Thesis Acknowledgment

Thesis Acknowledgment

I would like to extend my gratitude to the following who and which made it possible for me to survive the thesis period with ‘flying colors’ (wahoo!!!):

To UP Sunken Garden: which served as a witness for the very first struggle of forming and dividing our thesis group in the middle of eating isaw and dirty ice-cream.

To Ms. Lorna Israel: Our dear thesis coordinator who continuously challenged us from day one until the very day of our defense. With your sharp and constructive criticisms, we wouldn’t be able to shape our own thesis topics. Salamat po! Take care of your health and be careful of the full moon! haha!

To Mr. Bong ‘papa bear’ Joves: Wow…the biggest and most huggable gratitude for you! These words are pretty much so used up but nonetheless no matter how cliché it is, I’ll say this once again with so much fervor and passion: THANK YOU!!! You’ve been a wonderful revelation to me (personally) and we’re so glad to have you as our thesis adviser! Thank you so much for going the extra mile just to take care of your 6 ‘alagas.’ Hope we made you proud! Brother, father, professor, friend, adviser and co-singer (aha!). Good times! Sa uulitin!

To ISIP Block sec.2: For providing one hell of a ride this year! It’s an overwhelming fact that despite of the misunderstandings and conflicts that went on, these resulted into very important lessons and apparently, things were solved! Kanpai to all the students of this block for the continuous effort of struggling every excruciating second of our senior days so that all of us can graduate!!! Kanpai! Kanpai! Each and everyone deserve a tall glass of Mat-Mat’s sex on the beach! hehe!

To ISIP sec.1 and ISD: For giving each and everyone the words that were needed especially during the ‘defense’ hype! GOOD LUCK and CONGRATULATIONS have never sounded so uplifting. The IS spirit was greatly felt!

To IS Professors: For the extra wisdom and guidance that you’ve given us. Thank you!

To the 1/4 of the ARMY >>> Chel and Steph: For being the emotional solace of the remaining Army. You were so patient enough to listen to all our rants, frustrations, happiness, childishness, etc. This rollercoaster of emotions were needed to be released and you gladly lent us your ears! Haha! Love our random strolls around UP!

To Sunrise Hills Condominium: which served as our headquarters! Hats off to the guards for letting us enter the building unquestioned and treating us (Twinkle and I) like regular occupants! Your facilities are the best! From the balcony (the perfect place for ‘tambays’ and good conversations) to the cozy studio-type rooms!

To Kuya Wesley: For being the ever quiet and patient brother! Thank you for letting us ransacked the dorm whenever we have our ’sleep-ins.’ Sorry for all the inconveniences and thank you for understanding our grumbling stomachs which resulted into attacking the refrigerator! Gomen!

To Starbucks: For providing the best frappucinos with shots of mint and espresso! Espresso keeps me awake! That’s what I’ve realized…

To Seattle’s Katipunan: To its coffee and to its people, who were so kind to let us stay until 6 o’ clock in the morning outside. Your establishment has been very effective and productive for our thesis work!

To Nescafe and Extra Joss: our last resort to keep our mind stable! Caffeine doesn’t really work when one’s mind refuse to stabilize itself anymore! Everyone’s palpitating when they drink Extra Joss; it has an opposite effect on us though! Let me reiterate: any energy booster stuff doesn’t work when one’s mind refuse to stabilize itself! Sleep! The only answer is Sleep!

To Marlboro Lights and Dunhill Frost: Thank you for stimulating great substantial conversations and for providing stress-free and blank ragged brains. You’re toxic but as much as thesis was concern, toxics can be handled very well. Hee! 

To Urbandub, Faspitch, Typecast and Paramore: For keeping me sane amidst the stress-infested thesis days and for keeping my mind at peace through the loud music that you make! It’s in this kind of noise where my true solace can be found! Bow down with arms raised tonight! \m/

To Henry Allen and Arashi: For being the subjects of my fanatical daydreams whenever I felt the need to escape reality! In the middle of our scholarly writing, you kept my creative juices flowing. Be it in terms of eroticism or just plain damn stupidity.

To Our Family: For the Lazaro-Mangulabnan family for being so attentive to our thesis needs. Thank you for the patience and making us be part of the crowd! To the Turqueza family, for being the ever understanding, for allowing Twinkle to have overnights for our thesis! To the Soqueña Family - my family - for treating me somehow as a mature ‘lady’ who can think of her own decisions and letting me be responsible for the actions that I’ve chosen. Your guidance and your love are deeply cherished and will always be needed. I love you mama and papa! I Hope Nene made you proud!

To my wonderful thesis mates!

Shasta: For letting me discover the wonders of cigarettes! The conversations that were derived from our ‘yosi sessions’ are memorable, especially in the course of working for our thesis! I’ve always looked up to you as the leader of this group who always organized our thoughts and actions before we attack on a specific task! I’m sorry for any misunderstandings that have occurred and for causing you headaches! hehe! Thank you for maneuvering the group as an organized mafia! Haha!

Twinkle: For being the comic relief of this group! You’ve been the one who consistently took thesis lightly and this was a great balance for our workaholic Shasta! I salute you for juggling your work as a Barrista and our thesis but still managing to survive! I’m sorry if I tend to nag you about something. Thank you for bringing in the fun into our bunch!

Thank you for keeping up with my impatience, temper, and insanity! I would like to apologize for any inconveniences that I’ve caused our group and thesis. I’m just so glad that we finally made it through together. We’re still intact with lots of lessons learned during the one whole year we were consistently seeing each other’s faces! Having solved our differences, the two of you made this thesis period, like play and work at the same time! As graduation arrives, I wish the three of us, the Army, and all the IS peeps the greatest life that’s waiting for us to be achieved. We have so much to prove to this world!

Gambarre!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Arigato Gozaimasu minna!!!!!!!!

Jevay \m/

the moon is absent…but i know its full…

FANGIRL MODE!!!!!!!!!!

i hate to start it with a ‘guess what?’ but since i’m kind of a nutcase right now…

Guess What?!?!

Letters from Iwo Jima!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Waaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There.

ha! loved it!

The cast was undeniably awesome! and superb!

yay!

the main reason why i wanted to watch was because of Kazunari Ninomiya! but then again, he became a big excuse to love this movie!

japanese war perspective in films have been non-existent in hollywood and another reason - which is more logical - why i want to watch this is because i became intrigue in how the jap perspective could be portrayed in the context of WWII. Mainly, when i was younger, i hated the japanese because of their image shaped by history books and american war films, and when Clint Eastwood made this movie, I badly wanted to know the other side.

Not much difference though, since they’re humans also trapped with the atrocious situation of war.

Ken Watanabe, as usual, did one hell of a job with the role but i do firmly believe that Nino’s Saigo is the center of this story.

gods, even the other japanese actors were sooooooo good! Shimizu and Nishi receive my love as well!

Oh Nino! ninoninoninoninoninonino! Nino-kun!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

yes, this is definitely fangirling!

Saigo is definitely Nino! The sarcasm, his wit and the comic relief was so him!

This film was only shown exclusively on Glorietta 4 and Greenbelt, and the moment I heard of it, I’ve been itching to find a way to watch this movie. Gladly, I give my sincerest gratitude to Okasa! Kampai! that’s for watching the movie with me and for equally enjoying the movie as well. Since we’re international studies students, we can really relate to this and I’m proud to say that I’m a HISTORY FREAK!!!

Nino’s tears = LOVE.

*squeal!* *squeal!*

The last scene with Ken Watanabe when the general shot himself…that was priceless… the moment the gun was fired, his tears fell with perfect timing! That was so beautiful! No wonder the director loved working with him. His scene with his wife was equally touching and to Okasa, the part where Nino cried for Shimizu’s death was…great! >>> i’m running out of adjectives here!

We were debating or rather, we were kind of determining/spotting, the parts in the film where we think Clint’s bias as an American would portray…however, at the end, we though that Letters is definitely solely leans with the Japanese. It was somehow balance and I don’t mind when other says that portraying the Japanese soldiers as humane was exaggerated. I mean, in this film, the soldiers were mostly forced to go to war (Saigo for example, is a baker), they’re not that cruel compared to the Kempeitais!

the general plot was typical for a war movie, but the conversations were beautiful! draggy, but not as ‘ho-hum’ as FoF!

it felt so heavy, i didn’t realize that I was completely talking to myself during the film giving comments here and there while okasa was secretly laughing at me!

i’m glad the movie was born to be released in hollywood. according to what i’ve read, not so many people in japan knew about the battle in iwo jima. It’s a shame that during the battle, the jap gov’t cannot give reinforcements but its because, this was the time that japan was losing to america. they were defeated in saipan and in marianas (i didn’t know they fought there! wonder what happened there…) if reinforcements were given and if the battle was won by the japanese, the atomic bombings in hiroshima amd nagasaki might not have occurred. It was an amazing thing to learn that the island was a strategic location to target the mainland…and yet, no reinforcements were given.

*sigh* Clint Eastwood make gory movies…hehe…he’s very visual, and detailed…especially with the ‘guts’ showing and…

it gives a clearer justification for the harakiri (?!) method of japanese…they think of americans as cowards because they wanted to be killed by others by fighting till the end…for the japs, its more courageous to kill oneself than let others defeat you…but since i’m plagued with western thoughts, i prefer fighting till the end and die in the hands of the enemy. Borrowing Saigo’s words "There’s no use of a dead soldier…"

we strongly believe, The two films that Eastwood made portrays his standpoint regarding with the war on iraq…he might have denied this on some interviews but, for us, it really shows…

oh nino…you did one hell of a great job with Saigo! Kampai to you!

I’m.so.much.fulfilled.

wahoo!!!

p.s. i was absolutely sure that there will be Arashi fans who will watch this movie today! i was right! during the ending credits, i was like "ninonino" and one girl heard me, then she said to her friend, (her voice was in perfect pitch so that i can hear her)

"I think I’m loving nino more!!! I love him more than Jun!!!! Arashi…. *she spoke of uncomprehendable (<<if there is such a word!) nihonggo*"

I just secretly smiled and sighed…

gods…lots of jun-bait here in the philippines…ne?

hehe!

wahoo!!!!!!!!

jevay \m/