Back homey and yeah it's so init!

It's now officially five days since i got back from singapore after staying there for couple of months and yeah i missed the comforts of home big time. Leaving singapore for a while has been bitter sweet. It has turned to be my second home. My welcome home present? my sister and i were greeted by tip monger cab drivers in NAIA asking for tip (in 'dollars') just for merely loading our luggages. Welcome back to the Philippines.

I love my homeland, but, i couldn't help but compare philippines from singapore. In sg, they don't have cabbie drivers asking for tips as it's illegal and they could get penalized for doing so. There's just one instance we came across a lady cab driver who was kinda rude for blaming us that we did not get to the right location but it was solely due to language barrier. She barely speaks english and we couldn't understand her neither as she spells the word 'brighton drive' as if converting it to chinese characters. Geesh. If we wish to complain 'untie' (this is what they call elderlies there) she will definitely be laid off and we don't want to do that because we're compassionate people despite her 'attitude.' But then, having an attitude is not always worth forgiving lol. Going back, we need to impose harsher punishments to offenders so they will learn to obey and respect the law. 

So, what did i miss?

Oh yeah, the snarling traffic jams. I missed halo-halo because singapore's iced kachang won't be a match neither. Our halo-halo is truly the best and siopao as well. I missed mcdo (cuz it's quite costly in sg and i'd rather spend money in hawkers which is absolutely tasteful and cheap). Last but not least, our sweet cakes, hello Red Ribbon Cakes and Goldilocks. 

Changes.

Since we got home, my sister and I started rummaging through our old stuff and decided to throw those things we won't be needing anymore like sorting out re-usable papers and cleaning up our closet. Our flat has turned smaller because houses in sg are have with huge rooms and shifting from spacious HDB units back to our studio size unit again became a challenge. So, to address the 'space concern' we decided to discard those boxes on top of our cupboards, concealed the eye sore electrical wires then moved some fixtures. Our flat definitely looked bigger than it used to. We'll enjoy our space for now and our new Belkin router. And yeah if there's one important thing I learned in sg that's the seamless unlimited wifi in each household which we decided to adapt here in our flat. My sister spearheaded that we should've done this long before it's just that I never thought how convenient it was back then.

Moving on, the heat wave isn't over yet although it's a little more tolerable compared last week. Where to next? We're off to the city of pines in hours time to chill and to see the new puppies! I'm excited. It's been years since we had pups to snuggle e? As an end note, it's always good to be back!

           

Love and Other Drugs (2010)

Main Cast

Jake Gyllenhaal as Jamie Randall
Anne Hathaway as Maggie Murdock
Josh Gad as Josh Randall
Judy Greer as Cindy
Gabriel Macht as Trey Hannigan
Oliver Platt as Bruce Jackson
Hank Azaria as Dr. Knight


Love and Other Drugs (2010), Comedy-Drama

i'ts been a while since wrote a blog about movies so here it is.

love & other drugs is based on a non-fiction book Hard Sell: The Evolution of a Viagra Salesman by Jamie Reidy. the movie topbilled by Jake Gyllenhaal (Jamie Randall) and Anne Hathaway (Maggie Murdock).

on the onset of the movie, jamie, a salesman  for an electronic shop was fired from his job after sleeping with his boss' girlfriend. jamie came from a well off family and has a brother named Josh (Josh Randall) who later on told their parents that jamie just lost his job. Josh on the other hand helped Jamie to become a MedRep. jamie started training with pfizer and was paired with his mentor Bruce (Oliver Platt) who's been persuading him to go for the "big league" in Chicago. jamie used his appeal with women to get through to Dr. Knight (Hank Azaria) and slept with the doctor's secretary. jamie's main goal is to get Dr. Knight (Hank Azaria) prescribe Zoloft to his patients instead of Prozac and all the other doctors will follow his lead. jamie offered dr. knight 1000$ worth of check so he could 'shadow' him which the doctor eventually accepted. jamie met maggie (Anne Hathaway) one day during her apppointment with dr. knight. jamie was advised by knight to tell his patients he's an intern 'if' asked. maggie is on her earliest stage of parkinson's disease (Parkinson's disease (also known as Parkinson disease, Parkinson's, idiopathic parkinsonism, primary parkinsonism, PD, or paralysis agitans) is a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system). in short it her condition affects her movements and that her hands gets shaky most of the time especially when she's tensed/nervous. maggie randomly asked dr. knight about her breast problem and without further ado exposed her left breast to the doctor so he could have a look. knight then advised maggie it's just a spider bite as jamie peeks through. maggie later on learned that jamie isn't an intern but a medrep upon seeing his pfizer samples at the carpark then hits him with her handbag. maggie even took a snapshot of jamie to his surprise thinking what'll that serve for. jamie became interested with maggie and just knew her by her last name because of her appointment with dr. knight. jamie asked one of knight's nurses with whom he slept with for maggie's number making her believe that it's for business purposes while it's against their protocol to disclose such details. jamie succeeded anyways and later on made a phonecall to maggie and arranged a date which later on ended up into a one night stand at maggie's flat. the two then started seeing each other more often and began to develop a relationship without any commitment involved as per maggie's refusal. Jamie at one point tried to convince Maggie to have a fuller relationship with him, but she incessantly refused. during the later part of the movie, jamie asked maggie to go to a medical conference with him in Chicago. While at the conference she is invited to a Parkinson's convention across the street. She is moved by the people and their stories. She asks Jamie to come over and join her and he meets a man whose wife is in the final stages of the disease. Jamie asks for advice about Maggie, and the man tells him to run. This shakes Jamie. After the convention, Maggie tells him how much she loves him. Jamie starts researching Parkinson's and pushing Knight for information on specialists. He starts taking Maggie to a specialist and paying for her to have tests done. At one office Jamie becomes upset because their appointment was rescheduled after they had flown in to see the doctor. While Jamie is yelling at the receptionist, Maggie walks out. They fight and Maggie says there is no cure. Maggie sees that Jamie can only love her with the hope that one day there will be a cure, and so she breaks up with him.

the movie ended well with Maggie and Jamie living together. Jamie declined the Chicago promotion and looking at enrolling in medical school. i liked the movie because it wasn't just your ordinary hollywood flick. i mean, who would've have thought about infusing viagra, parkinson's disease and the plight of medreps in the states in one movie right? there's a lot of stuff in the movie that you won't get bored at all. at first, i was just thinking that maybe anne hathaway went topless so she gets more offers but what the heck cuz the movie actually asked for it not because it's something to just draw people's curiously (athough it did partly). i can say it's a movie worth watching as it's entertaining and not boring at all ;) i mean am a fan of indie flicks and those films with depth but i thought movies are supposed to entertain if not steer you away from reality for a while. so, just shove that popcorn in the microwave and get ready to slouch on your couch for a while. Love and Other Drugs is pretty informative and entertaining.