I have six awesome subjects plus a weekly circle - there's nothing more I can ask for, except more time and energy to absorb them all.

Communication 140 - Comm. Theories - Sir Varona
I know that right-minus-wrong exams are inevitable in this class, though the teacher hasn't mentioned it yet. I just know. What's cool in my school is that students already know what to expect from a professor and from his/her subject even before the semester starts. Everyone hears from everyone. Especially in the College of Mass Communication where students are trained to do so everyday.

Natural Science 2 - Concepts in Geology and Biology - Ma'm Mirasol
She's almost a liar. She almost made us believe she's not our professor, but a student assistant. Great. Now I don't know if I'm going to believe anything she says again. But since Geology is her passion and I don't know a single darn thing about it, I better listen and believe.

Philosophy 111 - Medieval Philosophy - Ma'm Ocampo
Most people think I'm crazy because of this. C'mon you guys, give the subject some slack. This is my quote lucky unquote subject. Plus, c'mon you guys, it's St Thomas Aquinas to the max! Break it down!
This choice was totally impulsive when I was enlisting in CRS (Computerized Registration Sickness) online. Just so happened that I liked the idea of having a Philosophy subject and a course with a triple 1 code. Just so happened that Center people know the professor, and I was surprised that they do. In that case, she should be really good. I'm psyched.

Broadcast Comm. 100 - Introduction - Ma'm Aseron
One word: cool prof. I'm also excited about this, and excited that my new groupmates are total strangers to me. I love working with other people. So yeah, new friends and new challenges. I love it.

Film 140 - Film Genre - Sir Campos
Today, I counted the times that Sir Campos mentioned the word "genre" - 342 times. It's a world record. It's a Guiness Award!
No, seriously, I didn't count it. But during our class today, all I heard was the word "genre" and I was drifting. The airconditioning in the room was at the nippiest. The television set was smaller than last sem's Film 100 class. And the readings are doubled. Great. I'm really optimistic. But because I love film so much, I'm ready to burn by eyebrows for it. Even literally.

Journalist 102 - Newswriting - Ma'm Khan
I don't know if it was the caffeine or it was me. Before this class last Friday, I was so nervous that I was spitting out silly conversations with my friends, and a Freudian slip mentioning my "crush" on Sir Teodoro while he was passing by. I guess he heard me, 'cause he smiled and waved at us. I froze, embarrassed. Now I don't want to see him again. I want to move to another city.
Why I was (and still am) nervous: Newswriting is the subject I'm most afraid of. I'm not a newswriter. In that area, I suck like a lachrymose leech. Make me write five sestinas and I'd do it. Make me write a 500-word news story and I'd stare at a blank page for five hours.

There you go folks, a long post after a long time. That's how much I miss blogging.

My high school friends and I were devoted readers of Gossip Girl series by Cecily Von Ziegesar. Back in high school, Misu, Catherine, and I borrowed the books from Saab. When we graduated, my sister Kim, bought her own stack. It's just so easy to get hooked to it, especially when you're young and fed with frivolous popular culture everyday.



Gossip Girl is about a bunch of high school kids living in New York City's Upper East Side. You got it. It's like an NYC Laguna Beach on paperback. But these Upper East Siders are wealthier than the Laguna people, and are better looking. They wear designers items from head to toe, and study in private, single-sex high schools (private schools in the US are for the privileged few). In the latter part of the series, they move to Ivy League biggies. And they party hardER.

Cool life, huh? Except that it's not really cool.

These kids are usually depressed or troubled. It's as if their wealth is not enough to buy them satisfaction. They want more, and they want less at the same time. The books can influence you two-way: convince you that it's the kind of life everyone should (or aspire to) live, and no matter how privileged and comfortable that life is, it can still be horrible.

Then there's petty gossip. Gossip Girl is the myterious online correspondent whose signature byline is "You know you love me." One clue is that GG is also a part of that crowd of kids, or at least pretending to be. She's so sneaky. She knows everything that's happening in the NYC elite sphere, more than any society page can ever feature. Plus her blind items only contain the initials of her subjects. S for Serena Van der Woodsen. N for Nate Archibald. B for Blair Waldorf and so on.

Man, I resent those kids. They're wasting their time, money, and at best their lives. But what's incredible is that the characters are lovable. Me, I don't love them. 'Cause y know, if I had their life, I'd probably put it to good use.

Yeah, right.

You know you love me,
Mimi

You don't know Cameron Crowe. And that's too bad.

As a youngster, Crowe was not ordinary. He was gifted. He wrote movie reviews for an underground publication by age 13, and corresponded with Lester Bangs, editor of rock mag Creem. He was editor and journalist for Rolling Stones at 15. That means he hang with the hottest and nearing-hottest rock bands. Ben Fong-Torres, editor of the magazine, said once, "He was the guy we sent out after some difficult customers. He covered the bands that hated Rolling Stone." At 24, he published a book, and it became a movie a year after. The movie launched the careers of Jennifer Jason Leigh, Nicolas Cage, Eric Stoltz, and my favorite Sean Penn.

He went on and directed. After Singles, and Say Anything, he made the movie that gave us the line "You complete me." Jerry Maguire was a big hit. It introduced Renée Zellweger to the world, and I loved her since. Then there was the autobiographical Almost Famous, one of the few movies I'm not tired of watching over and over.


Left: Patrick Fugit as the young Crowe, William Miller, in Almost Famous.
Right: Crowe in tux.

His two most recent films Vanilla Sky and Elizabethtown were severely panned. What's up with that? Has Crowe lost his touch? Maybe it's just the fault of the rigid skills of Tom Cruise and Orlando Bloom. No offense to their admirers. Or maybe Crowe compromised to please his bosses. Or maybe it's entirely Crowe's fault.

But he definitely has not lost his touch choosing the PERFECT soundtrack for the PERFECT scene. Remember the band singing Elton John's "Tiny Dancer" in the bus? People or a person singing in an auto is Crowe's trademark. It's in every single film of his.

He's not Steven Spielberg but I love Cameron Crowe. Why? Because he has "been able to make a few movies in the studio system that are slightly unorthodox and personal." Although "it's never quite as easy as you dream that it could be." Man, that's called courage and heart.

Plus, we almost have the same hairstyle. Beat that.

credits to IMDb.com and Wikipedia for pics and facts.

Unlike most comic lovers who are into superhero issues, my version of pleasure from this particular branch of the arts is this:


"Loose Tails", first collection of Bloom County strips

This is the door to the world of Bloom County, the only place in America where children have adult IQs, animals talk, and anxieties literally live in closets. This comic strip created by Pultizer-prized editorial cartoonist and journalism major Berke Breathed ran from 1980-1989. Because of its outdatedness, it's unusual for a girl who was born in the latter part of the 80s to take any interest in it. Breathed once said, "A good comic strip is no more eternal than a ripe melon. The ugly truth is that in most cases, comics age less gracefully than their creators." Well, his strips don't, at least for me.

Bloom County is not only funny, it is also satirical. It provides a witty social commentary seen through the lives of zany characters. Opus is a duck-billed penguin that gained considerable popularity roughly in the line of Garfield and Snoopy. Milo Bloom is a 10-year-old newspaper journalist who runs The Bloom Beacon. John Cutter is a Vietnam veteran and an anti-war protestor. The dumb, womanizing attorney Steve Dallas is the antagonist. My personal favorite and owner of the anxiety closet, Mike Binkley, is Milo's wishy-washy classmate who's obsessed with the lives of pop culture icons. Oliver is a wiz kid who has a long crime record for hacking into top-secret government sites.


Milo Bloom


a panel taken out of context

I'm currently saving up for a copy of the second Bloom County anthology entitled "Classics of Western Literature." After the two-week long hell of midterm exams, reading "Bloom County Babylon" (the first anthology) marks my liberation. Whoo.

credits to Wikipedia for the photos and facts.

Scarier than a horror movie.

Here's the scenario:
Claire's thinking about it.
Absie's definitely going to do it if he gets unluckier.
Anjo was comparing Mass Comm courses' curricula the other day.
Elsie feels like journ is not for her. Broad Comm is.
Dana wants to paint, and she was just telling me that we should shift to Fine Arts. (Me, Fine Arts? Teehee.)
Mimi's applying for UP Cinema and having the time of her life.
Gem's so into sociology. She mentioned that she once considered shifting.
Jali wants to be a mermaid. Hihihi. Peace. =P
Lebanon and Israel are bombing each other.
Mayon Volcano is expected to blow.

What is happening to the world?

If we all end up out of BA Journalism, we're dead. It's the end of the famous block K-5. It's the end of our ha-ha-ha plans to establish a journalistic magazine that we're going to entitle K-5, whatever that means. It's the end of our press freedom conversations over lunch and whatnots. End, end, end.

BUT mark my words: I would never shift out of BA Journalism. Ever. Unless of course I flunk my major subjects or my entire college launches a hate campaign against me or I fall from a 30-ft wall because of a defective harness or my family becomes bankrupt.

These are the knock-on-wood worthy scenarios that could kick me out of my course. Plus many more, of course, but they're too dark and gory to blog and think about.

I know I always tell people that Film is my dream course and I might shift if I lose my interest in journ. C'mon, it's one of my little white lies. It's just my way of saying "Oh, I love film so much but I will never ever ever shift out of journ because it's virtually impossible that I will lose interest and swearword."

It's Red Shirt Day on Monday, folks. Join me in protest against journ majors who are thinking about shifting, unless they really really super mega really think journ is not for them - like one person I know. Hmmm ...

Of course you know what Wikipedia is. If you don't, stop being a loser and visit here.

According to Time, Wikipedia has more than a million articles, nearly 10 times as many as Encyclopedia Britannica. That makes it the largest encyclopedia. Ever. Not only that, it has like the best and most complete entries. Ever.

Wow, right?

That is because it's made not just by one man, but by EVERYONE. If there is one concrete, present-day evidence of global bayanihan, it is Wikipedia. The words "Edit this page" were a big risk. Bad guys could vandalize and put big curses on its pages. It happens sometimes, but because of its millions of contributors, vandals are immediately cleaned out.

Jimmy Wales is the genius behind it. At first, he thought he couldn't match Britannica 'cause he only had 12 commissioned articles in two years. At this rate, it would take several millenia to equal Britannica, said Time. But he didn't give up. And look at what happened, a proof that egalitarianism can do wonders.

Now, imagine life without Wikipedia. I can't. Without it, there can never be an ultimate web-surfing experience.

Thank you, Wikipedia. I love you!

What keeps me from writing is just myself. It's easy to write, but not easy to write well.

Some people think they can write just because they can fill up a page with ease and speed, but writing is not that. "You write with ease, to show your breeding,
But easy writing's vile hard reading," said Richard Brinsley Sheridan, an Irish playwright.

Many are also fond of writing with big words that only they can understand without consulting Mr. Webster, but writing is not that. Ernest Hemingway, a writer known for his simplicity, once said "There are older and simpler and better words, and those are the ones I use."

I don't know when I can consider myself a writer. Is it when I'm already making a living out of it? Or when I'm published? Or when I get a flat 1 grade for a school paper? I want to be called a writer not when I'm all of the above, but when I'm already making a good impact on someone's life through my works. It doesn't necessarily have to be literature, a creative prose, or a newspaper article. It can only be a piece of note I left someplace that changed a reader's way of thinking for the better.

There's one book I've read that says writer's block is caused by the Censor, an inner being that tells you you're writing crap, your punctuations are a mess, or your verb's confusing. I know I have to fight the Censor in me and believe in my own pen but it's not as easy as you think. I know I can write better than some and that's the main reason why I took journalism, but things and persons and situations do not allow me to believe that I write well. Some people I've met the past year helped me cope but so far, it has not been enough.

These past days, I've been telling God that I'm offering up my studies, and he responded by giving me a sense of pride and contentment that I'm a journalism student. I think He just told me that I'm on the right track, even when 42 journalists have already gotten killed under Arroyo's administration.

I've always been loyal to you but you abandoned me. You know that I'm your biggest fan and yet, you gave up. For years, I've been trying to explain why you seemed to underestimate yourself. Before, one bottle of you didn't satisfy me - nor two, nor three, nor ten. I had to drink gallons of your cultured milk to get enough. You were too addictive and popular and omnipresent. You used to be sold by men willing to walk under the hot sun with a bell in hand just to share your live-bacteria goodness to thirsty passers-by. If they'd buy one bottle, they'd want more.

When Chamyto arrived, you bowed. That fake b*****. That second-rate, trying-hard, copycat. That genie gained all credibility. How can those stupid kids drink and enjoy cultured milk with a beer-bellied genie that made me want to puke out all the live lactobacilli? Who knows, Chamyto could make their tummies beer bellies too.

Yakult by Ashton Rael on Flickr under CC BY-NC-SA license

Still, you withdrew under the curtains but the show wasn't over. You let that Chamyto genie take over as lead actor. You should've played Jafar at least. I even used to think that you could save the world from bad stomach. But instead, you hid at the corner of Mercury Drug's fridge, unseen by your supporters, your fans.

Yesterday, I drank you again. All the happy childhood memories that you brought came back like thunderbolts. You've always been so good, Yakult. So good.

Mad and in love with you,
Mimi

Sorry for my neglect. The weeks are hell, y know. Next week will be another one. There's so much to do in so little time.

I know it's late to post something like this but it's still January and I wrote this on New Year's Day ...

My Agenda for 2006

1. Read MORE books and faster. I already feel like I'm missing out on things and I'm getting dumber.
2. No more cursing. I don't curse anymore but sometimes, the four-letter-word fiends escape from their cages when in rage.
3. Do Julia Cameron's Morning Pages religiously.
4. Be more involved in UP-TFS and find a hobby org like a cinema group or writers' club.
5. Do something ludicrous (like audition for a role in a UP play) just for the heck of it.
6. Learn how to drive. Deadline: June.
7. Be a Natalie - get active!
8. Enroll in a non-academic class (out or in-campus) like Italian, tennis, or speech.
9. Travel to a distant place.
10. This last one is between me and God. *winks*

My Wishes for 2006

1. World peace. I'm creative, I know.
2. Digital video camera and an Adobe Premier software. High-tech softwares for my PC. *wish wish*
3. Good health for my family and myself. I'm always sick now, have to get back on track.
4. A deeper awareness of the youth - in a positive way.
5. One of my favorite bands tours the country and I get tickets.
6. Fine grades and more survival skills.
7. Win in a game show.
8. The dollar drops to P40 in value (or lower), petroleum goes with it, then other products in the market follow.
9. Recovery of Calapan, Mindoro (and more manpower over there please)

I've been awake for 24 hours.

Before I get to my story, I want to thank all the people who appreciated my article. It's a really, really big thing for me and you guys made me more determined to finish Journalism. Okay, I'm gonna tell you a secret. I've never read Young Blood and I don't read newspapers. A friend from Daniw, Mihlgrace, made me submit the article. I honesly think that Young Blood accepts any article from the youth that has something to do with welfare, politics, society - issues and topics that matter. So go ahead and try your luck. If you think your article's not good, they'll edit it before publishing anyway.

Sugo, a teleserye on GMA 7, starring Richard Gutierrez

I've had no sleep except for a 30-minute nap for the last two days and I'm tired as hell.

We've been doing our UNIV research paper on telenovelas this past week. God probably saw our drive to finish the paper so He showered us with tons of blessings. Tons.

Last Wednesday, we made a call to the executive producer of Sugo, stated our purpose, and took the risk to travel to Antipolo to reach the set of GMA 7's fantaserye. With the kindness of the producer, everything went well for us. How well? Jali, Elsie, and I interviewed the cute director of Sugo, Paolo Contis (who's surprisingly gorgeous in person), and yummy Richard Gutierrez lang naman! Gosh, it was overwhelming. At the same time, Gem was interviewing the headwriter and conceptualist of the show at Tomas Morato. Wow. So much experience (and kilig) in one day!

Imagine, the three of us were hanging at the set and we even watched the taping from the director's digital OV van! I'm telling you, it's a rare opportunity and we felt so honored. It was as if all the kindness in the world was bestowed upon us.

I know I made it sound so easy but really, it took us months to set up an interview with the people behind Sugo. We pulled some strings and stepped a little out of our bounds. In other words, we did everything just to get there. For students like us to be given that kind of opportunity is sheer luck and providence.

The group worked on the paper late last night in Daniw. Elsie and I stayed awake for the entire night and day to do the "finishing touches." Our sleeping bags were ready to be spread out on the Daniw library floor but we didn't have spare time to use it. The thing is, our group was no longer doing the paper for ourselves, we were doing it for God, for the people who've done us a great deal of help and well ... for the future resumé add-on.

We did research until the last minutes before submitting it, documented everything, cleared all the claims, and showed that telenovelas have anthropological, historical, and socio-cultural relevance. We're done with the big paper and we're oh so proud of it.

The lack of sleep is nothing compared to Richard Gutierrez's stares. #