… and older.

I never thought I’ll ever be 30. I was brought up in such a way that I believed I’ll never have to worry about getting old. Maybe I got that one wrong - doctrines get lost in translation every so often. So today, when I finally did reach that milestone, as I call it, I didn’t want to do anything. I didn’t leave the house. I wanted to skip it, this day that shouldn’t have mattered to me if not for the fact that it gave me the number I’ve been dreading for all superficial reasons.    

What difference does it make, really? Am I fundamentally different yesterday than I’ll be tomorrow? Of course not. I don’t know why I can say that “It’s a good thing some things never change,”  but I did write that to myself. Two years ago, I used a site that allowed me to write a  letter to myself that will arrive today. Amazingly, it did; among other things, here’s what I wrote:

How’s your life now? …
Do you have someone to put a smile on your face on days when you’re thinking  every place  is a crappy place to be in? …
I could quite see the look on your face while reading this…

You can’t say I’m not that insightful. I just know that the look I had when I opened that forgotten letter is the one I’ve been expecting myself to project. Oh, it wasn’t that special. It’s not as if I expected that much nor did I particularly write a heart-wrenching prose to self. On the contrary, I knew then that two years wouldn’t make that much of a difference. It makes me sad just a little. I think now I should’ve expected more or maybe felt that I deserved a little more.

It doesn’t matter now. If ever I can start over, clean slate and all, I’ll start tomorrow. I may be fooling myself but, hey, nothing gives me more satisfaction than that (I am such a liar).

I officially have four books that I really, really want to finish before November ends – Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (Susanna Clarke), Possession (A.S. Byatt), The Hours (Michael Cunningham), and Kafka on the Shore (Haruki Murakami).

That’s just my most wanted list, but I still have a few more books in the shelf that I haven’t finished or even scanned. I got a little crazy over buying used books from Ebay, hence the pile. It’s just that there’s been too many distractions, not the least of which is keeping at least three blogs alive. But I’m getting back to reading. I need to remember how to focus my energy on doing something else away from my personal computer. Now if only I can find a discount furniture store to look for something like a comfortable sofa or anything that I can call my reading “space.”

Ever since I learned about Paypal, I thought right away how cool it must be to use a service like that – just have an e-mail account to use for online purchases and viola! Checkout products without having to expose or reveal your credit crd numbers. It sounds a lot safer than having to use credit cards directly, even for secured Web sites. When I first registered, I can only use the service to send money but not to receive funds. I bought a lot of tennis DVDs that way. I only had to register my e-mail first and then my CITI credit cards. Eventually, accepting funds was allowed for my account and that’s when the real fun began.

The real great use of Paypal for me is its use for international transactions. It’s so easy and convinient to send and receive money from anywhere in the world. Withdrawing funds to your local bank account make take time, though (about 5 days), but the charges are quite reasonable, compared with other payment and money sending options. I’m only hoping that our local online industry will soon pick up and fully utilize this amazing service.