Friday, August 2, 2013

July 2013

One of the highlights of July is my return for a week to a life of a pseudo-student. I attended an interesting workshop which I think may be useful for my thesis should I continue my archaeology studies. It was good to interact with archaeology students again. I terribly miss UP life--- wearing t-shirt, shorts, and sandals, with no one to judge you why you wear pambahay clothes outside. I just wait for someone to comment on what I wear and I would proudly retort that UP is my home so please leave me alone. :P

Aside from that, I have been busy with a lot of reading. I finally read Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale", a dystopian novel about the removal of women's rights. It tells the story of Offred, in the form of a memoir where she narrates life before the military coup when women enjoyed having a job and earning money as well as the right to read. With the military government, women's status is determined largely by their capacity to bear children as Gilead (the former U.S.) suffers from population decline.

Also, I finally finished "A Clash of Kings", book 2 of A Song of Ice and Fire. I am quite disappointed at the number of deviations the series made from the book. While a TV series as a different medium is free to employ its interpretations and can even be quite independent of the book which it adapts from, I still seem to have a great difficulty in accepting wholeheartedly those deviations.

As of writing I'm currently reading "A Storm of Swords" and many things are made clearer now. For instance, we get to see the somewhat good side of Jaime Lannister as a one-woman man despite the incest taboo issue. This compared to his power-hungry twin/lover Cersei who, since Book 2, have been engaging in other sexual affairs. As always, it is always a pleasure to read Tyrion's POV parts.

And there, nothing much happened in July. My only travel was to Laguna. It was a field trip on the last day of the workshop. I would have loved to have a  full day's mountain hike. But for now, this short hike will do.


Sad to say, I failed to attend the Eiga Sai. I failed to watch DUP's Adarna. I failed to attend Cinemalaya 2013.

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