Stercus Accidit ☺

Poetry.

2010-03-27T15:00:00.000+08:00

Edo Ot Alinam
- A. Ramirez, 26 March 2010, Manila, Philippines

With the extinct song of dawn she wakes
Those who never fall asleep
She breathes the lilts and troughs
The poisons and perfumes
Of those who walk, purpose with or without
She is in the fresh metal and the dusty mirror
She lives in the gravel beneath the slow train
Her hair is the gray smoke that hangs
Over the million four-wheels and four-footeds
It is the heavy fog that sets over roads
That radiates the quivering heat of her eyes
Her gentle face is pitted and plastered now
She hides your obvious secrets
In the sinuous curves of her nose and cheeks
She speaks the thousand languages
Of the world's thousand slices
While her neck is adorned and strangled
With the collar of her patchwork dress
She wears stolen satin and well-earned silk
Stretch polyester and workaday denim
With endless bare threads underneath
And the seams are heedlessly unravelling
Barely covering insect-ridden shoulders
Revealing paper-brown skin
Perspiring from weather born of fledgling gods
Bedecked with tattoos in olden languages
Curved and dotted letters that stop
At fifty-one bracelets she brandishes
While tottering on small feet
Knees shaking from the impossible weight
Of the potential she never lived
She is on unsolid ground
She has fallen in love with too many ideas
She has forgotten the significant
Remembered the banal and benign
She fights fleetingly and suffers for long
And with the extinct song of dawn she wakes
Those who never fall asleep
She breathes the lilts and troughs
The poisons and perfumes
Of those who walk, purpose with or without.

Are We There Yet?

2010-03-01T13:50:00.000+08:00

The summer vacation hasn't officially begun, but the summer vibe is getting to my head. Must be my aunt and cousin's insistence that we go to the vacation house this weekend. I am definitely ready to say goodbye to sophomore year, and to say hello to a new summer job, a long overdue welcome-home party, and books, books, and more books that have nothing to do with Political Science. But before I can have F-U-N, there are still final exams to get through, projects to turn in, and organization matters to settle.

Speaking of which. Yesterday, I signed the org application form for Filipino Freethinkers. I have been waiting for something like this since I became agnostic in junior year of highschool. (This may confuse those who knew me in highschool, since I was a part of the choir, but yes, I was agnostic even then. Note: I have been using freethinker0028@yahoo.com as my email address for five years.) Then I stayed in Cine Adarna for the first Filipino Freethinkers Film Showing, which was amazing to say the least. An old friend and I sat through around four hours of documentaries, short films, and clips of comedy acts about agnosticism and atheism.

I'll stop here to explain, for the benefit of those who gasped at those two words.

Agnosticism and atheism are not synonymous. Agnostics, well, we don't really have everything in common, but we share a questioning attitude towards all religions. Personally, I pray, but I'm never sure to whom or even for whom. We are not afraid to question God's/Goddess' existence. Personally, I believe in the divine creator, but my notions are far from what I was taught in Catholic School. Plus, I don't think there are two Agnostics who share the exact same beliefs. We don't like it when someone else dictates who we should pray to, what we should say, or even where we should go to worship. Atheists, on the other hand, share the premise that God does not exist. Let me emphasize that Atheists are not Satanists, precisely because they don't believe in Satan either. And I will defend Atheists to the death, just like I defend Agnostics, because they are some of the most tolerant, understanding, and genuinely nice people you will ever meet. If you don't know any Atheists then I probably can't convince you, but trust me when I say that when a clash of religious beliefs take place, it is less likely for the Atheist to become violent. Because they, as well as we the agnostics, understand that fighting over God/dess is futile.

The thing about us Freethinkers is we don't try to convert anyone to join our group. Because we can't. One has to arrive at those beliefs alone, and it is a gruelling process riddled with fear and uncertainty. When the first realizations take place, there is often no one to talk to, or if there is, it is only to shoot you down. It requires the courage to question everything you were ever taught, chipping away at years and years of bible studies and memorized prayers, and self-assurance, because you're not going to get it from anyone else. It takes defiance and a certain sense of non-conformity. And the process of "coming out" is just as difficult. It took me around two years of practicing it in my head before I was able to say it out loud. I'm not saying we're better than anyone else. I'm just saying that we go through something that followers of traditional religions never will. We as Freethinkers are required (and when we meet peers later on, encouraged) to come up with our own assumptions about our existence. No guide book, no rule book, no teachers. Except maybe essays by Robert Ingersoll and other prominent freethinkers.

Back to the film showing.

An old friend and I arrived at around 2 p.m., and caught the latter part of "Enemies of Reason," Richard Dawkins' documentary. After that, "fear of being ignored" became a punchline. You may have to watch it to get it. Then there was the Jervais clip on the creation, and his take on the snake's punishment was hilarious. There were other Dawkins segments, but the standout for me was the Mr. Deity series, short comedy clips starring the Holy Trinity. They discussed the problem of evil, where prayers go, the trinity identity crisis, and a lot more. Then there was the short clip, "My Spirituality as an Atheist," which sufficiently described being one with the universe without believing in a divine creator. To a montage of calming scenes and a musical score reminiscent of relaxation videos, the narrator said, "What made the Grand Canyon... Has a name... Plate Tectonics." We thought it was so funny. Unfortunately we had to leave twenty minutes after the feature film "Letting Go of God: Breaking Up is Hard to do," footage of Julia Sweeney's broadway show. Trust me, walking out of Cine Adarna was a struggle. Oh, and I should mention: there was an American businessman and atheist who went to the film showing to talk to us. And there was free popcorn and drinks (too much popcorn, I should say, I don't think I'm going to eat popcorn again anytime soon).

I was surprised at how many of us there were, including professors and alumnae. And on of my favorite UP professors, Ma'am Bea Torre, was one of the members who organized the film showing. I also saw a lot of people I knew who I had no idea were agnostics or atheists.

I still have a lot of stuff to do, and I am weeks behind on my IR readings. Gasp, IR. Ma'am Layador's exams are murder. And Comparative Politics is no laughing matter either. Bye for now.

P.S.: American Idol this year is kind of disappointing. So You Think You Can Dance is way more entertaining.

UPD Election Results: USC and CSSP

2010-02-24T23:47:00.000+08:00

A personal account written in my personal capacity. Nothing I write should be taken as the stand of any organizations or publications I belong to :)

It was definitely worth the wait. If you're a UP student, waiting for the announcement of the University Student Council results at Vinzon's Hall should be on your list of things to do before you graduate. Granted, I couldn't cheer like most of the people there because I was too busy taking down notes and sending data to the staff in the publication office. Nevertheless, it was a uniquely UP experience. At around 7:00 PM I secured a spot behind the HALALAN Technical Team, and willed God/dess to lend me superhero vision because I was just as anxious as everyone else to see the results. I mean, the monitor was just there! At 7:06 the Tech Team announced that all voting precints were officially closed, except for the College of Law. The STAND UP supporters were singing a rather catchy song, but I didn't get the opportunity to ask what it was called. At 7:31, the Law precint closed and the votes were in. (Save for 7 manual votes-- 3 from Econ, 3 from Engineering, 1 from Bio-- that wouldn't change the turnout.) They began the announcements with the College Representatives.

Architecture: Alexander Mayoralgo (ALYANSA)
Library and Information Studies: John Ronald Almonita (STAND-UP)
CMC: Nigel Cornel (Independent)
AIT: Juan Carlo Danganan (START AIT)
NCPAG: Desiree Ico (KAISA) 91
Law: Chingkay Martinez (ALYANSA) 280
CHK: Angelo Flores (KAISA)
Statistics: Heverly Bravo (STAND UP) 214
CSSP: Juan Carlo Tejano (ALYANSA) 496
Economics: Carlo Go (STAND UP) 348
Education: Montana Dominguez (STAND UP)
Home Economics: Pamela Abesamis (KAISA) 253
CAL: Kriselda Sebastian (STAND UP) 324
Business Ad: Engelbert Chua (ALYANSA) 700
Music ALYANSA
CS: Jackie Canlas (ALYANSA) 401
Engg: Cyrus Cruz (KAISA) 1287; Michael Bien (ALYANSA) 1065
CSWCD: Marie Villar (STAND UP 67)
***The Fine Arts Representative backed out a day before the election, or so I hear.

Then came the councilors.

Marvee Resma KAISA 2642
Simoun Salinas ALYANSA 2739
Richard Etsrella ALYANSA 2790
Ezie Mariazeta STAND UP 2896
Jeanine Duran STAND UP 2910
Dan Ramos STAND UP 2922
Gem Garcia STAND UP 3080
Sarah Elago STAND UP 3263
Nico Ibaviosa ALYANSA 3587
K Karingal KAISA 3633
Tin Borja ALYANSA 3827
Chorva David KAISA 4159

Then the two highest positions.

Vice-chairperson: Amme Agudo STAND UP 4046; Bevs: 2659, Tonton: 2038
Chairperson: Rain Sindayen STAND UP 3091; Beng: 2972, Mario: 2923

The reaction from the STAND UP supporters was defeaning,and I don't blame them. They secured the two highest positions, plus five of twelve councilors. Afterward, Jane (News Department) appeared, apparently she ran from the CSSP precint she was covering, and said we had to interview people from each party. We found ALYANSA immediately, hello people in blue, and STAND UP, who were a sea of red in the middle of the Vinzon's Hall lobby, celebrating. One got the feeling that the celebration would last past dawn. But we could not find KAISA supporters, who seemed to have left right after the announcements were made. Jane told me the shocking news that BUKLOD CSSP won Chairperson, Vice-Chairperson, and ALL twelve councilor positions. The only positions SALIGAN won were department representatives (Anthropology, Sociology, Linguistics, and one of the two Psychology rep positions). Take note, there were no BUKLOD candidates for Anthropology, Sociology and Linguistics. I was stunned for quite a bit: nobody predicted that it would happen. EVER. Personally, I'd like a council that has an equal number of reds, blues, and yellows, but in CSSP, no. KAISA did not win any positions, although they weren't exactly running as KAISA but as independents. Maybe next year they'll gain party status and have more impact on the voters? The councilor with the lowest number of votes came from KAISA, after all. That said, I have not gotten over the BUKLOD domination. I have nothing against them, but the win simply defied all expectations. Here are the CSSP results, taken from http://sinag.co.nr :

Chairperson
Javelosa 670
Garcia 357
Abstain 81

Vice Chairperson
Mabel Ogoshi 681
Abstain 434

CSSP Representative to the USC
JC Tejano 496
Codi Rivera 426
Reinna Bermudez 150
Abstain 43

Councilors
Dan Ramos 521
Adrian Baccay 500
Paula Parungao 478
Ron Reyes 466
Mickey Eva 447
Anna Isaguirre 447
Daisy Ducepec 411
MM Merilo 393
Sam King 380
Casey Giron 352
Denesse Handumon 326
Chabi Tuando 318
Shin Ocampo 310
Paulo Caparas 294
Riz Lorenzo 282
Mahon Andaca 275
BJ Costales 246
Ralph Gascon 232
Jadd Dealino 205
Abstain 46

Anthropology Dept Rep
Vince Escarcha 26
Abstain 4

Geography Dept Rep
Ehjay Pasagui 65
Igi Toda 61
Abstain 3

History Dept Rep
Leslie dela Cruz 37
Jio Guiang 20
Abstain 0

Linguistics Dept Rep
Mhawi Rosero 83
Lester Oliver 1
Abstain 3

Philosophy Dept Rep
Mara Favis 46
Raya Manalo 43
Abstain 7

Political Science Dept Rep
Jolly Padilla 126
Jit Sohal 71
Geri Cerillo 19
Abstain 8

Psychology Dept Rep
Pia Vizcarra 312
Jay-Ar Alejandro 104
Richmae Gillera 84
Abstain 19

Sociology Dept Rep
J Peralta 44
Honeylet Santos 10
Abstain 28

Note: there are still 10 uncounted ballots

ON THE USC ELECTION RESULTS:

Jane: Ano po yung masasabi niyo sa results?
Toff Lumag (ALYANSA Spokesperson): Ano po to, uhm, masasabi ko as ALYANSA member? Well, we got 12 seats sa USC, 8 college reps and 4 councilors. Uhm, I think that with the quality of candidates that we have, yung mga nanalo, uh, we are confident, we are still confident, that, uh, that the programs of ALYANSA will be carried on in the USC. Kahit na, siguro, mas kulang tayo sa numbers ngayon, naniniwala tayo na mapapasa pa rin. And I'm actually very proud of the kind of campaign that ALYANSA brought this year, yun nga, yung "Kasama ka," I think we were able to put the message across, and that's the most important to us.

We also have an interview with STAND UP College of Arts and Letters Chair Krisha Sanihon, but I really need to get some sleep so I'll update this post and add a conclusion tomorrow.

IR Practice Essay

2010-02-04T13:29:00.002+08:00

Disclaimer: The Art Studies Essays below this are far, far more interesting. This is an International Relations practice essay and is posted for the sake of posting... And because I like it. :))

Cameron G. Thies' article, "Are Two Theories Better than One? A Constructivist Model of the Neorealist-Neoliberal Debate," uses the Survival Model to suggest that the Neoliberal school of thought has more external validity and is more internally coherent than Neorealism. That is not to say, however, that Neorealism is invalid, as the author emphasizes on the need for empirical testing to arrive at a true judgment. The Survival Model concentrates on logical consistency, and he cites Bueno de Mesquita and Morrow (1999) as proponents of the idea that logical consistency is the key to evaluating theories, in disagreement with Stephen Walt who lists it as the lowest criteria, behind degree of originality and empirical validity. Thies believes that it is possible and desirable to explain conflict and cooperation with the same theory, and this can be achieved if both Neorealism and Neoliberalism establish that process, structure and environment are parts of the same whole. Will his suggestion truly eliminate the debate, or create a new one? And if the two theories are consolidated, will the Survival Model remain valid?

The Survival Model is derived from McPhee's Survival Model, that "demonstrates how art artifacts survive and become part of culture while others are eliminated from the cultural canon." An art and culture Survival of the Species, if you will. It elaborates on how cultural artifacts are subject to a screening process, and it is this screening process that is central to its application to the Neorealist-Neoliberal debate.

Using the analogy that a screening process is like separating the wheat and the chaff, the perennial problem is finding just the right screen because as one removes to much chaff, wheat is removed as well. Likewise, when one tries to retain too much wheat, chaff is retained as well. Wheat here represents cooperation, and chaff represents conflict. Here we note that there is always a normative bias towards cooperation in both sides. Thies argues that Neorealism is a single-screening process, as it approximates Neorealist ideas like arguing that states are always preparing for conflict, and the billiard-ball model of state interaction. Neoliberalism, on the other hand, is a repetitive-screening process as found in traditional material that stands the test of time.

The Survival Model makes several assumptions in order to arrive at its predictions, but let us define the terms it used. A is the proportion of new cooperative interstate relationships initiated or renewed in each period, while B is the proportion of new competitive ones, and C is the proportion of conflictual ones. It is important to note that "cooperation" is when states adjust incompatible policies, "conflict" is when they make no attempt to do so, and "competition" is when they adjust policies but not necessarily make them compatible with others'. Furthermore, a is the probability that A relationships will survive, b is the probability that B relationships will survive, and so on for C. The model assumes that Ab>c in favor of the Neoliberal approach. Thus the model takes both schools of thought into account, assumes hypothetical values for state interactions based on their respective stands, and assumes a bias towards peace.

After a single screening as expounded in the article, the results are consistent with Neorealism: there is more chaff in the system. The majority of interactions that remain is conflictual and competitive. After a repetitive screening, however, the results resemble Neoliberal thought: we have more wheat, the system has more cooperative and competitive interactions. But as repetition continues, we lose more wheat--after a critical point, we lose cooperative and competitive relationships.

Neorealism and Neoliberalism are both rational-choice theories which believe that states are egoist and self-interested. Alexander Wendt implies that both of them are of the Lockean form of anarchy, although Neorealism's proponents believe it as Hobbesian, and Neorealist's proponents are leaning toward the Kantian. Their main differences lie in their view of international cooperation, absolute versus relative gains, and their favoring of either process or environment.

Thies believes, and explains through the Survival Model, that the Neoliberal approach is more able to reflect the world system as of today, for two reasons. First, that the nature of international interaction itself is repetitive and continuous. Second, that in today's world, cooperation, conflict, and competition are all present. Neoliberals cite the "democratic peace" as proof that international cooperation is ultimately possible, while the Survival Model suggests that after several screenings, conflictual relationships will inevitably arise. Huntington's "Reverse Wave" is a manifestation of this.

I believe that while the Neorealists and the Neoliberals have similarities, their differences in their basic assumptions will hinder them from being consolidated. They have the same ends but different means of getting there. Consolidation will require a compromise from both sides, and it will essentially create a new debate of whether or not the new version (a post-neorealist-neoliberalism perhaps) is better equipped to explain the international stage than its successors. And since the Survival Model is premised on their difference in the descriptive view of the world, the consolidation would invalidate the model. The arbitrariness of the data is also a problem since from the beginning it has a bias towards cooperation and leans either toward the Neorealist perspective or the Neoliberal perspective at any point. Furthermore, the model is inconclusive, since it is only a test of logical consistency. However, it does provide valuable insights on how Neoliberalist and Neorealist thought can be harnessed to further understand the subtleties of today's global political landscape.

Art Stud 2 Midterm Essay 4

2010-02-04T13:08:00.002+08:00

At Tour Eiffel, two mimes fall in love and it is literally beyond words. On a long walk along Parc Monceau, a father and a daughter rediscover their relationship in a misleading conversation. In the square at the Place des Fêtes a Nigerian man lies bleeding for coffee. In a print shop in Le Marais a young Frenchman becomes hopelessly attracted to another man who may or may not speak his language. In a small apartment in Faubourg Saint-Denis, a struggling actress finds a friend in a man who will never be able to see the silver screen. And in the Quatrième Arrondissement, a letter carrier from Colorado narrates in rough French how she has fallen in love with the City of Paris.

These are the segments that stand out for me the most from the 2006 film Paris, Je T’aime, my favorite work of art. There are eighteen segments in all, representing the eighteen arrondissements (literally: districts) of the City of Paris. They are each about five to six minutes short, but always akin to flash fiction: just long enough to give meaning to an entire world.

I have never been to Paris. I have seen it in thousands of pictures, I have heard it mentioned countless times, I have yearned to visit it if only to gaze up at the Notre Dame or into the Louvre for a few fleeting moments… And yes, I do tend to become dramatic when I speak of L’île de France. That is why Paris, Je T’aime captivates my imagination. But besides its obvious charms, it is also interesting because despite being the meeting of the minds of more than twenty-one directors, it has a seamless character to it. Each story flows to the next even when they have little but the theme of love and Paris as a backdrop in common.

Also worthy of note, beside the touching storylines, are the cinematic techniques that were employed. The segment for Parc Monceau by Alfonso Cuarón was shot by a single camera on the one side of the street, while the two characters in constant dialogue walked on the other side. There was always a distance, both in the camera angle and the words, that made the twist (the old man and the young woman were father and daughter) impossible to predict. Quartier de la Madeleine by Canadian writer-director Vincenzo Natali, which featured Elijah Wood and Olga Kurylenko, had no dialogue at all. There Wood was a backpacking tourist who fell in love with Kurylenko, a vampire. The segment was intentionally darker than the rest, and the color resolution was such that the blood would always be the center of attention.
One of the most dramatic segments was Place des Fêtes by South African writer-director Oliver Schmitz. It employed the flashback, from the point of view of a Nigerian man. As he lay bleeding from a stab wound, a nurse kneels in front of him, and he recognizes her as the woman who parks her car in the building he cleans. The flashback reveals that he always wanted to ask her out for coffee but he never got the chance—until that moment she arrived with an ambulance. Although perplexed she obliged, but by the time she got back with the coffee and remembered who he was, he had already died. There was barely any dialogue; the segment’s musical score is the Nigerian man’s voice singing a French love song. But as far as the cinematic devices go, I was most impressed by Faubourg Saint-Denis by German writer-director Tom Tykwer. It featured a blind student of languages, played by Melchior Beslon, and his girlfriend, a struggling actress, played by Natalie Portman. Halfway through listening to a call from Portman that sounded like she was breaking up with him, Beslon launches into a narration of how they met, how they fell in love, and how they grew apart, while the images were fast-forwarded montages of the different stages in their relationship. The development of the story was almost overwhelming because of the rhythm and repetition of the words and images. As his words became faster and faster, so did the images, and when it stopped he was sitting alone in front of his computer and there was a high-pitch sound I can only describe as what you hear after the complete confusion in your mind has subsided. Then the twist: Portman calls him again and explains that she has not broken up with him after all.

My top two story-wise are the ones that have to do with language. First, Le Marais by the American writer-director Gus van Sant, of Gaspard Ulliel telling Elias McConnel in endearing French how he believes they are soul mates. Much of the segment is Ulliel’s monologue about destiny and attraction. Before he left he gave him his telephone number, but McConnel did not understand what happened because as it turned out, he knew almost no French at all. When the shop owner explained it to him, he dashed out into the busy Parisian street to find Ulliel, an outsider plunging into an unknown world in pursuit of an idea. And second is the very last segment, set in the Quatrième Arrondissement. It was the one I empathized with most of all. It was also, I think, one of the most artistic because of the idea to make the character narrate a love for Paris in a language beginner’s grammar and accent. The effect was at once humorous and deeply touching. While the other stories dealt with the love of a person towards another person (or non-person, as in the case of the vampire), this is the only segment that explored the possibility of falling in love with a city. Et Paris m’aime aussi, she said in the end.

There are so many ideas, so many images, and so many sentiments in this movie that to watch it once is not enough. There are the obvious things, like ironies and lost love, and then there are those that while comedic convey so much of culture and art, like the story of the mimes who had nothing at first glance but had everything when they chose to make it so. This movie is also about possibilities, how anything can happen, how there may be adventure right where you stand. How there is always a story if you open your heart to it. And to me, what is so great is that Paris, Je T’aime explored both the insider’s and outsider’s perspectives. While each segment can stand on its own, taken together they become more than a movie: they become a statement. They seem to say, “This is Paris. Imperfect, wonderful, bizarre, beautiful Paris.” And they make even those of us who have never been there believe in the magic.

Art Stud 2 Midterm Essay 3

2010-02-04T13:06:00.000+08:00

I am eight years old. My little feet in their little heeled shoes make tapping sounds against the blindingly white floor. I let go of my mother’s hand and I run to the place I looked forward to visiting after every trip to the bookstore. A purple dinosaur greets me at the entrance, its muffled voice annoys me. “Dinosaurs are extinct,” I always tell my classmates who like him. But I lose those arguments because, “HE IS NOT, I SEE HIM ON TV!” I ignore the fretful dancing mascot and hurry to the dolls. Everything is so bright, there are too many people. Someone is singing “It’s a small world after all” very loudly. I see the Barbies in their little plastic cases with their pretty dresses that could only be worn by dolls. Everyone insists on giving me Barbies; I always liked the little worlds more. Some people call them Polly Pockets. But each one is a different world, you can’t call them all Polly Pockets! Well, except for those that look like where Mommy puts her makeup and do have a Polly doll in them. The best part about them is the dolls are painted and you never have to worry about where their clothes and shoes are. And they come with stories too. I have Snow White and the six dwarves (I lost Sneezy already), I have Pocahontas, Cinderella, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and Polly and her Giraffe. Today I am going to get a new set, a magnetic one. Of Beauty and the Beast, and I can make Belle dance without touching her, just like magic. My favorite last week was Pocahontas, but John Smith’s lower half decided to run away, so I need this one. I could think of nothing for days. There is a big smile on my face when I see it, the set is larger than any of the ones I have, and I grab it and hand it to Dada, and the little numbers on the tag mean absolutely nothing.

I am eighteen years old. The toy store is a cavernous hall of light, sweet candy smells, and cheerful music piped in through the overhead speakers. Too cheerful, and still much too loud. Whatever is new is displayed where the shoppers cannot miss it. In the summer, inflatable pools and giant rubber ducks in all the colors of the upper spectrum of the rainbow; at Christmas, waving Santas on toy trains, on tracks laden with snow and surrounded by pine trees. Today the wave boards are on display, skateboards with hinges at the middle like my cousin Mike has. And good grief, they’re worth one month’s allowance and then some. Roland Barthes says that the toy store is essentially a microcosm of the adult world, that French toys prefigure the world of adult functions. I look around and see toys that are indeed miniature versions of reality, but which one? In the little girls’ section, quaint little country cottages with robins on top, waffle makers and pasta makers and easy-bake ovens, toy croissants and Caucasian babies with their blonde hair and blue eyes. In the little boys’ section, pretend high-power rifles, miniature remote control- operated 4x4s and helicopters, plastic swords and shields, police badges that declare “NYPD.” Nearby, shelves upon shelves of board games (or bored games as my cousin calls it), and it is always the section with the most silence in it. I walk to the dolls section, where everything is pink and the floor is a runway, and feel a tinge of envy. Barbie has a Jacuzzi, for crying out loud, and I guarantee that if I put it to scale, it would be bigger than our bathroom.

Here I note the difference between me and Barthes: he was a writer in a first world country. I am a writer in a third world one. (For simplicity’s sake I use the term “third world,” although I’ve always thought it was a misnomer: there is, after all, only one world.) As far as microcosms go, this toy store is a microcosm of all wishful thinking, because the miniatures are all we’ll be able to afford. It could also be economics, supply and demand. Western products are what are on demand, so they are what are on display. Or is it the other way around? It probably doesn’t matter as long as it sells.

But in my opinion, Barthes presents two arguments that are valid even in a setting far removed from where it was formulated. They are both present in the paragraph: “There exist, for instance, dolls which urinate; they have an esophagus, one gives them a bottle, they wet their nappies; soon, no doubt, milk will turn to water in their stomachs. This is meant to prepare the little girl for the causality of housekeeping, to "condition" her to her future role as mother.” This is probably also why toys for the XY children have to do with cars and guns, or essentially, speed and violence… and probably why they cancelled Teletubbies on account of “Tinky Winky is gay.” True, the present adult world may have grown more tolerant towards homosexuality, but certainly not up to the point that “gay” or “lesbian” are words uncensored in the extension of the toy store known as Playhouse Disney. And certainly not words used to generate ideas for toys: we are a long way away from “Gays/Lesbians Section” at the local Toy Kingdom—because parents generally don’t want their children to grow up homosexual.

Toys are a form of priming a child’s psychology, and it serves to perpetuate the current order. But this is often unintentional, as their parents, and their parent’s parents, were once children who went through the same thing. It is convention, it is seen as normative, and as is usually the case, the traditional is seen as right.

I think back to that magnetic Beauty and the Beast miniature world, which I played with for hours and hours, sometimes with a flashlight, until I discovered Harry Potter. It has a castle, glittery blue and purple with towers and turrets, a bridge to the lake where the magnet controller is, a little house for Belle’s father, and a yellow brick road. Belle is in the yellow dress, Beast is wearing coattails, Gaston is in the red Frenchman’s coat with a ribbon tying his long hair back. There is a second version of Beast, his transformed version, wearing the same coattails. Is this a microcosm of the world I grew up in? Certainly not on the literal level, because I have neither seen a castle, nor have I met a person in coattails. On the figurative level, there may be a little resemblance. Beast is a nobleman who falls in love with a peasant girl, the classic class transcendence, a storyline common in today’s telenovelas. But the nobleman has become a capitalist’s son, and the peasant girl works at McDonalds. But even that is ultimately wishful thinking.

The importation of goods, as the importation of concepts like Christianity and the State, has determined many of the dynamics in our country. And it is this process, which extends to all areas of human development, that determines many of our ideals and aspirations. If priming children is done with toys, and if all the toys we see are Western ideas and labels, then is it any wonder why we grow up generally holding everything Western as superior to our own? And it does not end with toys: preschool and elementary textbooks, indeed the entire Philippine education system, is based on Western instruction. In a sense, Roland Barthes is right. Toys are a microcosm of reality. It is only always a question of “whose.”

Art Stud 2 Midterm Essay 2

2010-02-04T13:05:00.001+08:00

The seashell parol hangs on the windowsill, slowly turning in the rare gust of wind. I stare at it and remember where and when I bought it: Hundred Islands, Alaminos, Pangasinan, during the summer break. It is on the small side, about the size of my open hand, made of little red and white seashells and strung together with twine. It is inexpensive, as far as consumer standards go, sold to tourists at the main car stop. Folk art, as defined by Encarta Encyclopedia, is, “carvings, paintings, needlework, decorated utensils, and other artifacts created by artists and artisans—often anonymous—who have no formal academic training in the arts.” This parol is Folk Art, and I realize I have taken part in one of the main factors that threaten its survival.

Today, more attention is certainly paid to popular, “high,” or even “fine” art. The cultures and traditions that espoused traditional art forms seem to no longer be in fashion, except perhaps as novelty items that hold no intrinsic value to the outsider. And that perhaps is one of the main challenges faced by folk art: it simply wasn’t created to withstand globalization.

Waters (2000) defines globalization as “a process in which the constraints of geography on social and cultural arrangements recede and in which people become increasingly aware that they are receding.” As globalization makes the global society more homogenous, the dominant, or Western culture, becomes more and more prevalent. Some cultures, especially marginalized ones, are perpetually in danger of becoming erased. On the one hand, less and less people will be interested in the traditional, and on the other, given the situation of Philippine indigenous tribes, members of these tribes themselves may find that “joining the tide” is an easier way to live. It is a question of acceptance versus non-conformity, and the opportunity cost is relatively higher when one is non-conformist.

Another threat to Folk Art is commercialization. The fast pace of supply and demand and the Age of the Stock Market attaches a price tag to everything. Even things that were dreamt up by men and women long before money was a word now have a market value. Objects that take a central part in rituals of birth, death and everything in between, like the T’nalak of the T’boli, can now be bought in souvenir shops as pen holders and purses, a far cry from their once sacred purpose, and indeed priceless position, in the society. As mentioned, indigenous tribes are often marginalized, and dire economic conditions often force them to sell their cultures and traditions. In the capitalist setting however, mass production is inevitable, and along with mass production comes a “diluting” of the traditional processes in the name of speed and quantity.

Globalization and commercialization meet in a hybrid of time and space called the World Wide Web, or the Internet. The ultimate torchbearer of the twenty-first century, the Internet has also become a venue for the exploitation of Folk Art. On websites one can see an authentic Igorot bahag for sale alongside the Agung of the Maguindanao, Maranao and Tausug. And not for a very high price either. But the Internet is not all detrimental: various groups advertise their causes to rehabilitate Philippine Folk Art online. Ironically, the largest and most prominent, like Kayamanan ng Lahi Philippine Folk Arts and KULTURA, are based in the United States (Los Angeles and California respectively) because they are headed by Filipino immigrants. According to their official website, Wheatonarts in Millville, New Jersey held a Philippine Folk and Glass Art Workshop. But it is cynicism to see it as a lack of interest of Filipinos in promoting Folk Art. “Interest” in art itself may be seen as a post-materialist concern that immigrants are able to engage in precisely because they have the privilege of economic stability But there are others here in the Philippines, like bloggers, who make travel journals that document Folk Art, and also help in promoting awareness about them. There is also the Ayala Museum that features a Gold of Ancestors exhibition of “Philippine pre-colonial gold artifacts.” But these are luxuries, not venues that the average Filipino can engage in. Lack of information about these art forms is also a vital threat: the average Filipino knows of the Ancient Egyptian mummy but not of the Taka of Paete.

Aside from globalization, commercialization, and exploitation, attempts to industrialize also threaten not only Folk Art but also the multitude of indigenous tribes. Ancestral land is taken away from locals to make way for factories or plantations of raw materials, or even condominiums and subdivisions. Yet other threats are pollution and climate change, because Folk Art utilizes materials taken from the land and the water. Pollution causes destruction of water sources and soil erosion, climate change causes alterations in the overall environment that causes many plants and animals to become extinct.

There are many other threats to Folk Art aside from the ones I mentioned above. The present global landscape is an ever-changing environment that spends little time and attention on cultures, traditions, and the art forms that represent them. Especially in a quintessential post-colonial state like the Philippines, there are far more pressing concerns because of the desire to modernize and become an industrialized society. One can hope that more people and institutions will take part in the preservation of Folk Art, but to hope is not enough. Grounding in history as the Filipino moves into the twenty-first century is vital, lest we run the risk of losing our identity. Information about Folk Art is, I believe, a solid base for its preservation. Proper and extensive documentation, establishment of exhibits and information drives through popular media; eventually, when the cause has become well-known, establishment of laws that will protect not only Folk Art, but also indigenous tribes, to guarantee their security and existence.

Art Stud 2 Midterm Essay 1

2010-02-04T13:02:00.001+08:00

Here the red clashes against the white, the white curves and writhes into eight letters that make an empire. Here too stands a man with his eyes to the ground, with a sweet, bubbly dagger to his heart. But there, there is a closed window tells you that a horse is a door, yet a valise is still a valise. These works are fifty-five years apart, but they both rely on established conventions to convey a meaning. One uses predetermined symbols to denote a stand; the other combines symbols with words to unsettle what is known.

Antipas Delotavo’s “Itak sa Puso ni Mang Juan” is fairly easy to understand. At a glance one can see what the artist’s message is: that capitalism has brought more heartache than joy to the Filipino working class. The Filipino image, represented by Mang Juan in his work clothes, conveys sadness and even hopelessness with a downturned face and sullenness to his expression. The figure is walking, and in my imagination, slowly, towards the left, perhaps representing how capitalism is leading the common Filipino farther away from development. It is interesting for me how his arms are drawn, one holding the other back. And up until now, I didn’t notice how the end of the first capital “C” resembled a dagger, or even a demon’s tail as artists draw it. There is a striking difference between this work of art and the Coca-Cola slogan “Open Happiness.” It also contradicts the myriad commercials that claim Coca-Cola fosters unity, friendship, family values and even love, and exposes them for what really they are: bids for more sales. And at the expense of Mang Juan, no less.

On the other hand, Rene Magritte’s “The Key of Dreams” aims to question our association of names with objects. There are four “windows,” the first from the left is the horse labeled as “the door,” the second, the clock labeled “the wind,” third, the jug, labeled “the bird,” and fourth, the valise called, as convention would deem correct, “the valise.”

The first time I saw this painting, I was thoroughly disconcerted. What on earth does the horse have in connection with a door, or the jug with a bird? The time and the wind I can understand, they are both abstract and intangible. And why is it called the “Key to Dreams?” But that was a slide in a PowerPoint presentation, and I soon forgot about it.

Upon further evaluation, I believe this work aims to make people realize how much of the world is socially constructed; how much exists only because we make them so. But the unsettling feeling caused by this is somewhat quelled by the last square: “Hey, maybe you’re right, maybe it is a valise.” Perhaps it is also a foray into the fascination of people with their dreams and interpreting their dreams, and Magritte is also trying to say that dreams are representations of objects that do not make sense at times because our subconscious and unconscious are taking over. But sometimes our conscious selves break through, as is expressed by his fourth square in the painting. I think that the usage of color—shades of brown and white—give a character of warmth and solidity to it that also contradicts the “dream” aspect. A question of color association as well?

Magritte once said, “To be a surrealist... means barring from your mind all remembrance of what you have seen, and being always on the lookout for what has never been.” Surrealism, I think, is very powerful, as anything strange in a sense creates an entire new world of thought that convention would not allow.

To me, both Antipas Delotavo’s Itak sa Puso ni Mang Juan and René Magritte’s Key to Dreams invite us to look closer, and at the same time, beyond, everyday objects. These artists implore us to not take anything for granted, to take a more active interest in the world we have created for ourselves through words and images.

Journal Entry: A Note on Vonnegut

2010-01-11T13:12:00.000+08:00

In his prologue to "A Novel Slapstick" Kurt Vonnegut writes, "I have had some experiences with love, or think I have, anyway, although the ones I have liked best could easily be described as "common decency". I treated somebody well for a little while, or even for a tremendously long time, and that person treated me well in turn. Love need not have anything to do with it. Also, I cannot distinguish between the love I have for people and the love I have for dogs."

When someone writes it down, a thought is brought out of the abyss of abstraction and legitimized somehow, making the thinker of it feel less alone, especially when the idea is not as common as he or she would like it to be. This is why Kurt Vonnegut is one of my favorite writers. The above paragraph summarizes a lot of my opinions.

Also, to this day, my dead dog is the only creature on earth whose death I mourn every night, and whose memory is capable of bringing me to tears. (Pablo Neruda's "My dog has died," which I read only a few weeks ago, is an especially tear-inducing text.) And Vonnegut makes me feel like there's nothing wrong with that.

Journal Entry: A Note on Vonnegut

2010-01-11T08:11:00.000+08:00

Saturday

2009-12-12T09:26:00.000+08:00

The past two weeks have gone by in a blur, a series of runs and jumps punctuated by little silences that barely made up for the breathless hours. But it's not as bad as I make it sound, some of those runs and jumps were fun, including the photo shoot in UPFI, the visit to Malacanang Palace Museum, watching Brillante Mendoza's "Lola," the making of the exhibit in the AS lobby (which very few of you saw, I'm sure), and the Sinag GA for December. I'd rather not talk about the not-so-fun parts. I've been resigned to eating while walking or commuting as well, with Lily Allen, Lenka, Avenue Q, and my beloved Kyo for company-- I apologize, Kyo, I have temporarily put "Je veux vivre chaque seconde" on hold. At least for another week. I realize I've been running for far too long for my own good, but it's almost the holidays; plenty of time to sleep then.

Last night, Kitty and I went to Funeraria Nacional, where Ma'am Valmores' wake is. Even after seeing her in that pale box with the sad flowers, the gravity of the fact has not sunk in, and I still can't imagine her gone. It's one of those moments when I'd rather not believe. Condolences to her family.

It's party week next week, which will put another dent on my already battered wallet. I have half a mind to retreat into a distant cave and only come out after the fireworks have burned themselves out of existence, but social duties call. If you haven't noticed by now this post is nothing but an empty rant, something to justify unnecessarily going online. Other people would be on Facebook, but alas, I have no account. Yes, I am a social networking exile, and I couldn't care less. Frankly, it makes me feel more secure. The less people know about me the less I have to worry about them. I'd delete this account too if it wasn't for the archives of posts.

Segue: There's a Brenda Villanueva Fajardo exhibit in the Vargas Museum until January 10. Go on a Wednesday if you don't want to pay 20 pesos for entrance. Take note of the Ginintuang Serye, the "Marias," and her etchings. And her version of the Tarot Cards too. And while you're there, traipse up to the third floor to the Persistent Visions exhibit-- there's a Juan Luna original there, and a 24-minute video exhibit of British colonizing missions in India, Africa and Malaya. This is my favorite exhibit so far.

Advanced Happy Holidays everyone. :)

Cette Semaine

2009-11-30T10:00:00.000+08:00

De quio s’agit-il? Aujourd’hui est un dimanche , la dernière dimanche de novembre, vingt-sept jours devant le jour de Noël. J’écoute à Kyo et Noir Desir, mes nouveaux orchestres preferés. Je suis desolée pour les erreurs grammaticales, je ne pratique plus cette langue. (Je pense que je dis meilleur que j’écris.) Alors. J’écoute les chansons Français tous les temps de nos jours. Écoutez “Le Chemin” et “Chaque Seconde” de Kyo. Ils sont très bien. Aussi, “Un jour en France” de Noir Desir… Mais je comprends le refrain seulement. C’est trop vite pour moi. Ici les paroles de Chaque Seconde:

J'ai cherché l'erreur
Au coeur des systèmes,
Ce qui brille est un leurre
Ce qui brille peut fondre au soleil
J'ai cherché l'erreur
Qui trouble mon sommeil,
J'ai cherché pendant des heures
Pour voir que tout est à refaire,
Enfin tout est clair, je relève la tête...
Je veux vivre chaque seconde
Comme si demain était la fin du monde,
Etre libre pour de bon,
A trop vouloir se lever on tombe...

J’aime Kyo! Et aussi “Quelqu’un m’a dit” de Carla Bruni. Oui, j’ai déjà regardé “Les Cinq Cent Jours de l’Été,” merci Pola! Dieu, c’est déjà midi et je ne prends pas mon petit déjeuner! “ Alors, qu’est-ce qui se passe avec vous? Hier, nous (mes camarades d’ensemble et moi ) sommes allé à Le Cercle de la Ville de Quezon pour CWTS. Donc nous avons appris que un de les enfants vient de mourir: un homicide. C’est très triste parce que “Saddam” a été seize ans seulement mais il a un enfant. Les volontaires pensent que un “Jacob” est le meurtrier. Je prie que son âme est en paix.

Un message personnel (pour un trou de cul): Merci pour les leçons, maintenant je sais quio tu es. Tu ne mérites pas mon attention.

Je vais étudier pour mes examens maintenant. Plus tard!

I Promise

2009-10-30T15:20:00.000+08:00

When I get out of this house-- and I will-- I will never again put myself in something that even resembles it at the slightest. I cannot wait to live alone for the rest of my life. It's the only thought that's keeping me sane.

Oh, Sembreak

2009-10-23T05:54:00.000+08:00

Morning of day four, semestral break.

The first two days were spent outside, pretty much, including a visit to my old high school. After, oh, around eight months of not seeing the place, it was a pleasant surprise. There's a new principal, and a lot of new teachers I didn't recognize. But the teachers I did recognize: whoa. It was like seeing long lost friends. The familiarity was overwhelming. The sections are different now, and so are the names of some of the rooms, but the ambiance is still there.

When I got there it hit me how different things are now from what they were before. I haven't worn a uniform in two years, and the days of random games during break have long been over. I'm a very different person now, too. I have learned to edit myself, to restrain myself from, in a nutshell, blowing up in everybody's face like I so often did back then. Am I growing up? Now, now. Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Segue: They are going to teach French in Mandaluyong Science. Tres bien! Finally catching up to MakSci. My former trainor in journalism is going to handle the classes, and I'm going to help her review for the teacher's exam. Yey, yey! Mico, if you're reading this, Ma'am F needs French help so, allons-y!

Anyway. Yesterday, I read Michael Crichton's "Airframe." Again, Crichton is entertainment, not literary appreciation. (God/dess bless his soul wherever he is.) Airframe was pretty good, I liked the treatment of the characters and the imagery of the plane accidents. I think I even dreamt about it. Plus, I learned A LOT about planes. That's the thing with Crichton: read him and you'll definitely pick up some stuff, without realizing you're close to information overload. My favorite Crichton is still Jurassic Park. If you just watched the movie then you wouldn't understand why. Jurassic Park is genius, questioning genetics and explaining paradigm shifts without getting people bored. And the dinosaurs! (Other Crichton must-reads: Sphere and Andromeda Strain.)

Another book I read recently was Stephen King's "Cell." This is the first King novel I actually finished, as all the other ones I tried reading were rambling pieces that felt aimless around the middle (Hello, The Dark Half). Cell is good, entertainment-wise. It's about a "pulse," a kind of signal that the human brain receives when a cell phone is answered. It wipes out the brain except for the most primal instincts (in this case the "state of nature" as defined by philosophers like Hobbes and Rousseau is employed). The result is total chaos, because a lot of people receive the pulse. I mean, who doesn't have a cell phone? It's like watching a more sophisticated Dawn of the Dead for five hours. I LOVED the characters, especially the graphic artist and the teenager Alice Maxwell. The plot relied on a whole lot of luck, though, and it never told the readers why the entire thing happened in the first place. Nevertheless it was a fun read and even induces a little paranoia.

I'm reading Rovin's "Conversations with the Devil" today. So far it's been good, a lot of psychology in the story. Maybe I'll get to read a little more of Vonnegut's "Welcome to the Monkey House." I want to reread "Slaughterhouse Five" but I have a book backlog I need to catch up on, including Hemingway's "Farewell to Arms" and "The Red Badge of Courage." I'm in for a lot of war stories. Oh well. Here goes. I'm going to spend this break wisely before I have to face three PolSci majors and Econ 100.1. :)

Alternate Perspective: Roxas' Speechwriter

2009-09-05T04:46:00.000+08:00

http://abo-sa-dila.blogspot.com/2009/09/on-failure-and-sacrifice-and-sad-task.html

on failure, and sacrifice, and the sad task of a speechwriter

Wednesday, September 02, 2009

By Mikael Co

I am Mar Roxas' speechwriter, and let me be the first to say that I failed my country.

I failed my country by not working hard enough; by not being a better speechwriter; by failing to show the people how good a person my boss was. Is.

My friends laughed at me for being too much of a believer. And I failed my country by believing that it would believe along with me.

I am Mar Roxas' speechwriter. All throughout my year and half in the organization, I denied that title; I played it down. Not really wrote the speeches, not per se, I said. I wrote down what I was told to write down, I said. Others thought of it, and all I had to do was type it down. I drafted the speeches, but never really wrote them. I shied away from that name: Speechwriter. In the same manner that I shy away from being called a poet.

The least I could do now is to show the same courage that my boss did. I am Mar Roxas' speechwriter. I am a poet. As speechwriter, one of my tasks is tell you how good a person my boss is. As poet, my only task is to say to you the truest thing I can.

My boss is one of the smartest people I have ever known. My boss has one of the purest hearts I have ever been in touch with. All my boss ever wanted was to serve the people in the best way he can. I failed my country by not saying these things well enough.

Yesterday evening my boss declared his support for the candidacy of Senator Noynoy Aquino for President in 2010. He said: It is within my power to preside over a potentially divisive process or to make the party a bridge for the forces of change. He said: I choose to lead unity, not division. He said: Country above self. And I typed it down.

This country I failed is the same country that my boss puts above himself. My country was smart enough to see what was wrong with the campaign. But it was also too cynical to not see through it. The same people who dismissed the ads as mere gimmicks were the same people who lauded how brilliant this opponent's ad campaign was, or how good a rhetorician this other opponent was. I used to ask, if you're so smart as to see through everything as posturing, as political play, then doesn't the question boil down to who you think can best move this country forward?

I failed my country by not asking that well enough, or often enough.

When I was nine years old, my parents voted for Jovito Salonga. He became known as the best president my country never had. When I was fifteen, they voted, along with my siblings, for Raul Roco. When I was twenty-one, they voted again for Roco, and I voted with them. Roco, too, became known as the best president my country never had. Now I am twenty-six, and I tell you now, in the truest way I can: Mar Roxas is the best president this country never had.

I have failed my country, and all I hope for now is that the people realize what it has lost, and what it has gained. The country asked for sacrifice, and he gave them sacrifice. The country asked for unity. He has given them the door to unity; all that is left is for them to step through.

The country asked for someone to believe in; in Noynoy they have found someone to believe in. And Mar has offered himself as someone to believe with.

In tears, I ask this country that I have failed: Is there anything more you would like to ask of my boss?

He has given everything, and he will continue to give. And I will type everything down for him. Because I am Mar Roxas' speechwriter. And he is my boss. He is my president. The best president this country never had.

New Moon (Meyer) Book Review

2009-08-16T20:30:00.000+08:00

Reposted from last year.

“A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.” –G,K. Chesterton

DISCLAIMER: Twitards, this review may hurt your feelings. You have been warned, so don’t you dare flame me.

SUMMARY AND CRITICISM

New moon, the second installment of the Garb-- Twilight Series, began where the first book left off, with Mary Sue Meyer and Edward Cullen in the throes of chaste passion. What's that? Who’s Bella Swan? Nah, believe me, that was Mary Sue. And they were mostly still just staring googly-eyed at each other.

On Mary Sue's 18th birthday, the sparkling vampire family threw her a sparkling party—literally. Due to Meyerrific creativity, the conflict begins when Mary Sue gets a paper cut (yes, it bled), thus causing Jasper Hale to attempt to suck her dry. Edward prevents this from happening via really fast footwork and snarling.

Moments afterward, Edward and the other sparkling vampires left Spoons-- I mean Forks-- to avoid any further mishaps. The exhausted "I must leave to protect you" excuse.

Yes, Edward broke up with dear Mary Sue, and she ended up unconscious with disbelief on the forest floor, after wandering aimlessly chanting "Edward, Edward, Edward..."

Not exactly, but close.
It's true, when your boyfriend breaks up with you, you must lose your sanity.

Then Stepheni-- I mean Bell-- I mean, Mary Sue launched into what has got to be The Longest post-breakup drama in the history of mankind. She became a self-declared zombie; withdrawn, not able to think about anything else but Edward's hair, Edward's voice, Edward's eyes, Edward's hands, Edward's skin, Edward's... you get the idea. She also had nightmares and screamed herself awake for the next, oh, 6 months, because of the "gaping hole" in her heart. I kid you not.

At the mere mention of the name "Edward," she went all diva like this:

"I shook my head, recoiling. The sound of his name unleashed the thing that was clawing inside of me—a pain that knocked me breathless, astonished me with its force."

and this:

"His name sent another wave of torture through me."

Boring, the "I am depressed, hear me whine" lament. She seriously did not say anything else.

By the hundredth page of this "I miiisssss Edwaaard sooo muchhh, boo hoo hoo," Mary Sue discovered that when she placed herself in danger, she could hear Edwardo's voice telling her to, well, get herself out of danger. So she gets herself into more danger. Brilliant ploy, yes.

So she turned to the most dangerous, most death-defying thing she could think of: motorcycles. I know right. So she took two motorcycles from the scrap heap and brought them to Jacob Black in La Push. Jacob was previously known as “only non-cardboard character in Twilight,” but is now known as “excuse to have a topless Indian in the movie.”

Mary Sue: College, schmollege, I thought to myself. It wasn't like I'd saved up enough to go anywhere special—and besides, I had no desire to leave Forks anyway. What difference would it make if I skimmed a little bit off the top?

This was the part where she was getting the motorcycles fixed so she could slam herself into a tree with it, and needed money for parts. And the "no desire to leave Forks" thing? She could not bear to leave Forks for it had all her memories of Edward. Nothing, repeat, NOTHING is worth living for except Edward. Without Edward, the sun does not shine and the rivers do not flow... Life is not life without Edward, oh you dazzling, wonderfully sparkling vampire you (excuse me while I laugh my head off at this idiocy).

Mary Sue (On motorcycles): Many of the words they used were unfamiliar to me, and I figured I'd have to have a Y chromosome to really understand the excitement.

I don't even want to ponder upon the implications of that statement.

So anyway, when she started hanging out with Jacob, she stopped thinking about Edward. And what did she think of? Jacob!!! Meyerrific logic.

Mary Sue: I enjoyed myself. I was beginning to think it was mostly Jacob. It wasn't just that he was always so happy to see me, or that he didn't watch me out of the corner of his eye, waiting for me to do something that would mark me as crazy or depressed. It was nothing that related to me at all. It was Jacob himself. Jacob was simply a perpetually happy person, and he carried that happiness with him like an aura, sharing it with whoever was near him. Like an earthbound sun, whenever someone was within his gravitational pull, Jacob warmed them. It was natural, a part of who he was. No wonder I was so eager to see him.

Oh, look, an earthbound sun and its gravitational pull. Just... wow.

Mary Sue (on Leah Clearwater): She was beautiful in an exotic way—perfect copper skin, glistening black hair, eyelashes like feather dusters...

Eh?

Mary Sue: I was beginning to get annoyed with myself.

Good for you, you're catching on. I was annoyed with you a book and a half ago.

Alors. Must fast-forward, I'm getting bored. So Mary Sue, now somewhat out of depression, went to La Push and got on the reaaally dangerous motorcycle and made this comment:

"I tried to tell myself that the fear [of riding the motorcycle] was pointless. I'd already lived through the worst thing possible [breakup]. In comparison with that, why should anything frighten me now? [Yes, why?] I should be able to look death in the face and laugh."

She’s just so deep.

Then when she got on the reaaally dangerous motorcycle, she heard Edward's voice telling her to stop. But she wanted to hear the sparkly vampire's voice again so she didn't.

She went reaaally fast, heard the sparkly vampire in her head saying "stop, stupid!" (fine, not exactly) and, surprise surprise, hit a tree. Her head split open.

Gas wafted out instead of brain matter.

The End.

Okay, not the end. I just wish it was.

Jacob took her to the hospital. On the way, she said:

"I just hadn't realized before. Did you know, you're sort of beautiful?"

Er, yeah. And Edwardo...? Never mind. Ew.

She got stitched up and went home. Then...

Mary Sue: I panicked, worried that Charlie [dad] was about to lay down some kind of edict that would prohibit La Push, and consequently my motorcycle. And I wasn't giving it up—I'd had the most amazing hallucination today. My velvet-voiced delusion had yelled at me for almost five minutes before I'd hit the brake too abruptly and launched myself into the tree. I'd take whatever pain that would cause me tonight without complaint.

Even now I'm still not sure if this series isn't just a joke.
A bad joke.
Or satire. But Meyer's not that deep, so no.
This would be much, much more tolerable if this were satire.

Mary Sue (ranting, again): There had to be a place where he seemed more real than among all the familiar landmarks that were crowded with other human memories I could think of one place where that might hold true. One place that would always belong to him and no one else. A magic place, full of light. The beautiful meadow I'd seen only once in my life, lit by sunshine and the sparkle of his skin.

Gag.

Eventually, Jacob professed his love for Mary Sue, right before (or was it after?) he found out he was a werewolf. Yeah, yeah, Mary Sue's life is, like, so exciting. He left Mary Sue to figure out that he was a werewolf, which unsurprisingly took forever given her lack of a proper brain. But of course, her heart was still with Edwardo.

Jacob distanced himself, and Bella-Stephenie-Mary Sue went:

"Jacob was better, but not well enough to call me. He was out with friends. I was sitting home, missing him more every hour. I was lonely, worried, bored… perforated—and now also desolate as I realized that the week apart had not had the same effect on him."

Desolate? Perforated?
Sigh.
That paragraph takes the Nobel for Literature, no question.
The Feminist Book of the Year Award too.
And makes me want to hit Meyer over the head with her own thesaurus.

Mary Sue then revisited the meadow. The one that was lit with... The sparkle... Of Edward’s... Skin...

Gag.

There, she found Laurent, the other vampire who was with James (main antagonist, book 1) and Victoria (main antagonist's girlfriend). He also wants to kill her, I wonder why. Long story short, Jacob and the other werewolves saved Mary Sue and killed Laurent.

Wait, I just can't not mention this: "Charlie's eyes grew round with horror. He strode quickly to me and grabbed the tops of my arms."

Hmmm. Anatomy, Mary Sue style.

So, it turned out that the other vampire, Victoria, was hunting Mary Sue down. The werewolves, who wanted to protect Mary Sue, hunted Victoria. They didn't find her. They also welcomed Mary Sue into the "pack."

This is the part where Meyer totally plagiarized her other cra-- book, Twilight. She replaced every "vampire" with "werewolf"; every "Edward" with "Jacob"; every "James" with "Victoria"; every "Carlisle" with "Sam"; every "Esme" with "Emily," and so on.

It was such Meyerrific creativity. It takes astounding skill to plagiarize yourself.

Moments later, Mary Sue decided, in a fit of "I want to hear Edward's voice," to ditch motorcycling and go cliff-diving. So she went to La Push, la pushed herself off the cliff, and plunged straight into the riptide. She would've (should've) drowned, but Jacob rescued her.

Meanwhile, in Sparklyland, Alice saw that Mary Sue jumped off. She didn't see that Jacob rescued her though. So Alice went back to Spoons to check on Charlie, Stephenie's dad. I meant Bella's dad. Oh wait, that's Mary Sue's dad. Never mind they're one and the same.

Edward, the sparkliest of them all, called Sue's house, looking for Charlie. Jacob, who answered the phone, said that he was "at the funeral," and Sparkly assumed that he meant it was Mary Sue's funeral. How I wish.

Anyway, Edward goes, "Oh no, I cannot live without Bella/ Stephenie Meyer/ Mary Sue!!! I must kill myself!!!" Idiocy goes both ways, people.

So he flew off to Italy to find the Jonas Brothers-- I mean, the Volturi-- the only vampires who can kill other vampires. (As opposed to the only boy band who can kill other boy bands...)

I know, OMG! That is like, sooo sinister.

By the way, the Volturi realm is called VOLTERRA. Bet you didn't see that coming.

Alice quickly realized that Mary Sue Meyer, unfortunately, wasn't actually dead and decided to fly to Italy with Mary Sue to stop Edward from making fish food out of himself. Why fish would want to eat him, I have no idea.

Apparently, the Volturi kill vampires who want to expose their secret. So Edwardo decided on walking out into the sunlight and "glowing, shimmering like his skin was made of a million diamond facets" so that people would know he's supernatural. Again, gag.

Mary Sue got to Italy just in time, and threw herself at Edward. Wait, she's been doing that forever, what's new. The Volturi foot soldiers, relieved that Edward did not get to, you know, sparkle, invited Edward back to The Lair and told him to bring Mary Sue along.

Joe, Kevin and Nick then made their grand entrance. Wait, no. That's Aro, Caius and Marcus. Really. With Miley Cyrus and the cast of Hannah Montana! Uh, I mean, Jane and the other vampires of Volterra.

Anyway. They said that Mary Sue Meyer, who has knowledge of vampires, must be killed or must be turned into a vampire herself. Mary Sue, who wanted to change species for the love of her life all along, was pleased. Mr. Sparkly wasn't, because he didn't want her to be eternally damned. Alice, who was with them kind of promised to turn Mary Sue into a vampire if they let all of them get back safely home.

They did get home. Awww. Yeah, right. Back in Spoons, the Cullens decided to vote on whether Mary Sue should really be turned sparkly. Edward and Rosalie said no. Carlisle was the one who would do it after graduation.

Edward: "If you don't mind, I'd much rather you didn't hide your face. I've lived without it for as long as I can stand. Now… tell me something."
Mary Sue: "What?"
Edward: "If you could have anything in the world, anything at all, what would it be?"
Mary Sue: "You."
Edward: "Something you don't already have."

Excuse me, again, while I laugh my head off. Good lord this book is just hilarious. And then, Edward asks Mary Sue to marry him. She was saying no, but just when I thought she had a brain... No, no. The reason she was saying no was that her mother wouldn't like it... Or so she says. But we know better. If she already said yes, there would only be room for one more book. A boxed set of four sells for more than a boxed set of three. Smart Meyer, smart.

When Edward got back into the scene it was just cheese. And cheese. And cheese. I couldn't stop laughing. But I won't paste those lines here, you need to see it for yourself. Coupled with the bad writing, well, I can't ask for more.

"Epilogue Treaty."

Everything is back to normal in Spoons, with Edward in all of Mary Sue's classes and them spending every waking and sleeping moment together, literally. College is still Plan B, congratulations. In her words, "The fairy tale was back on. Prince returned, bad spell broken."

Wait, wait. It's not over yet. I need to put this here, for all my fellow feminists.

"Thank you," Edward said, and his voice throbbed with the depth of his sincerity. "I will never be able to tell you how grateful I am. I will owe you for the rest of my… existence."
Jacob stared at him blankly, his shudders stilled by surprise. He exchanged a quick glance with me, but my face was just as mystified.
"For keeping Bella alive," Edward clarified, his voice rough and fervent. "When I… didn't."

Fabulous statement, I know. Edward and Jacob: Mary Sue Life-support Machines. Because she can't survive without a guy telling her to "inhale, exhale... inhale, exhale." What? You thought she could? How could you?!

So, how did it end? For all those fortunate creatures who didn't read this, here:

Edward squeezed me gently. "I'm here."
I drew in a deep breath.
That was true.
Edward was here, with his arms around me.
I could face anything as long as that was true.
I squared my shoulders and walked forward to meet my fate, with my destiny solidly at my side.

Awww... NOT.

RANDOM BITS:

---"He sighed a heavy sigh."
(And later)
---"I sighed a heavy sigh."
(Alright then. Let’s all sigh a heavy sigh.)

---"Emily," he said, and so much love saturated his voice that I felt embarrassed...
(Romantic AND scientific.)

--- "...promptly at nine by a grimly gleeful Charlie..."
(How's that for masterful writing skill?)

---"...I have lost the truest of true loves, as if that wasn't enough to kill anyone..."
(Just priceless.)

But I don't want to be that unfair. (Really?) Here's a part I liked:

"It's not a trick. It's Carlisle. Take me back!"
A shudder rippled through his wide shoulders, but his eyes were flat and emotionless. "No."
"Jake, it's okay—"
"No. Take yourself back, Bella." His voice was a slap—I flinched as the sound of it struck me. His jaw clenched and unclenched."Look, Bella," he said in the same hard voice. "I can't go back. Treaty or no treaty, that's my enemy in there."
"It's not like that—"
"I have to tell Sam right away. This changes things. We can't be caught on their territory."
"Jake, it's not a war!"
He didn't listen. He put the truck in neutral and jumped out the door, leaving it running.
"Bye, Bella," he called back over his shoulder. "I really hope you don't die."

(Bye, Bella. I really hope you do.)

VERDICT:

Hahaha. Yeah, like you don't know yet. Just when I thought Twilight couldn't get any worse. But I was amused... In a perforated, saturated, desolate sort of way. Of course, I only read part two. You never know. But, really, can it get any worse than "truest of true loves"?!

PS:

Me: Twilight sucks. F*** Edward.
Fangirl: Yes!

Oh.

Water Days

2009-08-10T19:42:00.000+08:00

Today is delivery day. I cruise along effortlessly along streets of the exact color and quality which King Henry VIII, to name at random, would have ordered the execution of his road builders for. I have about two tons of bottled water in the back compartment, and they thud against each other in the annoying manner of two women talking too loud in the theater. The noise irritates me, I almost run over a yellow-striped cat darting from behind a ratty box. I miss it by a heartbeat. To forget the noise I turn on the stereo, the radio station blares angry metal music. The exact song, in fact, which probably made van Gogh cut off his own ears. It was the furious sort of song that would have made World War Two Prisoners confess to fictional crimes lest be forced to listen further. But I don’t turn it off. Suddenly I feel like the boy in Clockwork Orange listening to his Beethoven while smashing people’s faces. Maybe a little like a French Revolutionary excited at the prospect of putting aristocratic heads on La Guillotine. Now I know all these stories because I used to drive around with someone who swallowed an encyclopedia or two. The singer screeches himself past oblivion even before the second verse, I tilt one wheel and send a trash bin flying into a corner store. I spot an orange something in the distance and gun the engine, it looks up and I see it is another cat before it makes that definitive squelch under the tires. I hit a few mailboxes, send envelopes fluttering like birds escaping from iron cages. More screeching, more noise than I can ever imagine shrieks out from the truck’s radio. A child is crossing the street, but is on the curb before I can do anything, but I catch his trolley and drag it fifty feet before it breaks and clatters back onto the hot pavement. I skid and slip and smoke my way through the streets. I don’t slow down when I see the humps, I go at it with full speed, and I literally fly off and come crashing down with a deafening thud. I figure some of the water bottles finally broke. Finally the song fades; I carve heavy black skid marks when I brake to stop in front of a water station. My driver, a heavyset man in his forties, frantically pushes open my door. He’s been trying to open it for the last four minutes, but I made the point to lock it. Can’t have him flying off at a hundred miles an hour, can I? He jumps down, knees weak and buckling, almost smashes into the store manager. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he asks, shaking him by the shoulders. Burned rubber stings the air. My driver is pale and sweaty and chokes off his own voice. “Something... Is... Wrong with that goddamned truck!” he drops onto the floor and tries desperately to breathe. He claws at his throat because the smoke is burning it. The store manager coughs, then stares at me and my overheating engine, he doesn’t know what to make of it. I laugh my little truck laugh they mistake for loose gears, shut my engine off and drift to sleep. Tomorrow is another delivery day.

Monty Python's Life of Brian

2009-08-08T12:16:00.000+08:00

Background: Monty Python was a highly influential team of British and American television comedians who later branched out into films and other forms of entertainment. The group is best known for the television series Monty Python’s Flying Circus (1969-1974) and the motion picture Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975). [Microsoft Encarta 2007]

Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979) is a biblical satire that is unlikely to tickle the funny bone of the devoutly Catholic. It did cause controversy in religious circles, but it’s one of their most critically acclaimed. I watched this film during freshman year (in an Archaeology class with a German professor, what it has to do with the subject I have no idea) and I watched it again last weekend, and I just want to say without the shadow of a doubt that

THIS IS ONE OF THE FUNNIEST MOVIES EVER.
EVEEER!

Brian is the satirical Jesus, who happens to be born in the stable next to the Messiah’s. He is then thrust into a whirlwind world of Roman-haters, not-so-mute men and Messiah groupies, to name a few. Because of unlikely circumstances that mirror some of the events in Jesus’ life, a cult is built in his name. And you won’t believe how it ends. But I won’t spoil the fun here, you’ll have to watch it for yourself.

I just love Monty Python’s unapologetic humor. Their movies are intelligence and good old fun combined. And they’re not afraid to question the conventions and traditions.

And their scripts are terrific.

Brian: You don’t have to follow me! You are all individuals!
The Crowd: Yes, we are all individuals!
Brian: You have to be different!
The Crowd: Yes, we are all different!
Small lonely voice: I'm not!

Wise Man #1: Ahem!
Brian's mother: Oh!
[falls over in chair]
Brian's mother: Who are you?
Wise Man #2: We are three wise men.
Brian's mother: What?
Wise Man #1: We are three wise men.
Brian's mother: Well, what are you doing creeping around a cow shed at two o'clock in the morning? That doesn't sound very wise to me.

Reg: All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?
Attendee: Brought peace?
Reg: Oh, peace - shut up!
Reg: There is not one of us who would not gladly suffer death to rid this country of the Romans once and for all.
Dissenter: Uh, well, one.
Reg: Oh, yeah, yeah, there's one. But otherwise, we're solid.

Ex-Leper: Okay, sir, my final offer: half a shekel for an old ex-leper?
Brian: Did you say "ex-leper"?
Ex-Leper: That's right, sir, 16 years behind a veil and proud of it, sir.
Brian: Well, what happened?
Ex-Leper: Oh, cured, sir.
Brian: Cured?
Ex-Leper: Yes sir, bloody miracle, sir. Bless you!
Brian: Who cured you?
Ex-Leper: Jesus did, sir. I was hopping along, minding my own business, all of a sudden, up he comes, cures me! One minute I'm a leper with a trade, next minute my livelihood's gone. Not so much as a by-your-leave! "You're cured, mate." Bloody do-gooder.
Brian: I'm not the Messiah! Will you please listen? I am not the Messiah, do you understand? Honestly!
Girl: Only the true Messiah denies His divinity.
Brian: What? Well, what sort of chance does that give me? All right! I am the Messiah!
Followers: He is! He is the Messiah!
Brian: Now, fuck off!
[silence]
Arthur: How shall we fuck off, O Lord?

Matthias: Look, I don't think it should be a sin, just for saying "Jehovah".
[Everyone gasps]
Jewish Official: You're only making it worse for yourself!
Matthias: Making it worse? How can it be worse? Jehovah! Jehovah! Jehovah!
Jewish Official: I'm warning you! If you say "Jehovah" one more time (gets hit with rock) RIGHT! Who did that? Come on, who did it?
Stoners: She did! She did! (suddenly speaking as men) He! He did! He!
Jewish Official: Was it you?
Stoner: Yes.
Jewish Official: Right...
Stoner: Well you did say "Jehovah. "
[Crowd throws rocks at the stoner]
Jewish Official: STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT RIGHT NOW! STOP IT! All right, no one is to stone... anyone... until I blow this whistle. Even... and I want to make this absolutely clear... even if they do say, "Jehovah."
[Crowd stones the Jewish Official to death]

The movie was sort of a synthesis of everything I criticized about The Stories—oh hey, I’m agnostic, in case you were wondering.

It’s not for everyone, as it pokes fun at many religious concepts and at religion itself, but it’s something that makes you think. And that’s always a good thing. It’s satire at its best, even Ambrose Bierce would have been proud.

Ten Basic Myths and Truths

2009-08-07T22:49:00.001+08:00

Myth: Her name is Roseann.
Truth: Her name is Marie Julianna Eleonore Rosalinde Florence-Guadiela Bashevis.

Myth: She speaks three languages.
Truth: She speaks six languages, namely: Filipino, English, French, Nadsat*, Newspeak**, and Turtle.

Myth: She is 18 years old.
Truth: In 1512 she beat Juan Ponce de Leon to the Fountain of Youth, and is in fact over 497 years old today.

Myth: She is a feminist.
Truth: She is the reincarnation of the Amazon Queen Penthesilea.

Myth: She is a Political Science major in the University of the Philippines.
Truth: She obtained a double major in Archaeology and Forensic Pathology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1991.

Myth: She is a Filipino Citizen.
Truth: She is half-Olorian*** and half-Ursa Minor Betan****.

Myth: She is a vegetarian.
Truth: While attending a Toltec ritual in Tula, she got into a heated argument with the soil fertility god Quetzalcoatl and has vowed ever since to solely devour plants for revenge.

Myth: She hates children.
Truth: She has a rare medical condition which makes her allergic to children within a twenty-foot radius, and long term exposure causes severe anaphylactic shock. This has led to 22 of her 31 near-death experiences as of 2009.

Myth: She is strong, independent, mercurial and neurotic.
Truth: She is nice, kind, sweet, forgiving, innocent, fragile and harmless.

Myth: She likes writing about herself in the third person.
Truth: Her alternate identity wrote this while she was talking with her turtles.

__________
*Nadsat: language invented by Anthony Burgess in the novel Clockwork Orange; most of the words are of Russian origin.
**Newspeak: language invented by George Orwell in the novel 1984.
***Oloria: Dimension between Narnia and Mordor, west of Oz. Accessible by tsunamis.
****Ursa Minor Beta: Headquarters of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. “It is a West zone planet which by an inexplicable and somewhat suspicious freak of topography consists almost entirely of subtropical coastline.” (Chapter 5, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Douglas Adams)

This is how it sounds like in my head.

2009-08-07T22:47:00.001+08:00

My French homework is about Geography, and we have to make these questions about geographical locations of countries. One question per person, so I have to pick a country. Of course I could be random but it’s nicer to have some sort of significance. So I go thinking about which country is significant, and for some reason Nepal enters my head. I’ve never been to Nepal, but I wrote about it once upon time because of an essay contest about Ramon Magsaysay Awardees. I didn’t win that contest, but I won another when I used the same material, a regional journalism contest, which then sent me to nationals, which made February of 2008 one of the most interesting months ever, but that’s a story for another time. Anyhoot. Nepal. There’s this doctor from Nepal who ended up with the award in 2007 because he cured people with eye diseases for free. I wrote about him because he had such an interesting life story, and also because I distinctly remember having no other freaking idea at the time. For the life of me I can’t remember his name now, which is sad, because I do owe the guy somehow. So this gets me thinking, besides its bordered by India and the Chinese Tibetan region, and its capital is Kathmandu, and that doctor guy, what do I know about Nepal? Zilch. So I look it up and I come across something more interesting than their flag. In 2001, their crown prince Dipendra shot to death the king and the queen. Then he decided to commit suicide and failed, and went into a coma. He died eventually, which made his uncle, of the ridiculously difficult name, king. So I think, there’s a really great story in this tragedy, and then it hits me. Somebody already wrote this! And the title is: Lion King. No, really. They thought Simba killed Mufasa, but it was actually uncle Scar who framed Simba, then Scar became king. So, what if Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah (that’s the uncle) actually orchestrated this ala Lion King? So this also gets me thinking like, wow, for a kid’s story it actually had heavy material. And also is this one of those life imitates art things, and is there a psychological phenomenon here? Maybe uncle difficult name overdosed on Lion King? Maybe Disney has long term traumatic effects? You know they say Bambi is the most traumatic movie EVER? Maybe it made people convert into poachers, I don’t know. (Tangent: In Political Science there’s this term, “Disneyfication,” which is like McDonaldization, and they’re both what you think they are.) So anyway I figure I have to write a story about this, about the Nepalese Royal Massacre, not Bambi or whatever, just because it’s a brilliant scenario already. But I’ll do that after I actually finish that French homework.

Smoke

2009-08-01T12:28:00.003+08:00

Unlit, orange and white, pencil-thin and three inches long, you watch as it is twirled on fingers with nails dirty and yellow. Your eyes travel to the arm, its prickly skin and little scars, focus on a red welt just above the elbow. Then you turn the other way when you see the drying gash on the thin, bare shoulder.

You are sitting in a jeep caught in the afternoon traffic. The man beside you reeks of the day’s work. Two women in front gasp, giggle and whisper. They pout their painted lips. An old man in the far corner sleeps even as music blares from the dashboard. A squat man in his thirties has on huge black headphones; the office woman beside him worries her cuticles. Coins rattle almost imperceptibly, the engine is idling, the heat threatens to suffocate. You look back at the seven-year old boy holding the cigarette.

He is in faded blue with the sleeves ripped off, his shorts brown and two inches too short. You see the spindly legs, the knobby knees, the feet caked with dirt. He sits nonchalantly on the curb. You see there are others around him, older but no better off. He twirls and twirls the cigarette until someone throws him a light. The match flares and smolders, the tip is lit. He takes a long slow drag.

You imagine his lungs shriveling into black pulps, his breath turning acrid, his teeth—are all of them even permanent?—becoming frighteningly yellow. You recall that cigarettes have 4,000 chemicals and 43 of them cause cancer. You try to remember the statistics of people who die from it. A film clip of dying lung cells plays in the corner of your mind. You wonder who gave him his first cigarette. Father? Mother? Brother? Sister? Stranger? You imagine him trying to quit, hands shaking, lids fluttering, until he cannot resist the pungent temptation. How young will he be then?

The word carbon monoxide flashes in red neon, then twirls itself into death, death, death. You imagine his eyes, veined and hopelessly worn in a future you are not sure he has, his lips cracked, fingers tar-yellow, hair brittle, as he coughs up blood.

You imagine the poison pulsing through his veins, hypnotizing his fledgling heart into submission.

He exhales, the traffic stirs. Your jeep drives away from the boy whose childhood is being stolen by a pencil-thin stick three inches short. And you do nothing but stare at the smoke.

A Short Story and (Bad) Love Poetry

2009-07-15T22:34:00.003+08:00

Some people have read this before. But I just thought of posting it. Written circa junior year in HS, it happened to fit a CW requirement. :)

The night was cold as the wind rattled through the rafters and shingles of the houses near London’s East End. During days of trade or days of worship, the town turned into a restless marketplace with people of all professions and predilections. Nights, however, were almost deafeningly silent. The year was 1888, and it was the seventh day of August. The moon was full and bright, its beams illuminating the deserted cobble-stone streets. A lone wild bird circled stealthily overhead. The last of the panhandlers have retreated into the recesses of the side streets. It seemed an ordinary night, like any other night in England… but, as the clock struck twelve, a bloodcurdling scream resounded in the cold air. Then, as abruptly as it started, the scream faded back into the silence.

They found her body the next day, sprawled on the stairs of an inn called the Whitechapel. Her throat was slashed; her blood pooled around her like a macabre shroud. Her face was unrecognizable with the post-mortem swelling of the soft tissue. The bones of her nose were broken in perhaps three places; the side of her head was obtrusively caved in. But the sadism did not stop there—her belly was cut open with the precision of a surgeon’s scalpel. Her innards were exposed, yet her kidney was nowhere to be found. Stab wounds ran the length of her body, and, where there was no blood, there were bruises and horrible welts. It was without doubt the work of a bestial, merciless killer.
She was identified as Martha Turner, a scarlet woman. The police started an investigation right away… but it was all in vain. They could not find the cold-hearted murderer, and there were no witnesses. Day after day, the police combed the streets hoping to catch a glimpse of the man who bestowed such a grisly death to the unfortunate victim.

Or, at least they thought there were no witnesses. Someone saw everything… Actually, I saw everything. I watched as her throat was ripped open, I saw her struggling and begging for mercy. I was the one who gazed upon her futile attempts to escape the clutches of death. How, you ask? Because I was holding the knife that snatched her pathetic life away. I dragged her into her death… I did society a favor! I savored the moment that the light was extinguished from her helpless green eyes. I felt exhilaration as her ravaged soul escaped into the gloomy, gelid air, as only an angel of death could. Women like her do not deserve to live… They are the breeders of pestilence! They pollute civilization with displays of immorality... They are the unchaste, the unclean... they show no respect for themselves... and for what? Is it not to no avail? Surely, you must agree with my quest to purify the earth of worthless, libertine scum? Oh, je suis desolée, I almost forgot to say... my name is Jack the Ripper, and on that fateful night of August, I committed my first murder.

(Poetry Attempt 2. She should really stop making us write love poems. I suck, bigtime.)

In the chapel of my sacred art
The stage is black, one spotlight bare
The singer stands in the smoky beam
No other leaps to join her there.
The trombone leads the prelude’s note
The piano peals, Do-Re-Mi-Do
Her voice follows but falls short
The rhythm is lost on the soprano.
The chorus chants, their notes move
She looks up and tears at fugue
She sings the aria, strains her voice
She is a baffled ingénue.
Fast forward past the interlude
Tenor appears, out of tune
He hits a sharp, she sings furioso
The critic writes “Sang too soon.”
Second interlude, he offers a rose
Neglects to remove the sharp thorn
Her finger bleeds, the petals fly
The score pities not the forlorn.
Climax unfolds, neither understands
Sense fades from the libretto
The violin cries, the clarinet gasps
Two voices reach their false-etto.
The climax passes, tragedy done
The onlookers gaze on, upset
They try to make the most of when
Two solos do not make a duet.
The cello weeps, the snare drum sobs
The coda does Do-Re-Do-Mi-Do
The singers exit, voices asunder
As their hearts let the opera go.

Metisse!

2009-07-08T18:18:00.001+08:00

Metisse!

Metisse est à propos de une femme, Lola, et sa grossesse. Lola ne sait pas le père de l’enfant, parce que elle a deux petit-amis—Jamal et Fèlix. Jamal est Muslim et noir, Fèlix est Juif et Blanc. Je pense Lola est Chrétien. Aussi, Jamal est le fils des diplomates pendant que Fèlix est... pauvre. Alors. C’est très, très amusant. Drôle et touchant. Je recommande celui-ci. Il a passé TV5Monde hier soir.

Realiser par: Mathieu Kassovitz (1993)
Avec Julie Mauduech (Lola), Hubert Kounde (Jamal), Mathieu Kassovitz (Felix).

CW 10 Poetry Assignment

2009-07-06T11:39:00.002+08:00

Believe it or not, this is a love poem. And it's supposed to look like this-- the homework is all about the use of jargon to make a poem that "kind of makes sense."

In the impartiality of my opinions
I find the paradigm shift you
Away from my tyranny
Settling for Oligarchy
Waiting for Democracy
Forgetting that Monarchy
Is not as bad as it looks.
Are you aiming for a polity
Dismissing the Utopia
Of Marxism or Anarchy
Looking for equilibrium
In this unreasonable rapport?
Why was I Bourgeoisie
While you were Proletariat
And where was ideological Third Way
When I was Atomism
And you were Socialism?
But now you're Classic Liberal
And I'm hopelessly lost
In a sea of categories
And rationalization
And vindication
Of the incomprehensible.

Pensées Aléatoire

2009-07-06T11:34:00.001+08:00

Vraiment? C’est 9 h 5 et je devenis folle. D’abord, ma main droit a brulé à la vapeur parce que l’eau a été très chaud. Ensuite, la même main a été électrifié par la prise de courant (ouverte, je n’ai pas vu!!!).

Enfin. La derniere semaine, jeudi je pense, j’ai vu le film Marie-Jo et Ses Deux Amours, a comme vedettes Ariane Ascaride, Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Gérard Meylan, Julie-Marie Parmentier, et Yann Tregouët. Le film a réalisé par Robert Guédiguian et sorti en 2002. J’ai regardé le film avec mon ami Mico qui a tout son temps, apparemment, l’étudiant de première année. Je plaisante!

Enfin encore, le film a été interessant. De quio ça parle? La vie de la famille de Marie-Jo et Daniel et la liaison de Marie-Jo avec Marco, un pilote. Le cadre a été Marseilles. Mon lieu préféré a été le piquenique sur la plage! Très gênant. Et quand Julie est arrivée en la maison de Marco pendant que sa mére a été la-bas. Il a été fin bizarre mais pas autant pour moi après l’article de la réaction.

Je l’ai ecrit en Anglais, bien sûr. L’article de la réaction en Français et pour Français 13.

Il y a un film Français, Martyrs (après la traduction). C’est trop bizarre! Mais j’aime la plupart de Marie-Jo et Ses Deux Amours. Il demande, pourquio fait-elle trompé quand elle est heureuse avec son mariage? Et pourquio sont-ils mourir? Encore, il a été fin bizarre.

Le résumé du site Web officiel:

Ces deux amours sont impossibles à vivre. Il faut bien pourtant continuer.

La lame sur son poignet n'est pas une solution. Les saisons se succèdent, Daniel construit des maisons, Marco conduit des bateaux...

Et comme le soleil naît et meurt chaque jour, Marie-Jo a deux amours...

Sur le chemin des contrebandiers, un jour de pique-nique, Marie-Jo applique la lame d'un couteau sur son poignet.

Elle aime profondément Daniel, son mari, et aime aussi fort Marco, son amant.>>

Oh, voyez. Ce n’est pas très difficile maintenant, ecrire en Français. Bien que de temps à autre je veux abandonner... La grammaire est pas pour le coeur faible. Si j’etais couramment en Français écrire va aller vite. Je “saigne” toujours! Je plaisante.

Mes amis je ne fait pas écrire comme pour mon amusement. Je révisé pour l’examen long à mardi.

Publicité: Lisez le livre “Gem Squash Tokoloshe” par Rachel Zadok. Il est engageant étonnamment, et mémorable aussi. J’ai rêvé de Faith, le personnage principal. Elle a été une vie perturbant. Zadok écrit bien.

Requiescat

2009-06-21T16:52:00.007+08:00

Here she lies, she's safe at last
She will sleep the millennia away
She's mortal like us we know
Someday we'll all have to go
But right now we don't know what to say
She's gone from here
Yet here she lies
Now she's excluded from all earthly pain
She's closed her eyes
Behind the glass
No sun, no smoke, no rain
Tears and fears and hugs and sighs
She's stoic in her white box
Does she hear us we wonder
Does she see us we ponder
What does this all mean
Here she lies she's safe at last
She's forever eighteen.

Maria Teresa Foronda, June 11, 1991- June 16, 2009

Storybook Patois

2009-06-14T10:30:00.001+08:00

So I'm reading A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, and I'm viddying a lot of odd words. Truth be told, it's taking malenky tolchocks at my brain, this nadsat jargon. First of all, it was already mighty bezoomny of Burgess to write this, since it's all horrorshow dratsing with shaikas and screaming devotchkas and ptitsas. Some of my droogs reckon it's a nice book, but I wouldn't use that slovo. Well-written. Imaginative. Engaging. Nice? No. By Bog, Burgess makes Vonnegut viddy relatively tame. So much krovvy and flying zoobies in this book! And what is scary about Alex, that’s the bezoomny malchick’s eemya, is that he’s not the least bit poogly of ultraviolence. He actually lives for horrorshow, no remorse whatsoever, and I know that’s what Burgess wants to show, but it pooglies me somehow. Knives in the moloko and dratsing-oobivating every night? More sensitive souls would be bolnoy by the thirtieth page. It vreds my brain, really, like a bolshy britva of verbosity.

Speaking of jargon, all this nadsatting reminds me of another invented language: Newspeak. ( From George Orwell's 1984. ) Now there's a double-plus-ungood language because it limits the words people are allowed to think and say. They phased out Oldspeak, and you had to be always goodthinking, otherwise the thinkpol would get you. It’s not easy to grasp the ramifications unless you read the novel itself. So many of my favorite words they turned into crimethink, really. It's double-unsane. I don't even know why those proles didn't take to the streets and quash Ingsoc. Not goodwise for the mind, although it didn't really matter, comrades, since if you were caught by the thinkpol you would become an unperson anyway. I unbellyfeel Ingsoc and Big Brother, of course, and like Oldthink better. But I have to stop now, since I am also afraid of being sent to joycamp, just in case Big Brother is reading.

The Amazons, Asherah, and The Search for Atlantis

2009-06-09T16:22:00.001+08:00

(National Geographic Channel Episode)
Riddles of the Dead: The Amazon Warriors

“Men who are warriors do not gain much attention. Women warriors, on the other hand, become the stuff of legends.” There was a feature on the National Geographic channel, Riddles of the Dead, about the Amazon warriors. They were fierce, beautiful, blonde women who refused to be conquered by men. They raised their male children as slaves and trained their women to be warriors. The myth of the Amazons continues to inspire many stories, even up to today.

It was said that the Amazons fought on the side of the Trojans during the war against Achilles and the rest of the Greeks. Achilles is said to have killed the Amazon Queen Penthesilea in a fierce battle, and another Queen, Hippolyta, possessed the girdle that was one of the labors of Hercules. An archaeologist investigating a 3000-year-old burial in Southern Russia discovered that it contained the skeleton of a (according to an anthropologist) woman in a nomadic warrior’s pose—one leg straight, the other bent. Along with this were hundreds of arrowheads, golden beads, and golden emblems of a priest/ess. They figured that the woman (later confirmed to be so by DNA testing) was a nomadic warrior priestess. Coincidentally, studies showed that Southern Russia was where the Amazons were most likely to have gone after they were displaced by external factors. It seemed that the Amazons were not only simply “myth” after all.

(The Amazons, or Androktones—Killers of Men, are now the newest subjects of my feminist research.)

Women like them, who have defied order and “traditional” gender roles, are definitely interesting. They show us that the line we draw between capabilities of men and women somehow do not really have to exist. I think gender roles are really a way of keeping the stability in society. Humans are creatures of routine, and if there was too much variety the world would be more complicated. Or would it? Do these roles really simplify things? There was a time when gender roles were a question of pragmatism and not of bias. That is not always the case today.

For starters, gender roles are unfair. They constrict and they divide. They serve to separate things that should not have boundaries. These boundaries are based on the assumption that men and women are intrinsically different, and there are some things that only men can do and vice versa. It is assumed that there are some things that only women can do. With the exception of childbirth and other biology-related aspects, this is really not true.

Gender roles then extend to Dating Scripts. There was an episode on The Tyra Banks Show related to this. The topic was a woman who could not seem to get dates because of her “bad dating habits.” Some gay men were on the show to give her the “straight” dirt. It was amusing because these gay men showed the women what to wear, what to say and what not to say on a first date, and claimed to know what men really think. Dating scripts are another way to keep the stability. What is it that people have against spontaneity anyway? Some of the frequent advice given to women for first dates are: Don’t reveal too much; be approachable; eat light; show genuine interest in your date, etcetera. Which begs the question: Why? What if you don’t want to eat light? What if you’re not genuinely interested? Why do we allow ourselves to be governed by these scripts?

I should probably mention a certain bestseller I extremely abhorred due to it being a proponent of gender roles: Meyer’s Twilight. That requires twelve more pages of criticism, so I won’t elaborate.

Random Observations: In a traditional couple scene, the woman holds on to the man, not the other way around. And when it comes to holding the umbrella, the man holds it for the couple—even if it was the woman’s umbrella to begin with. And the whole business with the man carrying the purse (emphasis on the “purse,” it often being of no weight at all) of the woman: what in the world is that supposed to mean? If the world were gender aschematic, we’d all have a lot more freedom to do whatever we want. Not to sound like an anarchist, but the unwritten gender roles can be suffocating.

"The basic options of an individual must be made on the premises of an equal vocation for man and woman founded on a common structure of their being, independent of their sexuality." (Simone de Beauvoir, La Deuxieme Sexe)

(Discovery Channel DVD Episode)
Archaeology II – The Forbidden Goddess

Was it a battle of the sexes, or was it a battle for power, gender regardless?
Maybe it was both.
In ancient Israel a few thousand years ago, there were two main divine beings: Yahweh and Asherah. Yahweh was the almighty ruler, Asherah was his consort, and was the mother goddess.
With the subsequent editing of the bible, Asherah was scratched out and Yahweh rose to the rank of “only” god. Everything else is simply labeled a false idol.
Scholars today only know of Asherah through physical evidence unearthed by archaeologists. (Statues, icons, sculptures.) There are also some surviving texts in which she is mentioned as “Yahweh’s Asherah.”
There are two reasons considered for the deletion of the goddess and the phasing out of her cult. One, the high priests and officials of Israel, male, wanted the god to reflect them, and saw no room for a woman. (Gender studies show that while men are fascinated by women and their ability to reproduce, they are also threatened by this power.) Two, the high priests and officials of Israel saw her as a threat to Yahweh’s seat as most powerful divine being, and saw no room for any other divine being, woman or otherwise.

The episode made some old questions rise from the murky confines of my subconscious, somehow connected, but not exactly about it.

Disclaimer: I am an agnostic.
Note: Agnostic is not Atheist, and while we’re on the subject, Atheist is not Satanist.

One: Why do we refer to god as “he”? Is there any conclusive evidence to suggest that “he” is male? Following the logic at the very beginning, if god made humans in his own image and likeness, then isn’t it more likely that he was both male and female? He created both genders after all. (Tangent: How many genders are there, really?)
Two: “God has a face, hands, feet from time to time, but how about below the waist? There is no mention of genitalia anywhere.” It’s almost as if they’re denying physical evidence of god’s sexuality while asserting it through pronouns.
Three: How do we know that there is only one god, and that there are not multiple divine beings? (This will probably never be answered anyway.)
Four: I know that the bible is considered the absolute truth in a lot of circles. But why? It’s literature. It does not provide a conclusive account of how things happened. How can it? Every piece of work, written or otherwise, is reflective of the time and place in which it was created and, more importantly, who created it. The specific details cannot be held true for all time and for all people. It also has gone through revision after revision, translation after translation. How many sentences come out with a different meaning after being translated? And how many things get lost in revision? It does not provide an unbiased account of history, it is an insight into the people who wrote it and how they lived and believed.

"The bible is literature, not dogma." - George Santayana

P.S.The story of Asherah shows that history is written by the winners. The losers have no place in it except to be in the wrong, or to have no place in it at all.

(Discovery Channel DVD Episode)
The Search for Atlantis

I'll keep this one short.
Humans have always been fascinated by the unknown. It is not by coincidence that the mystery of Atlantis has survived the test of time, and that people, despite all failure and disappointment, still believe that one day, Atlantis will be found.
Some researchers say that it's on Bimini Island in the Bahamas.
Some say that it will never be found, because through time, and following geological patterns, it has been pushed under the Caribbean plate.
I think that the mystical Lost Island represents more than just thrill and treasure. It seems that no matter how much we progress, we will always feel the need to look back to where it all began. If only to see how far we've come.
If Atlantis does get found someday, I sincerely hope I would still be around to see it.

Ça se dit comment en Français?

2009-06-08T22:48:00.000+08:00

Bonjour mes amis. C’est un article en Français, pardonnez-moi. Aujourd’hui, j’ai étudié, quoi d’autre, Français. Je prépare pour la semaine prochaine et pour les semaines après. J’apprends le temps futur, le temp pas parfait, et le temps conditionnel. (... Pas parfait? Qu’est-ce que “imperfect” en Français du reste?) Plus les temps passé et présent j’ai apprendu l’année dernière. Et les adjectifs et les adverbes! Quelle un cauchemar.

Alors. L’été est fini. C’est triste, mais c’est étonnant aussi parce que je peux apprendre choses nouvelle. Alors. Mon l’emploi du temps. Chaque jour de dix heure à onze heure et demie, un cours de Français avec Monsieur Bautista. Chaque mardi et jeudi de onze heure et demie à une heure, une cours de L’écriture Créatif avec Madame Duque. Cependant, chaque mercredi et vendredi de onze heure et demie à une heure, une cours de L’histoire. Je fais une pause pour le déjeuner à une heure à deux heure. Ensuite, le cours je deteste surtout, un cours de Calcul. Le professeur est Madame Bello, mais je ne sais pas elle. Chaque lundi, j’ai CWTS en la Géographie, de deux heure à cinq heure.

C’est tout. Tout à l’heure.

Random

2009-06-08T22:34:00.001+08:00

Public advisories have been going on and on about how to avoid AH1N1. Their top tips include not hugging, not kissing, and more generally, not touching anyone. And also channeling your inner OC every time you wash your hands.

I know the virus is airborne, and human contact is just a secondary way of transmitting it, but if human contact is the only way to get it, I’m pretty much immune.

Kind of sad when you start thinking about it.

Just kidding. I don’t need a hug, I just feel like being dramatic. And the cactus bears wonderful resemblance.

By the way, a cactus is going to hurt you if you hug it, so don’t, even if it looks like it wants you to. Appearances are most often than not deceiving. XD

What if the Earth Stands Still?

2009-06-07T19:52:00.002+08:00

“Your planet is dying.”
“So you’ve come to save us!”
“No. I have come to save the planet.”
- Dialogue from “The Day the Earth Stood Still”

Global Warming. Climate Change. Air Pollution. Water Pollution. Land Pollution. Excessive Greenhouse Gas Effect. Thinning of the Ozone Layer. Melting glaciers. Fossil fuel shortage. A lot of these issues are now as commonplace as corruption and traffic—in this country, at least.
Thankfully, with campaigns launched for awareness about environmental issues, “going green” has also entered the mainstream. Energy conservation. Drives against Air and Water Pollution. Anti-Smoke Belching Act. All noble and well-meant efforts. But the movie The Day the Earth Stood Still poses an alternative, more radical solution:
Exterminate mankind.
In the movie, Keanu Reeves is a representative of a group of civilizations far more advanced in all aspects relative to earthlings. (Why is it that almost all sci-fi concepts make us inferior to our intergalactic peers?) They have also been keeping tags on Planet Earth and are aware that it is one of few planets capable of supporting life. Therefore, they have decided to save it. And there is only one clear way, that is, to get rid of all human beings and all man-made objects that destroy the planet. The aliens do this by unleashing thousands of locusts (much like a plague) that are capable of eating away at metal and reducing it to dust. Smaller termite-like insects eat away at the humans themselves.
They also sent out spheres to every corner of the globe to act as modern versions of Noah’s Ark, to save the Earth’s species. They took one of each, except humans, understandably.
It is a work of fiction, and yet... What if that is the only way?
“If the planet dies, you die. But if you die, the planet lives.”
We all know that this planet needs to be saved. But what is not resilient in common thought is that it needs to be saved from us. Most people think of it in terms of saving it from toxic wastes, from global warming, from fossil fuel emissions—but these are terms that only serve to distance us from the real problem at hand: US. Toxic wastes and whatnot are merely side effects. Human ingenuity and intellectual curiosity have led to the development of technology, and the thrill of discovery and the comfort and convenience it brought us has masked the ugly face of destruction. And has masked it for far too long.
But akin to the anti-venom that saves the poisoned victim, we are also the solution.
History teaches us that every civilization reaches a turning point where it is forced to substantiate or suffocate. Some survive, some don’t. There is a collective decision that has to be made, to determine whether it will fall off the precipice or further assert its existence. Maybe, in a figurative way, the earth is standing still and awaiting our decision. Will we make the right one now, or will we have to wait for an alien species to save us from ourselves?

QUERY

2009-05-31T11:59:00.000+08:00

I was digging through my stuff last night when I dug up an old Query box. I never did use it, so I’m going to, just for the hell of it. Here are the first twenty:

1. IF YOU HAD TO DO RESEARCH ON ONE THING FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE, WHAT WOULD YOU RESEARCH ON?

That’s easy! Gender and Sexuality, with slight focus on Feminism.

2. IF YOU WERE STUCK ON A DESERT ISLAND AND COULD ONLY HAVE ONE KIND OF FOOD FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE, WHAT WOULD IT BE?

Kind, right? Seafood.

3. WHAT IMAGES COME TO YOUR MIND WHEN YOU ARE ASKED ABOUT YOUR CHILDHOOD?

The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett. My fifth birthday party. My dog best friend, Lulu. The 73 in music class. Bankruptcy. The Land of Oz, by L. Frank Baum. Narnia! Swimming.

4. WHAT’S THE BEST ADVICE YOU’D GIVE YOURSELF TODAY?

Don’t worry too much.

5. WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF: YOU SUDDENLY FOUND OUT YOU WERE AN HEIR TO A ROYAL FAMILY’S FORTUNE BUT WOULD HAVE TO RELOCATE TO ANOTHER COUNTRY TO ACQUIRE IT?

Besides the obvious legal issues, I think I’d fly off in a heartbeat.

6. DESCRIBE YOUR DREAM HOME.

I envision a tastefully decorated two-story house situated on a hill overlooking a city, but frankly I don’t really care as long as I’m the only person in it. Maybe I’d keep a dog. And a few cats. But no people. My family members can visit, but they can’t live in it. I’d give them a house too, if I’m that rich, but if we’re talking dream home, then it’s definitely one where I can be alone, literally.

7. IF YOU HAD TO BE AN ANIMAL, WHICH WOULD YOU BE?

I’m torn between a lynx and a wild mare. Or if they weren’t extinct, a saber-toothed tiger or an archaeopteryx.

8. IF YOU WERE INVISIBLE FOR A DAY, WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

Sneak into offices and record incriminating conversations that would give conclusive proof to public speculations of corruption, fraud, and/or corporate dishonesty. Or maybe I’d just spook the hell out of people who annoy me.

9. IF YOU WERE CHOSEN TO BE THE FIRST PERSON TO RELOCATE TO JUPITER, AND COULD ONLY BRING ONE PERSONAL ITEM, WHAT WOULD IT BE?

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

10. IF YOU HAD TO WRITE A BOOK ABOUT YOUR LIFE, WHAT WOULD BE ITS TITLE?

Stercus Accidit.

11. LOOKING BACK IN TIME, WHICH YEAR WOULD YOU HAVE WANTED TO LAST TWICE AS LONG?

I honestly can’t think of any year I’d want to last longer than it did.

12. IF YOU WERE TO RECEIVE AN AWARD THAT EVERYONE WOULD HEAR ABOUT, WHAT AWARD WOULD IT BE?

Nobel Prize for Literature. :))

13. IF YOU HAD TO LIVE IN ANOTHER COUNTRY (FOR ALWAYS) WHERE WOULD YOU GO?

Wow. This is tough. I do expect I’d travel a lot in the future, but I’d always come back to the Philippines. But if I were to be exiled or something, then I’d go to Italy. That way I can take trains to other EU countries!

14. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU THOUGHT ABOUT THIS MORNING WHEN YOU WOKE UP?

Why is my sister’s dog sleeping beside me?

15. COMPLETE THIS SENTENCE: I AM THE ONLY PERSON I KNOW WHO...

...is perpetually freaked out by the fact that the law (and society, for that matter) practically mandates women to take the surname of their husbands. Not that I have to worry about this personally, being agnostic, but still. It really does bother me a lot. I often try to think of ways to change this system.

16. WHO WOULD YOU LIKE TO MEET AND SPEND THE WHOLE DAY WITH? CAN BE SOMEONE FROM THE PAST.

I’d love to tag along with Hecate (of the Greek myth) for a spellbinding journey through the underworld. I also wouldn’t mind hanging out with Adolf Hitler, just to see what he really was like... You know, behind the fascist dictatorship and the genocide. Okay so that isn’t such a good idea. I’d also want to hang with Charles Dickens, Kurt Vonnegut, and Simone de Beauvoir. Sorry I can’t choose just one.

17. IF YOU HAD A MILLION DOLLARS WHAT WOULD YOU SPEND IT ON?

This is going to sound boring: Stock Investments.

18. IF YOU HAD TO BE A LIFELESS OBJECT FOR A DAY, WHAT WOULD YOU BE?

Barack Obama’s personal computer.

19. RANK ACCORDING TO IMPORTANCE FOR YOU PERSONALLY: FAME, POWER, GOOD LOOKS, RICHES. (RANK FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT.)

Power, riches, fame, good looks.

20. IF EVERYONE HAD TO PICK A NAME, WHAT WOULD YOURS BE?

Aha! A very relevant question. I’d pick Roseann!!! My real name, not what my darn birth certificate says!!! Hahahaha!

Scandalous

2009-05-25T21:55:00.001+08:00

Last last week, it was pugilist Manny Pacquiao. A few days after that, it was the Judy Ann Santos- Ryan Agoncillo Nuptials. Nowadays, you can hardly turn on the television without seeing a Katrina Halili-Hayden Kho Sex Video update.

Tangent: Am I the only one who thinks "Donya" Dionisia Pacquiao is perpetually inebriated on money? Have you ever seen a better example of "letting it get to your head"?

As may be expected, the media is having a field day with this story. You have, on one end, a clueless, pre-star status Katrina Halili, and on the other, a young closet voyeur named Dr. Hayden Kho. Or maybe I should say "ex-closet voyeur." Other players include one Chua, who may or may not be the rat in this hole-ridden affair, and Dra. Belo, who may or may not sooner or later overdose on her own chemicals. This tale is peppered with sex, money, jealousy, and ulterior motives. What's not to exploit?

The fascinating part about all of this is the endless loop of questions. My favorite is: Who's to blame?
Do we blame the alleged victim, Ms. Halili, for sleeping with Dr. Kho? Do we blame the aspiring videographer Dr. Kho for sleeping with Ms. Halili? Or do we blame the person who leaked this to the media? (Let us now refer to this person as the unsub-- unidentified subject. Yes this is NCIS/Criminal Minds speaking.)

Personally, I don't think it was Ms. Halili's fault. She didn't know she was being videotaped. She might have known she was cheating, as the Belo-Kho love affair was more public than Hello Garci. But they're not married, so scratch adultery. I don't know which case they're filing against who, but as such, this is a question of morality. And that is not clear cut at all. I know some people are pinning the blame on Ms. Halili for sleeping with Dr. Kho, and are assuming that she has slept with more than one blissfully taken male species. (Cue pictures of old socialites with old scandalized expressions on their faces.) That, and the whole "impure image" people attach to sexually liberated women.

We seldom hear the "impure image" attached to Dr. Kho's name, presumably because he's male and all males are supposed to be sexually aggressive. Sexual double standard alert. It's disgusting for one gender and laudable for the other. Curious. Nobody's saying the "videotaping" aspect was laudable, but the sex itself on his part is hardly considered as scandalous.

I think Halili is also somehow lucky for being the female, because while she is subjected to negative personal ruminations, it would be unwise for our politicians and public figures to point their fingers at her. She is the alleged weaker party, after all. Alleged, alleged. Gender never determines strength. They may brand her as scarlet, but they won't say it out loud.

Wonder why the CBCP hasn't issued a statement yet. Is this one rare moment where they don't render their opinion necessary to the ebb and flow of scrutiny?

I don't blame Dr. Kho either. Whatever voyeuristic predilections he may possess is beyond my judgment. Can't judge what I don't understand. But really, dissecting the situation, did he do any harm by the act of videotaping? They were two consenting adults after all.

Maybe we should just blame the unsub who leaked this. And if it is who I think it is, I pray that they catch the unsub before *beep* keels over on botox and collagen implants.

Reaction: Angels and Demons Movie Adaptation

2009-05-21T18:34:00.001+08:00

Like many people, I have the handicap of not being able to judge the movie solely on its own merits, having practically memorized the book. So I have to begin by pointing out the main discrepancies between the two versions.

- Vittoria Vetra’s “research partner” Silvano was not present in the book; the priest/scientist who headed the antimatter project was Leonardo Vetra, Vittoria’s adoptive father. (That stole a lot of tension from Vetra’s character.)
- One main character in the book, Maximillian Kohler, was completely cut from the movie. He was the director of CERN, and was supposed to be present during the climactic scene where the Camerlengo branded himself.
- The fifth brand in the book was not the two-key symbol that appeared in the movie; it was a square ambigram of the four elements. (In my opinion, that made it lose the essence of symmetry.)
- Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca’s motive was also not present. In the book, Ventresca murdered the pope after finding out that he was the pope’s son. What he didn’t know was that the late pope did not do anything wrong because it was done through artificial insemination... which then explained why he did not see science as the enemy (since he was able to conceive a child without violating his vows). This was also a main point, since the pope was contacted by Vetra precisely because the pope was not against science. In the movie, it appeared that Ventresca’s motive, besides anger, was to become the pope by “acclamation by adoration.” Although it must be said that the intention to unite the Church by fear was both present.
- Some minor characters that were cut from the movie: Gunther Click, the BBC reporter, and Chinita Macri, his videographer.
- The line “My mind tells me I will never understand God... My heart tells me I am not meant to,” was spoken by Vittoria Vetra, not by Robert Langdon.
- Cardinal Baggia (water) died in the book but lived to become pope in the movie.
- Grand Elector Saverio Mortati, also not present in the movie, became pope in the book. He was also the Devil’s Advocate during the late pope’s reign, and was the only other person who knew that the pope had a son by artificial insemination.
- Vetra and Langdon became a couple in the book (then broke up shortly before The Da Vinci Code).
- There was originally no witness to the scene where the Camerlengo lit himself with butane.

...

I still stand by the conviction that Hanks does not fit the Langdon role. Zurer, however, was a good Vittoria, save for the fact that a lot of the tension and emotion she could have worked with was not included in the movie’s plot. By removing Leonardo Vetra, Vittoria was simply an incidental character. McGregor as Ventresca was a wise decision, although removing his relationship with the late pope was not. And then there’s the matter of Maximillian Kohler. I still wonder why they removed him. It’s simply not as complete without the wheelchaired-man who practically held the book together.

So, what I really want to say is... I did not like the movie adaptation at all. It could have been better. The Illuminati were not as played up as they could have been, and unmasking the hassassin stole a great deal of mystery from the murder sequences. Many of the conflicts that made the book’s plot work were altogether scratched, and the intricate elements that made it unique were overlooked.

The cinematography was okay. Not excellent, but okay enough to keep me watching towards the end. Somehow I feel that the sculptures were not given enough credit, and the setting itself was not sufficiently played up. It was Vatican, for heaven’s sake.

I am probably this annoyed only because I actually waited for this movie to come out. Maybe I should just stop watching movie adaptations of books. They almost always fail anyway.

Untitled.

2009-05-14T21:15:00.002+08:00

I had a rather interesting day at the office. Some slight squabbles are brewing between the north-south factions; I dare not get into particulars. Rumors cannot be helped, can they? And some people just don’t grow up, no matter how old they are. There was an Indian woman who came by, and left me afflicted with accent mimicry for the rest of the day. A friend told me I write like a younger version of Jessica Zafra, which I don’t know how to take since when I read her I can’t understand half of what she’s saying, albeit the fact that she is good with words. I spent a good hour of my life folding receipts while wondering how the UPD CRS will opt to destroy my life, armed with the seemingly harmless words “Priority: Regular.”

In other news: They have started taxing books. I thought it was a joke designed to annoy those of us who happen to like long strings of words bounded between titles and blurbs. Alas, it is not. This means higher prices for imported books (read: 90 % of books in this country) and a longer wait for new releases. Thank you, Department of Finance. You’re brilliant. I blame Twilight for this. Rowling didn’t do this damage... Or is it just the recession, now also known as zeitgeist?

In other, other news: The Manny Pacquiao craze has promptly left the country like a less-destructive version of Emong, only to be replaced with another craze, this time in the form of The Two Davids.

Mom: Andito na yung dalawang David!!!
Me: *monotone* Yey...

Suddenly, swine flu threats reputed to be extremely high in populous areas all but vanished in a puff of fanaticism. A lot of people went to the malls and watched their guest appearances, which I didn’t because (a) I had to go to work, and (b) even if I didn’t, I’m not a fanatic. I have yet to discover a cause for which I will brave the long lines toward a totem of pop culture.

Little thoughts from the randomness I like to call my life:

The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald. A little dragging at the beginning, gets to the action towards the end. Sometimes shocking. Fitzgerald’s artistic ability shines through in every page. Serves up money, pain, haunting images and an unlikely friendship.

Slaughterhouse Five, by Kurt Vonnegut. My new favorite book. All I can say is BRILLIANT. Of all the World War 2 novels I’ve read, this is the best so far. Because it’s different. It’s filled with old ideas presented in new ways, and new ideas that make it unforgettable. Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time, indeed, and makes you wonder if you haven’t. MUST READ.

I am not finished with Lolita (Nabokov), and Conversations with the Devil (Jeff Rovin a.k.a Tom Clancy). Curse the human necessity for sleep.

...

The SpiderPigs have been talking incessantly about Meteor Garden, now that Boys Over Flowers is out. (Note: SpiderPigs is a collective name for the officemates, since we burst into “Spider pig, spider pig, does whatever a spider pig does” when we’re suffering from paper shock. If you don’t know that song, go watch the Simpsons Movie.)

So, what about Meteor Garden and Boys over Flowers? The consensus is that MG is the better version, although that might just be time sweetening the recollection.

Personally, I think the delivery of MG was better, not to mention the dubbing. But what do I know. I’ll leave this up to the real fans.

One SpiderPig thinks she wants to become a nun. I think that is in all plausibility, since I go into anaphylactic shock every time she talks about her church, i.e. every five minutes. She’s way too nice for her own good. She loves children, and she talks about it a lot, which is always enough to make me throw myself towards the nearest exit, where her words will not reach my aural cavities. Sorry, dear, I really can’t stand little runts, neither in 3D nor in spoken word. (Psycho-logist says I hate kids because I didn’t have playmates. I concur. Slightly.)

In Idol Land: Danny Gokey is out, Kris Allen and Adam Lambert are the final two. Is it me, or is it not as interesting as last year? I have all but lost the will to keep watching. I have nothing against gays, so that isn’t the issue. It’s just that Lambert does the same screechy thing over and over. Kris Allen, on the other hand, has a morsel of talent and a healthy helping of pretty boy charm. I want neither to win. See bitterness and negativity dropping from that sentence?

Sigh. I’m just a regular Simon Cowell with a dash of Ebenezer Scrooge and a pinch of Ambrose Bierce. I can’t help it. If it’s optimism versus pessimism, I’d rather be either proven right or pleasantly surprised, than be mistaken at the top of my lungs.

Scientia Cum Religione: Angels and Demons Book Report

2009-05-06T22:28:00.001+08:00

With the movie coming out and all, I thought it would be, er, socially relevant to post this review. So that people who've never read the book can see what it's about... And hopefully watch the movie.
I first read the book in early 2004, and I wrote this report in 2005/06 for an English class, so forgive me if I sound like too much of a fan (which I was). Also with a few omissions to make it shorter.
Since it's only proper to read the book before watching the movie, I urge you all to read it. It's on sale in bargain bookstores at 175 php, or there's probably someone you know you can borrow from.
This contains mucho, mucho spoilers. And is rather long.
Here goes.

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"From Santi's Earthly tomb with demon's hole,
'Cross Rome the mystic elements unfold.
The path of light is laid, the sacred test,
Let angels guide you on your lofty quest."

Title: Angels and DemonsAuthor: Dan Brown (Copyright 2000)

Setting: Citta de Dio or The City of God: Rome

Theme: The theme of the story is the passion for art, iconology, codes, secret societies and the gray area between good and evil.

Characters:

Robert Langdon
Professor Robert Langdon works as a teacher of Religious Iconology at the Harvard University. Langdon is the main protagonist in the story, who Dan Brown describes as "although not overly handsome in a classical sense, the forty-year old Langdon had what his female colleagues referred to as an erudite appeal-- wisps of gray hair in his thick brown hair, probing blue eyes, an arrestingly deep voice, and the strong, carefree smile of a collegiate athlete. A varsity diver in prep school in college, Langdon still had the body of a swimmer, a toned, six-foot physique that he vigilantly maintained with fifty laps a day in the university pool." At forty years old, Robert Langdon is unmarried. He does not regret this because it has enabled him to travel the world, sleep as late as he wanted and enjoy quiet nights at home with a brandy and a good book. His colleagues often joked that his house looks more like a museum than a house because it was packed with religious artifacts from around the world. He was a tough teacher and a disciplinarian although he relished recreation with an infectious fanaticism that earned him fraternal popularity with his students.

Leonardo Vetra
Leonardo Vetra is actually a supplementary character who dies a gruesome and rather morbid death at the start of the story. He is a controversial figure because though he was a particle physicist, he was a Catholic priest. He was starting to fuse science and religion through his more-than-complicated research when he was killed-- right after he finished making a full tenth of a gram of antimatter. In a way, Leonardo Vetra is where this story starts-- and the chilling ramifications of his work continue until the end of this heart-stopping novel.

Vittoria Vetra
A beautiful and mysterious Bio Entanglement physicist of CERN and the adopted daughter of Leonardo Vetra. She helped her adoptive father create the antimatter and she proves to be a great help in the troubles that came their way when they were in the biggest adventure of their lives.

Maximilian Kohler
Maximilian Kohler is the director of the world's largest scientific facility: Switzerland's CERN (Conseil Europeen pour la Recherche Nucleaire).His peers know him as King Kohler, mostly out of fear than admiration. This man is far from ordinary-- he has a custom-made movable command post (his wheelchair!) which was equipped with a bank of electronics such as a small computer, a multiline phone, a paging system and a small detachable camera. CERN employs over three-thousand physicists and more than half of the world's particle physicists comprising of sixty nationalities. With that many of the world's most brilliant minds in his command, what has that wheelchair-wheeling crippled genius been up to? Making scientific miracles, of course. In Kohler's own words: "Our scientists produce miracles almost daily". Kohler plays a very important role in the complicated plot of angels and demons as this almost-mad scientist tries and succeeds to help the real protagonists to save the day.

The Nameless Hassasin
The nameless hassasin is the killer in this story and though the novel provides a few insights into his (sick) thoughts, the killer remains anonymous. It was through him that the secret Illuminati master carried out the gruesome plans of killing the four cardinals most likely to become pope one-by-one using the four ancient elements of science (earth, air, fire, water) at the four altars of science. The Four Cardinals:

Cardinal Ebner of Frankfurt
Cardinal Ebner was killed in the first altar of science, The "Chigi Chapel". In its earlier days, it was called "Capella dela Terra" which literally translates into chapel of the earth. This is strangely befitting because this cardinal was buried halfway through the earth with a fistful of soil shoved up his mouth and was branded with the ambigramatic symbol of earth.
Cardinal Lamasse of Paris
Cardinal Lamasse was killed in the second altar of science, The West Ponente in the famed St. Peter's Square. He was killed by "air", which here means his lungs were punctured and his chest was seared with the ambigramatic symbol of air.
Cardinal Guidera of Barcelona
In my opinion, Cardinal Guidera died the most painful death. He died by fire in the chapel of Sta. Maria dela Vittoria, which actually means that he was suspended by cable wires over a flaming altar with the ambigram "fire" stamped across his chest.
Cardinal Aldo Baggia of Italy
He would have been pope, had he not been drowned by that reckless hassasin into the fountain at Piazza Navona. He was the last cardinal to die, and it was almost painless; he simply accepted his death in the name of God.
Cardinal Saverio Mortati
Mortati was the Grand Elector in the conclave and he was the Devil's Advocate during the late pope's reign.
Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca Ventresca was the late pope's chamberlain who played a very important part in the course of events in the story. Let's just say that he was the glue that held it all together.
The Swiss Guards
* Lieutenant Chartrand
* Captain Elias Rocher
* Commander Olivetti

Sylvie Baudeloque
Sylvie was Maximilian Kohler’s secretary at CERN. She was a very religious woman who strongly believed in God and her Catholic faith. She was one of the people who were astounded by what happened in Vatican City.

Gunther Glick
A frustrated BBC reporter with a red beard. For some reason, the hassassin contacted this story-starved struggling reporter to broadcast the cardinal’s murders, making him famous. But his fame was short lived... Since he accused CERN to be the hideout of the Illuminati and George Bush to be a financier. Of course, none of those two were very pleased...

Chinita Macri
Gunther Glick’s camerawoman who prefers to be called a videographer.

Summary:

Exposition: The exposition in the story is when Robert Langdon gets a call in the dead of the night from mysterious Maximilian Kohler, the director of the world's largest scientific facility. At first Langdon regards the caller as a hoax, a practical joke by one of his students from the university. There is absolutely no way that a thousand year old satanic cult could leave its legendary mark on a particle physicist in a tightly secured research facility, right? Wrong. Very, very wrong. That's what Langdon finds out when he flies across six time zones to get to Switzerland, the home of CERN. When the altitude-sick Langdon descends on the massive buildings comprising CERN, he didn't know that he was going to face his biggest challenge yet—survival.

Complication: From there, the mysteries get laid down as one of CERN's pioneer scientists, Leonardo Vetra, was killed and branded with an ambigramatic symbol of "Illuminati." Furthermore, his research, the world's first particles of antimatter (see definition of terms). was stolen by an unknown adversary. When the antimatter was stolen, it was removed from the power source that kept it from getting contact with matter. A backup battery was running to keep the antimatter from annihilating but there's a catch: after 24 hours, the battery will run out. After 24 hours, everything within a half-mile radius will be liquidated-- literally. Now Robert Langdon and Vittoria Vetra, the murdered scientist/priest's adopted daughter must try to find the antimatter before it annihilates. They also need to find out who stole the antimatter, since NOBODY was supposed to know about the antimatter except Vittoria and her adoptive father. Then they get a call from the Swiss Guard, it seems that the stolen antimatter is on a live video feed from the Vatican City. According to the time on the video feed, the antimatter will detonate at exactly 12 midnight. With a shrewd but not useless idea of where the antimatter was and with no time to spare, the two sped off to Vatican City for a day in Rome neither of them will ever forget. At the Vatican, while talking to the Camerlengo (chamberlain), they receive a call from the hassassin himself. They were told that the four cardinals were going to be killed one by one, starting at 8:00 at the four altars of science. Then, at 12 midnight, the antimatter will annihilate...

Climax: The climax in the story begins when Langdon and Vittoria explored the “Archiviano Vaticano” or the Vatican Secret Archives and found a hundred-year old poem in Galileo Galilei’s Diagramma. The poem was written by John Milton and seemed to be the clue to find the altars of science. At first they didn’t know what the altars were, but then the clue they had was that they were used to honor the four ancient elements of science: Earth, Air, Fire and Water. The poem was written in perfect iambic pentameter and pointed them to “Santi’s earthly tomb with demon’s hole.” Who was Santi? Who else but the great Raphael, the renaissance painter. After a grave mistake, they do find the correct location which is at the Santa Maria del Popolo chapel, specifically the Capella dela Terra (Chapel of the Earth). They arrive late and find Cardinal Ebner of Frankfurt— mouth stuffed with soil and dead. Following the poem’s last line, “Let angels guide you on your lofty quest”, they followed the angel’s hand in the sculpture Habakkuk and the Angel and were led to St. Peter’s Square, where the “West Ponente” or the West Wind was... Air if you want to get technical. Cardinal Lamasse of Paris was found there—lungs punctured and very much dead. Following the West Ponente’s breeze, they proceeded to the chapel of Sta. Maria de la Vittoria where they found Cardinal Guidera of Barcelona—no, not dead yet, just suspended by cables over a flaming altar and being burned alive. It was at this point that Vittoria was kidnapped by the hassassin and was carried off to the Illuminati lair. He didn’t realize that this was his biggest mistake so far because Langdon will stop at nothing to save her. But before saving Vittoria, he followed the sculpture of the “Ecstasy of St. Teresa” to the Fountain of Four Rivers at Piazza Navona. He fought briefly with the hassassin but lost, and had to fake drowning to escape. Cardinal Baggia drowned there... and then Langdon realized he had another task ahead, finding Vittoria at the Illuminati Lair. He eventually found the lair, which turned out to be the Castel Sant’ Angelo or the Castle of the Angel and found Vittoria. After a rendezvous with the devilish hassassin, Langdon and Vittoria managed to push the hassassin to his death—an open balcony. They may have won the battle but the war wasn’t over yet, they still had to find the antimatter.

Denouement: Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca did it. He tricked the hassassin into thinking that the Illuminati still existed and made him kidnap and kill the cardinals. And yes, he also stole the antimatter. Plus, he killed the pope. His motives? Simple, brilliant and utterly twisted. “For centuries,” the Camerlengo said, “the church has stood by while science picked away at religion bit by bit. Debunking miracles. Training the mind to overcome the heart. Condemning religion as the opiate of the masses. They denounce God as a hallucination—a delusional crutch for those too weak to accept that life is meaningless. I could not stand by while science presumed to harness the power of God himself! Proof, you say? Yes, proof of science’s ignorance! What is wrong with the admission that something exists beyond our understanding? The day science substantiates God is the day people stop needing faith! Science, by definition, is soulless. Divorced from the heart. Intellectual miracles like antimatter arrive in this world with no ethical instructions attached. This in itself is perilous! Promising answers to questions whose beauty is that they have no answers? No. But more and more people believe in science. Religion needed a miracle. Something to awaken a sleeping world and bring them back to righteousness. I needed to restore faith... even if by using evil to do God’s will.” The Camerlengo killed the pope because of what he thought was righteous anger. The pope, his mentor, confessed to him that he had a child. Ventresca didn’t stop to listen to his holiness’ explanations and immediately concluded that he had broken his vow of chastity and fooled the world. So he poisoned the pope with a drug called Heparin.

Resolution: Cardinal Mortati decided to tell the truth. When the pope confessed that he had a child, Ventresca didn’t hear his next words. He was the son. And technically, the pope didn’t break any rules because it was made possible by artificial insemination which meant he didn’t break his vow. Carlo Ventresca was shocked beyond belief and ran down, down, down to the Niche of the Palliums. Once there, he anointed his whole body with butane (smells like heaven but burns like hell!) and literally set himself on fire using a golden lighter.

Conclusion: Just when the Camerlengo thought everything went the way he planned, the truth came out. A lot of lives were wasted in the story, but a lot more were saved. Robert Langdon fell in love with Vittoria and she with him. Cardinal Saverio Mortati was elected Pope and he asked Langdon and Vittoria to let their hearts guide them as to the matter of discretion about the events of the past 24 hours. But the new pope didn’t need to ask them to remain discreet, as they already decided to when they survived the events that gave both of them a new meaning for the words love and life.

Reactions, Comments:
Dan Brown wrote such a believable book that expertly fused fact and fiction to successfully narrate one of the most astonishing adventures of unlikely heroes. This is quite an educational book with facts revealed about the origins of the Catholic Religion and its ties to other religions everywhere around the world. The novel really comes to life with Brown’s accurate, inventive and precise descriptions of the various locations, architectural feats and other icons involved in the story. It created just the right blend of likable and despicable characters embedded in the intricate plot topped with a phenomenal ending guaranteed to shock even the most experienced reader. One of my few comments regarding the story is that the scientifically-oriented jargon may be difficult for some readers to understand. But even if that may be a down-side, this book enhanced my vocabulary by 50 percent and even inspired me to write a few stories of my own. Dan Brown did make a few mistakes though... (they are mentioned in the book “Unlocking Angels and Demons ”). One of these is the collective term used to refer to the four cardinals eligible to become pope which the book says is “Preferiti.” In real life, the correct term is “Papabili.” Point two, in a real Rome City map, the four churches (Capella dela Terra, St. Peter’s square, Sta. Maria dela Vittoria and Piazza Navona) do NOT form a cross, as the book says. And Castel Sant’ Angelo’s bridge does not pass exactly through one of the lines that make the cross. Point three, “La Purga” never occured, though every author is entitled to invent circumstances to make their plot more believable.

Social Relevance: The novel "Angels and Demons's" social relevance lies in the antediluvian topic of Science against Religion. In the story, Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca resurrects the ancient brotherhood of "Illuminati" to reinstate fear into the hearts of Catholics and bring them back to God. The man firmly believed that the Catholic Religion's strength is in its tradition, not its transience. In our world, I do not think that this is possible. The only permanent thing is change, and, as all things adapt to alterations, so must every religion. Life cannot depend on its past simply for the sake of upholding tradition for transience is inevitable and ineludible. Change in the Catholic religion must not be feared nor despised, because as change happens, faith evolves too. Sometimes, transience leads to an even deeper understanding of the benevolent and the omnipotent. Benevolent means to be marked by the purpose of doing good and omnipotent means to have virtually unlimited influence or authority. Dan Brown's novel points out that God is both omnipotent and benevolent because even though he has complete control over our lives, he lets us learn by giving us our freedom and lets us learn by our mistakes for our own good. People all over the world have been fighting over science and religion for the longest time, and this novel presents quite a different idea to the public. It suggests that science and religion are allies, not enemies. They work hand in hand to create miracles everyday. If science and all its laws is one big magic trick, there must be a great magician behind it all. That magician is God. If people accepted this idea, then the great war between religion and science will be over and both of the sides will be well accounted for. None of them will lose but neither will triumph over the other. Both of them will simply merge to form one concrete and profound definition that will be composed of both their beliefs. If the two would just compromise and try to listen, understand and accept ideas far from their own, they would open their minds to new ideas and broaden their horizons to new heights. If you ask me, these two immortal enemies would achieve more if they work together and cooperate rather than working apart while detesting each other. If you think about it, science and religion are actually focused upon a common goal which is to achieve the higher understanding of life... In religion this is called “achieving eternal life”, while in science this is “determining the singularity.” In our wildly strange world, a strong fusion of fact and faith, the intangible and the tangible, the abstract and corporeal and the theoretical and the physical may be just what we need to understand what life is ultimately all about.

Definition of Terms:

1. CERN- Conseil Europeen pour la Recherche Nucleaire is the world's largest scientific facility located in Switzerland.
2. Ambigram- an ambigram is a symbol that looks the same even if you look at it right side up or upside down. Examples of these are the Christian Cross and the Hindu's Swastika.
3. Hassasin- The word hassasin came from the potent intoxicant "hashish", which was the drug that a certain group of people used when they celebrated. These people were notoriously skilled executioners who were renowned for their brutal killings. They were known by a single word-- "hassasin"-- which literally means "followers of hashish." Hassasin is still used nowadays except it is now pronounced as "asssasin."
4. Antimatter- "Antimatter is identical to physical matter except that it is composed of particles whose electric charges are opposite to those found in normal matter. It is the most powerful energy source known to man. It releases energy with 100 percent efficiency (nuclear fission is 1.5 percent efficient). Antimatter creates no pollution or radiation, and a droplet could power New York City for a full day. There is however, one catch: Antimatter is highly unstable. It ignites when it comes in contact with absolutely anything... even air. A single gram of antimatter contains the energy of a 20-kiloton nuclear bomb-- the size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Until recently, antimatter has only been created in very small amounts (a few atoms at a time). But CERN has now broken ground on its new Antiproton Decelerator-- an advanced antimatter production facility that promises to create antimatter in much larger quantities."1
__________________ 1 Brown, Dan. Angels and Demons. 1230 Avenue of the Americas; N.Y.: Simon & Chuster Inc., 2000, p. IX
5. Singularity- a point or region of infinite mass density at which space and time are infinitely distorted by gravitational forces and which is held to be the final state of matter falling into a black hole.- a point at which the derivative of a given function of a complex variable does not exist but every neighborhood of which contains points for which the derivative exists.
6. Obelisk- Etymology: Middle French obelisque, from Latin obeliscus, from Greek obeliskos, from diminutive of obelos.Date: 1569- An obelisk is an upright 4-sided usually monolithic pillar that gradually tapers as it rises and terminates in a pyramid
7. Annihilation- To annihilate is to vanish or cease to exist by coming together and changing into other forms of energy (as radiation or particles).
8. Conclave- a private meeting or secret assembly; especially : a meeting of Roman Catholic cardinals secluded continuously while choosing a pope.
9. Swiss Guards- Italian Guardia Svizzera corps of Swiss-born soldiers responsible for the safety of the pope. They serve as personal escorts to the pontiff and as watchmen for Vatican City and the pontifical villa of Castel-Gandolfo.-The guards, who are independent of the Swiss armed forces, are employed by the Roman Catholic Church under the leadership of the pope, to whom they swear fealty in a ceremony at Belvedere Court. New recruits must prove that they are of Swiss origin, born in wedlock, Roman Catholic, unmarried, less than 25 years old, and healthy and free of physical deformities.
10. Necropolis- plural Necropolises, Necropoles, Necropoleis, or Necropoli (from Greek nekropolis, “city of the dead”), in archaeology, an extensive and elaborate burial place of an ancient city. In the Mediterranean world, they were customarily outside the city proper and often consisted of a number of cemeteries used at different times over a period of several centuries. The locations of these cemeteries were varied. In Egypt many, such as western Thebes, were situated across the Nile River opposite the cities, but in Greece and Rome a necropolis often lined the roads leading out of town. One of the most famous necropolises was discovered in the 1940s under the central nave of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.

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In retrospect, there are a few other things I should have pointed out. The pope had a child, which is probably enough to make the Vatican ban the filmmakers from shooting inside Citta de Dio itself. Oh, wait, they did. A speaker for the Vatican said they didn't even need to read the script: It had "Dan Brown" on it. But as director Ron Howard said in an interview... "Officially, we weren't allowed to shoot inside Vatican, but cameras can be made really small."
But I swear to (G/g)od/s [(G/g)oddess/es] this is not like the lame conspiracy theory presented in The Da Vinci Code. When I read that, it just left me with a rather unpleasant after-taste. The story could have been good, (the development was superb) had he not tried so hard to make it a "huge huge huge" issue. Which it became. But it wasn't, really. And made it a hype book. (See Mico Subosa's entry on hype books.) I guess that works for him though. And follow-up question: Would it really matter that much if Jesus had a child? I actually think that would be pretty great, since that would show that he really went through the things that normal people on earth go through. He was also "only human," right? Which meant he was a carbon-based sentient life form descended from early primates like the rest of us. I'm going to stop before start rambling about DVC.
Another point: the unification of science and religion. Hmm. I think we all know what happens when you suggest that.
All in all, it was a great read. REALLY. I'm not just saying that because I'm an agnostic who happens to like conspiracy theories. In fact, you'd appreciate it more if you were Catholic. Which you... probably are, since this is the Philippines. Excellent symbolism, a blend of fact and fiction, nerve-racking suspense, twists and turns, extremely cool ambigrams, and a mystery to end all mysteries. I've also been addicted to science fiction ever since. I will forever be thankful to this book for opening my eyes to the diversity of ideas in the world. (I was twelve when I read it.)
Don't get me wrong here, Brown is not the best writer out there. His prose borders on dreadful, and you often get the made-for-Hollywood-movie feel. He's commercial. I'm not saying "read this for literary appreciation" I'm saying "read this for entertainment." It's enjoyable, it's not a drag, and you can get a lot of useful facts along the way.
And regarding Brown's other books... Deception Point is also good. Another conspiracy theory, with Rachel Sexton and Michael Toland as lead characters. And it's not about religion, don't ring the Vatican. It's about a meteor that crashed on earth a few billion years ago, and may or may not give proof to the existence of life forms on other planets. Set in the Milne Ice Shelf. Also suspense-filled and very entertaining. Another "this-was-meant-to-be-a-movie-script-but-I-turned-it-into-a-novel" book. Digital Fortress, on the other hand, was like a watered-down and less engaging version of 24: I don't recommend it. I can't even remember what happened in that, except for a few scenes in a South American country that involved a jacket.
Out of his four novels (so far), Angels and Demons really stands out as the best one. I hear he has one about Freemasons coming out soon.
See the movie May 15, 2009.

Ink Stains and Killer Shoes

2009-04-14T19:03:00.001+08:00

Today was the first day of our summer job. I say “our” because it’s a group thing. Basically, there are thirteen of us. G is abroad, KT and M are not qualified for summer jobs yet, A and T have summer classes, RW can’t work there since her mom works there, and C and KL are... I don’t actually know. That leaves me, K, V, R and N together in our very first summer job. Oh, wait—it’s R’s second, she worked earlier last month in Greenbelt.

So, what do we do? We deal with paper. Lots and lots and lots of paper. We give paper, receive paper, put papers into envelopes, cut, rip, staple, photocopy, stamp... No it’s not the post office it’s SSS.

I don’t really want to write too much, so I’ll just share a few things.

All of us were defeated by the time-in/time-out clock. Oh, ignorance.

Like I said, we deal with paper. There are about thirty kinds of forms and you have to remember where they are and what they’re for. Some have to be stapled, some folded, some given together and some two copies per person, some can’t be given without IDs, etcetera. And then you have to tell them where to take it (5 counters, 2 floors, and one office in San Juan where you have to send the E-6’s).

Then there’s this form called E-4 and it was out of stock. A lot of people were looking for it, so we had to tell them to go to the website, download it, and then print it, fill it up and bring it back. The younger clients would nod, and go off in search of the nearest internet shop. The older ones would frown when they hear the word “internet” (if they hear it at all) and then they would give you this expression that conveys the message “Nah, screw this place.” Generation gap 101.

After the first few hours of issuing the forms, we realized that we needed to acquire mind-reading powers ASAP. Some of the people would just go, “Pahingi ng form,” and when asked which one, they would reply with, “Basta yung *insert various hand movements here* na sinusulatan.” Gee, thanks. That makes my life easier. Oh, yeah, there were stacks of forms a few feet high that we had to fold-rip-staple-stamp-stack. We did this for, oh, two hours, and I seriously felt brain dead until the Accounting Officers started being noisy. We even stamped our hands, just because.

We made a few mistakes, but it wasn’t entirely our fault. The photocopier jammed twice on K, and the document would have gotten to the Officer faster if she just rewrote it. We gave out the wrong forms once in a while due to confusion. And then there were our killer shoes. Read: shoes that kill because of the pain you have to endure while wearing them. I am not wearing them tomorrow, I’ll brave the reprimands.

V was assigned upstairs, so it was me, R, K and N who bonded with each other... and with the dead trees in various colors and sizes.

V also introduced us to one of the other trainees who sounds exactly like G. And kind of looks like her. Which is kind of sad.

Oh, and word of the day: CONDONATION. We had no idea what that meant, and we were breaking it down by etymology, purpose of prefix, and whether or not it had anything to do with donations. All we knew was that it was a word in a form for when you forget to pay for a while. I suggested the root word was “condone,” although for some reason I couldn’t remember what it meant. (Yes, yes, I get it now.)

All in all it was extremely fun. We’re rendered invincible from the summer heat from 8 to 5, and we’re getting paid while having fun—well, most of the time at least. Sometimes killer shoes just suck the happiness out of everything.

Death Note Mode

2009-04-09T23:24:00.001+08:00

What Death Note Character Are You?
Hosted By theOtaku.com: Anime

Darn it, I wanted to be L. Pfffft. XD
Katrina this is your fault you got me into this thing.

Tears.

2009-04-06T04:09:00.000+08:00

My Professors, A.Y. 08-09

2009-04-05T16:44:00.000+08:00

Ah, professors. As any college student knows, your professor can make or break your grade. That's why picking them is an extremely touchy subject-- if you can pick them at all. (The Math professors are always "concealed.") Here are my professors for the last two sems, posted here in the hopes of helping CRS users who are googling for good measure.

FIRST SEMESTER

Prof. Malaya C. Ronas (Social Science 2 and Political Science 14)
--- "He's a nice guy" is the standard statement about him. He really is. He's not the best teacher in the world but he's a cool guy. I think I had more fun in his Soc Sci 2 than in his Pol Sci 14, but hey. That's not his fault it's Heywood's.
--- Gives a .25 raise in the final grade if you pass the special projects.
--- 3 long exams in Soc Sci 2, 2 long exams in Pol Sci 14 (Aaaah, Heywood!!!). Word of caution: He gives mean true/false questions.

Prof. Josefa Balzdoz-Schriever (English 12)
--- Is out of the country A LOT. That means missed classes and a lot of group studies. Her favorite class activity is outlining. She has this characteristically high-pitched voice so you may want to sit in the front. And, uhm, don't take Eng 12 if you're not prepared to read at triple speed.
--- Gives quizzes once in a while. No final exam, just a final interview-type thing.

Prof. Alfred Pawlik (Archaeology 2)
--- One of the teachers I recommend the most (but I may be biased, I mean, I'm an archaeology fan). Be prepared to hear a lot of stories about everything from Egypt to action figures.
--- Speaks in a German accent, which should keep you awake in class if anything.
--- He introduced me to Monty Python films. XD
--- One group report, one final exam, a lot of film showings and reaction papers. But most of the time it's just a really relaxed class.
--- A substitute professor who filled in for him at the beginning of the sem (because Prof. Pawlik was digging in France at the time) said, "If you don't want to get to the lesson, ask him about beer." We did. It worked.

Prof. Cielo Maaliw (French 11)
--- Cool. Really cool teacher. She spent a few years in France as a kid and she shares stories about that, which makes the subject really interesting.
--- .25 raise in the final grade for complete attendance.
--- Midterms, departmental final exam, 2 dialogues, a lot of quizzes.

Prof. Daryl Saddi (Math 11)
--- Oooh I hope he doesn't see this. Uhm. Well. We had this joke... "You can't spell sadista without Saddi." He's not bad, he just has really high standards. He made our Math 11 look like Math 17, so you can guess how the Math 17 students felt.
--- 3 departmental long exams, problem sets, 1 final exam.

Prof. Perena (PE 2 Cheerleading)
--- Can't remember her first name. I mean, we didn't actually have class. It was UAAP season and the cheerleading class involved going to the games and cheering for the players.
--- Attendance is everything. And I mean that in the most literal sense. That's the only thing you get grades on. 10 games and 5 events, attend them all you get a 1. Miss one and you get a 5.

SECOND SEMESTER

Prof. Jose Magpantay/ Prof. Omar Pecho (Natural Science 1)
--- Prof. Magpantay (Physics part) can be... Uhmm... A little scary. Be punctual, because he locks the doors. He also gives difficult exams (2 long exams). One essay as project. He uses an OHP for lessons, and the acetates are available for photocopying. No computations, just concepts.
--- Prof. Omar (Chemistry part) is cool. He doesn't lock the door, and he makes jokes. :) He also uses the powerpoint projector, and uploads slides. Optional essay as project.
--- 4 long exams, if you pass them all you don't have to take the comprehensive finals.

Prof. Camillo Nogoy (French 11)
--- The Golden Rule: Never, ever, stare at his pimple. :))
--- His classes are fun, but it's French so if isn't murder-level difficult it's a miracle.
--- Midterm, departmental final exam, 3 dialogues.

Prof. Beatriz Torre (Social Science 3)
--- Ma'am Bea!!! None of us have anything bad to say about her. Seriously. She handles a sensitive subject- Gender and Sexuality- but the way she teaches it is just amazing. She never loses her cool either. I think she majored in Chemistry, and she's an Oblation Scholar too. Plus she's extremely pretty. Hers was the only class I actually looked forward to going to everytime.
--- Now that I think about it, she did assign a lot of work. But I swear, you won't notice it. Haha. We did 10 essays, one field trip, one project proposal, one final project, one midterm and one final exam, and a lot of class activities. She uploads the powerpoint slides too.
--- She's tied with Prof. Frago for my "best teacher of the sem" award.

Prof. Perlita Frago (Political Science 14)
--- One of the nicest teachers EVER. Incapable of becoming angry or raising her voice. I didn't see her get mad even once. And she teaches really well. A lot of readings, but that's the norm anyway.
--- 2 long exams, group activities every now and then, one cultural presentation, one group folio and she assigned an essay once.

Prof. Jayson Petras (Panitikang Pilipino 12)
--- For various reasons I shall not comment. :))
--- One midterm, no final exam. A few field trips. Final project, which looks a lot like a baby thesis. Group activities. It's a rather interesting subject too.

Prof. Marie Filio (PE 2 Scrabble)
--- Sometimes I wonder just how many words she has in her brain. Let's just say I can't imagine anyone beating her at Scrabble.
--- There are 20 games in this class, win 5 and you're guaranteed a three. One inter-class tournament and lots of little quizzes. If you don't want to attend the tournament, you can take the final exam.

Prof. Kelvin Lagota (Math 14)
--- Uhm. I hope I didn't fail this class. *Fingers crossed*
--- He's an "okay" teacher. Gives a problem set when needed. Homework, quizzes, activities. Need I mention he's brilliant at math?
--- 3 long exams, one final exam, all departmental. I remember he wasn't my original teacher though, it was a last minute change.

So there. My list of professors. I'm still recuperating from the stressful semester, I have a feeling I won't be fully recovered when it all starts up again.

Good luck to everyone taking summer classes.

Random Post, No Actual Sense

2009-04-03T15:39:00.000+08:00

" 'I'd like to find a woman to pose naked for a daguerrotype. Can you help me find one?' It was not easy to find nude models, though Louis had heard that artists in the studios around the Luxembourg Gardens were convincing street waifs to pose for a bowl of soup and a pinch of snuff. But he needed something more than the bared frame of a rag-and-match seller; he needed a high-blown frailty, something worthy of oblivion."

-Dominic Smith, The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre

***

It's officially the summer.
Another summer with nothing actually productive in store, thank you dad, for not letting me take a summer job. (Yes this is me seething.)

19 books left on the vacation reading list. I'm just going to continue reading now. And worrying about my grades.

On another note, why does the primetime news suck? Why devote a full six minutes to celebrity gossip? It's a complete waste of airtime.

I'll write something relevant next time. When I get over the post-hell month trauma.

The Chemical Kinetics of Flings and, oh, Happy Birthday Dear!

2009-03-28T21:02:00.001+08:00

It's official, Rowane Fesalbon is eighteen. That means two of the thirteen Dears can already go to jail. :))

She had her party last night at Club Mwah, which, as my friend Chito says, probably cost enough to pay for our tuition fees for the rest of our college lives. Chito studies in Mapua, so in my case that already includes my Masters Degree.

Dress count was five or six. She looked gorgeous, by the way, just refer to the Multiply sites if you know her. My favorite part was the Egyptian dance. She seriously looked like Cleopatra there. Worst part? Well, I don’t know if it was that bad but to me it was pretty crazy: the 18 candles’ dance number, a (con)fusion of Rowane’s friends, family members, and members of Kundirana, to the tune of Sexy Love. Modern day cotillion.

On another note, I shall now attempt to explain the development of a fling through Chemical Kinetics. No reason, really, I just feel like it.

A fling is a quirk in the fabric of space-time, defined by Webster as a brief period of pleasures. It is often preceded by flirting and succeeded by Step 6 in what I like to call the extended edition of Levinger’s ABCDE model of intimate relationships: Forgetting.

For a reaction (the fling) to take place, the reacting particles have to collide. As we all know, not all collisions are effective (that's why some people get stood up, and some others get dumped, etcetera). Now, for a collision to take place, there has to be proper orientation of the particles (same mindset, same interests, same purpose for being in a certain place). There also has to be sufficient energy to make the reaction happen. (When everything's hyped up by internal or external stimuli, then that part becomes easy.) This is called the activation energy, and it has to be present during the reactants' transition stage (in this case, the flirting stage). The presence of a catalyst also helps, because it speeds up the reaction without detriment to itself. (In fling development, the catalyst is usually another person.) I'm talking about the extremely fast reaction because like I said this is a space-time oddity. But when the fling does happen, it will eventually fail because the reaction does not become stable. It is a law of nature that for things to become stable, they must have low energy. By orientation, flings are emotionally charged, and thus the energy is too high. Blame the dopamine and the notable absence of oxytocin.

Segue, the chemical patterns of love and certain mental illnesses like OCD are alike. Not that I’m saying “love” is present in most flings, because people are not likely to recognize the emotions present in flings as “love.” And what is it if not a social construct anyway.

Okaaay. I'm taking the train back to reality now. I have to face one more paper and two more final exams (Math 14-Trigonometry and Social Science 3- Gender and Sexuality) before my summer officially starts on the first of April. I want everything to go as planned, heaven forbid another episode of Murphy’s Law... Did I mention I was ONE HOUR LATE for my French 11 finals? Ouais. I took it in one hour whereas my classmates took it in two. Here's to hoping I passed. On a less depressing note, I'm already exempted from the Nat Sci 1 (Physics-Chemistry) finals. On another depressing note, the results for the Math 3rd test are already available, I’m just not looking at them. I don’t want the excrement to hit the ventilation just yet.

I seriously just want all of this to be over... The only bad thing about the summer is the heat. Otherwise, I'm perfectly fine with it, because it means I will be taking that much needed break. No summer classes!

Again, HAPPY BIRTHDAY ROWANE MAY AUSTRIA FESALBON!!!!!! We love you so much. Your debut was definitely something special. :)

Advanced "Happy Birthdays" to my only sister, Wakee (April 16—it’s her fifth) and to Marie Francoise Therese Portillo Salcedo (April 19—her eighteenth).

Okay, fine, it's written in the stars: I AM a Perfectionist

2009-03-26T20:35:00.002+08:00

Copied from Francoise Salcedo, an elementary school friend.

Hey, I don't buy this kind of thing but I do need all the luck I can get. :))

Once you have opened this e-mail, there is no turning back. Below are true descriptions of zodiac signs. Read your sign, and then forward it on, with your zodiac sign and label on the subject line. This is the real deal, try ignoring or changing it, and the first thing you'll notice is having a horrible day starting tomorrow morning - and it only gets worse from there.

CAPRICORN The Go-Getter (Dec 22 - Jan 19)Patient and wise. Practical and rigid. Ambitious. Tends to be Good-looking. Humorous and funny. Can be a bit shy and reserved. Often pessimistic. Capricorns tend to act before they think and can be Unfriendly at times. Hold grudges. Like competition. Get what they want. 20 years of good luck if you forward.

AQUARIUS - The Sweetheart (Jan 20 - Feb 18)Optimistic and honest. Sweet personality. Very independent. Inventive and intelligent. Friendly and loyal. Can seem unemotional. Can be a bit rebellious. Very stubborn, but original and unique. Attractive on the inside and out. Eccentric personality. 11 years of luck if you forward.

PISCES - The Dreamer (Feb 19 - Mar 20)Generous, kind, and thoughtful. Very creative and imaginative. May become secretive and vague. Sensitive. Don't like details. Dreamy and unrealistic. Sympathetic and loving. Kind. Unselfish. Good kisser. Beautiful. 8 years of good luck if you forward.

ARIES - The Daredevil (Mar 21 - April 19)Energetic. Adventurous and spontaneous. Confident and enthusiastic. Fun. Loves a challenge. EXTREMELY impatient. Sometimes selfish. Short fuse. (Easily angered.) Lively, passionate, and sharp wit Outgoing. Lose interest quickly - easily bored. Egoti stical. Courageous and assertive. Tends to be physical and athletic. 16 years of good luck if you forward.

TAURUS - The Enduring One (April 20 - May 20)Charming but aggressive. Can come off as boring, but they are not. Hard workers. Warm-hearted. Strong, has endurance. Solid beings who are stable and secure in their ways. Not looking for shortcuts. Take pride in their beauty. Patient and reliable. Make great friends and give good advice. Loving and kind. Loves hard -- passionate. Expresses themselves emotionally. Prone to ferocious temper-tantrums. Determined. Indulges themselves often. Very generous. 12 years of good Luck if you forward

GEMINI - The Chatterbox (May 21 - June 20)Smart and witty. Outgoing , very chatty. Lively, energetic. Adaptable but needs to express them selves. Argumentative and outspoken. Like change. Versatile. Busy, sometimes nervous and tense. Gossips. May seem superficial or inconsistent. Beautiful physically and mentally. 5 years of bad luck if you do not forward.

CANCER - The Protector (June 21 - July 22)Moody, emotional. May be shy. Very loving and caring. Pretty/handsome Excellent partners for life. Protective. Inventive and imaginative. Cautious. Touchy-feely kind of person. Needs love from others. Easily hurt, but sympathetic. 16 years of bad luck if you do not forward.

LEO - The Boss (July 23 - Aug 22)Very organized. Need order in their lives - like being in control. Like boundaries. Tend to take over everything. Bossy. Like to help Others. Social and outgoing. Extroverted. Generous, warm-hearted. Sensitive. Creative energy. Full of themselves. Loving. Doing the right thing is important to Leos. Attractive. 13 years of bad luck if you do not forward.

VIRGO - The Perfectionist (Aug 23 - Sept 22)Dominant In relationships. Conservative. Always wants the last word. Argumentative. Worries. Very smart. Dislikes noise and chaos. Eager. Hardworking. Loyal. Beautiful. Easy to talk to. Hard to please. Harsh. Practical and very fussy. Often shy. Pessimistic. 7 years of bad luck if you do not forward. I am so not shy. Everything else applies... Maybe except the beautiful part. Eeek. :))

LIBRA - The Harmonizer (Sept 23 - Oct 22)Nice to everyone they meet. Can't make up their mind. Have own unique appeal. Creative, energetic, and very social. Hates to be alone. Peaceful, generous. Very loving and beautiful. Flirtatious. Give in too easily. Procrastinators. Very gullible. 9 years of bad luck if you do not forward.

SCORPIO - The Intense One (Oct 23 - Nov 21)Very energetic. Intelligent. Can be jealous and/or possessive. Hardworking. Great kisser. Can become obsessive or secretive. Holds grudges. Attractive. Determined. Loves being in long Relationships. Talkative. Romantic. Can be self-centered at times. Passionate and Emotional. 4 years of bad luck if you do not forward.

SAGITTARIUS - The Happy-Go-Lucky One (Nov 22 - Dec 21)Good-natured optimist. Doesn't want to grow up (Peter Pan Syndrome). Indulges self. Boastful. Likes luxuries and gambling. Social and outgoing. Doesn't like responsibilities. Often fantasizes. Impatient. Fun to be around. Having lots of friends. Flirtatious. Doesn't like rules. Sometimes hypocritical. Dislikes being confined - tight spaces or even tight clothes. Doesn't like being doubted. Beautiful inside and out 4 years of bad luck if you do not forward

Send away!!~ Ready, set, go!

1-3 people = 1 minute of luck

4-7 people = 1 hour of luck

8-12 people = 1 day of luck

13-17 People = 1 week of luck

18-22 people = 1 month of luck

23-27 people = 3 Months of luck

28-32 people = 7 months of luck

33-37 people = 1 year of luck

It's Just Stupor Mundi* Please Enjoy the Party

2009-03-18T21:55:00.005+08:00

Written as a Nat Sci 1 reaction paper to the Orion (Jan-Feb 2004) magazine article, “The Chemistry Between Us” by Robert Michael Pyle. Inspired by Valerie Bloom. Dedicated to Alisa Baleva-- Man that PolSci Test was BAD. Go Sabaw! :))

It’s Just Stupor Mundi*
Please Enjoy the Party

Invited was I to a friend’s party this week
I went, lest be deemed an antisocial freak
The food looked marvelous, what can I say
And twice as good as I didn’t pay
An acquaintance, a friend of a friend is she
Chatted me up, as casual as can be
She looked at the noodles on my plate
Sighed and said “Monosodium Glutamate”
I said “Pardon, what do you mean?”
She replied, “On eating I wouldn’t be keen
The ham, in preservatives, was soaked
The cow ate herbicides before it croaked
Even the chicken of the sea kills
Because they ingest our oil spills
Oh, and fish are swimming in a dynamite sea
So I wouldn’t eat it if you were me”
I laughed and said, “Paranoid, are you,
I’m not biting off more than I can chew

Chemicals are in food, I know
But nowadays that’s the way to go”
She stared as I reached for a baguette,
I said “You’d like this one, I bet”
“No thank you,” came the reply,
There are free radicals even in pie

And don’t let me get started on the bread
I hear they have Bromate and Lead
Well those sandwiches do make me shudder
What of the Salmonella in peanut butter
And the water, people ignore me when I chide
But I just know it has Cyanide
That turkey is fat and fatty still with basting
Carcinogens are now among us thriving
And don’t touch the pickles in that jar
Do you know the effects of too much vinegar?”
“Where do you get this stuff?” I asked in awe
“In a science feature I once saw”
“Well then, to fruits and vegetables let’s turn
But do even they make your stomach churn?”
“Why, just imagine how that banana tastes
What with all the industrial wastes
And that corn, it still has pesticide
Tomatoes are genetically modified
A lot of those vegetables can cause pain
They might have been in an acid rain
The turnip is just as bad, I guess
The ground is fraught with toxic substances--
Avoid by all means that chicken sauté
‘Drenched in saturated fats,’ one can say
Fowl turns foul by all means
And think of the bacteria in those beans
You’d avoid grilled meat if you were smart
Lest you want platinum in your heart
Oh, those safe-looking appetizers
Are five and twenty fertilizers
Have you heard of Formalin in the juice?
I hope that was just a ruse
Milk has Mercury in the Flan, so that I won’t eat
You do know that death is a one-way street”
The conversation I should have given up
Out of politeness I turned to my cup
She said, “I hope that isn’t tea
Those leaves have chemicals, don’t you see”
“Well everything has chemicals,” I replied
I hope I didn’t sound too snide
“Chemicals are not all detrimental
In medicine they are sensational”
She picked up a can of chilled soda
Commented on the effects of too much cola
Looked at a man drinking gin and tonic
“Might as well be drinking Arsenic”
Then I wondered how right she was
How much truth in the information she has
And if there was veracity in what she said
Should I let it get to my head?
How will I enjoy this lifetime, fleeting
If threats in everything I keep seeing?
Laudability is married to culpability
When dealing with chemical insanity
Maybe that’s just the consequence
Of dabbling with the quintessence
The solutions are the problems too
The future is quite inconnu
And then she said “Au revoir,” with a curtsey
Smiled and added, “Enjoy the Party.”

*Literally translated: “The bewilderment of the world."

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

2009-03-15T10:56:00.003+08:00

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

By Maya Angelou

The free bird leaps

on the back of the wind

and floats downstream

till the current ends

and dips his wings

in the orange sun rays

and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks

down his narrow cage

can seldom see through

his bars of rage

his wings are clipped and

his feet are tied

so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings

with fearful trill

of the things unknown

but longed for still

and his tune is heard

on the distant hill

for the caged bird

sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze

and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees

and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn

and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams

his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream

his wings are clipped and his feet are tied

so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings

with a fearful trill

of things unknown

but longed for still

and his tune is heard

on the distant hill

for the caged bird

sings of freedom.

I love this poem. Just wanted to post something. Must get back to work now. Good luck with the last two/three weeks of school, everybody. :)

Ang Kiri: (Attempt at) A Sarsuela Review

2009-03-03T21:53:00.004+08:00

I admit, I've never watched a sarsuela before. A "sarsuela" was just a concept in my Social Studies and Literature classes, with no relevance to my everyday life. And with so much Disneyfication and Walmarting going on, it’s hard to keep in touch with the traditions. Sadly, popular media in the Philippines does absolutely nothing to alleviate the fact.

February was UP’s Buwan ng Sarsuela, a month-long celebration of the tradition that the Spanish incorporated into our culture. “Ang Kiri” was written by Servando de los Angeles in 1926, and the music was written by Leon Ignacio. Due to a requirement in Pan Pil 12, I watched Ang Kiri-- and was extremely glad that I did.

The direction was good, the back-up dancers made a lot of mistakes, the songs had crazy notes in them, the singers were definitely bringing it, and the Filipino was sometimes too deep for me to understand. There were definitely moments when I wished I brought a dictionary along. There was also a brilliant blend of traditional and contemporary elements in both the humor and script.

The "Kiri," or "Flirt," was Sesang, a woman who seemed like the type who could get whoever she wanted. Beautiful, charming, vivacious, captivating and seductive when she wanted to be.

Her loyal suitor was Pepe, a writer who had no riches to offer to the ambitious Sesang. She was, however, in the rhetorical sense, owned by Don Ramon, who paid for her every whim and fancy. Don Ramon was unaware that there were also two other men who financed her lifestyle, which consisted of parties, parties and more parties. Sesang's right-hand man (?) was Amboy, a quirky helper who scheduled the three men's visits to make sure they didn't run into each other.

Surrounded by so many people, Sesang felt alone.

They called her a glorified prostitute, but there wasn't any indication that that was what she set out to be. She was probably looking for love, but when she instead found money, she took what she was given. That also spawned her negative view of men in general.

The trouble started when she laid eyes on young Jacinto, a quintessential probinsyano and the boyfriend of Sesang's modista, Pilar. One thing led to another, and before long Jacinto moved in with Sesang. I think his reason was at first economic-- Sesang had the money he didn't, and all she was asking for was love. (Sesang and Jacinto became the same sort of people, in a sense.)

And here Sesang really did fall for Jacinto, much to the chagrin of Pilar, Don Ramon, and Jacinto's mother. Pilar gave Sesang a dramatic confrontation, which endeared her to the audience. Both she and Sesang were from the province, but Pilar emphasized that people have a choice for all their actions. Don Ramon kicked both Jacinto and Sesang out of the house. When Jacinto's mother got wind of the unbecoming liaison her son was keeping, she paid them a visit. Sesang tried to impress her, but her reputation was something that the old lady could not overlook. She ordered Jacinto to go back to their province lest she disowns him, and he obeyed-- and later married Pilar.

Amboy, the servant, decided all this was too much drama for him/her and left, saying that even if he wasn’t rich and was just a servant, his dignity was intact and that was all that mattered.

This left Sesang as alone as ever (and made for the second most beautiful scene in the play: Sesang in white with the spotlights on her, everything else in the background dim, everyone else wearing black. It was here that Jacinto and Pilar tied the knot while Sesang was crying her heart out, and it was just so striking.)

Pepe came to Sesang’s aid, but instead of winning her over, she decided to run after Jacinto, not knowing that he was already married. Meanwhile, Don Ramon tried to find other women he could pay for love, but decided that none of them would do. He decided to run after Sesang.

The culmination of the drama was in Pilar and Jacinto’s hometown, where Sesang rejected Don Ramon and Pepe, and Jacinto rejected her. He actually seemed guilty and wanted to comfort her but Pilar pulled him away.

Again, Sesang was alone in the middle, as she realized that the reason she was alone was because she was trying too hard not to be. A caption for the scene ran through my head, courtesy of Emilio Jacinto: “Ating hanapin ang liwanag, tayo’y huwag mabighani sa ningning.” The sparkle of her lifestyle blinded her and made her forget who she was. She realized that she needed to see the light, to find herself, to change... and she could only do it if she was alone. (And thus the most dramatic scene, a silent Sesang in all her glory, standing in front of the closed curtains, with the black-and-white words “Ang Kiri” in the background.)

This sarsuela definitely brings forth a healthy dose of catharsis. As Aristotle said in “The Poetics,” a good drama must always give catharsis to the audience. It is the feeling of pity for the character fated for ruin (not because she/he was evil but because there is an innate flaw in her/his personality) and at the same time the fear that her/his flaw is also yours. Sesang’s flaw is that she was afraid to be alone. She was willing to forget herself for love. She was also willing to hurt other people to get it.

In the end, “Ang Kiri” makes us reexamine ourselves. Like Sesang, will we also be blinded by the sparkle and forget to look for the light? What will our fear of being alone make us do? How much are we willing to give, just to have somebody love us? How far are we willing to go for affection? Will our own search for love be our ultimate ruin? And when all is said and done, will we be able to rise from the ashes?

Stepford Wives and Other Sexuality Related Things

2009-03-01T14:25:00.002+08:00

(Part One, Stepford Wives-inspired thoughts; Part Two, an extremely annoying article I found the other day)

A: Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus.

B: Men are from Earth, Women are from Earth: LIVE WITH IT.

I read Stepford Wives today.
I know I've told one or two people that I've "been reading" it. In truth, it has been sitting on my desk for a month, on the "read-this-before-buying-another-one" pile, (a label which flatly contradicts what I've been doing, by the way) subclassified under "books-I-can-read-in-two-hours." It's short. Last night when I got home after a frustrating tryst with the bureaucracy, I decided to stay away from all the papers I have to do and just read.

One thing that's been keeping me from reading is that I saw the movie.With Nicole Kidman in it, not the original 1976 one. I was afraid it would be boring. (Note: "Boring" is not an excuse to not read something. Machiavelli's The Prince is boring as hell, but when you're done with it you take away happy little odds and ends of philosophy. I'm not saying you'd like his philosophy, but hey. At least you'd have something to measure Mein Kampf with.)

The Stepford Wives novel is creepier by, say, 45 percent than the movie. Although I would be surprised if it wasn't. I mean, Ira Levin wrote it. Ira Levin of Rosemary's Baby. RB is less creepy than The Omen (I only half-read the novelization, so I guess that counts for that). And while we're on the subject, The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty (novel, not novelization) is infinitely creepier than the movie. It haunts me to this day. If you want really creepy, read Stephen King's short stories. Emphasis on last two words. I find his novels to be needlessly dragging... Like an old professor on a power trip. I remember that there was, in a compilation of his short stories "Night Shift," a particular one titled "The Doorway," which is my all time most goosebump-inducing story, with "Young Goodman Brown" by Hawthorne as close second in the SS category. A story in there called "Trucks" might have, through some sort of pixie-dust-distortion, inspired the Disney movie "Cars." When I think of it that way, the animated feature is a nightmare, literally.

Segue: I've been hearing a lot lately that I sound like I swallowed a couple hundred novels, because that's all I talk about. I don't know what to make of it. I know the statement is a hyperbole, but what do you want me to talk about?

Technical criticism of Stepford Wives: Too many italics. Seriously.

This is not a book review. The reason I'm writing about it is because it sparked my sense of feminism. (Then again, almost everything does.) In the novel, Joanna Eberhart is a stay-at-home mom of two kids and part time shutterbug who got stuck in a town of uncomplaining hausfraus. She is an avid supporter of the Women's Lib, so you can guess how she felt about "women not having external interests" other than housekeeping.

Are there people who are really like that? That is the most horrifying thing I've ever heard of, save for for being stuck in a room filled with kids. *Shudders*

Anyway. When people get married, the women take the names of their husbands, right? Question: WHY??? In this novel, the women were repeatedly referred to as, say, "Mrs. Alan Hollingsworth." I think Levin was trying to drive home a point by doing that. Lately we've been discussing sexism in Soc Sci 3, and this was one of the cases. The law allows for a woman to legally retain her name after marriage, but that's only a load of blah. Even if the couple file the necessary paperwork, all the woman's records get changed all the same. Some institutions even make this a requirement. It's like pre-marriage-you never even happened.

Those invitations that read Mr. and Mrs. (name of man) never fail to make me cringe. Where is the separation of identity? Where is the individuality? When you get married you get scratched out to a mere "Mrs." on the nameplate? For all the movement toward equality, why hasn't anybody thought of scratching this practice? Give me practical reasons. For convenience? Is it such a bother to write down two names, seeing as you're addressing two people? Are a few extra keystrokes that troublesome? Is an extra drop of ink detrimental to your budget? And if you're going to argue that it's, er, romantic, two words for you: Benevolent Sexist.

Sorry. The name thing really freaks me out. But as someone in our class pointed out, people do not see anything wrong with it, seeing as it conforms with tradition. Yes, but some traditions are sexist. Some? *Thinks of exception* Uhh.

Tradition does not justify sexism-- just because you're used to it doesn't mean it's fair. (And for all the ambivalence of the concept of fairness, I'd need five thousand more words to explain, so let's not go there today.)

Brief example. FGM, or female genital mutilation. The UN (relatively) recently declared this a violation of human rights, but before they did the practice was widespread in parts of Africa. Some tribes still practice it today. The goal was to remove the clitoris, with the assumption that women should only feel pain during intercourse-- and, hello, with all the non-sterile blades they use, make that 'everyday of their lives.'

Tradition? Yes. Fair? You tell me.

I remember something about the Babaylans before the Spanish occupation. The Babaylans, or women priestesses, had a lot of power over the people of their respective tribes. When the patriarchal Spanish arrived, they were horrified by this role reversal and demoted the Babaylan to evil witches. Taadaaa.

Back to Stepford. I think there was also quite a bit of discrimination against the males in the story, because the basic assumption was they all wanted a 1930s housewife who wanted nothing more than to do the housework, cater to their every need, agree with everything they say, and never ever complain. If you know any males who actually fit the description, kindly shoot them. Burn their bodies, just in case. (Sorry, I can only stay objective for so long.)

"I got beat by a girl. It's the most embarassing thing that's ever happened to me." --- Zach, from the Suite Life

Conforms with tradition and norms? Yes. Fair? I really don't think so. It's a rather hurtful statement. And yet... You hear things like that a lot and nobody questions them.

Same goes for gender roles, or "the social, cultural, and psychological aspects that pertain to traits, norms, roles, etc. considered typical and desirable for those whom society has designated as female or male."

Male gender roles: anti-feminine element, success element, aggressive element, sexual element, and self-reliant element. Female gender roles: motherhood and marriage mandate.

Those female gender roles make me want to bang my head against the wall in frustration and annoyance. If anybody ever tells me to fufill either of those two mandates, they can expect a wrath-filled reply, coupled with blows of violence. And if you know me personally you know I'm not kidding.

“[W]oman is misbegotten and defective." -- St. Thomas Aquinas

I never liked St. Thomas. Nor Richard von Kraft Ebbing, a psychiatrist during the 1930s who said "Women can not be properly sexual without men." As in, women do not have a separate sexuality, and they are only women when they are with men. Beyond that they have no sexual identity.

Another thing... Sexual double standards.

Example of a sexual double standard: when a man has many sexual partners, it is accepted and even lauded. When a woman has many sexual partners, she is dirty and disgusting.
It's related to the Madonna-Whore dichotomy: women are either saints or sluts, no grey area. Just ask Pope St. Gregory the Great. He said, "Woman’s use is twofold: harlotry or maternity."
That's obviously not a fair way of looking at things.

There are concepts that have worked their way into the subconscious of entire nations, and most of them are considered "proper" and "normal." Nobody bothers to think about them anymore, stopping at the "what" and failing to look at the "why."
Someone once wrote that if you truly want to understand something, then you have to unlearn what you know.

Definitely easier said than done.

...

I found something in someone's site and I just had to copy and react. (Emphasis on the 'copy' part, since there are unforgivable grammatical errors here.) No offense, old friend, just me going about my normal bashing business.

Written in yellow is the article itself, the purple words are mine.

what girls need to realizePosted by ******* on Jan 7, '09 6:36 AM for everyone

We don't care if you're friends with other guys.
But when you're sitting next to us, and some random guy walks into the room and you jump up and tackle him, without even introducing us, yeah, it pisses us off.
It doesn't help if you sit there and talk to him for ten minutes without even acknowledging the fact that we're still there.
--- Let me see how I can put this. You know the green-and-blue planet where we live? Yeah. It doesn't revolve around you.

We don't care if a guy calls OR TEXTS you, but at 2 in the morning we do get a little concerned.
Nothing is that important at 2 a.m. that it can't wait till the morning.
--- Does it ever cross your mind that your idea of "important" might not be another person's idea of important? For instance: if someone texted me at 2 AM that the release date of ISBN 978-0007241019 was moved from May 4 to March 4, I would be ecstatic and would consider that very important. On the other hand, a non-Michael Crichton fan would give absolutely no damn about the release of his posthumous book. You can't simply say that "nothing is that important at 2 a.m." because some things are.

Also, when we tell you you're pretty/ beautiful/ gorgeous/cute/ stunning, we freaking mean it.
Don't tell us we're wrong.
We'll stop trying to convince you.
--- What the hell? I can't point out exactly what's wrong with that comment. My head is too busy coming up with swear words. "We'll stop trying to convince you." Aaaah, egocentrism afflicts many.

The sexiest thing about a girl is confidence.
Yeah, you can quote me.
--- Why would I want to? It's not like I can't find what you just said in a thousand other sites where they claim to know more than they do.

Don't be mad when we hold the door open. Take Advantage of the mood im in.
--- Nom de dieu de bordel de merde... It's like girls don't have the same body parts needed to open a door.

Let us pay for you!
Don’t "feel bad"
We enjoy doing it.
It's expected.
--- EXACTLY. Social construct junkie alert. Just because "it's expected" is neither excuse nor reason to do it. You have a mind of your own you don't have to follow everything everybody else says. --- Equality is founded on many respects, and one of them is "economic."

Smile and say "thank you."
--- Ah. If only my professor (Bea Torre, Gender and Sexuality, UP Psych Department) could hear you. She'd give you a lecture on why prescriptive statements are bad. This is like a dating script taken to the extreme.

Kiss us when no one's watching.
If you kiss us when you know somebody's looking, we'll be more impressed.
--- Eh?

You don't have to get dressed up for us.
If we're going out with you in the first place, you don't have to feel the need to wear the shortest skirt you have or put on every kind of makeup you own.
--- Okay, am I really reading this? Sounds like most of the girls you've been going out with have been... *insert very derogatory word here*

We like you for who you are and not what you are.
--- Cliche. Wonder where the concept of objectification came from. Obviiiiously not from you, since you have never objectified in your life.

honestly, I think a girl looks more beautiful when she's just in her pj's. or my shirt and boxers, not all dolled up
--- "Your" shirt and boxers? Reminds me of that inane song... T-shirt, by some girl who doesn't have a life.

Don't take everything we say seriously.
Sarcasm is a beautiful thing. See the beauty in it.
--- Did you just say girls don't understand sarcasm? I challenge you to a sarcasm match right now. My opening statement: YOU ARE THE MOST BRILLIANT WRITER EVER.

Don't get angry easily.
--- Seriously, though, why are you dictating things like this? What makes you think you have the qualifications to dictate how people should react?

Stop using magazines/media as your bible.
--- Oh, yeah, because you would neeeever do that.

"Don't talk about how hott Chris Brown, Brad Pitt, or Jesse McCartney is in front of us".
It's boring, and we don't care. You have friends for that.
--- Oh. My. God. Comments like this are priceless. File under "ammunition against the male species."

Whatever happened to the word "handsome"/"beautiful"?
I’d be utterly stunned by a girl who greeted me with "Hey handsome!" instead of "Hey baby/ stud/ cutie/ sexy" or whatever else you can think of.
--- Who does that???

on the other hand I’m not saying I wouldn't like it ether
--- Okay, the point of the former statement is...? *Ether? Haha.

Girls, I cannot stress this enough: if you aren't being treated right by a guy, dont wait for him to change. ditch his sorry ASS, he's a disgrace to the male population and find someone who will treat you with utter respect
--- "OPTIMISM, n. The doctrine, or belief, that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly, everything good, especially the bad, and everything right that is wrong. It is held with greatest tenacity by those most accustomed to the mischance of falling into adversity, and is most acceptably expounded with the grin that apes a smile. Being a blind faith, it is inaccessible to the light of disproof -- an intellectual disorder, yielding to no treatment but death. It is hereditary, but fortunately not contagious." - Bierce

Someone who will honor your morals.
Someone who will make you smile when you're at your lowest.
Someone who will care for you even when you make mistakes.
Someone who will love you, no matter how bad you make them feel.
--- Because they're masochistic...? Or because they're imaginary?

Someone who will stop what they're doing just to look you in the eyes....and say "i love you" ..and actually mean it.
--- How deliriously sappy.

Give the nice guys a chance
--- See: "optimism"

Guys repost this if you agree
Girls repost this if you think it's cute
--- Oh, I think what you wrote is a lot of things, cute is not one of them.

Every Guy who isn't a jerk will agree with this, so we hope that all the girls that read this will repost this
--- You believe in yourself too much. I feel sorry for you already.

*Holding Hands
Girls :If you want to hold his hand, gently bump into it a couple of times.
Guys : Grab it if it happens more than once.
--- Again, what qualifications do you have for dictating this?

*Cuddling
Girls : When you want to cuddle with him, tell him you're cold
Guys : Automatically move closer to her.
--- You sound like a computer program.

*Movies
Girls : During a movie, if he puts his arm around you, tilt your head on his shoulder
Guys : Lift her chin up and kiss her.
--- You should write a screenplay. I'm not saying somebody's going to buy it, I'm just saying you should channel your "creativity" through another medium. Maybe you could even write a self-help book, since you seem to have a predilection for telling people what to do.

*Loving each other
Guys : When she tells you she loves you, look deep into her eyes, give her a peck on the lips, and tell her you love her too... And mean it.
--- "LOVE, n. A temporary insanity curable by marriage or by removal of the patient from the influences under which he incurred the disorder. This disease, like caries and many other ailments, is prevalent only among civilized races living under artificial conditions; barbarous nations breathing pure air and eating simple food enjoy immunity from its ravages. It is sometimes fatal, but more frequently to the physician than to the patient." - Bierce

*Laying below the stars
Girls : When you're both laying under the stars, put your head on his chest and close your eyes as you listen to his steady heart beat
Guys : Whisper in her ear and link your hands with hers.
--- Have you ever thought of writing your own novel? You should collaborate with Stephenie Meyer, honey. You'd get a couple of bestsellers that twelve year old girls the world over will enjoy.

By 12 am tonight your one true love will realize how much they want you.
--- One. True. Love. Remember the part about sarcasm? Here's another one. I LOVE YOU.

ATTEMPTS at a Foreign Language: L'Episode Francais

2009-02-24T16:11:00.002+08:00

Mardi, 24 Fevrier.

Il fait tres tres chaud en Manille aujourd'hui! Je veux Decembre
encore, je n'aime pas l'ete... Mais j'aime les grandes vacances.
Alors. Je ne suis pas tres triste maintenant. (Blogspot n'a pas
l'accents!)

Je suis ecrire en Francais parce que je suis folle. Haha. Je suis dans
la lune?

*Je veux aller a la plage! Allons-y, avant nous sommes mort de la
part de la vague de chaleur.

J'ai les problemes au sujet de l'argent. Je me rappele le filme "Ah,
Si J'etais Riche." Si J'etais riche, je n'ai pas cet un problem,
manifestement.

Je dois etudier maintenant. Gaaah. Je deteste les maths.
Je manque quelqu'un... C'est impossible? Non. J'ai un coeur, mais
il n'est pas evident. Shhh. (Toi, nous avons parler... Je pense.)

Je ne suis pas s'apitoyer sur son sort, hourra moi!

Quio. :))

*Si vous parlez Francais, je suis vraiment desolee. J'ai grammaire mauvais.

Who's Oscar?

2009-02-23T16:26:00.002+08:00

"LOS ANGELES – "Slumdog Millionaire" took the best-picture Academy Award and seven other Oscars on Sunday, including director for Danny Boyle, whose ghetto-to-glory story paralleled the film's unlikely rise to Hollywood's summit.
A story of hope amid squalor in Mumbai, India, "Slumdog Millionaire" came in with 10 nominations, its eight wins including adapted screenplay, cinematography, editing and both music Oscars (score and song)." --AP

When I watched this movie I didn't even know it was up for awards. I only learned afterwards when I googled it. I thought the movie was so powerful someone had to have noticed it. And evidently, someone did.

The Oscar crowd even gave the Slumdog cast and crew a standing ovation.

I didn't watch Milk, or any of the other movies, but I did watch Doubt, and I was rooting for Meryl Streep in the best actress category. But Kate Winslet took that one, for her performance in The Reader. Best Actor was Sean Penn (Milk).

My favorite presenters were Tina Fey and that dude from Cheaper by the Dozen whose name escapes me right now. Tina Fey is just hilarious. Sarah Palin, anyone?
Best speech: Penelope Cruz. Besides the fact that she's gorgeous and she almost fainted-- did I mention she's gorgeous? -- the Spanish at the end was beautiful. I didn't understand it, but it's what I remember.

My favorite performance in all that was Beyonce Knowles and Hugh Jackman's tribute to musicals. Picture Wolverine saying, "The musical is BACK!" Vanessa Hudgens, Zac Efron, and the couple from Mama Mia were also there. I really liked the transitions between the songs and characters from all the great musicals. (Sorry, Broadway geek speaking.) It was funny and quite well performed.

Who was that guy who sang the song from Wall-E? The one with the African background singers? Cripes they were awesome. I could almost see the gazelles running and the sun setting over the Savannah when I was listening to them. Kind of like a mental image of the orb Jolie was holding in Tomb Raider Cradle of Life.

Jai Ho is still playing in my head. (Best original song, by A.R. Rahman, also from Slumdog Millionaire.) I need a translation.

Speaking of translations... Marion Cotillard was also there! Cotillard as Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose was tres, tres bien. Thank heavens for subtitles.

I wonder what would happen if Joel McHale hosted the Oscars. To those who don't know him, McHale is the Seacrest-bashing host of The Soup, a show that makes fun of other shows. It's what you get when you take all the dumb things that happen in a week's worth of TV and condense it into thirty minutes.

Oh well. I'm just really happy Slumdog Millionaire won. I hope Angels and Demons and the Inglourious Basterds (Hitler, Hitler!) both win something next year.

Slumdog Millionaire!!!

2009-02-21T16:37:00.004+08:00

"Slumdog Millionaire is a film so upbeat and colourful that, by the time you’re relaying its infectious air of optimism to friends, you could forget that it features orphans, slaughter, organised crime, poverty, enslavement and police brutality."

It's like The God of Small Things without incest. It's like another genre of reality TV. It's like a crash course into a third world country, it's like a roller-coaster that can only be described as breathtaking. It's like a dream and a nightmare at the exact same time. It's like a thousand things, and yet, it rises above the rest as the one that you have to watch.

Two words: Slumdog Millionaire.

A movie set in India, starring Dev Patel and Freida Pinto, based on the book Q&A by Vikas Swarup, this Film of the Year contender is nothing short of extraordinary.

We've all heard of "Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" We've all probably taken a whack at answering those trivia-like questions. We've all cheered for a contestant, we've all felt sorry for those who couldn't cut it. But Jamal (Patel), the central character in this story, is more than just any contestant. You've probably heard of something like his story before: a young boy, his brother, orphaned in a world that doesn't want them. A first love lost, a foray into the enterprises that poverty entails, a rush for freedom. A stab at life. Rationality in irrationality. A present that longs for the past.

Slumdog Millionaire tells Jamal's story through three timelines: one is the present, in a police station; the second, the immediate past, as a contestant in Who Wants to be a Millionaire?; and the third, his childhood. The excellent direction definitely makes this movie (all hail Danny Boyle), even when some of the elements become predictable. And the cast... Oh, the cast. All I have is love.

Every question Jamal is asked, he is able to answer. But every answer has a story. A story that is painful yet beautiful, tragic and not. And that's what this movie tells, in a style that can only be described as masterful. It caters to the world audience while staying true to its Bollywood roots.

It's a story that goes on, long after the credits roll.

And here I quote John Berger:
Never again will a single story be told as though it's the only one.

Watch, watch. You won't regret it.

I Am NOT Happy

2009-02-21T16:13:00.002+08:00

I am not happy. And while the meaning of happiness has a
culturally-defined, geographically-determined and time-specific
nature, I simply mean I am utterly displeased with the way things
are going. With less than 40 days left in this sem and my grades
in perpetual detriment, I am really not happy.

Other I-am-not-happy reasons:

I failed a math test.
I'm poor.
I'm tired.
It's humid.
I don't have anyone to talk to.
I'm poor.
I feel stupid.
I haven't watched Life with Derek for months.
I have 4 papers left to write.
I'm poor.
I have two presentations to plan.
I have an exam on Thursday.
Anoop Desai did not make it to AI top twelve.
I commute for two-and-a-half hours for four days each week, and it's taking its toll on me.
My dog broke a paw.
My neighbors are noisy.
I need an attitude adjustment.
Did I mention "I'm poor?"

All this makes me a cranky seventeen year with sharp nails and a rusty samurai sword. Beware.

When people are not happy, they do a number of crazy things.
Some people write books, which is probably why Ambrose Bierce
came up with such a masterpiece. Happy people write things like
the Shopaholic series, not The Devil's Dictionary. Some people
book reservations in the nearest hotel with rooms of soft walls,
and some simply wallow in self-pity until they're suffering from
pity sickness. (The latter describes me.) Some people commit
suicide, which I think is The Ultimate Personal Experience. But
since the only experiences I'm interested in are the ones I can
write about afterward, I can't kill myself. Unless there is in
existence a genuine psychic who can channel my thoughts and
write them down. Now there's a bestseller.

Anyway, that's all I wanted to say: I am not happy. I can't come
up with a post with actual relevance in this state of mind. And
while I may laugh or smile or even joke when you talk to me, that
just means I'm being polite. I am not turning emo, either, because
I'd sooner hurt somebody else than hurt myself.

I have to end this now to start reviewing for Math and Chemistry.
And that is definitely not going to do any favors for my mood.

Why do I have to learn these things anyway? I don't care about
those triangles and those triple bonds. I have absolutely no use for
them in my life. They're a waste of my time and effort!

"People always question what they can't handle."

Shut up, voice of reason. I'm wallowing here.

Friday the Thirteenth, February Fourteenth

2009-02-13T22:34:00.004+08:00

Excerpts from two of the books I’m reading. (Yes I read based on my mood.)

“The great adventure of our lives. What does it mean to die when you can live until the end of the world? And what is ‘the end of the world’ except a phrase, because who knows even what is the world itself? I had now lived in two centuries, seen the illusions of one utterly shattered by the other, been eternally young and eternally ancient, possessing no illusions, living moment to moment in a way that made me picture a silver clock ticking in a void: the painted face, the delicately carved hands looked upon by no one, looking out at no one, illuminated by a light which was not a light, like the light by which God made the world before He had made light. Ticking, ticking, ticking, the precision of the clock, in a room as vast as the universe.”
--- Louis (Anne Rice, Interview with the Vampire)

“There are two kinds of visual memory: one when you skillfully recreate an image in the laboratory of your mind, with your eyes open (and then I see Annabel in such general terms as:
"honey-colored skin,"
"thick arms,"
"brown bobbed hair,"
"long lashes,"
"big bright mouth"); and the other when you instantly evoke, with shut eyes, on the dark inner side of your eyelids, the objective, absolutely optical replica of a beloved face, a little ghost in natural colors (and this is how I see Lolita).”
--- Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita

Friday the Thirteenth

I don’t want to spend too much space on retelling my day, so I’ll stick with the highlights.

---Lost a Scrabble game. Another Scrabble game, I should say.
---Our professor in Pan Pil 12 didn’t show up; turned out he wasn’t boycotting us (this time) ---because he was also absent from the other class.
---Failed a Math long test. Again. Ugh. Math is NOT a four letter word, people. I know being bad at Math doesn’t automatically make me dumb, (or does it?) but it’s just so annoying that I can’t get it right.
---Inducted a new member into the “SINGLE CIVIL STATUS FOREVER MOVEMENT:” Demi. Founder: me. Members: Katrina, Demi, and Kim. (Kim, you are in, right?) Finding members for this kind of group is not such an easy feat. It takes a certain ideological orientation. :))
---Lent Demi five books (Crichton, Brown, Sheldon, Deaver, Grisham), you know, basic bestsellers. So she can get out of the Twilight phase her peers over in PUP have led her into.
---Spilled hot gravy over my left hand, courtesy of a loosely capped thermos. HOMO ERRONEOUS.
---Got scolded at by my parents for failing Math. Doesn’t even matter that I got a 99 over 103 in Pol Sci, does it? (91, technically, since there were 8 bonus points: 5 for perfect attendance, 2 for corrections, and 1 for 3 political rights. I LOVE MY PROFESSOR :D )
---Saw a very dead person on the sidewalk. Not kidding. His body was positioned at an angle which suggested he either jumped, or was flung toward said sidewalk by a speeding car. Because normal spines don’t form shapes like that. (This was on the road between Shangri-la and Starmall).

February Fourteenth (or, Why I Don’t Like Valentine’s Day)

I’ll also try to keep this as short as possible.

“St. Valentine’s Day — a day to declare your affection for that special someone.

And what did Saint Valentine have to do with love notes and affection? Absolutely nothing! In fact, there’s a good chance he may never have existed.” (Brown P. Origin of Valentine’s Day may surprise us. The Enid News & Eagle, Enid OK, Published: January 16, 2008)

I am not a hopeless romantic. More accurately, I am not a romantic at all. When most people go “awww” I go “ewww,” and when they go “ewww” I go “bwahahaha!!!”

I think fairy tales are the worst expression of patriarchy, “Prince” should never be used in conjunction with “Charming,” and romantic comedies are a waste of resources.

I cannot utter the word “love” allowed without cringing, and I’d rather watch paint peel than read a romance novel.

I am also not the best person to discuss Valentine’s Day.

But since everybody is celebrating/ stressing over it, I thought I should at least contribute to the discourses.

So what do I think about Valentine’s Day?

It’s a highly commercialized holiday (which begs the question “Which holiday isn’t?”) with roots that have absolutely nothing to do with the inane romantic nonsense that people today associate it with.

Valentine’s Day is said to be rooted in the Roman festival Lupercalia, celebrated in honor of Lupa, the she-wolf who suckled the infant orphans Romulus and Remus. Romulus and Remus are said to be the founders of Rome. (Lupercalia literally means “Wolf Festival.”)

During Lupercalia, in honor of Juno Februata, the names of young women were put into a box and names were drawn by lot. The boys and girls who were matched would be considered partners for the year, which began in March. Yes, that means partners they’re supposed to be making babies with. You have to give the Romans props for creativity.

If you’re going to argue that the “names drawn by lot” that they did to pick their sexual partners was the “romantic” part, just picture yourself in that setting. Yes, veeeery romantic.

To Christianize this (in their eyes) decidedly pagan ritual, the church officials changed the name to St. Valentine’s Day, and replaced drawing the girls’ names with drawing saints’ names. No, they don’t make babies with the saints. They emulate the life of the saint they get. Nifty, huh? Unfortunately, this didn’t work and fell out of practice soon after.

“SAINT, n., a dead sinner revised and edited.” –Ambrose Bierce

Another proposed provenance of V Day is the story that Europeans believed that on February 14th the birds began to choose their mates. “The tradition of birds choosing their mates on St. Valentine's Day led to the idea that boys and girls would do the same. Now when a youth drew a girl's name, he wore it on his sleeve, and attended and protected her during the following year. This made the girl his valentine and they exchanged love tokens throughout the year. This practice had many alterations and changes through the years.”

Let’s go to Saint Valentine, and just why he’s supposed to be a hopeless romantic.

“Until 1969, the Catholic Church formally recognized eleven Valentine's Days. The Valentines honored on February 14 are Valentine of Rome and Valentine of Terni. Valentine of Rome was a priest in Rome who suffered martyrdom about AD 269 and was buried on the Via Flaminia. Valentine of Terni became bishop of Interamna (modern Terni) about AD 197 and is said to have been killed during the persecution of Emperor Aurelian. He is also buried on the Via Flaminia, but in a different location than Valentine of Rome.

No romantic elements are present in the original early medieval biographies of either of these martyrs. By the time a Saint Valentine became linked to romance in the fourteenth century, distinctions between Valentine of Rome and Valentine of Terni were utterly lost.” (Wikipedia)

“St Valentine was persecuted as a Christian and interrogated by Roman Emperor Claudius II in person. Claudius was impressed by Valentine and had a discussion with him, attempting to get him to convert to Roman paganism in order to save his life. Valentine refused and tried to convert Claudius to Christianity instead. Because of this, he was executed. Before his execution, he is reported to have performed a miracle by healing the blind daughter of his jailer.” (Legenda Aurea)

There. That’s probably the part people found romantic.

Fast forward to why Valentine’s Day is as eerily cheesy as it is today.

“The reinvention of Saint Valentine's Day in the 1840s has been traced by Leigh Eric Schmidt. As a writer in Graham's American Monthly observed in 1849, "Saint Valentine's Day... is becoming, nay it has become, a national holyday."[28] In the United States, the first mass-produced valentines of embossed paper lace were produced and sold shortly after 1847 by Esther Howland (1828-1904) of Worcester, Massachusetts. Her father operated a large book and stationery store, but Howland took her inspiration from an English valentine she had received, so clearly the practice of sending Valentine's cards had existed in England before it became popular in North America. The English practice of sending Valentine's cards appears in Elizabeth Gaskell's Mr. Harrison's Confessions (published 1851).”

But that’s not all. Do you know why the world (well, the capitalists, at least) cannot afford to disillusion the populace about the truth regarding Valentine’s Day?

It’s an industry in itself.

“110 million roses, the majority red, will be sold and delivered within a three-day time period.
California produces 60 percent of American roses, but the vast number sold on Valentine's Day in the United States are imported, mostly from South America.
15% of U.S. women send themselves flowers on Valentine's Day.
About 1 billion Valentine's Day cards are exchanged each year. That's the largest seasonal card-sending occasion of the year, next to Christmas.
One-third of all Valentine cards are accompanied by gifts.
Romantic cards are the best-sellers. Victorian era-influenced cards are prominent this year.
More than 50 percent of cards are sold the week of the holiday, with the largest and most elaborate Valentine cards sold 48 hours before February 14.
70 percent of those celebrating the holiday give a card, followed by a telephone call (49 percent), gift (48 percent), special dinner (37 percent), candy (33 percent) restaurant meal (30 percent), and flowers (19 percent).
Teachers will receive the most Valentine's Day cards, followed by children, mothers, wives, and then, sweethearts. Children ages 6 to 10 exchange more than 650 million Valentine's cards with teachers, classmates, and family members
Hallmark has over 1330 different cards specifically for Valentine's Day.
Conversation Hearts: In 1866, candy manufacturer NECCO made the first "Conversation Hearts." According to NECCO, eight billion of these little candies are sold between January 1 and February 14.
More than 35 million heart-shaped boxes of chocolate will be sold for Valentine's Day.”

Translation: Moneeeeeeeeeeeey.

Now really, think of how much people would lose in stocks if people suddenly refused to celebrate Valentine’s Day. Oh those poor, poor capitalists. Oh the irony.

I refuse to celebrate “Valentine’s Day” because:

--- It brings about increased levels of insecurity and insanity in single people who actually care about these so-called relationships. These people’s friends *cough, cough* then receive their wailing calls, bottled tears and uber irritating text messages about looove. Which then makes the said friends throw their communication devices against the wall in disgust. Then, when said devices break, they will have to buy new ones. Which obviously sucks for these friends.
---It brings about the worst of the sexual binaries. Seriously. Some people *cough, cough* become prone to shuddering and are forced to suppress their gag reflexes when they hear female peers talking about what they “expect.”
---People who do not conform to the couples-are-happy-singles-are-sad trend are thought to be abnormal. Which some people don’t mind, since they are almost, but not quite, entirely unlike “abnormal.” But it would be nice if stereotypically-minded people opened their eyes for once.
---Genuine sentiments are reduced to cute little sayings on Hallmark cards; efforts are based on how much gifts cost, and normal relationships are incited to fast-forward in time for this non-legitimate holiday. “V Day deprives people of their fundamental right to choose when to express their feelings.” (Jessica Zafra)
---For a lot of people, V Day means sex, and sex (unprotected, that is) means an exponential growth in population. More hotel and motel profit, definitely. RH Bill much? I don’t care what your bible says, I care about practicality.
---Relationships are (or so I’ve observed) incredibly complicated fragile things with many stages, such as denial, anger, fear, bargaining, acceptance—okay, so those are the stages of death. But V Day introduces a new factor into the equation, which makes even the well-adjusted among us unleash their inner neuroses.
---PDA alert!!! So much pheromones being made during the days leading up to V Day! I don’t know how many couples I saw HHWW. Or HHWD -- driving. Or HHWE—eating. Or HHWR—reading. Or... you get the idea. (Top tip from Nat Geo: drink an anti-depressant like Prozac so your dopamine levels return to normal. It dampens the sex drive and dulls the libido.)
---Traffic. Road traffic, network traffic, etcetera traffic. I don’t even know how to explain why lines are quadrupled and public transportation becomes more of a hassle than usual.
---I further capitalism enough as it is.
---So. Many. Hearts. On the windows, on the walls, on people’s clothes... The “heart,” as far as I know, is a gross looking pump whose arteries get clogged from fat. Not a cute little shape THAT IS EVERYWHERE.

Me: We had to hold little plastic hearts during the Sharon taping...
R: Really? So what was it like coming in contact with a heart for the very first time?

Touché.

--- And my main reason: I DON’T UNDERSTAND IT. I have made a resolution since last year to not celebrate/observe anything I don’t understand. Because that’s pretty irrational. “Let’s observe Ash Wednesday.” “Why?” “Because the church said so.” Okaaay. And V Day is one of those “celebrations” I just don’t get. Like Christmas—but that’s another story for another time. (P.S. The V Day reason “it’s a celebration of love” doesn’t work because you can celebrate love everyday, as opposed to, say, celebrating your birthday, or Easter Sunday everyday. Argument: if you celebrate something everyday, then it isn’t very special anymore. Counter argument: Whatever happened to “love will never run out,” and “infinite love,” and “I will always love you”? Why not celebrate it everyday instead of concentrating all your efforts in a single day? It’s like, celebrate on February 14 and you can be insensitive for the rest of the year... You had a great V Day anyway. That’s also like saying, “Let’s celebrate Independence Day on one day by wearing the Philippine flag, so to speak, and be Brown Americans for the rest of the 364 days—It won’t matter, we had a great Independence Day.”)
---People who then proceed to talk about the foolish qualities involved with V Day are declared bitter and loveless. As for me... Bitter, no. Loveless, yes. It’s either biological or psychological: either I can’t sustain the levels of dopamine needed and my serotonin level cannot leave ‘normal’, or I’m just too wrapped up in myself to notice anything else. See, the mantra is: unless everything in my life is up to par, I have no business meddling in others’.

I’m not about to coerce anyone into not celebrating this event, since that is purely your prerogative. (Aaand you can file a case against me in court if I did. A human rights violation case is not easy to talk yourself out of.)

So. Have a joyous celebration of the Roman (pagan) holiday of Lupercalia, and/or the mating season of birds, and/or St. Valentine of Rome/Terni’s feast day.

Why so many people want to celebrate a she-wolf, the founding of Rome, avian practices, and saints that have nothing to do with romance as "heart's day" is way beyond me.

I'm bored so I'm bashing Twilight. :))

2009-02-04T13:11:00.008+08:00

... "Let us frolic." Yep, sounds like Meyer alright.

I'm supposed to be in an ACLE class right now. (ACLE: Alternative Classroom Learning Experience.) It happens in UPD once per sem, but I really don't feel like attending anyway. I just finished my Political Science midterm exam, which was needless to say a lot like drinking bitter gourd juice, and I need some downtime...

... And what better way to relax than to bash something so unspeakably, unabashedly, meyerrifically horrendous? Hahaha. Here I go again. The world should come up with a novel worse (if that's possible) than Twilight so I'll have something else to bash. Until then...

Take that, Stephenie Meyer!!!

KING NOT A FAN OF TWILIGHT AUTHOR

Movie & Entertainment News provided by World Entertainment News Network (www.wenn.com) 2009-02-04 02:48:02 -

Horror writer STEPHEN KING has served up a fright for TWILIGHT author STEPHENIE MEYERS, insisting she "can't write worth a darn". King, the writer of classics like Carrie and Misery, has gone public with his critique of in-vogue Utah-based novelist Meyer in the upcoming issue of USA Weekend magazine. He starts by complimenting J.K. Rowling on her Harry Potter books, and then slates Meyer. He says, "Both Rowling and Meyer, they're speaking directly to young people... The real difference is that Jo Rowling is a terrific writer and Stephenie Meyer can't write worth a darn. She's not very good.

Mwahahaha. Nyahaha. Bwahahahaha. :)))

" I didn't take my husband's last NAME when we got married. Do you honestly think I'd like a story about a girl considering changing SPECIES for a guy? No offense to any of you, but as a feminist, I just can't go there... " - Meg Cabot, author of Princess Diaries

Wala lang. Since I'm being random I thought I should post that. Excellent point. I never did like Meg Cabot, but now she's not so bad. :D

"Ah, hyperbole. Where would Twilight be without you? Just take a look at some of these quotes:

“Stephenie Meyer, a Mormon housewife turned novelist, is the new queen of fantasy.” [1]

“Meyer has, like one of her vampires, turned into something rare and more than merely human: a literary phenomenon.” [1]

“I’m not usually a vampire book reader, but I haven’t read a book in a long time that had as much sexual tension and creepy terror throughout as Twilight by Stephenie Meyer.” [2]

Wow, Twilight must be awesome! The media never inflates steaming piles of shit into idols, right? All it does is report the truth, and the truth is that Twilight is the bestest, most famous book ever! If you are nodding your head in agreement, please have your sarcasm meter checked. It is broken."

I came across this Twilight Review, and thought it was really good. You know what I mean by REALLY GOOD, oui?

Read it at http://www.anti-shurtugal.com/wordpress/?p=53 .

How do I end this post?
Hmmm.

There that should do it. :)))

Like Watching TV. But Not Really.

2009-02-02T11:26:00.002+08:00

Everyone was pretty much annoyed at the short notice. The "Sharon" taping we were required to attend for the GE course Pan Pil 12 was announced two days prior to it, but being the obedient *cough* students that we were, we all attended anyway.

On the way there, a friend and I almost got lost. Then we chanced upon a traffic aid who directed us to the nearest entrance, with the side comment, "Walang Wowowee ngayon ah." Okaaaaaaaaaay.

Call time was at 6 p.m., in front of Studio 10 of the ABS-CBN complex. I applaud ABS for their security: every corner had a guard, and every entrance had ID card... machines (you know, like the ones you see in MRT and LRT stations). I almost had the urge to shout "bomb!" just to see how they'd take it.

While we were on standby, my classmates were on celebrity lookout. I wasn't. The celebrities I wanted to see were not likely to be in those studios, since TV Patrol shoots in an entirely different part of the complex. Some familiar "artistas" passed, but I somehow couldn't remember their names.

At around 7, they let us in to the studio itself, which was the first surprise. I didn't know that studios were small like that. TV magic makes them seem so large. Sharon's set was bedecked with jewel curtains, which I thought was rather pretty. Then again, I was under extreme stress (I had a test first thing the next morning) so my idea of pretty may have been a bit altered. Retrospectively, I seem to remember the heavy studio lights more, since I envisioned a short story about them. (Hint: they succumb to gravity and make someone a paraplegic.)

The Megastar herself arrived at around eight, surrounded by guards, make-up artists, writers, you name it. After that, the first part of the taping (for February 8) commenced with a song number by Sharon: "Pasaway." The segment guests were Nyoy Volante, Erik Santos (I think... is there an Eric Bautista?) Sheryn Regis and Bugoy. They sang Billie Jean, an R&B song whose title nor lyrics I cannot remember, Single Ladies, and When You Believe--respectively.

And here I should mention that when the cameras stopped rolling was when things got interesting. It was a talk show, and the "talk" continued even when it was off the air, and PAs swarmed the stars, dabbing here and there, carrying bags of make-up. I always thought that the portrayal of off-cam events in sitcoms is an exaggeration. Now I know better.

It didn't take that long, about an hour or so. Afterward, we went to the bathroom, and on the way back we ran into Bugoy. He was genuinely congenial, and we even had a picture taken with him. We caught a glimpse of the other guests in their dressing rooms. I wonder if anyone was being a diva.

The second segment (for February 15) was for, as you may have guessed, Valentine's Day. They gave us (the audience) little plastic hearts on sticks, which is as corny as it sounds. Worse, we had to wave them while Sharon sang... I can't remember which song.

The guests for that segment were Ara Mina, Kaye (the comedian), Chocolate (another comedian) and Smokey Manaloto (am I spelling this correctly?), whose name's provenance still prompts speculation.

Needless to say, as this was a Valentine's day "celebration," I was rolling my eyes a lot. The only good thing was that Chocolate was there to insert humor into the mush. He had "hirits" that were hilarious. I especially wanted to throw up when Ara Mina was talking about her lovelife. Please. I could have lived my entire life without listening to something so inexplicably shudder-inducing.

(Valentine's Day is not even a real holiday. And just who among the 8 Saint Valentines are you alluding to anyway? None of them celebrate their feast day on the 14th of February...)
Then Senator Kiko Pangilinan turned up bearing sacrifice, I mean, flowers and a teddy bear, and he and Sharon displayed... affection on national television. I gather people thought it was sweet. I thought it was, for lack of a better word, EW.

The whole thing finished before 11, and we were all pretty tired. I was extremely glad it was over. Most of us had tests the next day.

Some GEs really do require an amazing amount of effort. Imagine, I actually sat through an entire Valentine's Day special.

All in all, it was kind of fun. Not my preferred activity, but hey. First time for everything.
I guess it was like watching TV on a really big television set. Like it, but not really. There were life-sized people and for once I couldn't see the commercials.

Unang Baboy sa Langit: Play Review

2009-01-25T12:44:00.003+08:00

A Musical Play by Christine S. Bellen
Directed by Jerry Respeto
Original Children’s Short Story by Rene O. Villanueva
Staged by Ateneo de Manila University’s ENTABLADO
Play dates: January 19 to 23, 26 to 30 - 7.00pm
January 24 and 31 - 3.00pm and 7.00pm
*The play runs for two hours and thirty minutes, at 200 php per ticket.

Summary:
Unang Baboy sa Langit tells the tale of Butsiki, an extraordinary piglet who veers away from the “messy” tradition of her kind.
Butsiki’s mother and resident of Babuyan Islands, Ponyang, was pregnant with her in a time of turmoil. An angel in the form of a rabbit, appears to her and tells her that instead of the standard twelve piglets, she will have only one—the Takdang Baboy. The angel tells her that she must name the piglet Butsiki. The Takdang Baboy, or TB for short, will save the pig race from certain destruction.
Ponyang and husband Kardo become afraid, for the Punong Baboy who wished to sell all their lands to the mining industry ordered pregnant pigs who exhibited odd behavior to be poisoned. The Punong Baboy had heard of the TB prophecy, and was threatened by it.
Ponyang gave birth in another town, and Butsiki was visited by her very own version of the three kings: a dog, a cat, and a mouse.
Months later, they return to Babuyan Islands, where things are not looking up. The mining industry has destroyed their home, the pigs are in poverty, and the reign of the Punong Baboy was one of corruption and deceit.
Butsiki has grown up, and was easy to distinguish from the other pigs. She was clean, for one. She also had a star on her forehead, and her nails sparkled. She was also the only pig who liked to take baths everyday—in clean water.
Butsiki finds friends in local piglets Becky, Louella and Butsukoy, the son of the Punong Baboy. They are out playing one day when Becky gets sick from the mud contaminated with the waste from the mines. Butsiki bathes her in clean water and she gets well. Soon, all the sick pigs come to her. She then convinces all the other pigs to start cleaning their environment, to prevent the other pigs from getting sick too. This was much to the chagrin of antagonists Ipis, Gagamba, and Lamok. They went to the Punong Baboy and complained, realizing that Butsiki was the Takdang Baboy. The Punong Baboy orders Butsiki to be put on trial.
In the trial, Becky and Butsukoy testify to her good and helpful nature, while Ipis, Gagamba and Lamok incriminate her for the destruction of their homes. The Punong Baboy sentences her to become litson.
The rabbit-angel appears again, and Butsiki is seen ascending to heaven.
Days later, all the pigs become sick from their waste, and they realize the error of their ways. They work together to make Babuyan Islands a safe place to live in, and honor Santa Butsiki as the Unang Baboy sa Langit.

Reaction:
These pigs just grow on you.
ENTABLADO’s retelling of the Rene Villanueva short story is done with finesse and a whole lot of effort. Although at the beginning it is a bit odd to see pigs singing and dancing, audiences soon become accustomed to the musical styles of Babuyan Island.
Notable in the play is the use of technology, both on and off stage. Pigs toting cell phones and a rabbit with a laptop gave the play a contemporary ambience. The lighting and the set itself was beautifully done, echoing simplicity and creativity.
It was also chockfull of humor, in both the songs and dialogues.
Speaking of the songs, there were some brilliant lyrics in there, like Butsiki’s solo about searching for strength, and the very danceable “Welcome to Babuyan Islands.” A soundtrack, perhaps?
The actors and actresses (singers and dancers) deserve a pat on the back for a job well done. So do the costume designers, writers and of course, the director.
The story is patterned after the story of Jesus, and his own call for change.
Butsiki is a simple pig destined for great things and a noble end. She is remembered for her contributions and ends up changing her world even long after her death.
Resonant in the retelling is the emphasis on the values of cleanliness, inner strength and purity of heart. Butsiki shows audiences that even little pigs can make a big difference.
My only criticism of the play is that the development of the events was too slow at the beginning, and too fast towards the end. Other than that, this is a must-see for everyone who wants to sit back and relax and see a Philippine classic brought to life onstage.
I’m not a fan of animal stories, but ENTABLADO convinced me to rethink my opinion. Like I said, these pigs just grow on you.

A Conyo Anecdote

2009-01-24T10:54:00.003+08:00

Like, hoe myy gawsh.

I was like, in this jeep kuhnina, and there were like two mega ultra super duper conyo guys talking in front of moi. As in kaloka kasi twenny minute ride yung jeep, riight? So yeah. And they did not mukha like conyo, you know? They were kinda tall and kinda chubby, parang mas mukhang geek than conyo? You know? With the glasses pa? Tapos graabe. As in graabe to the over to the mega yung tono niluh. Fluent ang mga girlsh-- I mean guysh-- sa conyo speech. I can't like make gaya, like copy, yung ginagawa niluh kasi over talaga. Can't ko naman do that noh. I didn't study in Arreneo or Po-vey-duh. So ayun. What naman they were making usap about? Haay naku, like haay naku talaga.

Like this oh:

Conyo guy 1: Did you make nood the Lantern Parade nung Duhcember?

Conyo guy 2: No eh, why ba? Did you?

Conyo guy 1: Yeah naman. It wasn't, like, provocative or anything. Normal normal lang...

Conyo guy 2: Ah, true? Ganun... I was busy kasi that time eh.

Conyo guy 1 (sees Ate beside me, na nagbabasa ng Angels and Demons): Ay, you know ba the first name of Duh Vinchi?

Conyo guy 2: Isn't it Lee-oh-nar-dow?

Conyo guy 1: Ay, tama... Eh you know, may lesson kami about the Buh-rowk pe-ree-ohd, sa...

Conyo guy 2: Ay talaga? Why do you make study naman that?

Conyo guy 1: I donnow nga eh. Basta. And the buh-rowk period wus like, like, focus on the ethereal...

Conyo guy 2: Cool naman that...

So like, like, after twenny minutes of this kabalahuraan, I wanted to make tawa, like laugh, pero I couldn't kasi that's maybe kinda rude naman. So I made kuntento nalang with making ikot ikot my eyes, I theenk matutuwa sa me si Linda Blair kung na-see niya. Pero si Ate Angels and Demons feel ko gusto na rin to make tawa, kasi sobraaa, like sobraaaaa talaga. Si Kuya naman sa tabi nila, naka-ipod. Naka-full volume yun, I'm like, super sure noh. Ang fluent, fluent nila, sooo kainggit! You know how they make pronounce? Expert level talaga eh...

So much so that I wanted to kick them both off the jeep. How satisfying would it have been to see them flying through the air... And hitting the ground with a sickening thud. I know we all have the right to speak the way we want, but I had the feeling they shouldn't take public transportation too often.

Pag may nakasabay silang brutal at prangka talaga ewan ko na.

So like, I have to make alis alis na. Kasi my EIC gave me this question I have to make hanap hanap, like find, the answer to. Buti nga walang article, kasi I have to aral Nut Sci pa eh.

Voting na sa CRSRS next week, so you faaabulous UP people, make boto ha? Don't make limot that. "Yes" tayo, para cute.

...

2009-01-24T10:47:00.002+08:00

i know not what
i am willing to take
for fear, for hope
for salvation, for destruction
for heart, for courage
for acceptance, for denial
for death, for life
for irrational desire
for truth, for lies
for pain, for pleasure
for love, for wrath
for failure, for success
for elusive thoughts
hesitation
exultation
trepidation
illusion
an era of inconsistency
and rationality's absence.

Twilight High School Musical (A Parody)

2009-01-20T15:37:00.001+08:00

I came across this video and thought it was incredibly funny.
Why not? It bashed both Twilight and HSM. No offense, Disney, but only the first movie was remotely good. And even that lacked an actual story.

LINK http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nv4SCfEuYqg

I love these youtube people.

:))

Random Introspection

2009-01-17T19:43:00.002+08:00

Noong nakaraang Huwebes, mayroon akong kaklaseng Hapones na nagpatulong sa akin sa kanyang takdang-aralin para sa Ingles.

Kahapon, mayroong Koreanong aking tinulungang maintindihan ang sinasabi ni Ate sa canteen. Nakakabaliw kasi ang kanilang senyasan.

Ngayon naman ay pinipilit kong isalin sa Pranses ang dulang Ingles para sa aming pagtatanghal sa susunod na linggo.

Siguro ay mas hindi kumplikado ang ating mundo kung iisa lamang ang ating lenggwahe.

Videoke Anecdote

2009-01-16T16:51:00.001+08:00

We were discussing the videoke culture and its ties to the awiting
bayan tradition of our ancestors in one of my classes this morning.

Which led me to remember a rather amusing (and at the same time,
annoying) experience that happened a few weeks ago.

Our neighbors, the ones in the houses directly in front of ours, like to
keep the videoke culture alive via renting those machines every
chance they get. You know, the ones with the numbered buttons,
accompanied by a large songbook which include your grandfather's
favorites. Not only do they do this regularly, but they also seem to
think that everybody else within a fifty mile radius wants to hear their
voices too. Thus, they hook up speakers to the said machine and turn
it up to full volume.

And the worst thing about it?

They start mid-afternoon and don't stop until the next morning.

It might sound like I'm exaggerating, but I'm seriously not.

And when you get right down to it, butchering "All by Myself" at two
in the morning is nothing but noise pollution.

Slight segue: Why do videoke singers have predilections for the
songs that are way out of their league? Seriously. They end up
screeching and wailing and doing everything but singing. I distinctly
remember one undecipherable song where our neighbor sounded like
a pack of wolves being strangled in mid-howl over a megaphone.

During an extreme case of this noise pollution, which involved
inebriation via San Mig Light, one of our other less liberal neighbors
called the local police-- the baranggay.

They came and told our neighbors, basically, to shut up. Our
neighbors, in retaliation, also said "Shut up." They defended their loud,
nails-on-chalkboard voices by saying that they were only celebrating
a baptism.

Uh-huh. At one A.M.

With a few threats of formal complaint, the baranggay officials left.
Everything was much quieter. Until, a few moments later, we heard a
loud crash. A beer bottle shattered near our gate. There was yelling.
Apparently, our neighbors thought we were the ones who called the
police on them.

You already know we weren't. This is due to the small, insignificant
fact that we don't have a telephone.

Those neighbors still avoid talking to us.

Good riddance.

And yes, they still sing. Loudly, I might add.

Culture is culture but some people just can't help abusing their Right to
Free Expression.

I Pledge Allegiance to... Starbucks?

2009-01-14T16:53:00.002+08:00

(This topic deserves much, much more elaboration. But this is it for now. Written last December, thus references to Christmas and all that jazz. Will come up with a better analysis soon.)

“The true Filipino is a decolonized Filipino.” – Prof. Renato Constantino (1919-1999)

As I sit here and write, I see my mom dusting the Christmas tree—straightening its bent leaves and assembling the steel stand rusted with ghosts of Christmas past. Maybe it’s the weather, maybe it’s the things that I’ve been learning lately, but for the first time I gaze upon that replica of pine with hesitance. The Christmas tree, like a myriad of things we see everyday and take for granted, is definitely a symbol of our “imported culture.”

It all started with the Spaniards. Ruy de Villalobos, in 1543, gave the name “Felipinas” to the islands they discovered, in honor of their King Philip II. Technically, they didn’t discover it. Our ancestors, the Malays, did.

Later, the country’s name became “Philippines,” and its citizens, “Filipinos.” From the onset, they are both obviously Spanish names. It’s unsettling that even the name we go by today is not our own. A lot of people would say that there isn’t anything wrong with that—and would quote Shakespeare in the process. But it still stands that most countries freed from colonial rule change their names to achieve their own identity. But not the Philippines… Could it be that we didn’t want to let go of our colonial roots after all?

We learned Spanish, Christianity, distinguished indios from filipinos (the early usage of the term “filipino” was to refer to Spaniards born in the Philippines), adapted the patriarchal type of society, and gained a national inferiority complex. Then the Americans came. We learned about democracy, English, white Christmases, pine trees, blonde hair, blue eyes, and the national inferiority complex became very, very, evident.

Even nowadays, it is quite clear from the number of whitening products in the market that Filipinos have a desire to be “Westernized” in more ways than one. Why stop at the psychological when you can make it physical? I don’t think those who use those products actually stop and think why they perceive white as beauty. They just do. And that’s not to mention the advent of plastic surgery. Years of colonialism seems to have seeped through the surface and into the subconscious. Is there a way to get it out of there?

Ours is a country of all things foreign. Of Filipinos who pledge allegiance to Starbucks, CNN, Hollywood, and Barack Obama. Of people who put foreigners on pedestals and are racists towards their own race. Of Filipinos who would give anything not to be.

There is no going around it: We were colonized, we are colonized, and the future doesn’t look very different from the present. Our problems’ roots are run so much deeper than we like to, or care to, think.

Maybe the first step to decolonization is to change our name. We won’t be Filipinos anymore. No longer subjects of King Philip. But that would be the easy part. How about the Filipinos who cannot live without McDonald’s and HBO? Those who worship at Embassy and are addicted to football on ESPN? Would they ever renounce their Westernized ways in the name of nationalism?

In a world where globalization is already the zeitgeist, are we already a little too late? Nationalism is definitely MIA in this country—just look at the number of people in the POEA and immigration offices, at the popular art forms, and at the dominant language. In this day and age, there is no decolonized Filipino. In one way or another we are all still under foreign rule. There is, if Constantino is to be believed, no true Filipino at all.

More Quizzes

2009-01-11T20:11:00.008+08:00

The first two are from Anne Fernando's blog. Click on her name on the left panel to check out her fabulously colorful site.

You Are 3: The Achiever

You're confident and competent - with a lot of energy.

Eager to reach your goals, you are ambitious and competitive.

You are good at motivating yourself and motivating others.

You're also a charmer, with a great sense of humor.

At Your Best: You are kind, confident, and completely authentic. You are witty and full of life.

At Your Worst: You are insecure, narcissistic, and jealous.

Your Fixation: Vanity

Your Primary Fear: Being worthless.

Your Primary Desire: To be important and valuable.

Other Number 3's: Tom Cruise, Sylvester Stallone, Michael Jordan, Madonna, and Shania Twain.

What Number Are You?

Interesting.

You Are the Superego

While some people may think first and act later... you often don't act at all.

You rather be safe than sorry, and you take ethics pretty seriously.

Like everyone, you have some pretty crazy desires. But unlike everyone, you restrain yourself.

You have high standards for your own behavior. And you happily exceed them.

Are You Id, Ego, or Superego?

I actually agree. *Laughs*

You Don't Need a Man ... or Want One!

Generally, you're very happy being a single woman.

And anyone who has a problem with that... well, that's there problem.

Not that you wouldn't share your life with the almost perfect guy.

You simply won't settle though. Your life is too good to share with some substandard man!

Do You Need a Man?

I hear yah. :))

You Are Most Like Samantha!

For you, dating is the ultimate sport.

You're into guys with power, looks, or a lot of money.

You rather have a great two weeks than a great forever.

But even you fall victim to love from time to time.

Romantic prediction: You'll find love in the next few months...

But you'll be the last one to realize it.

Which Sex and the City Vixen Are You?

I love the show. I don't like that prediction though. Samantha rocks. :D

You Are 100% Feminist

You are a total feminist. This doesn't mean you're a man hater (in fact, you may be a man).

You just think that men and women should be treated equally. It's a simple idea but somehow complicated for the world to put into action.

Are You a Feminist?

Okay, we all knew what I'd get on that one.

Your Dominant Intelligence is Linguistic Intelligence

You are excellent with words and language. You explain yourself well.

An elegant speaker, you can converse well with anyone on the fly.

You are also good at remembering information and convincing someone of your point of view.

A master of creative phrasing and unique words, you enjoy expanding your vocabulary.

You would make a fantastic poet, journalist, writer, teacher, lawyer, politician, or translator.

What Kind of Intelligence Do You Have?

I'm on the right track, then. :D

You Are 32% Feminine, 68% Masculine

You are in touch with your masculine side.

You are not overly sensitive and not easily moved.

Occasionally, though, something will get through and touch your heart!

Are You Masculine or Feminine?

That's also what my quiz in Social Science 3 said.

You Are an Academic Geek

Academic Geekiness: Moderate

SciFi Geekiness: Moderate

Fashion Geekiness: Low

Geekiness in Love: Low

Internet Geekiness: Low

Movie Geekiness: Low

Nerdy Geekiness: Low

Gamer Geekiness: None

Music Geekiness: None

How Geeky Are You?

Ouch.

Your EQ is 120

You usually have it going on emotionally, but roadblocks tend to land you on your butt.

On an average day, you're quite happy, together, and content. You live your life well.

Your emotions aren't always stable, but you can go along with the ups and downs pretty well.

You tend to be motivated, energetic, focused, and level headed.

You see the world pretty rationally, and you don't tend to over dramatize things. When things are bad, you know they eventually have to get better.

What's Your EQ (Emotional Intelligence Quotient)?

So far they're pretty accurate.

You Are 68% Evil

You are very evil. And you're too evil to care.

Those who love you probably also fear you. A lot.

How Evil Are You?

And that we all know too well.

I like these quizzes.

Renovating?

2009-01-11T10:54:00.003+08:00

On second thought, I kind of like this one better. It's more organized. :D

Renovating. :D

2009-01-11T10:10:00.003+08:00

Blog under renovation. I'm trying to find another template, so meanwhile... :D

2009-01-07T18:16:00.000+08:00

From the Land of the Many Pages, I bid you all a Good Whatever the Time is Wherever You are.

Read, read!!! (Yes, this is another reading list). I promise you won't regret it. These are easy-to-devour texts. :D

"Sa Mga Suso ng Liwanag" by U Eliserio

--- Genre: Akdang Bayan (Nobeleta)
--- Medium: Taglish
--- A story set in the present UP Los Banos. U (yes, the main character has the same name as the author) is a teacher who gets into a lot of trouble for falling for his students. His current girlfriend and ex-student Aiko reveals she is pregnant and wants to get an abortion, to which U alternately agrees and disagrees. The story revolves upon their rather interesting relationship, and may turn erotic/pornographic at times-- depends on what your standards are. Joining the dysfunctional cast are other teachers, a few students, and of course, frat members. Halfway through the story, a murder takes place. Then another, more significant one. Not your normal detective story, U does not reveal who actually committed the murders: mostly because he does not know himself. A few clues here and there, and the story ends with a lot of questions. Sometimes confusing, sometimes shocking, often hilarious, there are a lot of significant points to this story that will leave you wondering for a while.
--- My Favorite Part: The murder mystery, of course! My classmates and I in Pan Pil 12 are still debating about it. The end result was that we all agreed to read it again.

"X: A Fabulous Child's Story" by Lois Gould

--- Genre: Short Story (6 pages)
--- Medium: English
--- Excerpt: "Once upon a time, a baby named X was born. This baby was named X so that nobody could tell whether it was a boy or a girl. Its parents could tell, of course, but they couldn't tell anybody else. They couldn't even tell baby X, at first.
You see, it was all part of a very important Secret Scientific Xperiment, known officially as Project Baby X. The smartest scientists had set up this Xperiment at a cost of Xactly 23 billion and 72 cents, which might seem like a lot for just one baby, even a very important Xperimental baby. But when you remember the prices of things like strained carrots and stuffed bunnies, and popcorn for the movies and booster shots for camp, let alone 28 shiny quarters from the tooth fairy, you begin to see how it adds up."
...
"Is it a boy or a girl?"
"It's an X."
--- Imagine a child with no gender. Imagine going up to a new born and not being able to say, "Look at her cute little dimples!" if it's a girl, or "Look at his husky little biceps!" if it's a boy. Imagine not knowing whether you should give pink mittens or a toy baseball bat. Imagine a child that has absolutely no idea whether it's a boy or a girl, and neither does anyone else for that matter. What would that child be allowed to do? The answer: Everything. X can play with dolls and toy carpenter tools, with tea sets and water guns, climb trees and paint pictures, hug a stuffed bunny and spend hours on a videogame... And nobody would be able to say, "Why are you doing that? Little girls/boys don't do that!" Because little Xes are exempted from the rules. Read this and you will think twice about, well, almost everything.
--- My Favorite Part: When they took X to the psychiatrist, because the other parents think X must be abnormal for not doing what other little girls/boys do (seeing as X's biological gender was a secret). Surely, everyone must be one or the other, right? The other parents thought that X was a disruptive influence... Because the other little boys and little girls started to forget their "places" too. X must be terribly mixed up in the head...

Doctor: X is just about the least mixed-up child I've ever Xamined!"
Parents: "But we still want to know what it is!"
Doctor: "Well, don't worry. You'll all know one of these days. And you won't need me to tell you."

"A History of Geek Civilization" by Jessica Zafra

(Published Aug 23 and Sept 6, 1989 in Women Today, in her book Womenagerie-- page 107, The Likhaan Anthology of Philippine Literature in English and various other books whose titles I don't know.)

--- Genre: Postmodernist Essay! :D (2 pages and then some)
--- Medium: English
--- One woman's journey through life as a geek of the written word. I think I already ran out of words of praise for this essay. Let's just say book geeks from the world over will be able to relate, and will probably applaud. A little Salinger, anyone? A dash of Fitzgerald? Maybe a sprinkle or two of Vonnegut? And a pinch of Irving... That ought to do the trick. (If you've read anything by one or more of those mentioned, it is imperative that you read this.)

"Wanted: A Chaperon" by Carlos Bulosan

--- Genre: Play (12 pages)
--- Medium: English
--- Hilarious. A seriously hilarious family-oriented play. If I ever get to direct a play, it will be this one. Short and simple, with a lot of brilliant well-made points not only on the "chaperon culture," but on gender roles as well. Nowadays it's not that important, and people are starting to forget just how important chaperoning was-- if they know it at all. This play serves to remind us about something that was an important part of our pre-liberal American- inspired "culture."

"Daultraintermegalaktikpinoyhero" by Mes de Guzman

--- Genre: Short Story (Around 10 pages)
--- Medium: Tagalog
--- Ah, Pinoy action movies. Ah, Fernando Poe. Ah, Robin Padilla. Ah, (insert infinity of action stars here). Vargas, the lead in this laughter-inducing somewhat satirical portrayal of Philippine Action Cinema, is the epitomy fo every action hero ever to grace the screen. Complete with sidekicks, insanely impossible stunts, a leading lady from Victoria's Secret, and a villain with the requisite evil laugh. It's a Pinoy action story to remember, and why not? It's the summary of every Pinoy action story ever made, after all. Best read with Bob Ong's "Pinoy Action Hero," published in "Bakit Baliktad Magbasa ng Libro ang mga Pilipino."

"Urbana at Felisa" by Jose Javier Reyes

--- Genre: Er... Letter compilation?
--- Media: Tagalog, Taglish, Bad Taglish, Text Language (if that's even one)
--- Obviously I don't mean that annoyingly difficult-to-read text written centuries ago by that priest whose name I always forget. This is an updated version. It's only four pages long! It chronicles the first six months of Urbana, your quintessential probinsiyana, in Metro Manila. Her letters are addressed to older sister Feliza, who is at home taking care of the farm. (Unfortunately, the compilation did not include her replies.) You will probably laugh your head off about it. Then you'll start wondering... "Is Metro Manila really that bad? And maybe I should start texting in actual words, just in case."

2008: The Year That Was

2009-01-03T21:00:00.000+08:00

2008: The Year That Was

A little reminiscence before we completely leave 2008 behind. (Most of what's written here are in the CNN video, so you can look up "CNN's 2008 Moments in History" for the complete version.)

JANUARY
--- The US primaries began, with democratic candidates Hilary Clinton and Barack Obama at the top of headlines.
--- Gaza residents fled to Egypt to avoid the turmoil.
---January 2008 saw a lot of deaths, including those of former Indonesian President Suharto, Mt. Everest climber Sir Hillary and Hollywood star Heath Ledger.

FEBRUARY
--- Parliamentary elections were held in Pakistan.
--- Cuban President Fidel Castro stepped down.
--- Kosovo declared independence from Serbia.
--- UK's Prince Harry was withdrawn from Afghanistan.
--- French President Nicolas Sarkozy married model-turned-popstar Carla Bruni.

MARCH
--- Dmitry Medvedev was elected as Russia's president.
--- John McCain won the Republican nomination for the US presidential race.
--- Barack Obama finally responded to the Reverend Wright controversy.
--- Presidential elections were held in Zimbabwe.
--- China cracked down on Tibetan protesters.
--- The Olympic Torch was lit for its journey around the world.
--- The British Pig Industry slipped into crisis.

APRIL
--- Some countries protested the Olympic Torch relay (they were against China).
--- An Austrian man was accused of imprisoning his daughter for 23 years (I believe someone made a movie out of this). He was sentenced to more than 23 years in prison.
--- Barack Obama cut ties with Reverend Wright.
--- Historic elections were held in Nepal.
--- The Irish Prime Minister (whose name escapes me) announced his resignation.
--- Belusconi became Italy's Prime Minister for the third time.
--- Global riots began because of the rising food prices.

MAY
--- Mogave's election as Zimbabwe's president sparked uncertainty.
--- Russia swore in a new president (I can't remember either) and a new prime minister (Putin).
--- Cyclone Nargis devastated Myanmar.
--- An earthquake that registered 7.9 on the Richter Scale killed thousands in China. (Sharon Stone called it "China's Karma" and sparked a lot of negative criticism.)

JUNE
--- Barack Obama won the democratic nomination for presidency.
--- Zimbabwe's opposition leader dropped out of run-off because of Mogave's threats.
--- Israel and Hamas began the truce in Gaza
--- North Korea destroyed their nuclear cooling tower.
--- Yves St. Laurent (YSL) died at 73.
--- Bill Gates ended his day-to-day work in Microsoft.

JULY
--- Hostages were freed in Colombia.
--- Serbian leader Radovan Karadzic was arrested.
--- The Sudanese president was (finally!) charged with genocide.
--- Iran tested their missiles (presumably bound for Israel).
--- Oil prices peaked at 147 dollars per barrel.
--- Zimbabwe introduced the "One hundred billion dollar" banknote.
--- NELSON MANDELA celebrated his 90th birthday.
--- Angelina Jolie gave birth to twins.
--- Chess-boxing was introduced to the world. (Yes, chess AND boxing. Not while, though. It was simultaneously done, at 3 or 4 minutes each.)

AUGUST
--- Russian author Alexander Solzhenitsyn died at 89.
--- Russia invaded Georgia.
--- (8/8/08) The Olympic Games opened in Beijing. (And Michael Phelps won everything.)
--- Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf resigned.
--- US Democratic National Convention began.

SEPTEMBER
--- US Republican National Convention began. (Sarah Palin was declared McCain's VP candidate, hahaha.)
--- Asif Ali Zardari was elected Pakistani president.
--- Power-sharing deal was reached in Zimbabwe.
--- South African President Thabo Mbeki stepped down.
--- Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert stepped down.
--- North Korea's Kim Jong Il's health began to be questioned.
--- The Melamine scandal began with the death of several children in China.
--- Actor Paul Newman died at 89.
--- First US presidential debate!!!
--- US economic turmoil began (Lehman Brothers, etc).

OCTOBER
--- Global economic turmoil.
--- Final US presidential debate.
--- Political deadlock in Zimbabwe.
--- Fighting displaced thousands in Congo.
--- Former Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari won the Nobel Peace Prize.
--- O.J. Simpson was deemed guilty of kidnapping and robbery (no, not the murder part) and was sentenced to 18 years in prison.
--- Madonna and Guy Ritchie filed for divorce.

NOVEMBER
--- Barack Obama was elected US president.
--- Iraq approved the timeline for US troop withdrawal.
--- Pirates target ships off the Somali coast.
--- Protesters shut down the Bangkok Airport until their Prime Minister stepped down.
--- Terror attacks in Mumbai!
--- MICHAEL CRICHTON died of cancer. (And SciFi fans were devastated, cough cough.)

DECEMBER
--- Oh never mind, it's still fresh in our heads anyway.

WHAT'S UP FOR 2009
--- Cholera crisis in Zimbabwe.
--- Putin's role in a re-emergent Russia.
--- US troop drawdown in Iraq.
--- Transition of power in the US.
--- Continued global economic crisis (and a lot less optimism, it looks like).

Here's to a New Year. Have a good one folks.

Follow-up

2009-01-02T20:36:00.000+08:00

Now that we've established which level of hell I'm eligible to enter (click on the link on the previous entry if you want to know yours--better now than later, wink wink) I thought it would be fun to take a few more tests. Just to see if I agreed with those crazy internet geeks who make these things up.

***

Greed:	Medium
Gluttony:	Low
Wrath:	Medium
Sloth:	Medium
Envy:	Medium
Lust:	Very Low
Pride:	High

Take the Seven Deadly Sins Quiz

So. I'm going to hell because of pride? Hmmm. I don't disagree.

***

"What Be Your Nerd Type?"

Does sitting by a nice cozy fire, with a cup of hot tea/chocolate, and a book you can read for hours even when your eyes grow red and dry and you look sort of scary sitting there with your insomniac appearance? Then you fit this category perfectly! You love the power of the written word and it's eloquence; and you may like to read/write poetry or novels. You contribute to the smart people of today's society, however you can probably be overly-critical of works.

Artistic Nerd

Drama Nerd

Social Nerd

Musician

Science/Math Nerd

Anime Nerd

Gamer/Computer Nerd

What Be Your Nerd Type?
Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Oh my goodness. The paragraph is too true. And the part about being overly-critical is the clincher. (Somehow the graphics on this one don't work well. Sorry.)

***

"What is your Personality Disorder?"

Paranoid: Moderate
--- Paranoid? Me? Who said that? Tell me who said that!
Schizoid: Low
--- (Schizoid-- and I put this here because I previously did not know-- means "tending to schizophrenia but usually without delusions.) I'd say that's pretty true.
Schizotypal: Moderate
--- *Laughs*
Antisocial: High
--- Okay, now that's not true... Exactly. So I freak out when I'm stuck in a social gathering with more than ten people. That's not veeery antisocial, is it?
Borderline: Moderate
--- I always thought I was off-the-chart high on being borderline. Hmmm.
Histrionic: High
--- Over-acting??? Moi??? Nom de dieu de bordel de merde!! Really??? How on earth would you think that?!?!? That's insane!!! I AM NOT OVER-ACTING!!!
Narcissistic: High
--- Let's make that clear: Narcissism is not vanity. It's... deeper. *Laughs, again* So I'm a little self-interested.
Avoidant: High
--- Yes that means "stay away from me."
Dependent: Low
--- Thank you, thank you.
Obsessive-Compulsive: High
--- Really? You don't say... :D

URL of the test: http://www.4degreez.com/misc/personality_disorder_test.mv
URL for more info: http://www.4degreez.com/disorder/index.html

These tests can be quite fun. XD

2009-01-02T15:44:00.000+08:00

The sweet light no longer strikes against your eyes. Your shade has been banished to... the Fifth Level of Hell!

Fifth Level of Hell
The river Styx runs through this level of Hell, and in it are punished the wrathful and the gloomy. The former are forever lashing out at each other in anger, furious and naked, tearing each other piecemeal with their teeth. The latter are gurgling in the black mud, slothful and sullen, withdrawn from the world. Their lamentations bubble to the surface as they try to repeat a doleful hymn, though with unbroken words they cannot say it. Because you lived a cruel, vindictive and hateful life, you meet your fate in the Styx.

The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Fifth Level of Hell!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Very Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Very High
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very High
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	Extreme
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	High
Level 7 (Violent)	High
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	Very High
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Very High

Take the Dante'>http://www.4degreez.com/misc/dante-inferno-test.mv">Dante Inferno Hell Test

My initial reaction: 5th lang??? Hahaha. I always thought I deserved ninth level or something. Oh well. Kim and Mico thanks for posting that. Kim, see you in the 5th level? Mico's in the first, so... Haha. This is hilarious.

How To Get Out of Your Chores

2009-01-02T15:27:00.000+08:00

How To Get Out of Your Chores
Arguments to try out in order to avoid all the pesky cleaning your parents want you to do

Argument 1: "Not cleaning (insert place, i.e. my room) is my own personal protest. It is my stand against conformity in this socially-constructed world. Once upon a time someone said "Every room should be clean," and everybody followed. It's like a religion, really. The Followers of the Clean Rooms. But I refuse to conform to this standard. Just because everyone else is a Follower of the Clean Rooms doesn't mean I should be."

Argument 2: "My (insert something they always make you clean, i.e. closet) may well be a gateway to worlds unknown... Have you never heard of Narnia??? It would be disastrous if I were to upset the natural balance. Accept it, mom/dad/yaya, my closet is meant to be that way."

Argument 3: "Untidy closets/rooms/desks have character. You really don't want me to turn into Martha Stewart, do you?"

Argument 4: (On washing dishes, and if you're a girl) "For years women have been expected to do the dishes. But I refuse to be subject to this atrocity. You see, this is my small contribution to feminists all over the world who slave for gender equality. Let dad do it or something."

Argument 5: "Why should it matter if I clean or don't clean my room/closet/desk/etcetera, etc.??? Let's be real here. If I don't clean my closet, would it add to global warming?
Would it accelerate population growth (like it needs acceleration) ?
Would it speed up the next ice age?
Would it affect the outcome of the 2010 elections?
Would it bring about the second coming?
Would it make demoted Pluto a planet again?
Would it affect my health in any way?
Would it be detrimental to my grades?
Would it change the current political climate?
Would it make me fluent in Portuguese?
Would it accelerate the invention of time travel?
Would it change the status of Third World Countries?
Would it counter the death of Albus Dumbledore, or the crappiness of Deathly Hallows' epilogue?

So why should it matter if my closet is not tidy?
Why should I spend hours of my life cleaning my room/closet/desk/etc.--hours I could be spending on something entirely more productive? Why should I worry about things that, in the long run, wouldn't even matter?"

Argument 6: "There are so many things that people insist are "extremely, vitally important, and should be done with zeal" but most of them are pointless. Take for example those detergent commercials which make it seem like the ultimate goal of people's lives is the "whiteness" of the clothes. Laundromat, anyone?

Or those other commercials which keep on banking upon the pressure that society places upon women to make their cooking tres, tres, tres bien. Newsflash: they already invented take out. Mario Batali and Bobby Flay are not alive in everyone.

And don't let me get started on those lame hair commercials, whose models are a stone throw's away from being completely computer generated.

The world might well end in a giant explosion of social constructs and unfounded priorities, so unless you want it to, stop making me do my chores."

Argument 7: (The best arguments are found in philosophy. If all else fails, prove the non-existence of whatever it is they want to make you do.)
"Wash the dishes.""What dishes?"
(One can only hope that the said dishes will disappear in a puff of logic.)

From the streets of malate, with love

2008-12-07T20:37:00.000+08:00

Social Science 3, Write-up Number 4
(Plagiarize and die. :D )

From the Streets of Malate, With Love

“The days of inspiration, playing hookey, making something out of nothing, the need to express, to communicate, to going against the grain, going insane...”

The sun was almost at the horizon when the march culminated in Orosa Street. The base was too loud at first, but not loud enough to overpower the excited babble in the air. The marchers were cheering, posing for photographs, and waving their banners proudly in the air. There were cameras, of course, snapping away at every opportunity and in every direction. The entire scene looked like something out of Rent production number. I could almost hear “La Vie Boheme” blaring in the background—thus the opening line.
It was an event unlike any other I’ve been to so far. The Pride March, held last December 6, 2008, was both a fun social activity and a political statement.
The marchers, composed of LGBTs (lesbians, gays, bisexuals and transgenders) and their friends and family, gathered in Remedios Circle to make a stand. Beneath the smiles and the costumes, they were there for more than just a show. From Vishnu to Darna, from masked males dancing topless to gay performers in all their glamour, they took to the streets with heads held high, their campaign for equal rights louder than ever.
In one of the participants’ words: “We are doing this because we value individuality. We want social awareness and respect. We are tired of society judging us.”
A myriad of LGBT groups were present during the event, among them 1 Bacardi, Project Equality, the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Philippines (UUPhilippines), TransPilipina, and UP Babaylan.
They were not the only marchers, however. On an opposite street stood those who were against the parade, in their “Trust Jesus” shirts, their banners in red and black, all but condemning the LGBTs. Two hours before the parade itself, tension was already brewing. Although the ratio was 5:1 in favor of the LGBT crowd, their presence, however minute, was the staunch reminder of the very issue they were fighting against. One of the organizers stood in the middle of the street and yelled “Go home!” to no avail. We were later told that it was the first time that the “religious” were so outspoken.

“To riding your bikes midday past the three- piece suits, to fruits, to no absolutes...”

Or in this case, riding their kalesas midday past the three-piece suits. Our Soc Sci 3 class, along with the other section, was behind the Transgender group who was riding in style in horse-drawn kalesas. The interesting thing about Malate is that the high-end establishments stand side by side with the “bars.” You have, on one hand, 1500-a-night hotels, and on the other, what Michel Foucault would call the realm of the “Other Victorians.”
On the day of the parade, it seemed as if they all came out to watch. At one point we interviewed hotel staff, who were more than happy with the event. A manager, impeccably dressed in Americana, said that they definitely should be given their rights—the operative term being, after all, human rights. A guard jokingly asked “Nasaan si Piolo?” but which also made me wonder why there were no celebrities in the event. We also passed groups of gays in their work uniforms who were cheering loudly for those on the floats.
Some taxi drivers said that they had no idea what the event actually was, and referred to it as “baklaan.” Most of the people who were watching, however, were amused and reacted positively. Some foreigners, who turned out to be missionaries, said that it was interesting to see the event outside of the States.
Another thing that I found interesting was the views of those on the other side, people we loosely dubbed “antis.” Upon talking to them, I realized that “antis” was not a proper term—perhaps “concerned citizens” was more politically correct. They said that they did not hate the LGBTs; in fact, they loved them and that’s why they wanted to help them change. “They are a rebellious generation: they go against God and logic. This is not rational and they are living a lie. They are also living in lust. They must turn to the gospels and change their lifestyles.”
A 1 Bacardi member, when presented with this comment, laughed and said, “We don’t want to change. We are proud of who we are. We are not a living a lie, we are being true to ourselves. Lust sila diyan. We are productive homosexuals!!! Hindi ba mas malaking kasalanan ang discrimination?”

“To loving tension, no pension, to more than one dimension, to starving for attention, hating convention, hating pretension...”

Shattering conventions was definitely the name of the game. When one ‘concerned citizen’s’ banner said “Jesus is the Only Way,” a marcher yelled “What about Buddha?!” in reply. The most touching banner I saw, however, was when a mom walked with her son, the sign in front of them saying, “I love my gay son.” A priest and a member of a metropolitan church, onstage in Orosa, told the crowd to face the protesters (who were right behind) and ask, “Would Jesus discriminate?”
My personal favorite was the slogan “Dykes R Us.” “Dyke” is derogatory slang for lesbians, or for lesbians and bisexual women—and yet in this case they decided to own it. It was like saying, in one simple phrase, that “there is nothing wrong with us.”
I also cheered (loudly, I should add) when the feminists, lesbians and bisexuals were speaking on stage. It reminded me of the time Ellen Degeneres said, “So what if I like a girl???” on international television. So what, indeed. Not being “straight,” whatever that actually means, does not make anybody less of a person than anyone else.

“To being an ‘us’ for once, instead of a them...”

“Straight,” “gay” and all the other terms used to classify gender are loaded terms: fraught with denotations. Sometimes it becomes so hard to tell which is fact and which is fiction. And when it comes to something as subjective as gender, there is no black and white.
In the end, the message is pretty clear: No matter who we are, we are all part of this society. We are all equal.
It’s a cliché, but events like this make me realize that the most important lessons are really learned outside the classroom.
My first Pride March is not going to be my last.

2008-12-05T15:16:00.000+08:00

Greetings from the Main Library

I just want to tell you guys about something I saw in Shangri-la yesterday.

It made me laugh my head off.

That's right! For those of you who haven't seen yet, Häagen-Dazs has made a line of ice cream flavors dedicated to Twilight!!!

I especially couldn't get over the first one.

DAZZLED AT FIRST SIGHT.

Oh, boy.

It's just so bizarre.

They took it from a conversation, which went something like--

B: You shouldn't do that to people.
E: Do what?
B: You dazzle them!
E: Oh, Do I dazzle you?
B: Yes, you're dazzling me again!

--which is, oh, I don't know, is on the list of the cheesiest dialogues in history. This was actually one of the jokes my friends and I laughed about for days. Imagine my shock when I saw ice cream named in its honor.

THE KISS IN THE MEADOW is the piggy-back ride part. Hahaha. What in the world.

CLAIRE DE LUNE is great. Given the circumstances. It's the only non-laughter-inducing title.

They call it the "Taste of Twilight," by the way.

The book was bad enough, the movie I don't know yet, and ice cream is ice cream, but when you put it this way... Well... I don't think I'll be able to stomach the "taste of twilight" without guffawing.

(For those who actually want to bite into this, pardon the pun, it's available in all Häagen-Dazs outlets until December 20.)

Whatever shall they think of next?

I will hold my breath. I'm sure they'll think of something soon.