命裏無時, 莫強求

It's been a while since I've blogged. Ever since summer kicked in, I have just been completely lax.

It's actually a most welcome change, compared to those days when I had school and I'd go nuts over the sheer amount of crap that I had to do.

Let me see... what things have I not yet blogged about that I must:

- Mr. Claro and Lani Misalucha 3/17
- Trip to Ongpin with Dad! Yes, for the second time ever in my life (i know, I'm a shame to the Chinese community), I went to Ongpin last Sunday... 3/18
- Subsequently, I got Chinese CDs! (Music, DVD, DVD Music... more on that later)
- World BEX with Mom 3/18
- The Emil Chau Concert (yes, I know! At the last minute, I was allowed to go!) 3/19
- Dragon Fable 3/21
- Translation for Dad 3/20-22
- GRADES!!!! 3/23
- Trips to Xavier with Lawrence and Ye laoshi for Chinese and stuff.
- Uncle Jake comes home! 3/24

3/17 - Present

Mr. Claro has been obsessed with someone named Lani Misalucha. On the night of the Prom (which I didn't attend), he left halfway to attend her concert. At first, the name Lani Misalucha was once just this little detail in my memory from 3 years ago. She had a concert here once. I didn't attend it, but I know about it because there was this large poster hung up above the general area where our office was. Then she had ANOTHER one called "The Repeat".

Mr. Claro sent me a song of hers called "Very Special Love" back then, which sounds like a corny love song. But these days, who cares about lyrics? It's all about the beat. Or the tune. Or whatever. Then today (24th), he sent me Queen of the Night, which is just... well, he was right when he said that I ought to hear her "belt". AMAZING.


3/18/07, Sunday

So! Trip to Ongpin. See, I once went there back in the seventh grade to buy a lantern for Chinese class. You see, I was a lazy arse that didn't wanna work hard for anything (thank God that's slowly going away), so I just went there with Manong Lino (our ooooold driver, who retired just before I entered into H2). He accompanied me over this bridge where we entered a shop and bought the lantern, then left. I still have the tail of one of the lanterns near my bedside.

This time, it was Dad and I. Quite fun, but my lower legs were getting cramps from all the walking. We went to several video/music CD shops so I could scout around for potentially good CDs unavailable back in Metro Manila. Eventually, we decided on 陳慧琳's STYLISH INDEX, 王力宏's 蓋世英雄 DVD, the soundtrack for 玻璃之城, the triple disc 孫燕姿 CＤ that honestly only read 完美的一天 but contained music from 這一刻 and Stefanie, 光良's 童話, and 黎明's 眼睛想旅行. Quite a collection, but pretty much completely worth it, except for the 陳慧琳 CD which did not contain audio files but something like a -1 or Karaoke version of the Stylish Index music. In short, I got music videos with no Kelly. And I think they were all 100-150 a piece, except the DVD which was like 350. Hooray for Ongpin prices!

The songs that really struck me were 手機留言 by 光良, 我忘了 by 孫燕姿, and... to be continued after the Emil Chau concert!

Elsewhere, we also went into 嶺南 for lunch, and the food was okay, although the chicken wasn't cooked very well. The soup wasn't bad, though. When we went to 聊應齋, Dad and I started debating in Taishanese if I should ask the lady how Kikiam was written. She seemed to pick up (she was Hokkien) though, because she asked, "sia mi tai zi?" (what's the matter?) and I told her. She wrote it down on half a calendar sheet, saying it was "kue-keng". Chicken something. I'll have to go scrounge up that piece of paper.

When we left, we picked mom up at her mom's place where he talked a bit, then went to the World BEX thing at the WTC. Dad and Mom had already apparently gone there yesterday, but mom wasn't done looking around yet, so she and I went, and Dad went home because he was beat.

Mom and I only finished one fourth of the entire place, but I had a bit of fun taking flyers and swatches and credit cards. At this one place, forgot what it was called, they were advertising digital designs plastered in a special way instead of wallpaper. I thought some of the zany designs were absolutely wicked. Mom didn't like them though.

The lady at the store (本地人) heard mom and me in that one snippet of the conversation that we were talking in Hokkien about why I thought we should put it there, should we ever renovate. The lady handed us one of the flyers and we discussed a bit. It was fun! And then when I came back later, I heard who I assumed to be her son speaking in Hokkien (sounded off though. Not "authentic". And don't tell me it's the third-generation thing. My friends are living proof that that isn't true.). I found it interesting.

When we got home, we watched Curse of the Golden Flower (滿城盡帶黃金甲). It was a typical Chinese-era movie, wherein everyone dies. Kind of like The House of Flying Daggers. I honestly didn't like it.

3/19/07

I was with Lawrence and Laoshi when she suddenly walks into the workroom and comes out with two student tickets for the concert. My mouth just dropped open. I was literally speechless. I couldn't believe my luck! EMIL CHAU!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I didn't have anyone to come with me, though, so that was one ticket wasted.

Mom and Dad came by to pick me up at about 5:30. We left 5:40 and got there 6:30 (it was in PICC). I hurriedly went and lined up. The seats (and subsequently, the queues for entrance) were split into Balcony and Orchestra. If you've been to the PICC, you should understand that Balcony means the two elevated places off to the side, and Orchestra would be the flat piece of land right in front of the stage. What a view it must have been! Char and her mom (I think) got Orchestra, and the seats I got from laoshi were Balcony.

While queuing up, there was this old Hokkien woman, with her daughter and granddaughter, screaming her head off. What's worse, she had that annoying mindset that she would come across as more refined or upper-class if she used Mandarin. Very poorly accented, too. Her daughter, in her 30's, was speaking in Hokkien, but Philippine-style (i.e. interspersed with English nouns and Filipino particles). Eventually, she caved and started speaking in equally poorly accented Mandarin. The granddaughter was typical 3rd Gen Metro Manila Hokkien--speaking in Filipino only. Eventually, the loud Hokkien woman was questioned by her granddaughter as to why she was so loud. She replied, "那就是本來的我." Oh please. Honestly, you could've mistaken her for a Hong Konger in that queue--bad Mandarin, bad manners, etc...

On the plus side, though, I heard loads and loads of 3rd Gen Hokkien speaking in straight Hokkien. When we entered and sat down, there was this group of girls, no more than 18 years old, speaking straight Hokkien. I mean Hokkien, Hokkien, not Taiwanese.

Beside me, this lady who identified herself as Linda Wong sat down and started talking to me (in Mandarin no less). This annoyed me. A lot.
Then she asked me what school I studied in, and when I said XS, she was all "不會啊! 光啟的學生只會說閩南話! 不會說國語!" This angered me even more. It turns out, she was an ICAn and her brothers were Xaverian. How can she NOT know that Mandarin is taught in Xavier? Silly woman. Then she later has the gall to ask me to ask my parents to give her a ride until she can find a cab. I mean, c'mon! The nerve! And then she starts asking really personal stuff. Jeez.

Anyway, so from the 下午七時入場 stipulated in the ticket, we ended up beginning at 9:00, where there were all these other presentations before the concert. Turns out, it was sort of like a homecoming, too.

So Emil comes out, and plays a set of wonderful, well-know and well-loved hits of his throughout the years, including 愛相隨 (which was the theme of the concert, i.e. celebration of our being Chinese. I could write entire discourses on how they're not celebrating being Chinese simply by using Mandarin, but I'll spare you that pain), 朋友, 有故事的人, 寂寞的眼, 傷心的歌, 怕黑, 擺渡人的歌, 最真的夢, 親親我的寶貝, 新天長地久, 有沒有一首歌會讓你想起我, 風雨無阻, 花心. Covers of existing songs include 甜秘密, 彎彎的月亮, 忙與盲, and 浪子心聲. Now the last one, 浪子心聲 was originally a Sammy Hui (one of the oldest, most celebrated names in the Canto-pop industry, for those not in the know, and one of the few artists who've sung songs in colloquial Cantonese, instead of literary Chinese) and also covered by Andy Lau. It is from this song that I take my title.

Here're the lyrics:

難分真與假 人面多險詐
幾許有共享榮華 簷畔水滴不分差
無知井裏蛙 徒望添聲價
空得意目光如麻 誰料金屋變敗瓦

命裏有時終須有 命裏無時莫強求
雷聲風雨打 何用多驚怕
心公正白壁無暇 行善積德最樂也
人比海裏沙 毋用多牽掛
君可見漫天落霞 名利息間似霧化

Waaaah... *cries*

Reminds me of a certain... something. Situation. Basta.

So he sang one Hokkien song, 一雙小雨傘, and several Cantonese ones, such as 彎的月亮, 浪子心聲, and 新天長地久. It was then, right after Emil sang 浪子心聲, and he had asked, "好耶?" And I yelled back, enthusiastically, "好!" that Linda Wong, to my side, asked, "You know Cantonese, too?" to which i replied, "I AM Cantonese!". We started talking in Cantonese later, but I remained reserved. Emil Chau did an acapella with some dudes (two of which happened to be brothers Sean and Sherwin Su from XS) and facilitated a proposal. Then a duet with this girl who could really... really... sing. It was one really wicked concert.

Afterwards, I found Lu laoshi and her friend and we journeyed backstage to meet him. Well, let me tell you--we were ONE ARM AWAY FROM HIM!!!!!!! Starstruck indeed. Then just before we were about to get the autograph, the manager lady kicked us out. CRAP IT ALL!!!!

So we left all crestfallen and stuff and sat outside while mom and dad came to fetch me. It ended up with us giving them a ride back to Crownpointe, San Juan, where they lived. It was fairly near where we were anyway. On the way, we were talking a lot, and I heard Lu laoshi speak Hokkien with my parents. Sounded almost Taiwanese, but quite understandable. I realized the difference between the way she spoke it, and the way, say, Xu laoshi spoke it. Xu laoshi's Hokkien sounds very much like the variant we speak here. Straight from Xiamen, e.

The ride home was scary. All the way from PICC, Dad had been driving kind of dangerously, swerving and sudden-breaking. Almost bumped several people. I think he was sleepy.

When we got home (it was around 1:30), Dad told me he was quite surprised that I could speak Mandarin so fluently. Now it was my turn to be surprised at this, since I'd already told them several times I could speak it fluently. I guess they had to hear it to believe it. So now maybe they won't worry so much about my Mandarin and allow me to focus more on our home dialects.

Char and I were completely dazed the morning after. While chatting, we downloaded all the songs I jotted down. YAY!!!! The songs I really love are 傷心的歌 (無法忘記　是否所有的點點滴滴 和那些醉人卻心痛的故事 就在我儘情哭過之後　我就能入睡後忘記 只怕夢到妳 我不要　不要　不要 不要夢到妳), and 親親我的寶貝 (啦啦呼啦啦啦呼啦啦　還在上面寫你的名字 啦啦呼啦啦啦呼啦啦　最後還要平安回來 回來告訴你哪一切　親親我的寶貝).

3/21 - Present

I have been obsessed with this online game recently. Quite similar to Adventure Quest. It's called Dragon Fable. I think Christian's been playing this for a while now. I'm not too sure if Dragon Fable has server caps, but I have been able to log in without trouble for three straight days now. Perhaps not.

Anyhow, my character is a mage, and things have been tying along quite nicely. The magic of the mage is amazing. There's a skill called "Mage's Fury" that allows you to hit all opponents in the battle map. A Godsend for when you're high in mana, low in life, fighting multiple opponents and sleep or blind can't cover it, and your shield has been used up.

There's a skill called Root that doesn't seem to have any use though. It's apparently supposed to prevent an opponent from running away. I have never seen any opponent run away, nor does my character have that option. So... you know.

Fun! You should play it. Graphics are better than that of Adventure Quest... which reminds me that the Quest for the Earth Orb is now up, so I better check that out soon.

3/20-22

Dad recently sent me a document to translate from Chinese to English. I have one word: Torture.

Not only was it chock full of manufacturing and engineering terms, it was written completely in Classical Chinese; that means that the Chinese used wasn't the 白話 characters-match-spoken-language variety, it was a highly abbreviated script where certain implied nouns were omitted. You know how a 成語 is written right? Four characters, but the explanation in 白話 can go on for sentences? Think that, but as a 1 and a half page document.

It took me the whole day to translate that thing, and several parts were still fuzzy. I mean, what on Earth is does 空行程次數? Empty Travel Route Frequency??? I mean, Hell! And then you have even shorter, more ambiguous stuff like 段料 (literally, segment material), 棒料 (fine/sturdy/cudgel material), and 剪料 (cut material). I mean, does "cut material" mean material you have cut or material that you use to cut? GRRRR!!!!!

I consulted Ye laoshi and whaddyaknow! It worked out! She's an engineering graduate! She identified ALL of the terms and explained them to satisfaction! Things just work out great when you ask, don't they?

3/23

Now let's talk about my Grades. I went to school fully intending just to hang with Lawrence and laoshi, but then I saw my grades posted at the patio, and I went to have a look. Here're the important ones:

Math: 89 (HAH!!!! IN YOUR FACE, FAMILY!)
Filipino: 87
Everything Else: 88 and above

NOOOOOO!!!!! I've lost honors because of FILIPINO!!!! DAMN LIFE!

. . .

Then I went to Mr. Claro and appealed. We negotiated, he agreed.

HONORS, BITCHES!!!!!

Undated:

Almost everyday since break began (and even before that: Thursday (3/15/07), Friday, Monday, Tuesday, Friday (3/23)), I've been hanging with laoshi and Lawrence to study Chinese. Great fun. Laoshi has this funny tendency to spill stories like an ocean, but they're the best. FUN!!!

When did I start these Chinese sessions with laoshi and Lawrence anyway? Even Lawrence and I don't remember anymore, because we've been having so much fun going to them.

3/24

Uncle Jake came back from the States. We went to Gloria Maris to eat. Big mistake. SO MANY PEOPLE!!! All of them showed up after eight. Why?

Xavier Graduation! Yes, the H4 are officially gone, and I saw nearly a dozen Xaverian families with 17 y.o. looking boys in barongs (some even with medals) enter the place. You should've seen the reservation board there--full to the point that some of the letters almost seemed to be falling off the thing.

PICTURES COMING SOON!!!