In what feels like the blink of an eye, 1/12th of the Year 2006 has come and gone. I can't help but feel like I've accomplished so little this month. Time truly flies... sometimes much too quickly for my comfort.
* Sigh! *
Well, since it's the end of the month, I guess it's time to see just how well I kept my 2006 Resolutions in January.
1. Lose my holiday weight gain Lost three pounds in the first half of January. But I think I've managed to regain it, despite hitting the treadmill at least five days a week. Guess it's time to cut down on the sugar and the junk food. I still have up to end of Feb to achieve this resolution.
2. Stop Cursing I kept track: I cursed a total of six times this month. That's a big improvement for me -- I think I was swearing more than once a day prior to this year. The best part -- I felt guilty each time I slipped. Hopefully, I will see a further drop next month.
4. Read at least 12 books of the Bible Picked an easy one to start the year: 1 Peter. It was an easy read with only five chapters, but I think I read it more out of a sense of obligation, rather than a feeling of joy and anticipation. I also can't remember a single important lesson from my reading. Hay...
5. Identify 5 friends with whom I've lost touch in 2005 and re-establish contact throughout 2006 I DID pick one friend for the month of January. Wrote up a real nice email and sent it off with a great deal of anticipation... only to have my message bounce back because that email address is now invalid. Man! Has it been that long since I was in touch with this friend?!?
Also emailed another friend to greet him for his birthday, after not having been in touch for almost a couple of years. He was really happy to hear from me, and we're going to set up dinner with a few other friends to catch up!
6. Watch at least one movie in the Theatres Each Month Yup! Yup! Braved all the crazy logistics that were required and watched The Family Stone. Also watched Rumour Has It, but was kinda disappointed by that one.
7. Read at least one work of fiction a month Yup! Yup! Got this done too. This month's reading selection was The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. It's a beautifully conceptualized book that follows the lives of Henry and Clare, and their complicated but enduring love and relationship -- which was constantly being tested by the vagaries of time. Takes some effort to read all of it; at some points you find yourself tempted to sneak a peak at the end. But all the pieces fit together sooner or later, so each page is worth a look.
8. Attend a live JaRla event None available this month, unfortunately. :(
9. Complete my Christmas Shopping on or before Nov 30. Hmm... Haven't started.
I'd have to say so far so good as far as personal resolutions are concerned. :D But why do I still feel like it wasn't a very productive month?! Hay...
Next week's Metro Manila Franklin Graham Festival (MMFGF) from Feb 2 to 5 at the Rizal Park and Luneta Grandstand promises to be a landmark event in Philippine evangelism.
Churches all across Manila have been mobilizing resources for this event since early 2005. There have been Leadership seminars, Christian Life and Witness Courses to equip counsellors for the event, and Operation Andrew is in full swing.
Guest performers at the event include Gary Valenciano and Dulce. The festival choir is projected to have 5000 people. It will be a fantastic spectacle.
Google gives us some idea as to what people all around the world are interested in, based on the searches that were made. The fancy charts sure look impressive.
Do you believe that people can fall in love and live happily ever after?
My friends and I were chatting a few days ago and some of them say they don't think their future husbands will be faithful to them after marriage. Isn't that unbelievable?!
These ladies are not married. They're not seeing anyone special right now. Which means they still have in their hands the power to choose exactly who they will marry. And yet, here they are, thinking they will end up being married to men who will be unfaithful to them. That really blew me away.
And it made me wonder: Am I being totally naive when I think that my future husband (assuming there is one) will remain faithful to me? Am I setting myself up for disappointment?
All of a sudden, I am afraid of getting into a serious relationship.
In the past year, two of my friends have gotten pregnant outside of wedlock.
One of them has since married, while the other plans to wait until after the baby is born before tying the knot.
In both cases, the news took me by surprise!! Both ladies were the religious types. They attend mass/services regularly, and they each follow the rituals and traditions of their chosen faiths (different religions) almost to the letter.
I'm glad that both of them are looking forward to happily-ever-after endings. But once again, here is proof that I really am a poor judge of character!
Congratulations to the Pacman for his unquestionably, indubitably, and undisputedly well-deserved victory! (Forgive me for gushing! I'm just really happy! haha!)
The other night, my Thursday group got together for our first weekly meeting of the year.
For one reason or another, the discussion turned to homosexuality, the legalization of same-sex marriages, and the question as to whether the law should be expected to enforce morality.
Some people feel that the law should be used to enforce morality and therefore should never allow same-sex marriages. Other people feel that the law should be independent of religion (i.e., separation of church and state) and that the primary purpose of the law is to maintain order. Murder is considered illegal because murderers disrupt the order of society. The same cannot always be said of same-sex marriages (although some people would disagree).
Homosexuality as an issue has long confused me because on the one hand, Christian doctrine explicitly say that homosexuality is immoral, and I do consider myself a Christian. On the other hand, I have gay friends and when we're together socially, I do not think of them as homosexuals; rather, I think of them as individuals. They're not a label or a category to me -- they're simply people that I care about.
So when the topic of same-sex marriages came up in the discussion, I once again had mixed feelings. The legal concept of Marriage entitles a couple to many, practical things -- joint child custody, conjugal property, and legal benefits just to name a few. These are rights and privileges that same-sex couples would be deprived of if they were not legally married.
From a purely intellectual standpoint, therefore, I do find myself favoring the legalization of same-sex marriages even though I firmly believe from a religious standpoint that a same-sex couple is engaged in something that is immoral. My opinion is therefore tenuous at best, and I have no doubt that I will find myself flip-flopping on this issue each time it comes up.
Saw a ZDNet News article today, which talks about Google refusing to comply with a request from the Department of Justice to turn over data from its web logs -- even though AOL, Microsoft, and Yahoo have all (partially) complied with the same request.
In its original subpoena, dated in August, the government asked the four companies for "all URLs that are available to be located through a search query on your company's search engine as of July 31, 2005." Also requested were records of "all queries" entered between June 1 and July 31. -- Mercury News Article
I understand that the government officially has good intentions behind this request... but I'm glad Google isn't complying. What the US government is asking for is just too '1984' for me.
I never thought I'd be saying this, but I was disappointed by Rumor Has It.
Maybe I would have enjoyed it more if I had not been looking forward to it so much. I guess I had high expectations since I'm a Jennifer Aniston fan as well as a fan of Rob Reiner's previous movies.
***Warning: spoilers below ***
Having said all that, here are the reasons why this movie failed to meet my expectations:
I found it hard to empathize with the lead character. Sarah (Jennifer Aniston) had a lot of angst, which is fine, but I felt she was making too much of a big deal out of her situation. I couldn't bring myself to be very sympathetic whenever she wallowed in her self-doubts and theories.
Scenes that were supposed to be funny weren't. There were several instances when I felt like the movie was building up to a punch line, but it didn't quite get to the point where it was actually funny. Case in point: that scene where Earl Huttinger (Richard Jenkins) was on the phone with Katharine Richelieu (Shirley MacLaine) while both Sarah (Jennifer Aniston) and Annie (Mena Suvari) were being distraught. This entire scene just felt off somehow... it was a scene just begging for a funny ending, and all we got was something rather sad.
Character motivations weren't consistent. First, there's Annie, who went from ecstatic, gushing, and bubbly bride one day to having panic attacks the next. Then there's Grandma Katherine, who is a tough lady most of the movie, but reacts so violently when she and Beau (Kevin Costner) finally meet each other after all these years. I remember thinking -- What's up with that reaction? -- while watching that scene. Then there's Sarah's conviction throughout the movie that her diseased mother was unhappily married to her father for 10 years, only to be told by her father that they had been in love and happy. Well, gee... how am I supposed to believe that?
The lead character does stupid things. My goodness, girl! You're engaged to be married to a great, supportive guy and what do you do? You go off and have a one-night-stand with a total stranger. And you justify it by saying "It meant nothing." Duh?!? How am I supposed to feel sorry for you when your fiance wants to call it quits?
'The Graduate' was just a blip in the background. Considering they hyped up the angle of "The Graduate" in the trailers, they really didn't do anything meaningful with it. It was used to generate interest in the movie more than anything else.
Overall, I really expected so much more given the cast, the director, and the the trailer.
But don't take my word for it. Watch it yourself and come to your own conclusions. :D
Tonight, family and friends gathered together at one of our favorite restaurants for a simple Thanksgiving Dinner to mark the end of my mother's agonizing 16 weeks of chemotherapy.
She spent a few minutes at the start of the evening expressing her gratitude to the Almighty, and to those who were present for their unwavering support, encouragement, and prayers over the past few months. The mood was equally loving and festive.
When I mentally review the weeks that have passed, I am amazed at how the family has collectively weathered this challenge and emerged from it more tightly knit, more attuned to each other's needs, more tolerant of each other's quirks, and more confident in the strength of our family ties.
I also find myself in awe of my mom. She endured so much in the past few months: depression, rage, self-pity, loss of appetite, gut-wrenching nausea, severe weight loss, muscle weakness, bone pain, loss of sensation in her hands and feet, and hair loss... just to name a few. There were many days when she just wanted to curl up into a ball and die, and it was heartbreaking for us to see the way she was, and not be able to do anything to help her.
I am so proud of my dad. He received the main brunt of my mom's emotional outbursts, but he would just grin and bear it. He'd make sure my mom was taking the correct medication each day; he'd log her blood test results religiously; he'd call her from work every few hours to check if she'd eaten anything; and he basically pampered her to death. He also did a splendid job of hiding from us just how scared and worried he was... I only found out recently that he had developed a bleeding ulcer from the stress and worry.
There were many nail-biting periods in the past few months when no amount of medication could raise her blood count back to normal. There was one particularly bad 6-day period when we couldn't help but wonder if the chemotherapy had managed to destroy her bone marrow and obliterate her immune system, leaving her susceptible to the simplest of infections.
It didn't help when I learned that just a week prior, one of my friends lost his mother to an infection that she contracted during her first round of chemo -- her white blood count had dropped too low, and a simple cold deteriorated into pneumonia, and led to her death. Words were not adequate to express the sweet wave of relief that we all felt when my mom's blood test results finally started to improve.
Through it all, this blog has been a good companion; blogging has allowed me to come to terms with my own thoughts and feelings these past few months. I feel that I have come to a much better understanding of myself, simply from skimming through the entries that I made while wrestling with my fears, hopes, and worries.
The journey isn't over, but the worst has passed. I thank and praise our good Lord for His enduring mercy and grace. I count on His promise to never forsake us as we leave chemo behind and enter the last stage of treatment.
Finally... a heartfelt thank you to you, my two readers, for bearing with my cryptic entries, and for caring enough to read this entry all the way to the end.
Every January, the family treks to our suking medical laboratory to get our annual lab work-up.
This usually entails a chest x-ray, a complete blood count (CBC), an assortment of blood chemistry tests (to check cholesterol, blood sugar and the like), and a urinalysis.
My mom contends that January is a good time to do all this because you're usually in your worst possible state of health right after all the gustatory excesses of the Christmas holidays. hehe!
I'm happy to report that I got a clean bill of health on all counts. Yayness! :D
I was on the flyover in front of GMA7 in bumper-to-bumper traffic when I noticed that the bus lane was literally crammed with buses, back-to-back... and there was a huge FedEx cargo truck among them.
It made me wonder whether the engineers who had designed the flyover years ago had accounted for the wear and tear arising from having all these heavy buses and trucks always on the right most lane of our EDSA flyovers.
Surely the right lanes of all these structures are taking much more of a beating than any other part of the flyover?
I think I would have felt a lot differently about this movie if I had seen it five months ago. But the experiences of the past five months have made me a lot more receptive, and I have to say that I deeply enjoyed it.
It was at turns laugh-out-loud-funny, tearfully moving, and politically incorrect -- sometimes all in the same scene! Parts of the plot were utterly predictable, while surprising twists provided for unexpected bursts of entertainment.
The ensemble cast delivered compelling performances, especially in the scene where Meredith (Sarah Jessica Parker) hands everyone their Christmas presents... and the scene in the kitchen between Sybil (Diane Keaton) and Everett (Dermot Mulroney) on Christmas morning really made me cry.
I also enjoyed the personality contrasts between Ben (Luke Wilson) and Everett (Dermot Mulroney). Reminds me (very mildly) of the contrasts between Jack and Sawyer in Lost. hehe!
At least, that's how I can best describe USA Network's TV series The 4400.
First learned of it last night while I was channel surfing. It apparently airs on RPN-9 on Thursday nights.
The show's got an interesting premise: Over the past five decades, thousands of people have been reported missing and never found. Then one day, a large comet appears and looks to be headed on a collision course with earth. But instead of crashing, the comet inexplicably slows down and comes to a stop at the banks of a lake in North America, then explodes in a brilliant flash of light.
When the light finally dissipates, 4400 people -- men, women, children -- find themselves on the banks of the lake. Some of them have been missing for more than five decades; some for only three years. None of them have aged a single day since they vanished. And as they try to return to their normal lives, they realize that they each have new abilities: including clairvoyance (precognition), healing, and super-human strength.
The burning questions: How can this have happened? Why has this happened? Are they still people? Or have they turned into something else? Something with a mission?
Hay... the many late nights I've had in the past seven days have finally caught up with me.
Sore throat, low grade fever, mild headache, and the beginnings of a cold... all this, despite the fact that the family doctor gave me a flu shot a few weeks ago!
Tonight, my fellow Browncoats and I got together to enjoy a DVD screening of the movie... complete with all the necessary junk food that makes movie viewing more enjoyable. hehe!
Like most Firefly fans, I loved it!
And like most fans, I want more!!
Great special effects, great story, great girl-power sequences, great characters exchanging great repartees... and finally, we now have a much better sense of just where Firefly was headed before the Fox Network executives pulled the plug on this baby.
There's just enough there to hint at a possible sequel, but I guess only time will tell if it comes to pass. One thing's for sure, if Joss Whedon decides to tell more of the story, this Browncoat will be enlisting!
Two of my contributing writers for the January issue of the newsletter are already three days late with their articles.
As if that's not bad enough, the publisher just told me he will be going on vacation at the end of the week! If I don't get the drafts to him by this Thursday, I will have to wait til the end of January before he can work on it.
Ayayaay.... once again, Murphy has the last laugh.
Had lunch today at a restaurant at The Fort called Sakae Sushi.
It was an interesting experience. They've got a long, narrow conveyer belt that snakes throughout the restaurant and the kitchen. People in the kitchen prepare the food and put small plates of sushi on the conveyer belt.
Customers just help themselves to whatever bit of interesting sushi passes beside their tables, and the plates are color-coded so you are charged correctly when you get your bill at the end of the meal.
If you're quite hungry, you may end up getting a lot of plates -- so don't be shocked when you see your bill at the end! haha!
Since the place is still new, it was clean, well-lit, not too crowded, and overall it was a rather different and pleasant experience. Sushi wasn't bad either. :D
It's been more than three months since I've summarized anything, and I'm surprised to realize that I'm now rusty. haha! It's taking a lot longer than I expected it would take.
I guess part of my less-than-stellar progress is due to my confusion as to how to work my YouTube videoclips into the summary. I know for sure I want to include some of the scenes as a videoclip, but choosing only a handful out of 54 minutes of footage is presenting me with some tough choices. LOL.
Oh well... so far, I've managed to upload five clips, each of which last a little over a minute at most.
I'm sure by the time I'm done with the episode summary, there will be more than five.
Thanks to beatlebum's two recent videokeposts, I found YouTube and realized I can upload a video of the Maalaala Mo Kaya trailer for tomorrow's episode (Jan 5, 2006), which features the JaRla Labsteam! Woohoo!
If you haven't seen it yet, just click the center of the image to watch the trailer.
And of course, don't forget to watch the episode tomorrow night! LOL!
Once again, I am reminded that I'm a poor judge of character.
Met this girl last year who made a totally bad first impression. I thought she was arrogant, defensive, opinionated, and would quite possibly turn out to be someone I would want to avoid as much as possible.
Met her again today, and despite my misgivings, I found her to be very warm, sociable, friendly, and easy-going.
As the Borg like to say... Resistance is Futile...
So in acceptance of that fact, here I am writing my 2006 Resolutions. I had not intended at all to come up with a list like this, but I figured that putting things down on this blog will make me more resolute about my intentions for the new year.
According to one of my friends, goals (or in this case, resolutions) have to be SMART: S-pecific, M-easurable, A-ctionable, R-ealistic, and T-imebound. In recognition of the wisdom in that statement, I have tried my best to come up with a SMART list.
THE LIST
1. Lose my holiday weight gain Yup. Packed on a few pounds during the holiday break. So I want to get back to my pre-holiday weight. Should be doable by end of Feb (I hope).
2. Stop Cursing There was a time when I would wince when people around me used foul language. Now I've got a mouth dirtier than a sailor! I'm not proud of it, and it's gotten to the point where filth just spews out of my mouth without much thought and I don't even blink. Not exactly aligned with my stated religious beliefs, so I figure I should clean up my act.
3. Be Less Judgmental about People I make a lot of snap judgments and I have a bad habit of forming quick opinions about people. A few experiences in 2005 made me realize that I still have a lot to learn about reading and assessing people and their capabilities. Bottomline, I need to be more open-minded and always give someone the benefit of the doubt.
4. Read at least 12 books of the Bible I know I should be reading the Bible daily. But I don't. And it takes so much effort to sit down, read and reflect on what I've read. This year, I want to have at least read one book end-to-end each month. It doesn't really matter at this point which book, as long as I finish one for each month of the year.
5. Identify 5 friends with whom I've lost touch in 2005 and re-establish contact throughout 2006 This resolution is a result of an epiphany during last week's reunion -- that I've actually let one whole year slip by without staying in touch with good friends. I don't want to make the same mistake this year.
6. Watch at least one movie in the Theatres Each Month I know this sounds like a silly resolution to make, but you have no idea how hard it is for me to actually make this happen. I love to watch movies, but I haven't had a chance to set foot inside a theatre at all in months (since before I started this blog, actually). I want movie-watching-in-theatres to be a commitment I make to myself -- as proof that I consider my own needs and wants important.
7. Read at least one work of fiction a month It doesn't have to be a classic. Doesn't have to be a Pulitzer prize winner. Just has to be a work of fiction. (After all, I have to be realistic!)
8. Attend a live JaRla event Well, of course the list wouldn't be complete without something JaRla-related! haha! I didn't attend a single Qpids mall show during 2005. Isn't that pathetic? So I'm going to break the pattern and attend at least one thing LIVE this year. Hopefully there is an actual event sometime in the next 12 months.
9. Complete my Christmas Shopping on or before Nov 30. No more last minute panic-shopping for this non-shopaholic!
And I think I'll stop there. Right now I'm feeling ambitious and optimistic, but we did say I have to be realistic. LOL.
Imagine hundreds of thousands of stackable 2-seater cars, scattered freely across public terminals for any ordinary citizen to use to get to their destination, at which point they deposit the car at yet another public terminal for the next passenger.
WOW.
If they introduced this in the Philippines, I wonder what will stop people from stealing as many units as possible, and then chopping them up for spare parts to sell on the black market, just so they can put food on their plates?
On the other hand, it does look a bit like a space-age tricycle, which culturally speaking, is something with which we are all quite familiar.
I'd sure love to try riding one of these babies if ever they introduce it (as the article says) in an Asian city like Hong Kong or Singapore.
I love that movie and that score is forever emblazoned into my memory. Heck, I think I can even hum it to anyone on demand! LOL. With very little effort, I can even call to mind the imagery of the opening credits as I play the score back in my head.
So I guess it's no wonder that I really find it disconcerting to hear that particular audio clip used as music for a formal function in a teleserye, or as the background music in the closing credits of a local news and public affairs program (as I did earlier this evening).
An idle thought: Does the show have to pay royalties to use it?
