The Cam OST

IF YOUR LIFE WAS A MOVIE, WHAT WOULD THE SOUNDTRACK BE?

Pirated from Char

Here's how it works:
1. Open your library (iTunes, Winamp,MediaPlayer, iPod, etc)
2. Put it on shuffle
3. Press play
4. For every question, type the song that's playing
5. When you go to a new question, press the next button
6. Don't lie and try to pretend you're cool...

To spice it up, I made two versions:
Version 1 - office iTunes
Version 2 - my iPod
* The most appropriate version has the appropriate lyrics

Opening Credits:
My Funny Valentine, Rod Stewart
Honey I've Been Thinking About You, Jackie Greene

Waking Up:
Constellations, Jack Johnson (What in the world is this song?!!)
Paano, Shamrock (from the APO tribute album)

First Day at School:
Dreams be Dreams, Jack Johnson (A dream's a dream/ And all this living's so much harder than it seems/ But girl don't let your dreams be dreams")
Hands Open, Snow Patrol

Falling In Love:
La Vie Boheme, Rent Movie OST
I Think God Can Explain, Splendor

Fight Song:
No Ordinary Love, JLH ("this is not your ordinary, no ordinary love/ I was not prepared enough/ To fall so deep in love")
Bette Davies Eyes, Gwyneth Paltrow

Breaking Up:
What You Own, Rent Movie OST
Clear Spot, Pernice Brothers ("I feel better now you're gone/ A minute in the sunlight/ Can take away a whole life/ Still, there's something about you")

Prom:
Tango: Maureen, Rent OST
If I Can't Have You, Yvonne Elliman ("If I can't have you/ I don't want nobody, baby!")

Life:
I Believe In, JLH ("I believe in/ The miracles of love/ I believe in/ The miracles in us")
Careless Whisper, David Koz

Mental Breakdown:
Cab, Train ("The days are better, the nights are still so lonely/ Sometimes I feel I'm the only cab on the road")
How, Lisa Loeb

Driving:
Our Love (Don't Throw It All Away), JLH
This Ordinary Life, Matthew West ("Take me beyond this ordinary life")

Flashback:
I'll Cover You, Rent OST ("So with a thousand sweet kisses/ I'll cover you")
Don't Miss You at All, Norah Jones

Wedding:
I Do, Rain (the Korean dude) (well the lyrics are in Korean so I don't understand)
Last Christmas (Gasp!)

Birth of Child:
Unsatisfied, Nine Black Alps
God Bless the Child, Mishka Adams ("Mama may have, Papa may have/ But God bless the child that's got his own/ That's got his own/ He just worry about nothin'/ Cause he's got his own")

Final Battle:
Shine on Me, Watershed
The Walk, Imogen Heap

Death Scene:
For Me, It's You, Train ("Everybody got something that they want to sing about, laugh about, cry about/ For me, it's you")
Je Cherche Un Homme, Eartha Kitt (I don't want to die still searching for a man!)

Funeral Song:
I Always Was Your Girl, JLH
Get me through December, Natalie MacAllister <--

Credit:
Walk on the Ocean, John Mayer
L-O-V-E, Nat King Cole

My Weekend Treat

Hello everyone, meet Lily! My youngest cousin (so far). Filipina-Austrian. I just fell completely in love with her, even if we can't understand each other. I wanted to pinch her the whole time!!! English is not the universal language. Love is. Oh Lilybut, your mom is watching you proudly, I'm sure. =)


So this is how I spent my entire weekend! Struggling to communicate with this darling kid, though it wasn't hard to get a smile or a laugh out of her. I just feel sad that they can't come here as a complete family, because I see so much of my aunt in her. In any case, I'm still happy that she left us with this precious gem. We spent a few minutes last Saturday playing in Camp Coco (right hand pic above)! We had fun and she kept yapping at me in German syllables! Then she started crying the second time and I couldn't make her stop. =(
And of course, the visit wouldn't be complete without Oma (left), Lily's granma. She's such a lovely woman, and really one of the sweetest I've ever met! I would study German just so I can converse with her.

More pics in my multiply.

Strangers by the day

The interesting thing about Christmas shopping each year is monitoring the list. When I was a kid, I never had the list. My mom took care of shopping for my friends and teachers and every now and then, I would just give suggestions.

Finally, there came a point when I had to come up with a list of my own. When my shopping list grew to include people outside of my "set circle," it just became necessary. It's hard to shop with only a mental checklist. It narrows the vision, hence limits the shopping.

Now I found that the list evolves each year. Some years it may contain more names, and at others, less. It only makes sense that the list evolves. Some people are just transients in our lives. And that isn't always a bad thing. I've learned that there are people who only enter your life at a specific time to maybe help you learn something, but aren't meant to stay. In the past, I've tried to force transients into becoming staples, only to have failed. Building a relationship in real life, should indeed, not be so difficult.

Making my list each year tends to be an emotional moment. In the past, it was a tad more superficial. I only list down the names of the people that I'm sure to see during the holidays. (It still, by the way, makes sense to do this until now, because let's face it, it's just a lot more practical that way!) ANYWAY. In other instances though, the disappearance of a person's name on the list isn't simply out of logistical inconvenience. After all, unless the person has moved to another province or another country, a staple will always make it to the list. If a person means enough to you, there is no such thing as a logistical inconvenience (Christmas cards via snail mail counts!). Sure, it's easier to give gifts to people who are geographically desirable, but sometimes, the people who really matter are miles off that radar.

Now why am I writing about this?

As I was making my Christmas list this year, a lot of new names have been added to it. New colleagues, new bosses, new friends, and the like. And I realized that there are old friends I've managed to keep in touch with over the years, yet never bothered to give presents to out of "logistical inconvenience" (a.k.a. hindi naman kami magkikita). That's just sad. I don't think that our being able to see each other should be a qualifying factor for whether a person makes it to the list. After all, if the person is really a friend, then logistics is just a word. An ugly word that I like using on a regular basis. Christmas is the time to let the people who matter in your life know that you have thought of them, and that their presence in your life counts. Even if you hardly see each other.

It's amazing how relationships are so effortless. They just manage to work out somehow. Sure it requires effort every now and then, after disagreements and after fights especially. But those are the moments that filter who stays and who goes. I don't think any relationship will be devoid of challenge, but staples who want to be each other's staples manage to pull through somehow. And though there is effort, it still seems effortless. I have gone through this enough times to know.

Now that I'm out of school, I feel like a new challenge for keeping my college friends as staples has finally arrived. It's the same way when I got out of high school. In the beginning there was that pressure to keep in touch with everyone else. As time went on, you communicated with less. Some have become mere acquaintances, while others...Well, they're still friends that you just don't talk to quite as often as you'd like. I guess there are always going to be moments when you feel like total strangers. Even for a single moment. But the beauty of it is, the ones that truly matter, only remain strangers during that single moment.

For me, Christmas has always been a time to remember them. All of them. At least all of the ones that really count. I'm always grateful for the people I have in my life. Even the ones who are only there at a specific period of my life. And as for writing my list, it's always comforting to be able to start with the staples.

On the lighter side of my life

Lily's coming, Lily's coming!

Lily is my youngest cousin from my dad's side. On this picture, she's only a few months old. She's one now. Unfortunately, I couldn't post her recent pics because they are in my laptop--my Bailey--which is now out of commission. :(

Lily is half Austrian and half Filipino. My dad's youngest sister married a very, very kind Austrian gentleman who is so eager to fly me to his ski lodge and introduce me to a rich farmer (egaad!). My aunt passed shortly after giving birth to her. It was probably the most tragic event in the history of my dad's family, but we are grateful nonetheless for the bundle of joy that she left us.

I'm really looking forward to their *surprise* visit next week! Lily is growing up in Austria surrounded by boys, so I'm hoping to inject some girliness in her! I'm planning to buy her some bows and other girly accessories that she can take back with her! :D

My uncle, who I simply call by his first name, lives on the Austrian countryside (I don't even know where). He is a hotelier and his is located in a vast area of rolling hills in a small town. Think Little House on the Prarie meets Stars Hollow. It's a quaint little town. During the winter, he converts his hotel into a ski resort. He's very un-European, and he's one of the warmest people I've ever met.

This is a great Christmas present! :-)

Riding on the wrong side of the tracks

Trust me, I am thankful for the improvements in the public transport system. Riding the train sure beats out the non-airconditioned buses anyday. Despite this gratitude, however, I still have to ask:

Why can't people do things right the first time?

Last Friday, my plans sort of shifted after one phone call. Instead of my planned quiet evening of going to the salon then going home, I had to take a quick (but rather uneasy) MRT ride to Shangri-la Shaw to meet my mom and head off to East Ave. for the dry run of her friend's ice cream parlor.

I have ridden the MRT during rush hour, but always on the counterflow. I would usually be coming from the Cubao station to Ayala, and the flow of people going southbound on rush hour is a LOT less than the opposite direction. I've gotta say though, thank goodness for having separate couches for female passengers! That is a huge relief.

Anyway, being the pseudo-claustrophobic person that I am, I couldn't help but be utterly disturbed during the entire ride. And here I thought that women would be more "giving" than the men. That they would let the passengers alight before riding the trains. But no, it was definitely not the case. There were a lot of pushing, shoving, and elbowing involved. I felt stuck in a throng of Amazonas. I couldn't blame them though. I had to wait for what felt like an hour, but was only probably 15 minutes on the actual platform before I got onto a train.

While in transit, I couldn't help but start doing mental calculations of the number of people who could possibly be taking public transportation. And although I never came up with an actual figure, I realized that it was definitely worth more than 5 feet of space on a rail transit. Due to the time constraints, I don't have the luxury of finding more precise data:

Metro Manila population (est) = 11,289,368
MM Employment rate (as of Jul '06 according to the NSO) = 86.5% = 9,765,303
(Honestly, I was surprised when I found this info! Isn't it an overestimate??!)
Workers who likely take their own transpo = 4,292,272 (acc to the National Statistics Coordinating Board, 2003)
Workers who take public transpo = 5,473,031
Since the train fares are higher than other modes of transport, let's say that only 10% take the MRT = 547,303

I didn't really have to compute all that though, because I found the MRT site that tracks the "ridership". On the average, there are roughly 350,000 passengers in ONE DAY (that's not even 10%!).
If 60% of these passengers ride during rush hour, that's 210,000; split that into 2 (morning rush and evening rush), then that's 105,000 passengers per time, spread over a span of say, 3 hours each, and that's around 35,000 passengers per hour.

I don't know how accurate my figures are, but in any case, the point is, the MRT is too small for the demand. Do things right the first time. Build bigger trains. Build bigger stations. Build wider platforms. Being proactive is less expensive than being reactive.

It would sure pay off if this country ever learned that lesson.

*A great big sigh*

I would continue but it's ciao time ;-)