Carnaval

Sexta-feira, Fevereiro 18, 2005

Me, The Bad Vibes, And The Opera Ghost

I have not written anything here for the past week mainly because I do not really have anything new to write about. Plus I'm a lousy writer. You shouldn't be reading this. My week had been all about food and getting fatter and radiating very bad vibes after doing the hardest task for a group project and sensing some of my group mates' reluctance to work with me. I felt I am being taken for granted by these boneheads. Thou shall never ever take your group leader for granted.

I watched The Phantom of the Opera last Wednesday and just like most of the film critics, I too was disappointed about it. I am no good film critic but I just have to say that the movie was an obvious outrage. The actors can sing, alright, but they have executed their roles poorly. I just couldn't see the real nature of the characters they (especially Christine and Erik) were supposed to portray. Emily Rossum, who played as Christine, sings too softly and often without substance (or was it just because of the sound speaker in this movie house I went to?) and probably needs more practice with her acting. Her emotions and her being caught in a trance each time Erik (the Opera Ghost) sings/shows up to her are obviously pretentious. Plus she's so beautiful it's distracting (although that really isn't a bad point). While viewing the ghastly film, I keep telling my genius classmate, Heidi, that she looks like Christine (and she was flattered upon hearing it so I believe this isn't a bad thing either).

Gerard Butler, who played the O.G. (Opera Ghost), is to me a very mediocre actor/singer. It perplexes me why Andrew Lloyd Webber has chosen Gerard Butler to be the Angel of Music. I have been listening to its Broadway musical since fifth grade and recently have finished reading the complete and unabridged version of Gaston Leroux's novel, which by the way is one of the best among the others I've read. To be called an Angel of Music, his voice has to be insidious, like prohibited drugs that are harmful yet enticing. He has to have a voice that is really soothing, something that will bring you close to forgetting everything that transpired. A voice which would make you 'drop all defenses' and which you would 'completely succumb to'. Unfortunately, Gerard Butler's is but an average one. As for his acting, he failed to appear to be the fearful and menacing sort of devil. In the film he was like Zorro who is lost and without a sword.

I was with my good friends in Block 3 when I watched the movie. I must have regretted having too many expectations for the film as I turned to brood at its unpleasant execution. Instead of hating it more, I decided to sing along with the cast so that in the end I would think that the seventy pesos I spared for the ticket was still worth it.

Carnaval took a nap at 11:24:00 PM

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Sexta-feira, Fevereiro 11, 2005

Maligayang Bati!

Ang pangit yatang pakinggan ang edad na TWENTY. Mabuti nalang NINETEEN palang ako. May isang taon pa para magsaya.

Yeah you heard it right, may isang taon pa talaga ako para magsaya. Kasi 'pag nineteen ka, you're still a teenager. Duh. And it totally sucks to be called an official adult. On more scientific matters, being 20 is the start of taking better care of your body. Easier said than done. Kicking off the salt and fat habit will not be that simple. When a person reaches the second decade of his/her life, the fatty streaks sticking in the walls inside our veins could now start accumulating more fat and when it starts to occlude the vein, he/she can have heart problems. Scary 'no?

It's about 6:30A today and my friends had started sending SMS birthday greetings to me since 12:00:6 in the morning. They make me feel so ecstatic. Thank you very much.

My main guests for today are my group mates in the hospital and we'll be having a feast in the afternoon. We should eat as if this were our last day on earth because afterward we shall be finishing paperwork for our MCN subject. It sucks when you have paperwork on your birthday. When I become president I will issue all the people celebrating their birthdays with exemption vouchers so they could be excused from doing any school/office/housework for that day.

Carnaval took a nap at 7:03:00 AM

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Quarta-feira, Fevereiro 09, 2005

The Abductor And The Abducted

Considering the meager amount of knowledge which I have obtained last semester from the portly Pamela-wan and Elaine Marieb's too-simple AnaPhy book, I knew I had to make a hundred-fold effort to level with my new classmates' intelligence. (As in?) I realized only just yesterday how an ultimate dum-dum I was in body mechanics. During BaCon class, (this is some major subject in my course that you would not care to get familiar with) my Cookie-Chua-look-alike teacher set up a game of charade for us. At the second round, I got assigned to perform the act for my group. The first word I had picked out from the box was 'acupuncture' which was pretty easy to act out really since I just imagined holding a long needle in my hand and jabbed it to several areas of my body and then they guessed the answer in no time at all. Well at that instant I thought I'd become a good mime when I grow up.

So the next round came and I felt pretty cool about the next word I'd select from the container. Next word was 'abduction'. Ladies and gentlemen, we all know that most of the time, a single word can have more than one meaning. In the field of science, abduction means withdrawal of a part from the axis of the body or of an extremity (Blakiston's, 1952). But of course, my retarded brain did not know that because it thought it meant something more like a kidnap or seizure. So in my one-man show, I imagined myself in the Twilight Zone, may typical image ng alien daw nearby (with spaceship!), tapos ina-abduct ako! Kunwari kinakaladkad at sinasakal daw ako nung alien na 'yun via telekinesis... Maya-maya nag-pretend ako na ako 'yung alien na uma-abduct sa human being (a.k.a. myself). I even made the we-come-in-peace hand signal that UFOs make in the movies and all that crap. The teacher was really laughing like mad while I made fun of myself in the middle of the classroom. I wasn't able to relate it with the subject and that made the act so funny. Hence none of my classmates thought about the right answer as they all went hysterical beholding the debacle of my dignity and poise. As in mukha raw talaga akong EWAN. And even today my classmates are still hooting at it.

I actually did more embarrassing things that time and I am sorry I just could not give you convincing details about it. Words, no matter how careful they may be chosen, could just not come close to how this humiliation really went.

My next duty is at the pedia ward of Ospital ng Sampaloc tomorrow at five in the morning. I should be dead sleeping this instant. Boa noite a gente and may the force be with you.

Carnaval took a nap at 10:08:00 PM

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Sábado, Fevereiro 05, 2005

The Happy Song

Today was okay. I just went to eat very heavy lunch with my friends after sitting in the classroom today for three hours (which made me feel good actually since my body ached terribly after playing badminton for 4 hours without any warming up yesterday. Right now I could not lift things without feeling the pain and my every little step takes so much effort). I looked stupid walking like a madman that has just gone out of a cheap pub in Ermita. Yeah, but I'm not a man. So that makes me a madwoman. Anyhow you get the picture.

NEWSFLASH FROM A FRIEND: Ni-raid daw ng mga pulis ang mga stalls ng pirated CDs and VCDs sa Arlegui! 'Di lang 'yun. Ayon pa sa kaibigan ko, hinuhuli na rin daw ang mga mamimili nito! Nyay! *Katakut!*

Anyway, I have no idea what came to my mind tonight but I was so bored I was able to make a stupid English translation of that Bamboo love song I've heard in my playlist about ten minutes ago. It's so silly I advise you not to read it.

I am lonely again
I smell like the round, brown fruit already
So many drinks, but not yet asleep

My only question to the heavens
If why turned ugly
The happy past
Now full of problems
Enveloping the world

Why like this?

The love

That really
When love is still new
That really

Happy

As I wake up
I saw John
The addict in our village
Like fake drugs
He used a while ago
The first time only

Delicious

The love

That really
I am eaten whole by love
That really

Happy

Carnaval took a nap at 9:27:00 PM

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The Point Of No Return: For the Opera Ghost

I have seen the trailer of Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera last week and I just could not wait to see it. I don't remember exactly when it will be shown but I'm sure it will hit the movie houses pretty soon so I must prepare for it.

If you want to know the truth, I promised to myself that I would read the novel (by Gaston Leroux) first before watching it since I don't really know how the entire story of the Opera Ghost goes although I know most of the songs of the musical play. I don't ever want to go out of the movie house feeling stupid for not comprehending the plot again. Believe me, that happened to me countless of times already. But sometimes I don't blame my brain for being so retarded when I know that the film's plot is beyond the understanding of humanity.

There are 25 chapters in the complete and unabridged version and I am still on the third chapter which means that I have to speed up my reading. Easier said than done. I don't think I have enough time to finish it as I have other things to do like study for my many subjects.

Then again, this IS "the point of no return. No turning back now." Whatever. But who knows, this may be worth going sleepless for.

Carnaval took a nap at 9:23:00 PM

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Quinta-feira, Fevereiro 03, 2005

COPAR And The Culture Of Poverty

Yesterday, my professor in one major subject introduced to class the Community Organizing Participatory Action Research (COPAR). I don't exactly know what it is yet but I suppose it's just like an expanded version of community organizing. Community organizing is a process whereby the community members develop the capability to assess their health needs and problems, plan and implement actions to solve these problems, put up and sustain organizational structures which will support and monitor implementation of health initiatives by the people (Maglaya, 2004). That isn't as easy as it seems since this involves many phases and at the same time it takes a long time to accomplish this goal. But its effectiveness is long-term, as the people would learn how to be self-reliant when difficulties arise.

So my teacher said that the candidates in COPAR are the indigent communities as they lack the ability to cope with their problems. She's right about that. But when she said afterward that the poor are very OPEN about this thing we call CHANGE... I did not agree with her, so did my seatmate Bien.

It reminded me about my sociology class, which Bien and I took two semesters ago. I remember how pretty my sociology instructor was. Despite the acne on her face and all, I loved how she smiles and how she flaunts her pompous, highfalutin words with her practice-made-perfect British accent ("Normal-LEY class, in So-CIO-lo-GEY..."). Anyway, in her class I learned about the anthropologist Oscar Lewis and his theory of the culture of poverty.

Oscar Lewis (1914-70) argued that poverty is not merely a state of being deprived economically, but it has a life of its own and its consequences are difficult to overcome. The culture of poverty grows in societies with similar sets of conditions. So although he introduced this theory while studying poor families in Mexico and Puerto Rico and New York, in this place called Metro Manila, where the economy is poor, the wages are low, the unemployment rates are high... we can say that there is also a culture of poverty here.

Tevye from Fiddler in the Roof says, "Oh dear Lord! You make many, many poor people!" If you ever wonder why it is so here in the metropolis, culture of poverty tends to pass down continuously from generation to generation because of its influence to children. Lewis maintains that when the time comes that these poor children reach the age 6 or 7, they often have inculcated in their minds the 'basic values and attitudes' of their subculture and at the same time are not really prepared to cope with the changing situations in the capitalistic society. They 'misbehave' because they also would not adopt the values and goals of the middle-class that would get them out of poverty.

Moreover, the people in poor communities, according to his theory, have inclinations to 'present-mindedness' and 'obsessive-consumption'. Their time horizon is short (present-minded) unlike those in the idealized cultures. While the upper classes save for their children's education and future, the less fortunate often do not save or invest, but they take pleasure when money is available (obsessive-consumption).

While it may be true that we can't teach an old dog new tricks, there has to be some way to make them open to change.

Carnaval took a nap at 8:52:00 PM

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