It's that time of the day when I wish I chose the hard way out

This is unfair, so unfair 

To you

I'm sorry

A Letter from Pupu to Her Estranged Father

Hi Dad!

        This Bianca lady has taught me how to write and speak in English with astounding fluency. She still has the copy of your English 12 research paper draft murdered with red ink by that Ensomo lady. I've skimmed through it and am now equipped to say that, despite being a kitten, I have better mastered the language, if in a shameful comparison to my estranged father.

       Life without you has been quite turbulent. First, this lunatic Bianca locks me in an old empty house that reeks of cigarette butts and dead relatives. She was under the illusion that I preferred dog food over what was really meant for my species. . Her series of stupidity lasted a week: Everyday she'd walk around the house screaming "Pupu" attempting her best imitation of your voice and idiotic accent. I laughed as I watched her at her wit's end, looking through every single nook and cranny of that big smelly dump she forced me to believe was home. She left me locked in with nothing but dog food and ghosts to interact with--the least I could do was give her a horrible time looking for me. That lunatic was so worried, it reached a point where she even invited a bunch of smoking losers to help her look around that giant dump hoping their sub-par hunting could outskill my feline abilities. Dumb ass. 

    After a week, your dumb ass lunatic ex finally decided to take me to her house. I met a bunch of even dumber creatures there. I received a pleasant welcome from this friendly hairy creature that looks like the hybrid of Hagrid and a feather duster. I think his name is Stalag, I'm not sure. He kept sniffing my pink butt as if he were waiting for me to shit some Alpo or something. He had a tiny wife who just kept lying down on the couch with her tongue out. She was so ugly I'm not even shocked by how attracted he is to my pink cat butt. They were pleasant creatures. Stupid--but pleasant. 

  Dad, I will cut through my bullshit memoirs and proceed to my important news: I think I've found the alleged murderers of my brother. The moment I entered your lunatic ex's room, I could already smell their pheromones all over the place. I have no proof that these really are the ones who killed Socrates, but somewhere in my tiny kitten gut, I feel it. I just know. I really wanted to jump on them and scratch their eyeballs out, but they were so much bigger than me. Oh and did I mention, these murder suspects are really really beautiful. I'm not sure, I think I've seen them on television once. They really look like leading actors in Puss N' Boots. Their fame and beauty make my pursuit for justice ten times more difficult. If I take any action now, I fear that all the neighborhood cats would come for their defense. So I guess right now I just have to settle with peeing and pooping on everything they own. I have slowly marked the whole second floor as my territory and am winning the love of every person in this house. Would you believe me if I told you that even the John guy with a mustache now adores me too? I learned from the best, thanks dad.

One more thing, another reason I'm writing to you apart from updating you on my justice hunt and letting you realize how stupid my foster mother is, I also want you to know that I'm very alarmed by your recent facebook status. Is it true that you're even considering not coming back for me? Please rethink your decision and get me out of here, ASAP.

With much love and falling fur,

Pupu

13 Things I've Learned from 3 Horrible Semesters of Political Science

13 Things I've Learned from 3 Horrible Semesters of Political Science

I'm halfway through my junior year and I think I'm about to faint. I'm surprised I haven't yet.

1. A great RRL can never be done in one day
Contrary to your ego's belief, your crammed RRL isn't that great. Just because you worked hard for it, doesn't mean it's any great. And besides, a fruit of an all nighter isn't a fruit of hard work--it's a fruit of cramming.

2. Love what you are doing
If you find yourself out of love and filled with aversion for all those damn theories, question your decision to be in this course. If it still doesn't work, try harder. Force it. Watch news as much as you can; it will get you interested. It's a great orgasmy feeling when you watch TV and suddenly apply your class theories to the issues. Whoo-pieee-dooo!

3. Beadle for your hatest class
Nope, the best part of beadling isn't the "one letter grade up" myth. Some professors don't believe in giving the beadle extra credit so don't count on that. What's surprisingly beautiful about beadling is how you find yourself burdened with responsibilities beyond your own grade's sake and are now forced to actually go to class. You will be compelled to know when all the tests are and when all your homeworks are due. Another bonus is that you'll have access to everyone's grades when you're tasked to keep or distribute the returned tests. It helps to know where your current grade stands in your class.

4. Do not ever try to converse with a Lit major about your theories or with a Philo major about your philosophers.
Everything is the same, but everything is different. Just because they're both called Realism, doesn't necessarily mean they're the same thing. And no, don't every try to converse with anyone else about your readings. I'm sorry but no one else knows Kenneth Waltz, Hans Morgenthau and Deborah Yashar. Just you.

5. MECO people invest in stocks, we invest in vocabulary.
When you read too much ThoughtCatalog, you end up sounding like a menstruating hormonal peaking fifteen year old going through her life's biggest heartbreak. When you watch too much Jersey Shore, you end up sounding like...well, a ditz.(Also: I think I've spent too much time Buzzfeeding, it explains why I am now blogging in a didactive ordinal form now) The same principle stands for class. When you read enough class readings... hopefully you will end up sounding like a polsci major. Read as much of your readings as you can (without dying) If you do so, you'll notice after a whileyou'd sound a little bit more scholarly (or a little bit more boring, but still, scholarly) with very minimal effort. Immerse yourself in political science jargon and before you know it, the boring, I mean, scholarly, language will come naturally

6. Always cite your sources ASAP
 It doesn't really matter if it's just a draft. Making notecards will forever be the bane of everyone's existence. Use post its or in-text it to make sure you won't confuse the different authors. If you don't, you will regret. Your teachers DO CHECK your citations, even when you don't turnitin.

7. Make friends with upperclassmen from your department, form your course and from your program.
They will make everything easier for you. And of course, studying is more fun with a smarter older more experienced friend. (Thank you Richmond, Yoj and Loree. You guys make my life so much easier)

8.  DO NOT EVER view your course as merely a means to an end, or a stepping stone to lawschool or your political career. 
Polisci is your end. Brainwash self. Repeat 200x or else all your work will be half-assed half-baked with a really crappy bibliography.

9. Always, always, always schedule for consultation
When you feel like your paper is excellent, think again. IT'S NOT. It probably even sucks. You will always always always have an error you'd fail to notice, even if you review your paper one hundred thousand times everyday. Working hard for your paper doesn't make it infallible.

10. When National Bookstore goes down to 80% off, run to the polsci books right away 
No one wants to buy them so they're really cheap. I think they go down to 50 pesos sometimes. You don't have to be a pretentious prick and pretend to actually read them. Just allow them to dust up on your shelf because one they those books will come in handy, and that long ass walk to the library to meet the two-books-per-bibliography-requirement will no longer be imperative.

11. Every class is a role-playing gig.
When your professor is a Marxist, you enter the class adapting a Marxist frame of thought. When your professor is a statistician, tell yourself that surveys are fun. You can refute them a little, but not too much to brew up tension and a dead zeal.

12. When you have to NOT SLEEP, don't sleep. 
It's better to be sleepy and hungover from coffee for a day than to have failed to pass a paper, and have your QPI haunted for the rest of your college life. If you are drunk, drink coffee, puke it out and drink more coffee (or just don't get drunk) As James Bond has said "There is plenty of time to sleep when you're dead" (...or when there's nothing to read..but really, when does this even occur?)

13. Last, and most importantly: You are not stupid. You are just lazy
READ YOUR READINGS. If they were meant to be skimmed through, they probably would've been called skimmings. BUT THEY'RE NOT. Readings are called readings for a reason.

I haven't really been procrastinating this semester. In fact, I've been trapped in the hardcore workzone for the past three weeks, I just can't seem to understand why I still have so much to do. I've done my calculations: For me to make it through this semester and pass with flying colors, I need to cut my sleep down to 3 hours per night for the next five days.

Bianca, study. Bianca, work. Bianca, research. Do it for no one else but yourself. Do it for your retention. Do it for ASOG. Do it because you want to be like Val.

NOW GET BACK 2WERK