Monday, November 5, 2012

Sembreak 2012: A Short Retrospective

1. A wedding took place. It involved lanterns ala Tangled. But most of them just ended up unlit on the outdoor hotel pool (the lighting took place in the surrounding area). One actually made brief contact with a female guest's hair, but it was nothing (spectacularly) serious. 

It was rather entertaining watching the lanterns rise and fall.

2. Comelec registration was hell. Next year's national elections will see me voting for the first time. But I repeat, Comelec registration was hell. Let me say that a thousand times, add an expletive or two - or two thousand.

3. Halloween (or the Eve of All Hallows - what most of us know as All Saint's Day), I again went to the cousins' subdivision for their annual celebration. One of the kids dressed up as Captain America. Sexy Red Riding Hood (formerly Alice in Wonderland) was now transfigured into Cheerleader. And a cousin was Minnie Mouse, which, in my humble opinion, should have won Costume of the Night or something. Then we went to see A Secret Affair, which raised two important issues: One, the dubbing was terrible, so terrible that whoever did it should be banned from film work; two, with the ubiquity of English language dialogue, it might as well have been a One Tree Hill episode.  

For Halloween, I walked around with a lightning scar on my forehead.

4. Books I finished: 2. I'm an embarrassment to the literary world. Anne Enright's The Gathering shouldn't even qualify because I started it way before the break began. So that leaves me with McEwan's On Chesil Beach - five chapters on the sexual turmoils of a newlywed couple, plus some stuff on Mozart and writing history books. Now reading: Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

5. Movies I saw: 15. That does not include multiple screenings (Looper and Argo) and those 'incompletely seen' (Paranormal Activity 3, Insidious - unexpectedly wicked ending, LOTR: The Return of the King, etc.). Pitch Perfect, Looper, Argo, Skyfall, Wreck-It Ralph  plus The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel - I suppose this makes up for my shortcoming in the reading front.

6. Harry Potter withdrawal. Marathoned the eight-part film series. Incredibly funny. Scenes revealing themselves, line readings taking new turns. Three of the most influential beings of my nine-to-nineteen-hood. I cried at the very end, and I'm proud to say so. (This is incoherent, so I shall save this for the future or when I'm ready.) Now addicted to hpcompanion.com.

An A380 from Down Under greeted me upon my arrival this morning for the new semester. No big deal.

**Note: As in the previous post, an iPad 2 took the photos.

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