Australia

Australia the movie has been described as an epic romantic adventure which impresses upon the viewer that it is more than that three word description. It has a bit of everything from a Western, a World War II epic, a Romantic movie, and even Historical-Social Awareness of Australia's past. It even felt like a travelogue with the dramatic landscapes of the country being featured in the movie.

I was curious about this movie because it created so much backlash on Nicole Kidman on her acting and I can't seem to grasp why an Oscar award winner would garner so much harsh criticism from the blogosphere. Being blessed again with an invitation to the press premier of Australia here in Manila, I didn't let the chance pass by to check out the reason why, because from what I read in Newsweek in their December 8, 2008 issue, it seemed to praise the movie and Nicole Kidman in a good and a moderate way.

The movie runs for almost 3 hours and I know how most of the time a movie that runs that long could become tedious, I never felt that with Australia. Visually it was captivating. What it showed the world was a part of Australia that would make anyone want to take on an adventure to experience and see those parts of the country. Add to fact that Hugh Jackman was simply pleasing to look at, proving that he really is the sexiest man alive. There's something about the movie no matter how grand and how visually stunning it was made me felt that there's something lacking. Believe it or not I still felt it needed something which I cannot fully express after almost 3 hours in the cinema. The movie didn't disappoint though I was entertained, it served its purpose to entertain me and transport me into another place and time.

One other aspect of the movie that has grabbed my attention right from the very start were the costume and props. Nicole Kidman's character Lady Sarah Ashley was exquisite right from the very opening scene and that luggage set she used was just divine. From what I have read in the Media Kit that was handed to me during the movie premier the luggage set was custom made by Prada and the footwear is from Salvatore Ferregamo. The costume alone felt like it was a part of the cast rather than pieces of clothing worn by the actors.

Australia is a departure from the hyper energized movies that Baz Lurhmann is known for. In Australia he focused on emotions, from the romance of Lara Sarah Ashley with the Drover, Hugh Jackman's character and the bond that formed with Lady Sarah and the half caste boy named Nullah, played by the newcomer Brandon Walters. Mr. Lurhmann succeeded in conveying the emotions across the viewers, I swooned when the Drover made his entrance to the ball, I cried when Lady Sarah and Nullah were forcibly separated at the pier and I was happy that Lady Sarah, the Drover, and Nullah had a happy ending while the bad guys meet their proper fate and demise.

a very good 2009

this year i chose not to write the about the best christmas gift that i received; truth is i didn't receive much last christmas which was perfectly okay with me because i got more than what i wanted for, before christmas day and after christmas day. last december 18, 2008 i received an email from marie claire philippines that i won gift certificates from l'oreal from a contest that i joined featured in the magazine last november; a lovely surprise indeed. i haven't claimed the gift certificates as of this time as there were changes needed to be done on the gift certificates but hopefully sometime next week i'll be able to. it was for me something to look forward to since i would be claiming it by january 2009 when offices resume business after the long holiday.

i got a bigger surprise when i saw this while updating my resume for a renewed effort to job hunt in jobmarketonline.com. this made me blink and stare at the page for a minute or two. i was so delighted and overly ecstatic, it may not be my dream laptop but i won it and now it's part of my collection of lucky charms. for the past week that i have it i can't seem to contain my joy. i would use my new laptop and a smile would be plastered on my face. i also can't seem to stop saying how cute it is. its features does have its shortcomings but i can live with it. i still need a laptop bag and a router here at home but i am bliss still from winning something significant.



for years now, one of my biggest pastime is to join contests, whether online or raffles from department stores or magazine promos. i have won quite a number of them. i even won the lotto once for about P2,000. i can't say i am very lucky but i do have my lucky moments. these prizes were a wonderful way to welcome 2009 which makes we want to say "keep 'em rolling".

Yes Man

The best things in life are free and I have to say that's true. I have to admit that I was a bit hesitant to say "yes" to the invitational press premiere of the movie "Yes Man" because to be honest I'm not a very big fan of Jim Carrey. I'm glad I said yes, after all a free movie is a free movie, besides I'll be in the area where the premiere will be held anyway.

The movie is about the life of a man named Carl Allen who's stuck in a dead end job and a very boring existence out of choice after what seemed to be a presumably very sad episode of divorce. Out of choice he cut himself off from his friends and his idea of fun was watching dvd after dvd of just about any movie he could find in the local friendly neighborhood video store. Carl's life changed when he attended a seminar recommended by an old colleague, the "Yes Seminar". Somehow in the process after attending that seminar he said yes to life and life happened for him. The movie in my opinion comes out of typical romantic comedy cookie cutter type in Hollywood. Sad guy finds a reason to start life again, finds a girl, trouble brews along the way, girl leaves guy and then guy finds a way to get the girl and they live happily ever after. The usual Jim Carrey antics were present but entertaining this time and not at all distasteful. The one redeeming quality of the movie that makes it a must see is the fact the from the moment it starts it guarantees a laugh fest. After the credits rolls everyone in the cinema clapped their hands because truly it was funny and it was fun. The idea of saying yes to every thing that life presents seems promising because of that movie.

Now, I am ready to say "Yes" to the next movie premiere.

additional chritsmas message

while i skipped on e-cards this year. i wrote this email to everyone on my yahoo contacts unfortunately i forgot i have 4 other email addresses but i think that yahoo email address after owning it for so long covers almost everyone i know and have known in my life. what inspired me to write this email is the homily of fr. gerry batad, sdb on christmas eve. i was jolted by his message and how he describe chritsmas of today the commercial and the religious one. i came to realize that although i loved christmas for as long as i could remember, i have been celebrating christmas the commercial way and even the joy of shopping for gifts and carefully wrapping each gift myself, slowly each year, it was becoming a daunting task and the joy of giving is slowly dissipating. i sat in front of the computer for a while and i decided to re-examine my thoughts on christmas and before i left for a dinner invitation on christmas day of 2008. i decided it wasn't too late to write this:

this christmas while i was able to do my snail mails, i kind of decided to skip my almost yearly e-cards. i thought i'd get a better on time response on yahoo messenger and sms. so i skipped sending out e-cards for christmas, went on texting everyone on my phone book and left offline messages on my ym list. i got a better response in terms of those who replied but i still felt a bit underwhelmed on myself, it is as if there's something missing. one big reason i skipped e-cards this year is that i can't seem to think of what to write and what i really would like to relay across. the holidays seemed to blur through me because i was so wrapped up in my last week before i resigned at work i never really had any moment to soak up the holiday feeling. as usual it is work that made me into almost "scrooge like" mode. i get so immersed in work i always end up not living my life. by the time i had time in my hands, i am just scraped bare and i really can't seem to share christmas cheer. today christmas day, i somehow realized what i want to say, a very simple and heartfelt "merry christmas to everyone". no politically correct "happy holidays" but good old merry christmas. christmas isn't about me and whatever is wrong in my life, it's the celebration of the nativity of christ. i seemed to have forgotten how i use to love christmas no matter what. i hope that everyone just like me will realize that christmas isn't just about us, it's about christ and it's a day we should celebrate no matter what.

merry christmas everyone!

i found joy and i felt christmas while writing and sending it to my friends. somehow the spirit of christmas was with me. i went to that dinner invitation feeling that christmas truly has came.

holiday greetings

while i still haven't gotten around to doing my christmas e-cards and i haven't snail mailed about 2 quarters of the christmas cards i wrote this year i thought i'd start posting something in my blogs, something general for my greetings to come across to everyone.

happy holidays to everyone who takes the time to check my blogs once in a while. i'll try my best to be a better blogger this coming year by posting more and no post too far in between. there's nothing worse than a blog with nothing but stale posts on it.

one thing i found out about myself

the term deviated septum always conjures up images of malin akerman's lila in the movie "the heartbreak kid". while i didn't get any bones broken during the accident not even a hairline fracture, one thing that the doctor saw in my x-rays was a deviated septum leaning towards the left possibly i was born with it. i do remember when i was around 13 years old i bumped into a post face first, maybe that could be the cause and i never just felt anything at that time. i never did suspect i have the condition, physically it isn't visible and i don't have the common symptoms of obstructed breathing, nose bleeds, or congested nose. one thing that i always bring up is maybe it's the main reason why i can't sing a note in tune to save my life and i now have a valid reason to have a nose job, a septoplasty though not a rhinoplasty.

while waiting

while waiting at the e.r. i came across this flyer and signed up to be an eye donor for the eye bank foundation of the philippines. it's for a good cause, i made my mom and sister sign the form as my witness. it's reasssuring to know that someday when and if something tragic does happen to me, i will still be of help to someone in need.

it took me two weeks to finally post this not just out of procrastination but because i couldn't find the scanned file of this form. silly reason but true. i finally just scanned the form again, which i don't know why i didn't do in first place. sometimes being human means being silly for a lot of times over our lifetime.

life

the very first question that my sister, lei asked me when she got to the hospital e.r., was if at impact did my life flash before me? i knew i wasn't going to die wednesday morning because although i was so certain that the tricycle i was riding in would collide with another tricycle in front of it, my life didn't flash before me and it wasn't the typical philippine public transport road accident wherein reckless driving was so evident, none of that scenario was present. the tricycle was running at a maximum of 20kph. when it happened i calmly crawled out of the tricycle, picked up my handbag and my canvass bag sprawled in the pavement, handed out some baby wipes and headed to the hospital. i had that much composure, i knew what i should do and i was so sure to at least reassure my mom before she gets the call either from me or from the hospital that somehow i am already being taken care of.

luckily it was running at that speed had it been running more than that, then my life would have probably flashed and i would have sustained more than contusions and gashes. the double dose of tramadol from the hospital and my adrenalin to get out from inside the tricycle the moment the collision happened made me say i was okay the whole day. the truth is when effects of both wore out by night time i can feel my whole body ache. the next morning the pain was more evident but for some reason i got up ready to go back to work. i don't love my job that much, in fact i'm in the verge of quitting but to show my boss that i am more than what she thinks that i am, i showed up at work all swollen in the face and all.

this accident is about the only third time in my entire 27 years that i ended up in a hospital e.r. because of me and not because of my brother or sister. i am somewhat different from both of them, i rarely get sick and if i do, it's the type that only merit a visit to the doctor's clinic nothing as complicated as my brother or sister have gone through. my mom as my sister told me panicked and woke up the whole house when she got my call, the hospital's call came a bit later when they have already left the house to come to the hospital. i got that sense of panic when i was telling her on the phone what happened to me, an exact opposite of my boss who even after being informed of what happened sent me a text message and gave information of a project to be rushed and told me the following day that she expected me to come to work right after the hospital.

after the accident, i still take the tricycle and nothing has really changed. i don't have poignant realizations nor long pauses to think about things. surely i am thankful to be alive. for most parts life is back to normal maybe i want to have time to rest more. i was hoping for that, wait maybe i secretly wished for it to happen so i could skip work but on the contrary i didn't get it if one day out of work quantifies time off work because of vehicular accident. instead what my boss showed me was another reason to leave the soonest because of her insensitivity.

on using the word "hate"

for about two weeks i kept thinking how i heard my boss mention that she hated one of my co-workers for not following company policy. what stuck to my mind was how she casually used the word hate over such very minor infraction with matching all the facial contortions to go with such a strong and emotional word. looking at her at that very moment i zoned out and i simply didn't want to listen to her rantings about my co-worker. she could have settled it with that person and being the boss that she is she should have pointed out that she disapproves whatever my co-worker's actions were.

in today's society as much as we are so obsessed with our quest for love, to love and be loved, we're not so careful on using certain words or terminologies that carry so much negative weight. there's always the word dislike or disapprove that can be used instead of the word hate. someone once told me to tone down using the word hate over minor things like how i would use to say that i hate japanese food, he suggested that maybe i should just say i dislike japanese food. he said that i should reserve the word hate for extreme situations that would merit usage of the word. all these years i kept his advice into mind and yes it did lessen the negativity in my life. being positive should start somewhere even switching and refining one's usage of words believe it or not could spell the difference.

blogging and working

hats off to those people who work and can still blog. i started working some two and a half months ago and i haven't blogged ever since. it's not the lack of material to write about but it's more the lack of time to do so. the industry that i work for, the fashion industry would have been such a delightful source of updated juicy information but i guess working with a lot of arrogant airheads has rubbed off on me that i find myself rather less articulate and less versed than i was when i was jobless. ah, i miss the domesticity of being jobless that has been brought on me, at least that period of my life has led me to explore what i really am interested in, reading and writing.

work does feel like work, no matter how elegantly decorated my work place is and no matter how i am surrounded by so much luxury goods that a girl could ever dream of. going to work feels like stepping into heaven but interacting with the people i work with is like hell. i sometimes wonder if it is just me or is it them? am i not a girl who loves fashion? why am i not enjoying this job who a lot of girls dream of, to be a part of the fashion scene, wasn't it exciting then when i was starting? the romance has faded and it has gone stale. the stark reality behind the all the manolos and the dolces and the make-up and the bling has faded. there was a day this past week that i aksed myself, if it's time to waltz out of work and never look back. maybe, maybe not yet.