Author: elizavictoria

happy things

Some cheer to wash away the sadness of the previous post.

I got my new glasses! Ms Sarabia even gave me this cute case for them.

Purple frames!

Lunch date at ROC in UP Diliman.

Starbucks with HGC peeps. (Photos by Jme.)

Watch-a-ton with Jake. :) We saw two episodes of Through the Wormhole (“Is Time Travel Possible?” and “What Happened Before the Big Bang?”, which also questioned the Big Bang), Brad Bird’s The Iron Giant (smart, sensitive, sad), and The Pixar Story. Did you know that in the first draft of Toy Story, Buzz was red and small and Woody was completely obnoxious? Disney almost shut down production LOL.

Bonus: Jaykie’s (pseudo)annoyed face, after I combed his hair flat haha. <3

That’s all for now. :)

fire

MANILA, Philippines – Fire razed the public market in Hagonoy, Bulacan Wednesday night, destroying an estimated P15 million-P20 million worth of property and affecting the livelihoods of 300 market vendors.

Fire officials said the fire started at 7:30 p.m. and quickly razed a large portion of the market. It also destroyed 5 houses near the market.

Fire Superintendent Absalon Sipadan, chief of the Hagonoy fire department, said the fire had reached the second alarm by 8 p.m. after local firemen could not contain the blaze. He said the local fire department has only 2 fire trucks, both of which are already old.

He said fire trucks from neighboring towns arrived to help put out the fire.

Governor Wilhelmino Sy-Alvarado said the public market has been in place for the past 25 years.

Firefighters have yet to determine what started the fire.

Source.

I heard about the tragedy from my mother through text around 11 p.m. that Wednesday night. The text was so matter-of-fact that I thought it was a missent message, or a joke. The entire store and the bodega burned down. That can’t be right.

“Don’t you know?” she said when I called her. I work in a newspaper, so she thinks I know everything that happens. This isn’t always the truth.

So it was true. That store was there even before I was born; I never thought I’d see it destroyed in my lifetime. The family routine revolved around the business: my father would wake up at 4 am every day, around noon someone from the store would drop by the house to pick up their lunch, every Tuesday my mother went on a bus to Divisoria to buy stuff wholesale. I have several shirts with the words ATO & BELEN STORE stamped on a sleeve – we gave it away to customers during Christmas. (We also gave away pails and basins and coin purses – vendor necessities.) When I brought Jake home the stories my father told him was about the store; before we left my father said, “Daan muna kayo ng tindahan ha?” (Drop by the store first, okay?)

My parents had a TV there, and a stove, and a wooden bench made by my grandfather. It was stocked to the brim. Just one night of fire and –

This was the bodega.

The store.

More pictures. These don’t even begin to show the extent of the damage. The fire reached even the wet market near the river, and those stores where I used to buy candy as a child.

We have another bodega near our house, and some items were salvaged from the fire. My parents found a temporary space. It’s way smaller than our store, and we have to pay a monthly rent on top of the electricity bill, but it’s a start.

Thank you to friends who sent words of comfort and offers of help. Send my parents good vibes. :)

Other stores.

the runaways

Everybody looks and sounds bored but I found every scene pleasantly engaging. The smoke, the colors, the psychedelic pace – works for me. She has haters but I liked Kristen Stewart here. And Dakota Fanning, all grown up and oh lord, of course. “Jail-fucking-bait! Jack-fucking-pot!” Michael Shannon’s performance is a standout.

pretty little liars

I have some complaints.

– It has that Mean Girls flavor, except that it takes itself way too seriously.

– The Aria/Ezra sub-plot bores the hell out of me.

– There are way too many stupid characters in here.

– Suspension of disbelief. Aargh. It’s tiring. So sometimes I just shut my brain.

– The series should be darker, meaner. Why hold back? It’s a high school drama murder mystery. Go crazy. Go all the way.

It’s frustrating because it could have been more than another ol’ TV show with beautiful people. It has that potential of being cerebral. It can go Tim Burtonesque, what with that excellent opening song (“Got a secret/Can you keep it?/Swear this one you’ll save/Better lock it, in your pocket/Taking this one to the grave”). Ah, well. Why wish for more? I like the set design and the clothes and the music. It’s mostly entertaining. So maybe I’ll still watch it.

meeting jessica zafra’s optometrist, and other adventures

Friday

I read Jessica Zafra’s blog because I remember loving the Twisted series, and the lady makes me laugh. One day she blogged about her optometrist, Nella Sarabia, who has a shop inside the Shopping Center in UP Diliman. I never needed glasses before, so I didn’t even know there were optical shops inside SC (Ha!). There were comments on Zafra’s post, all of them positive, and my astigmatic right eye is killing me,  and anyway we’d be in the UP area during the weekend because Jaykie is craving for Creme Brulee at Antas-bucks, so I decided to give it a shot.

Here’s my own picture of Ms Sarabia’s shop. Note the vintage cameras.

She’s nice and smart. I like her. What I don’t like is the fact that my eye condition has worsened. From 20/20 and 20/25 last year (hence, the anti-glare glasses to protect my eyes from the evil computer screen) my eyes are now 20/50 and 20/25  (plus another 25 grade for my astigmatism). So that means I have to wear glasses all the time, not just when I’m in front of the computer.

While choosing for a suitable frame for the lenses, Ms Sarabia invited Jaykie to sit beside me. “Are you the boyfriend? Hello.” Then she asked if Jaykie is also a Journalism student.

“No. I’m taking up Math.”

“Grad school,” I said.

“Math?” said Ms Sarabia. “Math?!?” (Pause) “Very good.”

Haha!

Ms Sarabia’s frames were on 30 percent sale, as it turned out, so all in all, I only paid a thousand pesos. The downside: I can’t claim it on the same day, like in the malls where you only have to wait for an hour. But that’s okay. I should have it before this week ends. My frame is a lovely shade of purple.

It’s caterpillar (higad) season in UP. I hate! Argh.

Saturday

Up early for the GA meeting at the office, the first GA meeting that I’ve ever attended that went smoothly. Post-CBA happiness haha! Met up with Jaykie in the afternoon, and watched too much Family Guy and World Poker Tour and got drunk on cheap brandy. That night we watched Episode 2 of Through the Wormhole, called “The Riddle of Black Holes“. Excellent mind-blowing stuff. This is a good show. It’s making me seriously want to take up Physics credits (or Astronomy classes, if there are any offered locally lol).

But then – the math. Shiver.

Sunday

I’m on leave! Ha! Met up with the siblings at the mall, had lunch at Pizza Hut, coffee and sandwiches at UCC, and shopped till we dropped. (I almost did. That was some workout.)

My brother had his eyes checked at the mall. The verdict: 20/175 and 20/50. It was so bad even the ‘E’ on the eye chart was blurred, he said. Wah.

So he got glasses.

I’m wearing my anti-glare glasses here.

They all got home safe and sound. I arrived at the unit, did my laundry, had a shower, and read a book until I fell asleep.

fantasy magazine review (july)

This review would have appeared in Pinoy Pop over at POC, but it wasn’t uploaded before the deadline. So I’m posting this here.

* * *

Readers are in for a treat with these four excellent stories from the July issue of Fantasy Magazine. Helmed by Cat Rambo and Sean Wallace, Fantasy Magazine is an online weekly featuring original fiction in the field of fantasy – “[h]igh fantasy, contemporary and urban tales, surrealism, magical realism, science fantasy, and folktales”. The magazine also publishes non-fiction articles – interviews, commentary, personal essays, and reviews – about the genre.

I’ve always admired the stories published in Fantasy for their depth and language. Let’s take a look at the magazine’s tales for the month of July.

Continue reading fantasy magazine review (july)

clarkesworld issue # 46 and heroic fantasy quarterly issue 5: reviews

clarkesworld

Clarkesworld is an award-winning science fiction and fantasy magazine first published in October 2006. The magazine, helmed by publisher Neil Clarke and editor Sean Wallace, releases an issue every month containing at least two pieces of original fiction, as well as non-fiction and podcasts. The magazine’s contents are available online for free, but its fiction offerings can also be found in print – collected by issue in signed chapbooks (limited to a minimum of 100 copies at a price of USD14 each) and annually in the magazine’s print anthology, Realms. Both print outputs are published by Wyrm Publishing.

Here is a review of Clarkesworld’s July issue (Issue # 46).

Read more here.

heroic_fantasy_quarterly

“Prose. Poetry. Pulp,” reads the tagline of Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, and that is exactly what we find in this online magazine committed to publishing the best in heroic fantasy. Swordsmen, adventures, fantastic landscapes – HFQ is filled with stories of action, with a hope to “hearken back to an older age of storytelling –an age when a story well told enthralled audiences.” Adrian Simmons, David Farney, and William Ledbetter sit as editors. HFQ releases new issues on the first of July, October, January, and April.

HFQ’s Issue 5 marks the first-year anniversary of this publication.

Let the battles begin.

Read more here.