I Told You I’ll Be Back

As promised, I’m back.

I was looking for my old blogs and works on the net when I realized that I have no more outlet for my musings and wanderings. So while my personal blog (which isn’t really that personal) features a variety of things in general, I’m keeping this blog for my thoughts. If my blogs were a photoshoot, then this page would be the behind-the-scenes.

What have I been up to lately?

Well a series of unwanted and surprising events bombarded me. I turned 27 last month, met a lot of new people (interesting people, at that), got sick, got heartbroken, and got back up.

At present I’m more into music. I am forming a band in Los Banos, trying to mix up Student Meal with new members and new song, trying to cover songs with my trusty guitar, doing drills on the piano, and yeah, writing songs.

I got really inspired when I got back to my hometown for a photo exhibit by Daniel. Ivan and I have been deliberating on spearheading and organizing a free photography workshop for budding photographers in town (who mostly have cameras but don’t know how to use them). Actually this will be the second time we’ll be doing this since in 2008 we’ve already organized the same workshop.

Back to music. I think this is a good opportunity to feature one of my best discoveries in the indie OPM scene: Dream Carousel. I first heard their music while my friends and I were drinking in LB Square.

(My favorite song “Merry-Go-Round”)

Last week I met a lot of new faces in UPLB, most of which were into arts and literature. I cannot name them all but thanks to Alex for broadening my horizons in my small hometown. Certainly, this is the best way to move on.

-over and out-

~S

I’ve Moved!

SheenahTan.net

Hey people, Sheenah Tan has now moved. There’s no reason to fret since I will also be updating this blog from time to time. Please visit my new website and ‘Like’ my page on Facebook, orayt?

This Holy Week

I decided to just drop the Quezon trip and stay home with Danah for the Holy Week. Might have less time for her when I start my new work. Yes, starting anew.

One of the things I love doing during the Holy Week (since there are barely good shows on TV) is recalling all the songs I loved (and compiled) during the same time for the past years. Here’s a quick list:

1. Sound of Silence – Emiliana Torrini (2002)
2. Crustation – Purple (2003)
3. Jupiter – Craig Pruess (2004)
4. Half Light – Low (2005)
5. Ave Maria – Rebecca Luker (2006)
6. Read My Mind – The Killers (2007)
7. Tatsulok – Bamboo (2008)
8. Croatian Rhapsody – Maksim Mrvica (2009)
9. Red Hot – Vanessa Mae (2010)

I haven’t picked my favorite song for this year.

On a different note, it’s Aldo’s birthday today. Happy birthday, Aldo Lim!

Writing

Has it ever occurred to you that no matter how hard you try to get things right you still end up down under? I know it’s just a phase and as the cliche goes, “shit happens”. I just couldn’t find the best means to express it but through blogging.

I hate writing. I have been writing since college until it became my bread and butter after I graduated. It was suffocating. It is toxic. I do not hate it in a sense that I do not want to write anymore; I hate it because it becomes the very me. I wanted to escape in the pits of words, sentences and contexts but they all seem to drag me down under.

Writing gave me food on the table. Writing could be my cause of death. Writing is my yin and yang, my boon and bane, my good and bad. If there’s anything worst than writing, that would be more writing.

Isn’t it ironic that I am writing this very blog right now? Could it be that I am just too fed up with words, sentences and contexts? Am I just tired? I’d like to think so.

I can’t escape writing because that would be like escaping from myself.

 

She Can’t Drive

This is a story of a girl who cannot drive. Never will she do.

She has no sense of direction. She easily gets lost even on very familiar places. She has no photographic memory but driving isn’t about that.

She is short-fused. She gets fumed up with a mere dog crossing on the street, or with a jejemon crossing the pedestrian lane and acting like he’s walking in a park. If ever she has owned a gun, she could have been convicted of murder.

She studied proxemics but cannot apply it in real life. She tends to forget that cars have bumpers. She makes a turn to either the right or left and will land her car front wheel on a ditch instead. She makes full stops on humps.

She panics. She panics when somebody cuts her line. She gets confused with left and right and gets panic-stricken afterwards.

She was once told to be given a car if she learns how to drive. Yes, she took driving lessons but all the same, she can’t drive. No car for her.

She curses a lot.

She hates the stick shift because she likes to hold things using her left hand.

She really can’t drive but she finds people who drive cool. Very cool.

She is very afraid of driving but surprisingly she can park.

Still, she can’t drive.

She’s 26 and still can’t drive.

Yep, she’s me.

Where My Weekend Went

I was reminded that I still have a blog. This blog. I’ve been busy (laaaaaaame excuse) with work, family and redefining myself (lmao) then I realized that I missed blogging.

So while The Blog Buff is under a major overhaul (I haven’t even started yet since the new layout needs a lot of drawings), I’m dumping my laundry here.

Last weekend was my best weekend in 2011 by far. It mainly comprised of booze, music, roadtrips and pure insanity.

It’s fun, really fun to reunite with my college band Student Meal. Back in 2005 we won the Lyceum Battle of the Bands, which made us quite an icon in the campus (I’m exaggerating). After the victory, we played in different Lyceum activities. We were the all-set band. One call and we’ll be there to perform.

I digress.

So anyway, last Saturday was the Lyceum Grand Alumni Homecoming. Of course, alumni were expected in the venue. We, the band, are all alumni so we were invited to play again, after four years. Some have graduated, some have veered away from schooling. The best part was not during the performance but during the practices, when we all proved that once and for all, Student Meal is a solid band.

We rehearsed on Friday night in an awesome studio in Las Piñas – lots of brand new Vic Firth sticks, complete Gretsch drumset, keyboards, a poker table… Overall the place is awesome. We stopped rehearsing at around 12 midnight. I, famished and parched (no food for the last 12 hours LOL), finally got to eat after midnight. In a convoy we all went to Sta. Rosa to have an acoustic jam and to master every riff and chord in each of our songs.

I cannot elaborate the whisky and vodka shenanigans that happened there.

7am Saturday. We had breakfast, watched TV and then finally headed to the studio for our last rehearsal. All was set.

VJ drove me home to have lunch and quick bath. 5pm Saturday. Call-time at the venue.

9pm Saturday we went onstage to play. The drumset rented was not as good as I have expected. It lacked one tom-tom. I needed two tom-toms for one song so it was a last-minute adjustment for me. The stage only had four amplifiers which meant that one guitarist had to leave onstage. It was sad.

We pulled it through, although the stage setup sucked.

Sadly, five out of eight songs weren’t played. The alumni/guests were itching to go home. What a great crowd. Our encore performance which will wow the audience remained unseen.

VJ drove me home. Finally. Sleep.

Sunday. The Family went to Nuvali in Sta. Rosa to celebrate Jelai’s birthday. I was groggy and still tired but I had a great time. Danah was well-behaved (as always). Splurged my pocket money on her clothes (don’t you just love shopping for your cute litol kid?)

The best part? The band got to do something that not all Lyceans can: get wasted on the school grounds.

So there. Short and sweet.

Moments with Danah

http://momentswithdanah.wordpress.com/

Hey guys, this is a new blog I created for Baby Danah. I will still post updates here, but you can check out Moments with Danah to read updates about my precious daughter.

This is a Perfect Day to Smack Somebody

Ladies and gentlemen it’s roughly 34 degrees here in Metro Manila and I’m burning with my own rage.

This is a bad day. I woke up half naked as my body’s response to this unbearably insane weather.  Dave and I got up only to find our favorite paksiw na bangus covered in amag. Plus, the munggo soup nanay cooked for us has been spoiling inside the casserole for hours.

These are good dishes, in fact these are the dishes Dave and I would most likely to eat for a week had my sister been human enough to put them in the refrigerator. She didn’t so the dishes were thrown away.

I value food so much. I have been terribly hungry during those times when I cannot make my own food. It enrages me a lot to see food being wasted. Like my sister did.

So now I’m sending her back to the province for being such an irresponsible ass.

Add a terribly bad review that spoiled a movie Dave and I have been wanting to watch for weeks. People have to know the difference between a review and a spoiler. A review contains comments on the movie’s plot, setting, characters, story, but it doesn’t contain spoilers that could make a fan go ballistic. A spoiler is a piece of shit written by know-it-alls to declare to the world that “hey, I’m cool, touch me!”

People, if you can’t post a good review, just tell the world how much you love/hate the movie. I’m pleading.

Anyway there’s still no sign of my sister. She went out this morning and God knows where she is. I texted her that if she isn’t home by 1PM, she’ll find all her things outside the gate. It’s quarter past 2 but I’m still too lazy to throw her things away.

‘Bad’ is an understatement. I don’t know how to describe this day but what I know is that there will be a scene in this house later.

This is, indeed, a perfect day to smack somebody.

First Post

What do bloggers usually say on their first post?

Okay, welcome to my first ever dot com website. This is basically going to be another rant-blog, only a bit more glorified. I have decided to put this up on my birthday so that when I age, I won’t be having troubles of recalling the date this was launched. Purely ambitious.

Anyway, I thank my better half, Dave, for the domain name and hosting. This is one of his birthday gifts for me.

This page is solely for personal use. However, if someday I’ll have bandwidth trouble due to high traffic, I might as well include ads and get rich from this one. If that time comes.

So, okay, without further ado, here’s my webpage — it’s something really significant I made days before I reach my quarter life. Cheers!

I Wished to be Part of History

The only part where I felt quite involved with President Cory Aquino’s death was when I rushed my boyfriend to the Makati Medical Center (MMC) on Saturday dawn. There were media people at the hospital entrance and I had to clear them to get inside. I did not know that that time, the former president just passed away. I just found out when I got home and read the news.

I felt quite awful since Dave and I were there without knowing that one of the greatest Filipino leaders just passed away in the very same hospital, and that while Dave was in the emergency room, Senator Noynoy Aquino was giving a statement.

That’s the only part I felt I was involved with. But not even close I now think.

Last Monday, the funeral cortage of Pres. Aquino passed by Ayala and Gil Puyat where I used to work. My office mates saw the truck pass by and admitted that they were in tears after witnessing such sad moment. They became part of history by seeing the cortage; while I was home working for a client, unaware of what was happening.

My parents were never part of the EDSA Revolution but they were always tuned-in to the television that time. I was a year old when Ferdinand Marcos was ousted by the Filipinos. My sister (who was five that time) and I only recall singing “Magkaisa” with our right hand waving an “L” sign without knowing what it actually meant.

I grew up not appreciating every president this country had, but Pres. Cory is different according to my parents. They told me what she did to the country, and that she and her late husband Ninoy Aquino restored freedom in the country. I had to learn how horrible the Marcos regime was before I was able to appreciate her. Nevertheless, I appreciated her, and I still do.

My ignorance made me feel like I am not part of history.

Right now, her remains are being brought to the cemetery and yet, I never actually saw it. My dad and I were tuned-in to the television to watch the funeral rites. Just like in 1986, we had our television set to keep us in track and make us feel that somehow, we are part of the history.

Then I thought “when do we become a part of history?” Is that when we joined a mob and ousted a president? Or is that when we witnessed a very important part of Philippine history? I cannot give a definite answer but one thing is for sure: not witnessing an event or contributing to the downfall of an unwanted icon does NOT exclude us from history.

The fact alone that we are Filipinos makes us part of history. It is about how we view it.