There and back again

Happy Birthday to Kuya Luis!

After a long day on the road, I can’t believe I actually have enough energy for updates. (From all the smoke I’ve inhaled, I somehow get the feeling I’m going to die of lung cancer when I’m old…)It’s now 9:04 PM (that time check was brought to you by me) and hopefully Dad’s computer will hold out long enough for me to do a decent blog entry. I can’t really decide which pc is crazier: ours or Dad’s. I suppose ours is nuttier by a fraction of a mile. It’s driving everyone up the wall.

Alright, stop. Now for the main point of this whole thing.

We went to Pampanga to pay our respects to the dear departed. Now that I think about it, La Pieta is actually a nice cemetery. It’s so… green and leafy… And alive (eh???). Er, scrap that.
A lot of people were getting buried, so I got to see several mourning processions stampede (s-l-o-w-l-y) by. There was also this military guy who got buried. Oh my, how the people swaaaarm. They just come runnin’. (Ang usi talaga ng Pinoy.) Some military people were present, who did a “21-gun salute”. I watched them. The first shots made me jump, after which my knees buckled. I didn’t think it was going to be THAT loud. (And to think that I play Lara Croft, tsk tsk. But then again, I always turn the sound off.) I got myself together somehow and watched the rest of the firing in apprehension.

I watched Supersize Me yesterday. Haha, I love the songs they used (yummy, yummy, yummy I’ve got luv in my tummy, and I feel like luvin’ you…). Ironically, we had McDonald’s for breakfast a while ago. If it’s one good thing about cost cutting, it’s the fact that we won’t have to worry about growing waistlines when we go to McDo.

I suppose I’ll be posting my wishlist sometime soon. Just to get my bearings right, and my priorities straight. More goals, more things to do. Whoopee.

The sembreak stretches infinitely in front of me. Ah, boredom. It makes time crawl to an unbearable pace, yet makes the days slide by like nothing. Since I’m still craving for paperdolls, I’ve decided to TRY and execute the visual I’ve been thinking over for the past few days. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for success.

Tsk, I nearly forgot the reflection paper on Coach Carter. Trust my school to make us watch something good, then turn it into some spiritual learning experience. There’s also that short story I promised Melinda. We ended up talking about Snow, Glass, Apples last Tuesday, on which I had to explain all the subtle details in the story. Gaiman has a way of weaving the story into delicate folds and hints. The best thing about it is, he makes the reader think about the whole picture, which then makes more impact than saying it blatantly on paper. Hay. Neil Gaimaaaaan. Now that’s one thing I’d want for Christmas.

Piano lessons again on Wednesday. We’re doing interpretation now. Damn, I just can’t do it. Teacher does one phrase, I imitate in the same manner but it sounds different! Hers is as graceful as a brushstroke. Mine is as horrible as a jagged line. You can actually hear it. Frustrating. Dammit.

I feel like a puppy that tries too hard.

Under the Cupcake Tree: the Spirit of the Wood welcomes you

We had the High School Halloween party a while ago. It was okay, I suppose. The only part that I really enjoyed there was when the AA bands were playing. Room Service rocks! Ang galing! Haha, good going Sophies.

Our club did a Gengstah (gangster) dress-up theme. I have no idea what that is. Black? Goth yun. Chains? Mga masochists. Leather jackets? Rockers. Huge jersey with bling and band-aid? ...Di ba kanto-boy style yun sa Pinas?

I finally settled on something, though I thought it was pretty lukewarm in the Gangster direction. Blah. Besides, wala rin naman akong mahihiraman ng jersey.

Tsk. The cons of having no brother. Wala kang costume pang-lalaki.

There were also club presentations. I hate our presentation, which is why I hid in the mass of people in front. Thank God they didn't push through with it. Ms. Mancilla wanted to do a jologs dance contest (she was on a sugar high a while ago): Punks Not Dead versus Jologs 4evah. Basta kung sino na lang raw matiyempohan na matulak, bahala na! 0_o

Speaking of club matters, the IISDC will be held sometime 2 weeks from now. I *might* WATCH. Just watch. And learn. No participating stuff. Mai gas... ang hirap makipagdebate. Mas madali pa mag-chess sa kaklase mo. Missy and I played chess during the latter part of lunch. Good brain exercise. I should do that more often.


Here's something for Ate Fay:



HAPI BOITDEI! Made that especially for you!

The Road to Dandelion Shores

The Road to Dandelion Shores

I have no idea what it means, and neither has it any connection to this post whatsoever. I just like the ring of it. It sounds like a title for a poem... a poem! Hmm...


Well anyway, to begin the update. I skipped school on the second day of the Intramurals. I woke up at around 8, then still heavy with sleep, went back to bed (after just blinking awake) and woke up the second time at 11 am. Strange, but I still wanted to go back and curl up, if the day could've just maintained that perfect-for-sleeping weather. So I dragged myself out of bed, had breakfast, if you want to call it that, then offered assistance to Mom with her catering (well, Ate made me). She couldn't think of anything for me to do, so I just went up, saying that if she needed me, just call.

I finished reading Bram Stoker's Dracula upstairs. A good read, though sometimes grammatical errors would occur for paragraphs, even pages on end! This happened especially when Dr. Van Helsing was speaking. Every wrong sentence made me unconsciously flinch, but at the same time automatically changed tenses and subject-verb agreement without batting an eyelash. It was just too bad Dracula got killed just like that. It lacked... the frills and thrills of modern-day TV's exaggeration of a vanquishing. Much like Adolfo's death in Florante at Laura (who was killed by a not-so-major character! and a woman at that...). But then again, that might just be the commercialized person in me talking. I loved the freaky Lucy part, haha, when Dr. Van Helsing made Dr. Seward look at her coffin. And that Renfield patient. A very interesting lunatic, which was as much fun as the madman in Lu Hsun's A Madman's Diary.

It was a bit of an Awww moment when I found out that Van Helsing doesn't really look like his glamourized movie version. But upon further thought, the movie began to seem like an absurd fanfic which mashed up every horror classic character possible. Sure, the effects were fun and the transformations were pretty cool, but taking off the icing on the cake, you discover that it's all made up of sponge. Too bad, it rather lacked substance.

So besides that I LITERALLY did nothing on Friday. Bianca's friends came over and we had pizza. For Saturday, I FINALLY did the damned experiment. Took me a good two hours to finish. It's been weighing on my mind for forever. I can now put my mind at ease... I just regret being the leader now. Most probably I'll be frantically praying to the big G to please, PLEASE make the juice turn miraculously into vinegar, anytime soon now. If He could do the water to wine miracle, then He'll have no problem doing this. A small speck of faith wouldn't hurt. Heck, next thing you know I'll be moving mountains. Why not?

And now for today... same thing. Ate Kit lent me the second book of the Earthsea Series, The Tombs of Atuan. I think I like A Wizard of Earthsea better. Tombs of Atuan had only one main setting, which was dark, most of the time, and had only one color: black. Black robes, black blood, black darkness, black tunnel, black Undertombs, black Labyrinth, black obsidian monoliths, black, black, black. They seem to like that color, don't they? I mean the Priestesses of Godking and the Twin Gods. In our world they would fit right into the image of satanic worshippers, and it does seem like that. I still like Ged's character, which is one reason why I like the first book better. The second focused on the Tombs of Atuan (doi.) and the First Priestess Arha. Ged came in much later, only to steal Erreth-Akbe's other half of the amulet, which leads to other things besides.

Oops. All those names, names and names. I suppose you're wondering what I'm talking about. Skip over that paragraph if you want, though it's a tad too late for that.

I glimpsed Jolina Magdangal teaching some new novelty song dance moves on SOP. I mean, what the hell?! ENOUGH TRASH ALREADY!!! I cannot believe how the Masa willingly laps up all that the media feeds them. And when did this frickin fad start? The earliest I can remember is that "My heart goes sha-la-la-la-la..." song, which I, to my utter shame, confess that I had danced to that horrendous tune (back when I was a KID). Plus that Asereje incident. *cringe*

If anybody makes me dance these oofing things again, I will scream.


Mom had another catering job to do today. I would've escaped the tasks, but unfortunately, Ate made me do the roll-fish-into-flour-then-egg yolk-then-bread crumbs routine for the fish fillet when she heard my footsteps upstairs. Drat. Touching raw fish, then having some sort of batter sticking to your fingers from all the dipping, is not fun. I made Bianca do the work when she woke up from her nap. But then, Ate handed the task of shelling quail eggs to me, so I had to do that also. Not that I didn't want to. I mean, it was ok, being the lazy bum that I've been these past few days. It was a change of pace, the kind which you love and hate at the same time.

I was watching a bit of Y Speak a while ago. The problem with these informal exchange of ideas (besides the fact that they seem to get a little personal at times) is that the subject is very broad, and they cannot therefore discuss one aspect of the topic without flying off to another aspect, making the discussion flit from one thing to another in a dizzy kind of reasoning, or worse, making it go around and around and around and around... you get the picture. It's at times like these that I realize the value of a Definition (of a Motion).

I'm still contemplating on wearing contact lenses. They're convenient, alright, but taking them off requires an hour, a lot of tears, a lot of whining, a lot of desperate prayers and a lot of misery before they come off. And when they do come off, it happens by accident, so I have absolutely NO idea how I took off the darned thing. Drat, drat, drat.



Crazy song of the moment: *to the tune of The Beatle's Let it Be chorus*

Let-ter A, letter A, letter a, yeah, letter A! Ang susunod na letter, letter B... Let-ter B, letter b, letter b, yeah, letter B! Ang susunod na letter, letter C...

Teehee.

Whole day for Intrams practice tomorrow. Absent ako bukas! Woo~! ["You soh lehzi, you lehzi bum." I quote that from Angel. HAHA, patawarin po.]

I just spent the last hour trying to jump over rolling boulders in Tomb Raider. Let's see... I did that... about a million times. I'm not kidding. That was the hardest do-able obstacle ever. Lara isn't so pretty when she gets crushed. Though I prefer that to her I'm-falling-into-a-bottomless-pit(!) scream. The worst part about it though, was that I consulted the walkthrough AFTER triumphing over the stupid boulders. Turns out you just have to "crouch down the ledge and let the boulder saaail over you..." Geez. Thanks a lot. *throws a fit*

And I already saved my hard-won "victory". Blah. I could've just restarted and made a mockery out of those friggin stones, but noooo, I had to save everything, broken bones and all, once I thought I had gotten it right finally. So much for the strategies and the counting and the finger work-out. I could've just CROUCHED. Mai gas...

I had piano lessons today. Teacher set the date of the recital for somewhere along the second week of February. And then she goes "Galingan mo ha, kasi if Charles isn't going to play, you might be the finale."

*processing data*
1...2...3...

Shit.

"Me?!"

Pressure, pressure!!! Charles, MAG-RECITAL KAAAAA!!! [note: Charles is Teacher's best student. Don't know him personally, but I've seen him play, and I'd rather have him be the finale than me.] *nagwawala* Nooooooo...

I'm going to participate in my classmate's experiment for their IP. Something about subliminal messages what-not. I'm going to Ky's house tomorrow and play guinea pig. Hooray. I suppose they'll be feeding us... HAHAHA.

Results are back except for Bio. Curses on Filipino. Grrr...

Blah.

Friggin...

I hate doing pc tech stuff.

*bleep*...*bleep*... DING.

*KABOOM*

$%&#$#!!! <- mindless chattering. DO NOT MIND.

The pill

See my high-speed Shibashi Pill...:



...with Gir's funky Taco Dance:



Thanks to Ja for Mr. Pill. Haha, I just love these animated .gifs. Woo~!

Kaunting tiis na lamang...

Today I woke up to one of the nicest mornings I’ve had, so far. It reminded me of Baguio. You know, refreshingly cold but still sunny. It made me want to stretch out, stand on tiptoe and say “Good MORNING sunshine!” And I actually did. Several times in fact, haha, though I wasn’t greeting anybody in particular. Except for the one time that I did it to Bianca.
I don’t know why, but it made me feel a lot happier than usual.

I survived English and Bio. The former was easier, plus I liked the story. It was a story from Thailand, entitled “Rains”. A very sad story, that one. As for Bio… I now feel… relief. Thank God it’s over. Though half of me is sorta disappointed that it was easier than I expected, which makes me wonder if the hours I spent on it were in proportion to the test. Or maybe that’s because I studied so much? Anyway, goodbye bacteria, protists, viruses, fungi and plant organs! I’ll see you when I need you. As for now, you can go away, away, awaaaay…

Dad got the pictures from Bianca’s birthday party. HAHAHAHA. The pictures were far from perfect (there was always somebody blinking and stuff) but everything looked fun. I looked like I was in the preliminary stage of preparation for a ball or something, with my hair pinned up and everything… So, halata bang pantulog yung “kimono” na ginamit ko? But-my-lipstick! Argh! It was, to my horror, off-center. Greaaaaaaaat. Just GREAT.

No going back though. But I sure had a lot of fun.

Speaking of pictures, the yearbooks were released last Monday (hello grade 7 me). Cheesy one-liners galore. I don’t know how they can stand having their descriptions so—so ordinary. Those usual stuff like “She brings out the best in each blah blah blah…” or “A true friend that keeps you smiling on rainy days…” Ok, so imbento ko lang yun, but you get the idea… right? RIGHT?!? Thank God my former self didn’t like cheesy stuff (and I still don’t), at least enough to warrant a decent description beside my picture. Sure enough. I can’t remember what it said exactly, but it was something about knowledge and stuff. And nicely written right below it was “Academic Honors”. Hehehe.

I didn’t buy a yearbook, since I can see all that there is to see when I borrow one (of course that’s AFTER my classmates finished poring over theirs). My classmates were busy getting their yearbooks signed. I couldn’t write properly because “Academic Honors” was hogging the space, and the marker was rather thick too. I don’t know about them, but if I had a yearbook, I’d want them to sign with a pen cause it’d be a lot less messy.

Seeing our Grade 7 batch makes me think of old friends, old faces that left for different schools. And though I didn’t enjoy that year as much as the others did, it still sucks to miss them.

Kalbaryong estudyante

I'm done studying with Bio... well, an hour ago. I am now overly-saturated with Bio facts, seeing as I am repeating EVERYTHING I've just reviewed in endless refrain. Bacteria are unicellular prokaryotes... they reproduce through binary fission... viruses are specific... A lytic infection occurs when the virus causes the cell to burst... In the lysogenic cycle, a prophage may insert itself into the cell's DNA and be replicated along with it... It does not do damage yet... Protists are unicellular eukaryotes, with the exception being the multicellular plantlike protists... Phyla of Animal-like protists, or Protozoans are Zoomastigina, Sarcodina, Ciliophora and Sporozoa... Phyla of Unicellular plant-like protists are Euglenophytes, Pyrrophyta, Chrysophyta and Bacillariophyta... The Phyla of Multicellular plant-like protists are Rodophyta, which contains phycobilin, Phaeophyta, which contains fucoxanthin, and Chlorophyta, which has chlorophyll... Athlete's Foot is a deuteromycete, while wheat rust is caused by a basidia... Botany means "graze" in Greek... The three kinds of stems are woody, herbaceous and specialized... Specialized stems include thorns and tubers... Rhizoids act like roots in bread molds... Fungi are gross... You get brain cramps from too much brainy exercise... When your head hurts, it's either too full or too empty... Exessive hot air gives you a fat head...

I just need to study English. Crap.

I miss my old English teacher. Nawawala na respeto ko sa English... and to think it used to be my favorite subject.

Oh yeah, Angel and Muriel got their opinion article published in the Philippine Star two days ago. Yay for them.

BRAIN DAMAGE

I tried watching Pinoy Big Brother a while ago. Oh, so THAT'S why they need to edit stuff. Cause it's BORING. I wanted to throw something out of sheer impatience and irritation at this ridiculous show. And talk about mindless viewers. HOW CAN THEY STAND THIS THING?!?

Our class was mobbing Melinda a while ago during departure. Okay, note to self: candies = berserking. Huwag na huwag kang mamigay ng kendi sa buong klase. It's scary, I tell ya.

Kyla was unusually sugar high at Lunch. Weird. And she's scary when she's in that mood. She kept distracting me from doing homework by threatening to drool all over it. Disgusting, I know, haha. Nahawa rin ata si Sher. Inaasar na naman si Zarah. But then again, kelan pa bang nagpalipas ng araw si Sher nang hindi nang-aasar kay Za?

Must go and study now for Algeb. Streeeeeesss... Fatiiiiiigue... Brain damaaaaage... Resistensyaaaaaa...

Di ko na kaya to.

Pointless I tell you. Just pointless.

CLE and Stat are vying for The Most Pointless and Most Boring Subject award. And I can't really tell should be crowned that title. Dati akala ko CLE... It was just today that Stat finally crossed the line.

I hate you Stat!!!

I hate your graphical presentation whatchamacallits! Sawang-sawa na ko sa mga frequency tables! Ayoko na sa boses ng nagtuturo! At lalong-lalo na ayoko double period tuwing Monday!!!

Hindi ako magtratrabaho sa NSO pag laki ko.

Hmph.

***

We had a cultural presentation today, featuring the international violinist, Reiko Otani and international pianist, Nene del Rosario-Villanueva. I loved Habana Filipina (?) by Vallejo and The Sea in Springtime by Miyagi. The students were well-behaved today, surprisingly. We got two encores because we gave them a standing ovation.

Tapos pagkatapos nun... antahimik namin. Ang tamlay tuloy ng lahat ng klase namin pagkatapos. Lalo na nung CLE ("And what will happen to da poor pelo-- este, fellow?").

We haven't started on our IP yet. I HATE OUR IP. My guts hate our IP. Which means it'll go badly, most probably.

Lab tomorrow. Sir Mark will have another disgusting experiment awaiting us. Woo... and I thought Biology was interesting... I hate you protists, bacteria, viruses and fungi!

Argh.

Confuse and divide. Then conquer.

The Venable Contract

I found this discussion while looking for that topic. As usual, I was too busy being awed by the flaming to think straight. (read the thing here: http://www.pcij.org/blog/?p=391 ) Oof... If this was a real debate I'd probably lose. >.< You don't admire the enemy during battle. It's distracting.


POSTED BY: benign0

ha ha! Anu mang panlalait niyo kay pandak, the fact remains that naisahan kayong lahat. It’s not the president who is ta-tanga-tanga, it’s the Filipino people — a people who can’t even get their own representatives (officials Filipinos ELECTED to office) to represent their will.
So far, the President has proven her skill as a politician (regardless of how one PRESUMES to judge her). Your little voices of dissent are fast fading. The sputter that you call a protest rally led by Madame Edsa Revolution herself is a foreboding of the slow death that extra-constitutional FIESTA activism is headed — down the crapper.

History is usually written in favour of the winner no matter how vile their ascent to supremacy. So pasensya na lang kayo. It’s only a matter of time before the Filipino’s world-renowned amnesia kicks in and new editions of history books that hit the shelves will tell a rosy picture of the years 2004-2005 to the next generation of Pinoy youth.

We’ve already proven our time and again how short our memories and how gullible we are. This is evident in how so many Marcos cronies and family members to this day make a playground of our little islands nation and thumb their noses at our muted outrage. Something I present in living colour in the following short article:
http://www.geocities.com/benign0/4-00_Leaders/despots.html

Stidi na lang kayo diyan. At kesa mag kamot ng ulo mag-damag wondering about how we were so efficiently blindsided, mag-trabaho na lang kayo.

To which Duck Vader replied:

So, Benigno, ano point mo: na tanga Pilipino? Ano solusyon mo - “Mag-trabaho na lang kayo”? You’re not contributing anything to the intelligent debate about how to identify and solve the problem — other than by maligning people due to what you perceive as your superior, although in reality largely regurgitated, ideas.

Admittedly, some of your observations are valid, but your analysis is very shallow and misses the real causes and solutions, and is often overshadowed by your racist diatribes. For instance, you say tanga ang Pilipino. My next question to you is: Bakit siya tanga? Is it genetic, preordained by God, or by some other factors. If it’s “cultural” as you say, then culture is created by one, or two things (if you agree with Edward Wilson) — the environment in which a person livesand genetics. Now if it is genetic, e di wala na talagang pag-asa. But if it’s the environment, the next question is: what factors? and how do you change those factors considering the vested interests within the political and economic elite against changing it as it perpetuates their dominance?

Sige bata. sagutin mo yan.

I wonder if this Duck Vader guy is a debater. Interesting analysis of things... parang debater style (to build an argument: "just keep asking SO WHAT?...").

There are two things I notice about discussion boards in general: 1. In case of intimidation, be condescending. Never let them think you're inferior. 2. Big words and long sentences in the English language, coupled with observation number 1, makes people think you're smart. (Either you really ARE smart, or just smart enough to appear intellectual... hmm...)

...

I'll be watching The Corpse Bride on Saturday with Ate Kit and Ate Chi! Woo~! Hopefully. If mom lets me. No one in my family is interested to watch. Boo.

Ate Kit: What? Really?! No way!
Me: Yup...
Ate Chi: You're born in the wrong family, dear.
Me: As far as the movie goes, I do think so...

If all goes well, I'll be gone in the morning, just in time to spend my afternoon on Bianca's birthday. Happy birthday dearie.

Yan naman ang dyaryo

The newspapers were weighed today. Ours totaled 2333 kg. I dunno... is that a lot? Hmm...


Erm... let's play Spot the Abnormality. Tell me if you've found it.

Shpedoinkle goodness. Teh heh.

Must eat dinner. Or else they're gonna make me do the dishes. Bleh.

~bleep.