April, in Bits and Pieces

This is a picture of Me in Melbourne happily eating a bratwurst.


I have yet to blog about my Melbourne trip, but here is so far what has been happening this April. I went to More Concerts Than I Have Ever Been In My Entire Life (as you can tell from the previous entry on Kanye West), had a food filled Easter and so far am on holiday till the end of this week.

Papa Was a Rolling Stone (April 11)
When I grow old, i want to be Mick Jagger.
(or at least in fairness have his energy and puwede na rin his money, but not any related injuries or diseases that may have resulted from his lycra wearing past, though I'm sure that if I were him I would regret nothing, but i digress...)


The stage at Telstra Stadium, exactly the same as they used in their free concert in Brazil

My friend Pauline & Me and our tickets

I've also confirmed that not only can white men _not_ dance, but middle aged women are fun to watch when they dance. Which means whatever you want to interpret it to be.

And if I had a webcam I would demonstrate it for you. Promise.

Here is my conversation with a friend right after the concert, which pretty much summarizes the whole thing.

Lars : mic jagger changed outfits more than britney ever did
Lars : i swear.
volcanogirl28 : no way
volcanogirl28 : but not as much as cher
Lars: feeling ko si britney mga thrice lang kasi madming eklat choo
Lars : si mick with his tight pants nagpapalit lang siya ng top
Lars : oh, id ont think anyone can beat cher.
Lars : as in meron siyang gold and then red tapos floor length ang kanyang coat
and only jagger can get away with wearing a feathery fur coat with a matching hat
Lars : and you know what, when i get old, i want to have as much energy as a rolling stone
Lars : promise. mick jagger had more energy than me and you and san combined
Lars : tang ina patalon talon siya everywhere
Lars : ako nakatayo kang ako dun tang ina pagod na ko
Lars : but no, mick jagger bouncing and running up and down and screaming and all that
Lars : kakaiba.
volcanogirl28 : he must be on steroids
Lars : it must have been all the drugs he took in his youth.
volcanogirl28 : tara, drugs na din tayo
Lars : i prefer to think it had something to do with his colorful tight lycra wearing past.
Lars : sabi nung kasama ko "do you think they'll be in tights? i've only seen pictures of them in tights"
volcanogirl28 : whut
Lars : i think that was a rational assumption
Lars : tang ina lahat kaya ng costumes nila dati lyyyyyycra
Lars : and their guitarist was wearing a JEWELED BELT
Lars ): as in the wide silver spangly kind
Lars : hello.
volcanogirl28 : some people just have "it"
Lars : i know. carry nila, carry
Lars : i knew 8 songs from the playlist im so proud of me
Lars : this is given na WALA AKONG ALAM last week kundi paint it black at satisfaction
volcanogirl28: bwahahhaha

Me Against the Music (April 12)

It all started because my friend Rey G, the computer god sent me a portable hard drive at my request because I was out of space for my mp3s.He was kind enough to format and set everything up for me before it even got here. So I transferred all of them over. I also wired my itunes to detect them in that folder. Occasionally I have to keep replugging it in because its not detected, which I assume because this is a portable computer and it moves around a lot and it is a device that is plugged in.

Rey G also included his mp3s, as a well meaning surprise. So my 13mb Mp3 collection shot up to an unwarranted number with a whole lot of songs that I didn't really need. Granted, I loved all his RnB stuff but there was nothing alternative he had that I didn't already have, and really do I need "Hagibis", "Boyfriends" (who are they?!?!) or "Freestyle". I don't do Freestyle. (I did, however keep the Apo songs as a rememberance of my childhood. And yes, I kept Katawan. What do you think? I grew up on "Palibhasa Lalake" too...lalalalalalalalala) And I just wanted to say, really a person's Mp3 collection can tell you a lot about the person who owns them. Hmmm... ;)WEG.

So after editing out the doubles and shit I found that stuff still couldn't fit in my ipod. And/or it wasn't detecting. And/or it informed me that it couldn't copy playlists. Which effectively suddenly turned my ipod into one blank disc every podders worst nightmare.

Repeated troubleshooting and deleting later it is now it is finally copying all the files back - I'm on song no. 322 of 4676. We'll get there eventually. I just want my ipod back. Its name is Bono I love you II and I want it back in its proper form. Baby come back!

(on a tiny troubleshooting note, i have discovered that everytime i turn my pc back on or it comes back from standby i have to plug and replug my portable hard drive so that it redetects and registers that the songs are there. i don't mind, but i don't think that's supposed to happen, right?)

On a side note: My ipod is now fixed. I have since discovered the 80s music that Rey added and I am now a happy bunny. Thank you Rey! Mwa mwa!

Prelude to Easter (April 15)

Mum is here visiting. She went to Yamba with my relations (somewhere upstate near the border of Queensland) for a week. On the first day there she promptly tripped over a parking guard in the supermarket and had to be rushed to the hospital. She had bruises on her face, a split lip (which they glued together), and two broken teeth (pustiso, thank God) . Its not as bad as it sounds and she's okay.

She sees specks in her eyes now, which the doctor says are permanent and they're like loose tissues. There's not anything that can be done, and its not a big deal he says as he was a soccer player sometime ago, and he has a lot of those floating in his eye. Which of course means that mum is now in league with David Beckham, Ronaldo, etc. who probably have equal amounts of tissue floating in their eyes thanks to hitting balls with their heads. Mum of course got hers from tripping over a parking guard and smacking herself on the ground.

Today Sacha and I saw the India.Arie Concert. All my pictures are fuzzy because its dark but all I have to say is that it was one of the best concerts I have ever seen. (Now all I have to do is wait for Bono to come back...)

Easter Consumption (April 17)

Strangely, have discovered that I no longer crave chocolate as much as I used to, having given up chocolate (and chips) quite successfully for lent. I suppose we'll have to see if that's still the truth next week. Yesterday got off work early. My friend Karina and I shared the chocolate cadbury bunny I got myself to end my lenten fast and I discovered that I couldn't really glomp down chocolate straight anymore. I also turned down her offer of kit kat bites.

After work, I swung by the bookstore to grab the sequel to the romance novel I had inadvertedly bought without knowing it was a two parter then headed off to church. Unlike Manila, you either go to mass in the morning or the afternoon, there is no such thing as a midday or a midafternoon mass on a Sunday so having missed the 7am mass thanks to work and having a family whole day affair that I was already late to resulting in me missing the last remaining mass of the day, I decided to just pass by to say hi and thank you.

Headed off to Epping, got picked up by my cousin Rochelle's boyfriend Sean, who is well, family they've been together for ages. We waited for my cousin Miel, the cake baker who was in the train right after mine and then headed over. I was so hungry because I hadn't eaten a thing since breakfast and a danish that I smushed into my mouth because I knew there would be tons for lunch and therefore did not eat, and it was almost three and I was starving. Sean, Rochelle and my cousin Lara all had to go, they had stayed to say hi to us and because they were leaving we all had to have picture taking. After the picture taking, galit-galit muna and I just kept on stuffing my face with my Auntie Genie's pork steak in mama sita sauce (Go Mama Sita!) and rice. (God I miss rice, I can never cook it right I have it max once a week now)

After nibbling on Miel's chocolate cake we hung out for a bit, laughed and exchanged stories. The highlights of the evening were mom's insistence of Miel's need to find a mate, thus telling cousin Andrew, who arrived with his Indo-Chinese girlfriend Natalie (who I like except theyre both _really_ _really_ high school type clingy) to find Miel a boyfriend and giving me the feeling that really they were treating her like some sort of animal that needed to reproduce. This lead to her trying to push it on _Me_ as the next oldest single person in the room.

Then there was mom explaining about what she saw in the Easter Show, leading her to say: "Ang lalaki ng mga Kalabaw." Which promted me, in my conoest best to say, "Mom, cows are bakas, okay! Kalabaws are carabaos. You saw bakas!"

Headed home instead of staying over and got home around 9ish. Today got up a bit late, headed to Manly with Mom and Vanessa to have lunch with family friends Tony and Jan. We had fish and chips by the beach, where it was hot but super windy making it cold anyway. Took a walk to Shelley Beach down by the inlet and had smoothies and some ice cream while everyone else had cappucinos.

Finished up and headed to Miel's for dinner. I cooked fish cakes, she made sinigang, of which I had 2 servings (Go Pinoy Food!). They said my fish cakes were good but I didn't try them because I was too busy eating the sinigang I've been craving for for the past two weeks - I can go for more than a month without philo food, don't even notice I'm missing it, because its too much of a waste to cook that much, though its kind of sad. And yes, had cake/ice cream for dessert.

Now I'm home and surprise, so are my housemates, which is a big change from the last week when none of us were home. Last night it was just me even. Found a giant chocolate bunny on my desk, which I think is from Sacha (left her one for easter saturday). I will save it for a moment when I truly feel like having a choccy.


The giant chocolate bunny. I took it to work, shared it with people, ate about a quarter and kinda fucked over my tummy.

Bugbog. (April 21)

Today I have eaten myself to a heartburn. I have had pasta for brunch, an assorted bit of snacks including chips and grapes, a few bites of a muffin, chicken and corn soup (even if i'm not supposed to eat corn, a friend made it, and it was good) massive amounts of water and a tiny chai latte. I ate the twisties like there was no tomorrow, it being my first twisties pack in over a month. It is now time to go back to no chips.

Yesterday I got beaten up in kickboxing, although unintentionally. My partner was a nice indian girl with a mean right hook (if I could do hooks like that...champion talaga). She did regular boxing classes downstairs and was really good at punching. She was kind of new to kicks and she wasn't very good. Everyone who starts generally sucks but she sometimes had trouble hitting the pad. She narrowly missed my crotch during the inner thigh kicks and thus I have a large purple bruise on my inner left thigh. I also have two black bruises on my right one.

Since everyone else in the class is more experienced, we had inner and outer thigh and sweep kicks, which was a bit difficult for the two girls who had never done it before including her. It was also one of those warm downs that my instructor, Jo loves, the kind where you do 10 kicks on either side then ten push ups. And then 10 kicks on either side somewhere else (e.g. outer thigh) and then 9 push ups and it goes in descending order. We only did up to 5 push ups this time, thank God. Otherwise I think I might have died.

For the first time since I ditched chocolate and cheese my stomach feels like it is loaded and it will burst. Having lived for the past 40 days with a clean and healthy stomach, I realise the difference and know that it is the better feeling. So back to chocolate only for special occasions (like, max once a week, it really is the shits when I have it) and chips well, hopefully rarer! They are harder to resist now because they don't do anything to my beloved tummy.

Okay. We are not doing corn again. Heck, we are not eating the combination of foods we just had today again.

That has been my April so far... more as it happens.

My cousin Vanessa is visiting from Manila. We went to Circular Quay and we found an exhibit of Unicef Bears for charity. There's a bear for every 124 countries in the UN. This one is from the motherland, La Pinas herself.  

A Whole New World! The Iraqui bear 

Hooray!  

Hmmmm...  

Cuban Bear...just like a cigar 

Yes, I know we look alike. The youngest half of our generation (I barely make it and its only because the next oldest is 6 years older) takes a pose. I suppose when we were 5, 7 and 10 respectively we never envisioned ourselves sitting together at a restaurant in Sydney as a government employee looking for a better job, a future doctor/med student and a postgrad student in IT... 

I think I'm Kind of Important Now.

I cannot be enthused enough about Kanye West's concert. From the moment he opened with "Diamonds are Forever" it was absolutely electric.

Sacha and I sat on the last row of the dress circle in the Concert Hall of the Opera House. I can finally say that I've seen something in it! We were pretty lucky to get tickets - as Kanye said later, the concert sold out in 3 minutes. You could still see him clearly but couldn't make out any faces. We waited for perhaps about 30 minutes before the concert started.

The 18 piece string orchestra - all women in lovely black dresses - filled in. The lead violinist, who we later found out is with Kanye's team and is in charge of teaching all the orchestras the sequencing and practicing with them before every concert was in white. She was rather enthusiastic and kept waving at everybody and dancing up and down, even chatting with some people on the sides, which I found rather unprofessional, given that the rest of the orchestra was just sitting on stage. I kept wondering, what is up with this girl but then that was explained later when Kanye introduced his band. Everyone in the orchestra wore red wraparound shades to protect them from the strobe lights.

I was sort of feeling a little old, a lot of the people there were teenagers in retro clothes - I have never understood the 80s resurrection, the big belts, the weird Madonna style layering (sleeveless with off the shoulder), the high waists, I could go on. This was slightly alleviated by the fact that there were some older people, plus he did a slight retrospective on music that influenced him - with some Jackson 5 and AHA's Take On Me which everyone sang along to. I really enjoyed that - especially since he did some 80s dancing to Take On Me - and then I began to wonder if everyone else knew what it was because of the 80s bands or because of the boyband revivals...

We were up on our feet the moment he started. We sat down every now and then but a lot of people just didn't bother. A whole lot of them knew the lyrics to every song, I could only follow along with some of them. Sacha and I had just gotten his first album, College Dropout, courtesy of Pat our nice housemate who downloaded it using torrents recently and I didn't really listen to it much so there were some songs that sounded familiar but I didn't know the lyrics too.

In the middle of it all, he did a retrospective on the hiphop songs that influenced him, and he talked about how he had produced a lot of songs from famous hip hop artists like Ludacris. Kanye being Kanye, he also talked about himself a lot. Whatever anyone's ever said about his ego is true. I found it funny, as he makes fun of himself in a disparaging/egoistic way as well. Sacha thought that he was "like a child" because he lapped up all the attention we gave him. I suppose it didn't help that no matter what he said we all screamed anyway, even when he talked about his contribution to hip hop and said, "I think I'm a notch above everyone else" and, "I think I'm Kind of Important Now." Which I found funny but true. I don't know enough about hip hop to say what kind of important contribution he's made, although I've heard it said, but I love his music so he's important to me!.

The orchestra was excellent as well, and the lead violinist chick kept bouncing up and down. We all went crazy when he did Golddigger and then the lights went out, which I presume is the way he ends it, because every performer has about 2 songs as an encore and they always make it sound like they never plan it and the audience has to force them but really its planned all along. Well, we all certainly encouraged him, everyone screamed and clapped and someone even yelled out, "Wake Up Mr West!".

When he came back on he asked everyone to scream "so loud that I shouldn't even be able to hear the music" and we obliged. He also thanked all of us for coming and said, "thank you to all the girls who spent a little extra time getting ready because they knew they were going to see Kanye." I found that funny. The girl next to me was practically hyperventilating everytime a new song came out going, "Oh My God, Oh My God!". She knew every line, including the ones from the intros to his songs where he was just talking, as he did the intros too. (It made me wonder how wacko my friend Nic and I are going to be when we get to U2)

He ended the night with Touch the Sky, which is my favorite Kanye song and of course we all went wild. It was one of the best concerts I've ever been to (not that I've been to much, I seem to be making up for it this month...).

And yes, I am a hip hop fan. (but I'm not jologz :P)