This is the last picture that was ever taken of my grandfather and me. It was Christmas of ‘92 and I met my mother’s side of the family for the first time. Everyone was fawning over me since I was the first grandchild; giving me toys, taking pictures, and carrying me around. For an 11 month old, that’s more attention than a baby can ask for. I actually remember the day this picture was taken. It was a humid afternoon. Then again, the Philippines is always humid whatever the season. I was cranky because I wasn’t accustomed to not having an air conditioner or an electric fan handy. All the adults were busy prepping for dinner, setting up the table and cooking the food. My Papa Tico was giving me a piggy back ride in another room so I wouldn’t get in the way. Or it could’ve been that he wanted to spend all his time with me, bonding with his apo (grandkid). He fell so suddenly, even as a toddler I knew something was wrong. Help was called for and dinner was left to get cold. What happened afterwards isn’t so clear to me now, but my parents and I left because they had work and the plane tickets were non-refundable or something. That was a week or so after he had a heart attack and fell. He was bedridden and supplied with a home nurse until he died. I don’t know when exactly, sometime before my birthday (Jan. 30) though. My grandma kept a newspaper clipping of his funeral, so I’ll have to ask to see it. If I ever visit the Phils. again, I’ll probably visit his grave and pay my respects.
RIP Papa Tico.
(Source: mc-steamy)
I had so many plans when I was a youngin’. Fly into space, write articles on harrowing exploits, be famous, cure cancer. Ten years later: the space exploration program has been discontinued, I can’t write a paragraph without giving myself a migraine, fame is somewhat commonplace, and the cure for cancer’s a bargaining chip for pharmaceuticals. Religious folk are concerned for all of our souls, now that the end of all existence is upon us. Disatrous natural phenomena are occurring everywhere, killing thousands & destroying many.
It feels like yesteryear was a better year to live through. Personally, I don’t believe in the Mayan calander prophesying our doom before Christmas at the end of this year. I think we, as a species, are tearing apart our home planet to the bones. Just ripping and taking and shredding and polluting. I don’t care for our future. I prefer to live in the right now. That’s all I can really count on. Besides, I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up.
tl;dr Misanthropy abounds, I still love individuals, and appreciation for now.
Using Jonxd’s mac to take pictures! He’s watching Friends and I’m tumblring. I’m also wearing the Christmas present my bf got me, yay Cookie Monster! (Side note: Cookies don’t have to be a sometimes food!)
Sneak Peek of the Day: The title sequence from Nickelodeon’s Avatar follow up, The Last Airbender: Legend of Korra, has just been posted online.
If you’re not into waiting until the show’s premiere sometime next year, you can watch it right now. Hurry, though — this probably won’t be around for long.
[ontd.]
Earlier: Korra’s Comic-Con teaser.
(Source: ripshannon)
The appetite for scandal news, both here and in the U.K., is so insatiable that tabloid journalists are forever creating or “discovering” new celebrities whose peccadilloes—especially sexual ones—can be reported. How else to explain the rise of the Kardashians? This appetite has no automatic right to a meal but the healthy market for the “red top” tabs in the U.K. and their U.S. counterparts—Star and Us, TV shows like TMZ, and celebrity columns in every U.S. daily newspaper—confirms how mainstream and widespread the consumption of gossip is. McMullan is right: The demand so demonstrably creates the supply that it requires us to pause long enough to figure out why we so love anything approaching a scandal, even if the exposé doesn’t contribute to the “public interest.”
Who among us will turn down gossip, especially of a sexual nature, about classmates, officemates, causal acquaintances, Hollywood actors, politicians, and all the way up to complete strangers? Bates helps us understand when he quotes C. Edwin Baker: “Gossip is an essential means of communication.” We crave intimate details of others’ lives because they give us a sense of power over them; because the intimate details of others’ lives help us understand our own; because the intimate details of others’ lives give us social currency and social standing. “Scandal news, like literature, illuminates human nature,” Bates writes.
(Source: mailbomb)
