Joining in the Halloween fun!

Because I am from the Philippines, I have a totally different concept of Halloween. In the Philippines, our idea of Halloween comes from Spain, which colonized the Philippines for over three centuries, just like what it did to much of South America. While we Filipinos are familiar with the October 31st Halloween that people celebrate in the United States, we celebrate it on November 1st, and we call it "Araw ng mga Patay," or "Day of the Dead." It is comparable to the Mexican "Dia de los Muertos," which means the same thing (remember that both Mexico and the Philippines were under Spanish rule for a long time).

While there are some Filipinos who go trick-or-treating while dressed up as something, we have more distinct practices during this holiday. For example, we visit the graves of our beloved ones who have passed away and hang out there for a while, and some people even stay the night in the cemetery. I have never really trick-or-treated in my whole life before, so I thought that even though such a thing exists, it is something that not a lot of people really do.

Only this year have I realized that Halloween is a much-celebrated holiday in the United States! I wonder how in the world I did not realize that while living here for two years! Yes, I've seen stores selling a lot of candies and costumes and anything Halloween, but it never quite occurred to me how big it is to Americans. I began to realize that when I finally joined in the Halloween fun!

This year is my the first time I dressed up for Halloween. At first, I thought I would be Francisco Balagtas, a Filipino icon-poet. I had my barong tagalog with me (a barong tagalog is a formal costume worn by Filipino men, although a version for women is also available. It is mainly made of pineapple fibers), and I could just top it off with a leaf garland on my head. I decided that it was not probably a good costume, so I decided to look for another one. In the interest of time, I knew that my choices were limited. I looked up sites and found a very brilliant idea: a mad scientist! I suddenly became excited right after reading about that! The next few days, I bought myself a lab coat and a pair of lab goggles, and I got two pairs of examination gloves for free from a laboratory supplies store in my school (!!!!!). On the night I put on my costume, I messed up my hair and put white foot powder (I know, weird) on it to get a mad scientist look! I absolutely loved it!



This year, too, I carved my first pumpkin!!! I was not quite sure what to do for my pumpkin, and just when I thought I'd settle for typical design, I got the idea to make a super happy pumpkin! I wanted something that reflects my sunny personality, so I carved a BIG smile out my pumpkin!



I really enjoyed Halloween this year! I can't wait to dress up again next year! I might have to do a better version of my mad scientist look or maybe something else for a change. Suggestions, anyone? :)

It all starts here

All right.. so I see a lot of my friends having other blogs outside Multiply, and I can't quite understand why. Personally, I'm doing this partly because they are doing it and I want to try it for myself. The other reason is that Multiply feels crowded for me, with all the stuff that my friends upload. There's nothing really nothing wrong with that, Blogger just feels like a wider space for me. If I don't make sense, just forget I said that.

I'm quite excited to see how this Blogger thing turns out. I kind of want more publicity for my blog, although recently I've been setting my Multiply blogs to be seen only by the people in my friends list. I'll try to get to other blogs and kind of "mingle" with them. I think that would be cool, hopefully I could find time to do that. I'm such a busy guy, I tell you.

Since this is my first blog entry here, and I'm meaning to have this seen by a lot of people I wouldn't know, I decided to say some things about my myself.

I'm Levin, from the wonderful city of Makati, Philippines. Makati sits right beside Manila, the Philippine capital, so I tell people sometimes that I am from the "Manila area". I am 18 years old, and I go to the most awesome Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah. I absolutely love this school. The people are very friendly and the university itself is just awesome. One does not basically run out of things to do here in BYU! In 2006, my family moved to Baltimore, Maryland, where my mom got a teaching job in downtown Baltimore. She says it's very tough to teach inner city kids, but she says it's all worth it. Hopefully, when we get our immigration visas in the future, my family could move to Utah too.

I'm a proud member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or Mormons, as many people know us. I grew up in this church and I absolutely love it. I get so much peace and happiness from being in this Church. Hopefully, next year, I'll get to serve an honorable full-time mission where I'll preach the Gospel to anywhere I'll be assigned to labor in. I'm hoping to serve in France or any French-speaking mission, but I'm getting this nagging feeling that I'll serve in the Philippines. That's totally okay, though. It doesn't really matter where I would serve. What's important is that I'm serving a mission and that I get to share the message of the Gospel and also share the same peace and happiness that comes with it. (Now I am fully aware that not everyone believes in any god or in the same God that I believe in, but I hope this portion does not offend anyone. I do respect all religions and all beliefs.)

I am a member of the BYU International Folk Dance Club. I thought this was a perfect club for me, because I love dancing (although I've never had any training at all, just a big interest for me) and I love anything "international." I absolutely love French! I've had my first French class on my 15th birthday during my senior year in high school. The class did not go very well for me, because--I know other people in my year would agree to this--our teacher did not really do a very good job in teaching French. So not too long ago, I started taking French again and I'm definitely loving it! I would love to meet and talk with someone who could speak French so I could put my French into action! Yeah! And I also love chemistry. I feel that chemistry and I go together. You know, we have good "chemistry." :) I hate physics, and interestingly, I've met a lot people who either love chemistry and hate physics and vice versa. It's like you'd have to love the one and hate the other, whether you like it or not!

Other things I like/love:

• Mr. Bean. Mr. Bean's holiday is my favorite movie!
• The color blue is my favorite!
• Home-cooked Filipino food. My dad makes good food! And since I live in a dorm, I don't get to eat Filipino food anymore :(
  
• Languages. Besides English and French, I speak Ilonggo and Tagalog
• Creative writing. I particularly like poetry. To tell you the truth, I'm not a superb creative writer. At least I'm trying!
• Cheesecake!!!!
• Anatomy and physiology. Quite the most interesting classes I've taken in college.
• Movies! I enjoy almost all genres, particularly comedy, romantic comedy and mystery. I'm not really into R-rated movies. I find much more satisfaction in clean movies.
  

I always try to enjoy life! I do not like being gloomy. I am overly optimistic, although I have this days when I'm very pessimistic and very cynical, but that's like once in a blue moon! I think I am sociable enough and I like meeting new people here and there. I'm absolutely a people-person! I love having fun! (Come on , who doesn't?!)

That's about it for now. Hopefully, I would have enough time and energy to update this blog quite often. Taking 17.5 credits at once is not easy! But I hope you guys keep on reading my blog. I definitely appreciate comments! I'd like to hear from you all!

To end this, let me share a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson:

"That which we persist in doing becomes easier for us to do; not the nature of the thing has changed but our power to do has increased."

I've always liked this quote. Being the ever-optimistic person that I am, I always look forward to improvement in everything I do. I want to be a better student, writer (blogger), dancer, French speaker.. aahh!!! the list could go on! I think life is boring if we always stay in the same state that we are in right now. Human beings are not designed to be static! We humans are so amazing! We are not the highest order of animals for no reason!

And before this day ends, HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYONE!!!



P.S. What were you for Halloween? I was a mad scientist! :)