Adventures of a Snowboard Newbie

I guess I forgot to post about my Spring Break a couple of weeks ago, but my family and I went to Colorado. I went snowboarding for the first time ever, and man, was it an adventure! My siblings and two of my cousins went along with me on this crazy experience. I've posted a series on YouTube titled, "Adventures of a Snowboard Newbie." You should check it out at http://www.youtube.com/mhcmusickid812. Here is the basic description of the four videos I have up in the series:

“For Spring Break 2012, my family decided to go to Colorado. These are the adventures of my first time snowboarding. It was an interesting experience... We went to the Eldora Mountain Resort in Nederland, CO about 20 miles from Boulder, CO.”

Here are the videos I have so far:

Stay tuned for more in the series!

Have a great day and live life!

-Vivevitaphilia

Lenten Sonnet #7

Hey everyone! Sorry I haven't been posting. I was on Spring Break in Colorado, and I didn't have a lot of time to get on here and blog. But now that I'm back, I'll make up for the time lost. This post is going to have several of my sonnets. Technically, I have to post 15 sonnets, but I don't think you all want to read 15 sonnets. I'll post a few to make up for the days I didn't blog. Here it goes!


Life is a Mystery (5/3/10)
Living in a world full of mysteries

Forces one to search for the right answers;

Do we know about others’ histories?

The unknowns of the earth grow like cancers;

What is the meaning of this well-known fact

That so many know but can’t understand?

Why did he commit that murderous act?

We cannot force the truth; do not demand

Others to explain it to you clearly

Because opinion means nothing to you;

The act of discovery is merely

A small answer, incomplete and in lieu

Of the more comprehensive thought ingrained

In the mind of the thinker still untrained.

Line (8/31/10)

A simple figure can be so complex

As perception distorts its plain meaning;

The topic, as natural as reflex,

Gives way to another’s intervening.

Strict and straight, or curved, or in a spiral,

Or connected in such a way as one;

Can be quite harmless or even viral

Like the rays of the serene setting sun.

Leaving you there, only a starting point,

From Position A to Position B;

Colliding from two ways, making a joint

Decision, upon which, hard to agree.

Nonetheless, directing you is a path

Toward tranquility or enraged wrath.

Seven Days (8/31/10)

Every Sunday, I go to Church and pray.

I will drink the wine and consume the host.

Waking up Monday just gives me dismay

Because it is the day I loathe the most.

Sometimes Tuesdays give me gladness and GLEE,

But other times I feel indifferent.

Wednesdays, at the top of the hill I’ll be

To tumble down while drifting to the tint

Of Thursdays. I’ll watch my favorite shows.

See the horizon and its setting sun.

And then Monday’s chaos will decompose

As Friday is all about having fun.

Saturday is bittersweet for Michael

Since he knows he will repeat the cycle.

Tissue Box (8/31/10)

Sigh and cry: that was all she did that day.

No friends, no family, no one present

To guide her through the confusion and mess

That clouded her sight and the world around.

Lying down on her bed all afternoon,

Refusing to see the light and get out;

All she had with her was a tissue box

That meant more to her than her colored socks.

Ready to express her anger and SHOUT,

She needed to run outside very soon.

The necessary help she quickly found.

With pen and paper, began to confess;

To the house of the one she hurt, she went.

Asked for forgiveness to make things okay.

NoSeparation (9/1/10)

Givethemsome s p a c e; it’sgettinghardtobreathe

Withyoualwaysstandingrightbesideus.

Youragitationcausesustoseethe,

Andyou’realwaysmakingsomecrazyfuss.

Step away; perhapstwoorthreemeters

Shouldbeenough,soyoucanlive alone

Forawhile.Wearesurelynotcheaters,

Sodonotkeepcallingusonthephone.

Wewantyoutoliveyourownlife apart

Fromthelivesyoutendtostaysocloseto.

Offeryourselfasurprisingrestart,

Andthenallowyourselftotravelthrough.

You’ll learn that s e p a r a t i o n is not bad

When you maintain connections you once had.

I have run out of sonnets that I have written in the past, so it's time to write new ones! Get excited!

Have a great day and live life! - Vivevitaphilia

Lenten Sonnet #5

I'm posting three sonnets tonight about two of my close high school friends. I'm glad we still get the time to hang out even though we go to different colleges. I am so blessed right now for all the good friends I have, and I am thankful that I go to a considerably small university because it was so easy making a family here. God is so good and he works in many ways, especially through the human race. Here are the sonnets:

Future Happenings (3/11/10)

Is Hannah Patton going to the lounge

Where all the free will gather with their friends?

The hungry people will begin to scrounge

Even though the good times will never end;

Is Hannah Patton next to Teresa?

Or is she distracted by someone else?

The great picture of the Mona Lisa

Will be the eyes watching over herself;

But never mind the unimportant things

That tend to pull the mind from the body;

We all should wonder what the future brings

And, in the spirit, it will embody;

Hannah Aleece Patton will I do scoff

When she loses to me at our dance-off.

What She Leaves Behind (3/11/10)

Teresa Gully, she flies to the sun

And grabs a handful of bright, shining stars;

She gives her best friend Hannah Patton one

And then takes it away and flies to Mars;

Teresa Gully leaves Hannah crying

But we all know this will not last for long;

She will always do her best in trying

In making those around her very strong;

But when will she return to planet earth,

Since she left all her good friends behind?

We can just hope for all that it is worth

To prevent ourselves from becoming blind;

We wait for Teresa to come back home,

So we will no longer have need to roam.

Transition of Love [Everything Will Be Alright] (4/9/10)

I am aware that you have not been well

Because things have not gone the way you planned;

As your problems begin to grow and swell,

You shut everyone out of your life and

Keep to yourself like a young lonely lamb,

So naïve, so vulnerable, so stressed,

The reason you no longer give a damn

About the things you already confessed

To the one you loved, the one you enjoyed

In your company. But there is a turn

Of warm blessings that you will not destroy;

You deeply wonder what your heart will yearn

For there are brighter days ahead of you,

Waiting for the perfect one to break through.

I hope you liked those! Have a great day and live life!

Lenten Sonnet #4

Here are two sonnets I wrote during the trip the Honors group took to New Mexico. We went to the Guadalupe Mountains and explored Carlsbad National Park and Slaughter Cave. It was a nice break from the craziness of school. Here they are:


Road Trip (3/1/12)

Driving in a van, it’s completely packed.

Tents and sleeping bags take the trip with us.

Food supply for the journey tightly sacked.

How I wish we took a big, yellow bus.

Driving through the countryside, herds of cows

Stare at cars passing by. Railroad tracks lead

The way into the desert we go now.

I begin to pull out a book to read

For the long four-and-a-half hour drive.

Towering windmills in the distant land,

It never felt so good to be alive

With a blank journal and pencil in hand.

Drooping eyes, it’s time to go back to sleep,

But memories of this trip I will keep.

Into the Mountains: The Preparation (3/1/12)

The journey to Carlsbad, my soul awaits;

Clear skies ahead, not a cloud I do see.

Sunlight shines from above through heaven’s gates;

Energizing spirit inside of me.

Preparing my body for perfect peace,

I enter the depths of ominous caves

To discover my need: a sweet release

That will shoot my spirits out of the graves.

Rising above mountains, a clearer view

Opens my eyes to what’s in front of me.

Distinguishing the false from what is true,

Searching for who I was, am and will be.

With an open mind, my ship is steady

For what is ahead, I am ready.

Have a great day and live life!

Lenten Sonnet #3

Hey peeps! I'm going to post three sonnets tonight because I won't have access to the Internet on Thursday and Friday.

Needs and Wants (3/20/10)

To live in a society of want

Requires all to suppress their deepest needs;

While those around us act so nonchalant,

We rush and scramble to gather our seeds;

Look at the glowing glamorous glory

And the flashy fame and fearless fortune

That the vain tell as part of their story

Which reveals that their journey has begun;

Toward their greatest wants they swiftly rush

And leave behind necessities of life;

Away in the water the needs will flush

While on dry land the wants will cause much strife;

What you want is not always what you need

Because in the end life is what we bleed.

Destinations (4/9/10)

I am going away for a long while,

But I did not want to leave you behind;

The last thing that you gave me was a smile,

But you will always linger in my mind.

We humans are so breakable and hurt

With the thought that we must leave from this place

And journey on a path with different dirt

To arrive at an unfamiliar face.

Why must I be volatile and fragile

Enough to choose to abandon my love?

The dreams I had once wanted to fulfill

Are left alone in a blank head above.

After we forever on the earth roam,

We will finally reach a happy home. 

New World (8/27/10)

The sky turned gray and the clouds grew yellow

While she ambled through bald and barren streets;

At the final crossroads stood a fellow

Who swiftly gathered unwanted receipts,

Purposely discarded by the Wastefuls

And left to be picked up by Survivors

Of the dreadful day. Gone were Distastefuls

Who abused and ignored faithful Drivers;

The woman approached the hard-working man

As he directed his focus to waste;

She whispered to him, “A New World began

The day of the destruction we all faced.”

Instantly enlightened, he delighted,

New possibilities he had sighted.

I hope you enjoyed those! Have a great day and live life!

Ekphrasis

I was going through papers from last semester, and I came across one of the poems I wrote in my Honors Aesthetics class. I remember that we were learning about "ekphrasis," which means (according to Wikipedia) "the graphic, often dramatic, description of a visual work of art." One of the English professors came to our class and showed us a piece of art entitled Strange You Never Knew by the artist Steve Neves (one of our Aesthetics professors). In the piece, a young woman with medium-length brown hair and head slightly tilted downward sat in a white kitchen chair. On her face was the feeling of tranquility with a pinch of underlying pain. Behind her was an open window where a warm, summer evening rested. A single streetlight stood in the background and dimly lit up a dusty road. Dr. Larry Fink, the English professor, told us to participate in ekphrastic writing in accordance with the artwork presented to us. Here's what I came up with in the ten minutes we had to write:


Strange You Never Knew
A young woman sits beside the window
With the evening sky behind her.
A streetlight brightens the road,
But does not do the same for her.
The summer heat is overpowered
By the coolness of night.
It allows a window to be opened,
A window to her soul.
But what does she think about?
Is someone on her mind?
Someone in her past she left behind?
Does a melody play inside her head
That she'll be better off instead?
Is her thought as clear as the glass,
Or does pain reside in her semi-tranquil state?
Her back against a chair,
Why does she not look the other way
To see the peace behind her?
Strange you never knew
The thoughts of a perfect stranger.


Hope you enjoyed that! Have a great day and live life!

Lenten Sonnet #2

I'm posting two sonnets tonight. Both of them are inspired by fictional characters in Disney movies.


Queen of the Sea (3/12/10)

The little mermaid, what a happy soul

Who loved living her life to the fullest;

But just like Alice, she fell in a hole

And got lost in a world sent on a quest;

Then she returned to the ocean’s deep floor

And then scattered the darkness around her;

In life, she was looking for something more

Had she discovered where the wild things were?

She found the lost city of Atlantis

And made herself the queen of the lost sea;

She waited like a calm praying mantis

While the fishes were then filled with great glee;

She wondered, "Have I found a new big world,

Where all the mysteries will be unfurled?"


Brave Warrior Girl (3/20/10)

Invading the country over the wall,

They came with full force and frightening might;

To save her father she needed to stall,

So she went to war to put up a fight;

With her lucky cricket and dragon friend,

She was the only girl among the men;

Defending her people until the end

Was what made the sword stronger than the pen;

Caught impersonating a war soldier

She found herself in a numbing trouble;

Almost killed in an avalanche boulder

She survived amidst the burning rubble;

Saving her country and the emperor

Made her the bravest, we all could concur.


Hope you like these, and look forward to more! 


Have a great day and live life!

Websites to Waste Hours On: FREE TIME!!!

Now that I'm off Facebook and Twitter, I have a lot more free time to spend. And I've spent some of that free time surfing the web and finding cool sites. Of course, you can waste hundreds of hours on YouTube or StumbleUpon (or Pinterest if you're a girl...but guys are free to join), but I've found some other websites that have been worth my time.


StatusHumor is pretty darn funny. The site posts some of the funniest statuses from social networks. Here's an example of one:


"Look at your status, now back to mine, now back at yours, now back at mine. Sadly, yours isn’t mine. But if you stopped posting about the other things and made this your status, yours could be like mine. Look down, back up. Where are you? You’re on Facebook, reading the status your status could be like. I’m on a computer."

WIMP is a compilation site of the best videos on the web. The best part is, the videos are suitable for ALL AGES. So you don't have to worry about NSFW (not safe for work) videos. Here's a funny vid:

I don't know why I like this site, but WISH is a bit intriguing. I don't exactly know how it works, but I think you pick the things you would like to have and you're entered into a drawing for the prize. 


The Onion is classic news satire. It's also a great way to keep up with current events.


For all you music lovers, Pandora or 8tracks is the place to go. Pandora is like Genius on iTunes. You can create "stations" that play your favorite artists/bands and music related to them. 8tracks is more of a playlist type of thing. You can create your own playlists or listen to ones that other people have made.


If you want to change it up a bit every single day, check out Cool Site of the Day. 


Have a great day and live life!

Lenten Sonnet #1

Forget "Sonnet Saturday." I think for this Lenten season, I am going to post a sonnet on here every day. So here it goes.


My sonnet is based on Shakespeare's Sonnet 19. I'll post his sonnet here for reference:


Sonnet 19


Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws,
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,
And burn the long-lived phoenix in her blood;
Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,
And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,
To the wide world and all her fading sweets;
But I forbid thee one most heinous crime:
O, carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow,
Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen;
Him in thy course untainted do allow
For beauty's pattern to succeeding men.
Yet, do thy worst, old Time: despite thy wrong,
My love shall in my verse ever live young.


Now here mine goes...

A Timely Destruction (3/9/10)

As time will take its deathly toll on life

And make the flowers shrivel in the sun,

Then will it kill with its destructive knife

And force life’s fragile thread to be undone;

While friends walk by and we depart from home,

It runs along and hurries for its nest;

The sword, it stabs as we are soft as foam,

And time delivers dark and dreary rest;

But how will I remember you and me?

Will we be given love’s untimely end?

The trap of time’s nonstop eternity,

We shall escape and time we will contend.

If time will take its charted course above,

Then we will fight with letters of our love.


Have a great day and live life!

The 84th Academy Awards...THE OSCARS!!!

The 2012 Oscars are finally here! And who is going to win?!


Here are my predictions:


BEST PICTURE: "The Artist"


BEST DIRECTOR: Michel Hazanavicius for "The Artist"


BEST ACTOR: Jean Duharjin for "The Artist"


BEST ACTRESS: Viola Davis for "The Help"


BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR: Christopher Plummer for "Beginners"


BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Octavia Spencer for "The Help"


BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY: "Midnight in Paris"


BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY: "The Descendants"


BEST ANIMATED SCREENPLAY: "Rango"


BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY: "Hugo"


BEST COSTUME DESIGN: "Jane Eyre"


BEST FILM EDITING: "The Artist"


BEST MAKEUP: "The Iron Lady"


BEST ORIGINAL SCORE: "The Artist"


BEST ORIGINAL SONG: "Man or Muppet" from "The Muppets"


BEST VISUAL EFFECTS: "Rise of the Planet of the Apes"


Good luck to all the nominees! Cheers to a good night!

Sonnet Saturday & Sh*t _____ Say: Part Two

Hey people of the earth! I haven't really kept up with "Sonnet Saturday" at all because I pretty much forgot about it, but now that Lent has come around, I have more time to work on my personal blog.


I posted another "Sh*t People Say to Filipinos" video on YouTube! Here it is:

It's longer than my first video, so enjoy!


Anyways, back to "Sonnet Saturday." I wrote a sonnet last semester about Finals Week. Here it is:

Almost There (12/10/11)

High stressed emotions take complete control.

Awake until the sun begins to rise.

Connection lost between body and soul.

Where in the whole world are my clear, blue skies?

Ended a long relationship with sleep

Many years ago; regrets fill me up.

Tears from the eyes, about it I still weep.

Coffee overflows from a Starbucks cup.

Up very late, burning the midnight oil.

Snacking to stay awake, high calories.

What stinks? Milk in the fridge begins to spoil.

Energy low like teachers’ salaries.

Needing motivation, I’m almost there;

But to finish strong, I have to prepare.

Have a great weekend! If you don't celebrate the weekends like I do, have a great day!