The Mask. Age: 23

Well, I ain't getting any younger, am I?

As you all know by now, I've just turned 23 years old today. Nothing much happened today, save for the annual family dinner that took place this evening.

Oh, and I also took my student permit for my driver's license as well as my community tax certificate. I actually need the latter so that I can process my teacher's license. Considering that I got the "better news" and all a few months ago(which I hope you already knew by now), it really is odd that I don't even have a license to show yet.

As for the birthday greetings, I did get some of them. I got them mostly on Facebook, but only very few of my friends actually greeted. I guess the fact that I blocked everyone from posting on my Wall didn't help things. But it's really interesting to see this phenomenon take place, and I really suggest that you try it. If your Wall is public, then every friend you know would send you greeting; if it's private though, only few would bother sending a private message instead. In the first place, do some users even know that a private messaging system exists on Facebook?

Aside from my direct family members, no one actually greeted me personally on my birthday. It's a bit sad, but part of the reason is that most of my co-workers and students are out on vacation anyway. The ones who were there at school probably didn't know it anyway in the first place.

So what do I wish on my birthday? If you want the sane answer, then I wish that I would soon gain some peace of mind in my life. If you want the crazy answer, then I wish I can become the general manager of WWE Raw and become the future President of the Philippines. How's that for crazy? :-)

(Oh, and if you want a cheap plug answer, then I wish that this fan art of mine can get some love. )

Anyway, that's pretty much it for today. To end this post, allow me to introduce to you to the most legen--wait for it--dary song ever #FandangoRevolution:

Seriously, that crazy crowd in WWE Raw last Monday has kept this song stuck in my head for days.

Well, have a nice day everyone!

Fan Art Cheap Plug

It's great to be back here in theOtaku. *thumbs up*

Yep, cheap pop.

Anyway, I just came by to share to you my new fan arts. In honor of Mick Foley's upcoming induction into the 2013 WWE Hall of Fame, I decided to do a fan art tribute for the Hardcore Legend. In my fan art tribute, I chose to illustrate Foley's most memorable character in the Attitude Era, which is Mankind. Of course, Mankind would also need his sidekick Mr. Socko, so he (?) is also there in the tribute.

Here are the links to the fan works:

Mankind (Mick Foley) - Line Art
Mankind (Mick Foley) - Color
Mankind (Mick Foley) - Digital Color

So yeah, I've made more cheap plugs. *thumbs up*

Have a nice day!

EDIT: I added one more work in my cheap plug. Why? Because Foley is good. *thumbs up*

What's This Harlem Shake?

I don't really get the fever over Harlem Shake. I mean, why are people so gaga over it?

Whenever I watch videos of it, all I see is people dancing randomly with weird stuff. I don't even understand why people would compare this to Gangnam Style. The latter actually had a dance to mimic. With Harlem Shake, there's no fixed dance move at all, making me confused as to why it became so popular.

Seriously, I just don't get it. I don't always call something as stupid, but the videos I've seen for Harlem Shake looks quite stupid.

An "Endangered" Valentine

And we finally have a picture of a chocolate in a post about chocolate!

It's been a long time since my site became quite active in the comments section, and my chocolate post from two weeks ago eventually fixed it. As I read the comments, I've been noticing one brand that a lot of commenters have been suggesting. That brand is the Endangered Species Chocolate.

As I've mentioned before, I actually discovered this chocolate one day while visiting a Healthy Options store. Why would I even visit one, you ask. Because visiting a typical grocery is too mainstream.

One factor in selecting my chocolate is the price. And the price for the Endangered Species chocolate was pretty big for my budget. To put it into context, one 80g bar of that chocolate is worth my wage for one class session in my current job. Or in another context, it's worth the budget that I typically allocate for my lunch for two weeks.

But since Hisaishi, pandaman08, and Haitaka have been suggesting this chocolate, I decided to go ahead and buy one just in time for Valentines Day. As you can see in the picture, the one I bought was the milk chocolate with almonds.

When I took my first bite, my first reaction was: "Wow. It's not sweet." And with 15g of sugar, it seems understandable why that's the case. The commenters seem to have gotten it right: this chocolate definitely focused more on the chocolate itself.

But at the same time, it was also a little bit bitter for me. It might be because my taste buds have been used to mainstream chocolate that this one seemed like a surprise for me.

When I gave some to my mother, though, she didn't like it. She even scolded me for buying stuff that she thought was "not delicious". Considering that other people actually love this kind of chocolate, I think it's really safe to say that people really have different tastes in chocolate, to the point that there's no brand that's universally delicious for everyone.

There's still some of it left in the refrigerator, and I intend to eat it by tomorrow. After all, the price I paid for it is pretty high.

But with uniquely reflective experiences like this on Valentines Day, it seems that I really had an "endangered" Valentine.

"Teacher, what is Rurouni Kenshin?"

With my previous post on Turkish and American chocolates being featured in the main page of the site recently, I'm suddenly having the urge to post more substantial content in the Cafe. So let's move to an issue that had been bugging my mind for the past two months.

Last December, while having a lecture with my students in our developmental psychology class, I suggested to them that they should watch the Filipino film Thy Womb during the Christmas season. The reason for my suggestion was that the story coincided with our lessons on prenatal development and infancy.

While the students were discussing among themselves on my suggestion, I suddenly remembered one other movie that was being shown in our local theaters: the live-action Rurouni Kenshin film.

We were quite fortunate that the film actually got an exclusive limited (and legitimate) release in a nearby theater in our city. And luckily for me, I was able to watch it during that limited release, which lasted for about 2 weeks.

When I recalled that Rurouni Kenshin was being shown in the local theaters, I playfully suggested that they should also watch Samurai X (the more popular name of Rurouni Kenshin in our country) during the Christmas vacation.

One student then raised the question, "Teacher, what's Samurai X?"

My reaction when my student gave that question.

That question totally stunned me. So I asked the others if they knew what Samurai X was. Many of them also said that they didn't know what it was. One student did affirm that he/she knew what it was. That was a sigh of relief for me at that point, but I just made sure to just move on with our other agenda for that class. However, that moment did lead me to jokingly remark, "Man, I'm really old."

That joke of mine does make some sense. Whenever I remember that moment, it makes me realize that times have really changed. Rurouni Kenshin was popular in our country back in the late '90s and the early 2000s. Nowadays, it seems that the teenagers of this generation (such as my students) are no longer aware of that amazing anime. After all, it's been a while since any network in the country tried to air the show. And if they did, there's just very little interest in it.

And like my joke emphasized, that moment struck me as a reminder of my age. I'm 22 years old already, which qualifies me as a young adult. Gone are the days when teenagers talked about that epic fight between Kenshin and Shishio, or the budding romance between Kenshin and Kaoru. Now, they have other anime shows to fantasize over, like the almost-eternal One Piece and Naruto. I guess this type of conversation is now reserved for the young adults of this generation.

Interestingly, though, these students still knew what Dragonball is when I made a joke about it. So maybe it's more of Rurouni Kenshin not being something they watched before, which is still sad because it was a really great anime. I mean, no film production would even consider bringing the live-action film in our country if the anime series wasn't well-loved, wouldn't they?

Or maybe it's because some of my students don't even watch television that much, either because they don't like to or because they don't have a TV in the first place.

Still that moment always reminded me of one thought: "Man, I'm freaking old."