What bunnies do

Eco Sonfest

We won. :)

The privilege of being in Ethnic: you get to see the backstage drama. I got to watch MC and SHS practice before the performance. Ansaya. And I got to skip the Chem test. Seriously, I wasn't prepared (abuse of privilege, I know, but just this once please?). I think my anxiety was oozing out in my dreams and leaking all over my prom night optimism; I dreamed up another prom disaster. Oh goody.

I'm still scared of Chem.
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Batch encounter: Friday to Saturday, overnight
It was okay. It was fun. In some parts at least. Let's see... I liked everything about it except for my group. Yak, ansama, pero masyadong maraming DOMINATOR to the max e, but they're okay and pretty fun too, although I observed that they didn't like taking responsibility for the not-so-fun things. (BOOOOOO.) Damn, kulang na lang ako na lahat magligpit ng kalat namin e. Bah, whatever. Ganun naman talaga pag teamwork, as Ate Inna said.
Centers were excellent. Ang galing. Ansaya ng kay Jodie, yung runway thing, kahit tipong dapang-dapa na kami sa wobbly shoes niya, at yung bench may slits pa, so sorry ka na lang kung sumakto dun yung heels mo at matumba ka.

It was tiring, all in all. (I can't feel my legs! MY LEEEEGSSS!!!) They cut the game halfway through, so we just went to 6 centers. Imagine if we continued to 12. We'd have dropped dead in the corridor.
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We went to Ate Angelica's debut later that night... sa Paranaque. So... very far. For once I was the first to assemble my outfit. Meaning that I was successful in reincarnating a vague 70s look, the party theme. My sisters were having a tough time battling their wardrobes. By that time I was already looking through Mom's old stuff: ukay-ukay, home version. I tried to help them out; Bianca was already looking silently dejected, which is a dangerous situation because it spoils the good mood.

So we went, and we ate. I took it as some sort of prom simulator thing. You know, because of the formalities and all.

Social interactions still make my head throb unbearably. Dinaan ko na lang sa baso ng gin pomelo at brownies.
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I caught a bit of that arthouse film, Dancer in the Dark, a while ago. I didn't get much of it, though I was surprised to see Bjork star there. She really is pretty.
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I see Lemony Snickett has released a new book (A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Beatrice Letters). I wonder how that will help in illuminating the plot. Or maybe there's no need to help it along, since The End (http://www.fullybookedonline.com/eventdtl.php?id=16) is coming anyway.
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English test today.

It was UNGODLY.

I think there is too much of The Lisbo in it-- I was clueless on the other items. The only thing recognizably Ms Manahan in it was the essay questions; at least that I had an answer to. I think. Or maybe I was too flustered to realize that I was stretching the butter too thin on the bread?

Bah.

What friends are for

It's been nearly a month since that "talk".

It still feels hollow and lonely, not having a best friend anymore. Of course I still want my best friend back. Who wouldn't? But.


Time pulled us apart; I just had the guts to close the book, once and for all. I don't think carrying that much emotional baggage around would be healthy.
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I miss my friends.
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I've been assigned as the head of the Aerial subcommittee for the prom set. It's the big thingamajig hanging from the ceiling.

Very daunting task.

Tidbits

Did you know that there are people born with Aboslute Pitch, the ability to distinguish all notes just by hearing it, even those inaccessible to the ordinary man? Mariah Carey, Mozart and Steve Vai, has it, to name a few. People with this ability is 1 in 10,000. They also have to hone it at a young age, around 3 I think, or else it disappears.

Cool. What I wouldn't do to have that. Still, I distinguish notes pretty well so I guess I'm not that hearing-impaired.
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According to Wikipedia, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_and_the_Chocolate_Factory_%28film%29) there were several other actors interested in playing the role of Willy Wonka (Tim Burton remake): Rowan Atkinson, Brad Pitt (whaa---?), The Rock (huh?), Marilyn Manson... MARILYN MANSON!!! Good Lord. How freaky would Willy Wonka be if he did get the part?

Buti na lang si Johnny Depp yung napili.

Incidentally, EMO PHILIPS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emo_Philips) looks amazingly like Depp's Willy Wonka. It's the de mehn. De hair.

"I was boating with my sister and I said, 'Hey, do you want to go swimming?' and she said, 'No, I'm on my period, bla bla bla...' She takes all the fun out of shark fishing." -Emo Philips
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Something caused an uproar a while ago: Mom left the water running in the bathroom, with the tap full blast. Tapos eto naman ako, nasa computer, naririnig na yung tubig. Well... I was playing Caesar III, tapos medyo umaatake na yung mga Carthaginians sa LOOB ng city ko, so panic panic kaya hindi ko napansin yung tunog ng tubig. Kahit waterfall yung lakas ng tunog. Tipong... nagblend na sa background noise. Anyway, akala naman ng mga kapatid ko na bushfire sa labas. HAHAHA. So... ayun. We discovered Mom's bathroom with ankle-high water, some of it already spilling out-of-bathroom-bounds. What was worse was that the water seeped through the cracks and was already dripping downstairs. Right-o. Mopping everything up was very inconvenient, all the more so because we had no mop. It smelled of WET DOG afterwards.
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Ang gwapo ni Patrick Dempsey, hahaha, even if he's 40. Dr. Shepherd rocks! Panoorin niyo siya sa Grey's Anatomy. :)
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Misha didn't snooze through History last Thursday, surprisingly. I couldn't be sure of her attentiveness but she read the book (and make circles and marks all over it, which she purposely showed to me, to horrify my OC-ness). She asked a question, which spawned... SOMETHING. It wasn't a debate, but it was suddenly a forum of sorts, though not as alive. Well... or something less than a forum, because I was counteracting her "argument". We were just talking actually; no need for it to get messier by calling it a debate. We ran out of time, so Ms Henson had to postpone the thing.

I asked Mish afterwards "You're not cooking up some sado-masochistic gay love story, are you?"
She lit up, grinned at me and replied "How did you know?!"

Well. Can't say I haven't been through Ja for nothing.
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Has anyone seen Ok Go's Here We Go Again vid? The treadmill concept is seriously one of the best things I've watched! Ang galing. Pati si Dad naaliw.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCjSwr7zYtE
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Ok. I think that's enough Wikipedia and Youtube for one day.

You might want to check out www.uncyclopedia.org, courtesy of Misha's insistence. Word of Warning: don't believe anything written there.

Farrago

The carnival theme really got me interested (even if Broadway won), so I did some doodling, just to see how carnival-ish I could do some dresses.

(Again, resizing issues. Hum. Might as well take a nice good look at the really large versions. I took pictures of it; no scanner, must make do.)

Carnivale 1 Mala-ring master tong sang to. Circus na pala e no...


Carnivale 2 Hmm... rather Western. Notice the belt, which kinda gives it that feel. That's the way I see it though.


Carnivale 3 Clown-inspired; see the ruffles and the buttons. Halata bang sa CIR ko to ginawa?


I'd rather call these drawings than designs. For one thing, they're not that wearable, nor functional. Sure, I'd love to see them on somebody, but I think trying to design a dress needs a lot of consideration on body type, material, color, and if it's humanly possible to stitch them together.

But just in case seombody likes these enough, tell me and I'll give the drawing to you. Just in case.
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And introducing (finally!)...



PATRICK!!!

Yay!

And oh yeah, I renamed my bag Kiev (KEE-ev), after that Russian fortress or whatever. It was supposed to be Novgorod, another one of those fortresses but Misha was like "Wtf?! That's so long!" so there.

Mga pangyayari sa buhay-buhay

We did cooking in THE. TAPA. And it was pretty good, kaso lang ang dami tapos ang alat pa. Yung tipong magkakasakit ka na sa bato, kung hindi ka pa namamatay sa kakanguya. Magkaka-masel na kami sa panga pagkatapos.
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Possible prom themes have come up:

Broadway
Carnival
Heaven
Jazz

I voted for Broadway, because I think Jazz could be easily incorporated into it; I wanted to vote for Jazz too. The Carnival theme is also really interesting. I imagined some sort of Bilbo's-party-slash-the-May-pole-dance type of setting, which would be cool and more importantly, different. I would have given it my vote, only it seems more like a daytime theme. To me, at least.
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Ms Hebron's wonderful Chem project nearly killed us. Napa-overtime tuloy ako sa school; I stayed in the classroom trying to make myself useful until 5:00.
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Wednesday again tomorrow. There's something rather dreadful about Wednesdays. Maybe it's because I have the committee meeting (where I spend my time worrying on how to be useful) and my piano lessons (where I spend my time trying to make the fact that I didn't practice that obvious). Just the thought of it is enough to immobilise me, and I'm left groaning in the dark, trying to comprehend why I committed to such things.

Rightly put

I found this yesterday, using the Computer Room and Ms Vikai's absence to my utmost advantage. (Wonderful connection by the way. Very speedy, very efficient-- perfect for games and contracting all sorts of malevolent viruses.)

THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA FROM GREENHILLS (taken from inq7.net)

by Gino dela Paz (a notable writer. He writes well, with expressions and composition blaring modern yuppie with a hint of cool. I have a feeling I'll meet him someday).

I'm putting the article here for the benefit of those who cannot stand doing finger-clicking exercises on the mouse. Again, this is by GINO dela PAZ. I've put his name here loud and clear, so please don't accuse me of ripping it off because I've said before, it's by GINO dela PAZ (which clearly means the he is not me).

IN THE SIZE 0 universe of serious fashion magazines, editors roost on top of the carb-free food chain, designers act as cultural weathervanes, and models, photographers, and stylists turn the bubble-sleeved fantasy into reality. Of course, reality in this case is just the opposite. Glossies-and the billion-dollar industry built around them are not about who you are, but rather, who you can become. And where are the interns in this impossibly snotty mix? Hmmm. They’re probably writing books about it.

A roman à clef (a fancy term for a novel describing real-life events behind a façade of fiction) from the POV of the lowly-paid-but-most-highly-perked of them all, Lauren Weisberger’s "The Devil Wears Prada" ruffled not a few feather skirts when it first hit the stands in 2004. Some insisted that the main villainess, Miranda Priestly, was based on American Vogue editrix Anna "Nuclear" Wintour; this is a fact that the author quite predictably denied. Boo.

The what ifs

Now a motion picture, the book and its fashion scope have broadened beyond the grasp of a few insiders towards a wider audience. Question is, given fashion’s built-in elitism, can this story about a heroine being bullied by her boss then taking on the world on her own terms fly with those unfamiliar with Dior, Rochas, or Chanel? More importantly, will average Pinoys understand a movie with disguised characters? Ah, there lies the fun.

Don’t look now, but I’m sure local production studios and television networks are already drooling all over themselves cooking up their own "Prada" derivatives to piggyback the trend. But before they come up with their own hard-sell knock-offs, I want to beat them to it by throwing down my own silly, surreal version. Since fashion is the art of endless referencing, I’ve peppered this adaptation with way-too-familiar pop culture references to see exactly what would happen if "The Devil Wears Prada" became a major Pinoy movie.

The setting

A Violet Films opus directed by Joel Lamangan, "The Devil Wears Prada from Greenhills" takes place in a present-day publishing company somewhere in the high-octane business district of Caloocan. Located in a soaring three-story building, the office of the as-yet-unnamed fashion magazine enjoys commanding views of Zanjoe Marudo’s billboard across the street and a bustling FX stop below.

Come fashion week, the action shifts to Boracay, by the ferris wheel in D’Mall, which is a stand-in for the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Transpiring soon after is a killer carousel of shows with models wearing swimsuits from creatively faceless brands and performances by Bamboo, Kitchie Nadal, and the usual indie suspects. Instead of opening with KT Tunstall’s "Suddenly I See" like in "The Devil Wears Prada," the soundtrack of "The Devil Wears Prada from Greenhills" kicks off with "Bebot" by the Black Eyed Peas for a dose of pure, grating senselessness.

The cast

Trapped in social realism mode, the cast of this film will be made to look kawawa as usual to, you know, grab the sympathy of the masa who really, really look forward to confronting the same images of poverty they’re trying to dodge.

Leading the charge is Vilma Santos in the role made popular by Meryl Streep, Miranda Priestly. As the sacred cow at Kislap Magazine, her editorial moodswings trigger climate changes from tiangges in Metrowalk to department stores in Novaliches. In true OTT style, her cowlick is courtesy of Reyes Haircutters, complementing her it bag collection from Secosana, Leonardo, Hawk, and yes, Prada … from Greenhills. Toni Gonzaga plays her first assistant, Phoemily (rhymes with Emily), a dragon lady in the making who picked up a British accent by watching too much Veronica Pedrosa on CNN.

Starring as the intern who initially moves at a glacial pace but quickly picks up after a makeover montage is Samantha Melba. Adjusting to the character inspired by Anne Hathaway’s Andrea Sachs, Sam will rock a classy wig patterned after Claudine Barretto’s bangs in "Milan." His breakthrough role in this movie capitalizes on his sudden ubiquity in Pinoy showbiz, so he is also everyone’s understudy, playing whoever calls in sick and changing facial hair/Bench outfits/physical spasms every time. Or not, which further underscores the farce at hand.

Rounding out the powerhouse dramatis personae are Wilma Doesnt as Giselle Bundchen’s character; Melanie Marquez as editor in chief of Cebu Kislap Jacqueline José (pronounced Zsack-leen Zso-say); and Boy Abunda as Nigel, who in this film is called Bhoy. Acting in minor though equally crucial parts are Piolo Pascual as the insecure boyfriend; Epy Quizon as the gallery curator/best friend; Uma Khouny as the pal who can pronounce Nicholas Ghesquiere’s name correctly; Vic Sotto as the tapered jeans-wearing freelance writer whom Sam sleeps with during a moment of weakness in Boracay; Blakdyak as the emerging James Holt-like designer; the entire Eigenmann clan as the obligatory tisoy bit players; and Maximo Oliveros as the town loka-loka dressed in colors of the Pinoy flag.

Remember, the leitmotif of "The Devil Wears Prada from Greenhills" is fashion with a social conscience, so there must always be a subtle-meaning obvious-symbol of unfortunate Inang Pilipinas in every frame. Right.

The plot

Like David Spade’s "Just Shoot Me" only poor, "The Devil Wears Prada from Greenhills" is a tale about a mousy girl who comes of age after being exposed to a wicked superior, the dazzling lights of Boracay (Station 3), and the power of an ukay outfit. Vilma Santos ignites the screen as a ruthless fashion editor and force majeure at Kislap magazine, Caloocan’s only glossy publication. Her first assistant (Toni Gonzaga) struggles to get on her good-meaning bad-side and interviews another intern after the first two she hired turned out to be less than stellar. She has been desolée for that snafu ever since.

Along comes an unassuming barrio lass (Samantha Melba) who knows zilch about the publishing business but can belt a mean version of "My Girl." After graduating from university, Sam sees this as a mere stepping-stone to a hotdog endorsement. Showing no awareness about fashion but again, displaying a gift for grooming eyebrows, Sam gets the coveted lackey position "a million girls would kill for."

Vilma nonetheless treats Sam like garbage, commanding her to do seemingly impossible tasks like ordering tapsilog (extra garlic) when Tapa King was still closed, rebooking a return flight via Cebu Pacific when there was a typhoon in Tagbilaran, and finding the unpublished Pugad Baboy manuscript. A clear ploy to make our heroine quit a job that pays dozens of dollars, it, however, didn’t work. Sam soon finds support from one of the magazine’s senior editors (Boy Abunda), who gives Sam full access to the Kislap ukay-ukay.

The ending

With newfound confidence and an improved outlook, Sam now faces a series of conflicts. For one thing, friends notice Sam’s workaholic calendar, which doesn’t leave them opportunities to hang and stuff. As a joke, they hide Sam’s ancient Nokia 3210 just as Vilma was calling again, something that didn’t go down well with our intern. To make matters worse, Vilma leads Sam into stabbing Phoemily (Toni Gonzaga) in the back by offering the trip to Boracay. Sam knows that Phoemily had been dieting for months for the "event of the season," even giving up carbs like her favorite pancit canton with rice, just to fit into a dress from Lanvin, I mean Landmark.

But as Sam is whisked away to Bora with Vilma and sees all the glamour that could be hers, including a hook-up with a sleazy freelance journalist (Vic Sotto), Sam deals with a crossroads that could affect the foreseeable future. The turning point came when, during a tricycle ride home, Vilma tells Sam to stay with her at Kislap, saying "everyone wants to be us," but in Tagalog. To up the "Up yours!" denouement, Sam does not walk out on Vilma and instead, hijacks the plane on their way home, ramming it into the Kislap office while sticking out a size 6 ass, the new fourteen. Maximo Oliveros appears in the frame one last time before they roll out the gag reel and the end credits. Then, having the last laugh, Vilma does a throaty voice over from the beyond.

"That’s all."


Maybe he should make another one of these on Mother Lily's supposed movie-in-the-making, which is said to be ala-Desperate Housewives, Pinoy style. [Hay naku.]
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SURI EXISTS! And she is absolutely ADORABLE to the utmost degree. I love her. Mister Tom Cruise, you may be a total dunce but nobody can deny that you have good genes. (Of course, assuming that it IS your genes and not somebody else's.) Thank you for adding to the sum of the beauty of the human race.

I do hope this doesn't turn out to be some sort of feigned publicity thing. I mean, they're already into it DEEP. Both of them can't pull out now-- they've got a KID to think of. For Suri's sake, I do hope this is real.

Background check

There's some dude who added me in Y!Messenger, who I absolutely don't know. I did a run on his background check (via my sister's Friendster account; no, I don't do Friendster) and found that he's a friend of my "friend". He must be one of those people who like to randomly add people. Check out his link: PAOLO DONADO

See his DAPHNEY (his girlfriend) and her diabetes-inducing testimonials. Wooh, pati langgam mamamatay sa mga ganyan.

I lurked around, a little. Or maybe a lot. (I ran a check on Friendster, Google and Blogger.) I dunno. It's just me. I don't mean to pry, but I think it's fun doing research on people. For people like me who write a lot, looking at different strangers with different personalities helps you build up your character database, for future literary reference. At least that's one way I see it.
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I think Misha's slowly corrupting me, one day at a time. I actually gave my bag a name because she asked.

Misha: This is Lucas (pink stroller) and Basty (sling bag). What's your bag's name?
Me: Er... Patrick.

Patrick. It's supposed to be the name for my camera (Ja's got one, I've heard; she named it Craig). That's the first name that came to my mind when I saw it (it looked like a Patrick...); well, the first DECENT one. Between PATRICK or MELBY, I definitely choose Patrick. [Who wants to be stuck with a Melby?! Seriously, that's an unfathomably dorky sounding name.] So now I had to un-name my bag.

Me to Misha: This isn't Patrick anymore. This is... Charlie. Or No Name. Whichever you prefer.

Other than the naming thing, it's apparently up to Jannah and me to practice some violence on Misha (she's the one who insisted on it) whenever she gets sleepy, and I SWEAR, that's like... NINETY percent of the time. (Misha: Did we have that lesson last time? Me: Mish, where WERE you? Misha: Sleeping, I think.) She just... lulls off. On her own. Amazing.

Oh yeah, Misha also made one big family out of our row. I think we're married, Julie is our son (Me: Wala na bang mas iggwapo yan?), Milcah is Julie's... other half, JB is Milcah's sister and Jannah is our apo-sa-tuhod (gusto niya e). It's a little crazy but fun all the same: Me: Pakalat-kalat na naman si Basty! Pagalitan mo nga anak mo!

Eto na siguro yung tinatawag na BONDING.

Quick quick quick recap of last week. (Yes, I'm a delinquent, I know...)

FRIDAY (last Friday)

Recollection.
It was... unsatisfying. For me at least. I definitely didn't like the facilitator. Sure, he started out all right, being funny and all; we were amused for some time. But it came to a point (especially when all he did was TALK and TALK and TALK to cutthroat boredom) that it seemed as if he was merging philosophy and comedy into one big show, with the hopes of entertaining us and keeping us from sleeping. Ironically, I assure you, there is no FASTER way of kicking us to the dream world than this method. It all began to emerge as one big joke; you kinda get the feeling that ifever he'd make you draw some symbol and make you share to the class, he's laugh at you and stuff. As he spent his time winding and winding about things, we just SAT there and yawned our noses off. Ah, gone are the days when Father Edwin used to make us do weird things and make us cry because of warm fuzzy fuzziness. Gone are the days when recollections would seem like recollections and not some confusing seminar. Brother Donrich (his name) kept telling us that there is no god, to which we were like-- WTH!!!!!! I dunno... if he wanted to spark a debate to get us more religous, he should have said so; Instead we all exchanged looks and tried to figure out why he would want to convert us into atheists, and if so, what was his whole point in doing so.

Afternoon came and apparently he was still not done with his talk, so he was forced to speed things up. Well-- he cut everything else EXCEPT his talk. Okay, three minutes to read your palancas, two minutes to write, okay, stop writing, three minutes to reflect, open your eyes now, get your paper and write this; done, okay, close your eyes now, then pray... etc etc. Da heck. He made us close our eyes at one point and--
"Pretend you're in a dark room" --I suppose this is like Father Edwin's Who's-in-Your-Bus sobfest-- "... and you can't see anything... you feel scared, angry, frustrated... Then, you see this light somewhere faraway, faint... but it's there... you move towards it... and as you go along, you meet different people... your friends... YOUR FRIENDS!!! YOUR FRIENDS, WHO HAVE ALWAYS FORGOTTEN YOU, WHO ALWAYS PUT YOU DOWN, WHO ARE SO INSENSITIVE!!!" etc, etc. Kung ikukumpara sa Pamu-- HANEP! Mas malupet pa siya kesa sa Pamu. I sneaked glances at him to check if he's crying (medyo basag-basag na boses niya sa kasisigaw); other people beside me were already sniffling sniffling into their tissues. Did I cry? No. Because all of it, this angry acting and shouting, this-- this, MONOLOGUE, was by far the most RIDICULOUS thing I've ever heard of. And he went on like that-- for about a million years. Then he finally let us open our eyes for a breather. And then he made us close our eyes-- again. I stared at the greenery before shutting them (I didn't seat myself beside the view for nothing); afterall, I can never tell if I'll ever see the light of day again, with the rate he's going on.

Bah.

At least the mass made up for what the reco lacked. It was nice and wonderful, and if the day wasn't so upsetting and disappoint, maybe it would have actually been fruitful.

YESTERDAY

Computer time.

Ms. Vikai: Okay, to get an idea of what pseudocode means, give me words that start with 'pseudo'.

Erinn: SUDO WRESTLING! Ay. Sumo pala yun...

Haha, benta!!!

Bumalik na si Ate from Baguio. Pasalubong. Saya.


More updates tomorrow on last week. Naghang yung pc kaya nabura mga kalahati ng original post (GRRRR!!!).