visibility cloak

I'm done with my exams for this week and I'm starting with a research project this afternoon. In between those, I just want to proclaim that you'll be seeing more of me for the next few days because I'm back!

Looking at the dates of my entries, one wouldn't be able to tell that I've been a bit busy. But if you try to read the past few entries closely, you'd see that I didn't have much time to write. I used pictures instead and just a few announcements of stuff. Well, I didn't really have much time to write because I've been writing other things but there will be enough time for you to see those next month. And to those who are used to my comments in their sites, I'm sorry if I've not been visiting for the past week or so. I'm ready to flood your blogs and sites now. :p

So what have I been up to? I will not go into the nitty gritty details of my loooong exams. I've learned to just let them be. Let's go to the fun stuff!

I had to cut class last week and attend a pre-production meeting for Caltex in Makati. But of course I attended a make-up class the next day. (Yes, Miss Joyce Marzan was partly right when she said I was OC. Sometimes I rly am.)

The event was last Saturday in Tiendesitas where I hosted and had a blast working with newfound friends. One of the new bands there was called H20. It was an RnB and Hiphop band and they were really really GOOD! It's difficult to play RnB songs for bands without sounding bad or pilit but H20 not just pulled it off, they ROCKED! (huh? RnB ba or rock? :p you know what I mean!) I loved their rendition of "I love rock and roll....tinentinentinen baby, I love rock and roll". Even "Crossroads" which is a difficult song was performed beautifully.

Anyway, here's a shot that Franco took from a corner somewhere.

Some of the band members were preparing while I was killing time for them, haha. And by the way, one of H20's vocalists looked like Jay-R. ;-) Too bad I didn't have photos of the whole band. The two vocalists entered somewhere in the middle of the gig. Oh, and they all danced hiphop too! Now you see I why I love this band?

Anyway, I had a great time hosting the event with all the game 200++ bikers! Franco, Vic, Ruffa, Ling, and Marco were there too :)

But going further back in time, Jas celebrated her 24th birthday.

I missed JohnB and Coco. Coco looked great even with her sprained ankle.
I missed Joao and Jas. Happy birthday, Jasmine! :)
Franco and I went there straight from the airport.

Uh oh.

TIME'S UP!

I have to go now but I'll write something more substantial as soon as I can :)

A friend of mine texted this morning. She said TGIF. Wow. :) It IS Friday!
Have a great weekend everyone!

losing my pen & finding pacman

I was supposed to review for my upcoming exams. I have two of them this week. And they both involve statistical computations. If they just required a bunch of readings, I would have been reviewing by now. But no... I mostly need to write these things. Remember, I'm not the type who could easily derive and compute everything in my head.

After the whirlwind weekend that I've been through, I just realized today that I lost my favorite pen. It's the only one that I use for school, for writing drafts on my little notebook, for fixing my schedule on my big yellow planner, for doodling when I'm bored, for cramming corrections on last Saturday's scripts... and... Hmm, come to think of it, the last time I remember having it with me was when I signed my name after hosting last Saturday for Caltex-Revtex Biker Ride event in Tiendesitas.

Where art thou, my favorite pen?

I hope you're in good hands wherever you are.

Here's a photo by Anatalia Almario of my oh-so-reliable pen.
Is this some kind of pre-empted farewell, ha Cheree?

Gray farewell photo for my pen.

~ o O o ~

On a happier note, this is the perfect excuse for me to post the next pic which I've been itching to post. haha!

Yesterday, we went to Von and Chi-chi's wedding in Manila Cathedral. It was like a BIG BIG BIG reunion for everyone. The church and reception were both filled with their family, friends, and relatives. But aside from seeing old friends and schoolmates, we got star-strucked :p

Thanks to Doray with her trusty camera and her friend, Vice-Gov. Dax, we got ourselves a photo op with the PACMAN! In more than three years, that was the first time that I saw Franco with this star-struck expression because of meeting someone in person. EVER. After shaking hands with him, Franco did the "mano po" gesture. It was so cute and funny. He was like a little boy meeting Santa Claus for the first time.

Franco has been dying to have a copy of this pic so without further adieu...

Para sa 'Yo!

Lala. Manny Pacquiao. Franco.

arnisador

Arnis is a Philippine Martial Art. And I want to promote it! I think this is the effect of interviewing Sir Richard Gialogo, our coach back in college when I joined the Arnis team. Aside from coaching the Ateneo team, he is now also one of the National team's coaches :) Nakana!

Right now, I'm in the middle of writing an article about Arnis from the eyes of an arnisador for FU Magazine's August-September issue so kindly wait for it :) The June-July issue with Miss Vivian Zapanta for STOTT Pilates on its cover is out now in selected areas! For those who haven't seen the magazine yet, FU Magazine (read as FOO and not as F.U.) is a free magazine distributed in bars and restos every 2 months. I am currently contributing articles about sports and adventures for them. :)

Going back to Arnis... I had to experience it all over again after several years of not training. And so, I went back to Ateneo this morning and watched Coach in action as he taught his present students. There was a time when I turned myself into a "saling-pusa" in one of his P.E. classes but mostly I observed, interviewed, and wrote drafts until early in the afternoon. And then afterwards, I trained with Coach and Oliver, a friend of Ava from France, who wanted private lessons in Arnis. :) Oliver said he saw people in Paris doing eskrima and he was fascinated by them so now he's training while taking a vacation in the Philippines! (so girls and guys, join now! Arnis is open for everyone!)

I was accompanied by my friend, Cheree Almario, who helped me out with the photos! YAY! Thanksmuch, Chewee! all these would not have been possible without your BIG HELP! :)

Since Cheree's not putting up her own blog anytime soon, I decided to blog her photos for her (with her permission of course). :p To the other photographers or to those who have an eye for photos, your constructive comments are very much welcome! :)

HIYAAAAAAAAAAAH!

STay Connected

To those who have read my previous posts, you would have noticed by now that my topics revolve around these: my friends, graduate school, work, love, and life.

And for some reason, I keep on repeating myself over and over when it comes to my sentiments about these topics precisely because they occupy my mind most of the time. Today, I'd just have to do it again.

This post is dedicated to all those who have been separated from some of their friends and loved ones by any form of distance.

When we miss those we love who are far from us, we first tend to look back at our past. Whatever happened to us in the past, when we miss someone, we choose to remember only the good things. Not so long ago, reconstructed memories and faded photographs were the sources of our nostalgia. Today, digital photos and old e-mails in our inboxes can also give us the same effect.

And then after reading old letters/e-mails or looking at photos (both digital and otherwise), we'd decide to go online, to write an e-mail, to chat in our YM, or to make a phone call (roaming, long distance, etc). We'd do all these just to ask our loved ones this beautiful question: HOW ARE YOU? which turn even more beautiful when we truly wait for their response. And we'd sympathize with them when they say that life sucks or we'd be happy for them when they are.

With all the things that we could do now, we were made to believe that TECHNOLOGY has kept us connected. But sometimes it also works the other way around. Sometimes we think that we could write that e-mail much later since it could be sent with one click anyway or we'd think that we could call later on because we don't want to disturb them if they're busy adjusting to new life. Until one day, we'd realize that they weren't too busy. We were.

I saw this foreign commercial on television. Everyone was texting and looking at his/her cellphone while walking down the street, while having a dinner date, while watching a theater performance, while at work, and the list went on. The commercial was striking because it spent a long time building up these images of people using their cellphones that one would think it was a telecommunications company's ad. And then in the middle of all these, a voice-over could be heard: the world has grown smaller but not necessarily closer.

It was a Close-up commercial.

But whether it was Colgate, Close-up, or Happee, my point of sharing this particular ad is not because of the toothpaste. It's because of the striking line: the world has grown smaller but not necessarily closer.

I'll let you think about that one.

In the meantime, when most of your friends are far away or planning to live far away, the world actually becomes bigger than how it seemed before and the reality is that staying closer requires much effort. Technology helps a lot this way. But in the end, it's the way you use technology that matters.

So make that friendly e-mail and tell your friend how you've been or better yet, ask him/her how he/she has been. You're both probably dying to hear from each other. Make that call and tell your special someone you miss him/her even if you've just talked a few hours back because you probably discussed how yesterday was but today's a different day. Compose that text message and reply to your close friends' messages that slipped your mind more than once because you were too busy with other things.

Or you could let go of your cellphones for a while and spend time with the ones around you at the moment: your siblings, your friends nearby, your next-door neighbor, your officemates and your boss who are also human... The list of persons varies depending on how you're living life right now.

The world didn't just grow on its own into a busy place. It's the people trying to be busy most of the time. And it's time for us to lessen that busy-busy-busy mode. As the old line goes... stop for a while to smell the flowers.

In my case, I'll just stop for a while because I'm not so fond of flowers.

Since fear is irrational, I cannot rationally explain why I acquired such feeling towards flowers. But I'm still suggesting that you pause for a while and smell them. They won't bite YOU ;)

As for me, I'd just pause and... gaze at trees because I find them SPECTACULAR.

Some of them were individual seeds scattered in a certain area until they all grew into seedlings, ready to be uprooted and to be moved where life leads them. And then, even if they're all growing bigger roots in different places, somehow their branches still touch one another. And then when circumstances permit it, they'd bear flowers and fruits. Then afterwards, they'd grow old watching their own fruits, their branches still touching branches of other trees. Sometimes their branches get trimmed but then they grow longer again. Sometimes they permanently get moved to other places far from the other trees they grew up with but soon they'd be laughing with the wind, knowing that not so far away the other trees are laughing along with them.

para sa balitang LOKA-L

Alas tres y medya ng hapon. Sinubukan ang mga ginagawa ng isang newscaster sa kauna-unahang pagkakataon.

Alas kwatro ng hapon. Hindi mabasa ang prompter kahit napakalapit na nito. Ang problema: near-sightedness. Ang solusyon: eyeglasses. Nasaan ang eyeglasses mo iha? Nasa bahay po.

Alas kwatro ng hapon. Pinalipad ang sasakyan para makauwi sa bahay.

Alas kwatro y medya ng hapon. Pabalik sa estasyon.

Alas singko ng hapon.

"Joc-Joc" Bolante...kahina-hinala ang pagkahuli sa Amerika
Baguio City, state of National calamity dahil sa bagyong si Florita.
Israel at Lebanon, Hisbullah
ERAP sa resthouse sa Tanay
Mga jumbo na elepante sa India

Alas singko y medya ng hapon. . .

WAKAS

38+1=39

Warning: do not take everything you read seriously.

Back in Grade 1, my highest grade was in Mathematics. And as my grade level increased, my Math grades seemed to decrease with it. A perfect negative correlation.

I don't have anything against math except that I never particularly loved Math 11 and 12 in Ateneo. And Trigonometry wasn't one of my favorite subjects in high school either. Physics class (as it still has some form of mathematics in it) was a yo-yo for me. low. high. medium low. HIGH. It was the extreme kind of yo-yo but I think it was mostly because back in highschool, my mind was preoccuppied with "more important" things.

Although I constantly express my slight dislike for the subject, I became part of the MEG (math enrichment group) which was a group of students tapped by teachers from different classes and levels because of... uhh special talents in math. I always felt like an outsider there because I really wasn't one of the math proteges. I had to study if I wanted high grades in Math and maybe that's just what happened during my junior year. I studied.

Some of my highschool classmates were so gifted that they never needed any notebook with them. They computed, derived, and theorized just in their heads. GADD, I can never be like them.

Geometry and Algebra were fine with me but don't ask me about postulates and theorems now because I've forgotten all about them.

ANYWAY!!! After all my story-telling which if you've noticed, always goes back and forth in time, I just wanted to point out that I love words more than I love numbers.

Meanwhile, this guy I love (naks, yihheee! what a segue!) loves his numbers so much that he sometimes computes out loud in the middle of our conversations. Or when I ask him something like how many hours are there in a week just to check if he's listening, he'd come up with an easier solution (which he'd say out loud) and tell me the answer with just a blink of an eye. 168. This is just one of the things he does that amuses me.

And last night when while we were talking over the phone, I said that it's gonna be our "monthsary" soon. (pardon my cheesiness and he probably hates it now that I'm blogging about it). He said "39th". Ahh. Then I played with my fingers and sang this nursery rhyme about months in my head... then said out loud "yup, 39th" ;)

with franco during his younger years ;-)

For the local news, I am still stuck at home. I'm blogging when I should be studying. And I can hear "Scrubs season 5" from the television which means my brother is watching it again. Since we both didn't enter med school, we sometimes have a difficult time keeping up during family dinners when people spurt out these medical terms (whaaat?). The solution: we watch a lot of Scrubs, House MD, and Grey's Anatomy.

For the real local news...

FLORITA
A typhoon even with such a beautiful name is still a typhoon that destroys lives and forms of livelihood.

I was being oh-so-cheery about my personal experiences the whole day yesterday. The gloomy weather couldn't bring me down. I didn't even think that classes would be suspended from where I was because the storm just wasn't that BIG from this particular angle. The same transactions and communications I had with other people seemed normal as if the typhoon was no biggie. But this morning, when I woke up and saw the newspaper lying there on the table, I just had to pause.

Florita killed atleast four persons in the Philippines according to Philippine Daily Inquirer. I think Florita's international code name suits her better: BILIS.

Florita is a deceiving name. It's far from the usual typhoon names that we've been used to (atleast in the Philippines): Ruping, Ading, Bebang... but whether Florita's name was changed to something else, it would still bring the same wrath to people.

Florita sounds lovely but we know it's far from it.

One of the realities of life, Legally Blonde style: not all things with beautiful names are beautiful.

And then right after I wrote this, I found out that other places have such beautiful names for their hurricanes:

NORTHERN HEMISPHERE TROPICAL CYCLONE NAMES

Contributed by the National Hurricane Center

Central North Pacific (from the dateline to 140W)

Akoni	Aka	Alika	Ana
Ema	Ekeka	Ele	Ela
Hana	Hali	Huko	Halola
Io	Iolana	Ioke	Iune
Keli	Keoni	Kika	Kimo
Lala	Li	Lana	Loke
Moke	Mele	Maka	Malia
Nele	Nona	Neki	Niala
Oka	Oliwa	Oleka	Oko
Peke	Paka	Peni	Pali
Uleki	Upana	Ulia	Ulika
Wila	Wene	Wali	Walaka

Each year the next name is just the one following the last from the previous year. Once through a list the next name will be off of the top of the next list.
From: http://www.aoml.noaa.gov/hrd/tcfaq/B2.html

Lala can be scary too.

Case closed.

cheer-ios

I spent the day trying to study peacefully for my favorite subject this semester. (Psych majors, you know what that is!) But I ended up doing other things and am 100% happy with my decision of doing so. I barely touched my notebook with its pages spread out like eagles' wings on my table. I was mostly moving around and communicating with different people as I fixed my schedule for the next two weeks in my head. (And in between all those, I've been blog hopping. hahaha!) It felt like one of the busiest and most exciting days of my life. And take note, I was just mostly at home. Whhaaat? what a boring life that must be! Well, my dearies, boring is a relative term.

Anyway, I was mostly working with the help of my old and battered but very loyal cellphone.

YEAH. The power of communication is in the palm of our hands.

I was so busy discussing stuff with different people to the point that I barely noticed the typhoon beautifully named as Florita. Up until one of my classmates texted me, I didn't think Florita was strong enough to suspend classes. I was THAT preoccupied. Or maybe I was THAT cheerful. The gloomy sky couldn't get to me. Even the typhoon's name was lovely. I had so much energy in me that I could have lighted myself up and just burst into flames like a phoenix. (aren't they pretty creatures?)

I don't have photos to show today since I didn't take any. And I have nothing to put except smileys :) :) :) and a song "Oh happy day! Oh Happy day!"

~ o O o ~

For each person, there are millions of reasons to be happy for. We just have to look in the right places in order to find them. And often, finding one of those millions of reasons is enough to create this crazy and contagious bursts of... cheerios! I'm not even making any sense and I don't care!

I'm sorry if I'm like a drunk writer at this very moment. ;p I feel intoxicated. I'll be back to my usual-bubbly-but-less-than-this-bubbly self tomorrow, I promise.

But before this spell breaks, I have some stuff that have been popping in my head and I just want to try them out if they actually work. The following words will either make you smile or make you gag. If they make you smile, you'll probably wonder how come others will gag. And if they make you gag, you'll probably be thinking that you're way better than the rest who smiled. But are you really?

Life is too short for us to be too serious about it. Learn from a child. Play. Ask questions rather than pretend that you know everything and end up knowing less. Hop and dance and twirl and flow... the world rotates and revolves even if you're standing still. Spread the love. Hug the person beside you. Look at yourself in the mirror. And smile.

my first burn

Before I present my first burn, let's go back in time!

April 1, 2006. My younger sisters and I learned how to zip for the first time by attending the Levi's Freedom Camp. There, we met the nice people of PlanetZips. We all got hooked after the first lesson and purchased a pair of zips right after. It was predominantly blue with a touch of pink (and screamed my personality!)

While enjoying the summer break, I took the pair of zips with me to different places in the Philippines. I went to Bantayan Island, Moalboal beach, and Kawasan Falls which were in the Northern and Southern parts of Cebu. I was with Ling, Franco, and Sas. Then, my zips and I went to La Playa Calatagan in Batangas. I was with Coco, Sara, the two Mikes, and Rally. Then a big bunch of us went to San Juan, La Union where one of the surfing instuctors, Jericho, and I exchanged basic zipping lessons for skimboarding lessons. And during the second trip to La Union, Coco and I taught some of our blockmates what we knew (the basics until weave part). For some reason, the guys got the moves right away but we were much impressed by two little kids there with natural spinning talents who borrowed our zips ;p They were half-Filipino and half-Japanese.

So anyway, here are my zips travelling during the summer break.

If you've noticed, I've always been surrounded by WATER!

But last week, I placed an end to that "wet streak".

After having dinner with my favorite photographers -- Hans & Louis (Guys, watch out for these two!) and the Empress in Makati on a drizzling night...

I had MY FIRST BURN!

The following photos were all taken by Ramir, an advanced student who also helps out in teaching us!

This is Tals with the lighter and me saying "I will forever remember this moment"

Admittedly I was a bit scared of doing it with fire at the start.

I remember my heart beating faster than usual which I knew was a combination of excitement and nervousness. (what if I burned my hair? what if I burned my pants? what if I burned the hairs on my skin? ;p etc etc)... Ok, with nervousness being 60 in a 60:40 ratio.

But soon enough...

My zips were lit!

And they were... gulp, they were hot! ...ang init! (well duh, fire is supposed to be hot, lala!)

Ok, ignore the extra heat. It's still basically the same. It's just fire. But that's the thing. For me, it wasn't just fire. It IS fire. Fire burns, baby!

But the moment I started with the routines from module 1, I remembered what Reg, one of the advanced students, told me. He said that all I would hear was the sound of fire moving around me. And he was right.

It was just me, the pavement, & two small balls of fire.

At the back of my head however, I knew I was still playing with fire. (As kids, we were taught not to play with fire precisely because it was dangerous :p)

My heart was still beating fast, although slower than its rate at the start. As I moved from module 1 to the next, my excitement somehow turned into vigilance. I had to make sure that I didn't burn myself. And at the same time, I needed to pacify my paranoid mind.

what if my "butterfly" got tangled around my arms? or what if I hit my head while doing the "windmill"? No, they won't. Just move and flow with the fire as if they were your own ribbons.

Soon enough, the ratio turned 70:30 with 70 as enjoying the moment and 30 as being cautious.

Caution is good but too much of it may lead to limiting one's self when one could do much more. In this case, fire can only burn and hurt if I let it burn and hurt me... I knew I had control over the fire. Getting burnt or not that night was literally in my hands.

And then I told myself that maybe, as with most things, IF I DIDN'T THINK TOO MUCH about it, I'd do better...

So I let go of all my apprehensions and just zipped away like I used to.

And this is me happily burning the pavement down!
It's another natural high!
*More burns to come*

An Atypical Tuesday

It's 6:40 pm on my screen. What did I do today to earn my title above?

I spent the morning starting my back up copy of contacts and debating with myself whether I should have this phone line cut or not. Should I go and switch to the competing telecommunications company and avail of their tempting promos? Hmm...

But my atypical day wasn't because of that. As I was saying, I spent my day trying to copy some numbers. And that was when I had my trip down memory lane. It was a long trip while sitting down and looking at the names on my list. (To Franco, I think I already know why cleaning up my room takes forever. Every object I find makes me stop and reminisce instead of simply cleaning my room. It's more fun that way!)

Going back to memory lane...

Since my fellow ex-preschoolers (I call my co-teachers in the preschool as preschoolers coz we were like kids trapped in bigger bodies that could pass as teachers :p) have all been getting married or engaged or moving to the States (I'm the youngest among us), we've seen less of each other for the past months.

They were my ultimate singing and dancing buddies when it came to nursery songs and otherwise. ;)

Here we were when we used to play in our playground, when we attended weddings, when we just wanted to go out at night, or when we just stayed in one house to swim, eat, drink, and be merry. I'm sure you can figure on your own which is which from the pics below.

But before I became a preschool teacher for a year, I spent years studying. Didn't we all? A friend of mine used to tell me that I was such a nerd but he was alone telling me that. Was I? Maybe I was. Or maybe I still am. A little. How do you define 'nerdiness' anyway? I studied when I had to study and I submitted papers on time. If nerdiness is defined that way, then yeah I was a full-blown nerd! But whether I was a nerd or not, the point was my friends and I all graduated from college! whoohoo! I'm going to share this "famous" photo of the majority of the Psych majors (AB and BS combined) of Ateneo in our batch [refer to the pic below].

The next photo is taken during our most recent Canadiagirls dinner (although it's not so recent anymore and we're incomplete!) Canadiagirls was named as such after Cami left for Canada. Johanna followed suit and then Glenn too, our honorary member. He's not a girl nor is he gay. Recently though, we've been all busy with different things (work school work) and an upcoming first wedding in the group. Wheee! And after Aenid left for San Francisco, the ladies and I have seen less and less of each other. Aww... but we're all looking forward to and preparing for January (yihee!)

The third photo shows a few of the Happy Benchers. We're just a bunch of happy people from different courses in college. Our bench was one of the many istambayans in the SEC area of Ateneo... We had tables with vandalisms on them, benches that moved around, and belonged to a neighborhood of benches (miriam, holy, and lots of other SEC benches). This photo was taken during Mariel's "despidida" in her house (but we were already on the street at this time). As always, the photo was the courtesy of Louis Fojas' camera. (I think it was empress who took this shot though coz I can see Louis' head over there...)

So that's the gist of my today's trip down memory lane.

Let's go global...

A Star in Europe
I've been staring at my ClusterMap for the past weeks (I placed it there last May 13 but for some reason, it now says June 12, which is actually independence day in the Philippines!). Anyway, I'm just amused by the small red dots forming a star in Europe. Check it out.

And to finish off the trivial debate with myself...

I received a call this afternoon for a hosting stint and I realized that all my resumes and info sheets have my current number on them. That's it. Debate over. I'm keeping my number.

Btw, I no longer believe in jinxing myself by sharing stuff in my blog. We are here not because of luck. And I think I could no longer jinx myself even more.

scribbles

I think that at one point in time or another, all of us have been sad about something. Sometimes the sadness is brought to us by our very own selves, sometimes by other people or other external events, or in the case of a lot of women... monthly hormonal imbalances. I'd just like to share something I've written on one of those sad moments...

There are those moments when you're all happy, expectant, and excited about something but everything gets twisted and you end up sad. Then you realize that your little bursts of happiness have been there all this time to cover up for the sadness that was actually building up inside. And it's the kind of sadness that you wish you wouldn't have to go through but at the back of your head, you know it's also the kind of sadness that makes you grow more as a person.

And then you tell yourself that in time, everything will just fall into place.

That's when we get it wrong. Things will not fall into place until someone does something. More often than not, that someone is you.

From the very start, we were wrong to expect too much I guess. Expecting too much leads to disappointments. Hope, on the other hand, is different. We hope and we remain happy.

Aren't the hopeful ones the happiest persons around? Ahh yes.

My expectations end here. I am now hoping.

~ o O o ~

I'm actually truly happy today (and no, this is not bipolar [manic-depressive] disorder). This just serves as a reminder that all forms of emotions are to be acknowledged and embraced. That includes sadness and maybe being sappy at times too.