A Lot Like Love

There's nothing better than a great romance to ruin a perfectly good friendship.

I watched A Lot Like Love starring Ashton Kutcher and Amanda Peet yesterday. It's a typical romantic comedy about two people who met on a flight to New York. The movie showed how they pursued their dreams over the years. It also showed how they were perpetually brought back together by destiny and fate and all those fancy stuff. Everything happened with their relationship in a limbo - not just friends, but not quite lovers.

I personally can relate to guy friends - guy best friends, even. Being in a family with a lot of girls, I appreciate a male presence once in a while. That's why I look for kuyas in a lot of friends. I like the idea of being someone's little sister - having someone to curse that jerk who broke my heart or approve of the guy I met out of nowhere.

Now, falling for a friend is another story. This happens all the time. As someone said, it's "the most common drama between friends." What makes it hard is if the love is one-sided. And since they're friends, the hurt doubles, as in this Peyups article. Love is complicated enough. Add an existing friendship to that, then it becomes even more so.

A Lot Like Love showed how an initial attraction developed into a lasting friendship. It showed how two friends took the risk together, even if it meant ruining a perfectly good friendship.

Well, if Ashton Kutcher sang

I'll be there for you
These five words I swear to you
When you breathe I want to be the air for you
I'll be there for you
I'd live and I'd die for you
Steal the sun from the sky for you
Words can't say what a love can do
I'll be there for you

to me, I'd readily throw that friendship out the window.

*photo taken from http://www.empiremovies.com/posters.php?id=1946

Of Cousins and Choirs

I don't remember when I started singing. I guess I always sang during mass every week as part of worship. But I remember when I first sang in a choir. In my opinion, it was the best Joy to the World I have ever heard. (Hi Jaders!) That was followed by the Tagalog version of Twelve Days of Christmas by Sampa Sarap. And then of course Elex got into the PASKORUS finals with Diwa ng Pasko and Limang Dipang Tao. When I heard about the AwiTan during Engineering Week, I was excited to represent my sexy org. I sang for CURSOR in two Eng'g Weeks and I loved it (Awitan 03 in Filipiniana, Awitan 04 with santa hats). Even though practices were hard and frustrating at times, I loved learning the songs (Heto na Naman, Limang Dipang Tao, Santa Baby, and When I Fall in Love.) I'd always say that my voice is too weak for a solo (which is true), but I really like singing with other people more. I love it when our voices start blending and the song takes shape. I find strength in my voice when I sing with a choir.

On the other hand, my cousin, Ate Mitzi, doesn't need a choir to belt out tunes. She's loved singing ever since and she's a very very very good singer. She belongs to the University of the Philippines Medicine Choir (choir in red), a choir composed of full-time medical students (whoa! ) They just toured Europe last summer to join the Cork International Choral Festival where they bagged the PEACE Prize or the People's Choice Award. Now, that's something to be proud of.  

The UP MedChoir will be having their Coming Home Concert on June 26, Sunday at the PhilAm Auditorium along United Nations Avenue. I really recommend that you come, because the UP MedChoir is excellent onstage. You'll enjoy the show, I promise. Just send a message to me if you want to buy tickets so I can tell Ate Mitzi.

Hope to see you on the 26th!

Next Stop: Europe

First off, I'm home!  I must say that I've never been happier to be home. As our plane landed at Ninoy Aquino International Airport last Sunday, I almost shrieked with glee. Well truth is, I did shriek with glee. As I said, I am very, very happy to be back.

Before we left Santa Barbara, California, we went to the annual I Madonnari Festival. It's held during Memorial Day weekend at the Mission Church. The grounds in front of the church were covered with chalk drawings, mostly Italian paintings. The drawings, although most were unfinished, were excellent nonetheless. Italian food (my favorite! ) like pizza, pasta, and gelato were sold at the grounds. We bought our lunch and ate while listening to Spanish music played by the band. My cousin, Amanda, put I Madonnari in a nutshell: "A festival with Italian chalk drawings and Italian food with Spanish guitars playing in the background at a Spanish mission Church."

I'd like to go to Europe some time --- it's always been my dream vacation. But I have to save up first. So now I'm back to job hunting. It's such a pain to be left alone in the house, especially now that my sisters are back in school. I always try to go out whenever there's nothing to do (i.e., no job interviews). When I'm stuck at home, the bookworm in me emerges. I missed reading so much while I was still in school, now my eyes hurt by having too much of it. I finished The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares and its sequel in roughly five days. The movie is out in the US, starring Alexis Bledel of Gilmore Girls. It's a girly-good book about friendship and the love that comes with it (reminds me of my friends... miss you, pips!). The author has done a great job in developing the diversity of the four girls' characters and at the same time sewing them all together into one story of friendship and the Pants.

This is a funny quote from the many epigraphs in the book:

Before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you criticize them, you are a mile away from them and you have their shoes.

-Frieda Norris