I knew something was wrong the moment I woke up.

I got off my bed and walked to the mirrored closet door in my room. Despite having just woken up, I thought I looked much younger today. Normally that was a good thing, but something was horribly wrong.

My mind was too sleepy to figure things out. I tried looking around my room in an attempt to figure out what was out of place. My bed looked like it usually did. The room was arranged like it usually was. Even the morning sun shone though the silver/grey window blinds like it usually did. A second look at the mirror revealed that even I look the way I usually did.

It was at that second look that they hit me.

By they, I mean the millions of thoughts and realizations that suddenly bombarded my mind and overloaded my senses to the point that I stood there frozen, staring at my frozen reflection.

One thought leapt above the rest and quickly explained what was so wrong about this morning.

Everything in the room, including myself looked like it usually did.… fifteen years ago!

A short panic attack came over me. I sat back down on my bed breathing heavily. I desperately tried to recall where I was really supposed to be, like the way one tries to remember a dream after just having woken up.

I left this house 5 years ago when I moved to the province to finish college. Heck I left the country 2 years ago to study in Germany. What am I doing here!?

Was this a dream? Or were the last 15 years a dream? I frantically tried to recall the events of the last 15 years. I went through highschool, then college in Ateneo. I left Ateneo shortly before completing my Physics degree and studied in the province. I met my boyfriend while I was at the province, and after college we started our own video editing company. After some time, I was accepted at an arts school in Germany, and have been living there since.

The memories were too vivid to be a dream. But this was too real to be a dream either.

Once my heart started to slow down to a more regular beat I looked at the mirror for the third time. Yes. That was indeed me, when I was 15.

I tried to reach for a cigarette then realized I didn’t smoke till I was 21.

“What’s happening?” my thoughts raced. “Was it the drugs? The Ketamine? No, I haven’t had anything other than weed for the last year.”

“What the fuck!” I blurted out loud.

“Kuya are you awake?” A familiar voice called from outside my door.

Upon hearing that voice, my heart started racing again.

“It can’t be!” I thought to myself.

It was getting harder to breath. I had barely recovered from the shock of the situation when her voice called again.

“Is everything ok?”

I could not think. My legs, on their own accord walked me to the door and my hands turned the knob before I could protest. I stood by the open door, confused and on the verge of tears.

My mother stood on the other side and asked me if everything was ok. I barely nodded yes. She gave me a funny look and told me that breakfast was ready. Like a hypnotized person, I closed the door after she left.

I sat back down on my bed. I thought I would hyperventilate already.

My mother died a year before I left for Germany. Cancer of the pancreas. And yet there she was, and she just told me breakfast was ready.

After about half an hour I was able to calm down some more. I looked around my room, at pieces of paper I have written, some test scores, and realized I was back in 1990.

I was in first year high school.



to be continued...


I started writing this today. This is based on an ongoing idea of mine based on the thought that "If I had to live my live all over again, knowing what I know now, how would I live it?"

I thought of approaching it, not on the basis of changing things in my life which I think I did wrong, but rather an experiment on trying things differently. I thought that if at this point, I found myself in that situation, having all my memories, then the question would be more like: Would I try to relive my life the same way, leading to where I am now except with a lot of improvements? Or would I try something radically different?

It's Not You ... it's me ... oh wait. .. it is you...

Dear Blogger,

This is a hard letter for me to write. There is no easy way of saying this so I'll get to the point.

I think its not working out between us.

I know we've been together for 3 years, and I don't regret any of those years. We have had a lot of good experiences together.

Why, then, am I leaving, you might ask. Well, as long as we have been together, you know I've always wanted to have Categories.You said you couldn't have any yet. So I waited.

Its been 3 years and I don't think I can wait any longer.

Is there another blog, you might ask. To be honest, yes, I have met another blog. Her name is Wordpress. Wordpress says I can have as many categories as I want. She really understands me. I know I just met Wordpress recently but I have a feeling we are good together.

So I hope you understand.

I'll be sending for the posts I left at your servers soon.

Farewell,

Ernest

Why the Book is ALWAYS better than the Movie

6 Reasons why everyone seems to think "the book was better":

1) There are no bad actors in books

2) There are no bad directors in books

The reader is the director of a story. He plays the scenes, the movement, the setting, and the mood in his mind. So unless he is a self-loathing depressive (ahem) or suffering from multiple personalities (ahem ahem) there will be no instances of "The way I imagined this scene is ridiculous! If I would have done it, it would have been this way..."

3) Movies are not made out of crappy books

Mostly true anyway. A movie can be better than the book if the book was really bad in the first place. If there were a lot of things we don't like about the book, there is a chance we will enjoy a well made movie based on it. Marketabillity dictates that movies are to be made form bestselling books and not some unknown sappy romance novel with bad cover art.

4) It's hard to get to know someone in 2 hours

It takes me between 1-2 weeks to read a medium sized novel. I'm a slow read so forgive me. My point is in these 1-2 weeks, one is able to create a bond with the characters. I think of them when I'm in the bus, when I mentally tune out of a boring meeting, or when I'm drinking blood (Ah my dear Lestat).

In a 90 minute movie, it's much harder to create an emotional bond. When I meet someone for the first time, I'm lucky if I can get a phone number in the first 90 minutes. (I'm a slow flirt so forgive me)

5) Some things don't translate

For example, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy's humor is prose based. It's near impossible to translate visually.

The avalanche began.

Stones then rocks, then boulders, pranced past him like clumsy puppies, only much bigger, much, much harder and heavier, and almost infinitely more likely to kill you if they fell on you.

-P405

Hilarious book with a not-surprisingly stale movie.

6) You sound uncultured when you think the movie is better

All the artists and widely read people are constantly complaining that the book was better. A lot of critiques consider the movies, especially hollywood movies, to be shallow, trite, and devoid of artistic merit. So someone who likes the movie better usually says so in an guilty manner and appologises for feeling that way.

Like I said in the previous post, people shouldn't dwell on the Book vs Movie debate. These are two different things.

Instead, we should all focus on more relevant comparisons such as: the play vs the movie, the game vs the movie, and finally the musical vs the movie vs the book.

Categories: Critique

"Her skin was supposed to be 'Alabaster'!"

I've been spending some time on IMDb.com lately, and I'm was quite overwhelemed by the number of people comparing a movie to the book (or comic book) that it was based on.

I think that comparing a book to its movie adaptation is a very natural thing to do. However, the ways some people compare (their standards of comparison) seem to be lacking in legitimacy. Here are a couple of observations I have made on these book fundamentalists.

Observation:
People who have read the book usually feel that they are in some aspects superior to people who haven't. Comments like "Read the damned book!" or "We wouldn't be having this debate if people actually read the book" in internet forums gives me a general impression that they look down on their less-read colleagues.

My Response:
I think that a movie should be able to stand on its own. As with any artistic endeavour, I should not be required to know the personal history of the director, the conditions of production or the book or other historical circumstances of its origin to appreciate the work. Granted that knowing these things will enrich my appreciation of the piece, it its not required.

I am an advocate of reading and would encourage people to broaden their horizons by reading as much as they can, but when criticizing a movie, or someones critique of a movie, knowledge of the book does not automatically make you smarter or more cultured than the next person!

Observation:
A lot of people complain about inconsistensies between the book and the movie adaptation.

My Response:
A book and a movie are two very different forms of media. Ofcourse there will be change. (For one thing, they added sound, audible dialogue, cinematography, soundtrack, etc. Get my point?) Translating one form of media to another requires change.

A book has a different target audence compared to a movie. Limitations of a book (confined to print) are different from a movie's (buget, technology, duration, etc). Changes will obviously come in order to play the strengths and minimize the weaknesses of the media.

Some changes from the book-movie transition, however have little to do with the media differences but rather the director's artistic licence. This is where it gets touchy.

Not a lot of readers appreciate blatant deviation from a book. Personally, I don't mind as much if I find that the changes were necessary and appropriate: the deviation made the book more relevant in this current age, or it helped support the integrity of the movie-media, etc.

On the other hand, if there is no compelling reason to change some elements, it would be best if the director stayed faithful to the original.

So to the book fundamentalists out there, its really unproductive to whine and comlain how the movie was not this or that like the book. These are two different things. Insisting otherwise is like saying "Why can't you me more like your brother(or father in this case)?" A movie is meant to stand as an independent media form (within a cultural context of the present age, orcourse)

Her skin was supposed to be Alabaster!

-Overheard conversation from a Vampire Chronicles fan who was complaining about the skin tone of Akasha in the movie adaptation of Queen of the Damned

I Cried...

...while watching the trailer of Lionsgate's Peaceful Warrior and Akeelah And The Bee.

Hehe.

*Sniff*

People I Find Hard to Like Part 1

I'm generally a peaceful guy. I believe in understanding and patience. I believe conflicts can be peacefully settled if all parties involved would be calm, open minded and reasonable.

So generally I don't go around "hateing" people. Although a popular past time of artists and bloggers and most of the population of the planet, hateing someone is something I don't do very often.

Nonetheless there are kinds of people that I generally feel uncomfortable with, and some I even think of with disdain. Let's go down on the list shall we?

1) Religious Fundamentalists, Conservative Christians, etc

These kinds of people I feel really uncomfortable with. I never really know what to talk about when I'm with someone who's really strongminded about his/her religion. Ofcourse having spend most of my time in a Jesuit school, I have known and made friends with a number of priests and brothers and religious educators. I have nothing against them. Most of them really seemed like open minded people who understood the variety of human condition and did not mentally condemn anyone who didn't share their view on life.

With fundamentalists, or close minded people, or people who already have such a clear view of what the world should be and how people should behave, I feel that I really have nothing to say to them. What's the point?

2) Illogical People

These are people who make really bad arguements. One of the most annoying peice of argument I constantly hear is this:

"How can you say that (Object or Person in question) is (negative adjective)? Lets see if you can do any better!"

This one I just don't understand. When I criticize a peice of work I'm not claiming to be better than the artist (well, sometimes i do hehe). I'm expressing an opinion on an aspect of the work that I feel could have been made better. I've never written a novel (yet) but I sure as hell can tell if a novel is really bad.

(I apologize for using the expression "as sure as hell". That one really doesn't make sense after I thought about it. What is so sure about hell anyway?)

I read a comment on a picture of a model on the internet and someone commented that the model was a bit fat or the ears looked funny or something. Another person commented with something like:

"Oh yeah, well show us your face and body and lets see if you're any better. I bet your fat and ugly!"

My reaction to that is a bizzare, twisted, facial expression of mixed emotion and expression (mostly confusion) that is undescribable on text.

On the other hand I really enjoy being around illogical but instinctive and intuitive people. Those who area ble to listen to their insticts and inner voice. I wish I could do that.