At The End, Finally

Last Saturday I got to catch the opening night of Sa Wakas, a new musical showing “the deconstruction of a relationship” featuring the songs of Sugarfree (musically arranged by my good friend Ejay Yatco).

Anything I say about this play might come out as cliched and somebody else might say it better than me but I’d like to talk about it anyway.

Sa Wakas features the love story of three people whose lives are shaped by a decision (or lack thereof). It’s a familiar tale and at parts, you can predict what’s going to happen but that doesn’t take away any of the creativity that brings this show to life.

I have always loved the concept of taking songs that people love and have related to and using them to create a story. In a way, you get to experience the songs in a brand new way and Sa Wakas does that for me. It makes Topper, Lexi and Gabbi more relatable to their audience.  Their story is genuine in its bittersweetness colored by the music got you through your first brush with love and maybe even a number of heartbreaks.

The play features a cast of three main characters and a small ensemble but they’re more than enough to punch you in the gut with their performance.

And that’s pretty much all the coherence I can manage over this amazing show. It’s been two days, and Sugarfree is still stuck in my head. No complaints there.

It runs a little long and maybe they put a little too much in the weighted silence, but you should definitely go see it.

“Sa Wakas” is showing at the PETA Theatre. For more details, click here.

How to be Alone

“I didn’t go because I had no one to go with.”

I think we’ve all been there. There’s a big party coming up or an opening or a gig or a concert and you really, really want to go. But when you ask your friends, they’re too busy, they don’t have money, or they’ll only go if more people do. None of you want to go alone but none of you can commit until somebody else does and suddenly you find yourself at home missing the big event.

A couple of months ago, I had enough social anxiety to fill up an Olympic size pool and the thought of going to a concert or the movies on my own was terrifying and just simply not going to happen. I allowed myself a little bitterness over being single since one of the biggest appeals I’ve seen in having a relationship is having a default person to spend time with even when no one else was available. While I can’t speak from experience, it’s what I’ve seen from my friends and I’ll admit to being a little jealous of it. So I used the excuse of not having anyone to go with to take a step back from socializing and just allowed myself to crawl into my cave and basically only come out when prodded by my friends.

What finally got me to stop the pity party was the news that Stars would be coming to Manila for a concert and this lovely article from Restless Cities: Reasons Why There’s No Shame In Going To Shows Alone. I have been a fan of the stars since my early high school years when I would painstakingly use my dial-up connection to download song after song on Limewire to soothe the aching of my 15-year-old heart. While most of those aches were imagined, Stars carried me through the trauma of last year and they will always have a special place in my heart.

So because of my love for Stars, I put on my big girl pants and watched a concert on my own for the first time.

Possibly the best decision I’ve made this year.

So This Is The New Year

I usually miss the window for when it’s acceptable to reminisce about the past year and make goals for the new year but as one of my goals for the year, I’m trying to be more consistent.

2012 brought along a jumble of unexpected things ranging from devastating to exhilarating. I graduated from college. I got my heart broken. I watched Death Cab for Cutie and Lady Gaga live. I got a job. I moved out of my house. I learned how to drive. I found a new fandom. I traveled out of the country for the first time.

A mad man in a box once said: “The way I see it, every life is a pile of good things and bad things. The good things don’t always soften the bad things, but vice-versa, the bad things don’t necessarily spoil the good things and make them unimportant.”

So this 2013, I’m set on making a bigger pile of good things starting with a few small goals:

1. Read more books. It’s no secret that I love books. But over the past years, I’ve been buying more books than actually reading them. Although I have been reading a high volume of fanfiction, I think I should be reading about the same amount of original fiction. So this year, I want to catch up on all my back-logged books. Last year’s total count was a sad total of 6 books. I’m not going to shoot for the stars. I’ll try to get through at least 15.

2. Write more. Once upon a time, I had dreams of being a published author. While this dream hasn’t entirely died down, I know that the actual writing I’ve done in no way backs that dream up. So here’s to writing more, both on this blog and in my imagined worlds. Setting myself up to write at least 6 short stories, which is the equivalent of the three stories I wrote that one semester I took up creative writing.

3. Start talking. I’m a bit of a wallflower in real life and a lurker online. I’ve missed many opportunities to meet more people because of this debilitating shyness. I know it’s a problem and it’s time I dealt with it.

4. Get out of the house. Working on a different timezone means that my days are free. I have the means to get around, it’s high time I used them.

This last thing isn’t so much a goal as it is a change in perspective because it’s a new year, maybe it’s also time for a new view:

5. Be kind. 2012 was the year I realized that I have a rather wide mean streak, even though I never really vocalize it. But meanness, even in silence, can be poison. So for 2013, I will try to be kind – to others, as well as to myself.

 

Give Me Everything Tonight

After 5 months of being part of the workforce, I finally got myself a proper internet connection and a new found loathing for Mondays. Working on a different time zone from my own means that I don’t have to get up early and can sleep in but I’ve still developed a certain clinginess to my weekends so it looks like it’s time for me to start blogging again.

For the first time in a long time I got to hang out with my high school friends. Employment has caused us to see each other less frequently, even more so for me since I live all the way up in the dreaded North.

Seeing them all again is the highest point of my December so far but with Christmas just around the corner, it’s about to reach second place.

Last Sunday, my mom and I dropped by the Karl Edward International Bazaar at the NBC tent to do some Christmas shopping. My objective of the day had been to find a gift for my parents but unsurprisingly, I ended up spending more for myself.

It was there that I discovered bakedbyanita cupcakes:

I’m conservative about my cupcake flavors so when I bought a box of six I ignored the green cupcakes and got the usual suspects.

I didn’t actually get to try out the red velvet or the ultimate chocolate cupcakes because my sister stole them from me. But it was pretty obvious to me that the Choco Chip would be my favorite since it’s a cupcake with a cookie texture. I am immediately sold to this idea and will definitely drop by their booth in Eastwood one weekend.

I’ve been meaning to get a new palette for myself as well. I initially wanted to get Urban Decay’s Naked palette but since it’s pretty expensive and I still have an okay nude selection from Sephora, I ended up buying theBalm’s Meet Matt(e).

I’m a bigger fan of matte finishes over the shimmery ones especially since I use most of my make up at work.

Also, I couldn’t resist the idea of having Matt Smith as a color on my face.

One other thing I recently bought was a Teen Wolf themed hoodie. In a post I made some time ago, I said that Teen Wolf was a show you shouldn’t take too seriously. Since I started watching it as a joke, I didn’t realize how much it would consume me until it was far too late.

Because I fail at measuring my own damn size, this jacket is many shades too big for me and has therefore been dubbed my travel jacket. It keeps most of me warm and it is awesome.

 

Sun, Sand, and Surf?

In my last visit to Boracay, my friends and I spent the days tanning ourselves in the day and getting our party on in the night. We didn’t really bother with the other beach activities so I was excited when my family and I flew back to Boracay over the long weekend.

My dad’s the type who likes things scheduled. whenever we go on any trips, he always wants an agenda for each day. It’s from my dad that I get my campy tourist side. But it’s also from his side of the family that I get all this wanderlust. I don’t believe that vacation destinations are overrated. I don’t want to get away from it all; What I want is to discover something new for myself.

We stayed over at my tito’s place, which is a budget hotel at Station 2. Staying at a hotel your relatives own takes me back to my internship and I often can’t help but wonder if that was why I ended up interning in Shangri-la in the first place. My favorite part about the hotel is a world map right at the front entrance. I wasn’t able to take a photo of it so I can only describe it to you. Whenever we have guests over at the hotel, we ask them to put a pin on the place they’re from. Most of the Philippines is already covered with pins but it’s delightful to know that we’ve had visitors from all over the world, including Yakutsk, one of the coldest places on earth.

Highlight of the trip was stand-up paddle boarding because apparently, I have awesome balance:

We were supposed to try paddling around the island but we didn’t have enough time so I’m saving that for when my cousins arrive. The last time my tito and my cousin tried it, it took them about 8 hours circle the whole place.

Crystal Cove reminds me of the fortress in Saito’s version of Limbo in Inception.

Being in Boracay allows me to indulge my desire to get inked. I change my mind on what to get often so getting a henna is the next best thing. This is my sister’s ode to Doctor Who.

My sister and I don’t believe in leaving our fandoms at home so we took these in honor of this video:

Perhaps the most memorable, if awkward, part of our trip was when my parents decided they would like to sample a little of Boracay’s night life. So after dinner, they (along with my tito) lulled me and my sister into a false sense of security by buying us gelato and then, thirty minutes later herded us into one of the beach front bars.

For a full hour, my family sat in silence while my tito and dad drank their beers and my mom sipped her glass of coke. I finished my drink early on in the hopes that it would make us leave sooner. All that accomplished was an uncomfortable buzz, the desire to dance and the crippling feeling of awkward hanging around my head.

Funny stories often come from the most embarrassing places. Now that I’m removed from the situation, it’s kind of hilarious that I was at a bar with my family. The weirdest part of all that was that there was another table with a barely legal teenager slouching sullenly in his seat. If it were a movie, that would have been the cue for a meet cute between him and my sister.

Too bad.

 

 

Isla Gecko
Station 2 Boracay Island
036 288 6797

Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again

Contains spoilers. Please be warned.

For those who are familiar with the creatures of fandom, they know that we’re pretty vulnerable when it comes to the things we love. So this weekend, my feelings were abused pretty heavily.  First, the Ponds officially bowed out of the Doctor Who franchise and broke hearts everywhere. Second, I went to watch “The Phantom of the Opera” and managed to fall in love with the Phantom. Again.

The Eleventh Doctor was my very first Doctor. He and Amy were my first experience with the franchise and it tears me apart to see the Ponds go. I don’t know much about Old Doctor Who but it looks like the trend of emotional abuse started with Ten and I guess when you’re the last of your kind and pick up companions to take to dangerous places, you’ve set yourself up for heartbreak.

My favorite thing about the Doctor and the Ponds dynamic is that Amy always chose Rory. She had a choice between the man who saved her and could offer her all of space and time and a man who waited 2000 years for her. Even in the end, she chose Rory and I love their devotion to each other. I’m not saying that their love is the kind of love I’d want for myself, but I do find it inspiring in its own way.

I’m allowing myself a few weeks of Post Pond Depression but I’m also excited for the coming of the new companion. It’s going to be another roller coaster of emotions and I will yet again be unprepared for it no matter how much I brace myself.

Another thing that shot me right in the feels area was watching “Phantom of the Opera.” I’m an appreciator of musicals, having spent a good chunk of my college allowance supporting my friends in their theatrical pursuits, but I didn’t feel any urgency over watching Phantom. In one of my many moments of insanity, I figured I could live without seeing any of its runs. So once again, I was gladly forced to eat my words.

The production was fantastic. While it would have been so much cooler if the chandelier’s free fall lasted a little longer, everything else seemed pretty flawless to me. I came out of CCP with a renewed love for the theater and in particular, for the Phantom of the Opera.

What I loved most about this production and Jonathan Roxmouth as the Phantom is that even though I realized that Christine was right to choose Raoul and that the Phantom is actually Nice Guy™ boosted with all the angst in the world, I was rooting for the Phantom.

Here you have a character who creeps on a young girl, watches her from behind a mirror and expects her to love him because he gave her music lessons and bullied everyone into making her a star. When he doesn’t get what he wants, he terrorizes everyone and at one point forces Christine to choose him in order to save Raoul. Life has treated him very unfairly but obviously that doesn’t excuse him from his actions. On the other hand, you have childhood friend Raoul, who only wants to protect Christine and make her happy. If this weren’t a musical, I’d pick Raoul without question.

But when you hear the Phantom reprise “All I Ask of You,” you forget what makes Raoul the better man and just fall completely in love with this angel of music. All I wanted to do was to wrap the Phantom in a blanket, cuddle him forever and ask him to serenade me forever.

If you haven’t yet, go and watch “The Phantom of the Opera.” It’s been extended until the 14th of October at the Main Theater of the Cultural Center of the Philippines. Tickets are available here. I promise you won’t regret it!

These images do not belong to me. Click through for the source. If you own these images and want them taken down, please let me know. 

Crack

One of the things I always looked forward to when I was growing up was getting a place of my own. I’ve been imagining the way my future house would look like since I first picked up an interior design magazine my mom left lying around in our old house. Sometimes I dream about a house in the suburbs. Other times I want an apartment with a view of the city skyline. Once in a while, I dream about living by the beach.

One thing constant about those dreams is that I am never alone.

When I was a freshman, I lived in boarding house where the landlady’s area of the house was separated from the boarders’ area. How I ended up deciding to stay in that hell of a place (there were giant rats, and giant snakes and cruelty all around) remains a mystery to me. I had a roommate who was never around but left me with the company of her books. And even though all I ever heard from the other side of the house was my landlady yelling profanities at the people around her, at least there were people.

Later on, I moved to an apartment with three other girls. Proximity doesn’t always mean that you become the best of friends and sometimes it even means creating more distance but at least there were people to come home to. I have never lived by myself until now and it’s the strangest feeling. There are the little things like how everything is always in the place that I left it in. While it’s infuriating when your stuff get moved around, it’s also disconcerting to come back home after hours away to find that nothing has moved in your absence.

In Macau, one of the places included in our tour was the Fisherman’s Wharf where majority of the establishments shut down because they weren’t making any money. I looked through the window of one of the restaurants and found that everything was still set up. Plates and cutlery put on tables and there were a few bottles left behind at the bar. If the windows hadn’t been covered with paper, you’d think that they were just closed for the afternoon. Everything has just been suspended in time.

Right now, it feels like my whole life is on pause. It’s a little silly to be so homesick in the grand scheme of things, especially when I’m still in the country. But now more than ever, I appreciate my weekends. That’s when the world starts spinning on its axis again. Not because I get to rest but because that’s where my family is. Though it may be trite, it’s true. Home is where the heart is.

And I am not home.