A Woman Without Her Man Is Nothing

Among the twelve of us in our team, I am the only one without a partner.

And I plan on staying so.

There was one time when four of us were in the faculty room and I found myself watching my colleagues talk about their boyfriends. And as I was looking at their animated faces, I thougth that they totally forgot about themselves, drowned in their little chitchat of what makes their boyfriend adorable. Suddenly, it was as if their identity is tied to their boyfriends, as if they would dissolve into nothingness Sandman-style without their man.

Though they were happy, I was sad for them, because in a single second, in their single smile, they lost their being to another person. They became dolls, lifeless dolls, they became not themselves anymore. They are not my colleagues, not my friends, just a giggling something.

Then I thought, "Woman, without her man, is nothing".

I think of myself as a feminist. But this remark, in this one moment, rings eternal.

Book Review: Schopenhauer's Telescope

A book review which a classmate asked me to write when I was in college. Reading it now, I felt myself cringe, and I can't tell you why. 

Gerard Donovan’s Schopenhauer’s Telescope is a vaguely otherworldly novel set in an unnamed European country at the time of a great civil war. The story is spread along the course of a single day and tells the unsettling conversation between the town baker and the school teacher which ranged from the necessity of evil acts for survival and progression to the morality of this “evil” acts. You might say at this point that the novel is gory. Yes, it is in a way gory but it teaches timeless points and values that helped me in realizing things that I’ve never thought before.

While reading this novel, I felt like I am having a mental exercise because the question that were posed by the two main characters are really thought-provoking like the nature of human “evil” and the necessity of it as a tool for human progression, and if we could really demarcate the boundaries of “good” and “evil”. The next question that will be addressed is that how does this values affected my life?

We cannot really judge people according to what they have done: We must act in a nonjudgmental manner. We are different people who come from different backgrounds and cultures and the decisions that we make is not a reason for us to discriminate other people. I myself can say that I am a victim of the everyday situations in my life; even though people might say something bad about me, only I could know the things that I have to go through in doing the things that I think is right. That is the reason for the expression, “depends on the person”, we do not have the right to judge the actions of other people just because we think that their acts are wrong. Moreover, what is wrong for us might not be so for other people.

Our actions will be seen and examined by the people who will come after us: This is actually related to the first value that I had cited. People in the future will judge us. But this is not a bad thing because it actually tells us that we must have a thorough self-examination of the pros and cons of our actions. This value tells us that we must see our actions in an objective light: we must not let emotions control us in the process of this self-examination. We might be discriminated and misunderstood by our contemporaries but we might be great in the eyes of the future generation. The bottomline is that the success or failure of our actions is our sole responsibility.

When we repeatedly do something that deed becomes ordinary: The things that we have never done before might overwhelm us at first but if we try to go beyond our boundaries and try to conquer our fears, we will end up saying to ourselves that we have our lives in control. Doing good things might earn us the discrimination of other people, but we must set aside those negative comments and continue working because these things will become a part of our personhood. To use the jargon of my major, our good values will “fossilize.” But unlike fossilization, our values are not stagnant, we continue to evolve, which separates us from other creatures.

We choose the paths that we have to take and that we can’t blame the people around us if anything turns wrong: True. Life is a choice, life is what we make of it and the things that happened to us be it positive or negative will mold our character and our future decisions. It is usual for us humans to blame our mother or father or friends with our failures and we fail to listen to their side because we wallow in grief. I myself sometimes do this because I feel that I carry the whole world as my burden and that nobody could help me. But along the way, I realized that the things that happened in my life are the effects of my choices and that I can't blame anybody except for myself. This is the time that I started accepting the things that happened and the only thing left for me to do is to stand up again after a fall and continue living my life with what is remaining. This blaming of other people, I think, is one of the reason why our world today is chaotic. People who keep on pointing the blame to other people without examining themselves first. The concept of self-examination again enters the picture, if we could just see the things that we have done; maybe we would realize the right and wrong in our actions. If we succeed in that, then acceptance would follow.

We should learn from our past experiences: The novel tackled about the hideous crimes that man has committed throughout the course of human history. History is recorded so that we in the present generation could learn from the mistakes and triumphs of the older generation. It gives us the lesson that life is continuous and that we could always improve the present through examining the past. Taking this proposition on a more personal level, I can say that my experiences in the past molded me into the person that I am. I learned from my mistakes and triumphs and tried to stand up again after a failure and improve myself after a success. Like I said earlier, life is not stagnant. It is sure that the things that happened to us in the past will never happen again but one day, we might encounter something that is very similar. And our past experiences will eventually help us in dealing with it.


The most important thing is that we are alive because we have the will to live: This is the single most important value that the novel has imparted on its readers and this, I think, is the tie that binds the novel. The tragedies and successes in our life will only happen if we choose it to happen. And this would only be so if we tell ourselves that we can always do it, that we can conquer our fears and cross boundaries. The events in our lives are signs that we are alive: the challenges tell us that we could explore the unexplorable and our successes tell us that we can always make our potentials a reality.We may experience some highs and lows, our problems will surely come back in another form but we must not give up, we must continue living because this is the only life that we have. Life will always be meaningful and that the complementary things in our life like darkness and lightness, war and peace, love and hate, and living and dying has always been a part of it. It has always been a part of the lives of the people before us and would be part of the lives of the people in the future. Problems are inevitable but we must remember that the sweet things in life are also inevitable. Our happiness or the opposite of it would always lie in our own hands and it will be our choice. The most important thing that we must remember in living is that we must not loathe life, we must love it, and we must learn to live with the challenges and successes, we must have the will to live! Just like what the teacher wrote in his letter to his wife, “We might not know the things that may happen tomorrow...the problems might come again in another form...but still, the will to live will always blossom anew.” What I am in the past is not important, what is important is that I am living my life now and that I am ready to explore the unexplorable, conquer the unconquerable, and triumph the untriumphable.

It is a cliché to say that “In life, there are no rewinds.” But then it is still relevant to us as this always makes us think that we must always go for the best. We must savor every moment of our lives because we will only pass this life once. To this, I can say that we are all survivors of life.

From the Fodder: Screams of Unrest

From the fodder: A random collection of thoughts plaguing me these days.


I have so much to say, but I don't have the means to say it. My gift of words is slowly leaving me, thanks to this institution.


I don't know what to say anymore. I don't know what to feel. I've been stagnant for too long.


I think that the reason I can't write properly is that I am not allowed to say what I truly wanted. And that takes a toll on me.


Words are my only way, but it's slowly fading away.

Yes, it's all about me not being able to write a decent prose anymore. And it's eating me. What could be the reason? Any advice?

From the Old Notebook: K - 12 Education

Like what the title says, this essay was written two years ago during the hoopla that was the K-12 education. Apparently, the issue became a bigger hoopla because the curriculum will now be implemented this school year.


Who is tired of studying for fourteen or more straight years? I am. I am because I feel that my brain is so ready to explode right after I throw myself out of college. As for my parents, I can feel their tired sigh as I will finally stop draining their wallets.

You have to admit it, education is one wallet killer.

Formal schooling is a very long and rigid process of educating oneself, and I can actually measure that it is indeed very long, since I grew up studying and living in one place, my dear dear city. I saw the neighbors’ children grow up, I saw changes in the houses, and I saw my neighborhood grow in terms of population, as the said neighbors kept on sharing the night with their spouses. Bottomline? I am growing up, everybody’s growing up, and I am still studying. Some of my contemporaries stopped schooling altogether, and CHOSE to be an out-of-school youth. Their reason? Aside from the obvious, which is that they don't have money, the other reason is the length. Is ten years of Basic Ed that long? They didn’t even try to finish secondary school. I was thinking that maybe they were including college in the count which strengthened the discouragement and disinterest among them and their parents. Elementary and high school is already too long, we can’t bear college anymore, they say, they think that the time spent in school should be spent for working and not for studying. This inclusion of college in the count reflects the mentality that if a person didn’t finish college, then that person will never be able to get a professional job, pushing that person to pursue blue-collared jobs or to be part of the informal sector of the workforce. This is exactly what happened to my contemporaries, they stopped schooling, and are now working. This situation, for me, is not a bad thing, as a person does not need a degree to be a worker, he or she only needs skills appropriate to the job, or he or she can establish a business where he or she will have the income needed. There’s no need to be a summa cum laude to be a gazillionaire.

This is f***in sad.

And here is DepEd trying to push for a twelve year basic education program which they think will further the skills and knowledge of the youth, as they believe that Filipinos are already lagging behind other countries in terms of “global competitiveness”. Parents both from private and public schools were enraged by this proposal, as they will have to shell out bigger amounts of money, and in case of the public school folks, they will have to survive another two years of trying to make ends meet. We can’t blame the parents, they think that basic education is already expensive, and they still have college to think of. But hey, let the children find a way to get through college if the family does not have enough or has no money for college education. Don’t babysit a sixteen year old too much.

Christ Jesus. I wouldn't even consider having a child if he looks like him.

Well, I agree to DepEd to the extent that we are lagging behind everybody in terms of economic competitiveness and the respect received from other nationalities. But since the thrust of our government is to make workers and not entrepreneurs out of my countrymen, then I am totally for the two year extension of the basic education, provided that the curriculum will give the students enough skills to land a job or to make jobs (establish a business) even if they only have a high school diploma. An example of which is basic bookkeeping or hands-on training in the different professions, then if they find something interesting while studying, they can decide to further their studies through attending college, or applying what they have learned right after high school. The point here is that students will be ensured that they will have success even just after high school, and that the decision to pursue college education will be on their hands and not on their parents’ mouths.

This, I think, will be a very difficult undertaking, as what I am thinking will wreck the nerves of my country's attitude towards high school graduates and the college diploma. They value education, I know and am proud of that, but we put too much prestige to the college diploma, to the extent that it is already ridiculous, as we scoff at high school graduates, who are, by the way, also educated, and we can’t seem to deviate from the finish-college-and-get-a-job attitude. This attitude will be the major hindrance to the basic education’s extension’s fruition apart from the budget, political, and social will needed for the changes.
Having a job is not the sole source of income, there are millions of other pursuits that can make us get that dream car, dream house, and dream life. I am telling you this: economically speaking, the completion of both basic and tertiary education is not the sole ticket to success.

I am not saying that we must all dropout from high school or college. We are all unique individuals, and if our formula for success is finishing just high school or both high school and college, then I don’t have any issue, as our triumphs will depend on our choices. What was given here is a vision for the educational system, and probably even for our society.

The Highest and Lowest Points in Teaching

This essay was submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements in one of my education courses back in college. I felt a need of documenting how my beliefs are changing. And ideologically, I am going strong. Still, it's nice to look at my essays during these times. It feels so naive yet idealistic at the same time.

Some teachers say that they find joy in teaching. Honestly, I believe them in a sense. There is always a sense of fulfillment whenever students learn. Yes, I feel that temporarily, but just to be true to myself, I didn’t have a highest moment in student teaching though I have a lowest.

Teaching is a noble profession?

Call me insensitive, I don’t care. I think that being happy about the performance of the students is something that should be reflected about. Why are we happy with it? Is it because the lesson plan went exactly as we want it to be? Is it because the students are behaved? These are, indeed, factors to be considered, but we should think that when the lesson plan is followed and ALL of the students behaved exactly as we wanted them to be, then we have a problem. The problem is that we make them conform, and conformity is against my very philosophy that I must respect my students’ individual differences. I made them all follow me and I turned them into unthinking robots for a period. Do this, do that. Therefore, I didn’t made them think freely, I didn’t make them make their own meaning. I am just happy with my teaching whenever I sense that they grasped the lesson in different ways. I don’t want to get a high moment from teaching, because I didn’t take Education to make hordes of students make me happy. I teach you; make me happy. That I think is not a good attitude. Teaching did not dawn to humanity to inflate teachers’ egos.

But I'm sure as hell don't want to look too stressed about it...

I also didn’t have a lowest moment in teaching itself, because this would truly affect the atmosphere inside the classroom. I don’t want to enter the classroom depressed and in turn, depressing my students. But I did have a lowest moment in my relationship with the other teachers in school. I like my opinions being questioned, but I don’t like my ideas being blocked, especially if the topic that I’m talking about would surely affect the students like RH Bill. One teacher did it, and I was seething in disguised annoyance. This is only one of the many examples in which schools sometimes kill the positive energy that young teachers bring. If we are so serious in educating our students and making them think, then the school must be an institution of the exchange of ideas not just between students but also between the teachers themselves. The teachers must be the ones who must start a healthy intellectual discourse about pressing issues that will surely have its effect in education. This brings me to my philosophy that teachers themselves must be free to think. If teachers smother each other to prevent them from thinking, then they would do the same to the students. They would just stunt the minds of the students and turn them into a mindless horde.

Some teachers say that they find joy in teaching. Yes, I believe them, as there is always a sense of fulfillment whenever students learn. I am yet to have that highest moment, but I’m not bracing myself, because these same teachers didn’t tell us if schools are havens for thinking, anyway. 

Shut Up, Teacher

A little essay I wrote out of frustration. I forgot about this essay until I found it in my computer's many many folders. Wrote it way back when I was doing my practicum. And looking at myself from two years ago, I realized that being in a conservative school has never diminished my beliefs.

It was a sunny late morning and the heat of the incoming summer was starting to be felt in our faculty room.
Flux of graduating students also went in and out of the room, as it was a deadline day. At my table, I was reading an article from a newspaper about the reproductive health bill and since majority of the teachers that were with me in that room were married and had have kids, I asked them if they were in favor of the bill. The teachers gave me an assertive answer, as they felt that there was nothing wrong with it and they were not killing anybody in using contraceptives. A teacher also asked me if I was for it, I said yes, and I also said my criticism on the church’s stand. However, another teacher whispered to me which dragged me away from the friendly sharing of opinions, “Do not engage in debate yet, you're still a student-teacher.” As she was saying this, the topic was still being discussed, and the said teacher asked me my motives. I said that I just felt agitated with the church’s logic. She nodded her head and turned her attention back to what she was doing.

As soon as I found a way to go back to the conversation, I looked closely at the highlighter marker pen that I was holding and said, “This highlighter's cool; it looks like a lipbalm.” I felt a sense of success as one of the teachers who answered me took my highlighter and examined it; they really welcomed the change of topic. They ate my bait.

As I went back to reading the article, I wondered on why student teachers are not allowed to give their views on pressing issues. Sure, I am young and I still do not understand a real public school teacher’s reality. But the issue at hand must surely be a part of a real school teacher’s reality, as the topic that I opened concerned not only the parents, but most especially the students, their students. I heard their god-knows-how-many conversations about their students getting pregnant at age 16 and younger, so why prevent a healthy discourse about a soon-to be policy that would have an effect in the educational curriculum? Should we as teachers be aware of these things? Should we stop ourselves in participating or even initiating a potentially intellectually fruitful conversation? I heeded the teacher’s call for me to stop babbling about the topic; I saw her point that I was not in the position to open the topic up, but I am sure that I am in the position to open up the topic as a concerned youth concerned with her fellow youth. It seemed to me that she was trying to impose the don’t-talk-because-you-are-the-state’s-robot type of silence on me. But how about her? She is in the exact position to participate in discussions, as the double-edged sword of being a citizen and teacher is on her shoulders. She is a full-pledged teacher; can she do what I can do? She is young; can she be as concerned? The school cannot be considered as an institution in a vacuum, and teachers cannot stay apolitical for so long just because the government is putting money in their pockets. We are political beings whether we like it or not, and it is our choice to be either become a catalyst of change or a perpetuator of state oppression.

How can we change our students if we keep silent? How can we contribute in making a better society for our students if we ourselves refuse to put into question the issues that will deeply affect them?

I went to the lavatory and saw the much senior teacher who took my highlighter. I asked her.

"Ma'am, is it just fine if we student-teachers initiate topics like RH bill earlier?"

"It's just fine. It's just fine for a teacher to air her views. What's forbidden for a teacher is to endorse a politician."

Two conflicting views indeed.

The teacher went out of the comfort room to go to her class, and I continued washing my hands. I remembered my reason for staying in education, “to make myself a liberal working in an overly conservative working environment.”

I stared at myself in the mirror with anger bubbling up my chest.

Administrators are Prudish People

With all the hoopla that was UbD, I was most enlightened by the seminar my school had days ago. It made me realize that UbD is actually very simple, lesson planning-wise and execution-wise. But apparently, its the administrators who are pulling us down. 

Pulling us into the pits of academic insanity.

We teachers (who have been cheated so many times already), agreed to the speaker when she said that UbD is supposed to be simpler. We filled our auditorium with the sound of our agreement and relief. 

We're close to hysterics, actually. *sigh*

But you know, administrators took it as a voice of dissent. Well, yes, it was a voice of dissent not only of probationary teachers but also of our more seasoned teachers. So, it didn't come as a surprise when our area head (and I love her) told us that the higher-ups of the institution took offense. And I say, they really should take offense and responsibility, because if we didn't have that seminar, then we wouldn't know that we are bullshitting ourselves, and that it could have been easier if they invited the freaking speaker earlier last year.

BOOOOOOOOOOO!

That seminar caused confusion. Are we going to push on with our plans? Are we going to use the plans from last year? But the topics for this year are different! Are we going to edit it? But I'm through! And the list goes on. 

These administrators shouldn't take offense if we teachers are airing their discontent, it shows their incompetence all the more. This confusion was their fault in the first place. If they have that seminar earlier on, then we wouldn't write trash lesson plans all in the name of compliance. They told us to submit our plans in the middle of the month, and then suddenly they will invite a speaker who would point out our mistakes and then they would tell us to rewrite our lesson plans? Fuck them all. Let them write the plans themselves. And it doesn't help that they gave us a more complicated template. 

We're not sado-masochists, people. So why make it so complicated?

What these administrators do not realize is that, at the end of the day, it is the teachers who would bear the burden of it all. If you go inside a classroom with a faulty plan, then you'll have a faulty class, observation, class performance, grades, and faulty national achievement test results. And when you have these faulty things, of course, they put the blame on the teachers who are just basically following directives from the higher-ups (who fucked up the whole thing in the first place). 

So, these administrators do not have the right to bitch about us bitching about how we hate the current situation. They run a private school and they have the f*****g power to adjust the FAPE format or reject the format altogether just because they can and it can be more beneficial to the teachers. But hell no, they made us do it without realizing that it is not what the proponents of UbD envisioned. And now that they are garnering the teachers' wrath, they get back to us? That's the problem with following uncritically. Shows their level of incompetence actually.

As for the lesson plans itself, it has been decided that whatever we have finished  will be left as it is and that the proper format (of EU and EQ) must already be followed in the two final quarters. But what I am bitter about is that these administrators stuck with the FAPE format. I mean, I consider that format to be a format of some humbug trying to be more significant than the proponents themselves. Why can't they accept that that format is so f****** wrong? Oh well, they don't want to admit that they're wrong so, might as well stick with it, yeah? Christ Jesus.

Teaching is good, innovation is good, and change is good, but if you are doing it the wrong way, might as well don't do it at all.

I Am Understanding by Design

This year, our school is going to embark on a journey called "UbD" or Understanding by Design. This thing has been around in a while in America, but here in my country, it was implemented last year in the public schools. But since I am in a private school, it is only now that we are catching up with this UbD fever.

I already heard this UbD when I was still a practicumer in college 2 years ago, and I always thought that it is a sort of planning the lesson but you think of the assessment first. Well, to be frank, I always thought that it's only a different way of writing lesson plans.

I'm as skeptical as skeptical goes.

So here is my school catching up the fever because the Department of Education directed that the schools follow this UbD way of thinking. But it comes with a price, you see. We the members of the faculty feel very cheated of our vacation because we need to spend it doing the UbD templates. And it is such a pain on the ass considering that we need to prepare those lesson plans and we need to implement it already this coming school year. I have always thought that curriculum planning takes years, and lesson planning takes time. But making the teachers rush their lesson plans for compliance is doing the teachers (and students) injustice. If the plan is faulty, then I'm very sure that the execution would also be faulty since the teacher doesn't know what the hell she is doing. And in the long run, the students would just become guinea pigs. Basically, we are doing the lesson plans in the dark. We are just hoping that even if the plan sucks, we would be able to pull off the execution right.

My students and I are all guinea pigs.

Yes, there have been seminars, but most of it didn't really help us at all. If it did, it only caused confusion and resentment among the faculty and the administration. We have this certain seminar in the school a couple of days ago, and we invited a speaker from a publishing house to help us tresh out this confusion. Turns out, this speaker have also attended UbD seminars in America with no less than the proponents of UbD themselves. And it was most enlightening, not only did we see the things that we are doing wrong (thanks to the lesson plan critiquing), but it also made us realize that crafting UbD templates and executing it is really just simple. And that simplicity made all the difference.

According to her, all lesson are done with A-Acquisition, M-Meaning-making and T-Transfer. Now, what puzzles me is that if I am going to look at a sample UbD learning guide, it only consists of the days and the things that you are going to do in those days.

Example:

Nutrition (Grade 6) Duration: 2 weeks

Day 1: Begin with an entry question (Can the foods you eat cause pimples?) to hook students into considering the effects of nutrition in their lives. (Making meaning)
Introduce key vocabulary terms and discuss relevant selections from the textbook. (Acquisition)

Day 2: Quiz on key vocabulary terms and selections from the book
Day 3: Students work independently to develop a three-day camp menu for younger children and offer them ideas for breaking bad eating habits


And so on and so forth. The speaker told us that that is the original UbD template. And we were like, "What the f**k?" because what we are doing with our templates is, if we are going to follow this thing strictly, wrong. What we did with our templates is this.

I.    Introduction
II.    Interaction
III.    Integration
IV.    Closure
V. Agreement

And I was like...are we a bunch of sado-masochists here? So I figured this was the f***ing reason why we are having a very hard time devicing our learning plans. We are deliberately making our lives harder. It got me thinking, where in the world did our administrators get their template? They said that it was from FAPE (Fund for Assistance to Private Education), and the speaker admitted that the FAPE template is actually more complicated than the original UbD template. I felt cheated. If we have an easier template, why did they opt to choose the more complicated route? One of my colleagues said that the FAPE template is designed for Catholic schools, but what makes the template so Catholic? What makes it more effective than the original? So we felt all the more cheated by our administrators, why is it that they only scheduled the seminar now? Why only now that some of us (myself included) are already through with our learning plans? They have the whole freaking school year last year to invite that speaker. And now, they only caused confusion among us, and resentment towards our admins.

We're this close to confronting the higher - ups.

 Like our speaker said, "UbD entails us enjoying life, simplifying life," but in my school, it is surely not the case.

A Late Post - American Idol Rant

American Idol just ended and, for me, it was more of a whimper than a blast.

It's so boring I want to cry. *snort*

I have always been excited about this season because the genre of the contestants are so diverse and all of them are really quirky. But obviously, the quirkiness scared the shit out of the voters. My bets were Naima, Casey and James, but when James got voted off, I rooted for Haley. And she got voted off too. It makes me think that maybe I'm just weird.

I'm this weird.

 So, here's what I think of the contestants.

Ashton - Okay, I don't have much to say about her since she wasn't around for long. But she's got the pipes, she only lacks, what, creativity? There's something amiss.

Karen - She wowed me with her rendition of "Hero" but after that, I was bored. Her voice lacked power in the succeeding episodes.

Pia - You know, if she is in my country, I'm so sure she would win because the ability to reach those messianic notes is always revered here. But apparently, this is American Idol, so it's rather sad that she went away. She is competition, really. She is a total package; good looks and talent. You rarely find that in our artists nowadays.

Thia - Even with the support of the Filipino community, this girl didn't really make a mark. Yes, she's got the voice, but you know, she needed to up her game. She is a boring as boring goes.

Stefano - Ohkay. I don't like him at all. He looks trying hard and he looks constipated whenever he performs. I always thought that he became a wild card because J-Lo likes him. He was one of the contestants that I wished would go away but was proving to be a turd.

Paul - I am conflicted with him. Sometimes he's good; sometimes he sounded as if he was a rat whose balls got squeezed. But it was sad seeing him go away.

Jacob - Now, here are some pipes. I liked him at the beginning of the competition, but as time moved on, listening to him got boring. It was always too over the top.



Casey - Okay, I like how he performed in the audition, and his performances were really quirky. He was one of the reasons I held on to Idol this season. I have no problems with his growls, but sometimes I was like, "what the hell is that clearing-the-throat-while-singing for?" He was very creative, yes, but sometimes it looked too forced and over-acting. If he had been more natural; then he might've stayed longer.

James - I'm also conflicted with James. He's got the pipes and like Casey, I always watch for whatever he might do in the stage. He's got creativity, and being a metalhead myself, liking him comes naturally. But you know, sometimes, I feel that he is a poser. He's too pop to be metal even if he sells himself to be the latter. But it was really a shocker to see him go. By the time he got voted off, I stopped watching AI altogether (Actually, as early as Naima's elimination, I have been only watching the thing passively, sometimes just reading the yahoo articles to keep me updated).

Haley - She's got the pipes. She's got spunk. But I never saw what she really wanted to be after AI. I can see almost everybody's genre after AI. Stefano's RnB, Jacob's gospel/soul, Casey's jazz, James is metal, but her? Na-ah. But I think she should be more on the rocker side. I always like her whenever she sings angry songs.

Lauren - During the early days of the competition, I always leveled her with Haley. Spunk and attitude and voice. I like her. Her voice is so crystalline. I thought she would be a tough contender. But, no, she lost momentum and I ended up wanting her to be eliminated. Apparently too, she stayed on...but I have no qualms.

Scotty - Okay. My mother likes her. 'Nuff said. To be honest, I never really liked his performances. I like his voice, yes, and I always wondered wtf is his voice that deep? But I find him irritating on stage. Not with his mike-holding, eyebrow twitching, arm-gestures and standing shenanigans. I like him better with a guitar because it minimizes those annoying things and my irritation at him. He's too boring for me. Every week I have been wishing that he be eliminated, but woe to me, he was freaking unstoppable. And he won AI. Woe to me again.



Lambert and Bowersox, now Lauren (just between her and Scotty). Why do my bets don't get to win?

I think I'm really weird. Not that I'm complaining.

But I just hope that next year's contestants would be as diverse and exciting as them, but not as ho-hum as the finale.

:)

Rain Is The Most Influential Person In The Whole Friggin World

I just can't believe that Rain is the most influential person in the world according to Time Magazine.

He is the most influential person in the world. *clap clap clap*

Give me a f****** break.

I know that Rain is popular in Asia and all, and that he had a Hollywood movie that flopped, but seriously, these things are not the things that make somebody so influential. He wouldn't even come close to Lady Gaga (I am not a her fan either), so why on earth did he top the list, sidestepping more important, and more relevant people?

I actually took Time's poll, so my ranting here is not some random bitching. I browsed and voted for some odd-200 people only to see Rain's initial results to be the highest among those said 200. I was confused, then was enraged when I saw that 6-digit result flashing, mocking my choices. Seriously, since when did he become more influential than Obama or to some extent even Osama? But still, I clicked that "Not Influential" button, hoping that there are still some sensible people around. But alas! Weeks after, I saw an article about him topping the list of one of the most influential news magazines in the world. I could have forgiven Time with Lady Gaga last year, but him? Really? Time! Christ Jesus.

That's the problem with online polls and internet connection. South Koreans have faster internet connections, so maybe the fangirls raped the influential button.

Oh well, we all know how fangirls can turn the tides of population and sidestep more deserving people off (American Idol, anyone?). And I don't care about Korean fangirls or any fangirls for that matter at my doorstep.

I will do this to any angry fangirl at my doorstep. Seriously, have a life.

I have yet to read the Time 100 issue, as I am hoping that the Time people will ponder still on the results. As for now, I'm hoping that he's not on top. It would be a slap on the face of some.