Murphy's Attack!

Boy oh boy! Did Murphy attack today, or what!!! Capt. Edward A. Murphy once said, "If anything can go wrong, it will," and sheesh-mareesh, did it! Why do I always leave everything up to the last minute???!!!! WHY??!!!!!!!!

Geek Guide

In continuation of my previous meme on books, I realise that I am not too much of a geek: I only read less than 50% (42 to be more exact) of the 100 books on the list. But here's another list that I know I've completely read already:

1. Deception Point (Dan Brown)
2. Digital Fortress (Dan Brown)
3. - 9. The Anne of Green Gables Set (L.M. Montgomery): Anne of Avonlea, Anne of the Island, Anne of Windy Poplars, Anne's House of Dreams, Anne of Ingleside, Rainbow Valley, and Rilla of Ingleside.
10. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (J.K. Rowling)
11. Little Men (Louisa May Alcott)
12. Jo's Boys (Alcott)
13. Message in a Bottle (Nicholas Sparks)
14. A Walk to Remember (Sparks)
15. Rescue (Sparks)
16. Veronika Decides to Die (Paulo Coelho)
17. Shopaholic Abroad (Sophia Kinsella)
18. Can You Keep A Secret? (Kinsella)
19. Shopaholic and Sister (Kinsella)
20. Shopaholic Takes Manhattan (Kinsella)
21. Shopaholic Ties the Knot (Kinsella)
22. Anne Frank: Diary of a Young Girl (Anne Frank)
23. Oliver Twist (Charles Dickens)
24. Like Water For Chocolate (Laura Esquivel)
25. Lasher (Anne Rice)
26. The Second Summer of the Sisterhood (Anne Brashares)
27. Bridget Jones: The Edge of Reason (Helen Fielding)
28. The Pearl (John Steinbeck)
29. The Parsifal Mosaic (Robert Ludlum)
30. The Icarus Agenda (Robert Ludlum)

Apparently, I'm a "series" freak... I also read books by the same author (it lessens my time in the bookstore)... and I'm a romantic at heart. There's more to the list, I'm sure, but that's another meme altogether. :-) Ciao!

Meme: Books

I've been looking for a good book blogsite, but haven't found one yet! (Chrissy, if you're reading this, perhaps you can recommend someone?) The reason I've been doing so is because I'm BORED! Bored of the same ol' thing on TV, the same ol' dissing-and-gossiping matches and powwows with friends, and the same ol' work everyday. Reading's always been a hobby (in fact, I'm looking out for a paperback copy of "Flags of our Father"), nay, a passion. It keeps me sane. So, here's a meme I copied straight out of Chrissy's blog (thank you, Chrissy!)

1. The Da Vinci Code (Dan Brown) READ IT
2. Pride and Prejudice (Jane Austen) READ IT
3. To Kill A Mockingbird (Harper Lee) READ IT
4. Gone With The Wind (Margaret Mitchell) READ IT
5. The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (Tolkien) WATCHED PETER JACKSON'S FILM
6. The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (Tolkien) WATCHED JACKSON'S FILM
7. The Lord of the Rings: Two Towers (Tolkien) WATCHED JACKSON'S FILM
8. Anne of Green Gables (L.M. Montgomery) READ IT (AGAIN AND AGAIN!)
9. Outlander (Diana Gabaldon)
10. A Fine Balance (Rohinton Mistry)
11. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Rowling) READ IT
12. Angels and Demons (Dan Brown) READ IT
13. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Rowling) READ IT
14. A Prayer for Owen Meany (John Irving)
15. Memoirs of a Geisha (Arthur Golden) READ IT
16. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Rowling) READ IT
17. Fall on Your Knees(Ann-Marie MacDonald)
18. The Stand (Stephen King) MANY WILL KILL ME FOR SAYING THIS, BUT I DON'T REALLY LIKE READING KING. SORRY.
19. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Rowling) READ IT
20. Jane Eyre (Charlotte Bronte) READ IT
21. The Hobbit (Tolkien) STILL WAITING TO SEE IF JACKSON WILL MAKE THE FILM
22. The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger) READ IT
23. Little Women (Louisa May Alcott) READ IT (Over and over, and I won't get tired of it, I think. I still bawl everytime I read about Beth's demise. Corny, but true.)
24. The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
25. Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
26. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams) WON'T BOTHER TO READ IT. THE FILM VERSION WAS AWFUL.
27. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte) READ IT
28. The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (C. S. Lewis) SAW THE PLAY AND FILM VERSIONS. REALLY LIKED IT.
29. East of Eden (John Steinbeck) UGHHH... TOO HEAVY FOR ME.
30. Tuesdays with Morrie (Mitch Albom) READ IT
31. Dune (Frank Herbert)
32. The Notebook (Nicholas Sparks) READ IT
33. Atlas Shrugged (Ayn Rand)
34. 1984 (Orwell)
35. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley)
36. The Pillars of the Earth (Ken Follett)
37. The Power of One (Bryce Courtenay)
38. I Know This Much is True (Wally Lamb)
39. The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
40. The Alchemist (Paulo Coelho) READ IT
41. The Clan of the Cave Bear (Jean M. Auel)
42. The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
43. Confessions of a Shopaholic (Sophie Kinsella) READ IT
44. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (Mitch Albom) READ IT
45. The Bible READ IT (MOST OF IT)
46. Anna Karenina (Tolstoy) AM STILL TRYING TO READ IT
47. The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexandre Dumas) SAW THE FILM. IT WAS OKAY.
48. Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
49. The Grapes of Wrath (John Steinbeck) ANOTHER HEAVY ONE.
50. She’s Come Undone (Wally Lamb) READ IT
51. The Poisonwood Bible (Barbara Kingsolver) READ IT... SOMEWHAT
52. A Tale of Two Cities (Dickens) THINK I READ IT ALREADY...
53. Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)
54. Great Expectations (Dickens) READ IT
55. The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald)
56. The Stone Angel (Margaret Laurence)
57. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Rowling) READ IT
58. The Thorn Birds (Colleen McCullough) READ IT
59. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
60. The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrew Niffenegger)
61. Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
62. The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
63. War and Peace (Tolstoy) ANOTHER HEAVY ONE.
64. Interview With The Vampire (Anne Rice) READ IT
65. Fifth Business (Robertson Davis)
66. One Hundred Years Of Solitude (Gabriel Garcia Marquez) READ IT
67. The Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants (Ann Brashares) READ IT
68. Catch-22 (Joseph Heller) READ IT
69. Les Miserables (Hugo) READ IT
70. The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery) READ IT
71. Bridget Jones’ Diary (Fielding) READ IT
72. Love in the Time of Cholera (Marquez) READ IT
73. Shogun (James Clavell) READ IT
74. The English Patient (Michael Ondaatje) READ IT
75. The Secret Garden (Frances Hodgson Burnett) READ IT
76. Tigana (Guy Gavriel Kay)
77. A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
78. The World According To Garp (John Irving)
79. The Diviners (Margaret Laurence)
80. Charlotte’s Web (E.B. White) READ IT
81. Not Wanted On The Voyage (Timothy Findley)
82. Of Mice And Men (Steinbeck)
83. Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier)
84. Wizard’s First Rule (Terry Goodkind)
85. Emma (Jane Austen) READ IT
86. Watership Down (Richard Adams)
87. Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
88. The Stone Diaries (Carol Shields)
89. Blindness (Jose Saramago)
90. Kane and Abel (Jeffrey Archer)
91. In The Skin Of A Lion (Ondaatje)
92. Lord of the Flies (Golding) SAW THE FILM ALREADY. MIND-BOGGLING.
93. The Good Earth (Pearl S. Buck) READ IT
94. The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
95. The Bourne Identity (Robert Ludlum) READ IT
96. The Outsiders (S.E. Hinton)
97. White Oleander (Janet Fitch) READ IT
98. A Woman of Substance (Barbara Taylor Bradford)
99. The Celestine Prophecy (James Redfield)
100. Ulysses (James Joyce)

I'm now finding out there's plenty more books out there for me to devour. But in addition to the above, I've also read other ones that readers of this entry may be interested in, too... to be continued in another blog!

Ashes and Burns

I blame it on the air. In the past few days, I've experienced third-party heartbreak, thanks to my girl-friends' stories about life and, more particularly, about love. I haven't had the opportunity to know what pain caused by a "significant other" can do to a woman, and, seriously, at this point in time, I don't think I want to. Then, I heard this song by Mariah Carey again recently on the radio. It seemed appropriate; ladies, enjoy. Know that many people care about you.

On the Intellect and the Beauty

I just started learning the Spanish language quite recently, and I started to develop a fascination for everything Spanish: music, film, art, culture, food, people, geography, history, and books. In the Instituto Cervantes (www.manila.cervantes.es), the library is the one place I frequent to check out the latest textbooks for students who are learning Spanish and for available audio CDs and DVDs they have available.

Two of the CDs I'd recently borrowed were those by Joaquin Sabina (www.jsabina.com) and by Chayanne (www.chayanne.net), two men who exemplify opposite sides of the "ideals" that women could possibly want. For instance, Sabina is a Spanish social activist, singer, songwriter, author, illustrator, and poet whose outrageous antics, lyrics, and political views echoed the sentiment of his people. His raspy singing voice is not his appeal, oh no, definitely not. Instead, it is his points of view that are sang to the strumming of an acoustic guitar that attract millions of Latin American and European fans. The titles of his albums are likewise reflections of his artistic, socialist, and political statements: Malas compañías (Bad companies), La mandrágora (The mandrake), Esta boca es mía (This mouth is mine), Diario de un peatón (A pedestrian's log), amongst others. Personally, though, I appreciate his musical rhythm (especially since I'm often lazy to decipher his Spanish lyrics) and beat. It's so "individualistic" (I hate to use the word "unique" because I haven't heard a lot of Spanish singers), I can almost hear a "f*** off, world, I'm doing what I like doing, so shut the h*** up and listen to what I have to say" undertone in each song.

Puerto Rican hottie Chayanne, on the other hand, is part of a different male-spectrum altogether. His looks are soooo worth drooling over; the voice is okay; his bod's to die for (based on the picture I googled on the left here - I don't know, though, if that's really him); and his acting skills are passable (judging from the way Hollywood's latched onto him once upon a time). His songs are typical of the modern pop culture - ranging from ballads to Latin-based dance beats. The "passion" so apparent in Sabina's songs, however, is somewhat lacking in Chayanne's own beat. His albums are entitled to attract the masses, those pop-loving fans who really "own" the Billboard Hit Charts: "Chayanne es mi nombre" (Chayanne is my name... although his real name's Elmer Figueroa-Arce!!!), "Sangre Latina" (Latin blood), "Atado a tu amor" (Tied to your love), amongst others. His appeal is physical - his fame almost ethereal. According to Wikipedia, there's a highway (in Puerto Rico, I suppose) 'that connects San Lorenzo with Gurabo, named Chayanne.

Mierda. This is one of the truths that I've learned so far in my life: beauty trumps intellect... every time, all the time. Now, I gotta go... the treadmill's calling.

The Quality of Life

Last week, I was sifting through some of the photos my friend took along Manila Bay and Intramuros, and this one particularly grabbed my attention.

He looks forlorn, lonely, and dejected. The irony, though, is that he's sitting by the Manila Bay at sunset - one of the most beautiful place and times in the metro. I have to wonder, then: what's the point to the average Filipino's life, if this is the reality surrounding us daily?

We have beauty, knowledge, courage, and truth all around us. They're side by side with horror, ignorance, cowardice, and lies. We all learn these as we grow, and we attempt to live only with the "pretty" ones and try to avoid the inconveniences that the ugly things or concepts bring us. My theory is that with horror, there would most probably be pain. With ignorance, bliss is not always available for one to hide behind. A coward reaps neither praises nor rewards, while liars are most probably the most hated creatures on earth. Dozens, hundreds, nay, millions of stories have been told and retold in every generation, regarding the consequences of "stepping into the badside." However, why is it that they're all still there - and we all still seem to revere them?

Election season for local government posts and congressional seats is heating up and will culminate this May. I've seen and heard many electoral pitches, been given even more "vote-for-me" flyers, and debated about the candidates' eligibility with friends and family. Is there a point to it all? My officemate was very pessimistic about the whole thing - advising a couple of foreigner colleagues of ours that there's going to be a "disturbance" this coming May, all thanks to the election season. The foreigners were immediately alarmed, thinking that "disturbance" means riots, coup d'etats, and political rallies. I begged to differ, and I will continue to hold a differing opinion because, damn it, I still have to have hope for the improvement of my people's quality of life, don't I? The man by the bayside surely deserves it.