so.
jason castro is coming here in mid-march.
and the insanity continues.
i don’t know what it is with the philippines that the idols keep coming, but whatever it is, keep it up. XD
falling slowly, sing your melody~
Sigh, I was planning to do a concert recap when I’ve already posted my videos on YouTube, but with the way my internet is behaving right now, it would take a week or something. :| So let’s talk about how last night I went to see Kris Allen!
I know I said I wasn’t going to, and up until about 2:30pm on Friday I didn’t know I was. By some miracle involving some generous people and some fortunate connections, my friends and I got tickets FOR FREE, and I even got one for my sister. Not front row, not even as good as the seats I was planning to buy, but good enough. At that point I was just glad I was getting a ticket.
So I went last night, and we were horribly late because my friend who had the tickets was coming from somewhere else. But that’s ok, it wasn’t Kris yet. But Boyce Avenue sounded good from what little I heard of them, so I kind of wish I caught them too. The Jabbawockeez were amazing but I’m not really a fangirl so I wasn’t jumping off my seat (if I had a seat. Which I didn’t. We were in the free-standing area.).
And then after two other performers, lots and lots and LOTS of useless banter from the Channel V VJs (which I couldn’t wait for to finish, ugh), FINALLY, IT WAS KRISTOPHER’S TURN.
And holy cow, he was amazing live. I wasn’t even that excited for his show to begin with, to be honest. I mean, I was excited to see him in the general sense because this is someone I spent four months watching on TV, and I kind of really like him, so it would be great to watch his show. But not enough, not as much as I was excited for the Davids, which is why I could cancel my plans when they didn’t seem to be working out. Not without a heavy heart and disappointment, but still. If it had been the Davids, I would have gone no matter what. But Kris, I wasn’t even willing to pay half the price of my David+David ticket if there was no one to go with me.
But I’m so, so glad that my some stroke of luck I was able to go, because I would have missed that. And by that I mean how fantastic Kris Allen was live. He sounded SO GOOD. The Truth and Falling Slowly were especially beautiful. Granted, they were two of my favorites of his, but he did them so much better than I ever expected (I haven’t been following his career as closely as the Davids so this is actually the first time I’m hearing any sort of live arrangement for The Truth, or for that matter, any of his album songs except for Live Like We’re Dying and Heartless). SO GORGEOUS. I wasn’t really expecting to love his set that much, I was just looking for a good time watching an artist I like. But I came out of the concert having fallen in love with him all over again, TENFOLD.
I know my parents (and probably a lot of my friends too) don’t get why I keep on trying to see these artists live when it just inconveniences all of us when they have to stay up late to pick me up. My investment in their personal lives aside (particularly these idols), I would still want to go see them live. I’m not involved in the online fandom for all the artists I want to see or have seen live. I don’t know John Mayer’s birthday or whatever, all I have is his albums on my iPod, but if he came here I would still watch, front row even, if I can afford it. I’m a music lover and there’s something about live performances that you can’t get from recordings. There are songs that I really, truly love and that evoke powerful emotions or make me sigh happily when I listen to them, but hearing them live is still different. I love seeing artists perform. There is a different joy to it that doesn’t completely show through studio recordings. Now I know, with truly gifted artists you can hear and feel the passion in their albums, but those are the artists that when you see live, will pretty much move you to tears already. Because in live performances you can see how much they love what they are doing — not just making music, but sharing it, which is I think the main point in the first place. Yes, making cds is also sharing the music, but in performing live there is instantaneous feedback and I’ve heard artists say they feed off that energy, that love from the audience, and it’s just amazing how that translates into being that difference between live and studio vocals.
And dear Kristopher, bless him, he was giving it his all, and I just wish the crowd had been more enthusiastic. :( I know not all of them were there for Kris, a lot were Jabbawockeez fans too, and I think therein lies the problem. It was a large crowd but not everyone was interested in Kris, and I would have preferred a much smaller show with just him, and it would’ve been a much warmer crowd and he would’ve gotten all the attention, all the love he deserved. Now that I would’ve paid good money to see up front. Because seriously, he was so good live.I’ve listened to Kris’ album several times now, but it could never compare to last night. He was really giving it his all, jumping and screaming and singing his heart out and he was amazing. And I know I’m not the only one who felt this way. I talked to a friend who also went but wasn’t with me, and we had the same reaction. Two separate concert experiences but with the same feeling evoked. Sigh, Kris. I wish you felt the love from the few who truly enjoyed and appreciated you last night. Come back for a smaller, solo show, and I promise we’ll be better than last night’s crowd. <3
you and me could write a bad romance
+ i have a project in eee due in 7 hours and I AM NOT DONE, fuck this shit.
+ kris allen will be on eat bulaga later and i can’t go because i have abovementioned project. (i didn’t even know he was here already. rofl. fan fail.)
+ kris’ concert is on saturday and i am not going, because:
b) i have no one to go with, except possibly my sister
c) i have an exam that afternoon so the only way i can go is if i buy the P3k tickets at least, and my sister would probably not be willing to do that so if we were going, we’d be in separate sections. this would be fine if we each had someone with us, but no. so yeah, it’s a no-go. if this were the davids, there would be no question about it, i am going no matter what. but then again i wouldn’t have these issues if this were the davids since i have friends who will surely, absolutely go too.
+ ….i bought a phone instead. and named it kris. sigh. phone!krissifer you are shiny. not as adorable as real!krissifer, but probably sexier. it’s sleek and silver and sexy. rofl. i want to marry this phone.
+ i made my alarm tone Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance. it’s… pretty effective. except now i will have the song stuck in my head all day. D:
+ i want to sleep. :((
note to self.
“Being gifted doesn’t mean you’ve been given something.
It means, you have something to give.”
–from here
I need to remember this. Because since high school, people keep calling us that, and sometimes I feel so unworthy to be getting this amazing free education, plus monetary allowance. But when I accepted my scholarships and decided to study in UP, I promised myself that I’m going to make myself worth it. I haven’t forgotten that. I may be frivolous and shallow and materialistic sometimes, but I never forget that I’m being given this privilege not so I can enjoy the perks of having a stipend, but so I can have the best education possible so that one day I can serve my country. I never forget that it’s the Filipino people who make it possible for me to have this, all of this. And one day I’m going to give it back to you all.
saturday i failed project 365 so yesterday i was too lazy to pick it up again, because i’d lost the momentum already. i still want to do it, but i will wait for a day when i photograph something interesting. saturday would’ve been interesting, actually, i spent the morning in divisoria walking around and haggling cloth prices. i wish i had time to shop but i was meeting someone after that, so i stuck with my original purpose which was to canvass cloth prices for costumes for a presentation we’re doing in my asian history class. i wish i had my camera with me. the streets of manila would’ve made interesting photos. but it wasn’t advisable to bring it there, i might as well have brought a sign inviting snatchers and robbers to please take my expensive camera and other belongings, thank you. maybe next time i will bring my older, smaller camera.
so i came home in the afternoon with still no photo for the day, and about a couple hours before midnight, i fell asleep when i should’ve been cramming my photo already. thus the failure.
i will restart this project hopefully within the week. if not, feb 1st because i am meeting someone for lunch and we will talk all afternoon and then somehow it’ll be 6pm already and we’d just spent the last seven hours talking. it will be fun, and maybe i will take a picture.
=====
my hair weirds me out. i’ve never had it this long before, and i constantly stare in wonder at how it brushes along my arms, and how i can tug on it from the back without bending my arm too much. it’s weird. but i like it. it’s a bitch to wash and then dry, but i like having my hair this long. only because it’s straight (now) though. i’m gonna miss it when i get it cut and rebonded again in a few months.
=====
this post is kind of disjointed and hazy. i don’t know, that’s how i feel today yesterday, because i wrote this yesterday but my internet died and so i’m posting this now.
11-15.
So I have been absent from blogging for a few days due to school work, but project 365 is still going strong! If by strong you mean half-the-time-it’s-about-whatever’s-nearest-to-me-at-11pm! Because ugh, this project is actually hard, whut. Mostly because I’m busy at school and I never have time to photograph anything interesting, and when I’m at home there’s… nothing interesting. D: which is why I bring you cop-outs! From the last five days!
Day 11
I bought a tripod that day. But I was too lazy to take an actual exciting photo that shows off how amazing life can be with a tripod, so I just took a pic of myself in the mirror. With a bit of the tripod showing. Hoho. (Um yeah, my mirror is dirty. And my room is messy. D: )
Day 11
This is the cop-out of all cop outs. Absolutely nothing exciting that day, so with 15 minutes left before midnight, I took a photo of the closest object I could find, which is this bottle of nail polish. This is the one that I used for that sparkly!nails photo I posted before. It was a Christmas gift from my ex-boss, back when I was still employed. Sigh, I miss my job. I really wish I could still do it, but life (school) is just so busy. :(
Day 13
I already had a photo of the day planned. And then I came home and saw all the cats sleeping on top of our car. CHANGE OF PLANS. I’m a cat person, so my first thought upon seeing all three of them sleeping there was N’AWWW <3. My mom thinks I’m kind of crazy, because I take hundreds of photos of the cats. But I love them a lot, so there.
Day 14
This is the day I got up at 3am, didn’t get home until 10pm, and pretty much fell asleep on my laptop at midnight. This was taken at around 11pm. I don’t know if you can see it, but my eyes were so red and tired. I’m just smiling for the photo, because all my sleepy-face photos look horrible and unflattering, haha. I had my hoodie up because… wala lang. LOL. I came from the UP Film Institute and it was cold, and then the nighttime air was cold, and when I got home… I just didn’t want to take off the jacket because it’s pretty, heh. And then I put the hood up because I’m ghetto and that’s how I roll… dawg.
Day 15
I had lunch with Fatima today, who I haven’t seen in a month. We were supposed to have a nice, fancy lunch at Choco Kiss, but I was late and had to submit my resume for internships, so we ended up at the less-fancy Long Island. Fatimang, I miss you. Let’s hang out more. We should make Friday lunches a habit, hmm.
(the photography amateur geek in me likes how this photo turned out. hee. although photoshop had a hand in that, lol)
But wait! I have an extra photo because my block is the CUTEST.
1. No, we didn’t talk about our clothes. We just really happened to be wearing different shades of pink/purple. Except for Gevie. Her pink bag will just have to suffice. XD
2. I look tiny next to Paola. :(
3. I love Lulu’s dress. :)
4. Wow, I don’t look as fat as usual. HAHAHAHAHA.
5. Why do Anna and I stand so awkwardly?
6. My legs are getting dark. I should stop wearing shorts all the time. D:
I trimmed my bangs today.
And by trimmed I mean hacked off about two inches. And by today I mean yesterday since it’s 3am now. I don’t know, I was at church then I came home and my dad was calling me to dinner and I was at the table already and I was about to dig in except what I did was yell “BRB!” and then went to my room and just… cut it off. I just have moments like this, I don’t know. Mostly I did it because it was getting too long; I haven’t had a haircut since last April (my hair is the longest it’s ever been), but I like having bangs so every month or so I just randomly trim it. I had my hair straightened so it falls directly, straight down, and since then my bangs never quite looked like the way they did when I first had them (since losing that look probably 10 years ago), back in my first year of college, back when I had crap rebonding so it wasn’t quite as straight as it is now and so it looked fuller. But now it’s super straight. My hair has grown out a bit though so the couple of inches of hair starting from the roots has a nice wave to it. For the rest of my hair it’s annoying because there’s this kink around the top of my head while below that my hair falls nice and straight, and I have become best friends with my straightening iron because of that (also I love how soft it makes my hair feel). But it gives my bangs some ~body, and I love how nice it looks now.
But aside from aesthetic purposes, sometimes I’m just itching to do something random and crazy, except I’m too chicken to run off to France or something. Well, ok, maybe Baguio would be more realistic given my resources, but France just sounds so romantic and so fitting for a spur-of-the-moment trip plus I’d get to stalk Colin Morgan if they’re filming Merlin there. But like I said, I’m too chicken to do something really wild and spontaneous. So instead I just cut my hair.
I don’t mean wild as in get spectacularly drunk and then have a one-night-stand with some random stranger (possibly even female, now that would be ~wild, haha). I just… want to do something outside the usual routine of going to school, going home, going online, etc. Traveling sounds like a fun idea. Or picking up a new hobby or an activity that I’ve always wanted to do but never considered actually trying. I don’t know, just… something.
I once read a story. The plot isn’t actually relevant to my musings, but there’s this one character in the story. This guy was described to have this crazy wanderlust, and once in a while he’d get so restless and just disappear off to wherever he fancied, to find himself or whatever one does on such expeditions. When he was 17 he went off to Hong Kong for three months. In the time frame of the story he set off to Peru for a few weeks. He was always restless, wanted to go off and see the world, to do something new. Sometimes I feel like that. Like there’s something else I want to be doing, instead of this, whatever this is.
Actually, right now this is… well. My career path. Programming. I love this, I really do, I still get this giddy feeling of wonder and amazement whenever I make some new piece of code work, like this is the coolest major ever. But there’s a part of me that will always, always wish I were writing actual words instead. And that’s what’s making me restless. I’m about to graduate in a little over a year (hopefully) but there’s still this niggling feeling at the back of my mind of wanting to do something else.
Sometimes I feel like it’s just because being in this major is so very exhausting mentally and emotionally, and I wish I picked something easier. I wish I could take a break for a year after I graduate. Rest. Travel. Write. Do whatever, before I finally tie myself down with a job and actual adult life. But again, part of it will always be because this wouldn’t have been my first choice (it still would’ve made my list, probably even in the top 5, but never number 1) if I actually had a choice.
There’s this person I know who was a ComSci major for one semester before shifting to journ. (I never knew her in CS actually, despite being in the same batch as her.) She’s doing her thesis now, some investigative journalism project. I’m jealous. I don’t even know what her project is about, exactly. But I’m jealous that she’s doing what I could’ve been doing myself. If only I had the balls to chase after that dream.
more quotes.
I swear I’m going to do actual school work after posting this and updating my scrapbook.
“I want to get away from the internet and actually enjoy real life – moment after moment, and not tab-after-tab.”
–Anna
In recent months I’ve been living practically in front of my computer. In some ways it’s great because I’m always connected to everyone through the internet, but sometimes I realize I’ve become too dependent on it. When my internet fails, it’s disconcerting and unsettling to me. It’s ridiculous. I’m trying to be better at this, to not seclude myself from real life as much as I did for a few months in 2009, and I think I’ve made progress. I should’ve done what John Mayer did, reduce online time to an absolute minimum for the first week of 2010 (as in only for checking your email because though this is a noble undertaking, the world wouldn’t pause for your online detox and school/work matters will still make their way to your inbox). But I didn’t even attempt because the mere thought of not being online makes me feel a little lost. I don’t know why, I lived the first few years of my life without internet, the next few with cheap dialup that we only sometimes used. But in recent years, technology has made it so easy to live in your computer and forget that there’s actually a world outside.
I’ve always been a little anti-social, but my attachment to my computer has made it so much worse. My family gets so bored at home because we’re all busy with school/work/whatever, and more often than not, one of us will find themselves home alone for hours. They hate it. It’s like we just live in the same house but we don’t really live together. And I get their point, I do, and sometimes I suddenly realize that it’s been days since we all actually had dinner together and it makes me sad. But I also like my alone time, sitting at the kitchen table and reading random things on my laptop, with my iPod hooked up to speakers on full blast and a mug of coffee beside me or some dinner I’d managed to scrape up. Not that I hate spending time with my family –except when shopping, because that almost always ends up in a fight and really, I like shopping alone better. Except I have no one to pay for my materialistic needs, haha–, but I think I just like solitude better than they do. Sometimes I would rather sit at home and check on fandom or twitter or plurk or (recently) tumblr, or maybe write a bit if inspiration strikes me, than go to the mall with my family. Or even if I deign to go out, I would check twitter and my mail through my phone several times a day. I’ve been trying to curb that habit, though. Now I only do it when I’m bored on the commute to and from school. HAHA. It’s not actually the going with family that I don’t like. Sometimes I just don’t feel like going out of the house and interacting with the rest of the human populace in general.
I think Project 365 has been helping me a bit to live in the moment. It forces me to get away from my computer for at least a little bit and find something notable to photograph other than my screen, to look at my life and actually see it going on around me (haha, Avatar reference! That movie was good for something after all), to go through my day and find at least one beautiful thing in it. I like bringing my camera to school despite the incovenience (it is kind of big), because I get to capture little moments (particularly with my blockmates) that make me think, “When I look back on my life, I will remember this afternoon and smile.”
~
“I don’t want to put down the good I still have on paper. I want to keep it to myself. Once the ink is on paper, part of it always feels lost.”
I read that in some story or other, and I really liked it because I’ve always felt that way. Sometimes you feel a joy that is so overwhelming that you want to shout it from the rooftops and share it with the world, but sometimes there’s this. When something special and nice and beautiful happens to you, that you just want to hold it tight against your chest and live in that moment forever. I like the feeling that that moment was mine and mine alone. I feel like writing it down means it’s finally over. Even if I’m writing it in my private journal, it still feels like something is lost, somehow. Is that weird?
Sigh, why am I in a melancholy mood today. I should go back to programming now.
=====
My mom has some of our chapel’s priests and seminarians for lunch today, because that’s what our village does. Every Sunday one home plays host to them for lunch, because our residents are very involved in church activities and they’re all lovely and the seminarians who are assigned to our village love that they’re well taken care of here, haha. I love them. And Sunday lunch with them here makes me smile, because I love that there are still young men who choose to go into this vocation. :)
I'm Eeeek. I'm 19 and I'm a Computer Science major at the University of the Philippines.
