.:Burnout:.

It appears Marcelle is inching his way towards a burnout. All the stress leftover from the holidays are effectively stacking up now with all the stress that are flowing right in from the requirements he has yet to accomplish in class. Couple that with the fact that to this date, he is still in search of justice over his besmirched name, and you can tell that he is far from pleased. All this crud he has been putting up with for the longest time has been nothing short of painstaking, and they are effectively taking their toll on him at this point of his life.

For crying out loud, it’s the last stretch of Marcelle’s college life! What a fine time for him to hit a rut like this, when all he needs to actually do is to persist in the direction he already is in and ensure that he will meet success in that direction, irregardless of the nuisances that may indeed get in the way. There is obviously no question that Marcelle has invested so much of himself into going for the Cum Laude he believes he is deserving of, yet he also realizes that he has far more to accomplish over and beyond that, such as getting a job, staying on good terms with the people who matter, and being a decent human being, however that concept may be defined. With everything caving in on him, and with his inability to point a finger for certain as to where the source of this impending burnout truly is, he is left to do what he can to fight it off for as long as he could. It’s the least he can do, given the adverse circumstances he has to go up against… ah, well.

So with all this negative energy flowing in and out of the Phenom’s psyche, leave it to him to simply take it all in stride. Hopefully. This burnout business seems to happen on a yearly basis, but he’s gone through it enough times before to presumably know more or less what he ought to do this time around.

And so moving out of character…

.:Random Thoughts:.

My gratitude to Imo for giving me the URL to Jimmy P’s weblog. I suppose I have to be reacquainted with the man (Haven’t spoken to him in quite a while.), and I would certainly want to keep up with how things have been going with him. Of course, I have to ask Imo again for the URL because when I double-posted a couple of days ago, the post I deleted was the one that contained her comment.

I haven’t been up to much the past few days except a bit of NBA Live 2004. Unlike Smackdown, however, I don’t intend to overload myself with NBA Live. I don’t think it’s a very smart idea, considering the fact that I still have a 4.0 QPI to catch up with, and that would certainly be no mean feat on my part. Moreover, I really intend to save some money at this juncture, and the best way to do it is by cutting down on my rentals of PS2’s… nonetheless, let’s hope so. I just lost a hundred and eight pesos today because my prepaid LRT card got lost someplace, and I’m still annoyed over it…

Even though I didn’t get to wake up early (Grace had a hand in that.), I still persisted on training for Radio 1 with Chico and Delamar. It was pretty fun, even though it lasted for only a short while. Delamar was engrossed in talking about eighteen-inch German sausages whilst Chico kept on turning it into a very dirty conversation. When they went off the air…

Delamar: Bastos!

Chico: But you started it!

Delamar: I didn’t!

Marcelle: Ikaw kaya nag-set up?

Delamar: Salamat, ha! Kinampihan mo pa!

It was simply hilarious, to say the least. Moreover, while there were very few commercials during the day, I didn’t mind. Too bad Brad wouldn’t be around until next week, but that’s two opportunities for me to train for Radio 1 with no worries about my schedule. I may as well take it while I can. At the same time, Chico was ribbing me about causing the computer in the booth to hang every time I showed up, and I must say, he has some veracity in that claim. I even ran into Selwyn in the booth on that day, as he was applying for a job at RX. Or maybe he was just joking. Still, it’s been a long time since I’ve run into him, and it’s pretty amusing and all.

.:Annoying Barbell:.

SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Nonetheless, afterwards, Grace and I met up in Megamall to watch a film. Expect me to review it soon enough, since I will have the time to do so by tomorrow, hopefully. Believe it or not, it was Captain Barbell that we decided to watch, and I know this is going to preempt myself when I do get around to reviewing the film, but I hated this film with a vengeance when they really botched up the character development. A Captain Barbell that kills without remorse, and a friend of the slain villain who never says a word about it afterwards are two examples of severely blown opportunities to give the story some intelligent degree of complexity. Even Daredevil (Which only got a B from me. Pretty low considering how I look more into the action fix than anything else.) made a point of giving ample development to Daredevil when he killed the criminal in the first sequence of the film. To compound that, dialogue far lamer than an NU Bulldog player smashed on the kneecaps by a steel baseball bat was practically the norm throughout the film. What is up with that? Okay. Enough with that.

OKAY. SPOILERS OVER.

.:Sitting In:.

I sat in on Sacha’s class today, and it more or less sealed the deal for me to get Grace to make a Friendster account for me. Seeing how I myself wouldn’t be the one to manage it, I suppose that’s no problem. It’s similar to the favor I gave Grace by getting her started on LJ, which reminds me that I should be updating my links list soon, as around two new people should be added there…

Anyways, I was enticed to get into Friendster not just because Sacha was in there, and not just because Grace is in there. More amusingly, there’s an account there by the name of “Chinita Babes”, and you can tell that’d tickle my fancy any day of the week. Peppy was so nice enough to tell me about it. Being in Sacha’s class today kind of reminded me that I still do owe her dinner, and I ought to challenge her in a match of Game of the Generals. Let’s face it: I haven’t held a chessboard in three years, so she’s bound to whip me as far as that goes. I may as well go with a game I know I’m good at: psychology.

Interestingly enough, I ran into Eden, a friend of mine. She was nice and all, and she still had that funny voice and that really amusing difficulty of speaking the Filipino language because she’s a Chinese Cebuana. Nonetheless, we were talking, and I asked her how her boyfriend was doing (Excellent way to bait a girl as to whether or not she does have one. Try it! ::winks::)…

Eden: What boyfriend?

Marcelle: Oh. Okay.

Eden: What about you? How’s your girlfriend, Sacha?

Marcelle: What the Hades made you think Sacha’s my girlfriend? My girlfriend’s name is Grace!

I wonder how Sach would react to this. It was sheer hilarity. Grace was actually ribbing me about it, because it sure was a preposterous thing, whether or not I had a girlfriend to begin with…

.:More Philosophical Ramblings:.

After the class, it was Philosophy with Mr. Bulaong, who was talking about habituating virtues. He then brought the topic to conditioning…

Mr. Bulaong: If you want to stop doing something, try wearing a rubber band. Every time you think about doing that thing, or crave to do that thing, stretch the rubber band on your arm, and let it go.

Marcelle: By the end of it, you’ll enjoy hurting yourself with the rubber band.

Mr. Bulaong: Now, Marcelle… that’s a different psychological illness we’re talking about.

Moreover, one of our classmates, whom everyone else seems to find annoying, does bear an uncanny resemblance to Mr. Bulaong. His name’s Arthur, and he sometimes recites more often than should be the mesotes for him. Of course, this grates on those who would rather move the lesson along than stagnate in one of their one-on-one sessions, but hey, it’s a free country.

I told one of the girls who had a yen for our prof that Arthur looked like him, and she reacted a bit against the idea. And then I insinuate how obvious it would be why she would feel insulted, and then she jokingly whaps me for nailing the head with the hammer on that comment…

I’m still left to ponder, though, and I will get more into this by tomorrow, as to whether or not virtue is sufficient for one to be happy. If not, then how do we expect to say that happiness is complete, if external goods in varying amounts have their effects that either enhance or debilitate such happiness?

Annas was talking about how Aristotle reiterates in his work that virtue is not sufficient for happiness, as Aristotle gave stark examples of a man suffering all conceivable misfortunes, yet being virtuous nonetheless. While it is clear that he is certainly far from happy in this respect, one must wonder then why this should be so. After all, isn’t the virtuous man doing virtuous actions for its own sake? Isn’t happiness being sought after for its own sake? These two distinct thinks share this, and both are settled states of being, whereas the other prerequisite for happiness, external goods, are neither settled states of being nor sought after for its own sake. Moreover, isn’t the virtuous man willing to sacrifice external goods when they get in the way of his exercising his virtue? If so, isn’t it conceivable that because a truly virtuous man finds pleasure in what he does, then he wouldn’t mind losing all these external goods, anyway? Wouldn’t this make virtue sufficient for happiness?

While her argumentation made me inclined to believe so, Mich pointed out something very simple: Job. Job was, without a doubt, a virtuous man. Yet wasn’t he rather unhappy when all the misfortunes that could happen fell his way? Is this not a glaring shard of evidence that proves how virtue is certainly not enough for one to achieve eudaimonia?

I am left to believe so, but I think what has to be realized here is that yes indeed, external goods are a necessity, but while you can add something to something already complete, you can either destroy it or the effect is basically inconsequential. I would like to think that the reason that virtue is not enough is that if virtue were enough, if a man were bereft of the means of actually exercising the virtue because of a dearth of external goods, then what is the significance of such virtue that is simply unseen? There is a need for external goods, in that the great piano player will obviously need a piano to showcase his talent. The great basketball player will need a ball and a hoop to exhibit his prowess at basketball. This certainly is reflective of the fact that the virtuous man, given a dearth of external goods, cannot be happy when bereft of those things that aid his being virtuous. While he would gladly part with those that get in the way, what about those that actually enhance his ability to be virtuous yet are ripped away from him, nonetheless?

External goods do have a significant role in ensuring happiness, and in providing an environ by which a person can be virtuous, and even means by which he can sustain such virtuous actions. In this regard, adding external goods to what one already has will simply not make him happier, because one must consider the mesotes in this equation. At the same time, do we even need to quantify the amount of happiness? Is not all that is important here the fact that the person is happy, and the external goods are indeed contributory to it? That, I believe, is the key to understanding the problem Aristotle walked into by claiming happiness to be complete yet also claiming of a value required for happiness that is variable and volatile.