Here’s the thing: I have neither the patience nor the time to blow-dry my hair, so yeah, it doesn’t look like that anymore. The wavy locks came back with a vengeance. Meh. I’ll stick with the 50’s pin-up girl look. Maybe I should buy some red lipstick.
Okay, stupid hand.
Yep, that should do it.
So many micro-minis my sexuality got confused. (Ehem.)
Left my decent-er camera back home, so nothing here folks but shitty 3.2 megapixel cell phone photos. Ngar. I did put my name in the glass bowl marked “Samsung 12.1 MP digital camera” during the Pick-A-Prize raffle (Pick a prize!) but of course I didn’t win. (Pick a prize!)
Hmpft.
Thanks to Jake for coming over. To quote Kate, Ang malas sa raffle, swerte sa –
Charot. ♥
More pictures here.
Back in October I sent an entry to the Pinoy Story Writing Contest, backed by the National Book Development Board (NBDB) and the Filipinas Heritage Library (FHL).
I remember pestering a friend about which MRT station I should get off on to get to the NBDB building (“Eto ‘yung pink na building di ba? Sa may Q Ave?“). In the end I decided I was too lazy to walk and just sent the entire thing via courier. A little more than a hundred pages, this tome called Lower Myths: Two Stories. I wished it luck and bid it adieu.
Near the end of November I heard that an awarding had been held in Greenbelt. Strangely enough, the NBDB website still didn’t carry the complete list of winners.
I looked at my manuscript (soft copy) again and wondered, So okay. You didn’t win. What the fuck am I going to do with you now?
* * *
Yesterday I received a text from Ms Dianne of NBDB, saying I should call the NBDB office.
Apparently I won.
Horror/Crime, Suspense category.
WHAT.
* * *
I’ve contacted Ms Anne of FHL. Let’s see what happens next. Publication? I don’t know.
Howee. ♥
Ohai sparkles!
I think that cauldron-like thingy is supposed to symbolize knowledge (or something), but it just looks sinister. Ergo, cool.
(This, on the other hand, is sinister and not cool.)
Friday was dinner and then Quezon Hall to view the lights, Saturday was dinner and a short visit to Sarah’s. There was a man there at another table; I was pretty sure he was a writer and that I saw him at the Palanca Awards, but fuck me if I can remember. I’m so bad with names. (I can’t even recall the names of the people we were drinking with.) (Oh, I remember Bai – did I spell that right? – and Melai – did I spell that right?) (Melai worked in the media too and knew my Journ friends at GMA so that’s cool.)
Somewhere between Friday and Saturday was a marathon of True Blood and Sex and the City and a quiet break with The Beauty Myth and Holidays on Ice and a gazillion notes on three stories (one in-progress) and a poem. So, so, so many notes. Now if I can only string them fragments together.
BUT I’ve heard that Jaykie’s sister left a bag of chocolates with my name on it, because you know if you like it then you should definitely put your name on it, so life is good. Thank you.
The genius of Ira Levin’s fiction is that his prose is so lucid, so simple and straightforward and true, that you can never imagine anything evil happening to any of his (read: ordinary) characters.
And then halfway through you’ll get slapped by a line like, Rosemary found herself chewing on a raw and dripping chicken heart in the kitchen one morning at four-fifteen.
Like I said, genius.
Photo from fantasticfiction.co.uk
Photo from belfasttelegraph.co.uk
There is always magic in the worlds of epic fantasies, but in the world of the Starks and the Lannisters and whatever is left of the broken House of the Targaryens, magic brings with it a sense of doom, and the smell of spilled blood. The dragons have fallen, the king has turned into a fat drunk who likes hunting more than figuring out how to save a kingdom deep in debt, and the gods are mere silent faces carved in the bark of trees. You can pray to them, but they do not answer.
This world, like most magical worlds, has a forest, but the forest is kept behind a Wall like the wild creature that it is. The phrase “to take up the black” means to be one of the men who guards the Wall. These men do not take wives nor sire children. The punishment for desertion is death. Not surprisingly they’re having serious budget and manpower problems.
All of the Houses have honor, and follies; all of the Houses have pain. They’ve all fought in a war where they’ve lost parents and siblings and children. Every House yearns for revenge, yet every House has also sinned.
In A Game of Thrones, the summer has lasted for years, and now everyone is fearing the bitter cold. The longer the summer, the longer the winter, they say.
The Stark words are, Winter is coming. To paraphrase: We are all going to be seriously fucked.
Oh, yes. And soon.
In Bruges – After a hit gone horribly wrong, two hired assassins – one experienced, one much too young – are sent to Bruges. Ray, the new guy, is not too pleased. “Ken,” he says, “I grew up in Dublin. I love Dublin. If I grew up on a farm, and was retarded, Bruges might impress me but I didn’t, so it doesn’t.”
I cannot think of a more delightful, more heartrending film. Colin Farrell should make more movies like this.
Also, Bruges looks lovely.
Punch-Drunk Love – Oh, you all know those Adam Sandler comedy films. Sweet, soft-spoken guy, then he goes all crazy on your ass. Barry Egan is like that, but his violence breaks your heart. He has seven sisters, people are on his case all the time, and there’s always this incessant fucking drum in the background. Barry just wants to have someone in his life to slow things down. Is that too much to ask?
Tres Dias (Before the Fall, Spanish) – Ten minutes into the film, we hear that a meteorite five times the size of the rock that fell to earth during the time of the dinosaurs will hit the planet soon. No one will survive. Now what? Do you confess your love to another person? Do you begin killing people and hanging children from trees? Do you eat ice cream? Closure comes in so many forms.
Eliza Victoria 
