ENGEL COLLECTS...

Engel is by any means, not rich. But being single and having not that much reason to save money for, he sets aside a certain amount of his salary for his hobbies. His collections.

He does not collect alot of things, as the ones that he currently does are quite costly. Some of it, he's only able to purchase if he has a bonus from work. Some, he begs for from his aunt in the States to send to him. But regardless of how he got those things, it always makes him smile when he sees them all together.

COMIC BOOKS: This one he has a huge collection of. He started when he was in grade school. He remembers the first one he had being GI Joe which his dad bought for him to encourage him to read. Back then, he only asks to be given titles that had pretty pictures in it. Although he liked the X-Men then, he often buys other titles just so he could brag about it to his classmates. When he got older, he realized that there is a reason, comic books have numbering in it. Stories oftentimes do not end in one issue, there are also times when a single story is not continued on the same title. That's when he started backreading older titles and following a certain comic.

He does this to detach himself from the stresses of the real world. A sort of escapism. For Engel, it's nice to read about good triumphing over evil. Of super powered beings and gods with human problems. Sometimes, he reads them because they just have really good stories. And yes, he even reads a title because there are pretty pictures too. To date, Engel's probably bought a thousand titles. And during long weekends he finds time to try to read them all.

PERFUME: This collection he got from his father. You see, When Engel was a kid, and his father was working abroad, oftentimes his dad would bring home tens of bottles of perfume. Some smelled nice, while others just look pretty. So when he graduated from grade school, as a gift from his parents he asked if could be given a bottle of RL's Polo Sport. That's how it started, he usually just asks for a bottle of anything from his favorite aunt in the States, but when he started working he decided to continue on.

Engel likes looking at his perfume cabinet. He's got about 30 different perfumes right now, alot of it are almost empty. He's grateful that his mom often brags about this collection to family members from abroad because everytime someone comes over to stay for a vacation in their house, he's often given a bottle of perfume.

Before, Engel purchases a bottle once a quarter, but when his finances got a little unstable, he stopped. Now, he only buys twice a year, when he's sure he's got enough budget to last him a month.

STAMPS: This started because he wanted to be in with his neighbors. When he was a kid, there came a time when collecting something was a cool hobby. His neighbors collected coins, pog bottle caps, model cars, and pornographic materials. His comic book collection was then small and uninteresting to his playmates, so he asked for advise from his mother.

Fortunately, his mom kept some old letters from her exes and other relatives and told Engel that stamps could be collected too. Immediately Engel took all the stamps from all the letters that his family got, bought a stamp album and brought it everywhere he went. He'd trade with other collectors, buy some from his friends and begged his classmates.

The oldest he got was a 1947 stamp from Netherlands that he had to bully out of a younger playmate.

PENS: Most of his pen collection's gone now, but he did start collecting ball point pens during his college and early working years. It started in college when the law student he was drooling over for most of his senior year left her pen on the bench where she was studying. He lied to his classmates when they caught him picking it up and putting it in his pocket. He just said he likes collecting pens. In fairness to Engel, the pen was the multi-colored one so it didn't look like just a regular pen, and him a stalker.

But he did live up with that lie. He started keeping (not stealing) fancy and expensive-looking pens that were left on tables at school. He collected those that have the name of a company, and started keeping them in a cabinet. That lie took a life of it's own and became a hobby.

It stopped when he thought it's become too ridiculous because he started buying pens that are worth hundreds of pesos. Because most of those pens stop working a week after his purchase.

Right now, Engel wants to collect snow globes from his travels. He's only been to one country outside of the Philippines, but if given the opportunity, he'd continue doing that.

Care to share, Engel's dear readers what you collect?