We took an aptitude exam at the office today. Clearly, a lot of us in publishing think alike, because we all hemmed and hawed the moment we realized the test involved a significant amount of math.

“But we chose to work in publishing because there shouldn’t be any math involved,” someone groaned. Several echoed her sentiments, myself included.

But after the initial round of complaining, we settled down to answer the questions, complete with scratch paper. I hadn’t done a serious aptitude test since taking the GRE; the others were even worse, since the last exams they took were college admissions tests. Charmagne our beauty editor wailed, “This is bad for my self-esteem!”

It wasn’t bad at first; there was mostly basic algebra and problem solving. Then maybe a few permutations, and some numerical logic. Then fractions (which I hate with a passion). As I clicked on the key to submit the more difficult math-related portion of the exam, the computer screen went blank—and all my answers were gone. Had I been in an actual entrance exam, I would’ve had a meltdown.

I redid the answers and moved on to vocabulary and word association. Most were easy enough, but I encountered a word I hadn’t read in a while: caudal. It’s not a word you use in everyday matters (by the way, it means ‘near the tail’ or something like that), but there’s no way that I’ll be forgetting that word soon because ‘caudal’ is the last name of the dude I had a crush on in my prepubescent years. It’s a funny, silly story: he was my busmate back in the fourth grade, and that crush stretched on until third year high school. Even when I was sort of going out with someone back then. The ultimate example of unrequited love (though it wasn’t love), I haven’t seen him in over 11 years.

How did his last name help in the exam? Well of course, being the infatuated teenager back them, I Googled him. He didn’t turn up in any valid search engine results (just checked now—he still doesn’t, to be honest), but there were a lot of references about the ‘caudal fin.’ His name appeared in a lot of biology-related charts, like so:

A diagram of a fish depicting the caudal fin

So that was my Slumdog Millionaire moment for the day. Hey K. Caudal*, if ever you read this, don’t worry—I’m not stalking you, and I’m perfectly happy with my boyfriend now. The reason I can blog about that embarrassing crush so casually nowadays is that I’m secure with my past, and I have no hang-ups whatsoever about that particular issue.

It also helps that the boyfriend is cuter than the former crush. Not necessary, but good to know anyway.

* I had initially written his whole name, but a friend pointed out that if he ever does a vanity search on Google, this would be one of the top results. Not that I mind it if he ever sees this, but I’d rather that it wouldn’t be one of the top results (I checked it earlier and it already was).

Remember that guy I had an obsessive crush on for years? While going through some random people on Facebook, I saw his sister’s profile. Curious, I checked out some of her photos; lo and behold, crush boy was there in a smattering of family photos. I’m a stalker, I know. Now, I’d always been curious about what he looked like since I gave up my Friendster account eons ago, because he apparently never got into Facebook.

Not to be shallow, but the first thing that came to mind was “Whew, thank goodness he never paid attention to me back then.” What a disappointment! I had a huge crush on him forever and he looked almost nothing like the disarmingly cute boy he used to be. I’m sure he’s doing okay now (I honestly have no idea what he does), but man, oh man. I shouldn’t have looked at that photo—it completely changed the (glowing, backlit) image I had of him since then. He should be about 28 now—more than twice the age he was when he was my busmate. Ah well, reality bites!

So kids, when in doubt about the quality of your photos online, delete. Or untag, at the very least.

Not my lola, but you get the idea.

While hanging out at Adarna Food and Culture a couple of weeks ago (one of the best Filipino restaurants in the city, by the way), a slambook encased in glass caught my attention. Amused by my reaction at the musty old pages, Chef Giney Villar explained, “Slambooks were your lola’s Facebook.”

Well, I’m old enough to have gone through a couple of slambooks/ autograph books in grade school. I remember obsessively reading the pages that my longtime crush filled out on my sister’s autograph book—unlike most guys, he actually filled it out in great detail despite not knowing who owned it (the dedication started with “Dear whoever you are.”) It was because of that The Little Mermaid autograph book that I knew his address, favorite food, favorite color, most embarrassing moments… ehem. Where was I?

Anyway, I eventually lost it because—I firmly still believe—a classmate of mine who also liked him stole it.

And no, he’s not on my Facebook. Last time I saw him was on Friendster several eons ago, and even then, I realized he was no longer the disarmingly cute boy I had an on-off crush on for about 10 years. (He was my busmate for a couple of years and always hung out at my all-girls’ school. I had a crush on him in the fourth grade and eventually asked him out to the prom. By then, he was in college. He said no. Yes, I was that pathetic).

Someday, I’ll go into greater detail when I feel like embarrassing myself even more. The funny thing is, it turns out he was the batchmate of my boyfriend in Ateneo, although J doesn’t know him at all.

But I digress. Some of the pages from the aforementioned slambook were posted on Adarna’s Facebook page, presumably so people could laugh at how dated the dedications are—and how. Check out these gems:

"If you will marry a man, don't marry a flirt. Marry a man who can wash his shirt. Just me, Ben." Sure, I'm all for that. I'm lousy at doing my own laundry, much less some dude's sweaty shirt.

You gotta hand it to them for painstakingly cutting out their photos and pasting them on slambooks (and no, it is NOT spelled as "slum books.")

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