post-exam stress buster

i won't let this week go without blogging about what basically kept me away from the blogosphere.

so, for two weeks, i spent most of the night either: in school, watching over the Beacon's layout artists as they make our first issue OR at lessa's house with the class, practicing for our choral competition.

and to cap it all off, midterms week came and drenched me with barrels of stress. fyi, i'm beginning to dislike third year, because the subject matter (not the subject per se) is getting fatter and fatter, and time is a commodity as dispensable as Saudi oil. So the empirical equation is basically: me + big position in an org + gastro, cardio, respi and f&e + heavy minors - time and energy = disaster.

hold on, before I become toooooo pessimistic, let me just say that the only way i'm keeping myself from breaking down is to attract positive vibes, so I won't dwell on my exams (WHICH ARE FINALLY OVER!!!! HALLELUJAH!!!), and i'm just going to blog about something happy, as in...


the Autobots performed the piece "The Story of the Atom", during the choral competition which was participated by classes taking up Eng211 (Public Speaking and Debate). Actually the event last friday (Ninoy day) was the elimination round, but thanks to the hard work we put into it, we qualified for the final round, and our teacher told us we ranked first so that gives us a boost of confidence.

Our performance reminded me how much I really enjoyed choral competitions in high school. Just the thrill of spilling your guts out infront of a live audience makes all the screaming, yelling and bruises just worth it. and it doesn't hurt that a lot of the A's are Berchmans so it made the experience even better. But at the end of the day, I was really proud of what the class accomplished...and come to think of it, the projects our minors give us are the reason why we became close in the first place.

the only downside is that the following day...we had our cardio and gastro exams...which I do not want to talk about anymore. hahaha

******
I'm just so ready to learn from the mistakes made and start over, and of course, do better this time around.

Half-Blood Prince: seen and reviewed

I actually remember blogging about how the Harry Potter 6 trailer made me drool with anticipation over the real thing. So after weeks and weeks of postponing the movie date, I finally watched the movie under different circumstances. For one, only 4 of us watched it (I imagined it to be a big group date), and 2, we caught the 5:20 screening so it ended at around 7:30 pm. I applaude Mindpro's baggage counter for fulfilling its purpose, seeing as upon closing early, they gracefully heaped our bags on the floor and scolded us only once FOR DEPOSITING OUR BAGS AT THE BAGGAGE COUNTER. enough about that...

You've probably read countless reviews scrutinizing Prince piece by piece. So, I'm not going to harp about that. Instead, let me just expound on what I like and didn't like.

So I'm going to go all facebook and start of by saying that the movie was extremely tepid. And the critics were right in complaining about how the scene shifting was far from seamless and purposeful. I didn't like how Bonnie Wright played her character of a supposedly spritely Ginny Weasley. Among all the actors, she needed the more motivation seeing as, well, she does get a bigger share in the screen time. Yet she fell short of expectations and simply channeled a flirt waiting for her next meal, albeit very timidly. I did like how Emma Watson's Hermione grew from being perpetually scrunchy-browed, unintentionally angry looking circa movie 3 to a more fluid, at-ease personality. As for Harry Potter, his character managed to make a significant leap from awkward and unmotivated to mature and, oftentimes intentionally cocky. He manages to elvoke more emotion this time, apart from the usual angry and pensive feel he displayed previously. Ron, seeing as he also gets his fair share of lip-locking, couldn't be any goofier. Though his insecurities weren't really highlighted, he did manage to add some color in an otherwise bleak background.

I felt that David Yates was straying away from making the movie feel bookish with good reason. Looking back, movie 5 felt like road-kill. They probably learned from their mistakes and tried to make 6 more succintly streamlined. In terms of execution, I appreciated how the movie didn't make me guffaw at the fact that some scenes were omitted. And somehow, maybe the omissions were needed. The movie was good, in the sense that it managed to keep itself grounded in essentials. Though it suffers because some scenes seemed to last forever, it ,admittedly, redeemed itself with the lovable Helena Bonham-Carter nailing Bellatrix LeStrange. And it doesn't hurt that some additional scenes that were not in the book made it more fun to watch, but the feeling doesn't linger long.

All in all, the movie set the momentum for movie 7. And I'm looking at it this way: at least 'Hallows' doesn't have to meet such high expectations since 'Half-Blood Prince' was, in O.W.L. speak, 'Acceptable'.