On “Milenyo”, more work and paydays

This is how I am so un-updated with the things happening outside the office. Typhoon “Milenyo” (International name: Xangsane) hit the country, and I only actually knew all about it around 5:40 am yesterday morning, after I have finished getting ready to go to work. If my brother didn’t tell me that there might be no work yesterday, I wouldn’t have known until the winds knocked me over.

But there was still work for us yesterday, albeit half day. We got the go signal to go home after lunch, but since it was still quite stormy, we stayed there for a while. Robinson’s Galleria was damaged big time, so we couldn’t exactly go malling while I wait for my brother. Anne and I ended up talking as we looked for places to hang out. We got to go home around 4:00pm and thankfully, there wasn’t any traffic. It was flooded at our village’s entrance and we dropped Anne off at their street corner because we couldn’t try to get in her street anymore. It was probably the deepest flood I’ve ever seen in our village, and it was…well, scary to see so much unwanted water in one place. I haven’t seen something like that since first year college!

You know what? I should have taken pictures. Darn.

And as always, electricity was out yesterday so I hit the bed at around 6:00pm. I woke up at 6:00 am with a slight headache from all the sleeping. The sun was shining down the window, and I knew it was back to work again.

(More…)

Thursday Thirteen # 7: Created by Me

I’m going down “creative memory lane” for this week’s Thursday Thirteen. I posted my writing history a few months back, and if you want to read it, you may do so here. :P I don’t want to call myself a frustrated writer because I’m not frustrated about it…and sometimes I do consider what I write pretty good. :P Sometimes. A few years after I write it and then I read it again, I ask myself “Why the heck did I write this anyway?!”

Anyway, in connection with that, the National Novel Writing Month 2006 is about to open (this Sunday, in fact) and because it’s probably one of the only writing activities I have (besides this and Creative Carnival and random journaling), I naturally can’t wait. :P So in honor of that and my dream of being a writer, this week’s TT will be…

Thirteen Stories I’ve Written (So Far) in My Life

1. The Two Slumber Parties. This is the first short story I’ve written that I still have a copy of. I based this on the petty fights my childhood friends used to have. Back then we’d they’d fight over who should take turns first during our game of ten-twenty¹. I made a story about that, originally with Sailormoon characters! :P It’s about two friends fighting over something and the main character gets caught in the middle. Then one of them has a slumber party and when the other girl heard about it, she also had a slumber party on the same night. The main character cracked in the end and the two girls became friends because they realized how silly they were acting.
2. Sailormoon fanfiction. And this is no ordinary Sailormoon fanfiction, but a script-like story. Not only that, it’s in Tagalog too. :P I used to have a notebook of that, and I used to make up stories on how they get their new powers. My favorite one was with Sailorvenus (where she couldn’t get in any of their battles because everyone else was firing their powers before she could) and Sailormars (where she grew ugly because of her being mean to Sailormoon). I think a friend of mine made comics with that because I lost my notebook already.
3. Carmella, Sarah, Jericho, Patrick and friends. This is one of my first “teen” stories I wrote. I started using these characters during one of my Gimik (old local TV show) fanaticism days. :P I remember my favorite character was Sarah…and I described her as: “wavy golden tan hair, sapphire-emerald eyes and a light spray of freckles on her nose”. Hahaha! Then I started writing a series on them, where they have a high-tech clubhouse (complete with video surveillances from all their houses), and Sarah being the matchmaker. She and Jericho ended up together (with a really cheesy story on how they got together) and Carmella and Patrick. Then there’s also this story of one of their friends dying of brain cancer, catching a thief, Sarah and Jericho breaking up and the vampire story, where Sarah was bitten by a vampire and was accidentally killed by Jericho. Hahaha. Oh, and they were all from Ireland, and they’re all multilingual. :p I loved looking through the World Atlas then. :P
4. Danielle Littrell and friends / Kelkrisjeanexdane. This is a more serious story but started out silly. I started writing this with my fanaticism with the Backstreet Boys. As you can see, Danielle’s surname is same as Brian, and the boys always go to their house for past time and her friends are all friends with the boys too. I filled a whole notebook with these stories, until I sort of changed their story and made the BSB members appear less. That’s where Kelkrisjeanexdane enters…that’s the combination of all my characters’ names: Kelly, Kristen, Jessica, Angelica, Alex, Danielle, Emily. Danielle is the rich, cool but nice girl who is generally popular but doesn’t really think of it, Emily is her shy volleyball playing best friend, Jessica is the smart and quiet girl, Alex is the short and boyish girl who lived with her aunt because her parents disowned her, Angelica is an old exchange student from California who used to live with Danielle and then moved to Florida who is quite bossy, Kristen is the girl from Illinois whose identical twin passed away from an accident back home and Kelly is the sweet half-Irish girl who is younger than all of them. The stories I wrote here are pretty good, even if some of them are quite shallow. :P One of them became most read during high school, which was this sweet little romantic thing between Angelica and her neighbor Blake. This was even made into a mini movie by my friend for class. :P Oh yeah, I even have some drawings made by my friend for these characters too.
5. Animorphs Fanfiction. When I took a break from writing Danielle and friends, I started writing some Animorphs fanfiction. My best friend and I invented characters on our own, where the names are twisted versions of ours (Tina = Teenuh, Anthony = Anthoeney, Pauleen = Paulhine or something like that). Our reason for twisting our names is that no one will find us. My friend would draw the “cover art” while I wrote the stories. Lasted two stories until I wrote another one with real names. I wrote another one but didn’t actually finish it. As with every Animorph fanfiction writer there, most of my stories are about new Animorphs. One version I wrote was the younger generation (where Rachel and Tobias got together and got children, so and so), while the others became Animorphs because of some short span of time.
6. Mind Readers. I played with this idea back in Grade 6. I was supposed to write something about kids who are really part of an alien race and were sent to Earth, who could morph into different mythological creatures. I never got to finish that (though that’s a good idea for a story!), and then changed the story into five kids who were in their science lab doing a Chem experiment when one of them goofed and sent an explosion in the lab that made all of them able to read minds and levitate objects (ala Alex Mack). Lasted two stories and that was it. The thing is, I merged their world with #5’s world, so Danielle and the others know the characters in this “series”. Characters are Nick and Dawn Robynns (fraternal twins), Melissa Robinson (Scottish green belt in karate), Chris and Brian something. :P
7. Group of 7: Freshmen, Sophomore, Junior, Senior. This is where I got one of my various “nicknames”, Writer Dawn. This is based on my first year high school friends…let’s see if I remember all names…there’s Dawn Crawford (that’s me), Emcee Fitzgerald, Natalie and Natasha Thompson, Katie Richardson…and I can’t remember the others. Haha. :P I am supposed to write one story each year level of high school…I only got to finish the Freshmen. :P I still have some of the notebooks, and my favorite part of the story was when Dawn and her first boyfriend broke up. Hahaha. Cheesiness galore! This is where I got Sunset Hills, New Jersey. :P
8. Kylie McMahon and Friends. This one is born out of my summer boredom before second year high school. I made an entirely new batch of characters and named two of the main characters after Extreme Ghostbusters’ Kylie and Eduardo. Friends are Kylie, Shannon, Veronica, KC, Hannah…and I forgot who the last one is. Haha. Man. It’s mostly about Kylie’s love story with Eduardo. Hahaha. They study in Sunset Hills Junior High, the junior version of #8. :P I finished only half of the story, plus wrote the final part of it, but I didn’t get to fill it in between. ^^;
9. The Chosen Ones. My first written “fantasy” series. I got this idea from a friend who pager² pranked me with messages such as “I am Mr. Tyler…you have been chosen to fight the ultimate battle”. I didn’t get freaked out, instead, I used it to write a story. :D It’s based on about five or so series: Animorphs, Replica (by Marilyn Kaye), Sailormoon, Sailormoon Millennia, and Charmed. It’s about this faraway place called Celestia Andromeda, who is Earth’s protector. The prophecy is that seven warriors will rise from Celestia Andromeda, who will protect the Earth from doom that will also come from Celestia Andromeda. But instead of seven, eight warriors rose: Antares alpha-Scorpii, leader and warrior of fire and water; Rigella beta-Orionis, oracle and warrior of water and air; Arcturus alpha-Boötis, comedian and warrior of earth and water; Vega alpha-Lyrae, orphan, intelligent and warrior of earth and fire; Algol beta-Persei, illusion maker and warrior of air and fire; Polaris alpha-Ursae, optimist and warrior of water; Spica alpha-Virginis, brave one and warrior of air, and Princess Mira, the queen’s second daughter.. But only seven were called at first, so the seven were the ones who got trained at Corona Borealis by Caelum Cygnus who is the high teacher in Celestia Andromeda. A few years later, Princess Astrella had to fulfill another prophecy by becoming one with the Astrological Circle, where the different powerful gems are contained before she rose to the throne. However, Vela, Queen Lyra’s jealous older sister wanted the throne so to stop Astrella from ascending it, she plans to get the gems and use it for her power. She wrecked havoc during Mira’s coming of age, and the warriors showed up and Mira, though untrained, fought with them. Cygnus told them to leave for Earth, so the eight of them teleported, but not without being hit by a powerful ray from Vela. They all “died” except for one of them, but their spirits went to Earth, and occupied seven teens who all happened to land at Rugged Edge High in Delaware: Gerich Franks from Germany (Antares), Hikaru Meiko from Japan (Rigella), Michael Ignacio from the Philippines (Arcuturus), Laika Alejandri from Russia (Vega), Frederico Gonzales from Spain (Algol), Amber Forrest from Delaware (Polaris) and Scott Tristram from Australia (Mira…and yes, she became a boy :P). Spica ended up being brainwashed by Vela. The gems from the Astrological circle were scattered and the warriors, now in their human bodies, have to gather them all before Vela does. They trained again under Mr. Tyler’s (Cygnus) wing, in Corona Australis. :P Long explanation. I never got to continue this because I felt it lacked originality, but I’m willing to tweak this out. :P
10. The Writer’s Club. This was written because I wanted to write something that has writers in it. Haha. This is where the group forms a club and they start writing because their school newspaper was just bad. I finished one story, but never got to write the next. :P
11. Super Friend. One of my favorite stories, which, apparently is also a hit. :P Haha. Well, I know some people who liked this, so that should be enough. Haha. This is somewhat of a remake of my other story After All This Time. :PI It’s about unresolved issues between two “friends” and the girl who liked the guy started giving more but got hurt when the guy didn’t give anything back. You can read it!
12. Shooting Star/Shooting Stars. This is my second-person story, one of my most dramatic ones. This story is SO significant, I made three versions of it: one posted here, one with flashbacks (available only if you request it from me :P) and one novelization, which is my NaNo Novel for 2004. It’s about closure between two people and what-might-have-been’s.
13. A Page is Turned. My NanoWriMo Novel for 2005. It’s a he-says-she-says story about two best friends from childhood, Rebekah and Isaac. It’s pretty much a growing up and friendship story: Rebekah and Isaac’s family are really close, so it was just natural that they become best friends. They were teased that they’d end up together and then they actually did, but broke up eventually. Then comes other “adventures” as they are in high school and the fear of growing apart as the two of them enter college. :) I like this one a lot, though it gets kind of repetitive since I told the story from both of their point of views. Still in editing phase. :D

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1. Ten-Twenty - this is an old garter game we used to play. Two people act as “posts” who have a long tied garter around their legs. The other team does a series of jumps in on the garter and once they finish a level, it goes up another one, until it becomes more complicated. For example, the first level is the garter is by the ankles, then by the knees, then by the hips until it goes up to the next. The next big level is where the posts stand with their feet closed and the person has to do the same jumps with that. [«]
2. Pager - as in an actual pager/beeper. Hand me down from my brother, before cellphones came into the scene. :P [«]

Resilience.

Resilience. That sounds nice, isn’t it? I think I have a particularly resilient personality. Or persona. Or soul. Whichever applies. Yes, I was kind of sad when I posted the previous post, but a few minutes after I posted that, I got to talk to some of my friends and then I’m all better. :) I snap back pretty quickly in moments like that, if I do say so myself.

I’d say more, but I am at a loss for words. Weird, ano? It’s only Tuesday, but I’m wishing it’s Friday already, but at the same time I don’t want this week to end yet. More weirdness. :P

I better go now. :)

Toned down and cracked

I try to believe…that God doesn’t give your more than one little piece of the story at once. You know, the story of your life. Otherwise your heart would crack wider than you could handle. He only cracks it enough so you can still walk, like someone wearing a cast. But you’ve still got a crack running up your side, big enough for a sapling to grow out of. Only no one sees it. Nobody sees it. Everybody thinks you’re one whole piece, and so they treat you maybe not so gentle as they would if they could see that crack.
- Vivi Walker (Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells)

Help Pyro Meet Batista!

Pyro is a cute three year old boy who, just like any other boy, likes mocha cake, Spongebob Squarepants and wrestling. However, Pyro is different because of one thing: He is fighting the Big C. Pyro is suffering from lung cancer, and has gone through 8 chemo treatments, 2 major chest surgeries and 30 radiation treatments.

I don’t know Pyro or any of his relatives, but I got to his Aunt’s blog for him and I want to do my share to help. It’s sad to see someone so young suffering from a really bad disease like that, and as much as we want to just take away the disease from him, we can’t…but we can try to make him smile.

So together with the prayers that I am asking you guys who visit my site to give to Pyro in behalf of his family, I’d also like to ask for some help. See, Pyro is a big fan of Batista, the Filipino-Greek WWE Superstar. And it’s just proper timing that Smackdown is going to be held here in the Philippines this October. And if you connect all of that, you’d know that Pyro would love to meet Batista.

If you know how to contact any of Batista’s management or whoever it is that can be contacted so that he would get to meet his idol, please don’t hesitate to contact his Aunt through here and here. Let’s help put a smile on this little boy’s face. :)

[Source: Yugatech.com and Wifely Steps]