The Great Gatsby

After watching the movie twice in a day, I can't help but fall in love with it. Here's my shout out to everyone want to watch this classic. -DM

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What more could any woman want than a man who would look at her in the eyes as if she were the only thing in the world that mattered? It was a love that neither distance nor time could wither. It was a love that neither person nor memory break, and a love that was so powerful, it made one man climb the high society and become one of Long Island’s wealthiest men. Five years is worth the wait for a man like Jay Gatsby (Leonardo DiCaprio) who would selflessly offer his everything to Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan), his ladylove, in The Great Gatsby.

The Great Gatsby is by far one of the best movies that ever grazed theatres.  It is a movie portraying a society of the educated rich. Elite bureaucrats, power-thirsty moguls, high buildings, bigger parties, more crowded streets, and feistier people are only a taste of the more multifaceted personalities and picturesque views the movie has to offer. It’s the kind of movie that leaves your brows furrowing in frustration while pressing the rewind button as you try to understand the complexity of the movie. It’s an eye-and-ear-catching movie that perfectly depicts the kind of society the booming 1920s was. Even the cast of the movie screamed ‘young and ambitious’. 

A box-office hit that earning a total of $351,040,419 worldwide as of 2014, The Great Gatsby is an Academy Award winning movie adaptation of the same book by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. It was directed, produced, and screen played by Baz Luhrmann, the man behind Moulin Rouge (2001) and Romeo + Juliet (1996). The Great Gatsby is a film of a million layers of intricately thought out portrayals. Starting from the scene, costumes, music, characterization, and actors, the movie evoked a bittersweet mood. At present, the movie had garnered 33 wins and 41 nominations. It’s a movie that bookworms who have read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby must watch.

The movie pilots to the present, with Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) narrating the past events that had led to his current predicament, as is the same with the book version. The transition from present to past being narrated in first person was somewhat a common development seen in some movies such as Tangled (2010), Sunset Boulevard (1950), Fight Club (1999), and The Wolverine (2013), although the special effects did make up for that. The music was pretty catchy, with just the right tune and bit of lyrics to spice up the party scenes. Also, despite the fact that the movie was not shot in the exact place the story took place, instead of New York, the movie was shot in Australia, the difference was not noticeable at all. It definitely looked New Yorkan and not Australian.

Movie characters were in sync with the roles they played. The suave Jay Gatsby was a well-played role by DiCaprio. The two-faced Daisy Buchanan played by Mulligan fooled me. Nick Carraway’s simplicity and innocence echoed through Maguire’s acting. Jordan Baker’s sassy, yet polished elegance was given justice by Elizabeth Debicki’s acting. Both Tom Buchanan and Myrtle Wilson’s capriciousness and tenacity were roles I bet no other person except Joel Edgerton and Isla Fisher, respectively, could play. What added more the sparkle of the well-delivered lines by the movie’s actors and actresses were the props and costumes. Every setting found in the movie was obviously put up with a lot of manpower involved. The costumes, though modernized and not exactly what people from 1920s wore, had a large impact on giving off a 1920s feeling to the movie.

The plot was constructed well; it only partly deviated from the original plotline of the book. Parts from the book that were not emphasized included the relationship shared by Carraway and Baker and the part where Gatsby’s father attended his funeral. Still, the movie was wholesome and captured the true message of the book: the American Dream of prosperity and success.

       Comparing the book and movie, I’d give the movie 4.5 out of 5. Overall, it was a movie the great Mr. Fitzgerald would gladly give his applause to; a kind of movie one wishfully hopes would have a sequel.

Movie trailer:

 

GSP Showdown Encampment 2014

Awards given during the awarding ceremony

It's that much celebrated year-ender for the Girl Scouts of USJ-R, Showdown Encampment. It's been a Girl Scout tradition to hold this event year after year with various themes and motifs, each representing one identity: Scouting. Seeing the girls in action, with tents pitched, banner flowing with the wind, awards awaiting, skills showcased, and talents unsurpassed reminds me of the greatest four years of my life. 

CW: Me, Jhanica, Kim, Joann

So much has happened in the past 10 months, and it just feels great to be with the people I've missed once again. Even if it was just for a day, it was one great reunion.

Front lobby of St. Ezekiel Moreno Building

It was a job well done by this year's Senior Planning Board and Company. After the many months of tedious planning, of paperworks and letters being signed by the school board, the never-forgotten financial problems, discipline issues and quarrels, it's all gone and passed now. Overcome and let gone.

i

Groupie, candidly shot. Wondered where my phone went when I woke up.

Just simple conversations, little tidbits. Like the 'ol times, with the same girls in green. Guess nothing else changed, it's still the same 'yagit' faces, only now a li'l bit older and a lot wiser, as responsible as can ever be and as green as the leaves on the trees beyond the field.

Wishing two more people could've been there with us, but, there's always summer. A week more, and it's freeeedom!

Yours,

Angel

A Game of Birds and Pipes

As the advent of the smartphone gadget reaches its peak, so has the number of touchscreen games that keeps people’s eyes glued on their touchscreens. There are some smartphone-users who play for fun and there are those, too, who turn fun into extreme—extreme rage, that is. With teeth gnashing, matched by colourful swearwords enough to fill a dictionary; fingers continuously tapping the screen for hours, paired with eyes full of the determination to win; veins popping as brows become knitted together in frustration at another defeat; and dark under eyes showing up after another sleepless night of game play, people have gone crazy over a new bird game: Flappy Bird. It’s a game that has gone viral on millions of people, and the infection just keeps getting worse.

Created in May 2013 by Dong Nguyen, an indie game developer based in Vietnam, Flappy Bird currently tops the ‘Most Popular’ chart in both iOS App Store and Google Play Store. It earns a whopping $50,000 a day, according to Forbes, and much to the surprise of the developer himself who created the game in just a span of three days. The game is also the current buzz of the social networking society with the infamous #flappybird or #flappybirdhighscore. Even local celebrities like Anne Curtis and Jerric Teng are hooked on Flappy Bird according to ABS-CBN News. The continuous tweets, statuses and photos of social networkers and media serve to continually put Flappy Bird in the limelight since the start of 2014.

Simple, yet terribly addicting, Flappy Bird is a game wherein the player navigates an adorably cute bird through a small gap between never-ending streams of pipes. Each pass through a pipe grants the player a point. The player is then rewarded with a medal for his first ten points. It sounds easy, right? Start with your first game, tap the screen to make the bird fly, hit a pipe, and you end with a score of zero. Play again and still you get a zero. Play the third time? The addiction starts. It’s a game reminiscent of the green pipes in Super Mario, the colourful birds in Angry Birds, and the graphics and sound effects of a 90s video game, yet a game that leaves you tapping for hours, nonetheless.

Despite the stress-inducing game play of Flappy Bird, every game has a trick of its own. While many game strategists argue that Flappy Bird is unrealistic due to the rate the bird falls upon collision with the pipe which, in short, means the game defies gravity; in research, the game actually follows another rule of physics based on an analysis by Frank Noschese, a Physics and Chemistry High School teacher in New York. According to him, what really affects the game is the impulse provided by a player’s tap on the screen. The ‘pre-tap velocity’ and ‘post-tap velocity’ is supposed to be constant or same, but in Flappy Bird, it isn’t; therefore, a light tap on the screen will send the bird flying higher than its supposed flight. It’s, thus, a trick of timing and reflexes.  

“Tap to flap your wings and fly. Avoid pipes. Try to earn medals,” a game with such simple instructions, yet one that will literally blow your mind off to the pit of Tartarus. You’re not from this century if you’ve never or won’t ever try Flappy Bird. Students, the business circle, celebrities, media men and even scientists are addicted to Flappy Bird. Anytime soon, it would be no wonder if even President Aquino himself becomes secretly hooked on the game. 

With this, I call quits!

Now that I'm officially over Flappy Bird, it's Iron Pants up next. ;)


Yours,

Our Lady of Lindogon

Shrine of Our Lady of Lindogon, Simala, Cebu

According to local history, the hills of Lindogon was once a barren and uninhabited place. No plant would thrive there for its source of water was scarce and its soil was dry, stony, and full of limestone, but a wise old man predicted that Lindogon would not be forever deserted. According to him, Lindogon Hill will become holy once the White Lady reigns the place. True to his prediction, the wise man, no other than Ingko Niyong Villamor, was not wrong. (click for reference)

Pilgrims of the Simala Shrine on a rainy Sunday

I've known this place ever since my Elementary years. Back then, it wasn't as grand as it is now, yet it still had the same pristine holy aura and unchanging devotion felt within the cathedral-like architecture. Even the gloomy weather today did not stop devotees from giving their veneration to the Blessed Virgin. Pilgrims come from all over the province to see for themselves the miraculous Lady of Lindogon. 

Facade of the Shrine

The trip to Simala Shrine, though pretty long, was worthwhile. Attending mass, lighting candles, and writing a petition, this is how I like to kick-start my week--thanking the Lord for surviving another week. 

Life's not easy, y'know? It's only right to thank that someone from above for what the previous week had given us.

Your downtowner,

 

Facebooking through the Years

Never the type to stay in the mainstream, I wanted to deviate from the most recent jejemon ("jej") throwback popularized by netizens this New Year, but upon reading a blog entry by a fellow blogger, I suddenly found myself reflecting my Facebooking through the Years experience. To be honest, at one point I did feel a bit jej. Yeah, my own Youtube account username remains witness to that. 

Hello twelve-year-old me

Typing the letter L in capital when it's not supposed to be and using zero to substitute the letter O, sooo six years ago. Dayum. What can I say? Boredom got the best of me, and so I found myself scrolling down my own Facebook timeline.

The typical meh

 Now I remember how Obsessive Compulsive (OC) I was ever since. There's a reason every single thing I own that I bring to school has my name, and even if it has, it's not a guarantee of 'return to the owner if found'. For every (almost) item I own, I have both one for home-use and another for school-use. Pretty OC, huh? Dayuum.

Classmates for three good 'ol years

 From Dossa to Jassies, and Jassies to Quatrines, these girls are one of the best gals I could have ever known. Though our decisions have taken us to different paths already, I'm pretty sure wherever these girls are, they will succeed just as much as they did in High School. Aww, those years.

Summer Leadership Training Course, military style

The training that taught me discipline, military discipline. 15 minutes of standing still, 15 minutes squatting down, and another 15 minutes parade rest as Military Courtesy Discipline (MCD), jogging around the campus every morning, suicide runs, and survival training for the whole two weeks of summer, who wouldn't call it a challenge?

Life is when people just come and go

It feels great knowing how much positively I've changed throughout the years that had gone just as much as people had come and gone, so let's leave behind the sadness and learn from every bit of that feeling.

Hoping 2014 would contain as much positivity as last year, or even more. There's so much stuff I found in my timeline and too embarrassing to share (call it the transition from childhood to puberty). Don't even go digging in my timeline, yo. Ain't gonna find nuthin' there. Past is past fo realsies.

Leggo fill this year with positive vibes guys. Live 2014 to the fullest, chyeah!

Remember,

Your downtown gal,

The Angel Tree

There's a story behind every story. A story that only I would know. --AM

For fear of the ax, the tallest tree stood still. Pray it did, it prayed and prayed until a miracle did happen. Swung as mighty as the axeman could, he could not cut the tree down.

The tallest tree, envied by none, loved by few, and cheated by all, was never one easily put down. Quick to trust and easy to love, the tall tree had the best spot in the woods. It was the most magnificent in all the forestry. With branches stretching high up as if reaching the skies, it welcomed the birds that wanted to rest on its arms. It was a favorite tree, a title that took hundreds of years to earn, yet little did anyone know how much the tall tree worked hard to be the what it is now.

The tallest tree had seen the greatest tempest and heard every tale of love and lost underneath its canopy. The whispers of the wind, the uproar of nature, this all the tall tree had witnessed. An old ripe age it has reached, as old as the constellations in the galaxy. Wise, the tall tree was, it would simply smile and bid adieu to the lost travelers intruding its territory. It would neither help nor reject, it would simply acknowledge the passing of another lone soldier.

On the crossroads of the forest, a stranger marks his path. Axe in hand, cigar in the other, he looked all over to find the perfect tree, and in the middle of the woods, he had found what he sought. Calling another and some others more, they started their work slow and steady, creating havoc amidst the noise and pounding of their axes. For fear of the axe, the tallest tree stood still. Still as it stood, the pounding continued, the men would not simply give up, so the tallest tree prayed.

Then, a miracle did happen. The pounding stopped. Swung as mighty as the axeman could, he could not simply cut down the tree. Frustrated, he prayed. He prayed as hard as he could, then a miracle did happen.

It rained.

As it rained, the man saw the little creatures that came out from inside the tree and the birds that flew out of the tree's branches. The man now understood. More than how much he needed the tree, the creatures of the forest needed it more.

He could not cut down the tree, and so with his fellow loggers, they left the forestland.

For as long as the forest creatures needed the tree, the tree would live until its branches could no longer reach out to the skies and its body unable to withstand the tests of time.

TUMBLR, the New Year's Resolution

When I first chose a blogging platform, I wanted something hassle-free, one that would save me from the blogging nightmare I call codes. I wanted a platform that would let my creative juices flow until I've run my brain out dry, so I chose Blogger. Well, that was last year and now it's another year--a New Year marking the beginning of a new blog.

Why Tumblr?

Time, that's the simple answer, my dear Watson. I am just a quarter-time blogger and a full-time student, I could not handle the basic requirement (as I like calling it) of hardcore blogging: length. Pictures, sure, I'm vain enough for that, but I couldn't make make my posts longer than 200 words. I can reach 1, 000 if I'm that emotional (*winks*). I have so much to do than write the night away, thank you MedTech life!

Okay, so back to the topic. When I researched about blogging platforms, the key word 'microblogging' struck me hard. At first, I was against it because, well, I love being original and creative, it's never in my standard to have a blog full of quotes, images, etcetera reblogs from other bloggers and no self-published blog entries (no offense!), but then I realized how efficient a microblog like Tumblr is. I don't have to keep the mainstream of reblogging, my blog is my copyright.

These are my top 3 reasons for choosing Tumblr oven n number of blogging platforms:

1. Queuing system 

I love how you can just decide when to post your entries. Whenever I'm free, I could just make a line-up of my entries and set the date I'd want them to be posted. No need to check in my account to manually post my entries, the program automatically does the posting.

2. Follow button

Like Twitter, Tumblr also has a follow button. I'm not after the followers, I write to express, but it's nice knowing which people share the same interest as me or are interested in the things I write about. Mostly about love, though. Haha. Plus, there's also its hashtag feature that keeps me updated of stuff people are into. Very Twitter, right?

 3. Popularity

Maybe it's the acquisition of Tumblr by Yahoo or the number to teenagers into this blogging platform? Let's face it, majority of internet-users are adolescents, like me, who love blogging made simple, yet trendy and new. It's easy to use, the current 'in', and has lots of eye-catching customized layouts. Make a worldwide poll for people below 25 and voila! We have the Most Popular Blogging Platform as of October 2013.

I'm already on my 4th day as a Tumblr user, and goodness, I still do prefer Blogger. I find it easier to use and there's that auto-save button in case of a sudden blackout or browser crash, but when it comes to quickies, it's Tumblr any day. 

Follow me at: 

angelchameleon.tumblr.com

Wishing You a Happy New Year,