This is just my third day in the apartment. I don't even know if I can call it that. I am just several doors down from my house in the family compound. My grandmother, my Memeng, used to rent this out. But now that no one's living here, and since we need a place to stay and mostly to put stuff from the house. There you go, instant apartment.

I am the only one staying here, with mostly my stuff. I moved in, with my computer, my books and magazines and papers packed in boxes. It's amazing how most of my things are totally made up of paper. Scripts, readings and lecture notes, magazines, boxes of books. You can probably compute my entire net worth with books. Which is nil, when you think about it. My clothes are in two suitcases and a rolling bin. I have several chairs with me, a couple of electric fan, a folding bed, some blankets, more than enough pillows, a mat. All I need is a table or a desk, and I can go about my life already. Really spartan. And oh, a phone line. We must not forget the phone line. For most people in the Philippines, they could very well get on without a phone, especially if you live in the more remote areas of the country where there is no electricity or running water, or even radio transmissions.

I didn't think of that when I freaked out the other night when I realized I had no phone line and thus couldn't connect to the internet. But you see, my headwriter from the new show wanted me to accomplish something in time for the meeting the following day, and without an internet connection, I wouldn't be able to download his notes and the previous scripts and I basically wouldn't be able to do any work. I need my phone and my computer in order to work. I don't even have a television here, and I don't miss it. So the phone line is my one concession to bourgeois activities. Everything else is unnecessary.

Ah, rationalizations.