Sorry if I haven't satisfied your voyeuristic cravings in the last 13 days. Weep no more, folks, the unannounced half-month hiatus is over! (Like you care). Haha!

Of course, I know that you knew that the hellish final acads stuff kept me busy all those days.

A little over an hour ago, I finally submitted the sort-of investigative report required in my J 101 class. Even while I was still gathering information, doing interviews and all, I realized I really do want to be a journalist! When I started writing the article, an alien tingling sensation kept my fingers tapping the keyboard and flipping my notes. I was hungry to know the whole story and dying to tell everyone about it!

Now, I'm officially through with the first sem. No more papers, no more exams, no more nerdy things. I'm FREEEEEE!

Yeah, yeah, that's how ecstatic I am. In fact, I'm having lots of plans before I go home on Monday. Er, just two plans, actually. I'm watching Tim Burton's Corpse Bride tonight with some housemates. And tomorrow I'm attending a three-day retreat at Samar Study Center near ABS-CBN. I was supposed to attend an earlier retreat, but the article I told you about and a long-overdue exam ruined my schedule. I'm even supposed to have gone home today! You see, my younger sister is vying for a beauty title tonight, and as kuya, my duties include cheering her up, saying things like "you can do it" and "oh, you look better than the others". Last May I did just that, when she competed against older contestants in a local pageant. She won third place.

But first, I still have to buy a plane ticket. I can't wait to go home, be with my family and friends, and get to touch that camera! That CAMERA!

I met with my English 30 groupmates after lunch yesterday to settle matters regarding our project. While on it, two of my groupmates (who were girls) suddenly whipped out their cigarettes and started smoking. They don't look like human factories, but I had learned many years ago never to generalize smokers as men in rugged clothes or old shrunken-cheeked women.

The asthmatic that I am, I don't and have never smoked in my entire life. Well, that is if we only consider cigarettes. There was this extremely foolish time during grade school when my cousin and I made a stick and tried to smoke out of crumpled-then-rolled paper. It was awful. I felt like I was burning from within, and I think I had a cough soon afterwards. And that was after just a single puff!

(Edited: 01/10/05 15:20)

But still another reason I don't smoke is that I'm scared I might get hooked into it. This reminds me of my grandfather who died of lung cancer only two years ago. He had been a heavy smoker. I remember when I was in my early grade school years, he was already trying to do away with it by chewing gums (of course, thanks to the undying nagging of my grandmother). Almost ten years later, we would know the "Juicy Fruits therapy" was in vain.

And then comes the economic reason. We have a sari-sari store at home, so I know how much a stick or a pack of cigarettes costs. Or at least how much they cost last summer; I don't know much they are now. I'd been thinking: if, for example, I smoke a pack of Philip Morris every day, heck, that's more or less 30 pesos per day! That equals an hour of blogging and a delicious McDo plain sundae cone!

And then there are these minor reasons: my father doesn't smoke, so does any of my immediate relatives; my mother and youngest sibling are more asthmatic than I am; and most importantly, I bet I don't look good sipping smoke with my thin cheeks turning into huge craters. Haha!

But then, sometimes, I feel compelled to smoke. When I feel rebelious. When I just want to look tough. Or simply when I feel like I'm the only one who doesn't do it.

Now this leads me to what happened next during yesterday's meeting. Noticing the two smokers, groupmate Number 3 (who did not look as sophisticated as the two, yet with the same sortof arrogant demeanor) asked for a stick. Number 1 gave her one. (What! So I'm the only one who doesn't smoke here!, I thought.)

"Pasindi nga," Number 3 said. Number 1 lit her lighter. Then lo and behold, Number 3 just put her cigarette above the flame, as if waiting for it to catch fire, obviously not the expert I had presumed her to be.

Seconds later, Number 1, 2 and I burst out laughing. It turned out it was Number 3's first time. Poor, pretentious creature.

Now I have to make this clear: I have nothing against smokers. In fact, some of my friends smoke. But I tell you this much: where there's smoke there's fire. And it's probably me, annoyed.

My day started at 7:00 a.m. watching a near-boring recorded lecture by Prof. Randy David at the antarctic Social Science AVR. It was my SocSci 2 class' last meeting. The lecture was about contemporary issues in sociology with emphasis on postmodernism. I didn't learn much, though. I was too groggy, sleep-deprived, and cold.

At noon, I went to the Beach House (for the first time) to meet my English 30 class (including our instructor, of course). No, we weren't there to write resumes or application letters, aspiring to become part of the House's crew. We just sort of had a despedida luncheon of grilled food, doughnuts, and falling leaves. Ah, we need more teachers like Ma'am Tina.

After that, I went to CMC to help build our wallet-unfriendly Film 100 exhibit. I was pessimistic about it at first, especially that our "master artist" had put in front the exhibit a huge bouquet of flowers fit for the dead. But when the vividly colorful mini-posters were already glued to the board, my spirit soared. More so when I noticed that the other groups' "exhibit entrees" were, truth be told, less attractive than ours. Ha! I can't believe I just said that! Anyway, we finished putting up our exhibit on time and before the others did, which was a big relief. No more jittery feelings and pressure.

When the prof arrived and scrutinized our work, I was a bit surprised when he didn't give any of his trademark complaints or sarcastic remarks. But as usual, he wanted to do his Midas touch: a few minutes later, a quotation by film director Billy Wilder was placed near the focal point of our exhibit.

It was so generous of the prof to have given us snacks when we were all done. It was time to sit back and admire our work. And admire I did! Now I wish that a short vertical line followed by a dot and a letter O gets to be scribbled as my finals grade.

Sure, my day was long. *GASP* And so is my night! I still have to study Econ 11!

Five days without blogging?! That's gotta mean only one thing: I'M BUSY!

The Film 100 project...
The English 30 folio...
The Econ exam on Sunday...ad stressaeum...

You get the picture.

Our Film 100 project is troubling me. It's too expensive! And the expected result (or at least it seems to me) wouldn't be that...good. See, my group decided to make this huge "mural-collage" about the size of a large blackboard with "posters" and factoids of the top 50 movies as listed by a group of critics in a site I forgot.

First things first: I'm not the group leader and our project's concept is courtesy of the prof (after he rejected our initial proposal, which he labeled "ambitious" and "embarrassing"). These, of course, are a big relief for me. Problem now is: my groupmates are thinking of making this "mural" the expensive and not-so-creative way. I had a better idea, but they wouldn't listen. They were so engrossed with our groupmate who drew the mural's layout. They treated him like a master artist, as though his ideas were gospel truthfully artistic. I quite disagreed, but of course I didn't say it. But twice I tried to open their minds to alternative ways of designing our project and twice my attempts fell on deaf ears. Oh, well, at least I tried.

So now we're buying liters of paint for the plywood instead of just using golden foil paper. So now we're opting to make our project just two-dimentional instead of three. So now our project is expensive instead of just about right.

Damn.

###

The body of the late Haydee Yorac is presently at the Balay Kalinaw. Tomorrow at 9 a.m. it will be brought to the Parish of Holy Sacrifice (UP Chapel) before it will be buried at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. I might drop by the Chapel tomorrow.

###

On a happy note, it's my youngest sister's 11th birthday today. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MEMENKS! :D

Thank God my Comm 3 class is finally over! We had our final meeting just this afternoon---a full hour of fun and sortof bonding. We were not suppose to meet anymore, but two groups of students from the prof's other class needed us for their activity.

The first group led us in a card game they call Pinoy Big Liar, a variation of Bluffing or Bullsh*t. It was my first time to play such game, though I had already heard of it before. Time does not allow me to explain the rules of the game. But trust me, it's quite fun. More so that whenever one group is caught lying, group members had to face certain (silly) consequences.

The second group modified Snakes and Ladders into something UP-ish. They printed a game board on tarpaulin with the adventures (and misadventures) of a typical Iskolar ng Bayan illustrated on random squares. The board part bored me, though, partly because of the non-sticking supposed-to-be-sticking markers. It's only the consequence part that was fun (red squares had a corresponding consequence). We had fun finding a way to have our group of 12 members stand with only two pairs of feet. Which was, of course, as simple as having two members stand while the rest sit on the floor feet up.

I might not have noticed it before (maybe because I was too busy doing things), but now that we're done with the sem, I realize that Comm 3 had truly been fun. It was in Comm 3 where I wore my Romeo Montague costume for the second time (subsequently bringing back bitterweet high school memories). It was in Comm 3 where my half-Japanese dyad activity partner acted as Sadako emerging from the TV (with me screaming my head off). And it was in Comm 3 where I had my first public speech since my high school valediction.

Oh, I'll miss Comm 3. I wish the prof gets to read this and give me a 1.

If I were not required to do it, I really wouldn't bother watching Sita and Rama: Papet Ramayana. The production lacked creativity. Joey Ayala and Cynthia Alexander's wonderful music was not given justice. I felt like I was watching a performance by amateurs for some charitable cause.

Firstly, the stage is bare. I expected colorful and vivid backdrops, but no, only a giant white cloth screen is to be found. They use it for the shadow puppet parts and as backdrop (read: mediocre artworks flashed oncreen). Which is very inconvenient. It destroys the whole purpose of the puppeteers clad in black (who remind me of Afghan women in their burkhas). The puppeteers are supposed to be invisible, which the rest of the black stage affords them. But then the puppeteers perform right in front of the screen---with a spotlight on them! Now they're like Muslims selling puppets and doing demos. The only consolation we get is that the puppeteers are quite good.

But it is the music that's conspicuously wonderful. Composed and performed by the Ayala siblings, it is mesmerizingly Indian albeit with Filipino lyrics. The words get corny at times though.

The musical is produced by the Teatro Mulat, which is now on its 28th year. Or at least that's what the play's elderly female playwright said before the show started. Since my grandmother died last July, I've since had inexplicable affection for old women I meet.

I want to say the play is crap, but can't.

***

Housemate Francis lent me Dan Brown's Angels and Demons a couple of days ago. And I've just finished reading it last morning. Definitely it is better than the Da Vinci Code. More gore, more action, more airtight suspense and stunning twists. I'm losing awe at Brown's genius, though. He seems to be exaggerating things; his descriptions can be misleading if we do not see pictures of the real thing. He seems to have also run out of ideas when he wrote the Da Vinci Code; the main elements are almost the same between Angels and the Code. He also doesn't know how the Hail Mary goes.

After three months of use, my faithful (cheap) umbrella is now like a tattered pirates' flag stuck on a lightning-stricken metallic tree complete with dangling branches.

It's embarrassing really. You know what I do every time I open it in public? I curse the rain and feign disappointed surprise, "innocent" about all the broken joints. I don't care if people are convinced or not; what matters is that I think they are. Haha.

Of course, I'm planning to buy another rain-shield, but without a definite date yet. I'll wait until the poor umbrella falls apart...or until I get tired doing award-winning acting whenever it rains. :)

I love the rain, though. The cold sure is the giver of peaceful slumber and the writer's block's undertaker.

Tomorrow I'm supposed to receive the camera I've been raving and waiting impatiently for the past two months. But no. Not tomorrow. Nor the day after it. Nor the day after the day after it. I still have to wait for the sem to end and go home to the province before I'd finally get to touch that most-awaited treasure. All thanks to the not-so-reliable delivery services available.

Of course, I'm not referring to the barely-alive Postal Service (they're the most unreliable!). I'm talking about those 24-hour delivery services such as the everycity LBC. Though we've been availing of their services for quite a time now (for left documents, clothes, books, etc.), my parents are worried this time. What if the package doesn't arrive? What if it gets damaged? Things like that. Their fears earned reinforcement last morning when my aunt who sent the camera told them to better not risk it; she had sent money once and it never arrived. Thus they suggested that I wait for the sem-break instead.

*Sigh* They're right, though. Better not risk it.

Finally! My hometown is now connected to the Net. Now I can chat with my family and friends back home anytime I want...or whenever they have money. As of now, the Internet is still monopolized there, with just one cybercafe and a per hour pay of 30 pesos. That's just fine, though. At least the long wait is over. We've been expecting Internet connection since five years ago!

Only last night, I chatted with my sister. And that's when I learned what kind of camera I'm getting. It's a Kodak EasyShare CX7530! I think it's good. Many thanks again to Auntie Luz!