Library work

…in UP College of Mass Comm looks a bit like this:

Hehe. Agitated, laptop-totting, grinning kids!

Mistakes

If you don’t make them, there’s no more desire to change things, no more challenge, no more gusto to actually do things.

Making mistakes and correcting them is one of the things I’ll remember forever from my stay in UP.

Mistakes are could be fatal here. Sometimes they inflict the most undeserving people, like the almost-perfect over-achieving UP students.

Then they happen of so quickly! Besides, they make us pay for it with such a slow, painful chunk of our lives. It’s almost unfair.

But in a way I’m glad the school has such high standards and morals, especially against mistakes. Ignorance is not an excuse in the real world. You can only run away for so much and so long, but you’ll still have to face them eventually.

I see the point of acting like a perfectionist sometimes. It saves all the troubles and cost! But hey, if everyone’s perfect already, I don’t think we’ll be seeing people work so hard anymore. And what a boring world that would be. 

No Agenda

UP College of Music, empty schedule posting board. Are they choosing to do school now over creating music? (ahaha! kidding)

Don’t you wish you sleep like this?

Such a comfortable-looking sleeping position that is!

Smile

When in a fugly mood/phase in life, pose in front of any found mirror then smile and thank God you’re still seeing yourself at all.

Squashed in my sleep

MRT commute can be perceived in two ways: one, almost everyone becomes some annoying bitch by the time the coveted train arrives.

Two, everyone becomes someone you could be with– as you literally get pressed together as doors close and open during rush hour, as you lunge and sway according to the train movements, as you close your eyes and imagine that you’re someplace else comfortable, warm, and cushy.

So you wanna work now, huh?

I got a free mocha frap, a marketing and PR lesson from a coveted MassComm prof outside school, a ride back and forth with a new friend to places I’ve always wanted to hang out with, plus some chill time today. Just some of the priceless things and efforts that inspired and made me happy over the weekend.

I feel so lucky! They’re like rewards for sacrificing rest time ^^;;

Dark Knight

Dark Knight is simultaneously real and fantastic, and unbeatable at it– just as I expected from the brilliant minds and hard work of Christopher Nolan, and his team. It’s the type of “escapism” I’d love to experience over and over again.

I’ve only seen it once and many scenes etched into my mind in their creativeness in symbolism: the burning fire truck, Bruce huddled like a kid in demanding for an “improved” bat suit to move faster in exchange of risking his life against the dogs; those fierce jumping salivating handsome dogs, all of JOKER, the public finesse as well as the literal scars on the guys’ backs… all of the three Bruce Wayne, Harvey Dent, and Joker. Haha! I mean how can you dislike Harvey Dent or Joker when they look good? ^_^

Oh yeah, I still hold some reservations against it– it’s too cool (HARHAR); the entire world Gotham City revolves in is too utopian and first-world with their so-called p”problems” with terrorrists/Joker/deviant assholes (I mean, we have poverty over here which could kill anyone without the necessity of a human killer; we also hardly have any “hero” to look up to). Lastly, why is there always ONLY ONE female character who speaks an accumulated one dozen lines in Nolan films (the policewoman and some other extras do not count as they don’t contribute magnificent things in the plot)? I remember other mainstream Nolan movies: the Prestige, Memento, Batman Begins. Seriously female portrayals in his movies are so.. unjustified. They’re girlfriends… and just girlfriends. Though Rachel Stevens in Dark Knight is a step up the rung though when she uttered the classic break-up line “Don’t let me be your last hope of leading a normal life.” Otherwise, characters are mostly the physically-fit, emotionally-open handsome men in Nolan’s movies. (And what can you deduce from this observation? :D).

Mostly everything else in Dark Knight blew me away. And as a movie-consumer, I’m saying now that it will be more difficult to please me as the next time in movies– I’ve already seen the golden standard, the IMDB Top #1 movie of all time (as of today), Dark Knight. I’m excited to see what magic the movie industry plans to pull off to surpass the “legendary” efforts in all aspects of this movie.

Wall-e and Love

Seeing the trailer of Wall-E and this promotional robot thingy at Gateway made me think of two things:

1. @#$%, I AM GOING TO WATCH THIS MOVIE.. GORGEOUS EVERYTHING! I have complete trust in Pixar Studios to always give an amazing experience to its viewers with general-patronage movies I’ll probably never grow out of.

Oh yeah, and it’s a love story.. among “robots. So, number two: 

Don’t you wish you were in love?

Shhh I’m a stalker

I rode the jeep with some persons I might know from rumors and stories. 30 seconds into the realization (“@#$%! Sya nga un!”) and that I’ll never see them ever this way again, I took out my phone camera and secretly shot a photo for keeps..

Kid saw me, I think. But I got off at the next stop anyway; goodbye.

Mine mornings

Just this once, let me read a book I’m not supposed to review for critical analysis.

Thus the life of the college student.

(Graduates, do you miss school already?)

Expect a lot of cat pictures in this blog

When everything else seem so chaotic, one look from a pet solves it all.

What if I were a pet cat? Life seems so… deceptively cozy that way. A cat’s life is full of sleeping, meowing, scratching, exploring, hissing, pawing, and clawing the owner…and a whole lotta loving just the same :D

Avocado Ice Cream

Happiness at P25!

(Ang mahal na no?)

We’re becoming mighty copy-catty now, aren’t we?

LOOKS FAMILIAR?

Seems to me that our local magazine You by Hinge Inquirer Publications might have gotten a tad too inspired by US-based Nylon magazine, creative direction-wise.

A page from Nylon mag:

This is a page shot from You by Hinge Inquirer Publications:

You’d think they come from the same magazine, noh? I can see it in the typefaces, the color schemes, the decorative squiggly lines, the picture crops, the content..

It’s ok to mimic the design geniuses ’so you can learn to do it their way‘ and all.. but I think it’s too much.

Mimicking/copying is like this “sickness” we have in the country: remember Krispy Kreme, and Krispy Krepe in Libis? Starbucks and Starbuko?

Trace it back and the copy-culture goes way back: i.e. laziness as Jose Rizal quipped in one of his essays, to the ideal “American” life in the US occupation. 

Filipinos are brilliant people, we’re just plagued with laziness like Rizal said. But IMO that’s no excuse, especially if you’re given the chance to art direct a magazine with a publisher, much more for if it’s a first issue where you can experiment and finally be more creative on the job.. 

I’m feeling a little critical not because I have bias towards foreign magazines– I go to international media because it makes up for what I can’t find in ours, content and visual-wise. 

I believe Filipinos can come up with our own magazine concepts and content.. and better ones even! Sure franchised titles and “looks” have almost instant audiences upon their release, but I think local titles can accomplish as much if they adopt effective marketing strategies.

(BTW I’m saying these things on the basis of subjective observations. I’m not aware of any empirical data whether foreign magazine franchise sell better than local.)

I hope there’ll be more Philippine-produced media which can compete and even defeat the Western styles we “love”–  and hopefully not packaged as spin-offs from foreign titles.