Kids, we have a special celebrity guest blogger today! Say hello to Lauren from laurganism.com. Applaud or die.

Hi! I are a guest blogger and seeing as this is Scientology week, I thought I'd share my unexpected personal encounter with the Church of Scientology at the Manila International Book Fair.

What with work, clothed photoshoots, fattening up at Something Fishy, and making music with Kristel, today was the only day I could devote to helping out Read or Die at the Manila International Book Fair. And by "helping out" I mean standing at the WikiPilipinas booth in a WikiP shirt, being overall useless since they seemed to have all the manpower they need. I had originally signed up to blog for the Read or Die website, but I couldn't even do that using the awesome new iMacs cos the WikiP folks wouldn't let me go to any other site but WikiPilipinas and Filipiniana.Net. Oh wells. So me being me, I sneaked off to wander around the book fair even though I already have a large stack of unread books in my room, no time to read them, and no money to buy new ones.

And that was when I encountered the Church of Scientology.

Aliens! Zombies! Vampires! Dinosaurs! Xenu!

Now, anyone who knows me well should know that I'm not...particularly religious. I already have enough trouble believing that a guy who got nailed to a tree came back to life to save us from "original sin". What more with the notion that all our problems are caused by the spirits of aliens stuck to our bodies. But I was bored and my friends were busy, so what the hell. Let's take the free stress test! And let's have someone from the Church of Scientology capture the moment in binary form because no one will believe me if I tell them about this unless I have picture proof!

Dun dun duuuuun

Any emotionally unstable 21-year old would be the perfect sucker for the Church of Scientology. Especially if the emotionally unstable 21-year old constantly worries about things that she shouldn't really worry about. Like her career or lack thereof. Her dating life or lack thereof. The purpose of life. The meaning of life. The fact that she's starting to resemble a dumpling with every passing day. The fact that she wishes she were a girl whose biggest life crisis is not owning the latest Manolo Blahnik pumps instead of a girl who worries about not being worried about not owning the latest Manolo Blahnik pumps. A complex creature such as myself should have stress levels waaaaaay off the charts.

The arrow barely moved a millimeter when I touched the metal rods of the E-meter.

Is this the face of a stressed-out chick?

"Think of something stressful," the guy suggested helpfully. "What's stressing you out at the moment?"

I paused. "Well, there's this guy. Or was. He stresses me out." I kept my eyes on the meter and thought of every single stupid emo moment I've had ever since I met him. It's ironic that the most "normal" guy who's ever shown a flicker of interest in me should be the one to cause the worst emotional roller coaster ride I've ever been on, dating-wise. But should that really surprise me? "Expect the unexpected" is the underlying theme of my life.

The arrow moved a second too late, and not by much. I was unimpressed. And so was the Scientologist because he suggested that I think of something else that's been stressing me out.

"Work," I replied immediately. "But then you know--who doesn't get stressed over their jobs?"

AHA! STRESS!!!!

Finally, the arrow jerked to life as if possessed by the spirits of otherworldly creatures. "Ahhh," the guy said. "You're stressed." Um, no shit Sherlock.

The Scientologist then began to give me his spiel on Dianetics and how Scientology can help me get rid of stress forever and ever and ever. I was too busy being disappointed to listen. Conning me into joining a religious group that believes in aliens should take absolutely no effort, if it means never having to feel negative emotions for the rest of my life. I had gone into their booth preparing all these little arguments I could defend myself with should I be confronted with a very charismatic speaker. But really - arguing with a believer of something is a lot like talking to a brick wall. So all I did was mumble something about how I'll be back later before getting the hell out of there.