live to learn, learn to live

i hate hate hate Moviemaker! no matter how cool the videos may seem after more than 6 minutes of runtime, it always hang s!it's so frustrating! the result? it was er, okay but i'm so bothered about the typographical error! grrr! instead of writing "The Political Economy of Flesh: Women As Portrayed by the Media", i spelled "portrayed" as "potrayed"!!! wtf! and when i try to edit it i always get the "orginal sources of files have been moved please check your yada yada yada" message all the time. anyway, i hope no one will notice it! i'd like to post the short video clip because it's pretty relevant to women's rights and globalization but i'm too embarassed HAHA!

i hate Windows Moviemaker. it's time to make the switch! a friend told me that if you're the multimedia artsy-fartsy type, iLIFE is way better than sticking with Windows. i bet it doesn't crash too. i had to restart the computer 5 effing times! or maybe it's time to learn how to do Flash. i must update my knowledge in webdesign and graphic design because i'm a poor amateur who doesn't know how to operate Macromedia Dreamweaver and Flash.

among the long list that i want to LEARN are:
- web design with Dreamweaver
- hand coding for web design (using Notepad) or maybe i'm being too ambitious
- take a course in multimedia design (CSB is effing expensive)
- fine arts (yeah, Nice?)
- creative writing
- feature writing
- argh! who am i kidding? i want to take up Journalism!
- sign up for that certificate course in Creative writing at UP Diliman
- summer photography workshop at UP Fine Arts
- development studies (a second degree or post graduate course)

so there. ack. i don't know if this lifetime is enough for me to learn what i want to learn. it would be really sad if i don't get to try at least three of the items on the list above, though. this entry shall be my reminder. :)

on the darker side (haha), it's Wednesday again tomorrow. Wednesdays and I, we have a love-hate relationship.

SIDENOTE: hey you, thanks for the venti frap and stolen kisses. :)

in TWOs. i'm bored. :P

IN TWOs.

Two Names You Go By:
1.) Gail
2.) Gaily (only for people who know me that well and are comfortable enough to play with my name :P)

Two Parts of Your Heritage:
1.) Chinese
2.) Malay (haha! cos Tagalogs decended from the Malay race, right? :P)

Two Things You Are Wearing Right Now:
1.) pink pajamas even if i showered already :P
2.) my white U.P. Manila (Brightminds.com) shirt

Two Things You Would Want In A Relationship:
1.) trust
2.) mutual respect and faith in GOD.
(i cheated! HAHA!)

Two Of Your Favorite Hobbies:
1.) surfing the internet and updating my internet things. hehe.
2.) going to the movies and pigging out with alej :P

Two Things You Want Really Badly At The Moment:
1.) a purple or silver Razr cos mine is black.
2.) a Macbook! better yet, a Macbook Pro!

Two Pets You Had/Have:
1.) Amidala (aka "alla") -- the cutest shih tzu!!!
2.) Bonnie -- my childhood friend and terrier. we left him in Myanmar.

Two People Who Will Fill This Out:
1.) anyone can!
2.) ----

Two Things You Did Last Night:
1.) argued with alej via text message. HAHA!
2.) emailed :P

Two Things You Ate Today:
1.) lechon manok
2.) papaya (YUMMY!)

Two People You Last Talked To:
1.) mama
2.) papa
(i just had lunch with them hehe)

Two Things You're Doing Tomorrow:
1.) bum. bum. and bum.
2.) watch CSI reruns. :)

Two Of The Longest Car Rides You've Been On:
1.) from Cavite to Sto. Tomas, Batangas. it took us 8 hours to get there cos we got lost!
2.) Manila-Baguio road trip. :)

Two Favorite Holidays:
1.) Christmas!
2.) Summer!

Two Things You Can't Live Without:
1.) GOD
2.) the gadgets (given na 'to e!)-- Peewee my ipod mini, laptop, and internet connection. mwahaha.
(okay,i cheated)

Two Things You Should Be Doing Instead Of This:
1.) sleep! cos i'm going to greenhills in a few hours.
2.) taking my 2nd shower so i'll be ready by the time alej picks me up.

i haven't been sleeping well lately. i don't know why, i'm scared it might develop into insomnia. i sure feel drowsey every night but when i hit the pillow i just lie there with my eyes open. minutes later i find myself coaching myself to sleep until it gets too tiring that i'm up again. i try to find things to do like watch tv or listen to music but none of that help. and then when it's dawn, i fall asleep for a few hours only to wake up to the sound of my alarm clock going off. it's annoying. and no, i do not have anything to think about that's bad enough to keep me awake. i just don't know why!

but last night was different. it broke the cycle of me not being able to sleep well. probably because i was too tired from the day. i spent hours at that humongous mall with my family and bought an adorable rubber duckie soap dish. for the first time in ages too, i actually felt like trying on and buying clothes. i'm lazy like that. i don't like trying stuff on in dressing rooms because 1.) i hate lines 2.) i'm just plain lazy. we then met up with my father at the office and i slept off the whole trip back home with my head rested on a pillow on top of my mother's lap. yes, i'm a mother's girl like that. heeh.

i hope i continue to sleep soundly for the rest of the following nights. it's exhausting to not sleep well.

i also wish i could sleep off the entire few months. wake me up when september ends. it's a cheesey emo-rock song by Green Day, i know. but they sure know what they were talking about.

random early morning encounter #1

happiness is hearing your current favorite song on the radio in the morning (in my case, it's How to Save a Life by The Fray) even if hearing it on the radio means that it's going to sell out or it's going to be overplayed until you can no longer stand it. but then the guy operating the radio inside the vehicle goes ahead and pops his cd into the player and the sound of Bone Thugs N' Harmony starts infiltrating the stiff air. the tug tug tug of the rap artists start bothering you yet it quickly changes because you begin to not mind at all. It's because How to Save a Life is still in your head-- unlike in the real world, it plays on repeat and nonstop.

on politics, econonomics, social/current events and everything else

i'm confused-- which is worse?
being naive and not knowing what's going on around you or being aware of what's going on, knowing that there's a better way and that something could be done?

let me justify:

point no.1-- if you're naive and you don't know what the hell is going on around you, you worry less and care less. you're selfish (er, in this case it might sound good) because you choose to bother about things that affect you directly. you don't care about how poor our economy is, what could be done, nor do you have a sense of nationalism. globalization? what's that? a westernized Filipino economy? yes to imperialism? sure. i'm up for it.

point no.2-- you know how bad our economy is doing, you know how the system works and you know how the system DOES NOT WORK. therefore, you have very little faith in the system and call for social and political change. you're nationalistic politically, economically, and culturally. you see the loophole and you know that there is a better way. you want to make poverty history and you know that there are ways to alleviate the suffering of the masses.

you get my point? when you're aware and you know there's a better way, it just frustrates you and gives you a big headache because you want things to be different. you want to end discrimination of the Filipino people and give Filipinos a better reputation other than people who are always hounded by political turmoil, stricken by natural calaminities, and people with a high poverty rate.

it makes me sad to KNOW and BE AWARE. studying about it makes me even sadder. but a lot happier too (i know, it confuses me too) because i owe this much to the country-- to be "in the know" and keep the fire of nationalism burning. but sometimes it's more than just knowing. perhaps influencing others who don't know with what i know may be a good idea.

so which is better? staying naive or being aware?

i think i'd rather KNOW than stay apathetic with things going on around me especially to my own country. to live is to learn and to learn is to live. right? it is complicated but who said things are easy when it comes to these things especially POLITICS?

overshare

in the midst of tons of readings on relevant social issues, i just thought i'd stop and share this:

"....U.P. Manila is called upon to produce outstanding graduates who do not just heal physical illness and pain, but who can contribute constructively in healing the social cancer in our midst..."-- Prof. Roland Simbulan, M.P.A.

hear, hear.

________________________________

before the long weekend began, i had my weekend mapped out. and then my family planned a lunchdate, a trip to the mall, and i did bum around (just had to mention that) a lot. so now it's monday. i haven't done a single thing that i planned on doing and i feel guilty as hell. i need to punish myself. like eat the whole carton of Toblerone chocolate and feel more guilty later. or stop taking medication for my migraine so i could feel groggy until the wee hours of the morning. but who am i kidding? i'm the one who's going to lose if i did this to myself. i haven't done anything the whole weekend and if i continue to punish myself, i won't accomplish anything at all.

what a sad, sad life.

words that are synonymous to "gail":
pathetic. lazy. psychopath. agitated. migraine girl.

i remember watching Girl, Interrupted and then thinking how convenient it is to be confined to a mental institution. why do they (those who are confined there) want to get out of that place when it's their chance to shut off themselves from the world? and being with fellow psychotics or those who were labeled as such is a good thing-- you can be as crazy, pathetic, and depressed as you want to be. you won't be judged as much as you could be in the outside world. plus, they give out medication legally not that i take drugs, just to clear that out.

it's nonconformity at its finest.

i've never been clinically depressed nor have i been close to being dangerously depressed. but my fascination for the brain and the psychotics made me this way. i don't see psychotics or mental institutions as something to dread-- unless it's a scary big old hospital with psychotics who have the tendency to kill like the one in Halle Berry's movie.

maybe it's time to mention that i should have taken up BS Psychology at DSLU. then again, who am i kidding? i hate math and statistics. the statistics part, i think it's given because there are a lot of numbers there.

the closest thing to satisfy my psychology/self-help/non-fiction enthusiasm for these things is watching movies like Girl, Interrupted, that movie on Sylvia Plath entitled Sylvia, Prozac Nation, reading books like The Bell Jar, I Never Promised You a Rose Garden, Virgin Suicides, Elizabeth Wurtzels's The Secret of Life, She's Come Undone and Veronica Decides to Die. I am yet to get One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

anymore suggestions? :)

brought to you by Home by Michael Buble

i miss slow dancing-- closing my eyes and leaning my head against my dance partner and listening to his heartbeat. i miss being lost in the music and the distinct feeling like i do not belong to the world as if i were some place else. i miss the natural high. the feeling that nothing else matters but to dance until the song is finished. it's priceless because sometimes i like time to trickle like that. sometimes i like the feeling of detaching myself from the world especially at times when i don't feel like feeling.

maybe this is why prom was so exciting for me. prom was an excuse to get away from everything else and focus on that special night-- the perfect dress, the perfect hair, the perfect make-up, the perfect evening... PERFECT. i had a good time, i danced the night away, and slow danced until my high-heeled feet couldn't take it anymore.

i want to slow dance. :(

gym virgin no more

i went to the gym today. gym virgin no more, i say. it was great. i now feel better and less guilty about my unhealthy lifestyle. but it's not that i care about my weight, really. i couldn't care any less because the ironic thing happened when i gave up on trying to be skinny-- people started noticing that i was losing weight. hurray, right? maybe it's my tea-with-squeezed-calamansi drinking habit that is now a ritual. it's addictive-- like drinking coffee or coke and being addicted for the caffeine. only, the lipton teabags i like are caffeine-free to help me sleep at night with a teaspoon of honey. so basically, i'm addicted to the taste and the soothing feeling it gives my body to help me relax. yeah, i feel more comfortable with my body. so anyone who thinks i'm fat can go to hell. haha. you know i'm kidding. :)

so my first gym experience? it was fun because i had a personal trainer. HAHA! sort-of. he's a personal trainer that doubles as a boyfriend/movie date/food trip partner/bodyguard/punching bag/buddy-buddy/lover HAHA! and everything else. oh yeah, that isn't "double" anymore because that's multiple. haha! and "gym partner" is the latest on the long list of things my boyfriend is for me. i'm definitely going again to break a sweat. i hate being stiff and sitting all day in front of the computer thinking of websites to surf to (i do run out of places to surf to, y'know) isn't my idea of staying fit. i think it's a good thing to stay active than to let all that lard settle into the body.

i just showered. i'm tired. i feel like i want to crawl into bed and sleep until afternoon. but there's still mass in the morning and lunch with the family afterwards. and i can't sleep just yet because my sister isn't home. i have to open the door for her.

notice how much i said "HAHA" in this post. blehhh. :P
groans

lunch group

for those who weren't able to make it, this was our lunch date last week saturday. :) we missed you!!! special mention to apple, novee, van, and the others. :) i'm the one who's going to host the next one. host as in fix the date, pick a place, contact people, the like... not TREAT everyone. HAHA! just thought i'd make that clear.

we do it monthly, fyi. i'm picking greenhills next. so save the date! you know who you guys are. :P

Friday's




at Starbucks...

friday i'm in luuurve

i saw My Super Ex-Girlfriend. it was okay. you wouldn't miss anything if you didn't watch it.

for dinner, alej and i went to Tiendesitas because we both craved for sisig. and then at some point during out dinner, the band's front girl-- in her skimpy bikini toplike outfit came singing and all the men in the area went crazy. i guess for some men who were there to have fun, a nice body and a lot of skin from the torso up was enough for them to go wild. being the occasional kill-joy/feminist/bitch that i am, i had to comment on how crazy these men were for going wild over a girl with a skimpy top. ah, yes. poor boyfriend had to listen to me. i'm sorry that i had to be judgemental like that but men going wild over a girl with a skimpy outfit just infuriates me. i don't know, maybe i feel that women are oppressed that way-- treated as if they are commodoties, mere mannequins with gorgeous bodies to ogle and cat-call on. the girl consented, though. so i shouldn't take all my steam out on the men. afterall, the girl onstage seemed to be flattered by the attention of men coming up to her to take pictures from their cameraphones. but i thought it was preposterous. then again, it's entertainment. and in entertainment, i don't think women's dignity and true value matter anymore anyway. sad but true.

disclaimer: this is just me.

* * *
time for nauseous mushy couple pic:


<3


we don't do much, really. we hang out, we eat, we watch movies. we eat. we hang out with my friends. we hang out with his friends. we hang out with each other's families. we eat. and we eat. HAHAHA! notice how we eat a lot. :P oh wait. only I eat a lot. :P i always eat just half a cup of rice because i cannot make myself go further than that. i'm usually stuffed with my half cup so it's not normal for him to finish my other half.

one year na next month. WOWWW. that fast?!

* * *

i don't know what's wrong with the nearest Globe cell site but since this month, the signal downstairs here at home has been weak! i mean just two or three bars of signal in our celphones and sometimes no signal at all! but when you go upstairs, the reception is always good. and no, we do not live up on the mountains or somewhere far far away. i hate it because i have to raise my celphone up into the air to get a good signal or sometimes i'd pace around the living room or the dining room (where i usually hang out) just to look for a spot with good reception. it's getting annoying, you know. maybe i should give Globe's customer service a call.

do you experience the same thing? sigh

time for a cold shower and a good night's sleep. Zzzzz.

duckiecake

duckiecake
Originally uploaded by shutterbug-gail.

this was my rubber duckie birthday cake. it's a devil's food cake from the chocolate kiss cafe :) alej gave it to me with a box of fossil watch inside the cake!

out and about

guess who got her adaptor replacement? me! me! me! er, yeah. duh, right? HAHA!

i had a great weekend. i ate so much over the weekend-- a week's worth of meals combined altogether, actually. but it's not like i care. alright, maybe a little. :P

saturday was a blast. i met up with college friends tal, pao, bea, krish, ies, and chex at glorietta. poor tal had to wait for us for an hour at starbucks because i got there late. i had to hitch a ride with my sister and kuya john to makati instead of taking the MRT. yes, they're heaven-sent. and then when we i got there, krish and tal were already chit-chatting about jobs. yes, jobs. until now i find it surreal that a job found me before i hunted for one and i'm pretty happy with what i do even if i'm not yet full-time. slowly people came and then we had lunch at TGI Friday's. whoo. the cheeseburger was disgustingly humongous and i was already stuffed eating half of it. pao helped me with my fries but to no avail, i surrendered. we also abused the refills of softdrinks over our very colorful conversation in which we updated, reminisced, gossiped about a lot of things. there was a photo-op, of course. HAHA! before the movie we went to starbucks to kill time and talked for another one hour. i don't know why we drifted off to talking about drama in our lives but we did and bea and i got pretty teary-eyed. it's so normal of me to get teary-eyed when i talk about something happy or something sad. but it was fun! we all watched "Just My Luck" because it's supposed to be a feel-good movie. it was so-so, and then after the movie everyone had to go but Pao and i stayed to window shop for gadgets. we went to the Motorola store and couldn't believe that the cool-ass Motorockr is only 4000 bucks. HAHA! i rounded it off, of course but it's still pretty reasonable for a phone with iTunes as the mp3 player.

after paoie and i parted ways, i rushed to meet my workmates. it was my late birthday dinner thrown by our boss. he sends us birthday dinner money to eat out. it's also our way of meeting up to talk about work. i was still full during dinner at Italiannis. i only had a Pizza Margherita because i remembered Wolfgang Puck roaming the streets of Italy to find the best pizzerias in town. he ended up going to the pizza parlor who first created the Pizza Margherita (it was created for the king's wife Queen Margherita during the time). but it was too dry, the crust was too thick, and it would've tasted better if there was more cheese on it! i forgot to complain to the manager or wait, at least give them constructive criticism about the pizza. oh well! and then reggie and arbie wondered how the waiter could remember which glass of dalandan juice belongs to a customer because all the glasses look alike! so i sliced a small portion of the sliced dalandan inside my glass and decided to experiment if he'd get the glasses mixed up. i'd know if they got it right or wrong because my slice of dalandan had a portion cut off. but phooey. i guess the waiter was smart too because when we were going to get another refill, he came back with the juice pitcher. argh. there went my experiment. i was outsmarted.

we raided the Powerbooks booksale too. i got Womenagerie by Jessica Zafra because i like her. and we are alike in so many ways. the cynicsm and geekism, among the long list. and then there was dessert at Max Brenner's. i met with alej there, stayed a while, and then went to macapagal to meet up with my sister and kuya john. my sister and i got home past midnight.

it was a fun weekend, though. and who can possibly say no to food? i know i can't. :P

just a thought

wanderlust tells me to be some place else.
reality and obligations tell me to stay put.
patience tells me to wait,
sponteinity tells me not to drop everything and go.
confusion makes me wonder, "where to?"
my heart whispers, "trust me".
my brain wants to know, "can i?"

miniaturization of gail's rationality brain

it's a lazy sunday afternoon and i love it this way because it's my birthday and aside from that, i have an adaptor that i can temporarily use. my uncle's friend has the same Toshiba kind. so yey! he left it yesterday so i can use it until tuesday when they come back. so while it's with me, i'm going to abuse the DSL connection and the adaptor.

i've been downloading like crazy. mostly software updates.

while i was gone, my supposedly trusty Nokia 7610 gave up on me. i will shamefully say that i have (once again) succumbed to technology miniaturization. it started with getting a smaller ipod-- the ipod mini. and then there's wanting a smaller laptop than what i have now so i won't have to carry around a heavy computer. then there's the latest-- me getting a Motorola Razr. it's not like i had a choice. i had to choose right away before the old phone gave up on me. so yeah. i am a gullible consumer. since the Razr came out, i was happy with my phone but exchanging text messages with Bea (who is well-researched when it comes to Razrs), i wanted to get one too. not just because the old one was bulky but because i wanted to switch to a different manufacturer other than Nokia who has dominated the celphone industry (if not the whole world, at least in Asia or the Philippines). like what Bea and i say, "death to NOKIA!". HAHA! i know very well that gadgets were created for fast depreciation but here i am, still a slave of petty consumerism. and i gave up. i got a Razr. the slim phone. somebody shoot me now.

but if we talk about the perks of the phone, i love it because even if i slip it into the pocket of my jeans, it's not bulky. i can still do the things that i like with celphones like transfer media files to a computer and update the software. except i only have polyphonic tones instead of wave files. i fell in love with it the first night it was with me because it's easy to adjust to unlike other non-Nokia phones and it has the features that i call a necessity for me: it has a Datebook! i know. probably every celphone out there has a calendar but whatever. i'm happy with my Razr. hah. it's even sick that Nokia phones have set the standards of the functionality of celphones. i must admit, they have cutting edge technology but whatever. i'm trying to break the cycle. HAHA! fat chance.

i wanted to get the silver one but they did not have the silver one in an executive pack (meaning, the whole deal: USB cable, software, leather case, headset, etc.). so i picked the black one instead. PINK was not even an option. please. i still want the silver. but whatever. HAHA! black works for me because it's scratch free unlike the sensitive looking silver aluminum casing.

i feel half guilty and half happy for falling into the marketing trap of Motorola. what's worse is that poor gadget freak Me didn't even have a chance to fight against it.

it's my birthday on sunday. i turn another year older and i hope i am another year wiser too.

i used to think that a birthday is just the day you were born (duh, right?), just numbers or a date that you have to celebrate because you were given life that day. JUST. but now i know different. it's more. birthdays and ages are also representations of how far we've gone and how wiser we (hopefully) are. i know i have grown so much from my twentieth birthday.

still no adaptor. no internet at home sucks but things might change tomorrow when i finally have the software of the LAN card installed into my ancient PC. i wouldn't even touch that thing if it weren't for extreme desperation. some nights i get that itch to write about something that comes up inside my head. other nights i'd lie sleepless in bed thinking about a gazillion things and wish i had internet so i can blog. pfft.

i hate computer shops so i'm going now.

toodles!