January 2001  

A New Year and my life is spread to a new page, I look onto it, and realize I have not a pen with which to write upon, and I have not a tale to tell. I stare at it and wish my life wasn’t filled with so many blank pages at a time, so many.

Hmm, the beginning of the Millennium, some of us were pretty psyched for it. Not me, though. For some reason, I was hopeful, and enthusiastic. I always consoled my self by saying, it can only get better, that is, after it has gotten considerably worse.

Last year was full of the enthusiasm of graduation from school---after what seemed like an eternity spent in it---and the undaunted hope of landing that dream job we all anticipated while in school, to make the days go by faster. Unfortunately, no one passes out the handbook of rejection of Résumés to you while in school and they lead you to believe that graduation is all you need to survive in the rat race we call life. Wrong. You at first have to go through some stuck-up employers who refuse to take a chance on hiring someone without any experience. It is hurtful, and frustrating, but each one ascribes to it as being one of their rules, placing it high up in their Articles of Association, insisting that no fresh graduate of whatever discipline should penetrate the fine confines of their noble establishment. 

It leads one to asking these questions: How can one get experience if they don’t get work? If you don’t start somewhere, how can you be expected to get somewhere…learn something, achieve something, gain the all-mighty experience of which they speak? How? I wonder if they have often asked themselves these questions, I don’t think so…

I am yet to meet an employer who would be rebel enough to break the chains of required experience…yes I am yet to meet that employer, even as I speak.

I chose to seek solace and satisfaction in other things of life, just like Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones said: I can’t get NO Satisfaction.

By early December, I had luckily snagged the tickets to my first Back Street Boys concert (hereinafter referred to as BSB). I was ecstatic, considering that this was my first time of seeing them in concert, after having read so many fan fiction stories on them that I felt I knew them by heart already. I also had to be educated on the immense way they inspire and support their fans, and how humble they are to have maintained cool heads after their enormous success.

For one thing, I loved this band simply for the music. Yes! I find one or two of them cute (ahem, sexy too) but that’s beside the point, *straightens her self out*. I am one of those who fell in love with their music without knowing who sung them or what they looked like. One lonely night with a radio to my ear introduced this gal to the sweet, melodious ballads of “I Want It That Way” and it put into place the fuzzy depression I was faced with at the time. In addition, when I did see them I said to myself, “cool, they look good too,” I knew I recognized those voices, they were from the hey days of sappy ballads like “As Long As You Love Me,” and “All I Have To Give.” It just went to prove the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree for these guys.

After purchasing the tickets in December, it was finally delivered to me by January…TM take note that it took almost a month to get them.

In between waiting for the D-day to arrive, my best friend came into the country. I so wanted her to go with me, apart from the fact that she is not that big of a fan, our trip was bolstered when she couldn’t make into ATL on time for the concert. I was saddened and defeated by the 26th.

Nothing much happened that month, my life just sort of breezed by, the days flew, and the mornings were chilled with a hazy fog that stopped this gal from observing her daily jog (not that I was that observant of it in the first place). Need less to say that I gained a couple of pounds to the effect. Bad, bad, bad.

D-day. The 27^th of January. Georgia Dome was the venue of this event. By morning I was all tingly inside, eager to stand in front of the stadium and yell, “Go BSB” like a gal who missed her youth by burying her head too deep into her Law reports, Journals and Manuscripts to know what went on the entertainment industry and who had a crush on who. Some how my stable home base and down to earth family (who are not the least bit intrigued by events or artistes like these) begged me to respect my dwindling biological clock, rejoicing at such events only in my private hour. I respected their wishes and straightened up again.

Before then, I had previously arranged to meet up with 2 ladies from a Yahoogroup! Members of the close-knit BSB family of fans. Several consecutive emails later, and we still couldn’t narrow down our point of convergence. Defeated, we exchanged seat numbers; only in hopes that we would somehow bump into each other. Like that ever happened in a stadium filled with 30,000 people, I don’t know what were we thinking? In Georgia dome that’s almost impossible.

The Concert went great.  Read the reviews written by Aphie>>>

Then, the next day was the Super Bowl in Florida. The town was alive early that morning people buying chips, making barbecues, having cookouts. I don’t know what people were expecting but as a non-football fan, I was more interested in the halftime show: Nsync, Britney Spears, Aerosmith, Nelly, Mary J. Blige, Sting, and BSB (again) doing the national anthem, with a line up that tight who wouldn’t be interested, especially the young people. And the performance was tight, fast paced, and thrilling, Aerosmith still has it going on larger than life, looking better with age, and the combination of veterans with the young pop crowd, especially the duet with *Nsync showed that these guys can rock it whichever way is possible. The music was so alive it drummed into your heart, almost like watching another live concert 2 days in a row. Overall, I’d say the weekend was well spent.

 Before I knew it the month had flown by.

Movies I watched:

(I suggest you read fuller review of these movies from my Entertainment page, these are just sketches.)

·        The Gift…

Eerie drama set in the deep south of Georgia, a young woman is murdered, an attractive disliked woman and the whole town somehow thinks they know who murdered her, but they consult a local clairvoyant to consult with her foresight in determining who the murderer really is.

Read a fuller review.

What it inspired: My Love, where art thou?

·        Traffic:

An intense drama about the painful effects of drugs on a global scale far-reaching into our homes; additionally, highlighting, the greed of the drug barons to keep this poison flowing at all costs. It proposes the issue that drugs use can’t be stopped, it maybe nipped, but its growth has consumed all human resistance or opposition.

What it inspired: Tinge of Black

·        What Women Want

Playful romantic comedy with Mel Gibson playing a chauvinistic executive trapped in a force field that allows him to hear what women think, thus leaving him empty in deciphering what we really want---like any man can.

What it inspired: I bought the soundtrack, not very economical too.

·        Miss Congeniality:

Stories I wrote:

Deceptions

CD’s I bought: