This day in history

Was reading Adel Gabot's blog yesterday and thought his 'my birthday on Wikipedia' entry was interesting, so I looked up my own birthday.

The following things took place on October 7—

Events
1868 - Cornell University holds opening day ceremonies; initial student enrollment is 412, the most at any American university to that date
1942 - US and British government announce establishment of United Nations
1982 - Cats opens on Broadway and runs for nearly 18 years before closing on September 10, 2000

Births
1931 - Desmond Tutu, South African Anglican archbishop and activist, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
1955 - Yo-yo Ma, French-born cellist

Death
1849 - Edgar Allan Poe, American writer (b. 1809)

That was more fun than I thought it would be.

Dreaming of the White City

Finished reading Erik Larson’s The Devil in the White City today—loved it! The book’s main attraction for me when I bought it was the part about getting into the head of psychopath serial killer H.H. Holmes, but once I started reading I found the story behind the building of the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago just as, if not more, compelling. Larson’s account is meticulously researched and thoughtfully written, fully evoking the drama of the time. The group of architects who designed the buildings of the White City—led by Daniel Burnham, who was known as the best in the field—were among the greatest artists of their time. It’s said that every visitor to the White City could not help but be moved by its majesty. Wish I'd been alive then to see it.

PS: Daniel Burnham went on to design many other cities, Manila among them. Unfortunately his design of Manila was never fully carried out, more’s the pity.

Classic Cory

What a treat, Cory Doctorow's latest novel Someone Comes To Town, Someone Leaves Town is indeed available online--free! Naturally I still intend to get the 'dead-tree' version for my collection, but it's terrific to be able to download a free electronic copy. Thank God for Creative Commons, and thank you Mr D! You are one classy dude.

[Cross-posted from The Coven]

What nonsense

Proclamation 1017 was lifted last Friday, but the Supreme Court hearing on it will continue as scheduled, at least according to the papers. Good. Even two-bit lawyers—heck, two-bit law students!—can see that GMA’s declaration of a state of emergency is unconstitutional, a blatant manipulation of the constitutional provisions for declaring a national emergency and suspending the writ of habeas corpus. (Connie V makes a good job of dissecting it in her Manila Standard Today column.) Proclamation 1017 has no basis at all in law, and why the Supreme Court didn’t issue a TRO right away is a great mystery to me. It just makes no sense. The only thing that makes sense at this point, actually, is to keep shouting 'FOUL!' at the top of one's lungs.

Pure pleasure

My head feels empty if there's no story percolating in it somewhere so, no matter how much I have to read for school, I can't abide not having something else to read on the side—before bed, during my morning commute, or as a reward in between reading cases. Not that the Rules of Court don’t make for compelling reading (pweh), but there's reading for school and there's just reading. My classmates don’t understand why, on top of my remedial law textbook I’m also carrying a copy of Elizabeth Kostova’s The Historian (the legend of Draculya—fiction, of course ;) How can I manage to read anything else on top of our caseload, they ask. I don’t bother answering. What John Carey says in Pure Pleasure is true: “…the gap between people who read books and people who do not is the greatest of all cultural divisions, cutting across age, class, and gender. Neither side understands the other. To non-readers, readers seem toffee-nosed. To readers, the puzzle is what non-readers fill their minds with.”

So what have I been filling my head with these days? Well, I’m still reading The Historian, as I said, coz I had to put it down to prioritise Steve King’s Cell—naturally—which was a great romp but actually a bit unsatisfying. I was speed-reading through most of it, couldn’t wait to see what would happen and why, only to collide with a solid blank wall of an ending. Then again what zombie story has ever had a satisfying conclusion? As far as zombie stories go, *The End* is a given. What matters is the carnage and the chaos ;P

More on The Historian when I finish it. Malapit na!

Choose pain

“You must choose between pain or drudgery.” – Douglas Coupland (from Girlfriend in a Coma, I think)

Caught an episode of Grey's Anatomy where one of the residents (the one who's a former model) had to break up with her boyfriend because he couldn’t accept that he would always be second to her job. She tells him regretfully but firmly, “Sorry, this is my life now.” Something I wish I could say to some of my own friends sometimes. Not all of them understand why I'm taking up law studies this late, with conditions being far from ideal. The answer is, because I choose to.

The biggest failure

“Even the biggest failure, even the worst, intractable mistake, beats the hell out of never trying.” – from Grey’s Anatomy (my new favorite tv series now that House is on season break at AXN)

You can see from my choice of quotations that I didn’t do too well in my midterms, or one of them at least (not all results have been released). So frustrating ‘cause I could have done so much better, I know. [Sigh!] But I’m not fazed. Bawi na lang sa finals, as usual.

Panaginip

I should change the title of this blog to Sleeping Beauty. Only, unlike the princess in the fairy tale, I don't want to be rescued! What I would give to be locked up in a tower with nothing to do but sleep, long hours of blissful sleep... And instead of a prince charming I would settle for a new job. In a perfect world I would wake up to find I've been hired for a job that would (1) let me work from home or not come in everyday, (2) pay well (fairy tale nga e!) and (3) still be fun, possibly related to writing or legal research. There MUST be a better way to make a living out there, I just need to find it. Or it needs to find me!

Sleep not optional

Oh my God, this week was hell. Classes five nights a week means I either forego sleep or risk getting creamed at recitation. And since I can't seem to help falling asleep, some disastrous recitations had to be endured. Last night's was particularly painful (I'm sorry sir, I'm just not ready...) so I've decided this can't go on. I will have to drop one subject. Di bale nang ma-delay. I need to sleep!

Forcing it

O: Do you think all people are created equal?
JF: No. If that were true there'd be no poverty, no shortcomings... We're all energy. Some people are stronger forces than others.

--Picked up from Jamie Foxx's interview with Oprah, published in "O" magazine

It's a beautiful Saturday and I'm here in the library at school, reading cases for next week's classes. Saturday used to be my official free day--no studying! But with my sked this term even my untouchable Sabado has been appropriated for study. But alright, will grumble no more about it. I'm trying to be a force in my own life.

Austerity

Tonight we had a free cut instead of class (our prof hasn’t returned from abroad, I believe), and some classmates and I took advantage of the unexpected free time to troop to the bookstore to get the books we’ll be using this term. Usually I use more than one text for a class—reading two annotations is much better than just one, especially if the authors treat the same subject matter differently. But this term it seems that, in one subject at least, I’ll really need to use more than one book (more like six!) whether I prefer it or not. So many textbooks to buy, and they’re all so expensive! Looks like I’m in for some belt-tightening (figuratively speaking only, unfortunately ;) in the next few months. Poor me.

Under 30

Third term officially starts tomorrow—a fact I’m feeling ambivalent about. “Ambivalent” as in feeling strongly about two contradictory things (remember that scene in Girl, Interrupted?). I’m raring to go back to law courses this term (no more MBA subjects, yay!) but I’m also dreading the next three months of abject toil… The law, they say, is a jealous mistress—it demands one’s full attention. That means the poor law student who’s also struggling to hold down a job while studying has nearly no free time left… (not even to trim my cuticles! which I happen to enjoy doing, heheh). To keep my head above the water I’ve had to learn to be acutely aware of how I spend my time, right down to each 30-minute chunk of it. Like now, for instance. I can spend no more than 30 minutes writing this blog entry, because I’ve already budgeted the next 30 minutes for memorizing Art 415 of the Civil Code!

Which brings me to the point of this post: with classes starting I’m feeling a bit less optimistic about being able to sustain this blog. Just a bit. I suppose I won’t be able to post as frequently as I would like. That, or maybe I’ll work on cutting down my posting time from 30 to 15…

Get a move on

I dare you to move
I dare you to lift yourself off the floor
I dare you to move
Like today never happened.

--Dare You To Move, Switchfoot

Happy New Year!

A whole day lost

Living is easy with eyes closed.
--a line from Strawberry Fields, I believe, tattooed on Charlie’s (Dominic Monaghan) arm in LOST

Ahh I love the unexamined life, it’s simply more fun :) But no party lasts forever, and the longer it runs the more mess there will be to clear in the morning… Like this morning, fer instance. Stayed up half the night watching Season 1 of Lost (marathon itoh!) Now am pretty much no good for the rest of the day, except for lounging on the couch and finishing the rest of the season, naturally :) Had no idea watching Lost was so fun! Caught 2 episodes of the series on AXN the other day, after that I was, well, lost ;P

Am putting off doing the laundry yet again—bukas na lang ulit.

Spider

“Being an imposter was not the problem. He liked being an imposter. He was good at it. It fitted in with his plans, which were fairly simple and could until now have been summarised more or less as: (a) go somewhere; (b) enjoy yourself; and (c) leave before you get bored… Only he didn’t want to go. He was having second thoughts about all this… Normally he didn't even have first thoughts about things. Life without thinking had been perfectly pleasant—instinct, impulse, and an obscene amount of luck had served him quite well up to now.”

--from Neil Gaiman’s ANANSI BOYS

Finished reading Anansi Boys the other day—those are a few nice lines from the novel. I identify most with the Spider character as we seem to share the same philosophy in life. He's the type of person who'd relate more to the Grasshopper than the Ant, the Hare rather than the Tortoise. That is to say, he enjoys what he can of life and doesn't think of himself as a victim. You gotta act or be acted upon.

First time

Blogging on my own for the first time, so am taking baby steps. I have no idea what to do with this space, but as usual I'm just diving in. To learn how to swim, first get wet!