Either I've been spending too much time online, or Halloween has become such a big deal here.

"It has always been for a lot of us," newly-liberated Dee told me. "Always dreamed of going trick or treating as a kid. We're becoming more Westernized."

Perhaps. But I don't remember this happening when I was a kid. Is it because we're all grown up now, and we live such hectic lives, and we need to destress by wearing costumes, putting on make-up and acting like we're completely different people?

Then again, where I live, Halloween wasn't such a big deal. I don't live in those posh subdivisions where trick or treating is an annual occurrence. (I live near Ayala Alabang, but this tradition of theirs never reached me until I was in high school. Like I'd be interested. Or, like they'd let me.) The one time anything closely resembling trick or treating happened in my subdivision, we weren't even sure how to do it.

I was in elementary school then, and some of my classmates - those who were allowed to roam the streets at night - decided to go trick or treating. But their approach was completely different to what usually happens. After all, I realize now, nobody's prepared any candy to give.

So, my friends were the ones who had the candy. Armed with cheap costumes and some face paint, maybe, they went home to home - well, more of friend's home to friend's home - and gave the residents two options: trick, or treat. I was daring back then.

"Trick!" I exclaimed confidently.

"Ay, treat na lang," one of my friends said. (I still know their names, but I can't remember who were at my home that night.) "Wala na kaming pulbura."

So they showed me all the candy they had left, and invited me to get some. Either that, or they gave me pre-packed candy. That'd be more sensible, since they need to be fair to everyone.

Or maybe they didn't have any candy left. I can't remember at all.

The only other vague Halloween memory I had was when I was around ten or eleven - or maybe older - when my craft-inclined aunt compelled all her nephews and nieces to have our faces painted. I hated it. I've always hated face paint because I tend to get itchy. I know, I had to sit through that in college.

Fast forward to today. I look at my Facebook wall - yes, I do spend a lot of time online, and I have to - and I see a lot of posts about Halloween. Photos of my friends in costumes. Photos of my friends' nephews and nieces in costumes. Photos of my friends' children in costumes. Photos of my friends and their ad agency-type friends, of my friends and their high school friends, of my friends and the other kids in their posh neighborhoods, in costumes, armed with candy, anticipating going trick or treating.

Me? No, I'm not peeved. I'm not gloating. I just never experienced Halloween, except perhaps for the occasional viewing of the Magandang Gabi Bayan specials. Maybe it' because the fact that its Halloween got swallowed up by the fact that it's the semestral break.

This weekend is a long weekend. Four days. A chance to destress for everyone. Me, I'll spend Halloween this year on the way home from Baguio. No trick or treating. Just roads. And then, back to work. The long weekend is completely irrelevant to me. At least, Tuesday is.

Since when did all of you care about bullying?

Yes, I am being cynical. And yes, perhaps, I'm operating on another bout of self-pity. But really now. Since when did all of you care about bullying?

Lately that has been a buzzword of sorts. And I'm not just talking about all of those news stories from the United States, about a bunch of suicides from people who have been bullied by their peers. You know, those stories that try a little harder to get something inspiring out of something as sad as death. Oh, it's sad he had to commit suicide. He's actually such a nice person. I'm also thinking of all the talk about bullying here in the Philippines - of a bill, filed by a senator whose name slips me, aiming to squash bullying in Filipino schools once and for all. Or all of those reports in the media, advising parents about what to do if they think their children is being targeted by bullies in school. If your child's grades are flagging, and he's getting more anxious about going to school, be worried, they'd say.

Maybe I'm just surprised that, in the past few months, it has become quite a big deal.

Ten years ago, when I entered high school, it was a bit of an afterthought. I remember the school handbook mentioning a "zero-tolerance policy" against bullying, but not as much as the taunts I received from pretty much the whole school when I first entered. I was the new kid, the guy who came from one place and is trying hard, so hard, to adjust in another. From day one, I was called autistic. I don't even remember acting differently. Next thing I know, all of the freshmen were calling me that. The one friend I made in that first day in school left me - at least he had the guts to explain himself, saying he was being bullied as well by association. The following day, he was bullying me too.

A few weeks later, the sophomores were making fun of me. There was this guy in my school service who put bubble gum in my hair. Well, the kid was a big jerk anyway. He'd extort coins from everybody just so he could head to a computer store and play Counter Strike. And then, the juniors were making fun of me - these two guys led me to the ladies' room instead of the men's room, taking advantage of the fact that there were no signs differentiating one from the other.

And what did my section adviser do? She took me one morning to the prayer room, put her hands on my head, and prayed. A month later, I got kicked out. For slapping a girl. My only offense.

If you've been reading my blog for the past six years you'd know I attribute my cynicism to those three months in that "peace-loving" school. I was trying so hard to get by in those three months. I always had lunch at the guidance office, and spent all my free time at the library, reading all those journalism books. I got really excited when some of my classmates took interest in my frequent retelling of how good my life was back in elementary school, knowing that it's all a front anyway. I was just winging it.

Thinking of that, I still remember that paragraph I saw in the student handbook about bullying. That so-called "zero-tolerance policy". I'm not saying mine is a special case, but I only had little support from my teachers. I guess they wanted to keep the status quo, which explains why I was kicked out on my first offense. Some parent went complaining.

My parents don't like it when I get so worked up about those three months. I still do ten years later. I have many regrets in life, and to be honest, one of my biggest is getting kicked out of that school. It's a fact I can airbrush (and have airbrushed) out of official-ish records, but the fact remains that those experiences have changed me forever. It's certainly the reason why I have never been able to cope well with people. Whenever I bring that up my parents would ask me to shut up. Apparently my voice causes headaches. Apparently I should've acted like a man. Fought like a man. A tall order for a twelve-year-old who moved schools against his wishes. A tall order for a twelve-year-old who's been told, again and again, never to hurt anybody, or else you will get pink slips from school.

So what's with all the concern now? Why is it that, all of a sudden, everybody - or at least the most vocal ones - are concerned about bullying? Why are people writing articles telling you to block anybody who anonymously taunts you online? Why is there an outpouring of grief towards children who decided that life is not worth living because people told them, insistently and furiously, that they're not good enough, that they'll never be good enough?

When I heard of that anti-bullying law filed in the senate, I knew it's a bunch of bullshit. Lip service to reassure people that they are on their side. We understand that bullying causes severe psychological trauma to your children, so we're filing a bill to force schools to take action. But, sir, you don't need a law to force schools to take action. That just shows how negligent our schools, public or private, are. You don't need a law to tell schools of their basic obligation - to keep watch over the students, and to make sure that they're doing just fine. You do need a law, however, to force schools to stop giving prevalence to students (and their parents) who have been under their care for their entire schooling life - the sort that gets them flimsy "loyalty awards" during year-end ceremonies.

You do need a law that will force schools to not just pay lip service to their so-called "zero-tolerance policies" against bullying. You have to make them beyond vigilant. And you have to give them balls to address the issues as soon as they strike. Don't just talk about how wonderful life is when people get along: make it so. Pick up the bad kids, as soon as you have proof, and make sure they get what they ought to get.  Make sure everyone is treated fairly, by the book if need be, and not on the whim of parents who'll demand this and that just to get their way. You are, after all, beholden to the students, and not to those who pay the tuition fee.

You do need a law that will force everyone to change their mindsets about anything and everything that is different to them. So what if I'm gay? Or just effeminate? So what if I'm autistic? Or just feeling awkward? That doesn't mean you get the right to taunt me to death. Right now everybody is just doing lip service. Be yourself, you'd probably say, but not right here, not right now, not ever. Right now everybody is feeling bad for those suicides, but no lessons will be learned. They'll just write a few sentences, maybe post a couple of PSAs on their Facebook pages, perhaps one with their favorite Glee stars, and then nothing. You'll see someone acting differently and it all starts over again.

Then again, we are all predisposed to feel threatened, or bully, whatever, anybody who's vaguely different from us. In schools, in the workplaces, inside a car in the middle of a road trip... all this talk about ending bullying, it's a bunch of bullshit. It's still all about the status quo. It always was, and it always will be.

So, you've probably (emphasis on probably) read my last blog entry about my trip to the mall. You know, that trip where I spent a good chunk of my time getting frustrated at the lack of things I could buy, and a bigger chunk of time waiting for my brother to finish replenishing his social life quota.

I absolutely ran out of things to do at around three in the afternoon, so I decided to just hang out at the CBTL branch nearby. It was a weekend, so I had a hard time getting a seat, but I ended up taking one of those lounge-y cushioned seats for myself and my newly-bought magazine. One large order of their double-chocolate drink later, I was settled in.

The cashier, by the way, was cute. Yes, I am going there.

Oddly, I noticed that while angling for that lounge-y seat, the only unoccupied seat at the time. I was third in line; ahead of me were a couple of Koreans and an old man. One of my feet was in the line; the other was pointed towards the seat, in a variation of Kevin's shoulder lock theory (you like the person a lot when your shoulders face the person a lot). And yet this allowed me to actually look at the girl in front of me when I gave my order. "Isang double chocolate," I'd say, just looking at her eyes, because I already knew what I was going to buy way before I started putting myself in compromising positions.

"With whipped cream, sir?"

"Umm, sige," I answered.

I don't know how she exactly looked like. The first description I had in mind went along the lines of "kamukha niya si Rachelle Ann Go" but she had softer features. I don't really know how to put it. But she was cute, and I found her cute, and I told myself that I'll write a blog entry about her, which is as creepy as things can get, except for the fact that I did the exact thing before.

Except, this time, I was planning to write about the sad fact that I don't have a shred of confidence in myself, when I used to have too much of it before.

My first crush was when I was in pre-school. I didn't know the term "crush" then: the official line was more of me being in love with her, and that was before I actually had an idea of what romantic love is. One of my earliest memories was during recess, when I went up to her and asked her, without any pretense: "mahal mo ba ako?"

I think she said yes. But I'm not sure if that really happened. Mind you, it was roughly fifteen years ago, and I would have definitely forgotten some details here and there. I still remember her name, though. I won't mention it here because I don't want to tag her.

My crushes in elementary school were pretty much public. (Hello, Yum.) High school? Less so. Things eventually crept out, but I tended to keep these things a secret, partly because I didn't want my aunts to tease me about my latest fantasy girl Friday, but mostly because I realized I just didn't have what it takes. Either I wasn't very sure about what I was feeling, or I made a fool out of myself enough to put me out of the running for guy you'd consider spending the rest of your life with.

But I remembered that one story, and I felt sad. Here I was, in a coffee shop, killing time by reading a magazine, occasionally glancing towards the counter to see if the cute girl was still there (mostly yes). If I was my pre-school self, at least confidence-wise, I would've approached her and talked to her and maybe asked for her number.

"What's your name, sir?" she asked.

"Niko," I said, certain that it will be misspelled in one way or another. "And yours?"

"Joanne."

She looks like a Joanne. Not a Rachelle, but a Joanne. I would presume that since there was no name tag of sorts.

But no. I just sat there, reading a magazine, and writing this blog entry in my head. I'm moping at how much things have changed. At how big my inhibitions are. At how many times I hid my feelings towards someone because I was afraid I'd look foolish. Because that's what always happens, right? You look foolish. You blow your one chance. And then things get awkward.

I ended up staying there for two hours. I saw men with backpacks come in. A group of friends who dress like teachers. More Koreans. I could only do so much. I got bored, and decided to leave, especially since my brother's back in the mall and I had to drive him (and, as it turns out, a friend of his - that's all I am to him, a driver) home.

I didn't notice the girl left her post. The last I saw her, she was outside the coffee shop, talking to a male colleague, taking a cigarette off her pocket, getting a light, smoking.

I'm leaving.

I was at the mall yesterday, at the record store, feeling very frustrated, as always. On the new releases shelf: earworm-inducing tween pop, generic American pop-punk, and acoustic covers of songs. Oh, and since it's almost Christmas, we get "party mixes" featuring this year's hits lovingly sequences with Jingle Bells. Considering my love for British indie rock and not-so-quirky female vocals, it just does not cut it.

It's hard to be a self-respecting music fan nowadays. I know, that line sounds pretentious, maybe completely dismissive of the fact that Justin Bieber runs the world - I wouldn't complain if she fits my not-so-quirky female vocal idea - but think about it. If you want to listen to music that's more challenging than the faux-dubstep, faux-urban pop that permeates the airwaves today, then you're not in luck. Sure, they also stock Arcade Fire (because their Grammy win forced them to), but it's just one stripped-down copy against the rows of shelf space devoted to suddenly-popular but still-shitty All Time Low. And don't get me started on Korean pop, which should be good on its own, but is owning too much space considering their fans are only a screaming minority.

So, if you want to listen to something else, you end up downloading illegally. I'll admit, I've done my fair share, too. But I love listening to the Manic Street Preachers, and I have not seen their last three CDs in stores here in the Philippines. And All Time Low, despite their popularity here, will never be as good. (Disclaimer: I'm not ripping those boys apart - my two siblings are big fans - but my sister will readily admit that they're generic American pop-punk.) And any amount of praying that the record stores here will open their eyes and realize that there's a bunch of disenfranchised people who love their music and are willing to pay for them will do you no good.

Remember ten years ago? Tower Records was still alive back then. Their branch at the Alabang Town Center was quite big - and while I never really grasped the variety of music in store back then, I knew that there was a big section devoted to jazz, and "pop/rock" occupied two aisles. I definitely know they carried Elbow's albums. I bought Athlete's Tourist and Missy Higgins' The Sound of White with my own money. I almost bought Beth Rowley's debut here, even - but when I had the money, the store closed.

And now, here I am, at Odyssey, looking at this one shelf, a third of which is K-pop, another third Taylor Swift derivatives, and another third really obscure Swedish indie pop that never even sells here. And that's the whole "pop/rock" section. Nothing for those whose musical preferences can't be defined by a single popular-despite-being-beyond-shitty radio station.

Okay. I do buy pop sometimes. I have all ten Glee CDs. Also, this happened. I grew up listening to jazz, but I also grew up listening to pop radio. But this was in the 1990s, when pop radio really meant it when they say "more music". This was in the early 2000s, when System of a Down was played on a Top 40 station here, and Keane's Everybody's Changing sat nicely with a still-decent Jennifer Lopez. Sure, you'll still hear the occasional outside-pop act on the radio, but not after you've heard the word "baby" a million times. Apparently people want to hear the word "baby" a million times. Or "Alejandro".

Anyway, I did buy Beth Rowley's CD eventually - in Singapore. That's what the Odyssey trip made me want to do. I wanted to return to Singapore. At least those kids learned well when they were under the British. They were always good with these things. You go to their record stores and you see floors devoted to a genre. My two Elbow CDs came from there. My two Manics CDs came from there. I would've bought a Sia CD if I had enough money. I can lose myself in one of those record stores - sure, it's frustrating not knowing what to buy, but you can go home with eight CDs that you will never see sold in Manila. Well, except for the Glee CD. The first one, I bought in Singapore.

When my sister returned to Singapore early this year I gave her five thousand bucks and a list of CDs she should buy for me. I was expecting nine, and she only returned with four. Laura Marling's outstanding second album was there, as well as this CD from Lissie, an artist I wouldn't have heard of if I stuck with local radio. Sure, a bit disappointing only getting four, but hey, CDs from acts I actually care about. I was making a list in my head yesterday. I want Laura Marling's third. I want Noel Gallagher's solo debut. Now, that's one guy who's not obscure. Surely many people know Don't Look Back In Anger, right? Wonderwall? He did not sing that, but he penned it. You can slap a sticker on his debut album that explains who he is. "The main songwriter for Oasis." They can do those stickers for those Swedish acts, complete with "if you're a fan of obscure act with obscure act, you'll like obscure act" lines, why not for people we might possibly know?

They didn't, by the way, have to do that with the new Beady Eye (read: Oasis minus Noel) album. I spotted Different Gear, Still Speeding at Fully Booked today. That place is perhaps the closest we have to a Singapore record store. Just one floor, but a wide selection nonetheless. You know, like what you'd usually see in a record store when pop radio played so much music. I ended up buying the new Oh Land album there earlier. For a thousand bucks. When I could've downloaded this for free instead. Like all the other albums I want but can't get, because kids prefer to hear "baby" a million times.

I know. I'm sounding both pretentious and resentful. And poor. I can't afford everything at this rate.

And I haven't gotten around to mentioning my conversations with Jeany at this rate.

Over the weekend my dad and I returned to the cemetery, to light a few candles for my late grandmother, and to give our new pet dog - a month-old Lab, whose entry I didn't know until it actually happened - a chance to walk in some actual grass. The trip was a bit hastily-assembled, because when we got there we realized we forgot to bring seats and refreshments for the three of us. We ended up winging it for two hours: no water, lots of wind.

And since there's no use for sitting around - oh, and there's the dog, who my mom named after Rafael Nadal - I had to walk around the cemetery. Well, memorial park, to be more specific, and to make your mental imagery less creepy. You don't get monuments squeezed in as little space as humanly possible; you get grass interrupted by tombstones. Or tomb tablets, whatever. And when you get tired of walking around just to get your pet dog to follow you, you read all that's written in those tablets.

The clan had this little conversation a week after my grandmother died, about what we would put on the tombstone. We ended up with a Bible verse (that refers to a "him", but I'm sure it can be interpreted, if not rewritten, otherwise - I'm no fundamentalist) but the running joke was this plan to have one of my grandmother's more memorable statements written down there. It was said, apparently, during a visit to my grandfather's hometown in Ilocos, when she was looking at the flowers there, and noticed that they look more vibrant than the ones here.

"Tanginang bougainvillea 'to, ang ganda!" she exclaimed.

Of course, that will not look good in a tombstone, so we ended up with something much more muted.

There's a thrill, for lack of a better word, in reading all those tombstones, figuring out when they were born and when they died. My grandmother's eternal neighbors are mostly old people - some were born in the 19th century, even - but their death dates are wildly disparate. The earliest deaths I've seen were in the 1960s. The nearest occupied plot was, well, occupied for two decades now. Further afield, we have people who died in the past few years - a fact you can easily tell by how their tombstones were embossed rather than made by hand.

Some of the plots were occupied by married couples, and one of them almost always leaves this earth a good two decades before the other. Well, except for this one couple where the husband died in February, and the wife followed four months later. A classic case of heartbreak, perhaps.

Nearby, there's one plot that's occupied by brothers, or so I assume. The older one was born around the time I was born, and died when he was two years old. Nine months later, the younger brother came. He died when he was six.

Closer to the exit there's a row of five tombstones, all belonging to the same (Chinese, presumably rich) family. They're one of the older ones - they were all buried in the 1960s. They all died on the same day. 2 August 1962, if I remember correctly. Five siblings, I assume, the eldest being born in 1947, the youngest being born in 1953. At least their bodies were still recovered. Perhaps a tragic car accident.

Rafa went to sleep, and I decided to sit on the pavement. My dad was trying to keep the candles by my grandmother's grave lit when a man, probably in his 50s, walked by and looked at her grave. Dad engaged in small talk, and I tried to eavesdrop. The guy was visiting his wife, who worked in a factory, although not as a factory worker. She was in a management role, but she was exposed nonetheless to the bad side of the factory, and died a few months back of a lung tumor.

And then the conversation shifted to how close we live to Metro Manila, despite the fact that we technically live in Cavite.