I�m excited to tell you that there�s nothing really new happening in my life. (Yes, I�m being sarcastic.) I mean there�s school of course, which is now in full swing. There�s also work, which has been keeping me busy. They finally transferred someone from my old department into the Help Desk and he�s a couple weeks into the training now and he�s more or less up to speed on the basics. This is a good thing because the other person I work with is expecting and she�ll be due to give birth in the next few months. Our supervisor also moved to our quad so she�s helping out with the phones as well, which will be a necessity when our coworker finally takes her maternity leave.

Although I haven�t been going out quite as often as I have in the summer, I did go out for a friend�s b-day last weekend. It was an OK time. One of the highlights was 2/4 of the Black Eyed Peas, Apl.de.ap and Taboo came out Transit to party with us regular people. I snapped a few grainy pictures on my camera phone so maybe I�ll post it later. Notably missing was Fergie and Will.i.am, but it didn�t matter, I got to see one of my favorite hip-hop artists in the flesh who wrote and performed �The Apl Song� and �Bebot� two songs written in my native language Tagalog. They were totally surrounded by people so I couldn�t get up close, but seeing him live was pretty damn cool anyway.

That night I hung out with friends that I haven�t hung out with in a while because they are all married with kids and the like so it was cool. I also met quite a few of my friend�s friends, mostly female and mostly all bearing some type of engagement or wedding ring on their finger. I found that a little wierd, because normally when I get eye contact usually I move in for the flirtation, but all these fucking rings I've been seeing lately have been really throwing me off. Not that I regret breaking off my last marriage nor am I in a rush to get married again or anything like that, because holding off on all that noise was probably one of the best things I could do for myself considering I don�t really know what to do with my life in terms of the �big picture�. I mean yeah I�m working hard and going to school aiming for that ever elusive fast-paced yet lucrative career, but in terms of the rest of my life, I don�t really have it all figured out.

One thing I have been noticing is, no matter how unready I am for life, it has an almost disconcerting way of passing you by. Time doesn�t wait for anyone I guess, even for people like myself who on the surface at least seem not to care. I feel the ever-growing rift between me and members of the opposite sex who are single as the women closer to my age start settling down and coming off the market, the average age of single women are getting increasingly younger and with that age gap comes the growing rift among the things we have in common and because of it, I feel more and more like some statistical anomaly.

I know there are women closer to my age that are single, but more often than not they seem to be trying to �catch up� with their contemporaries as their list of single friends diminishes, giving way to the whole marriage and family thing. I guess women approaching adulthood also have certain pressures, like being a certain way or accomplishing certain things by a certain age. If anything there seems to be a greater urgency for females to �act according to their age�. Though I can�t really speak for women, I suppose it has something to do with gender role females are supposed to play in society. I suppose they are also trying to stay in tune with their instinct to nurture and to be maternal and finally they are also working against that dreaded biological clock.

I can�t start blaming my situation and everything around me though. The truth is I�m not really all that good with the opposite sex and I have the track record to prove it. Sure, I do have my moments, but they fade fast like warm breath in the cold winter air and I almost always wind up right back where I started, in square one.

Actually I don�t know what I find more unsettling, the possibility that I may spend the rest of my life alone or the possibility that I may grow accustomed to being alone like that old ugly sweater that you don�t throw out because it�s comfortable and it keeps you warm at night. I guess I haven�t reached the latter quite yet. Although I�m managing to not only keep myself occupied without falling into that little pit of despair, I think I�m coming into my own in terms of being single.

Yes, I do admit, there are times when I enjoy the single life, almost too much but I think there will always be a part of me that will miss the presence of feminine companionship in my life and I think somehow that�s what keeps me going. It�s the reason I work hard and push my limits in work and school. It is why I haven�t sunken into darkness after the deaths of the people who were closest to me. I need to be hungry, I need to be not satisfied, I need to be challenged or else I�m never going to move, like the shark who will suffocate if he stops swimming for too long. Maybe this is why I am where I am in my life. Then again who knows?

What I do know is I�m up for a busy weekend. Yet another birthday party for tonight AND tomorrow night, some coffee with my married friends tomorrow, then there�s the Bears game this Sunday. I really hate to jinx it, but I have to say the Bears have done amazingly well at the start of the regular season. Right now they are 3-0 and will hopefully be 4-0 after this Sunday against the Seahawks.

Part of me just wants to relax and do some geek stuff like re flash my phone with the latest firmware, or start a new game of Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City Stories for my PS2 and just sit in front of that all day and night and all day the next day and probably skip showering for one night and pour hot cheese over tortilla chips and call it a meal, but my social life beckons me once again and like shark I have to keep swimming or I�ll suffocate.