Booky Wook

This post has nothing to do with Russell Brand or his books of the same title but this is, indeed, about books! Specifically, my book wishlist (which seems neverending if you refer to my trusty Goodreads to-read list).

On top are the first two in Veronica Roth's "Divergent" trilogy ("Divergent" and "Insurgent") since I recently found out that they are already set for movie tie-ins (the first one's currently set to be released in 2015!), and of course, the final book once it comes out!!

In the past month I've only been able to cross-off a couple books from my wishlist:

"Room" by Emma Donoghue and "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" by Stephen Chbosky (forgive me for being super late!!)

Here goes the rest:

• "The Night Circus" - Erin Morgenstern
• "The Fault in Our Stars" - John Green
• "I've Got Your Number - Sophie Kinsella
• "The Happiness Project" - Gretchen Rubin
• "Before Ever After" - Samantha Sotto
• "Sarah's Key" - Tatiana de Rosnay
• "The Sense of an Ending" - Julian Barnes
• "Will Grayson, Will Grayson" - John Green & David Levithan

What's your favorite milk tea?

I'm a late bloomer when it comes to food fads and I don't really know why. I guess I just don't like jumping onto the bandwagon too soon in general. Or maybe, I'm simply not used to trying new things. Anyway, with food crazes, I let things settle down just a bit and allow myself to look into other people's opinions. This way, I can gauge how I really feel about a certain craze. (Yes, I'm too over-analytical like that.) But when the time comes that it's my friends who come to me and recommend things, I usually cave in soon enough. 

When I finally tried the milk tea, there's no denying that I loved it, and I was sure that I'd go for more drinks. This was probably the time when people realized this isn't just a fad and that it's something that could be a staple for its kind of business, like fast food chains and coffee houses. Sure enough, milk tea places around the metro are still quickly growing in numbers.

I myself have tried more than a few different milk tea places as well as flavors:

1. BubbaTeaLicious Pearl Milk Tea Place is not much of a place than it is a push cart/stall. I think this was the first milk tea I tried in UST. I've only tried their Royal and Caramel Milk Tea, but I also tasted a couple of their fruit tea variants, Wild Berries and Mango Delight. I'd have to say BubbaTea isn't my go-to milk tea place, though, because they are kind of inconsistent with their flavors. At least, that's based on my experience upon having Royal Milk Tea at different branches. But it's one of the most accessible places for me since there's a branch in UST and also, at SM malls around the area.

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2. Golden Chopsticks is located at the 2nd flr. carpark in UST. Since I already graduated last March, I am hoping that they would have other branches soon so I don't have to go to UST everytime I crave for their milk tea. I love their Coffee Konjac (with coffee jelly) and Charcoal Collagen Milk Tea!

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3. Simple Line is another local milk tea place for UST students located in Dapitan St. I had a friend who has been a long time customer, way back when they were still called "Simple Life." I've tried their Caramel and Oolong flavors, which I both loved.

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4. Happy Lemon is one of  the milk tea brand imports that easily gained a cult following locally. I was happy to find out that they opened a branch in Trinoma since it was the closest to my area. I've only had the Cocoa with Rock Salt & Cheese the one time I was at Happy Lemon and it was really yummy! I preferred drinking it mixed. I'm looking to try their milk tea variants in the future.


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Movies: 2012 Watchlist

I'm just gonna go ahead and start this entry by admitting I haven't yet seen "The Avengers." The last new movie I saw was "Battleship," which was a really good one so if you haven't seen it yourself, you should definitely go! Have I mentioned two awesomely hot guys namely Taylor Kitsch ("Friday Night Lights") and Alexander Skarsgard ("True Blood") star in the movie along with Rihanna (yes, this is her big film debut!)?

Anyway, aside from that big superhero movie, I'm also looking forward to see some other big films this year (including another a couple other superhero movies):

1. Dark Shadows. Why? Because it's Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, that's why. Plus, have you seen the trailer?





2. The Lucky One. I've read the book and it's one of my Nicholas Sparks favorites. Also, it's Zac Efron!!!

Movies I Watched In 2011

This list isn't all of it (this one is) but these are the movies that were released this year which I've seen. I'm actually a couple movies shy of last year's record but at least I got to tidy up my room just before the year ends. That's a better alternative goal, right? Haha. ;)

1. Bulong (Local Film)
2. The Green Hornet
3. I Am Number Four
4. Beastly
5. The Roommate
6. Sharpay's Fabulous Adventure
7. No Strings Attached
8. Just Go With It
9. Red Riding Hood
10. Kung Fu Panda 2
11. Transformers: Dark of the Moon
12. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2
13. Jane Eyre (2011 Adaptation)
14. Arthur
15. Bad Teacher
16. Gnomeo & Juliet
17. Crazy Stupid Love
18. The Smurfs
19. Phineas and Ferb The Movie: Across the 2nd Dimension
20. Something Borrowed
21. Hop
22. Water For Elephants
23. Source Code
24. Captain America: The First Avenger
25. Horrible Bosses
26. The Adjustment Bureau
27. Cars 2
28. Green Lantern
29. Bridesmaids
30. Super 8
31. One Day
32. No Other Woman (Local Film)
33. Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1
34. Glee: The 3D Concert Movie
35. The Change-Up
36. I Don't Know How She Does It

Planning to do a "Movies To Watch Out For In 2012" post soon so stay tuned for that!

Tick tock on the clock

I spent all day sitting in front on the computer... on a school day. When I woke up this morning I got a text saying we won't have our Cisco 2 class - both lec and lab - leaving PGC to be our only class, which is at 8 PM. Being the lazy person that I am, I decided not to attend that last class anymore because a) it was raining and I didn't want to go out in the rain and b) it was too late already to go to school. It was just one class and besides, it's scheduled as our first period tomorrow anyways.

So what the heck did I do for, say, 10 hours straight sitting here with my laptop? Let me list them down for you because I find listing things therapeutic.

• Fixed the Rihanna Philippines page on Facebook. Like it if you're a fan! :)
• Watched half of Lady GaGa's Monster Ball Tour.
• Watched Pretty Little Liars 2x02.
• Downloaded the new episode of The Voice.
• Listed some favorite quotes I found stored on my old phone on listography.
• And just now I was browsing through Terry Richardson's Tumblr.

Yeah, that's pretty much it. I did all of that while nursing a slight headache. I planned on finishing Zombicorns by John Green but if I did I knew my headache would be full-blown after reading just a couple sentences from the e-book. I've actually been having headaches literally everyday since last week. Maybe I should really reduce the time I spend on the computer everyday.

Another year has come and gone...

As I spend the last few hours of 2010 (it's currently 7:04 on my side of the pond as I'm typing this), I just want to say that this year has been so much fun. I had amazing times with friends, both old and new. I got to spend more time with my family, especially my parents, whom I'm so thankful for. Most importantly, God has been so kind and good to me and my family for keeping us healthy and helping us in ways that only He can. 2010 has definitely been a blessed year for me.

Now, as I await to partake in the celebration of ringing in the new year, let me share a list (of course, there's always a year-ender list, right?) of the movies I've seen this year. 2010 has been a fantastic year for movies with Toy Story 3, Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland, Inception, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 just to name a few that made big bucks this year. I have a total of 100 films watched this year but that includes previous releases as well as movies that I already watched before but decided to watch again.

So here's a list of the films released in 2010 that I've seen (in alphabetical order):

1. Beauty and the Briefcase
2. Charlie St. Cloud
3. Date Night
4. Dear John
5. Despicable Me
6. Diary of a Wimpy Kid
7. Easy A
8. Eat, Pray, Love
9. Get Him to the Greek
10. Going The Distance
11. Grown Ups
12. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1
13. Inception
14. Iron Man 2
15. Kick-Ass
16. Killers
17. Leap Year
18. Letters To Juliet
19. Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief 
20. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time
21. Remember Me 
22. Salt
23. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
24. Sex and the City 2
25. Shrek Forever After
26. Shutter Island
27. Takers
28. The Back-up Plan 
29. The Bounty Hunter
30. The Karate Kid
31. The Last Song 
32. The Social Network
33. The Sorcerer's Apprentice
34. The Town
35. The Twilight Saga: Eclipse 
36. Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland 
37. Toy Story 3
38. Valentine's Day
39. When In Rome

Wow, 39 movies. And I confess, I didn't watch all of that in the movie theater (because I don't have that much free time and money, LOL).

In the new year, I look forward to watching more movies, hopefully I'll top this list this time around next year, and also, reading more books and discovering more new great music as well as going to shows of my favorite artists, I am very much looking forward to seeing Taylor Swift & Bruno Mars in 2011!

So cheers to what has been a wonderful 2010 and what will be a much more amazing 2011! Happy New Year!!! :)

The Annual Sembreak To-Do List

Yes, it's finally my sembreak! Now I can stop bitchin' about school stuff hooray! And that is the truth because I don't think I have anything to complain about because I passed all my subjects! Double hooray! Thanks be to God. :)

So anyway, yeah, let's get down right to business. I already had one thing to do during this 3 & 1/2 weeks of vacation which is hang out at Booksale (and stop myself from robbing the store haha!) and a couple days ago I thought of other "fun" stuff that I'd like to do and here are the things I came up with:

• Catch up on Life Unexpected
• Finish reading Jane Eyre
• Read Eat, Pray, Love
• Watch old school movies (e.g. Uptown Girls)
• Clean my room, as in actual cleaning!
• Exercise!!!

The last two obviously don't count as fun but they are things that I really have to do even if I don't want to. So that's that. I'm also looking forward to watching a couple new movies like The Social Network and The Town, both of which I've heard/read great reviews about.

I guess cheers to a stress-free life even for only about a month! Yay!

(SOTN as in Soundtrack Of The Night: Keane - Everybody's Changing)

What goes around comes around

Let me recap what has been a rather emotional day:

• I went home from school feeling rather lonely and defeated.
• I spent time on Tumblr hoping it would drive the feeling away.
• I decided I should watch a good picker-upper movie, so I watched Two Weeks Notice.
• I cried at a couple scenes and the OST from Counting Crows made me depressed at first but then it cheered me up as well.
• A kind hearted lady, which happens to be our boarder, brought home ice cream and cassava cake which helped a lot in cheering me up.
• Then, finally I stumbled upon this new song by Katy Perry called "Not Like The Movies." I like it but it's kind of making me a bit depressed again...

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.

It never takes too long

Well, hello there.

This moment reminds me of that line from Sara Bareilles' song "Gravity." Something always brings me back to you...

Yes, there's just this certain something in me that will keep coming back to Blogger. After all, it is home. It is where I started. I actually quite miss how I used to blog. More importantly, I miss the people I met through blogging! Even though we're still connected through different social networking sites (i.e. Facebook, Twitter), it was different from when we used to read each others' regular blog posts and all. That's what I miss the most.

So what have I been up to? Well, I just finished my final exams today and since 10:00 AM this morning it was officially my semestral break which will be for two weeks. (Awesome!) Before that, I basically was just going through my day-to-day routine of going to school, going home, going on the internet, studying here and there, and sleeping. There was nothing really eventful that happened in the course of my not being around in the blogosphere. I live a rather mediocre life.

So, yes, sembreak! I am actually thrilled to start my vacation since I have already lined up my things to do:

• Read "The Time Traveler's Wife"
• Catch up with Gossip Girl, One Tree Hill, Smallville, and Glee episodes that I have missed
• Download and catch up with the new season of Heroes
• Fix my room
• Clean my closet
• Arrange my music library (in my laptop)
• Watch movies (17 Again, The Ugly Truth, Fame, etc.)
• and finally, something school-related LOL, practice Java

That's all the things I could come up with at the top of my head right now. Oh, and duh, design this blog, of course! That's one of the things I missed doing, too. :)

Here's to hoping I accomplish everything I plan to do during my two-week school break. That's a lot of time but I'm sure it'll fly by just as fast as a jet plane zooms. Have a good night everyone.

Oh, and next time I'm gonna have to tell you a story about my 'Ondoy' experience. Ciao!