Live Via Satellite

So long, Farewell, auf Wiedersehen, Good night!

2012-01-06T15:57:00.000+08:00

Because I needed a fresh start: chasingmoons.blogspot.com

At a crossroads

2011-10-09T11:57:00.002+08:00

Well I've been down in the dumps too much lately that I might as well marry Oscar the Grouch. I don't think it's quarter-life crisis, I think it's just one of those evaluative processes my life goes through. At this point in time I know what I want and what I don't want. I've gotten better at dealing with myself in my entirety. I think I'm growing up; I've developed this cut-throat policy that when I'm done, I'm gone. It's not a cheery thought, but I think it's exactly what I need. I won't put up with considerations and excuses anymore--not even from myself.

Singing My Life With These Words: Goodbye

2011-09-25T23:46:00.003+08:00

I'd rather die holding one another
Your hand in mine, it's easier to suffer
I understand why the world is out of color
one life ties to another

Cause the world won't turn if the sun won't rise
And the stars won't burn in a broken sky
And the wind won't surf if the ocean's dry
And my heart won't work, if you say good-bye

...if you say good-bye my heart's in trouble

(Goodbye, Mute Math)

This is why some people don't fall in-love. We break bones, hearts and sometimes, lives.

And I'm not ready to find out how true this is.

Exactly.

2011-09-18T09:27:00.000+08:00

"HELL-- is the addiciton to the wrong drunk boy and his sorrowful guitar."

(“Poem 3,” a blackout by rephemere)

I have gotten to that point where memories are funny little things now and they don't matter as much anymore, except maybe for those days when I hear your name and remember you--remember this--and wonder if everything is going well for you. Meanwhile, I feel like I am living a brand new life that's destined for a brand new heartbreak. But for the moment everything is peachy keen.

It all sounds so funny now. Such is life.

Magical, Me

2011-09-11T03:39:00.001+08:00

There are only a few momentous occasions in one's life in which one is allowed to spread news of one's pride and joy, and one of them of course is the moment when one finds out that one is magical after all. Guys, I am actually a wizard.

Nah, not really. But I am fortunate enough to be one of the million beta-testers who will be the first ones to experience Pottermore, a Harry Potter site that introduces what Harry Potter author JK Rowling calls an "online reading experience". Of course, being an avid Potterhead I've followed Pottermore since it exploded all over the internet, to the May 6 official announcement, and until the soft opening of the site which had fans solving clues in a span of seven days in order to gain early access to Pottermore.

It should come to no surprise then that I registered on the first day.

My Pottermore username! It's relatively great considering others got some pretty horrendous usernames

Unfortunately, "early registeration" does not necessarily mean "early access" and I found out about it after weeks of disappointment and self-doubt. A few things that I had considered: 1) whether or not I actually did the registration correctly, 2) whether or not I was misled into thinking that I was already registered, or 3) whether or not I am doomed to be a muggle for the rest of my life. I consoled myself by thinking that patience is a virtue and that its possible that none of this is my fault---it is Pottermore's, mwahaha.

Or Errol's, poor thing. He can't get through Windows--if you know what I mean.

FINALLY the much awaited Pottermore mail arrived and it was just in time since I've been having a horrible week at work and needed a distraction or a good pick-me-up. I was so happy and excited, I had to keep myself from dancing all over the room. I have to say that the getting into the site was well worth wait because of three things: Diagon Alley (and getting your OWN wand), The official Sorting Ceremony and the Exclusive Content.

Since the world of Harry Potter only got more and more fascinating as the books went on, Potterheads such as myself can't be blamed for wanting more. Information on characters, places and events as well as theories and opinions surrounding the books are some of the things that every fan is waiting to have in Pottermore. The exclusive content available so far, in this respect, does not disappoint. JK Rowling shells out some of her thoughts about certain things she decided to include in the books, as well as explain why she chose to write some of the things in her book that way. She also wrote short stories on some of the characters like Vernon and Petunia Dursley, Ollivander and Minerva McGonagall. These short stories allow fans to appreciate or re-evaluate characters in the series as well as indulge in Rowling's writing.

But more than the exclusive content, what really makes Pottermore truly exciting is the chance to "experience" being a wizard. One gets to brew potions, cast spells, get and use magical items and of course, get sorted into a house! I can now totally say that I am a legitimate student of Hogwarts--I was just schooled online, like any modern witch.

This is my wand. (Let us pause for a bit to giggle, because I am immature that way. Hooray!) It is made of Sycamore with Unicorn core and it is slightly springy. According to the explanations of Mr. Ollivander, my wand is fit for a wizard (or witch!) who is open to exploration, adventure and much learning. My wand core is not powerful, but it is loyal, and my the wood from which my wand is made from is one of the prime wand woods. I am very happy with this wand. I want to have it made someday--it would be totally awesome to have a wand of my own.

One of my proud purchases in Diagon Alley is the beautiful, beautiful Globe of the Moon that I wish existed in real life even just as a Harry Potter paraphernalia. I know that buying it on Pottermore will not make me have it in real life or help me in any way shape or form in Pottemore, but I just had to have it in my trunk. I am now 13 galleons poorer than the rest of the "first years" because of my impulsive--but totally non-regrettable--buy.

Since I am not allowed to screen-cap some of the stuff in Pottermore especially the storymaps (I made an exception for my wand and other stuff that are too momentous to not screen-cap) I posted a movie still of the Sorting Ceremony from the first Harry Potter movie. The Sorting Ceremony has been the most significant and exciting experience for me in Pottermore. Every Potterhead has waited for this moment. The last time I'd been as nervous as I was during the Sorting was when I was waiting for my acceptance letter for my university!

After 5 minutes which really felt more like forever, this is my house:

"Wit beyond measure is Man's greatest treasure"

Being sorted into Ravenclaw gave me mixed emotions. On one hand, I am very happy that the Sorting Hat acknowledges my pursuit for knowledge and that I am not one for dull things, but on the other hand, I was kind of disappointed to not be sorted in Gryffindor. Gryffindor has always been my favorite house--not because the principal characters are there--because Gryffindors always seem to have a zest for life. But, I am completely at peace with my being a Ravenclaw. After all they are a cool sort. I am only scared that I am never going to get inside the Ravenclaw tower and spend nights alone outside because I'm not witty enough to solve the password, huhu.

AAAAAAND, this is what my Pottermore homepage looks like! I'm looking to gain more house points, of course! But I found out that I am not stellar at potions (and potion brewing has a bad glitch) and I still can't duel because that part of the site has not been fixed yet. I'm excited to see the new developments as soon as Pottermore officially opens for the public! I am crossing my fingers that users can become prefects, interact in their common rooms, take O.W.L.S and N.E.W.T.S, and play Quidditch. Right now, I've finished collecting the books and am still finding other collectibles in the story maps. I don't know exactly what I can do with all my friends on Pottermore, but it's nice to meet fellow Potterheads. Add me up! Maybe we can exchange potions or duel someday. ☺

Oh, life.

2011-08-29T00:32:00.000+08:00

You get what you're given, it's all how you use it.

Sometimes, we all need lessons to learn.

That is how we grow, that is how we change and that is how we are.

Thank YOU.I will never lose my faith in you.

Of Imperatives and 'Ooh, Shiny'-s

2011-08-07T22:51:00.004+08:00

Yesterday while eating mac n' cheese and watching the Mythbusters put themselves on fire, I realized that beyond the occasional "I'm doing something wonderful and worthwhile" I have no real imperative to do well at work other than to have money. My real dreams--which consists of traveling my country and the world, going on adventures and having coffee in a cottage in the terrace of a cottage overlooking the sea--are not really work-related. They do however, involve a sizable amount of money which I have yet to have.

Following the logic: JOB--> MONEY --> DREAMS, I've decided to make a list of the things that I will work hard for and tacked it somewhere inside my planner. It's like working to put your kids through school, except this time it's a little bit more selfish.

I've been ticking them off lately, one by one, and I must say that the satisfaction that they've brought me kind of perplexes me. A part of me is not at all too pleased at being extremely satisfied with this material indulgence (being educated in a catholic school that reminds you time and again to be a woman for others will awaken this part of you) and on the other hand I feel very proud of myself for being able to exercise a sort of independence. It was only now that I've truly realized that I am living my life and everything is up to me...

I am buying myself my own clothes, buying myself my own dinner, buying myself a vacation somewhere for the long weekend... I am living. Present-tense, still, but living nonetheless and for myself. It's nice to enjoy that sometimes.

::♥::

On the top of my list?

I'd like to give it to myself as a present for getting on with my life. I am frivolous and proud that way.

To The Boy Who Lived, I Lived Too.

2011-07-16T18:32:00.002+08:00

"There is not a child in the world that won't know his name."

If there was one thing that I couldn't have made more obvious as a skillet to the face (or by my numerous posts on my online accounts about it) is the fact that I am The Girl Who Loves The Boy Who Lived. Harry Potter has figured so heavily in my life that I could not imagine myself NOT talking about it. I cannot explain it really---it's just something I'm sure about myself and never needed to explain. Until now, that is. I just wanted to understand why I feel so broken-up over this and not simply chalk-it up to my childhood ending. Many, many things (that I should not probably mention because it isn't something you're supposed to say and birds won't fall out of the sky if you didn't anyway) have ended my childhood years ago. But I've never felt this sort of personal devastation before--just an odd re-orientation with the world. And as much as I loved books, I never cried over one because it ended , for I was almost always sure to re-read it if I loved it so much. And I have re-read Harry Potter more than enough to almost recite it from memory. (in point of fact, I have already frayed the edges of the 3rd book's book bind) The point is, it's ridiculous to love a book this much.

Especially since Harry Potter has literary snobs sneering at it and saying that Le Guinn and Tolkien wrote better. But we who read the book, whether we may be pedestrian readers or trained literary appreciators, are nontheless enthralled, amazed and completely in love with it. I remember opening the book with a nonchalant expression which quickly turned to fascination in a matter of page turns. I couldn't literally put the book down. I felt betrayed the moment it ended--like how one would feel when one had to get off a particularly enjoyable theme park ride when the theme park has to close. It is as if you are forced to abandon a world that you're recently discovered is truly you home.

I was immersed in a where my imagination went wild and where every possibility seemed endless. And the best part about i is that reading the book made me feel like I'm talking with a friend about a boy named Harry Potter who lives down the street. In other words, I was in another world but it wasn't so unfamiliar, in fact, it felt completely and ridiculously real. The best part about it is that I am not alone in this world---I found friends who love Harry just as much as I do. In fact most of my friends (who to this day I share an enduring friendship with) I got to know through Harry Potter. There's Mara, who introduced me to Harry Potter; Patti, who understood my numerous pairings and would later on, become my purveyor of beautifully written fan-fictions. And there is also Karla, who I shared a secret world revolving around Harry Potter with during the summer of 2002. There are numerous others, you can check my facebook wall for all of them, but just the same Harry Potter was the corner stone of my friendship with all of them.

And it is only now that I realized how I also grew-up with harry Potter. The changes in Harry was happening to me just as well (maybe, not the bits about finding out that you are a piece of Voldemort's soul or receiving a low O.W.Ls but you get my meaning) and it endeared me all the more to the book. I could understand what he was going through. And in the moments that I sympathized the most with him, he was no longer a character in a book but someone alive---a friend.

Ultimately my sorrow is not for a series ending or half-pf-my-life finally reaching the point where I need to stop waving wands and instead start checking taxes. My sorrow is for a world becoming just a world once more. True, the stories will remain for anyone who gives a care to listen to it but it will be different somehow. They will feel like memories---graying where they are ensconced. Maybe once in awhile they wull light-up and regain color, should another heart disover them, re-live them and love them just the same.

So I do as Albus Dumbledore and the many wizards did on the night Harry Potter survived--I raise a glass to the beginning of a legend. here's to you Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, I thank you with all my heart for I lived too.

"I believe in God, it's his fan-club I can't stand"

2011-07-10T21:25:00.004+08:00

I would most probably go to hell for this...if I believe the Church.

The problem is I think I don't anymore. Believe in the Church, I mean. I believe in God, the Father Almighty, Creator of Heaven and Earth and his Son, Jesus Christ but I don't know what to feel about his fan-club. And based on what 14 years of Catholic Education has taught me, you've got to respect the Club. Apparently, they're the only club in the world that can give you a pass to heaven--except that it comes with a price. And this was very kindly reminded to us through Homily last Sunday.

But first, let me bring you up to speed. (Pajero Bishops and the PCSO, if you wanna know)

Now back to your regular blaspheming.

"I have many parents wondering about their children." began the Priest. "They wondered about what they did wrong to have such wayward children. They tell me that they provided everything for them--good food, good education and all other things so that they may live a comfortable life, but they squandered it all away by doing drugs and dropping out of school. I told them that the problem isn't with them--the problem is their kid." He goes on and associates this with the Church and its current Church-goers. "The same is true for the Church. We do everything for you. We save you. But in return you hurt and blaspheme us by pinning awful rumors on us. Maybe if donations to the church or the money collected during the offertory is large enough to cover our expenses, and not just measly coins and spare change, then we wouldn't have to approach the government and file a personal request."

Um. Excuse me...what?

I am used to the usual tirade of the church--that and its increasing hostility. But this kind of, to put it very bluntly, stupidity is beyond me. I was almost tempted to just turn around and leave (and it would have been very easy to do, considering that I was just a few steps from the door as there were surprisingly quite a number of people attending mass and therefore we couldn't get a pew to sit on). How could you say that and preach the Infinite Love of God? Isn't the whole point of calling God's love as abundant, everlasting and above all, Unconditional is because he does not ask for any amount--NOTHING AT ALL--in return? This is the God that I come to know and to believe.

We are too human to realize that we are, human. That no matter how reverent we are and no matter how "holy" we come to be, in the end we do not live forever, we do not endure, and we do are nothing in the face of what we do not know. The Church, no matter how holy it is, is built with human hands and with human spirit. The people who run it are not exempt from the pitfalls of sin. The people who run it are not exempt from anything at all, truth be told. Which is why it angers me that someone has the gall to point the finger at the constituents for lacking generosity to the Church, as if it were the Eve that had let it to taste the apple. I'm sorry but if I recall my theology correctly, Adam was not being force-fed at all.

And if I remember my theology correctly then I I remember that the ministry of the Church is a ministry of love. It is a ministry that looks to the poor not merely with pity but looks to them as having dignity that should not be dampened and oppressed. It is a ministry that does not shun away the sinners, rather, eats with them, converses with them, and embraces them. This is why I resolved to be a Catholic and to still keep my faith. I still believe--only know when I recite the Creed and it comes to the point where I have to say "I believe in the Holy Catholic Church", I bite my lip and silently cross myself instead.

Shoebox Sunday: Wasted Hearts Remembered

2011-07-03T15:08:00.001+08:00

The boy, his letters and all that poetry. A few years ago it meant so much more to me. I would save them and store them in places where time will be kind to them, in the vain hope that they will retain the memories and the feelings that came along with them. And it would've worked too, but I just don't remember the way I felt..

...about that letter was written in the library, he had hoped that he slipped it under my notebook sneakily but instead failed miserably.

...about that mix-tape.

...about his carton of cigarettes (!), which extraordinarily survived the flood while all my precious books did not.

...about that picture. The only one we will ever have.

Isn't it a cruel thing, to have a heart locked-away for keeps and not have it beat anymore?

Isn't it ironic that I ran around the block to arrive at the same corner

2011-06-24T01:25:00.001+08:00

The thing with life is that it is always unfair: you'll find your long lost earring only to lose the other, somebody else wins the lotto with your numbers, the good ones are taken and we never seem to get what we want--unless we give up a leg or an arm or worse our hearts. The point being that everything in life is a gamble, only there's no science or math to go around it. It's actually funny, but not when it happens to you.

Because when it does you don't laugh and instead get ugly and broken hearted. You complain about how the cosmos turns the wheel of fortune and how it twists the hands of fate not realizing that if you want something you have to fight for it. You can't always wait for the apple to fall from the tree because out of the many apples that might, chance is never to sure which one you really, really, really wanted.

But you also learn that there is such a thing as temperence and that having exactly what you want may not be exactly what you need. So if you have to choose, choose carefully and wisely. There will be no turning back only a moving on.

Also, the moral of the story is always forgotten. And that ultimately even understanding which advice to take is not singular and simple. Yep life is not fair but you can get lucky.

(Published using BlogPress)

One generation's length away from fighting life out on my own

2011-06-17T23:27:00.002+08:00

It's probably that time of the month where my hips bulge and I spend an inordinate amount of time awake at night thinking about food or going on trips to the kitchen to rape and pillage the refrigerator that got me bursting into hysterical sobs, or it might be my thoughts about my parents. Lately, I've been thinking about how scared I would be to see them go. I'm too young to be even thinking about that. But on days where life seems to be happening to everyone else but you, there is this strange propensity to think that you are running out of time to make something happen, to say the things that you always wanted to say and to keep the things you love forever...

..Like going to your first job interview in weeks and your mom decides to cancel her important meetings to drive all the way to where you are, pick you up and drive you where you need to go because she wants to see you go off into the world and hold your hand while you swallow nervously and comb your hair until it falls into strands in your hands. And despite you screaming in rage that you're late and that you should have gone alone, she chooses to keep quiet and holds your arm because you're tottering in your 4 inch heels and she doesn't want you to fall.

...Or you in the passenger seat of a car singing a Celine Dion song way back from when you were ten years old and had yet to know the lyrics of the song so you made it up as you sang along, and your dad was there singing along too. This was your favorite--yours and his. Twelve years later and you still sing-along and he does too--except his voice hitches somewhere in the middle of the song because he realized that your singing has gotten better, you finally knew all the words and yes, you are definitely older. And one day you'll be riding in the passenger seat of another car and singing a song with a guy that isn't him.

The only reason that I don't want to grow up is because

I have to make it on my own

in a world,

that may or may not have them anymore.

What do you do when you're on your way and you can't stop and you realize that sometimes, 'making it count' just doesn't do it anymore?

Porch days drowning in coffee

2011-06-09T13:42:00.000+08:00

I feel as if I am an ad
for the sale of a haunted house:

18 rooms
$37,000
I’m yours
ghosts and all.

Richard Brautigan

::♥::

Fell in love with Richard Brautigan's poetry as the sky darkened and the rain fell. There is something about the rain that makes one's heart fresh and open on paper. Maybe it's the melancholic way the water dances before it reaches the ground or the way it makes us feel so alone when the cold seeps in our bones, that every sentence and every word becomes real and . Funny how a little perspective makes everything ring true.

And the sky said,

That's how you keep it raining folks.

I have a sense of humor. Life is my punchline.

2011-06-03T21:01:00.000+08:00

So, I've been doing a little growing-up lately by waking up early and doing the laundry. Even I surprised myself yesterday, when upon waking up I decided to immediately make my bed and sweep the house. Either I'm a changed woman or the real me was abducted by aliens and was replaced by a cleaning robot. But I still pretend that I am a secret super hero, dance all over the place and kiss my stuffed owl good night so I still must be silly old me. If the aliens decided that slob-y me should be changed, then they could have been a little nicer and do away with the childishness. But, oh wait, I take it back. I still want to talk to walls like it's normal and sane.

Sanity, Insanity and so many deviations aside, I realized that I am not just waiting. I am also preparing. For what? The future, I suppose. There are so many things that I owe myself to do, to have and to learn and right now might be my only time. Although I hope that it doesn't take long.

Life always has a way of making adjustments that may seem like they're set backs but really you're in on a joke. The everyday humdrum is the joke. The fact that you live is the punchline. Get the humor and try your hardest to laugh. It's worth it.

What We Did At The End Of The World

2011-05-29T17:31:00.000+08:00

(More Baguio Pictures!)

Baguio is such a lovely place. I got to ride horses, row a boat, write, eat as many strawberries as I pleased, use a fireplace and for once never complain about how hot it was to do anything. Ah, good times and a much needed vacation indeed.

But we're back and as much as I would like to go back to the highlands where everything seems young and unending, the humdrum of daily life is needed too where everything is in hope and everything is still in waiting.

If the world should end

2011-05-21T23:29:00.005+08:00

Things come and go, you know.

We move like tides--rolling and steady,

reaching for the sky until we come crashing down

and we live

like the moon

ever yearning, ever changing, ever transient.

For the things that are yet to work out in my life

2011-05-08T22:48:00.008+08:00

Here's a confession: I have dreamed up a lot of things--many of them great and promising. But that was all that they were, dreams. They were the rainbows in the sky, the unicorns and the fantasy lands. The painful truth is that we live and breathe in the ocean of reality and dreams are like shafts of light passing through. They illuminate the murky waters and make things shine, but the ocean remains the same. It's really the swimming that gets you through and not the dreaming.

And I have wanted, at times desperately, to make them real--as tangible as the way that I have envisioned them. But something happens and they fall short or fail. I have witnessed the many deaths of my dreams and like a woman who finds herself barren I have given up on the idea that I could and would one day make them come true. It isn't that I've gotten hopeless, rather, I think I've gotten tired.

I've heard menacing stories about the real world. And I've seen what it can do. A friend who is more idealistic than a beauty queen's vision of the whole world holding each other tightly had surprised me with his piece of advice to another friend who sought his comfort. He promptly crushed her hopes and dreams by telling her that it is how the real world goes. He's seen it. It can crush spirits--and it certainly crushed his. Hearing his advice made me wonder, is it too be bad to have dreams?

I don't know if I can answer my own question. I am yet to find out if the world will break me the way it did my friends or the others that I know whose day to day lives are far-away from what they imagined it to be.

But I do know this: I walk with hope. I maybe tired and unwilling to do anything right now, but I have not given-up until I have lost hope. Love should with hope. Life should end with hope. I'd like to believe that dreams too end in hope.

and they said...

in the end dreams are something you wake up from.
But I say, it all depends on how you take the metaphor.

February came too early

2011-05-01T00:52:00.007+08:00

I missed out on the Royal Wedding live streaming because real life interrupted and it brought booze, dancing, friends and interesting conversations along with it that it's so hard to resist. Luckily, we live in such a day and age where it is possible to see a Royal Wedding a day after and far away from London, so I am free to indulge the secret Brit inside of me.

Oh, the Royal Wedding! So beautiful! I only wanted to watch it because I have never seen a Royal Wedding in my lifetime (and let's face it, the Royals--outdated or not--can still fascinate) and a little British culture. But never because I thought I would witness a fairytale. But halfway through the broadcast I was seeing Disney and all the fairytale stories in front of me. What about culture again? Never mind. Look, they're waving at the crowd! Hello, from my living room!

Weddings, Royal or not, are lovely. They are lovelier still when the Husband and the Wife are clearly so in-love. Seeing the happy faces of a wedded couple light up with so much love reminds you of that childhood optimism for happily ever afters. And William and Kate are so akin to those Princes and Princess I used to want to be when I fall in-love. In fact the Royals have never been lovelier and in-love to me like how the future King and Queen are now.

Kate: Oh, William. You're my Husband now.

With this much fluff and glitter, I'd like to think February came too early.
(Also, it's May Day Eve, folks. Don't forget to look into the mirror for you might find a future for you. "Mirror, mirror show to me Him whose woman I will be.")

::♥::

The Woman living the fairytale. So beautiful. ♥

Princess Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge
Such a Fairy tale on her own.

I do not know how to be a girl

2011-04-28T08:51:00.005+08:00

You would think that after 22 years of being in this body--growing tits and all--I would know HOW TO BE A GIRL. And I sort-of believed that years of having male friends and hanging-out with them will give me an idea of how to behave around them without having to be the bro with breasts but I guess, that's not really the case now.

Thing is last night I had an awkward social encounter with a guy that, for the sake of censuring this post, is the kind-of guy that most girls won't get the chance to talk to on an everyday basis. I invited him over to the table in the middle of my story about my drunken time in a posh mall, thinking that sharing stories should be a friendly gesture but apparently it wasn't. He sat down--which was something that I and the other members of my table, did not expect. After more stories, he excused himself and went over to the other table to talk for a bit and then left. At that moment 50,000 raging elks began to stampede through my brain chanting, "What have you done, KRIX?"

Guilt-ridden with my social blunder I decided to send him a message on facebook that sounded a lot like a little girl hanging from some man's pant leg and he kindly replied to my message--which is something I did not expect as well. And now I have been plaguing myself with the problem of whether I should reply or not. AND OH LOOK MY BRAIN HAS EXPLODED ON MY PLATE OF FOOD. Lovely.

Why is it so easy for other girls to be pretty and enticing to other boys while I am here all awkward and fumbling and forever failing. Somebody throw me a book with a detailed guide on how to breeze through this whole boy-girl thing. I AM NOT EVEN ATTRACTED TO THE GUY--although he is handsome and charming and has no problems with girls. Unlike me. Oh, dear.

I regret being born this way, fuk u ledi gaga. huhu.

Trying to direct the winds

2011-04-26T17:44:00.004+08:00

All we ever do is wait.

The truth is I'm getting tired
Isn't anyone getting tired, too?

Pictures from Tagaytay, April 12

A good dose of Science Fiction

2011-04-26T17:29:00.002+08:00

The Reading list: The Awakening by Kate Chopin, Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett (a re-read), Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger (another re-read), Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury, Sphere by Michael Crichton (currently reading), Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton (recently finished), Journey to the Center of the World by Jules Verne and Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde (both also re-reads).

I love cheap bookstores and books on sale. I was able to purchase all these beauties under 500 pesos, which inspired me to re-read some of them despite having already done so years ago. There is nothing quite like the feel of pages in between your fingertips...nothing quite like the feeling of a book. Most purchases are science fiction because I am in love with it and there is nothing like getting lost in wild imagination. Gentlemen like Verne and Crichton really get me. My heart pounds at every twist and turn and my senses tickled with the unknown.

Nowadays, everybody needs an alternate universe or two.

I know I do.

Look at what fell out of from the sky while I was sleeping

2011-04-18T11:39:00.002+08:00

I HAVE A MOON LAMP! Thank you dear Aunt! Thank you London! Thank you IKEA! Thank you Universe!

It's been making me happy and giggly and insane and...JUST REALLY HAPPY!!! I will just stare at my lovely moon lamp and happiness will come my way. ♥

"I will get you anything your heart desires," the king said. "Is there anything your
heart desires?"

"Yes," said the princess. "I want the moon, if I can have the moon, I will be well
again."

The Lonely Hearts' Band

2011-04-17T00:32:00.009+08:00

If you've ever had a broken heart or felt that slight twinge somewhere in your chest cavity akin to a heartache, then chances are you've played a song or two in hopes that the feeling would be explained or at least, elaborated. For music, as Shakespeare had written is the food of love. Music is love's language--the only thing that can best convey it.

The Script is one of those bands that do exactly that: convey your feelings in dramatically phrased words running along hard beats. And though their lyrics are not exactly genius material---it is honest, open and raw, which is more than enough for an aching heart. Sometimes the most poetic way to say that you're hurt and that your heart is breaking is to tell it like it is. The truth is honest that way.

The best part about this band is that they get better live, and that for all the broken hearts and tears they sing about they have the energy of men who just found love. They are receptive and warm and very humble. I have a new found respect for the band for being able to rile up the crowd despite having such "sad" songs.

And now some obligatory pictures of tonight's concert (which is not a lot because I tend to forget that there's such a thing as a camera when I'm screaming myself hoarse and singing along like a drunk man):

and that moment where they took a picture of the entire stadium...

The best part of the night: The encore performance of Breakeven with everyone singing out loud. For a moment it was as if no heart was really lonely after all.

"Enjoy illusions lad and let the rocks be rocks"

2011-04-14T21:06:00.004+08:00

Finished reading A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guinn in time for graduation season. I have been meaning to read this book for ages, but the usual piles of political theory readings have drowned me before I could get to it. But nonetheless, here we are, and I could say that the wait was well worth it. I was mesmerized, hooked and absolutely enthralled. Ursula K. Le Guinn is such an amazing writer with an imagination so colorful as to paint a whole new world and insights like pearls in the ocean: found deep within and strikingly lovely. Also, the book was such a timely read as it is about growing-up and confronting who you find in the process. Very apt for someone like me who is about to confront the world and find out if I survive or succumb to my own shadow...

Although many readers of Le Guinn do not enjoy Harry Potter, favoring the portrayal of the former to the latter, I must say that I don't find one story superior over the other. Le Guinn's writing is undoubtedly more vibrant and poetic than Rowling's, but I would not say that Rowling's work does not have its virtue and merits. Harry Potter has its life lessons to impart and is own world to get lost in. I do not think one is greater over the other. I am a fan of Harry Potter after all.

Reading Le Guinn has brought a new excitement for worlds unknown and a deeper understanding of what it means to "grow-up". Moreover, Le Guinn allowed me to properly enjoy fiction again--propped up in bed, lights dimmed, critical brain numbed and imaginations running high.

Awkwardly ambling

2011-04-06T09:48:00.002+08:00

The next phase.

“It takes courage to grow up and become who you are.”

and

“Don’t tell me sky’s the limit! There are footprints on the moon!”

Words of wisdom to accompany me through. Getting old is weird.

Hello 22.