Going back to '08

It has always occurred to me that I'm missing something in my pursuit in passing actuarial exams. It wasn't quite obvious when I took the first two but when I sat on the third one, and failed twice, I knew there's a keypoint I wasn't grasping. 

My latest guess is I'm not inspired. 

It's not the I'm-not-inspired, I-need-a-boy-crush kind of thing. In fact, in the matters of the heart, I rate a screaming A.  I think it's the inspiration to learn this field that was bugging me all along.

So my latest attempt to cure my un-inspired path to actuarial science is --

A lifetime membership to UP Alumni Association

Maybe this isn't what I really need, or maybe I only need the annual membership; but suckit, being in UP feels great. And having to show a valid UP ID to the gatestoppers feels great, not to mention legal.

There, the first time I used my UP Alumni ID I knew exactly where to go to.

The UP Main Library Social Sciences Section, home to most of my solitary college moments.

Coming back was magnificent. The experience was homey and just as it was more than three years ago. The library felt the same, SocSci section felt the same, even my favorite spot of the long table felt the same, the comfort room even. I wished to find the comfort room to be at least a bit improved but to no avail.

I think the only difference I noticed was that the guard in the entrance now has a desk, unlike three years ago.

It was great to be back, the familiar smell of dusted old books and the coolness of the high-ceilinged library reminded me of the promise to learn, unceasingly.

I have to thank my HS experience for the saying I had never forgotten through these years.

“Never let your education interfere with your learning.”

And yes, this shall be my final push. Tell me, how many attempts are you willing to make before you know it’s time to give up?

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I'm falling 24

I didn't know when I started making lists. There was a time when I didn't make plans. But no, I could not remember the last time.

And those lists of things to do before turning a certain age, is clearly a bummer.

Yep, 24! :)

 

So I've fallen 24 last Friday. And falling this time feels uninhibitedly good.

And I'm loving Lighthouse Family again.

"Don't you think it's time you started

doing what you always wanted."

- High

"So it's best that you don't try

holding back the time.

Are you ever gonna be quite satisfied?"

- Postcard from Heaven

"This is my idea of heaven, 

why can't it always be so good?"

- Lost in Space

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The Hunger Games and that ittle thing that made it grand

Yes, I joined the Hunger Games bandwagon; you see, I really didn’t have much choice. 

Early this year, I got so depressed with news that immediately hit home, and all I’m left with is a patiently waiting Hunger Games book in my desk drawer. It was looking at me like it knows exactly what I needed. 

I spent the whole day, the ENTIRE day dating Suzanne Collins. I was enthralled. And for one thing, I really couldn’t put it off, because when I do, my mind would just go survival mode with what happened in real life. And would immediately plan what I must do next. I didn’t want that; I couldn’t have that. 

So for one day, I immersed myself with the world of the Games. 

The Film

I wasn’t really much of a fan of novels-turned-films, reading and watching the other. I only read the first installment of the Twilight series, while Harry Potter fad is different, as the film took effect years after I read the books.

But reading and watching HG were different experiences altogether. I must say reading it before watching the film made me appreciate the story in depth, at the same time I can point out the parts they could have left out and vice versa.

The Good,

I really loved how high-tech the Games were depicted (manipulated terrain for one thing), my imagination hadn’t gone that far while reading the book.

The characters were really remarkable: Stanley Tucci was amazing, how Haymitch looked like was almost the same as what I’d imagined him, Jennifer Lawrence is really admirable as Katniss. And I didn’t really find Josh Hutcherson as attractive, but he turned out quite right in the end.

I think the movie overall is silent. And for the most part, the silence was breaking. But the silent reaping? It worked very well for me, I found it really intense.

The Bad,

Watching it in the big screen, I almost got a headache with the blurred, fast fighting scenes. I just wanted the fighting scenes to be over once they started.

While I was reading the book, I got really excited when Katniss sang for Rue. I thought it can be a great cinematic scene. Just like in The Lord of The Rings, one scene I could never forget was Pippins song while war scenes were being displayed. I thought Katniss’ song would be a very good way to depict the harsh reality of the Games, producing quite a dramatic interlude… But hey, the movie for the most part was in first-person—

It was in first-person and though there were parts where first-person was the best option, like Caesar Flickerman’s interview where it made Katniss’ emotions quite an experience. I personally think it can do better than the first-person narrative. For one, the tributes show-off to the judges would make a great scene too, and maybe help the audience not to confuse the tributes a bit.

and that particular detail I loved the most.

Prim remembering to tuck her shirt’s tail after her name was called out –

was priceless.

It was something I can totally relate to.

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You’ve got to love the lover

Some things we don’t talk about

Rather do without, and just hold the smile…

Remember when I asked you of a part of your life that you feel have been pulled straight out of a movie? Well, I have a list.

You should know ours wasn’t my favorite though.

Yet there we were, in front of a college building so monumental, and so old, at the end of your three-day thinking ultimatum – and you said YES. And I was facing you, and I was supposed to look at you but I wasn’t.

You see, there were all these fireworks up in the sky behind you as you were talking. So I wasn’t really taking everything in. Only that you said yes, and that thin lights of bright colors were mutely bursting in the black sky.

No, ours wasn’t my favorite. But among others, it by far, had its happy ending.

...Falling in and out of love

Ashamed and proud of

Together all the while…

I want to live deliberately. I want to write and learn and walk through historical and scenic places I could have only dreamed before. I want to lose and find, and pick myself up like nobody else can. And only then will I return, or – Do you want to come with me?

You can never say never

Why don’t we all know when

Time and time again

Younger now than we were before…

As a child, a punctuation I always loved is the ellipsis – the empirical three dots. Is it for a last line of a repeat-until-fade song, or an ending that lingers? Is it for words that are yet to be said after the actual conversation? Is it for the momentary pause? Did we ever seem to get silence quite right?

I don’t know what’s it for, I never used it anymore…

Don’t let me go

I’m sorry.

Don’t let me go

I’ll try.

Don’t let me go

Will you hold me?



Lyrics from NEVER SAY NEVER by THE FRAY

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Westlife The Gravity Tour 2011 + My Childhood Loves

For the baby boomers, it is the Beatles.
For today's generation, it's Justin Bieber.
For most of us in my high school batch, it is the guy who played MVP in the basketball finals.
For me?


It is Westlife.



Westlife: My Childhood Loves

 

In 1999, I saw Westlife's cover of Seasons in the Sun and that particular moment started my fan-girling years. It was, in the most cliche I could get, love at first sight.


One thing I don't normally share is how I was most stricken with boybands at pre-teen years. Probably because boybands are like diskettes in an office talk. You can't really get out of the conversation without people commenting how old school it is.


Screw old school, here's my revelation:


I know, and memorize by heart, all boyband songs released in the country for years 1998-2001, I was in fourth grade then. I think it even spread until 2003 but I'm not so sure with that.


And though I am a self-confessed boyband fanatic, nothing rocked my little world like Westlife did. They're the only group where I would spend my hard-saved money for albums, posters and song hits (magazines). 


I remember I would spend my daily after-school time, not playing chinese garter with the neighborhood kids, but in front of the TV because that's the time a certain station would play a string of the group's MTV's. I also think that I became particularly well at memorizing facts they give high school students because I had a personal training in this feat way back. I memorized all of the boys' full names, birth dates, height, weight, what else -- history of how the band became what they were then. Name it, I knew all of those like I knew the back of my hand.


Seriously, without them, I would be a different person. Because if not for this boyband, these things below would have a different story.


If not for Westlife, I --

• would not have met two of my best friends. Cheers to over 10 years of friendship! 
• would not be writing. There were times I feel like boring my friends when I talked nonchalantly of the group; when this thing happens, I resort to writing my thoughts down in a diary. And that's how I met my hobby love, writing when no one's there to listen.
• and I wouldn't be a dreamer, a believer and an optimist like I ended up to be. Being crazily addicted in my teens, I am just glad that Westlife sang of love, believing, hope and not anything negative. Being that young, I would have eaten up anything they have supported.

Last September 29, after 10 years or so, one of my oldest dreams came true. I got to see them, hear them, sing with them LIVE.






I was here! - a decade old dream

Setlist include (in order):
 When You're Looking Like That, World of our Own, What Makes A Man,
Safe, Home, My Love,
Coldplay's Viva La Vida, Rihanna's Only Girl, Black Eyed Peas' The Time, Lady Gaga's Bad Romance,
Seasons in the Sun, You Raise Me Up, I'm Already There, Flying Without Wings,
What About Now and Uptown Girl.

Being a momentous night for me, I was prepared to shed tears of joy anytime during the night so it was a surprise that I got through the show without getting too emotional. Their last song, Uptown Girl is one of my favorites. Upon hearing the beats, I jumped up to my seat and my friends did the same. (And I knew those who were still comfortably seating in Upper Box B did too!) I can't remember the last time singing Uptown Girl with much fervor prior the concert, oh I bet it was years. But singing it at that particular moment, belting my heart and lungs out, together with Westlife and 10-11,000 Pinoy fans -- it was surreal.


And even though I wasn't crazily addicted as I was before, that night, I felt a surge of emotions in me and I knew literally, that first loves never die. And that this boyband still has that special place in my heart, albeit that part is old and a little forgotten thru the long years.


I didn't anticipate it was possible, but I left the concert a big fan of Westlife once more. I knew that I would be singing their classic songs, and perhaps the new ones too, days, months, even years after that night.  

Screw old school.

Two things though:
I really wish they sang my favorite Westlife song, Swear It Again and, 
I miss Bryan. :'(
.
.

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Byebye, Goggle-fly

"The point is you can't trust graduation goggles. They are just as
 misleading as beer goggles, bridesmaid goggles and that's-just-a-bulky-outdated-cellphone-
in-his-front-pocket goggles." - Robin, The Exploding Meatball Sub, HIMYM

It's one thing to be familiar to an odd feeling when someone bids goodbye, but having a name for it, that's another story. 


And an easier one at that.


See, I've been all too familiar with that nostalgic feeling one gets by the end of something or ending a relationship with someone.


Think high school graduation, when all of a sudden everybody, and I mean everybody seem nice: the bully who taunted your huge pile of books that you look like a hunchback he says, and yes even the teacher who threatened you with a C and you freak out fearing you might not graduate. 


The people, the things that made the journey miserable in the end can miraculously transform themselves to a nostalgic, longing, even close to happy memory.


Add on sepia tones in the tune of that Sarah Mclachlan song --


          I will remember youuuuuuuuu


-- and there's your graduation goggles.


How often in the last day of school do we get to hear the "how I wish this will never end" thing?


Seriously.


In high school, it can even be sweet. We can all be too forgiving (and forgetful) of the past that we remember only the good things. But then later, on several parts of our lives comes the goggles, unwelcome-d and resentful.


- resigning from a crappy job


- breaking up with a cheater of a boyfriend


- leaving home


Don't get me wrong with the last one eh.


The thing is, whoever said "doubt means don't", perhaps hasn't heard of the goggles yet. 


Because in the end, we can't really trust the goggles, no matter how good they feel, because sometimes goodbyes are necessary and the goggles, they're never really enough reason to stay, most of the time, they're the actual reasons to leave.

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