i want to write but i'm mental-blocked

hold on, is "mental-blocked" even a proper phrase (or compound word or whatever)?

i got home early today because the office declared a semi-half-day, which pegged quitting time at 3pm. so i've been spending enough time on the internet clicking on the usual suspects, and i was running out of stuff to read. i did come across baddie's post this afternoon, which prompted me to think of my own rainy day pet peeves, which in turn reminded me that i almost had another klutz incident this morning.

...

(stopped current train of thought because it's getting really lame.)

...

then i came across jewel's blog, and i am reminded again of another dilemma of sorts.

ever since i decided to create my latest blog at wordpress.com, i've been (un)seriously contemplating migrating my main blog from blogspot. sentimentality aside, i am reluctant to move from blogspot because it is the only one that provides an email backup of my posts as they are published. and in my experience, the sidebar html widget is much more user-friendly than wordpress html widget. i was seriously pissed that this was the only site i could show off my last.fm artists and recent playlist using the flash widgets - multiply, lj and wordpress failed massively. and my plurk widget only worked here. in fact, blogger wins at widgets, period.

however, wordpress (and i'm using the free hosted one) has a lot going for it as well. it has more themes (blogger is seriously lacking in themes); there are "pages" which are similar to posts except that they aren't constricted by the date; there's a cool spam filter; there are "categories" and "tags"; and it's compatible with gravatar. the clincher, however, is the "read more" (or "summary") option (though i have to admit livejournal is one-up with the lj-cut). installing this option in blogger takes a bit of patience, some css knowhow, and a lot of hits and misses.

there are a few things that aren't found on either platform which i really really like, such as lj's multiple userpic (i haven't used up all 15, and my lj friends have lots and lots more on their paid accounts). lj also has a nifty lj user graphic, such as this one:under_crisis. it also has several fields besides the post title and tags, such as music, location and mood (and moodthemes are customizable!) and all of these can be specified if you emailed your blog post. best of all is the lj-cut, which allows the author to hide several non-continuous portions of the post.

expert bloggers have probably worked around my complaints and devised how their platforms could work for them. but i'm no expert, and i don't have the patience to get into the nitty gritty programming. so i'll just keep on wishing that someday blogger will create their version of the lj-cut, and i'll be the happy camper forever. or until the next hot platform comes along.

time for some recs

last.fm has not given me a headache in the last few weeks. recently, i noticed that some tracks kept appearing in my scrobbles list and they were last played on the ipod over a month ago. so i had to reset the play count on the ipod itself. wonder if it'll work. and the site was recently overhauled, and is sporting a clean, new look. methinks every audiophile should seriously think about going with this application. i love how ne-yo is slowly creeping up into my top 5 artists. lolz.

speaking of favourite artists, no. 6 is (surprise, surprise) smashing pumpkins. i loved this band since today, but i found that i'm not that big a fanatic because i only like about half their songs - at least the half that i'm familiar with. i recently added their greatest hits album into the pod, and with some luck managed to single out this gem. it's called try, try, try.

the top song in my ipod is ne-yo's closer, followed closely by because of you. now that is a big surprise, though the playlist cleanup may be partly to blame, because i usually don't go rnb when i could go alternative. a few spots down is this lovely depressing song by little bit, called forget about me. it asks the question: why don't you love me? which coincidentally is a question i've been asking in my mind a few short years ago toward a certain person. at the risk of being accused of sour graping, i still want to know the answer. dammit.

i think i regret not paying more attention to lifehouse's concert here, based on the few reviews i bothered to look at. but this song from who we are on constant repeat more than made up for my loss.

i finally succumbed and bought the first book in stephenie meyer's twilight series. i lent it to my dad and he promptly returned it - that's how easy it was to read. i haven't tried reading it yet; i think i want to savor it and save it for a rainy night. also, i didn't want to be interrupted while daydreaming about robert pattinson i'm in the middle of an exciting part.

oh, and i bought tracey thorn's (everything but the girl) solo album from last year. it sounds just like ebtg without ben watt. whatever.

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i'm too old to be this confused

moodswings are weird. only yesterday morning i was lighthearted, but it seems the events that transpired since then have given me much food for thought. today, i struggle with the confusion that has stuck with me over the last few weeks.

i thought finishing graduate school will help me at least get an idea where i'm going. months after everything has been settled, i find that i have no fricking idea where to go from here. i still feel underqualified for anything. more to the point, i have no inkling at all what kind of work i'm suited for.

i don't know why i won't give up my actuarial career track. my knowledge isn't even current. but just like the scraps of paper i still keep in memento boxes, i can't seem to let it go even if i know i won't make it to fellowship.

on the other hand, career change is scary. i've long wanted to work in UN, but again, i don't know what exactly i'm suited for. it's times like these that i envy my former officemate, who decided to shift to another career four years ago. i could have done it then, too - we were in the same boat - but i was too scared to make the first move.

i've always been the wait-and-see sort of person. almost everything i do has been thought out and debated on at least a hundred times. but there have been instances that i could have acted with haste and gotten better results (hindsight is always 20-20). i'm betting this is one of those times.

dirty sexy money

money's a bitch. especially when you don't have much of it.

over the past several weeks (months?), i've been putting off logging my bank transactions into my financial worksheet. the file was last updated beginning of march, before strama took over my whole world. with my shaky financial standing and my spendthrift ways, i knew i had to reconcile my allowable expense with my actual spending soon, or else chaos will ensue. the lesson i learned a few years ago was a costly one, and i only just finished paying for the consequence.

today i finally progressed a major step, which was track my "petty cash" account. taking down five months's worth of transactions seemed overwhelming, especially when i get home at night and i just wanted to surf the net. but i knew putting it off will only cause me more headaches, so i finally took the whole bunch of slips to work, sorted them by month, and worked on them after lunch. voila! i'm one step closer to reconciling my accounts.

but the really tricky part is still ahead of me, which is distributing the cash into the several sub-accounts i devised. even now i know that the allowance will turn out negative, because of all the spending i did during strama. i'm disappointed, because i really wanted to have extra money to finally invest in mutual funds. but that's life. hopefully i'll manage to plan the next four months to pay back all my debts to myself.

randomize

another meme from ladybracknell, who i think has posted several in the last few days. hehehe.

Shuffle your player and select the first 20 songs that come up. Post the first line of the lyrics and have your f-list guess the songs.

1. now tell me whatcha gonna do when there ain't nowhere to run, when judgment comes for you, when judgment comes for you
2. all i can say is that my life is pretty plain, i like watching the puddles gather rain
3. now and then, do you wash your hands of me again
4. ninety miles outside chicago, can't stop driving i don't know why
5. all is quiet on new year's day, a world in white gets underway
6. breathe it in and breathe it out and pass it on, it's almost out
7. i do not understand what it is i've done wrong
8. words like violence break the silence, come crashing in into my little world
9. may mga kumakalat na balita, na ang misis ni kuwan ay madaling makuha
10. i'm afraid to fly, and i don't know why
11. i see us in the park, strolling the summer days of imaginings in my head
12. somebody told me you were leaving, i didn't know; somebody told me you're unhappy, but it doesn't show
13. and here's to you, mrs. robinson, jesus loves you more than you will know
14. waiting, watching the clock, it's four o'clock, it's got to stop
15. in my eyes, indisposed, in disguise as no one knows
16. take me as you are, push me off the road; the silence, i need this time to be with you
17. i was blown away, what could i say, it all seemed to make sense
18. do as i say not as i do because the shit so deep you can't run away
19. the first, the last, my everything, and the answer to all my dreams
20. every breath you take, every move you make

i only listed those songs that i actually knew. i have 5000+ songs on my pod, and i have a lot of albums i haven't even listened to in full. or at all.

yes, i know, nos. 5, 13, 19 and 20 should be dead giveaways. what can i do.

some of these were actually covers when they appeared on the shuffle; i need the original artist. track no. 4 was a cover by paolo santos; no. 9 was done by brownman revival; no. 15 was a live concert performance by alanis morissette; no. 20 was a performance by brooke white on american idol.

yeah, i think i've read more than six

this is a meme I've seen do the rounds at lj a few weeks ago, but never found the time to do myself. then a high school friend posted it, so i thought i might as well.

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1. Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2. Italicize those you intend to read.
3. Underline the books you LOVE.
4. Reprint this list in your own multiply/lj so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them ;)

The 100 list:

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen - my favorite of all of Austen's, hands down.
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien – tried reading it when I was a kid but gave up after one page.
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling – I love love love this world. And the fandom.
   
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
   
6. The Bible – I don’t think I’ve read half of the whole book
   
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
   
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
   
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
   
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
    
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott – this is one of the first three books that my granny sent me while she was in TO, and led me to appreciate children’s classics. Jo&Laurie = OTP
    
12. Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
    
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
    
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare – is it possible to find them in prose? I love the themes of the stories; unfortunately, I’m just distracted by iambic pentameter. Which is why I love watching movies based on Shakespeare – I understand them better.
    
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
    
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
    
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
    
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
    
19. The Time Traveller's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
    
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
    
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
    
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
    
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
    
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
    
25. The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
    
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
    
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
    
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
    
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
    
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
    
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
    
34. Emma - Jane Austen – not as good as P&P, but I loved the idea of her falling in love with a man she knew very well, almost all her life.
    
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
    
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
    
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
    
38. Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
    
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
    
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne – I’ve read The Te of Piglet (which is a sequel to the Tao of Pooh), but not the original.
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
    
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown – issues about Christians aside, the story is brilliant.
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
    
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
    
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
    
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery – I am such a romantic. But I read the Emily books before this, and I found Anne a more engaging heroine.
    
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
    
48. The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
    
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding – Good story, but really scary.
    
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
    
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
    
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
    
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
    
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen – I liked the movie too (yay Alan Rickman!)
    
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
    
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
    
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
    
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
    
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
    
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
    
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
    
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
    
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
    
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
    
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
    
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
    
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
    
68. Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding – the first movie was a v. good adaptation. The second one, not so much.
    
69. Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
    
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
    
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
    
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett – another one from that first set of books. Unfortunately I lost that copy, so I bought another one.
    
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
    
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
    
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
    
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
    
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
    
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
    
80. Possession - AS Byatt – I read this in parts after seeing the movie. Have yet to read it in full. Maybe soon.
    
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
    
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
    
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
    
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
    
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
    
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
    
87. Charlotte's Web - EB White
    
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom – yeah ‘tis good. Bought it for my parents’ wedding anniversary gift. Hehehe.
    
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – I have the complete works borrowed from my highschool friend, but I have yet to start.
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
    
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
    
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery – I think I loved the snake most of all. And the boa constrictor.
    
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
    
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
    
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
    
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
    
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
    
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare – Lorybeth says this was required for high school, I seem to remember only Merchant of Venice.
    
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl
    
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

finally

yesterday was my graduation day. after six years of bluffing my way through, with three of those years devoted to the struggle that is my strategic management paper, i finally got my degree. and if i wanted to, i have the right to add those three letters to the end of my name.

i didn't have major problems during the graduation ceremony itself, except for my academic gown almost choking me and my cap weighing about as heavy as an anvil. no missteps or major boo-boos. but it was the other stuff surrounding my graduation that gave me major headaches. after i finally submitted my paper, which was late, there was the clearance (an issue i'd rather not discuss). then not knowing if i made the cut, because according to the rules, i should have submitted my paper earlier (though i had the defense before the deadline). then finding the right dress, where normal dress-shopping is already a traumatic experience. then, after the ceremony, it was as if our trusty '94 civic was on strike. just as we were ready to leave, dad discovered the battery was discharged, so we had to have a replacement delivered. then, on our way home, we landed on a massive pothole on the slex and got a running flat. imagine all of that accompanied by heavy rainfall.

i hope to write about all the different details soon. the subject matter from the speeches during the ceremony were inspiring, though not enough to spur me to write extensively. i'll try to get back on my feet in a couple of days.

2008 MTV ASIA AWARDS - vote for URBANDUB!

plurk! plurk!

wahahahaha! i succumbed!

in view of copycatting from baddie, and getting bored with twitter, i set up a plurk account. like i need another username-password combo.

is anyone else on my friendlist, aside from baddie, who's on plurk? please let me know. better yet, friend me? (desperado?)

shabby chic food challenge # 1: vanilla affogato

for lack of a better name, i'm calling this the shabby chic challenge. (but i hate it, so i'll probably change it later on. be warned.)

objective: to discover cheaper alternatives to (my) favorite food items, which are usually expensive (i have a spendthrift attitude when it comes to food, and it was the leading cause of my previous ballooning credit card debt problem - but that's another story).

to quote an officemate (who quotes a popular tv ad) - 'sing sarap, pero 'di 'sing mahal.

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affogato: a coffee-based beverage or dessert. "affogato style", which refers to the act of topping a drink or dessert with espresso, may also incorporate caramel sauce or chocolate sauce. - wikipedia

i first encountered this drink at starbucks around 3-4 years ago. the way starbucks made it, it was actually a blended ice drink (either vanilla or chocolate cream) and the espresso shot is added last, creating a beautiful drip pattern down the side of the plastic cup. it's no longer in their regular menu, i think, but the baristas can make it if you place an order. at today's prices, the tall cup probably costs around 130 pesos.

now, even a spendthrift like me will balk at shelling out 130 bucks every visit - i do work for a living, and i don't have a trust fund to fall back on. if i had to spend that much, might as well get a mocha frap.

cheaper alternative # 1: granita (aka ice coffee at 7-11 or mini stop) - i could be wrong, but a 16 oz glass from the convenience store could set you back 30-40 bucks. whatta deal. the coffee experience granita used to cost 50 pesos, about 8 years ago. no idea how much it is now.

cheaper alternative # 2: ice cream and brewed coffee - this is if you want to stick closer to the definition of affogato. i tried it this morning, and it was a pleasant change from the typical brewed coffee we get at mcdonald's or jollibee. an a la carte order of sundae cone + brewed coffee will set you back 45 pesos. if you're having a breakfast meal at the aforementioned fastfood chains, just add 15 bucks for the ice cream.

cheaper alternative # 3: the ultimate cheapskate - get the ice cream cone from mini stop, which was 14 bucks a year ago, and a nescafe 3-in-1 (or san mig 2-in-1) for 6 pesos. better yet, just steal the 3-in-1 from your officemate. prepare the coffee, then dump the cone into it.

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disclaimer: i am not affiliated with any of the brands or restaurants mentioned here. but i wouldn't mind if i got compensated for advertising :D

made of what?

i just finished watching made of honour on my ipod. i was supposed to see it on the big screen with a friend from work, but fate intervened and the girlbonding got busted.

okay, i wasn't expecting too much from the movie. but for some reason i got really kilig afterward. (so maybe someone should provide bad reviews to me for films that i wanted to enjoy. heheheh.) anyway, i just can't help but be sad about my own (lack of) love life. yes, i know it's not the end-all and be-all of my existence. it doesn't define me. i'm quite happy being my own mistress. i'm not mature enough to handle a relationship. the right guy will come along at the right time.

what a load of b.s.

i'm definitely not wishing for a serial one-night stand player like patrick dempsey's character. i don't even wish for someone as good-looking as him (but it wouldn't hurt). actually, i don't know what i really want. but at this age, i feel like i'm losing out on the whole experience. i don't even go out much with other people, just the people who i know well (and there are no prospects there). i mean, how can i follow bo sanchez's advice of going out on friendly dates, when i don't have dates to begin with? *sigh*

yes, i know i sound so bitter; worse, i don't seem to be doing anything about it. so what do i do?

where there's smoke, there's fire

still on a high from last night's school of rock gig. (coincidentally, i loved that movie.)

then i read my pinoy blogosphere mail and got the biggest surprise.

now, i don't have anything new to contribute to what has already been written, so better just read it yourself.

all i can say is, it seems raimund's segue last night may have more meaning than i initially thought it did.

it would be a really brilliant 30th birthday gift. kahit next year na yung u2.

our song plays on

ah, the joy of being without guilt.

for some reason, i decided last night to visit the urbandub yahoo group page. i almost flailed when i found out they were playing at elbi tonight. it's common for the big deal gigs to happen on thursday nights here in elbi, so it's no surprise. still, i was undecided if i was going to make the effort. but i posted my dilemma as my ym status, and a friend of mine from high school buzzed me that she and another friend of ours are watching. yay!

got home at precisely 8pm, and broke all records in wardrobe change because i was meeting my two girlfriends at bean hub (near the up gate). they seemed not to be in any hurry, as the gig was apparently just starting and dub wasn't on yet, so i grabbed a sandwich and a cup of coffee for supper. afterwards we started on our short walk to the venue.

the gig was in between bands when we got to the social garden, and it was just our luck because urbandub came on immediately after. wheee! they played songs from the latest album, under southern lights, and a couple from the previous one, embrace. kevin, another high school classmate whom we saw there, was impressed with the technical quality of urbandub's sound (i was like a proud mother hen when i affirmed his observation). and linlin was excited to find she actually knew one of their songs, evidence, which was on heavy rotation at mtv.

i wasn't really planning to hang around for sandwich, but luckily i did, because i didn't know they were that good live. i was really impressed. i actually had newfound respect for myrene academia, their bassist. and their new guitarist is cute (i forgot his name, i read it somewhere a while ago).

not bad for a thursday night gimik, was it? it's just a pity best buddy mike wasn't able to come, but there'll be other chances.

special mentions:

• urbandub riffing a new tattoo (god i miss that song)
• raimund singing masilungan, then changing the lyrics to the first verses of alapaap. panalo! long live the eraserheads!

do i look like a piggy bank?

because just the other day i've been approached by not one, but two people who for some reason don't have enough money to get home.

http://www.bloggingpinoy.com/?p=138

btw i'm now a member of blogging pinoy, so please check it out.

2008 mtv asia awards - let's vote!

i've successfully ignored my yahoo inbox for several days now, and it just occurred to me that i might want to check it out. good thing too, because i got a message that prompted me to look up the mtv asia website.

the mtv asia awards is on again, and we have four excellent bands vying for favourite artist: chicosci, sandwich, sponge cola, and urbandub. personally, i'm supporting urbandub, which is one of the most underrated bands in the country. but if you don't quite dig them, vote for the other three acts and let us show our appreciation for their contribution to the local music scene.

you will find voting links to all four artists here, and even widgets and email links to get your friends to vote as well. the winner will get to perform in malaysia, and while i'm really pulling for urbandub to have that honor, all four bands deserve to show the world what we've got.

(at the risk of excessive fangirling, i have to declare that lalay lim is one of the best female bassists ever. she can give myrene academia a run for her money, not to mention a lot of the male bassists out there. that's how good she is.)

housekeeping

just one day short of my first month on last.fm, i'm doing some cleaning up. in fact, i'm writing this post while taking a break from deleting scrobbles. there can only be so many plays of foo fighters' the pretender that i can honestly admit to. i don't think i can own up to having 700+ plays of the foos on my ipod since i bought the ipod, let alone since i joined last.fm. but i'm getting tired of the intense mouse-work deleting entails. we shall see.

i wonder, since i've finally re-synced my ipod with the itunes, if the multiple scrobbles will stop. again, we shall see.

i've also been organizing my 80gb disk over the last few days. though i've actually been adding files more than deleting them. which probably means i'll be using the wd my passport pretty soon.

email inbox has been a bit busy, with a few missives from my classmate on graduation-related activities: getting the cap and gown, paying for the grad fee and the alumni fee and the yearbook, getting photos taken. i thought my multiple strama enrollments made the biggest dent in my (parents') pockets; defense and graduation seem to be coming in at close second. hay, just to get a degree...

speaking of classmates, spent wednesday evening with girlfriends from strama (and also the prof) at redbox. all part of my vow to enjoy my life after strama. except that there's still that teensy problem of going home late and catching the last trip. and me wishing i still have a place in manila. wonder what i'll do if i had to go on "dates". if that ever happens.

finally, i'm still struggling with the "read more" modification here at blogger. not that i've already tried it, but i'm thinking of the 200 posts that i'll have to modify as well to set the viewing right. oh whatever. basically the internet's too slow here and at the office for me to really work on it. i think i'd do better just sorting through my mba things this weekend. time to throw out some trash. and me a hoarder. what fun.

current playlist:

mariah carey, touch my body. i love the video, which features the geeky guy from 30 rock, one of my favorite comedies. i'm not going to admit to anyone that i have a girl crush on sexy mariah. nope, no way.

sting, ...all this time (the live album). i accidentally hit play on one of the songs and it all came back to me. this is one of my favorite albums ever. i have to look for the post (way, way back) that says why.

ne-yo, because of you. unlike my classmate rain, i can probably stand a guy who doesn't know ne-yo. as long as he loves either sting, u2 or radiohead. preferably all.

who the...

picked up another meme from sciathan_file

You know how sometimes people on your friend's list post about stuff going on in their life, and all of a sudden you think "Wait a minute? Since when are they working THERE? Since when are they dating HIM/HER? since when???" And then you wonder how you could have missed all that seemingly pretty standard information, but somehow you feel too ashamed to ask for clarification because it seems like info you *should* already know? It happens to all of us sometimes.

Please copy mine below, erase my answers putting yours in their place then post it in your journal! Please elaborate on the questions that would benefit from elaboration! One-word answers seldom help anyone out.

1. First Name:
kristin. everyone pronounces it "kristine" so i'm tickled pink whenever i hear the american/british pronunciation. my "trying to be fly" name is xtin.

2. Age:
29. must not spoil it by saying i'm almost thirty.

3. Location:
living in los baños, working in the city of manila, but my heart is in makati :D

4. Occupation:
actuarial student who just finished her mba coursework and is at a loss.

5. Partner:
no boyfriend since birth.

6. Kids:
maybe. but i don't have the maturity to deal with them yet.

7. Brothers/Sisters:
none. unless you count my dolls.

8. Pets:
none. i never learned to have them.

9. List the 3-5 biggest things going on in your life:
- just finished my strama paper, three years in the making. it was my one waterloo during my whole mba experience. and i'm graduating in august. wheee!
- something's brewing on the work front and i don't know the outcome.
- planning a trip to somewhere. and i hope everything falls into place for it because it's not easy to cancel.
- trying to jumpstart my social life, so i'm more open to hangouts. please. please take me out.
- i'm turning thirty. need i say more.

10. Where and for what did you go to school for?
- ateneo de manila, ateneo graduate school of business for my mba. university of the philippines los baños, applied math major in actuarial science. all just words. blah blah blah.

11. Parents?
- still living and still together. i'm much closer to my mum though.

12. Who are some of your closest friends?
- my very closest friends come from my high school barkada. my best friend is now in hawaii and married and most of my other close friends from that group are also married. my best bud is a college friend but he's also getting married soon. so that probably means i'll be the spinster godmother for some of their kids for a long long while yet.

to the theatre we go (but only for now)

best buddy mike has been bugging me about watching the farewell run of avenue q since more than a month ago. because i suddenly have all this free time, i agreed. but we didn't finalize the schedule until last thursday, and i had to get the tickets too (hmf). so despite the threat of heavy rains last saturday, i got on the very convenient bus going to cubao and got off at the ayala mrt station two hours later, eagerly anticipating the afternoon ahead.

i'm very tempted to expound on my inconsistent appreciation of the theatre, but i won't. suffice to say, i enjoy witty comedies, and this play really delivered it for me. i think i loved that i was a part of this audience. we all laughed at the right spots, and clapped after almost every song. the intimate setting of the carlos p. romulo auditorium certainly helped. not to mention the actors were very good, especially the puppeteers. i regret not seeing rachel alejandro portray her award-winning part (yes, she won a best actress award for this last year!) but i think carla guevarra-laforteza was very good at it. many people agree with me too. the thing that struck me most is the hip swing she does when she's playing lucy t. slut. it was the precarious mix of subtle and obvious that puts the extra ooomph into the character, and it's how you know you're dealing with a seasoned theatre actor (miss saigon, duh). and lei's favorite actor joel trinidad is just surprisingly endearing as nicky and trekkie monster - his voice is so versatile. aiza seguerra deserves to go to the singapore run to reprise the gary coleman role too. if for some bizarre twist of fate i'll end up in singapore in october, i'm definitely watching the show there.

one minor gripe, though, is frenchie dy's oriental accent. she's wavering between the chinese "l" and the japanese "r" and i think her character was supposed to be japanese. though as i haven't seen the script i'm not sure if it was not written that way. but she's cute, and christmas eve is adorable.

it wasn't for immature audiences though. besides the f and s words peppered throughout the script and the in-your-face references to subjects not for children's consumption, such as cough*porn*cough, one has to be very widely-read or updated on various subjects to fully appreciate the pop culture references. but i hope people won't think i'm too weird for being amused at the idea of two puppets doing the dirty. lol.

and because it's categorized as a musical, it has several songs in its aresenal that were very singable and easy to recall. my favorite would have to be it sucks to be me/but only for now (same song, different lyrics) followed closely by schadenfreude (snaps to aiza for the spelling lesson). mike, i'm still waiting for the soundtrack...

it's too late for anybody else to watch it on my recommendation, since the farewell run just ended, but do catch it if you're in singapore in october. and maybe i'll catch it if atlantis decides to put it up again later. but i'll need to get cheaper seats this time.

other reviews: by anton diaz

for further reading:
avenue q official site
avenue q on wikipedia

i broke my diet again

i've been trying to go on a diet since friday. i failed. i just don't know how to avoid carbs, they're my happy food! especially a nice, steaming plate of pasta. ohhhhhbrother.

whenever my best bud mike and i meet for lunch or dinner we usually end up going for italian. this time we tried cibo. and i loved it. i can't remember the names of the dishes we ordered, but show me the menu and i can point them out. we started with a mozzarella & asparagus something with toasted flatbread. the spread was being a little difficult and wasn't as salty as i really wanted, but still a hit. the bread was nicely done. then we had a something salad with arugula, yellow bell peppers, and pine nuts with some sort of vinaigrette dressing (which i initially thought wasn't there). ohhhhman, it was good. just the right amount and tartness. then i asked the waiter for a pasta dish with a mix of red and cream sauce, and was given this shrimp thing on penne. i could die right then and there, i couldn't get enough! but those three dishes proved to be enough for us after all, and we walked away happily full. not the buffet-gorging sort where you wonder why you ate that much. we were very very satisfied.

oh, and we were listening to urbandub live while eating. can't beat that!

the earphone dilemma

listening to music is one of the critical things that keep me sane and centered. i dream of the day i can append a music player to my ear (though the possibility of hearing degeneration is a scary thought). nope, an ipod shuffle doesn't cut it, nor does a bluetooth headset. so i'm weird. no arguments there.

so in an office setting (or even at a common area at home, though this is less critical), i yearn for a room all to myself so i can play my music any volume i want, even sing along to it, without bugging anyone else. but we can't always have what we want (besides, it's a bit impractical, duh). so we compromise, with a pair of speakers or a set of earphones. even then, we're not satisfied. speakers can get too loud and disturb the others, while earphones can cut you off from the real world. and when you're at work, it's not really advisable to be isolated, is it? worst case scenario has your boss calling you over and over while you remain blissfully ignorant. on second thought, having a disaster happening around you while you're spaced out in your own little world is much much worse.

one of my friends passed on something his boss said to explain the "no-earphones" policy in his office, which can be paraphrased as: if you needed music to focus on your work, you''re not really focusing at all. the man has a point, actually, but we audiophiles will dispute that till the day we die. but then, even i ignored the mp3 player a whole 30 minutes since it stopped, just because i was busy studying a blog tutorial. oh well. nuff said.

current playlist:
keane, under pressure
fall out boy, grand theft autumn/where is your boy
u2, i still haven't found what i'm looking for
the cardigans, erase/rewind