ecija then pampanga

"It’s time now to sing out, though the story never ends..."
-- Seasons of Love, RENT

yey, another TOSP-AC LTS for this semester! first, the team got invited by divine word college in albay. next, we got a request from central luzon state university in nueva ecija. then, we got another invitation... from angeles university foundation (AUF) in angeles city, pampanga!

from albay (i wasn't able to go due to conflict of sked, huhu), to nueva ecija, to pampanga, to...


AUF's 09.21.06 youth power four: a one-day LTS


AUF LTS: another worthwhile learning experience!


team of 6: jake. val. bandoy. braggy. maida. jeff.


team pampanga. team sisig! (hehe)

hay, the best ang sisig ng pampanga... but i have to restrain myself from eating too much sisig. i've been told that one should eat sisig at most three times in a year only. bad cholesterol.

in this month alone, i know i've eaten sisig more than five times already. ohmaigulai.

down the river and back to reality

"Keep some souvenirs of your past,
or how will you ever prove it wasn't all a dream?"
--Ashleigh Brilliant

"easy forward!"

"lock your feet!"

"forward!"

these are the commands that still keep ringing in my good head. it has been more than a month since i made my "whim trip" and joined my friends in navigating 12.5 kilometers of the cagayan de oro river... and i'm able to blog about it only now. ha.

19th of august 2006. my sleepless self left diliman on a taxi cab at about 3am. i swung by shaw boulevard to fetch my friend yoni and her "accidental" pet cockroach (which, by the way, we managed to drop off somewhere, haha). then, we headed for makati to fetch athan. from makati, the taxi driver drove us to the manila domestic airport where we caught the first flight bound for cagayan de oro.


08.19.06 travel buddies: athan. yoni. val.
after we got off the plane, we took a taxi ride and met up with our oh-so-hyper friend (and crazy master) haniko in divisoria, cagayan de oro. haniko was more than pleased (read: excited) to see yoni again and she was genuinely and pleasantly surprised to see me -- she looked like a very happy jack-in-the-box! (pardon me for not being able to think of a better analogy!)

with my trip being a mere product of my whim, i wasn't expected to be anywhere in mindanao that day. haniko had no inkling that i'd be joining "the adventure" after all. how could she when weeks before i've already put my foot down and vehemently told everyone that i won't be home 'til october. ho hum, so much for trying to be firm about my decisions. hihi.


08.19.06 reunion of the witches!: val. yoni. "master" haniko.

"the adventure"? let's call it white water rafting. as early as february 2005, haniko already got it planned for us. well, it took us busy witches more than a year to realize the plan...

in divisoria, we waited for rex and his red rafts. rex is haniko's officemate and the operations manager of cagayan de oro river tours corporation. we also waited there for yoni's mommy and younger brother anjik.


08.19.06 photo ops in DD divisoria, cagayan de oro :)
when the "red rafts team" finally arrived, we said our hi's and hello's and signed our respective waivers. nah, don't ask me what was written in the document i signed... to me, it wasn't a waiver -- it was actually a talent contract. ha ha. someday, you'll see my face (along side with yoni's, athan's, anjik's and, of course, haniko's!) gracing one of those rafting ad tarps in cagayan de oro! ang kapal noh?


08.19.06 pre-adventure ritual
from divisoria, yoni, athan, anjik, haniko, and i, joined the "red rafts team" in going to our whitewater rafting adventure's start-off point. we boarded the jeepney and headed for mambuaya, where our day's big adventure awaited us.


08.19.06 having fun in the jeepney!
the riverscape that we saw in mambuaya was breathtaking. the sun was up and dark clouds were nowhere in sight. it was such a beautiful day!!! we stole some time gawking at the scenery and had our pictures taken in front of the cdo white water rafting adventure welcome marker.


08.19.06 adventure marker and the cagayan de oro river
after putting on our rafting helmets and safety vests, all of us waded in the shallow part of the river for our on-the-spot whitewater rafting orientation. we were introduced to the yellow paddles (yoohoo, paddles in my fave color!) and were shown how to properly hold and use them. the guides demonstrated what we had to do when "forward," "backward," "lock your feet," "high five," and "s-paddle" commands are called out.

then, the time came for us to go down the mighty cagayan de oro river. yoni, athan, anjik, haniko, and i got on a raft with our very able and friendly guides, ryan and steve. two of the other members of the "red rafts team" were on another raft with a set of "singkit" guests from manila who had a very cute little boy with them. the rest of the team took a third raft and served as the "rescue guys on standby".

eventhough my thighs ended up badly sunburned, i enjoyed the adventure a lot! it was fun going through the rapids, shouting our hearts out, and waving our paddles in the air with our woohoo's. we covered a 12.5-kilometer stretch of the cdo river, conquered 14 whitewater rapids and not once did our raft overturn -- yes, we're such good paddlers! haha. (for the record, i did not make that one up. our guide ryan actually commented that we're strong paddlers. heehee. had we been lalampa-lampa, our very bodies would have been thrown off the raft and could have hit the big, big rocks. ewww.)

where my rafting skills are concerned, the easiest command to follow is "lock your feet" which meant securing the feet on the sides of the big raft so that nobody will be easily thrown off the water ride. one very enjoyable thing to do with the paddle is the "s-paddle" which meant splashing water towards a target (read: another raft). the "high five!", on the other hand, is the most spontaneous thing one could do with the paddle right after a whitewater is conquered. this involves the act of raising the paddle high up in the air, in celebration and pure exhilaration.

and there's definitely more to the exhilaration and the excitement caused by paddling through the challenging rapids! our whitewater rafting adventure wasn't just about successfully hitting the water and coming out of it alive and in one piece. it was also about shared experiencing. my friends and i worked as a team, witnessed together different facets of nature's pristine beauty in cagayan de oro, and saw what life's like along the riverbanks (cagayan de oro on one side and bukidnon on the other). if you come to think of it, an adventure like that would lose some rewarding joy if there were no lovely sceneries to behold and genuine friends to experience it with!

our rafting adventure ate up only about 3 to 4 hours, but it seemed longer than that for me... perhaps because i enjoyed it so much. the sensory rush one feels while going through the entire adventure makes one lose track of time.


08.19.06 post-adventure photosession
more than 12 kms and 14 rapids after: yey, we did it!

08.19.06 adventure aftermath
back in the jeepney for the ride home...
so where are our whitewater rafting adventure pics? ask haniko! i'll update this article, post our action pics, and share those photos where you can see our group in full rafting gear (with helmets, vests, etc.)... once i get the remaining image files from haniko. weehee!


08.19.06 adventure aftermath: one last set

p.s.
(1) photos used in this article are courtesy of athan, yoni, val and haniko.

(2) here is haniko's account (complete with rafting photos) of her first whitewater rafting adventure in cdo.

the great nueva ecija weekend

"When people are inspired,
they do great things."

last weekend was supposed to be a corregidor-subic weekend with my travel buddy yoni and some other friends. however, our plan got botched up by circumstances beyond our control. just as well, something better came up...

the university supreme student council (USSC) of central luzon state university (CLSU) requested our group, TOSP-AC, to help them out in their 9th congress of campus leaders (CCL). we answered their call and last weekend, 10 of us went to the science city of muñoz, nueva ecija to conduct a leadership training seminar (LTS).


team of 10 for a congress of 150
going there...
we left metro manila for nueva ecija last friday evening at about 8 o'clock. we were supposed to leave earlier but the van that CLSU provided for us got caught in the rainy weekend traffic. as a consequence, our team had to wait for quite sometime (4 hours) at the sicilian express in tomas morato for our ride to arrive. from 4pm to the time the van arrived, our group did nothing but eat, laugh, talk, eat, laugh and talk.

side story: we saw what flood's like in tomas morato. when friday evening came, it rained a bit and lo! the street became filled with so much water. i didn't know that tomas morato gets its share of floods.

where was i?

ah yes! on our way to ecija, we made a stopover somewhere in bulacan for more food. we're quite lucky, we parked just in time to witness a very spectacular fireworks show. according to one of the service personnel that i talked to, the wonderful september air display was coming from SM marilao. he mentioned something like "fireworks pasiklaban." ah... a pasiklaban indeed! for quite a time, i was all eyes to the bursts of colors in the night sky -- i almost forgot that we made the stopover for food and refreshments, and not for the fireworks. hehe.

our trip to nueva ecija was loooooong... but it wasn't boring because the group's kinda hyper -- we were talking and joking all the way. our conversations hopped from one topic to another until we started discussing extra sensory perception, third eye, and spooky experiences. too many times, we agreed to change the topic only to mention again gargoyles and not-normally-seen beings just several seconds after. talk about kakulitan! when we made another stopover in one of the towns of nueva ecija for our midnight snack, we still carried on with our "apt-for-the-cold-night topic".

we arrived in CLSU at about 1 o'clock, saturday morning. after thanking the driver, we had a meet-and-greet with the members of USSC who stayed up for our arrival. we were supposed to still conduct an orientation but we were all so sleepy and tired, we begged for rest...

however, our team didn't hit the beds right away when we got to the place where we were housed. we went through our LTS strategies, made last-minute reminders and finalized our tasking.

the CLSU LTS
to say that the 2-day LTS we conducted in CLSU was a success is an understatement.


CLSU LTS 2006: one worthwhile experience
in nueva ecija, we did not encounter palparan, instead we encountered about a hundred and fifty very hyper student leaders who shared the weekend with us despite the other demands in their lives. the LTS was a very fun learning experience for them as well as for us who facilitated the activities. the college kids' enthusiasm and spirit of participation was overwhelming and very inspiring.

eventhough the schedule of the 9th CCL coincided with the CLSU intramurals and cueshe was there (the band stayed just a door away from our room!), we still had good attendance throughout the LTS because the participants chose to prioritize our activities. we gave them our best and they also gave us their best.


all smiles: when things are done with great love!
all the sacrifices, the efforts, and the resources that we put into the endeavor was worth every minute of our weekend stay in nueva ecija. the evaluation that the CLSU campus leaders gave TOSP-AC was also very heartwarming.

more than telling us that we did not waste their time, "super effective po talaga kayo", "di kayo boring magpa-seminar," and "masaya kayong kasama, cowboy pa. marami kaming natutunan," they also encouraged us to continue inspiring more students like them and shared their commitment to do their best shot at being better leaders.


team nueva ecija
personally, i don't regret having jeopardized my "thesis sked" a bit just so i could volunteer for our nueva ecija commitment. our stint in CLSU was very, very worthwhile.

hay, if only funds would allow us to finally bring our LTS to visayas and mindanao...

for now, this is the shout-out: pampanga, you're next! :)


post scripts:
(1) it was great working with the dependable and efficient members of the CLSU USSC.

(2) the team's trip back to metro manila last sunday was fun, fun, fun! we left nueva ecija at twilight and traveled for most of the evening. we were still so hyper despite our lack of sleep that we kept cracking all sorts of jokes -- even those we just merely pulled off from the billboards that we saw along the way.

(3) i printed and submitted my thesis manuscript last monday. that means, i'll be defending my scientific work soon. yes!

impulsive, too impulsive

"Let her cry, for she's a lady
Let her dream, for she's a child
Let the rain fall down upon her
She's a free and gentle flower, growing wild"
-- Wildflower, Color Me Badd

i went home. i could say that it was a spur of the moment thing. sure, i was hell bent on sticking to my schedule but something in me snapped.

to hell with schedule!

i woke up one day and felt too sad. in my attempt to uplift my spirits, i thought hard of what it was that i really wanted to do.

i thought of going home. i wanted to be in mindanao. i wanted to see my iligan. i missed my room. i missed being home.


my room, my stuff: these and some other things, i tend to miss
4th of january 2006. that's the last time i was in my hometown. 17th of august 2006, thursday. that's the day i woke up feeling too sad. the first thing i did when i got to the lab? i emailed my friend, yoni, and told her that i wanted to steal some time... to be on a vacation... to see something i've been deprived of for eight months already -- my real home.

i emailed her in the morning. by nightime, i already had a roundtrip reservation. the next day, i went out to claim my ticket before reporting for work. ohhhhhh... i realized i was being impulsive. to be honest, i trembled with the realization.

considering that i have a deadline on the 4th of september, i wasn't expected to be away. nevertheless, i got my ticket and quickly sealed my going-home plans without consulting my adviser first. i only had friday to let him know that i was going out of town...

18th of august 2006. friday. i went to the lab after my trip to the ticket outlet and multi-tasked by preparing for the experiments to be done that day and drafting necessary letters. i also edited technical documents to be sent out to our funding agency. i also used up the time to prepare for my then would be talk with my adviser regarding my unexpected trip. no, i had no plans of going AWOL. it was important for me that i had to let him know. around noon time, he came in and asked if i've already eaten. he decided that i should accompany him and his family to bicutan for an important business.

on our way to bicutan, sir's wife asked, "so val---, when are you going home?" i said, "sa october pa po ako pwedeng umuwi..." and then, like a very excited and very hopeful child, i quickly addressed sir and said "pero, sir, pwede po ba akong umuwi bukas?" mwe he he he.

our conversation went on like this...

adviser: uuwi ka na. uuwi ka na. ba't ka uuwi?
me: sir, sandali lang naman po. by wednesday morning, i'll be back here.
adviser: ah, sandali lang naman pala. matagal ka na palang hindi nakikita sa inyo. kelan ka ba last nakauwi?
me: january po ako last nakita sa amin, doc.
adviser: ah, so my ticket ka na. sige, balik ka kaagad.
me: yes, by wednesday, i'm back. pramis.

hewwww... cool. i was delighted and excited.

very early morning of 19th of august 2006. saturday. i didn't sleep anymore. i made quick preparations for my trip. at about 3am, i left diliman and headed for the airport on a taxi cab. but, first, i made a sidetrip to yoni's place in shaw boulevard to fetch her. (yes, i wasn't going home alone.) next, we made another sidetrip to makati to fetch yoni's friend, athan. then, off we went to the airport to catch the first flight out of manila, bound for cagayan de oro.

by 6:30am, our plane landed on mindanao soil. i blurted out "yes, i'm here... after eight months." yoni said, "after two, three months for me." then, i said, "after 24 years, for athan." ha ha ha... anyway, yoni and i laughed and laughed as we got off the plane. she received a text message from the taxi driver who was supposed to fetch her but didn't show up according to schedule. the message sent us laughing our hearts out. it said, "maam, sorry po. nakakain kasi ako ng pampatulog kagabi. 5am na ako nagising." bwahahaha... nakakain ng pampatulog. to us, that's very funny and interesting.

wow, it felt good to be walking on mindanao soil again. it felt good to hear bisaya being spoken all around me. it felt soooo good...

well, except that i took the first flight, got reunited with my friends, had a swell white water rafting adventure (this definitely deserves a separate blog entry), got a well-deserved sunburn (ha ha!), went home (yesssss!), surprised my friends and family (i didn't tell them i was going home, they weren't expecting me), spent three lazy days at home (hu-wow!), saw my room and my books and went around the city, i did nothing much. hahaha, as usual, i'm saying "nothing much".


the book collection i built on my own during my college days
and the mini library the whole family is still building up
by the way, my hair's considerably shorter now. my mama had my tresses cut the night before i went back to manila. just as well... i'm back to wearing ribbons on my hair. he he he.


hair talk!
as a result of my caprice, i'm again all of a sudden several thousands poorer. so what? keeping my sanity is far more important than my savings account. i went for what i wanted and came back happy.

owkey, gotta go now. 'til my next entry, peeps!

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?