My Official 2013 Resolutions

Hi, everyone! How has the first week of the new year been for you guys?

After much deliberation and procrastination, I finalized my 2013 resolutions. Seeing that the world did not end last December, I decided to make this list as comprehensive as possible.

1. To keep my bedroom neat - My parents decided replace all of our old furniture pieces, including my old bookshelves and amoire. Now, all of my things are just piled up in a corner of my room. I was planning to clean everything up over the holiday break, but, sadly, indolence was my master. So, I vow to clean up my room and keep it neat (my room seems to have a nasty habit of becoming messy one week after I clean up).

2. To not procrastinate - If there's one thing certain, it is that I am a professional procrastinator. I always find myself cramming my homework and papers late at night, even on weekends. I even procrastinate leisure or recreational activities (like blogging). But this year, all that will change!

3. To pray more often - I come from a Catholic family, though they're all, with the exception of my mother, non-practicing Catholics, and graduated from a Catholic high school but I never picked up the habit of praying regularly. This year, I'll try to pray every evening before I go to sleep. 

4. To sleep earlier - This will solve my "waking-up-on-the-wrong-side-of-the-bed" problems, which has been a problem since high school. 

5. To maintain a healthy diet - The recent holidays seemed to be especially laden with food, thanks to the numerous cakes given to my family last Christmas, the trip to Bangkok with my brother, and the big family New Year's party. Also, I spent most of last year eating unhealthy university cafeteria food. This year, I'll eat more fruits and vegetables, eat less sweets (I have a big sweet tooth) and deep-fried food, drink less sweet drinks, and control the amount of meat that I consume. But, of course, the occasional gastronomic indulgence wouldn't hurt. However, I have a feeling that Tumblr will make this a very difficult resolution to keep.

6. To regularly update my  planner - Every year, I buy a planner but eventually stop using it. As a result, I experienced a lot schedule conflicts. This year, I plan to update my planner regularly. Maybe that will help me keep resolutions 2 and 3. 

7. To read 50 books in 2013 - One of my literature teachers in high school has a project wherein she reads fifty books every year. She documents her progress on her Tumblr (fightingforjune). I tried to do this last year but only made it to thirty-two. This year, I hope to make it to fifty. I already finished one book and am currently in the middle of my second one. 

These are resolutions for 2013. I wasn't very successful in keeping some of them last week. But hey, I have time, right?

Until always,

Lemonjuicesoda

HAPPY NEW YEAR

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

I'm glad to see that the world didn't end and that we are now beginning the year 2013. To be honest, 2012 wasn't such a great year for my family in the personal sense, having lost three people who are very close to us. We did, however, try to end the year on a good note.

To celebrate the holidays, my eldest brother and I traveled to Bangkok, Thailand. For five days, we did nothing but sight-see, eat, and shop. The whole trip was marvelous! I will be posting pictures and a post which details our adventures in exotic Thailand soon.

I was also able to squeeze in some holiday reading by finishing three books: The Tempest by William Shakespeare, Scott Pilgrim 1: Precious Little Life by Bryan Lee O'Malley, and Murder in the Cathedral by T.S. Eliot.

Accompanying the new year are the well-loved New Year's Resolutions. My resolutions are to eat healthier food, study more often, and to complete this year's project of reading 50 books by December 31. I started the project by reading Paolo Coelho's The Alchemist.

What about you guys? How did you celebrate the holidays? What are your New Year's Resolutions? I hope to hear from you guys soon!

Until always,

Lemonjuicesodapop

A Wednesday of Life Lessons

Hey, everyone!

I'm sorry for being M.I.A. again. I'll try my best to post at least once a week but with the Christmas break coming up though, I'm sure my professors will try to squeeze in as much work as possible. :(

Last Wednesday, two professors gave very inspiring and enlightening lectures about the same thing: living life.   The first of the two professors was my Literature 14: Poetry and Drama professor. He started the lesson by discussing the poem "When Spring Returns" by Fernando Pessoa. Here is a copy of the poem for those who have not read it yet:

"WHEN SPRING RETURNS" by Fernando Pessoa

When Spring returns
Perhaps I will no longer be in the world.
Today I wish I could think of Spring as a person
So that I could imagine her crying for me
When she sees that she's lost her only friend.
But Spring isn't even a thing;
It's a manner of speaking.
Not even the flowers or green leaves return.
There are new flowers, new green leaves.
There are new balmy days.
Nothing returns, nothing repeats, because everything is real.

A wonderful but sad poem, isn't it? My professor stated that the speaker is a morose and forlorn person who is probably dying from a terminal illness. His (the speaker) confrontation with mortality is a lonely and diminishing one. In the beginning of the poem, the speaker has a negative perception of spring. However, in the 6th and 7th line of the poem, the speaker has a poetic epiphany wherein spring, to him, is no longer a measure of time (a season) and is now a state of mind. by the end of the poem, the speaker's tone goes from lonely, hopeless, and sombre  to enlightened and accepting of his inexorable death.

My professor followed up this discussion on the speaker's change in his perception of spring by saying, "When we change our perspective, the world changes and renews itself in our eyes."* He then explained that when we focus on the "darker" side of our mortality, the beauty of life and the world is lost on us. He used this to segue into a discussion on about time and living in the present. He said that he wanted to avoid using the phrase "Carpe Diem" in order to avoid comparisons with Robin Williams's character in Dead Poet's Society. Instead, he said, "Time is not yesterday or tomorrow. Time is now. The only certainty we have is the here and the now."*

He explained that the past is uncertain because our feelings and perception of what happened to us in the past changes as we grow and mature. The future is uncertain because, even if we make plans, we are never fully certain of what will happen to us. The only certainty is now. 

Our professor ended the discussion by encouraging us to use the fact that we will die as a reason to live life to the fullest, rather than moan about it the way the speaker did in the first five lines of the poem.

The second professor to have a discussion along these lines was another member of the school's English department. This time, he used the video game series Assassin's Creed as the springboard of the discussion. Knowing that I am a fan of the video game, he asked me what one of the major themes of the series is. I replied by saying, "Nothing is true. Everything is permitted."

He wrote this down on the board and said that he would get back to that quote. He then started discussing absurdism, wherein life and human existence are thought of as empty and meaningless. My professor, however, said that "life is empty and meaningless not because it is sad and pointless. It is empty and meaningless because it's an empty slate that we can fill up."*

What we fill it up with, he explained, is what will give our lives meaning, but it is up to us if it will be good or bad. We are allowed to do want we want with our lives. This is where the quote from Assassin's Creed comes in. The creed is not calling us to be lawless and totally free, but to be wise.

I hope that I will always be able to remember what my professors said. These are things we are constantly reminded about but easily forget.

Well, here's to the gift of life!

Until always,

Lemonjuicesodapop

Memorable Monday

Like every student, I hate Mondays. In all honesty, who doesn't? Mondays signal the end of the brief taste of freedom we get on weekends and the beginning of a grueling week of all work and no play. 

November 5, 2012, however, proved to be a unique Monday experience. In school, my Monday mornings begin with back-to-back classes of Expository Writing and Poetry & Drama under a wonderfully witty (and many times bitingly sarcastic) professor who allows us to have dress-up days in class. Dress-up day themes range from banal, like sporty chic or animal prints, to insane, like mismatched clothes or swimwear. On the day in question, which was the first Monday after Halloween, the theme was Halloween-Hangover, so we all went to class wearing Halloween costumes. Popular costume choices included Phantom of the Opera, James Bond, Clark Kent, Rachel Berry, guerrilla soldier, hippie stoner (or at least what I think was a hippie stoner), and my professor (complete with a floral print shirt and an umbrella with a handle shaped like the butt of a rifle). 

Originally, I planned to go as stereotypical beatnik by wearing a black turtleneck sweater, black leggings, black shoes, a black beret, and dark glasses. Unfortunately, the cooling system in the classroom wasn't functioning so I had to make do with a last minute costume change. I swapped the sweater for a white tank top and a sporty cardigan and the black leggings for skinny jeans. From a beatnik, I became a female One Direction wannabe. I didn't mind at all since that costume was much more comfortable than the first one and I like listening to One Direction. 

Instead of changing out of our themed apparel after the two classes, as we usually do on dress-up days with funny themes, my classmates and I walked straight to the university's cafeteria for everyone to see. After our short costume parade, we sat at our usual table by the windows and proceeded to talk, laugh, and eat as usual. 

The next notable thing happened in my Introduction to Physics class. My professor, who they call "Magic Mike" for reasons totally unrelated to the Channing Tatum movie, said something which made the whole class laugh: "There are no stupid questions, but there may be stupid answers." Honestly, I don't know why we found it so funny. Maybe it's because we are all guilty of giving stupid answers in class. 

After that class, we had an hour's break before the next class, which was Physics Laboratory. One of my newly-met classmates, who was celebrating his birthday, invited me to his birthday lunch being held in a pizza parlor off-campus. With the other invitees, we went to the pizza parlor, where we wolfed down three pizzas and washed it down with three pitchers of soda. When we finished eating, we realized that we had only ten minutes to get to the Physics lab. So we rushed out of the pizza parlor and ran back to school. I do not know how we did it, but we somehow made it to the door of the laboratory the instant that the bell began to ring. Talk about close calls, huh? 

That sums up all of the notable events of that strange Monday. If I'm lucky, maybe I'll be able to have more memorable Mondays. I hope you guys had a good Monday too.

Until always,

Lemonjuicesodapop