My bad sleeping habits are fading away. I am steadily losing my 6AM bedtime. Now, I can sleep at around 2AM! That's a significant improvement of 4 WHOLE HOURS. Apparently, all I needed was a little more physical activity during the day to use up my energy. In Manila, all I did was study and walk and eat and sit down. Here... I still basically do the same thing with a little more walking and eating. I love walking, especially if it's warm outside and there are no pesky rainclouds blocking the sun. Walking lengthens your travel time and allows you to think to yourself longer. This past few days, I walked to my classmates' houses on a whim. I just wanted to drop by and say a few Hi's and How are you's and No, I don't think so's and You've grown's. I got to meet a few of them before I finally decided to go home.

I must admit, I spend more than hour just lying in bed and wishing I would just fall asleep. About 15 minutes of that time, I wonder how I look when I am about to fall asleep. I also want to know when I fall asleep. You know how you wake up in the morning after a long night of tossing and turning and you wonder at what time of the night you actually fell asleep? Well, I want to know that moment and realize that this moment is upon me: that moment when I am about to fall asleep. Seems impossible though.

I went to my friend's house earlier. So, I was walking to her house when I saw this huge white mongrel [with short hair and a long snout] by their gate, under the supposed doorbell. I hesitated whether or not I should just approach the dog and ring the doorbell, being unsure of the dog's identity. I certainly didn't think that the dog was my friend's. Hence, it was either the neighbor's or a stray. I feared the latter, for oh how rabies disrupts the nervous system.

So, I stayed a safe distance from the dog and shouted "Ayo!" [Tao po equivalent in Bisaya] a couple of times. The dog inched his way to me. Slowly, paw after paw, moving like the ghost of my death. I'm not a fan of dogs, although I can still stand their presence. So, I increased the volume of my shouting. I'm pretty sure that if you were there, you would have identified the slight quivering of my voice and recognized the smallest hint of a plea for help somewhere within those quivering lines. I tried to keep my voice as strong and firm as possible. They say dogs smell your fear. I say, FnCK the DOGS, WHY THE HELL CAN YOU SMELL FEAR?! T.T

The dog was just 2 meters away and I mouthed curses under my breath. I was all "COME ON NIK. DALIAN MO. THE GATE, I'M AT THE GAAATE. SHIIIIIIIIT." I reached inside my pocket and all I had that I could throw were a number of coins. >.>; I glared at the dog, trying to scare him away. I counted on their primal sense of the food chain, that we are above everyone else, that maybe my superior position in the food chain, relative to the dog, would scare the dog away. However, the dog was still there. But now he was baring his canine teeth [or molars?], or whatever you call the teeth at the sides of the mouth [because in humans they're canine teeth].

Long story short, she eventually opened the gate herself. I threw coins at the dog and the dog was more than happy to oblige to his primal instincts and chased me right to the gate until my friend threw a much larger pebble at the hostile canine.

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