Angelus Errare :: MadeMoiseLLe ::

JUIN 25, 2006

Wow. This blog is dead. I really wanted to maintain it, but LJ is so much easier to update than Pitas; here, I have to use Dreamweaver, which is much more complicated than it has any right to be :P The only reason I'm updating now is because I'm really, really, EXTREMELY bored. But who knows? Maybe I'll eventually be so bored that I'd find the motivation to update. Stranger things have happened. Don't hold your breath, though.

My LJ is also sporadically updated, but I wouldn't think of declaring it dead. I need my rant space :P

Anyway, until the next time (I'm bored out of my mind), toodles :P

ÉCRIT À 17:56

FÉVRIER 17, 2006

I wasn't really expecting much on my birthday, what with a mountain of schoolwork and.. other things weighing on my mind. But actually it turned out to be a very memorable day, thanks mostly to my wonderful (naks) friends here in NUS :)

Before anything else, acknowledgements muna (yuck STR memories). First of all, thank you very much to Mike, Michael, and Jeunesse for the pretty purple rose they got me for Valentine's Day and for my birthday. It may not seem like much, but it really helped lift my spirits that day. Also, a very big thank you to Gelo for the yummy blueberry cheesecake that is now resting contentedly in the freezer :) It even has a strawberry on top! :D I hope I can finish it before it expires or something.

I took pictures of the rose and the cake :D They're in my LJ.

It's too bad I wasn't able to get a decent picture of myself. For some reason, a lot of people kept commenting on my outfit that day (I was wearing a sleeveless white Chinese-style top and a long violet "peasant" skirt); when I went to choir practice, all the girls were going "Wow! So pretty wat! What's the occasion? Are you going out?" etc etc etc. I think I should wear those clothes more often. Haha.

*yawn* I think I'll sleep early tonight (now where have I heard that before..). I stayed up until 3 am to study for my European history test today because that class makes me so insecure :P And the test was at 10 am so my morning wasn't so good. At least it was easy (which actually makes my efforts somewhat useless but what the heck).

ÉCRIT À 17:56

FÉVRIER 14, 2006

(Valentines' Day. Ick :P)

Even after not blogging for more than a month (or maybe because of that), I still don't feel like it. I don't really know why. It's not because nothing's happening; there have been a few notable incidents here and there, like the International Fiesta and the International Students' Night in which some of us Filipinos participated and performed. But even though there are moments where I consider jotting everything down on my blog, I very quickly lose interest and/or forget. Oh well. I doubt any of you consider that a terribly significant loss (and no, hindi ako nagfifish :P).

How time flies. Where did January go? Valentines' Day na agad. For the past few days, we've been inundated with booths and bazaars selling everything from teddy bears to roses to chocolate-covered strawberries (yummy :D). And in only two more days, I'm going to age yet another year. I'll bet you can just feel my excitement and anticipation :P

Sana talaga di na ko tumanda.. Para simple nalang lahat :P

ÉCRIT À 01:20

DECEMBRE 29, 2005

My first update in weeks is going to be a sad one.

My father is sick (but still had enough energy to do an operation AND bite my head off for going out too often). I brought him dinner in bed but that didn't seem to faze him. He didn't even eat the cinnamon roll I bought for him :P

My cat, Mocha, died yesterday and I didn't even know. The maids apparently forgot to tell me that my most beloved cat kicked the bucket while I was off having fun at Emzo's house. And then they suddenly bring it up by saying, "Oo nga pala, nilibing na namin si Mocha." Depressing.

The only good thing about this day is that I got new clothes. Needless to say, I'd gladly do without them if I could just delete this whole day from history and memory.

ÉCRIT À 21:29

DECEMBRE 13, 2005

I'm finally back from Malaysia. Shah Alam wasn't exactly what I expected. It turned out to be a rather provincial city, instead of the urban metropolis I had in mind. But the hotel was nice, and that was my only real concern.

As for the competition, it was a lot of fun. There were a lot of tense moments, especially while waiting for the results to be announced, but overall it was a wonderful experience. We got to see and listen to choirs from all over the world: Singapore, Malaysia, the Philippines, and the faraway land of Estonia. The Estonians were particularly talented, and it didn't come as much of a surprise when they became the champions of the two categories they participated in (Folklore and Junior Youth). Unfortunately, we happened to be their competitors in the Folklore Category, so obviously we didn't win. We still got a gold though. Apparently, choir competitions are judged according to absolute standards; if the choirs are good enough, all of them can get gold medals but if none of them are up to par, the judges have the right not to award a gold. The scores we got in both Folklore and Open Mixed were equivalent to gold medals :D We weren't the category winners, but a gold medal is still nothing to scoff at, especially considering that most of us have never competed before and some don't even have choir backgrounds. We also won the prize for Best Interpretation of the Set Piece. The Open Mixed Advanced Category had a compulsory piece (Sweet Honey-Sucking Bees) chosen by the organizers and each choir had to perform it in their own ways. For some mysterious reason, the judges liked ours the best. I personally find it amusing because we were having such a hard time with that piece; our conductor kept saying that we were too fierce and sounded too old for the song. Apparently we were worried over nothing.

Interestingly enough, there was a Filipino choir in the competition. They were also in the Open Mixed Category. We got to meet them and take loads of pictures in typical Filipino fashion :D We got to hear them sing during the Friendship Concert held the night after the actual competition. They were really talented and we were all expecting them to do well. It was a big surprise when they only got a silver. Even the Singaporeans in our choir were shocked. But we didn't get to hear them sing during the actual contest so we don't know how justified the judges' decision was.

Generally, this whole experience was definitely worth it. We all had so much fun, especially on our last night in Shah Alam. However, there were still a few incidents that threatened to ruin everyone's mood every now and then. Fortunately, we managed to get over it and move on. But there was this one incident on the morning of our departure that was kind of traumatic. It's not really something I want to remember right now. Suffice to say that I will never ride a taxi alone if I can help it. Unfortunately, I don't have a choice tomorrow, unless I take the MRT all the way to the airport (which I can't do because I'm too weak to carry my luggage :P). Let's just hope what happened last Friday was an isolated event.

Whee I'm going home! :D

ÉCRIT À 18:18

DECEMBRE 8, 2005

Wow. Time really does fly when you're having fun (or when you're too busy and tired to notice). The choir is leaving for Malaysia tomorrow morning, so I won't be around for a few days. We'll be coming back on December 13, and then I'll be back in the Philippines by December 14. Finally :)

I still have a lot to do before I leave so I won't be able to write much. Suffice to say that I'm more than a bit nervous about the upcoming competition, mostly because the NUS Choir seems to be accustomed to nothing less than a gold medal. Pressure >_< And it doesn't help that I am prone to varying degrees of stage fright. Let's just hope I don't pass out on stage or something.

I'd better start doing my laundry. Wish us luck! See you guys in a week! :D

EDIT: In case any of you want to listen to the songs we're going to perform, here are the links. These were recorded during one of our earlier rehearsals, so they may not be performance-level yet.

Open Mix Category

Sweet Honey-Sucking Bees - 1:59

With a Lily in Your Hand - 2:34

Dokin Dokin - 3:09

Folklore Category

Wayang Kulit Medley - 3:13

Dong Dong Kui - 2:05

ÉCRIT À 15:27

DECEMBRE 2, 2005

I know I haven't updated in ages, but I won't write much today. I'm not really feeling well. I feel like I'm coming down with a fever, which would really suck because I have choir practices everyday. We had practice all day today actually, which is probably why I feel so tired and generally icky. And we have practice tomorrow too, all the way until Wednesday. This obviously does not bode well for my health. Oh, and I suppose I should stop staying up until 2 in the morning too.

Blah. Matutulog na nga ako. I think too much when I'm awake. It just gives me a headache.

Gusto ko na umuwi..

ÉCRIT À 22:24

NOVEMBRE 21, 2005

New layout again, despite the fact that I have better things to do (like STUDY).

Uuwi na ko in 23 days!!! :D

Well that's still more than 3 weeks away.. But that's less than a month anyway :D I take what meager happiness I can get :P

I'd gush about the Star Wars novel I just finished reading, but it's not very appealing to write an entry that no one will understand or even care about :P

I think I should feel guilty that I did absolutely nothing productive today. Well, unless you count my exam this morning, or if you consider playing KoL and reading Star Wars novels productive. But I'm ok with it. I needed a break anyway. Let's just hope this doesn't become a habit.

And to complete this perfectly sedentary day, I'm going to eat instant noodles and instant soup for dinner. MSG may give me cancer someday, but at least it makes food taste good :P

I wonder if prolonged inactivity causes some degree of brain damage..

I almost forgot (again).. Happy birthday Jason! :)

ÉCRIT À 21:20

NOVEMBRE 11, 2005

WARNING: Nerdiness. Blame it on my being a Life Science major if you want :P

Early this morning (around 12 mn to 1 am), Cassy and I had a lengthy, complicated YM debate. The topic: is water wet or not? (don't ask how we thought to argue about this; you don't want to know) Cassy started things off by stating that an object is wet when you put water on it; thus, for water to be wet, you have to put water on water, which makes no sense. So wet objects are wet because they have water, but water in itself is not wet; it is simply a wetting agent. I countered with a (nerdy) analogy on oxidizing agents. An oxidizing agent is called such because it is oxidizing/it causes substances to become oxidized. If it didn't have the property of being an oxidizing substance, it wouldn't be called an oxidizing agent. Thus, if water is a wetting agent, it has to have the property of being wet in order to make other things wet. But I had no proof that what is applicable for oxidizing agents also applies to water. So I used the best research tool in the world: Google. I found a website that says "it is the nature of water to be wet, just as it is the nature of rocks to be hard and of grass to be green." Basically, if water isn't wet, it isn't water. Not a very scientific argument, but I doubt scientists ever wasted their time debating on the wetness of water. Eventually, Cassy and I realized that we had different definitions of "wetness"; I considered wetness to be "the intrinsic property of fluids that enables them to cling to and interact with other surfaces without drastic changes in their molecular structure" while Cassy defined wetness as "the characteristic of objects that have been exposed to water/fluids", which she considers as the layman's definition. Okay, so if you define wetness in that way, there's still no reason for water not to be wet. Let's say you have an object, like a shirt, which is initially dry. When you add water, the shirt becomes wet. But if the shirt wasn't wet before and you claim that water isn't wet, how did the shirt become wet? Where did the wetness come from, if not from water? And eventually, after almost an hour of debate, we came to the conclusion that water is wet.

Cassy also used Google to look for some facts on water, and she found a site that basically says wetness is synonymous with "clinginess", which is a property caused by the presence of ions that interact readily with the environment. Since this person claims that water is made up only of neutral H2O molecules, it does not meet this requirement and is thus not wet because H2O molecules would prefer to interact with themselves rather than with their surroundings. First of all, water is NOT made up of entirely of H2O molecules; the dissociation of water into H+ and OH- is a spontaneous reaction, although it occurs at a low rate (0.0000001 moles per second, I think). So if the presence of ions is the only requirement for wetness, then water is wet. Secondly, even if water only had molecular H2O, it would still interact very readily with its environment. Water can interact with anything that can form hydrogen bonds; that's why water is the universal solvent. So I really don't understand what the writer of this article is trying to get at.

Even after Cassy and I finally decided to end the debate (we both had an 8 am class the following morning.. hehe oh well..), I was still thinking about the topic. I was wondering why some people don't think water is wet. Then I thought of an analogous example: salt (specifically, table salt). Can anyone say that salt isn't salty? I'll assume that no one has any doubts on the saltiness of salt. We say that something is salty when it contains salt, right? But this does not, in any way, detract from the saltiness of salt. So why does the definition that "something is wet when it contains water" cast doubt on the wetness of water? Maybe I just have some logic flaws or something, but I can't think of a reason why people would think that water isn't wet.

Anyway. Enough nerdiness. Today was the last day of classes before the exams. We don't have classes until Thursday next week, and the first exams will start on Friday. And then we'll finally be able to go home! :D If we survive the exams. *sigh* Oh well, there's no sense in worrying. In the words of the oh! so wise Cassandra: Bahala na.

I think I'm starting to get addicted to KoL. Does anyone know a good place to get Muscle points? My HP is pathetically low, so I'm not progressing as much as I should. Any help would be greatly appreciated :D

ÉCRIT À 18:23