 | Bonjour mes amis! | Jun 29, 2005 |
 
thanks to izza lambino for the vector art! yey. http://margadee.mutliply.com for the footer image and www.beautifuldisaster01.multiply.com for the background and template. Link: http://www.klockworkx.com/copongcopong/Salitang Balbal, Kanto, Kalye
ito ang Astig at makabagong
diksyunaryong ng Wikang
Filipino!
discovered this site a few minutes ago. was doing research since cels didn't know the meaning of "okray" haha! i am amused! i love it! The Laurel and Hardy
Love Affair
He looked at her eyes which were almost as wet as his.
"Another fine mess you've got us in," he said.
By Ray Bradbury
Condensed from "The Short Story"
He called her Stanley, she called him Ollie.
She was 25, he was 32 when they met at one of those cocktail parties where everyone wonders what they are doing there. But no one goes home, so everyone drinks too much and lies about how grand it all was.
They were, in fact, ricocheting through a forest of people, but finding no shade trees. Their paths locked in the exact center of the fruitless mob. They dodged left and right a few times, then laughed and he, on impulse, seized his tie and twiddled it at her. Instantly, smiling, she lifted her hand to pull the top of her hair into a frowsy tassel, blinking and looking as if she had been struck on the head.
"Stan!" he cried, in recognition.
"Ollie!" she exclaimed. "Where have you been?"
"Why don't you do something to help me?" he exclaimed, making wide, fat gestures.
They grabbed each other's arms, laughing.
"I..." she said, and her face brightened even more. "I know the exact place not two miles from here, where Laurel and Hardy, in 1932, carried that piano crate up and down 131 steps."
"Well," he cried, "let's get out of here!"
His car door slammed, his car engine roared. Los Angeles raced by in late-afternoon sunlight.
He braked where she told him to park. "I can't believe it," he murmured. "Are those the steps?"
"All 131 of them." She climbed out of the car. "Come on, Ollie."
"Very well, Stan," he said.
They gazed up along the steep incline of concrete steps. Her voice was wonderfully quiet. "Go on up," she said. "Go on. Go."
He started up the steps, counting, and with each half-whispered count, his voice took on an extra decibel of joy. By the time he reached 57 he was lost in time.
"Hold it!" he heard her call, far away, "right there!"
He held still and turned. She had a camera in her hands. When he saw it, his right hand flew instinctively to his tie to flutter it on the evening air.
"Now, me!" she shouted, and raced up to hand him the camera. And he marched down and looked up and there she was, doing the thin shrug and the puzzled and hopeless face of Stan. He clicked the shutter, wanting to stay there forever.
She came slowly down the steps and peered into his face.
"Why," she said, "you're crying."
He looked at her eyes which were almost as wet as his. "Another fine mess you'ye got us in," he said.
"Oh, Ollie," she said.
"Oh, Stan," he said.
He kissed her, gently.
And then he said: "Are we going to know each other forever?"
"Forever," she said. From that twilight hour on the piano stairs their days were long, and full of that amazing laughter that paces the beginning and run-along rush of any great love affair. They only stopped laughing long enough to kiss and only stopped kissing long enough to laugh.
They went to see new films and old films, but mainly Stan and Ollie. They memorized all the best scenes and shouted them back and forth as they drove around midnight Los Angeles. She let her soul flow over into him like a tipped fountain, and he received it and gave it back and was glad.
And during that year they went up and down those long piano steps at least once a month and had champagne picnics halfway up, and discovered an incredible thing.
"I think it's our mouths," he said. "Until I met you, I never knew I had a mouth. Yours is the most amazing in the world, and it makes me feel as if mine were amazing, too. Were you ever really kissed before I kissed you?"
"Never!"
"Nor was I. To have lived this long and not known mouths."
"Dear mouth," she said, "shut up and kiss."
But then at the end of the first year they discovered an even more incredible thing. He worked at an advertising agency and was nailed in one place. She was employed at a travel agency and would soon be working abroad. Both were astonished they had never considered this before. They sat and looked at each other one night and she said, faintly, "Good-by."
"What?" he asked.
"I can see Good-by coming." He looked at her face and it was not sad like Stan in the films, but just sad like herself.
"Stan," he said, "you'll never leave me."
But it was a question, not a declaration, and suddenly she moved, and he blinked at her and said, "What are you doing there?"
"Nut," she said, "I'm kneeling and asking you for your hand. Marry me, Ollie. Come away with me to France. I'll support you while you write the great American novel."
"But..." he said.
"You've got your portable typewriter, a ream of paper, and me. Say it, Ollie, will you come?"
"And watch us go to hell in a year and bury us forever?"
"Are you that afraid, Ollie? Don't you believe in me or you or anything? God, why are men such cowards?
"Listen. This is my one and only offer, Ollie. I've never proposed before, I won't ever propose again, it's hard on my knees. Well?"
"Have we had this conversation before?" he said.
"A dozen times in the last year, but you never listened, you were hopeless."
"No, in love and helpless."
"You've got one minute to make up your mind. Sixty seconds." She was staring at her wristwatch.
"Get up off the floor," he said, embarrassed.
"If I do, it's out the door and gone," she said.
"Stan," he groaned.
"Thirty," she read her watch.
"Twenty. I've got one knee off the floor. Ten. I'm beginning to get the other knee up. Five. One."
And she was on her feet.
"Now," she said, "I'm heading for the door. We are very special, wondrous people, Ollie, and I don't think our like will ever come again in the world. But I must go. And now," she reached out. "My hand is on the door and..."
"And," he said, quietly.
"I'm crying," she said.
He started to get up but she shook her head.
"No, don't. If you touch me I'll cave in. I'm going. But once a year I'll show up at our flight of steps, no piano, same hour, same time as that night when we first went there, and if you're there to meet me I'll kidnap you, or you me."
"Stan," he said.
"My God," she mourned.
"What?"
"This door is heavy. I can't move it." She wept. "There. It's moving. There." She wept more. "I'm gone."
The door shut. He went back to the steps on October 4th every year for three years, but she wasn't there. And then he forgot for two years, but in the sixth year he remembered and went back in the late sunlight and walked up the stairs because he saw something halfway up, and it was a bottle of good champagne with a ribbon and a note on it, delivered by someone, and the note read: "Ollie, dear Ollie. Date remembered. But in Paris. Mouth's not the same, but happily married. Love. Stan."
And after that, he simply did not go to visit the stairs. Traveling through France 15 years later, he was walking on the Champs Elysées at twilight one afternoon with his wife and two daughters, when he saw this handsome woman coming the other way, escorted by a very sober-looking older man and a very handsome, dark-haired boy of 12.
As they passed, the same smile lit both their faces in the same instant.
He twiddled his necktie at her.
She tousled her hair at him.
They did not stop. But he heard her call back, "Another fine mess you've got us in!" And then she added the old, the familiar name by which he had gone in the years of their love.
His daughters and wife looked at him and one daughter said, "Did that lady call you Ollie?"
"What lady?" he said.
"Dad," said the other daughter, leaning in to peer at his face. "You're crying."
"No."
"Yes, you are. Isn't he, Mom?"
"Your papa," said his wife, "as you well know, cries over telephone books."
"No," he said. "just 131 steps and a piano. Remind me to show you girls, someday."
They walked on and he turned and looked back. The woman turned at that very moment. Maybe he saw her mouth pantomime the words, So long, Ollie. Maybe he didn't. He felt his own mouth move, in silence: So long, Stan.
And they walked in opposite directions along the Champs Elysées in the late light of an October sun. huhuhu! sakitan na to! after reading this, i suggest you watch the Way We Were for maximum heart break impact. This is the original article by Mark Almond that was the basis for our paper.
As part of the BBC's Who Runs Your World? series, Mark Almond, Lecturer in Modern History at Oriel College, Oxford University, assesses the myth and reality of "People Power".
The image of huge crowds, peacefully protesting against corrupt and undemocratic regimes, has become an icon of the modern age. Starting in the Philippines in 1986 where the term "People Power" was coined, and taking wing in 1989 when a sea of people seemed to swamp the old guard communists in East Berlin or Prague, the myth of popular revolution took flight.
A decade after the fall of Soviet-style Communism, another wave of People Power swept away many of the post-Communists who had established themselves in office after the red flag came down.
From Serbia in 2000 to Ukraine last Christmas, the same scenario was played out: disputed elections were followed by crowds on the streets and the fall of the bad guy.
People Power seems to be getting a habit. But is it really so simple?
Iconic moment
Mass psychologists know how intoxicating participation in a crowd can be. Observers as well as participants get caught up in the party mood. But intoxication is never a good guide to understanding.
The carnival atmosphere of People Power revolutions in recent years - the round the clock rock concerts in Kiev last winter, for instance - obscure the politicking going on away from the party. Whether in Prague in 1989 or Serbia in 2000, deals cut in smoke-filled rooms had as much to with the bloodless success of People Power as the crowds on in the streets.
TIn most societies at most times in history, people have had good grounds for discontent. Mass revolutions have certainly been commonplace since Parisians stormed the Bastille in 1789. In reality, when the crowd stormed the prison, lynched the governor and his guards, they found only seven prisoners to release - none of them political.
Anti-climatic though the liberation of the Bastille was, it became an iconic moment in history. For 200 years, the image of the masses storming government buildings and toppling the old regime haunted public imagination.
Films like Eisenstein's October, 1917, were taken for docu-dramas even though more extras were killed in the frenzied re-make of the storming of the Winter Palace than in the actual tame handover of power to Lenin's Communists. The filmmaker's image of a revolutionary tidal wave stuck in minds around the world.
Peaceful images of People Power revolutions since 1989 have usurped the place of cataclysmic crowds from France or Russia in popular imagination. But does People Power really deliver its promise of liberation from corrupt politicians?
The problem is that The People cannot rule. Only some people can do that. People Power can eject one set of rulers and propel other people into high office. But People Power alone cannot guarantee constitutional or honest government.
Look at the record of recurrent popular protest and corruption allegations in the Philippines since 1986. Think about how the Serbian leader, Zoran Djindjic, was gunned down three years later by the very para-military policeman who had pulled the rug from under Slobodan Milosevic by joining the people. Or consider the mud-fight going on in Ukraine among last year's heroes of the Orange Revolution.
Hangover
The problem is that corrupt regimes tells us something about the society which they rule.
Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos may have plundered the Philippines, but their regime also reflected deep-seated social problems. As Zaire's Mobutu once remarked, "It takes two to be corrupt."
Popular indignation zeroes in on a bribe-taking head of state but without bribe-giving businessmen, domestic and foreign, massive corruption cannot happen. At the bottom of the social pile, ordinary people resent corrupt cops but how many ordinary people haven't paid a bribe to a traffic cop to get off a charge - if they could afford it?
Filipinos chased the Marcoses out of their country bloodlessly, but they couldn't get the Marcos inside themselves out so easily. Nor have Ukrainians found that their new rulers were more honest than the old ones.
Once the bad guy at the top falls from power, it is naïve to think that the rest of the bureaucratic pyramid will mend its ways overnight. People, all of The People, were socialised under the old regime and cannot escape from the reality that its grimy habits cling to them after its leaders and symbols have been toppled.
The carnival of a People Power revolution, like any great party, leaves its participants with a hangover.
Today's cult of People Power as the solution to corrupt and incompetent government risks promoting an endless cycle of upheaval. The only solution to the cold dawn of cynical reality which follows the long night of revolutionary ecstasy is another fix of revolution.
A kind of parody of Trotsky's "permanent revolution" is preached as the solution to society's ills. Yet successful societies are boring ones. The dull work of constitutional government with its checks and balances does more for the people than a brief moment of glory on the streets.
Revolutions may sometimes be necessary but their outcomes are always messy. The danger today is that when ordinary people see the intrigue and backroom deals which accompany People Power behind the scenes, they plunge from hope to despair. Far from energising true democracy, People Power's "day after" of cynical politics as usual causes the people who went on the streets in millions to sink into apathy for years to come.
People Power is too often an inverted fairy story - the triumph of innocence coming at the start and the Ugly Sisters of intrigue and ambition coming on stage in triumph for the final curtain
i need a break from thesising. so i'm reposting a paper i wrote 2 years ago. being the procrastinator that i am, i browsed my word documents and i saw a paper i wrote last feb 25, 2006 about people power for my polsci class. the timing is just perfect. there's even a noise barrage and concert going on in ateneo right now because of the whole ZTE controversy while i am camped here in starbucks katipunan. will get back to work after. promise.
EDSA 1
EDSA 2
 
FEB 25, 2006 and FEB 25, 2008
Happily-ever-after? The Filipino’s love affair with People Power. People power should be a good thing right? It SHOULD be. However, as with most things, too much of something is/can be bad. People power has become a habit that we can’t seem to kick. It has become our form of escape, the solution to all political problems plaguing our country, an addictive drug to temporarily pacify the people. You get the picture. And we seem to have a never-ending love affair with it. As Mark Almond put it in his paper, Today's cult of People Power as the solution to corrupt and incompetent government risks promoting an endless cycle of upheaval. The only solution to the cold dawn of cynical reality which follows the long night of revolutionary ecstasy is another fix of revolution. This endless cycle holds true in our country. We recently celebrated the 20th anniversary of the February 1986 Edsa revolution and what woke me up last Friday morning, pre-Edsa celebration, was the announcement of no classes, a coup attempt and Presdential Proclamation No. 1017, declaring the country under a state of emergency. I woke up thinking, (sorry for the offensive language) What the fuck? Nanaman? I couldn’t help my reaction because in the span of 20 years, we have had numerous people powers to oust the incumbent leaders. Take Edsa dos, edsa tres, the 1989 coup attempt, last Friday’s rally as examples. And what happened? Did we get the empowerment that we are looking for? I think not. What we have brought upon ourselves is the disruption of everyday life, division, the plummet of our economy, and unnecessary stress. For crying out loud, haven’t we learned something from the previous successful and unsuccessful revolutions? Apparently not. My belief in the “power” of people power has taken a dive over the past years. Things cannot change overnight. It never does. What worked before does not necessarily mean that it will work again but there seems to be a delusion that people power is still the solution to everything. Don’t get me wrong. The 1986 revolution still makes me proud to be a Filipino. The image of people standing up to tanks on the EDSA highway with prayers, flowers and songs, all fighting for the peaceful restoration of democracy, and being successful at that, still brings a sense of pride in me. We were all so optimistic and hopeful about the future of our nation. However, recent events make our optimism but a fading memory. People power can only do so much. It cannot guarantee us of a renewed and better government. It does not guarantee us anything if we do not have a clear revolutionary ideology, leadership, and program. Nowadays, I can see that the magic of people power is gone for most of us. Little has been done to strengthen our economy, overhaul the political system and improve the lives of poor Filipinos. People, all of The People, were socialised under the old regime and cannot escape from the reality that its grimy habits cling to them after its leaders and symbols have been toppled. We see the rising into power of those who we once ousted, the trapos, the cronies. The face of Philippine politics hasn’t changed much and we are still catering to the needs of the elite. We seem to have forgotten the cause that we fought for and we all go back to the normal routines of our everyday lives with the same complaints about the government with the problems we are all oh-so-familiar with. People power is so much so like an ecstasy drug. We just keep on popping it. It bonds people with the same agenda, gives a different high, is intoxicating, addictive, and when it wears off, crashes you back to the harsh reality that you wanted to escape in the first place. The day after gives you a headache, a slap of reality more painful than before and a fucked up state of mind. And what do we get out of it? Awareness perhaps and hope? Probably. But as a nation, we are not taken seriously anymore because we go back to our old habits again and again. There seems to be no growth and people power is now a joke, a serious case of addiction. Far from energising true democracy, People Power's "day after" of cynical politics as usual causes the people who went on the streets in millions to sink into apathy for years to come. Personally, I am sick and tired of all the attempts at people power. Sure, it worked during EDSA 1 and EDSA dos but last Friday’s people power attempt was pathetic. I even went to the streets of Ayala just to experience the whole shebang and it looked like an amusement park- with vendors lining the streets selling their goods, people having picnics, confetti all over the place, people laughing and joking around, flags of different colors being waved around and people doing their own things and not minding the speakers. I couldn’t take the event seriously because it was a joke. Can’t old and opposition political leaders just bury the hatchet and instead of a divided nation work for a united one? Sure, I agree with some of what they are fighting for and I do empathize with them but maybe instead of another revolution we can find a better solution. We should not settle for what is convenient. We should find actions that do work. I felt that the attempt was a mockery of what the real meaning of people power should be. Do we really get the happily-ever-after that we want? NO. Not even close. People Power is too often an inverted fairy story - the triumph of innocence coming at the start and the Ugly Sisters of intrigue and ambition coming on stage in triumph for the final curtain. This is the sorry-ass state that we are in right now and instead of doing something about it, our stubborn asses just relapse into the same situation and give the next generation the burden of resolving the same issues. |  | january 5, 2008
hair courtesy of mr. tony galvez. so this is my hair now. hehe! i didn't know what i was thinking but i still chopped my already short hair. basta i just told tony (close na close!) na he can do whatever he wants. so the whole time that he was cutting my hair and i saw huge chunks of it falling on the floor i couldn't breathe! my mouth was just open the whole time because i was in shock. haha! it turned out okay naman. =) thanks to the affirmations that i got during jella's party (hence the outfit in the last photo). so what do i do next?! =p |
| | december 1, 2007
philippine navy officer's club house, the fort
the santiago princess (sorry ging-ging hindi na ikaw ang mango este apple of the eye!) turned a year old! yey for family events and togetherness. tito hika, read the captions. some pictures were really taken just for you! |
| | november 30, 2007
oo na. mukha na akong gago. haha! walang pakialamanan! i finally took a risk with my hair after... lemme count... 8 years of having long hair! so forgive the vanity. haha! =p hair courtesy of azta salon eastwood. |
| | november 17, 2007
capones, valero st. salcedo village, makati city
i know! i know! super long way overdue post nanaman ako. haha! this was a super fun night. sexy beast! yaaar! shits in full force! woohoo! am proud of you boys! but wala akong nakuha na album that night. arg. |
 it has been a year since my mom passed away. wow. a year. it feels like yesterday. i miss her. everyday. i still get upset at the idea that she won't be there to witness the milestones in my life. to see me making something out of myself. but i know she's with me. she is me and i am her. i am my mother's daughter.  so what love secret is yours? i sure have one (2? 3? 4...? haha!) that's in the video. hah. ;p
for more secrets visit www.postsecret.com
nicked this one from jill julie: You are the moment when the last bell rings and school lets out for the day. You are resistant to schedules and obligations, so you love feeling like you're in control of your life again. You are the very moment when the second hand hits the 12, and the halls fill with noise and motion. Even if your after-school time is packed with activities, lessons, or a job, somehow, you just feel freer in the late afternoon than you do earlier in the day. Maybe it's all that blue sky and afternoon sunshine? Nah -- even on rainy days, 3:15 is always a beautiful time. 
Link: http://www.esquire.com/fiction/napkin-project/#napkinlist esquire magazine mailed 250 clean white cocktail napkins to writers. they were returned with food stains, lipstick marks, and over a hundred stories. these stories can be found here for your greater reading pleasure. i almost forgot about this site. i visited it last year and was amazed but i posted the link on my other blog. now i want to share it with you. whatta BRILLIANT project. love the concept! From the movie "Bituing Walang Ningning"
it's time to upload classic movies with winner lines! hahaha! ganito ang ginagawa ng boredom. alam na ng lahat ang famous line ng movie na ito foo shizzle! this movie has a special place in my heart kasi it was being shown when i was born in 1985. nagkastampede pa nun sa sinehan. naks. may history pa. haha! stellar performance by cherie gil. sige na nga. pati na nga si sharon. haha! (if you want the talking part, let it load and go to the 2:07 part. that's the meat of the video! haha!)
DORINA: nagustuhan mo ba?
LAVINIA: sinira mo ang kanta. binaboy mo. baliw ang nagsasabing isinilang na ang aking karibal. you'll never make it. you're nothing but a second rate trying hard copycat. *splashes water on dorina's face*
DORINA:pero siya at hindi ako ang basura. sa kanyang ginawa, maliwanag na tinatanggap nyang ako ang magiging mahigpit nyang kalaban. pero hindi nya ako matatakot. lalabanan ko sya. dahil hinamon nya ako. at hindi ako titigil hangga't hindi ko nakukuha ang ningning ng kanyang bituin. ibabagsak ko sya. ibabagsak ko sya.
ohhhh! fierce! love it!
going to assumption in a bit to see the grand changes in the campus made possible by our tuition fees! will take pictures and post it here. so i'm on a total high school nostalgia trip right now. the intrams, lunch time, the plays and the operas and the kagaguhans and i can go on and on. then i stumbled upon this! our class performed this and one more day for mrs. eala's ms. tantoco's class. oh how i miss high school!
| | november 11, 2007
sango, creek side mall amorsolo st. corner legaspi, makati.
been itching to try this place out since i heard about it. i was told they had the best japanese burgers. i was like, japanese burger?! what the hell is the difference between a japanese burger and a burger burger?! so, as a lover of japanese cuisine i really had to try it out. and who are the best people to be with when trying something new?! the little gang of course! =)
before going to the OBS launch, we finally ate at Sango. It did not disappoint! their burgers are delish. even the fries. and the shake. i liked the ambiance of the place. it was neat and clean and everything screams japanese. at na-tanga ako sa bathroom. haha! ang dami namin nakain. but the baboy award goes to mr. raffy taruc! 2 burgers (the master burger and the rice burger), fries and shake! will surely go back to this place again. sango burgers definitely lives up to its name, the burger master!
so little gang, where's our next adventure?! =) |
| | november 10, 2007
A Venue, makati ave
Philip Morris king size event. eto ang shalang event! nice venue, free flowing drinks and chillax house music. tipsy hits at people watching. thanks issa beybeh/ LASING na by the end of the night woman for the invite! |
| | november 10, 2007
cubao x
another one of them little gang adventures. not much pictures kasi nahiya ako maglabas ng digicam amidst all the lomos. haha! in fairness, may light light effects na nangyayari sa aking photos. mapagpanggap. haha! had fun fun fun and also saw a lot of friends i haven't seen for the longest time. yey ann! go you! ;p |
| | november 1-2, 2007
Pulilan Bulacan and Crypt at Santuario de San Antonio, Makati
visited the lolas at Bulacan. syempre pasiklaban ever nanaman. haha! then visited mama the next day. hindi talaga kami pwede maging solemn. okay, solemn for like 10 minutes then kagulo na after. =p |
 | blab on | |
 | Belated happy, happy, happy birthday earni!!! (",) hope you had a great one. ; ) |
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