always talks about the biggest (supposedly) parties of the past few weeks or so, with arty photos of socialites and social climbers wearing arty outfits. You'll wonder what they did to get where they are. Sure, they look sociable - there is a reason why they're invited to that party, and why they have the privilege to look slightly wasted and get published in a particularly upscale magazine - but I'm the one browsing, and (you guessed it) I can tell who they are just by glancing at them. Snob. Snob. Snob. Pretentious snob. Fucking pretentious snob.

I'm in a stranger's house in some upscale subdivision, attending the birthday party of a kid I don't even know. To be clear, it was the birthday of the son of one of my father's friends in college. He turned five years old today. I don't know why they asked me to go with them, as it's a children's party, and I don't know why I agreed to go, even if I know that I get bored easily. It certainly wasn't my mother telling me about the birthday boy's half-sister, who she thinks I'll get along with, because we're both chatty and we both like food. I guess I just thought of getting out of the house for something other than my career.

Cait - I checked Facebook and I think I got it right, and to be very sure, I know she's really named Caitlin - is 21, is fresh from culinary school, and is chatty. Suddenly I am expected to be getting along very well with her. Not that I don't want to, but I'm actually feeling the pressure. I'm in a stranger's house, in a birthday party I wasn't exactly invited to - and I'm the person who tends to make conversation with the older people, which in this case, consists of my parents' friends. Not that I let that get in the way, but I won't just come into someone's house and be this chatty person, right?

For an hour or so, I drifted from the cold sofa in the living room to the magic show in the garage, exchanging pleasantries, and still trying to get used to the situation.

A couple of hours later, I'm on the passenger's seat, and Cait is driving to the grocery to pick up items for her sellout tacos. At the back of my head, I'm going, we just met a couple of hours ago, and now she's inviting me to accompany her to the grocery? Not that I don't want to.

To her credit, Cait is a very outgoing person. I was a visitor, and an unexpected one, but in a short while we've ganged up on her dad - "adding beef on a samosa doesn't work!" we'd exclaim together - in between discussing the cooking shows we've watched. Yes, a new friend, more or less. And someone my age, too. She herself pointed it out: it's hard finding someone her own age, the very thing I've dealt with all this time. And, it's hard finding someone who actually gets her drift when she starts talking about her cooking. I don't know if she was referring to me - I was too busy carrying the shopping basket, and the PA system was too loud, so I can't tell the different between her talking to me, and her talking to herself, mumbling the recipe to her chocolate oatmeal cookies so she can keep track of what she's buying.

True enough, I did get the hang of it, and by the time we were in the grocery I managed to make fun of her missing the shelf where all the oatmeal is, which happened to be beside the shelf where all the flour is, which happened to be the shelf where we came from. Yeah, I managed to cite her "grocery instinct" - that thing about knowing what to buy when you can't find what you need - and I ended up spotting her car when she parked in front of her house, never mind me not driving as well as she does. Yeah, I managed.

My friends would tell me that I am a really, really talkative person. And yes, I do get where they're coming from. But before I become that really, really talkative person, I'm the guy who's too worried about what people think. Well, I still am with my friends, but more so when they're still strangers. In most cases, that means me keeping everything to myself, until someone approaches me and gives this hint that goes, yes, it's okay, I don't bite. I'm thinking of Mon, or Mooie, or Valerie, or... no, that person doesn't count, because I started the conversation on that one.

"I'm sorry I'll miss the cookies," I told Cait as I left the house. It was six in the evening, and I was in the kitchen, also known as that place I can't enter whenever she's cooking, or so she says. (I get it.) I grabbed her free hand, and did something in between a handshake and a high five. "But I'll find you on Facebook."

I struggled looking for her, the same way I struggled picking between "sociable" and "shy". But in the thirty seconds I spent staring at the monitor, I figured, my dad is friends with her dad, and her dad must be friends with her, right? Right. Exactly. By the way, I chose "sociable".

Fifteen minutes past five in the morning. My phone starts playing the first few bars of Maxïmo Park's "Going Missing". I rush to get my phone and tap it a few times to keep it quiet. No, I'm not angry; it's just what my phone is built to do.

Thirty minutes past five in the morning. Someone will wake me up. I, apparently, overslept again. Then again, you can't really call it oversleeping, because I don't go, "shit, I'm late for work!" when I wake up. But, being the incurably nice guy that I am, I drag myself out of bed, trying to convince myself that I've slept enough for the night. Sleeping seven hours is no biggie, I tell myself, because some adults only need six hours of sleep. Now, eat your breakfast, take a shower, and go to work.

I feel sleepy on the way to work. I can take a nap, really, but you have to remain alert when you're in one of those shuttles. Most of the time I go with my dad, though. It doesn't feel good, sleeping on the passenger seat, leaving the person driving to keep his eyes open.

Depending on how slow the morning's preparation has become, I either arrive minutes before eight, or minutes before nine.

I don't have a reason to go to work early anymore.

I sit on my desk, open my PC, check my email, check the press sites, and grapple with a browser that kills itself every five minutes - and, when you do pull the trigger, lingers around and suffocates the other browser. This sequence of events happen for the next eight hours.

When I was diagnosed with ADHD - by someone perfectly qualified, thank you very much - I was told not to use my condition as an excuse for my actions. If I come from out of the blue and hit the back of your head, I can't blame it on my exaggerated impulses; I have to state my real reasons. If I start wandering off towards something other than what I'm supposed to do, I can't blame it on my short attention span; I have to state my real reasons. You get the idea.

The upside is, you know your limitations and you can be as effective as you can. They say we cope better when we schedule our day-to-day activities, so that's pretty much what I've done. I do the uploads first, then the cleaning. I eat lunch at one in the afternoon, unless someone invites me, or my gut tells me to take off early. (That goes both ways.) Everything culminates towards six in the evening, when I can finally take off. It's the one thing I've really looked forward to. I mean, you can only spend so many hours a day looking at a monitor and keeping to yourself. Involuntarily, I must note.

The downside is, that routine will wear you out eventually. And since it's been the same old for, I don't know, perhaps four months, it gets harder to wake up in the morning. I noticed it myself. I no longer wake up to my alarm. I guess I need something interesting to keep me going.

Three in the afternoon. I'm starting to wander. This doesn't usually happen, but it does now, and more often than ever before.

Five before five in the afternoon. I stare at the clock in my computer.

Six in the evening. I leave the office, vowing to get into the shuttles early, so I can get home early, so I can eat dinner early, so I can sleep early, so I can wake up to my alarm and stop having to drag myself out of bed. Yes, I'm actually aware of the situation, because this never happens to me before. Yet, despite that awareness, I end up browsing magazines inside bookstores on the way to the terminal, and I end up using the computer after dinner, which means I sleep at ten instead of half past nine. What's the use? I tell myself. I'll wake up and do the same things anyway. It's hard to wake up knowing that you'll go through this again. It's harder to sleep knowing that you'll wake up to this again.

A feng shui master told my dad that I'll have ups and downs for the next ten years, before I achieve some relative success, possibly abroad. Some guy also told my parents - this was many years ago, back when I was seven and we went on our first Ilocos vacation - that I'm a special kid and I have to be watched over. I told my parents that I could commit suicide within those ten years. Of course, they brushed me off. I have, they figured, exaggerated impulses.

After lunch today, I realize that I cannot be a radio DJ.

I met up with Icka earlier today. It is, frankly, the one thing that made my Monday. After all, in the two years since I graduated we've chatted a lot, from American Idol to Japanese tentacle porn. That, and I've been inviting her to coffee for so long, but things haven't always worked out.

Icka is one of the few people who I can really be comfortable with. Sure, that sounds totally clichéd, but we've been throwing stuff at each other all these years and it's like nothing's really wrong. Maybe it's because she's not like everybody else, the sort who'd tolerate me doing (or, in these cases, saying) what others would frown on.

Then again, our conversation - over Italian fast food, more or less - was oddly conventional. Apparently she hasn't caught up with many of our blockmates since two years ago, so most of the things I mentioned was news to her. Still, it didn't stop me from acting giddily, and aside from the few necessary lapses, I went up to her and spoke in my breathless English.

I fail at my American accent.

Not that I have to talk in an American accent. I'm no American, after all, and I don't even work in a call center. But Icka's the sort who'd talk to you in slightly-pretentious English - not that there's anything wrong with it, because that's really how she rolls. But our conversations always make me realize that my spoken English, while sensible, fails because it doesn't sound right. Thus, I'll never really have a career as a radio DJ. They need folks who sound good in every possible way. You know, like Ariane and the dream she had last night.

The unusual thing is, Icka didn't really grow up in the United States. As far as I know, she hasn't been there. I guess it's the upbringing: when you're surrounded with artsy types - her family owns an art gallery, and that's where we met today - you're expect to pick up a few speech lessons or two.

Somehow our conversation ended up being about, well, people who speak really good English. Kizia, for one, grew up in the United States, and came to the Philippines as she began high school. "She still has the accent," Icka reminded me, "but at least she can speak Tagalog." And then she tells me of a friend of hers who can't speak Filipino - and the way she says her English, the way Les sort of would, was apparently "adorable".

"She'd say 'puta' and I'd be so proud," she said. "She's so adorable!"

I'd then tell her about Misha, whose background I never really knew despite me having a crush on her for more than a year. She speaks some Filipino, but with an accent so thick it's uncomfortable. Not that I mind, although I can only imagine what happened on the set of Paglipad ng Anghel.

During our movie date, Kat - who was, I think, the production manager - told me how they all had to translate stuff for Misha. She worked as the art director, I think, which meant she was in charge of all these little details in the props.

"Kailangan namin ng belo," someone would say.

"Uhm, what's beh-loh?" she'd answer.

"Uhm, veil," they'd go.

"I felt bad for her," I told Icka. "It's like she became a one-note joke." But then again, that's part of what Celine once called her "certain charm". I guess that's why I had a crush on her in the first place. Yes, I can be shallow like that. And yes, considering what I said before - that we tend to like people who are who we want to be, more or less - well, that is the case.

The conversation would go towards our crushes, and ultimately, to bra sizes, and the way some people are surprised that I know how to calculate that. It still is that random. Or maybe not, because we've talked about this before.

At the risk of sounding like a pervert, I'll write about Icka's chest, which is more, uhh, ample than the average woman's. Then again, she's a big person. She'd assert that, because some people have G-cup boobs and a five-foot frame. And also, she's okay with me talking about it, which explains the "healthy, average boobs" conversation we once had.

And yes, she's okay with me staring at them once in a while. I'm a guy, after all. It happens.

"I get to admire your gorgeousness from a sideways angle," I told her, still breathless, as we walked around the mall trying to kill time.

"That's why we're friends!" she said, offering a high five, and explaining why hers are perkier than the rest who have similarly-sized ones. It's all in, she says, picking the right bra.

I realize that I don't really want to be a radio DJ. I want to be the guy working behind the scenes, making the whole package work. Programming, Jeany suggested, is my best suit, and I agree, judging from the way I geeked out during advanced radio production class. In this case - and this metaphor is flimsy - it's like me picking the right bra. Not that I need a bra, of course.

As for Icka, well, we'll meet again. She promised that. I just hope I don't feel uncomfortable about it, especially after writing this little perverted ditty.

I found myself killing time, again, at Fully Booked last night. Yes, the one at Bonifacio High Street. As expected, it triggered all these idle thoughts, spurred by seeing ladies wearing plaid jackets and really short shorts, or seeing all those books that you suddenly have interest in. What else do you expect when you're alone, accompanied only by a pair of earphones and a half-decent take on a funky-slash-jazzy playlist?

"I love that bookstore," Gwen replied. At least she replied, I thought, else I'd feel a little more terrible seeing all these shelves. I've written about this before - that feeling when you're in that particular bookstore, surrounded by all these seemingly self-assured people, the sort who spend time drinking expensive coffee and talking (in English) about art. It still makes me feel a little iffy about myself. I just had to send that text message, although I'd think minutes later that I sent it to the wrong person.

Still, the conversation continued. "I'm intimidated," I said. "What to buy?"

"Go splurge. But not too much. It might be what you need."

"I don't even know what to splurge on. And I have a book that's unopened after three weeks ago."

That book was Andrew Collins' third book, That's Me In The Corner. I picked it up out of impulse, well, three weeks ago. I've been listening to him on the radio for most of the year, and when I discovered that Fully Booked - it's the branch in Cubao - was selling his book, I promptly snapped it up. It also helped that a review described it as "a punchy self-help book for aspiring journalists" which, considering my mindset of late, seemed like something I'd really need.

"You should start on that first. Or go buy Hunger Games. And read it."

"I'm not opening it because I'm finishing a magazine. And fiction ain't my thing. I told you that, right?"

The one thing I don't like about the flagship Fully Booked branch is the cumbersome way to getting around. Sure, the escalators are convenient, and they're not always packed, but for a person like me who can't absolutely decide on anything, having to go up and down - and up again, naturally - the building just to make sure you didn't miss anything you'd probably want to buy is, well, cumbersome. There aren't any good magazines, so I skipped the first floor and went up the second, and upon realizing there's nothing there for me, I went up the third. The non-fiction section is a savior.

I went up the fourth anyway, to their seemingly impeccably-stocked music section, where a wide variety of albums is refuted by the fact that the place doesn't seem to be updated a lot. Still, the thought of that place putting Allison Iraheta's CD on one of their listening spots makes me happy.

And then I went back to the third, going through the biography section. I was hoping they were selling copies of this particular book - Phill Jupitus' Good Morning Nantwich, which I heard is pretty much a love letter to what's more or less the best radio station in the world - but, then again, I'm in the Philippines, and it's pretty much impossible to find anything about British media on our shelves.

"Yup. How about The Diary of a Young Girl?"

"And that is?"

"Anne Frank's struggle as a teenager during the war."

But, then again, this isn't like every bookstore, and true enough, I found the media studies section. Disappointing, in a way, because it was just half a shelf, and apart from the academic stuff (which I've probably read in school anyway) there's all these snarky books about being popular. Or books that proudly carry the "unofficial" badge, reminding me that, despite the stuff I did in the past, there are gleeks out there who'd publish a book about Glee.

It was right beside the non-fiction section, which would've captured my attention if not for the fact that the books there seemed out of place in the biography section - two whole corridors! - or the history section. I felt bad for The Men Who Stare at Goats, but I didn't appease it by buying it. I was a bit amused at the idea of seeing Andrew's second book - Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now, the predecessor to the book I eventually bought - lost in the non-fiction category when it's clearly an autobiography. And again, in the media studies section. And eventually, in the biography section, with an earlier book. I would've bought those two to complete my sudden collection, but I didn't.

"Am I terrible for saying I'm not interested in Anne?"

I drifted towards the history section, and went up the escalators again. And down. And down. And up again.

"Nope. How about The Prince by Machiavelli?"

"You're giving me things I'll prolly get bored with! Which makes me fussy."

"Hmmm. You're just not into books as I am."

I'm still impulsive, really. I realize the last handful of books I bought were a result of those trips to Fully Booked. You enter the store and you realize that there are a lot of books that you wouldn't find elsewhere, and you feel obligated to pick up a book. Then again, I'm starting to shift from magazines to books. You can only take so many advertisements, really, especially for things that won't fit you.

In the usual circumstances I'd mention the suspect timing of my interest in books right about now. But since all my books are non-fiction ones - I'm counting Stephen Colbert, whose book also suffered from some fussy categorization, despite it being in a Singaporean bookstore: humor or American affairs? - there's no point in saying that I feel like I'm just pretending to be interested in books. I buy books about topics (or writers) I'm interested in. It's precisely why I find myself adrift inside bookstores.

"I guess. Or I'm picky. Too picky."

"That's okay, I guess."

"Ironically I just got into books lately. I only have six. My sister, a hundred. She had to."

Actually, I have seven. Ten, if you count my college yearbook, split into three volumes. I'm already running out of space in my corner of the living room bookshelves, one that's inevitably dominated by half of my sister's books. Now that she's graduated from college, those books she's accumulated have lost their purpose, sort of. But she'll still read them - and reread them - when she has time, while I pretty much stick with my collection, not knowing what to get next, if circumstances allow.

"Never too late."

"I guess. I just can't be too 'oh wow' about it."

Gwen didn't reply. I drifted up and down the escalators again, getting slightly electrocuted at one point, and in another considering just leaving the bookstore and returning to my dad. I was just wearing a shirt and jeans, which I felt was inappropriate attire for a cocktail event. I felt like a smelly armpit, in other words. Half an hour later, I was at the ATM, withdrawing a thousand bucks. I really should be saving up for the future, I thought, totally invalidating my already invalid "wala akong luho" claim.

"Ended up buying Ingrid Betancourt's account of her six-year captivity in the Colombian jungle," I said. It was, as expected, an impulsive buy - although I anticipated that I'd end up buying something anyway, so I don't know if it counts as impulsive. I didn't receive a reply until roughly fifteen minutes later.

"Wow. I haven't had a clue."

"A clue of what?"

"The book you bought."

"I just chanced upon it. Catch my attention, voila. Might read that book in Bangkok."

"I totally forgot to return to YM after lunch. And now you're going."

Thirty seconds.

"Yes. In four minutes!"

"Three, actually! Boo. I would've not been as bored."

"3:56 pa lang dito. Hala, late ang company time."

"Actually, the company clocks here state you have two minutes left."

Two minutes.

"One minute and twenty seconds."

"What do we do with the time?"

"Whistle!"

"I can't whistle."

Thirty seconds.

"No need. Four o'clock na dito!"

"Oh, boo. Fine. Go."

"Pero hindi pa tumatayo yung teammates ko. Ayun. Lezzgeew."

"I can't go. I have two hours of teammateless living to do."

One minute.

"Oh. Good luck with that."

"Thanks?"

"Anyway. Toodles."

"Byeeee."

I'd rather not ruin this blog entry with a long introduction, so here's the thing in non-bulleted bullet points. Yes, Aly, this is a metaphor. I have a tendency to connect one thing with another thing that, at first glance, looks totally disparate. And I did end up thinking of Brittany's line in last night's episode of Glee somewhere during the conversation.

Heart attacks are just from loving too much.

All too true.