The long wait is over. After months of grueling preparations and endless seminars and trainings, our hardwork has paid off! Once again TMC has proven it's world-class status through the re-accreditation of the Joint Commission International. Kudos to everyone and keep on doing a good job!
I watched 2012 last night with some of my former 6A co-staff, Leah, JanLi, Paul, Anna, Tom and Dr. Pasayan. We arrived at Eastwood Cinemas around 12:00am and was afraid at first that we'll not be accommodated. The film should have started around 11:50 but it did not until about 12:20am. It was the last screening for the day and we were so lucky that we made it to the cinema. 2012 was like a combination of The Day After Tomorrow, Apocalypse, Armageddon and Bible's Noah's Ark rolled into one--call it a glorified Noah's Ark film. The film was really about the earth's core temperature rising due to the drastic changes of the sun's activities. It was tragic and mind boggling. One might think that it may really happen in the future. Hehe, but the idea of building gigantic high-tech "arks" in mainland China is a little farfetched. Nevertheless the CGI's were superb. Imagine the US and other continents breaking up to pieces with bridges collapsing and building toppling down while people scream for their lives. It's quite difficult summing up the film so I got this from Wikipedia:
In 2009, American geologist Adrian Helmsley travels to India to meet his friend Satnam, who has discovered that neutrinos from a massive solar flare are acting as microwaves and causing the temperature of the Earth's core to increase rapidly. Adrian informs White House Chief of Staff Carl Anheuser and US President Thomas Wilson that this will instigate a chain of events that will bring about the end of the world. At the G8 summit in 2010, other heads of state and heads of government are made aware of the situation. They collaborate to begin a secret project intended to ensure the continuity of human life, strategically choosing 400,000 people for admission on a series of gigantic ships to be constructed in the Himalayas. To help fund the venture, additional individuals are allowed to purchase tickets for one billion euros apiece.
In 2012, Jackson Curtis is a writer in Los Angeles who works part-time as a limousine driver for Russian billionaire Yuri Karpov. Jackson's ex-wife Kate and their children Noah and Lily live with her new boyfriend, plastic surgeon and amateur pilot Gordon Silberman. Jackson takes Noah and Lily on a camping trip to Yellowstone National Park, where they meet Charlie Frost, a conspiracy theorist living as a hermit and hosting his own radio show live from the park. Charlie supports a theory that suggests the Mayans predicted the world would come to an end in 2012, and claims he has knowledge of the secret "space ship" project and possesses a map of the ships' location. The family returns home as cracks begin to develop along the San Andreas Fault in California and earthquakes occur in the San Francisco Bay area. Jackson grows suspicious and rents a private plane to rescue his family. He collects his family and Gordon when the Earth's crust displacement begins and they escape Los Angeles as it collapses into the Pacific Ocean.
As millions begin dying in apocalyptic earthquakes worldwide, the group flies to Yellowstone to retrieve Charlie's map. The group narrowly escapes as the Yellowstone Caldera erupts. Charlie, who stayed behind to make a live broadcast of the eruption, is killed by the blast. Realizing the ships are in China, the group lands in Las Vegas, where they meet Yuri, his twin sons, girlfriend Tamara, and pilot Sasha. They join the group and secure an Antonov An-225 to head across the Pacific. Also bound for the ships aboard Air Force One are Anheuser, Adrian, and First Daughter Laura Wilson. President Wilson chose to remain in Washington D.C., and is soon killed by a tsunami that sends the USS John F. Kennedy crashing into the White House. With the Vice President dead and the Speaker of the House missing, Anheuser appoints himself acting Commander-in-Chief.
Upon arriving in China in a crash-landing that kills Sasha, Yuri and his two sons are taken to the ships, stranding the Curtis family, Gordon, and Tamara, all of whom do not possess tickets. Jackson and the group witness helicopters carrying multiple animals to the ships' location which Jackson later reconciles as "arks". After leaving the crash site the abandoned group is picked up by Nima, a Buddhist monk. Together, they begin sneaking onto an ark through its hydraulics chamber with the help of Nima's brother Tenzin, a welder for the ark project. In his last moments, Satnam calls Adrian to inform him that a tsunami is engulfing India and heading towards the arks. Learning of this, Anheuser orders the arks be sealed, trapping thousands outside. Adrian manages to convince the other G8 leaders to let the remaining people on board. As the ark's tailgate is lowered and raised, Yuri falls to his death getting his two sons on in time, and both Gordon and a large electrical power drill fall in between the gears. Gordon is killed, and the lodged drill prevents the gate from closing, rendering the ship unable to start its engines. The tsunami arrives and begins to flood the ark, drowning Tamara and setting the ark helplessly adrift. Jackson and Noah work together to free the drill and its cable from the closing mechanism. The gate closes and the crew regains control of the ark, preventing a fatal collision with Mount Everest.
When the floodwater from the worldwide tsunamis eventually recedes, satellite data shows that Africa rose in relation to sea level, and its Drakensberg mountains are now the highest on the planet. As three arks set sail for the Cape of Good Hope, Jackson reconciles with his family, and Adrian starts a relationship with Laura. The movie ends with a view of the Earth revealing a geographically different African continent as well as a changed Asia.
I give this film a 4/5 stars for it's cinematograpy and a 3/5 stars for plot's originality.
I have the Percy Jackson books already! Books 1-4 pa nga lamang because the 5th book is still on hardbound and I don't like to buy it yet because it's expensive. Natuwa nanaman ang ID ko at natalo nanaman ang aking SUPEREGO! Weakness ko talaga ang books. I get really overwhelmed when I'm in bookstores and I can't fathom why. Dati, before I took my NCLEX-RN, I went gaga over buying nursing books and now that I've passed the exam I'm enthralled by novels naman particularly of the fantasy type (but of course I'd still love Grisham). Ang dami ko nang books in line to be read. I buy the books ahead of time fearing that they might be out of circulation in the future. Hay, saya!
Bago pa matoxic ang lahat sa upcoming hospital accreditation, I decided to unwind a bit to prepare myself for the big week ahead. Time to dine at Conti's again, this time with Grandma!
Good luck to everyone at TMC this coming JCIA week. Be at our best always!
I had a tough time this week. What was supposed to be a simple story, I had to write for hours. Why? Because I feel so unsure about the matter. I am clueless and lost and encoutnering words I cannot comprehend. Dad says all I have to do is read and read and read and read. But what if I still don't get it after reading?
Just when I thought I was cool because I will be covering the first automated polls in the country, I was told by my editor last week that I would be given a new assignment as some people were leaving the company. Moving should not be a big deal anymore since I have changed assignments quite a number of times this year. In January, I moved to covering the Department of National Defense and local government units from NEDA, and then moved to the House of Representatives in April. In May, I was covering only local government units, and then back to the Department of National Defense. In September, I was transferred to Intramuros to cover the Department of Tourism, Department of Labor and Employment, Department of Public Works and Highways, Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, Department of Health, Department of Foreign Affairs, Department of Education, Commission on Higher Education and the Commission on Elections.
Moving is really a big deal to me this time because the new assignment is not part of the political cluster anymore. I am tasked to cover private banks, appreciation and/or depreciation of the peso and auction of treasury bills and treasury bonds. Totally different from what I have been covering. Ok. I had economics subjects in UP but when I was still studying, I only had basics about banks and did not really think I would be needing it in the future. Even when I was already working, I never thought that I would be covering banks one day.
My first day was yesterday and I guess I could say I survived. My stories were late though. I have so much to learn. I told myself before that I would be thinking about the direction I would like to take after the elections. But now that I am not covering that anymore, I may have to think about it now. I am going to try to do what I can do and we'll see.
My back's aching again. I'm off from PT for almost 3 weeks now (since I'm mostly on the afternoon shift) and haven't done any back hygiene as well. The pain ranges from bearable to moderately severe and tramadol's only helping a bit. Lyrica's good but I think I need a dose adjustment. Funny, being a nurse should've help me cope with the disorder but it seems that my attitude have proven that health care professionals are the worst patients you could have (prove me wrong then otherwise!).
Election time is just around the corner. In a few months time, we'll be electing new public officials--people who are to protect our rights and advocate for the good of everyone. Unfortunately, I have to say that Philippine politics is somehow smudged with dirt. Many of the candidates have started airing their "public ads" and have been promoting themselves for the longest time now. The political ads make me very nauseated. They keep on promising the Filipinos a brighter future but history has proven that they do not fulfill these promises more often than not. Should they be like the Japanese, many of them would have committed harakiri after being suspected of dishonesty as a public official.
Campaigning has started early. Some of them who have the billions to spend on ads include Mar Roxas, Juan Ponce Enrile, Chiz Escudero and Manny Villar. Yuck! They all sound pathetically desperate to win the elections. Do they really mean what they say on tv or are they just doing these thing half-heartedly with the main intention of earning big amounts of money when they already have the power. Oh, I forgot to mention Erap Estrada who, after being granted pardon is now also in the race for the presidency. How greedy, pathetic and ungrateful he is. I don't know what will happen to us if he wins again. I bet foreign investors will run away from us having elected an "ex-convict" for president. Filipinos, you have to think, think and think again before we cast that vote next year.
My family re-registered at the Comelec last month. We had to do such because we failed to vote during the last elections. I'm still pondering on whether or not to use that one vote I'm entitled to next election because I'm doubtful if it would make a difference. Nakakapagod at nakakasawa nang makitang nangungurakot ang mga opisyal ng gobyerno. Again, the question of whether one vote would make sense lies in everyone of us. Maybe if majority of us would use our common sense during the elections, we would be able to elect a sensible leader that would re-create a new Philippine Republic.
