"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."

Wednesday, February 28, 2007

project 365: the third five

"The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement.
But the opposite of a profound truth may well
be another profound truth."

--Niels Bohr

day 11. barangay ginebra rules! the philippine cup of PBA was won by my team. ginebra beat san miguel after a 4-2 run during the best of 7 championship series. my allegiance to the team is influenced by my father and brother... and my youngest sister.

day 12. 'gaydar' is a recognized word in the dictionary (webster's). it was inducted to the roster of words ahead of 'blog' and 'bling'.

day 13. hip hop moves. 'nuff said.

day 14. robbie williams and alanis morissette sang and danced in the movie, de-lovely (2004), a biographical musical. alanis performed 'let's do it, let's fall in love' while robbie sang 'it's de-lovely.' other musical performers for the movie were elvis costello, sheryl crow, diana krall, and natalie cole. de-lovely starred kevin kline as the composer, cole porter, and ashley judd as linda porter. jonathan pryce and peter polycarpou who both performed in miss saigon also had roles in the movie!

day 15. not a hoax. amazing moment caught on cam!


the picture is authentic. the tiny hand in the picture is that of then unborn child, samuel armas, who at mere 21 weeks gestational age was operated on inside his mother's womb due to spina bifida. his hand flopped out of the womb just as dr. bruner, the doctor, was closing the incision. the doctor lifted the tiny hand gently and tucked it back in. what a moment! the operation happened on august 19, 1999. samuel was born healthy on december 2, 1999.


p.s. project 365: the third five covers the period 02.23.07-02.27.07. future updates on this project will be posted here.

Saturday, February 24, 2007

first love

" When my daughter was about seven years old, she asked me one day what I did at work. I told her I worked at the college - that my job was to teach people how to draw. She stared at me, incredulous, and said, 'You mean they forget?' "
--Howard Ikemoto







about the images: each of the ten pieces was done on 9” x 12” paper. half of them were my output while i was still staying away from home, the other half were done after i got back.

Friday, February 23, 2007

project 365: the second five

"Everything in life is writable about
if you have the outgoing guts to do it..."

--Sylvia Plath

day 6. epiphany. i don't know the difference between camaron rebosado and shrimp tempura. are they really different or are they the same? if you know, let me know. you see, i like ordering camaron rebosado along with lumpia shanghai everytime my family dines out. when the menu says shrimp tempura, i don't seem interested so i look for something else.

day 7. there is a lengthy wikipedia entry on unrequited love. this is not surprising considering that wikipedia is wikipedia after all but i find this amusing. how did i find out? a lengthy conversation with an old-time pal got me thinking about valentine's day gifts and their meanings. i did a quick search and one click led to another until i stumbled upon the wikipedia entry.

day 8. gom is the korean word for bear. i learned this along with some chinese and other korean words while watching full house. the things i get from k-series!

day 9. peace advocacy campaign version 2007. truckloads of people in full battle gear and with high-powered weapons passed through the city's national highway yesterday. the said people are members of the moro islamic liberation front. philippine military escorts and the authorities explained the scenario as part of the peace advocacy campaign. talk about irony. whatever happened to kaleidoscope world's "you can't talk peace and have a gun"? no, no, don't remind me of the gun ban.

day 10. facebox. another one of those social networking sites which i have to ignore. there's friendster, multiply, yahoo! 360, myspace, hi5, tagged, eskwela, and the list goes on. i only have accounts for the first four sites mentioned. hassle enough. the invitations i received to join the rest, i decided to ignore. i have better use for my time.


p.s. project 365: the second five covers the period 02.18.07-02.22.07

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

this blog talks, i talk

"Writing is a socially acceptable form of schizophrenia."
--E.L. Doctorow

hello world! the blog owner seems to be distracted by a lot of things lately -- she likes to dabble into a lot of things all at once, that's why -- so i get to do all the talking for now. ahahay! i have a lot to tell, hang on!

first things first, let me introduce myself. ahurm. i'm caterpillar talk, the blog with a curious name. i started to occupy this spot around may 2004 because the blog owner (from here on referred to as she) decided to give blogging a try. i'm a mere product of her whim. that kid, she's weird, i tell you. i mean, she christened me caterpillartalk after all. she even took on the blogger name, caterpillar. hellur? so tasteless. that or she's clearly out of her mind -- that kid. she should have named me bitter juice or something. (shut up. i like your name. it's like girl talk, you know -- caterpillar)

like what they say, whatever!

she viewed me as an experiment. she got curious with blogging so she claimed her spot from blogger, set me up, and gave me a name. along with my name, she assigned to me a quote she got somewhere and made it appear that her caterpillar concept was well-thought. well-thought, who's she kidding??? in truth, she settled for the caterpillar concept because she didn't know any better and she didn't have the patience to wait for another concept to come by. (for your information, the caterpillar concept was solidly built around an idea based on my interactions with old-time pals. stop being psycho will you? -- caterpillar)

as i was saying, she viewed me as an experiment. i was a test of patience to her. she wasn't sure blogging would suit her just fine. nevertheless, she gave it a try. she wanted to find out. she knew she can write, she knew she could come up with something, but could she keep at it? could she last? could she find her own voice in the blogosphere? could she stick with me? for how long? for how long before her patience snaps? i'm almost 3 years old now, what do you say?

crap. my time's up. she's taking over. please tell her to upgrade my looks -- doesn't she find all this green tacky?

- ¤ -

"Every author in some way portrays himself in his works,
even if it be against his will."

--Goethe

curiosity. creativity. conversations. celebrations. this blog is my primary online outlet for those. i get to live with my questions here and explore new horizons for creativity. i get to discover ways on how to better organize my thoughts and my memory of things and events -- i even get to eternalize them.

this blog is an online memory vault as well as a refuge tunnel. not only do i get to drown myself with writing here, i also get to defeat my insecurities, build my esteem, and learn a thing or two about anger management. blogging thaws out the icy cold grip of bad emotions and makes me warm by providing me with something constructive to do.

this has done me good. i learned some HTML skills and some coding tricks -- so now i get some sense of high by playing big brother in this tiny corner of bloglandia. i found better use of my time and i'm now able to write more spontaneously. what's more, i found in here a dynamic environment for one of the things that i cherish most in life -- interactions. from these interactions, i get to learn a great deal.

i found new friends and people with beautiful minds here. i also got to know more about my friends. eventhough we try to write under different names and somehow keep our anonymity from the rest, the nature of our personalities and our hidden abilities get revealed through the things that we write. as abaniko once shared his opinion about it, "it seems we can't deny who we really are."

blogging exposes us. we may never get to see our fellow bloggers' penmanships or faces or meet them in person, but we're able to identify who they really are by paying attention to their writing styles and blogging mannerisms.

i appreciate the so-alive network of people here in blog world -- it makes blogging rewarding. blogs are alive with expressions, opinions, sentiments, comments, and exchanges from people of all walks of life. there's a sense of community here. even those who don't blog get to participate by contributing to blog traffic -- even lurkers and accidental visitors have their say, at least, in terms of page hits.

sure, i still keep journals, jot down ideas using pen and paper, and write cryptic bullet entries on desk calendars BUT i also keep on blogging. my journals, my scraps of paper, and my desk calendars, they do me good especially because they allow me to monitor my penmanship. however, they don't talk back to me like this blog does.

my blog is alive because here, i'm not the only one talking. i'm not the only one reading. in a lot of ways, i owe the life of this blog to you, reader.


p.s. to date, caterpillar talk has 230+ commented blog entries. not all comments are good -- some, like this, this, and this, came straight from hell. like the government, i have "destabilizers". like elections, i get my share of nuisance participants.

Sunday, February 18, 2007

project 365: the first five

"The practice of art isn't to earn a living.
It is to make yourself grow."

-- Kurt Vonnegut

i changed my mind. instead of reporting my project 365 progress every 30 days or so, i decided to reduce the waiting time. i'll be giving updates every five days. here goes the first...

day 1. milking a cow is not as easy as it looks. it entails lots of meticulous preparations and quite understandably so if the end goal is to have dairy products of quality. i saw how it's done. i saw it on tv. i think it's challenging. i want to try it!

day 2. read thy lips. people with thin lips tend to be workaholics. i got this piece of information from the february 2007 issue of reader's digest asia. hmmm... mirror, mirror on the wall, reveal the workaholics among us all.

day 3. guess who seemed to have misspelled their own name?


the valentine's day banner: where's the "l"?
(click on the image to see the close-up)

thank you to my geekette friend, ann, for giving me the heads up!

day 4. cesar montano is running for senator. i like cesar. i like his smile. i like his eyes. i like his life and his career. i like his star... BUT i don't want to see it in the senate halls. there i've said it. i don't have room for crush-factor bias.

day 5. feedback is a fascinating well-known eight-letter word. it does not only represent that essential element in all forms of effective communication. it also contains the first six letters of the alphabet.


p.s. project 365: the first five covers the period 02.13.07-02.17.07.

Thursday, February 15, 2007

naks


I feel stunning
And entrancing,
Feel like running and dancing for joy,
For I'm loved
By a pretty wonderful boy!


-- I Feel Pretty, West Side Story

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

project 365

"Confidence is often a form of self-delusion
so powerful that it hypnotizes other people."

-- Jessica Zafra

i've decided to launch my own project 365.

project 365 a.k.a. the one a day challenge. it is not something new. there are individuals and groups already into it, if not already through with it. the concept is simple: remain faithful in doing a particular something on a daily basis for 365 consecutive days. hence, the name.

the theme of a project 365 is up to the person or persons involved. this could mean... one photograph a day, one poem a day, one date a day (whoa!), one text message to a particular person a day, one trip a day, one letter a day, one blog entry a day, one movie a day, one sketch a day, one book a day, one story a day, one chocolate a day, one quote a day... among others. at the end of 365 days, one should be able to look back to 365 photographs, 365 poems, 365 dates, 365 texts, 365 trips, 365 letters, 365 blog entries, 365 movies, 365 sketches, 365 books, 365 stories, 365 chocolates, 365 quotes... non-repeating.

my chosen theme for my own project 365 is new thing learned. beginning today, i'll be writing down a new thing learned on a daily basis. i'll update you with my progress on this endeavor every 30 days or so.

do you know why i chose the theme i chose? the answer is simple. it's better than the other one which i came up with: one project 365 launch a day. crazy, huh?

uh, got a project 365 theme in mind? i invite you to join the wagon. start your own project 365, too!

Sunday, February 04, 2007

tenacity

"Stories were full of hearts broken by love,
but what really broke a heart was taking away its dream --
whatever that dream might be."

--Pearl S. Buck


once there was a heart. it choked. it broke.
once there was a dream. it died.

i once had that heart. i once had that dream.
one broke. one died.

i stepped in too late to save one or both of them.

i now have a new heart. i now have a new dream.
i'm taking good care of them.

the dream, it did not really die.
it only got the fate that befell the heart.

i didn't get a new heart. i didn't come up with a new dream.
i couldn't. my hands're full --

it's like having a new heart, it's like having a new dream
nursing that broken dream that the broken heart still sustains.


about the image: multi-colored sky as viewed from corregidor island's battery grubbs. photo taken by val.
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