Things money can't buy: Birthday Edition

#1 Fun times with good friends

Wednesday, May 26

My actual birthday. The night before I wholeheartedly spent watching the 2-hour season finale of Chuck until maybe 2 in the morning. That day, I met up with two of my girls who I haven't seen in forever (!!) at Trinoma. We were supposed to watch The Last Song but we decided on Shrek Forever After instead. It was hilarious! After the movie I treated them to some yummy ice cream and then we went on our way to my house in time to catch Glee's GaGa episode. It was so much fun being able to hang out with them again after a really long time. And I love the fact it's always like nothing has changed since the last time we talked to/saw each other. There's nothing like quality time spent with your best friends. :)

#2 The most funny and random conversations
shared over good food

Friday, May 28

Went on a date with my brother's gf, Ate Jaymee. She took me out to the movies and we watched the hot and sexy Jake Gyllenhaal in Prince of Persia at MOA. After spending the whole afternoon just roaming around the mall, we took a ride to Cubao and ended up in Gateway where we had dinner at Burgoo. We practically went around Manila, Makati and Quezon City in less than a day. (Which is probably why even though I already woke up at lunchtime today I still was feeling sleepy.)

But even though it was hella tiring, I absolutely enjoyed the day. There was a teeny tiny bit of that night that I could have done without, though. I so did not expect to be surprised with a Happy Birthday song from the waiters. It was a total set-up. See, there was this other group who has their friend celebrating her birthday there at the restaurant and they did the birthday singing for her first. I was talking to Ate Jaymee about how embarrassing that would be if it happened to me and I guess that's where she got the idea of doing it to me lol. You should have seen my initial reaction. No, actually, erase that. There was no initial reaction because I couldn't process what was happening in that moment. It was so funny to me. LOL. If there was a video of that, it would have gone viral by now. Hahahaha, kidding. :))

Hey, at least I got a complimentary birthday ice cream! ;)

Note: As you can see, I've started this "things money can't buy" list which I came up with randomly while thinking of how to share what I did for my birthday (as you have read). As of now I don't really have any idea how many things I actually want to list, or how often I would post entries like this. Let's leave that subject matter for next time.

Go ahead, read my mind

I practically grew up listening to Lea Salonga since my eldest brother is a huge fan of hers and being that my family shares the same liking to music, I was instantly hooked. I think I was about 7. Not to mention, of course, the fact that she's a Tony and Olivier award-winning Filipino broadway musical star.

We caught Superman (another thing my family likes) on HBO yesterday night and of course, the scene that stood out to me was one of my favorite ones, the flying scene with Superman and Lois Lane. No matter how many times I've already watched it, it still captivates me everytime. I'm a sucker for love, not to mention the plain old loveteam that is Lois and Clark. Anyway, the actual main point here is the music. The theme "Can You Read My Mind" was just perfect for that scene. Watching it again last night, I remembered I know Lea has her own version of the song. I forgot from which album I heard it but thanks to Google, I re-discovered it was from her "Songs from the Screen Live with the Manila Philharmonic Orchestra". We actually have a casette tape of that buried somewhere in the pile of tapes/CDs in the house. I remember I would put that in the casette player each afternoon and I would sing to not just this song, but also other tracks on it like "Through The Eyes Of Love" and Pinoy movie classics "Ikaw" and "Tukso". Imagine a 10-ish schoolgirl singing Tukso. LOL. If I could see myself then, I would cry with laughter. It was also because of this album that I have grown fond of the song "Over The Rainbow" from the movie "The Wizard of Oz".

I am actually quite disappointed that I have yet to see Lea perform live. I wanted to see her last December at her "Your Songs" concert but things didn't go according to plan. Hopefully I will have the chance to be able to watch her numerous times in the future. It would be a bonus if I would be watching with my family including my big Lea fan brother and he would pay for it, LOL. Kidding. But I would really love that, though. If there's only one musical artist that I could idolize, it will surely be Lea Salonga on top of my list.

Doesn't matter how far apart we are now, you can add up all the miles in between

I see you standing there smiling at me
And I'm right back at the beginning
Lost inside these memories
I won't ever let go, all that I want to hold onto


That we belong together
Like the moon and stars and midnight
We'll be strong forever
'Cause we belong together

All the roads we have to walk are winding

Today is gonna be the day that they're gonna throw it back to you. By now you should have somehow realized what you're gonna do. I don't believe that anybody feels the way I do about you now.

I said maybeeeeee, you're gonna be the one that saves meeeee.

Wonderwall by Oasis (trust that I totally just erased what I wrote because it said "Oasis by Wonderwall" instead of having it vice versa, okay, moving on...). Covered by Rihanna on her Last Girl On Earth Tour. This right here, is the epitome of LSS a.k.a last song syndrome.

So in my purpose of wanting to shove my sappy blog post yesterday to the side, let me tell you about how boring my day was and might as well prove how much the little things make me happy as a clam.

• Woke up earlier than usual at about half-past nine. Usually I wake up at 11 in the morning, or later. It's summer vacation protocol.
• After breakfast, Father asked me to come with him to visit my ninang (godmother). It was fun just sitting and catching up with her while sipping pineapple juice. :)
• On the way there, I was turning up the radio in the car and my station was playing Rihanna's Rockstar 101. How rad was that.
• I was actually thankful for Facebook chat this afternoon cause after what seemed like years (which was only actually 3 weeks), I finally got to chat with my friend again who I always talk to. We talk about a million different things all at once but usually we just talk about music and Rihanna, Lady GaGa, Beyonce and stuff like that. At one point, we were talking about Beyonce being cast as Wonderwoman...
• And then I got on YM to talk to one of my girls about their coming over and having an overnight at my place for my birthday and we actually ended up chatting for a long while. I missed that. I miss her! I miss all my girls! She actually said something that melted my heart, something like, "Even though we don't usually talk, you're still always there." <3 And we decided we're going to watch The Last Song on my bday which is going to be fantastic.
• I made a listography page. :)
• Finally, I have just seen Smallville's season finale and boy, was it such a cliffhanger!! They always do that, though, I wonder why I always still get pissed that it ends when it ends. I can't believe I'm gonna have to wait for a couple more months before the airing of the next episode. It would be much better if I had my brother home with me. We would be freaking out like craaaazy, especially with the way how it ended. Actually, even from the beginning of the episode it was already mind-blowing. Okay, let me stop there before I make this post into a Smallville finale recap.
  

So that's it. You can pretty much tell that I live in the Internet. When I'm not online, I'm either asleep or I'm eating. Or watching TV. Usually that's just Wednesdays when Glee is on. Okaaaay. It's 12:23 AM and I should probably be heading to bed, or at least, try to. Good night, world.

Out in the open

...

This afternoon I had an awful lot of ample time to myself and silence. But then I realized that having that kind of luxury isn't really good for me, at least, at this time. I know I may seem to be okay everyday, simply enjoying living under above average circumstances, given that it is the summer vacation, but this afternoon I realized that I'm not. After forcing myself to get out of my unhealthy trance, I wasn't even planning to write about it. But alas, writing about it seems to be the best idea right now to just let my so called "feelings" out to help loosen me up even for a bit.

I realized I still have a lot of undealt with issues up my sleeve and I don't know if I'll be able to actually deal with them soon. I mean, I want to, but I just don't know how. Being a secluded type of person won't help in the least bit, I'm sure. I'm still not good with expressing my feelings in words towards the people closest to me, the people I love. I think I got that trait from my mom, if psychological traits get passed on from parent to child. Anyway, more than half of what's built up inside me no one knows besides myself and God. So at this point in time, I'm just really totally open with one being and gosh, it's hard. But I have strong faith and I know and believe that He is and will be there for me no matter what the circumstances are.

So I'm pretty much still a mess right now after writing those two paragraphs. I think what I need is someone to talk to, like a stranger who's kind-looking and a potential friend and has unbiased thoughts about me, whom I would just spill all these thoughts and feelings to and he/she would just be there listening to me, offering kind words every now and then. Yes, I think that's what I need. But since I obviously don't have that now, I think reading Harry Potter or watching a movie will do as a distraction.

Inked, marked, counted

Guess who was able to participate in the first ever automated elections in the Philippines? Yep, that's right, lil' ole me (with an accomplished grin on my face)! We went out before 7 in the morning since COMELEC announced that precincts will open by that time. We wanted to go early to avoid the rush of people but when we got to Ramon Magsaysay High School, there were already lots of people around and inside. The funny thing is, just after we got out of the house, literally just outside our gate there was already a woman handing us sample ballots with the candidates she's supporting. As expected, there were more of that when we got to the school.

I was extremely glad that for my first experience to vote, there was no hassle at all. When we got inside the school there was this big blackboard that's like a map and it's marked by barangay so we know where our precincts will be located. Our precinct was located at the third floor and when we got there, the queue was already in the 20's so we had to fall in line still despite being early. My dad, mom and I were #s 31-33 so we didn't have to wait that long anyway. So after filling up my ballot, I made my way to the PCOS machine and the first time I inserted my ballot it wasn't accepted, maybe because I didn't do it the right way cause I was sure that I did the shading thing very well. Thankfully, the second time around it finally read: "Congratulations! Your vote has been registered." Super arte lang pala talaga nung PCOS machine.

So yes, for the first time ever I was able to cast my vote for the national elections 2010 and I feel accomplished and thankful that nothing went wrong during my experience. I pray, as the elections are still on going, that for the rest of the day all transactions will be successful and that no crime will be done regarding the results. Also, I pray and hope that whoever wins the positions, especially the presidential one, we will actually try and be supportive of that candidate because we can never achieve anything without teamwork and cooperation throughout the whole country.

Yun lang po. All that's left to say is God bless the Philippines!!

Mic test, one, two (OTS: Terrified)

So I've been trying to figure out how to put up an audio player on my blog for the longest and I finally found the perfect tutorial thanks to the help of an online friend :)

And about the audio itself? Well, that's me probably on my most vulnerable state ever, LOL. Aryan, this is for you because you're special like that, haha ♥

Every word feels like a shooting star

If you know me, you probably know how obsessed I am with music. Maybe you'll say that there's no such thing since most people do love music but in my case, the feeling is quite indescribable. It's like I love music too much to the point that I freak out to a really good song every now and then. And I have to tell you, no one has ever seen me spaz out. I do that in the comfort of my own room, thank you very much. My parents might have heard a couple screams and "OMG"s here and there but I swear, if you saw me in that certain state, you yourself would freak out because of me freaking out.

So why am I telling you all this crap? It's because of this:

The song is called Terrified (in the video, it's by Katharine McPhee feat. Zachary Levi).

If you watch this season's American Idol, you'll probably recognize the song as Didi Benami's audition piece in Hollywood Week (which made her my favorite). The song was written by Idol judge Kara DioGuardi and I just fell in love with the lyrics instantly. I loved it when I first heard Kara singing it in a demo and I loved it more when Didi sang it on AI and now, Kat McPhee has officially released the song with Zachary Levi a.k.a Chuck Bartowski of the TV show Chuck (!!!) and to say that I totally and absolutely love it more now would still be an understatement. That's how obsessed I get, pretty much.

I have this phase in which I tend to be all up on one song for a week and that song would be the only one I listen to, with the exception of a couple Rihanna songs here and there maybe, so this song is most probably going to be overplayed in the next week or so, possibly more than that. Especially that I have two versions downloaded on my computer. Haha. :)

P.S. Please watch Did Benami performing Terrified on Ellen [here] as well and tell me what you think! :)

It's not always rainbows and butterflies, usually just cats.

Today:

• I found a new YouTube phenom to stalk in Joseph Vincent and it turns out that he's a full bred Pinoy!
• I found out that Zachary Levi of my favorite TV show, Chuck, can sing (!!!!)
  
• I have officially developed a crush on Trey Songz.
• I started reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows again. Finally.
  

P.S. My photos are [beyond] second rate to those of my lovely online friends who take gorgeous pictures. Drop by their site! 1 2

P.P.S. I did not mean to make it sound that my day was all about music and boys, LOL. For the record, it was not. :))