Last year, for the most part at least, was somewhat interesting. I somehow managed to not only graduate my master's degree, but I did so with distinction. If it weren't for 2 "A-" grades I would have had a perfect 4.0 GPA. Not bad for a chronic slacker like me. I also spent a month in my native homeland the Philippines. Although I didn�t spend nearly enough time over there on the beach or in the nightclubs as I would have liked, it was a beautiful trip nonetheless. I could totally see myself living there someday. It�s just a different life out there.

2008 wasn�t without its imperfections however. I was passed over not once but twice for a position in my company that opened up in Phoenix. Part of me is pissed off about the whole thing, but another part of me feels glad because I�ve been awakened to the possibility of just picking up and moving to a totally new place. Although I love Chicago and I�ve been here my whole life, somehow I feel that the next step of my evolution involved me stepping away from �the familiar� and all the baggage that comes with it, family, friends, work all of it. Once the economy gets a little better and companies start hiring I may start looking into a change in venue.

The past year has also proven to be fruitless in terms of the opposite sex. Yeah, so what else is new? I pretty much blame this entire past year (and the many years before that) on me being picky, perhaps much more picky than I deserve to be. I don�t know. Is it too much to ask for someone that�s both physically and mentally attractive? I suppose it might be just a little bit. What�s even more frustrating is that the women I�ve found most attractive wind up being the most unavailable. I suppose it makes some sense, because females who have stellar personalities and looks to match wind up being magnets to the opposite sex. They usually have no problem finding a partner because, for the most part at least, guys come to them.

It�s not like I�m attracted to taken women on purpose either, it more like me getting attracted to a female first then finding out later that she�s �taken� in some way. It�s frustrating to say the least. What�s beginning to disturb me however, is that I�m starting to entertain the notion of going for some of these women who I am both attracted to and are in current relationships.
What�s even stranger is that I�m starting to be swayed much more by intelligence than by looks. In the past the chick with a cute face and a nice rack would have sufficed. Who cares if she couldn�t hold an intelligent conversation? Now I�m finding that it�s the intelligent conversation that makes me cream in my pants. What the fuck? I suppose that makes things slightly more challenging for me because now I have to open up and converse more, you know to see if the chick I�m talking to also has brains. That kinda sucks because I like being the �strong, silent type� of guy. It�s sort of my trademark.

Fuck it all. I think it�s time I reassess my so called �code of honor�. Instead of asking whether or not she has a boyfriend and then retreating when she smiles and says the almost inevitable �yes, we�ve been dating for X amount of months/years/whatever�, I should just go for it. If there�s an attraction and she doesn�t have a ring on her left ring finger and she doesn�t have an obvious boyfriend standing next to her then its fair game. Who knows, maybe she�s looking to �trade up� because let�s face it, I�m the fucking hotness, or better yet, she may be actually single and interested.

The worst that can happen is that I get turned down buy hey, at least I could say that I tried, which is much more than that I�ve done for all of 2008 and all the years before that. That�s a hell of a long time to go without even trying, and I�m fucking insanely stupid for letting it go on for that long. All the lame excuses like me focusing on school and whatever silly excuses I�ve come up with in the past, I should just fucking leave them all in the past.

There are a few more things worth mentioning, but I�m hung over as fuck and my brain is not flowing as quickly as I would like, so I�ll just leave things at that last thought and save it for another blog entry. Until next time...