Christmas Day

So here’s the big news: It’s been 25 days since I last wrote in here. Christmas break is well into its first week, and the promise of an exam-filled first quarter of the new year shines brighter on the horizon like there’s no sunrise.

What a wondrous and relaxing two-week vacation: prepare for Hum1 poetry performance, answer a Calculus problem set and prepare for an exam, prepare for a Zoology Lec exam, answer Zoology lab exercises and study the frog skeleton, prepare for a Chem 14 exam, make a molecular model of CH3COOH.

Recently, I arrived at the conclusion that my mouth is not symmetrical. I have proof. It seems my maxilla is a wee bit more oriented to the left. As such, (or as nature intended it to be), my cheek movements are also more to the left. Have I ever mentioned that I have a lopsided smile (it’s not obvious, by the way, unless you stare at me long enough to notice the twitches). When we next meet, remind me to show you.

I’ve finally finished Wicked - and a damn wicked read it is. Certainly a literary treat, a fantasy universe of the beautifully weird. Coming up: I Do or I Die (RJ Ledesma), Salamanca (Dean Francis Alfar), The Jupiter Effect (Katrina Tuvera), The God Stealers (F. Sionil Jose).

In the realm of musical theater, I couldn’t have asked for more from Rep’s almost-perfect staging of Sweeney Todd, which I caught on its November 22 matinee. Standouts: Audie Gemora as deranged Sweeney, Marvin Ong as Tobias the dimwit, Franco Laurel as the good-for-nothing, love-struck sailor Anthony, and the Beggar Woman lady (forgot her name, sorry). Of an unreachable level: Menchu Lauchengco-Yulo as Mrs. Lovett. Congratulations, Menchu, you have a new fan. The Johanna girl, though from UP, was simply annoying.

On movies, New Moon, though retaining the mushy, lotsa-nudity formula of Meyer’s series, was miles better than its predecessor. Kristen Stewart’s distorted posture and “It’s my birthday… Kiss me” scene made for much of the movie’s downfall. Oh, and also Jacob wiping his sweaty, dust-and-whatever-else-filled shirt on Bella’s wound. So much for the torso-pecs-and-abs scene. 2012 was too impressed with itself. Good thing it had the Yellowstone caldera eruption scene to make me still enjoy it while it lasted.

But Inglourious Basterds… perhaps one of the best P160 I have ever spent. Rating: 160/160. Christoph Waltz for the Oscar!

I went to the high school last Monday. The Flower, Planet, and Fruit were rehearsing their numbers for that afternoon’s presentation at SM. No comment.

Random thought: Isn’t it ironic that while UP is a bastion of idealism, for change and progress, it practices a system that is very similar to the one it so denounces, one characterized by corruption and inefficiency, as is the style of our rotten government? Go to the UP College of Medicine and be a late enrollee, and you’ll see my point.

What a lovely December. Our very own Kimmy Dora with a dash of Mano Po 2 in the household. In her shoes, in her shoes…

Lastly, let me tell you the story of a driver who hates priests. This driver works for a doctor. The driver has a wife who has a cousin who is a priest. One day, the cousin told the wife to leave the driver (as in break up with him). How ironic.

Today is Christmas Day. I feel old. Scratch that. You feel old. I feel your oldness.

Merry Christmas!