Voice-Over is a difficult field to break into. It takes lots of motivation, determination, hard work, and ability.
-James Arnold Taylor

He’s one of the reasons why I dream of becoming a voice-actress. In fact I’m quite considering that career but I have no background in such industry. Well I’ve delivered a radio report in Broadcast Journalism for our prelim exam. I wonder if that counts.

In my opinion he did a fantastic job with Tidus from Final Fantasy X. Many gamers complained that he made Tidus sound like a whiny sissy. The Japanese voice-actor Masakazu Morita on the other hand portrayed him to be lighthearted and easygoing.

James Arnold Taylor

Tidus

Speaking in a story-like sense, I think it’s only fitting that Tidus be a typical whiny westerner. It plays a vital part in his character development throughout the story’s progress. His voice when narrating sounds reasonably mature and different from his raw character. Those Tidus-haters are just looking for excuses to bash him.

James Arnold Taylor also did the voices of Johnny Test, Leonardo (TMNT) and Obi-wan Kenobi (Star Wars: Clone Wars) thus he clearly is a professional in his field. The celebrities in the voice-acting field though are Tara Strong who voiced Rikku (Final Fantasy X), Bubbles (The Powerpuff Girls), Raven (Teen Titans) and Timmy Turner (The Fairly Odd Parents) and Tom Kenny who did SpongeBob Squarepants and many other characters that can fill this blog.

Since this third-world country has no cartoon and animation industry, the only open door to such a career is dubbing. I personally believe I can pull it off but the local channels dub only in Tagalog and I’m more comfortable speaking English. Of course I’m also fluent in the former but I’m just more “at home” with English.

Plus the local dubbers suck. It’s obvious that most of the cast are gay, not in a discriminatory sense. It’s either the voices are too deep or too light and the dubbers don’t fit their characters. The cast who did Naruto on ABS-CBN sounds like fingers grinding through a blackboard. The Cartoon Network cast is more aggressive and motivated though but can be overacting. Plus the American accent on the Japanese names sound odd… “My names is Nah-roo-TOE Oo-zoo-MAH-kee! Remember it!”

My sister said that if ever I’m gonna march into Hero (our local animé channel) and apply as a dubber, I’m fit to voice a tomboyish supporting character or a bratty little boy. I’d prefer voicing male characters. Veronica Taylor voices both Ash and May from Pokémon.

Veronica Taylor

In the end maybe voice-acting will just be a hobby for me and not a career. I could start as as a disc jockey for some niche radio station.

Just this afternoon I watched a program hosted by the College of International Relations about Human Rights. All along I thought they were simply just the right to love, the right to vote, the right to have sex and of course the right to freedom of speech. Little did I (or we) know there are more rights we’re not aware of that we can actually declare to protect ourselves and our dignity.

Here are the thirty Human Rights:

1. We are Born Free and Equal

2. Don’t Discriminate

3. The Right to Life

4. No Slavery

5. No Torture

6. You Have Rights No Matter Where You Go

7. We are All Equal Before the Law

8. Your Human Rights are Protected by the Law

9. No Unfair Detainment

10. The Right to Trial

11. We are Always Innocent ’til Proven Guilty

12. The Right to Privacy

13. Freedom to Move

14. To Seek a Safe Place to Live

15. Right to a Nationality

16. Marriage and Family

17. The Right to Your Own Things

18. Freedom of Thought

19. Freedom of Expression

20. Right to Public Assembly

21. Right to Democracy

22. Social Security

23. Workers’ Rights

24. Right to Play

25. Food and Shelter for All

26. Right to Education

27. Copyright

28. A Fair and Free World

29. Responsibility

30. No One Can Take Away Your Human Rights (may include your own parents)

Born out of the atrocities and enormous loss of life during World War II, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was created by the United Nations to provide a common understanding of what everyone’s rights are. It forms the basis for a world built on freedom, justice and peace.
Source: Youth for Human Rights International

You cannot compare apples to oranges. It’s a matter of choosing which is riper.

For the first time a male housemate became a Pinoy Big Brother Big Winner. Additionally Ruben Gonzaga is considered an underdog by the viewers thus making his victory even sweeter.

I don’t normally watch Big Brother. I only followed the very first season and the recent Celebrity Edition 2. I don’t like Beatrice Saw. Firstly she lacks appeal. Secondly she’s a trying hard, overacting Toni Gonzaga impersonator.
Then again I don’t normally watch TV nowadays except for Cartoon Network and ETC. The only shows I watch from Nickelodeon are SpongeBob SquarePants and The Fairly Odd Parents. At least their sitcoms are better than Disney Channel’s in my opinion. I like Zoey 101 and Naturally, Sadie in TEENick.

Ultimately I won’t waste my time away with the so called idiot box. According to the University of Taiwan, time is life.

Born to be a winner
Born to be a champion
Born to be a winner
Born to be the very best
-Pokémon: Johto League Champions opening

I simply believe I’m born to be a winner and the very best, so good that I’ll surpass even the incomparable J. K. Rowling!

Now to quit my state of fantasy and continue my file in Pokémon Emerald Version.

Now that my subjects in Journalism are all majors (and one elective), my drive to write creatively and professionally has increased again. It’s the thought of managing a blog that’s dragging me down.

Frankly I’m finding it quite pointless to even manage one in the first place. Why should anyone give a damn if I slept for sixteen hours and woke up at 2am, had herpes and got dumped by my bueno-para-nada boyfriend? Well, at least why bother keep a personal blog and broadcast to the world of your personal life for perfect strangers to read?

Everytime I have the drive to start a new “professional” blog to have a theme of its own (e.g. cars, music, Hollywood, videogames, sex positions, et cetera), they always end up being personal blogs and contain about some tidbits of my life. Of course I wouldn’t make an emo out of myself and whine about the world being a big scary place.

Then again here’s this blog I found dedicated to bashing Crocs; that absurd and “the most unstylish footwear I’ve ever seen,” says a friend. I may not take these alien-looking slippers fancy but of course I’d definitely not waste time, emotions and web space to advertise its absurdity.

To each his own then.

Happy 5th Birthday Jenna! Tej loves you so much. Mom will get that Prince Ken doll to partner up with your Sleeping Beauty Barbie.

Cakes are what makes birthdays special!

Blowing five candles isn’t so hard.

This is one of the times I feel like a responsible big sister.  Jenna is the youngest in the family after all. It’s quite sad Christine and Pauline weren’t around for the party. Yet the important thing is Jenna enjoyed her party.

All photos taken with a Kodak EasyShare C530. Since it has poor light intake, I had to rely largely on the flash. The snaps aren’t as pretty but I’m confident I did a good job! After all it’s in the photographer and not the camera.

We may not have passed with flying colors but Communication Research is no longer a problem. We braved through the stomach-twisting mock defense. The worst part was when none of the four of us could answer Sir Henson’s question on why we didn’t provide an alternate research problem. He already made corrections just on the title itself! But at least we passed with a score of 7/10…

Postscript: Remember the prick I talked about a few entries earlier? Well I bumped into him again and as usual asked for my notes in Economics. Since I wouldn’t write another entry about it, I’ll cut the story short. I told him straight to his face that…

“You’re not the only one who needs to study for Economics, I need my notebook and why don’t you borrow from someone else for a change? And I don’t like the hassle of lending things to people.”

Damn. Many people are like that. They only approach you if they need or want something from you. Afterwards they forget that you’ve done them a favor shoo you into the sidelines.

Then again it felt good to be frank for a change. At least now he knows the truth by being stabbed in the front.

You are The Sun

Happiness, Content, Joy.

The meanings for the Sun are fairly simple and consistent.

Young, healthy, new, fresh. The brain is working, things that were muddled come clear, everything falls into place, and everything seems to go your way.

The Sun is ruled by the Sun, of course. This is the light that comes after the long dark night, Apollo to the Moon’s Diana. A positive card, it promises you your day in the sun. Glory, gain, triumph, pleasure, truth, success. As the moon symbolized inspiration from the unconscious, from dreams, this card symbolizes discoveries made fully consciousness and wide awake. You have an understanding and enjoyment of science and math, beautifully constructed music, carefully reasoned philosophy. It is a card of intellect, clarity of mind, and feelings of youthful energy.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Darling I forgive you after all
Anything is better than to be alone
And in the end I guess I had to fall
Always find my place among the ashes
-Evanescence, “Lithium” [The Open Door]

My step-mother Tetchie had a miscarriage yesterday. She was supposed to give birth to Gabrielle Arcajee Dee sometime on November but lately she was found with no heartbeat. Pops is accompanying her to the hospital today to undergo an operation.

Even though all my life I never imagined I’d have a half-sibling, I never knew this day would come. When Pops informed that Techie was pregnant to what they thought a boy, I was happy. Thrilled, even. I was finally having a brother even if it’s only half my blood. Then we misinterpreted the baby’s sex and it turned out to be a girl. Even so, I was happy.

I hope Gabrielle will be alright.

Emos are widely regarded as one of the most pathetic subtypes of white people, taking themselves and their “suffering” far too seriously. The emos have their own music, fashion, argot and other trappings in a desperate, though ultimately futile attempt to prove their uniqueness.

As a rule of thumb, an emo will be from a comfortable, middle class background with understanding, pleasant parents. All of this is irrelevant to an emo who will consider themselves misunderstood and repressed regardless of the reality.

Source: Uncyclopedia – Emo

Hey hey hey, emo people! Flame me not for the above passage! I simply smuggled, er, borrowed it from Uncyclopedia. Somehow it’s more accurate and to the point than Wikipedia.

Anyway this isn’t an entry bitching about emo people or the subculture. I am simply writing my opinions and viewpoints on the said subculture. After all this is my blog. Anything goes according to moi.

I personally have a friend who’s a genuine emo kid. I call her *Shane. Being an illegitimate child who hasn’t even known her father, she lives with her mother’s uncle and claims to lead a misunderstood life. At least that deviates from the claim that emos normally come from comfortable middle or upper-class lives.

She’s also an animaniac and a lover of anything Japanese, thus a Japanophile. I don’t have an emotional allergy towards emos and Japanophiles mind you. Additionally Shane is an expressive masochist and claims to specialize in the study of Emology.

So to begin. Just a few days ago Shane showed me her hand with the words “F*** YOU” etched just below her thumb. It’s normal for emo people like Shane to commit acts of masochism, in this case cutting herself. Back then she used to grab a cutter and slice away on her forearms. This is the first time she actually “wrote” words onto her skin.

“What happened this time, Shane?” I asked
“Oh nothing. I’m pissed with my Uncle.”
“Uh-huh. So what did you use to write those words?”
“This,” she handed me a safety pin. “I also use a razor blade and a compass once in a while.”

I took the safety pin and attempted to write words on my hand. Just the slightest prick hurt and I couldn’t even write a full letter. Then I was amazed at Shane for being thick enough to make a bloody writing pad out of her hand.

She has been “depressed” for a long time now. Note the quotation marks. If she’s actually depressed then I’d never see her smiling and occasionally hyperactive. The one ironic thing I find in emos is they claim that nobody understands them and want to be left alone. On the contrary they pile up on online friends in MySpace and Friendster likewise. Shane has more than 400 friends in Friendster whilst her Multiply account has almost 200 (which is already numerous). She’d also post pictures typical in any emo MySpace/Friendster page. Sideview angle with hair covering the face and such.

Off topic: I only have a hundred friends in Friendster, less than ten in Multiply and a completely untouched MySpace page.

Shane aside, I don’t see the satisfaction in cutting myself. Hell it’s not even a form of achievement. Again I’m not supposed to hand in a job application with “Able to endure self-inflicted physical injuries” under skills and achievements. What’s so satisfying about butchering yourself in the first place? Yes, I do feel sad and depressed once in a while but of course I wouldn’t want my arms to look like they were feasted on by a rabid dog.

Shane is my friend. I respect her identity as an emo girl yet she should also understand that life isn’t all rainy days. I’ve got this disturbing notion that maybe Shane enjoys being viewed as depressed and tormented. Maybe she even chooses to be depressed. She can’t seem to find happiness scattered all around her life.

One time Shane went as far as showing me a suicide note. Thankfully it was only an attempt (like most emos, not actual suicide) and she chose to embrace life once more.

*Name changed to protect privacy

Oh yes. My cousin commented that being an emo in the United States would automatically brand you an outcast while here in the Philippines people with one-sided hair are rapidly reproducing. It’s obvious emo here is a trend, not a subculture. I strongly believe that Miguel Chavez of Chicosci (a local self-proclaimed emo band who named themselves after Chico Science, a deceased Brazilian singer) is just imitating Gerard Way of MCR (My Chemical Romance).

By the way I quit listening to Chicosci just a week after I bought their (pirated) album. My lost interest in emo music followed suit. That was many months ago already.

Postscript: Piracy CAN be a good thing. I’d accurately define it as “a necessary evil.” After all these entertainers who get pirated do it to fill their already loaded pockets with more gold and not to make our already wasteland of a country a better place.