90+ sips of hot lemon-honey-water concoction later...

skipping school on account of being sick just isn't as glamorous as it used to be in elementary school. at least back then, classmates would consider it a streak of luck that you got to miss school - in 4th year univeristy, it just isn't the same. instead of being able to watch morning cartoons, completely covered up in my favourite mickey mouse and ghostbuster flannel blankies, and being able to smell the lipton chicken noodle soup my mommy would be preparing for me in the kitchen; i decided to overcome the guilt of missing class by catching up on readings, and confining myself in bed.

don't get me wrong, though. besides feeling like your body's on fire, and watching bits of your nose peel off your face with every kleenex-blow, there are still some perks to being sick at home; one of them is being able to achieve sexy-phone voice status when random strangers call your house asking for the wrong person and/or number, and another is all the liesure reading you can do when you get annoyed with the other "required" class shtuff.

today's choice: he's just not that into you: the no-excuses truth to understanding guys by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo. this book has been getting an overwhelming response by its readers as well as most of my girlfriends, and yes, even Oprah - so, i wanted to see what all the hype was about and decided to read it for myself. some of my friends who have read this book had come out of it like they had reached an epiphany in their dating lives, while i on the otherhand, was rather bored and hurting from rolling my eyes so much. no duh he's just not into you if he's having sex with someone else. no duh he's just not that into you if he only wants to see you when he's drunk. and no DUH he's just not that into you, especially if he's a selfish jerk, a bully, or a really big freak - yes, these are actually some of the ever-so-eloquent chapter titles in this book. throughout the whole read, i was thinking, okaay... now tell me something that i didn't know already. sure, this book has its funny points, but dang - i could have easily written what they had to say in much less than the 165 pages it took them to write it.

women really need to see guys as guys, and not these objects on some marble pedestal of ideal perfection. why is that such a difficult concept to grasp? Confucious once said, "Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated". the understanding of guys is more so the same - they're normal, living, breathing, simple creatures whose complexity is only conjured up in the minds of women. who knows, maybe i can see the obviousness of it because i had the opportunity to learn all this in the earlier stages of my life, and unfortunately the hard way, with the added blessing of having enough guy friends who tell me exactly what they're thinking, and sometimes i feel sorry for half the poop we put them through. yeesh.

so much for "leisure" reading.

note to self: from this point on, it might be a good idea to stay away from dating self-help books, even if Oprah did recommend them. :oP