Please use your vowels

 by: Chienalee Garcia

Txt spk maybe convenient for others but it can get into everyone’s nerves when it goes overboard.

Text messaging is the most reliable form of communication this time using mobile phones. It’s cheaper than calls, and it’s efficient. Surely, everyone will agree if I say that text messaging is indeed a milestone in communication.

But what if this milestone evolves into an even more advanced form called txt lingo? It’s ironic to consider it being advanced since it looks more like caveman language to me.

Looking through text messaging topics online, I found a forum discussing txt speak as some form of menace (yes, a menace, in the same level as body odor and Blairbands) in society. Threaders posted a scenario amongst school kids: A teacher gave an examination to her class, many students responded in a short cut approach like text messages. Do you expect that they will be given a passing mark despite their knowledge to the questions?

(more…)

Stargirl

by: Chienalee Garcia

Sixteen-year old Leo Borlock is contented with conforming to the crowd and follows the unspoken rule at Mica Area High School: don’t stand out. Everyone’s compliance is then challenged when Stargirl—the epitome of everything that the entire student body isn’t—burst straight out of fifteen years of home schooling to enchant the entire high school.

Stargirl captivates the student populace with her penchant for eccentricity as the character Leo vividly narrates. With her long frilly dresses and retro hippie clothing, she prances around school singing “Happy Birthday” to every student while strumming on her ukulele with her pet rat Cinnamon on her shoulders. She made every kind of card, sent flowers and gifts to the sick and lonely—she was simply amazing. Students could not make sense of what she was but it made no difference. Susan “Stargirl” Caraway’s oddity was the ray of sunshine to their otherwise gloomy, conventional high school life.

With her immense popularity, every kid in Mica High wanted to be like her. So much like her that even all the pet shops in town ran out of rats. Her reputation and free spirit landed her a spot in the cheerleading team, getting accepted for her being different. In fact, Stargirl was too avant-garde that during one basketball game, she cheered for the opposing team.

(more…)

Wanted

by: Chienalee Garcia

Director: Timur Bekmambetov
Starring: James McAvoy, Morgan Freeman, Angelina Jolie, Terence Stamp, Thomas Kretschmann

“You know when you have a dream, and you’re half awake but still you’re in the fringe of your brain then you open your eyes and you’re so damn glad that it was a dream? This was nothing like that.”

That was what Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy) thought when a gun dropped from his trouser pocket the morning after an action scene with a gorgeous gun-crazy woman saving him from another gun-crazy man.

Jump back to the start of everything. Wesley is an office drone who suffers from anxiety attacks from his awful boss. His hot girlfriend cheats on him with his best friend and he’s too scared to do anything about it. Then one night, he bumps into the beautiful and aptly named Fox (Angelina Jolie) at a pharmacy while purchasing pills for his panic attacks. His life will never be the same again.

(more…)

How I met your mother

by: Chienalee Garcia

Break out from the other TV series because How I Met Your Mother has been renewed for a fourth season.

Before anything else, here’s a basic summary: How I Met Your Mother is about Ted Mosby (Josh Radnor) narrating his own love story to his kids years after he met his wife. And who could his wife be? That’s what everyone else is waiting for to be revealed.

Picking up right where the last season left off, Ted’s proposal to Stella (Sarah Chalke) finally comes up with a response. Did she say “yes”? After four months of waiting, we finally get the answer in the Season 4 premiere—but not before Future Ted tells us (and Future Kids) that waiting for The Answer is the longest pause you’ll ever experience in your life.

(more…)

The Hush Sound

by: Chienalee Garcia

Goodbye Blues (Pop-Alternative Rock)
Fueled by Ramen/ Atlantic

With a female pianist for a lead vocalist and three other boys backing her up, The Hush Sound is definitely one of the most refreshing and unique young bands out there all set to conquer the music scene. And with a new album out entitled Goodbye Blues, their completely ready for mass consumption.

Goodbye Blues is a fairly sundry album for a pop band, with a line up of songs of varying tempos, alternating between male guitarist/vocalist Bob Morris and lead vocalist Greta Salpeter. Frontwoman Salpeter’s voice defines all the tracks with a spunky grip, making her verses sound incredible that you tend to memorize the peppy verses instead of the choruses.

(more…)

Nicole Villarojo: She bleeds green and white

by: Chienalee Garcia

She was a professional ballet dancer for fourteen years, without any inclination whatsoever in politics. Who would’ve thought she was going to be a council president of one of the top universities in the metro?

Enter Nicole Villarojo, fifth year Economics and Marketing major from De La Salle University, this year’s student council president. She bleeds green and white, and definitely has the heart of a student leader.

(more…)

Dirty, sexy money: Colegiala selling sex

by: Chienalee Garcia

My uniform says it all: high standard education from a well-known university, and ultimate colegiala status. I come from a well-off family from the province and I graduated from the honor roll of a high school run by nuns. I may look every inch a refined, timid convent-bred girl but I am actually not. In fact, if the sisters from my high school knew about what I do now, they’d be running back to their convents, screaming for divine intervention. I’ve tried all the vices introduced to me: smoking, drugs, alcohol, and sex. Truth be told, I can spend an entire week without the first three, but with sex it’s a different thing. I enjoy it so much that I even let others pay me for the services I offer.

Yes, I am a high class prostitute.

I vaguely remember how it all started but I’m pretty sure I did not lose my virginity to a customer. I gave it to my college boyfriend, who later dumped me a few weeks after we have done the deed. A true scumbag, I know. But that’s another story.

(more…)

Padre Noval’s daughter

by: Chienalee Garcia

She picks on the long gash on her right arm; something her little brother gave to her as a treat instead of the usual candies. She covers it neatly with a tattered handkerchief, not wanting to disinfect it with rubbing alcohol because she hates how it feels when it stings. She walks along the street, chatting up familiar faces passing by, not conscious of their glances at her bare, dirty feet.

Girlie Gallardo is just one of the many children seen along Padre Noval Street, just behind the University of Santo Tomas. At the tender age of 11, she spends her afternoons begging for alms from students hanging around that part of the University. Even with her parents taking minimum wage jobs just to alleviate everyday expenses, Girlie, along with her other siblings, has to resort to her own means to earn money for her personal costs.

“Minsan naga-absent ako para makapaglimos ako para may pambayad ako sa project.” says Girlie, who is currently enrolled as a 5th grader at a nearby public school. As the third child in a brood of four, she takes it as part of her responsibility to help her parents in earning money for the family.

(more…)

Jeepney Blues

by: Dharel Placido

Jeepneys never fail to keep the roads of the metro busy. With colourful flaglets and meticulous bodywork, they represent the vibrant culture of our country. But as time passes and the rates of oil products going high, these once colorful thoroughfare creatures, along with their driver’s dream of improving their lives, tarnish.

With problems of unstoppable oil price increases comes the plight of the ordinary jeepney drivers which typify the Filipino hardest hit by the crisis. But when the ordinary jeepney drivers are hit, surely, the passengers he carry everyday like students also feel the burden of having to spare some more coins which could have been spent for other things.

In a jeepney route from Dapitan to Quiapo church, one will meet Mang Edong, a family man with four children and has been earning a living from driving for more than three decades. When one looks at his face, his physical features, weathered by fatigue and hunger, become more evident. Mang Edong looks older than he is; 50-years old. The lines on his face are finer and his eyes look deeper. The pollution of the metro and the stress of all sorts have definitely left Mang Edong’s health and perhaps, his dreams as well, into nothingness.

(more…)

A Drought 15 Million pesos (and a Toyota Altis) could not solve

by: Dharel Placido

It’s the last day of the Beijing Olympics and once again, our athletes seem to be going back to the country sans the medal. While the United States and China had raked gold medals, our country is yet to win its first.

Perhaps, not until the government roll up its sleeves to overhaul the country’s athletics system, the country will continue to suffer its gold medal drought in the Olympic Games to come. Since the country joined the games in 1924, it has garnered only 7 bronze and 2 silver medals, making it the fourth country to have the longest gold medal drought next to Haiti (1900), Iceland (1908) and Monaco (1920).

President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and sponsors from private sectors thought this year’s delegation of fifteen athletes was more than ready to claim the country’s first gold so they put up a 15 Million pesos cash incentive for each athlete who shall win the country’s long-sought Olympic mint. A Toyota Altis was also supposed to be given to the Filipino Olympian who would win the first gold.

Can a 15 Million pesos incentive improve our standing in the Olympics? Maybe not.

(more…)