Saturday, August 28, 2004

Baguio=Seattle ... Rain ... Rain ... and ... MORE RAIN!

I just got back from a 5 day vacation--within a vacation-- trip in Baguio. Here's the lowdown for all you peeps out there:

the UPSIDE:

UKAY-UKAYs --

My sister warned me to be LIST down the things that I want to buy in Baguio, cause once you enter these shopping places, your mind will go crazy on all the clothes, bags, and accessories that you will see. SISTER KNOWS BEST, i tell you that. Although my brain went bizaare, I was very tamed into not buying the all things that I want.

- sweaters and 2 jackets
I need them cause it will be FALL again in Seattle.

- a native bag and a silver Chinese character from IBAY's
I have to have them, so I caved.

I think I covered most of the 2nd hand stores there-- from Session Road to Maharlika to the market to Mines View to John Hay -- I don't know if I left any out.

Little "food for thought" that I got from this ukay-ukay shopping trip:

Its nice to shop for yourself and for your family and friends during the "rainy" season. Merchants drop the prices of their goods, BIG TIME. My sister was looking at a set of chess pieces at a store in Maharlika that was priced at P1000, she haggled, the merchant dropped the price to P600. Imagine how low that went?? My sister didn't buy the set though. Weird GIRL!

THE downside:

the RAIN -

The weather's a b*tch up there! Seriously, it was raining every freaking day!! I didn't get the chance to see the one tourist spot that I wanted to see in Baguio, which is the Cemetary of Negativism found in Camp John Hay, because it was closed due to the RAIN. GRR!!!

But the rain didn't stop me and my sister AND her KIDS (a 3-year-old and a 4-month-old) in going to the UK-UKs. We braved the rain and we shopped. Hey, we didn't go to Baguio just to get stuck in a hotel for 5 days, you know.

THE VERDICT -

Despite the rain, it was a fun vacation. I got the chance to see what was new in Baguio because it has been a while since the last time I was there.

But I ain't gonna go back there when its the rainy season.

Friday, August 20, 2004

Unexpected things @ unexpected moments.

It’s really weird how things can happen at unexpected moments.

We just heard a news yesterday that my aunt was rushed to the emergency room because she collapsed on a sidewalk near our house while she was walking our dog, Curly. I sent a text message last night to my sister, Leah, asking her what the current condition of our aunt was. She told us that the doctor was doing a complete diagnosis of our aunt to pinpoint the reason of why she collapsed. Ate Leah also told us that the story of what really happened was a mystery since my aunt had no recollection of what had happened to her.

There were a lot of assumptions being thrown in the box. My sister Lee told me that Tita Chi could have experienced a mini stroke since she could not recall what happened to her. I assumed that she was pulled so hard by the dog that she lost control of the leash and of her body.

PMS-ing SUCKS!

I woke up yesterday feeling a bit cranky. I didn’t get a lot of sleep since Mother Nature was waiting for the clock’s hand to point at 2:00 am in the morning. Since I’m sleeping in our living room, my dad’s loud voice, my sister’s incessant singing and our nanny’s squeaky voice saying “KAKAIN NA” easily waked me up at 6:45 AM.

The whole time during breakfast, I was bitching at my sister for no reason at all and in return, she too bitched at me. Talk about being dysfunctional. I don’t know. I guess PMS hit me again yesterday or maybe it’s just one of those days when I feel like I’m not in the mood to be perky.

Jessica Simpson’s Alter Ego -- Ashlee Simpson

I’m currently digging Ashlee Simpson. She’s really different from her sister, except for the “ditzy” part. She sings punk/rock music. I like the way she dresses (did y’all see her ensemble in the Pieces of Me video?) and she is really cute --- ok, I have to quote what Rob Schneider in the movie “The Hot Chick”, I’m so lesbian right now. Anyway, the genre of her music is different from her sister’s; she’s more of a rocker chick who recognizes Blondie as one of her musical inspiration while her sister is more of a sentimental/mushy-mushy type of artist. I know I said before that I didn’t like punk/rock music, but I’ll have to make an exception with her.

I only buy albums when I happen to like more than 3 songs in it. At this moment, I like “Pieces of Me” and “Shadow” in her album. Hmmm… Should I buy her album or no? Should I buy it or no? Should I buy it or no? Any of you nice people listened to it? Do you recommend it? Is it worth my 500 pesos or my $15? So… does anyone recommend it?

Thursday, August 19, 2004

giving up 2 floppy disks for the greater good.

Since I am up and about with this whole writing thing, I bought a floppy disk where I could save the articles and the blabs that I write. Unfortunately, I gave the floppy disk to a "person a" since I wrote an article in it that I wanted that person to read. Consequently, without any disk to save my writings to, I suffered two days of writing with my right hand. Then, it dawned upon me that on the day that I bought that floppy disk, I bought a second one for my sister. So I asked my sister if I could have the disk and being the good sisi that she is, she said to me, "sure, it might be a while before I could use it anyway". AHHH. Once again, I was writing away my critical philosophical analyses aka. "thoughts about life" and was saving away on the disk. Then, last Tuesday, my sister wanted me to upgrade their laptop computer from a Windows 95 to a Windows ME version. During the upgrading session, the computer asked to back up all the system files that were installed by the Windows ME version in a disk, just in case the computer crashes down once we reboot it. Once again, I had to give up the disk. WOW. Talk about writings thrown out of the window.

i have to start gathering bilins.

My mom is sending me constant emails, telling me not to forget the "bilins" that she wrote down for me. Hindi pa nagkasya yung letter na binigay nya sakin nung umuwi ako dito, she really had to send emails about it too. HAAAA... Mothers.. you gotta love them. Well, I don't blame her since she knows I have the "Alzheimer's" syndrome.

facing hell all alone.

Last Sunday, I went to church all alone at St. Therese in Los Banos, Laguna. I know it wasn't practical to go that far for church since we have one near our house in Calamba, but that church gives me a sense of peacefulness everytime I enter it, unlike the one near our place.

Before the mass, I was having an intuition that I was going to see somebody I knew at church. Mass started.. communion ended.. mass ended. I didn't see anyone, I thought, "wow, I guess my intuition was wrong". Then, as I was exiting my way out of the church and walking towards the Grove area of LB, I saw two people that I KNOW, two people that I didn't want to see together when I'm all alone. I can't really give any particular details about this two people, but I can give you this: when I saw them, it was like "all hell breaks loose" for me. Isn't that ironic? I went to church and then hell breaks loose on me after church.

INTERESTING.

I didn't want to be seen by them, so I broke away from the church crowd and walked REALLY FAST. HAAAA.. it was a fateful day. My friend told me, "it was just one of your lucky days". I beg to disagree.

I just have to thank God that I wore tennis shoes instead of sandals.

----> So have you guys had any instance when hell broke loose on you??? SHARE! ;)

Saturday, August 14, 2004

The Art of Being Very Open

Yesterday will be an addition to the memorable days that I have of this vacation. It was the day that Lin, Lenn, Joy and I got together after 3 long weeks. It was pretty hard to get 3 of anyone of us together, let alone four: since Lin travels from QC and Joy sometimes goes home early on Saturdays leaving Lenn and I alone together. But yesterday was the fortunate day.

Lenn, Lin, and Joy being cute in front of the camera

I enjoyed yesterday because of the following reasons:

1. I had fun listening to LinLin talk about her life in UPD with so much hype and emotion. It's pretty interesting to see how UP life changed her.
all smiles

2. I had fun eating "isaw" with Lenn and Joy. Men! They eat a lot of those intestines. I must give props to both of them for making me eat it, since before I wasn't really up for eating the "laman loob" of chickens and pigs.


what's with the belly showing??


3. I enjoyed the "kuentos" that we did because all of us had new stories to share about what has been going on with our lives.

pede nang pang circus!! hehehehe..

4. I enjoyed being their photographer, albeit me not being in the pictures!! HE.HE.

Writing is beginning to be a part of my life, NOW.

I can’t help but notice that I have a huge thirst for writing these days. I don’t know if it’s the writing bug that did this to me, but I sure can’t help but notice how much of the things that run through my mind are actually things that I want to write down.

It just dawned upon me that I want to write about so many things, such as, the things that are going on in my life these days or the things that I admire or value. On the contrary, writing COULD be a pain in the butt sometimes. Say, for example, you open your text software and a blank white screen pops up in front of you and then BAM! You can’t think of anything to write about. Your mind is a complete blank. You feel like as if you’ve lost the “zest” that helps you to write about anything and everything. I wonder if the greatest writers in the past and present ever experience such loss? I wonder if they experienced the so-called “writer’s block”? I remembered my English 101 instructor, Bonnie, relating to us that there is no such thing as “writer’s block”, but of course, being the stubborn ass girl that I am, I somehow want to disagree with her.

I wished I owned a laptop computer instead of a personal computer. I think now I’m regretting buying the personal computer. Had I known then that I would have this sudden thirst for writing, I would’ve bought a laptop! Again, I’ll have to face the fact that there is a reason for everything that goes on in your life. So, I just have to think that there’s a reason why I bought a PC instead of a laptop computer.

I have to thank the world of blogging for getting me up and about with the whole writing thing. I think reading and writing blogs has helped me to give writing another chance.

Within the next three years:

....I have to have a laptop computer. I just have to have one.
WISHFUL THINKING: a blue colored APPLE laptop computer
REALISTIC THINKING: a DELL 2400 laptop computer

Thursday, August 12, 2004

Counting down memory lane..

10 years ago.

/ I was 8 years old.
/ Sadly, I can't remember an event or a memory that I had 10 years ago, must be the anesthetics I got when I had my tooth extracted 2 years ago..

5 years ago.

/ I entered high school life.
/ Jesus Christ was introduced to me as the Lord and Savior of my life; from then on, everything in my life changed for the better.
/ I became a part of a great friendship; one with many memories - me, heids, grace, lin, shiela, and gust.
/ The first time I won something in a contest: 3rd place in the Science and Math Quiz contest. I didn't win that alone, I had Gustine as my partner.
/ First boyfriend. First puppy love.

3 years ago.

/My mother told me that we were moving to Seattle to be with my aunt and my eldest sister. I was really bummed about that since I was enjoying my high school life here already.
/ TRIO was born. Up until today, we're still best friends - Lin and Lenn.
/ Second boyfriend. The serious one. The one that I took for granted.

1 year ago.

/ I was figuring out where my life was.
/ I was still in the process of moving on.
/ I was a volunteer at Northwest Hospital Daycare Centre. Oh! what fun times I had with the kids.

6 months ago.

/ I was frustrated with all the Chemistry equations that I had to learn, specifically frustrated in the art of Chemical Stoichiometry.
/ I celebrated my 18th birthday at Crab Pot with my family.
/ I realized that being angry with someone is not good for your health.
/ The movie, Passion for Christ, lowered my pride and cooled down my anger.
/ I brought back Jesus into my life.

1 month ago.

/ I was hunting for a venue for Lenn's birthday.
/ I was having some quality time with my 2 cute nieces

1 week ago.

/ I did nothing.
/ I was excited for the next day gimik.
/ I started reading The Da Vinci Code. Got hooked on it pretty badly.

Yesterday.

/ My sister gave me a new book to read--Lovely Bones.
/ Once again, I did nothing.

to hipstah and gail.. Thanks for this IDEA!


Tuesday, August 10, 2004

The Da Vinci Code.

I just finished reading the book yesterday. It was a pretty interesting book. It was mind-boggling and mysterious in some ways. Every chapter of the book gives you a cliff hanger that will keep you from putting it down and not returning to it anymore. Dan Brown described each character, each place and each event using all the parts of the English language. Let me put it this way, as you read through a description, you can picture the person, the place or the event in your head, just like the way he describes it. It's crazy!

This book depicted Jesus Christ as a not-so-perfect person; a person who was said to be "perfect" had a relationship with Mary Magdalene (who was described as a "prostitute" in the book). Somehow, it felt like it was non-fiction because of all the historic people, places, and things that he tackled.

The most eeriest thing he described was the "Hieros Gaimos" (if it ain't the right spelling, tell me), which was a ritual that was done by the Priory of Sion---a secret society, as to what the book says. A ritual which, in layman's term means, sex.

Bamboo rocks.

Their song "Noypi" has a line that says, "Sa dami mong problema/Nakuha mo pang ngumiti/Noypi ka nga/Astig". When I read that line from the lyrics written in their album cover, I remembered my friend, Joy, praising or maybe telling me na "nakukuha ko pang ngumiti kahit na me problema ako at the moment"---this was the time when I had a problem back in Christmas '03.

Before, when I had problems regarding my life, I looked like a theatre mask (you know that mask that you see in front of play invitations?? Those two masks?? One smiling and one crying??), anyway to be a bit more CLEARER, I was doning a poker face, on the outside I was all smiles; on the inside I was either mad or crying. Up until now, I still don the poker face. I don't know, I guess that helps me in a way, because I hate being dramatic all the time. I sometimes hate to talk about dramatic stuff also. I cringe everytime I see people in telenovelas acting like someone's going to die with their cries and whinings (but I still watch those damn telenovelas, pretty weird huh?).

Only a month left.

Wow, days fly by so fast and before I know it, its "buhbye PI, see you in 3 or 4 or 5 years". Well, I can't go down memory lane yet, since this vacation isn't officially over. I still have the Baguio trip that my sister's family and I are going to do next week. I still have 4 birthday people to greet and celebrate their birthdays with and I still have some serious shopping to do (for the bilins that my mom told me). OK. Gotta get my groove on or else..

Midnight Rendezvous.

This is really not the normal me, but everytime the clock gets closer to 12 am, I feel hunger pangs. I constantly stand up from the couch near the tv and search for food in the fridge. REAL FOOD, I might add, not junk food. After this blogging, I will go heat up some kaldereta that my sister cooked this lunch.

Sunday, August 08, 2004

i caved.

OK, I know I said that I was going to change the face of this blog when I get back home. But I can't help it! I'm too bored today with nothing to do, except to just take care of my nieces. So, I caved. I had to fight my way through the rain today just to get a 9 hour internet card for this blog face changing event.


Saturday, August 07, 2004

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WEEK

monday -

i went to karlenn's college to meet her, but when I got there I found out that she was not in our meeting place. but, i saw my other friends and i just hanged out with them until time told me that my pal ain't gonna come there.

then, i went to a shopping center for some retail therapy, bought the Bamboo CD and a sleeveless blouse.

tuesday -

stuck in the house with no place to go. i just took care of my nieces and just played around.

wednesday -

my sister, therese and i went to see Catwoman. For me, it is not a must-see movie. UNMATCHED SOUNDS FOR THE FIGHT SCENES, POOR STORY PLOT, INTRODUCTION TO THE MAIN VILLAIN WAS WEAK. although, it wasn't up to my movie standards, halle berry sure played the part well. if any of you watched it, did y'all love the "WALK"?

thursday -

my friend, joy, went to our house for some little chitchatting with me. therese really had much fun with her, telling her, "tita joy, sleep with me" or "tita joy, read a book".

friday -

home sweet home. slept, read the Da Vinci Code, played with my nieces.

saturday -

gimik time. played billiards and went to paw's place for the "drinking sessions", chitchats and playing around.

sunday -

church and ... GUESS WHAT I DID TODAY...

MY LAMINATED LIST: Part 2

Freddie Prinze Jr.

- Yes, I know his married, but I can't help but like his smile.

Vin Diesel

- His body makes me melt.

Orlando Bloom

- Is he Irish? or British? I don't know, but what I do know is that he has a beautiful face.

Shane West

- Did y'all watch A WALK TO REMEMBER? If you watched that movie, you will know why he's on my list.

Hugh Jackman

- 6 pack ABS baby!! AND! AND! He plays Wolverine, my favorite X-MEN character!

side note: make your own laminated list! :D