Praises and Lamentations

A nineteen-day absence. Totally acceptable if you thought I'd abandoned this shack of words, or that I'd somehow stagnated and just lost touch. I read that blogs have, on average, a lifespan of one-and-a-half years, and that doesn't even take into consideration how often their owners actually write in them. Not this blog.

I just went on a rather long vacation, to put it vaguely. (No, there was no real backpacking vacation.) A sabbatical, if you will.

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Josephine's in Tagaytay, if you have the luxury of time. It's been in the Philippine Tatler's top ten list of best restaurants in the country for, what, five years? How I got to eat there is a completely different - and wild - story involving my unfathomably horny best friend, a couple of girl friends, a guy friend, and a shiny black auto that traversed the Manila-Tagaytay-Manila route in six hours.

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Please, please, please: Whatever you do, don't watch "Aswang." Let me spoil it for you: It's about a stupid brother and his annoying sister, and about aswangs who can turn into either crows or gophers.

The best thing in "Puss in Boots" (a fun movie, which doesn't mean "excellent movie") is Jill and her swine babies.

Go watch "Drive," starring Ryan Gosling (who was robbed of an Oscar nomination for "Blue Valentine," I must repeat). Here, he plays a man devoid of fear, with only that thin veil of sadness to mask his callousness.   

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What is the difference between a terribly prepared lecture and a terrible lecturer?

We go to school to learn, not to have our attention spans tested by you, oh terrible lecturer. You, with your rambling, dragging, droning voice. You, who's obviously not interested in teaching. Reach out to your students, for heaven's sake!

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A night cap: Lea Salonga singing "Send in the Clowns" in "Suites by Sondheim," a one-night-only concert in New York where musical theater artists of Filipino descent - Jose Llana, Adam Jacobs, Paolo Montalban, Jennifer Paz, etc. - sang the songs of the legendary composer. And that's why I love living in the Philippines.