Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember.

You think...

2010-01-02T22:55:00.000+08:00

You think you know me but you don't. You never took the time. I own a thousand masks. None of them true. You think you have known me but you never did. You never had the time.

Love is so short. Forgetting is so long.

2009-10-17T23:21:00.000+08:00

Bakit di niyo ko naiintindihan.

Hindi ako maglalamay sa puntod niya sa araw ng mga patay. Ginawa ko na yun noon at hindi ko nagustuhan ang aking pakiramdam. Hindi na siya babalik. Vampira lang ang nabubuhay na patay.

Wala na dun si mama. Nasa langit na ang kaluluwa nya. Magpapa-misa na lang ako. Magsisindi ng kandila. Hindi ko siya kinalimutan. Hindi ko siya kinalimutan kahit isang araw o isang saglit simula nang nawala siya. Hindi ko mapigil hanap-hanapin siya. Hindi ko mapigil na isipin siya bago ako matulog, kahit sa panaginip nasa diwa ko pa rin siya (nananaginip na nakaupo sa puntod niya, na nasa ospital, na nasa bahay), at sa pag gising ko sa umaga siya pa rin ang unang sumasagi sa aking isip.

Bakit di niyo ko maintindihan.

Bakit di niyo ako maintindihan na hindi ko ipinagdiriwang na wala na si mama, kaya hindi ko ipinagdiriwang ang araw ng mga patay. Hindi ako natutuwa sa araw na ito. Hin-di a-ko na-tu-tu-wa.

Dahil hindi lang sa araw ng mga patay naaalala ko si mama. Hindi lang sa araw ng kamatayan niya naalala ko si mama. ARAW-ARAW. Naalala. Naiisip. Ginugunita. Hinahanap-hanap. ARAW-ARAW. ORAS-ORAS. MINU-MINUTO simula nang nawala siya. SEGU-SEGUNDO. Dahil nakatali ang mga gunita ko sa kanya.

Alam ko na nasa mabuti na siyang kalagayan. Dapat matuwa ako. Dapat. Pero mahirap matuwa dahil wala na siya. Wala na siya. Kaya di ako natutuwa dahil kelangan niya mawala para hindi na siya nasasaktan.

Oo. Matigas talaga ang ulo ko. Mas matigas ang puso ko. Kelangan kong mag matigas kung hindi guguho ako. Guguho ako na parang mga pader na bumibigay sa lakas ng lindol.

May mga tao siguro na madaling nakakabangon. Madaling tumanggap ng pagkawala. Hindi ako. HINDI ako. Siguro nga sakim talaga ako. Sakim ako dahil gusto ko pa nang limampung taon pa na kasama siya. Nang marami pang panahon na tumawa, umiyak, kumain,at maglakbay na kasama siya. Pero kelangan ng langit ng anghel at siya ang una sa pila.

Sa araw na 'to mas gusto ko kasama ang mga buhay... na Malayo sa sementeryo. Lalayo ako.

"When we lose the one we love, our bitterest tears are called forth by the memory of hours when we loved not enough." - Maurice Maeterlinck

"The man who insists on seeing with perfect clearness before he decides, never decides."

2009-08-05T19:59:00.000+08:00

If you constantly seek perfection, you will never be happy. You will be constantly looking for flaws in everyone and everything. Nobody is perfect. Nothing in this world is. You will never be satisfied here. But dying is one way of meeting Perfection Himself.

Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away. - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

coming soona t theaters near you!

2009-07-31T14:42:00.001+08:00

*barrel of laughs from someone who got so darned good with photoshop hahaha!

what is up with you?

2009-07-19T13:45:00.001+08:00

well, this has been what's 'up' with me...

i finally have Internet connection at home (hello bato and onemanga).

i'm teaching at a university here (economics and statistics - the last one is giving me nosebleed no matter the incentive). teaching is just like studying. had i though to f that before i made the plunge, it would have made all the difference... i'd still be stuck doing research. and my students.... help me God...

i believe i am getting infamous for being such a terror teacher (and i'm too young to step into the shoes of miss tapia, really). i was telling popin that my new theme song is gives you hell by the all american rejects...

"when you see my face hope it gives you hell hope it gives you hell;
when you walk my walk hope it gives you hell hope it gives you hell."

very apt...

i am a student again. i'm on a bridging class for my MIT and i'm having serious thoughts (real serious) about ever passing it. programming is so darned tough no matter how many times they tell me it's all about logic... i need a B+ on my C++ course but now thati'm thinking about it, just getting a C is helluva hard already what more of getting a B+!

i don't think i've used my brain this much. hmm...
it's overused and over utilized. it's filled to capacity. too much information is causing it to stall and shut down. i need an extra 400Gb of HDD, an extra 8GB memory... and a quadcore processor to make the processes run faster...

The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office. - Robert Frost

He who is dying of hunger must be fed rather than taught. - St. Thomas Aquinas

2009-02-10T13:50:00.000+08:00

i was in nato last Friday and Saturday with my bosses. our group was conducting a focus group discussion (fgd) on gender and development with mothers and teachers in the barangay. we were suppose to head to Atulayan island the next day for another fgd but because of bad weather we had to cancel.

this fgd was probably the root of that outburst yesterday... hmmm....

it's depressing work... i know you're not suppose to take it home but it's hard to not to think about it. you learn things that now that you know about it, you'd rather not have known. now i know why there are many cynics here in research.

nato is a coastal/fishing barangay in the municipality of Sagñay. it has great beaches. like any other fishing community, it is plagued by one problem on top of the another. poverty, hunger, malnutrition... the usual group. but life goes on and the people make do with what they can.

the most depressed area according to the residents is la purisima. some settlers in this area came from parts of albay like misibis, tiwi, etc. we never made it to la purisima but the older residents refer to it as the squatter's area of the barangay. shanties right next after the other. problems with teenage pregnancies, couples as young as 13 or 14 already living together having kids more than they can afford to feed (most have more than 5 kids). infant mortality is alarming. one mom lost 4 babies aged between 2-8 months.

some of the teachers we interviewed said that the barangay doesn't lack educational facilities. although some of their students' desks are.... well never mind. it's not their fault.

their barangay has a daycare center, elementary, high school and a community college. but there are parents who cannot afford to send their children to school. kids as young as grade 2 and 3 help their parents earn money. those who are too young to fish, go around the village selling fish. teachers said that absenteeism is rampant especially during lean months when there is little fish caught. kaldero's (pots) with cooked rice disappear never to be seen again.

kids going to school on an empty stomach is common. no dinner the night before and no breakfast to be had before going to school the next day. so the teachers said they solicited funds to feed about 20 students from poor families so that these kids can continue going to school. if they go to school they get to eat.

there is a story that after a severe storm, the governor once gave the residents roofs (made of galvanized iron sheets) for their houses. since fishing is seasonal, there are times when there is very little fish caught to feed the entire family. when hard times came, queues of people were seen carrying those same sheets to the centro to sell their roofs. after all, what good is a roof if one is about to pass out from hunger?

the stories are told in such a funny humorous way, that at the same time i laugh while i cringe inside. these people are caught in such a vicious cycle. that whatver that happened to the father and the mother may well be the very fate of their sons and daughters. it's sad to always end up where you've begun.

After all is said and done, a lot more will be said than done. - Unknown

familiarity breeds contempt... and the road to hell is paved with well-intentioned golf balls

2009-02-09T14:36:00.002+08:00

after an interrupted ym conversation with jade, i realized that may mga hassle nga naman ang New Testament. sana hindi ako tamaan ng kidlat dito pero...

dapat may mga moments na pwede namang i justify ang an "eye for an eye and an ipin for an ipin" no? pag binato ka ng hollow block, babatuhin mo ba ng tinapay?? i guess it depends on several factors (ceteris paribus, lalo na ang factor na di ka sana napuruhan dun sa binatong hollow block):

a.) malapit ka ba sa panaderia
b.) masarap ba yung tinapay? (sayang eh... a tasty tinapay is hard to come by lalo na paglibre)
c.) singtigas ba ng bato ang tinapay (if yes, kebs na, proceed with the throwing...)
d.) mabilis ka bang umilag at tumakbo (importante to, mahal ang mag pa ospital).

hindi ko alam kung bakit ganito ako mag isip. hindi naman ako pinalaki ng ganito ng mama ko. hay... bakit ang hirap magpakabait sa panahon na'to.

tulad ng... bakit hindi ko makumbinsi ang sarili ko na magsimba. ang lagi kong binibigay na rason sa aking tita ay ang panget magsermon ng mga pari dito sa naga. hahaha! turuan ba magsermon ang pari. pero hindi ako matamaan. o kung matamaan man hindi ito sapat para ako ay tumakbo at magbalik sa simbahan. sabihin na natin na para pa rin akong naglalakad sa buwan.

hindi naman sa tinalikuran ko na at hindi ako naniniwala sa Dios, may lq lang kami. disillusioned lang ako - parang magdalo. pero hindi naman ako mag aalsa o magku coup d'etat. i'm just thinking out loud.

on the upside, kung matatawag man itong as such, buti na rin lang siguro at ito ang kinalakihan ko na relihiyon. dahil kung ako ay napunta sa iba, baka matagal na akong itinumba. kahit papano nagpapasalamat pa rin ako at nagkaroon ng Vatican II.

hindi ko mawari kung kelan nagsimula... at kung sinong ahas ang nagbigay sakin ng mansanas na nagmulat sakin sa mga tunay na realidad. the death of innocence heralds the birth of a cynic. siguro ganun talaga. hindi rin ganun kataas ang pagtingin ko sa mga pari (pulis at kung sinu sino pang nakaluklok diyan sa taas). para na rin kasing mga politico kung umasta. halos wala na akong makitang pagkakaiba.

habang tumatagal ako dito sa mundo, mas lumalawak ang pagkadismaya ko.

bakit ang simpleng maniwala sa milagro nung bata pa ako? sana nanatili na lamang akong bata at hindi na lang ako lumaki, para hindi na nasira ang tiwala ko sa tao. lalo na sa mga taong akala ko ay kakampi ko. ang hirap makakuha ng kakampi dito sa mundo. kahit kapamilya mo pwedeng magbago. pano pa kaya ang ibang tao na hindi mo kaano ano? hindi ka pa nga nakatalikod ng todo, inuulan na ng saksak ang likod mo.

mahirap magpakabait... dahil ang daming nang aabuso. at bakit din halos lahat ng mababait ang mga unang kinukuha ni Lord no? unfair! kaya siguro di ko makuhang magpakabait. medyo over the top ang incentive. ang dami tuloy nagliliparang masamang damo kasi high na lahat ng kabayo...

Eto pa, kaninang tanghali habang sinasabayan kong lumamon ang pinsan ko, naisip ko rin na...

It's easier to gain weight than gain money. Pero... it's easier to lose money than to lose weight! Takte namang buhay to.........

The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of moral crisis. - Dante Alighieri
(lagot!)

Food is the most primitive form of comfort.

2009-01-23T15:35:00.000+08:00

i need one of these right here. Right now.

(Bigg's All Day American Breakfast 1: sausages, hash browns, bacon and fried rice w/ free coffee)

i wouldn't mind getting this one the next day...

(Bigg's All Day American Breakfast 2: sausages, egg, bacon and fried rice w/ free coffee)

and if there's still space down there, i might have one of these... i wouldn't mind getting a couple more...

(oreo cheesecake)

(this is where i've been 'saving' my money recently and the one to blame for all these excess weight)

Part of the secret of success in life is to eat what you like and let the food fight it out inside. - Mark Twain

It's really too bad a lot of crumby stuff is a lot of fun sometimes. - J. D. Salinger

2008-12-19T15:03:00.009+08:00

after my semi-retirement from all things stressful, i devoured tv shows like i would devour chocolates and pastas. my studio type apartment has a television but it doesn't work. the picture tube or whatever they call it does not spout pictures until it's warm enough which can take as long as 20 to 30 minutes (sometimes longer depending on the strength of the gravitational pull of moon). i got tired of just watching static and listening to disembodied voices so i stopped using it after watching, excuse me listening to 30 minutes or so of kris aquino's movie fengshui. well let me tell you it's a helluva way of scaring yourself to death. so for nearly five years, i watched tv shows and movies through other people's television. i saved a lot on electiricity too.

when one of my college friends (who is another tintin so let's call her by her other nickname, puds, to distingished her from the 5 other tintin's in my life) came home briefly to naga, we traded stories about tv shows we watched when we're not busy looking for a job (we were both unemployed during that time). puds is a huge movie buff and i'm not. i was embarassed to admit that the last movie i watched was the Ring; and it was not until jade dragged me and my brother to edsa shangri-la to watch one of the movies showing in the 2007 japanese film festival that i managed to step inside a movie theater again. i was feeling low at that time because my mom just passed away from breast cancer just a few months ago. but by some twisted fate the movie that we watched (inochi) was about a guy who died of lung cancer. after that i never entered another movie theater again until my brother and i got dragged by my cheatmates at the PHP & MYSQL class i attended in UP diliman to watching Kung Fu Panda. it was hilarious. it was the only time i've gone into a movie theater in 2008. oh wait, that's not true, my sister dragged me (yeah i got dragged a lot) into watching madagascar 2 which was not as funny as the first. i wished we watched daniel craig instead in james bond's quantum of solace. he's hot.

during my two months of unencumbered tv bliss, i watched a lot of geeky shows from discovery channel and national geographic. (geeky shows abound!) i didn't think i'd enjoy animal planet but i did so i watched that too and several other channels about food. so maybe that's where all my excess weight came from.

there are so many shows to choose from but i had a lot of time on my hands then. first off let's start with one of my all time favorite, Don't Tell My Mother. it's hosted by diego buñuel. he's very witty, funny, persistent and his sarcasm will make you grin. i think at one episode i heard him say he was french.

he's been to some hostile countries like afghanistan, congo and the holy land. the most menorable episode for me is the don't tell my mother i'm in North Korea. after watching this episode i remember thinking that if that's how communism is, i hope to god this country i live in never end up in the hands of the reds. i know my country has some flaws like any other place in the world but after watching this show, it made me feel better i live here. duh... who would've ever thought i'd still feel that way considering the fertilizer scam etc.

from tour guides to the ordinary people who were interviewed they sometimes sound like robots with their ready answers. it's obvious they have memorised and rehearsed them a lot of times. it's unbelievable, i thought this things are only the stuff of movies. one memorable scene was the visit to the ostrich farm where he asked his guides about gays and aids in korea. the first one isn't legal and the second is non existent in that country. one of his guides on the farm had a very funny expression on his face when diego was describing what a gay or a bisexual man or woman is. in the end you can hear him say, who would have thought you could earn so much by just feeding ostrich?

i've seen other shows featuring the north and you would find most journalists mention that the north is trying to cover up a lot of stuff. you would find buildings with beautifully painted facades but if you go inside them or look at them from you hotel room window, the insides are very different.

this week is shark week on discovery channel. most of the shows will feature lots and lots of sharks. sometimes i can't help but think the guys on these shows must be lunatics to tempt sharks like that. better them than me i guess. i hope they have good insurance policies.

so in deference to shark week mythbusters is also all about shark this week. wait till the part when you see grant screaming in the water when a shark brushed by his legs. poor guy.

memorable episode for me was when corey was water skiing and being towed by a cruise ship. but most of the dangerous stunts are performed by their dummy, buster. one more thing they like to do in this show is blow things up from water heater to real explosives. the results from the experiments and tests they made on the show are documented at mythbusters results.

and another show on my geek list is national geographic's i didn't know that. this is hosted by two funny english blokes rich and jonny. they've got great humor and you can't help but laugh with them as they go through their experiments.

there are shows you never get tired of watching and this is one of them. they discover how the ordinary and usual things we use are made of and how. they like to blow things up too and jonny is known to even take them apart just to find out what the inside looks like.

and then there's dirty jobs with mike rowe. this show is even more Hilarious than the others. as the title says it features all the dirty jobs there are. watch the promotional video below to find out for yourself.

all you got to do is get yourself a dirty job.

one of the shows on my non geek list is bondi rescue from the natgeo adventure channel. it's shown on thursdays. although lately i've been watching the re runs a lot. but i heard the new season's episode started this week.

it's like watching baywatch but only better. after all this is the real thing. real lifeguards. real rescues and real drowning people. i don't really have to say that some of the lifeguards are hot. drowning is no fun but i wouldn't mind being rescued by one of these guys. they've also got some real amusing names. hmm... if i start matching the names to the faces, i have to stop. it's too much.

if i enumerate all my favorite shows, this will even be longer. there is a cool new show hosted by emmauel belliveau, world's greenest homes. i hate bugs but after watching the episode about butterflies in bugging with ruud i became a convert of that show (but i still hate bugs). i also watch jeff corwin's show because it can be fun expecially when he's being chased by the very animals he's filming (and then you'd hear him say, the thing's i'd do for you guys). then there's extreme engineering with danny forster; monster moves which always amazes me and a bunch of other features like stephen hawking's theory of everything which made my nose bleed -but very cool anyway. then there was that feature on norway's fjords. it was amazing to know what can be found down there.

to cap this off, i'm posting my favorite promotional video ever. (i love the whole world and all it's craziness boom tiyaya boom tiyaya). i even downloaded it on my phone and it plays every time my sister calls me =_) it's so cool. i wish she would call all the time. i even have the lyrics down to a phat.

One of the few good things about modern times: If you die horribly on television, you will not have died in vain. You will have entertained us. - Kurt Vonnegut

The time that you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.- Bertrand Russell

2008-12-15T15:20:00.001+08:00

it was lunch time. i was hungry and unfortunately... stuck in the office.

i was browsing through don and edel's website... and i felt even hungrier. i grabbed some photos instead. despite gaining more weight than i could lose (i'm too lazy to exercise) ever since i arrived in naga, i still want to eat that patatas from chocolate kiss. after getting a brain work out (which sometimes felt more like an electric shock to the brain) at our PHP & MYSQL class, we sit back, wonder what the heck the entire lesson was all about (thank goodness for having nice cheatmates - zai, don, gwen and popin - since without them i don't think i could have caught up, i'm not even sure i 'caught' up now that i think about it) and then gorge ourselves at this restaurant in UP known as chocolate kiss. the baked potato is bliss.

edel and jacques' birthday party at the rowdy house last September 2008 was one of the last parties i've attended before i went back. two memories stand out: car's awesome cocktails (we were drinking it like shipwrecked survivors who have never seen water or juice for a very long long time - and it's not even water or juice) and then there's mau getting wasted...

It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have no virtues. - Abraham Lincoln

Uncle Pepe's birthday celebration

2008-12-06T09:41:00.001+08:00

i know it's way too late...

2008-12-05T10:43:00.002+08:00

but happy birthday....

Everything happens to everybody sooner or later if there is time enough. - George Bernard Shaw

chillin' @ Sto. Domingo, Albay

2008-12-02T14:10:00.005+08:00

Day 1 @ Costa Palmera Resort in Sto. Domingo, Albay (November 30, 2008)

after a couple of hours planning last saturday (Nov. 29), we finally made it to Costa Palmera Resort in Sto. Domingo, Albay. we've been planning to go there since last year but as plans go, nothing came out of it but a plan. so we've decided never to plan anything unless we're going the next day like we did this time. for some reason everytime she and i plan ahead (3 months or less), nothing comes out of it. it's nothing but a plan. but if we just decide to do something in the nick of time like this one, we ended up getting there. like our trip to baguio and this trip to sto. domingo. we didn't even know where in albay the resort was but good thing they have a website and we found out it's just in sto. domingo where my cousins live. about 5 to 10 minutes by tricycle. cool, we're on!

we 'planned' over yahoo messenger for a couple of hours and then we decided to meet tomorrow at 8am to go to legazpi. but we didn't get to leave at the designated time, instead we left maybe 3 hours later (again) hahaha! we took the aircon minibus and travelled for almost 3 hours because it has soooo may stops. When huge aircon buses were still in business it can only take 2 hours because there are no stops. don't ride the non aircon ones unless you want to arrive 6 to 8 hours later. seriously...

it's fortuitous that monday was a holiday and i have cousins living in sto. domingo. i immediately texted maida and she picked us up at the legazpi integrated terminal. she also texted us the order of the albay municipalities we're gonna passed through so we can let her know if we're near legazpi. so it's polangui, ligao, guinobatan ( i love passing through this place, lots of green hills and trees), camalig (where you can find the cagsawa ruins), daraga and finally legazpi. from the terminal we took a tricycle to gaisano pacific mall to buy the food we're gonna take to the resort. tricycle is minimum fare, P8 pesos only. from gaisano we took a jeep to sto. domingo, P20 pesos. it takes about 15 minutes to get there. we passed through the barangay that was washed out by mudflows from the mayon volcano during typhoon reming. we didn't know it was the 2nd year anniversary of the tragedy. there was a mass being held at a small chapel which is prolly one of the very few buildings in the area. i think it was built recently since it was open, no doors. there were some people who attended the service. the lady sitting next to abby was telling her the story and it creeped abby out. love told me not to take pictures because something might appear there. i didn't while we were on our way there but as we were going home (dec 1), i took some photos of the place. it's mostly rock and sand. it's now like a big quarrying site. the houses are all gone. it was very eerie. i'd hate to pass through that place at night. my cousin who drives a jeep there just smiles when we asked him before if the place is really spooky (since we've never been there). now we understand. it's a very sad place. nearly an entire barangay was wiped out and some families were actually wiped out. tragic. makes the hair at the back of my neck rise.

when we arrived at my cousin's house, auntie muying and uncle gil made us baduya (fried banana, i ate 9 of them, poor bananas never stood a chance) and fried sweet potatoes (my favorite! camote). after eating, we left their house at about 4:15 and took a tricycle to costa palmera for P50 pesos (there were 5 of us). the ride took 5 -10 minutes only. no traffic =_)

after checking out the place, we change to our swim clothes and swam until our skin shrivelled like raisins and we can taste nothing but sea water. we spent most of the time at the pool since (heck!) the waves were darn strong. even sitting on the edge of the stairs (yes 3 small stairs to go down to the beach) and holding onto the ropes is darned dangerous. current was very strong it can drag you very very far away (no matter how big or heavy you are). we arrived just when the tide was just rising and it was fun to watch the water fill up the small enclosure (about an arm's length wide). as the it gets darker and darker, the enclosure gets filled with sea water until it reaches our waist. the current was strong even the waters in the enclosure was frothy as they collide with each other. we swam in the pool just in case a baby shark managed to get in there, you'll never know. meanwhile the water level in the pool also rises and we can hear the sea roaring since it's now just outside the pool. whoever thought of this idea, kudos to you man. very very cool. we didn't leave the water until it was very very late, i think it was past 8 pm already. we ate some gulay (laing, yum...) which was cooked by auntie, and ordered crispy pata, and fried shrimps with rice from the resort's restaurant. the food is good. it was a very very hearty meal. (good luck sa puso dahil sa crispy pata), after eating we took a walk and sat looking for some stars. we didn't see them until we were about to go to bed. it rained that night but we didn't notice until we saw puddles of water outside in the morning since we were so tired we slept the sleep of the dead.

Day 2 @ Costa Palmera Resort in Sto. Domingo, Albay (December 1, 2008)

we missed the sunrise because we woke up late (past 6am). after eating our breakfast of bread and chips, we headed down to the pool and the beach. we took some photos and swam until 9:30 am. the current was not as strong as yesterday. it was already low tide but we still didn't venture out to the deep. my cousin, maying who's the tallest of the 5 of us, tried to go down the metal ladder. she's already under the water from head to foot but she can't touch bottom yet. so we decided to just wade beside the sea wall. we sometimes don life jackets too just to be safe and besides it looks good in the pictures. we made some little friends. their familia owns the resort. they live upstairs. 4 siblings, one little girl whom we only know as ate. the oldest is of course, kuya. the two young and very very makukulit kids are daniel (aka dane) and the youngest is xander. nice names. dane is the most personable of the lot. when we left love at the pool she was single (pun intended) and when we get back (from swimming at the beach), she was suddenly nanay to 4 kids hahaha =) so i took their pictures while the kids trade stories with love and my cousins since apparently they're always there. we hope we can come back again next year. hopefully shobe and shoty can come too... we'll see.

before we went home, we passed through the church of Sto. Domingo. it's very picturesque, very lovely and well preserved. we didn't enter the church since it seemed to be closed but we found the priest outside with some men and mending some nets. i'm not sure if he's going fishing =) we said goodbye to maida and maying and boarded a jeep to legazpi. we passed through the eerie place again and i took some pictures of the place. imagine being buried by tons and tons of mud and sand. the rocks are so huge, you can only imagine how strong the force was that took them down from the slopes of mt. mayon. i've taken a look at the pictures and so far no faces that shouldn't be there just live ones. thank god =)

love shopped some for boom2 (that's judoy's latest name, don't ask why) and ate at graceland. good foresight since we arrived in naga 4 hours later! damned minibus stopped at every place he could find to park! they played a dvd of 2 west life concerts the entire trip. short of jumping off the bus, it's good thing i have my headphones. it's not like i hate boy bands but sitting through 4 hours of it is pure torture!

and now i am back in naga again. wednesday, i go back to work. more research. but i thank st. ignatius of loyola for one more day of reprieve. ad majorem dei gloriam!

Amen =_)

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy and Jill a rich widow. - Evan Esar

i'm a twilighter too!

2008-11-25T17:48:00.020+08:00

yes, i got bitten...

i have all 4 books by stephenie meyer, but i've only read as far as the first book (twilight) and the second book (new moon), which was ed's donation to my growing book collection. hahaha! so thank u much ed =) that was very nice of you (read: the pautang that ended up as my going away present hahaha!).

i've actually read them both twice. when i first heard of the series, a love triangle between a vampire, a human girl and a werewolf, i thought "hmmm... must be a tamer version of laurell hamilton's anita blake series." and maybe it is.

the characters have very memorable lines. uber sa kilig factor (god, i hope the movie doesn't disappoint). as i got to know edward's character in the first few chapters of the book, i want a vampire boyfriend too! :D if you read the back cover of the book, you will not be able to resist. i know i couldn't.

About three things I was absolutely positive.

First, Edward was a vampire.

Second, there was a part of him -

and I didn't know how dominant that part might be -

that thirsted for my blood.

And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.

those lines did it for me. and before i knew it, i was signing up my name on the waiting list at powerbooks (yup, they ran out of it back in august).

edward is not exactly harry potter. there's no comparison (at least not for me). this book will take you through the agony and ecstasy brought about by first love (just like a walk down memory lane). first love complicated by the fact that bella swan is in love with not your average vampire, a vegan vamp (if you want to know what that is get your own copy of the bloody book).

the second book (which as ed's donation), New Moon is probably the most heart breaking book i've ever read. spoiler alert: yes they broke up in this book. i nearly wept when i got to the empty pages... such emptiness (sniff...sniff).

it's so bloody difficult not to feel sorry for her when they broke up. heartbreaks give you the illusion that time stopped for you. but the truth is, the world goes on. it doesn't care about your pain.

as for the female protagonist in the book, bella swan, you would either hate or love her. she's a total Klutz. if there's one thing she's certain about, she wanted to be with edward and she wanted to be a vampire. unfortunately edward doesn't feel the same way. he wanted her to remain human and age and die like any human beings do.

and there are times when i can't help but get angry at bella for leading jacob (spoiler alert again: yes, he's the werewolf). i mean he's such a nice guy... reminds me of another werewolf, richard, of the anita blake series. i had to put off reading the third book in the series (eclipse) because i'm uberworked (read: got a deadline again on friday!).

anyway, this is on the back cover of New Moon:

"I knew we were both in mortal danger. Still in that instant, I felt well. Whole. I could feel my heart racing in my chest, the blood pulsing hot and fast through my veins again. My lungs filled deep within the sweet scent that came off his skin. It was like there had never been any hole in my chest. I was prefect - not healed, but as if there had never been a wound in the first place."

simply unputdownable. like i mentioned, i read the books twice.

and if you're a die-hard twilight fan, aka twilighter, this is for u.

"Even more, I had never meant to love him. One thing I truly knew - knew it in the pit of my stomach, in the center of my bones, knew it from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet, knew it deep in my empty chest - was how love gave someone the power to break you. I'd been broken beyond repair."

-- Bella, from New Moon (Stephenie Meyer)

"Some mothers choose what their children will eat."

2008-11-19T09:28:00.000+08:00

"Others choose which children will eat and which will die."

"The news from the World Food Programme is even grimmer: A child dies of hunger every six seconds, and hunger now kills more people every year than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined."

Raj Patel, author of "Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System," says the right to food should be seen as a human right. But, he says, powerful corporate food distributors control too much of the world's food supply to ensure a robust global food supply.

Patel says "2008 was a record year in terms of harvest. There's more food per person in 2008 than there's ever been in history. The problem is not food, but how we distribute it."

Other causes for the rise in global hunger have been documented. They include:

• Surging oil costs have made it more expensive to harvest, fertilize, store and deliver food.

• The rise in droughts and hurricanes worldwide has wiped out crops and made farming more difficult.

• The world is running out of the raw materials -- water, oil, good farmland -- needed to keep the food system intact.

"A lot of people have begun to understand at various levels that the food system, as it is, can't go on," says Paul Roberts, author of "The End of Food."

Every time an American bites down on a steak or hamburger, they're contributing to global hunger, Roberts says. As other countries become more affluent, they're copying our meat-heavy diet. The problem: It takes so much grain and other resources to produce meat, he says.

"If the rest of the world were to eat like we do, the planet would collapse," Roberts says.

to read the full article by John Blake, "As children starve, world struggles for solution" visit CNN.com's website.

click to go to msnbc.com article

it's a shock isn't it? that there are mothers who would have to make this tough choice even today. you'd think this problem should've been solved at the end of the previous century but it's not. makes you feel guilty for eating that dessert even when you're stomach was about to burst; because now you know that there is a little child somewhere who's going to die because there's not enough food to keep him alive until his next birthday. even after all my raves and rants about how unfair my life has been, i'm still 'lucky' compared to those kids. my mother didn't have to make that kind of choice.

my brother was a project engineer in constructing a small school in one of the depressed areas here in bicol. it's a coastal barangay in sipocot. because of the distance from naga, he had to sleep there and go home only during the weekends. there's already an existing school building but they're adding another room since the first one is poorly made. school buildings usually serve as evacuation centers when disasters strike these areas during the typhoon season.

he told me that there was even one family there who have 18 kids and the oldest is not even 20 yet! one day he was eating his lunch (which was also his breakfast), sardines cooked with eggs. since some of the kids live far from the school, they bring their own baon (packed lunch). he sat next to 2 kids (brothers) who were about to eat their baon. he saw them share the rice but as he waited for the ulam, he saw them take out packet of toyo (soy sauce) and asin (salt) and mixed it with the rice! when the kids saw him staring (prolly with that shocked expresion on his face), they walked away and ate far away from him.

we remember hearing stories like these from our parents since our parents didn't come from buena familias. but as he was telling me the story i saw how sad and frustrated he was. my brother said he lost his appetite after that and decided to give all his food to the 2 brothers. he ended up just drinking coffee that day. when he saw the two kids sharing the rice mixed with salt and soy sauce, he promised not to leave a single grain of rice on his plate from then on. he told me that he would've understand seeing them eat tuyo (dried fish), but it looks like their family can't even afford to buy it. so when poor people can't even afford to buy the so-called poor man's food, what are they going to eat now?

i can understand how my brother felt after seeing something like this. we're so lucky. darned lucky. so when he sees my cousins playing with what they eat, he gets angry. after all, rice doesn't grow overnight; and there are empty stomachs who would love to have even just a few of it even without any ulam.

made me feel guilty for all the food i wasted all those years.

God gives every bird its food, but He does not thow it into its nest. - J. G. Holland

Everyone has a purpose in life. Perhaps yours is watching television. - David Letterman

2008-11-18T09:22:00.006+08:00

i was in couch potato heaven from the 2nd week of september until the end of october. i was living at my aunt's house and jacking up her electric bill because of my tewwible, tewwible tv habits. (happy birthday auntie Len, mwahhh =) i wake up at around 10 am or 12 noon, play with my adorable dog choco, eat when there's food left for me in the fridge, and watch tv on and off until 3 am. Before the first week was over, i was a full-fledged bum.

thank god television and computers were invented since going to the beach during the typhoon season is a no go. by the end of september, i was best friends with animax and knew every character of my favorite anime series. i stayed up late/early (depends on how late or early 2am or 3 am is for you) just to watch reruns of my favorite animes, especially those that were shown while i was catching some zzzzzz's. i had so much fun watching kyo kara maoh! or god (?) save our king! i've never seen so many good looking guys in one anime. add some gay undertones and you're in for quite a ride. i wish jade had a dvd of this so i can watch it all over again.

gunther, wolfram, conrad, yuri and gwendal

speaking of the divil, no i'm not going to singapore and taking your detective conan dvd with me but i believe inday is leaving on wednesday night. hahaha! i spent 2 days watching the detective conan dvd i borrowed from him. i ate, slept and dreamt of nothing but kudo shinichi aka edogawa conan. it's a compilation of 10 detective conan movies which they release to every year from April 17, 1997. there's now a total of 12 movies released, most recently was on february 2008. there are over 500 episodes of the tv series and i want them all... (demanding!) i hope you're reading this jade, hahaha!

kudo shinichi

shinichi is actually a famous teenage detective. but after being forced to drink a poison by 2 henchmen of the black organization, he shrunk and became a kid again. my favorite episodes were the episodes he ended up teaming up with the thief, kaitou kid and his rival detective, hattori heiji. there's one forum on the net that says that the kaitou kid is related to the kudo family which could explain how he came to know of conan's real identity. i'm trying to pick a favorite from the 10 movies but i'm quite torn among magician of the silver sky (where he teamed up with the kaitou kid), the phantom of baker street (where he played a virtual detective video game on sherlock holmes' turf), and the private eye's requiem. i've yet to see the 11th and 12th movie because i don't know if jade has them yet. Hahaha! tigas!

another anime that i'm really hooked on right now is blood+. i can't wait to see what would happen next. saya is a vampire. she was born in 1833, survives on the blood of others, and is destined to destroy chiropterans and her twin sister Diva. it's so bloody interesting now that saya has made a chevalier out of her own younger brother and the appearance of another group, the schiffs, a breakaway group of artificial chiropteran created out of diva's (saya's twin sister) blood. the schiffs attack both saya and diva's groups, believing that blood from the 2 queens or any of their chevaliers can stop the Thorn.

saya and her chevalier haji

during the weekends (although everyday was a weekend for me then), i watched reruns of gunxsword. but due to some change in my habitat, (thanks to my grandma's hypertension, i had to temporarily move to slopes of mt. isarog but sadly they have cartoon channel but no animax.), i think i only got as far as episode 10 of the gunxsword series. unfortunately, i couldn't even remember where it left off...damn! i guess i'll just have to watch it all over again.

van of gunxsword

the first time i watched this anime, i didn't even like van. he's not your typical anime hero. he's a reluctant hero, even slow at times and rude to wendy but like any hero he pulls through when he's needed. i think i got as far as the episode when wendy saw a glimpse of a blond and then everything is blank after that. wendy's brother, michael garret, was taken by the some baddies who attacked her village and then sold him to the same guy van's looking for (a man with the clawed hand) and now wendy is trying to track michael down and get him back.

Van has a white Armor, Dann of Thursday, or just Dann. it's held in place over the planet in a crucifix-shaped satellite, and is launched to his position when he twists his hat 180 degrees and swings a 'V' with his sword in the air. it is one of the strongest armors on the planet, and uses a sword as its primary weapon. as one of the "original seven" he needs to enter his armor once a week to regenerate. if he doesn't, he will die plus he does not age due to his being one with Dann.

anyone here got any gunxsword dvds? i'll donate the chips and the popcorn if you'll let me watch it, pretty please with cherries on top.

Grown-ups never understand anything for themselves, and it is tiresome for children to be always and forever explaining things to them. - Antoine de Saint-Exupery

April 21Manila Oceanarium

2008-10-28T13:55:00.006+08:00

Here's more Auntie Melds, haha! wish you were with us =_) we miss you lots **hugs**

There's a fine line between fishing and just standing on the shore like an idiot.- Steven Wright

cousins and nephews

2008-10-27T16:14:00.000+08:00

another boy in the family

2008-10-25T14:15:00.002+08:00

my third nephew. still no nieces. my cousins who are spouting these cute little hellions (see those kicking little feet, it may belong to a baby but the kick felt like it came from a baby horse!) are intent on building an all male basketball team.

oh this baby's nick is SanMig (yes, from the name of both the archangel and a beer...)

People who say they sleep like a baby usually don't have one. - Leo J. Burke

Early Halloween Treat at Biggs

2008-10-24T18:25:00.002+08:00

check out Auntie Leni's expression - precious =_)

Tugotan Mo Akong Magmundo

2008-10-09T19:14:00.000+08:00

'Habo mong haloy na bilar, lubong tulos,
kun pwede suluon.' Huring tugon mo.

Alagad, itao mo sako an pribiliheyo
na magsul'ot nin itum, diretso ko ini.

Ako an binayaan.

Tugutan mo akong magmundo
minsan garo pig-gagantsilyo ang sakuyang puso.

--from Kristian Sendon Cordero's compilation Pusuanon

translation hangover. i was translating bikol poem that jade got from a friend. took me 2 days to translate most of it. i did ask my friends and family to help but some of them gave up on some of the words. i was shocked too i know. the excuse - - it's not naga-bikol. well it was mine too! i don't speak all the bicol dialects.

there were 2 words that eluded me. it's so embarassing that i don't even know what some of the words are and to think Bikolana ako! then today i found out that the poem already has a tagalog translation online from the writer's site. **groans*** i should've gone online yesterday and saved myself the humiliation and all the trouble...

the poem i posted here is written by my cousin's prof in AdNU. He has a published compilation - Pusuanon. since i am wallowing in misery these days, the poem is flavor of the month for me. it reminded me of my mom's wake.

Below is the Tagalog translation i made. i had an easier time doing this than the one i made for jade since most of the words in the original are also used in Tagalog. i'm giving a disclaimer that i may not have translated some of the words right or captured the essence. if it isn't as good as the original, well, come up with your own.

'Ayaw mong paglamayan, libing agad,
kung pwede sunugin.' Huling habilin mo.

Pero, ibigay mo sa akin ang pribiliheyo
na magsuot ng itim, karapatan ko ito.

Ako ang iniwan.

Pabayaan mo akong magluksa
minsan parang ginagantsilyo ang aking puso.

To believe is to know you believe, and to know you believe is not to believe. - Sartre

2008-10-03T15:40:00.003+08:00

it must be one of those rare days because i found eva online. she's one of those people i'm lucky to meet in this lifetime considering the distance and the language barrier. her lingua franca is german while mine is filipino. on the side she knows some french and very good in english while i speak a little mandarin and also good english (me thinks, anyway). i 'met' her when i was i don't know maybe on my 5th or 6th grade. these days we keep in touch through email and chat. but she's on msn/hotmail and i'm on ym. isn't it great that you can combine your ym and hotmail accounts? very cool... =)

i can't remember exactly when she and i became friends but i know it started with IYS (international youth service). i'm not even sure if IYS still exists but it gives you a penfriend for the cost of a dollar. but that was a looooonnggg time ago (when the exchange rate was $1 = Php 27 or 30 something). so if they still exists, it might cost more than it did 10 or so years ago. anyway her brother was suppose to be my friend but she said her brother's not really much of a writer so i ended up with her. i still have the old letters back when we haven't really discovered the wonders of the world wide web. but i sure miss getting the letters. i mean you can't beat snail mail, even if it's slow. it's got character that emails will never have. there's so much you can glean by just looking at the stationary or the handwriting (even the erasures) and the pictures we sent each other. it was fun. i mean it's hard to put into words the feeling i get when finding an envelope with my name on it and seeing the stamps. i'm getting nostalgic.

the letters became sporadic. or maybe we just grew up and got preoccupied with the usual things - school, work, life, and love (or lack of it). so whenever we see each other online we trade stories about school (my plan to go back but she's going back to school next week), work (or lack of it, since we're both unemployed at the moment), life (oh yeah... lots of it), and love (definitely drew blanks on this one, some strings on the side but not exactly the real thing as eva said so it doesn't count).

it's strange how our lives sort of mirror each other. we're both out of work (by choice). we're now back where we came from - home. i'm in naga and she's in neustadtl since it's closer to her new school. we're both drifting (somewhat, but at least you know what you want to be eves). trying to figure out where we are in our lives and where we want to be, which is not easy (the figuring out thing). we're at the point in our lives where we evaluate the relationships we've had or lack of it. what stops us from having one and what keeps us from moving out of "unhealthy" ones.

i told her that i will prolly be a spinster. i will be THE eccentric tita (aunt) or ninang (godmother). good friend that she is of course she said it's not true!

but my mother's death was a culmination of sorts. i questioned a lot of things. the 2 F's - fate and faith. so f*u*c*k both of them. her death made me realize that i'm not capable of trusting others or more importantly subjecting myself to the vulnerability brought about by loving too much. there are dimensions, depth and degrees to love. losing my mother gave me more than a glimpse of what i could lose and even that was too much. so i decided i'm not going to live on to my 30's if i had to endure another loss. just thinking of my dog dying is too much. i now have a 'deeper' understanding of the parokya ni edgar song "buloy."

i can write all the synonyms of how it feels to have your heart ripped out of your chest (it's a cliche but i never loved cliches more until i finally had a chance to appreciate this one first hand). it's crippling, paralyzing, stunting, mind-numbing... blah... blah.. blah...blah... although the love i have for my mom may be different from romantic love since the latter is more of a choice. i've always felt that love is a choice. so if you get hurt in the process, it's a consequence of that choice. i've seen some really good friends with really good heads fail miserably when it comes to this thing. it's not something they teach you how to navigate in school. or if they do, they give you the theories but you won't know how to go about it til you're there. you either go with your heart or your head. my emotional iq must be lower than the average, tsk, tsk... i don't want to get hurt again, so it's a no brainer. nip it in the bud, yeah, cold hearted biatch.

i'm not particularly good in math. god i hated math. but i can appreciate ratio and proportion this way: when it comes to falling in love, some people say that your head/brain is inversely proportional to your heart. the more you use your head, hello loneliness for you cold hearted fiend. the more you use your heart, the more stupid you become. so you have to find an acceptable proportion where love and money intersects with acceptable opportunity cost for both the heart and the head. good luck with the math.

i don't believe in love at first sight either, or the you-had- me-at-hello-kind of thing from jerry macguire. lust at first sight, yes. they said that if you're unlucky in love, you're suppose to be lucky when it comes to money. i must be an exception to that rule. crap. maybe you're one of those lucky fools, good for you.

don't trust them not to cheat on me or not to die on me; which is preposterous since humanity is fallible to these things. unless i want to commit myself to a penguin, my heart and my sanity just might be safe... but i am not a penguin. i can't imagine being in a long distance relationship either. awww shucks, serious trust issues... and abandonment issues.... hmmmmmmmmmmmm

for some reason our conversation drifted to kids. i suddenly found myself a godmother (**shudder** shudder**) to 2 boys. my cousins are spouting boys. i wish one of them would beget a girl. really, i want to dress them up like barbie dolls. you know, in pink and purple clothes. you can't do that to boys unless you want to incur the wrath of their fathers.

a few sundays ago, i found myself at a birthday party of one of my college friends. his wife is 6 months preggy. they're having a boy, to the delight of my friend. cheers! (no purple and pink gifts unless i want the friendship to be over... hmm lemme get back to you on that arvs lol). seriously,i'm going to be a ninang again when that boy comes out... ohhhh dear. i remember a conversation i overheard from some of my high school classmates when we met at Wok's that mom's expecting boys look chaka (gay linggo for "ugly"). so love and i agreed that arvs wife, kati, must be an exception.

anyway if i were to get myself pregnant (omg knock on wood), i think i'm going to look like an overstuffed peking duck and carrying 9 months of excess weight is beyond me at the moment. when god was giving out the genes for slender bodies, i was busy. busy snoring at lala land. giving birth sure looks like it hurts a lot. i know i'm a bit of a sado-masochist at times but we'll leave pregnancy to the experts. besides, it's not like the world is lacking babies!

a few hours ago i met with my friend, love, who just arrived from a seminar in Subic. she brought me chocolates (vanhouten with almonds yummm... no melamine i hope). we realized that it seemed kind of strange that it's the males from our batch (our college block) who are getting hitched before the females. but then we realized there were only 3 of us girls in that block. the economics society is sadly facing extinction in AdNU. i'm not sure what measures the University has done so far as to attract future econ majors. there is a stock market crisis faced by the US (and just about every economy in the world) so for sure there's no lack of topics to discuss in the classroom. which reminds me that i must be in trouble since if there's a recession, my chances of finding my dream job will be slim. ouch...

but it's not like i'm the only one. welcome to the unemployed statistics puds =) it's not so bad when you're not alone, is it?

The reverse side also has a reverse side. - Japanese proverb

The only people who find what they are looking for in life are the fault finders. - Foster's Law

2008-10-01T15:53:00.006+08:00

there is an ungrateful and self-centered part of me that can't forgive mama for dying. not that mama had any choice in the matter (of dying) but it's there. i felt like i've been robbed.

but mostly there's guilt... and anger. a lot of it directed at myself. i've always wanted to resign, i felt like mama died just so i could do it. it seems that her death gave birth to this other side of me. or maybe it's always been there.

i feel like i am two persons fighting for existence for this one body. i've always been a responsible daughter. didn't really get into much trouble. but after she died, i felt this compulsion to be reckless, unreasonable, irresponsible, and dangerous. an immense propensity to self-destruct. all the self-directed anger and this guilt weighing heavily on my shoulders had to have some sort of outlet. i wanted others in my family to hurt the way i am hurting; and if those other than my family gets affected, it's collateral damage.

obviously i did not inherit mama's gentler nature. of the 3 of us, it's my brother who inherited it while my sister and i turned out be bitches. shobe is more practical. she deals with emotions the same way she spends her money. once it's spent, it's gone. but i seem to have a well of it. it's always half full so when the storm comes, i rage.

one of my friends asked me once which would be a lot easier, "losing you mother because she died or losing her because she left you and you do not know why?" it hurts either way but losing her for the second reason will most probably scar me the most. if only because she had the choice to stay but she didn't.

people tell me it gets easier with time. but it doesn't. but i tell them what they wanted to hear anyway. the pain never really lessened, more like you find other ways to numb yourself to it. ways to never be that susceptible to that kind of hurt again. you learn to build forts.

Sometimes the appropriate response to reality is to go insane. - Philip K. Dick

rainy days mondays always get me down

2008-08-25T08:18:00.001+08:00

monday is heading down the drain and the rest of the week will probably end up in the toilet too. I came to work in a very warla mode. it's raining outside. it's cold and wet. i'm hungry, cold and wet. i have to wear slippers and it feels like my uterus is being twisted every few minutes or so. damn. i hate being girl at days like these. but the amazing aloha treat by jc perked me up a bit (*woot*woot*). thanks jc you're a life saver.

i can't really stomach another bad news but it seems that nearly everyone in my family is working towards winding up with one form of cancer or another. now i have to add the sun to my list of worries. bawal na maging nog-nog. say goodbye to my dream of being a beach bum. i now have to make sure i invest in sunblock. the upside is this type of cancer is slow growing but still it's still starts with a C. so sh*t (x8).

they said the road to hell is paved with good intentions. i filed for leave a couple of weeks ago hoping to get some quality time with my friends (read: picking my way through the collection of dvd movies at the gay brother house) before my hiatus but now it looks like i'm going to end up using those days biting my nails. some sense of humor you have God. You make it difficult to really really like You.

i arrived at the office feeling grumpy and ready to make war with any one dumb and stupid enough to get into my path. but it looks like kek is already on the warpath. sh*t. naunahan ako. which makes me wonder if nakakahawa na yun and now gays have it too? hmmm... nireregla ka ba kek?

"There is nothing worse than aggressive stupidity."
-John Wolfgang Goethe

GOU LE!!!!!!!! GOU LE!!!!!!!! GOU LE!!!!!!!! GOU LE!!!!!!!! GOU LE!!!!!!!!

2008-08-24T08:58:00.001+08:00

Aaaarrrrrrgggggghhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"My pessimism extends to the point of even suspecting the sincerity of the pessimists."

- Jean Rostand

i got tagged

2008-08-21T12:02:00.001+08:00

recently by pia and i think i remember another tag a long long time ago by jade. never got around to it until now so here it is. i am tagging my blogger friends especially the sunday conspiracy group. =_)

THE RULES
- each blogger starts with ten random facts/habits about themselves.
- bloggers that are tagged need to write on their own blog about their ten things and post these rules.
- at the end of your blog, you need to choose ten people to get tagged and list their names.
- don't forget to leave them a comment telling them they're tagged, and to read your blog.

HERE GOES...

0. i am a stone addict (180/218) . i ♥ thestone (intro: amy winehouse with rehab).
1. i have a foot fetish. (so imagine my grief when i stubbed my toe and the lower half of my toenail ugh... died. if stairs were a living, breathing thing, it would be screaming bloody murder or it wouldn't because i would have killed it by then).
2. a few days from now i'll be able to say, "i used to work for a webhosting company." (haha!) i will be officially unemployed in a few days. yes, i'm gonna be a bum! goodbye sunday conspiracy,
3. i ♥ black. i wear a lot of black. half of my wardrobe is black. i hate red.
4. i have an illusion i'm 5'3" but my cousin likes to point out i'm 5'1" (liar, inggitero!)
5. i'm an aries and i use it to explain why i "charge now and think later." (double pun intended).
6. i like to eat... a lot. just ask my frequent eating companions jade, jamie, gwen, and zai.
7. i studied mandarin for years but i'm still terrible at it.
8. i ♥ michael phelps and david beckham (although i can't swim or play football).
9. i am a compulsive book buyer. i spent more than 15 grand on books on one year alone (blechhh!) on the upside (?) hello powercard plus.
10. i like to tease pia until she gets pikon (hahaha! special mention at filler na din).

I TAG:
1. jade
2. love
3. gwen
4. eva
5. kek
6. popin
7. joewhatnow
8. jayvee
9. jc
10. jamie

Procrastination isn't the problem, it's the solution. So procrastinate now, don't put it off.
- Ellen Degeneres

Herculean is OUT, Phelpsian is IN

2008-08-18T08:12:00.009+08:00

did i mention that my two favorite sports both start with an S? swimming and soccer. and i don't even play any of them. haha! i can float on my back but once i start flapping my arms i start to sink so i guess that doesn't count. anyway if the photos doesn't encourage you to be a swimmer or a follower of the sport then it's time to start realigning your priorities!

the phelps phenomenon

the stars surely aligned themselves for michael phelps who now have his 8 golds. one word comes to mind, this guy is phenomenal. hmmm... 8 is really the lucky number for this Olympics. 08082008.

August 13: 4 x 200m Freestyle Relay

photos taken from the official website of the 2008 Beijing Olympics

August 17: Men's 4 x 100m

if swimming can give these guys these great booties, they should make it our national sport.

photos taken from the official website of the 2008 Beijing Olympics

i also watch tennis (my greatest frustration this year is not being able to watch the 2008 wimbledon finals between the williams sisters and nadal vs. federer - damn and double damn!), basketball, football and baseball ( but only at gunpoint ). read: the operative word being "watch."

the past week was spent browsing this website, or this website (but sometimes our IT department blocks access to this site, bummer!) and then this website.

china took the gold in artistic gymnastics team event. if you watched the event, they deserved it. the US team made more mistakes than china did. if i were to do any of the splits, twists and contortions these girls did, i will end up in an emergency room. then of course, there's the controversy about a couple of the girls' age on china's team being below the minimum required which is 16. just a thought, it would be such a bummer to have your period and then compete, no? ouch...

photos taken from the official website of the 2008 Beijing Olympics

i've always wondered how synchronized diving is judged. anyway china got the gold for that too. their diving queen, Guo Jingjing, won four world championships (2001, 2003, 2005 and 2007) and she won another diving gold for china for this olympics.

but zai and i are really looking forward to the team event of synchronized swimming. i can't explain our morbid curiosity about this sport since we can't swim. i remember watching the event on tv during the athens olympics, those girls probably have gills hidden somewhere.

i'm still praying for a miracle that someone from pilipinas would take home a medal (i don't care if its a gold, a silver or a bronze) as long as it's genuine mind you. i want to see a number beside this country in the medal tally. please Lord.

Amen

"H2O: two parts Heart and one part Obsession." ~Author Unknown

"Never say never because never is a helluva long time."

mis sentimientos exactamente

2008-07-03T07:52:00.000+08:00

conference room:

ed:ilovemyjob,ilovemyjob,ilovemyjob,ilovemyjob,ilovemyjob,ilovemyjob,
ilovemyjob,ilovemyjob,ilovemyjob,ilovemyjob

haze: igetpaidforit, igetpaidforit, igetpaidforit, igetpaidforit, igetpaidforit,
igetpaidforit, igetpaidforit

don: atleast hindi plastic kagaya ng ilovemyjob

me: ---------------------------->

overall mood for today:

one of those days when the Universe reminds you, your'e a girl. feeling VERY cranky today.

danke schön Eva for sharing these, mis sentimientos exactamente.

Some of the worst mistakes of my life have been haircuts. - Jim Morrison

Ang Babaeng Namumuhay Mag-isa

2008-06-23T04:30:00.001+08:00

Babae akong namumuhay ng mag-isa
Hiwalay sa awasa
Matandang Dalaga
Kerida
Puta.

Ang aking pag-iisa'y
Batik na ituturing ng aking lipunan
Latay na pabaon ng nakaraan,
Pilat na taglay hanggang sa kasalukuyan.

May pagsusulit na hindi ko nakayanan,
May timbangang nagtakda ng aking pagkukulang,
May pagsusuring kumilatis
Sa pagkatanso ng aking pagkatao.
Lagi'y may panghuhusga sa aking pagiisa.

Ang di nila nakita'y
Akin din naman ang pagpapasya.
Isang maliit na kalayaang
Hinamak ng iba ko pang
Pagkakapiit, pagka-alipin
Sa aking lipunan.

Ang pag-iisa'y di pag talikod
Sa pag-ibig, pagnanasa, o pananagutan
Hindi ito pagsuko
Sa katuparan ng pangarap.
Hindi ito pagtanaw sa buhay ng hubad sa pag-asa.

Paghangad lamang
Na kamay ko ang magpatakbo sa aking orasan
Puso ko at isipan ang sumulat ng aking kasaysayan,
Sarili ko ang humubog sa aking kabuuan.

Hayaan akong mamuhay nang payapa,
Nang hindi ikinakabit sa aking pangalan
Ang mga tawag ng pagkutya:
Puta,
Kerida,
Matandang Dalaga,
Hiwalay sa asawa,
Babae man akong namumuhay nang mag-isa.

by Joi Barrios

i was awed the first time i read this poem. i remember thinking "whoah." i was on my 2nd year in college when i encountered this poem. i think is is the only tagalog poem i can say i really memorized. our Filipino literature prof made us recite this in front of the class one by one. first time i ever cursed aloud with a roomful of people and without getting reprimanded or threatened with a slap.

if you belong to any of the above, here's hoping you find some girl power from joi barrios feisty statement (assuming you can read and understand tagalog).

i don't believe i have a monopoly on stupidity

2008-04-24T10:39:00.002+08:00

but leaving a flat iron semi-on at the risk of burning down the entire house may just tip the scales in my favor.

i was at the end of one of my calls when i realized, i don't remember unplugging the damn thing. so i turned that thought over and over on my mind and went through everything i did before i left the house.

i remember plugging it on, turning the heat to the max. ironed my shirt (at least tried to) then my cellphone rang. my supervisor was calling. new schedules. apparently, i have to choose among the 3: an 11pm sched (sun-mon), 10pm sched or 12am sched (fri-sat). since i am a morning person, the only thing that would matter is the rest day. either way, the scheds are all tae for me. it's a good thing it's already may. i don't know how long i could last. i chose the 11pm - 8am sched since i have a sunday morning class at 9am. how to get there within an hour was a problem i was not able to think about until later. the last thing i remember was my supe telling me that it's nearly 7am and i'm still in the house. (i'm gonna be late, i know).

after that, i grabbed my shirt. removed the lint with a scotch tape because i sit beside zai who is OC about removing lint from black/dark clothes. after that, i grabbed my bag and went out. shit, there goes the iron.

at about a quarter to 9am, for some unknown reason i started to think about the iron. i don't really recall unplugging it. i sent an sms to my sister and my brother to go to the house and check the iron. but my sister is already in qc and my brother is in manila attending his class. bummer. my father is in sta. rosa, laguna. tough luck there.

my 2 siblings were sending me sms like, "you what?!!!" my brother sent me an sms saying "i can't concentrate on my review because *** *** how can you leave the damn thing on. somebody's house there just burned down a couple of days ago!. you have to go back." i thought of going back around lunch but of course by then it might be too late. i remember telling edel that if i burned down the house, i'm never gonna show my face on that place again. and she said, well there's nothing to go back to =) thanks for the comforting thought tita E.

i recall the time when my sister left the electric stove on. when i got home i went to the kitchen and wondered 'why the heck is it hot as hell in here?' then as i checked the stove, it was still on to the max and the coils are glowing fiery red. the house didn't burn down then but it looks like that house may not be so lucky this time. and i'm just the one to do it. ***sigh*** our neighbors will prolly flay me alive.

i had to go home (thanks marcy). on the way there, i passed through the fire station. counted the fiery red fire trucks. three. nothing seems to be amiss. everything's calm. so my place seems to be intact.

then as i stepped down from the jeep and walked to aurora, i heard the 'clang, clang' of the bell. since there was a fire about 5 houses away from our place last week, so the sound sent me into panic. but instead of running. i was literally frozen on my place. it was so damn hot outside but i felt like somebody just doused me with cold cold water. i felt my heart dropped down to my intestines and then felt like throwing it up. as i looked down the street, there was a fiery red truck parked just before the narrow street that leads down to the house i was staying in. and the only thing that went over my mind then was "oh shit, oh shit, oh shit." i wondered whether i should go continue walking or call my dad. what the heck am i gonna tell my dad? and my landlady?! that i left my stupid iron on and burned down the entire house? oh dear...

i looked at all the people gathered on the street and felt everyone looking at me. of course i was right smack in the middle of the street and just staring dumbly at that red truck. i started walking towards it, i never bite my nails but i found myself biting three out of 2. all the way saying "oh shit" like it was some kind of mantra when i should be praying.

as i got nearer, i can smell the stink. it doesn't smell like a burning house. it smells like trash. as i edged closer to the truck. what do you know? a garbage truck. duh. no wonder there are so many people outside. oh shit. so i ran like hell to our street, banged the gates and took the stairs two at a time. when i opened the door, i can smell the burning banana leaves that have now turned to black. i use banana leaves instead of those commercial stuff they sell to make ironing clothes smoother (or whatever) and it smells nice too. not too mention hazardous when you leave the iron on. i unplugged the iron and switched the electricity off of the entire house. i don't remember turning the knob on the iron to a minimum, but it was on turned to the minimum level. i must've done it unconsciously as i answered the phone.so Someone UP there have not forgotten me. it was only past 9am but i feel like turning in and calling it a day. another incident like this and my heart will give out on me.

as i was going down the stairs, i met my landlady who exclaimed her surprise at seeing me. i told her i forgot something so i went back. little did she know...

Life is an unbroken succession of false situations. -

Thornton Wilder

I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be. - Douglas Adams

2008-04-05T14:04:00.008+08:00

i haven't really blogged in a very long time. primary reason was i've been busy trying to solve the puzzles available to me in the enigma before it ended on April 3. what a sad for me. for the past few weeks i was in penultimate panic mode until it was formally announced by the keepers that they have agreed to have scarecrow host the new site and we can continue with our craziness there. so for the last month, i've only solved a measly 4 puzzles. my plan of solving one to 2 puzzles in a day from march 3 until the game ends on the 3rd of april was nothing but A plan. for some reason, my march was crammed with so many trips.

just last march 16, i went to baguio with my good friend love to attend her bf's graduation. i've only been to baguio once. to be honest, i wasn't really impressed with it the first time. so i never really understood what the big deal about baguio was. from the distance as we were about to enter baguio, i remember thinking how scary it looks. the houses look like mausoleums from afar. for the baguio folks, it must be ordinary but i don't think i can live in a house where just right behind it is a very steep drop off.

ok so i dig the cool climate etc etc but neither burnham nor mines view impressed me. however, the ube from good shepherd really impressed (with emphasis on really) me. i was drooling for days even when i've returned to naga and content of the jar had been long gone. that ube brings heaven to the taste buds. i also loved the abundant flora i found there. my mother would've taken home an entire load of flower filled pots had she been able to. she would've bought loads of broccoli too.

as for burnham, i wasn't really too keen on being on board that boat. i have a phobia of boarding really small boats. so i didn't get to appreciate it much. unless it's as big as the super ferry, you'd have to really tie me up before you can get me to board it. i won't go peacefully. as for mines view, i remember thinking what the heck is everyone staring at? it was quite foggy and staring at some mountain filled with holes is not my kind of past time. sorry. but i enjoyed eating the maize with butter and such. ahhh heaven. so i guess now you know what i enjoyed doing most while i was in baguio =)

my second trip was mostly spent inside the fort del pilar grounds. we left on a sunday, march 16. my classmate from the ole U was graduating from the PMA. we left cubao at 7am and arrived around 1:30pm. took a cab to the grounds and waited for pres inside nakar hall where we were billeted. as soon as we opened the doors of nakar, you can smell how old that house was. it's the kind of smell old wooden houses have. don't know how to describe it. it assails your nostrils and makes you feel like you've just step into one of those old haunted house movies. on my first trip to baguio, we stayed at teacher's camp at the claro m recto hall. it was old and made of wood. and it felt like a house in a horror movie. it didn't help that my cousin was telling us tales about the haunted houses of baguio while we were on the road. so i was so creeped out, i didn't drink so much fluid in the afternoon so i won't have to go down and pee in the middle of the night because the bathroom was downstairs. and it was a very distant downstairs, at least it was to me. and it was so bloody dark at night (some streets doesn't seem to have street lamps) and cold. perfect for ghost haunting.

on my second day (march 17) we watched the silent drill on the borromeo field. so called silent because the cadets march or follow the beat of the drum and nothing else (something to that effect). anyways, i wasn't really paying that much attention because we were too far from the grandstand (it was full by the time we arrived). we only started to really watch it when they started making the clock formation and of course at the last part when they danced to some upbeat tune. later on we went to burnham and our lady of Fatima grotto. this time with pres' siblings and some of his highschool mates.

since joash's sister knew one of the nuns who was currently staying there, we were able to get past the gate and got a tour of the place. to say that the inside was beautiful would be an understatement. i wish i have the right word to describe it but that place really took my breath away. it's serves as a retreat house. there was a statue of the resurrection. a circular rock formation surrounded ( i think) with water. it's some sort of a replica of what igorot elders use. Sr. Nene said that the igorot elders sit inside it when they are making some big decisions. i don't know what it's called. but it was one of the things that stand out in that place which was about 100 years old. then there's the labyrinth, the path of which is made up of white pebbles. at the center of it is another rock seat (just for one person unlike the other one) where you can ponder after you've made your way through the labyrinth. inside the formation house is a small chapel. the fog comes in early in the morning and in the afternoon. it was so serene and really beautiful. but what really grabbed me the most was the place of adoration of the blessed sacrament. the monstrance is housed in a miniature kubo (nipa hut) that can be opened by prolly pushing some unseen button on the low seat nearest to it. the door of the nipa hut slowly slides open and the monstrance with the blessed sacrament (lit behind by a yellow light) is displayed. the left side wall is adorned by depictions (i think) of the stations of the cross. at the center is christ nailed on the cross and he is dressed like an igorot native. it was late in the afternoon and the fog has started to roll in form the windows. it was so peaceful and quiet and for moment, i thought of my mother; that wherever she is she would be in a place as beautiful and peaceful as this. and as i left the room, i hoped that i can have the serenity of this place too.

on our third day (march 18), was the Graduation day of the PMA Baghawi class.
Bagong Halaw ng Lahi. by my third day, i've come to accept that rides were a little scarce there. so we walked most of the time which is ok. we needed the exercise. we walked to the grandstand and got there at about 9:30AM. security was tight. we had to pass through 3 "check points." my bag and every compartment was opened. they even opened my toiletry bag and the female security was prolly surprised with my "baons." the grandstand was already full. i learned later from pres that as early as 5 am while they were doing their drills, some people were already camped out there on the grandstand. damn. since that day had to be one of the unfortunate days when God reminds me i'm a girl. that didn't really help me with my mood. after an hour or so i decided to go out of the grandstand and just stay out since the miasma of perfumes, colognes, sweat and what-have-you's is starting to make me dizzy. since i've been known (by my siblings at least) to have fainting episodes when i have one of those days. my siblings were sending me SMS several times to find out if i'm still standing (duh!). i am not a wimp (at least not all the time). i decided fresh air will do me good. i even managed to find a five hundred peso bill on the stairs. lucky me.

after some time, pres and his sis managed to finagle some seats for us. and as the hours passed, more and more people were crammed on the stands. the guest of honor, PGMA finally arrived at past 2PM and finally the ceremony begun. their graduation ceremony was over in less than 2 hours. the wait was so much longer =) as soon as the picture taking was over, love and i went back to nakar since i wasn't feeling too well. i laid down on the bed and almost fell asleep.

on our last day, we spent most of it touring the PMA grounds which meant more walking. pres processed his clearance papers. so love and i explored the grounds. we posed and posed with every statue, tree, flower, armored tank, etc etc that we could find. my bus left baguio at around 11pm and then went straight to work the next day.

and then just last friday, i found myself on a trip to bicol. i was suppose to leave thursday night. but i went home late after attending bulet's post birthday blow out. i was not able to catch my bus which left at 8:30pm. then on saturday my friend and i went to sabang to be beach bums for a day. then we decided to stay over night at one of the new resorts there.

i visited my mom, went to buyo to catch up with the rest of my relatives. i was feeling nostalgic. or prolly just getting old.

April 4
on my four day restday, i had originally planned to spend that time solving my puzzles but i never even got to log on and solve one. pc and saltwater just don't match. and now the game has ended. i was able to solve one a few hours before it shut down. i finished it at 165 out of 200 something and i'm still stuck with over 30 puzzles. i was trying to get even, when after i click on submit i got the 404. that was 2:44am cst on my avaya. i was so deflated after that. i went to the monument to finish the puzzle. but apparently i have to start from scratch so i can get to the puzzles i was solving before the original site shut down.

at past 5pm, rain, gwen and i walked to jg to get our APE's done. it was the fastest APE i've gone through in my 4 years here. i was able to get everything done within an hour. i did not experience any horrifying slash traumatic moments as my blood was being drawn out. of course i had to ask the koya who was going to draw the blood how long he's been doing this. "new grad po". (tae, dale ako). i had to bit my lip to stop an expletive from coming out.

me: kuya isang tusok lang ha
nurse: oo ba. saan ka lagi kinukunan ng dugo
me: kanan (he proceeded to untie the rubber band from my left arm, pero di niya mapalabas yung ugat)
nurse: dun na lang ulit sa kaliwa tinitingnan ko lang
me: tae (yan di na nakapagpigil)
(pagkatapos tusukin ako ng karayom at habang hihugutan ako ng dugo)
nurse: masakit ba?
me: (kunyari nahulog sa upuan at hinimatay)
nurse: yan tapos na. di naman masakit di ba.
me: sige ako tutusok sayo kuya.

and then i went to the female doctor who checked on my reflexes. after she hit my right knee with the mini hammer, for some reason i started laughing and could not stop. so maybe i need a neuro exam too to check my brainwaves.

Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men. - Martin Luther King Jr.

Life has a funny way of sneaking up on you...

2008-03-25T14:04:00.004+08:00

Yesterday was not a good day for some people. First, as I was on my way home I met Gene. Seeing him was not the bad thing but he told me he just came from Makati Medical Center because his brother-in-law got shot! Apparently some crook tried to rob a Chinese businessman who just withdrew PHP500000 from the bank. The businessman ran inside the carwash where Gene's brother-in-law was (having their car washed because his family just arrived from Bicol)and the robbers pursued him there where they shot the businessman and his brother-in-law. Ironically, his brother-in-law retired from the military to pursue a safer career path.

I haven't watch the news in months and just when I decided to tune in yesterday, I heard that former President Aquino have colon cancer. As I was watching two of her children relay the news, I couldn't help but cry, again. I cannot help but remember my mother. I was remembering how the news that she had breast cancer was relayed to me by no less than my brother who wasn't good at breaking bad news. My brother was crying over the phone and since he rarely shows any emotion much less cry, I panicked instantly.

The only good thing that happened yesterday was breaking Honesty. So I'm at 163/218. Still stuck with so many puzzles and with so little time. I was telling my nudger that I plan to take a few days off just so I could work on my remaining puzzles before thestone ends. Am I OC or what?

"The problem with the future is that it keeps turning into the present."

-- Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes)

Nothing is certain in life, except death and TAXES!

2008-02-28T16:11:00.005+08:00

ohhh yeah, ben franklin got that right

claiming my ITR (and knowing that the taxes I paid will mostly end up on some corrupt politico's pocket) is probably the most depressing thing next to the news that we will be leaving JG for good. Next week, we're now going to be officially denizens of the PSC's maximum security compound.

if you read Manila Times, you would be horrified to find out that, "As of end-August 2007, the National Government (NG) Outstanding debt was pegged at P3.871 trillion, or US$81.91 billion. The bigger part of this debt was acquired domestically (55.98 percent), with Treasury Bonds debt pegged at P1.55 trillion. This is worse when Mrs. Arroyo acknowledged that the country was suffering from a fiscal crisis. In 2004, National Government debt was P3.81 trillion.
As of mid-2007, the total National Government debt per Filipino is P43,649.57 with each individual coughing P7, 012.12 just to service the debt. "

i will not quote the entire article for i don't want to aggravate you further with the information that,
"From 2001 to 2006, Mrs. Arroyo borrowed a total of P2.83 trillion shaming the total P1.51 trillion combined borrowings of the Aquino, Ramos and Estrada administrations spanning 14 years. "

if that doesn't depress or anger you, i don't know what will. it's as equally depressing as seeing that you paid more than a hundred grand in taxes last year and there is no tax refund.

on the up side (if you could call it as such), someone got creative in proposing tax reform laws. I'm not sure if you've heard of it, but...

apparently our legislators have finally found a way to pay off all our country's debt. As proposed by law, sex (yes, you read it right) will now be taxed.

(1) Upon penetration (VAT - Vaginal Access Tax)
(2) More than 10 minutes inside (Burial Tax)
(3) Upon withdrawal (Exit Tax)
(4) Those who do not have sex life (Idle Tax)
(5) Those who practice withdrawal method of birth control (Withholding Tax)
(6) Entering other than wife (Road Users Tax)

If this is enforced, this might just solve all our national debt problems.

Tax reform means "Don't tax you, don't tax me, tax that fellow behind the tree." - Russell Long

The longest journey is the journey inward.

2008-02-19T13:48:00.005+08:00

February 14

Valentine's Day traffic nearly caused us to miss our bus to Bicol. we attended the service for my mother in greenbelt and the traffic back to pasay was the kind of traffic immortalized in every story about traffics in manila. the bus was suppose to leave at 8:00 pm and we arrived at the station a few minutes after eight, less our coats and my phone charger. it's going to be a cold and long trip.

there's a certain melancholia attached to these trips to naga. a little dose of excitement, a little dose of apprehension, relief and then nostalgia. like coming home but it's not because we no longer live there. we no longer have a house there. our belongings have been scattered with the four winds. my mother would not approve. but when we lost our mom, it seemed we also lost everything else.

February 15

it was a cold trip but it wasn't the long trip i feared. arrived in Naga at 3 bloody 30 am. the earliest i've arrived since time immemorial (trips to bicol usually take more than 8 bloody hours). my brother left the plastic bag with my cute metallic blue shoes (thank goodness it was the old one), slippers and my nephews' new shirts on the bus. we weren't able to retrieve the stuff. may the person who took it suffer from athlete's foot in his/her entire life. amen.

as we boarded the padjak to take us to my aunt's house, my brother told the dirver to take us to magsaysay. i had to tell the driver to take us to osmeña instead because we no longer live in magsaysay. not since my mother passed away. another family is living in that house. in the course of our 4 -day stay there, my brother made the slip twice and i guess in our minds have yet to catch up with the reality we no longer live there.

left for buyo in the afternoon to visit the living and the dead. it has been raining since we arrived early in the morning and still raining in the afternoon and it rained all through out the night. i'm never gonna see the sun until the end of my stay here.

i was freezing during the trip to goa. because of the cold front, the sun has not shined in naga or in goa for that matter. i always take the bus to go there and my hermano knows this. i always like to take these trips after the sun has set. i like travelling with my windows open, no matter how cold. i like to see the fields, the mountains, the road as it is lighted by the bus' headlights. i like to smell the burning dried leaves, sweet and nostalgic.

i like seeing the bus' headlights chase the darkness off the road, the shadows converging again as we move on. the mountains and the fields of palay covered by the dark and intermittently lit by moonlight (when there is one). otherwise the only lights in the distance are the lights from the lamps inside the houses scattered all over the plains but they are often times far apart that they look like glowing yellow stars from the distance.

the wind was unforgivably cold. the kind of coldness that seeped through your bones and reduces you to feeling and thinking about nothing but its coldness. it's no use trying to concentrate about getting warm because there is nothing warm in the wind or the cold seats of the bus. Or the thoughts that ran through my mind. i did not close the window until we got to tigaon when it started to rain again. i wanted to be numbed before i get to my grandmother's house. the less i feel, the better it is for me.

buyo is a sad and happy place for me. the place where everything begun and ended. a trip there at night is always like a slow walk down memory lane. as a rule i never took the van because the windows are always close. i want to feel the wind and the night as it merges with the darkest side of my mind. while the bus negotiates the bumps on the road, i try to make sense of where i am and what lead me to this place.

it's during the hours, the minutes and the seconds on every trip that i go over everything that happened on the past year. everytime i get on a bus, my mind takes this trip. whether i take the bus from manila to naga, from naga to goa, from naga to legaspi - my mind goes on another trip at another time. wherever i am i can't seem to shake it off of me. this melancholy. i can't let go. so i let the melancholia drown me as every thing that happened in the past flashes in front of my eyes like it was just yesterday. whoever said that time heals all wounds...is lying. it's been 9 months and a day and still it feels like it was only yesterday.

it reminded me of another night trip to goa 9 months before, the darkest and saddest trip i ever took with the heaviest heart.

we arrived at the centro of goa at past 7 pm. my uncle was not there to meet us because it was freezing cold to be driving the motorcycle in this rain. so my brother and i hired a tricycle to get us to buyo. since we're going up the south eastern slope of mount isarog, it was colder and we were shaking by the time we got to my grandma's house since there wasn't much in the tricycle that can protect us from the cold. my grandmother scolded us again for arriving that late and taking our chances with such a bleak weather.

dinner was ginataan and adobong manok. then i went to bed and fell promptly asleep.

February 16

visited my mother. i don't remember doing anything else on this day aside from playing with my nephews.

we were suppose to go back to naga in the afternoon but woke up very late and even my brother doesn't feel like returning to naga yet. we ate at my cousin's paternal grandmother's house (the Pan's) because they have laing for lunch and i have not eaten a good laing for some time. then when we returned to my grandmother's house, we ate the fish and the sauteed ampalaya they had for lunch. i was never a fan of ampalaya. life is bitter enough for me.

February 17

returned to naga before lunch. went to san francisco for the mass with my aunts and ukay ukay later. bought myself a cap and pants.

slept the afternoon away and met with my friend love in the evening. spoke with pres over the phone and some plebo he dragged over to seal a bargain. i was assured he walked on 2 legs but apparently the cat got his tongue.

February 18

the last day. it was still raining so i slept the day away and later met with love again and my brother for dinner at bigg's. went back to my aunt's house to pack and left 15 minutes later to take the bus that will take me back to manila.

There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered. - Nelson Mandela

Love is an exploding cigar we willingly smoke.

2008-02-14T10:43:00.001+08:00

feb 8: Webhosting Party 2008

i went to this party not knowing what we were celebrating. it was almost 10 am when i arrived at gerry's grill along ayala. beer and margarita flowed freely. since i have not taken breakfast, i declined the preferred beverage. some were already drunk while the remaining some were already getting there. i was probably the only one who left that party without imbibing anything alcohol. it ended at around 1pm. after that went to the mail with Jade.

my blue shoes was having 'gaping' crisis so i decided it's time to get a back up since i don't have time to make it to mr. quickie to patch it up (that's the excuse i tell myself). unfortunately celine glorietta doesn't have my size but i ask the nice saleslady to check with their other branches and voila, they have my size in rockwell. so i dragged jade over to rockwell to pick up my shoes. and what do you know, they have a silver gray version of the same design and more importantly, they have my size. so there goes my two grand. but they're cute so i shouldn't complain.

feb 14: v********* day

Kix was asking if valentines is spelled with an apostrophe s or what not. i said "i'm sorry i don't celebrate it." haha! kelangan talaga sarcastic.

well this day reminds me of another day i would rather forget. it's an anniversary i wish i never have to celebrate (maybe at a later time but not at this point in my life).

it was a black valentine's day at the office. nearly everyone wore black. but that decision does not necessarily reflect the love lives of everyone who works here. some of us just felt like wearing it (plus i don't own a red shirt).

i'm going home tonight. 8 hours away. i miss my my dog. and i miss my mom. more. whoever said that time heals all wounds...

is lying.

Dance like it hurts, Love like you need money, Work when people are watching. - Scott Adams ( The Way of the Weasel )

uberworked and uber utilized (...sabi ko lang)

2008-02-07T17:22:00.000+08:00

i'm glad this week is over.

it's been a helluva week of seemingly endless escalations with screeching customer (yes they screech, unbelievable) , a week of issues cropping up after the other (like mushrooms after the dog has pissed on the earth) and unresolved issues piling up like the college book reports you wish you never had to do

i want to go home. eat my chocolates and dip it on a vanilla ice cream. i'm exhausted.

An undefined problem has an infinite number of solutions. - Robert Humphrey

hmm... the blondes did it

2008-02-04T12:03:00.000+08:00

it's only the start of the week and i've had two upsets already. like january, my february seemed to have started on the wrong foot.

first, i just had to have the luck of boarding a taxi where the driver talked my ears off from libertad to ayala. i was still sleepy but he woke me up better than coffee did. i couldn't wait to get out of the car. he was selling cellphone holders. thinking he would shut up after i agreed to buy one, boy was i wrong. he discussed warranty and the shows he's been featured in until we arrived at my destination.

second upset: giants 17, patriots 14
another Manning with the vince lombardi trophy. when his brother won with the colts last year, there were some speculations whether he could deliver a superbowl win to the giants just like what his brother did to the colts. now we know because this year, eli manning is mvp of superbowl XLII and the giants took the vince lombardi trophy home.

his brother won the superbowl XLI mvp last year with the colts. i was rooting for the Patriots this year but now i know i should never root for quarterbacks with blond girlfriends =) or underestimate a team with a manning for a quarterback. they just ended the pat's 18 game winning streak. amazing.

jessica simpson was blamed when the cowboys didn't make the play offs, so do we blame giselle bundchen for this? =)

on the upside, i finally nailed my 153rd and my 154th stone puzzle today. at last something to cheer me up this week. this 153rd puzzle has been stting on my plate for a week now and by the time i got to the answer page, i had a serious case of hypothermia and my ears were about to fall off from severe frostbite. but the 154th puzzle was a scorcher, nailed the answer in a couple of hours. now i can feel my fingers and my toes again.

the blondes did it. - sabi ko lang

when is a villain not a villain?

2008-01-27T11:03:00.000+08:00

from all of Batman's nemesis, i like the Riddler best. the joker is such a pain in the bat's behind but i never felt sorry for him. the riddler at least makes his victims think. i feel a little sorry for him and the episode i just watched is one of the most memorable ones featuring this villain. even the bat sympathized with him.

in the 2005 Batman series, he got a new look. he now reminds me of orochimaru.

in this episode (Riddler's Revenge), Batman got stuck inside a cargo container with the Riddler at the deepest part of Gotham Bay. robin is in school and had ran out of plausible excuses to get out of class and so rescue was put on hold until he could find an excuse his teacher would believe.

the riddler was pursuing his arch nemesis, gorman, who he believed sabotaged his invention. Gorman was a businessman who had been trying to get eddie (the riddler) to sell him the rights to the device he invented.

as the story goes, batman rescued gorman from the riddler but the ingrate detonated the bomb on the ship and left. the two got stuck inside the cargo container which sunk to the bottom of the bay because it was held down by a steel beam that sunk with it when the ship exploded. radio transmission according to the bat was impossible since they seem to have landed at the deepest part of the bay.

running out of oxygen and trying to find a way to get the container to float back to the surface, the riddler gave batman a riddle. "what's at the beginning that can also be found at the end?" and with that riddle came tumbling out the riddler's story.

at the beginning.
as eddie, he was working on the device with julie (also supposedly the riddler's amour) at the university lab. the device is suppose to improve one's memory. at the unveiling of the device, the university president was their lab rat. the device worked in a way but it also injured the university president. and so poor eddie got fired and he blamed gorman. he thought gorman had sabotaged it because the device worked before without any terrible consequences. that incident, according to the riddler is the turning point that made him become the riddler.

the first encounter the bat had with the riddler was when he saved gorman from his own house. according to the riddler, it was his first attempt at interior decorating. he redecorated gorman's house with his puzzles.

riddle me this and riddle me that. these are some of the riddles on the story. "what is an 11 letter word that everyone pronounces incorrectly?" And he has a funny way of giving his victims directions.

"what is 4 + no. 5? "

gorman got rich from the memory device. the riddler waited until he had accumulated so much so that he would have so much to lose when he finally serves his revenge. the revenge backfired and now they're underwater.

menwhile in an act of desperation, robin swallowed his science lab partner's experiment of soup mixed with god knows what. since their teacher won't taste it. it made him so sick that their teacher finally allowed him to go home.

at the end.
water had started to pour into the cargo container. the bat was trying to dislodge the beam that was holding down the container. the riddler won't help. but being batman, he made riddler realized he's been pursuing the wrong culprit. with the riddler's help, the bat managed to get the container to the surface. the riddler, realizing who had betrayed him knocked the bat down and pursued julie. batman would have been toast if robin had not arrived on time.

apparently, his lab partner was the one who sabotaged the device. she profited from the riddler's expulsion from the university since she thought him to be crazy. according to some bat logic, gorman is not a very technical person, so he could not have tampered the device. that makes julie the culprit. the riddler had been blinded by his love for her that he couldn't see clearly. **sigh*** love is blind eh?

the bat and the riddler met again at the at lab where batman foiled his plan again, this time from killing julie. the riddler was out cold from getting hit by a falling equipment. as robin was about to free julie from the ropes, he stopped robin and and told him to let the police handle it. the riddler had gained some sympathy from the bat himself. and he asked robin, "when is a villain not a villain?"

so what's the word everyone pronounces incorrectly? incorrectly, of course. so what direction are you going if you have 4 + no. 5? inverted, it would spell south.

i love riddles. =)

when is a door not a door? - the Riddler (Eddie Nygma)

saying goodbye to some of my favorite characters

2008-01-23T14:37:00.000+08:00

This has been more like a month of goodbyes as much as beginnings.

Jiraiya-sama

After catching up on my Naruto readings, I still can't believe he's dead. Another akatsuki casualty. Some says he didn't really die. He fell into the water and who knows what could have happened? He might've survived.

And in real life where there can be no resurrections (OK so maybe until Judgment Day).

Heath Ledger
April 4, 1979 – January 22, 2008

Before i could even get my hands on my coffee, got a very early morning shock when I learned he passed away . It's so sad and unexpected. Requiescat in pace Heath.

It is impossible to experience one's death objectively and still carry a tune. - Woody Allen

Burning Out and Up

2008-01-21T14:38:00.000+08:00

got a new phone last friday and got a terrible cold and a fever the next day. lousy trade off.

i haven't been hit this hard for some time. the last time i got hit so bad was about a year ago. my mother was still alive to take care of me. i was sick for 5 days straight. it was also the first time i came to understand, 'nabinat.' i went home to naga for some 'time off' and to check on my mom; but she ended up taking care of me. the cold and my fever knocked me down cold for 5 days. so the only thing i ever did during that vacation was nurse a cold and a 39 degree celsius fever. my mother wanted to bring me to a hospital but i desisted. i hated going to hospitals unless i need to be operated on. i miss her when i'm sick like this. i miss the soup and her hand on my forehead.

i woke up last Saturday with a burning throat; like the devil just raked a fork through my throat. i thought of drinking a teaspoon of mouthwash, maybe it will kill all the germs and stop the cold but a little bit of sanity and self preservation stopped me.

my brother was sleeping over his friend's house in crame and couldn't go home until the next day. i was running low on paracetamol and ibufrofen. when my brother had dengue a few days before christmas, we brought him to makati med's emergency room. he had been taking bioflu as opposed to tempra forte (paracetamol). the doctor said that bioflu is not really that effective since it's not pure paracetamol. so it's best to take tempra forte or biogesic instead. and you can alternate with ibufrofen since it makes the fever break faster and get rid of the body pains. but i ran out of medicine around lunch and my fever returned in the afternoon. i can barely drag myself to the bathroom much less drag myself to the drugstore. it's hard being alone when you're sick.

so around 12 am or 1 am sunday, i decided to call in. asked myke for marcy's number and workforce or forcedesk (or whatever name they go by these days), since apparently the old number doesn't work anymore. called the number several times and got a recording. i'm supposed to get a reference number, otherwise my call in would be invalid. ncns (no call no show). texted myke no live person answers it, i keep getting the damned recording. finally at 2 am, left a message because i was too frustrated to keep trying to callback. i was freezing cold and my head felt like it's going to split into a thousand pieces, and holding the phone is torture when all i want to do is crawl under the sheet. my Php500 load was diminished to Php428. wasted money, that annoyed me too since my phone calls were pretty much useless since i didn't speak to anyone at all.

i woke up at around 3 am and called again. i got the recording... again. what really ticked me off was the recording seems to say "bawal magakasakit kapag weekend!" It says "forcedesk hours are mondays through fridays from 8am to 6.30am the following day." so goodluck na lang sa magkakasakit ng sabado at linggo. i left another message but i wanted to curse too. i wanted to say all the curses i've learned in my stay here at PS. i never really learned how to curse ng malutong until i started working here. that recording is the most insensitive thing you can do to someone who is calling in sick and who's told to wait for a live person to get a reference number.

kaya eto na:

putang ina nyo for keeping me awake when i should've been sleeping this off.
putang ina nyo when i should've been resting and not worrying about getting a fucking ncns.
putang ina nyo for making my headache worse.
putang ina nyo during the times i can hardly breathe that night.
putang ina nyo for making me redial that fucking number so many times and repeat the stupid message while i try to negotiate how to breathe with my clogged up nose.
putang ina nyo for wasting my money, my phone's load and my time.
putang ina nyo.

i haven't been so pissed with PS until that night and by the time i've texted marcy i was frustrated beyond words. i just don't care anymore. i kept thinking i should just really go and find another job where i can just call my boss or text my boss during daylight hours (and not at some godforsaken time of the day i.e. mangingisda hours) that i can't come in for work since i'm too sick to drag a cat.

sometimes i wonder why i still do this. it's not like the company shows any appreciation for staying. four years of toiling and then what? everyday has been a constant struggle to come to work. i've been dragging my limb everyday to come early and failed. i haven't arrived early since december 20. i have received warnings from verbal reprimand to written ones. i don't know how else to motivate me to come early when even money is beginning to lose it's luster.

i have not felt so much indifference since the early days after my mother's death and here i am again. it's so hard to shake it off this time. sometimes i think i should just see my ob gyne and not wait until may. have her remove the lumps and resign after the operation. why wait until it grows to 20 mm? so why wait until i've finally reached the end of the rope?

One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important. - Bertrand Russell

Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but some abuse the privilege. - Part II

2008-01-09T16:58:00.000+08:00

the other day i finally traded my powercard to a powercard plus. good thing jade needed a card holder because honestly, i've been trying my damn best to resist stepping into powerbooks ever since the cashier told me i only needed several hundred points for the upgrade. now i have 10% discount on all my cash purchases. but i still wilt everytime i think of the amount i spent this year for books (which lead to the upgrade)! damn

my sister found us in burger king, dining on burgers and onion rings, as well as taking advantage of their wi-fi access. they ganged up on me for my lack of uh better 'hinaharap.' some sister you are jack and some friend you are jade! FO na tayo! hmp!

did i say friday night traffic is a nightmare? well just add monday night traffic to my list of nightmares. as it is i was trying to hold the burger down. my stomach was threatening to revolt. just my luck the jeep also carried another passenger who was complaining for all the world to hear about the person who loaned her 5/6. according to the ate she paid all her dues already but the creditor insists that she still owes him P700. and as if that is not enough she also had an altercation with a cop who almost arrested her for being an illegal vendor. she nagged all the way from makati to libertad except when she noticed the heated PDA of the couple in front of me. the rest of us pretended not to notice but what is that extra hand doing under the sweater draped on the girl's lap? duh! i wish the guy would just put his hand inside the girl's shirt or get it over with already and put it in her skirt. maybe that would shock the ate into silence and it would cap my day.

i made it home without further incident. and continued with reading my book (the historian by elizabeth kostova). and when i reached the part when the character finally realized there is such thing as the undead. i stopped reading. i plan to read this slowly without rushing the pages. i didn't think another dracula story could scare me but this one is slowly building up my scare level. i stopped reading as soon as it gets too dark... i hope the end doesn't disappoint.

speaking of nightmares again (or more like stupidity), i accidentally deleted the contents of my inbox in outlook yesterday. i was trying to clean up my sent and deleted items folder since i couldn't send any mails out because my damned account is full. i didn't realize i was back in my inbox and not in my sent or deleted items folder. so when i press ctrl A, and shift delete. poof it went! and there goes all my precious stuff. i didn't archive since i don't have a permanent work station and the archive i have is ancient.

since pidge couldn't help me ( she tried to give me admin access so i could do a reg edit but well... it didn't work). i have an idea that if i log on to another pc that has my profile and import mesages into another mail program (such as OE), i just might be able to retrieved my messages even if i have deleted them. and i was ablet to retrieve a few of them that way but i'm still missing voer 200 more. ed says it stays on the exchange server for several weeks and there's a cache. s0 that gave me hope. we couldn't figure it out so i emailed my supe and left for the day. feeling stupider that i've had in years... geezzz!

i was able to retrieved all my deleted messages. thank godness for cache! the one thing that didn't occur to me yesterday was work offline after i log on using another pc. i did that today and imported the messages onto OE (marcy and i were trying to look for that synch link in outlook but couldn't find it). after importing the cached copies of my messages to OE, i imported it back to outlook. and voila, i'm back in the game.

all's well that end's well.

God is not dead but alive and well and working on a much less ambitious project. - Unknown

Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save. - Will Rogers

2008-01-03T10:24:00.000+08:00

my mother was making faces at me and i remember thinking, does she still remember me? i finally woke up to the 24th and tried not to think about what day it was. sadly i cannot recall what i did last year on the same day.

as i walked along paseo, already very late for my 5am shift, i couldn't stop the sobs that kept coming out of my mouth short of gagging myself. i tried to remember any memories of that day but i couldn't. all i could see was my mom on a wheelchair with an oxygen mask on her face. but it's all wrong. my mother stopped walking around january almost a day after we left again for manila. i still remember the despair on her voice when she told me on the phone. the more i tried to remember what i did on that day, the more it became elusive. the more frustrated i became. i wanted to call my sister and ask but that would be cruel. we're all trying not to think about what or who is missing that day.

i couldn't seem to say merry or happy christmas. i just said yeah to whoever said it to me. i wanted to go home early. close the door and sleep on it. i don't want to see my landlady and hear another merry greeting. this season is not kind to those who are trying to forget. the christmas cards i bought are all sitting on my table. unsent. apart from my name, the usual hello and goodbyes. i don't know what else to write.

as early as 3pm on christmas eve my neighbors were already warming up for their semi-finals night. or so it feels like to me. i was seriously beginning to hate magic sing. new years eve would be the finals night. i 'm sure.

as it turned out new year was the worst. i turned off my cellphone to stop the incessant ringing and wish i had something to stuff my ears with. i keep expecting a whistle bomb to go through my window. the noise didn't die down until about 4am. i don't know who won but my neighbors sang like there would be no more videoke nights in 2008.

new year was the worst. i tried to read a book to lull me to sleep but i picked up sugar daddy (lisa kleypas). i was crying when i got the part when her mother died and she had to pick a coffin. it was so damned difficult. i remember the phone call by my auntie melda and my brother. i was still in manila but we need to decide on my mother's coffin. she was trying to tell me what kind of coffin they'd pick for her. it was white and it looks nice. i couldn't breathe past the lump on my throat because i was trying hard not to picture my mom inside a coffin. it was so hard to deal with when you're hundres of miles away. i felt claustrophobic.

her memories are like water trying to escape out of my cupped hands. the more i hold on to it, the faster it leaked down my palms. i tried to remember how she smelled, how she looked, the sound of her voice. i tried to picture our happier times together but it just made me feel worst. worst than i've ever been when i heard she's gone. i wanted to go home and look at her picture. i was afraid i'd already forgotten. i am on the threshold of 2008 but my other foot refused to step off of 2007. i am stuck in its memories.

the beginning of 2008 is like a clock that's ticking off. counting. ticking until it reaches another may. another month and another day i want to forget. somedays i wonder why i can't just let go. some people just moved on, i don't bloody understand why i can't do the same.

may 2007 is my inflection point. my views changed. i stopped giving a damn. i don't give a rat's ass about what others think. screw them. when you're in so much pain, you get blind to almost everything else. it's the experience that changes the course of your life. it could either break you or make you. as for me i think i must be hell bent on destroying myself. all my self destructive tendencies came out after my mom died. if i didn't make a promise to take care of my brother, i would have ultimately stopped caring. i worry him sometimes. i think instead of taking care of him, he takes care of me.

Do not stand at my grave and weep
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.

--Mary Elizabeth Frye

Impulse: the PS 2007 Year End Party

2007-12-27T14:27:00.000+08:00

@ Folk Arts Theatre
December 21, 2007

@ getting to the venue is like a trip to hell (now I know how it feels like). Friday traffic is the stuff of nightmares!
@ food is tres terribles
@ but the bands were great
- missed Up Dharma =( (because of the friggin' traffic)
- bamboo is soo hotttt (watching him dance makes me so hot rawr haha! )
- chito of parokya tried to get some of the PS crowd drunk by sharing beer with the audience (way to go man!)
- jay of kamikazee is drunk haha!
@ goodbye 2007

Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we're here we should dance. - Unknown

Life and a Can of Beer

2007-12-20T11:34:00.000+08:00

I received this from my Auntie Melds who got this from her brother, my Uncle Bob ( is it just me or does everyone have an Uncle Bob?). I had a downer yesterday; but this story perked me up somewhat and made my grey matters swirl.

This is for those who have screwed up priorities ....
for those who are in limbo land...
for those missing the important things...the things that matter but due to annoying (some unforeseen) circumstances, have (temporarily) relegated the main stuff to the back burner.

When things in your life seem almost too much to handle, when 24 hours in a day are not enough,

remember the mayonnaise jar........and the beer.

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls.

He then asked the students if the jar was full. They agreed that it was.

So the professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open areas between golf balls.

He then asked the students again if the jar was full. They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else.

He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded with a unanimous "yes."

The professor then produced two cans of beer from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively filling the empty space between the sand. The students laughed. "Now," said the professor, as the laughter subsided, "I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life. The golf balls are the important things--your family, your children, your health, your friends, your favorite passions--things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full. "

The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, your house, your car.

The sand is everything else--the small stuff. "If you put the sand into the jar first," he continued, "there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life. If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you. Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness. Play with your children. Take time to get medical checkups. Take your partner out to dinner. Play another 18.

There will always be time to clean the house, and fix the disposal.

"Take care of the golf balls first, the things that really matter. Set your priorities. The rest is just sand." One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the beer represented. The professor smiled. "I'm glad you asked. It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a couple of beers."

~Author Unknown~

Treat every day as if it were your last and one day you will be right.

When it rains, I hope it's margarita.

2007-12-17T10:12:00.000+08:00

December 8
@ Dencio's

merry christmas, i could care less - fall out boy

2007-12-16T14:04:00.000+08:00

i am having a Grinch moment and one can only blame PMS for so much. these past few days are reminiscent of the days after my mother's death. getting up is so hard to do. i'm grumpy, depressed, sarcastic, grumpy, depressed, sarcastic, grumpy, depressed, sarcastic... if that doesn't make my point clear, then i don't know what will.

for the sake of the kids, i promised to be nice. but turning into a Grinch is so easy than pretending to have the holiday jeer err...cheer. i thought getting my 13th month would lift my spirits up. but i didn't check my account till a few days later. so that must tell me something. if money can't work it's usual charm on this material girl living in a this material world, then i need another obsession... and fast.

i punished myself with dark chocolates and splurging thousands on books. oh my god i am so fucking depressed. but these chocolates are so fucking delicious let me worry about an expanding waistline in january. hello diabetes. i alternate between the highs of anger and the lows of depression. what a trip.

i wish i had an addiction. i want to get wasted. i wish i smoke. i wish i were an alcoholic. maybe i can work out my anger by blowing smoke circles in the air or getting piss drunk. but i can't stand the smell of cigarettes and i never was such a fan of beer. i am so doomed.

i just realized it's so hard to fake enthusiasm. it's so hard to feel better when everyone around you is so piss happy. if every sonofabitch is squealing with happiness. oh please, i am so going to gag.

i just want this bloody season to be over. please let it be over. i cannot wait for this bloody month to be over. i wish it were february already. this bloody month is starting to get on my bloody nerves and i am so bloody contemplating never showing up for work. i want go where there is no bloody christmas. wait, do they celebrate it in tawi-tawi? so help me god i am contemplating exile.

arrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggggg..............................

............................................................pass me more of those chocolates

Yesterday I was a dog. Today I'm a dog. Tomorrow I'll probably still be a dog. Sigh! There's so little hope for advancement. - Charles M. Schulz, (Snoopy)

Eat a live toad the first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you the rest of the day.- Unknown

2007-12-08T12:32:00.000+08:00

agreeing with chacha to extend my agony for 1 more week is a big mistake. i should've asked for a later shift than 5 am (like that's gonna happen, but a girl can hope). but i don't know what's good for me so i agreed before my thought process finally recognized what an idjit i was.

i was late 4 out of 5 this week from 10 minutes to 4 hours. if that doesn't get me fired i don't know what will. hello final written warning. yesterday, i was more than 4 hours late. it was one of those days the Universe reminds you you're a girl. when i woke up with the cramps, everything went downhill after that. it couldn't have come at a better time when i have a very, very, very 早上 shift.

after taking pain killers, i went back to bed thinking i'll just lie down for an hour more just to let it pass. frankly, can't girls get a break when we're under the weather? boys get circumcised only once and i didn't choose to be a girl. so give me a break. i fell back to sleep and woke up with the phone vibrating next to my arm. my eyes popped open so fast and when i turned to the window; oh lookie sun is up. bloody hell. it's past 6am. almost 7.

i resolved to go to work early the next day. but you know what they say... the road to hell is paved with good intentions. so is mine. i was still more than 4 hours late. i asked my brother if he heard the phome alarm. he said he did. it was so loud. i didn't hear it. he said i turned it off. crap. i don't remember doing it. crap. crap. i need cymbals banged next to my ear to wake me up.

I have not lost my mind - it's backed up on disk somewhere. - Unknown

if you find yourself at the end of the rope, tie a knot and hang in there.

2007-12-06T17:00:00.001+08:00

so too this day will pass, like the other days. i don't want to pause and think about it. or i would break down and cry. so i passed the day working. because when i work, then i don't think about anything but work or the puzzles i have yet to solve. it blocks out everything i refuse to think about.

i thought about taking a leave. but i think too much. i might kill myself agonizing over the what-ifs if i stayed home. so i decided that taking supe calls from annoyed customers is the lesser evil.

but i still want her back. nothing is ever the same without her. 7months of just drifting on an endless sea, a boat tossed about by waves with nowhere to anchor, no lighthouse. 7 grey months that would drag on to more grey months.

after she was gone, i stopped caring about living. i was preoccupied with death. all consuming doubt. all consuming hate. i hated living when there is nothing to look forward to. no home to go to. no fallback. no one to comfort you when you're down. no one to pick you up when you hit rock bottom. i hated to be alive when she is dead. i don't want to live.

i hated God. for letting it happen. for every painful thing she went through. for every pain we went through. for every thing we would miss about her - light, love, touch. for everything we lost when we lost her.

there is no christmas for me. we don't look forward to it. my brother doesn't want to celebrate it. because it's so weird to celebrate it without her. i have stopped believing in santa claus a long time ago. maybe i should stop believing in You too.

i don't want to believe. there are no miracles in this world for me. just misery. i hate it when You play favorites. so i lost it. just lost it. i harnessed that anger and turned it into a fury that ate everything that continued to want to believe. i want to stop believing because You failed me. so stuff Yourself somewhere the sun don't shine.

but i know i am not the first on this boat. You have surely heard the same complaints before. same rants, it's no news to You. so my being angry wouldn't have put a dent on your day. just on mine and the rest of the people who would have to put up with me. being bitch. growing bitchier.

but i was born, bred and raised Catholic. i may have gone through st. Aquinas' summa theologica because of some stupid debate. but i hate what i know. i hate what my brain refused to forget. i've been indoctrinated to know enough that pretending You don't exist doesn't mean You don't exist. there are some things that even science can't explain. You don't change just because i changed my opinion of You. You will still be there even when i am not. i hate losing especially against my own logic.

i don't want to love. because i don't want to hurt like this ever again. i don't want to go through this e-v-e-r again. love doesn't make everything better. somethings but not this. love is such a bitch when you are the one left to grieve. loss is paralyzing. love is so short, forgetting is so long.

but yesterday was her birthday. i may be mad at You but she taught me good. she believed in You. so i set aside my anger for the day. we may not see each other eye to eye these days, but there are a lot of things that i would do for her. 6 feet under or not.

so shoty and i met at greenbelt for the mass. i would have made it through the day - no breaking down, no tears; but the priest invited the celebrants to come forward for the birthday blessing. but mama, you have gone ahead. months ago. somewhere blessed.

she would have been 57 yesterday.

Happy Birthday

Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.

To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.

What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is shattered and she is not with me.

--- Tonight I can write by Pablo Neruda

Listen, to the song here in my heart

2007-11-28T16:57:00.001+08:00

i was asleep when God was giving out voices like these. but this girl was wide awake. this is charice pempengco singing Listen by beyonce. naka pyjamas pa sya sa video na yan. nakaka tindig balahibo, she's sooo good for a 14 year old. brava

Too much of a good thing is wonderful. - Mae West

Civil Engineer Examinees for November 2007 will RETAKE the exam on January 12, 2008

2007-11-27T18:49:00.000+08:00

so it's official. those who took the exam last november 17-18 for the civil engineering licensure exam will retake it. ***make face here***

i haven't seen the decision posted on the prc site or any of our local news channel's' websites. but i heard that it was announced over the tv on a local station.

my brother told me that he and wilbert just came from PRC and was was already informed that due to the statistical improbability of the results in geotech/hydraulics and structural design the examinees will have to retake those two subjects. he did say that design was easier than they expected since it's mostly specs and not much about the difficult stuff. they thought it was such a blessing and now it turned out to be a curse. since it looks like so many of the examinees were able to get exceptional scores on those two subjects, they will have to retake it.

statistical improbability my ass. (it's a statistical improbability that a virgin should conceive a child, but i don't think they'd count religion in this argument =)

there is of course the rumor that there is a leakage down south. if you want to know where the supposed leakage happened, read the comments here and here. they are so funny, i read them to pass the time at work. laugh trip talaga. someone said PRC - Philippine Retake Commission rawr! =) those poor kids...going out of their minds waiting for the damned results. and prc telling them to retake. ***curse like a sailor here***

so i guess you can expect the exams on geotech/hydraulics and structural design to be even more harder. if math was sooo annoyingly over the top hard. goodluck with design! too many formulas so little time.

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. - Albert Einstein

Computers can figure out all kinds of problems, except the things in the world that just don't add up. - James Magary

2007-11-25T16:05:00.000+08:00

that was how it started. it just doesn't add up.

i was searching google for information about urchin but i keep getting directed to google web analytics. my frustration was so palpable i can taste it. ok so analytics is the new urchin but i really need urchin 3 information. unfortunately, that is what we're still using. we haven't even upgraded to urchin 4 or 5. very old school...i know, i know.

i was so pissed. going home at 2 am in the morning would do that to you. especially if you've been combing the net for hours and haven't found anything relevant, just websites trying to sell you their services to launch your website at the top of every search engine in the kingdom. rawr. i am so not looking for that.

so as soon as i arrived at the office and after 5 computer restarts (pesteng computer) i was seriously considering sending the computer overboard (read: outta the porthole errr the 32nd floor's window). i thought i was going to get the blue screen of death but finally it started to respond on the fifth restart and so my evil thoughts receded. amazing (sarcasm, sarcasm).

out of desperation i even emailed our senior quality engineer, but i only did that because i was sooo desperate and i hate being desperate. and honestly he scares me, i would have rather have myself burned at the pits and die but since even that is more painful than asking for his help so i sent the email. duh. the fact that i'm still breathing today can attest to the wisdom of that desperate act; but that is neither here nor there.

now my problem with urchin is how can you have more visitors than pageviews? my understanding was shouldn't every visit count as a pageview? since you'll be pulling up the site and pulling it up means you'll be pulling up a page from his site so that is a pageview, right? so i thought there must at least be one pageview per visit.

my searches last night were futile. but i got lucky today. it pays to play thestone. my searches finally directed me to a website that has a link to urchin info. not exactly urchin 3 (it looks like google have wiped out all documentaion regarding urchin 3 because i couldn't find any specific documentation regarding that version). but i found a documentation that compares the 3 versions - urchin 3, 4 and 5 and it does contain an answer as to why pageviews may not equal/exceed your number of visitors. it's right here:

Urchin 3
* Visitor tracking is done by incoming IP address only. There is no distinction between a visitor and a session.
* All MIME types except images (gif/jpg/png) are treated as pageviews.
* Pageview hits with a HEAD request type are logged as treated as actual pageviews.
* Pageviews are not required to count a visitor, so a request for a single image file could be counted as a new visitor. (-> ano daw? labo! but not necessarily a pageview? but it's a hit?)
*Hits with error codes of 404 or 5xx are considered legitimate visits and could increment the visitor count. (-> would it count as a pageview even if it's a 404 or 5xx?)
*Traffic->Hourly report and Tracking reports (e.g. Top Entrances, Top Exits) data is stored on a monthly basis, therefore the only report granularity is for a single month date range.

That was still too vague for me. But this website gave me the cincher:

Page View - The opportunity for a page to appear in a browser window as a direct result of a visitor's interaction with a website. The term "page" is used to represent the visitor's view of a website through the browser window. A page request does not guarantee that a visitor actually viewed the requested page. It only measures the opportunity for that page to have been delivered to the visitor. A page request will be valid even if the resource or information requested does not load to completion or otherwise become fully available to the requesting visitor. Pages may contain text, images, media objects or other online elements. However, only one page is counted per request. A request that is followed by an interstitial page (a page that appears in a separate browser window while a web page is loading), will only count as one page request. Cached pages (pages held in processor memory) are not counted in page-hit calculations, so as to have a system of measurement that replicates web log file data.

So now you know. Spread it around.

Ain't life grand when you get an answer for what you need. - I say so.

Only exceptionally rational men can afford to be absurd. - Allan Goldfein

Between the wish and the thing life lies waiting. - Unknown

2007-11-22T20:29:00.000+08:00

what did i say about waiting?

yes, it's such a bitch.

waiting for the CE board exam results is nerve-wracking. my brother had been losing sleep since monday. i've been losing sleep since he told me that his chances of passing is maybe 50-50. yeah how encouraging. he told me that math was the bloodiest. they weren't expecting it to be like that. (i don't know what they were expecting but i've always equated math with numbers. so did something happen with the numbers? i'm hoping they got sucked by some blackhole and they're never coming back - i wish). he said that situational probability is the pits. (i hate probability, permutation. i hate math period and it hates me back). design and geotech was ok. whatever OK means.

last week did not come up roses for me either. after accidentally deleting that site? i was so damn lucky jade wasn't on his rest day yet =)

on the lighter side, i finally cracked the abstract images of illustration. i didn't get the answer exactly but at least i have the quote from the images. of course the close is too broad but it's still better than having nothing.

on the downside, the last outside stone puzzle has been revealed and solved. and i still have 66 puzzles to go. i am starting to panic. panic. eeeeeekkk

there.

i feel so much better.

***sigh***

It is better to know some of the questions than all of the answers. - James Thurber

i don't think luck has anything to do with it

2007-11-20T17:28:00.000+08:00

i finally had my sonomammography results explained to me 15 days after my ultrasound. last night i even dreamt about it. in my dreams i have a cyst on the underside of my left breast. that creeps me out. the first thing i did after i woke up was feel it. nothing there. whew. but the lump at 1 o'clock is there. i've had it for some time. no biggie. really. because if there's one on the underside that would make it two on my left. i was told that most breast cancers occur on the left. my mom's cancer was on the left and it was (almost) under her arms that is why we never noticed it until she told us because it was mostly hidden. now you have something to look out for.

my results said:

Assessment slash Recommendation:

BIRADS CATEGORY: 3

Distinct hypoechoic masses with suggestively benign (encircled by my doctor in blue) sonographic features, bilateral. Short-term follow-up by sonography ater 6 months suggested to monitor stability. Simple cyst, left.

According to the footnote on the results BIRADS category 3 means: Probably Benign Finding; Short Interval Follow Up Suggested.

the probably there gives me the heebie jeebies but my doctor says that they don't operate on them unless they are bigger than 20mm. it makes me happy that i don't have to go under the knife but it's unnerving to know that i'd be living with "distinct hypoechoic masses at 1 o'clock position(left) and at 3 & 4 o'clock positions (right) ranging from 3.6mm to 12.6mm."

the biggest is on my right at 4 o'clock. they could not be certain whether these are solid or cystic in nature due to lack of distinguishing characteristics. but i remember how i came to notice this lump on my right. i felt a little pain there after wearing bra with wires all day. upon checking it out i found the lump. i stopped wearing bras with wires after that. i don't have any illusions on living longer but why tempt the divil, roight?

the second biggest is on my left at 1 o'clock at 6.8mm. that one i've had it for some time. even before my mom notice hers. it's the only one noted as simple cyst. walls are distinct with no evident irregularity or solid component.

overall diagnosis - No features suspicious for malignancy seen.

i guess that means that i get to live a little longer. small reprieve.

yeah big deal.

let's see what happens in may for my next check up.

and if you're wondering why not a mammogram?

*Patients ages 25 years old and below are not subjected to mammography due to sensitivity of breast tissues to radiation and low incidence of breast cancer in these age groups.

"That's the secret to life... replace one worry with another.... "- Charles Schultz

everyone is entitled to be stupid, but some abuse the privilege.

2007-11-16T16:45:00.000+08:00

oh god i am so stupid.
cleaned out a 732Mb site

every webmaster's nightmare
now mine

somebody kill me now.

downloaded everything bawal
filezilla
explorer
because i.ftp is fucked up
when downloading directories

desperate times
even more
desperate measures

i'm stuck downloading the files from back up
until god knows when.

then i still have to edit the site from frontpage
because it was built in frontpage
and then reupload the files again

but it doesn't like uploading that much files
i can just see it timing out

oh yeah

it's gonna take forever
and ever
ever
.

damn
double damn
triple damn

arrrrgggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

there are nightmares you never wake up from

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)i am never without it - e.e. cummings

2007-11-14T15:02:00.000+08:00

it's been six months today since my mom passed away. while i was in naga, my father and i argued about the babang luksa. it's the official end of the mourning period. one year later.

i argued because don't feel like celebrating it or marking anything. i don't care what others think. fuck them.

i'm happy she is no longer in pain. i don't want her to suffer. but i want her back. i want her back before she got sick. but wishing and wanting doesn't count after the fact

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)

i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

--
e.e. cummings "i carry your heart with me"

life is like a roller coaster ride

2007-11-13T12:22:00.000+08:00

by next week i'll be having a new work schedule. i'm not sure if its a boon or a curse. all i know is it means i can sleep until lunch time and still have enough time to go to work. but it also means that by the time i go home, it would be too late to ring anyone much less watch tv. no weekends off either, which is a bummer.

but at least i'll be able to squeeze an appointment with my doctor. it seems she only works in the morning. hmm, that doesn't perk me up.

i'm feeling restless again. i'm in one of those flight modes that says " i want to get out of here!"

...but then i have no idea where to go.

i did say waiting is such a bitch.

and it looks like i would even have to wait longer. my ultrasound results were released last november 9. it was picked up by my doctor's secretary and she did not even tell me. i went to makati med's breast clinic last monday and waited for more than 2 hours just to be told that. by the time they finally managed to trace where my results went, it was too late to schedule another appointment with my doctor because she went home early. duh!

i don't understand why they don't save these information on their computer. if it was, it would've made searching easier - just a click away. for such a big hospital, they can't manage to store these things on their computers. they need a better IT consultant.

i'm glad i'm done with my breast sonogram, i overheard one of the attendants say they're booked solid until december 17. unbelievable. if i ever need one next time, i'll have it done in naga.

i had mine last november 5 before i went home to visit my mother. it was kind of weird. they put a gel on this thing they put over my breast and you can see these weird lines on the monitor which i assume were my breast muscles or tissues. funny, there doesn't seem to be a lot.

but seriously i was nervous as hell. the gel was cold and every time the lady doc stops as if she's taking a picture of something, i can feel my heart skip a beat. 1.25cm what the hell is that. so i stop looking and just sang a long with hugh grant and whoever was singing along with him; their song was blaring across the speakers. neat.

i now wished i asked if i have "you know." but i was a little spooked then. now i'm more than a little spooked. thinking about it makes my stomach roll and all it's content seem to be on zero gravity.

speaking of gravity, while i stayed in my aunts house i discovered danny forster of extreme engineering. he is such a geek. but a cute geek. i watched the episode he made about roller coasters. it was amazing. now i know why coasters don't fall down while it's traversing the loop and what makes it go round the loop. mathematics, physics... yeah all those yucky stuff that riding it would be so much easier that trying to comprehend all the computations that explain how your coaster goes through all those twists and turns and loops.

he went to the Griffon's construction site in virginia while they were still building it. the guys on the site made fun of the host's fit designer jeans. what a very becky moment. danny couldn't think of a retort. that really cracked me up. and it's amazing how a massive steel coaster like that is supported by what, 53 A-beams or whatever? anyway, i don't think my stomach is up for that kind of ride - 205 foot 90° drop. there goes my lunch. what can i say, i'm not that brave.

if you want an old school roller coaster ride, there's the wooden roller coaster. for that he went to the construction site of the Renegade in Minnesota. compared to a steel coaster like the griffon this one has thousands of wooden support to keep it steady. but wooden coasters shakes like crazy when you ride them. to find out why, you have got to watch the episodes at discovery channel.

since these two roller coasters were still under construction, he couldn't ride them. so he went to florida to ride a steel coaster and a wooden coaster (gwazi) in the busch gardens. another discovery you'll make, he screams like a girl. haha!

but between riding these roller coasters and being a passenger of my cousin's driving, i'd take these roller coasters anytime.

He who hesitates is sometimes saved. - James Thurber

undas

2007-11-02T12:49:00.000+08:00

before i slept last night i called shoty. he's the only one of the 3 of us who was able to go home and visit mama since my sister and i were stuck working. lala yin and papa were disappointed we couldn't go and so are we. i was looking forward to a graveside reunion with cousins and share scary stories with the younger ones to keep them awake for the rest of the night.

my brother said that it feels very unnerving that he's now visiting mother in the cemetery instead of another relative.

so i decided to go home next week and visit my mom. it's nice to visit just after all saints day since the cemeteries won't be so crowded. it will already be clean by then and the graves would still be sparkling white (most of it are painted white). my brother said that we should buy the lot being sold next to ours. but none of us have any money to buy it. i joked that we couldn't even buy our own house and lot; and yet we're gonna buy a cemetery lot! that cracked me up somehow.

Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It's the transition that's troublesome. - Isaac Asimov

There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness. - Friedrich Nietzsche

2007-10-23T12:15:00.000+08:00

"so how do you stop your good friend from falling in love with scheming, two-timing S.O.B?" that was the question i overheard someone ask another someone over lunch as i was dining on porkchop drowned in mushroom soup. let's say that question is based on the premise that the other party is a proven scheming, two-timing, sh*t-faced, lying S.O.E.

it was enough to make me smile as i chomp on my meal. yum... anyway, my answer is "you don't." haha! after this few people might call me friend. but it was an interesting enough question that i'm willing to set aside an afternoon of puzzling out linya ng pagtatanong (go figure) and devote my overworked fingers into trying to make some sense out of this nonsense.

love, falling in love or thinking-you're-in-love is a tricky thing. if there is such thing as a warning to be given to those who think they are in love, it should be "therein lies madness. pursue at your own risk." more often than not, people who fall into the love-sick category are too hard-headed to listen. they don't see anything too clearly beyond what they see through their rose-colored lenses. or maybe deep inside they know but they can't help themselves. it's like a yosi addiction, you promised to stop at 1 stick a day but then it's in your blood. so you end up having two, then three and then a pack a day. then you end up in hospital getting chemotheraphy to cure you of your addiction. but seriously, you can't save them unless they wanted to be saved. to use an analogy, a life raft is of no use unless the drowning person actually makes a grab for it. duh!!!

falling in love is like getting drunk on a good wine. the more you imbibe of it, the greater the chance you won't be sitting behind the wheel. the more you drink of it, the greater the hangover, the worse the headache. because it tasted so good you keep taking one shot after another. before you know it your friends would be telling you, "lasing ka na." and you keep saying "no i'm not" and then laugh hysterically at such nonsense. take more shots... and finally you puke. but puking is never a guarantee you will not drink again, it just means that you'll be counting shots or bottles next time. same with love. getting your heart broken several times, doesn't stop it from beating (for someone) again.

anyway, let's say that you can't stand seeing your friend make a total ass of himself/herself over this S.O.E. you can't stand having your friend being the butt of everyone's joke. you tell your friend how inappropriate/mismatch/unhealthy (etc, etc) the relationship is; after all the guy or the girl is a two-timing, snake-tongued, sh*t-faced S.O.E. still you can only hope that your friend's brain is still logical enough to process that information and strong enough to make a clean break. the decision would still be up to your friend. you can only dispense an advice.

i studied in a chinese school. i never even realized that some chinese families don't embrace intermarriages openly until the later part of my highschool. the stories i've heard are just painfully heartbreaking. the length into which some of these families would actually go to to prevent that can be uhhh...shocking. really... telenovela kind of plot in the making. parents warning daughters/sons of being disinherited, etc etc. does that stop the young ones from following their hearts? in some cases it does douse the flame enough to get them to their senses; but for some of those who are brave enough (not to pay heed), crash and burn. better to have loved and lost than not at all, right? bullsh*t, but you tell me because i've never heard of anyone walk away from it intact.

i'm sure you've heard the you-and-me-against-the-world thing. it's the kind of relationship i hope never to encounter or experience. it makes those involved very fatalistic. it's like a runway train. some people in this kind of relationship are only willing to see one side. short of divine intervention, i'd say goodluck and God bless to anyone trying to stop this.

i've heard one father who has a daughter say that he stopped whining because that seemed to encouraged the relationship even more. if its doomed to fail, it will fail even without anyone's help. those in this type of relationship have seen too much cheesy movies or koreanonovelas and will try to do anything to make it work. it's painful to watch but it's your friend's life. you can't live it for them. if they're between 14 and 16, start praying. but if they're over 18, they're old enough to run their lives and hopefully know what's right from wrong; and wise enough to understand that some things are not just meant to be and to force it would do harm than good. if their families cannot even put a stop to it, i'm not sure if even you could. some people just needed to see some things through it's end, maybe your friend is one of them. you can't stop people form getting hurt, maybe you can stop a few from getting hurt some of the time but not all the time. there are some things they have to experience for themselves and this is one of those. of course it doesn't mean you can't nag, you can nag and nag some and then nag some more. but if you're told to shut, shut up. save your breath.

i know a guy who actually dated this girl who treated him like dirt for 2 friggin' years, witnessed their public arguments and the girl cursed him like a sailor. OMG. i wanted to tell the girl, "you kiss your mother with that mouth???" this guy just took it. everyone wondered how he put up with it. talk about being pussy-whipped (excuse me). he finally saw the light but i cannot understand how he managed to put up with such abuse.

to go back to the question, can you stop your friend from falling into the wrong sort of relationship? it's so easy to say yes. but how far has your friend fallen? if your friend is too 'blind' to see, then you have your work cut out for you. there are no definite answers. there is no such thing as ceteris paribus in this arena. so many market forces at work that you might as well try moving heaven closer to earth. some people just don't like to be told what to do. so let them figure it out for themselves. one can only sustain the fantasy of making it work for so long. it's inevitable, but one way or another reality will set in.

if the airport is the great equalizer in the amazing race, then love is the great equalizer among men. the wise become stupid and the stupid ahhh...never mind. they say there is no right or wrong when it comes to love. but i'd say it depends on what side you're on. if you're in, i'd say your judgment is impaired. if you're an uninterested third party, then you better wipe that sneer off you face.

they said that the head was placed above your shoulder to rule over your heart. let me tell you as well that the world is round and it has no point. haha! wait till you fall in love and tell me if you can feel your head at all.

Love is not blind - it sees more, not less. But because it sees more, it is willing to see. - Rabbi Julius Gordon

the doctor is IN

2007-10-22T14:44:00.000+08:00

i just got back from my ob-gyne. my heart was literally in my throat. but since october being breast cancer awareness month, every newspaper and webpage i seem to be browsing is telling me to go see a doctor.

so today my friend kb and i went to maxicare to get a referral. since it is my first time, i agreed to have a doctor there for a check up. but after waiting for more than 30 minutes for my name to be called, i decided to ask for a referral instead. my nerves can't stand the waiting and my stomach has been empty since last night. its almost 1 pm.

after getting our referrals, we went to makati med. i almost ask kb not to leave me alone. she had an appointment with an eent on the second floor. i left her at the eent clinic but not before she jokingly said "gagawin mo pa akong nanay." i don't really feel like going alone to meet my ob-gyne. but i've been putting it off for a long time and i just had to do it before i set my mind to leave this company for good.

since it was my first serious check up. she asked the usual questions about our family's breast cancer history. so i told her the story: my mom passed away due to breast cancer last may and my aunt (my father's sister) had a mastectomy about a few months ago. she asked when my mom was diagnosed and i said last year. she asked, "do i have a sister? " and i said yes. since i have history on both sides, she told me i should have a regular check up after this. my sister too. i didn't ask her how often "regular check up" meant.

she told me she found some small lumps. but to be sure what those are, i better get a breast ultrasound due to my family's history with the disease. she gave me a slip to take back to maxicare.

when i got there, this guy told me that the makati med breast clinic schedule is full. there's an open schedule for october 31st, but its at 3pm. i asked for a 4pm sched, but they're only open until 3pm. wtf. but i have work that day. i asked to be sched for october 29th instead, but its a holiday - i'm told. damn. so i was scheduled for november 5th at 2.30 pm since the morning shedule is full as well. double damn.

i haven't told my family yet. i plan to tell my sister, my brother and my cousin. sincemy cousin works as a nurse in makati med, it would be awkward inventing a reason if i bump into her there. so might as well tell. i'll wait until i have the ultrasound result before i let the rest of the familia in on the secret. no need to give thm a heart attack before i know for sure.

if it's possible to die from too much anticipation, i'm sure i'd be dead by november 5. geez, then that would save me from having to go through the ultrasound and this waiting.

waiting is such a bitch....

mood: somber

2007-10-20T11:55:00.000+08:00

the weather seems to be cooperating with the general mood. overcast skies. no sun and its almost 12 noon already. parang bumaba ang langit sa makati to sympathize with what happened yesterday.

or maybe to sympathize with me. i've been trying to login to thestone since this morning. no error message. it just wont accept my logins. are they shutting it down now? i hope not. i get antsy about unfinished business and i hope they don't shut the site down until i get to answer all the darn puzzles. but that is wishful thinking on my part. crap i still have 75 puzzles to go and one i'm close to cracking. plus 74 others that make me bang my head on the nearest object and question my sanity.

after that happened in glorietta 2, for the mean time no more trips to the mall. watching the news last night made my skin crawl. it's so unreal. it's one of the places i frequent with my siblings. thank God we weren't there. if it was probably a weekend, we would've been in trouble.

the stories i heard from my co workers whose loved ones experienced the terror of being at the wrong place at the wrong time is enough to keep me awake at night. all those body parts separated from their owners, my God. i'd be so traumatize for life if encounter a leg detached from it's owner.

my cousin who's a nurse at makati med relayed stories that would forever hunt my dreams. we are just so grateful we weren't there when it happened. at last year's bombing of a bus near the mrt and sm, my sister and i were at glorietta at that time calling my mom from a payphone. listening to the stories brought out the images of people stampeding towards every exit.

The best defense against the atom bomb is not to be there when it goes off. - Anonymous

Inday Nosebleed Jokes (Compilation): 2nd edition

2007-10-09T12:16:00.000+08:00

i don't know where the 1st edition is. i received the compilation from my cousin. Most of the text messages i received in july and september are Inday messages. I've deleted some but those that I remember saving were also included here. i've included some of the Inday jokes i received through sms from one of my supervisors who seems to be an INDAY fan (hello MYKEps!) and my hermano who forwarded the sms about estong's message to Inday.

this is for all the inday followers. laugh till you drop...

1. "Whoever is spreading the malicious news of my supposed death is really out of his/her mind. It is a hoax! I am right here, alive and kicking. I am here to stay longer!" - Sagot ni INDAY sa balitang patay na siya

2. "Minekanikow ni Monico eng mekina neng menikow ni Monica."
"Peskow, peksew, Peskow, peksew."
"Booteke, betooka, booteeka, booteke, betooka, booteeka."
"Damn! I can't deliver the Filipino tongue twisters!"
- Si INDAY, nagsasanay ng tongue twisters

3. "It is in mistakes that we learn how to grow to be better individuals. You may judge me for what you perceive but it is not my mistake that determines who I am, rather, it is what I do to make things right." - Sagot ni INDAY sa amo nya nang makabasag siya ng pinggan

4. JEEPNEY DRIVER: Hoy! Bakit P6 lang ang ibinayad mo? P7 na ang pamasahe ngayon!
INDAY: I am currently enrolled in a two-year vocational course in an academic institution. Therefore, I am a student, and by this fact, I am entitled to have the inalienable right to avail of a certain discount on my jeepney fare. This is why I provided a payment less than what you expected because that is according to the law, as stated in the fare matrix.
JEEPNEY DRIVER: Okey.

5. Much as I would want to induldge in the proliferation of such indecent and malicious information, I want to life the stigma and alleviate scoeity's perception of our profession...We're not here to thrive on rumor but rather, we should engage in objective and top-of-the-line service to our designated employers." - Inday tumangging nakipagtsismisan sa katulong sa kabilang bahay. Professionalism at its best!

6. "We need to give due respect and the presumption of regularity to the verdict laid down against the former president. But guilty or not guilty, he will still be loved by people like me, people belonging to the masses." - Iyan ang sagot ni INDAY sa interbyu ng CNN sa kanya tungkol sa hatol kay ERAP

7. "Moisturizing my lips is really an essential part of my beauty routine because spending long hours under bright lights dries them out." - Iyan ang emote ni INDAY sa salamin habang ginagamit ang imported na lipstick ng amo.

8. "Be shame of your speaking. Did you think that your English grammary are corrected by? It's better to keep your mouth shock! Connect me if I'm wrong!" - Babala ni MELANIE MARQUEZ kay INDAY.

9. I'm not extremely good-looking but I have a sense of humor. I'm not breathtakingly intelligent but I'm relatively witty. I'm not insanely rich but I'm fairly kind. I'm just a simple guy with a crazy elusive ambition of meeting your acquiantance. So, hi!" - Si DODONG, nakikipag-txtm8 kay INDAY

10. P500 = Globe plan subscription
P1,800 = glutathione tablet
P600 = Olay Total Effects
P1,500 = Crocs flip flops
P2,000 = for Mama
- Bina-budget ni INDAY ang suweldo niya

11. Amo: Inday, bakit mo ibinenta 'yung sirang silya?
Inday: I have computed the chair's fair value less cost to sell, and the value in use using a five-year projection and a pre-tax discount rate. Accordingly, the value in use is lower, so I decided to sell the chair. This is in accordance with PAS 18 on Revenue, PAS 16 on Property, Plant and Equipment, and PAS 36 on Impairment of Assets.
AMO: (hindi naka-react)

12. Dear sir/madam,
Attached herewith is a list of proposed acquisition in line with my proposal to upgrade your household facilities. I have already made initial survey of current market prices. Note however that prices could vary depending on the prevailing exchange rate and aggregate supply and demand which we also monitor on an hourly basis. - Si Inday, nagpapaalam mamalengke (economist pala si Inday)

13. FLASH REPORT!
Inday is alive! She's not yet dead. SOCO found out that the impostora of Inday was killed. Ederlyn (Inday's kapitbahay) was the mastermind.
SOCO: Bakit mo ipinapatay si Inday?
EDERLYN: Kasi, inagaw niya sa akin si Dodong!
INDAY: Mythemaniac! He was never yours!
EDERLYN: Dong, mahal kita! Di ba, mahal mo rin ako?
DODONG: I never said that I love you!

14. "How do I stop falling for someone? How do I defy the pull of gravity? Can I just flee? Flee before I hit the ground and suffer the pain? And tell myself: Why do I choose to fall in the first place when I know from the start that someone is never gonna be there to catch me anyway?" - Tanong ni INDAY sa sarili niya nang ma-in love siya sa amo niya.

15. Finding a perfect love? There is no perfect love. The only thing you can do to make it somehow perfect is to be satisfied!" - Paboritong quotation ni INDAY, bow!

16. Sa restaurant:
Waiter: Ano po ang order nila, ma'am?
Amo: 'Yung fried chicken meal na lang. Ikaw, Inday, anong sa 'yo?
Inday: I would like to partake of a dish of sauteed pork and chicken boiled in thick essence of fermented soy and cane extracts, with copious amounts of garlic, onions and basil, sprinkled with fine spices and served with a generous helping of root crop and fragrant jasmine rice.
Waiter: (natigalgal)
Amo: Iho, adobo with rice daw.

17: Morons! I was never raised by my mom to be a coquette! I'm nurtured with such dignity, respect and morality! Even poverty can't make me do such scandalous act! Sexy is from within. I don't rely on aesthetic products and on skimpy and scantily clad outfits. So pathetic!" - Banat ni INDAY nang alukin siyang mag-pose sa FHM.

18. GREAT NEWS!!! Want to receive daily updates straight from your favorite househelp INDAY? Now you can! Just text FANATXT INDAY ON and send to 2334 for Globe and Touch Mobile subscribers, and 4627 for Smart and Talk 'N Text. P2.50/text." - Talbog! May FanaTxt na si INDAY!

19. Never assure that love is enough to make someone stay or come back to you because when pain strikes the heart, love fades away no matter how great it was." - Sabi ni INDAY kay DODONG nang magdesisyon siyang makipag-break dahil nagkita niyang magkausap sina DODONG at EDERLYN.

20. "Aoy alimin mo ahit inyi bayid. Aamiyin o inyan aoy manyid. Tana ay iong nanyinyinik, chayong nyaap aoy nyanyanyamik." - Si PABLING, ngongong manliligaw ni Inday, kinakanta ang Alipin

21. Katxt ni INDAY si PACMAN:
Inday: Eow Manny.
Pacman: Ho u? Wir ded u got my #?
Inday: Dis is Inday, im one of ur fans.
Pacman: Uh rile? Im hape 2 her dat.
Inday: Yeah, I juz want 2 wish u gud luck in ur upcoming bout wd Barrera.
Pacman: Tink u viry much. Pls pray dat I wen des fyt.
Inday: Yes, ill pray 4 ur victory. Rgardz 2 Ara, esteJOKE lang!
Pacman: Kaw ha, pelya ka!
- Ang bigat ni Inday, kabiruan na si Pacman!

22. "I tried my best to wait for you. I've shouted, but you didn't come out. You didn't even respond. Now you want me to go back?" - Sabi ng MAGTATAHO kay Inday!

23. "Beri-beri, a Singhalese word which means 'weakness,' is a disease that caused death, particularly among prisoners and sailors. It is a disease caused by a deficiency in Vitamin B1." - Reaksyon ni INDAY nang malamang ikukulong si Erap.

24. "If the radius of the circle is 8 inches, and if we are going to divide it to 8 equal parts, the arc length should be 2 inches, neither 1 nor whatsoever. It is so disgusting that there are no equality among division of parts whereas complementary to what am I saying about. This matter is not indispensable, on a part that it should be diminished accordingly for future's sake." - INDAY, nag-e-emote! Mas malaki kasi ang pizza slice na ibinigay kay EDERLYN nang ininterbyu sila sa Oprah Show (Naks! International na!)

25. To make it stand, you wet it! To make it wet, you suck it! To make it stiff, you lick it! To get it in, you push it!" Damn! Ang hirap maglagay ng sinulid sa karayom! 'Kainis!" - Si INDAY, tinuturuang manahi si SIR. Flirty-flirty si Inday, huh?!

26. "A Peeping Tom like you has no place in this society. Although I admit that I have a beautiful body, you have no right, nor privilege to feast on it without my knowledge. Such a Satanic act must be stopped immediately. I condemn what you did and I have no other recourse but to bring this matter to Sir and Ma'am for proper action." - Sabi ni INDAY sa HARDINERO na nahuli niyang sinisilipan siya habang naliligo

27. "I will be out of the country starting tomorrow until September 30 for an overseas engagement. It would be appreciated if you would refrain from sending forwarded messages 'till I come back since I am on roaming and it costs Php10.00/msg received by the overseas network. Thanks." - Txt ni INDAY kina DODONG at MANANG noong isinama siya ng amo niya sa Madrid, España

28. "Please pray for the quick recovery of INDAY! She's currently in the ICU because of excessive nose bleeding which she had while accompanying Junior in his school's LINGGO NG WIKA celebration." - Please pass this to all whose lives, like mine, have been touched by Inday

29. "The privilege of loving is something that needs to be cherished. There will come a time that your love won't be reciprocated. but who cares? What matter is that you experienced the most magnificent feeling ever intended for humans." - Inday binasted ni badong. Di sya bitter ng lagay nyang to.

30. "A change in the weather patterns might have occurred causing havoc to affected surroundings...the way debris are scattered indicated that the gust of wind is going northeast...causing damage to the path it is going." - Sagot in inday samin nung tanungin kung bakit nagkalat ang basura sa likod ng bahay

31. Physical stress and excessive work may result to serious damage to one's body. It is therefore essential we take a break from our usual routine to replenish our energy. - Sagot ni Inday sa amo nya ng ayaw siyang payagang mag day off

32. "There are tulips in the street, there are tulips in the park, but nothing compares to our two lips meeting in the dark." - Pamatay lines ni Estong kay Inday!

33. "Off you go! Under no circumstance this house would relent to such unabashed display of vagrant destitution!" - Si Inday pinapaalis ang makulit na pulubi sa gate.

34. To STOP receiving INDAY messages, text INDAY (space) OFF and send to 2366." - Inday (bwelta ni Inday sa mga kumakalat na messages nya!)

35. "I pity you for you have degraded your very own pride and dignity by resorting to this despicable behavior just for money. "I hope that one day you will realize that you should not use people as means to your ends. As what the great philosopher Kant uttered, 'Treat a man as an end in himself.'" Sabi ni INDAY sa holdaper na nanghoholdap sa kanya.
Ang sagot ng HOLDAPER, "Shut up coz if you don't, the bullet in this gun will rest upon your empty head!"

ANG SOSYAL NA TALAGA NILA, 'NO?!

36. "I was shot by a 9mm bullet at the head damaging my entire stupid brain and my fucking skull so that i will die and stop speaking english preventing people from nosebleeding!" - in loving memory of Inday (ayan patay na sya! Sa wakas tapos na ang mga kahibangan!)

37. "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. But...I also believe that God has given me an eternal life, that through Him I resurrect and come back to life, finish my business especially with people who are quoting me and have spread everything that I say as if I am a celebrity. And oh, to reunite with my beloved Ederlyn, wherever she is." - Inday resurrected (10 Sept 2007)

=_)

***

The world is round; it has no point. - Adrienne E. Gusoff

"I cleave the heavens, and soar to the infinite. What others see from afar, I leave far behind me." - Giordano Bruno

2007-10-06T15:26:00.000+08:00

Bruno's universe had no center. "In the Universe," he wrote, "no center and no circumference exist, but the center is everywhere . . ."

Elaborating upon this point he remarked: As to us on Earth, the Earth seems to be the center of the Universe, so to inhabitants of the Moon, the Moon will appear as such ... Each world has its center, each its up and down; these differences are to be assigned relatively . . .

Because of such belief, Bruno was declared a heretic, handed over to secular authorities on February 8, 1600. At his trial he listened to the verdict on his knees, then stood up and said: "Perhaps you, my judges, pronounce this sentence against me with greater fear than I receive it."

He was burned at the stake, naked, with is tongue gagged (ughhh...that's mighty painful).

poor man...

*********
nonsense? depends on whether you're on the same boat as i am. d@mmit! i am stoned out of my friggin' mind. i'm stumped again...arggghhh... i hate being back in the land of arggghhhnesss!!

i've had all i can take about copernicus, galileo and the heliocentric theory. i don't remember doing so much research on this even in highschool.
soo many closes and noooo cigar. i'm not even done with puzzle i've privately labeled mothman, spiderman and green goblin. it's the only way i know of describing it. i got 2 clevers - 1 of which is the taunt which references a previous solved puzzle. just thinking about this puzzle makes my head hurt. all those alien thingies, ufo's, icky looking insects, moths and spiders are driving me bananas! i want to hold on to the chickenjoy i ate for lunch. i just don't see any common denominator that leads me to a close. the mother of all frustrations. at the rate i'm going, i have more chances of being abducted by aliens than solving this! and then there's the creepy puzzle (i refuse to listen to another ghost recording! i hope this doesn't bite me in the butt. but i've had enough listening to ghosts). somebody save me....

i need a noogie, a nudgie, a good nudge, a good whack in the head... anything to jolt my frozen brain cells into a working frenzy....

coffee.... i need coffee!

****

posted by ... from the land of arggghhhnesss. please burn after reading!

Dance is the hidden language of the soul. - Martha Graham

2007-10-05T12:21:00.000+08:00

because i was reminded of my mom today, i recalled the dream my aunt told me about when i went home to naga 2 weeks ago.

she said that she had a dream of my mother, dancing by the pool. my mom has always been in pain because of her illness, so she was perplexed to see her dancing about. so she said, " i thought you're sick." my mom replied, "i'm feeling much better now." and she continued to dance by the pool.

hen xiang ni mama

Dance like no one is looking. Love like you've never been hurt. - anonymous

end of thestone age

2007-10-03T12:22:00.000+08:00

they say that thestone is about to end =( now that the 216th puzzle has been answered. i have to work double time on my solving. i still have 76 puzzles to go! arghhh!

i really hate the puzzles i'm stuck on right now. if i have to listen to another ghost recording i'm gonna scream. i wish somebody would just give me the answer for that puzzle. too many closes and no cigar.

Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it. - Russell Baker