catching up... (to what i have been doing lately)

spring moon
passed by this former bestseller in a book market store. the cover had the words 'chinese gone with the wind' on it, so it immediately caught my attention. the first few pages had me hooked already, with some info on chinese customs and such. skimming further, i saw that some chinese history was also integrated within the story.
seriously tho, the book only confirmed my being a sucker for foreign culture. to date, i've read falling leaves (chinese), samurai's garden (japanese), and memoirs of a geisha (japanese).
sigh. i can almost see my sister shaking her head with disbelief (i'm so weak around books...).

azumanga daioh
got introduced to this one by a good family friend, and its hilarious! it mostly contains 4-panel strip humor, while establishing good stereotypical characters (female japanese students, actually). there's only 4 volumes of it to cover each of the year in highschool. i only have the first right now, but i'm looking forward to getting the rest, plus copies of the dvd anime version (hopefully, my friend can record them for me).

real estate section of the newspaper
i look forward to the sunday editions, coz architects feature some house designs, complete with floor plan and descriptions. maybe its because of my previous experiences in this field had me all interested in it, but it also has to do with this frustrated need to design a room. so i ain't stopping with just that section! i have a 'country living' magazine already, several clippings of nice looking rooms (from jcpenny home features and the likes)... arg.

more on the newspaper: intelligent design theory
darn. i miss reading the daily newspaper reading. we used to have that in pinas, but we didn't opt to continue the home deliveries. too depressing, maybe.
anyway, the hobby has come back again, and its really interesting what you can see. like this one. debates have been circulating lately whether this scientific explanation will be allowed to be discussed in educational institutions. said theory hypothesizes that there is an intelligent cause to explain the origin of all things.
it sure is a welcome change to all the scientific-logical insistence on everthing. and for me, a good way to reintroduce a sense of faith and consciousness of a higher power. i think people have been lacking on these lately, and i'm not talking abt a degradation on religion.
i did some further research on it, and was expecting the usual critics because it DOES refer to a religion (there will always be people demanding a separation of it and state). however, i was disappointed that most critics have the same arguing statement -- the unbelief on an all-benevolent God because of the calamities and evil in the world.
that pretty much sucked, and to me, showed how they insist on being narrow-minded.
if i would argue on the basis of legality, i'd tell them a theory is a theory. heck, it needs a chance to be discussed, at least. they don't need proof. take a look at the cases of the big-bang theory, and that primordial soup thing.

finding neverland
finally, watched this movie! johnny depp was good, and it offered a look on the genius that was jm barrie. while it also gave me a subtle look on victorian life (i love period pieces!), it also made me realize how much i missed theatre. the live acting on stage, the dialogue, the props. i remember as a kid watching lisa macuja and her grace on stage. sigh. wish i had been one of those first people to see peter pan on stage.
sadly, this wasn't the box-office hits (surprisingly, i don't think any of this year's Oscar-nominated ones were). of course, it had none of that wham-bam action, or achingly-bittersweet romance, or laugh-out-loud comedy. but it was a life story. it had its lessons to share. too bad some people decided to pass up on it.

shall we dance?
i originally intended NOT to watch this one, because (big breath) it had j-lo AND richard gere in it (don't ask). eventually, i did watch it. it may have been because of the good reviews i've heard lately from close relatives, or maybe because the movie was originally a japanese one (hah! biased!). sigh. it told of an awakening of sorts for the main character (gere) through ballroomdancing. and i love ballroomdancing! i believe its a dying art, and more than once in the movie, that urge to take up dancing just welled up inside me.
* sigh. as much i want to talk abt dancing, i think i need to take it up on another post na lang (this post is long enought as it is). its will have its 'going down the memory lane' feel to it, and even it IS just dancing, its might be a looooooonng walk for u guys.