all over the world on New Year's eve

Five places I'd like to see at the stroke of midnight:


New York City. I imagine it's gonna be a riot of lights and sounds over there. Times Square will probably filled with New Yorkers singing Auld Lang Syne with champagne glasses and sparklers on their hands. Haha. Or maybe they don't do those things anymore.

Rome. I want to see Rome. New Year or not. The cathedrals and the piazzas, the cobblestone streets and the fountains. I want to go there in 2006. Haha! Wishing wishing wishing.

Hongkong. Will there be a New Year in HK tonight? Don't they celebrate it in February? Nonetheless, I'd want to see the city at night. The only time I'd been there, we had to plane out of the city by night. And the only time I was able to see HK at night was when I was onboard a passing plane, 2 years ago. The entire mini-archipelago looked like a galaxy of stars underneath us. Beautiful!

Paris. I'm sure this place will be breathtaking on New Year's eve night. It's not called the City of Lights for nada.

Brazil. I wonder how South Americans celebrate their New Year? I imagine taverns and flowing beer, native music and dancing, maybe even fireworks. Never been to South America, and if I were to venture in that continent, I'd choose Brazil as my stop.

Sigh. Wanna be Superwoman and fly all over the world on New Year's Eve.

Gotta get back to work. Happy 2006, passing reader!

laboring through the holidays

afternoon of New Year's eve.

getting myself another slight fever.

my head making this clunking sound (or maybe there was no sound...it just FELT like something was clunking inside) each time I'd get up from a supine position.

and it seems like the work that has to be done will go on and on and on, straight through the 12 midnight and over to the new year.

sigh.

it's alright. to work for no payment. this is all about love, anyway. past, present, and future.

a week to go before shoot. help us, lord. no other option but a good film.

farewell note

Next to a love song, there's nothing more universal than a sad song.

Just as a certain Coldplay song will forever burn in my memory, so will it forever remind me of certain persons.

When you try your best but you don't succeed...
When you get what you want but not what you need...
When you feel so tired but you cant sleep...
Stuck in reverse...

And the tears come streamin down your face
When you lose something you can't replace
When you love someone but it goes to waste
Could it be worse...?

Lights...will guide you home
And ignite...your bones
And I will try to fix you.

And high up above or down below
When you're too in love to let it go
But if you never try, you never know
Just what you're worth...

Lights will guide...you home
And ignite...your bones
And I will try...to fix you.

Tears stream down your face
when you lose somethin that you cannot replace
Tears stream down your face
And i...

Tears stream down your face
I promise you I will learn from my mistakes
Tears stream...down your face
And I...

Lights will guide...you home
And ignite...your bones
And I will try to fix you.

You, finding momentary solitude in a back alley, playing with a stray dog.
You, walking alone along the railways and the shanties, when all the rest have packed up and gone home.
You, trying to drown your thoughts in the sights and sounds of a place that, in a different life, could have been your Home.
You, getting acquainted with the locals and the language, laughing over your inability to speak your mother's tongue.
Your silent moments with a cigarette, collecting your thoughts for the next moment ahead.
Your silent moment that night, outside the bar, blowing off smoke, nursing a broken heart.
You, walking out into the night, searching for something that seemed to have been lost, something that nothing--and no one--can replace or compensate for.

You were a stranger, just as I was to you. But I thought I could tell whenever you were down and broken. And almost each time I'd find myself fervently wishing that I could do something, that I could be the person who could, somehow, fix you.

But I'm not. I know. We don't choose the people who affect and touch us in ways that few people could. And I bid my farewells with that in mind.

Byebye. Have a nice life. Hugs. I never could have hugged you in person, not even after those packups. At least I was able to give you those hugs via SMS.

Haha.

too busy to not procrastinate

Ito ba ang supposedly maraming ginagawa?!

Laging naka-online?!

I'm hooked. Blame it on DSL. The Internet has officially become my number one favorite pasttime. Supposedly it's watching movies, right? But when was the last time I saw a movie..? Three days ago? And when was the last time I got wired? Just this morning. From movie geek to prosumer-net geek, don't know if I got worse or better.

My favorite virtual hangouts:
* www.blogger.com - (have two--this one, and the other made by the Alter Ego. heheh). the habit is that i do the rounds with the existing links, and blog-hop every once in a while.
* www.friendster.com - i don't know why, but i like posting pictures of me and my recent hap'nins a bit too much. haha. what i can't do here, i do on friendster. post pictures, that is. and what i don't write here somehow finds a way to get published in The Alter Ego's blog. essentially, stuff that would bore the disinterested reader to tears.
* www.multiply.com - my other photo album. vain beeyatch! the photo album is the only feature i use. i'm faithful to blogger--better to not disperse your thoughts in too many different directions.
* yahoo! messenger - i automatically go online everytime. fast way to communicate with pals who are also ym contacts. i rarely use the invisible mode these days...hmm, wonder why.
* mail.yahoo.com - indispensable form of communication. snail totally obliterated. well, nearly. cruise photog friend melissa just snail-mailed me a postcard some weeks ago.
* www.msn.com - my favorite search engine, over yahoo. lately i discovered that i could trace certain links here that i couldn't with yahoo (never mind google).

so there. just the basics, but these hangouts are already making an addict outta me. haha. if you guys know other cool places to visit, hope you could share it with me. i've created accounts in photobucket, the kodak photosharing site (the exact addy totally escaped me...wuz), and wouldn't you know, even downelink and connexion, the gay community "counterparts" of friendster. haha. don't even ask me why. you might laugh if i actually tell you.

my wish list for christmas 2004:

1. A brand new PC unit that's ideal for Adobe Premiere editing. DIDN'T GET IT
2. An Orange DVD player. NOT THE "ORANGE" BRAND, BUT A DVD PLAYER NONETHELESS
3. A comfy couch-potato sofa (to complement my DVD player). GOT A BEANBAG INSTEAD
4. A CD man. THANKS TO MAMA, GOT ONE FOR MY 25TH BIRTHDAY
5. Repair services for my CD player. NAH-AH..FIGURED I COULD LIVE WITHOUT IT
6. A minidv cam. Or better yet, a Panasonic 24P cam. YIKES. SUNTOK SA BUWAN LANG TO
7. A digital stillcam. HAAAY. STILL PART OF THIS YEAR'S WISHLIST. NANALO DAW AKO SA STAR CINEMA PARTY RAFFLE NG KODAK STILLCAM KAYA LANG WALA AKO DUN! KAINIS!
8. A confirmed new job assignment. GOT IT, THREE WEEKS AFTER THIS ENTRY
10.Merry Christmas text messages from the ones who matter. (wink, wink) I THINK I DID, BUT NOT THE KIND OF TXT MSGS I'D HOPED FOR. HAHA. LOSER
11. A brilliant concept for a short film. BUMMER!
12. All Wong Kar Wai movies, wrapped with a bow. WELL, I GOT AN ORIG DVD OF "DAYS OF BEING WILD" I'M FOUR OR FIVE MOVIES AWAY FROM FULFILLMENT..AND THE BOW WOULD BE EASY TO BUY OFF THE QUIAPO SIDEWALKS!

My (Material-Girl) Wish List for 2006:
1. A digital stillcam!
2. A stabler savings account
3. An I-Pod (I don't need it that badly, but sure, I'd like to have one of those little thingies)
4. A confirmed new income-generating job assignment
5. A new color TV for my lola
6. A completed, beautiful, compelling personal project
7. A prince that won't turn into a frog, or (worse...) a princess
8. A trip to Boracay and/or any place outside the country
9. An absolutely happy, stress-free 26th birthday for me
10. Successful, lifetime detoxification

christmas scroogette (for a nanosecond)

christmas morning. crisp cold air, warm coffee, last night's Noche Buena leftovers for breakfast, and work to start on. my, my, this newborn lark just couldn't wait to get on with her day.

and then, at the door of the next-door-neighbor, little voices call out "Mamamasko po!" in unison. that's when i remember. this IS the day when they come in hoards at your doorstep. most of them are faces and names you hardly remember, some of them who now remember you all of a sudden, after an entire year of being, what, invisible.

godchildren and their parents. mamamasko po. sigh! bah humbug!

not that i mind giving pamasko in the form of cash or gifts. it's a pleasure to be a giver to the people i love. close friends and family. but when you've been blessed with five or six godchildren at the age of 25 (i know, di pa marami yon, but that's just about enough for me, please), being someone's godparent tends to become a somewhat expensive role. quite frankly, it bleeds me dry. every christmas. i've only included one of the five or six godchildren (that one godchild is the only one i'm close with) in the christmas shopping budget; the rest, that means, will automatically receive cash.

it's ok if i'm, like, filthy rich. it's christmas, after all (scrooooooge! scroooooge!). but at my state right now, with the next income-generating project still in the hazy horizon, and a month ahead to scrimp on what's left of the once-secure savings account, you can't blame me for being tempted to make "tago". go out of the house--anywhere but here!--and pass the day away til the semi-anonymous godchildren finish their rounds of "mamamasko po".

makes me wish i were just a kid again. back then i was the one collecting the presents and aginaldos. i was the one who would get up early in the morning to begin my rounds (towed by my parents, of course--having the folks with you kinda "legitimizes" your quest and results in bigger aginaldos, compared to when your on your own or with other kids). now i'm the one who has to give the presents and aginaldos. haha. what goes around, comes around, so they say.

one other major difference between now and then was that, as a kid, money didn't have as much value to me as it does now. i was well-provided for by my parents, i had no big needs beyond the occasional toy or candies i'd ask them to buy for me, didn't have to worry about earning, spending, or saving up. now that i'm this (big, bad) adult earning my own dough and struggling to be financially independent from my parents as much as possible, i find that money is, actually, of big consequence to my daily life. ESPECIALLY during christmas.

(sidenote:ano ba yan...di lang pala ko scrooge, silas marner parin pala! haha!)

cause that's when the godchildren (and their parents) come in hoards. like ghosts of christmas past. tots with faces and names you hardly remember, children of distant relatives or casual acquaintances who, by God-knows-what inspiration that came over them, bestowed on you the privilege/duty of being godparent to their children.

that's so weird, you know. i'd always thought that you would want to entrust your child to a person you're close to. or someone whom you know would, in case anything happened to you, take your child as if it were her own. in most godparenting cases i've had, i don't think i fit that profile. how can i treat a child as if s/he were my own if i hardly see him/her, hardly know him/her, and in worst cases, hardly even know his/her parents? duh. why do they choose me??

that's just the thing about godparenting in this culture. you have no choice. when someone asks you to be godparent to their child, i've been taught not to say no. to decline would be to turn your back on some sort of a "blessing". or a holy duty. or a privilege. whatever. okay lang naman kung malapit talaga ako sa magulang. because i have this thing about giving people gifts/aginaldos out of my own free will, not out of duty or responsibility.

hay.

i can still hear the little voices in the distance. my, do they start the day early. and with a practiced in-unison "Mamamasko po!" to boot. i wonder if they have flyers? even the most dogged aginaldo-seekers of my generation weren't that organized.

geez, i'm so bad. i know i'm just rambling...again. christmas scroogette that i friggin am. despite all that, though, i have every reason to thank God for this Christmas, and the past three Christmases that i've had as a member of the work force. despite the occasional bumps-on-the-road of the past year, God has been very good to me and my family. yet another year of us all being intact, healthy, and happy.

i'm blessed. hmmm. maybe that's a reason to stay home for today. and brave the barrage of "mamamasko po"'s. maybe, just maybe, one way to thank God for the little everyday gifts of the past three years is to share it with others (haha! cliche na to ha). kahit depleted na ang savings account (God will provide!). kahit hindi ko mamukhaan ang batang humihingi ng aginaldo sa harap ko. amazing. honestly, i've only thought of that enlightening little thought as i was writing this entry (finally...light!). so the demons finally went away, eh.

God will provide. I have faith in that. so bring it on, mga inaanaks, mga kumares/kumpares. God will provide for all of us this Christmas!

well. first visitor for the day: my unemployed uncle with his forlorn little girl. she's not my inaanak, and i remember her well, but what the heck. maybe what small amount i can give would kick off their aginaldo-seeking day to a good start.