I don't know if many 2007 Ateneans are members of the Aegis egroup, and ateneo_aegis07 hasn't been updated with this, so for those interested:

TO: ateneo_aegis@yahoogroups.com
DATE: Jul 10, 2009 10:03 PM
SUBJECT: [Team AEGIS] STATEMENT OF THE EDITORIAL BOARD OF THE 2007 ATENEO AEGIS

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Natauhan ata dahil batch 2009 may yearbook na. :p

It's like a vacation, only more stressful

Between trying to put together a case discussion for Medicine 2 (which is currently on hold) and trying to finish my grandmother's video, time flies. I'm totally stuck on the video thing. My creativity, it is missing.

I'm also watching Pushing Daisies. I wanted to like it, because I've seen how much other people love it and are just delighted by the whimsy. But I retain my initial impression from when I watched the pilot over a year ago: it's so pretty...but the story is just okay. Ned and Chuck are too cutesy! The narrator running off the amount of time a person has been alive, down to the last minute, tends to grate after a while. But Olive, Olive is the only reason I continue to watch. She's an Itty Bitty with a gigantic personality. I think I'll stick to the amazing picspams and fanvids when it comes to this show.


Here's some backlogged linkspam

KD updates us on the new A (H1N1) response guidelines -- classes will not be suspended if there is confirmed comunity-level transmission in the area around a school.

San Diego Comic Con: Not Really For Girls?
San Diego Comic-Con, coming next month, is one of the geek holy days, but it's not for female geeks, apparently. At least, a new Comic-Con contest was for boys only, and the L.A. Times published an insulting "guide for girls." -- How clueless can you get? I read a good number of journals by females who enjoy attending Comic Con. (via)

Buffy vs Edward (Twilight Remixed)
It's an example of transformative storytelling serving as a pro-feminist visual critique of Edward's character and generally creepy behavior. Seen through Buffy's eyes some of the more patriarchal gender roles and sexist Hollywood themes embedded in the Twilight saga are exposed in hilarious ways. -- Has been making the rounds the past two weeks. The editing is EXCELLENT -- just take a look at the fight scene. Mia was amused that she could tell from which season each Buffy clip was taken based on her hair. Also, Cedric = *tear*. (via)

Artwork released for Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland
I totally forgot I got excited about this last year.

The 8 Most Terrifying Restaurants from Around the World
Number one is an affront to my concept of human decency. *shudders*


( Aaaaand cut for embedded videos )

Had a sort-of vacation before school starts. Spent the weekend in Taguig, where my parents took me shopping. I'm happy with my purchases but feeling guilty at the same time because I didn't do anything to deserve a splurge. We also had awesome dinners and I pigged out almost the entire time. So I've gained back the little weight I lost while studying this summer. Ay.

I am also SO UNPREPARED for school today. I don't have my preferred pen, I lack notebook leaves, and I have no idea what my schedule is. (I'm texting people to find out.) Neither have I gotten any headway on my grandmother's birthday video.

Anyway, big and blurry pictures under the cut.

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After two weeks of self-exile in the condo, I took the USMLE Step 1 exam. I wore my rattiest, most comfortable pair of jeans, made sure I had my test permit and government-issued ID, hurried down the stairs, tripped over my own feet, spent the 1.5-hour drive growing increasingly nervous...and arrived at the wrong venue.

I went to Ateneo Professional Schools Rockwell instead of Ateneo Salcedo! But it was okay because I wasn't very late and Salcedo was only a couple of streets away from Rockwell.

Step 1 wasn't as nerve-wracking as I thought it would be. The Prometric testing center is very quiet, and the test admin have an air of efficiency and calm, which certainly helps. They actually watch the cameras filming us, too -- whenever someone had a problem and raised their hand, it took less than a minute for them to respond.

The test was another matter. It was as difficult as I expected, and yet somehow even more so. I was sure of my answer only about 25% of the time. The thing is, for many questions I knew where the answers were in my notes, but I couldn't recall what the answer actually was. And a lot of what I did have mastered didn't appear on the exam. So it's like...I studied for the wrong things? I really could have used extra days -- even just 2 days -- reviewing notes and answering questions. (Ay, if only the H1N1 case in UST had been discovered sooner, like 5 business days before my exam date. Alas, rumors of the first day being pushed back to June 15 started only 3 days before my exam, and were confirmed while I was taking the exam, so I could no londer reschedule it.)

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After Step 1 today Mia and I watched Drag Me to Hell. I chose it over Terminator because it got a fresher RottenTomatoes rating, hee.

Random comments because I'm too fried to write coherent paragraphs:

I have never cowered so much in a movie theater. The makeup and squilch and honest-to-goodness slime are terrific. The fact that Mia and I got our tickets last-minute and ended up in the third row didn't make it easier. With a bit of imagination, it feels like the spirits are coming straight at you. A large group of girls behind us screamed their way through the movie. (I can't tell you how annoying that was.) After which, of course, one remarked, "Walang kwenta. Hindi naman nakakatakot." That was a waste of time. It wasn't even scary.

The computer-generated effects leave much to be desired, but there was one handkerchief that was simultaneously vile and funny as hell.

There are bits that remind me of The Exorcist and Poltergeist, and even the opening titles are reminiscent of the classic horror flicks, which I love. I've never seen Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead movies but I want to now!

And there are parts that are so over-the-top, you know the filmmakers mean them to come across as funny. Like the girlfights, and stuff with staplers...

( cut for spoilers )

Anyway it was scary and absurb and a lot of fun!

Uhhh...I spent more than a meant to at Komikon today. I was planning to just look around and pick up three or four indie comics, because I'm saving up for a camera. But I'm such an easy sell that I ended up with a lot more. Seriously, as long as you look at me and tell me about your comic, I will buy it. Even if it sounds like something I wouldn't like. Even if the art is all squiggles. I'll give anything a chance.

There were a lot of people at Komikon this year, I was surprised and happy to see. There were even some cosplayers. It was kind of crowded and hot but the atmosphere was fun. I didn't stay long because I got paranoid about being looking at weirdly, you know? Like, who's this loner girl roaming the booths at Komikon. Nyahaha. (I ended up going alone because my sister reneged on our plans.) Anyway, I'm glad I still went because now I have indie stuff to read! I love that people can share their ideas and their art at cons like this. Even if the work is god-awful, the fact that someone produced something out of their own creativity is something that is great and needs to be fostered.

So. How about the some Star Trek spam?

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After another week of studying I was itching to get out of my head for a while, so Mia and I watched Star Trek. Now, practically the only thing I know about Star Trek is the video below.

And all I knew about the prequel was that Sylar and Eomer were in it. So I know I missed a lot of references to the original Star Trek. But it was great! (Even Mia, who doesn't like scifi, gives the movie 4 stars.) There's action and there's drama and there's spacecraft contoured in excitingly chunky shapes. And surprise cast, because I seriously knew nil about the film. Mia and I kept going, "Is that...Cameron? ...Winona Ryder? ...Hector from Troy? ...SIMON PEGG??" (♥♥♥ Simon Pegg.)

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Tomorrow it's back to cramming. Oh, Sammy joined the review too so now I actually have someone to hang out with, yay!

I feel like I just watched a really long trailer.

Wolverine has some pretty slick action sequences, a lot of flash and bang. But there is not much else. Few of the fight scenes add to the story, and instead make the film unnecessarily lengthy. To put it another way, the superficial plot is just an excuse to film a bunch of wire stunts. There wasn't even a lot of Gambit or Deadpool.

Hugh Jackman was blegh. I'm not sure what he could have done with the character though. The filmmakers manage to make one of the most intriguing comics characters incredibly bland and tedious. Talk about two dimensional. It was "Viiiictoooooor!" all movie long. They are so in love with each other.

Liev Schreiber. His Sabretooth is quite different from the Sabretooth I know, but Schreiber is possibly the best thing about this movie.

Lastly, loooooooooolz at Xavier's stretched-out face.


But I am still so glad I went out. I'd been looking forward to tonight since Monday. It was so great seeing the men again.

Before the movie Jaime treated us to dinner at Okii Okii. (The movie was his treat as well.) When he sent out the invitations I thought it was a simple dinner with friends, but as it turns out, it was his advanced birthday celebration! And I didn't even get him anything. I feel very sheepish.

Everyone had forgotten to bring their cameras, so all I have are some blurry pictures from my phone.

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ETA: Stay after the credits. There are different post-credits endings; we got two out of four I think.

I've been reading the Dreamwidth posts on metafandom and I cannot understand the animosity towards the service. The biggest issue seems to be about people who are crossposting to LJ and DW and redirecting all comments to their DW journal. In effect, "forcing" people to visit a DW page if they want to comment on an entry. But somehow DW itself is drawn into the mix, as if the antagonism towards individual bloggers is displaced towards DW as a journaling service. As I see it, DW having this option is just one of the ways they're making it easier for people to use the service without losing touch with their LJ/IJ/etc contacts. And people are using DW not because it's the hot new slightly exclusive thing (open beta is in a few days!), but because the developments they are making are really useful.

Another thing I am confused about is the drama people think the subscribe/access system is going to make. The system actually makes things easier for those who post friends-locked content exclusively (probably to keep track of who's viewing their content) but don't wish to read the entries of everyone they have to add as a friend just so that friend can read their locked posts. (Users like andreas_ri come to mind.) Yes, you accomplish the same thing on LJ through custom filters, but subscribe/access makes this easier. And what about those who have reached their friends limit?

I'm not even the touching NO ADS EVAR issue. I really know nothing about it. True, I'd rather have a journal without ads, but I also understand that the money to run websites has to come from somewhere. If I'm already availing of the service for free, a few ads should be something I can live with. Then again, I can understand the disappointment if a service promised to be ad-free forever but reneged on that promise. But I very much doubt that will happen in DW's near future. And...yeah. Tricky issue.

You know, I never thought of Dreamwidth as a fandom-based project. (And it isn't.) But apparently a lot of users did. (DW was even confused as being under OTW.) And now that I'm reading meta and wank on and about Dreamwidth, it's starting to feel that way. Some diversity on DW, we need it!

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This post doubles as an attempt to use DW's cross-posting feature for the first time, hee. Will not do this often.

ETA: Editing a post in DW edits the cross-post in LJ! That is excellent.