-=(Sagien)=-

How I met Myself

Good morning.

It is friday, and it's time to really think about what you are doing tonight. As you ponder that, I decided to provide you with some self-indulgence. Well, its mostly MY self-indulgence, but I know you'll humor me.

About Myself

I have been thinking about this for a little while, and realized, although I have been writing this blog for over a year[including the stuff that got taken down because of lawsuit issues], I have never really properly introduced myself.

As I was speaking to nmg, an idea came to mind that, hey, maybe I should tell the stories of how I met the people who post comments on here on a regular basis. That'd be cool. Add some depth to the characters that we've made out of ourselves, right?

Well, I didn't know where to begin. Then it hit me. All these other cool blogs have about pages, so I should make one.

Do I use pretty pictures? Nay. There are enough pictures of myself splattered throughout this site, most of them taken in unflattering, compromising situations.

Do I use a 20 questions style analysis of my personality? No. Everyone does that, and really, I am better than Everyone.

So, how does someone like me describe himself in the most egotistical, all encompassing way possible?

Well, I tried pitching the 4 part mini-series to the History Channel. Talks are underway, but it may be years off before this becomes a reality.

So, I'll just write up the general gist of it in 4 parts. That means it won't be finished by today, but it does give me 3 more posts I have to write after this one. Its a win-win.

Let's get started then

Part One: The Philippine Years

Sagien was born in a public hospital. Public hospitals are pretty much the equivalence of public schools. Except in the Philippines, public schools consist of dirt on the ground, a haphazardly placed backboard and basketball hoop/net about 10-13 feet up on a telephone pole, and a "room" much more suited for raising livestock for a classroom.

Public hospitals exist on the same plane back there. The only difference is that there are several rooms that are much more suited for raising livestock that serve as hospital rooms. The only redeeming factor to these rooms is that they do have beds. Sometimes with mattresses.

Having parents of the Catholic faith(more on this later), he was circumsized, much to the delight of his future lovers.

Soon after his birth, he was transfered to the lovely home of his parents in the suburbs of Bacolod City. It was a two bedroom house, with pebbles for a driveway and crab grass for a lawn. The car was a VW bug. Brown, with yellow stripes[not racing stripes since these stripes go along the side of the car].

His parents sent him to a private school, which consisted mostly of brick and mortar buildings built along the sides of paved quadrangles with cement posts and backboards to support their basketball nets. There were even lines on the ground to mark the out of bounds area and the foul line. The three-point arch might've even existed. All in all, it was a step up from anything public.

At around eight years of age, he was transfered over to an apartment in the city. It had more room than the house, and it was cheaper. Rent was about $4 a month. This is where most of the growing up occured. He made city friends, mostly consisting of squatters who lived at the nearby city dump. He was also eventually transfered to one of La Salle's schools that they undoubtedly built to make themselves feel wonderfully Christian about putting a school together in a third world nation.

This childhood was mostly a blur, spent mostly collecting bottle caps for ammo for his bottle-cap gun, catching spiders at his grandfather's farm for highly lucrative fixed spider-fights, or collecting scrap metal to sell at the junk yard for extra cash to purchase gum or play video games at the local setup with 30 famicoms available at 1 peso for 5 minutes for play. It is a 'setup' because it doesn't even deserve the name 'arcade.' This place existed inside someone's living room, a complete stranger.

His mother left for Saudi Arabia and later the U.S.A. for more money. This was the reason why private school for him and his two brothers was made available. Added fringe benefits to his mother's absence were the abundance of Ninja Turtle and Ghostbusters action figures, an NES(not available in SouthEast Asia), and a plethora of different things from the States that made his squatter friends absolutely jealous.

Eventually, right around when he turned 14, his entire family relocated to the United States, leaving 14 years of childhood behind, including close relatives and, most importantly, friends that he decided never to speak to ever again mostly because he was skipping out on the 7th grade tuition from the private school and contact with friends would enable them to trace him. And so begins the great journey about learning about debt and credit, but we'll cover most of that in Part 3.

Next Chapter

Posted by sagien at February 4, 2005 12:26 PM