"May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness.

I hope you read some fine books,

and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful,

and don't forget to make some art - write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can.

And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself."

(Neil Gaiman)

True, true, Mr. Gaiman. Everyone, let's all leave 2006 with no regrets. No coulda, woulda, shouldas to bring with us in 2007, okay? 'If it was good, then wonderful. If it was bad, then it's experience.' ;)

Let's remember to live our lives so we can achieve the best of benedictions - "If I had my life to live over, I'd do it all the same."

2007, here we come!

Happy new year, everyone! :)

DON'T QUIT

When things go wrong as they sometimes will
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill
When the funds are low, and the debts are high
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh
When care is pressing you down a bit
Rest if you must, but don't you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns
As every one of us sometimes learns
And many a fellow turns about
When he might have won, had he stuck it out.
Don't give up though the pace seems slow.
You may succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than
It seems to a faint and faltering man;
Often the struggler has given up
When he might have captured the victor's cup;
And he learned too late when the night came down
How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt
And you never can tell how close you are
It may be near when it seems afar;
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit
It's when things seem worst that you musn't quit.

-Anonymous


So again, my dear ladies, and to you, my dear reader, I hope you do take the road less traveled by, rage, RAGE against the dying of the light, and always remember that you are the master of your fate and you are the captain of your soul. :)

caution: smiley face overload

June 19, 2006. Without a doubt, one of the best birthdays I've ever had. :)

Never, as in never, did I expect anything like that to happen. A million thanks would not be enough to show you how grateful and overwhelmed I was. (My advisory class knows this. Hehe.) I still am actually. Grateful, overwhelmed, in awe, just plain happy. Euphoric, even. :)

Thank you for giving me something to look back on, something to replay in my head when things aren't going so well. Or even when things do :) I won't go into detail anymore about what happened in fear that I might leave something out. Don't worry, everything's still as clear as day in my head, and it will forever stay that way. The whole day was just bliss. Pure and utter bliss :)

The night before. The moment I woke up. The moment I set foot in school. All the classes I had that day. Recess. Lunch. Dismissal. The moment I got home. The mysterious doorbell. The moment I went to sleep that night. Even the day after. Everything was just so surreal. So surreal that I can't even write in whole sentences :)

It was an extraordinarily special day. Wow. Extraordinary na, special pa. Haha :) And yet it still doesn't define how special, in fact, that day was :)

I am truly blessed. I am. From the very moment I was given that great opportunity last year, I knew that this was going to be something. It didn't have to take a birthday to realize that. My dear ladies, you inspire me. Thank you. :)

5, 4, 3, 2, 1...

Goodbye, summer. Hellooooo, SY 2006 - 2007. :)

"Modern communication enabling technologies will only heighten your sense of desolation by making you more keenly aware of the fact that no one is trying to call." -WKW

He's really a genius, that Kar-wai. It's funny in a painful kind of way because there's truth in it. How many times have you heard a person say "Ay. Walang nagmamahal sakin" when he/she checks his/her cell and sees that there are no messages or missed calls?

While we're on the subject, let's take a look at texting. I myself have fallen victim at times to its codes. I can get all paranoid about a lack of punctuation or a smiley face. How sad. It's annoying how a "u" with an umlaut (I don't know the ASCII code for this) or even a period can mean the difference between "Everything's fine and dandy" and "There's something wrong." Can't it just be that we're being grammatically correct? (Oh, don't even get me started on how texting has slowly deteriorated the literacy of its users, especially the younger ones. I did a whole paper on that back in college.)

Sometimes, I have half a mind to throw the concept of having a cellphone out the window. It just gets us into trouble.

Plus, it's sad to think that the very device that's supposed to promote and enable communication can also be the exact device to bring people apart. Tsk.

Sing with me now.

...and isn't it ironic? Don't you think?

postcard perfect

Let's do this again. :)

m:i:3

i heart philip seymour hoffman. you da man.

Props to J.J. Abrams for creating an adrenaline rushing, edge-of-your-seat, and witty (there were some good and funny lines in there) film. It, of course, seemed very Alias-y at times. I was half expecting Sydney to come out. Even some of the characters were very reminiscent of the said Abrams show. Then again, you can't really do away with token characters in these kinds of films now, can you?

I thought there were one too many cars (among other things) that were blown up, but hey, it's all about shock value, right?

After watching the film (actually OBB palang,) you realize one thing: M:I:3 IS Hollywood.

'Nuff said.

Opening the freezer door is heaven.

...and the heat deserves yet another entry:

I was watering the plants awhile ago, and I could hardly resist turning the hose on myself. Yeeeesh. If only I weren't in my home clothes. Hmmm... Maybe next time I could wear a swimsuit. Err... Riiight. That's when I'll know that the heat has really gotten to me... and so will the neighbors.

It seems I'm getting a bit more irritable and lazy because of this heat. *sigh* I'm really not a big fan of this kind of "warmth."

Aside from the obvious, do you have any other tips on how to battle this hot, hot, hot, (and did I mention hot) weather? Preferably ones that I can do in the comfort of my own home. Or at least somewhere close by. Thank you.