Croak Chronicles

East West Fest 2007

I just came out of the one event that has me busy and distracted these past couple of months!  This year's East West Fest - an annual event of cultural booths and performances from all over.  I had the temerity to actually participate and boy was it a wild ride!

Apparently, last year, there weren't enough interest to actually have a performance from the Filipinos so they settled for just a cultural booth.  This year, with the influx of us new Filipinos into the EWC, we had enough to actually get something going - a most ambitious "something" at that... we ended up with a 15min medley of performances from across the Philippines: an Ifugao tribal dance, Kapamalong-malong (Malong dance), Tinikling(!) and a couple of songs to break the flow.  I was part of the Tinikling group (yes, I danced the tinikling!) which was our "wow" climax for our performance - apparently, people were pretty impressed with the skill involved with the dance, hehe.

Unfortunately, since I was dancing, I didn't have pictures but there were a lot of other people who had cameras out so I hope to get copies in the future... one of our friends here video taped the whole performance so I'll have to see if I can get a hold of a copy ^_^

For now, here's some pictures of the rest of the Fest:

Here's me with Rose, Rusyan and one EWC Filipino Alumni behind our humble Cultural "booth".

Here's a wider view of our handiwork.  That's Jovel in Ifugao costume and Rose in the middle.  I pretty much handled most of the the booth logistics: the signage and writeups as well as keeping tabs with the artefacts.  It was pretty tedious work but was a welcome break from all the math and physics I'm getting swamped with in my classes.  By the way, thanks to the Airheads for the Mindanao Salakot that they had me bring over - it was a really welcome addition to locally accessible Filipino implements ^_^ Bulk of the items were from a local Filipino, Elena, who's been gathering all these knick-knacks from garage sales and whatnots as a personal hobby.

It's unfortunate that having a cultural booth prevents you from actually watching the performancing going on the whole afternoon (from 1:00 - 6:00pm).  I had the opportunity to step away from the booth for a bit and snapped a few photos of the other performances.  Here's an excellent Korean Drum ensemble...

... and here's an amazing Tahitian dance troupe.  I swear, if their skirts were any longer, they would've been able to sweep the stage clean of debris... they reminded me so much of brooms, hehe.

Here's Rose's group of ethnomusicology majors doing a series of songs from Sulawesi...

And here's me, exhausted after our performance, rewarding myself with a bowl of exorbitantly priced flavored-ice >.< $3 for a bowl, but I felt I deserved it ^_^

Am unexpected happy birthday...

I have to admit, I was a bit depressed last week at the realization that I'll be spending my birthday this year alone in a foreign country - no special birthday cake from Katya, no not-so-surprise surprise party from the Airheads (complete with fruit cocktail!)... no, I was going to spend my birthday this year swamped with all the stuff that comes with all my Wednesdays this semester (3 classes, and an evening seminar where I have to facilitate a discussion group).  Though I was right about the latter, I was totally wrong about the former! ^_^

The end of last week was a really downer what with my getting an email from Looney Labs about my gift-to-myself (a couple of Fluxx decks) getting delayed due to the cost of shipping to Hawaii.  Things picked up over the weekend, though, when I received mail from Karl!  As usual, Karl delivers with yet another frog item (a really cute frog postcard) and a couple of other goodies (hehe, frog items are always the main event for me!)

On Tuesday, I started getting emails from everyone greeting me a happy birthday! (don't you people know how to convert timezones! hehe)  Thanks to all the Airheads for the greets - I don't maintain a celphone anymore (very liberating) so email it is.

Wednesday, I get a package from Iloilo and was happy to get a couple of books: 1001 Nights of Snowfall, a Fables hardbound collecting background stories of some of the main protagonists of the comic series (go Ambrose!)  and Michael Crichton's latest book, NEXT.

Here's the loot from the siblings... Karl gave me a book, the Weather Makers, but I left it at my office when I took this picture... The Fullmetal Alchemist celphone fob is SO cute!  Though I think Nowd would be more of the Alphonse Elric type -_-  I miss my anime, I miss watching movies -_-

When I logged into WoW last Wednesday, I got my gift from Nowd - 4 Netherweave Bags!

As you can see from the state of my inventory, I really needed those bags >.<  I gave Nowd a Flowers & Fluxx deck since I found out that he never got to play Fluxx before!  (unbelievable!)

So even though I didn't have my annual pistachio dome cake from Katya (or chocolate sans rival, or marjolaine, or prune cake... wait a minute... that last one is Karl's cake, eww) or cathedral windows from Manang Beth (though Nowd and I did treat ourselves to a similar jello dessert back at Michigan since it reminded me of Manang Beth ^_^) or whatever food theme the Airheads are into nowdays, it was still a very happy birthday for me (not to mention healthy, look at all tat sugar that I get every year!)... I feel so loved!

More on SKC

Since Katya requested it, I decided to post up the design sheets that I prepared before we commited to our tabard design:

Green was definitely the color of choice for our tabard (though I did consider orange for a bit but the general spread of tabard colors in Moon Guard tended towards the warm - reds mostly but orange would be too close to those).  I gave Nowd four choices:

- The Frog: for obvious reasons ^_^ didn't really have any lore significance but I'm sure I would have cooked something up if we decided on using it.

- The Compass: the actual compass icon had lines too thin to be really visible from afar so I went with the 8 radiating arrows icon.  Since we wanted the Commission to be geared towards adventuring, a compass would be an appropriate symbol.

- The Tree: for obvious reasons (Shrubbery!) but unlike the Frog, this had an easier entry into lore since Dire Maul, the home of Stomper Kreeg is actually associated with lots of shrubbery.

- The Dead Tree: the icon that we ended up using... pretty much the same reasons as described on the Tree above but reflects the actual nature of shrubbery in DM.  And a dead tree carries a lot of other symbolisms as well - dormancy, potential... a lost cause? hehe...

So there you go... we're planning to hit the Sunken Temple tomorrow, will try to remember to get a nice screenie of our success if ever.  We've been smoking through instances lately... did a really rapid Maraudon Princess run today where Nowd tanked superbly through mobs that most groups would've required an off-tank (the pairs of rock giants leading to the Princess) - it helped that he had a great Priest backing him up of course ^_^

The Stomper Kreeg Commission

((Nowd and I have established ourselves in the most recently released RP realm in WoW.  In lieu of joining a biggish guild as we did back in Sentinels, we decided to come up with our own little guild.  Our initial intention was to stay unguilded for as long as we can but it got too tedious replying to all the whispers and inquiries about our guildlessness >.<  Also, I've always wanted to design my our guild tabard, hehe.))

((From this came the <Stomper Kreeg Commission>.  I wanted a guild name / concept that didn't take the lore too seriously and yet not slip into the role of a "joke" guild.  Too many are the guilds who carry lofty ideals of their place in the horde society - I wanted our guild to be more personal... representing the little people of Azeroth... and this is where our story begins))

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As in most of these stories, we begin with our protagonist in the throes of amnesia - which makes a really good jump off point to an "in medias res" type of beginning.  It also gives the storyteller free reign in making up details of the story not only forward but backwards as well... oh the power of the pen indeed!

Our protagonist's name is Toad, which is not really his real name since he can't remember who he really is.  No, "Toad" is merely the invention of the simple mind who found our hero in his current state at the ruins of Quel'thalas.  This simple mind is our other protagonist who Toad has come to call Nowd (since his elven tongue cannot properly innunciate this Tauren's real name).

Nowd was peacefully collecting herbs amongst the ruins (as is his strange passion, herb gathering) when he came upon this Blood Elf in utter neglect amidst piles upon piles of strange dust.  They would later on learn that Toad, in a sudden fit of magic withdrawal, went and disenchanted practically all his possessions (even his magical sweeping broom which he sorely misses) leaving him impoverished and miserable.

Only with the timely ministrations of Nowd's potions did Toad avoid the dreadful wasting effects that magic withdrawal does to his kind.  Though helpful, potions were just temporary panacea to Toad's affliction which would manifest itself time and again with the uncontrollable desire to disenchant any magical items that he can get his hands on.

Nowd, for some strange reason, took it upon himself to help this pathetic creature with his plight.  (editor: I think Nowd consider's Toad as his pet, simple minded as he is, hehe)  This relationship leads them to adventure the great expanses of Azeroth in search for a cure.  It was during one such adventure that Nowd gets word of a promising lead from an agent claiming to be under the employ of a Mr Stomper Kreeg.  Mr Kreeg, he was told, will reveal the secret to curing the curse of all Blood Elves once he gets assistance on his own projects.  And thus was established the Stomper Kreeg Commission.

Little is known of Mr Kreeg and the projects that he speaks of.  Now and then, Toad and Nowd would just receive mail from their employer concerning their current errand but these would be as varied as assisting other personalities of the land to locating specific objects around the world.  It remains to be seen whether he will be true to his word once the time comes that the Commission has met his satisfaction.