Down the Drain Archives

Apat Dapat, Dapat Apat!

Posted on October 20, 2007 at 13:57 Down the Drain 7 Comments

I am currently in Cebu City – cutting trips to Mindanao since I was unfortunate enough to get a plane ticket. I’ll be taking another sea trip this evening and hopefully, I’ll be ‘home’ tomorrow. I am in Netopia (where else? lol) right now here at SM City and I just had my lunch at KFC. As usual, I ordered the Chicken Strips Meal and an additional rice. Before it, I watched this movie by Wenn V. Deramas which stars Rufa Mae Quinto, Eugene Domingo, Candy Pangilinan, and Pokwang. It was already in my plan to watch this movie even when I was still in Iloilo. Today, when the cinema corridors were still empty, I browsed through the posters and read Apat Dapat, Dapat Apat!’s. It was then that I realized that Candy looked dead in the poster. Well, it turns out that she really was in the movie. The storyline goes like this:

As children, they were involved in an accident that made them promise each other to become the best of friends. They eventually grow up in the same place. Rufa Mae got a funeral service business; Eugene, a hunk boyfriend; Candy, a hot-headed family; and Pokwang, a husband and two children. Then one day they decided to go to Hong Kong to become domestic helpers. Candy was unluckily assigned to a cruel couple. She got killed. Her three bestfriends had no other choice, after being threatened, to bring her body home and hide her death until Candy’s family is ready to take it. But how will they device a plan that the family that ought to know the truth will not kill them if this little secret is revealed?

I actually thought that I would have all the laughs I could have because the main characters holds today’s funny names. But it turned out not. I really hated the scenes when Candy got maltreated. Argh, the character of the wife looked awful with her posture and talked Chinese (or I don’t know) in a way that really haunted me. It’s so sad that this thing happens to be true for some Filipinos out there. Tsk. I should’ve really watched Stardust instead (the synopsis got me very curious when I read it earlier). Nyeh. ‘Damage’ has been done, so be it.

Two Steps To Go

Posted on October 16, 2007 at 18:29 Down the Drain 4 Comments

Hurray! Only two more things to go and I’m finally outta school. But first, let me thank those folks who commented on my previous post. I never thought I’d get some that fast! Thank you, thank you. You keep me burning in a way. So what’s been up lately? Well, my dormmate Kristin San has always been playing in my computer since I brought it down in our study area. I did so because somehow I can work better that way, unlike when in the room where the bed’s too inviting and I just can’t help but open Photoshop instead of working ‘academically’. Super Mario 4 is her game, and I can’t help but laugh out very loud whenever she gets killed. Am I mean or what? But in fairness, she plays good! I mean, like (ehem) me.

This morning we had our final exam in Stat. It was a 32-item multiple choice test that was, fatefully, not that bloody. Yea.. Many were still on their seats when I passed my paper. Then I hopped to the basement hopefully waiting for our lab to be opened. I got irritated by It seemed hopeless so I went upstairs to check on my classmates. Without our teacher around, it appeared that they grabbed the opportunity to compare answers. Tsk. So far I have never done something like it in an ‘actual’ exam since I stepped into college. C’mon people, those are for high school days only!

As I was trying to finish writing our take-home exam in server-side programming, I could feel that my hand was already trembling. For days I’ve been writing a lot of take-home exams in which the answers cannot be a simple 10 sentences. Then came our final exam in Geography. I love it so much that I had to make a copy of the question as well as my answer:

SocSci26: People, Places and Spaces in a Changing World
Is Christmas a socio-cultural celebration, an economic bonanza for capitalism, or both? Explain your answer in five sentences. In another set of five sentences or less, create another example in our contemporary society to illustrate your idea of the relationship between socio-cultural traits and economic phenomenon.

“Christmas is a socio-cultural celebration because, clear enough, religion resides in every country which is the major driving force for celebrating this event. At the same time it has become an economic bonanza for the reason that such things (and other celebrations and holidays) have been commercialized due to economic growth purposes. Then again, as what others tend to say, “Nothing beats the original.” The true essence of this event will always and forever remain the same to those who celebrate it. The economic bonanza thingy is merely a flavor or spice to bring things to a greater, more interesting, and “expensive” extent.

Since we were talkin’ ’bout Christmas, I might as well spell out New Year. In our country, no new year passes without the dark (sometimes even wet) skies being colored by raging firecrackers making their way through the night. Making noises on New Year’s Eve has always been believed to “shoo” away bad luck and this is a reason why Filipinos tend to buy themselves firecrackers despite its high cost. Would you allow your grounds to be so still when the world out there is celebrating WWIII? After all, there’s still no harm in believing, right?”

I’m not really that satisfied with my answer but I really loved the fact that our exam was that way – answer the question in 10 sentences or else suffer the consequences. Something like saying to those who are good in answering very long essay questions, “Now, let me see what you’ve got!” {evul laugh} However, I didn’t use double-spacing in my answer. x_x Maybe it was when I went to the C.R. that Sir made that instruction. Oh well.. And BTW, my classmates’ answers include fiestas, festivals, and even Manny Pacquaio! Does mine now make any sense?