Photographic Memory

07/12 - This bird won't budge. It just won't.

Then after a few minutes, it pooped then flew away. It must've been too shy to do its business while i was there. Haha!



07/21 - The UP Concert Chorus bulletin board. Haha! Memories.
I visited them last Saturday. They were rehearsing some choreography for their upcoming UPBeat Concert. I remember those times when I was the one leading choreography rehearsals, tough but fun.

I will be watching on August 11 with my gf and also former UPCC, Liz, and also with a few more UPCC Alumni.

07/25 - (One of) Bryan's send off party(-ies). This one at the Ponte Fino Hotel with the MF Finance Dept. Bryan (who is also one of my housemates and badminton buddies) is the guy I'm pointing at. He's off to the land of the merlion to earn loads of Sing dollars and maybe learn a thing or two about GSAP. See you in December Don Bryan!

o7/26 - They say there's a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. I still have to check, but this looks promising!

:D

2 Partial Fantasy Book Reviews

I've begun reading 2 books.

One is WICKED. The story of the life of Oz' Wicked Witch of the West. The musical play was highly entertaining, that's why I bought the book. Surprisingly though, the book was of a different interest point completely. It humanized the characters of Oz, interestingly so, that you would forgive the slight inconsistencies with the original Wizard of Oz story. Elphaba, the wicked witch, was a nerdy, eccentric, sometimes bitchy, sometimes crazy protagonist. Her friendship with Glinda, and the other students, came very naturally, well, as naturally as it could have been for a green-skinned girl. The story is about politics and racism, animal rights and human rights. It was actually a very serious fantasy novel. I'm only up to around the middle of the book, and Elphaba hasn't actually displayed any super powers just yet (i'm actually beginning to think she won't be showing any), but I'm looking forward to finishing it.

Next is the new Harry Potter, Deathly Hallows. The first few chapters blew me away. Very cool. I won't give anything away, (and those of you reading this, don't tell me anything!!!) but I assure you, it's a great book, so far for me, at least. :D

On a side note: I'm on duty this weekend. x-p
Visit me in Batangas.

Grand Canyon

I have a Grand Canyon National Park mug on my desk. I got it from my UPCC Tour in 2003. We were in Arizona at the time, and our hosts took us on a road trip to see the Grand Canyon. We had a concert that finished late the night before, but we had to wake up early because the trip would take a couple of hours. I remember my roommate and I even had to sleep over another host's house. I barely slept that night with my adrenaline from the concert still going and my anticipation running high.

Our jaws dropped when we got there...The Grand Canyon.

I remember it well, the overwhemling enormity of it. Trees looked like specks of dust from where we stood at the edge of a cliff. A 2-lane road at the bottom of the canyon looked like a piece of pink string.

I remember the air was warm, but not scalding. I remember seeing whole cloud shadows on the walls of the canyon. I remember just staring, not believing my eyes.

I took a lot of photos of course. In hindsight, it was a bad idea to wear my then new orange shorts with that red long-sleeved Gap shirt. :x I looked like a Halloween pumpkin with a red stem. Haha! The photos were great but they were not able to capture the overwhelming size of the place. Pictures have borders. Damn.

Remembering the Grand Canyon. A nice getaway from the hustle ang bustle of daily life. I miss traveling.

Pisay

This year is the 8th year anniversary of my graduation from Pisay. I still remember my 5th year anniversary in 2004. I was really excited to go back and see how things have changed since I left. But not a lot of my batchmates shared this sentiment. A lot of them said they didn't want to go because they had nothing to show for the 5 years since they graduated. I was, at the time, still in school, not nearly finished with my Mechanical Engineering in UP, but I wanted to go. So I went.

I have only a few memories of Pisay, and I wanted to go back and try to see what else I could dig up from my subconscious. I suppose high school went by too fast for me...

I arrived in Pisay a small unknown kid from a small unknown private school in Pasig. The year was 1995 and I was the first and only kid from my elementary school to pass the entrance exams. High school was a challenge for me, especially the first year. I had to deal with commuting to Quezon City everyday (from just walking to school), the lessons (Algebra! waahh!) which everybody seemed to already know about except me, my not so popular status with my classmates, and of course dealing with the pressure to excel... "You're the cream of the cream of the crop!"

But it wasn't bad the whole time. I did make a lot of really good friends, some of which I have until today. And I did get to put in my resume that I graduated from Pisay. Haha!

I'm thinking of going to this year's Alumni Homecoming. I know that not a lot of my batchmates will be there, it not being our 5th or 10th year and all, but I still just want to visit anyway. What the heck.

Aureaus Solito, award winning Director of "Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros" and Pisay alumnus, made a movie about Pisay during the Martial Law era. It will be part of the Cinemalaya Festival. Here's the trailer:



Am I excited to watch it? Hell yeah. Hope I can, if not in CCP, then on DVD or something. Haha. Seeing the school uniforms in the trailer was enough to convince me that I needed to see this movie. :p