b-e-a-utiful

"The miracle is not to fly in the air,
or to walk on the water, but to walk on the earth."
--Chinese Proverb

after days and days of waiting, i finally saw march of the penguins, the 2006 oscar best documentary. thanks to a very good friend!


originally released as la marche de l'empereur (wow, french!), march of the penguins tells the life and love story of emperor penguins in the merciless environment of antarctica. the documentary outlines a seemingly hopeless journey those oh-so-cuddly-looking creatures (the penguins) down there (antarctica) have to take in order to propagate their species.

even without morgan freeman's narration, it's easy to appreciate the film and its story of life, love and survival. every year since only-God-knows-when, during the onset of winter in antarctica, thousands of penguins leave their very source of food and the comforts of the sea to make a journey on inhospitable ice that will test them to their deaths.

you should watch this film, if you haven't yet. i highly recommend this documentary. it's beautiful. considering the harsh antarctic conditions, the story is wonderful and it's very beautifully done. the penguin love scene is the best love scene i've ever seen!

now, now, how much does a trip to antarctica cost? i wanna see those emperor penguins up close. not only do they look cute and cuddly, they're very fascinating survivors.

p.s. march of the penguins will be shown in local theatres soon as penguin, penguin, paano ka ginawa?

weirdness, queerness, whatever

"Consider yourself a caterpillar...
the one who loves you is the nourishing leaf,
the one who hurts you is the cocoon.
you won't be a butterfly without nourishment
and you won't develop wings without the cocoon.
there are no heroes nor villains in life,
just people with different roles
to teach us one great lesson
and that's to fly."
-- forwarded text message

i've been tagged by kuya sam so i have to do this meme:

The writer will create a blog entry with “6 weird things/habits about yourself.”

People who get tagged will have to post a blog of their own telling 6 weird things/habits about themselves.

At the end of your 6 weird/things/habits, you need to choose 6 people that you would like to be tagged and list their names.

Don’t forget to leave a comment that says “You are Tagged!” in their comments and tell them to read yours for instructions on how to proceed!

owkey, game! aside from my tendency to bite my drinking straw and my habit of eating those small brown watermelon seeds one by one, here are the other manifestations of my slight (hehehe) eccentricity:

(1) i like sleeping in "contortionist positions" -- sleeping positions which my first ever roommate in diliman likes to refer to as my "yoga sleeping positions". if you happen to look at me while i'm sleeping, you'd wonder how i get any sleep with the way i sleep. i'm most comfortable sleeping under the blanket with both of my legs tucked under my thighs while my back's fully touching the bed. go figure!

(2) i stopped biting my nails three years ago but, until now, i still bite the skin surrounding my fingernails. i do this especially when i'm jittery. as of the moment, there are wounds around two of my fingernails because of this habit.

(3) i usually make my friends write something on unused disposable table napkins of establishments like starbucks, jollibee, yellow cab pizza co., etcetera for souvenir/scrapbooking purposes.

(4) i do have a wallet but i don't put money in my wallet. my wallet's use is limited to securing in place my swiss card, my old ID cards, business cards of family, friends and acquaintances, old calendars, and gollum's picture. you may ask, "gollum who?". gollum of the lord of the rings. you may ask again, "why?". beats me.

(5) i tend to touch (pinch?) the edges of my earlobes when i'm very aware that dogs are just around me. i never really became aware of the habit until my younger sister started teasing me about it.

(6) i'm intimidated by math and numbers. given that i chose (and still choose) to be in a field that uses math as its language, i know that's hard to believe.

i want to tag trickmeister, kars, abaniko, gwapo_na_baktin, (tito) zimm, and sealdz.

our time together

"When the going gets tough
the great ones party!"
-- Garfield in Garfield 2

i'm hopping from one circle to another. with duties to do and deadlines to beat, i'm glad that i still have the time... but, of course, i've always tried my best to honor weekends by spending them with people from outside the workplace.

the other weekend, i spent time with ids99, my friends from high school. last weekend, i was with the p6peeps, my friends from college.


yehey! we're still around for one another!
last friday night, despite my exhaustion, despite the rains and despite the fact that i still haven't bought an umbrella (yes, i know i already said more than a month ago that i would! i'm bull-headed, you don't have to tell me), i braved the pitter-patter and made my way to makati to be with the rest of the p6peeps who're also in metro manila. i did not want to miss the gathering since there're 9 of us here last week.

considering the distance between metro manila and our original base in iligan and the fact that there are only 13 of us p6peeps, 9 out of 13's a batch record worthy of a celebration. plus, when it comes to reunions, my friends count on me to be around. i had no wish to disappoint them by making the combo of my toxic day and the heavy downpour as my not-so-lame excuse.

so there was i, reunited with tiff, jerk, randz, edson, bensky, naoms and micmic in edson's apartelle in makati last friday night. miez, the fourth gal in our group who also happens to be currently staying here in metro manila, didn't show up due to a valid reason which i've already forgotten.

of the eight of us who did show up, only randz, bensky, naoms and i are primarily here in metro manila because of grad school. jerk's here for his work and tiff, who is now his wife, is staying with him. jerk and edson are working for the same company but edson is currently based in bacolod. he gets to be with us from time to time since his duties require him to travel (hu-wow!). he was around here last week due to an official business. his timing was perfect for all of us... with micmic being here, too, in preparation for his out of the country trip which will take him to his choice of grad school somewhere out there.

edson, having been the one who made the necessary arrangements for the get-together, acted as our generous host. he saw to it that we were all fed and comfortable during the whole time that the eight of us were together. he also put up with our demands and remained nice even when randz turned too bossy and kept ordering him around. when we asked him for drinks, he did buy us drinks. he pulled a trick on us though...

in addition to bottled water and softdrinks, edson ordered different brands of beer and bought this local brand of tequila which we have never tried before. we thought he was going to drink with us. man! the guy said he's on medication. as a result, the burden of doing the glug-glug fell entirely to the rest of us. in the end, it was only randz, micmic and i who drank the tequila as the rest couldn't stand even just the burning smell of the strong alcohol.


PSG (p6peeps security group, hehehe): micmic, randz and edson
ever since our first p6peeps inuman session back in college, it has always been randz, micmic and i who see each other 'til the last drop. last friday was proof that that has not quite changed... except that there was no last drop, because we decided to stop "killing" ourselves that night. at least, i did! why get wasted?

when randz started to get so hyper and began talking to us in straight english, i let out a laugh, gave up and prepared for bed and slept. the guys must have followed my cue and gave up drinking the "poison", too. when i woke up a few hours after, the bottle was as empty as i last saw it... about three-fourths empty.

speaking of bed, it amazed me that we all got a good rest despite the fact that we only had two single beds for the eight of us: 4 people on each single-sized bed. hahaha. talk about p6peeps' talent and the ability to adapt!

what we did during the weekend aside from trying to finish that...that... that tequila: picture-taking (of course!), playstation tournament using jerk's playstation, tv/movie marathon and giggling over old judy ann movies aired on cinema one, updating one another on our lives and others' lives (as if we don't rat on each other in our noisy e-group, haha!), debating over quantum physics (the guys did! i don't know what got into them, hehe), exploring the mall of asia in pasay, braving the rain and the traffic, RPG/DotA tournament, and eating!

all that and more... on a rainy weekend. so what if i still don't have an umbrella?

him?

"Loving is a lot like watching a twenty-minute fireworks display. Exciting. Emotional. Romantic. Sweet. Memorable.
But it also ends as dramatically as it began and, in the end, all there's left is a starless night..."
-- forwarded text message

so you really fell for him?

"yes."

are you still or is there a part of you that's still holding on?

"yes... even if i don't want to. sakit sa akong pride but... the answer to that question is a yes."

thank God for friends who dared to be blunt and straightforward. they asked me the right questions so i gave them my most honest answers.

thanks to the bottles of red horse extra strong beer that we had last weekend, too, for failing to do the job of kicking my good senses out of their respective sockets.

what's his name?

"ah, noooooo. i won't tell."

ahm, calixto.! let's call him calixto!

"ngek! hahahaaaaaaa... no, dili calixto iyang name."

so what's his name?

"i'm not going to tell you. i don't think you know him, anyway. basta, dili calixto iyang name."

so there. for all the grilling that they subjected me to, my friends were able to draw out some important answers from me, but not really everything.

but...

awwwww, a few hours after going through that exercise, something sank in: i felt how much i miss him -- my all-time fave crush and sadly, my first heartbreak (ouch! damned life. where's the nearest bridge? hehehe).

so you still like to find out what his name really is?

well, for the record, his name is not calixto. haha...

p.s. if you know his name, sssssssh... respect the secret. :-) by the way, thanks to the following ids99 who showed up for our get-together last weekend: ilian, rowcey, mishay, eldani, jezer and yoni.


it was fun, :-P

i remember yesterday...

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,
it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness..."
-- Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

...the world was so young...

during my last "out-of-town" trip, my friends and i recalled together over dinner the things that we grew up with in the 80's and the early 90's. i've decided to share a list of all that we managed to remember about those good ol' days in this post.

first, allow me to say this: considering that i've already read the "you were a kid in the 80's if..." email, i'm afraid that this post will just be regarded as one of those "gaya-gaya" posts. nevertheless, i'm gonna give this my best shot...

:: jolen, lastiko, and teks (marbles, rubberbands, small game cards) were the "in" things. if you had many of them in your hands and in your pockets (and whatever your storage space was), the better.

:: we played chinese garter by either jumping over it, jumping with it or doing the limbo. the other physical games were terabol slash jumping rope, patintero, bartolata, tumbang-preso, shatong, slipper game, japanese game slash paon-paon slash tag and base, langit-lupa (as in "langit, lupa, saan ka pababa?..."), shake-shake-shampoo, hide and seek, close-up seven up,... ah, too many to mention, really!

:: there was money to gain or lose in those coin games, hantak/taksi, which our parents discouraged us from playing.

:: "game and watch" and brick game were the gadgets for those whose parents could afford

:: pacman, battle city, super mario brothers, and ice breaker were the known computer games

:: we enjoyed magic straps, rainbow springs, and blowing plastic balloons.

:: haw flakes, bazooka joe and the fortune tickets, tarzan, boom-boom lollipops, big boy, cloud 9, big bang, tootsie roll, tabletas (tablet candies), tira-tira, and bobot (with freebie golden rings) were the yummy thingies. remember that "lipstick" came in the form of small red bubble gums? remember that transparent straw with very small spherical colored candies inside it and a flag on its one end?

:: chippy, chiz curls, cheez it, peewee, and richie were the popular junk foods. there were also yellow bags of "people power" curls and letter stickers, mocha pop, and hebe, too!

:: multi-colored suspenders, shoulder pads, curly hair and scary bangs were in. the basketball players had high socks and short shorts!

:: every purchase of colgate and ovaltine meant getting freebies: colgate had those robots which you could transform into alphabets with a few twists and turns, and small colorful tractors, bulldozers and dump trucks were the things to look forward to with every newly opened ovaltine pack. in addition, "pogs" went with coke. there was a "number fever" that became controversial and put a softdrink-bottling company in hot water, too.

:: saksak-puso and the lyrics of monkey, monkey, anabelle (and the likes) are now senseless... but remember the childhood fun they brought us?

remember this? monkey, monkey, anabelle. how many monkey did you see? one. two. three. a-riki-riki-tik and a blue black ship. pick pack boom. yes or no. y. e. s. alis.

how about this? bombero, bombero, may sunog. saan, saan? dapit sa pantalan is number one. one plus one wonderwoman. two plus two lapu-lapu. three plus three christmas tree. four plus four...

...and this? i went to the sea. i'm suma-sa-e. i'm suma-sa-o. alright everybody, tomorrow at the 4 o'clock.

(wahahahaha... my friends and i laughed so hard and went "ano daw??" when we got to this part because we all realized that the lyrics don't make sense.)

:: that's entertainment was still the talk of tinseltown. sheryl cruz-romnick sarmienta, manilyn reynes-janno gibbs and tina paner-chris villanueva were the hot tandems. there was young love, sweet love.

:: ninja turtles were cool and we had our local pandakekoks. we also had voltes v, he-man and the masters of the universe, thunder cats, shaider, and biokids along many others. there were lots of memorable tv commercials, too!

:: movies were mostly watched using the betamax (and the betamax tapes had to be rented).

i'm sure some things got missed out. if you know them, feel free to share (and add) them... that's what the comment box is also for.


post scripts:

(1) the standout recollection for me is "monkey, monkey, anabelle". after all, what in the world is a-riki-riki-tik? the lyrics really make me laugh.

(2) i've already blogged about the movies, dramas-on-radio, and tv shows that defined the 80's and early 90's. the article is here. standout tv commercials got mentioned here.

weeeeeeeeee...

"Do or do not. There is no try."
-- Yoda, Jedi Master

very lovely place. very nice company. wonderful interactions. fresh insights. new inspirations. all these add up to what i call a beautiful and productive weekend... in tagaytay.


taal: the volcano in the lake
yes, folks. i had a beautiful tagaytay experience again!

the first time i went to tagaytay and saw taal with my own eyes was in 2002. since then, i've been having tagaytay for free... february 2002. september 2003. october 2004. june 2005. july 2006... different months, year after year, since 2002. the experience has always been beautiful and fruitful. that's something i'm really grateful for.

every year, there are these to look forward to in tagaytay: new activity partners and friends. new bonds. laughters and smiles. renewed hopes.

this year, we welcomed to our fold the thirty latest additions to our group. prior to our time together in tagaytay last july 8-10, 2006, we in the community got ready for our tasks as facilitators through meetings (with eating and badminton sessions, *winks*) and a training workshop.


"before everything else, let there be bonding..."
what we had in tagaytay was a formation program with the latest additions to the group as the key participants and the active members of the community as facilitators.


shared experiencing in tagaytay
so as not to preempt things for those who are yet to undergo the formation program in the coming years, i've carefully chosen the photos that go with this post... the pictures i've chosen may not seem that interesting to you, but you just have to trust when i say that so much fun, so much hope, and so much constructive things (tangibles and intangibles alike) are borne out of the formation program.


the alumni "facis" during some of the program breaktimes


...and there's so much energy, too!
although some of us had to give up other weekend activities and professional fees (and talent fees, too?) for taking time from our respective workplaces, volunteering in the program is worth all the time, hardwork, and effort that we in the community put into it... especially now that we can really see that the group is growing and heading towards the promising direction even through the small steps that we take not just for one, two or three weekends but day after day, year after year.


pooled from all over the country: of different backgrounds, of similar ideals

related story (Philippine Daily Inquirer, 07/11/2006):
.: Group seeks to create new generation of patriots

related sites:
.: TOSP Community
.: Learning, Leading and Serving for Life

who's not misunderstood?

"A good pun is its own reword."
--Author Unknown

i am not classy. i am not flashy. to people who are quite clueless of who i am, i am timid. i am dull. i am humorless. i am boring. i sometimes get the impression that people are inclined to believe that i have no right to shine. well, sometimes, i like them to forever think of me that way. i get to think that people who don't right away recognize my worth have no business getting friendly with me. therefore, the little that i have to do with them, the better. so what if they want to believe that i have a pitiful one-tracked mind?

i am misunderstood. i feel i always am. this is why i have the tendency to be ready with explanations for my actions even when i have no wish to explain at all.

from time to time, i express that i don't want to work. i feel people misunderstand every time i say that especially since i don't bother to explain. when i say i don't want to work, this is not to say that i don't value labor. this is not to say that i am lazy. when i say i don't want to work, i mean i don't want to work for the money. i don't want to work to be part of the rat race and i certainly don't want to succumb to work that is routine. i don't want to work and, in the process, compromise those that i hold dear -- no sir, no ma'am, not even if it pays lotsa lotsa money. i hold on to a set of values which i don't want to be rattled by work (and i have my pride, too. *winks*)

just because i can beat the guys at their game(s) and don't buy their pathetic half-hearted advances doesn't mean that i am a manhater. tsk, that's something that i often get accused of. i don't like that but i won't take this time to rat on and on to defend myself. time (yours and mine) must not be wasted.

i misunderstood.

the other day, a mentor told me via email that the scientific paper, which we are co-authors of, finally got accepted in an international publication. i thought he was just being mean and sarcastic because he got tired of waiting for me to turn in the other paper that i was tasked to write. to avoid unnecessary conflict, i did not reply to his email and tried not to think about feeling bad the entire day. i thought i could get away with the bad feeling.

yesterday morning, my adviser talked to me and mentioned the accepted paper. at the back of my mind, i had this thought: "oh, shit. nightmare ito. he's that determined to make me finally turn in my paper, nagsumbong na talaga siya kay sir (my adviser)?" i went honest about it. i told my adviser about the status of my write-up, that i'm confused, that i'm still working things out.

later in the afternoon, i realized i made my adviser confused, if not weirded out by the things i said. the paper i was talking about and the paper he was talking about're two different papers! i was talking about "my guilt and my bane" and he was talking about "my blessing". no wonder he had the look of "huh? what in the world??" written all over his face while we were conversing. he must have thought i've gone bonkers.

haaaay. i clearly misunderstood. woe to me. i secretly (i never told anyone about the email i received, only now) allowed myself to feel bad over something that i should feel proud and happy about.

i feel ashamed for thinking that a mentor was out to make me pay for not yet turning in the other paper. (see what guilt can do! tsk, naulaw jud ko.) even if he's not aware of what i thought when i received his mail, i feel guilty for the way i felt and thought. shame on me. shame on my thoughts.

i misunderstood. i misunderstood.