Safe and Sound from "The Hunger Games" movie

There are very few books I read that my husband enjoys and very few that he reads that I enjoy. The Harry Potter series was one of them and perhaps a little bit of The Lord of the Rings.

The truth is that the only reading material we can bond over are my women's magazines--I usually end up asking him things stated in articles written for women about men and how true or not they are for him.

That was until we finally gave in, jumped on yet another bandwagon, and bought The Hunger Games.

Lost

Music Nostalgia

I know her experience wasn't like this--or was it, somewhat?--but for some reason I remembered Lismore Mama when I finally really listened to the words.

So...I guess this one's for you, Gerty. And maybe my own mum and someday, my own kids.

The kind of parent I want to be #1: The absolutes

I'm in the process of digesting this article/blog by Kara Gebhart Uhl called "Apologies To The Parents I Judged Four Years Ago." As I go along, I'm wondering if I will feel the same way some years down the road, my child's hand in mine.

Nearly everyone around me knows how much I dislike children. More to the point, dealing with children who ask too many questions, are too hyper, are too anything. Even my friends' kids took a while for me to get used to. Once, I was so happy to be sick and have an excuse to tell a friend's child to go away. The child is rather sickly and catches viruses easily so the distaste for having her watching over my shoulder as I worked was vaguely masked by concern. Obviously I didn't want her to get sick but more to the point, I didn't want her looking over my shoulder. Or be anywhere near me. Her mother knows this, of course, and we still have a good laugh over the whole episode.

Cruelty-free treat

This is a vanities post. Let's get that out of the way right now.

Normally I would post this in my vanities blog but I haven't managed to put tome in to set up my entries for there yet so this will have to go here for now. I'll try and make it make sense.

The brand on the left is a Korean one. They have all types of cosmetics, skin care and colours, the same way most brands do. But one thing made them stand out for me today and that's what today's entry is going to be about.

A birthday PAWrty

Except for our youngest cat, Mao Tien Lien, all our pets have officially been with us for a year now.

It may seem strange the celebrate the birthday of a pet but we do so in our house. There was even a time when we would make or sometimes buy pancit and give it to them for one of their meals. That is, until they got tired of their birthday pancit and eventually we learned the noodles weren't good for them after all. We've partially brought the tradition back though by replacing their rice with noodles for their birthday celebrations. Still the same no-salt diet but with a celebratory twist.

Re: Raising Awareness - Joseph Kony

I've spoken out against armchair activism before and this may be something of interest to those who feel that action should come first because movements done to promote/prevent things will surface no matter what.

I got this link, Visible Children, via Ms. Lea Salonga's Twitter account. Being quite outspoken over issues she believes in, I consider her to be a reliable source of information. Note that respect for her reliability has nothing to do with her being a celebrity. The reason I consider her to be a reliable source is that along with giving her honest opinion on matters, she shares links to websites that speak of the topic encouraging readers and followers to be better informed.

I'm still going over all the information on both sides--now that I've seen there's an alternate side to the matter, it's time for a little more research since Visible Children did not come up during my original search.

Raising Awareness - Joseph Kony

I tried to research this myself but can only come up with surface information at the moment. However, the more this is spread out there, I suppose the more information we'll get in return.

So here's a video from Invisible Children regarding Joseph Kony.

Truth really is stranger

I saw this on my Twitter feed this morning and it just made complete sense.

I believe I've mentioned before that I'm a Creative Writing major. If there's one thing that our professors ever so determinedly pounded into our heads it was for us to write so that everything would fit and flow logically.

A Reminder

Things have been tough lately. If I manage to keep this blog up for as long as I intend to, you'll notice that whenever times are tough, I retreat and start "spring cleaning."

This isn't a yearly clean-up event as much as a way for me to clear my head. Like some people who develop eating disorders to gain control over something in their life, I clean to gain control over the overflow of my thoughts and emotions.

Word of the day

Yesterday I declared my word for the day to be "awesome." So when I post my entry about my best friend's hen party, expect to see "awesome" inserted wherever possible. True, it can be annoying, but sometimes, we like using just one word to encapsulate feelings that we are otherwise hard-pressed to articulate.

I was going to say that today's word will be "fantastic" but doing it two days in a row is just a notch away from being a) shunned by the English academe and b) just plain obnoxious.

Conversations #2: Back-up, baby, back-up

I have items in my iPod that I copied or borrowed from other people so I'm very finicky about backing up the contents of my iPod to make sure that the items I copied from others will not be lost should anything happen to my iPod.

Note that my iPod is on its 6th year and it has been in use nearly 24/7 for the past 5 years. For the ones keener on details and times, yes, my iPod's age also reflects the length of time my husband and I have been in a relationship.