Happy Holidays!

The 'rents are currently in-town to spend the holidays. Ahhh, can anyone say home-cooked meals? I missed that. The stove was busted when dad left for Surigao and since no one among us knew how to fix it (or connect one to an LPG tank) we survived on canned goods and take-outs. For two months! So college life, right? Which is why I love it when my mom's around. She can never stand seeing us famished. She even bought me Spam when we did the groceries a few days ago.

Noche Buena celebration was pretty low key. It was just us in the family. But it was fun, since we were together. Pretty funny though how it was my mom who ended up buying a new gadget for herself. While us siblings are sharing a laptop, she gets to have her own netbook! We named her Pinky (tacky, I know!) and she’s a spiffy Samsung N150.

Inggit! I sure wished we had Yogi with us already. While the rest already had digicams and DSLRs to document their holidays, we had to settle for the good, old camera phone. Oh well, God has bigger plans. If not this year, maybe the camera is meant for Summer 2011. I can wait. I just hope I can get a leave by then. Three days would suffice already.

Happy Holidays, everyone! I hope you had a great celebration with your loved ones.

Freakin’ Five Years!

Today I celebrate my 5th year with APS. Pretty amazing, huh? For someone who had sworn off working for call centers before, I can only wonder how I managed to stick around for half a decade. Much of the credit goes to my officemates. It’s always true. You can never last if you hate the company of who you’re working with. I’m just thankful that we are quite a wacky bunch. We have our own quirks, yet we all managed to get along so well.

And speaking of work, yesterday we had the Christmas party for WFM Cebu at Pump 1. I wasthisclose to not attending since I hated looking for an outfit at the 11th hour to fit the theme they chose. Good thing my sister still prodded me to attend. After all, I forked out quite a contribution for this party. I’m just so happy I received the gift I had on my wish list. Now I can start fulfilling my quest to follow JK Rowling’s footsteps. (joke!)

Bubbles, Me, Boogie and Badet

Rey hosting the program. In all fairness, the food was GREAT!

I got the notebook from Fully Booked that I wished for! :)

10 Fun Things I Can Do with a new Lenovo Laptop

It’s hard when you share a PC with your siblings. You take turns in using it and sometimes even the ‘rents join in. Now if I had my (own) laptop, then imagine all the fun things I can do with it. To name a few, I can…

1. Blog at my own pace. No one will ever hover behind me again begging for his/her turn on the PC.
2. Catch up with all the blogs that I follow.
3. Use my laptop when I hang-out at coffee shops with my sister. Wi-fi hotspots, here we come!
4. Focus more on my writing. I want to be able to write stories, never mind if I start with fan fiction.
5. Store pictures by the time we have Yogi (our DSLR project) with us.
6. Have more privacy with my files.
7. Organize my music collection. Who knows? I might get my own iPod next time.
8. Bring my laptop when I go on out-of-town trips. (I wish!) Maybe 2011 is my lucky year?
9. Watch my favorite US TV series or Korean dramas whenever I want to.
10. Brag about it to my friends and officemates. If ever, this will be the first time that I win an online contest… and it’s a laptop to boot!

This is my entry in the Lenovo-YugaTech Laptop Give-away. Wish me luck!

And I’m back (again)… with Blogger!

Yeah, it’s hard to stay away. I figured that if I want to have my own domain soon, Blogger is the cheapest way for me to do it. I have no cash to spend yet for hosting my own blog so I’m good with my current set-up. Besides, it’s easier to follow my favorite blogs for updates here.

So what’s new, huh?

Nothing much. December is turning out to be quite a busy month. Aside from the Christmas parties to attend to, there’s the pressure of making sure everything is all set for the holidays at work. I’m just so happy I’ll get to spend Christmas and New Year’s Eve at home again.

Who is The Lost Prince?

This TV movie is just sad... and tragic, to a certain point. Not much is known of Prince John, the youngest child of King George V, who died at the age of 13 from a severe epileptic seizure. He was largely hidden from the public eye due to concerns on how society would accept his condition when at that time, it was taboo to be different.

 

It broke my heart to see how the royal family could actually stand to send off one of their own into the countryside instead of accepting his disability and helping him integrate into society like a normal human being. One couldn't help but wonder, were they really that heartless? The King, I can understand. He was busy with stately affairs after all. But the Queen? How could she stand to be so emotionally distant from her youngest son? Was a hug too much to ask? No wonder Queen Elizabeth II suffers from the same kind of public image. These were her grandparents. They had doted on her and played a large influence on her formative years.

 

I cried. You'd be heartless enough not to. The actors who portrayed "Johnnie" in the movie were so convincing that you can't help but feel for their innocence. I cried for Johnnie who had mainted a positive attitude despite being abandoned by his family. I cried for Lalla, the nanny who treated Johnnie as if he were her own kid. She was there for him when his parents simply refused to be saddled with an additional obligation on top of their royal duties. I cried for Georgie, who lost a brother and a bestfriend. Johnnie was his only refuge from a life restricted to what their father had dictated. How ironic that the two brothers closest to each were the first ones to die among George V's children?

 

One interesting note in The Lost Prince is its background on the fate of the Romanovs. The tragic story of the last Russian royal family will have you feeling sympathetic towards the Tsar Nicholas and his children but utter indignation towards the Tsarina Alexandra. Royal families are always a dysfunctional bunch, huh? This series is a definite must-see if you’re interested in the British monarchy. Looks like the cold and calculating image of the current queen has some history after all.

Only you know how, to hear me through the silence…

 

Romanticized or not, this movie remains to be on my list of favorites. Rupert Friend and Emily Blunt’s chemistry was off the charts. Made me wish that they were the real deal themselves. Like The Queen, The Young Victoria was an attempt to humanize England’s longest-reigning monarch. It dealt more on the queen’s family and not the monarchy or the politics surrounding it. Having such a strong cast to carry the film also became its advantage.

Emily Blunt was exceptional in the title role. I have always been a fan ever since I saw her in Empire. (great mini-series! Santiago Cabrera is a dream!) However the biggest revelation turned out to be Rupert Friend who has come a long way from being merely known as Kiera Knightley’s boyfriend. His portrayal of Prince Albert was heartfelt that you can’t help but fall in love with the character. Pray tell, if you knew a prince like that wouldn’t you want to marry him yourself?

Now if only I can find an original DVD of this, then I would be most happy. Wishlist, huh?

Yogurt Heaven

Now I get it why people <3 Red Mango. I was introduced to it only recently and I cannot seem to get enough of their frozen yogurt. Quite an expensive addiction, eh? Yogurt does not come cheap. It takes a lot of self-control not to buy one every time we're at the mall. As a compromise, my sister and I agreed we'll go for fro-yo only on paydays. We're looking to try White Hat next since we're done with Red Mango and Coffeecat.

Food trips are our only consolation these days since our December Project has been temporarily shelved. Pretty disheartening if you ask me. But we had to give way to the 'rents otherwise I'd end up being the bad seed in this situation. So yeah, there goes my plan of owning a DSLR before the year ends. 

Lesson learned: No more 13th month plans next year! I've learned it the hard way. Whether I like it or not, it always gets jinxed.