Born in Africa

For my second to the last weekend in Africa, I finally, finally got to touch a real live lion!!!!
Ok (for my parents who are hyperventilating now) it wasn't a big lion. It was more like a baby lion. But still…it will grow up to become king of the jungle someday. Hehe. So technically, I was being brave.

We went to this Lion Park Reserve here in Gauteng. It was smaller than the Rhino and Lion Park, but it had more lions (obviously, yun ang pangalan eh). So they had this area where it was called Cub World and we saw baby hyenas (still incapable of eating humans), baby lions, baby giraffes and a baby leopard. Then we went inside this enclosure and went inside the cage with the baby lions. I swear, when the guide locked the door to the cage, I had images of these cubs suddenly outgrowing adolescence and deciding that human meat was the best meal they could ever have.

Anyway, ang cute sobra ng mga cubs. They were half the size of my body and there were six of them. There was one really hyperactive one. We could stroke their bodies and stomachs, basta just not the tail or the head or else *CHOMP* goes your finger. Their fur was very nice actually when you rub their stomachs (syempre, we just touched the one cub which was sleeping). At ang cute. Makes you want to own one.

And since I really found them cute and wanted to own one, Paui bought me a stuffed toy version. His name is Simba, dahil hello, he reminds me of the Lion King character. Hehe.
And Just like in Lion King, eto at may lion king drama pa (reminds me of that scene where Simba and his lady friend just met and were drinking and jumping up and down the waterfalls):
All in all, a rather enjoyable weekend. :) parang hollywood cartoon. Hahaha.

medyo delayed reply...

I was trying to clean up my yahoo mail when I came across one significant letter I've never responded to.

When I was writing a weekly column for a cebu daily years before (years before SAP completely ensnared me helpless in her grip and now I cannot practice what was once a highly creative and profitable exercise), I got my one and only angry email (well, it was the only reaction mail I've ever got for that column anyway. Hahaha).

I was basically lambasting the 'Blair Witch Project' movie. I mean,come on, when I was watching the movie, it made my head spin (in not so delightful ways) and my eyes basically hurt from all the jerky camera movement. I know it was heralded as a new genre type of movie. But it was my column and it was going to be my opinions which will get printed on that section of the paper…

If I remember correctly, the writer of that mail was reprimanding me, and was aghast that I, an Atenean, could be so hateful to such a popular, come-from-behind, independent, low budget movie. That how can I simply ignore the good workmanship and It just made me think actually. If I am an Atenean and because I come from a good school, does that mean then that I should always go in praise of movies like the Blair Witch (that just because everyone says it is great and scary and haunting and most of all, the herald to a new movie genre) that I should jump right on the bandwagon and say the same things?

I mean really. I was speaking as a movie goer. I didn’t feel riveted, I didn’t feel intrigued (I was more intrigued when I read the plot sa internet. This probably was a reason for the letdown when I watched the movie). To be honest, I was downright bored and consciously trying too hard to let myself enjoy the movie. And I had a headache afterwards. For me, that was not an enjoyable movie experience. If I wanted a headache, then I would just have listened to my mom ranting about my weaknesses. Or stare at my SAP screen and give the program endless short dumps (ay, wala pa pala ako sa SAP nun. I was blissfully unaware of my future as an ABAPER).

:P So ayan, five years late in reply…pero naka reply din ako. Hahaha.