i'm a twilighter too!

yes, i got bitten...  

i have all 4 books by stephenie meyer, but i've only read as far as the first book (twilight) and the second book (new moon), which was ed's donation to my growing book collection. hahaha! so thank u much ed =) that was very nice of you (read: the pautang that ended up as my going away present hahaha!). 

i've actually read them both twice.  when i first heard of the series, a love triangle between a vampire, a human girl and a werewolf, i thought "hmmm...  must be a  tamer version of laurell hamilton's anita blake series."  and maybe it is.

the characters have very memorable lines.  uber sa kilig factor (god, i hope the movie doesn't disappoint).  as i got to know edward's character in the first few chapters of the book, i want a vampire boyfriend too!  :D  if you read the back cover of the book, you will not be able to resist. i know i couldn't.

About three things I was absolutely positive.

First, Edward was a vampire.

Second, there was a part of him -

and I didn't know how dominant that part might be -

that thirsted for my blood.

And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.

those lines did it for me. and before i knew it, i was signing up my name on the waiting list at powerbooks (yup, they ran out of it back in august).

edward is not exactly harry potter.  there's no comparison (at least not for me).  this book will take you through the agony and ecstasy brought about by first love (just like a walk down memory lane). first love complicated by the fact that bella swan is in love with not your average vampire, a vegan vamp (if you want to know what that is get your own copy of the bloody book).

the second book (which as ed's donation), New Moon is probably the most heart breaking book i've ever read.  spoiler alert: yes they broke up in this book.  i nearly wept when i got to the empty pages...  such emptiness (sniff...sniff).  

it's so bloody difficult not to feel sorry for her when they broke up. heartbreaks give you the illusion that time stopped for you.  but the truth is, the world goes on. it doesn't care about your pain. 

as for the female protagonist in the book, bella swan, you would either hate or love her.  she's a total Klutz.  if there's one thing she's certain about, she wanted to be with edward and she wanted to be a vampire.  unfortunately edward doesn't feel the same way.  he wanted her to remain human and age and die like any human beings do.  

and there are times when i can't help but get angry at bella for leading jacob (spoiler alert again: yes, he's the werewolf).  i mean he's such a nice guy...  reminds me of another werewolf, richard, of the anita blake series.  i had to put off reading the third book in the series (eclipse) because i'm uberworked (read: got a deadline again on friday!).  

anyway, this is on the back cover of New Moon:

"I knew we were both in mortal danger.  Still in that instant, I felt well.  Whole.  I could feel my heart racing in my chest, the blood pulsing hot and fast through my veins again.  My lungs filled deep within the sweet scent that came off his skin.  It was like there had never been any hole in my chest.  I was prefect - not healed, but as if there had never been a wound in the first place."

simply unputdownable.  like i mentioned, i read the books twice. 

and if you're a die-hard twilight fan, aka twilighter, this is for u.

"Even more, I had never meant to love him. One thing I truly knew - knew it in the pit of my stomach, in the center of my bones, knew it from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet, knew it deep in my empty chest - was how love gave someone the power to break you.  I'd been broken beyond repair."

-- Bella, from New Moon (Stephenie Meyer)

"Some mothers choose what their children will eat."

"Others choose which children will eat and which will die."

"The news from the World Food Programme is even grimmer: A child dies of hunger every six seconds, and hunger now kills more people every year than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined."

Raj Patel, author of "Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System," says the right to food should be seen as a human right. But, he says, powerful corporate food distributors control too much of the world's food supply to ensure a robust global food supply.

Patel says "2008 was a record year in terms of harvest. There's more food per person in 2008 than there's ever been in history. The problem is not food, but how we distribute it."

Other causes for the rise in global hunger have been documented. They include:

• Surging oil costs have made it more expensive to harvest, fertilize, store and deliver food.

• The rise in droughts and hurricanes worldwide has wiped out crops and made farming more difficult.

• The world is running out of the raw materials -- water, oil, good farmland -- needed to keep the food system intact.

"A lot of people have begun to understand at various levels that the food system, as it is, can't go on," says Paul Roberts, author of "The End of Food."

Every time an American bites down on a steak or hamburger, they're contributing to global hunger, Roberts says. As other countries become more affluent, they're copying our meat-heavy diet. The problem: It takes so much grain and other resources to produce meat, he says.

"If the rest of the world were to eat like we do, the planet would collapse," Roberts says.

to read the full article by John Blake, "As children starve, world struggles for solution" visit CNN.com's website.

click to go to msnbc.com article

it's a shock isn't it? that there are mothers who would have to make this tough choice even today. you'd think this problem should've been solved at the end of the previous century but it's not. makes you feel guilty for eating that dessert even when you're stomach was about to burst; because now you know that there is a little child somewhere who's going to die because there's not enough food to keep him alive until his next birthday. even after all my raves and rants about how unfair my life has been, i'm still 'lucky' compared to those kids. my mother didn't have to make that kind of choice.

my brother was a project engineer in constructing a small school in one of the depressed areas here in bicol. it's a coastal barangay in sipocot. because of the distance from naga, he had to sleep there and go home only during the weekends. there's already an existing school building but they're adding another room since the first one is poorly made. school buildings usually serve as evacuation centers when disasters strike these areas during the typhoon season.

he told me that there was even one family there who have 18 kids and the oldest is not even 20 yet! one day he was eating his lunch (which was also his breakfast), sardines cooked with eggs. since some of the kids live far from the school, they bring their own baon (packed lunch). he sat next to 2 kids (brothers) who were about to eat their baon. he saw them share the rice but as he waited for the ulam, he saw them take out packet of toyo (soy sauce) and asin (salt) and mixed it with the rice! when the kids saw him staring (prolly with that shocked expresion on his face), they walked away and ate far away from him.

we remember hearing stories like these from our parents since our parents didn't come from buena familias. but as he was telling me the story i saw how sad and frustrated he was. my brother said he lost his appetite after that and decided to give all his food to the 2 brothers. he ended up just drinking coffee that day. when he saw the two kids sharing the rice mixed with salt and soy sauce, he promised not to leave a single grain of rice on his plate from then on. he told me that he would've understand seeing them eat tuyo (dried fish), but it looks like their family can't even afford to buy it. so when poor people can't even afford to buy the so-called poor man's food, what are they going to eat now?

i can understand how my brother felt after seeing something like this. we're so lucky. darned lucky. so when he sees my cousins playing with what they eat, he gets angry. after all, rice doesn't grow overnight; and there are empty stomachs who would love to have even just a few of it even without any ulam.

made me feel guilty for all the food i wasted all those years.




God gives every bird its food, but He does not thow it into its nest. - J. G. Holland

Everyone has a purpose in life. Perhaps yours is watching television. - David Letterman

i was in couch potato heaven from the 2nd week of september until the end of october. i was living at my aunt's house and jacking up her electric bill because of my tewwible, tewwible tv habits. (happy birthday auntie Len, mwahhh =) i wake up at around 10 am or 12 noon, play with my adorable dog choco, eat when there's food left for me in the fridge, and watch tv on and off until 3 am. Before the first week was over, i was a full-fledged bum.

thank god television and computers were invented since going to the beach during the typhoon season is a no go. by the end of september, i was best friends with animax and knew every character of my favorite anime series. i stayed up late/early (depends on how late or early 2am or 3 am is for you) just to watch reruns of my favorite animes, especially those that were shown while i was catching some zzzzzz's. i had so much fun watching kyo kara maoh! or god (?) save our king! i've never seen so many good looking guys in one anime. add some gay undertones and you're in for quite a ride. i wish jade had a dvd of this so i can watch it all over again.

gunther, wolfram, conrad, yuri and gwendal

speaking of the divil, no i'm not going to singapore and taking your detective conan dvd with me but i believe inday is leaving on wednesday night. hahaha! i spent 2 days watching the detective conan dvd i borrowed from him. i ate, slept and dreamt of nothing but kudo shinichi aka edogawa conan. it's a compilation of 10 detective conan movies which they release to every year from April 17, 1997. there's now a total of 12 movies released, most recently was on february 2008. there are over 500 episodes of the tv series and i want them all... (demanding!) i hope you're reading this jade, hahaha!

kudo shinichi

shinichi is actually a famous teenage detective. but after being forced to drink a poison by 2 henchmen of the black organization, he shrunk and became a kid again. my favorite episodes were the episodes he ended up teaming up with the thief, kaitou kid and his rival detective, hattori heiji. there's one forum on the net that says that the kaitou kid is related to the kudo family which could explain how he came to know of conan's real identity. i'm trying to pick a favorite from the 10 movies but i'm quite torn among magician of the silver sky (where he teamed up with the kaitou kid), the phantom of baker street (where he played a virtual detective video game on sherlock holmes' turf), and the private eye's requiem. i've yet to see the 11th and 12th movie because i don't know if jade has them yet. Hahaha! tigas!

another anime that i'm really hooked on right now is blood+. i can't wait to see what would happen next. saya is a vampire. she was born in 1833, survives on the blood of others, and is destined to destroy chiropterans and her twin sister Diva. it's so bloody interesting now that saya has made a chevalier out of her own younger brother and the appearance of another group, the schiffs, a breakaway group of artificial chiropteran created out of diva's (saya's twin sister) blood. the schiffs attack both saya and diva's groups, believing that blood from the 2 queens or any of their chevaliers can stop the Thorn.

saya and her chevalier haji

during the weekends (although everyday was a weekend for me then), i watched reruns of gunxsword. but due to some change in my habitat, (thanks to my grandma's hypertension, i had to temporarily move to slopes of mt. isarog but sadly they have cartoon channel but no animax.), i think i only got as far as episode 10 of the gunxsword series. unfortunately, i couldn't even remember where it left off...damn! i guess i'll just have to watch it all over again.

van of gunxsword

the first time i watched this anime, i didn't even like van. he's not your typical anime hero. he's a reluctant hero, even slow at times and rude to wendy but like any hero he pulls through when he's needed. i think i got as far as the episode when wendy saw a glimpse of a blond and then everything is blank after that. wendy's brother, michael garret, was taken by the some baddies who attacked her village and then sold him to the same guy van's looking for (a man with the clawed hand) and now wendy is trying to track michael down and get him back.

Van has a white Armor, Dann of Thursday, or just Dann. it's held in place over the planet in a crucifix-shaped satellite, and is launched to his position when he twists his hat 180 degrees and swings a 'V' with his sword in the air. it is one of the strongest armors on the planet, and uses a sword as its primary weapon. as one of the "original seven" he needs to enter his armor once a week to regenerate. if he doesn't, he will die plus he does not age due to his being one with Dann.

anyone here got any gunxsword dvds? i'll donate the chips and the popcorn if you'll let me watch it, pretty please with cherries on top.






Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them. - Antoine de Saint-Exupery