Well, it looks like me and my family will be moving very far next month from Long Beach to Valencia before my sister goes back to the Philippines for vacation (lucky girl!). It sucks coz I already registered for fall in Long Beach City College months earlier and I'm expecting the next check for my financial aid a week before classes begin next month. It's complicated leaving with classes still not taken and having to transfer to another college to finish them, as well as the uncertainty of whether I'll still be getting financial aid due to this unfortunate turn of events. We were already finding homes in the past weeks, but the fact that we will actually be moving next month caught me by surprise and felt kinda rushed. And I really want to transfer to Cal State Long Beach.

On the other hand, Valencia is a great place (learn more about it here). The nearby community college (College of the Canyons) is just a bus ride away from our location. Valencia is the location of Six Flags Magic Mountain (which may be closing in the future) and a great educational institution called the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts for short). CalArts alumni over the years have included Tim Burton, Sofia Coppola, Paul Reubens (aka Pee-Wee Herman), and Don Cheadle. It's more well-known as the breeding ground of some of the finest animators working today, like Genndy Tartakovsky (Dexter's Lab, Samurai Jack), Craig McCracken (The Powerpuff Girls, Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends), Stephen Hillenburg (SpongeBob SquarePants), Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas, The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou), and most of the people in Pixar (John Lasseter, Brad Bird, Pete Docter, Ralph Eggleston, etc.). It just got easier for me to find another alternative of a school to transfer next once I finish my associate degree.

Well, looks like Mayon is erupting again. Ha ha, para yatang nainggit sa paporma ni Bulusan.

Reading the article linked above as well as the related pieces about the eruption, it was only until now did I notice the person in the byline: Ephraim Aguilar. Apparently he's now working for the Inquirer after having graduated from Bicol University. Ephraim was one of the people I worked with on The Agnesian back when I was in high school. He was one of the people who consoled me and boosted my spirits whenever I would go onto a crying fit after getting teased and bullied. I hope he keeps up the good work and good luck on his future endeavors.

Boy, this sure brings back memories of my days as a campus journalist, writing articles while hanging out in the "office" exchanging barbs with fellow staffers and pestering my moderators with ideas on improving the publication that never saw the light (like a lampoon issue) because they were so out there not to mention the budget constraints. The best thing I ever did in The Agnesian was a well-researched article on the history of SAA based on the limited resources I could find, wherein I was able to trace the actual origins of The Agnesian back in 1950 (the grade school equivalent came around the '70s). It had always bug me that the volume number corresponded to the school's year of existence rather than the student paper's. When I made the discovery, I forced them to get rid of the volume number and in its place "Since 1950" (I wonder if they still retained it today?) was put instead. When I received a medal during my high school graduation for my work in The Agnesian, I felt I truly deserved it considering I was the very first of my batch to write for the school paper and that was in 1996, when I was the only one from grade 3 in the Junior Agnesian staff. By the time I was in grade 6, I was the associate editor and had placed 4th place in a school division writing competition in the sportswriting category (something I never really had interest writing about). Although nowadays I tend to focus more on writing scripts rather than articles, my journalistic "legacy" lives on through this blog. Long live citizen journalism!

And Siddharta Perez, probably the youngest to become the editor-in-chief of The Agnesian back when we were in second year (normally reserved for seniors) and the only person to hold the position twice (again in our senior year), now has a new blog.

Today is the 4th of July, and considering the occassion, here's an interesting site that shows a safe and better way to celebrate during holidays.

You just need a 2 liter bottle of Diet Coke and some Mentos to begin.

Have fun!

Watching Manny Pacquiao on pay-per-view win (as always) his fight against Oscar Larios, something surreal caught my attention. There were ads adorned all over his boxing shorts, and he even put on a red cap with the McDonald's logo, making him a walking advertisement akin to NASCAR drivers. What's next, are they gonna tattoo their brands on him? In fact, when he was being interviewed with his usual carabao English, I was expecting him to say: "And to all my fans, go watch the movie based on my life, now showing in theaters everywhere."

After a very long deliberation in my head, here's a list of my top 25 films of 2006, so better late than never:

1. King Kong
2. Batman Begins
3. Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit
4. Munich
5. Good Night, and Good Luck
6. Brokeback Mountain
7. Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith
8. War of the Worlds
9. Sin City
10. Howl's Moving Castle
11. The 40-Year-Old Virgin
12. The Producers
13. The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe
14. Walk the Line
15. (tie) Corpse Bride/Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
16. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
17. Rent
18. Thumbsucker
19. Syriana
20. Match Point
21. Kung Fu Hustle
22. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
23. Lord of War 2
24. Memoirs of a Geisha
25. The Brothers Grimm

Also enjoyed: Elizabethtown, Red Eye, Wedding Crashers, Madagascar, The Longest Yard, The Family Stone