A moment of noise, please
Yes, I know. It’s almost been a month. No excuses: my priorities shifted and it also takes a lot out of me to make a more coherent public entry. The continuation of my night out with the Top Chefs will follow, in time. Not right now, maybe not for a very long time, but in time, definitely!
To make the most out of your time here, here’s some mindcandy:
Persona!
I am baffled and amused by how easily I can compartmentalize online. I have this wordpress for the sake of having an online writing portfolio, but I also have a locked blog for my more personal thoughts. I’ve also taken measures to have different social network pages, which is pretty tough to maintain as I work in circles that are tight-knit, personally and professionally. I’m a little embarrassed about asking them to add a colder, no-nonsense online profile when some of them have already seen me at my silliest. This is for the benefit of the jobs I hold that aren’t as tight though, and I do think of the children.
An active online presence has also proven to further complicate things. A “complicated” marital status adds a new dimension to the rise and fall of relationships. As someone once said, it really isn’t over until Facebook says so. If you’re online long enough, you’ll have to tinker with messenger settings, social network profiles, filtered blog entries, and all the rest. And heaven help your next few public entries, you can say no right or wrong. Even if you end up blogging about something as insignificant as cheese or water.
Thank God for Work
I was called in as a last-minute usher for 9Works’ production of Songs for a New World. I loved working with the people of 9Works Again, even if I was only posted at the front of house. After a good run, we celebrated the show’s closing with a cast party at Pontis and some Rock Band 2.
I have been juggling classes between my ESL program and the Creative Writing program, and I’m working on an upcoming production with Philippine Opera Company. Also, watch out for the next issue of Playground magazine for my feature article on XBX Katipunan!
Good Old Glory Type Days
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2pMjztGHnM]
The video above comes from the off-Broadway production of Glory Days, a musical about five boys who reunite at their old high school.
It has been over a year since I graduated college.I have been blessed in being kept busy, if not with theatrical rackets but with ESL teaching. I’ve been blessed, and am very thankful for having been spared months on standby or the job crunch especially in these difficult times!
It’s gonna be the first summer of my adult life, and for a minute I missed the prospect of having three months idling around. Then I remembered that since becaming active in theatre, it’s been a few years since my last idle summer! My last few summers were committed to one production or another, and they’ve hardly been idle. I can’t say I complained. Productions are exhausting but I wouldn’t have it any other way. It was a good kind of exhaustion that tucked me in at night. ‘Sides, in that heat, I got aircon I didn’t have to pay for!
So here’s to the summers I missed, and the working summers to follow!
Bartering According to Children and Geek High
The Cost of Sharing
I learned this exchange rate from my Creative Writing class at Pocketful of Kids:
One large hot shot or chicken nugget is equivalent to a french fry. The bigger the nugget, the more french fries it costs.
Geek High
Continued from Mii As Ancient Geek
I was in Indonesia from 2000-2002 because of my Mom’s job. I finished high school there, and I made fast friends on campus with my interest in Harry Potter and a Neon Genesis Evangelion keychain on my schoolbag. One of my schoolmates mentions Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman, who would later be staples of my sister’s reading list.
I carried a blueberry iMac around campus, earning the nickname “Macgirl”. I also started blogging on pitas to stay in contact with my friends back in Manila.
I practiced Bahasa Indonesia by way of reading VCD subtitles. I collected a few choice Japanese comics in Indonesian, and I often poked through Kinokuniya and Maruzen bookstores. I also got MTV Taiwan on cable, and was able to follow the Japanese Billboard charts.
I got my first taste of Asian horror through the Japanese classic,
The Ring. For weeks after my first viewing, I swore Sadako followed me in the mirrors and glass panels around the house.
In my last year of high school, I spent Saturday afternoons in a gaming cafe with my school friends, learning headshots and dodging bullets on Counterstrike. Later on I’d treat Warcraft III as SimCity. I also started watching Meteor Garden, which was awful in so many ways but I grew to love it.
For the first time in my life, I was able to freely geek in real life and make connections from it.
Playground Magazine March 2008 and Mii as Ancient Geek
PLUG!
I have an article in March’s issue of Playground magazine!
I reviewed Persona: Trinity Soul the anime. For my thoughts on that, read the article on page 90!
MII AS ANCIENT GEEK
This is actually part of an answer to the ‘5 things you associate with me’ meme that’s been going around. This is from Ren‘s list where he remembers me as a ‘geek’.
Geekiness is a pretty big part of my life, though I’m admittedly not big a geek as I’m made out to be. I button mash, I don’t torrent like crazy, and my days of spending money on those must-have toys and trinkets are over. I’ve had to re-prioritize. I’m still geeky by enjoying dorky para-para dance moves, listening and singing to music I can barely understand, and resolving difficult decisions in life by “rolling for it”.
Star Wars should have been my first fandom, if I understood what was going on when I watched at age 4. I watched Episode 4 every weekend at my grandmother’s house, back-to-back with E.T. My Mom swore that the betamax tape that held it got scratchy from innumerable viewings.
I got initiated into the anime fandom by way of Sailormoon while I was in Grade 4. From Sailormoon, it escalated from there. I had a my TV diet heavily consisted of Japanese animation on weekends and Wednesday nights with Sailormoon, Yu Yu Hakusho, Time Quest, Sarah: Ang Munting Princessa, which led me to the Pinoy Otaku Mailing List, then to IRC where I found like-minded fans to chat with. In between chats I also found fanfiction, and started experimenting with the medium to further hone my writing skills. It was also my IRC friends that got me into East Asian pop and rock.
This all happened between 1998-2000. We were rather ahead of the times – this was a whole year or two before GMA7 launched their We Are Anime campaign. I was an awkward teenager, my interests were way off base with most of my classmates at the time. The friends I made online eventually became my closests confidants offline.