Despite the fruitful attempts to keep myself buried with work and leisure I still couldn’t exorcise all the pre-graduation worries I have been having ever since… well, ever.

I guess this is what happens if I happen to be enrolled in a 5-year course. Last March/April, more than half of my HS batchmates have already earned their undergraduate degree. Some even have a job lined up for them while others, I heard, are pursuing higher degrees. Of course, I have already reconciled with that fact even before I first enrolled in UP. Then again, I never imagined I would be in such an academic distress.

Just as we speak, the COMELEC is getting ready for the nationwide vote canvassing to determine who will take the seat in the Senate, Congress and Local Government.

Wow. Is it just me or does the above sentence sounds like a Ryan Seacrest line in American Idol? Then again, the excitement that is the National Elections is different from American Idol or Pinoy Big Brother for that matter. Haha, that would be a show. Put them all in a house across ABS-CBN and I bet you all of them would not stop bickering. Of course there will be some who would be all too pa-cute for the audience while a handful might be even plotting to oust kuya.

I have been disappointed with the whole system ever since events that transpired over the years. Sure there were few shinning moments of hope but wouldn’t it be nice if we live in a country wherein everything is smooth sailing and revolution is unnecessary? And don’t get me started with the P3.9T debt. At these times, all I can do is sigh.

Still, I hauled my lazy ass in the car and went with my family to Bulacan and voted. It will take days to see if the toll and gas was worth the time, effort and 5 ballots. I just hope the disappointment would lessen if not disappear altogether.

As a celebration for my sister’s 20th birthday, she and my mom decided to spend it in Puerto del Sol in Bolinao Pangasinan. It has become a tradition in the family to go someplace new every year especially in summer, although there were times that we went to some places at least twice.

The place was nice considering it was Pangasinan. For those of you who didn’t know, the beaches surrounding Pangasinan has become somewhat tourist-unfriendly because of aquaculture — particularly the bangus industry. Snorkeling would definitely be unsatisfying if you have already been to beaches and islands known to be as poplar diving spots. The view above the shoreline is another story. The developer must have made it a point to infuse the away-from-the-city-paradise feel so that customers would keep coming back, which makes it a plus factor for me. As a matter of fact, a couple was getting married on the night of the 30th.

Too bad we didn’t have time to visit the Hundred Islands. Alaminos was about 45 minutes away from Bolinao and my parents would rather be home as soon as we can.

All in all, I guess I could summarize the trip to be bittersweet. I just couldn’t help to be distracted amidst the loveliness of the scenery. And if you know me personally, you would have guessed why.

Here are some of the pictures of our trip!

First and foremost, I have a new layout (again)! And this time, I made it all by myself.

That means, I can tell everyone with a straight face that I am pretty much familiar with PHP and CSS.  Woohoo!

Special thanks to Stock.Xchng for the free use of the photo in the header and footer, Theme Viewer for the free themes I can choose to base my site on, and, of course, my Dearest for all the useful tools and tutorials. Talk about spoon-feeding. I really do feel spoiled.

Even if I pretty much like the layout and the site will stay this way for a very long time, I would still like to read more about PHP and MySQL. I got excited to see that PHP has a similar form as C — only that it is used for webpages. Since I’ve been programming in C ever since first year College, studying the conceptual part of PHP was like a breeze making me inspired to dig deeper in the topic. Kiko also gave me a brief explanation about the bugs in the ESC website he was working on and I was interested to know the details of it all. That means, I should learn more about MySQL databases and how to process them to understand the bugs better. Who knows? Maybe I get to help him on the website. Would that solidify my geekiness? Hehehe, maybe.

Now that site layout is done, I could concentrate on the actual content of the site. I have been meaning to write a post on the family trip I just had more than a week ago so I better start with that.

I really hope everyone likes this layout as much as I do. BTW, I already used a higher JPEG compression for the images so that it could load faster. It would be nice if I actually have feedback on the layout *hint* leave a comment *hint*

As anyone can see, I have changed the site’s layout to a more personal design. This way, I have smaller chances of having the same look as another random blog.

Don’t get me wrong, though. I still have yet to read on PHP to implement hardcore programming. Thanks to the WordPress Theme Generator and a few photo manipulations here and there for my header and I was done. WYSIWYG modules still works for wordpress newbies like me. Not that I hated the new theme, I pretty much like it. This gives more character to the objective of the blog anyway. Learning more about PHP would allow me to tweak the layout at the point when self-nagging comes to an end.

By the way, the photo in the header came from stock.xchng — the best site to go to if you’re looking for free images for your own personal use.

Suddenly, I find myself with tons to do despite not being enrolled this summer.

For one thing, preparations for all Engineering Student Council (ESC) events have started. Now, I’m actually relieved that I’m part of the Engineering Cup instead of the Opening Week. I might not take the nightly meetings too well considering the massive traffic on the way home.

Next in line are the Department events, which come simultaneously with the Eng’g-wide events. All my other co-reps are gravely overwhelmed with our situation. It was hardly a week after all the tasks for Recognition rites and here we are again. I do hope the list for our volcorp grows. We badly need all the help we could get because quite frankly, large events is too much to bear for 7 people (correction, 6 — one is still on vacation till June).

Last is my personal blog. I’m still using the wordpress theme from my old wordpress blog. I want to create a personalized template for Same Blank Space but sad thing is, my website programming has become rusty… if not outdated. Heck, I am not even familiar with PHP! Shame on me! The reading list just keeps growing and growing. It’s funny that my programming language is expanding compared to the other language.

Let’s take a look:

Spoken Languages: English and Tagalog (observe the absence of any foreign language )

Programming Language: Basic HTML, C, BASIC, Assembly, MATLAB IDE and DSP (Digital Signals Processing) board programming (coming soon: PHP and FPGA — Field Parallel Gate Arrays)

I wouldn’t be surprised if my English keeps on deteriorating.

****

Not all to-do list have to be draining.

Fortunately for me, I have two events to look forward to: the Family outing in Bolinao, Pangasinan and the Movie Date with my moviemate the day after (Yay! Malapit na ang Spiderman 3!).

For someone who is supposed to be bored this summer, I could use a little r and r.

I finally have a personal domain! Yay!

I now welcome everyone to my permanent home in the web: rishalopez.net. For now, I’ll be redirecting everything to the blog. If time allows, I could actually create a decent index page and all the other pages that I’ve been planning (photo blog, online resume, etc. — talk about ambitious!)

Lots of thanks (and kisses) to my sweet Dearest. I really really love my gift. And shame on me by not having any gift for you on our anniversary. Bawi na lang? Heehee.

Now, I gotta show this off to everyone. I have a domain! Yay!