A Little Bit Of Pixie Dust

Saw the tail-end of the movie Hook yesterday--I think they've been running it on HBO for the last few days. I'm ashamed to admit I've never seen the film in full, but I like to think the main point of the story can be found in those critical final scenes: Hook killing Rufio, a grown-up Peter Pan (played, of course, by the ever-lovable Robin Williams) facing Hook for the last time and utterly humiliating him, and of course Peter and his kids making their way back home. 

It's a timeless tale of the triumph of courage over fear and good over evil, and an affirmation of the old adage, "Home is where the heart is."

Just a link

Call it shameless plugging if you want--it kind of is, anyway--but check this out.  

Notes from the dugout: Boys on the side

Very close to my heart, and all. :)

(Possibly) The End Of An Era

September 30, 2010. I know that whatever the results of today's events are, this is going to be a day I will remember for a very long time, if not for the rest of my life. My mind is a swirling mess of color and feeling: blue and white and the faux wood color of the court floor, along with whirling masses of green and yellow, orange and black, fear and excitement, and tension that ripples through a crowd, tension as alive as the people bringing it forth. 

There are sounds, too: bellows of anger mingling with roars of joy, shrill whistling that rips through pressure like a knife slashing through flesh, a chatter of voices in my ear and all around me and in my own head.

Happy Holiday(s)

And the holidays are back. Ironic that I'm saying it on a holiday, but it's true. September has rolled right on in, and people--well, my friends and family at least, I don't know about yours--are gearing up for a whole 'nother season of joy and merrymaking. 

If you were trying to lose weight in time for all the food and drink of this time of year, then your deadline is coming up and it's time to double the effort. More importantly, if you've allowed yourself to grow weak in the drinking game and find yourself ready to give up after a couple of shots (like meee! I've become an old lady in the past few months), it's time to get back on that horse and train that tummy of yours to take it--how else do you intend to survive the high (and strong) spirits of the season?

It's time to focus, people! Whether it's because you wanna celebrate the crap out of life or because you just want this damn year to end, I'm getting the feeling we're all gonna be blowing 2009 right out of the water when it comes to ending 2010 with a bang. I mean Jay Sean's been singing about it for a month now: We're gonna party like it's the end of the world. Do we prove him right or what? :))

The Bad Side of the Peter Pan Syndrome

Some people just don't know when they're crossing a line. And when you try to tell them that they are, they miraculously turn deaf--even though normally, they can practically hear a whisper from across the street. I'm probably not the most mature person in the world, but I think after all these years I've earned the right to say to these people: Grow the F up.

Fate and Photographs

The world operates as a series of circles that are invisible, for they extend to the upper air. Fate is where these circles cut into the earth. Since we cannot see them, do not know their content, and have no sense of their width, it is impossible to predict when these cuts will slice into our reality. When this happens, we call it fate.

Fate is not a chance event but one that is inevitable; we are simply blind to its nature and time. We are also blind as to how fate connects one occurrence to another.

- Batuk, from James A. Levine's The Blue Notebook

No Matter How Much I Rack My Brains

Before I get started, a disclaimer for anyone asking why I don't write about Real Issues or The Important Things or The Current State of Affairs: I like keeping my opinions to those things to myself. I don't wanna start an argument, or a "healthy debate," or any kind of controversy--not here, anyway. I've seen people whose blogs were attacked just because they decided to write about something else at a time when Important Things were happening. I say, I do care. I just don't wanna talk about it.

Now, let's move on to today's shallow gripe...

The Ting Tings Had It Right

Everyone's a hypocrite--true or false? 

I've had the opportunity to think about this statement the past few days. The more I mull over it, the more I believe that everyone does things they say they hate in other people. Sometimes it's a harmless trait, but other times it can truly hurt.

Mindless Entertainment Consumption

Lately I've been wondering what it is I look for in a television show. I've loyally followed so many over the years--from Power Rangers to Alias to The OC to Grey's Anatomy to Glee--and I figured I should take a step back and think a little about why I commit myself to hours of mindless entertainment consumption. I came up with three things:

Fear

Fear. Is anything more utterly pervasive in human life than fear?

I myself am afraid of so many things: cockroaches, snakes, rats, loneliness, darkness, failure, old age, pain, broken promises, insignificance, death. I'm afraid of drowning, of fire, of flash floods, of clowns, of being laughed at. I'm afraid of poverty and sickness, of graveyards and ghosts. I'm afraid of sorrow and torture and crime and loss. 

Why Worry?

Worry is a creature that worms its way into the gut; it creeps up the chest, making it difficult to breathe; and then it gnaws at the nerves, fraying them, wearing them out. I had the unfortunate opportunity of reacquainting myself with worry early last Friday morning, when I roused myself slowly from heavy sleep to find 5 missed calls from an unknown number on my phone. A text from the same number revealed that its owner was the mother of a very good friend, and that this friend had just been in a violent car accident.

A precarious balance

Everyone has dreams, don't they? And in one way or another, everyone is trying to make his or her own dreams come true. That kid practicing his three-pointer in a street court, for instance: he's probably dreaming of growing up to make a game-winning shot in the NBA. Or that college student slaving away at a lit critique paper, she's probably hoping to see her name next to her debut novel in a bestseller list someday. Whatever it is, everyone has a dream. And everyone somehow works to make it come to life. 

And yet... how to make that happen? Where do people go to make their dreams come true?

Elections!

And thus Election Day in the Philippines came and went. An increasingly frenzied media marathon of the events of May 10th, 2010 included a discussion of a berth of related issues, both positive and negative, as well as real-time reports of the process from precincts all over the country. Ultimately, the media revealed what is a genuine step forward in the Philippine electoral process.

On facial fitness and missing controls

This is a tribute to the insanity of old age and the absent-mindedness of youth.

Who IS that masked man?

Superheroes. A concept that has been tackled in so many ways over so many years that I figured no original work can ever come of it again. Until tonight.

Numb

It hasn't really hit me yet in full, the fact that I'm graduating. I realized it a little bit earlier today, when I put my toga on for the first time and heard Baccalaureate Mass at school. But even then--even while surrounded by my co-graduates at the Ateneo High School covered courts, with everyone in near-full graduation attire--I still felt detached, as though I was watching someone else go through the motions of culminating their academic career.

Whether or not I wrap my brain around it in time, however, it is happening, and it's happening to me. After fifteen years of uniforms, textbooks, report cards, evil teachers and awesome ones, friends, relationships, enemies, cafeteria food, school-hours traffic, homework, classrooms, and the whole she-bang... it's over. Tomorrow, sometime between four-thirty in the afternoon and eight at night, I'm going to get up on that stage, shake Fr. Ben's hand, and descend the stairs once again, no longer a student.

Written Some Months Ago and Never Made Public

  A Dangerous Love Affair

The high-pitched squeak of rubber soles on a rubber floor. The echoing thud of a basketball as it’s dribbled across the court. The inarticulate yells of players as they attempt to pass, catch, fake, score. The shrill sound of a whistle as a referee calls the foul. And the deafening ring of the buzzer as it signals the end of play. Five months ago, these sounds meant nothing to me, were as unfamiliar to my ears as Jay-Z’s rapping would be to Mozart. Today, they feel almost like home.  

What happened in the time between? It’s simple: I fell in love.

Family Matters

We love 'em, we hate 'em, we can't live with them or without them. No, I'm not talking about men (hehe). I'm talking about family.

Save Me, San Francisco

This is a private blog. It's for me, really--kind of like writing therapy--and having people read it just makes it have a nice bonus purpose. And so normally I don't do things like news updates or product reviews or anything like that. But I'm gonna make an exception for this one album that I think really deserves two thumbs up and five stars, because in my humble opinion, the songs in it are so incredibly beautiful. I just need to share it with you guys.

Gonna Need the Force for This One

Ah, Lent. That distinctly Catholic time of the year where meat looks that much more delicious (because you can't have it :p Isn't that so much like the rest of life? LOL). Now I was never the type--and I don't say this proudly, I'm just stating a fact--to participate particularly in the rituals of Lent. Fasting, abstinence, sacrifice, penitence, all those things--my family aren't exactly strict followers. We're more the kind of people who, while heartily eating pancakes and bacon, stop in mid-swallow to say, "Oh crap. It's Friday?"

Cheering Up 101

Ever been in a situation where someone you care about is down in the dumps and sees no way of getting out of there? When someone so close to your heart it's almost like he or she is physically a part of you gets disappointed, or disheartened, or loses hope? I mean, what do you do? Especially if what they are going through is an experience you've never had, so that when you try to make them feel better they can rightfully tell you, "But you wouldn't understand how I feel"? What's a girl supposed to do?

(Still) Learning to Drive

Is this another ditch? Damn, this is harder than I thought. Gotta remember to keep an eye out for the road signs, or else I'll find myself right here: never even knowing what hit me. Or what or who I hit.

I'm sorry again, car.

25 Days Before School Ends Forever

You know what? I so rarely write what I feel here. I'm always objectifying myself, distancing myself from my feelings and replacing them with thoughts... and, well, right now--at a time when I'm not supposed to have any time for frivolous activity because I should be preoccupied with school, school, school and all its dictates and obligations and deadlines and schedules--right now I just want to rant.

What Women Want

What do you want in a man? It's a question that women seem to ask each other only over dinner or while sipping cocktails on a girls night out. But it's actually a question that women ask themselves much more often that--all the time, in fact. 

When I Die, Heaven Better F*cking Look Like Pandora

Nuff said.

Learning to Drive

Okay, so think of life as a great big highway where cars speed past one another on their way to their various stops and destinations. And the problems we have are equivalent to car trouble.

Well, I've just spent a week in a pretty big ditch. It was my fault I fell into it, mostly, because I wasn't really watching where I was going and so I didn't do anything to avoid it. Tonight, though, it feels like the tow truck finally arrived and has started lifting my poor little absolutely beautiful white BMW (shut up, this my metaphor) out of the ditch. It'll take some time before I get out completely and even more time to fix the damage caused by the fall, but it feels crazy good to finally be getting somewhere. To finally be getting back on track. 

Avatar Adventure (Fail) Part 2

So it happened again: I did not watch Avatar at IMAX. Dammit!!!!! Among other obscenities I am muttering in my head. Let me tell you how it went.

DAMN YOU IMAX SENIOR CITIZEN DUDE!
(see updates for more; i.e., why Imax is awesome)

The Times, They Are A-Changin'

You ever look at a friend of yours--someone near and dear to your heart--and tell yourself, "Damn, I don't know this person anymore"? As though in a span of a few days or weeks or months, they transformed into someone almost completely alien to you? 

And then do you ever look at yourself and ask the same thing?

The Lion's Wish

I got a late Christmas gift today from a friend of mine. It's a tumbler that says:

Courage does not always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day saying, "I will try again tomorrow."