Feeling: Restless; Homework done: Japanese essay/story hybrid; ALF seen: Episodes 1-3; Stomach? Full with experimental stir-fry; Replies from host sister: Still waiting; Room mates sick in the morning: 1

It was one of those nights when I was feeling restless. I was doing homework all day or, at least, I attempted to do all day. I should have finished my Japanese essay earlier, but I kept idling my time, downloading music, eating snacks, watching TV, listening to music and chatting on MSN. In short, I didn’t really want to do homework, but pretended to do so anyway.

I was feeling fickle. I kept doing all this Japanese work, but I wasn’t getting a kick out of it. So, I went out and decided to find my kick. I found my kick in Escaflowne: The Movie.

(You can check out summaries of the series here.)

I first heard of this series back when I was a wee little girl in junior high. It’s a great sci-fi, fantasy, action, romantic drama. The movie is a bit darker and the main male character, Van, is definitely more bloodthirsty than he was in the television series. Overall, it definitely made my night. Hmm, I think I’ll try to find more episodes and watch it from the beginning.

I remember really liking the end of episode 5 when the Escaflowne (this hunk of junk of an armour) suddenly changes into a flying dragon with Van riding on it against the wind as the background music boomed with a majestic, “Esca — flowne! Esca — flowne!” I always wondered what happened …

I guess, if I have time, I’ll download or rent the rest of the series at Movie Studio.

***

Hair Vanity Update:
Ok, so I’m slowly warming up to my hair. I can make it look like I have a short bob, if I put my hair up and tuck it in. In that way, it sort of pixie-cute, I think.

Mood: Sleepy; Hours of sleep: 7-8 hours; Homework done: nil

Kristine has a quiz written on her site, so I decided to follow. Sort of. I found another quiz to do instead of doing the one on her site.

1. What time did you get up this morning?
10:30am. On weekends it’s always between 10-11:30am. Ah, nothing like a good night sleep.

2. Diamonds or pearls?
Both. Diamonds are girl’s best friend, but pearls just seem classic. I would opt for diamonds unless I want to have an old Hollywood look to some event.

3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema?
I honestly cannot remember. It has been a year since I went out to see a movie. Or may be I did see a movie at the cheapo theatres but it was so underwhelming I have forgotten it.

4. What is your favourite TV show at the moment?
The OC, and episodes from my copy of ALF: First Season.

5. What did you have for breakfast?
Leftovers of pasta with homemade chicken-mushroom alfredo sauce, grapes, and juice.

6. What is your middle name?
Patricia.

7. What is your favourite cuisine?
Japanese, duh. For people who know me, this is an absolute NO BRAINER question.

8. What do you dislike?
I dislike a lot of things. Things I dislike at the moment: my hair, pine needle trails from the living room to the back door, homework, slipping on ice, squirrels, mis-use of commas, etc.

9. What is your favourite chips flavour?
LAY’s Salt & Vinegar

10. What is your favourite CD at the moment?
Utada Hikaru’s Number One Hits Collection; Maroon 5, Song’s about Jane.

11. What kind of car do you drive?
When I was about 10, Hot Wheels. When I was a teen, bumper cars. Now, as a young adult, ETS drives me. I don’t drive, I get driven. I should learn how to drive, I DO hate ETS.

12. Favourite sandwich?
Grilled anything, really: Grilled BLTs, Grilled Cheese, Grilled Tuna Melt, Grilled Nutella and Grilled PB&J.

13. What characteristic do you despise?
I despite broken promises. Do NOT, DO NOT, make promises unless you intend to keep them.

14. Favourite item of clothing?
Generally, jeans are my favorite item of clothing. Right now, I would say my kokeshi-print apron skirt from Nokomis.

15. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go?
Japan, in a heartbeat, or Brazil.

16. What colour is your bathroom?
Off-white, highlighted with rustic brown from the occasional rust spots.

17. Favourite brand of clothing?
NOKOMIS http://www.nokomisclothing.ca/

18. Where would you retire to?
Somewhere close to my family and friends or faraway as possible from family and friends — depends on how I am in my retiring age.

19. Favourite time of the day?
Sunset and Twilight. Nothing beats watching beatiful fall colors hitting the sky followed by the twinkling of stars in a pitch black cool night.

20. What was your most memorable birthday?
My 20th birthday was held at Suite 69. Two of my best guy friends, Johnstone and Forrest, was thinking of heading to the DU Retreat instead of going to the club with me. I was a bit disheartened, but I said I understood because they had the trip planned for a while. Anyway, on the night of my birthday, the two of them showed up! On top of that I got “Clerks” from Forrest as a b-day gift. We had a fun time just chilling, but I’m glad they came.

21. Where were you born?
Quezon City, Philippines.

22. Favourite sport to watch?
Soccer, baby, yeah! The game is fun to watch as well as the players who play them. Oooh, baby.

23. Who do you least expect to send this back to you?
No one really. I decided to post my answers online instead of emailing people, so NO ONE seems like the right answer.

24. Person you expect to send it back first?
See #23.

25. What fabric detergent do you use?
Sunlight.

26. Coke or Pepsi?
Neither is preferable, but, if I have to choose, coke.

27. Are you a morning person or a night?
Night person and an excitable morning person.

28. What is your shoe size?
7 and/or 7 1/2. Depends on the shoe style and from where I buy it from.

29. Do you have any pets?
My room mate. Haha, just kidding. No, I do not own any pets.

30. Any new and exciting news you’d like to share with your family and friends?
Received 80% on my last Japanese quiz; I’m teaching Japanese for free; I’m a swinging singleton again; my hair looks like it’s been attacked by a blind hairdresser; I sold over $1000 last time I worked at Polly Magoo’s; I’m thinking of taking books out on hair-cutting so I can cut my own hair full-time; my host sister, Tomoko, emailed me; Mai was in town last weekend; Chris Johnstone is in town this weekend; I bought a new skirt; and I wrote a sad, but beautiful prequel to a famous Japanese children’s story.

31. What did you want to be when you were little?
I can’t remember. I did want to be an FBI agent back when I was in junior high and high school.

Hair: From beautifully waist-long hair to crappily shaggy shoulder length crap; Chris sightings: 1; Dinner: Chicken-Mushroom alfredo sause on pasta; Homework done: nil; Hours worked: 7.45hrs; Traumatic rant: 3x; Cute guys who entered the store: 1

My hair has been cut. Usually, I cut it myself, but, because I was lazy, I went to a hairdresser and got the worst cut in the world. I wanted to cry. My hair, my beautiful hair, is gone! I’ll be wearing ponytails and pigtails out of necessity now, instead of laziness.

I got Erin to fix it for me, but it’s still nasty. It’ll grow out to look nicer in a month or so; for now, I will stick the wearing pigtails and ponytails and any other sort of “-tails” there are.

The reactions I got, before the fix, was:

SPARKY: Let out a squeakish squeal then clamped her mouth with her right hand as she let out a shocked half-nervous laugh.

FORREST: “Ha, ha. Man oh man, that’s … terrible”.

ERIN: “Was she blind? Or deaf? Or blind and deaf? And she didn’t listen to what you wanted at all?”

ANGUS: “Hey, Ana. The eighties called, the say that you shame their era”.

I am now strongly reminded to how I got into cutting my own hair in the first place. Grrrr.

***

Oh, yes. I’ve set up a Flickr account, so I can post pictures in one site with ease. Once I actually get my ass into uploading them, I will set up a link. And, NO, I will not be uploading any pictures of me with my hair down anytime soon. My hair will always be up and if you want to see me with my hair down — TOUGH PATOOTIES!

Oh yeah, I worked today. I took over a shift and I worked for 7 hours with the total store selling approximately just over a thou. WOWEEE! Sometimes, I rock. One cute guy went into the store (he bought a $50 chopstick set)and he turned out to be the chef at Savoy. We chatted for a bit and I wish he would come by at the store again. I mentioned this story to Chris who said, “Why didn’t he get your contact?”

“It could be because he knows where I work now, so if he IS interested, he’ll come by again”.

“Nah,” said Forrest. “He probably got distracted at your ugly hair and wanted to run away”.

“My hair was up, so I looked cute,” I haughtily retorted.

“Sure, sure it is,” Forrest said and he took a sip from his beer.

Speaking of Forrest, I wrote this essay about Forrest and this apartment for one of my assignments in class. I want to wait until I get some of the peer editing done and will type the final copy here. It’s witty and sentimental, I’m sure he’ll like it as well as my fellow blog readers.

***

Oh yeah, I’ve also been reading some of the blogs of some of the commenters of my cousin’s site. One in particular caught my eye since it really sounds that someone (and I won’t mention any names) sounds like he’s got a case of the “Poor Me”. And this “Poor Me” syndrome is mostly the “Poor Me: I Suck in Relationships”.

Now, I’m not saying that I don’t fall prey to occasional bout of Poor Me (hell — my hair has caused this day’s episode of Poor Me: Bad Hair Day), but I will point out the TWO best ways to get rid of the Poor Me. One, hang out with positive people. Two, keep yourself busy with stuff that you enjoy to distract self. After these two points are exercised, you’re most likely to feel happy, funny, content and confident, the most attractive traits — besides looks — that any guy could have that women fall for.

Dinner: Shanghai Noodles; Mood: Ecstatic (Johnstone’s in town!); Karaoke: Maybe, if work is done and/or Johnstone begs me

My friend Brian looks so much like this Orlando Bloom picture, it is scary. There have been many who was fooled by the picture and would think it was good ole Brian, when, really, it’s Orlando.

Check it out:

Another Alcantara, my cousin Manny or Noel as I like to call him, has started his own blog. You can check it out here.

I got ALF: Season One on DVD for Christmas from Forrest yesterday. Watched two episodes, funny funny stuff. Oh yeah, my sis and I are moving location in the virtual world. More on that later on …

Listening to “She Will Be Loved” by Maroon 5

Dinner: nigi-maguro don; Dinner rating: 10(!); Japanese class: V. funny; Tutoring: V. good; Times I mentioned Rapunzel today: 6; Times people knew that Rapunzel came from the scientific name for rampion: 1; Japanese friends leaving: 1; Schoolwork level: medium

Unofficial Anti-Valentine’s Party
(aka. Normal Party at Ana & Forrest’s place)
WHEN? Feb. 11, 2005
TIME? 8-9pm-ish
WHY? Why not?

For Those Interested On Matty G’s Japanese Progress:
Pronunciation of the “syllables” is very good. He’s slowly getting along with reading Japanese outloud. I can tell he can recoginize the characters, so that’s fine. Much to go and much to be done, but he’s taking the sudden plunge into the world of hiragana, katakana, and kanji really well.

I’m going to make a new worksheet, some sort of lesson one and lesson two hybrid. I’m also going to plan to be a bit more organized with my mini-lecture for next week. Nothing too serious or anything; I’m thinking of something more like, “Go over last lesson”, “Ask questions”, “Check work”, “Work on reading outloud”, “Review vocabulary”, “Question/Answer in Japanese for lesson review”, “Move to new lesson”, etc; I need to go through my mental notes like these, just like what I used to do when I tutored English learners.

Normalcy
So from this week until mid-February, I have an essay due for my classes. Ugh. I’m currently drafting an essay for my WRITE class, writing plot points for a creative writing essay for my JAPANESE class, and researching books for reference for my ENGLISH class. In the meanwhile, I’m keeping up with my readings, keeping up with my Japanese translating, and I work. I’m still somewhat sane, so I’m happy.

The latest news, from what I can tell in flipping channels, is the 24 year old female teacher who is accused to have slept with her 14 year old male student. She’s married with a (somewhat) good-looking husband, but she goes ahead and has sex with a 14 year old BOY. If that’s not shameful enough, her husband is on Larry King Live saying things like, “I just want to ask, ‘Why?’” while photos of their wedding is flashing on rotation in the background. From what I can deduce, here are some reasons to why she was driven to such an act:

1) She’s crazy
2) 14 year old boy is one hell-of-a-guy
3) Husband is sexually disgusting/inadequate
4) She’s in love with young boys
5) She’s sad, depressed and this is actually deeper than what it seems.

What is this world coming to? Tsk tsk tsk.

I’m in Disk Three of Final Fantasy 9. I really enjoy playing it more than FF10. Forrest has been trying to get me to play WoW, but I refuse to play due to past EverQuest experience. I haven’t played this week due to aforementioned schoolwork load, but may be in the weekend I can squeeze a couple hours away from the drudgery of schoolwork slavery.

Over the dinner tonight, Matty and I were talking (gossiping a bit really) about other people’s relationship. One in particular came to mind, one very unhealthy one. It seems to me that being in no relationship until University is a very very unhealthy thing. There are YEARS and YEARS of pent-up ideals waiting to explode, followed by mad depression when things don’t go exactly into plan. If buying expensive things is the only way to get her attention (not respect or admiration, just attention), it’s not worth it. If she’s making you feel entitled to spend the rest of your life moping around — after all, the love of your life is gone, life has no meaning, etc — and suicidal, she’s not worth it. He needs a boost of self-confidence, a self-esteem check, and a dose of self-respect. He’s degrading himself and losing his dignity, his integrity, over a girl who openly uses him for the presents and attention he willingly gives her. Tsk tsk tsk. Poor poor guy. There are break-up funks and THERE ARE BREAK-UP FUNKS. I think it stems from his inexperience.

So, the Nowens couple will be heading together for the Theta Formal in the weekend. That means, head-turning dresses of taste and scandel, sexy sandels, mini meals (the tinier, the fancier), cute handbags, cuter male arm accessories, and speeches of ostensible importance. In short, it will be grand and I will be waiting by the phone wearing cotton sweats for news of how genteel Nobis has been throughout the night so I, too, may imagine myself going to a formal.

I think that’s the only thing I really miss about the fraternity: the formal fraternizing. Murasaki and I have been chatting and it would be cool if I can find my way of smoozing a date to the DU formal so then I could go for the sake of going. I do like silly occasions to dress up and act pompous. I mean, Forrest is going to PiPhi formal! (Obviously with le Tasha. Oh la la!)

Well, I won’t hold my breath. Hmm, I still want an opportunity to shop for something nice to wear and actually wear it.

I developed a mild cough and headache during the course of 24 hours. May be by tomorrow it will clear up. In the meantime, I am nursing my sickness by sleeping, playing video games, eating KD, skipping on the Japanese Forum (boo hoo), doing no chores, and missing my homework. This 24 hour No-Work day will bite me in the ass later this week. I just know it!

So, I have to write an essay about place. I have to have all four rhetoric modes of creative writing in it and, so far, my idea is a pretty depressing one.

I’ve decided to write about my apartment, but at the same time I also want to touch upon the hardship I endured the year of my “backpack” living. Gah — it’s gonna be a bitch to write. If any, I should keep myself open to any other ideas to come my way.

Internet still down in my place. Writing this in the University instead of doing work. I’d rather blog at home though.