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.

less is more.... maybe

regardless

we in my immediate family are not touchy-feely people and it's right to say that we don't wear our hearts on our sleeves. sure, we miss one another and keep our communication lines open but except for "take care and God bless always" we usually avoid talks of sweetness and mush. when we find ourselves together, we're warm and happy but we're seldom (if not at all) seen in a hug or anything like that... i'd like to think that we love one another silently and discreetly. we openly talk about our bad feelings and vent out our frustrations (sometimes to the point of arguing or, worse, fighting!) but we tend to keep the good ones and those that light up our very hearts to ourselves. i don't know what will really change all that. i wish to...

last week, i received an e-mail from my father. it's been a long time since i last received an e-mail from him and i was a bit surprised that he took time to send me one; just disregard the fact that it was a forwarded e-mail. i knew why he sent it. he just wanted to make me feel remembered. the top most part of the message said: "teng, please read this and take care always. papang."

even with those few words, i felt my worth in his life. i was very grateful for his e-mail eventhough receiving it made me feel a little bit uncomfortable. it's weird that i should feel uncomfortable, i know. not really quite knowing what to reply, i decided to e-mail him about our group's R&D win -- something that got announced last december but my family didn't know of... because i didn't tell them. (even though i openly talk about the places that i go to and the companies that i keep, i'm notorious at home for keeping people in the dark when it comes to my activities -- good or bad, better or worse, best or worst. my family's usually the last to know that i did this and i did that. in fact, they don't know about this blog. so ssssssshhhhh.)

i figured my papang deserved some delightful news from me and not my standard boredom-inducing "buhi pa ko" (i'm still alive) statement, so i told him my stale news. as expected, he congratulated me. he wrote very briefly that he's proud of me. instead of acknowledging his congratulations, i pointed out that he misunderstood some things i said in the e-mail (he really did misunderstand some things!) and i proceeded to make things clear. i wrote a few lines of probably senseless blah blah blahs without commenting nor reacting on his congratulations. i know, i know... my head's really ought to be hit by a hammer.

my papang's reply ?

"regardless... basta, just remember i'm very proud of you."

...and our exchange ended right there. i knew in my heart i'd end up starting an argument over something good if i dared to contest that one. regardless is such a powerful word. i didn't know... until papang used it on me.


powerless

"no. it can't be," i thought as i made my usual way to the catwalk. with catwalk, i mean the usually deserted hallway that i pass through almost daily on my way to the research lab. it was monday morning and the hallway leading to our labroom was dark -- it meant only one thing: another power outage. tut. tut. no power. no experiments. uhm, no work until brownout's over. no work? argh. (call me abnormal, i don't care.)

tough luck. the labrat in me was hungry for action that couldn't just be there. just when i decided to welcome monday morning with zest to do things that need to be done, i got welcomed by darkness in the lab. no light, no aircon, no internet, no computer to fiddle with, no equipment that could be run. i should have seen it coming: our building's been experiencing at least one power outage every week since late april for reasons the "experts" couldn't exactly pin-point and fix.


listless

clark kent. superman. kal-el. clark kent. superman. kal-el. clark kent. superman. kal-el. clark k...

dancing the tinikling

"you don't go to the precipice of yes and then stop.
you don't say yes and then hold back. you don't say yes and then change your mind. the biggest thing to do when you go to the precipice of yes is to jump off and feel the exhilaration of
saying 'yes' to a noble calling."
-- mr. pagsi

last weekend (june 9-11), i joined a leadership retreat held at the betania retreat house in quezon city. i'm one of the participants this time, not one of the facilitators -- nice change.

the retreat gave me more than a mere break. on top of the opportunity of spending time with friends (whom i haven't seen for quite some time) again, i also had the great opportunity of forming new friendships with other young professionals (naks!) whose dreams are not that different from mine although they belong to other fields and they grew up in other parts of the country. more than opening doors for lifetime friendships with at least 21 other people...

• the retreat strengthened the Filipino soul in me.

• it affirmed my conviction that more than financial investments, i should have socio-civic investments.

• it made me realize that i do want a closer relationship with God and that means i want to know Him more. please don't raise those eyebrows. i'm somewhat a lost sheep and i really want to find my way back.

• it also inspired me to continue believing in the concept of team: together everyone achieves more.

i had a lot of realizations last weekend. i also had a lot of fun during the stay-in. it was good to find myself in the company of "people of like mind" -- people who believe in this country's potential despite and in spite of everything, people who have not given up on the concept of nation-building (big word, i know) and on being Filipino.

together, we ate, laughed, cracked jokes, and sang love songs with guitar as accompaniment during breaks in the discussions. with them, i had the time to pause, identify and openly talk about my real fears. i listened to their stories and they listened to mine. the flow of the discussions reminded me of the choices and the changes i can make. the activities helped me pin-point my gains and my losses, my pains and my blessings. they made me assess and reassess my paths as well as renew my commitment to my dreams. in a way, i could say that i got recharged by dancing the tinikling.

imagine young urban professionals coming together and dancing the tinikling: medical doctor, councilors, project managers and assistants, engineers, programmers, accountants, scientists, lawyers, and new graduates. well, yes, the tinikling! some of us had to do the limbo. some of us had to revive seemingly-forgotten top-spinning (pagpapaikot ng trumpo) prowess. some of us had to show how to do the sipa and the siko. some of us had to crack not-so-common philippine riddles. some of us had to pull the slingshot (tirador) and put down designated targets. all of us had a dose of alibata. all of us were made to dance the tinikling!!! more than being challenging, it was helluva fun!!!

here, before i get too carried away with my fun-fun-fun tinikling experience, let me share some of the lines i jotted down during the discussions:

"success begins in the mind. it is nurtured in the heart and is expressed through labor."

"it takes courage to do the right thing everyday. one has to have values to stand on, values that must not be compromised. after all, the people who make a difference are those with virtues."

"love is not a pinky-pinky thing. love is service."

"the most terrible thing that can happen to one's life is to be no longer needed."

"anything worth doing is worth doing well. a job well done is its own reward."

"if you want to have a fulfilled life, then you must choose to invest your life -- not just on a goal but on an ideal."

"in times of crisis, people either break down or shine. there is so much magic in woundedness."

by the way, the name of the leadership retreat is AGIMAT. interesting name, don't you think? well, we had an interesting line-up of speakers, too: dinky soliman, ateneo boys high's very well-revered onofre "mr. pagsi" pagsanghan, manila water's president antonino aquino, newsbreak magazine's editor-in-chief marites vitug, AFP's major dennis eclarin, ang lingkod ng panginoon's atty. bobby quitain, and society of jesus' bro. javi. if those names don't ring a bell, you're missing on a lot of information about the people in this country... time to read up!

as a consequence of attending AGIMAT, i added the following to my "to do list":

• answer this question: "what do you put in the center of your life?"

• complete this: "in the morning, when i wake up..." maybe come up with a poem, song or an essay?

• identify those who are in your hall of fame. guide questions: who are your heroes? why are they your heroes?

• plot (and re-plot) your lifeline. be as detailed as you can be. identify the ups and downs.

• val, make up your mind on this jolting question: "are you investing your one life on the right thing?" if the answer is yes, justify. if the answer is no, what then is the right thing and what are you currently doing with your one life -- why are you not investing it on the right thing?

challenging-enough list, eh? as you can see, i have no five-year nor ten-year plan in my "to do" list. i refuse to do anything like that because i can only clearly see as far as next month (i'm not even sure about this. sometimes, i can only clearly see as far as the next hour, haha). in fact, i'm not even gonna start budgeting my money and my time on paper. that means i'm not so sure about plotting (and re-plotting) my lifeline although i have no problem in identifying my ups and downs.

p.s. feel free to take on the challenges, if you want to. i think they'll make interesting blog entries, if you care to share... and, oh, they require honesty.

overwhelming

you stare at the screen. you see this awesome sequence of distinct shapes, colors, and meshed sounds. first, you get the idea that you're actually looking at some part of the earth. then, you are pulled back. you're looking at floating big chunks of rocks. you are pulled back further until you see jupiter and its distinguishable red spot. next, you see saturn and its rings. you are pulled back continuously until what you know as the solar system fades in the distance and gives way to an even grander picture of stars, constellations, galaxies... whoa... the spectacular vastness of the universe unfolds before your very eyes and the next thing you know, you're looking straight into the eye of a comely girl saying, "CQ, this is W9GFO. come back."

if that seems too familiar, then perhaps you are a fan of the movie...

title: contact
year of release: 1997
director: robert zemeckis
story by: carl sagan and ann druyan
main cast: jodie foster, matthew mcconaughey, james woods, tom skerritt, and angela bassett

contact is one of those beautifully done films that i was not able to watch on the big screen -- something tells me that the experience would have been better (but it's too late for regrets. anyway, i don't have to fret -- i own an original copy of the movie and i have the book as well).

the opening sequence of the movie is the story of the movie itself. it takes one on a journey that starts within, here on earth, tunneling to somewhere, lending a breathtaking, incomprehensible sense of vastness which leads back to the heart of reality that paves way for inspirations and a sense of significance on top of thought-provoking insights.

"you are capable of such beautiful dreams and such horrible nightmares. you feel so lost, so cut off, so alone... only you're not. see, in all our searching, the only thing we've found that makes the emptiness bearable is each other."
-- from the movie, contact
more than a year ago, i picked up a copy of contact (the movie) from the shelf and did not let go of it until i paid for it. i "officially" made it mine for these three big reasons: jodie foster, carl sagan, and extra-terrestrial intelligence -- not necessarily in that order.

"if it's just us, it seems like an awful waste of space."
throw in jodie's brand of acting, sagan's genius, zemeckis' talents, and add a good blend of special effects and background sound... then, proceed to tell an interesting story of how the world reacts to a message from one of the stars -- "contact" with "little green men" that are not little green men at all. the movie has both entertainment and considerable intellectual value. in contact, we have science fiction that is closer to science than mere fiction. in contact, we also have a woven picture of humanity, religion, politics and ambitions. all these elements contribute to an overwhelming movie-watching experience.

p.s. i love the book more than the movie. there's more drama, more character development, more picture of reality and undeniable scientific poetry in the book. dr. sagan pulled together the elements that pique my imagination well.