my father's song

see who's the guardian of the mic

this weekend being a videoke weekend with my pals from work made me reminisce about the family videoke sessions in iligan and recall tonight the song that my father always gets to sing. i like the lyrics a lot... the song speaks of love that is always supportive, always sustaining, always reliable. in two words: ever there.

My Love Will See You Through
Marco Sison

When times get rough
And your dreams just fall apart
And sometimes you feel
That you can't go on
Be strong, hold on
For my love will keep you warm
Through the coldest night
Through the rain, through the storm

When friends turn their backs on you
And you're so helpless
You don't know what to do
I'll be on your side to comfort you
My love will see you through

When tears are in your eyes
And you feel like you wanna cry
Just reach out and I'll be around to understand
When you stumble and fall
And you need a shoulder to lean on
All you have to do is call
And I'll be there with a helping hand

When the road seems so long and endless
And all you see is nothing but darkness
Don't give up just walk on
Have faith in your heart
For my love will see you through

My love will see you through
When you reach for your star
When you cross the deepest sea
When you climb the highest hill
My love will always be with you
In everything you do
In every step you'll make
In every road you take

Don't be afraid to follow your dreams....
For my love will see you through

my september 2008

"She glances at the photo, and the pilot light
of memory flickers in her eyes."
--Frank Deford

the highlights of my september? bangs and south korea. did i write bangs? did i write south korea? yup, yup.


see?
as for korea...

i was given clearance to fly all over south korea during the fourth week of september 2008. it was quite tiring. 6 flights in 6 days. preparing for the trip was challenging because work kept on piling up to my neck and over my head even when i was finally about to go and attend to the company-mandated business trip. i wasn't quite ready even when the itinerary and expenses were already taken care of.

even if it was work, i enjoyed the trip and had fun. why could i not? our hosts toured us around. plus, my passport finally got devirginized. haha.

i'll probably blog about my experiences in south korea in a separate post. i took very few pictures (870+ only). you may view some of them (10+ albums only ;-P) in my photo pages in multiply (jr's gallery). perhaps, they can tell you the story.


inside the gyeongbok palace grounds in jongnogu, seoul, south korea
i should be saying help me i'm drowning. so much is going on... but why should i complain? i'm still having fun and opportunities continue to come my way.

i say, bring 'em on!

cooking 101: adobong manok

"Put your heart, mind, intellect and soul even to your smallest acts. This is the secret of success."
--Swami Sivananda

i already talked about doing the laundry in a previous article. now, i'm going to talk about cooking.

my friend, yoni, must be right. i am getting domesticated (and yeah we're growing old. no, i mean, we're growing up.) if before i couldn't be made to deal with mere rice cooking, now i have the will to cook whatever my mind fancies.

i remember that one of my reasons for trying to live far away from the comforts of my own home and family was so i could push myself to take care of my own affairs especially when it comes to doing the laundry, keeping my own place neat and organized, and cooking, among other things. to put that simply: so i could push myself to do household chores. at home, i found it rather difficult to do chores because if i did try to lift a finger and did something as simple as slicing potatoes or hold a broom, people in the house would start thinking something was definitely wrong with me and they'd tease me about it. the dear heavens know i dislike being teased about such things.

when i first moved away from home and stayed in diliman, my doing the laundry was limited to washing my own underwear and socks (as we were not allowed to do the rest of our laundry in the dorm and laundromats took care of my soiled clothes). i kept my side of the dorm room relatively neat and relatively organized (take note of that word -- relatively). i did not cook -- i just didn't have the will but i surely had the thought.

with my stay here in batangas, i re-wrote my own story -- at least, where household chores are concerned. not only did i have the patience and will to deal with my laundry on my own, i also earned the will to try honing my cooking skills (long-been-dormant cooking skills, i'd like to insist. after all, i belong to a lineage of good, if not great, cooks! hehe.)

just recently (read: more than a week ago), i tried my luck with adobong manok. one early morning, i went to the market. i had just alighted from the company bus then and i had just finished a night shift's worth of workload. i didn't know what got into me but i walked my way to the market and bought half a kilo of dressed chicken, had that said half sliced and took it home.

i remember being sleepy and i should have hit the bed right away but...

i had a half a kilo of chicken to deal with. after putting away my bag, i went to the kitchen, washed my hands, and did what i had to do. i had once observed my officemate when she came to visit and cooked adobong manok for us. i somehow had the confidence that i'd be able to cook adobong manok based on that one instance of observation -- with no written guide whatsoever to pull me through. i thought: "i'm gifted with good memory and, should that fail me, i could always go by with my instincts."

i got me some garlic, onion, salt, soy sauce, paminta, and vinegar. i simply mixed all of them ingredients in a clean used-to-be ice cream container. for good measure, i mixed them with my own hands. i then turned on the rice cooker (we don't have a stove in this house and we won't buy one anymore), put some cooking oil inside the cooking bowl, and when all that was ready, i transferred all the pre-mixed ingredients and waited for my adobo to be ready for eating.

either i must really be bad at waiting or i must have been really tired from work or both. i fell asleep! when i woke up, the contents of the cooker was close to drying up. good thing, i woke up just in time (to the tempting smell of adobo and before the chicken and the rest of the stuff got burned, you know) and was able to save the day. whew, that was close. i simply added some water, vinegar, and soy sauce and waited some more until i felt certain all was well with my first ever adobong manok.

it smelled like adobong manok, looked like adobong manok, and tasted like adobong manok. i say, it was really an adobong manok which i was able to cook on my own.

that was more than a week ago. tonight, i made adobo out of canned tuna. next time, i'll try cooking pork adobo. when i cook, it's usually a hit or miss. i tried cooking tinolang manok not too long ago and it ended up being a nilagang manok, pft. hopefully, when i try pork adobo, it'll be a hit.

well

surprise. surprise.

after a while of not being able to share my thoughts and what-nots here, i'm back again. i haven't really been gone. i can't remember a day i haven't been online for the past month but it took me until today to write another entry again.

my life's going good so far. i get to experience the usual fluctuations of day-to-day living but everything's been bearable and i'm having the time of my life going through my highs and lows, learning, growing, becoming.

during the time i wasn't able to update this blog, i've been regularly multiplying -- that is, updating and using my premium multiply account. of course, i have to make the most out of it.

between shuttling back and forth, going here and there, catching my breath, i could say i've been putting my energies to good use.

there is so much i want to share but, let's face it, so much can happen in a month that if i start sharing now what i've been through during the month i haven't written anything, i wouldn't be able to finish anymore. babbler that i am, i could go on and on and on.

for some updates, you may visit my multiply account. huge parts of it are accessible to everyone.

for more of my thoughts, wait 'til my next entry... or entries for that matter.

lately i've been able to watch footages of iligan, kauswagan and kolambugan on tv -- yes, i now have my own TV in my batangas crib -- no thanks to you, bravo (if i were in your shoes, i wouldn't want to carry a name that could be mistaken for a mere pack of biscuit. oh, that reminds me. i don't want to be in your shoes because you are evil.)

i'm upset with what's happening in mindanao. it's really disturbing to read about lawlessness. people are being displaced from their homes, pushed to run far away from where there is threat. the unlucky ones die without justice. men, women, and children suffer and all these unfold for the name of what?!

when i read about the barely two-year old child that they (i don't know what to call them -- the first thing that comes to mind is the word 'killers' but even that seems to be inadequate, they're worse than that) left dead in pantar, my eyes welled up. God bless them.

with all that's happening in my home island, my biggest consolation is that my family in iligan still remains safe.

one step closer

"A passport, as I'm sure you know, is a document that one shows to government officials whenever one reaches a border between countries, so the officials can learn who you are, where you were born, and how you look when photographed unflatteringly."
--Lemony Snicket

as i was preparing breakfast early today, i heard someone calling from the gate. when i went out to check what it was all about, i was delighted to see the small package that was meant for me.

my passport!

machine readable passport

finally, it got to me! it was supposed to be delivered to me last thursday but when i called the forwarder to locate my passport last friday, i was told it wasn't released as scheduled and that i needed to call the department of foreign affairs.

so...

toot toot toot toot toot toot toot toot toot (to represent the act of pressing numbers, folks, and NOT cussing). after pressing the right numbers, i was already on the line -- my call was acknowledged politely by the person on the other end. i learned that they did not release my passport because i asked for something to be resolved first.

doinks!

i had no idea what needed to be resolved because i did not ask for such a thing. so, without missing a beat, i told the person on the other line, "sir, promise po, wala po akong kinalaman sa sinasabi n'yong pina-resolve ko last july 10. i was there 9th of july and not on the 10th of july. whoever made the transaction in behalf of me the day after that, i did not authorize it. ang alam ko lang na pwedeng maging issue ay pagiging DOST scholar ko noong araw pero po i submitted all the necessary papers to support my application and nakasaad po doon that i am allowed to apply for a passport."

"don't worry. ok na siya. na-release na at i-d-deliver na siya bukas."

saturday (that's yesterday) came and, during late afternoon, i received a text from the forwarder's rep saying he was at our company's immediate neighboring facility earlier that day to deliver my passport but since i wasn't there, the next resort would be for me to get my passport at their (forwarder's) office.

doinks!

mheeeen! how many strikes do i have to endure? my reply went this way: "sir, company address po namin ginamit ko and hindi po address ng kapitbahay namin. inasahan ko pong ihahatid n'yo sa tamang address kasi po existing naman po ang building namin and may daan naman po."

i then called the rep and sought some clarification regarding the delivery. i listened to his side and i explained my stand on the matter. then, the compromise...

the compromise? he's gonna deliver my passport to my residential address here in batangas.

so...

today, all's well that ends well. my passport is already with me! yey.

oi, i know your question. am i traveling soon? that is not for me to say. when my immediate superior told me this for the umpteenth time: "wag ka nang pasaway. kumuha ka na ng passport," ayun, nagpaka-effort* na ako. madali akong kausap, di ba? hehe.

mga friends, tulungan n'yo ko mangolekta ng mga tatak sa pasaporte ko. it's about time. travel tayo. hihi. ;-)


*pa-picture sa nearest mall dito then pila sa DFA manila (kung di pagpapaka-effort ang pumila sa DFA manila, i don't know what is. also throw in to the equation an early trip from batangas to manila, okay?)

in pursuit of more

"There will be times when you will be in the field without a camera. And, you will see the most glorious sunset or the most beautiful scene that you have ever witnessed. Don't be bitter because you can't record it. Sit down, drink it in,
and enjoy it for what it is!"
--DeGriff

anyone who's familiar with the board game ca$hflow would probably say, "doodads!"

BUT

yes, i've just upgraded my (until recently) free multiply account to premium. i have lots of albums and stuff there already and my experience with multiply has been, so far, so good. i wanted to keep all the photos i uploaded in hi-res and i did not want to risk losing any of the comments that contacts and passersby have left there. it was easy for me to do decide on doing the move -- upgrade!

you might think i've gone overboard there and that i'm crazy enough to be shelling out some money for such a thing. well... HEY, i may be crazy. when i realized i could lose the hi-res versions of the photos i have published online, it was a no-brainer for me to come up with the decision: buy the account.

i told my friends i was going to apply for a credit card -- if only so i can purchase my multiply account. "my no-plastic-money personal policy be damned." (adik! haha.) good thing, i did not quite reach that point since a good friend offered to pay the account for me (i just have to pay back in pesos.)

back in 2004, i signed up for a flickr account but i was never tempted to upgrade (read: pay for) my account there. the interaction and network options just seemed inadequate. with multiply, i am more than satisfied with the interaction and the options -- blog, photos, videos, links, reviews, music, guestbook, etc, all in one even with a free account. (with generous bandwidth at that!)

so, why did i upgrade to premium? because. i. just. felt. i. should.

pay me a visit there, okay?

p.s. if i were to pursue a different career path, i'd opt to do full-time photography. right now, except for my trusty sony ericcson, i don't have the camera. for the time being, i am making the most of what i have. as they say, it's the surgeon, not the scalpel. in the same line of thought, it's the one taking the shot, not the camera. see ya around!

growing better

"Think big thoughts but relish small pleasures."
--H. Jackson Brown, Jr., Life's Little Instruction Book

these days, i know people aren't pulling my leg when they say, "oi, tumataba ka na!"

i can see and feel the change myself. i'm growing into my clothes (i'd rather say it that way instead of "i'm outgrowing my clothes") -- my pants, most especially. before, i had no trouble putting them on but lately i've been struggling to fit into them. nowadays, i have to wriggle my way in. i badly need new pairs and all of them new pairs have to be at least a size bigger! swear.

just last weekend, the locking button of my fave cargo pants popped off. nope, the thread did not give way -- the button-holes of the dear button gave up on me!

the thing is, i am not growing a belly. i am simply growing, growing, growing.

i'm still reed thin (i dare say; and i am probably still underweight?) but...

if they see me now, people who know my history of being ridiculously thin (through grade school, high school, college, graduate school...) could tell that i've recently achieved progress with my (lack of) weight issue.

i never thought it would really happen. even those who get to see me everyday didn't fail to notice.

i have grown a bit heavier and a bit bigger. i do not need a weighing scale nor a tape measure to verify the claim. you can see it on my cheeks. you can see it when you see me.

"namimintog eh."

"hahahah... tumataba!" (sabay puna sa braso ko.)

"kung dati mukha ka lang grade three; ngayon nagmumukha ka ng grade six. oi, nagdadalaga na."

"nakakaaliw. you're looking better."

"bagay pala sa 'yo napapagod." (sabay sundot sa iba: "hiyang na hiyang. dagdagan nyo pa trabaho nito!")

:-) hehe. tama bang alaskahin ako?

p.s. i don't believe in rice shortage. picture? click here.