Fickle Cattle

Kickstart

2012-06-18T09:12:00.003+08:00

I haven't been blogging lately, I know, and I plan on changing that soon. I stopped earlier this year primarily because I was a little burned out, and blogging was starting to feel a lot like work, which I never wanted it to be. Hence, the five month hiatus. But I'm feeling a lot recharged lately, so now I'm raring to start writing more creatively again. Hopefully I haven't lost too many

Plagiarism, Anonymity and Cowardice

2012-02-18T17:01:00.002+08:00

Someone plagiarized half my blog posts and when I asked her to take it down, she left anonymous comments on my blog calling me "immoral" (paraphrasing here, she said worse things I'd rather not repeat) and my writing work "crap". Yay, a true-blue hater. I feel like such a real blogger. :-D P.S. I deleted your comments. If you can't even leave your real or internet name in a comment,

War Paint

2011-12-21T18:11:00.002+08:00

photo You start with the eyes, because they say those are the windows to the soul. A touch of mascara perhaps, some eyeliner, and slight dark eye powder to give you that smoky look. Then the cheeks. Bronzer, right on the cheekbones, to highlight (or create) sharper angles. A little red coloring, to mimic (or fake) a schoolgirl blush. Don't forget the lips. Full lips, but not red since you don't

Whatever Gets You Through the Day

2011-12-06T03:14:00.002+08:00

photo I was a freshman in law school when my friend Mike was accepted by a university in Australia for a master’s degree. He took up Finance, under a scholarship program given by a prestigious international organization. He had a boyfriend before he left, but they broke up because they both thought that they’ll be incapable of maintaining a long-distance relationship. We’ve been close friends for

Fickle Cattle is PBA's Best Personal Blog for 2011

2011-12-05T01:32:00.003+08:00

Great news! I won in the Philippine Blog Awards for Best Personal Blog! Thanks everyone for the well-wishes and support! :-) :-) :-) Promise I'll put up a post soon. Much love, Fickle Cattle Full list of winners here.

2011 Philippine Blog Awards

2011-12-02T21:36:00.000+08:00

Some good news for this blog... I'm a finalist for three award categories in the 2011 Blog Awards! Yay! And even better, there's no public voting component whatsoever. So I actually have a fighting chance of winning. :-) In any case, I've been nominated for the following prizes: Best Personal/Diary Blog Best Literature/Literary Blog Best Single Post for my blog entry "Clarity" Thank you

Winner!

2011-12-02T21:29:00.003+08:00

I know, I know, this took ten million years, but still... In any case, the winner of my blog giveaway (for the Diary of a Wimpy Kid set) is happyyeteccentric! Yay! To claim your prize, email me through my contact details above. Thanks everyone for joining!!! Much love, Fickle Cattle P.S. I used Random.Org to pick the winner. So it was absolutely random. :-)

Acting Workshop

2011-11-10T00:46:00.003+08:00

photo "Just breathe", he said. "Relax." It was high school, and we were in the middle of an acting workshop facilitated by an alumnus of the school. A theater actor, he was surprisingly mild-mannered and polite, although his hands would sometimes gesticulate wildly and flamboyantly when explaining details. At the moment, he was helping us "internalize", which I think is theater jargon for lying

Blog Giveaway: Diary of a Wimpy Kid Series

2011-11-07T23:35:00.004+08:00

I can't believe that my blog has been in existence for more than a year (first post was on July 27, 2010) and I forgot about it. Dang. In any case, I figure a celebration is in order, so I think it's time for a giveaway. Yay! I love the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series. It's hilarious and entertaining for both children and adults alike. If you don't know anything about it, here's the Wikipedia entry

Living for that Moment

2011-11-04T17:30:00.000+08:00

photo My hair is fashionably tousled, my jeans a perfect fit. I've put on some cologne which I know would evaporate as soon as I walk into the club. I wait for my friends, and once together, talk about how wasted we want to become, how utterly out of our minds we should be before the end of the evening. A couple of shots before going in. For courage. And because the alcohol they sell is too

An Old Conversation About Man, Personal Universes and Belief

2011-11-02T19:44:00.004+08:00

photo I was thinking about other stuff while I was in the train. Amazing how man is no? I mean, we make beautiful things, that's for sure. We make them in all sorts of ways; tangible and intangible. Like architecture and music. It's like man has the entire universe for options and when he makes something, he picks out distinct things to work with, and he ends up with something else that's

Five Ways to Enjoy a Crappy Movie

2011-10-21T03:48:00.003+08:00

After writing my piece on the Top 10 Things Wrong with Mainstream Philippine Cinema, I gleaned from most of the comments posted that I need not have limited my article to movies from the Philippines since, apparently, the world is full of stupid, crappy movies. Which begs the following questions: why is the world full of stupid, crappy movies? If they are so stupid and crappy in the first

The First Morning I Did Not Think About You

2011-10-18T00:13:00.002+08:00

photo It was a typical morning. I woke up, late as usual, the sun already near its zenith, its rays streaming through half-open blinds, the day as hot and as humid as it can be. I forgot to turn off the TV. A Discovery channel host was talking about whales, his voice a deep, monotonous drone. I stood up, my head slightly aching from oversleeping, my thoughts still a blur, my knees, wobbly and

People are Made Up of Stories

2011-10-17T03:43:00.006+08:00

Image taken here. Dear Fickle Cattle, I'm a new fan of your blog. I haven't even browsed through each tab and entry yet. I just saw a link from a friend in FB to your blog and I became an instant fan after I read your open letter. Honestly, I cried, I could relate to it so much. I hope you don't mind my telling this story. I realized I was gay towards the end of college in UP Diliman. I

I Don't Think I'll Die Today At Least. Hopefully.

2011-10-14T01:41:00.006+08:00

Image taken here. I don’t go to the doctor. At least, not voluntarily. In fact, the only time you can make me go to a physician is when I’m in enough pain that I start dreaming about death. And even then I’ll probably need to be unconscious so you can carry my limp carcass to his clinic. Taking into consideration the fact that I live in a cramped, smoggy and dirty city probably teeming

Top 10 Things Wrong With Mainstream Philippine Cinema

2011-10-10T14:45:00.003+08:00

1. Most Filipino movies do not have characters, they have caricatures. Characters in Filipino movies are usually ripped right off the pages of Scriptwriting 101 and are rarely based on real people. There’s the Cheating Husband, the Long Suffering Wife/Mother/Female Figure, the Vile Mistress, the Kontrabida (“Villain”), the Young Ingénue, the Love Team, the Macho Playboy Action Hero, the

Thoughts on Fashion Photography and Real Life (A Reaction to Yolanda Dominguez's "Poses")

2011-10-07T02:41:00.003+08:00

Images found here. Yolanda Dominguez is a visual artist and performer from Madrid. I ran across her work, Poses, from an interview of Yolanda Dominguez by a blogger here, and I thought it was one of the most interesting performance art pieces I have seen in a while. Now, like I have already detailed in a blog post before, I am not a big fan of performance art, or at least the type which feels

To the 13 Year Old Boy Who Shot His 17 Year Old Lover at the Mall (Notes on a Murder-Suicide)

2011-10-04T16:39:00.002+08:00

Image taken here. It was with a peculiar, and perhaps less than noble, fixation that I read about your crime. A crime which was extraordinarily morbid, and sensational. And I gathered the following details: You were thirteen years old. You stole a .22 caliber pistol. You wrote a suicide letter; short, but it got the message across. You went to SM City Mall, Pampanga. You met your seventeen

A Letter Regarding A Few, Unimportant Things

2011-09-30T00:34:00.005+08:00

Image taken here. Dear Fickle Cattle, I came across your blog a week ago. I cannot remember how exactly. What I do remember is that part where you said you "love email." I smiled at that line, thinking about how I, too, am fond of emails. I decided then to write you one when I get the time and when I sense a need to talk to someone. Are you wondering now why I opted to talk to a stranger instead

A Conversation About Friendship Between Friends

2011-09-26T09:39:00.004+08:00

Image taken here. "It's not that I didn't like him. I did. Like him, I mean. But finding someone to be friends with is a lot like finding someone to fall in love with, you know? Sparks are important. Even with friends. Otherwise, you'd be friends with someone whose company feels a lot like work. And really, that's not something I want to get into right now. I just can't be friends with

Congressman Castelo's Anti Planking Law, or the Congressman Who Said I Think I Can, Therefore I Will

2011-09-20T16:56:00.003+08:00

(Taken here.) Quezon City Representative Winston Castelo seeks to ban “planking” or the act of lying down like planks saying “life and limb are pretty much at risk” after student protesters disrupted traffic in Metro Manila Monday. Really Congressman? Really? I don't think this even deserves an intelligent response. What is this, an Onion article? “Parents and teachers have reason to be

Most Awesome Post EVER.

2011-09-19T01:30:00.002+08:00

When I started writing this blog post, I realized I had nothing to write about. Absolutely nothing. My mind was a completely dark, bottomless void with nothing in it except a black hole that sucks all of the ideas that could possibly come out as a blog post into a tiny hole the size of a pinprick which possibly hurtles all of these obviously fantabulous ideas through space and time and into

How to Become Disillusioned with Finding Love

2011-09-15T10:08:00.002+08:00

Image taken here. Watch Hollywood romantic movies. Believe that everyone has a one true love. Etch into your soul the conviction that you will find that one guy who will inevitably accept you for everything that you are. Who will love you unconditionally and without question. Create a list of the qualities the love of your life must have. Set high standards. Reach for the stars. He must be

A Few Changes

2011-09-14T04:45:00.006+08:00

Image taken here. Just wanted to make a quick post to see if you guys like the changes I've been making in this blog: 1. I have a Blog Roll. If you've already linked to this blog, or if you want to exchange links, send me an email at ficklecattle[at]gmail.com or leave a comment below. 2. I included a Contact Me page. Just so it's easier for you guys to send me a message in the future. 3.

An Open Letter to an Old Friend

2011-09-09T19:32:00.002+08:00

Image taken here. I don't remember when we first met. We were young definitely, but outside of the faded images in my head of you running around the bright hallways of our school, I couldn't remember much of anything else. You had hair then, I think, which resembled your mother's: uncontrollably wavy, and a deep black. I also remember you being a bit of a snob. Even as a six year old, you had