Here are the tapes and VCDs I'm trading for bookmooch points. Again, you should sign up for a bookmooch account to be able to make a "transaction".

PLEASE READ MY CONDITIONS: 

• I'll be shipping locally for the time being (at least until finances permit me to ship to other countries.) Will keep you guys posted on this.
• 1 cassette or movie = 1 bookmooch point 
• VCDs and cassettes are original, condition ranges from good to excellent (no scratches, pristine case, covered in plastic)
• For details, you can PM me.
  

CASSETTES:

• Les Miserables 10th Anniversary Concert (2 tapes)
• Reality Check - Reality Check 
• Jars of Clay - Jars of Clay
• Now That's What I Call Music 5
• Tracy Chapman - New Beginning
• The Corrs - Talk on Corners

VCDS: 

• Looney Toons - Stranger than Fiction (1 cd)
  
• Joe's Apartment (2 cds)
• South Park The Movie (Bigger, Longer & Uncut) (2 cds)
• Videoke CD - Josh Groban/Michael Buble (1 cd)
• Police Academy (2 cds)
• Piranha II (2 cds)
• XXX (2 cds)
• Trois: The Escort (2 cds) 
• The Mummy Lives (2 cds) 

MISC: 

CD-ROM - Titanic: Adventure Out of Time (for windows & macintosh)

In the effort to reduce the clutter that has accumulated in my room over the years, I'm giving away some of my worldly possessions: BOOKS, TAPES and VCDS, in exchange for bookmooch points. I can ship the stuff to you locally (via LBC or JRS), or, if you're in the neighborhood, I can meet up with you and give them to you personally.

Note: You have to sign up for bookmooch to make a "transaction". Hey, it's free anyway.
Check out my inventory!

Here are the books I'm giving away:

• Philip Ardagh    A House Called Awful End (Eddie Dickens Trilogy)
  
• Richard Bach    Illusions       
  
• Richard Bach    Jonathan Livingston Seagull       
  
• Johnny Ball    Second Thinks (Puffin Books)       
  
• Dave Barry    Dave Barry's Stay Fit and Healthy Until You're Dead       
  
• Himstreet and Baty    A Guide to Business Communication       
  
• Arnold Bennett    The Old Wives' Tale (Wordsworth Classics)       
  
• John Berendt    Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil       
  
• Jack M. Bickham    Writing the Short Story       
  
• Richard Nelson Bolles    What Color Is Your Parachute?       
  
• Gyles Brandreth    If I Ruled the World       
  
• Lillian Jackson Braun    The Cat Who Said Cheese       
  
• Lillian jackson Braun    The Cat Who Sniffed Glue       
  
• Lillian Jackson Braun    The Cat Who Went Underground       
  
• David Brin    The Postman (Bantam Classics)       
  
• Pearl S. Buck    Letter from Peking       
  
• Susan Buntrock    Finger Skate Board Tricks And Tips       
  
• John Burningham    Come Away from the Water, Shirley       
  
• Lorenzo Carcaterra    A Safe Place : The True Story of a Father,a Son,a Murder       
  
• Lorenzo Carcaterra    Sleepers       
  
• Castaneda. Carlos    A SEPARATE REALITY: Further Conversations with Don Juan   
  
• Richard Carlson    Don't Sweat the Small Stuff--and it's all small stuff (Don't Sweat the Small Stuff Series)       
  
• Frank Ching    Architectural graphics       
  
• James Clavell    Gai-jin: a Novel of Japan       
  
• James Clavell    Tai-Pan       
  
• Beverly Cleary    Girl from Yamhill, The       
  
• Eoin Colfer    The Wish List       
  
• Linga Corrente    Nathaniel Hawthorne's the House of the Seven Gables (Barron's Book Notes)       
  
• Bill Cosby    Fatherhood       
  
• Bill Cosby    Love and Marriage       
  
• Michael Crichton    Congo       
  
• Michael Crichton    Eaters of the Dead       
  
• Michael Crichton    Rising Sun: A Novel       
  
• Michael Crichton    Sphere       
  
• Michael Crichton    The Lost World       
  
• Michael Crichton    The Terminal Man       
  
• Michael Crichton    Travels       
  
• Paul Davies    Jamie Drums Massive Recovery       
  
• Joseph Deken    Silico Sapiens       
  
• Charles Dickens    Hard Times       
  
• E.L. Doctorow    The Waterworks: a Novel       
  
• Elisabeth Elliot    No Graven Image       
  
• Laura Geringer    Yours 'Til the Ice Cracks: A Book of Valentines       
  
• Charles Grant    The X-Files; Goblins, Whirlwind       
  
• Alex Haley    Roots: The Saga of an American Family       
  
• Jane Hamilton    The Book of Ruth       
  
• Holly Hartman    Time for Kids Almanac 2002 with Information Please       
  
• Ernest Hemingway    The Old Man and the Sea (A Scribner Classic)       
  
• David Ignatius    The Bank of Fear       
  
• John Irving    The World According to Garp       
  
• James Jaworski    Mastering JavaScript and JScript       
  
• Les Karamazov    Sheepless Nights       
  
• Pamela Kaufman    Shield of the Three Lions       
  
• Stephen King    Carrie       
  
• Stephen King    Thinner       
  
• Bruce Lansky    The Very Best Baby Name Book in the Whole Wide World       
  
• D. H. Lawrence    D. H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers (Barron's Book Notes)       
  
• C.S. Lewis    The Horse and His Boy       
  
• C. S. Lewis    The Horse and His Boy       
  
• Mark Leyner    The Tetherballs of Bougainville: A Novel (Vintage Contemporaries)       
  
• William K. Lockard    Drawing As a Means to Architecture       
  
• James Luceno    The Big Empty       
  
• Paul McFedries    The Complete Idiot's Guide to Creating and HTML Web Page       
  
• Robyn Miller    Robyn's Book: A True Story       
  
• John Naisbitt    High Tech, High Touch       
  
• John Naisbitt    Megatrends 2000       
  
• John Naisbitt    Megatrends       
  
• Nicholas Negroponte    Being Digital       
  
• Kiki Olson    How to Get A Date With A Vampire       
  
• Michael Palmer    Miracle Cure       
  
• Charles Edward Pogue    Dragonheart       
  
• Anna Quindlen    Black and Blue: A Novel (Oprah's Book Club)       
  
• Anne Rice    Interview with the Vampire       
  
• Anne Rice    The Mummy or Ramses the Damned       
  
• Anne Rice    The Queen of the Damned (Book III of the Vampire Chronicles)       
  
• Anne Rice    The Witching Hour (Lives of the Mayfair Witches)       
  
• Jose Rizal    Rizal's Prose       
  
• Carl Sagan    Cosmos       
  
• Stephen B. Seager    Psychward       
  
• William Shakespeare    Romeo and Juliet (Barron's Book Notes)       
  
• Alvin Toffler    FUTURE SHOCK       
  
• Alvin Toffler    The Eco-Spasm Report       
  
• Alvin Toffler    Third Wave       
  
• vondra    no-name bird       
  
• Robert James Waller    The Bridges of Madison County       
  
• Oscar Wilde    The Importance of Being Earnest       
  
• Oscar Wilde    The Picture of Dorian Gray (Wordsworth Classics)       
  
• Paul Zindel    Pardon ME, Your'e Stepping on My Eyeball!       
  
• Paul Zindel    The Undertaker's Gone Bananas      
  

If I had known about all of this two years ago, researching for my thesis would have been less painful. Here are some sites for people like me, whose social lives are virtually nil thanks to that wonderful, horrible thing we call the thesis:

• Philippine E-Library: Yes, ladies and gentlemen, they have an online, searchable catalogue of several libraries in the country. Just type in your keywords, and they'll tell you what books are available, and where you can find them. You can even build a book list that they'll email to you. Lalalalalalaaaa. Anyway, here's the site: www.elib.gov.ph
  

• Google Scholar: Are you sick and tired of getting personal blogs and porn sites everytime you try to find references? Do you get sites on plastic surgery, breast augmentation, and nekkid women when all you really want is to find out the "different uses for coconuts"??? Try Google Scholar: http://scholar.google.com. Never have to bleach your eyes again. Ever.
  

This has been a year of learning to deal with difficult things. My long-overdue thesis. My father's stroke. My grandfather's cancer. My grandmother's foot injury. The whole family's been under a lot of strain.

With so many things happening at the same time, it's hard to just sit down and make sense of everything. And I have a feeling it'll take a couple more months before I can do that completely. In the meantime, here are fragments of what I've learned so far:

From the Thesis:

1. Sometimes you just have to keep doing something even though you can't see the point. Because if you're paying attention, you'll see the point eventually.

2. Learning starts when you've reached the point where you feel like you don't know anything anymore, and you learn to accept that. Ignorance isn't a stumbling block, it's a space for something new to grow.

3. When your intelligence fails you, sometimes sheer stubbornness does the trick.

4. Fight, even if it seems like a lost cause. Because if you fail anyway, at least you have the satisfaction of saying you went down fighting. (I owe this one to Gani.)

From Tatay:

1. No matter what happens, God's grace is always more than sufficient to pull you through.

2. Stress doesn't happen because of the amount of pressure around you. Stress happens because you let the pressure get to you.

3. We have to go through life like rubber bands. We have to learn to stretch ourselves taut when the pressure's on, and then relax afterwards. If we're perpetually stretched, we snap. If we're perpetually relaxed, we're useless.

From Lolo and Lola:

1. Dependence is not a bad thing. Sometimes you just have to let other people do things for you.

2. Love is not squeamish.

 

Veni, vidi, vici.
And now it's time to revise.

(God looks out for His own. He really does.)

I think the title pretty much says it all. :)

I have been working on the thesis proposal for almost two weeks. I managed to finish the capsule proposal, and was pleasantly surprised that my committee liked it. They gave it an ok, and told me to expand it a little more so  I could submit it to the graduate school for approval. "Expand" meant "add some relevant related literature."

Which I did.

And then the unexpected happened. Somewhere in between reading references and writing the review of related literature, I happened to take a look at my thesis proposal---and realized that it had turned into a monster.

More on this later. I have to do some reconstructive surgery.

*brings out chainsaw and eyes thesis warily*

If You Were Born in 2893...

Your Name Would Be: Ayn Kad And You Would Be: An Evil Space Warlord

Just so everyone knows: no, I haven't been abducted by aliens, am not suffering from amnesia, have not eloped and have not been kidnapped.

I have merely flung myself headlong into the Vortex of Madness (or, at the very least, Vortex of Lots of Late-Night Work and Excessive Midnight Snacking) that sucks in normal people and spits them out some time later, reeling and bewildered, but with a graduate degree. Most people call it the Master's Thesis.

But, in spite of the work interspersed with visits to the hospital (that's another story for another time) and all, I'm alive and well. And strangely optimistic. I know this is a long shot, (got about a month until the end of the semester, and then a couple of weeks until the deadline for grades) but I figure, if I work like a madwoman for the remainder of the semester, I think I'll make it. Right now, the one thing that's motivating me is the fact that the members of my guidance committee think that my study is actually worth doing. That and the fact that I'll be able to move on with my life after I finish.

All this reminds me of Shakespeare somehow:

"The powers of us may serve so great a day
Come, let us take a muster speedily:
Doomsday is near; die all, die merrily."

Hee.

He never promised me the "sun, moon and stars". (Thankfully.) He emailed me rainbows instead. Said he wanted to cheer me up.

It's surprising that, after what our family's been going through the past weeks, a couple of rainbow photos will still do the trick.

 

Thanks to everybody who responded to my post about blood donors for my grandfather.

He had a spinal tap at 11 am, and the procedure was successful. According to my uncle, Lolo looks a lot better now, and we're hoping that the spinal tap relieved some of the pressure that was causing severe back pains. Thank God there was no need for an additional transfusion.

Please keep him in your prayers.

Some people wear their heart up on their sleeve.
I wear mine underneath my right pant leg,
strapped to my boot.

Ani di Franco, "Outta Me, Onto You"

Each player of this game starts with 6 weird things about himself or herself. People who get tagged need to write a blog entry of their own as well as state the rule clearly. In the end, you need to tag 6 people as well and list their names. Don't forget to let them know they've been tagged! (Thanks to Bing for this one.)

1. I occasionally have belching contests with my boyfriend. It's crude, gross, and very entertaining.
2. Every now and then, I talk to the moon. I have also had interesting conversations with trees and stray cats. My family does not know about this. Kindly refrain from mentioning it to them.
3. I firmly believe that Dr. Seuss is one of the greatest poets who ever lived.  
4. When I was a kid, I loved hiding in small, cramped spaces so I could read. My favorite spot was under the stairs, behind a huge cabinet.
5. I have perfected the art of walking around the house without being noticed. Let's say my mom's in the living room. I can walk into the room, flop onto the couch, read ten pages of my book of the moment, and my mom will only notice I'm there if I say something. If and when she notices I'm in the room, she usually goes: "GYAAAAH! Don't sneak up on me like that! Have you been here the whole time?"
6. I collect weird dreams. The more disturbing, the better. Which is why I will never hang a dreamcatcher over my headboard. It just might work you see.

And there you have it. Ate Loi, Jung, Mo, Heidi, Amie and Pau...TAG! :)

(temporarily, that is)

Hello.

I am well.

Now back to work for me.

a waterdrop falls:
the stillness shatters into
nested ellipses.

Goodbye wheelchair.
Hello guitar.

Munting saranggolang
tingting at palara:
sumasayaw-sayaw,
sumisirko-sirko,

ang paglisan ay
‘sing pait ng
pising nalagot.

(para sa mga kapwa manunulat na sina: gina, mo, pau, amie, lily ann, cathy, myla, jerome, ana, ronnie, ron, kiko, john, at sa aming mga mentor: sina ma'am ofie dimalanta, sir lito, carlomar, sir jun, sir mike, sir caloy, at iba pang mga panelists ng 8th UST writers workshop. bakit mas mahaba pa ang dedication kaysa sa tula??? Bakit???)

Perhaps
nothing
is

 a     o
r    d    m
   n

if you live long enough.

Will I finish?

Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Blah.

Blah.

*sigh*