Writing For Free

Filipino Thoughts

2011-05-15T06:56:00.001+08:00

Let me just say this straightaway: I love my country, and I love my countrymen. I believe that we're a people of endurance and of wit, and though we sometimes tend to misplace our faith, I believe we are a nation that is good, intelligent, and full of potential.

But there are moments that shake my trust in the Filipino people, that make me--unfortunately--feel ashamed of the way we can sometimes act. One such moment occurred at the San Francisco International Airport on the day I was to leave the US for home sweet home.

It's standard protocol that when boarding a plane, the seats are filled in from back to front. This is to avoid passengers bumping into each other too much on the narrow aisles of the coach section of an average 747. It is a rule meant to promote order and control. So when those in charge of getting passengers aboard announced that those seated on rows 81 to 97 may now embark, it should have been an easy task of looking at one's boarding pass and falling in line.

But that day was proof that what should be usually isn't. Instead of travelers quietly filing toward the gate, chaos reigned. People whose seat numbers were not from 81 to 97 milled in front of the doorways, chatting loudly and getting in the way of those trying to get in. Parents, children, old men--everyone jostled and pushed and tried to get in front of the person ahead of them. Those who were supposed to be there waved their passes and passports in the air, calling out loudly, "Ako! 81 to 97!" As I myself was shoved around (my brother and I were on row 94), I saw the attendant desperately attempting to restore--or I should say establish, since there was none to begin with--some sense of order.

"Please line up, everyone," she all but begged in as loud a voice as possible, a voice unfailingly drowned out in that palengke atmosphere. "Let's show them that we can do this!"

Nobody listened. I tried to stand still and force a line behind me (and I'm not saying I'm some kind of model citizen for this; it was really just the shame in my belly that made me swallow my anger at being cut three times by three different families, and becoming one with that wailing crowd) to no avail. It was... EDSA at rush hour. It was SM during a weekend sale. It was, as my Taft-educated brother put it, the MRT's on a weekday morning. It was something Filipinos do all the time, and it was embarrassing as hell.

We made it through eventually, though as I walked toward the plane I looked back and saw no semblance of any line at all. And it made me sad, really. I remembered my twelve years of Philippine education and saw myself lining up for every single day of it. I had been taught to line up beside my classroom, at the cafeteria, at the covered courts during assemblies; we were made to stand in line from enrollment in kindergarten to graduation in senior year. It is a standard of discipline, and we enact it in our schools here much more strictly than they do in many countries abroad, including America.

And yet we, the adults, can't seem to make it happen when it truly counts. It's a sad thing to learn. If we don't have the patience and the discipline to form a line at the airport to make it easier for everyone; if we have to put ourselves first and shove our way to the front every single time, what hope do we have of gaining the fortitude and self-restraint that will make our country better?

A Little Follow-Through

2011-04-13T19:05:00.000+08:00

For almost a year now, I've been contributing articles to local teen magazines. I never really thought I'd be doing it, but I find myself enjoying coming up with possible problems that young girls might face in their daily lives and giving out helpful tips to solve them: What do I do when I find myself face-to-face with my crush? How do I ask a guy out without seeming too forward? Why won't my parents cut me some slack? How do I balance my time between school and friends?

It's surprisingly fun to think up these things and to point the way. It's fulfilling to know that in my own little way I'm helping kids and teenagers deal with the things that stress them out.

But here's my problem: how do I take my own advice?

"Practice what you preach," isn't that the old maxim? Well it turns out another one is, "Easier said than done." While I've outgrown some of the issues that these magazines deal with--stuff like acne and grades and unfair teachers and all that--there are some things that few people ever really outgrow.

Like body image issues. I don't know about you guys, but I sure haven't outgrown those. I've been putting in some fair hours at the gym recently, and it's not just for my overall health: I'm definitely being vain about it. I don't always feel good when I look at the mirror. There is a long list of things I'd like to change about myself, and I think a lot of people feel the same way.

Now I've written and published my advice about this. Heck, I've listed down, several times, what you're supposed to think and do to feel better about yourself and your body: We're all shaped differently. We're all beautiful in our own way. We have to focus on what's positive about who we are, not what's negative. We need to eat right, pamper ourselves once in a while, exercise. And on and on.

I realize, though, that while it can be hard to follow someone else's advice, it's twice as hard to follow your own. And neither is it just with body image--I've written articles about money management (which I'm not particularly awesome at), job interviews, and awkward situations, and I find myself laughing at the ideas I come up with, because I realize that dude, I know what to do to make myself better. Hell, my advice is good. I just have to grit my teeth and do it, too.

I don't want to be a hypocrite, you know? There are too many of those out there in the world already. Now if only someone knew the secret to avoiding that...

And What A Week It's Been

2011-04-08T21:57:00.000+08:00

You know how sometimes you have weeks that go by where you feel like you didn't do anything new or exciting or productive?

Well for me, this wasn't one of them.

From intense workouts at the gym (naks!) to press conferences to radio shows to meetings to renewed friendships to revived nights out to magazine articles to my first time in a Porsche to my first accident in a Porsche (minor! Don't sweat it. And disclaimer: I was totally not driving hehe) to the longest ever CGE TV taping we've had in a season and a half of airing... it's been quite a week, to say the least.

And I'm happy. I'm tired and I need a drink like right now, but I'm happy.

I never, ever want to say I didn't live my life to the fullest. It feels great to know that this week, I lived it well and full. Plus, the craziness of the last five days or so reminded me just how awesome the people around me are (you know who you be!). So here's a huh-yooge thanks to the Big Guy upstairs for all the good stuff that's happened and all that's yet to come.

Tomorrow, I've got a radio show to do and a basketball game to cover, and on Sunday I've got 10 kilometers to run. And I've got all the rest of my life to live (am I sounding like a self-help book yet? Stop me if I am), and I intend to make it absolutely awesome.

I shall start with that drink. :)

One Year Later

2011-04-04T09:34:00.005+08:00

I never thought it would come to this. I never even really thought about it. I just sort of assumed--a little pridefully, I admit, but without really giving it all that much thought--that when I finished school I'd go off and begin my life as a successful Woman of the World.

In the back of my head (you know that part of the mind where imagination and reality become difficult to separate? It's that place you don't show other people, that idealistic little spot where you truly believe all your dreams can and will come true against all odds, given time and opportunity), I saw myself with my own place, my own car, and an awesome, well-paying job. I was toned, Solenn Heussaff-style. I had a walk-in closet. I was going on a book tour for my internationally-acclaimed novel. I read Kant, Nietzsche, Marx, and other intellectual stuff. I could quote from the best literary works. I was traveling the world.

Call me a dreamer, but come on. Didn't you have those illusions, too?

Hell, don't you still?

And yet here I am, a full year after graduation, and I find that not much has changed at all.

I'm still living in my parents' house. I still read fantasy books, and can barely get past a page or two of philosophy. I haven't written that novel, though I promise myself over and over that I'll get on with it tomorrow (until something else comes up). I sort of have my own car, and I love my job--but those two I already had even before I finished college.

No, I haven't got that walk-in closet. According to Coach Chappy Callanta at 360 Fitness Club where I'm getting regular exercise for the first time in my twenty-two years, I have to get rid of 8% of my body fat to even get a shadow of the abs I want...and as I am incapable of keeping my hands (and my mouth) off sweets, I don't know how that's going to work.

At this point it sounds like I'm feeling sorry for myself. Let me get this through, okay? NO, I'M NOT. In fact, I'm happier with my life as it is right now than I ever was in school.

See, in the year since I graduated, I've accepted the fact that life doesn't work out exactly as planned. We dream and we work and we hope and we pray, but things will happen the way they do anyway, despite what we think we want.

So I don't have all that stuff I thought I would. So what? It's only been a year. I won't even hold it against myself after five years. Because life has presented me with other things--things I didn't know I wanted--for which I'm so completely thankful for.

How about parents who are willing to support whatever I want to do? How about friends who listen, and who give me the best times even when we're doing the stupidest things? How about getting to be one of three faces of a whole new channel? How about making the cover of a magazine? How about getting the chance to write for publications that allow me to be an influence, no matter how small, on young girls?

My point is this: I'm going to work hard to make those things I want happen. I'm going to keep myself motivated. But I'm not going to sweat it if they don't come true right away. Life's too short to mope about what I don't have.

One year later, and I'm still learning, still rising and falling, still happy to be alive. I think those are enough for now, don't you?

From A Fan

2011-01-25T12:44:00.005+08:00

Dear Margaret Atwood,

I'll admit it: I've only read a few of your works. They probably weren't even your best, just your most commercial ones. Die-hard fans of yours would call me a poser. But even from what little I've read from you and the utterly insufficient experience I have in literature, I can tell that you are a master. Actually, I suppose you'd prefer the term mistress, but you get what I'm saying.

You wield words like a sharp weapon, striking against submission, convention, and prejudice, and defending the woman and the human person from those who seek to bring them down. Your work is art in all its practicality. You are absolutely brilliant, and you inspire me as I'm sure you inspire thousands all over the world. If the impact I make on literature someday is a tiny fraction of what you've made today, then I can say I've succeeded as a writer ten times over.

You do Canada proud, Ma'am.

From, A Fan

---

Dear Stephen King,

I read The Shining when I was about fourteen, and haven't stopped reading your work since. The only reason I can't say I've read everything you've ever written is because you've written a whole damn lot, but it's a goal of mine.

I think you're amazing. Your manage to take the elusive, dark, shadowy stuff just beneath the surface of our commonplace realities and give them shape, form, body, voice. You make us question intrinsic goodness and doubt the sureness and solidity of our worlds.

Now there are people who think that because you've written so much, you can't possibly be any good. They place you in the ranks of authors who churn out novel after novel without regard for the story, the plot, the characters. They think that quality and quantity cannot exist hand-in-hand, or worse, they think that quantity is quality.

What these people don't realize is that you are that good. Your characters are dynamic, your settings convincing, your plots crazy enough to be real. In other words, you make some grade A quality shit, Sir, and you do it consistently. You're my favorite author in the world, and I hope to one day write one novel that I can say you'd enjoy reading.

From, A Fan

---

Dear George R.R. Martin,

I'm a relatively new fan of yours, having only recently read the first four books of your series A Song of Ice and Fire. It was in the top five of nearly every list titled "Best Fantasy Books" I found online. I had my doubts at first, but they were right: you're brilliant.

Your plots are winding, your characters far from cliche, and the entire world of Westeros utterly gritty and down-to-earth. You make magic and dragons seem implausible and completely real at the same time. But what really made me a fan is your attention to detail. Every character, plot twist, and sentence is accounted for. It's weird how my favorite line of yours is in the acknowledgements section, when you wrote, "The devil is in the details, they say. A book this size has a lot of devils, any one of which will bite you if you don't watch out."

That is absolutely on the money, Sir, and now I'm one of your legions of fans awaiting the next installment of details you're going to give us. I seriously can't wait, because I know it's going to be freakin' fantastic.

No pressure, though.

From, A Fan

A Little Bit Of Pixie Dust

2010-10-29T10:34:00.004+08:00

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."

But for me, the most touching and beautiful scene in that whole final reel is that moment that Peter has with Tinkerbell, right before he wakes up in the "real world," having left Neverland for the very last time. In it, Tink says:

"You know that place between sleep and awake, the place where you can still remember dreaming? That's where I'll always love you, Peter Pan. That's where I'll be waiting."

That pretty much killed it for me. I always believed that Tinkerbell was the most pivotal character in the tale of Peter Pan (and not just because I played her in a summer stage workshop when I was six). In a story about magic and the power of faith, Tinkerbell is magic, and she personifies the idea that losing faith in something (or someone) is losing that thing (or person) entirely. It's a lesson everyone should remember no matter how young or old.

As a kid, I loved the thought of fairies flitting around in glittering pixie dust just at the corners of our eyes; as an almost-grown adult, I love the idea that magic exists in real life if only we look hard enough.

We're probably never going to be visited by an unaging boy in tights and his fairy companion in the middle of the night, no matter how long we wait. But that doesn't mean we can't go on any adventures of our own. We're all given a little store of pixie dust to work with. The question is, do we deny it's there and end up losing it for real... or do we sprinkle it over our happy thoughts and take flight?

Just a link

2010-10-14T17:11:00.000+08:00

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

2010-09-30T10:20:00.003+08:00

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.

But I'm not out there yet. No, I'm still here, in my quiet bedroom, colorful in its own way but nothing at all like the glaring brightness of the Araneta Coliseum at the height of a finals match. All I hear are birds tittering their innocent nonsense and cars passing by on the street outside my window. Everything around me is calm; it's my mind that's beginning to shift gears and and gain speed.

Whatever the results of today's events, I'm going to remember this day. Remember it as one of the last, if not the last day, of a heart-pounding, pressure-building, nerve-wracking time of my life. Remember it as the end of an era for me. So in the next couple of hours, I'm going to outwardly calm myself, gather together all my thoughts and feelings and rearrange them in an exquisitely bound, perfectly tight package at the center of my being. I will finish writing, run a little to loosen the nerves, and take a shower. I will go to Araneta, attend mass, write my pre-game and first quarter reports.

And then, when I step out onto the court behind the team, when I take my place courtside for my school potentially for very the last time, I'm going to undo that secure knot in my stomach and let all hell break loose. I'm giving it all I got out there today, like I know the boys will, like I know everyone will.

Here we go, ladies and gentlemen. See you at the games.

Happy Holiday(s)

2010-09-10T10:06:00.001+08:00

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

2010-09-08T00:16:00.001+08:00

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

2010-09-02T22:59:00.005+08:00

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

We live life in moments. I think that's why photographs mean so much to us: they have the power to wordlessly capture single moments that would otherwise be impossible to isolate. Because while we live life in moments, each moment glides seamlessly into another, the way each word I write connects immediately to the next. Individually, there is some meaning; it all comes alive only when read in full. A missing word, like a missing moment, will render the whole incomplete. At the same time, it is impossible for us, the vessels of these moments, to know what each has in store for us, and to what other event it will connect.

Fate is what finds these moments and brings them together. As the writer, I am Fate to the words on this page--only I know where they lead, and what each word's role is in the final story. Without me they mean nothing, just a series of scratches and blurs clumped together in paragraph form.

Fate, or God, or Karma, or the Force, or whatever it is one might believe it to be: it pulls us together, makes us whole. It may take a day or a year or ten or twenty before we realize what is really going on, but I think every action we do translates into something greater further down the line. And that's why it's important for every moment to stand out for us. We ought to treat every instant, every event in which we find ourselves entangled, the way we would a photograph--we should put our best foot forward in it, because it will be recorded, and it will come back to haunt us.

Welcome to the wonderful world of Inside My Head--where nothing is as it seems and all the words are pretty.

No Matter How Much I Rack My Brains

2010-08-26T10:33:00.004+08:00

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...

Passwords. Oh, bane of my online existence! These days, everyone has an account for just about everything, and every account needs to be password protected. I--and I'm hardly the most Internet-savvy of folk--already have at least seven (7) different online accounts that have varied usernames and passwords: 2 individual email addresses, one that I share with my radio partner, 1 blog, 1 Twitter account, 1 Facebook account, and an onlilne bank account. I also have my computer's password and the password to the Internet here at home (sometimes it disconnects and I have to type it in to reconnect).

I mean, I get whey they're necessary. I also know that we shouldn't really use the same passwords for different accounts, because that makes it easy for hackers to get into all of them. But my memory... how it fails me when faced with a blinking cursor on that blank space labeled "password"! And it's strange because I never had problems memorizing things in school. It's like passwords are my Kryptonite: my brain rejects them.

I once created an account--and this was way back in high school--for SAT mock testing. I wanted to try and take the SAT's and the site allowed me to find out if I was ready to do so. Of course, the day after I signed up, I forgot what my password was. Protocol is to hit the "Forgot username/password" button, which I did. It sent a link to my email, yadda-yadda-yadda... and then it asked me the security question. Get this: I didn't know the answer. I knew the real answer to the question, but apparently that wasn't the answer I had put in when I was making the account. I assume I wanted to make it difficult to answer. Good job, self! To this day, I don't know what the answer to that security question is.

I have at least three other similar stories, one of them having to do with me forgetting my password immediately upon activation of a recent online account I opened for my bank records, but maybe I'll tell that another time.

In the meantime, I'll have to satisfy myself with noting down my passwords in a secret place where no one (I hope) can find them... and checking this secret list whenever I have to access any of my accounts. How sad.

The Ting Tings Had It Right

2010-08-10T13:12:00.001+08:00

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.

Think about it: what is it that you despise about a person? Rudeness, maybe? A tendency to beat around the bush? Untidiness? Do you hate it when someone is gossipy, perhaps, or noisy or secretive or snobbish? Now take a look at yourself--and make it a good, long look. Can you honestly say you've never fallen into the same category yourself?

If your answer is yes, then I don't believe you're being honest. I've known myself to raise arms against people who cut in front of me on the road, and yet I've also caught myself doing the exact same thing when I'm running late. I say I don't like gossip, but I listen with a fascinated ear when the office tsismis comes my way. If you're calling me a hypocrite right now, ask yourself if you've ever thought you don't like judgmental people.

So if we're all hypocrites, what can we do to stop ourselves from hurting others? Because we can all be harmless hypocrites. It's when we go out of our way to call someone out on something we don't like about them that things start to get nasty. Especially if we don't know that person; especially if them knowing what we think does nothing for them; and most especially if our unpleasant opinion applies to ourselves.

I've learned that the best thing to do when I have an opinion is to keep it to myself. I can rant and rage against anyone I want--that's my right. But saying it out loud and causing harm--and worse, needless harm--to that person when s/he is doing nothing to hurt me is overstepping my boundaries. And in the end, no one's happy. Not me, because I'd be a negative bitch. And not that person, because they'd have received hurtful criticism from someone who has zero right to give it. So, hayaan na sila. Let people do what they do and be who they are. As the song goes, "Shut up and let me go."

And personally (and as an end note), I hope I don't ever become that kind of hypocrite.

Mindless Entertainment Consumption

2010-07-28T00:04:00.004+08:00

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:

A good TV show, first of all, has wit. Wit gives TV its character, and what would be the point of watching a show that's got no character? Of course the best manifestation of wit is in the script, in the conversation among the characters. Sitcoms like FRIENDS and How I Met Your Mother are by definition witty, but even more serious shows like House (which is a medical drama, for goodness' sakes) or NCIS (which is a crime drama series) or Heroes manage/d to do it. It's all about good writers who can create character chemistry with the clack of a keyboard.

Great TV shows also have themes, and by this I mean a feature that distinguishes a program from the hundreds of others already in existence. And the newer the show, the more interesting this feature has to be, just because everything else has already been done. For instance, Gossip Girl spiced up the traditional teenage drama (a-la Dawson's Creek and One Tree Hill) by moving the setting from small-town America to Upper East Side Manhattan, and throwing in a mystery online gossip correspondent for good measure. How I Met took the FRIENDS genre and made its plot revolve around the concept of meeting the love of one's life. Glee basically brought Broadway to the small screen. Supernatural put together mythology and monsters and dysfunctional families and crime investigation all in one go. Big Bang Theory elevated geekdom.

But while witty conversation and a good solid theme already automatically make great television for me (and by "great" I mean I'd spend hours marathon-ing the shit out of it) there does remain a third and equally important factor: hotness.

Let's face it: would we all really be that interested in GG if it weren't for Chace Crawford? Would Desperate Housewives, despite all its scandalous story lines, be as successful without Eva Longoria? And Prison Break without Wentworth Miller, The OC without Mischa Barton, FRIENDS without Jennifer Aniston, Smallville without Tom Welling/Kristin Kreuk, Grey's Anatomy without Patrick Dempsey and that McSteamy guy, 24 without Elisha Cuthbert, Supernatural without Jared Padalecki/Jensen Ackles, Big Bang Theory without Kaley Cuoco, True Blood with a different cast... I could go on forever.

Point is, it's all about being interesting, unique, and beautiful on TV shows, whether it's comedy, drama, crime, and everything above, below, and in between. It's why we love TV--because it imitates and exaggerates and condenses real life, all in the name of mindless entertainment consumption.

*BOW*

Fear

2010-07-06T00:26:00.003+08:00

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.

How do we go on with so much fear in our lives? How do we manage to get up every day, look the possibility of dying gruesome deaths in the eye, and still walk out our front doors to go to school or work? How is it that we don't all spend our days hiding under our blankets or cowering in corners? For the most part, it's survival. We are able to get up every morning unafraid because we have to, for instance, feed our families. We have to keep a roof over their heads and put clothes on their backs. Human survival necessitates control of fear.

But there are times in life when we are unable to merely ignore fear. There are times when its presence is a choking cloud of smoke that makes it impossible to breathe, much less move forward. When we find ourselves opening our eyes to a pitch black room with a garbled sense of time and space, when we are lost, when our security is threatened, when we see ourselves age, when we lose a job or a pet or a loved one... these are the times when survival instinct gives way to a choice of either insanity or courage.

What will you choose? When you're down in the dumps, when you're back to square one, when you're alone, or penniless, or... wherever you're at, whatever face of fear you're looking at at this very moment... will you decide to give up the fight and essentially lose a part of what makes you you and human? Or will you square your shoulders and fight back?

Courage, a man in a chick flick once said, is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.

We march on.

Why Worry?

2010-06-10T22:02:00.004+08:00

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.

It was as bad as I imagined in my foggy 5-am mind. We had been drinking a little the night before and I had just arrived home and drifted off to sleep a couple hours earlier.

They found him along Katipunan extension, the car a total wreck, and him bleeding internally. He had been on his way back home to Pasig from a side trip to Fairview. The media and the police arrived before anyone else, and they took time to question him--on TV!--before calling for help. They took him first to Quirino Memorial Hospital, then transferred him to St. Lukes along E. Rodriguez. By then 1.5 liters of blood had escaped into his stomach and other organs. His iPhone and sunglasses were also conspicuously missing. The doctors told his frightened mother that his BP was down to 70/50 and that he had a fifty percent chance of survival. They proceeded to operate.

From the minute his mom called me until I finally saw him again almost two days later, there was a terrible knot in my stomach that would not unclench. I had forgotten, or perhaps didn't even know, that there was such a feeling. It is exhausting, it is hateful, and it was utterly relieving when I realized--after I saw that he was going to get better--that my friend had just miraculously survived.

His car had hit the island in the middle of the road, flipped over, skidded across the street, hit one of the posts of an unfortunate establishment, and flipped right side up again. The vehicle's roof was almost kissing the dashboard: it was amazing that he had survived at all, much less have gotten through without any concussions or damage to his neck.

I think now that maybe worry is a creature that God or the Powers That Be send to remind us all not to take what we have for granted. It nibbles at and wears away our jaded dispositions until we find ourselves worried raw, thinking and feeling and living at the very edges of our skins. It makes us thankful when things return to normal, and it provides us--after the worst has passed--with a reminder of the danger of life and the shadow of death that lurks at every corner. I'm glad I worried, because now I can be relieved, and thankful.

He's walking again, barely a week later. He even makes jokes and laughs at ridiculous "thriller" movies on TV. Let's hope for his sake the Lakers play another good game, shall we?

A precarious balance

2010-05-25T12:14:00.003+08:00

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?

I mean, a success story usually consists of overcoming the odds, seizing the opportunity, taking the risks. But what most people don't see right away--and what I, in my post-graduate bum life of the past couple months, am beginning to realize--is that a success story is just that: a story. Which means it skips over the parts that aren't particularly juicy; it condenses into a brief line or two the seemingly endless period of not-worth-telling that comes before an opportunity arises and is seized.

I remember part of a quote by Alicia Keys, where she said something about people not realizing that her "overnight success was seven years in the making." Girl waited a long-ass time before winning any Grammys. And even when those seven years are recognized in the Alicia Keys Success Story, the storyteller--E! or People Magazine or whatever--always reduces the hard work and the interminable waiting into picturesque little facts of life. "She started playing the piano at age seven. She then went to the Professional Performing Arts High School..." But what happened in between? What about the moments when Ms. Keys felt confused or bored or lost?

My point is, life is only a story after the fact. While it's happening, life is...well, life. And it doesn't skip over the bad or boring or uncertain parts. Let's face it: life isn't exciting every minute of every day. And a person can't always, incessantly be doing something to make what they want happen. There are periods of dullness, of waiting. I'm coming to see that it's just as important to keep cool and to enjoy the moment as it is to make it happen. Patience is as much a means of dream-making as is action.

Right now, two months after I walked off that stage with my (symbolic) diploma in hand, I'm still learning to be patient. A big part of me is itching to get a job, anything at all, so I can begin proving myself to the real world and showing everyone that I can make it big, too. Especially since I see my contemporaries doing just that. But another part says that blindly running into employment would be equally damaging as not lifting a finger to find work. Older and wiser people than I have told me that success is, on the whole, a precarious balance of action and inaction, hard work and patience...and just a touch of luck and faith.

June's coming. Guess I'll have to wait and see what it has to offer in the way of my dreams.

Elections!

2010-05-11T10:22:00.002+08:00

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.

Sure, there are a million things that could've been and can be improved: the clustering of precincts in many areas could have been more spread out and thus more organized; faulty machinery could have been responded to more quickly in some places with a manual back-up plan, to avoid delays; perhaps people could've been better informed about how to go about voting using the new PCOS machines; and so many other things.

But at the heart of it all is progress. What did we honestly expect with these automated elections anyway? Certainly not a faster voting process; the increase in speed was promised more in the way of counting the votes, not in making them. A faster voting process can only be achieved through well-organized operations, in any case. At this point, what the Philippines and its people have achieved is already amazing. There was good voter turnout, for one thing. More people than ever wanted to part of the democratic process. Also, volunteers for the Comelec and correspondents for the media were overflowing with enthusiasm; hats off to all those people who stayed awake for over 24 hours to man the PCOS machines, to guide voters as they exercised their right, to tally those votes through the night, and to provide the public with a play-by-play of the important events of the day.

More than anything, there was peace. Of course we send our condolences and prayers to the victims of the 37 violent incidents that broke out while the elections were ongoing. But the military admitted that this was the most peaceful elections the country has ever had; in the past, violent election-related incidents numbered in the hundreds (gmanews.tv). And even investors recognize the relatively smooth flow of the electoral process: investments have already increased since last week, when people were expecting the worst (ANC). We have to give our country and our fellowmen a hand. Congratulations, everyone.

Now... well, now we wait for the official announcement of results. :)

*image from lankamuslim.org

On facial fitness and missing controls

2010-04-28T21:02:00.003+08:00

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

For a few years now, my parents have availed of dozens of youth-enhancing and age-defying, slimming and smoothing products and procedures. From Botox to Thermage, from laser eyelid surgery to the latest Home Shopping Network weight-loss invention, my parents have done it all. And in fact, they aren't in bad shape for their age. My dad's been looking better from running daily for the first time in his life. My mom's blessed with good health. But sometimes their attempts at regaining youth get a teeny bit ridiculous. Like today. I found out a little while ago that my dad bought my mom a DVD set to help lessen the lines on her face. It's called (wait for it) Carolyn's Facial Fitness.

I know. And check this out: it consists of this dubiously-aged (she claims to be 60 but she could be in her early 50s; who's to know?) woman named Carolyn guiding viewers to daily facial exercises. Open your mouth out wide and count to ten to straighten out wrinkles around your mouth. Pull your nose up and your lips down to stretch out the surrounding skin. That kind of thing. Between fits of laughter, my mother described to me how she told my dad to go ahead and practice the damn exercises himself; he can teach them to her later.

God help the aging. I love my parents, and I understand and respect their attempts to look and feel young, but oh how my funny bone gets tickled at the thought of walking into my parents looking like they're practicing how to scare kids on Halloween.

Meanwhile, my 17-year-old brother spent a good part of his day looking for his remote control. Now because there aren't any control buttons on his sleek and sexy HD TV's body, without the remote, he could only turn the damn thing off and on. He couldn't adjust the volume, change the channel, or play with his precious PlayStation. After hours (and literally hours) of searching, he--and our maid--found it wedged in an obscure area in his bed, between two large pieces of wood. Oh, how enslaved we are to the onslaught of technology.

Between my parents and my brother, I'm not sure what's worse: getting old, or staying young. At the same, I can't decide who I find more endearing. God I love my family. Buncha weirdos. :p

Who IS that masked man?

2010-04-22T01:35:00.006+08:00

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.

Okay, that might be a bit dramatic since all I'm gonna talk about is Kick-Ass. Yeah, the movie. I'm fresh from the theater right now. But think about it--the superhero genre has gone almost every direction imaginable since its conception in the early twentieth century. Let's start with the classics: we got an orphaned alien humanoid who works as a journalist, some geeky kid bit by a radioactive spider, a billionaire fighting crime on the side with a glorified tool belt, a blind dude seeking justice for his father's murder, a science-experiment victim who goes nuts and turns green when his pulse rate goes too high, a group of scientists who got too close to some mysterious space dust... I could go on.

Then some people tried to philosophize the genre and voila! We have the Watchmen. A commentary-type tale of two generations of men and women who devoted the prime of their lives to becoming "real-life superheroes." The graphic novel tackles the idea of regular people putting on masks and fighting crime in the streets, minus any super-powers. Just the next-door neighbor trying to fight for the good and right, albeit in a costume. Is it possible? Can it be tolerated? What does such a choice do to a person? Deep shit, I know.

So we got all these different views of the superhero...then Hollywood took it to another level (as it so often does). Movies, sequels, prequels, trilogies, remakes, revivals, spin-offs. There came TV series, films based on the novels and further novels based on the films. Out came websites and fan sites and forums. Merchandising. Enough of all of this and, lo and behold, the superhero--or rather, The Superhero--has now become cliche. The modern superhero is anything and everything: a vampire, a werewolf, a kid with a wand and a knack for getting in and out of trouble.

So what I loved about Kick-Ass (and at long last I get to my point) is that it didn't pretentiously jump into the fray. Most other depictions of the superhero take themselves so seriously: I am the legitimate superhero, the best, the original; this is what a superhero is supposed to be, they all seem to say. Kick-Ass was a combination of a good action plot and the real, sort of ridiculous kind of lives we all live. It makes fun of other, serious superhero portrayals and at the same time really looks at what keeps The Superhero alive today...

...which really isn't much more than that desire we all have to do what's right and good, to fight the good fight, and to do it all while looking really awesome and kicking some major ass. It's just that it's all a lot harder than it looks, and goes against our usually overwhelming sense of wanting to blend in, of being normal.

And so while I could go on endlessly about the superhero genre, do some research on the myths and archetypes involved, the different histories behind each surviving character, I think I'll just stop here. I will leave you with a thought for the day, though, and here I quote Kick-Ass himself: "With no power comes no responsibility."

Wala lang. :)

Numb

2010-03-26T11:40:00.001+08:00

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.

Good God. I'm relieved, of course, knowing that the burden of the academe will, in mere hours, be lifted from my shoulders at last.

But I'm also utterly shocked. I have no idea how to not be a student. I've always been a student, almost as far back as I can remember: I was a student-leader, a student-driver, a student-teacher, a student-DJ, a student-everything. There was always a school project in the works, a test coming up, homework to finish. I can't imagine a life where the years are not divided into semesters and summer breaks, where I do not, twice to four times a year, receive feedback on my performance in the form of report cards. It seems completely beyond me.

And so I arrive the end of my student-journey sort of in awe of the fact that I'm actually here. I suppose that's why sentimentality and sadness take a back seat for me in this--I'm still caught up in the idea that it's all done. No more going back. Never again. I still have no clue what those words mean, what implications they bring to me and my life.

Maybe when I finally, actually walk (or march) up the stage tomorrow, or maybe when I finally, actually have my diploma in my hands, maybe then it will hit me. Or maybe it won't hit me til the first time I'm turned down for a job, or til I report for my first day of a new (second) job. Who knows? For now, though, all I can feel is an odd, limbo-ish feeling of happy-sad numbness.

Congratulations. :p

Written Some Months Ago and Never Made Public

2010-03-07T20:23:00.001+08:00

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.

It all began last May, when ABS-CBN Sports declared open the auditions for courtside reporters for Season 72 of the University Athletics Association of the Philippines (UAAP). I remember being all nerves as I stood in front of a camera for the first time, microphone in hand, before a panel of ABS-CBN producers.

Now there were probably 150 people from different schools who tried out that day. There are eight UAAP universities. It was a miracle that I managed to squeeze past two auditions, one workshop, and 142 other people to make the lineup. The day that Direk Abet Ramos welcomed me into the ABS-CBN Sports family is a milestone in my life: it was a step towards my dream of becoming a broadcaster, and I felt absolutely golden.

But that didn’t last long. Two weeks later I went to my first Blue Eagles practice at Moro Lorenzo Gym. The first person I met was Andre Bucasas, one of the team physiotherapists.

“You’re the new courtside reporter,” he said. It wasn’t a question. I nodded, and we fell to talking about me and how I came to be there. It came out that I work as a jock at a local radio station, and immediately Dre said, “Be careful. DJs have a reputation of not succeeding as courtside reporters.” Strike One. (Thanks a lot, Dre!)

After that I went to say hello to the team manager, Paolo Trillo, who then introduced me to Coach Norman Black. There has been little in my life more intimidating than going up to tall, imposing Coach Norman and shaking his hand for the first time. Worse, that happened to be the precise moment when both men noticed that I was wearing… (gasp!) green. Strike Two. Needless to say I zipped up my purple jacket immediately, and have since been an avid collector of blue shirts.

As far as I know, I haven’t hit Strike Three yet. I hope I never do.

Before practice ended that day, Coach Norman made me join the team huddle to introduce me to the boys. The boys! A great big part of the reason that I fell so hard for basketball is the boys. At the time, I could only recognize a few of them: Rabeh Al-Hussaini, Jai Reyes, Nonoy Baclao. To my horror, I was asked to lead the prayer, which, because I was so nervous, became nothing more than a few mumbled, incoherent lines. But it was then, after the prayer, that I got my first taste of what it feels to be part of the Ateneo Blue Eagles. A shiver ran down my spine as Coach Norman said, “Ateneo!” and the boys responded, “One Big Fight!”

The rest of the season was a blur of blue and white. I did my first game, then my second, then my fourteenth. Then my last. Along the way I learned that: it’s de-fense and not de-fense; large crowds can be fun, inspiring, immature, and infuriating all at once; Coach Norman smiles a lot; modesty is a tough trait for Ateneans to learn; and the only feeling better than winning is winning twice in a row.

But even if we hadn’t won, the past four months have been so rich with perfect little gems of memories—from the first fake report I did in front of the coaching staff, to the cooler of ice-cold water that the boys poured over my head after that final game—that I still would have counted my last report as a winning moment.

And so, like any true and worthwhile love affair, this one was intensely passionate, but ended at the peak of its heat. There are days, now, when I ache for the roar of the crowd at the Araneta Coliseum, for the chatter of the commentators in my ear, for the rush of being in front of a camera with a report I wrote all on my own.

There is absolutely no question about how fantastic this season has been for me. I am so profoundly honored at having been given the chance to report for my school at the UAAP. There are so many people I want to thank for it, but the space here would probably fill right up. All I’ll say is, if it hadn’t been for them, I would have been obliviously, miserably deprived of these brand-new loves of mine. And there are a lot of them, as I have fallen dangerously in love with the UAAP, with my team, with my school, with this job.

Why dangerous? Because I’ll be hard put to let it all go. I wish I could relive the season again. There’s no guarantee I can do it again for another year, and I definitely can’t go any longer than that. Beyond that, memories are all I’ll have to hold on to. Still, I’m thankful. Thankful, and proud! Of the boys, of the coaches, of the managers, of the school, and even, let me say it, of myself.

It was a dangerous love affair, no doubt about it, but absolutely worth every second.

Family Matters

2010-03-02T23:28:00.004+08:00

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.

I think if I ask anyone above 12 years of age about how many times they've flipped out or almost flipped out because of their mom/dad/brother/sister/other relative, the count would go past the fingers and toes combined. It's as if families were built to drive each other insane, to be one another's cause of ultimate frustration/disappointment/bewilderment. There are times that we feel we can never understand how Mom can be this way, how Dad can expect that of us, how Ate and Kuya can care so little or be so selfish.

It could be something as mundane as a brother's inability to put the toilet seat down or a sister's ineptitude at returning borrowed stuff, or it could go as far as being unable to control a parent's drinking habits or gambling issues. We wish they would understand us, listen to us, make us feel worthwhile more often. We want them to be proud of us, to love us, to care about what we care about. And how it frustrates and exasperates us that they just always seem to see things a different way, that we actually have to live with them and try to get along with them. We ask ourselves if we were adopted or switched at birth; could this possibly be my family?

And yet.

For some reason, we cannot seem to let them go. We can't ever turn our backs on them completely. There is always something, whether it's the thinnest of threads, forever connecting us to them.

I don't know why it is. All I know is, no matter how much I hate how they are sometimes, no matter how close my head is to spontaneously combusting around them, I love my family. I will fight with them, argue with them, yell right back at them when I can't take it anymore, but I would drop what I'm doing--even if I was in the middle of making a million dollars--to be there for them when they need me most. Because that's what family does. Family tells each other the truth, even when it hurts; family listens to the truth, even when it hurts. Family holds each other up, especially when it hurts.

That's family, and family matters. My mom always told me that even the closest of friends come and go, but family is there for life. We can't choose family the way we choose friends; we are stuck with them forever. And so we need to treat each other well, more so than we would other people. It is through family that we learn how to forgive and why to forgive, through them that we learn when to hang on and when to let go.

We love 'em, we hate 'em, we can't live with them or without them. And that's just the way love goes, I guess.

Save Me, San Francisco

2010-02-21T17:15:00.003+08:00

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.

I'm talking about Train's latest addition to their already awesome artillery of records, Save Me San Francisco. It's an 11-track album that features a great set of alternative ballads like we haven't heard since the late nineties and early 2000s. Right now on the Magic we have "Hey Soul Sister" on the playlist, and that's a great track, but songs like "Parachute" and "If It's Love" really pull on the heartstrings, I swear. The songs are all poetry in motion, poetry surrounded by incredible guitar riffs and strung together in catchy-but-not-sellout melody. And I'm a complete sucker for that.

So yes. Buy it, download it, click the link below to hear samples, whatever. But definitely, definitely take a listen. Especially if you like alternative rock. It'll make your ears happy and it'll make your day. :)

Parachute - Train
This one's more of the alternative ballad type. Kind of "I'll Be" by Edwin McCain-ish.

If It's Love - Train
This is a bit more upbeat and modern in its sound.

Marry Me - Train
For the acoustic junkies. Really sweet song. :)

*image from Amazon.com

Gonna Need the Force for This One

2010-02-16T22:31:00.003+08:00

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?"

It's not a nice thing, I suppose. Every year, though, I try to make some kind of Lenten sacrifice; a personal abstinence of sorts. Usually it's something inane or diet-friendly, like no rice, or no soda, or no cursing. And more often than not I don't get through the forty days. I'll end up at a party and I can't really drink vodka unless it's with Sprite or Mountain Dew or something, and well, there goes the sacrifice. Some sacrifice.

Old-school Master Yoda, I wanna be more like you! From blogs.fayobserver.com.

But this year, I want to do something different. I feel like I have been so insanely, incredibly blessed--to the point that it's really hard to ask for much more, to be anything but humbly grateful for everything I've been given. So I want to do a real sacrifice, something that takes real effort and brings real positivity to myself and to others. I have therefore decided to do a Yoda and give up anger for forty days and forty nights.

Sounds easy, you might say. Well, it isn't for me. The NO-ANGER rule shall apply to annoying family members, to people who merit some backbiting (admit it, you know at least five people who do! :p and if you don't...well, wow, you're a nice person, good job), to situations involving road rage (and oh that's gonna be tough), and to rude people. I will do my best to exhibit Jedi-like qualities such as patience, perseverance...and yeah, all that stuff. I will abide by Yoda's famous and cliched quote: "Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering..."

So yeah. I'm swearing off anger starting tomorrow. Please serve as witness. Time to be nice. :)

Cheering Up 101

2010-02-09T18:41:00.003+08:00

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?

I get so frustrated when stuff like this happens. I know I can't control everything or make everyone happy, but there are days when I wish I could. Or at least, days when I wish I could do something, even the littlest thing, to make a sad friend smile. And what frustrates me more is when I'm trying to help, to cheer someone up, and they just say, "Don't worry about me, I'm used to dealing with this stuff alone anyway." I feel so stuck! It's like... please let me help. Let me in. Even just for a hug, or a stupid joke to make them laugh, or just a quiet moment to let them know that their burden is not theirs alone to bear.

I know it sounds stupid, me being frustrated on others' behalf. I mean, the best solution might be to just leave them alone to deal with it. Not my problem, right? Just focus on the good things in your own life and quit whining. But I can't. I just can't. I get guilty. No, actually, it breaks my heart. Especially when it comes to people I'm really, really close to. I truly believe that everyone deserves a taste of what is good, a shot at what they dream of.

God, they should have a class for stuff like this. It would make the world a better place... or at least, a slightly easier one to live in.

(Still) Learning to Drive

2010-02-07T09:06:00.002+08:00

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

2010-02-02T23:31:00.004+08:00

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.

How do I feel? I feel tired. I feel exhausted by 13 years of education. Don't get me wrong. I'm grateful for the opportunity; in fact, it's an incredible privilege that I've had such consistent schooling. It's just that right now, 25 days before school ends for me forever, I feel the weight of all those years on my shoulders. I feel the weight of the hours I would spend after class being tutored in Chinese, and Math, and Filipino, back in my early grade school years. I feel the afternoons I'd spend doing homework in our apartment in Cupertino. I feel the struggle of trying to fit in a new school and still do well in class; I feel the frustration of not understanding an algebra lesson; I feel the stirrings of competitiveness as I strove to finish as high as I could in my high school batch.

I feel four years of college weighing me down, four years that I spent "doing my best." I've spent all my life doing my best. I've studied for every quiz, reviewed relentlessly for every exam, furiously taken notes in every lecture in every class--almost without exception. I read the readings. I recited in class. I kept cuts to a minimum. I'd give up potentially awesome nights out with friends to prepare for a test.

And now it's all coming to an end. I know that all that effort just means that I shouldn't stumble at the end, but I suddenly understand the concept. Of stumbling at the end, I mean. Of choking. Honestly, I'm sick of being all about school, I'm sick of the endlessness of it all, sick of homework and oral tests and midterms. I am itching to fast forward to March.

But I'm also terrified of what happens after. Haha. I feel a little a crazy. I feel like, Okay, cool, you worked your ass off to get high grades your entire life. Now what? A big part of me feels like it all meant nothing. Just pushing paper around for some kind of personal gratification that I developed over the years. Truth is, I just want to curl up in a ball and sleep. Haha.

Not the biggest of problems, I know. But hey. Whatever. Happy graduation to you, too. :p

What Women Want

2010-01-28T21:28:00.006+08:00

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.

The answers vary, of course, but there's also a convergence in many of them. If you're a woman (or believe yourself to be, no judgments here), you'll probably nod to at least a couple of the following: general good looks, a sense of style, a hot car, some brains, good breeding (i.e., won't fart or pick his nose in front of your parents), spectacular talent in bed, knows how to take care of you, is good with kids, with cars, in sports, and all sorts of electronics, can serenade you at the snap of a finger, doesn't mind carrying all your stuff around, won't complain when you have a bitch fit, likes the same books, TV shows, movies, and music that you do, has a six-pack, and if you're really, really lucky, maybe he's the guy from The Bachelor or he's Zac Efron.

But let's be realistic. The guy we'll end up marrying will probably only fit some of the above. He probably can't sing a note. He probably won't be too into books or the kind of music we listen to. He probably won't put the toilet seat down after he uses it. And he probably, really won't have a six-pack, unless we're talking about beer here.

I realized today though that a lot of that stuff doesn't matter. At the end of the day, it's all about having a hand to hold and a shoulder to cry on and someone to share ice cream with and all that cheesy, puke-inducing-if-you're-not-the-one-doing-it kind of stuff. It's about having a place where you can put down all that excess baggage and take a breather.

It's about having someone to come home to.

So gentlemen, there you have it: that's what women want. Hell, I think that's what we all want. :)

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

2010-01-19T01:51:00.005+08:00

Nuff said.

Okay, well, maybe not. :-p Just a few things I gotta get out of the way to be able to get any sleep tonight, though.

Holy shit. My mind is exploding in expletives, I swear. Here it is: AVATAR IS AWESOME. It lived up to the hype, all two hours and forty-five minutes of it. I mean, yeah, my ass has been reduced to a flat area behind my legs, and my head is spinning with giant blue 3D pictures, but it's all completely worth it. There were, for me, no dragging bits, no parts that I felt could've been done away with... It is a cinematic masterpiece.

...Not in an indie way, obviously. But it is fantastic.

Throughout the movie I kept thinking of other films it reminded me of. There was the clear Pocahontas vibe in the plot, of course, but for instance the robots totally reminded me of Star Wars droids; the war itself was very LOTR-esque; there were elements from Minority Report, Eragon (i know that movie totally bombed but the book was decent, and the whole tree bit was kind of there) and a whole bunch of other films, games, and books that I simply cannot name right now because my brain is exhausted.

What I loved was how well it all came together, without too much exaggeration and with just the right amount of deus ex machina.

And of course, IMAX. Thank you for finally giving me a break over there. Our seats were perfect--J22 and 23--right smack in the middle of the entire theater. 3-D is insane. Totally intense experience, and absolutely worth the wait.

Holy crap, you haven't seen it? Buy tickets.

Now.

P.S. Matrix is another one of those movies pala. :)

Learning to Drive

2010-01-14T00:39:00.000+08:00

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.

Now I've fallen into ditches many times. In fact, I think I've driven over every pothole, manhole, hump, and bump that's been put in front of me for the past eight years or so. Every time it happened, I'd pull my car out of the hole and keep on driving, or else find another car to work with, without ever looking back. Without ever really learning.

And so I'd run over another bump and fall into another ditch. Same story, again and again. This time, though, I've learned my lesson. It's partly because of the damage--this car is particularly special to me--but it's also because I've gotten pretty damned sick of falling into ditches. It's time I learned to look at the road, to really watch where I'm going and be aware of what I'm doing.

Also, I know for a fact that the damage will be irreparable next time I carelessly let myself drive into a ditch. I may never be able to drive again.

So. I'm getting back on the highway now. Here's to learning to drive properly for the first time in my life.

Avatar Adventure (Fail) Part 2

2010-01-11T23:50:00.006+08:00

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)

At 7:20 tonight my friend called the IMAX theater at Mall of Asia. "Are there still available seats for your 10PM showing of Avatar?" he asked.

"Yes sir," the IMAX lady replied. "We still have 96 seats available."

Five minutes later we were in the car on our way to MOA, all the way from my house in Libis (near Eastwood). We took the fastest route we could think of: C-5 into Fort Bonifacio, then McKinley Street out into EDSA southbound, past Pasay until we hit Mall of Asia. At the Taft MRT--we had made it to that point in an amazing 30 minutes at rush hour, no less--we called the theater again to check if there were still empty seats.

"We still have 45 seats available, sir," the lady said.

We drove like mad 'til we hit the parking lot. My friend then told me to put up the windows and lock the car as he sprinted off in the direction of the IMAX theaters. I did what he told me and made my way into the mall as well. A little while later, he called me saying that there was a line of 22 people in front of him (he actually counted!) and there were 38 tickets left.

My heart pounded as I made my way to the theaters. Could we make it? Or would this be a repeat of New Year's Eve? I ignored my feelings of doubt and entered the area of the ticket booths.

He was almost there. Five or so people away. There were still 22 seats left. I looked away for a moment and suddenly I heard my friend say, "Who the f*ck took all the tickets?"

Apparently, one guy--some senior citizen complete with card--went and bought 20 tickets all in one go. TWENTY TICKETS. What, was the guy paying for his barangay or something? It was a major fail. My friend and I went home disappointed... except that we bought tickets for next Monday's 10PM showing of Avatar.

I can no longer watch this movie in regular theaters. It's 3D or nothing now: I've been spurned twice! At this point I guess you're wondering what happened the first time around. Well, let me make it short and sour: it was December 31st and my friends and I were looking to end our year with three hours of awesomeness. We drove out to MOA at 12nn that day only to find that the tickets were sold out. Yes. Disappointment in sign after sign.

Sigh. It's a good thing there's still next week to look forward to... and I swear, this movie better KICKASS.

The Times, They Are A-Changin'

2010-01-10T22:45:00.002+08:00

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?

It's a sad moment when you realize that people change. Whether it's for the better or for the worse, there's always a sense of someone you cared for being left behind in the black hole of the past. Sometimes it's a beloved friend whom you feel you hardly know anymore.

Other times its a facet of yourself you are happy to get rid of.

But in any case, people change and the days go on. All anyone can do is keep on moving, and keep hoping that there may be a few things in this world that can withstand the test of time. Like hope. Maybe friendship. Maybe faith. Maybe love.

Disclaimer: this is mostly word vomit. :p

The Lion's Wish

2010-01-05T23:31:00.002+08:00

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."

I suppose it is. When you're the one at fault and you've done the close-to-unforgivable, the sense of helplessness is overwhelming. It takes an immense amount of courage to keep fighting, and to keep believing that you can overcome your weaknesses and prove your worth. Especially if it's about something that you could have avoided completely, and should have already known better about. This kind of thing, it's not the courage of a soldier at war or of a firefighter rescuing a baby from a burning building or even of a kid standing up to a bully, but it is courage nonetheless.

Because while I've come to realize that it takes strength of heart to not give up on someone, it takes a shitload of strength of mind not to give up on yourself. Props to the Lion here: he made it all the way to Oz to ask the Wizard for courage, even if he didn't have any the whole way there.

So before I go to sleep tonight, let me make the same petition the Lion did: I wish for courage.

I will try again tomorrow, and I will try harder.

Got Ink?

2009-12-30T10:44:00.005+08:00

Yes, ladies and gentlemen. After two years, endless Google images searches, countless moments of indecision, and one of the longest hours of my life...IT HAS BEEN DONE. People, I have gotten my tattoo.

And it is gorgeous. It took me a long time to decide on what to get--I wanted something that would represent the incredible luck I've had all my life. I'm such a blessed person; God proves it again and again that there's a star shining on me. I wondered for a long time: horseshoe? Corny. Four-leaf clover? Not into plants. Rabbit's foot? Ew.

Until one day my mom told me the story again of the year I was born, how so many parents wanted to have kids that year because it was supposed to have been a lucky one. 1988, the year of the Blue Dragon, according to the Chinese. And I thought, Eureka! That's my sign. That is me.

That was last year. It took another year for me to work up the courage to actually go to a tattoo parlor and get the thing done. And even when I finally walked into PNP Tattoos the other day, the sound of drilling needles running over people's skin made my stomach turn and me want to run screaming home.

But I did it. I sat through it for a whole hour while Jake, the artist, stenciled and inked and drilled away at my skin. And seriously, anyone who has ever said that getting a tattoo does not hurt is spouting a lot of crap. Because it really does! It's not intolerable pain, but it is a very sharp needle on about four inches of skin.

I'm extremely happy now though. No regrets whatsoever. I mean, even my mom thinks it's beautiful. And it feel so incredible awesome to have epically ended my 2009 by making a long-time dream come true. :)

P.S. Photo to follow. :)

We Are Warrior: A Post-Christmas Post

2009-12-26T11:19:00.003+08:00

Well, ho ho ho, it's all over now. The 25th has come and gone and we find ourselves on the other side of Christmas.

And what a Christmas week it was! It was a glimpse of the both the Dark Side and the Light. As a distinguished Jedi master would say, Many things, I have learned. Some are things I should have already known or already do know, but which were reinforced by certain remarkable experiences:

December takes the cake. :)

I have learned, for example, that Patron XO is the drink of the gods.
I have learned that three-and-a-half inch heels become crippling torture devices after five hours of dancing.
I have learned that I really enjoy not having a curfew (but this I had an inkling of already).
I have learned that it is better to drink and pass out than to have never drunk at all.
I have learned that my birthday is always a time for the previous lesson to be enacted.
I have learned that Rock Band 2 can be learned (after much patience and angry shouting--damn you, Pearl Jam!!!)
I have learned that I really, really, really like the History Channel. It's awesome.
I have learned that my family is a trip, and that my friends are even trippier.
I have learned that my family, in general, believes that gifts of alcohol are the most practical kind.
I have learned that guys are useless storytellers of kilig moments like marriage proposals. It's like they don't want to admit they get all cheesy too.
I have learned that I've got a long way to go before truly becoming WARRIOR. I am, as yet, no more than lowly novice.

There are a whole bunch of others I've probably failed to mention. But above all, I've learned that 2009 has been an incredible year for me. I look back on it and go, Holy crap. Wow. And then when I see that December has in all likelihood been the climax of it all, I can't help but look up and tell the Big Guy up there, Thank you.

That's just the way it is with Christmas--a lot of heartfelt thank-you's to go around. Happy birthday to me and to Jesus!:)

Time to see what this week and the New Year have to bring! :)

Geek Out Moment of the Day (Part 2)

2009-12-23T20:33:00.002+08:00

I knew it! I knew those corporate suits were geeks at heart! Above is a video of Darth Vader, a few Storm Troopers, and R2-D2 ringing the opening bell over at Wall Street earlier this week as representatives of Lucasfilm Ltd. I bet those stockbrokers and business people ate it all up--dude, I would have!

Seriously, if there is one set of films that gets my geek on, it's Star Wars. May the Force be with you always, George Lucas. You are a genius.

Geek Out Moment of the Day (Part 1)

2009-12-23T20:23:00.001+08:00

Okay, okay. Trying hard not to choke with excitement here. But... Iron Man 2, guys! Come on!!

I'm not gonna be a poser and say I was a huge fan of the original comic book series or anything, but I loved the first movie, I love RDJ, and damn did Scarlett Johansson look hot or what! :D This is an awesome trailer. Here's to an awesome movie experience this May.

Ultra 7 na toh! :)

On Friends and Birthdays

2009-12-20T16:17:00.001+08:00

We came, we partied, and we went home wasted. Ah, 21. What a beautiful age to be. :)

I salute my friends! To the young man who had to be carried out by a bouncer. To the lovely young lady who could not keep her drinks down. To everyone who took a shot of tequila (or three or four or ten!), and to the girl who helped make sure everyone did. To the three people who made it happen.

Awesome party. Again. :) It made me love my friends more and made me love my life more. There's just so much to celebrate! What a way to kick off Christmas break. Hugs to all the people who made it, and to all the people who couldn't. You all rock!!! :)

I'm a very happy birthday girl. :)

A Bit Emo, But So What

2009-12-17T23:08:00.007+08:00

A poem I found in a lost place:

You want to know the truth?

You want to know the truth? Well,
the truth is
I’m scared. I’m
scared and I’m scarred and I’m
sitting alone with a stretch of day ahead of me
and I don’t know what to do.

We (he-and-I) were supposed to write a book together.
I made a choice.

The urge to check if you’ve sent me a message is
maddening—
I glance at my phone every thirtyfuck seconds and
twiddle my thumbs in between.
When you make a secret of the love of your life,
your life makes a secret of love, and let everyone
think that way.

What WOULD Tyler Durden Do?

2009-12-15T12:46:00.004+08:00

He'd ask you what you were doing with your life. If you were happy in your "condo existence," watching sitcoms all day, eating potato chips, subscribing to weekly magazines. He'd spout some stuff about how advertising has you believing that you are destined for greatness, but that you're not. He'd tell you that you're made of the same decaying crap that everything else is made of, that you are not special, that you will die.

He'd say that you are the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world.

Then he'd probably pick a fight with you. You'd lose. And then you'd walk away, and probably never look back.

So many people, myself included, regard Fight Club as one of those movies that is so awesome, it needs to be seen to be believed. We (and yes, I note my shift in personal pronoun here, I need to mention it, I'm a stickler for grammar) look at Tyler Durden and go, Damn, that shit is kickass. Guys work out to look like him, girls wish they could, um, be with him. We quote him for essays, yearbook write-ups, twitter stats (guilty on this last one!). We tell our teachers and friends that Fight Club is our favorite movie of all time, cause it sounds cool.

But by doing so, we miss the point, don't we? Fight Club, like anything that flows from the pen of Chuck Palahniuk, is a social commentary, and a cutting one. And yet sharp as it is, it still fails to slice through the fat and the fog surrounding our lives. Palahniuk's--and Tyler Durden's--words go in one ear and out our mouths in clever quotations.

Shame on us. If he could see us now, Tyler would look at us and say, "How's that working out for you, being clever?"

How sad that it's so difficult for us to have courage--not necessarily to blow up credit card companies, but to leave our material and constructed comforts behind. Look at me, having just enough courage to notice it and to write about it. But action? Oh, leave me out of that, please. I gotta go do my homework and watch Entourage.

Although maybe, once in a while, when we're about to do something inane, mundane, mind-numbing, something so ordinary that we never stop to think about it anymore--like controlling our lives--we should. Stop, I mean, and then maybe ask ourselves, "What would Tyler Durden do?"

*note: Image borrowed from http://screenrant.com/1999-movies-year-in-review-titles-f-z-niall-30115/. :)

The Value of Silence

2009-12-12T00:18:00.005+08:00

We live in a noisy world.

Forget the birds; we wake up in the morning to the blare of car horns and the morning news, to the ringing of cell phones and alarm clocks. We are a people of talk radio and loud music. We are a society of interminable sound.

The cacophony of our lives consumes us. An hour, ten minutes, even a few moments without sound is almost unimaginable. Silence has become terrifying. I mean, picture it: a family eating in silence; a date where no one is talking; a night when the power is out. The accompanying emotion is always negative--tension, awkwardness, discomfort, even fear...

But it is easy to forget the fact that noise has become our constant companion. We go on with our surround-sound lives, completely at home with the ever-rising decibel levels necessary for our survival. We forget, and in fact have forgotten, the value of silence.

Tonight I had the chance to spend some quality time with someone with whom I can talk to for hours non-stop. Yet miraculously, this person is also someone who I can spend long periods of time with without saying a word. And with this person, I realize, unfailingly, every single time, that it's not necessary to always have something to say. We don't always have to contribute to the noise.

My mother taught me that the man I marry must be someone I can easily talk to, someone I can carry a good conversation with. I think I've found that that's only one of the essentials. The other is that that person should also be someone I can sit quietly with, without feeling the need to fill in the hush.

There is something almost sacred about a moment of silence. There's something utterly beautiful about being able to share it with someone else. :)

Toothbrush Exercise: My Legs Have Known the Pain of Death

2009-12-05T10:43:00.003+08:00

Exercise and I really aren't meant to be friends. I went ahead and gave plyometrics a shot the other day, over at the Core Kinesis gym in Legend Villas (along Pioneer). A friend of mine gave me some gift certificates for free lessons, and I've been meaning to get some physical activity in (for health purposes, you understand), so I told myself, Okay, I've got some free time, why not?

Hidden within is the possibility of muscle pain.

Oh, oh, oh. I know now why not. I did the exercise Thursday. It's now Saturday and my legs still feel the awesome and terrible burn. Getting out of bed, already a dreadful process to begin with, is now a task almost beyond enduring. Stairs have truly become the enemy. And heels! Oh, heels: they clench my butt and strain my calves in all the most agonizing places. It's so bad that a massage will only hurt me instead of help me.

And all this pain reveals but two things: one, I am horribly, horribly out of shape (no surprise there, I've been a couch potato for about a year now). And two, Core Kinesis is an awesome gym that works out your whole body in one sweat-inducing hour. It just so happens that my legs feel the burn the most. It's a good place for exercise junkies, masochists, and people who really, really want to get in shape. I fall in the third category, in case you were wondering.

Last bit. Nestor, the main trainer at Core Kinesis, actually spouted some exercise philosophy to me that I felt made the most sense I ever heard on the subject of exercise. He was a former professor at UP (some physical science subject, I forget) and I think has worked as a physiotherapist with some PBA teams, so he's got both academic and street cred. He told me, as I warmed up on the treadmill and pretended to not be out of breath at 5kph, that exercise is like brushing your teeth.

"How many times should you brush your teeth in a day?" he said. "That's really up to you, isn't it? But the more regularly you do it, the better, right? It's the same with exercise. There's no 'best' number of times in a week, no 'how often.' Physical activity once a week is better than none at all."

Agree? I agree. Shut up. :)

UAAP Presidentiables

2009-12-02T23:52:00.003+08:00

So check it out. The Noynoy/Mar ticket is Ateneo. Gibo and Edu are La Salle. And Villar and Loren are both from UP--although I'm not entirely sure if they've confirmed their partnership (I haven't read the papers in a few days). I'm hearing drums!!! :D

Seriously, it's like college all over again for these guys, except instead of battling it out on the court, they're using the national stage. Great! And up for grabs: not just school pride, but the future of the Filipino people! *Applause* Of course I don't mean to belittle the other candidates here, but this is a personal blog and I get to voice my opinions. I just thought it was a quirky thing, this whole school colors business, something to point out.

I wonder if at the end of it all, their school of origin will influence the way they run the country. Will a UP-run Philippines mean greater freedom of assembly (no more hosing down rallyists) and open protests within government walls? Will Atenistas in power (again, hehe) guarantee critical, philosophical, and theological discussions among government employees, and between government and people? Will the La Salle ticket give the country the efficiency of a well-run business, a well-oiled, moneymaking machine?

Okay, just playing around. I wanted to take it further and go to what the people in government offices would wear in the event that an iskolar ng bayan, Atenista, or Lasalista makes it to the top post, but... yeah, wag nalang. :D

BUT. My real opinion in terms of the presidential race is simple: may the best candidates win. *smile*

E is for Entourage

2009-12-01T20:58:00.001+08:00

I love this show. It has got to rank among my top ten shows of all time, a list that includes Buffy the Vampire Slayer (shut up, haters!), How I Met Your Mother, Big Bang Theory, and Gossip Girl, just off the top of my head. I love Entourage so much that the only reason I'm about two seasons behind the current episode is because my laptop is a complete snail when it comes to downloading stuff. Utterly useless.

Utter awesomeness in action.

But I've recently finished season four, and just now started season 5, and I'm already hooked again. Damn you, Vincent Chase and your adorably curly hair! I love almost all the characters: I love Vinny cause he's Vinny; I love E cause he's so darn sensitive and caring; I love Ari because he's in the running for the biggest jerk in TV history; I love Turtle cause he's cuddly; and I love Lloyd cause he's a trip. I even love Sloane because she's crazy hot. I don't love Drama, though, I just like him sometimes--he annoys the crap out of me.

But taken together, Entourage is a show for the ages, man. It's a guaranteed 30 minutes of awesomeness when I decide to sit down and watch an episode. And it never fails to make me miss the ole U.S. of A.

Eep, I just love it. Okay, I'm raving. :D To end this senseless outpouring of excitement, here's our quote for the day:

"AQUAMAN is back!"

- Johnny Drama, Season 4 Finale

as he tosses raw fish onto Carl Ertz's car

Kids and Christmas

2009-11-30T16:38:00.002+08:00

I totally should not be doing this while I'm at work--it's tantamount to surfing the net or playing Plants vs Zombies in philosophy class, or something--but I don't want to put it off in case I forget.

Every Christmas when I was a kid, my family and I would give out groceries to the poor. We would load up our old Nissan Vanette with dozens of plastic bags filled with canned goods and instant noodles, and hand them out to the families living under the bridges of EDSA and squatting on the sides of the lesser roads of the city. We did that every year until we moved to California, when I was about ten. When I came back here, times were a bit tougher, and my family stopped the practice.

It didn't bother me much as a kid, but now the obligation to give to those in need lies a bit heavier on my chest. And that's why (finally I get to my point) I applaud Karylle Tatlonghari's efforts to make a few lonely children happy this Christmas. With the help of Childhaus and Magic 89.9 (okay this is reading like a plug, but I'm being sincere) Karylle's put up a wish list by kids with cancer and other life-threatening diseases. Check it out here: www.clink.ph. I myself pledged to give pooh pillows to a 7-year-old with congenital heart disease.

A simple Pooh bear pillow to make one child's whole Christmas

My heart melts whenever I think of it. So there, that's my early Christmas message. Whaddaya say, hm? Let's make a few kids smile this holiday season? :)

Shirt of the Week: DONUT PANIC

2009-11-29T14:54:00.002+08:00

Okay, so I'm not sure if I'm actually gonna have a shirt of the week. But whatever, this one made my day today:

The jelly is the blood. Heehee

It's off a site called shirt.woot.com, one of those places where they feature a new design every day. "Donut Panic!" is one of their bestsellers. Unfortunately, they don't ship to Philippines (damn anti-Third World websites!), but if you have relatives in the US, you can skim a few bucks off of the shipping costs. The shirts themselves are about $10-$20 a piece.

Ang cute nung donut!!! :D

Choose Your Own Adventure

2009-11-28T22:09:00.001+08:00

When I was growing up, one of my favorite children's stories was (ironically) Peter Pan. There was just something about the idea of never growing up that appealed to my imagination. Neverland and its mermaids and pirates, Lost Boys and fairies, Indians and flying and happy thoughts--it was my childhood paradise.

Obviously I just got this from the Internet. Don't sue. It's a nice picture.

As I grew older, my tastes did too. I moved on to more mature books and more complicated tales. But the core of all my favorite stories was always adventure. From Milo's journey through the Lands Beyond in The Phantom Tollbooth, to Jim's travels on The Hispaniola, to Frodo's trials to get the Ring to Mordor, to Richard Mayhew's discoveries in the subways of London in Neverwhere, my taste for adventure followed me through the books I read.

And as I put to rest each story and turned the last page on every tale, I wondered to myself when I would ever go on my own adventure. Would I ever find that my closet actually led to another world? Would a tornado ever come and take me to my personal Oz?

Obviously not. And I got used to the idea, living my life normally, never quite making it to another plane of existence. Then, one day last week, I and a group of like-minded friends decided: if adventure won't come to us, why don't we go find our own adventures? Before we get too old to take risks and break rules. Before we lose the thirst to do crazy things and live life with a little insanity. Before we forget what Neverland looks like.

And so we drew up The Epic List -- fifteen things we will do, as a group, to bring a little spice to lives that are in danger of being allowed to become bland. The List (which I'll put up as soon as I can scan it) includes breaking some minor laws and taking a few easy tasks to the next level. Tonight we will do one of those things (aren't YOU curious what it might be ;D ).

It's gonna be crazy. It's gonna be awesome. It's gonna be... EPIC. An epic adventure. :)

Any Suggestions? (UPDATE)

2009-11-25T23:28:00.001+08:00

Incredible. It's so nice to see that people still really do read. I was just sort of putting the question out there with my last post, and 20 comments...! For the more hardcore blogger, that's nothing at all, I know. But I am so amazed that you guys (and I can comfortably address "you" out there, because I now actually believe that I am addressing someone) responded so enthusiastically. I am thoroughly humbled by this. :)

So, here's a follow-up to your comments, because I feel they all deserve to be addressed.

First, on Filipino lit: I'm a bit ashamed to admit that I've done little more than dabble in our local selections. Most of my exposure to Philippine literature, both modern and historical, is courtesy of my Augustinian and Jesuit education. Your suggestions will all be noted. Just to share, though, one of my favorite poems of all time is by Filipino poet Angela Manalang-Gloria. The more heavy-duty readers here are probably all rolling their eyes and going, "How cliche!" But I can't help it, Soledad strikes a chord with me. It did from the first time I read it and it still does every time I do. :D

Someone suggested that I go into another fantasy series... my thing about that is that I have to keep buying the books, and it's just agonizing to have to wait to get my hands on the next installment after a cliffhanger ending. I'm sure you know the feeling. :D Plus, it's costly and a bit too time-consuming. I'm hoping to stick to one-part novels for now. :)

Regarding the Classics and the classics (and I learned recently, courtesy of my current lit teacher, that there is an important difference between the two), I enjoy them when I'm feeling particularly intellectual. You know, the "oh hey I'm feeling smart today" kind of feeling? Only then can I go Dante and Homer and all them guys. For the record though, I have always had a particular interest in the Arthurian legend. Has anyone read Le Morte d'Arthur? I've always wondered if that could count as proper leisure reading.

Somebody also mentioned Einstein's Dreams--that book is a dream! Love it. :) As for Robert Ludlum, I did get into the Bourne series for a bit, but I can only take so much espionage in one go. I like variety in my literature. :D

But okay, my point here really is THANK YOU. This is so awesome, that people respond.

Can you tell I'm excited? I totally got carried away. :D

Any Suggestions?

2009-11-24T22:20:00.002+08:00

I am a book freak. I've been reading since I could, which was probably around the time I was five. I started with the Sweet Valley series: Sweet Valley Kids, Sweet Valley Teens, Sweet Valley High. I knew the Wakefield twins and their posse like the back of my hand. From there I moved on to The Baby-Sitters' Club (you KNOW you read that stuff back in the day!) and to the Goosebumps series and to R.L. Stine.

One day when I was ten and still living in California, my dad came home with a set of books that he said the people over at Barnes and Noble highly recommended. They were calling it the next big thing in young adult fiction, and they told him I would love it. They were right on both counts: it was Harry Potter, and I fell head over heels (I've been a Potter fan since--I pride myself on being a pre-movie one).

Coming back home to the Philippines when I was twelve, I relapsed into chick-lit for a while. I went Meg Cabot a-la Princess Diaries and got hooked on Gossip Girl years before anyone dreamed of turning it into a TV series. Then I discovered Stephen King. I read everything of his I could get my hands on: The Shining, Salem's Lot (still an all-time fave), Desperation, The Stand, The Tommyknockers, Carrie, The Talisman and Black House, and all seven books in The Dark Tower series. I adored his style, the depth of his characters, the place of the human mind in his brand of horror. Somewhere along the way I fell in love with fantasy. Tolkien at first intimidated me, but once I got into The Hobbit, the rest of the Ring series were an exciting foray into the genre. I went David Eddings, and Neil Gaiman, and then I veered into Haruki Murakami (whom I first encountered through Kafka on the Shore, a gift from a friend on my birthday) and Chuck Palahniuk.

I did classics, too: Treasure Island, Black Beauty, The Great Gatsby. I dabbled in everything in between: Salman Rushdie, Christopher Paolini, Paolo Coelho, Jostein Gaarder, Dan Brown, John Grisham, Mario Puzo, Tracy Chevalier. I read books by unknown authors and unknown books by random authors. I could keep going, but I'm afraid I'm starting to sound a bit stuck-up and name-droppy. :)

My point is, I love books. Always have. And now, I need recommendations. The book titles in Fully Booked all sort of scare me; there are so many unfamiliar ones that I don't know where to begin.

And so, I ask: What, these days, is a good a read? Now no offense to the Twilight fans (I have read all four books, so I get an informed say) but I don't mean that kind of reading. I'm talking a real gripping story, the kind that stays in your mind for days. After I read Salem's Lot, for instance, I kept the curtains drawn at night for a week--I was so scared I'd see a pale, fanged face staring back at me. That kind of reading.

So to the two people who read this blog and to whoever else might drop by...any suggestions? :D

What Are Weekends For?

2009-11-22T21:24:00.003+08:00

It's a rhetorical question. I mean, obviously, weekends are supposed to be rest days; God Himself had one, didn't He? "And on the seventh day, He rested," etcetera. But I guess if you're gunning to start your career at an early age, which the media industry in particular practically requires now, then real rest days do not exist for you. Or at least, they ought not exist, if you're really serious.

I like to think I'm beginning to get real serious. Graduation is looming, after all--March isn't all that far from November. And that old saying about time and flying really applies when you're approaching something big and scary, which in my case is The Real World. So here I am, working part-time, trying to get the best possible transcript out of my collegiate life, putting myself out there to get both money and exposure.

Being surrounded by people who have been through or are going through what I am is both inspiring and intimidating. It's like: Okay, they can do it, then so can I! But at the same time: Can I, really? Doesn't his or her presence in the industry make the competition more formidable? And you can't really dwell on it because if you have time to be dwelling, then you're clearly not working hard enough. It's a tough game.

So what did I do this weekend to enhance my chances for survival--and eventually, success--in the industry of my choice? I boarded for radio 6 to 9 AM. At 10, I attended an orientation for a required activity at school: immersion [in an underprivileged sector of society. Ateneans, you know what I'm going on about]. At 12:30, I went to help out a friend with his thesis project, out of which I emerged with photos I can use for my portfolio (I figured out some time ago that it's always good to have some decent photos in storage if you want to get a job where your face will be shown on TV. Ha.).

I took a couple hours to rest at home, but by 8 PM I was at the venue of a hosting gig I did for a school event--Shindig '09: Rebirth. Fancy. My friends/colleagues (what do I call them, I wonder?) Mia and Boom were there with me. We ended the program at 10:30. I was dead asleep by midnight.

Photo courtesy of my good friend Piaroj. Stolen! :)

Is this really as hectic a schedule as I make it out to be, for a Saturday? Maybe. But more importantly, will it pay off someday?

I'll let you know a few entries from now. I hope.

Better Than Perfect (Warning: Sobrang Cheesy!)

2009-05-08T11:06:00.007+08:00

My best friend recently posted a blog entry titled, "The Perfect Girlfriend." It was a short, anonymous essay designed to strike some sense--and perhaps a change of heart, as well--into the more callous members of the opposite sex. Here's a snippet:

"What is a perfect girlfriend? They say there’s no such thing as perfection, and that she doesn’t exist.

"Oh trust me, SHE DOES.

"She dresses up all cute and pretty every time you take her out on a date. This is her way of keeping you interested as your eyes are locked solely on her. You stare at other girls instead, and she gets hurt and upset that all her time and effort were put to waste.

"You call her insecure."

And so on. Most girls would titter at this, catch each other's eye, and nod knowingly. All together and without a word, they'd agree that yes, men are idiots for not realizing that the reason we women act the way we do is because this is the only way we know how to show our love and affection. But I had to laugh at my own personal reaction to the essay.

It was the ending that really caught my eye. It goes:

"So go ahead. Leave the insecure, clingy, jealous, nagging, overly sensitive, annoying girl. She will soon be much happier in the arms of someone who actually deserves her: the perfect boyfriend."

Would it be fair for me to say that I disagree? No one is perfect. So how could any one person be a perfect anything--boyfriend, girlfriend, spouse? People who spend their lives searching for their perfect partner are looking for a nonexistent needle in the biggest haystack in the universe. It's not just a fool's mission, it's a completely pointless one.

The best anyone can hope for is a relationship involving two people who are both willing to work for the relationship, in every way that matters. If it means dealing with irrational tantrums, too many work hours, family problems, psychological issues, financial worries, conflicting opinions, and everything in between, so be it. It's talking it out, giving each other space to think and to be his- or herself. It's working on the relationship by working on oneself, not by trying to change the other person.

So maybe what we should all be looking for is not the perfect man or woman out there, but the best partner there is for each of us. Then maybe we can find ourselves in the best, real relationship possible--which, if you ask me, is a thousand times better than a perfect, imaginary one. :)