A Little Pick-Me-Up

I've been feeling a bit down lately. And I hate it. And there are just days when I know I need a little extra help in conjuring up a smile. I would sometimes visit this site, It's great. It should change its name to Thanksgiving.

What always works are laughing baby videos. Just a snippet of those would at least give me some giggles. I have a few stand-bys on YouTube, but my absolute favorite is Ethan.



This is simply priceless. The ultimate joy in the world: tearing up paper.

Enjoy!

Newbie Confessions

Since I'm very new at blogging, I wonder how much do you reveal in a blog? Are there rules of etiquette for the whole thing, or at least guidelines in blogging decorum? I remember when I was fairly new at Facebook – I only signed up this year – I wrote a wall post where I wasid that I wanted to strangle my housemate for leaving our shared bathroom at such a horribly disgusting state (trust me, if you're bathroom were in the same condition, you would have screamed for blood). A friend then kindly warned me that setting up such a post is dangerous. I initially wondered why, and them I began conjusring up Grisham-like scenarios, wherein I was wrongfully accused of my housemate's death . And my conviction was based solely on that Facebook post. i immediately deleted the said wall post. And since then, I've been extra-careful of whatever I put on my Facebook page, either written posts, pictures or group that I've joined. This censure was also strengthened when several of my students' parents became my friends.

And also, given that I'm using my real name. I initially planned this to be anonymous, but I thought that stamping my name on this makes me accountable in being more diligent in posting. I do not know how much of me should I put out there. This is definitely not going to be my journal, as some people treat their blogs. I prefer to do those the good ole' fashioned way.

So going back to my question – how much can I reveal in this blog?

Happy Monday!

Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax si marmota monax materiam possit materiari?*

Plenty.






* Latin for "How much wood would a woodchuck chuck is a woodchuck could chuck wood?"

Work-In-Progress

I mentioned in my profile that I'm a writer. I have a different day job that I would write about in future posts. I am currently working on the first draft of my young adult novel. I'm more than three-fourths done with the thing after a month of feverish (for a snail) writing. And after all the spurt of energy and bravado, I've been trudging along for several days now.

I'm not really sure if this is what they call writer's block. I'm not really blocked in the sense that the ideas and words have stopped flowing. I am confused. I've come to a point in the story where there are revelations being made. BIG ones. And I am now confused in keeping tabs on how much each of my characters have known about this BIG thing in the first place. It's hard to develop and maintain the characters' varying degrees of awareness in different points of the plot. I was thinking if this can be caused by the limitations in my character development. Hopefully, it can be improved after I re-read, edit, and then editeditediteditedit the whole thing.

The Lost Symbol

I just finished reading Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol. This post is not meant to lambast Mr. Brown. I have full respect for authors who get millions of people to read not only their works, but other books as well, if only to prove them wrong. In general, The Lost Symbol was an entertaining read, but I much preferred Angels and Demons and The Da Vinci Code over it. Plot-wise, you get what you expect from him.

I won't give a detailed criticism of it. That has been done and is being done all over the world. I don't need to add my two cents over the millions of pennies it has collected. I just have one irksome observation when I read the whole thing that I could not let go. One very small part – equivalent to three paragraphs – out of the whole story.

***SPOILER ALERT***

I would only be discussing my views on a very miniscule section of the book and nothing else. However, it still involves an event in the story. This spoiler is for all those persnickety readers out there who would think that this single revelation would ruin the whole thing for them – STOP READING THIS BLOG AND FINISH THE NOVEL. And for those who don't care and are wondering why all this fuss, trust me, there are persnickety readers out there. Just browse through the counter-comments of the books section in Amazon.

For a brief summary: There's a part in this book where a female character is being pursued in a void of darkness (they were trapped in a hangar-like pod that had to be kept in absolutely darkness because of high-security stuff) by the main antagonist. She was able to trick him and escape by lighting up her iPhone, making the antagonist think that she was making a phone call for help. He ran towards her, and eventually crushed his hands on the unseen wall and banged his head on a steel beam. Nobody was holding the phone, it was placed on a "waist-high horizontal strut."

DB's books always has to be read with a grain of salt. His fantastical plot, over-the-top twists and lambasting of history have always been criticized. However, those are the main reasons why his books sell so well. But this is just ridiculous, even stupid. Just to be clear, the antagonist was a very smart, diabolical individual, who at that that early point of the story, has not suffered from any physical, mental or sensory injuries. The only thing he had against him was that he was blanketed in total darkness. So how in the world id he not see the wall that was immediately behind the illuminated iPhone????

I have an iPhon (God bless those Apple geniuses), and one great thing about it is that it has a really great display. I've even used it countless of times as an emergency flashlight, and even at its "desktop setting" where it's at its dimmest, it can still light up at least a yard of space around me. So with the phone lighted up and the wall at most an arm's length behind it, why didn't this super-smart guy see it? Granted that the guy was running, but if the beam, wall and phone were immediately in front of him, and his eyes having been in darkness for so long, his vision would be highly sensitive enough to avoid bonking his head.

In this particular part of the book, my mind immediately erased the maleficent, tattooed (oops!) demon-person that was playing the character in my head, and replaced it with the dunce of a giant Disney created for his version of Jack and the Beanstalk. It was that dumb.

Fee-fi-fo-fum.

 

I'm A Gleek!

It's official. I am severely addicted.

Everyone of us has had that not-so-secret dream of being a star. And we know those dreams culminate or crashes in high school - or at least that's how we felt when we were in high school. Even if I dreamed I canever be in the glee club back in the days. I'm tone deaf. I did join the drama club my senior year, and had those rare monologue moments. And it was exhilarating! I loved it! I tried to relive it by joining community theater groups, but the high I get is never the same.

So much for my recollections.

Being on stage, having my monologues and receiving those critical accolades didn't really help in the popularity part - none that I noticed anyway. I was still a kid whoo was in between. Neither in the popular clique or the degenerates.

Yet that is what I love about this show. It shows all the sentiments, hilarity and desperation of a typical high school life. And not just the students, but the pathetic teachers as well (ahem!)

Plus, I am absolutely in love with one character. Not Finn. And not Will. Not even Rachel or Mercedes (although I would love to be them even for just a day). I'm in love with...

Kurt!

The deadpan attitude. The "every moment is a fashion statement" personality. And those clothes! I love it!

So I am glued to this show for the next four(?) months. And for the next TEN seasons (a fan can dream).

Gone

So much for being consistent. More than a month since my last post, and having only two of it under my belt is not really a good sign. However, I cannot make myself promise to be more consistent.

In relation to my absence, it makes me sad seeing blogs that have ended. Some of them with no reason at, just that the blogger stopped posting. I found a really great blog by 3 writers last month, and I ve discovered it too late. They have discontinued the blog and each one of them put up their own blogs, but it wasn't the same. And one of the blogs also disappeared, with its last post last May. It's like dicovering that your favorite TV show isn't being renewed for another season.

Just makes me melancholic.

Customized tombstone courtesy of Tombstone Generator.