warning: lengthy entry

Philosophy never really ruffled my feathers back in college. Unlike most of my blockmates, I’ve always enjoyed philo. I loved the lectures, the countless hours of munimuni–I even loved making the papers. Oh I’d complain about it kuno from time to time (to keep from sounding like a total nerd) but I really like the fact that it makes me think. REALLY think. Not just about mundane technical things like memorizing accounting formulas like Assets = Liabilities + Owner’s Equity or thinking about what would be the best way to package the product we’re selling for AMA Mall (I still can’t believe I managed to get a business degree) but it really makes you THINK.

About things that really matter. It invites you to discussions about fundamental concepts like death, happiness, morality, meron, wala, reason…It helps you explore who you are as a human being. It doesn’t tell you what route to take or what decision to make (hey that rhymes) but it gives you a better understanding about why we do the things we do and why we are the way we are.

This is beginning to sound like a really bad song.

Anyway. My sister’s having her philo orals tomorrow (hence my pilosopo entry) and I got to thinking about Aristotle’s ruminations on Eudaimonia. If I remember correctly, eudaimonia is happiness. The ultimate state of being. And in order for us to reach this transcendent state, we need to fulfill three kinds of needs. Physical, intellectual, and I forgot the third but it’s the most important one. Morality? Sheesh I need a refresher course. Basta there’s three.

And this entry’s a work rant in disguise. (Drum roll please)

It’s pretty obvious that I’m not in any way happy with work right now. There was a time when I guess you could say I loved it. But that time has come and gone and said ‘see you later suckers!!!‘ And the longer I stay here, the more that elusive eudaimonia’s quickly slipping away from my grasp.

Part of the reason I skipped work yesterday was because I didn’t really want to see the dragon lady. After telling her I was itching (wasn’t the word I used) to leave my job, I’m dreading the moment she calls me back into her office to discuss ‘how I am’ after her giving me time to think.

I really don’t know what to tell her!!!

You’re probably thinking ‘hija, easy ka lang. trabaho lang yan,‘ but damn it. I spend more time in the office than I do at home and I hate the fact that I let it eat up all my leisure time. And when I do have time for myself, I think about what needs to be done tomorrow! Work is eating up my life. That’s a shitload of melodrama but it’s true! Ok, not entirely true the past couple of days when the dragon lady was away as I mostly did petiks, but it WILL be again starting tomorrow.

I’m friggin miserable but I’m still postponing handing in my two weeks notice. Why is it so hard to quit? Why do I always try finding reasons to stay when there aren’t any left?

Ditto with relationships. I saw Uncle Fester at MOA today with Wednesday. I thought I had closure last year but then I see them and it’s like closure vanished promptly into thin air.

I just watched The Illusionist. It’s really nice but I still like The Prestige better. It had more impact–more potent–and the characters had better chemistry. The former lacked a certain spark to it. Nothing truly spectacular. Won’t ruffle your goosefeathers at all. I still think Edward Norton’s the bomb though. I absolutely loved him in Fight Club. Intense!

Beerkada

Turkish delight

I’ve had this on-again, off-again craving for Turkish Delight ever since I saw Chronicles of Narnia last year. I’ve read the book…and the way C.S. Lewis wrote that part where the witch lured Edmund using turkish delight made it have this really seductive appeal about it.

And then my friend Steffi (who’s in Riyadh right now) had to gush about it in her blog a few months back. Yes steffi, I still remember. Sorry for the number of emails I sent begging you to fedex me some…hehe.

Anyway, I’ve never eaten turkish delight before. Or maybe I have when I was a kid but I don’t really remember. It looks deeeelish:

According to Wikipedia, Turkish Delight, lokum, loukoum, (Greek λουκούμι), is a confection made from starch and sugar. It is often flavored with rosewater or lemon, the former giving it a characteristic pale pink color. It has a soft, sticky consistency, and is often packaged and eaten in small cubes that are dusted with sugar to prevent sticking. Some recipes include small nut pieces, usually pistachio, hazelnut, or walnut.

Is it like saltwater taffy in Jersey? Sh*t, isa pa yun. Time to email my relatives in the states….haha

Is there a restaurant or store here in Manila that sells turkish delight?? Or saltwater taffy?

I want to go on holiday too

I’ve been dying to watch The Holiday for some time now. Three weeks, in fact. Which is how long the movie has been playing here in Manila. Finally saw it at Rockwell yesterday with Au. I enjoyed it.

It’s about two women who met online at a house-swaping website and both impulsively decide to switch houses for the holiday. Iris (Kate Winslet) moves into Amanda’s (Cameron Diaz) sleek L.A. house as Amanda arrives in the snow-covered country side of jolly ‘ol England. Two women, both go-getters at work, but disasters in their personal relationships. The movie’s not mindblowing or anything but it’s the perfect feel-good flick to cure my mababaw blues.

Would it be too much of an impossibility to find a woman from Positano, Italy to swap houses with me for a couple of weeks/months/years? Hmmm. Seeing that I have no house to call my own (I live with family) and have no money to even buy a ticket to viva italia, I’d say the chances are pretty much slim. =/

I’m currently drooling over this book I found at Fully Booked Rockwell while waiting for Au to finish her class. “

The Art of Looking Sideways by Alan Fletcher

Master designer Alan Fletcher has spent a lifetime collecting images, ideas, quotations, anecdotes, jokes, memories, reflections and scraps of useless information that take his fancy. In The Art of Looking Sideways, all this stuff is distilled into a quirky and highly entertaining feast for the eye and the mind.

Loosely arranged in 72 ‘chapters’, this book explores the workings of the eye, the hand, the brain and the imagination in a wonderfully inventive sequence of pages that are themselves masterly demonstrations of the art of design.

This book does not set out to teach lessons, but everybody who opens it will be captivated by Alan Fletcher’s witty and inimitable exploration of such subjects as perception, colour, pattern, proportion, paradox, illusion, language, alphabets, words, letters, ideas, creativity, culture, style, aesthetics and value. The Art of Looking Sideways is the ultimate guide to visual awareness, a magical compilation that will entertain and inspire all those who enjoy the interplay of word and image, who relish the odd and the unexpected, and who don’t like to take the visual world – or themselves – too seriously. (Phaidon Press, Inc.)

Love it. Dying to buy it. Check it out at Fully Booked NOW.

At the edge of the ocean, we can start over again

I’ve been playing Edge of the Ocean by Ivy the past couple of minutes.

Today I’m just plain happy. Ecstatic. Excited. Relieved. Probably 70% relieved.

I finally did it. Took the very important first step. And as fellow smartasses say, starting’s always the hardest part.

Anyway. I finally told her. I told The Dragon Lady I was friggin miserable and was hell bent on resigning. In the nicest way possible of course. So now the cat’s out of the cradle. Or am I making up cliches here?

Ah, Basta. It’s just so liberating. Today, I went to the office with a bounce to my step. That’s a big improvement as I usually drag my feet to work. Ruining my shoes in the process. And I wonder why my shoes have such short life spans.

The dragon lady’s not here too. For three (THREE!!!) working days, in fact. She’s on a business trip and won’t be back til Tuesday. She was actually pretty nice about it. You can tell she’s a pro at PR because she spent most of our “talk” placating me. More like, buttering me up. As in all the compliments set to keep one from taking things to a more drastic turn…she probably used it all on me. And I really don’t know if I ought to believe her. It’s just that we were friends before – kind of – but I also know how manipulative she can be so I’m not going to let my guard down.

I may be gullible enough to believe the really stupid things like Mina’s hirit about yellow cab pizza and steffi’s T-rex/Chicken trivia WHICH I can’t believe I fell for!!! God sometimes my eagerness-to-believe-stupid-things amazes me! LOL

But when it comes to big time life-altering things, I’m not that easy to fool. Well, that’s what I keep telling myself anyway. Waha.

So I watched Prison Break yesterday. As usual I’m left hanging. Just when they were finally playing the mp3 that had incriminating evidence against the president, the episode ends. And now I have to wait a couple more days to download from torrent. Did I mention I love torrent?

I’m feeling adventurous at the moment. If I had a car–which, as luck would have it, I don’t–I’d sneak out of work, an impossibility these days thanks to the new receptionist the dragon lady hired. She BARKS. Who hires a receptionist who barks??? Gad.

Anyway, if I had a car, I’d sneak out of work and drive to wherever the road takes me. I miss being spontaneous. And if I were really spontaneous and had a credit card (which I dont because I’m too lazy to fill up the application form), I’d drive straight to the airport and take the next flight to Timbuktu.

I should really get a credit card. And drown myself in utang. Ah, temptation.

I miss the rain

‘Cause it’s so friggin hot here in Manila!!!! >:(

Seriously! If the weather takes an even more humid turn, so will my mental wellbeing. Waaah!
Suddenly reminds me of The Avengers. The film with Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman. In the movie, there’s a company that sells all kinds of weather! If you want it snowing on your birthday, just give ‘em a call!

Now I’m not asking for snow…a bit of rain would do.

The kind of weather that’ll keep my ranting at bay? Hmmm. A dash of cool refreshing breezes in the morning when I commute to work, a bit of rain while I’m at the office working, and finally a really heavy downpour (sans lightning/thunder) in the evening right before I go to sleep. I want jacket weather! And during weekends, cool refreshing breezes all day looong

Ah, the life. I miss the freaky cold weather we had here a few weeks ago.

*photo by taken from deviantart.com

POP! Goes my heart!

Watch the new Drew Barrymore+Hugh Grant movie–Music & Lyrics–tres funny!!!

Hugh Grant plays Alex Fletcher, an ex-80’s pop star who’s given a couple of days to compose a chart-topping hit for an admiring teen sensation. He never wrote lyrics ever so he asks help from his plant lady Sophie Fisher (played by Drew) who turns out to be really good with words. Sophie’s quite the character here. Hypochondriac, talks too much…and damn if she doesn’t have the best outfits. I love her clothes!!! LOL Girl in me talking.

Lots of quirky characters here. Robbie from Everybody Loves Raymond plays Hugh’s manager. Hehe and the girl who plays Cora Corman, the teen sensation…laugh trip siya. Eccentric much?? And Sophie’s sister is played by Kristen Johnson, the girl from 3rd Rock from the Sun. AND…Campbell Scott’s in the friggin movie!!!

Anyway, see Hugh’s music video here–> click!
This movie, if anything, pays tribute to the eighties! So if you’re an eighties baby like me…you’ll love the movie.

Grey’s Anatomy

OMG…

The last Grey’s episode was a friggin killer!!! I’m dying of suspense. What the heck will happen next?? Won’t go into it now because there’ll be major spoilers. Hehe

Rome has been pretty incredible as well. I’m loving the turn of events now as they’re all trying to outmaneuver each other over who gets Rome!!! Hehehe I like who they casted as the older Gaius Octavian. Good acting because he still managed to retain how the younger Octavian (loved this guy) talked and acted. As in same manners and way of talking. I loved it. I love Rome.

Damn it, I was born on the wrong century. >:0

Alet and I have been on a Broadway craze. Don’t you just love technology and the internet? We’ve–well Alet, anyway…Alet has been downloading musicals like crazy. And well, I begged her to give me copies. Which she did. So now we’ve been listening to musicals like crazy. Haven’t listened to all of them but I’m really loving Avenue Q and the broadway version of The Lion King.

Avenue Q’s friggin hilarious!!! It has killer songs about racism, internet porn, and the difficulties of life. And here’s what’s unique about it…all but three of the characters are played by muppets!!! Hahaha the show was largely inspired by Sesame Street. In fact, it’s kind of a parody of Sesame Street.

And it beat Wicked in the Tony Awards! And Wicked’s really, really good. One of my all time favorites.

student nostalgia

I want to study again.

Fine arts or photography or graphic design or marketing communications. Or history.

Click –> Academy of Art, SF

Baba Yaga is my boss, the dragon lady

Haha! I’m calling “Miranda” “Baba Yaga” from now on! It’ll make cursing more fun!!!

Baba Yaga trivia I nicked off Wikipedia (I’m a Wiki convert):

In Russian tales, Baba Yaga is portrayed as a hag who flies through the air in a mortar, using the pestle as a rudder and sweeping away the tracks behind her with a broom made out of silver birch. She lives in a log cabin that moves around on a pair of dancing chicken legs. The keyhole to her front door is a mouth filled with sharp teeth; the fence outside is made with human bones with skulls on top — often with one pole lacking its skull, so there is space for the hero’s. In another legend, the house does not reveal the door until it is told a magical phrase: Turn your back to the forest, your front to me.

In some tales, her house is connected with three riders: one in white, riding a white horse with white harness, who is Day; a red rider, who is the Sun; and one in black, who is Night. She is served by invisible servants inside the house. She will explain about the riders if asked, but may kill a visitor who inquires about the servants. Baba Yaga is sometimes shown as an antagonist, and sometimes as a source of guidance; there are stories where she helps people with their quests, and stories in which she kidnaps children and threatens to eat them. Seeking out her aid is usually portrayed as a dangerous act. An emphasis is placed on the need for proper preparation and purity of spirit, as well as basic politeness.

According to some versions of the myths, Baba Yaga ages a year every time someone asks her a question. This is why she is often portrayed as a cranky old hag: she is frustrated and angry about having been asked so many questions. The only way for her to rejuvenate herself is by drinking a special tea she brews from blue roses. Heroes who bring her a gift of blue roses are often granted wishes as reward for their aid.