Gothic Halloween

WOrk.Sleep.Work.Sleep.Work.

and then Halloween comes along.....

HAPPY CHARTER DAY CEBU!!

MY TEAM

I've been with my team for two months now and I have to admit it's been one of the best times I've had despite not having a team outing yet. That's a record considering my fond memories of my previous teams were mostly out of work. With them, I actually really enjoyed working... hahaha

On Angels, Demons and Adventureland

I watched Angels and Demons last night on dvd. Throughout the movie, I wondered where the movie was shot especially on scenes inside the Vatican Palace ( I am at work and I don’t have time . For a sequel of a movie that lambasted the core of Christianity not to mention the Roman Catholic Church, I thought they won’t be given the chance to shoot the film inside the splendid walls of the Vatican. It was a thrill. That sort that keeps you awake because you have to listen to all the words they say about history and signs. My brain shut off just when the end credits began to roll. I was stressed of the conspiracies of how angel statues are supposed to be pointing at something.

In a country where signs are said to foretell the next cataclysmic event, I wonder if somebody can work some tidy piece of conspiracy story about statues in the Philippines. How about starting with Jose Rizal on every town’s plaza?...Hmmmm?

There are also two other movies I watched this week. I particularly liked Adventureland.


It kinda makes me things how all our thoughts of what we'd become slowly slip away. Not because we didn't try harder but simply because circumstances just lead us somewhere else where we don't neccessarily become any less of who we are. There are just some other things we are meant to do and it doesnt eqaute to failure. Sometimes, we have just got to embrace it. :)

Holy Goodness!

Tell me this isn't the Queen of Pop?...

I AM GETTING FIT..and damn serious about it!

I went to the Cebu City Sports Complex ( popularly known simply as Abellana) 4am to do a little exercise. I usually run ten rounds straight on most occasions but thought a little deviation from the usual wouldn’t hurt. 7 straight rounds in 20 minutes and my chest was already pounding so hard I had to stop. After gulping a bottle of Fit n Right, I slipped on a dry tee and went to Pier Uno. I am yet to see the effects of drinking FitnRight and there I was waiting at the pier for some fiesta leftovers. More than a month later of swearing off rice, I broke my own covenant and cooked one cup of rice and devoured it like I haven’t eaten rice for years. The lechon, humba, afritada, bola-bola were all greasy but it was heaven in every chew. I felt guilty after eating knowing that I have to double my exercise to shed off the fat I ate. It’s for health reasons I’m starting to be conscious of what I eat and it feels light if exercise is coupled with healthy food – i.e veggies!!! I am in the habit of going to Carbon after a couple of rounds at Abellana in the morning and I there I buy my veggies. Ten pesos of mixed veggies and a sinigang mix, I am ready to make my chopsuey when I arrive home.

I miss eating greasy food, drinking coke on each meal and just lounging ( in the words of our Indian boss, Aparna. 'what are you doing, chilling?) in my bed for hours sleeping or watching television until my head hurts. But I am beginning to like a healthier lifestyle. And I am keeping it.

KARATULA

These photos have been doing the rounds in the office through spam emails. I thought these were funny. I haven’t been noticing signs these days in Cebu that really cracked me up. I should bring my digicam more. I need focus focus focus to catch those signs.

MICHAEL JACKSON : 1958-2009

My cousin bob texted me around 9am today. I was deep in sleep having slept around 6.30am already. Bob doesn't text me alot nor do i text him. I probably havent sent my cousin a message more than 5 times this year, not neccessarily because i don't have anything to say to him but simply because i don't really text people. even my own mother would wail about how could i not text them back home for weeks, sometimes months. how would they ever know if im already a rotting corpse in my room here in cebu, she'd cpmplain. What a lonely corpse i must be if that happens. Simply put, i always say, im not really a text fan.

I was sleeping when that Mario Brothers ringtone sounded and thought the beep was my alarm. I grappled from my bed to get hold of my phone a the chair where i left it a few hours back and was disappointed that it was just a message and not my alarm that woke me up from such a dreamy state. i read the message and thought it was odd that my cousin would send me one. The message my cousin sent was "Mike patay na si Michael Jackson". I thought it was a joke or a cruel prank. Half-awake, i scrolled down ten times and hoped the screen would move and would flash something like "u got punked" with Ashton Kutcher wearing a devilish smile. Well, there wasnt any of that page so i replied, "That's sad".

Arriving at the office, the buzz was about Michael Jackson. Suddenly, everyone is a fan. Everybody claims to know his songs. And everyone else seem to know the moonwalk. I grabbed my chair and took my calls of the day.

I am a fan of Michael Jackson's music. Not so much the uber fanatic type, but i used to listen to his music back in the 90's when i discovered his Thriller album (which was released in the 80's) and when i was introduced to his moonwalk and crazy dance moves via a local TV station's almost daily airplay of his Bad Tour. His concerts were like prayer rallies, I thought back then. People collapsing and bursting into tears when he goes out of the stage. It was like the people were looking at the face of God and chanting songs like it's gonna save them. It always seemed to me like fanaticism gone way beyond but hey, i liked him anyway and the concerts were so...Michael Jackson. Until now, after watching numerous concerts on dvd, nothing still beats the showmanship of the gloved one . I remember I even bought his HIStory album- a compilation of his well-loved hits on cassette (CDs were unheard of back then).

The King of Pop is dead and BBC says the internet suffered a great deal of lag when news broke out about his demise. I am just glad that in this lifetime I lived to witness a true legend. We never got to live the days of the Beatles or Elvis but we were witness to the complex life and music of MJ.

Michael Jackson. May you rest in peace. 1958-2009

WHY TEACHERS ARE SO STRESSED...

These are forwarded by a colleague at work and I cant help but laugh so hard going through them. Makes me realize teachers should get a raise. :)

Lucky Strike

Lucky Strike

sitting.
waiting.
sighing in intervals
and waiting for
Newtonian apples to fall
like rain.
when will my luck ever come?

10.06.09
6.44am
in my room/cebu

BOB's just got hitched!

so the bride walked down the aisle and his man was waiting at the altar. fast forward, the groom on his tailored white suit kissed the bride and nothing could be more picture perfect than these two people who looked like models on television. the lady in the flowing white gown with a long train every bride would envy is Barbie Alvez and her man is Charles Calunod, my cousin, whom i and the rest of our kin fondly call BOB.

Watching my cousin say his vows sounded weird simply because my memories of him was when we were still little kids running around their wide backyard. The I do part snapped me into reality--- i am a kid no longer. For heavensakes i am 25!

So with my handy digicam, i couldnt help but snap and shoot some photos...It was a beautiful wedding. It was an expensive one! and i have never surrounded myself with that much socialites (Kim Chiu's sister was there and Cebu's hottest young designers Lord Maturan and Lorymer Villareal) in my whole life, ehem...but well, i did just fine and truly enjoyed watching my cousin tying the knot. from the edge of the one of the chapel's pews, i sat as one of the groom's men and i couldn't be any prouder to be there to show support.. May the newlyweds be blessed with a happy life together..:)






and the prenup photos courtesy of one of Cebu's top photographers were nothing short of sexy....

WHAT I DID LAST SUMMER

it's june. sunny days are over. rainy days are back. and with the change of season i have buried this blog in a tiny spot in my head hoping i'd forget my blogging duties as i tend to life's routine squabbles.

the past months have been quite a rollercoaster for me. i've had some highs and terribly low lows. cofusion, loneliness, homesickness, the feeling of being lost,of being meaningless, of being directionless, of fear that the future is bleaker than it already is....all of them toyed with my thoughts.

and it was such a treat that in between the sleepless days of anxiety, the always reliable summer is always there to refortify my state of being....talk about BANTAYAN ISLAND!

it was fun and i realized it's been quite a long time since i genuinely had one. i'm not so much a people person and i could bask in the sun alone and truly enjoy the beauty of the island. despite my companion's heeding to the call of sleep, i savored bantayn like i might not be able to go back to its fine white sand and crystal blue waters. can't wait where to go next..the Bohol plan with friends was a flop...now im thinking...i should plan alone...tsk!






a>

LEMONADE sa COLON

sa usa ka jip labay sa colon.
usa ka manong ka higkod ang panuigon naneguro sa iyang destinasyon.

manoy: bai, siguraduha baya bai ha nga di ko malapas sa lemonade.
a few seconds later...
drayber: diri ra naog noy. colonnade na.
manoy: di ni mao bai. unahan pa man to. sa may lemonade ba..
drayber: wa may lemonade noi. colonnade ra may naa diri sa colon.
manoy: drayb lang doi kay ako ray tan-aw kung mao na. dako man to kaug ngalan nga lemonade
drayber: wa lagi lemonade diri. colonnade ra.
manoy minaog. wa mibayad. gabagulbol.
manoy: peste ning draybera, magbuot.

5 GOLDFISHES

1.55am / 2.24.09

Five goldishes in an aquarium
thinking they are treading the empyrean
inside a burning room of loud music
and murky thoughts .
Have their mothers told them
their memory only lasts three seconds?
Just when they learn they're swimming in hell,
they're back in heaven again.
Three-second memory. a bliss?

****just so you know i have 5 goldfishes that i feed everyday. last weekend i saw them in my dreams drowning which is a very strange way of telling me that i had to change the water in the aquarium. never really thought goldishes have telepathic powers.. tsk tsk

kurtina

1.47am
2.23.o9

i feel a change coming.
the dust that cling on the
billowing breeze go past
the window pane.
it is sadness they always bring.
they blur the glass windows.
they antiquate the television
and alter the shade of things
into the lonely color of wood.
from my bed, i noticed
the green curtain swaying to
the direction of the air
spun by the whirring electric fan.
it's a shade sadder than yesterday
a color almost like the half-withered
leaves of May.