You know how most places nowadays have smoking and non-smoking sections? Well, I was thinking that there should be a children and non-children section. God, I can't go anywhere without some kid squealing its freaking head off.

As you may have guessed I'm not a kid friendly person. I do not go gushing over babies. I do not pretend to like the antics of toddlers. I do not indulge the babble of grade-schoolers. I do not like children. Sure I'm not out and out mean. But it will be a cold day in hell before I volunteer to take care of a little one, especially one that is not my own.

I'm not quite sure how this adverse attitude of mine towards the newborn kind developed. It's just that one day I noticed that everywhere I go there's a crying kid. And I do mean everywhere. And this was just in one day. Subsequently after that I kept on noticing it. If it isn't a crying kid, it would be a bratty kid that keeps on running around, not caring if they bumped into people. There was even this one time that the bratty kid was bumping into people on purpose.

Malls, fast food joints, high end restaurants, cinemas, etc. In my mind it's like there's no place they cannot infiltrate. No place for people to be in where they can just relax and not be frazzled by someone else's child. And it's not like you can deny them entry to these places. They have rights, I know that. But why can't they just stick to certain areas. Areas that are sound proofed.

To me it's like smoking. A smoker willingly smokes even though it inconveniences and even harms the general public with whom they can come into contact with when not in the privacy of their own property. However you cannot deny them their right to smoke either. So in order to achieve balance, most places have designated smoking and non-smoking areas.

It's the same with people who bring children with them. They do this willingly even though some of the actions of their little one inconvenience and may even harm others. Suing parents over such misfortunes are costly and even more inconvenient for the general public. But as I said before, we cannot deny them access to places such as restaurants, malls, etc. So in order to have balance they should have children and non-children areas.

But alas this seems to be a pipe dream, and I may forever be eating to the sound of enraged sobs of some child whose parent doesn't even bother to calm it down. The best I can hope for is that the parents of these children have enough common sense to be considerate enough to try to calm down their offspring. The thing that bothers me more than kids acting up are parents who do nothing about it. I especially hate parents who continue to stay inside the cinema despite the fact that their kid is bawling its eyes out and ruining the whole movie experience for everyone.

When will this end?

The terrorists have struck again and the only thing I can think of right now is that when those criminals get caught I want the families of the victims to have access to them so that they can beat them bloody. It's wrong for me to say that. I know. It's just that even if they do get caught and go to prison it doesn't seem enough. Those people did nothing wrong. They were just going to work and then "BOOM", they wake up and everything around them is in shambles without any warning.

I cannot claim that I can understand why the terrorists hate the west so much. I know they have their reasons. Injustice was done was done to them. The west corrupted the east. These countries keep on meddling in things they shouldn't. But even if these are their reasons, they are not enough to justify killing civilians.

We were under the Spanish rule for over 300 years. And during those years we were abused. Then the United States came and helped us but it turned out that they did that because they wanted to occupy us too. They waged war on the soldiers who wanted us to have independence and not be under another country's rule. We have suffered too. But you don't see us pulling out guns and plotting to bomb people going to work half way around the world.

My heart goes out to London and her citizens. I know you are frightened and won't be sleeping well for awhile, but please know that we support you.

I would also like to say that my heart goes out to the people who may experience having suspicious looks thrown their way because of the way they look. In a perfect world the way we look shouldn't garner mistrust but it isn't a perfect world and the people are wary. I'm not saying that such behavior is right because it just plain isn't but I can't say that I don't see the reason behind it. I basically wish them to have the strength to persevere and to not lose hope that this won't pass.

I don't know what's up with Tom Cruise but lately he's sort of becoming his character in the movie Magnolia. I mean what's his beef with women with postpartum anyway?

I used to admire him for being a good speaker. He's always very civil to people. He's very confident and in control. And usually he talks about things he really knows something about. Now it just seems like he's talking out of his Scientology ass. I'm sure that if he reads this he'll be so freaking mad about me dissing his religion.

And that's the irony here. I mean, I saw an interview with him wherein he said that people who make comments against Scientology are those who know nothing about it and therefore have no real basis for the things they are saying. Then here he is making judgmental comments about Brooke Shields and every other woman who took anti-depressants because of postpartum when he really doesn't know a lot about it. Sure he says that his religion taught him about how there really is no such thing as chemical imbalances and that the symptoms these women are experiencing can be cured by exercise and vitamins but were those people who taught him these facts real doctors? Did he take up medicine? Did he get a degree in human chemistry? Did he by any chance experience postpartum depression even by proxy? No he did not. So he really has no real basis on making these judgments and he should just take his own advice and zip his gob about things he knows nothing about.

It's hard enough for women all over the world who are experiencing this to admit to themselves that they have this problem much less to someone else. Getting help is something that they don't immediately consider because of the great shame they experience of not feeling joy for being blessed by a child. Some of them don't realize that they have it; they just jump out of buildings killing themselves before their problem is ever shared to a single soul. Tom Cruise's comments on how to handle this disease is not helping anybody. If anything else it is endangering the progress that it has already seen and it is also endangering the lives of many women out there who will take his misinformed comments seriously.

I think I'm becoming dumber as I get older. Ok, I'm being dramatic, but I have to admit that I haven't been reading a whole lot of books recently. And it seems that my reading materials are spiraling in a downward pattern. I was doing my reading best in grade school and now stuck reading movie or T.V. tie-ins. It's sad and I can't seem to help it.

In grade school I was reading books required for the higher grades and even for high school. Stuff like the Iliad and Catcher in the Rye. I wasn't really into the classics though, except maybe Wuthering Heights. Love it. Depressing but I loved it.

Then in high school, due to the very sparse collection of reading materials that have nothing to do with any lesson plan, I started reading thriller novels like the ones by Robert Ludlum. When I was super bored and there really was nothing else, I read the books of Andrew Greeley which was mostly about Catholic Church scandals.

College was the start of my descent. I noticed myself getting stuck reading movie or T.V. tie in books. I guess it's because they were easy to absorb. God knows my brain was already being overloaded with so much info during those times. Reading something of real substance was not what I would call as something to relax me. Sad thing is that I can't seem to break out of the habit. Sure, not all of the books I've read these days are T.V. ties ins but they are of the Young Adult category. I can't really say if this is still not good for me or if it's because Young Adult books are really becoming good these days.

The thing is that I need to just get my book passion back. But I think the drive is gone. The only book I'm excited about right now is Harry Potter book 6. And it's a shame because I used to be really excited about books. And not just about the highly publicized ones. I used to love discovering books that are not really known and recommending them to others. I loved the process of getting someone else interested; heck even just talking about a book was enough for me. I miss it.

Anyway in trying to recapture at least part of what I used to enjoy, I would like to impart 5 of the books I enjoyed over the years and would recommend to others.