Stories&Photographs

Saturday, September 29, 2007

School

1. Literature is the only thing I enjoy in our Filipino class. I don't mean that I like each piece of literature we study; what I mean is, it's the only enjoyable activity for me. I don't really love reading those pieces but, on the bright side, there's a plot in it. A story, that has characters, a setting, a conflict, a resolution, and a denouement, that will make my imagination flow.

Enjoying one of my most-loathed classes sounds ironic, and blogging about a most-loathed class would make my post unfriendly
because it would certainly contain words like: loathe, hate, disgust, despise, abhor and other repulsive words. But this part of my postabout my most-loathed class won't contain words like that.

As our teacher talks about "Kahapon, Ngayon at Bukas" by Aurelio Tolentino, I was busy flipping through the pages of my KAPFIL (Kalipunan ng mga Akdang Pamanitikan sa Filipino). Then, I started reading Efren Reyes Abueg's "Sa Bagong Paraiso" to save myself from the somniferous discussion.

And I loved its plot. It's the best piece of Filipino Literature I read since June. I also loved how its ending was narrated. It seems so
―dramatic.

2.
I've been busy practicing for the upcoming regional competition on Saturday. I'm exhausted, stressed, and confused. I always come home late. My fingertips are still sore. We're very anxious. We can't get the piece from Repertoire B perfect, our costumes haven't come yet and our double bass, sort of, went through an accident. Our conductress is the most anxious. I pity her
she looks so stressed.

3. Mid-year exams are coming
and I haven't studied yet. I'm busy memorizing the contest pieces. We also have our periodical tests coming next week, which means projects' due dates are approaching. We're going to do some cramming again.

4. I was extremely pressured last week. Do you know what it feels like waking up one morning thinking about: your unfinished very long homeworks in Filipino, and Chemistry, and a quiz in Trigonometry and a summative test in World History you haven't prepared for. That was a time I wanted to be suddenly ill
to save me from those things. I was praying to have time stopped and never let the day continue, or make time skip those parts of the day. All I wanted was to be back home, and forget all about Trigonometry or those weird names from Asian History.

But I can't get ill all of a sudden, or stop the time, or make time skip those parts of the day, nor teleport to our house and rest. I have to face the reality. Soon, Eunice was hugging me, and telling me to start studying because though we claim to be goddesses, we can't do anything about the tests.


Sleepover at School II

"Bangag ba 'ko?" That was the question in my mind until now. I was really bothered when Leizle suddenly said loudly, "Bangag ka. Magsuklay ka nga!". My first thought was "What? I just combed my hair. I always do. People always see me combing my hair everywhere, everytime".

Tolits repeatedly says "Bangag ka lang, Leizle" which kind of comforted me. Dahil si Leizle ang bangag, hindi ako.

I sat on an armchair, watching the girls eat breakfast. I don't eat breakfast during camps. I don't eat breakfasts, actually. I puke at the thought of having food on my tongue very early in the morning when I just woke up. Aside from watching the girls eating, I also watched Miguel and Rabbi trying to sleep. Watching Harvey was fun, too. After sleeping on the floor, he then slept comfortably on the pile of armchairs.

News came that they're allowing the students to return home already. The camp haven't even started yet. There were no games yet. It was because of a typhoon coming, 'Hanna'. I remembered a person from our class who thought that 'Hanna' was a cute name for a typhoon compared to 'Goring'. Then another person said that it's 'Hannah' without the h which, kind of, destroyed the other person's hopes.

I sent my dad a message telling him that the camp was postponed because of the typhoon. He didn't reply but I waited for an hour. I sat in front of our room, watching the rain pour while waiting for a silver car to appear. An hour passed but no silver car arrived. Since I missed my bed so much already, I decided to go home alone, as the rain poured. I really hated having to commute on rainy day [with a large, brown paper bag full of stuff I lent to my classmates]. I pity seeing myself in the mirror, tired, *raccoon-like [because of my eye bags], wet and having a lot of stuff to carry (a small bag and the large paper bag). Pitying myself reminds me that I haven't tasted a real meal since yesterday. I haven't eaten lunch yesterday because we were so busy and my dinner was just a very sweet cake from Red Ribbon. My breakfast this morning was a lollipop from Chester and I skipped lunch, again, because I was asleep. And dinner isn't ready yet.

Going back, after checking my emails and doing my usual online routine, I slumped on my warm bed and snoozed. After 6 hours, I woke up and checked my emails again, did my online routine and blogged the science camp.

It's not really a camp because of the storm. Porks was right, it was just like a sleepover. Anyway, Joyce said that they're planning to make up for the activities we missed.

Note: * from Joyce's vocabulary.

Sleepover at School I

After winning third place at the jingle competition and watching Gecelle earn the title Ms. Science 2007-2008, we locked ourselves in our room and began to do things you do in sleepovers.

We played "Killer, Killer", a game which Karen insisted to play but never actually played with us. We played it for a couple of times. During the nth time, we had a talk about some of our classmates going weird. This talk continued which hindered the killer to do his thing. The talk lasted for minutes, then hours.

When all the lights were turned off and everybody is supposed to be sleeping, we all lied face down to pretend we're asleep. We thought that our room being in the first floor is an advantage but the people walking along the corridors drove us crazy. The "parent marshals" walked back and forth repeatedly. Some even shone flashlights through our windows, as if not sleeping in a camp is a crime. But since we're very good girls, we dared not to question their actions and continued our pretending when we feel their presence.

Our talk went to a lot of topics. One was ghost stories, which I suggested and Joyce agreed upon. She was the first to tell a story (which is about our laboratory). Soon, others were making stop-it,-i'm-scared sounds so I suggested to stop the story-telling. I don't want to see my classmates screaming, panicking, turning on the lights and saying, "I saw a lady by the lockers". Anyway, I heard a good one from Allen, it was an experience she had at school. That was our last story because half of the i-promise-i'll-stay-up-with-you-until-sunrise girls already slept. The reason was probably because of the scary stories. They preferred to sleep so as to resist listening to it.

After making fun of the photos Joyce showed me in her camera, we decided to try to sleep. We pitied ourselves because we always come home late due to jingle rehearsals. And we don't get enough sleep. We had, I think, only 2 hours of sleep.

Saturday, September 15, 2007

Music of the Dawn

My sister works the night shift. And her weekends are two weekdays I can't remember.

I woke up one [very early] morning because of a very loud song coming from the living room. I was not surprised to know that my sister was responsible for the disturbance. We kindly asked her to decrease the volume which she halfheartedly obeyed.

I woke up one very early morning, again, because of my sister. We, again, kindly asked her to decrease the volume. But she didn't listen this time. Doesn't she know that I only get an average of 6 hours of sleep every week? She reasoned that it's already time to wake up and get ready for school. It's only 5:00! We live not far from school so I'm supposed to wake up an hour earlier. Thank goodness I grew fond of the song she's playing. I don't know what I might do to her if she had a bad taste for songs. Actually, I loved only one song from her list. See, I had already memorized her playlist! We've been suffering for two nights now.

Last night, I finally got the chance to ask her the title of the cute song that plays over and over again in my head. I memorized a line from it during those times she's punishing us. "A song played on a solo saxophone". She gladly replied, "'The Last Night of the World'" from 'Miss Saigon'". The only answer I managed to blurt out was "oh" since I was too tired and sleepy to think of a more meaningful answer.

I looked for it in YouTube this morning. I listened to it over and over again which proves that I loooove it. My other sister told me the plot of "Miss Saigon" and made me listen to "Sun and Moon", another song from the musical. Unfortunately, I was hurrying to leave because I have to perform extractions for our science investigatory project.

Anyway, here's the song that left me an LSS.


Saturday, September 08, 2007

Peeling Fingertips

We passed the audition for the National Music Competition for Young Artists (NAMCYA). From my research, I learned that upon passing the screening, we must practice one piece from each of the two repertoires. The two will be the contest pieces for the Regional Center Competition on October 13-14, I think, because that's what the handbook said. If we win, we can join the National Competition on November 20-25. November 23 is the specified date for the rondalla. 7pm in CCP Main Theater. Haha. I've been doing a lot of research.

We finished the first piece
for the regional competitionlast night. After a whole week of practicing, we finally learned "Bakas ng Kahapon" from repertoire A. It wasn't really that hard to play if you do it alone. The difficult part is getting a member's part in harmony with the other members' parts.

Our next piece is, I think, "Maynila Obertura". I haven't seen the piece yet but they say that it's longer than the first one. I always get home late due to late-night practices and I only get a maximum of 6 hours of sleep everyday. My fingers are beginning to peel and feel sore and skipping my meals became my habit. I can't have breakfast because I wake up so late and I sometimes feel too sleepy and tired to have dinner.

But practicing is fun anyway. It, sort of, became a part of my daily life.

Monday, September 03, 2007

Books, Shirts and Tigers

Wah!! I forgot to publish my birthday post. It's sooo late, sorry.

A birthday is just like any other day, for me. I mean, you get another year older, how's that?

Well, my birthday won't be that special if it wasn't for III-Feynman.
I didn't even feel like it was a must-celebrate day if it wasn't for them. It was touching to be mobbed and hugged by people saying a "happy birthday". I was also happy to find that Miguel didn't my mind my irresponsibilityI forgot to do something I was supposed to do for him. That morning, Joyce told me about the shrine they made for me. It was a bunch of presents on my desk. Haha. It was also fun listening to the story of each presentabout how Joyce couldn't buy me a decent card, about how Effie forgot to bring her gift and she went back to get it, about how Momo couldn't wrap her gift and about how early Mikko's gift came.

Seriously, III-Feynman were the first people to greet me. Nobody greeted me at home. My little sister was like, "Ay! Birthday mo pala ngayon." but she didn't manage to utter a "happy birthday". The only family member that greeted me was my dad. He called on the phone to greet me. The Soundclick and Care2 teams also sent me "happy birthday" emails.

I remembered my birthday last year. My mom and my uncle called very early in the morning to greet me. Some of my relatives even sent me an ecard.

Well, that's how the day went.