Graduation Photoshoot! :D

I was not really deprived from photos when I was a kid. In fact, I've got loads of it, about a drawer or so, and my mom loved to take my pictures every month back when i was still the only baby in the family. :)

But then, this really made me excited, then finally, the day came for our graduation pictorials. I've seen most of my batch mates turn into lovely princesses or handsome princes as they went through their pictorials a week earlier. But yesterday was the moment for me to unleash the model in me. :D Hahaha! XD

I'm quite expressive with my feelings, and I'm really shocked after looking on myself after that complete transformation that Mama Argie did to me. It wasn't me. :D I swear. :D

Pretty! XD

I looked like my mom when she got married to my dad. :D Hahaha! XD I am indeed, a carbon copy of my mudra after all, no doubt! XD

And with that, my dream of becoming a model came true, even just for a day. XD

Three Plays

I missed my blog. I wasn't able to post a lot of info and personal notes these past few days 'coz I was duper busy with the batch pictorials, and with my acad life. Still, what's amusing is that I managed to finish my second purchased book of Ayn Rand. :) Weee! :)

During free time, or whenever I'm dozing off to sleep, I went through the book, for about 5-10 pages every reading session, or from 10-30 pages whenever possible (e.g. duper free time, no exams, or relieving stress). I really got addicted to Ayn Rand's style of writing, and her plays really deserve to be played on broadway.

The Three Plays featured in the book are The night of January 16th, Ideal, and Think Twice. I loved Think Twice most, 'coz it really made me think of the story, and the psychological intervention she had incorporated with the play. However, I loved them all. :)

Soon after reading the Anthem, I knew how Ayn Rand will define or characterize her antagionists and protagonists on her play. :) I loved on how she defined individualism, on how one can manage his or her life by his or her means. And I was able to buy another Ayn Rand novel... :) I'd be posting that soon after I finished reading. :) Woohoo!! :)

Sweet enough, a lot of people got addicted to the plays as well. My mom had a dose of the book while waiting for me during my psychological exam at one of the medical schools I've applied, then my close friend Angel wanted to read it, knowong that she's deeply in love with scripts and dialogues, for she's a theater artist. :) Waw. :)

And probably, as I travel tomorrow to Q.C. for our photoshoot, i'd be more that happy reading that new novel I've bought. :) I'm so excited! :) Probably after work, i'd start up on that new novel, and my batchmates wouldn't be amazed of seeing me with another copy of Ayn Rand 's novel.

As for the graduation photoshoot pictures, I'd be posting it as soon as I get home tomorrow, with another batch of pictures from the editorial board photoshoot. :) Just wait for them guys! :)

Yehey! :)

Anthem (Expanded)

It's been a week since I've had my last blog, and for this week, it's all about Ayn Rand's Novel: Anthem.

It just took me two weeks to finish the novel... er... Novelette, as Ayn Rand called it on the introduction, for the said literary piece was her "scribbled notes" while doing her novel "The Fountainhead". The story was really short, I should have finished reading it for three days if not for a great load of work for acad stuff, but reading it from time to time was good enough for me to learn a lot of things, on Ayn Rand's Philosophical perspective: Objectivism.

What triggered me to read her novels was due to the inspiration given to me by my Philosophy teacher last semester, Miss Abbie. She told me through e-mail that my opinion over things are the same as Ayn Rand's. Actually, she told the class before to try some of her books, just to have an idea about Objectivism, for further reading.

I thought before that Ayn Rand's novels would really be technical over Philosophy, but she really did a great job of making the readers understand what she wants to impart in her novels. She gave a good writing style, for the readers to relate. And that's a good skill as a writer. :) How I wish I had those writing skills. Haha! :D

I won't be able to site some details regarding the good read I've experienced in the novel, because it was really short and I would really recommend it to you guys! :) Your appreciation of the novel all depend on how you lived and believed on your concept of individualism, and how you define "I".

Ayn Rand really had a good definition of Individualism, but still, I have my own choices and decisions. As what she said, we are capable of volition, or the ability to make choices, and she cannot completely persuade the readers to believe or to live with her concept. What matters to her is to share her concept, and her belief on how man can manage to live his life, and how man must live his life, and that is through searching for the true happiness that one has in mind. :)

Every philosopher has his or her description of things, with ultimate regard on the philosopher he or she looks up upon. And not all Philosophers don't believe in the concept of God and the Almighty, for a number of Saints are philosophers as well. :)

As for me, Ayn Rand had a good job of making me realize a number of things, and she made me stand up on my own decisions in life. Thanks to her, I'm back on my feet, and now, I'm walking my path towards personal stability and fulfillment.

And now, moving on, I learned to think about myself. It's kinda selfish, but how would I be able to share a part of me if I don't know myself that well? We all live in this world for our own sake, and we all battle for existence.

And with all that, I got addicted to Ayn Rand's novels, and now I'm starting up on the next book: her three plays, featuring "Night of January 16th", "Ideal", and "Think Twice".

How I wish I could avail "The Fountainhead" by next week... I've signed up a reservation for that. :)

Love in the Time of Cholera

"Think of Love as a state of grace: not the means to anything but the alpha and omega, an end, and itself."

The room for complete fulfillment lies on the individual doing his hobby, along with his burning passion and desire to forget bad memories. That made me think of a good hobby to start the year with, and probably, I'll end it 'till the day I die: reading novels and reviewing 'em up.

First stop: Love in the Time of Cholera, from the Nobel Prize awardee Gabriel Garcia Marquez. An online buddy recommended it for a good read about Love. Ideally, we see love as something that is made out of marriage, or a bond between two people, but in this novel, Florentino Ariza did eveything he could just to have the girl of his dreams, the one he loved most, until the age of 70+.

From the title itself, the setting of the story is on the time when cholera was an epidemic, when the world started growing up its population, developing its cities, but sewage problems lie for the people lead their garbage, as well as household sewage, at the rivers. These are the common problems of districts and countries in Latin America. Circa late 1800's to early 1900's.

I've got a glimpse of all kinds of love in this novel: Love made out of pity, love made out of the desire of having a family, domesticated love, and true love, among others. Garcia Marquez proved that love has no other means but patience, as what he wants the readers to see on his main character, Florentino Ariza, towards Fermina Daza, the woman of his dreams. He waited for Fermina's husband to die, who is ten years older than them, just to seize the moment of renewing his vow of internal fidelity and everlasting love, just what he did fifty years ago.

Florentino Ariza and Fermina Daza had a dose of their puppy love moments, the time during their teenage years where they swore love to each other on letters due to the fact that Fermina's father didn't want Florentino for her. Time passed by and Fermina's love for Florentino faded away in time, probably because of maturity, but Florentino, whom I thought would forget her sometime in the story, really loved her, with the real definition of love, at its truest sense.

With the novel, I had the opportunity of opening my eyes on the hardships of married life, on infidelities, just how I knew regarding my Aunt's experiences. It's really hard being married and committing yourself to a person, without knowing how love works in your relationship. What's sad is that, even the bond of marriage don't work on your impulses. It's more decent to be single and living your life with your own means.

What Florentino did made me realize one thing: that man cannot live his life alone. He spent times forgetting Fermina through other ladies, doing the domestic stuff, but then at the end of the day, he still sees himself drowning on the memories of what was used to be between Fermina and him. What's more hurting is that, in important occasions, he sees Fermina along with her husband, a known doctor and respected man, Dr. Juvenal Urbino. Heartaches? Probably those thorns that really made his heart bleed were sharp enough.

But without pain, Florentino wouldn't push himself to his limits. He won't be that eager to develop his own skills, feed his mind with various knowledge, take his work seriously, and, it won't be possible for him to be the President of the River Company of the Carribean. Pain really does its job, destroy you for some point in your life, then later on, make you feel worthless, until you're back with your senses, and make yourself strive for something to happen, something impossible for others: Strive for perfection.

But he was really meant to be with Fermina. Even they only have short remaining days to live their life together, they knew that they are together because of love, not because of needing someone to be with, someone who'll help you out, or someone for show.

Love is patient, should be patient and must be kind enough. If it's not, then it's not love. And it's a matter of self-sacrifice, that one must be a person for another. They must meet halfway, and complete in their own selves.

Ice Cream!! :D

I loved Ice Cream ever since. It's my ultimate good mood food, next to coffee. :D So coffee flavored ice cream would really be my favorite. :D Hahaha!! :D

Even though I've flooded my self with all kinds of ice cream, I never attempted to buy the most expensive ones. But with the grace of God, I had a taste of one of the most delicious Ice Creams in the world.

Haagen-Dazs!!!

As we strolled at Duty Free this afternoon as part of family tradition every time my dad goes home, I had self-control over the things I wanna buy: A Ferragamo perfume (Incanto Charm), A pair of shoes from Crocs, or a printed version of Jansport. I let go of them all, coz it's impossible for me to persuade my dad of buying those, and the Jansport bag, although possible, would be up for April, as a new dude for Medskewl. I have to laugh every time I imagine myself wearing those all-white Med school uniforms, on a skirt at least, and using a printed Jansport Bag. But it won't matter to me anymore, as comfort must be first than fashion or style. :) Medschool would mean a lot of school books, Medical books of course, characterized by hard-bound ones, up to n thousand pages. :) So a backpack would really help. :)

Anyway, we just walked past through that portion of the shop, so it didn't matter at all. The thing is, what I always looked forward everytime we go at Duty Free is the grocery shop where you could find stuffs rich in Sodium: junkfoods. :) Next to ice cream would be junkfoods, of course. The day won't be complete without my parents seeing me loading a lot of Friday's chips, cans of PikNik and Pringles, and all sorts of goodies. :)

And then I saw the generic Haagen-Dazs freezer somewhere in line with their chiller. Everytime we go to a grocery store, I just walk past through their freezer, 'coz I can't afford to buy one. But then, because the price were all in dollars, I just checked out their prices. A pint costs $8.00. Wow. So I didn't bother to continue reading at the prices anymore.

But then, another freezer, at the other end of the corner was there, standing. begging like "Hey Aine! Try Me, Try Me, TRY ME!!!!" So I brought the topic to my dad about eating expensive ice creams. He told me, "You can't blame them, they're one of the best." So I stared on the contents of the freezer, and there you could find: tiny doses of ice cream, those Php10.00 ice cream cups that we have in the supermarket. My dad followed us on the freezer, and told us "Okay girls, you can have some, just for you to have a dose of it." My heart jumped with joy, as if I haven't tasted ice cream before, then I picked up the coffee flavored one, then my sister picked up the Belgian Chocolate one. Then my dad laughed at me, saying: "If you're going to taste it, better the unusual flavors, ones that you haven't tasted before." So I made my sister change my ice cream to Belgian Chocolate flavor as well, bearing in mind that the word "Belgian" is something that really makes it unique to any oher chocolate ice creams. Haha! XD

And so, as we paid up the items, and opened the ice cream, my spoon was broken. I have to wait for my sister to finish her ice cream up before making me eat mine. Haha! :)

And what's the difference? Really Belgian. Exotic Belgian Chocolate, with Belgian Chocolate bits that melts in your mouth. A real Belgian Chocolate experience. Exquisite. :D

And the price? $2.90. Converting it up to approximately Php 130.00. :P

Size? 100 mL. Wow. For the price, it's like having half a gallon of local ice cream. Hahahahaha!! XD

Going Back to my Childhood Moments

I can't deny the fact that one of the reasons why I was left all alone was all because of my childish attitude. But I can't blame myself, 'coz I wasn't able to spend my childhood days going to places, experiencing picnic moments with the rest of the family, or having frequent reunions, because my Dad's been working abroad ever since I was not yet born in this world. :)

Childish. Duper Childish Me.

With that, after spending those hard times bearing the sadness of just seeing him once a year, it became possible for us to see him twice a year, and now, spend our vacation altogether going to places, for we now have the means, and probably, my Dad has spared enough for me and my sister's future, as well as for his retirement. :)

This year was a hard year, but as we welcomed the new year, we ended up the day going to Star City, after visiting my Godfather and Godmother's house, which was a family tradition, if not on Christmas Day, on New Year's Day. :)

Star City is located at CCP complex, somewhere in Sotto St., and we went there by bus (from Boni Avenue, we rode the bus with signboard LRT Ayala/Leveriza). The bus would be leading you somewhere on the side of the theme park, that would take you a five-minute walk for you to reach the destination. :)

When we reached the destination, we we're so excited to experience the rides, the Snow World and the Dino Island, so we hurried up to the gate, my dad fell in line for us, and made us avail the full amenities of the theme park: A ride-all-you-can wrist tag, with the fees for Snow World and Dino Island!! Weeeee!! :P

The Tag and the stamps, after availing the amenities (Snow World, the rectangular one on my wrist, and the Dino Island, the fuzzy one covered by the tag)

As soon as we went inside, me and my sister parted ways with my mom and dad. We were together for the rest of the day, and we enjoyed our shrieks as we tried fearlessly the rides that were designed for adults. Both of us are grown-ups now, so we laugh out loud whenever we find each other still afraid trying on the tummy-turning rides. :) Haha! :) My spectacles almost fell off with that topsy-turvy ride, with circular hoops and inverted stunts. :) I shouted like crazy!! :)

We enjoyed the rides, and Snow World, but we weren't able to get pics because using gadgets were prohibited inside the Big Freezer, approximately having -15 degrees Celsius. :) I enjoyed the duper cold and snowy experience, 'coz I thought of it as an opportunity of experiencing New York's winter once I get there. :) The last time I experienced that so much cold was 11 years ago, at South Korea. :D As we find our way towards the exit after several minutes of cold, my ears and nose are numb, as if they could be taken off when pinched. :) haha! And as we took off our jackets at the conditioning room before going out, my glasses were all eaten up by fog. Good thing my iPod and cellphone didn't moist after sudden changes in temperature. :)

So, most of the pics were taken at Dino Island. :) Good thing you could capture images inside the exhibit area. :)

Me and my Sister. :)

Rawr. :P

Smoooch!! (See Dino's Face!! Hahaha!! :))

With Dino bones (those were replicas, of course.)

Cave moments. :D

What's funny is that you'll spend almost an hour filing yourselves to experience a ride, but will have the ride just for about 5-10 minutes. :) So what me and my sis went in most of the time were the exhibit areas. :) Harhar! :)

And after all those shrieks, painful rides (for some of them don't have soft seats at all), long standing and walking hours, I was really, really tired, and was haggard looking. :)

Ann: "Ate, ampanget na ng buhok mo!! Haha!!"
Aine: (see the photo above)

Tired. :)

I thought it was only me and my sister who'll be having fun, but my mom and dad had fun as well after seeing the ballet dancers from Lisa Macuja-Elisalde's School of Ballet at Aliw Theater. :)

And so, we finished the moments hungry (but of course, we had series of pica-picas while strolling the park). We decided to eat out, at Festival Mall, but the van that went in front of us as we crossed the road was going to Mall of Asia, so we ate there.

We ate dinner at Bangus. :D I saw Monsi with his pile of relatives. :) And what's fun was, I had showers of novels from my dad! :)

Still the day isn't over yet, so the last thing I decided to do was: To Blog it all up!! :P