4-Day Weekend

For the first time in two years since I left my first job I finally got a four-day weekend. It’s a much-needed rest and spend more time with your family and friends for this period of giving thanks. I have a lot to thank for this year (with the exception of the failing economy… we all know that story) but because they are extremely dear to me (plus I’m too lazy anyway) I won’t mention them here.

Today (30th) is also the last day of November and the NaNoWriMo challenge event. I finally finished a story that I began right at this day. I was close to 100,000 word count at this point but I’m quite happy with my 84,000+ word count as displayed on my word count meter. I’m still pondering whether I should get published or not, but just for the heck of it I will eventually go through editing and revising. It may raise up my word count or even lower it down, but either way, there will be a few changes that would fit the entire story altogether.

Speaking of NaNoWriMo, we also got Script Frenzy. It’s by the same peeps who established NaNoWriMo and it’s pretty much similar to it too, except this was for scripts (screenplays). TV scripts, movie scripts, comic book scripts, animation scripts, stage plays, you get the idea. I have taken two screenplay/scriptwriting classes back in college before and I have to tell you that they are not easy to write (in comparison/contrast to writing novels). Luckily because of its difficulty level you get to write your draft with a co-writer, so two people can actually come up with really good plots and ideas together. NaNoWriMo is an individual challenge but nevertheless it’s still a fun event.

We’ll just see what happens. I’m not even sure how motivated I am to self-edit my first draft as of yet, so don’t expect a book coming out next week or anything.

1267 days ago • Culture, General • Tags: nanowrimo, screenplays, scriptwriting, thanksgiving

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Aswang, Mandurugo, Manananggal, and Tiyanak

When I was introduced to Stephanie Meyer’s cult novel series Twilight, it was sometime back last year when some friends from the Code Lyoko fandom community were recommending me to read the book. I’ve always been open to any genre of books as long as they are written and give us readers the open mind to imagine how the story is like when seen in imaginary visual mode.

And when I learned and read the summary of Twilight it turned me off all of a sudden simply because of one thing. It was about vampires that were written and transformed in to hot, appeling, mysteriously sexy, and “flawless” youngsters that potential victims (read: humans) get attracted to and “fall victim” to their evil, deadly spells. My first impression even without reading the first chapter was “Are people insane to write evil creatures in to something alluring?”

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1274 days ago • Culture, Fiction, General Trends • Tags: Culture, mythology, philippines, twilight, vampires

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Shoot. Long Time.

I have been concentrating fully on NaNoWriMo and actually finishing my novel. I’m doing pretty good for the first two weeks and I’ve exceeded the required word count. I hope I can do more. I’m shooting for 30,000 word count by the end of this week.

I also started reading another novel, but I’ve been hanging around more at the library than at Borders since life had gone hard for us Americans here and everything has gone up. The one I’m reading is actually called Lost Souls by Lisa Jackson and the summary plot seemed pretty interesting (yes, it’s a mystery/suspense novel) so I picked it up. It wasn’t until I got home that I realized that I got the large print version. Now I found myself reading this book with serious eyes opened wide.

I began pondering about some things in my “profession”, mainly towards my designing skills. I have to admit that as I grew “older,” I find that my designing skills had gone “half-assed” and it’s nowhere near the definition of Web 2.0. I pondered going back to the books, going back to design sites… even take (free?) online classes… I don’t know. I feel a bit desperate. I have to catch up with the “designing” times.

On the better side of things real life activities are beginning to get full again. Aside from work and such I’ve got Midnight Mass choir practice every Tuesday as well as my regular mass choir practices every other Thursday. In addition to that I’m seriously going to work on my portfolio site again and go back to learning once more.

That’s it for the time being. Back to writing.

1278 days ago • General

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What if the presidential election results end up in a tie?

With quite a number of battleground states it can go one way or the other and most likely the election results may even end up a tie.

So, what happens when the election results did end up in a tie? If I can remember correctly from my U.S. history classes, the Constitution states that should the electoral votes do end up in a tie that the decision will be brought up to Congress voting, starting with the House of Representatives (?).

I should’ve done more research but this was just a spur of the moment that i decided to write down this short entry. Even if it did result in a tie I would still think that Obama may win the presidential seat. After alll, if the voting did elevate to Congress it’s most likely that Obama will be the victor. After all, majority of the House of Representatives are Democrats…?

Anyway, I’m not going to make any guessing or predictions or anything like that. All I can say is that we’ll just have to accept and live through the official result of this election. I know, we were all upset with the whole Florida voting recount with their flawed polling systems 8 years ago, but I do hope that we all learned a lesson from that particular day and have better, more efficient polling systems for a more accurate count.

I’m heading to my local polling place when I get home from work today since I live a few blocks away from there. Right now all I can do is pray that this entire country do decide wisely and praying that we do select the right individual for the next President of the United States of America.

1292 days ago • Politics

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NaNoWriMo Progress Blog

It’s up and ready to go! My NaNoWriMo Progress Blog!

I decided to open another blog site strictly for NaNoWriMo alone, therefore I have. Just a simple design though but anyway, the design is not important.

I start writing in 30 minutes. I hope I’ll be able to get to my goal number by the end of that day…

Especially that my relatives are coming over tomorrow…. x_____x

1296 days ago • Fiction

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Proposition #8

About some months ago the California Supreme Court made homosexual marriages legal in Califonria, which was a huge, major moment for all the gays and lesbians all over the state, primarily in San Francisco (known as the “capital city” of the gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transvestites), and ever since that made legal there were several same-sex marriages that occurred right away. Celebrities who were gays and/or lesbians (or bisexuals or transvestites) traveled all the way to San Francisco just to get married too.

But let me tell you something about California. Although we are a predominantly Democratic (liberal, pretty much) state, religion-wise California is predominantly a Roman Catholic state (after all, we have the renowned history of Junipero Serra, the Catholic missions that he built and established throughout California, and the El Camino Real), which means if you are a Roman Catholic you usually stick to Catholic values unless if you are able to separate church and state. Being a Catholic myself the Bible does forbid same-sex romantic relationships and marriages. I believe that as a Catholic, however at the same time I don’t believe it’s their fault for being gay/lesbian. Many of them were born that way, raised that way, and there are some who just chose to be one. Most likely they’re not Catholic or any other Christian, but I’m not going to make that assumption about them just like that.

Just this particular fact is one of the reasons why Proposition #8 was brought up and added in to the ballot for next week’s elections. Proposition #8, if passes, overturns the Supreme Court decision of legalizing same-sex couples and “restore” the true (or rather original?) definition of what a marriage is supposed to be— heterosexual, between man and woman. The Catholic Churches of California are one of the sponsors/endorsers of this proposition (and I’m pretty sure many other religious groups, not just Christians, also endorsed this proposition). If it doesn’t pass, California continues to keep same-sex marriage legal.

In Favor of Proposition #8…

Conservatives – those who believe a marriage should only be between man and woman
Religious – same-sex marriage is condemned in the Bible (or some other teaching/preaching recorded document from other religions)
Parents – Same-sex marriage may end up being taught in elementary schools as in oppose to sex education?

In Opposition of Proposition #8…

Homosexuals & Transgenders – equal rights for all and Prop. #8 is discriminatory and even going further as to being unconstitutional and against the law of diverse equality
Liberals – same thing, equal rights
Other Citizens – same-sex marriages shouldn’t get mixed up with religion. This is by choice, not compulsary.

I know I’m missing some things in there but that’s all I could think of.

Personally I am torn with this particular proposition. I am Catholic, like I said, but I’m one of the few people who is able to separate church and state. I believe that homosexuals and transgenders should have equal rights as everyone else on every aspect. My only problem here is that legalizing same-sex marriages pretty much changed the standard definition of marriage. Marriage is a sacred, special celebration of love and commitment between a man and a woman in love, which was what was defined originally. Now it had been re-defined to just a “contract” between partners to stay together and it’s not as sacred or as special as it is now.

In conclusion, I am still undecided. Maybe I should just skip this part and I’ll let the rest of the state decide.

1298 days ago • Politics, Social Concerns

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NaNoWriMo Competitor!

I have done it. I finally had the guts to do it. I signed up to compete in the annual NaNoWriMo contest that is to begin this weekend on November 1st. I’m not counting myself to get to the 50,000 word count goal, but it’s worth a try anyway. Maybe this would help me boost up my confidence in writing again and hopefully it would somehow help me “upgrade” my writing skills and my vocabulary.

I plan to do a “journal” site of sorts strictly for NaNoWriMo and update my progress but I think I’ll just stick to writing about it here. Who knows. We’ll see.

I’ve come up with an idea for the story. All I need to do is organize it and expand the notes further from the plot to the characters themselves.

1300 days ago • Fiction, General