Doomsday To-Do List

Let's start this off by pretending that we believe in the Mayan calendar. Now, since we believe in it, we consequently also believe that the end of the world is going to roll around in a month's time. Yup, the day that Incubus sang about is finally here. Please refer to a the lyrics of Incubus's "A Certain Shade of Green" and click on YouTube for the video of "Warning" by the same band. On a side note, I'd like to thank Brandon Boyd for introducing me to the Mayans during high school. You'd have thought that knowing about this day would be an advantage in terms of preparation but alas, here I am just as unprepared as ever. But the songs were inspirational in a Carpe Diem kind of way so that's good.

So. December 21, 2012. The day believed to be doomsday because the calendar belonging to an ancient civilization stopped at that particular date. Cynics had a field day discussing (making fun of) the accuracy of these claims by suggesting that maybe the Mayans just ran out of space on the slab of rock to carve on.

Which makes sense, too. Just because there's no calendar doesn't mean that time doesn't exist. But you can't shake off the feeling that maybe, just maybe, it could happen. Stranger things have happened, right? But anyway that'a not the point of this blog post. The point of this blog post is this: assuming that the world will end on December 21st, what are the top five things that you would do?

If I truly believed, in my heart of hearts, that the world we live in will go kaput in a month's time, here are some things that I could achieve within that time frame. None of those "climb Mt. so and so," this is a month we're talking about here. 

1. Spend time with people that I haven't seen in a long time.  Make an effort to reconnect with people that I haven't really talked to face to face because social media or cellphones have made us lazy to actually talk to someone. Seeing how a person smiles or fidgets or the sound of their laughter is far more welcomed than Skype meetings and choppy phone reception.

2. Go out on a date. If it's going to be my last, I'd want it to be really fun and enjoyable. The type of date you don't want to wrap up because you're having so much fun. That would be really nice. I haven't had one in a while. In my ideal world, I'd have no problem making this certain thing a reality. But this is real life. The only way I'd get a date is if I ask someone out (which I've never done before). And that's no guarantee either. I guess it would be alright...at least the embarrassment that I'd feel and my thoughts of being a loser because of the blatant rejection will be short lived.

3. Quit my job and spend my life savings on going to one or two great places and experience it to the fullest. As in, waldas. Initially I thought about giving my life savings to a charity of my choice, but then I realized that that was something that a person usually does when they die by themselves. Since I'd be dying with everyone and everything else, a charity won't have much use of the money. So I suppose that using my hard earned moolah whichever way I please is perfectly acceptable.

4. Not fight with any of my family. The worse thing that could happen at the end is letting someone you love feel like you don't love them. I know that I wouldn't want that. So I'd try to be more patient and understanding. Most importantly, I'd try to be more present in their lives. Same thing applies to friends.

5. Spend the rest of my days not giving a crap about what others think of me. Not a very easy task to do since I seem to be so apologetic over some things that I do as a person. This might mean that I would have little regard for how my actions will affect other people's thoughts and feelings. It's a little selfish, but some people do it on a daily basis, why can't I?

My five things are probably seem shallow in the eyes of others. And these things won't give me a truly happy and fulfilled life in a span of a month. But honestly, it's near impossible to cram in so much life learning and experiences in a short time. I imagine that yuppies like me would hardly feel some level of peace in their minds over the life that they lived so far. But to me, the things I've listed down are things that could make me feel at ease with things. At least when the world ends, I'd feel good about where I was at that particular time. I may not have found a lasting love, but at least I had a kick-ass date before I died. I may not have a perfect family or had a million friends like the others seem to have, but at least we were together til the end. You catch my drift? At least I'll like my life when I leave it. 

If Love* Comes Along

If love comes along, I wouldn't claim it as an object that were to be possessed and kept hidden. I've done that too much in the past and it’s one of the things I've always, always regretted. If love comes along, I wouldn't smother love or pin it down because that would make love choke and slowly grow to loathe me. I wouldn't try to control love and make it a slave to my every whim. I would understand that love has a mind of its own and has its own ways. Love is its own person and will do whatever it wants regardless of what I think. It’s hard, but I guess I’ll just have to trust love enough to know that love won’t leave.

If love comes along, I’d make an effort to get to know love’s friends because they are important people in love’s life.

If love comes along, I wouldn’t count the relationship in months. Counting down months of love is fun, but that’s not all there is to it, right? I wouldn’t want love to be something that peaks on a certain day in a month every month and then lays dormant until the next crest of the wave. I want love to be a slow burn. 

If love comes along, I’d remember that too much of anything is bad, even the good stuff. Wanting to be happy all the time is a denial of problems and wanting the opposite is ignoring all the good that there is. If love comes along, I’d accept the fact that a relationship is not a well-edited montage of romantic scenes like in the movies. There are happy times, fun times, boring times, adventures, lazy days and quiet days, and that’s perfectly okay. Love is staying up all night to watch a movie that only one of the two wants to watch or helping out with an important deadline together.

If love comes along, I would accept love for what it is. I would love love for everything that it is. Love may not play the guitar or draw portraits. Love may not write poetry or make grand gestures. Love may not be that patient when it comes to fights. Love may not be a great dancer or the life of the party. Love may be a wallflower and socially awkward. Love may not be a high powered executive. Love may not be whatever love dreams to be in the future yet. Love may be in the midst of reaching its dreams. Love may not be David Beckham or Brandon Boyd or any long-time crush (I seriously doubt love would come in the form of any of them), but I know that love is who I love, and I will love love as is, imperfections and all. 

If love comes along, I would try to be more patient with love. In the event of a misunderstanding, I would take a deep breath and weed out all the unnecessary and hurtful thoughts that are fighting to come out of my mouth. I would think before I speak and try my best to understand. I’d try to remember that I don’t have to be right all the time and that what is important is that love understands me, too. I know that there will be times that I would have to agree to disagree with love, and that’s okay. 

If love comes along, I would tell love about the things that scare me, amuse me, hurt me, enrage me, and all sorts of combinations of emotions that can spring from me. In the same way, I would listen to love talk to me about love’s fears and visions of the future, of the things love considers beautiful and important. If it’s important to love, I'll at least try to be interested in it.

If love comes along, I’d take care of love. I may not be the best at it...others may be better, but I'll take care of love in the only way I know how. And if love likes the way I take care of love, then, good. If love comes along, I'd let love take care of me, too. We'll take care of each other. Because that's what you do. 

If love comes along, I would wish that person to be happy, with or without me.  

If love comes along, I'd be ready for it. And I'd be prepared to give of myself to love more. 

*The word Love may take on various forms. Throughout this post, love could be described as  a feeling, a relationship, or  a person. I apologize for the ambiguity, I really just wanted to let this out. I hope you understand, nameless reader.

My name is Isa and I am a Sheerio

This is Ed Sheeran. He's British, he's a musician, and he's brilliant. Oh, and he gives his things, i.e. his guitars, names (like me!).

Being a person who loves Ed Sheeran, his music, and his ability to make an entire show with just him, his guitar (Nigel, Lloyd, Felix or Cyril), and his loop station makes you a Sheerio. If you pray to the heavens above for a chance to watch him live, that makes you a Sheerio, too. Welcome to the club! Let us all sing along/swoon/mentally propose marriage to/look at him with shiny eyes filled with love and wonder together.

Perks

Dear friend,

I watched Perks today. I'm so, so, so glad I did. Really good movies are far and few lately, I think. Anyway, I've been excited about the movie ever since I read the book and saw the trailer. The book made me depressed, honestly. I cried buckets in various chapters of the book (which made me self-conscious because other people who've read the book said that they were inspired and uplifted) and felt a certain heaviness after I finished reading. I kind of expected that I'd be depressed over the movie too but strangely enough, it didn't. The film was...poignant. There's a sadness there that was just too massive for words, but then there was also a kind of happiness that pervaded in the entire film. It was happy and sad. Just like how Charlie said...

"So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be."

So here I am being a complete fangirl over Perks. I liked the book, but the movie just made me like Perks even more. Here are some reasons why I actually made a fist pump when the movie finished:

The film's screenplay was written by the novel's author, Stephen Chbosky. The film was also directed by the author. Because the movie was written and directed by the novelist, he had complete control of how the film looked like. He knew each of the characters inside out and he rewrote the novel into a screenplay that had all the important elements that were needed. The book was truly brought to life. I think that's amazing.

I liked the cast. I thought that Logan Lerman was perfect as Charlie. He was so endearingly awkward. I could finally understand why Charlie the wallflower managed to find himself in the midst of friends who love him dearly. Logan is a great actor. I can totally see him win awards in the future. Ezra Miller was amazing as Patrick, I can't imagine anyone else who could play that sassy character. It fit him like a glove. I also liked Mae Whitman, who played Mary Elizabeth. I never thought much of the character she played while I was reading the book but in the movie she had so much more personality and was one of the sources of humor in the film. Finally, I liked Emma Watson as Sam. I think her acting has vastly improved and has veered far, far away from Hermione Granger. She was able to fulfill the idea of Sam, which from Charlie's perspective, was far from perfect but perfect nonetheless. I'm so glad the cast were good actors.

I liked that it made me cry. Weird, I suppose, but true. I guess I can relate to all the characters in different ways.

I liked the ending scene. I loved the last bit of script with Charlie talking. The way it was written....ugh, it was perfect. It kind of made you feel infinite, even though you're just confined in your seat.

After all the blabbering I've done, the point I'm trying to get at is that Perks is a movie that I'm glad exists. I can't wait to get my hands on a copy of it so I can watch it anytime I want. I guess that's all I really want to say.

Love always,

Isa

30 before 30

I saw this in my friend's blog and decided to follow in her footsteps. She actually posted this topic a while back and I've been struggling to complete my own thirty things since I read hers. Making a list like this is harder than I thought because it's not a bucket list. It is, kind of, but not really because you don't really want to "kick the bucket" at thirty. I'm rambling again. Anyway, enough chatter. Here it is, in no particular order:

1. Learn how to cook real food
2. Live on my own
3. Travel to different Asian countries (Europe seems like a distant dream right now. Maybe after 30?)
4. Swim with dolphins and/or whalesharks
5. Make someone happier
6. Fulfill a wish
7. Learn how to fix a car
8. Have a byline in a widely-read publication (at least once!)
9. Write a script
10. Eat authentic pho, ramen, bibimbap, satay, curry, and other delicious Asian cuisine (when I do #3)
11. Learn how to scuba dive
12. Be a proper surfer and catch my own wave
13. See a real, live panda bear
14. Learn a dance genre well
15. Teach someone a skill that I know
16. Learn a skill well enough that I can teach someone else
17. Travel alone?
18. Try starting a business
19. Get a promotion
20. Be good at yoga
21. Bungee jump
22. Learn to read music
23. Be able to sufficiently play an instrument (meaning, beyond the basics)
24. Dye my hair (or some part of my hair) blue/pink/purple
25. Re-learn how to drive a stick shift
26. Climb a mountain
27. Watch UAAP Cheerdance Competition live
28. Get a master's degree
29. Learn more about photography
30. Learn some basic self-defense moves

happy place thoughts

I'm slightly intoxicated. I can feel it in my toes, which means that I'm in my happy place. Thought it is a great state to be in, being intoxicated, I still would rather be intoxicated in other ways.

My friend is in the throes of a different kind of intoxication. The kind of intoxication that comes from another person. You know...the relationshippy kind. I don't know if anyone else have felt that kind of feeling...the moments when you feel ten times better about yourself and you think that anything you do is better because this one person thinks you're a million bucks. You feel great, needless to say and you get this boost of confidence that comes from nowhere in particular. You get some sort of strength from that.  I haven't felt like that in a while.

So here I am slightly intoxicated and thinking about love.

Love...it's not something that can really be talked about simply because it can't really be defined in the same way. It eludes me. But even though it eludes me I still have some thoughts about it. Being without it makes you think about it, apparently.

Love...it's a gift. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's an effing cliche. But they don't become cliches for no reason. It's a gift because it's something that you don't come across everyday. Nobody wakes up one morning and decides that they'll fall in love...they just sort of do it...I guess. It just happens. In fact, it's more than a gift. It's a privilege. A few years back, I never thought that about love that way. In my mind, I wanted an "epic" kind of love. You  know, the kind of love that has so much obstacles and hardships and fights that you just have so much to deal with. Blame it on television shows. I my mind just had the idea that if we had more hardships we'd appreciate each other more.  But I realized that it's not that way. Somehow, for the better part of my life, I had some skewed, fairy tale outlook on what love is. Love isn't about falling in love with each other at first sight, it's about truly seeing a person and deciding not to look away. It's not about the mushy, chasing-each=-other-around-the-park-while-laughing stuff that makes up a relationship, it's about staying when everything is all fucked up. It's not about needing someone, it's about wanting and choosing to want someone to be there. Anyone can feel love...but not everyone can choose to love, I think.

My toes are numb. Goodnight.

Isa Dreams of Sushi, too.

There's a documentary I watched recently that I can't seem to shut up about. Take a look at the trailer and see why the question as to whether or not I'd like the film was a resounding "uh, duh."

Jiro Dreams Of Sushi is a documentary that places a spotlight on sushi and the master who makes them, 85-year-old Jiro Ono. I knew I had to watch this documentary the moment I saw the trailer because one, the documentary features the only sushi chef to be awarded 3 Michelin stars, and two, I love sushi. Sushi is a beautiful, beautiful thing! If there are other movies or videos that show high definition images of sushi, I'm all for it.

The documentary focuses on Jiro, his 10-seat hole in the wall, 30,000 yen a plate restaurant at the Ginza metro station, his two sons and his legacy to each of his shokunin and to the sushi-eating world.

The film is food porn, a fact that made my sushi-loving heart soar. The 1 hour 20 minute minute film had a rich source of what I'd call sushi montage. Various images of ingredients being sliced, charred, flipped, massaged and finally put together under the graceful hands of Jiro all come together to present the final image; a single piece of sushi placed carefully atop a shiny black rectangular plate, ready to be enjoyed.

It's beautiful, it's artful, it made me hungry.

Aside from the breathtaking imagery, the film is able to impart nuggets of wisdom through the voice of Jiro, who has strong opinions regarding discipline, work ethic and the journey towards perfection.

Opinions and statements like this:

One thing I also liked about the film was that it gave foreign eyes like mine a glimpse of the market, where Jiro's son visits everyday to buy a day's worth of seafood. I like the idea that there are specialists for each kind of seafood, which in turn guarantees quality. The Japanese take quality really seriously, apparently. I also liked that the film touched on the issue of the depleting tuna population. Jiro and his shokunin are in a business that relies heavily on the gifts of the sea, and it is for that same reason that they put importance in its sustainability for the next generation.

The film, in my opinion, drives a simple point: Jiro is the best because he loves what he does. Everything else, his role as father (he was rarely home), chef (he has three Michelin stars), and teacher (his apprentices went on to have their own restaurants), as well as his constant need to better himself are after effects of this one point. It's inspiring.

If it's not obvious already, I liked the movie. It made me want to be in Japan and take a place in one of his seats. It made me dream of sushi, but in a different way. Unfortunately, this dream is a bit far-fetched. Ticket to Japan + 30,000 yen + expenses that will let me live = Bankruptcy! So I'll just resign myself to just reading about the whole infamous Jiro experience here.

But I'll keep dreaming about sushi, anyway. :)