2007 in 7 Lists of 7

Posted on December 30, 2007 at 9:16 pm | 10 Comments
Filed under Boggling Blogs • Bulky Books • Daily Dose • Internet Insanity • News Central • Random Realities • Site Stuff

It’s been my tradition here in my blog to post a yearend entry (2005, 2006). I usually post the most memorable things that happened to me from the very first day of January until December in my year ender specials, and in 2006, I’ve also included a list of my favorite entries for the whole year. But this year, I decided to make seven lists of seven. The lists talk about the best of 2007 except for the news category. I’ve also added notes here and there, and some are potential spoilers so be warned!

Most of the things that I have listed below are in either chronological or alphabetical order.

Books

This year, I was able to read 15 books, almost twice than last year. I really had fun reading this year.

  • Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — JK Rowling: The ending of Harry Potter’s epic tale was really fantastic. JK ended it with a fitting finale. How I wish there is a sequel to this book, but then, the time has come to end this very fascinating story.
  • The Kite Runner — Khaled Hosseini: I like this book very much. Furthermore, this is the best book I have read in my entire life. Unlike other fiction reads, this book is realistic. I recommend this to all, but most especially to those people who are not hooked into books and to Afghan refugees.
  • A Thousand Splendid Suns — Khaled Hosseini
  • The Chinese Cinderella — Adeline Yen Mah: [My Review]
  • Youngblood3 edited by Artura, et al: If you’re into Filipino literature, this is the book that you should buy. Very entertaining. And this is not fiction, by the way. [My Review]
  • The Dogs of Babel — Carolyn Parkhurst: The weirdest book I have ever read. It’s about Paul, a linguist, who tries to teach his dog how to speak. No, not because he’s out of his mind but because he wanted to know the real cause of his wife’s death. The words Parkhurst used in the ending of the story were really strong. [My Review]
  • For One More Day — Mitch Albom: Another tale about death. Yes, it’s a good book, but how I wish Albom would explore other topics. [My Review]

If you have read these books, you would notice that most of them are sad stories, but yeah, the characters lived happily ever after.

Songs

Entries

  • Faulty Schedule: My craziest misadventure this year. In this entry, I wrote how I spent almost 12 hours… in the mall.
  • The Perfect Duo: Chemistry and Zoology: You would fail these two subject if you don’t know how to memorize. And would you believe me that I enjoyed them? Haha.
  • The Divine Subjects: A review of my subjects back in first year, second semester. I used Dante’s concept in his Divine Comedy to give the final verdict for each of my subjects.
  • Stinks and Sells: I particularly enjoyed writing this. It’s my own version of what’s in and what’s out.
  • Big Surprises: The story how I acquired my notebook.
  • Let’s Talk About Grades (Part 2): What I realized in these posts was that grades aren’t everything.
  • Signs and Symptoms of Stress: The title says it all. I had a good time writing this and rereading it makes me laugh. XD

I know that the title of this entry says that for every list, there are seven items. But I have to break that because I reckon I have more interesting entries this year. And so we continue…

Web Apps

  • Last.fm: A cool way to discover music.
  • Google Reader: This one is a bit old, it’s been out since like two years ago. But it deserves a spot here.
  • Twitter: Who doesn’t love Twittering, eh? It’s enjoyable even though there is a maximum of 140 characters per tweet.
  • Sxipper: This one is actually a Firefox plugin. It can automatically input your information in every single form. It can also remember and generate passwords for you. A similar service is Clipperz.com.
  • del.icio.us
  • Flickr
  • Google Apps: Sign up and get your @yourdomain.com mail. All of the essential features of GMail are included. There are also other available applications that you can use.

News

Unlike the other categories, this one does not talk about the bests of 2007. These are the breaking news here in the Philippines. Majority of these are bad news.

  • Bus Hostage
  • The Glorietta 2 Blast: What’s the latest developement? Have they solved this?
  • Mariannete Ampere’s Suicide: A very very sad story
  • Erap’s Pardon: No way!
  • House of Representatives Bombing
  • The Peninsula Hotel Siege: Trillanes, please spare the hotels. Lol.
  • Peso’s Increasing Value: How come we cannot feel it?

Bloggers

I had fun reading your blogs! Keep on writing interesting blog entries!

WordPress Plugins

Yes, I know, most of things/persons that I have listed above (Especially in books, songs, web apps, and bloggers) were not published/released or didn’t start blogging this year. But then, this is my blog. Haha.

Well, I suppose, this is my last entry for this year. May everyone have a prosperous 2008! Rock on!

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Book Galore

Posted on July 18, 2007 at 9:13 pm | 9 Comments
Filed under Bulky Books

Last Saturday, instead of watching the latest Harry Potter movie which truly sucks (you can find my review here, please be noted that it’s full of spoilers) I decided to finish Mitch Albom’s latest book, For One More Day, which I have started to read last year. It took me months to finish reading it because the first part was really boring to me.

If I just didn’t miss reading so badly and school was not hell to me, I wouldn’t be able to finish it until now. The book was great (except for the first part). I liked it, it’s one of my favorites. For One More Day is about Chick Benetto’s experience. In the book, he tried to commit suicide, but instead, to his astonishment, he saw his mother… her mother’s ghost. (Yes, Mitch’s latest book has a touch of death again) According to the author, this story of Chick is true. I don’t know if I would believe it, what I know was that I was touched with Chick’s story. The last part was really saddening. Okay, no more spoilers.

Yesterday, when I got back home from a tiring day at school, my father asked me if I wanted to go to the mall. Though my prelim exams started today, I decided to go with them without thinking twice. As usual, I went to the local bookstore. The first book that I have seen was “Chinese Cinderella” by Adeline Yen Mah. I’ve seen it years ago but I wasn’t really interested with it because the book looked so plain. Months ago, I’ve read, if I’m not mistaken, in Kathrin’s blog that it was a good book. Since then, I’ve been wanting to get a copy of my own, but it was only yesterday that I have seen a copy of it again, and so, I bought it.

And now, despite that I sat my very hard 30-item PolSci prelim exam this morning, and I will take my English and CF exams tomorrow afternoon, I have already finished reading the 200 plus paged book. I can’t believe it, I’ve already finished reading it in only a day (I might as well go to the store where I bought it and demand to replace it with another book. Lol). I suppose I just really missed reading, that I can’t stop reading.

Chinese Cinderella is the story of the author herself, an unwanted daughter who struggled throughout the years while she was under the guidance of her stepmother and father who even forgot her name and the date of her birth. She was a very studious girl, desperate to be noticed and loved by her father. And in the end, she proved not only to her self, but to her father, stepmother, and siblings as well that she can reach her dream even though there are so many hurdles in her life. Now, she is a writer and physician.

Her story was really captivating, it would have surpassed the standards of Maalala mo Kaya1 and Magpakaylanman2in choosing the stories of people that they want to dramatize and be broad casted nationwide. It’s really a good read. [EDIT] You can read a full review of this book in It’s my Choice. [/EDIT]

Ah, three more days and I can have the last Harry Potter book in my hands. I can hardly wait! My father told me that we’ll go to Manila on Saturday, and I guess I’ll get my copy there. Unfortunately for me, there had been some changes in the schedule of our prelims, we’ll sit our exams in our major subjects next week, but that does not mean that I will not read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on Saturday and Sunday. I may not be able to finish it this weekend, but I’ll make sure that I will be able to read at least half of it before Monday.

And before I’ll look for something else to do (I still haven’t reviewed yet for my exams tomorrow, I guess I’ll go early to school tomorrow and stay all morning in the comforts of the library) I want to say that I really hate the only decent local bookstore in our place. As what I have written in an entry here in my blog, it’s not really a bookstore because it also sells other things like school supplies, toys, and during the Christmas Season, Christmas Trees. And now, they’ve put signs that says “No Private Reading.” No wonder why almost all of the fiction books that they sell are covered with plastic. That’s totally insane! How am I and even the other customers would know if we like the author’s style of writing and the story is good (even just the first part of the book, the synopsis usually found at the back of the book is not enough and sometimes, quite misleading)? That’s why I don’t want to buy Mark Haddon’s latest book, “A Spot of Bother,” though it’s in their bestseller list and I know the author. I want to read its first two or three pages first. Luckily, we will go to Manila this weekend. There, I can find a real bookstore that only sells nothing but books and does not prohibiting “private reading.” I might as well add “A Spot of Bother” on my book list.

Any other books that you can recommend to me? Btw, I’ve provided a list of the books that I’ve already read.

PS: I want to share to you this photo that I took during our excursion last Sunday with my family to the place where a piece of land that turned into a fish pond owned by my grandmother.

Boat Alone

That was the boat that we used to get to that place.

  1. A program here in the Philippines that features anthology of stories of various people. [↩]
  2. Same as Maalala mo Kaya. [↩]

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