Wish List

Got this from someone's LJ.

STEP ONE
Make a post of 10 holiday wishes. The wishes can be anything at all, from simple (the bikini I saw...) to medium ("Broadway show tickets") to really big ("All I want for Christmas is a new car//house/Carribean vacation.") The important thing is, make sure these wishes are things you really, truly want.

Make sure you include some sort of contact info in your post, whether it's your address or just your email address where Santa (or one of his elves) could get in touch with you.

Also, make sure you post some version of these guidelines in your LJ/blog or link to this post so that the holiday joy will spread.

STEP TWO
Surf around your friends list (or friends' friends, or just random journals) to see who has posted their list. And now here's the important part:

If you see a wish you can grant, and it's in your heart to do so, make someone's wish come true. Sometimes someone's trash is another's treasure, and if you have a leather jacket you don't want or a gift certificate you won't use -- do it.

Ofcourse, the point isn't to put people out, it's to provide everyone a chance to be someone else's holiday elf -- to spread the joy. Gifts can be made anonymously or not -- it's your call.

There are no rules with this project, no guarantees, and no strings attached. Give, and you might receive. And you'll have the joy of knowing you made someone's holiday special.

Okay this is my list. Don't forget to put yours up as well!

1) Books. (Book list to follow)
2) Money for tuition that I won't have to pay back. (May come in any form, I'm not picky.)
3) My writing to come out in a fairly well-known publication.
4) Unequivocal sense of what I want to do with my life. Gumption.
5) A Christmas tree. Even a little one.
6) A commision check. Income. A means by which I can keep on having a roof over my head and food on my table...
7) My family members not to have to pay taxes in countries in which they don't actually reside...
8) My life to fall into place.
9) A scholarship fund for the deserving and underprivileged literary geniuses in the Philippines.
10) Something nice and fun.

Book List:
1. The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gergory Maguire
2. any book by Anais Nin
3. any book of poetry by Adrienne Rich
4. The Empire of Memory by Eric Gamalinda
5. One Hundred Strokes of the Brush Before Bed by Melissa P.
6. Any Narnian book. Better yet, the whole collection of Narnian books. Narnia rocks!
7. White People by Allan Gurganus

Actually, I'd love to receive any kind of book for Christmas. Seriously. As I've said, I'm not picky. At all. If you happen to have a surfeit of reading material, or if you own a bookstore, or if you're just the type who just wants to make random people happy this holiday season, by all means, send those books my way. You can mail it to my office and address it to Wanda. Yes, seriously. You can find my office address here.

Happy Holidays.

Happy Holidays Part II

I am, again, broke. This hand-to-mouth existence thing is really getting out of control.

So then, on to the enumeration of Holiday events.

***

I got a new magazine in the mail a couple of days ago, and I must say, it’s a bit different from my usual cocktail of beauty/lifestyle/literary monthlies. I don’t know how it got there, but it was definitely for me. The address label, with its computerized block print, was quite clear on that. But how? And why? I have no idea. All I know is it was just sitting calmly in our mailbox, wrapped demurely, modestly, in black plastic.

My very own, very first copy of Playboy.

And guess what? It's not a bad magazine. No, seriously.

Their articles are actually pretty good. Yes, damnit, I'm the kind of weirdo who reads the articles. Yes, I'm serious. They even have a good selection of fiction. And it wasn't as sleazy as I thought. If anything, there weren't nearly as much naked women in it as I imagined. You can stop laughing now.

***

Great week for food.

Had duck at this Asian Fusion Restaurant in Astoria called Bistro 33 (or something like that - 3304 36th St). It was so good. The green salad that went with it was perfect. I mean, normally I don't even like vinaigrettes, but this time I finished every single leaf on my plate. And by the looks of all the plates on our table, everyone pretty much shared by opinion.

Then had baby pig and a hotpot feast at John's mom's place. Stuffed silly. Had beefballs and fishballs and squidballs and practically every kind of, err, ball you can put in a soup. Please extinguish the dirty thoughts in your head.

Then, my turkey. I love that roasted bird. All plump and moist and made by me. Yum. Also had veggies and mashed potatoes and my homemade apple pie.

***

Back to stressing about my money matters. Egad. I don't think I'm cut out to be poor.

Happy Holidays

Happy Holidays everyone, and have fun stuffing yourselves silly!


This is the turkey I made, just out of the oven, by the way. It was good! Nice and moist and I didn't even have to baste it! Brining rocks!

Thanksgiving

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, which is not a bad holiday to celebrate, I'm cooking a traditional turkey dinner.

So behold, my apple pie, which I made from scratch, crust and all!

Turducken

Mission: to sample a turducken.

The word turducken is an acronym derived from the three most widely eaten species of bird: turkey, duck and chicken. I read somewhere that this crazy turkey alternative originated in Cajun country. The turducken is naturally most prolific on Thanksgiving, and there's a bunch of sites that will ship the 3-in-1 birds to your doorstep, ready to cook. It takes about 9 hours to roast and it's something of a science project among gourmands. A cooking website even called it the Frankenstein of Fowls.

Basically, it's three birds in one, as the name implies. It's a deboned chicken inside a deboned duck, inside a partially deboned turkey -- the legs and the wings still have bones to retain their shape. It's supposed to be outrageously delicious, and I want some!

JOB OPPORTUNITY FOR ANYONE WITH A COMPUTER!!!

Okay guys, I'm a lazy girl, and with school scheduled to start soon, I'm all pressed for time. So for all you people with lots of time to kill and looking for some cash, I got a great deal for you. It's better if you have at least a little HTML experience. This could be a long-term opportunity.

What you will do:
Post at least 25 listings on a website called craig's list per day. Some of them will include pictures, some won't. View a sample listing here.

Compensation structure:
I will pay you a base of Php 2,750 every two weeks. If I close a deal because of a listing you made, you will get a Php 500 bonus. The more deals, the more bonuses. Obviously, the more detailed a listing is, the better. A listing with pictures is definitely going to lure in more potential clients.

You can do this for a couple of hours at home every day. It doesn't really take that long, and this makes for a great part time job. I'm looking to start someone by December 1. I will check the listings at the end of each day, just to make sure you're doing everything right. You will have access to a database from which to get listings, all you have to do is advertise them on craig's list. You will also sign a confidentiality agreement that states you are NOT ALLOWED to USE AND/OR DIVULGE the information on our database unless authorized by me.

As this is an online job, I don't really care where you're located. All that matters to me is that you must be diligent about putting up the ads. (You can be sure that I will be diligent about making sure those ads are there.) Since the listings are for properties located in New York City, mastery of English is essential. Some sales/marketing experience is good as well, but not necessary.

College students from Ateneo are highly encouraged to apply (hehe), but I will also consider smart high school students, young bored professionals, housebound bums, and COO's (child of owner).

Please email me if you're interested. A resume and a couple of short paragraphs telling me why I should give you this job wouldn't hurt either.

Book whore

There really is no space in the apartment for more books. There really is no more money in my bank account for more books. There really is no more time for more books. But being the bibliophile that I am, I somehow made the space, somehow found the money, somehow freed up (and will free up) the time.

Apart from sleep, books are the only things that take me to my happy, shiny place. I need the literary fix to keep me functional. I'm addicted to the way reality can fade into insignificance with the turn of a well-authored page. I'm addicted to the vaccuum that sucks me into parallel twilight zones. I'm addicted to the escape, the relief of not having to be conscious of being alive, the freedom to explore thoughts that have no real correlation to the basic functions of my everyday, the license to project myself onto other lives (even if they're make-believe). I'm not really any better than the junkies I pass by while strolling around Tompkins Square Park, am I?

Only I was always too much of a coward to be a druggie.


****

You know, I like being lost. I like the fear, the helplessness, the eventual surrender -- the acceptance of not not knowing where you are, not knowing where to go. I'm lost here in New York. I'm following breadcrumbs left by people I don't even know. Crumbs I find in poems and novels, in hand-stapled lit zines, in jaded mentors.

Everyone's used to being at the top here. Everyone's used to burning with passion, pursuing a dream, risking their worlds. I'm surrounded by them, and there aren't enough happy endings to go around for us all.

I'm not brilliant. In the face of this city's lights, my own light seems faded, dim. I'm not that loud, not that strong. In the face of surperiority complexes that are superior to yours, what do you do? I'm surrounded by writing that always seems to be everything I've tried to achieve but couldn't. And these writers feel the same as me. There's a long, long way to go.

Once upon a time I thought I could be like Virginia Woolf -- a bone fide published author by 24. I'm 23 now and all I see is a road that stretches out indefinitely.

I'm lost. And for now, I'm revelling it. I have youth as my excuse, and that's okay. But there's also the fear that one day being lost will take its toll. And I won't know what I stand for anymore.


****


I bought about 7 books at The Strand the other day. Some of them I've read and forgotten. Some of them are used and clearly abused. Some of them are virgins.

Reading List for the next couple of days:
Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones
Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies
Milan Kundera's Ignorance
Haruki Murakami's After the Quake
Chuck Palahniuk's Diary
Pamela Holm's The Toaster Broke, So We're Getting Married
Alice Adams' After You've Gone

Alice Adams always reminds me of when I was 12. I found a book by her in my grandmother's house, and I read it. I can't say that I truly understood it, but I liked it nonetheless. Now I think I only keep on reading her because of that intial "like" way back when I was 12. Weird how authors can have that effect on me.

I have a lot more things to say, but my brain is too tired to elucidate. It's always too tired lately. Even when the thoughts come fully formed from my cobwebby mind (like Athena rising from the sea -- the image just came, sorry).

Maybe tomorrow.

Vote Sib.

At the behest (read: kakulitan) of Mr.Sibulo, I'm going to advertise his campaign to be a TV Host on this blog. He gives his poor friendsters weekly updates. He also IM's people just to tell them to vote for him. Obviously, he wants this VERY much, so please spare him 30 measly seconds of your time. (That's Jonathan Sibulo, by the way, if you actually are voting).

"I'm still on TV and it has been crazy. I haven't spent this much time on the PC in a while. (I check the polls almost every hour and I'm seriously starting to lack sleep)You can check out the results here.

I've successfully finished 2 tasks already, one of which (if you're patient enough) you've probably already seen on TV. (Remember: it's USA, ch.17 on Skycable).

You guys have the power to keep me on television and you can do this in 2 ways:

1) You can vote for me via SMS. Type VOTE USA H and send it to 29762. You can do this all day if you want to. Hehehe

2) You can visit the site at www.solar-entertainment.com and vote for me there. You can only vote once every hour though which really sucks (but that of course should not stop you from voting every hour youre online, right?) Every hour counts!!!

A TIP FOR VOTING ONLINE: try voting at the ends of hours to maximize your internet voting time. Example: you can vote at 4:55, and then vote again at 5:00; that's 2 votes in just 10 minutes. This could really make a difference if youre the type who doesnt really spend much time online. You can do this again and again all day!

SMS votes count more than votes on the site for obvious reasons. They have a larger point equivalent (I dont know by how much though). Either of course would really help. The whole contest lasts for about 2 months and voting polls are reset every week. Every week poll counts. 1 guy has already been faced off!!!

Thank you for you continued support. My sincerest gratitude goes to everyone who has voted for me via SMS or online and is still voting for me. Now, if you could only do this for the next 2 months. Hehehe...

-sib

P.S. - Now post this everywhere - on your blog, lj, myspace, friendster, yahoogroup, etc Tell everyone!!! Its fun!!!"