I am feeling quite drained. So much work these days. Such a waste. Anyhow, I am currently leafing through this book, which my friend Margie gave me as a graduation gift. Thanks, girl. :)

Christie Kerr is happy with her first win on the LPGA tour. She even kisses her trophy quite passionately. It's a bit unsettling though, for viewing at ten o'clock in the morning. Not in plain sight of the audience, Ms Kerr. Hehe.

The Muppet is now a political figure, in fashionable suit and tie, and red fur. Elmo of Sesame Street is now a lobbyist in Washington. He wants preschool kids to have musical instruments to play with when they go to school.

Quick rundown of activities for the past couple of days:

Dragged my friend Abi, who is easily draggable -- hehe, to the screening of "Crazy" the other day. Another coming of age movie, this time the lead character is a 16 year old cripple. There was a segment where the kids were problematizing their romantic entanglements, and it was done like those picture collages in teen magazines. They also have a nice soundtrack.

Last night, Abi and I also attended the second leg of Greenbelt mall's Rhyme and Rhythms poetry reading gig. Performers included Aia de Leon of Imago, Triccia David of Sanctum, Andres Bulate whose ouvre is turning out to be a series on the "dinededma mo naman ako pero mahal na mahal kita" thread, The Godfather whose seventies swing guy take on "No Touch" was despicably evil, and Barbie Almalbis of Barbie's Cradle.

I also kept running into people I haven't seen for some time, and in all the odd places to find them. Btw, hello Mark and Petite. But all in all, quite fun.

"Today's planetary configuration is very good for writers. Likely you are finding it easier to write. Take advantage of these auspicious conditions to put down all of your ideas on paper. You will thank yourself on those days when you lack ideas. Think of it as loading up the woodpile to feed your intellectual fire during the long winter months.

Is this for real? Argh. I must push myself to finish this current load. Argh. Good morning, everyone.

The new Eraserheads vocalist is a girl. Hm.

[ again, via cynthia, inside ]

Banaue Miclat, whose filmography includes Tatarin, Hubog, Spirit Warriors and Mila, now has a website. You can check out her poems, other works and performances, pictures and other bacchanalia related to the soon to be famous actress there. Way to go, Wei. Hehe.

My friend Margie and I watched "The State I Am In," one of the films featured in this year's German Film Week themed Strong Women, Weak Men. It's tempting to sum the film as a Running On Empty for girls. Parents living in exile because of a terrorist activity from their (reckless, ideological?) youth, a teenage daughter who is torn between her parents' cause and the urge to live life as all kids her age do. All it needed was a Fire and Rain moment, which thankfully I think, did not come.

Jeanne has lived all the 15 years of her life on the run, in clothes too normal and ordinary they must be a disguise. She then meets the surfer boy Heinrich, whose lifelong activity is to follow where the good waves are. He's been to Miami, to Portugal, searching for the perfect sun and beach, searching for his endless summer. His parents don't give a fig where he is, and his house which he painstakingly describes for her (the underfloor heating, the bedroom window from which he looked out and saw his mother floating lifeless in the pool) has been empty for years. He promises Jeanne that one day, he will take her there.

Meanwhile, Jeanne's parents have been planning an escape to Sao Paolo, where they will have another life, away from the hauntings of their (not her) past. Everything would have been fine, except that Jeanne has found a reason to want to stay behind. She loves this boy now, and as all terrorists in hiding know, loving someone usually entails wanting to tell this someone all about you. And they simply cannot risk that. If you're a fifteen year old girl who has never been shouted at by a teacher, or listened to Brian Wilson, or shoplifted a CD, or sneaked out because you cannot bear to hear your parents doing the nasty, so you opt to meet up with this person you like, wouldn't you want to do the same? To stay in that place, get to know this person, and for once have someone who will love you, who will hold you and wouldn't berate you about the proper translation of "staffed aubergines?"

I thought so. But if you are the daughter of terrorists in hiding, you have no choice but to leave everything behind and follow your parents as they meet other people who do not really exist according to state records. You will learn the art of holding Moby Dick conspicuously for those who want to see the great white whale. And when the boy you love turns out in the pizza parlor scraping pans while you peeled off the clothes you stole (you wanted to get out of your "disguise") wouldn't you want to get stay with him? You do, even for a while, and then you jump out of his window as you run half naked down the road. You run into your mother who asks you if that was your first time, (Not now, Mother. Besides, do you really want me to answer that question?) and your parents grill you. Who is this boy? What have you told him? They don't believe you when you say you told this boy your family is a member of a strict cult who fucks around ecstatically under the moon. When you love, you would want to tell him the whole truth about you. Your parents decide to drive 100 miles and leave you with another stranger with the same fate they have, but you promise to recant everything, not to see him, to not hold dear his kisses anymore. You cannot bear the thought of going away again, of living another life under somebody else's name.

So you stay while your parents plan out a bank robbery in order to secure your future, whatever that means. Your boy turns up again, while you are on the lookout. You tell him you do not love him, you are disgusted by him, and by God, he was just too small. He slaps you, and his friend in the bicycle gives you the finger. Your parents show up in wigs and snow jackets, your father is bleeding. You have to run away. You have the money now to escape to Sao Paolo. Knowing that this will be your last night here, you sneak out and go to him. To tell him that you really do love him, that all you can think about is his stories even if they turned out to be lies. He knows you robbed the bank this morning, and would you like to have another drink? Just promise him not to jump out the window. He goes, and you just know that you've broken every rule in the daughters-of-terrorists-in-hiding rule book. So you jump out of the window again, forgetting about that pre-goodbye coitus you were planning on having.

Life is difficult, Jeanne. Your boyfriend called the authorities, just as you thought so. There will be no reprieve. You will survive the crash, but you will always be on the run, forever being the daughter of terrorists in hiding.

I am now officially done with college, three terms after the fact. There were only a handful of us from my college at the university graduation, compared to the near two hundred who attended last Saturday. But we had fun though, since we were just four rows and within side commenting distance from each other. This year's summa cum laude (from Molecular Biology, can you believe that?) spoke about the Pinoy diaspora, and how the government really should do something to prevent all the intellectual capital of the country from fleeing oversees, to seek better chances at improving their skills, or simply to make a decent living. Going there to study is good. But I also think they should also come back here and use what they learned, to impart their skills here. To use it so our country can get ahead. Unfortunately that doesn't happen. A lot of the really good minds are out there, fighting their battles in the wider world. Which is good. But we also need them here.

Got back from the awarding ceremonies for non-winners this afternoon. It turns out I knew two of the other finalists, who took the same scriptwriting workshop as I did, different batches. I now have a new paperweight. Hehe.

Afterwards, I went to Megamall with the intention of going kikay for the coming weekend's commencement exercises, only to discover that I have absolutely no hope of ever finding out whether peach blush works well with earth toned mascara or whatever. I have no aptitude for that sort of thing. Feh. So I gave up and went over to the Shang to watch one of the films showing for German film week.

The Secret Society is about heavy women who took up sumo wrestling as a way of seeing themselves positively. The director, Imogen Kimmel was present and said a few words. It took her seven years to do the film, from concept to final cut. But that is a reasonable amount of time, considering that most of the women in the film really had to be knowledgeable and with believable skills as sumo wrestlers.

I am disappointed with my high school batch. There is a lot of hate brewing there. I thought we've escaped the high school mentality, but I was wrong.

I went with my friend Abi and her friend Magazine Girl to the Rhyme & Rhythm poetry gig over at Greenbelt. I had no intention of going earlier, thinking that I'd be a good girl and get some work done. But she said it'll be fun and Angel Aquino was going to read something. I can be easily corrupted. Hehe.

Abi's friend said the event would start at 7pm, sharp. But because of another event we attended -- rather promptly, only for it to be delayed countless times, we thought we learned our lesson and we had dinner first. By the time we got there around 7.30pm, the poetry reading was well under way. We caught part of Angel Aquino reading from Ramon Sunico's Bruise. She sat on this high chair in front of a food-court like arrangement in front of Kitchen. People were having dinner and conversation and would occasionally nod at the recognizable turn of phrase from the reader. The people's attentions were just too scattered for it to be a cozy event. But well, they would like to bring poetry to the mall-going public. Which is still weird because most of the people in attendance were musicians, friends of musicians, writers from magazines and stuff, and people who heard about the gig from friends. But anyhow, their cause comes first. They should just rethink the location.

While the hosts announced the open mike part, we noticed that the marquee says Barbie Almalbis of Barbie's Cradle would be the main reader for next week. Then Abi noticed one of the Barbie Clones from last Sunday's church service was there. If one of the clones was there, could the Real Barbie be far behind? Apparently she was right. Just beside Clone #1 was a girl in a grey snakeskin pattern cowboy hat. Magazine Girl cannot get what the fuzz was about.

Anyhow, open mike was boring except for this guy Andres Bulate who frequently performs in Sanctum. The event finished early and we decided to have dessert at Cafe Breton. Then within ten minutes we heard the table behind us giggle. Somebody was getting all the attention in the place. I don't have to tell you who it was. Meanwhile, Magazine Girl rolls her eyes while she mutters. "Fangirls."

Foreword on the Starbucks Lifestyle. I am not a big fan of Starbucks or mocha frappes. I go to coffee shops for the brew, not the whipped creamed ones. Or Figaro's grilled eggplants. Yum. But when we're at Megamall, we usually hang out in Seattle's Best. Not for the coffee, but for the outdoor tables. Seattle's Best's coffee is really bad. Just get yourself some juice and sit back and have a nice talk with your friend.

[ found via brownpau ]

Hmp. I'm not happy with what sort of Moulin Rouge song I am. Or maybe I'm just cranky because I don't have the second soundtrack CD yet? Bah.

But don't let that fool you. I am happy so today. Confusing ba? Hm. Maybe that was the right side of the bed. Hehehe. :)

I find comfort in my strangeness:





How much of a freak are you?

I am a loser, but nonetheless:

"We are pleased to inform you that your entry to this contest, entitled Shift, has been adjudged as one of the top finalists.

"As one of the 115 entries submitted to the contest, your script went through the three-panel judging system. Panel 1 screened all the entries and recommended 26 scripts for evaluation by the second panel. Panel 2 further trimmed down the entries to 15, which is the requisite number to compose the finalists as stipulated in the contest rules. Your script was one of the 15 submitted to the third panel. Panel 3 then evaluated the scripts to choose which among the 15 finalists shall be announced as top three winners.

"After a thorough and astute evaluation during deliberations, the 3rd Panel, judiciously adhering to the judging criteria for the contest, has decided to declare "no winners" for the top three prizes. The 15 entries in consideration required further refinements from their present form to satisfy the criteria for the top prizes.

Nonetheless, we believe that your achievement as a finalist blah blah blah is very much worthy of recognition and appreciation."

No winners?

Now I am convinced that my script was definitely not the best of the lot. I wrote it piecemeal within the span of two weeks, in between work assignments. I finished the first draft hours before the extended deadline.* It was a fun thing to write, and it was the first full-length screenplay that I actually started and finished. It was my first time to enter a contest. So far my little fun project to reach that far out into the contest already is fine by me.

However, I am almost sure that there must be better writers than me, who spent more time and effort in polishing their drafts, who deserve to win. Somebody out there must have come up with a brilliant script. Or the judges could be right: not one of the 115 screenplays they received are good enough, brilliant enough. Nobody's script cut it. Those who cared to join all turned in lousy scripts. Possible. But I find that really weird.

Anyhow, I will still attend the awarding ceremonies this coming Friday, to meet more of my fellow, er, non-winners. I have a busy week ahead of me.

*Btw, just to give you about how close to the deadline I was, Shift was entry # 113. I was almost that close to being Cinderella. Hehe.

Jenni of Whirlwind put up this review of kantogirlblues in her site, as part of the Peer-to-Peer blog review project.

I have taken note of her comments and I'll try to fix those as soon as I can.

Which means that you will only learn things about me (twentysomething, girl from Manila, the Philippines, loves cats books movies and walking around cursing everyone in her path), when I get the time and when I develop enough brain cells to undertake the technicalities of putting up additional pages. I am more of a book than a techie geek, so please bear with me.

As for the blog I am supposed to review -- I am Mike -- is down and out. The P2P organizers have yet to give out their instructions as to what to do with that. I think they'll give me another blog to review, but I have no word yet. In the meanwhile: no blog, no review.

My friend Walter just moved to Bangkok. This means we won't be able to watch Episode 2 together, like we watched Phantom Menace years back. Well, not that I'm looking forward to that movie. He just wanted to let me know that if I ever get my rump around to Bangkok, there'll be a couch waiting for me in his apartment. Sweet dude. Feh.

Hey. Went to the university early today to process the graduation stuff. Because of the near-weekend traffic, I arrived there at past eleven in the morning. But I surprisingly finished my errands before the (very long, at least for me) lunch hour break. Then I bumped into people -- my favorite way of meeting them, energy bouncing off, literally -- that I haven't seen in a long while.

Walked with Sir Caloy (Carlos Ojeda Aureus, PhD for most of you) to the shopping center. He's convincing me to find stability in terms of employment. Television is fun, but it can be vacuous.

Then Berlitz (not his real name) who should also be graduating this term, *forgot* to apply for graduation. Oh well. My buddy Arlyn is applying for grad studies in Mass Comm, and took the qualifying exams this afternoon. We've been chatting awhile when I remembered the rush hour traffic, and I had yet to go to Megamall to meet a friend.

Berlitz amused us with his story of near death in a jeepney vs ten wheeler collision. In the emergency room, the nurse attending to him wanted to ask him for his family or some friend's phone numbers. In his daze, he remembered the nurse saying, "Taga-UP ka, taga-UP din ako." Weird, when the first concern should have been, "Would you like me to stitch up that three and a half inch gaping hole in your head now?"

I was talking with a friend when the issue of graduation came up.

Friend: Hey, congratulations.
Me: Hey, thanks.
Friend: If I'm not there, be assured that I'll be watching the live webcast(!)* on the 21st.
Me: ? Isn't graduation on April 27th? Did they change the date or something?
Friend: I don't think so. I just went to check the website and the banner said 21st.
Pause.
Me: Really? You're not kidding me. This isn't April Fools.
Friend: Nope.
Me: Argh! Why didn't you tell me? I can't be late again for an entire year! Darn. So many things to do. I have to tell the college secretary. I have no sablay yet. I have no dress. I have to go shopping!

This is where I log off while I commence on graduation rites panic.

*I believe this is the first time I've heard of it. Ooh, webcast. Cool. And as far as I know, we will be the first university in the Philippines to do so? Well, if you know of other schools, feel free to let me know.

So this blog war thingie isn't over yet?

Jane pointed me to pancit canton for some updates on the supposed blog war on the Pinoy internet scene. For one, for it to be a war, there must be a declaration from either one or both sides of the parties involved. Since there has been no reply from the originator, I am hesitant to call it a war at all. A cold war? Argh.

What I do know though is that people followed the exchange that came after, the replies that got posted on friends' blogs. Most of them were supportive of the cause. When we met up with the person who started it all, who was clueless about the whole bandwidth activity etc, we actually didn't want him to know. But the web is a small place, and he did learn about it after all. I don't want to join in the fray.

Do you think there was a war?

Speaking of petty bourgeois concerns, the deadline for the filing of your income tax thing is this coming Monday, 15 April. I met up with some of my former work buddies to get our ITR forms, and I swear I don't know what I did with the money I supposedly had earned this past year. Except for sneakers and some clothes, bills and stuff for everyday living, I haven't really been spending much. I don't have anything to show for it. I mean, where did it all go? And I thought I was a tightwad.

If I have my networth in books, this other writer I know has his networth in DVDs. He's a DVD freak. He travels to other countries and comes home with entire suitcases of them. Well, that and orders from Amazon.com. He said if he'd really sum it all up, he could buy a car with what he spent. A car! And I can't even claim to have a complete library of anything. Well, wherever you can get your happiness.

It's nice to wake up feeling refreshed. I was so beat when I came home last night, I didn't even bother to really change clothes or check email. I just wanted to sleep. And it's really nice to have the whole place to myself. I think I like living alone. Although I still have to go back to the old house for things like food, and ironing wrinkled clothes.

Of course, if I really really want to live alone, I would have to move to someplace that's not a stone's throw away from mommy, or aunt or any of my relatives. Which I cannot really do right now because I'd rather save the money I'd pay for renting a place and buy stuff for the house. So much for independent living.

This is just my third day in the apartment. I don't even know if I can call it that. I am just several doors down from my house in the family compound. My grandmother, my Memeng, used to rent this out. But now that no one's living here, and since we need a place to stay and mostly to put stuff from the house. There you go, instant apartment.

I am the only one staying here, with mostly my stuff. I moved in, with my computer, my books and magazines and papers packed in boxes. It's amazing how most of my things are totally made up of paper. Scripts, readings and lecture notes, magazines, boxes of books. You can probably compute my entire net worth with books. Which is nil, when you think about it. My clothes are in two suitcases and a rolling bin. I have several chairs with me, a couple of electric fan, a folding bed, some blankets, more than enough pillows, a mat. All I need is a table or a desk, and I can go about my life already. Really spartan. And oh, a phone line. We must not forget the phone line. For most people in the Philippines, they could very well get on without a phone, especially if you live in the more remote areas of the country where there is no electricity or running water, or even radio transmissions.

I didn't think of that when I freaked out the other night when I realized I had no phone line and thus couldn't connect to the internet. But you see, my headwriter from the new show wanted me to accomplish something in time for the meeting the following day, and without an internet connection, I wouldn't be able to download his notes and the previous scripts and I basically wouldn't be able to do any work. I need my phone and my computer in order to work. I don't even have a television here, and I don't miss it. So the phone line is my one concession to bourgeois activities. Everything else is unnecessary.

Ah, rationalizations.

I am desperate. I used thirty feet [make that] sixty feet of wire, phone jacks and masking tape to get myself my internet connection. And I did all this in the darkness, amidst the howling dogs, and went over an aquarium and over doorways. I just hope the neighbors don't trip on them wires. Ah, what lengths a person will go to to get that bandwidth and kbps.

I am posting this from an internet cafe across the local mall. Our house is undergoing some repairs, and we had to move out so they can get on with the renovations. So I am without a landline and a computer until they have set it up again. This is the first time again in a long while that I've posted from an internet cafe, and the computer units really suck. I've transferred several times already. The shift buttons and space bars don't work properly, and the connection is just so darned slow.

Glass Steel and Stone explores the urban architecture all around the world. They have this section on doors. Pick any city you want. I like the 50 Doors of Paris. That's it for my occasional bouts of francophilia.

The site also has sections in Odd Architecture -- I personally like the giant artichoke and the Tupperware Tower. Gawd, what kitsch!
[ via strange brew ]

In Salon Audio, Adrienne Rich reads a group of six poems titled "What Kind of Times Are These," recorded in 1995 for her book "Dark Fields of the Republic." Mostly, what I remember about her writings are her theories we took up in critical theory class. Class discussion isn't complete without her landmark essay about compulsory heterosexuality and the lesbian continuum.

Because I have nothing else to do --


Eyes a-flutter with REM
flittin butterflies
in your dimension
I hear you
talking to me
You must be
dreaming
Ruby lemon & blue
Tangerine Green Purple
Psychedelic
Dreamin in Universal color
while I lie awake with


i. n. s. o. m. nia.


Not my words, btw. They're Cynthia Alexander's. Because I can't think of anything else and it's nearly 4 am. I need a lullabye.

A very odd place in which to find the ubiquitous (and very annoying) GAME K N B? ringtone. I caught part of the game show on the bus. Kris Aquino sounds like iron grating on steel. Ugh.

Yesterday at the news center canteen, we were having dinner when the Saksi report came in saying that National Artist Levi Celerio was dead. Music maestro Lucio San Pedro went to heaven a little bit ahead of him. It makes me wonder why so many people died the past week. Most of them had more significant contributions to humanity than silver screen fluff. But of course Rico Yan ruled the headlines.

On the way home, the bus I rode in smelled like the insides of a really well worn shoe. Ugh. I couldn't breathe, and I wanted to get off, but the bus had crossed Edsa and we were stuck in the middle of a really horrible traffic jam. I was seated in the very last row, and one of the guys asked me where the gates to La Salle was. It was only then that I remembered that everyone was going there for Rico Yan's wake. Fans galore, with ambulant vendors and double parking. I really should have taken the other route. Oh well.

Blast it: It is the end of the free. Yahoo and Edsamail had announced that they will be discontinuing their free email services starting
April 20 and 24, respectively. Good riddance for Edsamail's annoying flash ads? I will miss yahoo though.

Addition to Anthem of the Jilted # 21713:

Ex-friends, lovers and estranged family members who have been cut out of the writer's life should refrain from reading their journal. If the relationship has ended, there is no reason you should get daily updates on the person's life. If you simply can't help yourself, do it quietly, and never repeat what you read or use it to hurt the writer.

[ blog disclaimer via bottled bliss ]

I have no idea what this is. I am a sucker for online quizzes. I just got this from Astrid, so you will have to blame her for it.


Which Member of the Endless Are You?

Speaking of Ang Dating Daan, Newsbreak takes a look at the different approach its leader Bro. Eli Soriano took to make his flock grow.