But... before anything else:


I kinda cheated, though. It's almost a tie between her and Peter (a 1-point difference, and I find Peter too chivalrous and boring). I've always found myself in Jill - she gets lost, blunders throughout the journey, pretty unsure of herself, but headstrong in anything - and very unlike the perfect Pevensies. Then I visited the Palawan caves, and was finally convinced that I was under Narnia.

***

Midsem blues are kicking in.

I found out that rendering inanimate objects in india ink is intolerable, uncontrollable, and unconvincing. Not the medium for me, I think, for product packaging. The ole poster colors, however, did the trick. Next stop: paper cutting and ohohoho I can hear myself slashing with the old X-acto knife.

Design methods wants a fully-rendered ice shaver model and company profiles for mini-thesis on Monday. Yes, we're gonna do a 90's-style, sleek, marker-rendered presentation board - think car ads. It's hard, it's tedious, and honestly, I hate that frigging style.

2 Dioramas for this sem!!! Aaaaiiiggghhh!!!

And, oh yes, the STS report. We planned to do a Caesar Salad's worth of dubbed tech movies. Plus, we have to dress up in costumes for dubious purposes. Honestly, there's no job as cheesy as dubbing, say, The Matrix, in Tagalog, with the characters explaining how the Internet works. I'm gonna dress up as Amidala, and because I am broke (plus, the price of rubber foam and adhesives have increased), I'm gonna buy two ensaymadas as hairpiece. Yes, I am serious.

***


I can say I've seen everything: I saw Saruman in his full Dental fury, and heard him say "LOLLIPOPS."

I heart Jake's laptop.

Since blockmate Jake and I are living in the same dorm (he lives in the boys' wing, of course), I have the privilege of taking over his Dell laptop and filling up its gig-full memory hahaha borrowing his precious laptop for typing papers and laying-out stuff in Photoshop.

I needed to upload my camera pics so I borrowed it yesterday. Since he's such a generous person he lets me borrow it for 6 hours or so.

I fooled around with Photoshop (Vector illustrations on Photoshop? Tanedo will kill me.), because I was positively frustrated with our India ink painting homework.



NOT ME. Well, maybe if I'd dress up nicely.

***

Happiness is a warm Stripes CD. Hoho, how materialistic, but.



At least I can beat everybody during the dorm's Noise Barrage Afternoons. I can now shove their Nina and Hale CDs up their noses.

Get Behind Me Satan is great. I fell in love with the songs the minute I popped it in the CD player. Although I'm a bit disappointed with the lack of guitar riffs, Jack seemed to have been creative elsewhere - here he plays excellent piano.

I am very much in love with "Blue Orchid", "The Denial Twist" and "Instinct Blues" - songs which sound like diabolical dance ditties ("Just because she makes you feel wrong / She don´t mean to be mean or hurt you on purpose, boy / Take a tip and do yourself a little service / Take a mountain turn it into a mole"). There's always something diabolical about their songs - even the Meg White interlude "Passive Manipulation" sounds sinister. "Litle Ghost" and "I'm Lonely" sound like American folk music. "Take, Take, Take" is by far the best song about the dark side of fandom ("I want to get a piece of hair / That was all that I needed / Or maybe a kiss on the cheek / I wouldn´t wash it for a week / That would be all that I needed / But she didn´t even care").

Overall, Satan is a bit sleek compared to 2001's Elephant - I've heard fans complaining about the band "evolving, but they always promised not to." But I think that even though they sound a bit sophisticated that the original "garage band," the Mondrian principles are still there - basic instruments, sound clarity, the seek for "truth" sound louder than ever.

The red, white, and black lives on. :D

mood | cheerful
music | White Stripes - The Denial Twist

2 bottles |uncork one

So sue me, I am doomed to be a serial killer, one quiz said.

Uh-huh.

It was the last day I'd ever set foot in my high school. Everyone, with their report cards and souvenirs, still felt nostalgic - there were talks on reunion/pre-collegiate parties during the summer. I had my senior report card tucked carefully in my bag - it was one of my tickets to UP - and I was viewing everything with malevolent glee. I can clearly remember myself smirking so much my face hurt. I remember actually plotting to vandalize school property, writing rude messages on the wall, punching a hole through the blackboard. I wanted to somehow hurt the school - visually, physically - now that I am going out of it. Needless to say I haven't got a permanent marker ready.

Teachers were saying goodbyes to my classmates. There were emotional moments between teachers and their favorite stuck-up students. Nobody liked me during high school, and teachers think I'm dangerously becoming a psycopath. Sure, people said goodbye to me, but it was just because I'm from their class.

Then, in the midst of the senior crowd, a teacher called after me. She looked dead serious, like Trelawney after a prediction, and told me this:

"Mag-ingat ka, Clara, ha. Nakakatakot sa UP, baka kung anong mangyari sa 'yo dun!"
(Yes, people in high school calls me "Clara")

She said it like she was expecting me to kill people, do drugs and get pregnant as soon as I land my feet on UP Diliman. Like a scandalized matron waiting eagerly for gossips.

I've never felt so insulted in my life.

In some ways I feel for Draco Malfoy. Sure, I hated him, that slimy blonde Slytherin who's all too ridiculously obsessed with Harry's downfall, since that early chapter in Sorcere's Stone. I used to imagine him as a vain, pompous Death Eater wannabe with great hair and greater angst. Everybody hates Draco Malfoy - not only by most readers, but also by the characters. Sure, he's the big Slytherin gun, but people feared him. In all aspects he was alone, feeling as if it's his destiny to be evil.

And sure. Everyone expected him to be evil and pompous. But then, at that moment when he lowered his wand, all those years of scheming, cheating, decadent swearing, he became me.

I was tried of being the batch's poster child for angst and all things "gothic," therefore "evil" (and if anyone haven't noticed, I never was a goth. Sure, I love stained glass and the Chartres cathedral, but I'm no goth). I do not apologize for my eccentricity, my evident weirdness, because that makes me different as an individual. But, dammit, do I always have to look evil?

Sure, I'm not good either. I'm the most bitter, resentful person I know. Sure, I dwell in my notoriety. But then haven't I made good, better choices? Am I not allowed to choose, not expected to choose - even for once - the right choices for my life and for everyone else? (But what is "good?" Now is not the time for Plato, I guess.)

I know. It's confusing - in one hand, you want to be different, to choose differently, be an entirely strange person. In another, you want to at least be trusted with the right decisions everyone else is expected to choose. Thank God this isn't ethics class.

The bottom line: Half-Blood Prince is sad, but great. Read it.

p.s. And yes: YAHOOOOOOOO POTTER-RELATED RELATIONSHIPS!!! Guilty colegiala kilig along the way.

mood | contemplative

1 bottle |uncork one

Iona and I are still bawling our heads in anguish: WALA NANG PINOY/BLONDE SA SM CINEMAS!!! Our heads reeling from despair, we settled upon The Island, a sci-fi movie (like Minority Report) that would probably suck but we would enjoy anyway (well, it's this or Herbie).

Apart from the disappearance of Pinoy/Blonde, I watched this movie because of:
1. Steve Buscemi. Hahaha.
2. Scarlett Johansson (and I can hear Thora Birch crying somewhere)
3. I have to take a breather before I render the semi-reflective surface that is the C2 bottle.
4. No classes tomorrow hahaha.

Of course, it's another garden-variety testosterone action flick that boasts scientific relevance: one of Steve's lines was, "never trust your credit card to a woman." Everything we should know was, unfortunately, given away by the trailers in AXN. And, oh yes, the guy who directed Pearl Harbor directed this. Yup.

But it had its moments. Plus, it had great interior sets (I want to have Ewan McGregor's house! The Stairs! The Lamps! Why does he get good interiors, anyway...) and really cool color palette.

And... here's "What I've Learned from The Island"
1. In the near future, WE INDUSTRIAL DESIGNERS ARE GOING TO BE FILTHY RICH, WE COULD AFFORD CLONES. ID will rule the world!
2. Steve Buscemi should stop playing those sleazy genius roles he can play in his sleep. We want to see him doing something different after Ghost World and Trees Lounge. Hey, but who am I to complain? :D :D :D
3. Boromir, after a long bath and a trip to the barber, looks fabulous.
4. I heart Scarlett Johansson. She's the only girl in the movies who can't scream. Yay her!
5. With a short leading lady, Ewan McGregor looks too tall. And yes, two Ewans are better than one.
6. We should've watched Pinoy/Blonde.
7. I need to research on Plato on cloning, for STS.
8. Iona thinks it's weird for someone to have a crush on Steve Buscemi. But hey! It's Me!
9. We should have boyfriends by now.

***

There are many things happening and I can't write them all down.

My dormmates are still inconsiderate at 11 pm. Ah, but now I'm enjoying it - I now know who dated whom, and got laid where. If the walls could talk, it would be the highest-paid gossip columnist in UP.

I'm still having the incompetence jitter I always have during the first semester. There's a lot of work to be done, and I hate it when I don't see myself excelling. Like during this morning. Some people reported, and I found their reports better than mine. Of course, many people speak better than me, but their reports made me feel that my knowledge is just epidermis of the whole. Maybe it's the whole competitive attitude high school taught me. I can't be cool with everything if I'm not in the class' "Slug Club."

I'm still broke. I can't even buy Get Behind Me Satan, let alone other books. I need to replenish materials and buy more stuff, and I seem to spend everything unwisely. For tickets on The Island, for example. XP. My brother, meanwhile, saves P500 every week. Sure, he goes to UPLB, but he's one hell of a tightwad. Ayoko na munang maging mahirap.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is in a diskette. The diskette broke. Fuck.

Apart from that I have nothing to complain of. There are many things happening around me, but I reduce it to a nutshell, for economy.

It's a pity that I forget.

mood | amused

1 bottle |uncork one

Some relatively new entries. Eye-candy? Wehehehe.


These doodles, done during the dorm GA meeting, almost got me into trouble. Plus, it made a sorority sister ask me to join them. Scary.

( More! CLICK HERE! )
Oh shit I'm gonna be late! XD

No TV during school days. Sure, the dorm's a civilized bunch, we have a TV set in the common hall. People have DVD-ROMs in their laptops. But would you stand and watch tabloid news, Chinovelas and fantasy shows with two dozen screaming Mark Herras/Angel Locsin/F4 fans? Watch brainless teen movies? Not a freaking chance.

1. Batman Forever was OK - just saw it in HBO. Of course it uses the same superhero-movie formula, but hey, somehow it works for me. Val Kilmer kills - sure, he's not good enough to save his career, but he's not exactly Keanu Reeves either. I thought Chris O' Donnell's Robin would wear the stupid trapeze suit at the end, but he may as well had - he was the wussiest sidekick I've ever seen. Nicole Kidman, well, was simply, goregeously Nicole, and Jim Carrey was still Jim Carrey - butt-cheeks and all.

It's way better than the George Clooney Batman movie. That's the worst movie I've ever seen, and it's a shame, because it was my first Batman movie (don't blame me, my family's the Indiana Jones type, and we didn't have cable until 1999). I never truly appreciated Batman.

Anyone up for Batman Begins?

2. Where else would Lindsay Lohan beat Hilary Swank in the Best Actress category? The MTV Movie Awards, of course. Just witnessed the annual yuckfest earlier. Well, at least MTV is honest: they acknowledge movies for what they are - movies. Not Film, with the F. Not even cinema. Just movies - cool, dumb, fun, enjoyable things captured on celluloid, things that are "so bad they just got past good and back to bad again" (yes, I'm quoting Ghost World). It's almost a direct mockery of all awards night, but with more effort and budget behind it.

They named Tom Cruise for their version of the Lifetime Achievement Award. Of course. As for me, I hate Tom Cruise. He makes goo-goo faces with the camera so much, in every shot he screams "I'm soooooooo cute lookit me!" He's so vain. I don't find him a compelling actor - I realized it in in Eyes Wide Shut: Nicole Kidman did the acting, while he went around New York, just walking, walking, walking... I only liked him as Lestat in Interview with the Vampire because he's such a pompous ham, it worked really well.

And why, pray tell, haven't I heard of Napoleon Dynamite? Looks like MY kind of movie. I hope it's not too dumb - it's Best Movie of 2005.

I'm short of .05 for a CS GWA. Came up short. AGAIN. Dammit.

But I'm happy I had high grades at all - my machine didn't work last sem, I did Ergonomics projects without much confidence, plus I had a really bad final plate on ID Intro. I aced my computer ID subject (it's Corel and AutoCAD, and I hate them, but I got to practice the pen tool), which made up for the abyssmal Ergo grade everyone had.

I think I never got used to bum out during the summer. I am always paranoid of something, even if I look like a bloated worm watching CSI. My mom and my brothers are OK now, but I worried a lot back then. I was worrying about my weekend KAA classes - and a dozen of tie-dye shirts I had to wash for the kids - but we've just finished today and I'm expecting my salary.

I was worrying about our org's University recognition for this sem, and I'm still worrying about it now - the seniors have graduated, we don't know exactly what to do, and people never thought to contact me (p.s. everyone, I need some help with the letters to the Dean for OSA renewal - the former chair still has it, and we don't have any idea where he is). I feel responsible for all the org trouble, because I was the least-informed person (I never should have been), and I missed out a lot.

With 15 units this sem, I think I need a job. Anyone knows how to be a student assistant? Research assistant? Illustrator?

Who would've thought being in third year helps in choosing dorm rooms? I'm gonna check-in on Monday.

mood | drained

uncork one

Nobody appreciates what I do.

Maybe photomanipulations and other stuff aren't really art. Maybe my drawings are more heinous than how I see them. I have been sloppy with my words, uninspiring and mediocre and absolutely blah. Maybe I do uninteresting, run-on-the-mill things that never really astonish anyone. Which could be such a shame, since I enjoy everything I do, and that I am bound to improve on them.

I don't have an audience at all. I have few friends (my Friendster account would attest to that, and God, why did I open one anyway), and about 63% of them are almost luddites. Unlike the people I admire in LJ, I hate the '80's - all I see is heinous pink, leather, Loveliness-in-tights, bad hairdo, shoulder pads, and Mr. T (maybe it's a generation thing). I always thought I could bank on the net community, but nnnaaaaaah. Too many argumentative, self-righteous piranhas, too violent for me (I just don't think that I can convince anyone, so why bother).

I can't gravitate towards the city kids because I'm away in the province and can't drive, and I can't relate to the provincial kids because they're too busy doing crude imitations of city kids. I try to be different but that proves to be complicated: everyone's trying to be so different, they're all the same.

Nobody in their right minds would take me out. All I want is someone with a working brain and a kindred spirit. When I see him, I go and find out if he's for real. The last person I tried out is still not talking to me, and it's such a shame (hmm, maybe I scared him away). He's a bit disappointing.

I don't belong to anything or anyone and maybe that's why I'm so underappreciated.

mood | confused
music | Won't Get Fooled Again - The Who

9 bottles |uncork one

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