alive!

Kainez! This would be the third time I'm writing this entry. Ugh. This IE version really sucks. I think it's because the Windows XP I borrowed was fake. The freakin' internet browser kept getting errors! Ugh, it's like no one really wants me to write another entry- and boy that doesn't help the fact that I'm particularly lazy at this. Anyway:

Now that's a tad more than a month since my last entry. Dear blog, not that people actually care but we gotta tell our story. Shoot. Surprise, surprise! I've been busy- and a little less sulky about my academic limbo- since the last update. I've been busy ehm... socially. And I've never been particularly and outlandishly gregarious in my entire life. December came with dinners here and there. Birthday parties, christmas dinners, movie outings, and the whole shebang. And yeah, I'm currently on poverty mode, losing cash as the new year arrived. But I'm not actually sulky anymore and that makes a whole lot of difference.

Oh and I spent the new year alone in our apt, uh here in Manila. I stayed here alone and left my parents and aunts and cousins in our other house, a long way north from here. I spent it alone and I was insanely exhuberant about it. December 31 ended with me alone in the apt. TV on. Windows closed and curtains down. Not that I was particulary doing something nasty. I'm too boring for that. I hear that pollution gets 10x worse during new year's eve because of all those firecrackers. And boy, it's beyond evident in this part of manila every new year. You can actually see faint smoke sneaking in underneath the closed door. It was beyond scary this time but I managed to get used to that foul fircracker smell- and locked myself in the bedroom after an hour of exposure. By 2am I was in bed alone drinking my fake wine (carbonated grape juice 'coz I have alcohol allergies). Ominous, I thought. Alone with fake wine and all. But then a few days ago I read that Rats will be lucky this year.

golden compass half-truths

I was chatting with a friend over Yahoo Messenger and another friend sent me this:

"gm!! Do not watch the movie, "The Golden Compass." The movie "The Golden Compass" starring Nicole Kidman is coming to theaters December 7th. It is based on the trilogy of books by atheist Phillip Pullman, of England, and is geared towards kids. He wants kids to denounce God and Heaven but he does it in a very subtle way that parents may not pick up on what his true intentions are. In a 2003 interview, Pullman said, "My books are about killing God." Please don't take your kids to see this movie!! Send this to EVERYONE you know!!! We need to get the word out about this movie and make sure that no one supports it!!!You'll be shocked, I'm sure. His beliefs are "dumbed-down" in such a way that even adults might not realize the deception before them,-gm"

You creepy fundamentalist Christian groups! It's as if imagination is banned in churches; and that discourse with the powers-that-be in established religion is wrong. Whoever composed this message seriously hasn't read the books. And yes it is true that the books eventually lead to killing god (remember, a merely as a character in a fiction!!!), but they aren't about saying religion is false. Don't they see that this movie can finally start an era for common people to engage religion? To ask what they should recognize as existing beyond this world? To really start a dialogue with dogmas various religions have fed us? I seriously have problems with these fundamentalist Christians. Urrgh. Don't they see that this movie (with the trilogy His Dark Materials) opens a chance for a more enlightened outloook in life for both believers and non-believers?!

rebels in makati... again.

They're at it again. I swear I didn't vote for Mr. Trillanes because I knew something like that would happen. And, ladies and gentlemen, this time it's another luxury hotel. It's the Manila Peninsula after Oakwood 3 years ago. I swear I was laughing my heart out when that CNN newscaster said in passing, while reporting about the Makati "siege", that "these guys sure like to get comfortable". Well, it seems like that. I mean, why hotels right? I don't get it. If he wanted to get a proper press conference, why didn't he do it in prison. That would sure look more romantic- perhaps heroic. Sure, we don't like the Mole of Asia but I really feel like people are tired after 3 Edsa's. So Mr. Trillanes, and to that other general who had been involved in other coup attempts in the past, you failed- and will fail I think in calling for people to support your agenda. Or perhaps we need more saintly personalities to lead us to the streets...

And the media. The media! They're at it again, glorifying their role in the country's democracy. Sure we monkeys know things because of them but sometimes, yes sometimes, they get to be the ones inciting anarchy or suicide, in the case of that well and wrongly publicized supposedly suicide case in Davao. And, ABS-CBN seems too fond of romanticizing their job, that "they were just doing their job to get the truth"; that they shouldn't have been arrested, etc. Whatever. Although true, it's not like the arrest of those mediamen was in anyway tantamount to tyranny or martial law. And boy do they convey such maudlin sentiments over the television... Perhaps, Maria Ressa missed a lot on Marcos real martial law.