Monday, July 23, 2007

Momentary Freedom

Yey!! No classes in Stat and Accounting tomorrow! I can spend the night reading Deathly Hallows instead of solving accounting! haha!

My daily activities have felt like a blurry and distant dream ever since I started reading the book. The happenings in the book are all I've been thinking about these days, whether I'm eating, studying, and even sleeping, haha! Harry Potter books have a spellbinding way of disconnecting us readers from the mundane routine of life, and engrossing us in a substituted yet sweeter reality - the vivid characters, the gripping tale, and the magical atmosphere.

J.K. Rowling has this unmatched gift of making fantasy stand out so much that even reality has to step aside, where characters and occurrences come alive so vividly that they seem truer than our existence, where even our daily lives that can be experienced by five senses can be overpowered by the austere but matchless allure of words.

Friday, July 20, 2007

Nothing in Particular

***
Yey! We just upgraded our computer. I'm so happy! It is now equipped with a 1.8 Ghz Core Duo Processor. Not top-of-the-line, but more than enough for our needs. It also has a new motherboard and power supply. Best of all, it now sports a whopping 2 GB of RAM! Haha goodbye to all those lags and screen freezes. Now, if only we could upgrade to our monitor to that glorious 17-inch LCD screen, then our computer would be perfect.


***
A few hours from now, my two-year wait will come to an end. I will be rushing to National Bookstore to experience THE magic moment. The final tome of Harry Potter will be in my hands! Mwahaha! I will finally see how J.K. Rowling ends this most spellbinding of books, this most enchanting of literary pleasures. Nothing in the world could beat the fun of tearing up the plastic wrapper of the freshly-printed book, taking in the pleasant aroma of printed words on parchment, and then curling up on a sofa to enter a magical realm and get lost in the fantasy world of Harry Potter. I'm so intrigued at how this book is going to tie up the loose ends of the previous six, how the battle between Harry and Voldemort is going to turn out, and whether the book will live up to the hype of fastest-selling book of all time.


***
Just had our Stat Long Test. I took it under Standard (noooo, goodbye to my short-lived stay in H) and guess what, I still found the exam difficult. Maybe I did not prepare enough, or I was too slow in answering, or I took Stat for granted but I really felt bad as I was taking the test. In fact, accounting LT even felt better since I was able to keep writing then. With this test, I felt like some problems clogged the analytical channels of the brain then wiped out all mathematical and logical thought inside.

Oh, first it was fall from H. Now it's possibly getting a low score on the standard test. Why can't I maintain a high standard for myself? Why can't I maintain anything? Everything about me seems to be so inconsistent. If I continue to be like this, I won't ever amount to anything... I wonder if I will ever become a responsible, organized, and disciplined student. I shifted to Mgt-H for that. Please let it not be in vain.


***
Okay, time to let go of self-incriminating thoughts and back to my quiet, happy, and pondering old self. Hmm... I have so much to do this weekend: Read Harry Potter. Watch Desperate Housewives Season Two. Watch the anime recommended by Jackie. Play NBA 2K7 with my shoti. Watch our DVDs - Finding Neverland, Music and Lyrics, and the others. Go to Grace Gospel for fellowship. Play basketball with neighbors. Go out on Sunday and buy something. Go to Mass and thank God for everything. Oh, and do the usual towering pile of homework and papers with the time I will have left after finishing all the things mentioned above.

Five and a half hours until Book Seven Time... Until the next post! :)

Saturday, July 14, 2007

Relishing my Escape from Reality

I have a mighty lot of things to do this weekend - Accounting and Stat homework, LS paper, Filipino paper, Psych Long Test etc, so what do I do to address these piling concerns? Watch movies of course! Haha! Last Friday, I went to Eastwood with some blockmates (Chris, Alexis, Mike, Drew, Edi, and Jackie) to watch the highly-anticipated Harry Potter Order of the Phoenix. Thanks to the suffocating traffic jam in Edsa, I was forty minutes late for the movie. Great. The moment I entered the movie house though, the magic of Harry Potter swept me away to Hogwarts. From the torments of Umbridge to the DA meetings and the battle sequence near the end, the movie is spellbinding all throughout.

Order od the Phoenix is probably the best HP movie released so far... although the book (as will always be) is much better than the movie. Some minor complaints: I wished Harry (or the casting crew) had better taste. I know so many girls here who are way prettier than that Cho Chang, haha! Also, the fight scenes at the end were a bit of a letdown. The showdown between He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named and Dumbledore was really bitin. The eventful clash of the Order of the Phoenix and the Death Eaters at the Department of Mysteries turned out to be puffs of black smoke and white smoke going at each other. Oh well, minor gripes. I really had a great time with this movie. Better still, it further heightened my anticipation for Book 7!

Last night I watched Transformers with my family at Mall of Asia. Yes, finally. After listening to everyone rave about this movie, I finally get to watch it. I entered the cinema bearing in mind a friend's comment on this movie, that not watching Transformers is tantamount to missing half of your life. As the movie went on, well, the movie totally overwhelmed even my atmospheric expectations. Yes, watch Transformers if you care about living your life to the fullest. It is a pleasant and exhilarating melting pot of different genres: trickles of romance and doses of comedy sprinkled with a bit of sci-fi and suspense and an incredible amount of adrenaline-draining action. This film squeezes in so many unrelated elements - military operations, a teenager's coming-of-age, an Arctic expedition, government secrets, and an alien war - yet the movie feels so coherent and seamless. Every second of this movie is breathtaking. The action sequences of this movie are mind-blowing. The visual effects are beyond words to describe. This movie will be the benchmark in the special effects department for years to come. No movie has even come close to its visual wizardry.

As the movie ended, I was left stunned, at a loss for words, and trembling in my seat. I had my senses overloaded, my brain shaken to the core, and my face engraved with a hearty smile. The movie had such a tremendous effect on me because it was made for me; Transformers had everything I ever wanted in a movie. I went into the cinema with a tentative thought about whether this could be he best movie of the year, I went out with an absolute conviction that I had just witnessed the greatest movie experience of my life.

Monday, July 9, 2007

Your IQ Is 120

Your Logical Intelligence is Below Average

Your Verbal Intelligence is Genius

Your Mathematical Intelligence is Genius

Your General Knowledge is Above Average

The Perks and Perils of H

So many people ask me, what made you decide to shift to Management-Honors? Whenever I see them, my old blockmates look at me like I'm some sort of changed man and suddenly full of intellect and wisdom. My friends treat me with instant admiration just because I am in Management-Honors now. Everyone feels that I've somehow transcended mortality and normality just because I shifted. Sad to say, but all these feelings are misplaced and unaccounted for. I shifted in to Mgt-H simply because I wanted to instill discipline and develop a higher standard of excellence for myself. Also, it's because Mgt-H was my first choice in the ACET application form. Yes, getting in is relatively easy, but staying in Mgt-H ( as I realized from our accounting long test) is humanly impossible. So, I just have to hope for the best and expect the worst; and make the most out of this golden opportunity to be a better me.

It has been a real challenging first month of the school year. I have not gone through this kind of pressure in a long time. Filipino is exhausting, statistics is hell, and accounting is insane. Lessons are more demanding than ever. Papers are due for every subject not taken T-Th 3:00-6:00 PM. Homework just could not stop piling up. And this is just the first month. How can I expect to survive and thrive in Management-Honors if I keep up with my mediocre old self?

Ironically, I have never enjoyed Ateneo life more than I did the past month. My teachers this semester are great! It's such an honor, if a bit intimidating, to have the likes of Ibarra, Rudy Ang, Coroza, and Tirol as my teachers. Strangely, I am enjoying the lessons too. (Yes, even accounting.) I feel that I've learned more in the past month than I did the past year, hehe. Possibly I just love to be under pressure, under the crushing demands expected of a Mgt-H student. Speaking of crushing demands, we just had our Accounting Long Test a few hours ago.

It was quite possibly the most challenging exam I've ever taken in my life.

Three hours of mind-numbing torture and exorbitant exertion of brainpower on my part just is not enough to vanquish the legendary Accounting Long Test for "etch" students. I'm not even sure if I passed it... I hope and pray that I did because if not, it would be goodbye to "etch". If it is, then my stay in Mgt-H would have lasted only one month. Oh please, one month is not enough to be in my dream course. In any case, I never ever regret my decision to shift. I am actually so happy with it. Beyond the great teachers and the interesting lessons, what completes my happiness is my new block. It's such a nice feeling to meet new people; more so if they're as interesting and warm and kind and friendly as the people in Block Q. Anyway, what matters the most in life are not the grades you get but the friendships you have made.
Haha, what a way to console myself.

Oh well, there's life after H...
You Are An INFP

The Idealist

You are creative with a great imagination, living in your own inner world.
Open minded and accepting, you strive for harmony in your important relationships.
It takes a long time for people to get to know you. You are hesitant to let people get close.
But once you care for someone, you do everything you can to help them grow and develop.

In love, you tend to have high (and often unrealistic) standards.
You are very sensitive. You tend to have intense feelings.

At work, you need to do something that expresses your personal values.
You would make an excellent writer, psychologist, or artist.

How you see yourself: Unselfish, empathetic, and spiritual

When other people don't get you, they see you as: Unrealistic, naive, and weak