Happy 2009!!!

This year I’m thankful for a lot of things: family, friends, good health, my 3-year old iPod nano (still functioning!), my first trip to Baguio, my Boracay vacation, successfully passing the SEC certification exam, Barack Obama becoming the US President, my newfound love affair with jdramas (I am thankful, my friends are probably rolling their eyes), Ikuta Toma's dimples and overall cuteness, the combined dorkery and hotness of Arashi, The Dark Knight, friends’ healthy bundle of joys, the totally cool iDock I won from Oliboy!, new friends, enough time to bum around and marathon-watch various shows... well, the reasons may seem trivial but the list is long.

I read somewhere that we tend to remember our sad moments more than the happy ones. After all, happy experiences don't leave wounds the way painful ones do. But I guess it's those scars that make the good moments all the more precious. We are not just defined by the wounds we sustained from our personal battles but also by the smiles and laughters we get even from simplest of reasons.

Here's wishing you all a happy and colorful 2009!

P.S. 11:20pm
It's a rainy New Year's eve, but rain or not, I already decided that, for the first time in my life, I will not welcome 2009 in the streets. I'm inside the house, in front of the PC, live streaming Johnny's Countdown in Japan, hosted by Arashi. I had troubles earlier with the streaming sites, I had to switch to another site and there's still buffering time but I'm enjoying the show so far. God, I'm too crazy over Arashi! However you spend the night, I hope you're all having fun like me! :)

(Tokio is now playing - damn, Nagase is too hot!)

The Color of Memory Is Always Blue

The faint blue skirt flies on the sunset hill
I wondered aimlessly
Maybe eternity is something like this

"Love will end someday", you whispered with a faraway look
I was pretending I couldn't hear,
I wonder if you noticed

The cherry blossom petals danced in the wind
There's a feeling here that won't change even if time passes by

I want to see you, I want to be with you
I try embracing you in my dreams
I want to run after you, I wish to follow you
I'm wandering in a deep maze
I want to see you, I want to be with you
Not the dream but the real you
But I can't see you, I can't meet with you
I'm drowning in feelings that have nowhere to go

We looked up with our shoulders touching
The night sky is a planetarium
The same stars they still rise and disappear somewhere

The feelings stagnate in my heart
I can never turn them into words
I wish I can wrap them softly in my sighs and exhale them

Even if it runs by in the waves of the changing seasons
The memories won't come undone in between the past and the future

I want to see you, I want to be with you
I try embracing you in my dreams
It won't fade away, it won't fade away
The faint smell still lingers in the air
I want to see you, I want to be with you
Not the dream but the real you
And it hurts so much, it hurts so much
That faint blue starts to blur

Blue

- Arashi

I'm Going To Bed, Good Morning

Dear Me,

It's 2:10 am 1:59 am says blogger when I saved this entryand you're still in front of the computer watching Arashi and not showing any sign of sleepiness???

Tell me, is this your way of correcting your messed up body clock? Because, to be honest about it? TOTALLY NOT WORKING.

Go to sleep. NOW.

Love,
Jela

Whatever Yaya, Christmas Na!

I just got home from work - the long vacation in our country officially begins now!


It was kind of lonely walking in Makati carrying around too much stuffs. My friends were either on leave or went home early so I felt a bit alone and sad. But I realize - how often do I see an almost deserted Ayala Avenue with no harassed corporate slaves in sight? The traffic was surprisingly light and by the time I got home, I feel a lot better. Hey, it's Christmas! That should be reason enough to feel happy and thankful. :)

This post is brought to you by Arashi:

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

Christmas Cramming

Guess who broke her New Year's resolution for this year?


And yet - a day to go before Christmas and still I'm not done with wrapping all the gifts. *weeps*


I guess this is one of my irrational addictions. I cannot NOT wrap gifts hahaha!


The one I enjoyed doing the most was deciding how to wrap my give aways to my lady friends. I came up with this:


I hope they will like it! :)


I just want to stay at home today and sleep, but the long holiday for me will not start until tomorrow. I'm tired na and I just want my body clock to return to normal (lately when the clock strikes 12 midnight I find myself still wide awake AND bouncing with energy).


Few more hours before Christmas!

Arashi For Dream!

My pimp post about Arashi is BEGGING to be written – especially after I read the translation of their latest TV guesting and… damn. This boy band is too retarded and too full of crack and I love them for it!

Their retardery, especially Sho’s, couldn’t come at a better time as I find myself suddenly attracted to this boy (my previous crush was Matsujun. I still like him and all but I’m very much attached to Sho right now!). I mean, what’s not to like? Sho is good looking with a hot body to boot, he’s an awesome rapper, he has a degree from Keio University (considered an Ivy League school in Japan) (and he got his degree while STILL in the band!), and he’s a weekly newscaster for News Zero. Beauty and brains, he clearly is.

And then he and the rest of his dorky bandmates went on NATIONAL TELEVISION and talk about how an old man at a massage parlor in Shanghai, flipped Sho’s bleep bleep upwards to scrub… what needs to be scrubbed on that area. *dies* Then proceed to demonstrate the story to the audience and to the whole of Japan. *dies some more*

FAIL. Fail, I say. (And by that, I mean win.)

Yet I still love him.

ARASHI. Throwing their reputations out of the window since 1999.


BUT – more proof of this band’s awesomeness is the actual reason for the said TV appearance (no, they don’t just go around TV shows spouting hilarious stories).

Arashi is Japan’s Artist for 2008, with two of their singles capturing the #1 and #2 slots in the Oricon year end charts! truth/Kaze no mukou e and One Love are ranked #1 and #2, respectively, in terms of CD sales. They also clinched the #10 slot for Beautiful Days and #12 for Step and Go. You probably don’t have any idea what I’m talking about but let me tell you that THIS is a huge, HUGE accomplishment because no single artist has occupied the #1 and #2 slot in a single year in Japan’s music charts since 19 years ago!

WIN. Win, I say. (And by that, I mean massive, epic WIN.)

I love them all.

ARASHI. Breaking records and creating their own since 1999.

Must We Talk About This?!

Maybe I’m not such a boring person after all. I learned that my being picky over foods was a topic of conversation among my officemates when I was on leave.

Now, I feel I should defend myself here, since it seemed that I give the impression (not only to my officemates but to my friends as well) that I’m too maarte with food. The straight answer is that I’m not maarte. There are just… some foodstuffs that I do not and will not eat. Is that such a bad thing?

I think my 'choosy-ness' is a bit glaring because some of the stuffs I don’t eat are those that are enjoyed by everyone else. The most obvious example is apple. Yep, I’m not a big fan of apples. You can’t use the cliché “an apple a day keeps the doctor away” to me. But I have a colorful history with the “apples-to-oranges” analogy but that’s another story. I’m also averse to some “foreign” fruits like oranges, cherries, grapes and strawberries. Again, I ask: is that such a bad thing? If you think that I don’t eat fruits, then I have to let you know that I LOVE mangos. I can live with not eating any other fruits except mango. Minsan nag-uulam din ako ng mangga. I also like singkamas, santol, pineapple, watermelon, melon, lanzones, banana.

I also don’t like ensaymada. Just yesterday a client sent us ensaymada and they’re convincing me to try it and I was “DO NOT WANT!”. I don’t like how moist it looks and the texture I can feel when I bite into it and auugh.

I don’t like sinigang na isda because I can taste the lansa. My father, who hails from Quezon, likes sinaing na isda and I really couldn’t stand the smell of it! I do eat fish; I like galunggong (especially when it’s paired with monggo yum!) and dilis and dalagang bukid, but I like my fishes fried. And I think I’m going to have a problem if AND when I go to Japan because I don’t eat sushi!

What else? I don’t like baked mussels or clams, although there are rare times I do eat if it’s baked well. I don’t like raisins. I don’t like the sampalok from Thailand . I eat isaw but not atay. Don’t get me started on adobong atay. I don’t eat tuna. I can’t eat sardines straight from the can; it has to be ‘ginisa”. There are probably other foods I don’t eat but these are the first ones that come to my mind.

BUT… I don’t think the list above justifies the perception of me being maarte over food! I’m sure each of us has their own lists of foods-I’m-so-not-touching and the list will include stuffs more bizarre than the items I don’t eat. And, yep, my stuffs-I-love-shoving-down-my-mouth list definitely TRUMPS my do-not-want-ever list. So, who still thinks I’m maarte?

Now – my being a slow eater? Is a different matter and I have no defense for that.

Catfight

My youngest brother and I are arguing over the gender of our kitten. He says it’s a he, and I believed him at first. Then a few nights ago, I accidentally saw our kitten with our tomcat and they’re, uh, doing the deed. Well, it looked like they’re doing it because the tomcat is on the kitten’s top and is biting on the latter’s nape (okay, I know you probably don’t want to read about cats having sex any more than I wanted to have seen what I saw but bear with me. I need to justfiy myself here!). I tried to shoo both away from each other but the cats ignored me. In hindsight, I think I didn’t shoo enough because I was afraid that the cats would angrily swipe at me for interrupting them.

So the next morning, I told my brother and my mom about it. My mom was shocked but my brother just scoffed at me.



“Lalaki yun”, he stated matter-of-factly.

“Eh ano yung nakita ko?!!”

“Baka tinuturuan lang.”

“Baka gay yung pusa.”



You don’t need to know who said what.

Homicidal

So I've been marathoning Criminal Minds since my vacation leave. It didn't grab my attention at first, but I slowly developed an affection for the show. It wasn't as flashy as the other procedural shows like CSI but the ensemble cast were such interesting characters that you get to care about them as much as the mystery that they have to solve. It didn't matter that the first season finale was a huge cliffhanger because I already have a copy of the second season.

I first saw red when I realized that my second season was incomplete. I had to go to Quiapo and find a seller that has the second season that was not bundled with the first one. And for good measure, I bought the third season as well.

The second season finale was not a "To Be Continued..." episode like season one. But I got the insane urge to kick something when I realized that Jason Gideon was leaving the show! I mean, it's not like the show has not disappointed me yet - I didn't like the way the Spencer Reid arc was resolved - but still, I was not prepared for the departure of a major character.

And then I had to watch the season three finale AND IT WAS ANOTHER CLIFFHANGER AND I SWEAR I WANT TO STAB THE TV, THE DVD PLAYER, ANYTHING WITHIN MY SIGHT SOOO BAD BECAUSE I CANNOT TAKE IT! Why, why do I have to care about this show so much?! And it's not like I cannot download the season four pilot RIGHT NOW just to satisfy my curiosity but I HATE that I didn't see that ending coming when I could have just read the spoilers on the net to save me from this stupid, stupid shock.

And I keep asking myself why I watch this show ABOUT SERIAL KILLERS AND REALLY BAD GUYS AND SOMEWHAT GOOD GUYS DOING BAD THINGS when it's depressing and bleak and I wonder if I'm turning into a PSYCHO because a few months ago I get a kick out of watching Japanese guys who are into rainbows and stuffs and now I'm watching American guys talking about evisceration and mutiliation and sadism and should I take this all as a sign or something?

Not Enough!

I can’t believe my vacation is finally over! I’m not thrilled to be back at the office after living like a rock star for almost two weeks – you know, the sex, drugs and rock n roll kind of lifestyle. Except for the sex. And the drugs. And a bit of the rock n roll. It’s more like sleep, daydream and jpop.

As promised, my vacation was a slackfest – except it wasn’t the big slackfest I was hoping for. I slept a lot, even if I don’t want to. Did you know that watching TV in the afternoon was no longer as fun as it used to be? Even if there were TV shows and movies to watch, I just can’t shake off my sleepiness! It’s like all those times I refused to sleep in the afternoon as a kid has finally caught up with me!

Our PC went bonkers on me so my plan of downloading and watching Arashi shows was unceremoniously scrapped from my agenda. Perfect timing! Obviously, I was not able to blog as well. So, when I was not sleeping, I watched TV or read or played DS lite games.

Some of the things I did:

• Watched the first season of Life (and what a short first season it was!)
• Watched seasons 1, 2 and portion of 3 of Criminal Minds (developed a big crush on the nerdy Dr. Spencer Reid and the hot Special Agent Derek Morgan and wanted to work with a mentor like Jason Gideon. Will probably blog about this later on)
• Re-read Battle Royale
• Read Jasper Fforde’s The Fourth Bear
• Half-way through with Kate Mosse’ Sepulchre
• Peeked at a few scenes in Meteor Garden season 1 (what?)
• Re-watching season 3 of So You Think You Can Dance (I got seasons 3 and 4 from Quiapo yay! The cable is airing re-runs boo!)

I watched lots of shows on cable (NBA, Jeopardy, Survivor re-runs on Maxx, Step It Up and Dance (poor man’s SYTYCD), Room 401 and Wildboyz on MTV, Throwdown with Bobby Flay) and on local channels (Kahit Isang Saglit, Pilipinas Game KNB?, Pinoy Fear Factor, PBA, premiere of Fringe on CS9). If couch potato is an acceptable job, I would have a respectable career.

Whoever said that it’s a good idea to play Dementium: The Ward in the dead of the night should be locked in a room full of zombies. It’s not just I suck at first-person shooter games, the setting of the game was a bit scary, too. I think I’ll stick with Super Mario Bros., thank you very much.

My vacation was a bit uneventful, save for yesterday morning when I got locked in in our bathroom. No, I did not do anything stupid, it’s the lock itself, I tell you. It took my brother about 10 minutes before they could open the door – and yep, they did try kicking at the door like what they do in the movies. Epic fail.

Darn. Did I just blog about how boring my vacation was? And yet, it’s still not enough.