trolling through the different forums, i heard about a tour that will take you to the necropolis under st. peter's basilica. in the same breath, i heard that it was really hard to get in because you had to book weeks (or months) ahead of time and only about 120 people get in a day. but heck, a necropolis? so worth trying. and so i did. and got the booking. yey!

so that city under the basilica is supposed to contain the original tomb of st. peter.

"THE peter?" my sister helen asks when i told her about the necropolis.

"well, that's what they say," i said.

a part of me sure hopes so otherwise it will be so weird gasping at the tomb of some neighborhood dude named peter. but then the other part doesn't care too much. a pagan burial ground under the seat of the roman catholic church. yah, gotta see that

it's 8:30 on a sunday morning and i'm listening to dilana sing zombie and ring of fire. chills man, chills. this woman truly has one of the most incredible rock sounds. off to get a hold of her singing lithium. *shudder*

i just can't dig country music. i tried, but i can't.

inspired by dilana's rendition of 'ring of fire,' i went off to listen to the original johnny cash. now i know he is one of country music's greats, but for the life of me i just couldn't bring myself to like it.

it's the same block i get with love songs which cause me actual physical pain. if i have to listen to a ballad for more than 1 minute, i will break a blood vessel. same with boy bands and the bubble gum pop of britney, jessica... oh, but i do appreciate shakira when she sings in spanish.

i almost have the same block with hip hop. almost, but not quite. some hip hop stuff i do like.

i guess my music genes are just mutated or something that many of the sounds that appeal to popular taste just don't do it for me.

 THIS:

more info here

i'm reading a book called "the infernal world of branwell bronte," daphne du maurier's recreation of the life of the only bronte brother. when i first bought it a couple of years back (yeah, took me a while to get around to it), i laughingly said, "ano sya, taga-type?"

as i read, i realize it would have been so much better for him if he were.

he was, it turns out, the most enthusiastic writer and the most imaginative of his siblings. in any other household, that may have been enough for some sort of literary acclaim. he also felt he was quite talented - more so than his sisters. his tragedy was that his sisters were charlotte, emily, and anne bronte. so his enthusiasm did absolutely nothing to make up for his lack of giftedness and his own estimation of himself became all the more ridiculous.

so while he was writing and facing rejection after rejection, his sisters were quietly working on their own little manuscripts which, we all know, became the tenant of wildfell hall, jane eyre, and wuthering heights (not to mention all the poems they also wrote).

and i guess it wouldn't have been so bad if one of the sisters wasn't a writer or wasn't any good, you know, to be of some consolation to him, but noooo...

got to see a ton of stuff from way back when i was in grade school. things that i had written mostly. looks like i did enjoy writing a lot when i was a kid.

i had a poem about january in the fourth grade, and it went something like this:

january is the first month of the year
a time when people experience good cheer 

the thing is, if i were to write a poem today, it would still sound like this hahaha! 

so all my bags are packed, i'm ready to go. will check this blog out again in a couple of weeks or so.