at least its justified bitterness.

the trend is forever a trend. at least in my case.

quite difficult when she likes somebody else. life becomes too focused, too isolationist. renders everything outside of that zone void. at least for her.

i got a scoop. the truth of which im not sure still holds. he doesn't like her... yet? continue disbelieving or you're bound for some utter disappointment. at least i REALLY care.

so here i am. doing the chase. while he just sits on his ass. tsk. you see, at least i'm trying.

its such a complicated situation.

its a bitch. a son of a bitch.

blah

blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah. thats all i wanna say as a starter, or maybe at all. my mind seems to be preoccupied with specific matters at the moment, bothering me from time to time.

for now, i'll just keep everything to myself. and maybe some selected friends and cousin...

speaking of my cousin, he made it to dlsu. but not to ateneo. and for some time, say a couple of days, ive been "encouraging" (the need for " " to refer to "forcing" more nicely, hehe) him to go to ateneo instead of that school on the other side of the world. =) yet, ever since we found out he didnt make it, now im just "encouraging" him to ask for a reconsideration, which he's not quite enthusiastic to do. di pwede! go 'teneo! mwahahahaha.

my uncle from the states is here for a month or so. last night, we just all gathered together. except of course my family... anyway, it was fun. lots of pens! haha.

discovered out of bloghopping

as i was bloghopping at 2 in the morning, i came across this blog called Journeys of a Bumbling Investor. considering my guilty pleasure in finance, i found it one of the more interesting blogs. the more wonderful thing was, it led me to this finance/accounting site. about 30 minutes to an hour was spent reading up on expensing stock options, the black scholes model, and steve jobs' commencement address last june 12, 2005 to the graduates of stanford university. here are some excerpts:

Corporations are feeling the pressure to classify stock options as an expense, as shareholders across the globe lobby for increased transparency in the wake of the Enron and WorldCom accounting scandals.

Typically, an option plan gives employees the right to buy company stock at a certain price - the strike price - which is usually the market price on the date of the grant of the options.

Under current US accounting rules, companies can choose whether to deduct option costs from expenses or disclose them in the footnotes.

Proponents argue that if we don't require expensing, companies will go on showering top executives with outlandish option awards worth millions.

Opponents argue that they are an effective recruitment and retention tool and that, if expensed, would hurt most employees and not senior executives. They argue that senior executives looking at the bottom-line will simply cut out broad-based stock option plans.

Initial research indicates that as companies begin expensing options, they are almost certain to get stingier about handing them out because it will hurt their bottom line.

and in 2004...

The nation's accounting-rule makers unveiled their long-awaited proposal to require that employee stock-option compensation be treated as an expense on corporate income statements, starting next year.

The proposed rules by the Financial Accounting Standards Board promise to considerably alter investors' perceptions of many companies' financial performance by reducing the figures that companies report for earnings and -- in a previously unreported twist -- operating cash flows.

you can opt to stop reading this if you find this too uninteresting and/or geeky. however, the fact that you reached this part tells me that there must have been some spark of interest on your side. anyway, here's something on options, whose value [specifically, european type put and call stock options] is computed by black scholes model:

The idea of options is certainly not new. Ancient Romans, Grecians, and Phoenicians traded options against outgoing cargoes from their local seaports.

When used in relation to financial instruments, options are generally defined as a "contract between two parties in which one party has the right but not the obligation to do something, usually to buy or sell some underlying asset".

Having rights without obligations has financial value, so option holders must purchase these rights, making them assets. This asset derives their value from some other asset, so they are called derivative assets.

Call options are contracts giving the option holder the right to buy something, while put options, conversely entitle the holder to sell something.

Payment for call and put options, takes the form of a flat, up-front sum called a premium.

and that's all for finance now. and learning. and nerdness.

excerpts taken from here.

crazy little thing called love

hanging out with friends with no concrete goal to be accomplished towards the end of the meeting, but to simply have fun and catch up with each other's life, is not always as plain and simple as it seems. because in that catching up, the very life stories told, more often than not, contains within themselves issues that need to be tackled, criticized, and resolved. and from these issues one learns, as he does his own thinking to help out the friend. while one's credibility and usefulness as a friend is put at stake upon the utterance of the bits of advice for him, still it allows for one to concretize or at least form even a vague stand about the issue, which when deliberated further could lead to one's own learning.

as i was with a couple of friends this evening, it has always been our group's favorite activity to talk about love. over a cup of coffee, we talked about the situation of a friend who seems to be torn between two persons. he can't quite make up his mind as to how to go about with his GF of 3 years. they're not on the brink of breaking up. it's just a matter of less frequent communication and togetherness. [at this very moment, i am led to think about my own story by the music playing on iTunes. i'm losing focus. "...your face lights up whenever he appears. i wish you'd look at me that way..."] as it appears now, he's staying in the relationship for the sake of being in that relationship. he finds interest in constantly talking to other girls, while the GF worries about the two of them. to cut the story short, he doesn't know whether he still wants to be in that relationship. he still loves her. daw. but he seems to like some other girl. i just said, maybe they need to cool off for a while to let him assess the situation. perhaps he only finds interest in meeting new girls from time to time. but that they're not for some stable relationship in the future. maybe he has to see whether after meeting so many girls, he would still come back to her.

perhaps we sometimes have to detach ourselves from the things that we're very much attached to in order to see where we're standing. because that attachment limits us from seeing things at a deeper level. we're stuck at the present. that attachment drowns us into taking things as they are, depriving us of the chance to see and understand deeper. we see our position as the most beautiful and ideal, without really letting us see what things really mean. only if we detach ourselves could we get rid of our own biases, allowing us to see more objectively. moreover, it affords us of rationality, because we're able to weigh things and see which one matters more or which one we really think is better for us. although of course, it still is subjective. hmmm. let's say there's more objectivity in its being subjective.