Book Review - The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

Rating: 7/10

The Age of Innocence is the unfortunate love story of Newland Archer and Countess Ellen Olenska. Archer is engaged to May Welland, a docile maiden from a respectable family. Countess Olenska is the runaway wife of Count Olenski in Europe. With her circumstances, New York society looked down on her. I think Edith Wharton was really able to show the emotions behind the events in the story. It's, as said above, very unfortunate.

It took me a long time to read The Age of Innocence because there were parts which were uninteresting, for me. It's just not the kind of writing that I'm not used to reading, but it's definitely a good book. :)

Book Review - Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate diCamillo

Rating: 8/10

Yessum, it's another book by Kate diCamillo. She's arguably one of the best writers ever! She uses the English language in a simple but fun way. Her stories are nice and easily understandable, and they pack a whole lot of lessons!

Because of Winn-Dixie is the story of India Opal Buloni, the daughter of a preacher. She and her father just moved to a new place and she has a hard time gaining friends. Everything changes when she meets a large, ugly dog which she named Winn-Dixie, after the grocery store where she first found him.

It's a nice, heart-warming story but I liked Edward Tulane better. Maybe it's the illustrations... Haha! Anyway, it's still a lovely, lovely book and you'll love it, too!

Oh, and this has a movie starring Anna Sophia Robb! Edward Tulane will also get a movie, I think, sometime this year. EXCITED!

Fanfiction Update - New Chapter!!

http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5759433/2/Unrequited

Yes, yes! Finally, I have come up with the second chapter for Unrequited after more than a month. Sorry, readers, for the delay.

Enjoy~

A Decision

I just made a crucial decision.

Okay. So crucial may be over-exaggerating.

Anyway, I still made a decision. -shrug-

My mom was going to buy me an electronic device in Qatar. It'd be like her 18th birthday gift too me (even if it's a lot of months away). She told me to choose between a digital camera (with 10 to 12 megapixels) or a cellphone equipped with a camera, capable of wi-fi, and has the touch screen feature. Uwaaah! But, really, it didn't take me long to ponder over this. I chose the digital camera. Why? Heck, I've always wanted my own camera. We got two digital cameras here but both of them are busted so we don't really have anything to use for special occasions.

But my aunt and my sis told me that I should have chosen the cellphone. My line of reasoning here is this: I already got a cellphone and it's still in good, working condition. There's really no reason to change it now. Also, most of the cellphones that get stolen nowadays are those types of cellphones. Haha! If ever that made sense... LOL! And I dearly love my present cellphone. It's such a dear, even if it only has one game (Bowling) and it can't store mp3's.

So there. Imma be expecting a camera sometime in April, when mom comes home. Wheee! Finalleeeeeeeeeeeh~

...is officially Tweeting

Finally! I got to create a Twitter account: http://twitter.com/JadaPS

Haha!

Blast to the Past

Ahh... It felt so good digging through all the stuff I've been keeping. I placed most of the stuff on a paper bag behind the bedroom door. I only had the initiative to clean it because it's getting cluttered. So, yeah. I found some memorable things:

1. [crappy] drawings I made in high school

2. cheesy excerpts from my "diary" - contains lyrics from my favorite songs back then, fan fiction summaries, and a letter to myself (shoot me)

3. a "Nips" container filled with gold glitter

4. couple of notebooks - with lyrics (OPM, English, and Japanese) XD

5. my Daniel Radcliffe autographed photo!! (TREASURE!)

6. a Christmas decoration in the shape of a star - it's the thing you hang on a Christmas tree... my friends and I used it as a keychain

7. my long-lost Kurapica keychain

8. a memorabilia from the K-Zone meet and greet (August 26, 2006??) - a K-Zone pouch!!

9. a drawing I made of Ino and Shikamaru walking on a beach - Shikamaru (thinking): "Did I just hear her say she liked me?" Ino (thinking): "Did I just say I liked him?" both of them were blushing - yarr! <3

10. my art materials - includes carton and different colors of yarn used for making susuwatari or soot sprites

11. a notebook containing information about the sequel to When the Piper Pipes

12. another notebook containing notes about The Dark Side of Love

13. still yet another notebook with my notes for Equip 222

14. a couple of photos

15. a project I made for Florante at Laura - Joshua from Fire Emblem was my Marte...

16. a lot of paper crap

Aah... The good times! As you may well see, I was a cheesy high school girl. Haha!

Book Review - Beauty: A Retelling of Beauty and the Beast by Robin McKinley

Rating: 9/10

I love, love, love, love, love this book! After reading cheesy tales about vampires, Beauty by Robin McKinley is a delight! It relives the beautiful love story of Beauty and the enchanted Beast. The characters are amazing because I can say that everything that Beauty experiences, I have experienced also. Not that we're the same; it's just that we both loved books and we're both antisocial. Ha! There you go! Well, anyway, throughout the book, there's this aura of nobility and gentleness whenever the Beast is in a scene. It's like you've always known that there's something in him. (Haha! That was really vague, but whatever...)

It's such a lovely story and I'm not at all regretting buying it over Jack London's book. Now, I want to read more fairy tales!

Just to give you a glimpse of one of the nicest scenes throughout the story:

"Shall we go down then?" he said. He turned, and waved me towards the staircase.
I looked at him a moment. "Aren't you going to offer me your arm?" I said.
There was a silence, while we stared at one another, as if every candle, every tile in the mosaic floor and coloured thread in the tapestries, had caught its breath and was holding it as it watched. The Beast walked the few paces back to me, turned, and offered me his arm. I laid my hand on it, and we walked downstairs.
- excerpt from page 185

(Seriously, I felt a nice tugging at my heart while I was reading that part. And it was nothing like the effect produced by Twilight.)

super RANDOM post

• Bakit ang corny ng Agua Bendita? Ahahahaha!.. Hindi lang pala yun. Lahat pala ng Pinoy drama shows, lalo na yung sa TV5. Mas cheesy pa sa Twilight! At sobrang cliche!.. Pasensya naman... Hindi ako masyadong nationalistic pagdating sa Filipino entertainment industry...
  
• Ang cute ng Sunken Garden kanina! Andaming balloons! (OvO) <- parang bata..
• Today, we received our results for our 2nd exam in Kas 2. I had a grade of nearly-2.0-but-I'd-rather-prefer-1.75-thank-you 1.87, which is an improvement from a 3.0. :D
• Na-move ang Kas 2 3rd exam!! Instead of March 22, we'll be having it on March 24. Thank God! Andami kayang babasahin!..
• ...At naalala ni Mam Mata ang term paper sa English 11. Bakeet? Pero, I'll probably be doing a paper on We can them for you wholesale.
• But, on the other hand, we'll be having a take-home exam which is super win!
• Natutuwa naman akong masyado sa mga joke sa radyo... Nakalimutan ko na yung station, basta ang corny ng jokes pero natatawa ako... Kahit paulit-ulit lang...
• Ang cute ng If I were you na song ni Jason Castro!! I <3>
• Dunno why, but I wanna see KHQ-ers. Like now.
• I've decided to go org-less...
• UP is so pretty this time of the year. Setting the extreme heat aside, the trees are lovely. There are a row of trees beside the Mech Eng'g lab that drop tiny "stars" on your head. When the wind blows, there're so many of these "stars!" Maybe if you stand there for a few minutes, you'll have a "star" crown on your head. :D
• There are also some trees in front of Palma Hall that shed these cottony spores. They're flying all over you. Haha! Sometimes, I want to pick one and take it home with me. They're so cute, they make you sneeze! :D
• I'm halfway through New Moon. I think I like it better than Twilight. BUT I still don't like the saga. There you go!
• I want to eat cotton candy. Everytime I see the cotton candy man, there's always something that stops me from buying.. DX
  

Movie Review - Changeling

Rating: 9/10

Changeling stars Angelina Jolie in the role of Christine Collins, a single mother during 1928 America. On the 10th of March 1928, she leaves for work because a co-worker called in sick. She left her son, Walter, at home listening to the radio. When she arrived, she found that he was gone. She begins a search for her missing son. A few months later, the police declare that they have found her son. But when Christine sees him, she insists that it is not Walter, it is not her son. Thus, begins the heart-breaking story of a mother whose one wish is to see her son again.

Aww. This movie is a tear-jerker and a great tribute to mothers. It just proves that they will do anything (even enter an asylum) to search for their children. The scene I loved best (and probably the most dramatic one) was when Christine watched as another mother was reunited with her lost son after five years. In the following scene, she tells the police officer that the reunion had given her what she had lost: hope. It's bittersweet to know that, after all the setbacks, Christine Collins never believed that her son was dead and that she kept looking for him.

Changeling touches our emotional side in a deep way. I hope that you'll be able to watch it in the future because it's so beautiful.

English 11 class party

So Miss Mata announced that we were going to have a class party on the 23rd of March 2010 at the Adarna Restaurant along Kalayaan Avenue. It's a costume party and we're supposed to dress up like our favorite character from a work of fiction. If I ever come, I'll be decked in pirate regalia again, although my English 11 class has seen it. I'm too lazy to dress up as something else. Anyway, problem is, I can't figure out if I'll come or not. It's a party so there's a lot of drinking involved. I want to stay away from that so, yeah. Also, dinner will be on ourselves so we have to bring money along. But the thing is, the winner of best costume will receive an expensive anthology. I wonder what that is... That's exactly why I'd like to go... You see, I'm raising my hopes that I'd win (hands down to anyone who'd come in dressed like the very old man with enormous wings or the spider-woman...). XD

So that's about it. But my gut tells me not to go... Because I'm lazy, like that.