"a caterpillar doesn't just grow into a butterfly. a caterpillar must undergo metamorphosis, and a cocoon is where a caterpillar risks it all: enters total chaos, undergoes total rebuilding, and is born to a new way of living. only in taking the risk of entering that inert cocoon can the caterpillar go from dormancy to potency, from ugliness to beauty."

Sunday, August 28, 2005

hoy, whoever you are!

by Anonymous, at Sunday, August 28, 2005 1:40:37 AM

i am your stalker....you're not a public property, yet you are acting as if you are a walking public announcement...u r almost making ur blogger like ur personal diary...

so what? so what?! respect the life i lead. mind your own business and don't mess with mine, will you?

i can do whatever i please with this blog because it's MY blog. besides, i'm not doing anything that violates the terms and conditions set by blogger.

what exactly is your problem?!! why do you want to get my attention this way? ang olats ha!

why don't you just leave me alone? you can't even reveal to me your real identity, yet you expect us to be friends. halur! mag-isip-isip ka nga.

p.s. spare yourself from ignorance, check out what blog means.

Saturday, August 27, 2005

skirt

Opportunities are never lost;
someone will take the ones you miss.

--Author Unknown

because i'm not a girly gurl, i don't wear skirts. in the past month, however, the temptation to wear a skirt has been nagging me.

the reason?

there's this very, very nice skirt which my cinema buddy and i saw in gateway. it's made of nice material, it has nice color, nice style, and it boasts of unique and neat embroidery. it's comfortable to wear, too!

for me to like a skirt and want to wear it -- that rarely happens. i usually stop at just liking a skirt and then see others wear it... but the skirt i've just mentioned, it's different. i like it and i want to have it so i can be the one to wear it. unfortunately, it's from MaNGo and it costs a whooping PhP4000! ha ha ha...

too nice skirt, too pricey. i'd rather use the money on a spare battery pack for my laptop or for additional thumb drives.

poof! there goes everybody's rare chance of seeing me wear a nice skirt. hehe.

Saturday, August 20, 2005

when i was in grade one...

when i was in grade one, a classmate punched my face.

when i was in grade one, a classmate deliberately pulled my hair.

when i was in grade one, a classmate knocked my forehead with a rock. (my forehead bled.)

when i was in grade one, my bully classmates deprived me of my snacks.

when i was in grade one, i was always provoked to fight. i never fought back; i mastered how to give dagger looks instead.

when i was in grade one, i was surrounded with brats -- the worst grade one pupils i ever met.

when i was in grade one, i belonged to the end of the spectrum. i was in the last section...

-¤-

one morning many, many years ago, my tita accompanied me to iligan city east central school (ICECS, read as i-sex). i was told that i was to take a test there. although i went to kindergarten, i didn't know what a test was. i was told, too, that all i had to do for the test was to write my name and answer some questions. sure, i knew how to write my name (i still know, by the way, ha ha ha!) and i also knew how to answer questions (i still know this, too, ha ha ha!)... but i wasn't my usual self that day. i wasn't feeling well; fever was with me.

in ICECS, i remember being admitted to a room along with other kids my age. we were all handed papers and were asked to write our names. i wrote down my rather long given name, my middle initial and my 9-character family name -- the letters nearly spilled out of the page and on to the table. neat! i got exhausted writing them all down and making them fit a single line. then came the questions...

i thought that answering questions meant talking to "teacher", i was wrong. on that same paper where i wrote my name were the questions i had to answer.

"teacher" read aloud the questions slowly. she read each of them twice and gave us time to "encircle the letter of the correct answer" before proceeding to the next item.

I DON'T REMEMBER ENCIRCLING ANYTHING. i do remember looking at my paper and thinking silently that the drawings of cups, trees, pencils, balloons, etc. on the paper look bad -- that whoever drew them didn't really know how to draw. by the time the test was finished, all that i managed to do with my paper was to put my name and some check marks on the last 5 drawings. i was born genius! ha ha ha.

that was a test, eh? the drawings they put there were mostly bad. i knew they were. my tita didn't understand that. she was quite disappointed with how i performed. she was there outside the room, looking at me through the window, mouthing the correct answers -- just like what those other kids' chaperones were doing when "teacher" wasn't looking. i saw her, but i saw the drawings, too. i concentrated on them and forgot about the questions. on the way home, she told me "nganong wala man ka nag-answer? bantay ka lang sa imong papa."

i think my fever suddenly went from bad to worse when i heard what she said. i remember walking slowly and wanting to collapse as we approached our wooden gate. i remember seeing papa with a hammer in his hand -- no, he wasn't out to pound my head; he was helping in constructing our then-would-be-sari-sari store. i remember him smiling at me, anticipating my story about the "test". my tita beat me to it.

before i could say a word, tita quickly told papa her version of my story. as she ratted on, a fear that i was trying to contain surfaced and i ended up crying.

"bantay ka lang sa imong papa.
bantay ka lang sa imong papa.....
bantay ka lang sa imong papa......."

papang dropped his hammer. i flinched. he pulled me to him. i decided to stay where i was. he beckoned me to go near him. i relented. he embraced me. that relieved me. he smiled at me. that relieved me some more. he wiped away my tears and he told me i shouldn't feel bad because it's just not my day... that i've got a long, long way ahead of me.

he was right... and i... well, i was a silly kid with silly fears, but my parents're good.

-¤-

i started going to grade school and got exposed to the worst kind of pupils at the age of six. (see this post's introduction).

during the first day of class, there were kids around me who were crying and didn't want to stay in school. one kid was so mad at his mama, he broke his new pencils into pieces and crumpled his pad of paper. he went wild after that and his mama had to take him home. when his mama took him to school the next day, he still didn't look happy but he had a new pencil. despite his first day behavior, he was one of those harmless people in my class -- GRADE ONE, SECTION NINE.

that "test" was the culprit.

that "test" landed me in that class.

that "test" was the crucial step to my destiny.

that "test" led me to where i am now.

-¤-

when i was in grade one, i had a best friend named karen and together we survived tough times with the class bullies.

when i was in grade one, i knew how it felt to be branded "bobo".

when i was in grade one, i had a teacher who was so dedicated -- she never gave up on us, her difficult-to-handle charges.

when i was in grade one, i had a teacher who recognized my then hidden abilities. (when the next school year came, i got discriminated. the grade two-section one teacher refused to admit me to her A-1 class because she reckoned i won't be able to cope. my grade one teacher stood up for me and said she'll take responsibility should i fall behind. by doing that, she propelled me... sent me a long, long way.)

when i was in grade one, i learned well. my teacher taught me and my classmates well.

when i was in grade one, i learned a great deal. i got to know a person whose legacy lives in me. she gave me, as the song goes, "a gift i know i never can repay." one of these days, i'm gonna find myself back in iligan and i'll take the opportunity of doing this something i've never done for her before: drop by her house, seek her out and reintroduce myself.

"good morning, starshine! the earth says hello!"

Wednesday, August 17, 2005

nonsense?




shadows grow so long before my eyes
and they're moving across the page
suddenly the day turns into night
far away from the city


but don't hesitate
'cause your love just won't wait hey
ooh baby I love your way every day
wanna tell you I love your way every day
wanna be with you night and day...




lintik as in lintik na pag-ibig, parang kidlat. brownman revival. yakap sa dilim. sisig. cookie chua and gran matador. san mig. reggae music. people on their feet, jammin'. saxophone. friends from high school. 10 years of friendship and counting. conrado de quiros. 70's bistro. priceless grand time. all that... on a saturday night.


brownman revival. 70's bistro. august 13, 2005.

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

the god of small things

Who was he?
Who could he have been?
...
If he touched her, he couldn't talk to her,
if he loved her he couldn't leave, if he spoke he couldn't listen, if he fought he couldn't win.
...
He folded his fear into a perfect rose.
He held it out in the palm of his hand. She took it from him and put it in her hair.

--from The God of Small Things, a novel by Arundhati Roy

a story so sad and gloomy speaks of bittersweet ironies and inescapable social realities, and beautifully comes alive with a language so poetic and so moving. such is the story of the god of small things. to hear of it and not read it is to be robbed of a reading experience like no other.

Thursday, August 04, 2005

a wowow weekend with wowow friends

In the sweetness of friendship
let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.

--Kahlil Gibran

the past weeks have been somewhat too gruelling for my ultra-thin frame. murphy's law played tricks and labwork became too stressful. it's just a good thing that i've managed to keep my weekends for myself, my friends and family -- weekends are silver linings... and last weekend was a wowow weekend.

LAGUNA & FRIDAY NIGHT
i travelled to laguna last friday night with my labmates-slash-friends. we were supposed to watch a movie in cubao's gateway, but we changed our plan at the last minute because we found a more exciting thing to do...

at around 9:30pm, raph, jen, lorie, jess, hazel and i found ourselves merrily walking along the paths of a subdivision in cabuyao. we were there to take breaths of country air, to enjoy the star-lit sky, and, most of all, to attend the birthday celebration of our former labmate jo.


the laguna friday trip buddies: raph, jen and lorie...
jess and hazel are not in the pics

jo fed us with her party food, attempted to intoxicate us with mudslide, entertained us with the incredibles and several dvd runs of F.R.I.E.N.D.S. and conversations. it was after several shots of mudslide and already around 12pm when we decided it was time to head back to diliman.

as we made our way out of the subdivision, we appreciated how the late night breeze in cabuyao and the chirping insects reminded us of the comfort of our respective homes. we left cabuyao feeling glad and took a jeepney ride for pacita, laguna. in pacita, we took another jeepney for alabang. in alabang, we boarded a bus bound for cubao. lorie got off in pasig while the rest of us got off in cubao, where we boarded a bus bound for philcoa. (are you still with me? whew!) at around 2am, i finally found myself back in the dorm.

sure, the trip to and fro laguna was tiring... but it was quality time with good friends and we had fun!

YELLOW CAB & BISDAK SATURDAY
after capping a long, fun-filled friday night with needed sleep, i woke up looking forward to jory's promise of yellow cab saturday lunch...

and a filling yellow cab saturday lunch for manila-based bisaya bloggers and friends, it was!


yellow cab saturday crowd: sealdz, jory, val and bhevs

we've only been friends for a couple of months but it seems as if we've known each other for, as i've said in a previous post, 50 years! the sunday before (i.e. july 24), we got together. we had tons of laughter as we went on a food trip in the gateway area. although we gobbled up a lot that day, i'm convinced now that we really didn't get enough of that food trip...

by saturday lunchtime, we did a very noble thing in st. francis square's yellow cab place: we gave good justice to the deaths of chickens, the wings of which appear on the 'before' photo.

how? by eating the hot wings with gusto!

in her blog, bhevs said we attacked the wings like falcons. i'd say, we devoured them like vultures would!

after 30 seconds (exaggerated estimate, of course) of slurrrp, slurrrp, nibble, nibble, pinch, pinch and yum, yum, all that's left of the hot wings are the bones which appear on the 'after' photo -- proof that we made sure that the chickens didn't die in vain. nyahahaha!!!

since chowing down the chicken wings to bone pieces in record time was not enough to make us 'officially busog', we proceeded to doing a bigger cause: attacking the pizza... oh, the defenseless pizza!


the pizza and the sponsor


INTRAMUROS & SUNDAY AFTERNOON
i was sitting idly in front of the computer, playing my newly acquired copy of imelda when my friend naoms informed me via sms that the rest of the p6peeps in metro manila were waiting for us in the dorm lobby...

it was already late in the afternoon, i was tired, and watching imelda was already cracking me up... but friends are friends and they matter -- the computer had to be ignored. so, i hauled myself out of my room and joined the p6peeps at the dorm's reception area. we happily played ping pong for sometime and then... poof! just like that. we decided to go to intramuros. la... la... la... thanks to my blabber mouth for voicing out the idea.

we had no map with us. we got there by merely counting on our internal radars because we were keen on exploring the city the p6peeps way -- relying on spontaneity and just dealing with whatever it brings.


we climbed up the wall and walked around, took pictures, observed the cobblestones, admired and criticized the architectural designs, and enjoyed the sights and sounds in the old walled city. of course, we took pictures of ourselves. kami pa!


i was interested with the thought of going inside the churches, particularly the san agustin church because it (along with its staircase) was mentioned several times in neal stephenson's cryptonomicon. it was high time, i had to satisfy my curiosity and see things for myself. unfortunately, the churches were closed... on a sunday. tsk. tsk. tsk.

my eagerness to visit the churches prompted my friend jerk to joke, 'ngano diay? ana na jud kadako imong sala?' (why? is your sin that grave now?). hahaha!!!

after getting tired legs from walking around the old city, we took an ultra-short jeepney ride and walked some more until we found ourselves gawking at the people comfortably lying on the grassy areas of rizal park. we were amused at the rather suggestive lying positions of some of the lovers there. out of curiosity, we explored the span of land across the park before we finally gave in to the demands of our a-rumbling tummies. hehehe...


hmmm... friday night, saturday lunch, sunday afternoon... sunday night, too! hmmm... hmmm... friends make life more beautiful! i'm glad and grateful for the company!

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