The College of Mass Communication will have an alumni homecoming today. Not that I’m an alumni. I just thought about a perception that many UP alumni don’t appear to be as passionate and proud about their alma mater as much as say, their Atenean counterparts. That UP’s alumni network isn’t as strong? Is that true? Or am I just basing it too much on UAAP basketball games.

How tragic! The digital camera is broken!

We went to see Blue Moon yesterday. It was all right. Not exceptional, but all right. Then we went to McDo for dinner.

Wahh! The digicam is broken! No more pictures in my blog for now. How sad.

“…Of the world’s 100 largest economies, 51 are now corporations while only 49 are countries…” [source]

We talked about the condition of the ‘nation-state’ and the challenges to its existence in the new global order in Sociology 10 this morning.

Our globalised economy has made national governments like ours in the Philippines often powerless when it comes to demands by multinational corporations and international financial institutions like the WTO. We’re at an age when multinational corporations have become more powerful and much richer than governments. Our lecturer even suggested the idea that, a multinational corporation like Nestle, can just buy the entire Philippines, if it was only a matter of financial power.

Do sovereign, self-sufficient nation-states still exist? The Philippines imports almost all of our oil, we import our rice, we import almost everything we need. Our lecturer said we don’t even make our own needles. We import them. Even the garments to make our clothes. Should we come into turbulent waters with our trading partners, will we survive? What does this mean? Other countries have leverage against us. We are at the mercy of multinational corporations and powerful trading ‘partners’. Which makes us not as sovereign as we think.

How can we increase our leverage against other countries so we don’t feel too powerless in this new global order? Arm ourselves with nuclear weapons. Haha. I was kidding. But of course that’s a path other countries have already taken. Or we could do a Cuba, or somehing like that.

Just thinking out loud for once in my blog. Hehe. It’s been a while.

(As much as I want to be honest, I can’t. ‘Di talaga p’wede. I have to lie.) That was just a random blurt.

I went home right after my last class last Wednesday. That’s a rarity! See, after class last Thursday, I went out with my orgmates for pizza at Yellow Cab. Then on Friday, I went to see Shake Rattle & Roll 2K5 with Deo and Kid.

I wasn’t disappointed with Shake Rattle & Roll 2K5. I was expecting something really hilarious and sort of dumb. It was, at most parts. Tumawa ka na lang di ba, kaysa sa mainis lalo na sa unang dalawang episodes…

I borrowed a book (Ghosts of Manila) last Friday from the main library for the sake of leisure reading. I really never got into the habit of leisure reading novels and such. I want to. I try.

Haha. A pair of snatched photos from CAST’s Christmas party last month from Tupe’s multiply account. *snicker*

I never had class on January 2 before. My classes in elementary and high school always started, at the earliest, January 3, never on January 2. That’s just… a day after the first day of the year. It doesn’t feel right to go right back to school on the second day of the year right after your weeks-long Christmas break.

Anyway, I only had Math 2 last Monday and Comm 140 yesterday. We also had our first UP CAST general assemly for the year. Talked about plans and all. We hope everything would push through.

Hm… I’m still on a Christmas break hangover. I cut my fencing class this morning. But I’m on my way to school anyhow. Film 104 group report on melodrama. (Hm… my entries are becoming monotonous uninteresting semi-daily chronicles once again).

What I really like about ABS-CBN’s Goin’ Bulilit, aside from the kids being adorable and hilarious, is that many of the jokes and skits are saturated with socio-political undertones. That impresses me because it makes this kids’ gag show actually wittier (for me) and more relevant than say an adult gag show like Bubble Gang. I doubt if the children actually understand fully the socio-political connotiations the jokes they deliver carry. Whichever way, the kids are excruciatingly cute and the show is immensely hilarious and witty. It’s one show I try not to miss every Sunday evening.

I haven’t been online much the past days (if at all, on some days) because I spent most of my Christmas break days manning and helping out in our newly-opened grocery store in my mother’s home town in Bulacan. And we don’t have internet connection there (yet).

First day of the year started all right. I felt more or less enthusiastic, with the new year and all. I begged off from helping out in the grocery for today. So, I finally get online this morning, after days of being net-deprived. I tried to start catching up on stuff I’ve missed online, blog-surfing and all. But the backlogs were too long so I gave up reading everything. I also need to catch up on school work. Cramming, again. Classes resume tomorrow, unfortunately.