Pieces of Apple

i need to write

2010-09-07T00:59:00.003-04:00

i need to write. about what, i'm not exactly sure but i just feel that i have to exercise my brain cells and make it work a little bit because it's getting really rusty. i don't know when was the last time that i used my brain to think. like really think, the way i used to when i was still in school. nowadays, i just feel dumb and getting dumber every minute. that thought just makes me feel sad and frustrated.

in all honesty, i can do something to exercise my brain. i could go back to school, study a different language. do something, anything. just to make me feel smart again (not that i'm really that smart to begin with) but i sabotage myself. i am too lazy. i waste all this time doing nothing. sigh.

even now, my laziness is getting the best of me. i still want to write but i'm losing steam here. sigh.

ok, i'm going to stop my ranting now.

p.s. i can't believe this is my first post after over a year of inactivity in my blog. oh sadness.

happy new year

2009-01-08T00:14:00.001-05:00

i was reading my wishlist and just realized that almost everything on that list has come true. 2008 was a great year for me. so many good things happened to me in all aspects of my life. i got to be teacher of the year at work. finally, nakumpleto kaming whole family here after almost 3 years. my best friend, papu, got to visit me. i could go on and on about every good thing that happened to me and still i don't think i would be able to really enumerate all of God's blessings to me kasi sobrang dami. there are any words enough to express how thankful I am for the year that was. again, it was a good year ( i sound like a broekn record pero totoo naman eh! hindi nga lang good eh, great year talaga. okay. enough said about that.).

it was such a great year that when 2009 was approaching i had this nagging fear that this might be it. this might be the best year i'm ever going to have and then wala na. downhill na after 2008. i can't explain it. this thought just bothered me and i would tell my friends about it and they would just laugh kasi nga it seemed stupid naman talaga. i kept seeing things happening to me as signs of more bad things to come (i.e. getting my first ever speeding ticket). but eventually i realized how silly i was being. i realized that being so pessimistic about the future was like having no faith in God. it's like i was saying that He will just make me suffer the rest of my life after 2008. which I refuse to believe. i don't think that God would want me or anyone for that matter to suffer or be miserable for their entire existence. no way. i think it's more about choice. and i choose to be optimistic in the future (which, is already the present since it is 2009 already).

come to think of it as much as last year was great, life was not perfect. i had to deal with issues here and there but i chose to be positive and i chose to place my trust in Him- that He will help me through everything and He did. i know my life will never be perfect ( and really, is there anyone who leads a perfect life? kung meron, iharap niyo sa akin, hampasin ko para magising) but i chose to believe that God still has a lot of good things in store for me and His blessings will not stop just because it's a new year.

and i hope you all believe in that too.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

;)

melancholy

2008-12-10T19:39:00.000-05:00

i was watching a pinoy movie kanina and they just showed scenes of EDSA and for some reason my eyes just started to sting and i felt like crying. i guess it brought back memories of my life back in the philippines. never mind that for 4 years sawang-sawa ako sa EDSA (given that i commuted everyday from LP to UP Diliman) and all i wanted was to never commute ever again. kanina, i just wanted so much to go back home. i suddenly missed the philippines so much. sigh. the christmas season is getting to me. for me, nothing still beats being home for christmas.

enchanted by enchanted

2008-03-24T23:26:00.002-04:00

" i've been dreaming of a true love's kiss....and a prince i'm hoping comes with this....."

i just finished watching the movie "Enchanted" and as i said on the title, i am so enchanted with this movie!!! what's not to like? nandun na si mcdreamy, nandun pa si cyclops! they are both so good-looking ang sarap i-pause ng dvd just to stare at them both. it helps pa that james marsden knows how to sing!! sigh! kaka-in love! pero the real clincher for me is amy adams. i love her!! winner ang acting niya as a fairy-tale princess! gayang-gaya! i especially love her hand gestures and high, sing-songy voice!! and when she popped her head out of the window and sang to call out animal helpers, laugh trip!! favorite part was when mcdeamy and giselle were dancing and mcdreamy was singing to her. sigh. hindi na ako makahinga sa sobrang kakiligan!

this movie reminded me of being a kid. i've always been a fan of the disney princesses and my favorite princess is cinderella. i think kaya ako hopeless romantic ngayon is because of watching all those fairytale cartoons when i was young (actually up to now, i still watch them. i can't help it!). sobrang fascinated ako with princesses meeting their princes and falling in love and living happily ever after. that's the part that really got to me, that you could live happily ever after. it just sounded so ideal. that you could meet and fall in love with just one person and that would be it. done deal na. what a reality check when i grew up and experienced for myself that true love doesn't mean happiness and it certainly doesn't mean ever after. but that hasn't disillusioned me. i am after all a hopeless romantic. i still dream that there is one person out there for me. i know i must sound so silly but it's true. i can't help it. that's just the way i am, i guess.

watching "Enchanted" just made me believe more that somewhere out there, i have my own prince. =)

nothing

2008-03-15T23:36:00.004-04:00

i don't really know what to write about kaya lang my blog has been so dormant for over a month i just like i needed to "revive" it.

hmmmm. so. what can i write about? hmm. man, i seem so boring now. wala ako maisip to blog about it eh. i guess i just haven't been in the mood to write.

oh well. at least i tried.

p.s. just to illustrate how dormant my blog has been, i actually forgot what my sitename was! i had to look for my blog link in papu's blog to remember! kawawa naman. tsk.

sad

2008-02-04T23:35:00.000-05:00

i feel sad. i don't know why but i do. which is weird kasi i just came from a retreat and retreats are supposed to make you feel better right? i was happy yesterday, i'm just not happy anymore. feeling this way sucks. kasi i can't realy explain why i'm feeling this way. i just do. i remember tuloy what mikko said last night as we were going home from the retreat, " i don't remember the last time that i thought to myself that i was happy."

me too.

i don't remember the last time that at the end of the day naisip ko, "i'm happy."

everything in my life is going good right now. God has given me so much blessings that i have no reason to complain. and i'm not complaining. i love my job. i have great friends. i'm about to be part of a community again. things are definitely good right now. but for some unexplainable reason, i just feel sad. does that make sense?

sigh.

i need to pray on this.

heath ledger is dead

2008-01-22T21:05:00.000-05:00

aside from watching his movies, i don't know him at all. as in. wish ko lang sana that i know him, even remotely. but this is reality and sadly, i don't. so i can't really explain why i feel so....sad that heath ledger is dead.

heath ledger is dead. he's dead. no matter how many times i say it, it just doesn't make it seem more real (feeling ko talaga kakilala ko siya). it's just so surreal that he's dead (pang-ilang beses ko na nasabi that he's dead?). i think kasi we live in the same time zone so while he was still alive at noon today, i was pleading with my kids to wash their hands for lunch. hindi ba surreal yun? tapos when he was found dead, i was reading a story to my kids. grabe. it's disturbing. to me at least it is. maybe because he could have been so much more. tapos now, he's dead. yun na yun. sayang. another life wasted. tapos he has a daughter pa. kawawa naman yung kid niya. no more dad. i can't get over it. heath ledger is dead. he just wanted to go to sleep and he ends up dead. that's sad.

it feels like when rico yan died years ago. you know?! kasi unexpected eh. pasensiya na sa comparison ko of rico and heath. i know malayo sila pero you get it, don't you? just them dying young. like james dean or john lennon or kurt cobain. okay, maybe not john lennon. totally different level yun. si john lennon siya eh. basta, all these talented people dying young. it's just such a shame.

i probably sound shallow. i mean, i don't know the guy. pero man, just think, if i feel this way about his death, how about the people who actually know him- his friends, his family. they must be pretty torn up about it.

sigh. things like this really remind you how short life really is.

how about that? all this because heath ledger is dead.

nope. it still doesn't sound real to me.

i've watched 118 movies from this list...great...i have no life

2008-01-19T11:30:00.000-05:00

If you've seen over 110 movies, you have no life. Mark the ones you've seen.

There are about 200 movies on this list.

( ) Sukob
( ) Oh my ghost
( ) White lady
(x) Wag kang lilingon
(x) Feng shui
(x) KKK (kasal, kasali, kasalo)
( ) Sakal, Sakali, Saklolo
( ) Enteng Kabisote
( ) Enteng Kabisote 2
( ) Enteng Kabisote 3
( ) Enteng Kabisote 4
( ) Super Noypi
( ) Karma
(x) Shake, Rattle and Roll
( ) D Anothers
(x) First Day High
( ) One More Chance
(x) Paano Kita Iibigin
(x) Got to Believe
(x) May Minamahal
( ) Forever
( ) Dahil Mahal na Mahal Kita
( ) Bakit Labis Kitang Mahal
( ) Dahil May Iisang Ikaw
(x) Kung Ako na lang Sana
(x) You are the One
(x) All My Life
(x) Can this be Love?

Total: 12

(x) Bring it On 1
(x) Bring it On 2
(x) Bring it On 3
(x) Fun With Dick and Jane
(x) Cake
( ) Zathura
( ) Borat
( ) Dead or Alive
(x) 8 mile
(x) 50 First Dates
(x) The Princess Diaries
(x) The Princess Diaries 2: Royal
(x) Legally Blonde
(x) Legally Blonde 2
(x) Enchanted

Total: 12

(X) Charlie's Angels
(X) Charlie's Angels 2
(X) Dude, where's my car?
(X) Scary Movie
( ) Scary Movie 2
( ) Scary Movie 3
(x) Scary Movie 4
(X) American Pie
(x) American Pie 2
(x) American Wedding
(x) American Pie Band Camp

Total: 9

(X) Harry Potter
(X) Harry Potter 2
(X) Harry Potter 3
(X) Harry Potter 4
(X) Harry Potter 5
( ) Resident Evil 1
( ) Resident Evil 2
( ) Resident Evil 3
(X) The Wedding Singer
( ) Cinderella Man
(x) The Village
(X) Coyote Ugly

Total: 8

() Space Jam
(x ) Finding Neverland
( ) Signs
(x) The Grinch
( ) Texas Chainsaw Massacre
(X) White Chicks
( ) Little Manhattan
(X) 13 Going on 30
(x) Click
(X) Devil Wears Prada
(x) Big Fish
(x) Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Total: 8

(X) Mighty Ducks 1
(X) Mighty Ducks 2
(X) Mighty Ducks 3
(x) Mighty Ducks 4

(x) Deep Impact
( ) King Pin
(X) Meet The Parents
(X) Meet the Fockers
( ) Eight Crazy Nights
( ) Joe Dirt
( ) Anaconda

Total : 7

( ) Alice in Wonderland
(x) The Terminal
(X) The Lizzie McGuire Movie
( ) Deep Blue Sea
() Dumb & Dumber
() Dumber & Dumberer
(x) Final Destination
(x) Final Destination 2
(x) Final Destination 3
( ) Halloween
(X) The Ring - JAPANESE VERSION ONLY
() The Ring 2
() Ring Zero
() Flubber
() Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle
(X) Practical Magic
(x) Chicago
(X) Ghost Ship
( ) From Hell
(x) Hellboy
( ) Secret Window
(x) I Am Sam

Total : 11

(x) The Day After Tomorrow
( ) Child's Play
( ) Seed of Chucky
( ) Bride of Chucky
(X) 10 Things I Hate About You
(X) Just Married
(x ) Gothika
( ) Nightmare on Elm Street
(X) Sixteen Candles
(X) Breakfast Club
(X)Pretty in Pink
() St. Elmo's Fire
( ) Welcome Home Roxy Carmichael
( ) Benny and Joon
(x) Remember the Titans
(X) Coach Carter
(x) The Grudge
() The Grudge 2
() The Mask
( ) Son Of The Mask- STUPID MOVIE

Total: 10

(x) My Super Ex-Girlfriend
(X) Joy Ride
(x) She's the Man
(X) Ocean's Eleven
(x) Ocean's Twelve
(x) Ocean's Thirteen
(X) Mean Girls
(X) Step Up
(X) Pearl Harbor
( ) Predator I
( ) Predator II
( ) Superstar
(X) Happy Feet
() Ice Age
( ) Ice age 2 The Meltdown

Total: 10

() Independence Day
( ) Cujo
( ) Idle Hands
(x) Darkness Falls
( ) Children of the Corn
( ) My Boss' Daughter
(X) Maid in Manhattan
(X) Monsters Inc.
(X) Rush Hour
(X) Rush Hour 2
(x) Rush Hour 3
( ) Best Bet
(X) How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days
(X) She's All That
(x) Poseidon
(X) Titanic
() Mars Attacks
( ) Event Horizon
(X) Ever After
(X) Forrest Gump
( ) Big Trouble in Little China
() The Terminator
( ) The Terminator 2
(x) The Terminator 3

Total : 13

(X) X-Men
(X) X-Men 2
(X) X-Men 3
(X) Spider-Man
(X) Spider-Man 2
(x) Sky High
( ) Jeepers Creepers
( ) Jeepers Creepers 2
(x) Catch Me If You Can
() The Others
( ) The Eye
() Dark Water
(X) Cruel Intentions
(x) Cruel Intentions 2
(X) The Hot Chick
() Shrek
() Shrek 2
() Shrek 3

Total : 10

(x) Swimfan
( ) Miracle
( ) School of Rock
( ) K-Paxx
(X) Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
(X) Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
(X) Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
(X) A Walk To Remember
( ) Hollow Man
(X) The 40-year-old-virgin
(X) The Exorcist
(x) Exorcism of Emily Rose

Total: 8

UP identity

2008-01-19T07:50:00.000-05:00

1. Student number?

01-21261

2. College?

College of Home Economics (the name still makes me cringe. no offense to che people!)

3. Course?
BS FLCD

4. Nag-shift ka ba o na-kickout?
Nope!

5. Saan ka kumuha ng UPCAT?
Math Building (feelin hindi na part ng UP sa layo)

6. Favorite GE subject?
Hum 2

7. Favorite PE?
Basketball (kahit na never ako maka-shoot)

8. Saan ka nag-aabang ng hot girls/guys sa UP?
ummmmm.....AS??

9. Favorite prof(s)
ma'am eloi from hum2 (cool talaga yung subject na yun, promise!)

10. Pinaka-ayaw na GE subject.
comm 3!

11. Kumuha ka ba ng Wed or Sat classes?
never!

12. Nakapag-field trip ka ba?
yup. once. sa corregidor. habang bumabagyo! hehehehehe!

13. Naging CS ka na ba or US sa UP?
syempre! proud noh?!

14. Ano ang Org/Frat/Soro mo?
UP FLCD. yun lang. tamad ako mag-org eh.

15. Saan ka tumatambay palagi?

flcd tambayan or yellow-orange house (meron ba nun? basta yung nasa AS na caf)

16. Dorm, Boarding house, o Bahay?
bahay- super commuter ako nung college eh.. LP to QC everyday!!!

17. Kung walang UPCAT test at malaya kang nakapili ng kurso mo sa UP, ano yun (Given ang mentality mo nung HS ka)?
Psych

18. Sino ang pinaka-una mong nakilala sa UP?
i forgot her name. basta friend siya nila rica and rachel from upis. katabi ko nung orientation.

19. First play na napanood mo sa UP?
i forgot already. oedipus rex ata.

20. Name the 5 most conyo orgs in UP
UP JMA (?)

21. Name 5 of the coolest orgs/frats/soro in UP.

i wouldn't really know. clueless ako sa orgs eh.

22. May frat/soro bang nag-recruit sa yo?
nope. i'm not really soro material.

23. Saan ka madalas mag-lunch?

sa CHE or katips

24. Masaya ba sa UP?
YES!!! best school ever!!!

25. Nakasama ka na ba sa rally?
nope. tamad ako eh. uwi na lang ako kesa sumama sa rally. hehehehe.

26. Ilang beses ka bumoto sa Student Council
once lang. when lois ran for rep.

27. Name at least 5 leftist groups in UP
hmmm. stand-up, i think.

28. Pinangarap mo rin bang mag-laude nung freshman ka?
not really. all i wanted was to graduate on time.

29. Kanino ka pinaka-patay sa UP?

itago na lang natin siya sa pangalang ATOM. wahahahahahaha! in fairness, naging classmate ko siya sa STS! and i was thisclose to having him as a groupmate kaya lng mahiyain kami kaya nobody had the guts to ask him to join our group. (that was embarassing!)

30. Kung hindi ka UP anong school ka?
UST

the last king of scotland and guys with accents

2008-01-18T00:54:00.000-05:00

i just finished watching "The Last King of Scotland" and wow...ang galing nung movie. now, i understand why forest whittaker won an Oscar. ang galing niya nga tlga. he was a convincing Amin. i had no clue who Amin was before this movie kaya after watching it i googled him and man, he was HORRIBLE! tapos yung mga nangyari dun sa movie was real tlga. what he did to his wife?! oh my god!!!!! how can any sane human being think of doing that?! napaka-gruesome! (for the sake of people who haven't seen the movie and might be interested to see it, i won't mention specifically what happens.) tapos yung ginawa niya kay james mcavoy near the end of the film?! seriously!!! napaka-twisted ng mind niya!!! i was seriously cringing when i was watching that scene. tinakpan ko na nga yung eyes ko kasi hindi ko tlga kaya. pero just my luck, the exact moment na pinakita si james mcavoy being hoisted up, dun pa ako nag-decide na tumingin! (sorry guys. medyo may spoiler ako na-mention)

i wasn't really interested with the movie. lagi ko lang siya naririnig before lalo na nung nanalo si forest (first-name basis na kami. hehehehehe.). kasi naman i didn't really care any about Uganda pero while i was channel-surfing kanina i chanced upon it and just decided to watch it for the heck of it. after a few scenes, i couldn't stop watching na. kahit na tempted na ako ilipat yung channel kasi nga may mga gruesome scenes, my curiosity got the better of me and i wanted to see what would happen next. to me that's what makes a good movie, if you can't stop yourself from watching what happens next. then again, baka mababaw lang talaga ako kaya i kept on watching the movie. plus, it helped that james mcavoy was there. if his name sounds familiar that's because he's the leading guy in the movie atonement (which i hear is a pretty good movie too). ok- i heart him na! i love his scottish accent! sigh! what's with guys and their accents?! i mean, take gerard butler and his irish accent in P.S. i love you, for instance (sidenote: WATCH P.S. I love you!!!!!!). nakaka-in love sila pakinggan! seryoso gusto ko na pumunta sa scotland and ireland! hehehehehehe! there's just something about the way they talk. they sound so warm and damn charming! plus, they look pretty hot too! now, i want to watch atonement kasi nandun si james mcavoy.

i just had to post his picture somewhere in this blog...hehehehe

going back to the last king of scotland, it made me think that kahit na magulo na sa pinas, things could be much worse. i may sound stupid for saying this pero we might as well thank our lucky stars that kahit na maraming kurakot sa gobyerno hindi pa naman sila as twisted as Amin (hopefully). but still, it doesn't, in anyway, justify corruption by our politicians. i don't think anything can justify corruption. it's just bad. okay, enough about politics.

would i recommend watching the last king of scotland? if just for james mcavoy, YES! but more than that, it's a really good movie. although parang dapat nasa tamang frame of mind ka kapag pinanonood mo kasi nga it's not lighthearted. there will be parts na nakakasakit ng puso. so be prepared.

one long day

2007-12-26T00:02:00.000-05:00

last thursday, december 20, was my last day for the year kasi i was going to san francisco for the christmas break. super excited pa ako when i woke up kasi nga last day ko na. and that night was also going to be my kids' christmas show for the school. so i got ready and put together all my stuff for work. akala ko i got my car and house keys in my jacket pocket already so tuloy-tuloy lakad na ako palabas ng bahay. when i was halfway to my car i suddenly thought to myself, "wouldn't it be funny if i left my keys inside the house? paano kaya yun?" sabay ngiting-ngiti pa ako while thinking this and then to reassure myself that i did have my keys with me kinapa ko yung pocket ko. and what do you know?! siyempre, WALA yung keys ko sa pocket ko. i locked myself out of the house! i couldn't go to work kasi pati car keys ko nandun din. seriously, i froze in my tracks. talagang napa-"you gotta be kidding me" ako out loud. and then i ran back to the house hoping against hope that i didn't lock the door properly. but no such luck. i ahd to call somebody to come pick me up and bring me to work. but na lang there was somebody in the area kung hindi ewan ko na lang. tambay ako sa harap ng bahay namin, out on the cold the whole day. locking myself out must have been the sign of worse things to come. we were going to have our christmas show that night so i wanted my kids to practice our song but no- my kids refused to cooperate. as in lahat sila ayaw kumanta at all. sobrang frustration ko napaiyak na tlga ako. that's not all. two of my kids had poopie accidents and then one peed all over himself and i had to clean them all up! seriously, feeling ko tlaga nung time na yun the heavens were conspiring against me. sigh. i couldn't wait for the day to end kaya nga lang may christmas show pa kami sa gabi kaya i knew it was going to be a long day.

don't they look cute in their kimonos?!

ok na sana yung christmas show eh. my kids looked way cute in their kimonos and we did an ok job singing our song. i was surprised that my kids didn't get stage fright. asus, nag-aagawan pa sa mic. as in they were all crowding over the mic and todo nakadikit na bibig nila sa mic. ang cute nila tlga and the parents were all happy and telling us that we did good pero nakakainis tlga meron isang panira na parents. they got upset kasi apparently they didn't know na may costume pala yung kids while singing so nakatayo lang yung kid nila na wala costume, out of place. kasalanan ba namin if they don't read their kid's daily report?! they were blaming us for excluding their child eh hello naman noh for the whole month of december naka-post sa bulletin board namin lahat ng info for the xmas show. hindi kasi sila nagbabasa kaya clueless sila! aarrggghh! when i remember them and how they talked to me and my assistant kumukulo dugo ko talaga! pero siyempre kami pa din yung nag-apologize kasi parents sila eh. hay, minsan tlga nakakapikon yung iba kong parents. fortunately, nothing bad happened after that. when i got home i just finished packing my bag for my trip to cali and then did the laundry. thank God wala na nangyari kundi tlgang hindi ko na kaya yon. feeling ko God was kidding with me kasi i was leaving for my vacation na the next day kaya parang naisip niya "Akala mo makakatakas ka noh?! akala mo lang yun!" thinking back on it i guess mas na-appreciate ko na magbabakasyon ako after the long day i had kaya in the end, it was all good. pero sana naman that never happens again. nakakaloka eh!

why do i go to work?

2007-11-15T22:34:00.001-05:00

earlier tonight, we had a staff meeting in my school. it was the usual thing: reminding the teachers to be on time, not calling out at the last, all those kind of stuff. by the end of the meeting, i was ready to go home. i'd been at work since 9 in the morning. it was almost 8 pm and i was ready to go home- believe me, i wasn't the only one. but before any of us could get out the door, our director asked us a question that really made me think. the question was simple enough, "why did you choose to be a teacher?" the question might have been simple but it made me think.

why did i become a teacher?

it certainly never occurred to me as a kid to be one. i'd always wanted to be a doctor and even when i was in college i was still intent on pursuing that goal but things changed. medical school would have been to expensive an endeavor to pursue so i opted out. but even then i didn't think i would be a teacher. around graduation time, i was trying to figure out what job i could get that was in no way related to my degree. one day i was scrambling around for a job- any job, and then the next day, i was being interviewed for a teaching position and actually getting hired. and so i began my career as a teacher. it's not really the most inspiring story but that's how it happened.

i think the real question for me is, why do i stick around? i mean, if i didn't really want to be here i could just find another job. no loss. now that thought, REALLY made me think and the answer i came up with was actually very simple. heck, some people might even find me baduy.

i stick around, i go to work everyday because of the kids. it does something to my heart when i enter my room and all my kids stop what they're doing and trip over themselves to get to me just to greet me good morning and give me a hug. i feel a great sense of accomplishment when my Russian-speaking little girl tells me one word in english and insists on giving me a kiss every five minutes. they drive me crazy half the time but they also crack me up with stuff like saying "my eyes are cold" (one of my kids actually said that). being a teacher is easy and hard at the same time (if that makes sense). but i like it.

i don't know how long this feeling lasts. ask me in a year or two and i might be going mad and itching to find another job. but for right now, i think i'll stick around. you never know what crazy thing my kids might say next.

feeling nostalgic

2007-10-14T14:57:00.000-04:00

i was checking my email today and i opened one from francis (who was a highschool classmate). anyways, it was a link to youtube of a uaap/dlsu game. it was funny because there was this one guy all dressed in red on the other's team side cheering for la salle. hahahaha. sana hindi siya nabugbog or something after the game. so after watching it, i started to check out other dlsu videos and after watching a couple of them i couldn't stop myself from feeling nostalgic. and i didn't even go to dlsu! what's up with that?! it's just that as far as i can remember, i have always been a dlsu fan. as in i loved their basketball team. highschool pa lang ako i would be watching their games na, i'm not really sure what drew me to their team but i was hooked and there was nothing i could do about it. kahit na when i went to college and went to UP, basta sa UAAP, dlsu ako kampi. it didn;t help that the UP men's basketball team sucked, big time. tapos mga classmate ko pa sila in my classes and it didn't really help their image much in my book kasi they weren't that good in classes either.

aside from feeling nostalgic, i felt lonely. i miss pinas. i miss home. even though i've been here a total of almost 2 years, pinas pa din is my home. i still want to go back. i still don't see myself living here forever. i don't know. maybe it's just for now kasi i don't get to go out very much and hang out and stuff but it just doesn't feel home here. i miss my family, my friends, hanging out at the house until the wee hours of morning. talking to people on the phone over nothing and everything. i miss the feeling of security (i'm not even sure it's security that i feel, it's...something) that i have when i'm there that i don't feel here.

i hate to sound ungrateful of all the things that i have here in the US. i'm not. i don't hate my life here. how could i? i have a job. i have my own car. i get to go to places i've never been to. i can go shopping when i want to. i have people here that have made me part of their family. i am not lacking in anything come to think of it. there's just this feeling that's missing. i don't know if i'm making sense. i'm probably not but that's how i feel now.

maybe it will change in time. maybe it's just a phase i'm going through right now. maybe.

who would have ever thought that a simple dlsu youtube video would make me feel all this?! sigh.

a trip to ny

2007-10-12T20:04:00.002-04:00

i think it's safe to say that everybody (well, almost everybody) wants to go to new york city. maybe it's because of all the hype about the city and all the books and movies made about it AND in it. well, whatever the reason may be, i am one of the everybody that has always wanted to see for myself what was so magical (a better word escapes me right now) about new york. admittedly, i had been to new york a couple of times but it was always with my family and we were always in a hurry. we didn't really take the time to take in the sights. so parang kulang pa din.

last weekend, i finally went to new jersey to visit my aunt and cousin there. of course, since i was there already i HAD to go to NEW YORK CITY (!!!) coz it was just a river away from jersey. the plan was for me and a couple of friends to go but because of a variety of reasons i ended up just going with mikko. days before the trip, me and mikko made plans for the trip, like places we wanted to see while we were at ny and all that stuff. let me just say na-amaze ako sa google earth. it gave you the actual bird's eye view of any place you want to see. i tried looking for my house sa pinas pero it didn't work out. but still, ang galing ng google earth. going back to the subject. we took the bus to ny. it was supposed to take a little over 4 hours to get ther by bus. hay nako! sobrang walang organization yung bus sa dc chinatown. super unahan to get into the bus at muntik pa kaming pababain. good thing may mga mataray na passengers who refused to get down kaya we got to stay in the bus. after more than two hours on the road we made a pit stop and i thought we were maybe midway to new york but no! we got down on the bus and found out that we were still in freaking maryland! tama ba yun??!! OA sa traffic getting out of dc and getting into the highway that it took us almost hours to get to ny! when we reached ny, we got off at chinatown. i thought it was gonna be kind of scary but it actually wasn't. kahit na we were in a completely new place and we didn't really know exactly where we were, it felt safe. is that weird? or maybe i'm just being naive. anyways, jay (my cousin) picked us up and we had a late dinner at a thai place and then just drove around the city. i was so excited i wanted to take pictures kahit na nasa loob ako ng car but nahiya ako sa cousin ko kaya i stopped myself. i couldn't wait for the next day. i mean, this is new york! i've read so many books set in new york that i was so excited to see it for real myself. this time it was going to be different kasi i had all the time in the world to walk around and explore.

saturday came and we walked around greenwich village. we got to see the nyu campus too. i don't know how i would be able to study in a school when right outside it is new york. i would always be distracted, i imagine. but how lucky for these kids that they can go and study in ny. nakakainggit. we also went into so many shops i can't remember any of their names anymore. i had to stop myslef from splurging and shopping, lalo na for shoes kasi there were so many places that were on sale. aaahhhh! buti na lang after that we went to the MET. the MET is amazing! i felt awed by all these paintings that were in there. grabe. ang galing! it made me wish i was more artistic and i could paint. there was an exhibit of rembrandt's paintings there and kahit na i'm not really a big fan of his it was still great to actually be able to see an actual painting of his kasi before, all i knew of him was that his name was one of the many section names we had in seton when i was in third grade. to actually see one of his paintings, priceless. there were a lot of pieces that caught my attention but i really liked these paintings that was like paintings within a painting. ang kulit. hehehe. it was a very tiring day kasi we were walking all day long and we didn't even eat lunch until 5 or 6 in the afternoon. but still, it was FUN!

on sunday, we went to church and then ate lunch at a japanese resto to celebrate my other cousin's birthday. after that me and mikko went back to the city to just basically walk around again. we walked to central park and i got to see THE strawberry fields and the IMAGINE walkway. if you are a beatles fan you would know that this part of central park was dedicated by yoko for john lennon. i couldn't even begin to express to you how happy i was to be standing there at that moment. i love the beatles and john lennon especially kaya grabe, super saya ko when i saw it. then we ate at patsy's for dinner and had dessert at serendipity! kahit na we had to wait for an hour and a half to get seated at serendipity, it was worth it. ang sarap! and their servings were humongous! then we walked around some more and went to times square and broadway. it was late already but you wouldn't have known that by looking at the place. it was so bright with all the lights and the sidewalks were so packed with people you didn't even have to walk, dadalhin ko na ng mga tao sa dami nila. nakakatawa pa that super daming nagbebenta ng fake items along the street. parang tipong bangketa sa divisoria. they had chanel and coach purses, wallets, sunglasses, watches. i even saw one guy selling fake dvds! hahahaha! last stop was the rockefeller center, it was late pero there were still people skating on the ice rink and a lot of tourists, like us, who were taking pictures. the thing pa was that since 2 lang kami ni mikko, we were taking pics of each toher as souvenirs. hahahaha. when we weren't taking solo shots of each other were trying to take pictures of the two of us together. we looked funny trying to position ourselves para kita pa din yung background namin. buti na lang there were a lot of nice people in ny that took pity on us and took some pictures of us together. at rockefeller, we asked the security guard to take our picture for us.

we went home monday morning and unlike the trip to ny, the trip going home was short (thankfully). there are still a lot of places that i didn't get to see but all in all, it was great! i had fun, i got to see the sights, i got to spend time with my cousin, it was all good. i can't wait for next time. =)

too late

2007-09-19T18:20:00.000-04:00

i woke up this morning to a text message from my mom. my cousin, ate oggie, had passed away yesterday. it jolted me up from my bed. i had no idea that she was that sick already. you see, my ate oggie had been in remission for 6 years already and apparently the cancer came back and this time around it never went away. i felt so guilty because i didn't even know that she was in the hospital. since i came here, a couple of months ago, i had lost contact with my family (except of course for my mom and siblings). the last time that i had seen ate oggie was right before i went back here.

ate oggie was like my nanny when i was much younger. but instead of telling us what NOT to do, siya pa yung nagtuturo sa amin ng mga kalokohan. young as we were kung anu-ano na mga nalalaman ko because of her. sobrang saya whenever she was at the house. i remember me and meann would always beg her to stay at the house. and she would always give in to us. always. kahit na boring daw sa bahay namin kasi ang layo sa sibilisasyon. "sacrifice" niya na daw yung pag-stay sa bahay kasi love niya kami. as i got older her visits got fewer. i guess, i kind of outgrew her already and feeling busy na ako doing my own stuff. but whenever we would visit them in manila, lagi pa din si ate oggie yung ka-"hang out" ko. she always had stories to tell, gossips to share and i was always a captivated listener. when i first found out she had cancer, i couldn't believe it. na-shock ako when i saw her at the hospital. she was a completely different person. but when she went into remission, the ate oggie i knew was back. back with her stories, gossips and kalokohan. so i just thought ok na ulit. and i went on with my life. ngayon ko lang naiisip that i never spent enough time with her. i should have visited her more often. called her up more. i feel so bad that i just slacked off with my relationship with her and now it's too late for me to tell her that she meant so much to me.

bakit kaya ganun noh? we always realize too late all the things that we could have- should have done. it's like we just take for granted people in our lives until they're gone and there's no way for us to bring them back and let them know how much they meant to us.

at this point, i should say that i've learned my lesson and i promise not to take things for granted anymore but the thing is, after a few months (maybe even just weeks), i'll probably forget about it and go back to my old ways. i'll go back to living my life and just come to my senses when another one of my loved one dies. that's bad. i don't want it to happen but it probably would and then all i have would be regrets.

sigh.

P#$%^^&&A!!!!!!!!!!

2007-09-12T18:08:00.000-04:00

MY FREAKING CAR GOT TOWED AND NOW I HAVE TO PAY OVER 300 BUCKS TO GET IT BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AAAAARRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!! P@#$^&INA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ido-donate ko na nga lang yung old car ko mato-tow pa!!!!! on the day na kukunin pa ha!!!!! na-late lng ng konti yung donating company kunin yung car ko na-tow na ng homeowner's association!!!! ano ba?????!!!!!!!!!!!

AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the quest for a new car

2007-09-02T20:09:00.000-04:00

i just got a new car. it's actually a new used car but still, it's my first real investment. i already had an old car. it was a 1994 saturn and if you know how to count you would know that it's ancient. pero kahit na super old na yung car ko it was still working ok. by ok i mean that it jerked back when i put it on reverse and it made a very weird (and loud) screeching sound every morning when i started it. so obviously it was time for a change. but i thought i could still wait for a couple more months before even thinking of buying a new car but all that changed when i had my car checked out. evidently super messed up ng nung car and it needed so much repairs it would cost me almost 2000 bucks to get it fixed. aba naman! i bought the car for 5oo bucks! it would have been stupid to pay all that money eh pwede na for downplayment yun. so started the crash course on car loans, interest rates, monthly payments and everything related to cars. thank God that i lived with people who worked in a bank. they all helped me out and gave me tips and eveyrthing. i seriosuly wouldn't have known what to do without twinks, tito and tita.

so after getiting a loan i started looking for a car na. i looked at almost every site online for cars. syempr i found a lot of cars but almost none that fit my small budget. it got even harder to find a car when me and tito went to dealerships. i was really aiming for a honda or a toyota but wala tlga kaming makita. i almost got pressured into buying an aveo. buti na lang i held off kasi when i googled it, i found out it was a loser car. so i went home and tried to look online just for the heck of it. and i actually found a car exactly what i was looking for. it was totally God-sent. when i went over to look at it, it was great. it looked like it was new even though it was a 2001 civic. ha! finally the search was over. i found MY car and it totally fit my budget (which was really important).

getting a loan, buying a new car, these things just make me feel even more of an adult now. i mean, i know i'm an adult now. i have responsibilities and duties that i never had when i was still in school. pero all these things just make it even more real, you know? there are times i feel so overwhelmed by all of this but i wouldn't trade it for anything else. hey, this is life, right.

just a thought

2007-08-05T15:27:00.000-04:00

i just found out from my sister that i person i used to know really well was getting married and i just couldn't help myself from thinking about it and dwelling on the news a little bit. this person (who shall remain nameless, although if you knew/know me, you probably have an idea who he is. o ha, may clue na kayo) was a huge and important part of my past. there was a time i considered him my world although i never though of it that way when we were together. it's been so long and i'm fine now and i've moved on and we both have separate lives but still this news gave me a pause. i don't feel hurt or pain because of the news. sa totoo lang, good for him. it's just that i feel (for the lack of a better word) weird about it. maybe because he used to be with me and for a time i thought we would be together forever. i'm not bothered by the fact that he's getting married i just am weirded out by it. does that make sense? should i be bothered that i'm affected. sigh. weird lang talaga. tumatanda na tlaga ako. isipin mo somebody i used to love is getting married na?!

sigh.

i feel kind of sad for myself kasi i'm still by myself while he's getting married already. oh well. that's life. dadating din naman yung para sa akin. hindi pa lang talaga ngayon.

if you (you-who-shall-remain-nameless) ever do stumble upon this, i wish you well. seriously. from the bottom of my heart.

pissed off

2007-08-03T18:06:00.000-04:00

today- was not a good day. i got the new work shifts that we're having for the fall semester and i was surprised to find out that i got bumped to a later shift. you see, right now i have the 700 am-430 pm shift and i love it. i get to go home early and do other things that i don't have enough time to do at work, like write lesson plans and prepare activities for the kids. ayoko ng late shift kasi the time just seems to drag on during the afternoon kasi napakatagal sunduin nung mga kids ko tapos whenever one kid gets picked up, another kid from another class gets bumped up to my room. parang tapunan ng mga late sunduin yung room ko. hay nako. nakakabaliw when they get picked up late kasi sobrang restless na nila because they know their parents are coming and they're just off the hook. kaya ayoko ng late shift. tapos today, without any warning at all, the management suddenly changed my shift. now, 900 am- 630 pm na ako. nakakainis!!! more than the fact that i got a later shift (i know, medyo mababaw lang yun) i am pissed off kasi they didn't have the consideration- the decency, to talk to me about it. lead teachers are supposed to have the first priority when it comes to work shifts pero ano toh???!!! just because hindi ko ka-close yung mga nasa management they just decided to do things without telling me. paano kaya kung hindi ako pwede ng 9oo-630?! what if i just decided to screw them over??!! it pisses me off so much that they think i'm such a pushover that will just agree to everything that they say. this one of those times that i really feel na hindi equal yung treatment sa akin compared to the other employees just because sponsored ako ni mazhar. akala niya talaga ok lang kahit ano ok sa akin kasi i had no right to complain dahil he sponsored me. bad trip kasi everything na lang utang na loob ko sa kanya. sigh. i'm pissed off. hindi ba obvious?!

one lazy sunday

2007-07-29T17:20:00.000-04:00

the weather was so overcast and gray today that i had no choice but to just bum around the house. lalo na pa when it started raining. ahhh, such a perfect day to do---absolutely nothing. today's weather was just so conducive to being lazy that even though i had some important things to do today i just couldn't find the willpower to go out of the house. except when i went to the church to hear mass, hindi na ako lumabas ng bahay. i just cuddled on the couch and read a book and sleep. para akong lola but who cares?! masarap kaya magbasa when it's raining outside. i don't know what it is with the rainy weather that just makes people so lethargic. or maybe i'm just making excuses for myself dahil tamad lang talaga ako. hehe. but it was nice to just hang out at the house and not to have to worry about being late to work and all that stuff. there's going to be more than enough time for me to think about all my worries and problems tomorrow.

my mind is always preoccupied with things to do, problems to be resolved and worries that never seem to run out that sometimes i just want to scream. kaya i thank god for days like this when i am given a timeout to just not think at all. to not worry about my financial situation, my family's condition sa pinas, my job and my boss from hell, my......life. of how i seem to be living but not really LIVING at all. i mean, i have a job and i earn moeny and i am able to help out my family now but i still feel as lost and aimless as i did when i was younger. the sad thing is, i am NOT young naymore and that by this time i should have some kind of idea of how i want my life to be. but no. hoenstly, i might say that i want to go back to school and earn my masters and all that shit but after other than that i haven't a clue as to what to do with my life. maybe i'm jujst overthinking things. who was even the person who perpetuated the idea that you should have a plan for your life. why can't you just live your life one day at a time? take things as they come? just...live for the sake of living. but come to think of it, there are people out there who live just like that. with no worries about what's going to happen to them tomorrow. who just take everything in a stride. maybe the thing is, i am not one of them. i just can't be so out of control of my life and leave everything to god or to chance or to fate or to whoever decides these kind of things. maybe that's my probelm. hay ewan! sometimes my thoughts just get so tangled up in my head i don't make sense, even to myself so am stopping now with my aimless thoughts and ramblings.

for now, i am simply going to content myself to doing nothing and enjoying every last minute of it.

POTTER MANIA

2007-07-23T17:39:00.000-04:00

when the first two harry potter books came out i was already in highschool and i didn't really care much about it. i didn't understand what the big fuss was all about since it was a children's book. i thought it would be too immature and childish for me. so for the longest time i refused to read any of the harry potter books. and then, i don't even know why exactly, i decided to give it a chance. i think by that time i was in college already and lo and behold- i LOVED it! harry potter and his gang captured my imagination. i especially liked ron and his entire family, the weasleys. they were just so endearing and funny without even trying. after reading the first book, wala na, i was hooked.

so just imagine how much i looked forward to the final book. i mean, this was it. the end. the book that would hopefully answer all the questions that had been mounting since the first book started. sa sobrang pagka-excited ako, like the true nerd that i am, i got my book at 1245 am of july 21. dapat 12 midnight kaya lang i watched the harry potter movie muna kaya na-late na ako. hahaha. friday night was potter-overdose. first, the movie and then the book. at kahit na umaga na and i was sleepy i just had to start reading it. i couldn't wait. i only stopped reading when i could barely understand what i was reading kasi sobrang antok na antok na ako. i wanted to just stay home and read the book the whole saturday pero i was going to watch the MYMP concert dito sa amin kaya i had to stop (totally out of topic but since na-mention ko na din, ang galing ni juris kumanta! ang ganda pa niya! super petite niya! parang 1/4 ko lng siya, which is very depressing on my part). anyways, going back to the topic, i couldn't resist myself and i brought the book with me. who cared if i looked like a nerd?! totoo naman yun eh. hehehe. surprisingly, i wasn't the only one who had the same idea. there were maybe 4 or 5 people there who had their books with them too. you might be wondering how i could actually count the people who had their books with them. well kasi hindi naman super laking auditorium yung concert venue. it was in a small pinoy resto lang.

i finally finished the book on sunday. actually monday na kasi it was past 12 midnight na. i couldn't put down the book kasi sobrang ganda niya. i was so caught up with the book para akong tanga kasi i was crying and laughing while reading the book. all throughout the book i was doing a body count of everyone who was dying kasi i wanted to make sure how many were dead just to confirm all the rumors na 6 daw or 7 daw yung mamamatay. i could see the whole book in my mind like it was a movie. grabe! aaahhhh! all i can say is once the movie version of this book comes out, it is going to be phenomenal! it really is the perfect ending to the whole harry potter saga. it answered all the questions that i had and explained everything so clearly. sobrang gandang closure nung book. sobrang emotionally involved ako to the whole story that feeling ko din j.k. rowling gave me closure too. everytime somebody died, i cried for them. everytime harry succeeded feeling ko din i overcame a big hurdle. i know it sounds kind of crazy pero that's just the way i am when i read a book or watch a movie. i just can't help it. sobrang galing nung twist sa ending with snape. i know, i know, that's only detail that i will talk about here. i'll stop writing na kasi i might divulge something more from the book. i might not be a die-hard fan of harry potter in the sense that as much as i love harry potter i draw the line with dressing up as a witch (even for me, OA na yun), but i can really say that harry potter was really a big part of my life and now that it's all over parang feeling ko there's a void that needs to be filled. i know it sounds so melodramatic pero i have a feeling that i'm not the only one who feels this way. harry potter will be missed, i'm sure.

i am tired

2007-07-19T13:41:00.000-04:00

whenever people find out that i work in a daycare they always have the same reaction "i don't know how you do it!". i kid you not that is exactly what they say everytime. when i hear this, all i can do is smile because honestly i really don't have a clue how i do it either. working with kids more than 8 hours a day, 5 days a week is EXTREMELY tiring and can be surprisingly frustrating at times. seriously, i don't get paid enough to do what i do. i am a mother and teacher to all these kids at the same time and it really takes a lot out of me. more than that, sobrang big responsibility nung job that when i think about it it's kinda scary. i mean, anything i do or say can greatly affect these kids' lives. seriously, i don't want my kids to grow up and say that their preschool teacher (me) traumatized them or something.

i didn't set out to be a teacher. i don't even think that i wanted to be a teacher when i was a kid. i always wanted to be a doctor and i really thought that that would be what i would end up to be. pero because of reasons that i don't even want to think about, that didn't happen and i ended up here- in a foreign country, molding young minds (baduy ko, man!). funny how things work out sometimes. oh well. siguro god has plans for me that i just can't quite figure out yet. pero i am so thankful that i'm here right now. i know that me being here is a blessing kaya i am making the most of the time i have here. right now i'm not sure if i'm meant to be here or not but since i don't know yet, i'm just going to work my butt off in my work and hope that everything works out. even if that means i always have to go home feeling i need to pass out everyday.

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when i started out writing this blog i just felt so tired with work pero now i feel kinda (as in kinda lang ha) compensated for all the work i put kasi i got EMPLOYEE OF THE MONTH. woohoo! the prizes? well, a month's worth of parking space na may sign saying employee of the month and a hundred bucks tax-free. it's not much pero pwede na rin. =)

TRANSFORMERS in one word

2007-07-10T13:23:00.000-04:00

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i can't even think of one word to describe it. it's that ..... ha! still can't describe it. basta, you have to watch it and see for yourself what i'm talking (or more accurately, not talking) about!

clueless me

2007-07-05T13:48:00.000-04:00

i never really thought what happens next after i got a car. i was just so happy to be driving around and not having to commute that it didn't occur to me that i would have to actually take care of it. i mean, i'm good with keeping my car clean- the inside of the car anyway. never ko pa napa-car wash yung kotse since i got last april. but i'm pretty good in vacuuming it and making sure there's no stray trash in it and stuff like that. but i never realized that i would have to be the one to actually maintain the whole thing. crap! ang mahal pala mag-maintain ng car. tapos my car pa is super old na so madami na talaga dapat ayusin.

just last week, i went out of the house to go to work and saw that one of my back (ay, rear pala ang correct term) tires was almost out of air. medyo nag-panic ako. for a minute there i didn't know what to do. buti nlng it lasted for maybe just 5 seconds and i figured out what to do. i didn't change the tire because like a typical helpless girl i don't know how to change a tire plus wala naman akong spare. i did the next best thing (in my opinion anyway), i went to the gas station and put air in my tire. never mind that i'd never had to put air in a tire before kasi sa pinas may mga gas boys that would do it for me. i figured out what to do after about 10 minutes of looking stupidly at my tire and the air hose. i don't know if may butas na yung tire ko or what but i didn't have time to check and i just drove it to work. thank god malapit lang yung work ko kundi patay na. i wouldn't have been able to report for work at all. i've now replaced 2 tires kasi yun pa lang ang kaya ng budget ko. next payday na yung 2 other tires. aside from that i have to buy new wiper blades. aba! i never knew wiper blades were expensive. one wiper blade costs more than 25 bucks. ano ba yan?! a pair would be 5o+ bucks!! grabe na toh!

aside from that, i have to get the engine fixed kasi it just makes weird squeaking sounds at odd moments. nakakahiya nga when i drive off from the parking lot at school, super rinig na rinig ng mga parents when they're there. ang dami pang mga kailangan ayusin kasi i have to get it registered before october sa MVA. grabe talaga, nakaka-overwhelm!

hay..i know i'm complaining but don't get me wrong, i love my car. i just wish it wasn't such a hassle and an expensive one at that.

my past week

2007-06-22T17:46:00.000-04:00

i'm not really a club-goer kind of person but i really think i have to go out. i was watching my 3-year old kids today as they were dancing in the room with bubbles being blown to them and i realized that i haven't gone out in ages. buti pa yung mga kids ko, they where having a blast. talo pa ako! sila may bubbles pa while dancing! my kids probably had a better time than i've had for the longest time. it's funny but sort of sad at the same time. nakakalungkot that 3-year old kids are partying more than i am. granted that they were partying in school but still! they're just 3 yrs. old! they don't really care. sigh.

anyways, this week was my 1st week in my new class and it went better than i thought it would be. siguro kasi instead of 20 kids, i only had 15 kids at most this week and believe me 5 kids less makes all the difference in the world when you're dealing with a roomful of 3-yr. olds. even with just 15 kids, it was still very tiring. i had to get used to a roomful of kids screaming their heads off just for the heck of it. kahit sumigaw ako hindi ko pa din sila masapawan. buti na lang yung assistant ko super loud mouth kaya she does the screaming and yelling for me. i also had to get used to kids talking, as in yung naiintindihan mo yung sinasabi kasi my old class, they talked pero it was all gibberish. in my new class, ang daldal nila nakakapagod na sila pakinggan. and man, the words they say sometimes. i was playing with some kids one day and i heard one child say f**king! ay talaga! at first, i couldn't believe what i heard kaya hindi ko muna pinansin. baka kasi imagination ko lng pero when i heard the kid say it again, totoo na talaga toh. i had to keep myself from yelling at him. parents should really be more careful with what they say around their kids, lalo na with the age group that i have. hay nako. tapos may isa pa akong kid that sings songs that he shouldn't be singing at his age. out of nowhere bigla na lang kakanta ng "umbrella" or "party like a rock star". nakakatawa siya pero inappropriate yung kinakanta niya. hehehe. all these new things- i will definitely need some getting used to all this.

siguro kaya i'm breaking out. ang dami kasing changes happening to me right now. nakakainis! ang dami kong pimples it's not even funny.

hopefully everything gets better next week. i'm crossing my fingers. =)

one order of gael, please

2007-06-10T02:54:00.001-04:00

i just have to say this.

gael garcia bernal is HOT!

not only that he is one hell of an actor. he's great. i watched the motorcycle diaries without subtitles, mind you, just because he was in it and even though i didn't understand anything anybody said (except for the occasional spanish words that has become pinoy words too) i loved it and kind of (as in konti lang) understood what was happening in the movie just be watching him. all his movies i've seen has been in spanish so i didn't know if he knew how to speak in English so when i saw his first (i think) english-speaking film i just had to watch it. sigh. hearing him speak in english (in a language that i could actually understand) just made me like him even more. there's just something about him that is really....sexy. as in! yun tipong makalaglag panty talaga! i know i'm gushing but i can't help it! even when he's playing a gay character, he's still hot (hehehe). aside from his hotness, i like him kasi he's not the typical hollywood actor. for one, he's very intelligent. two, he's not afraid to play different roles. i mean come on, he played a gay character in bad education. he was even dressed in drag for it. plus, he's not afraid to show some skin. heck, he's shown every inch of his body on screen. the first movie i ever saw him in was y tu mama tambien and he was having sex on the opening scene of the movie. you have got to respect a guy who is not scared to show his body (and ALL its parts) in a movie. and three, he's not a sellout. he does big hollywood films but he still makes small indie films which are always critically-acclaimed. his films really aren't my usual movie choice because most (if not all) of his movies are of the darker sort and everybody who knows me know that i'm more of the happily-ever-after kind of movies. but anyway, the latest one i watched, The King (thank you cable tv), had him seducing his own half-sister and getting her pregnant and then killing her, his half-brother and his stepmom. how about that for a movie plot?! take it from me, his movies are not the type of movies you watch when you just want to lean back and chill.

why can't i ever meet someone like him. sigh. kahit look-alike lang happy na ako. sigh. gael (insert dreamy voice here). even his name sounds hot.

oh well, a girl can hope naman diba?

friday bingo night

2007-06-09T19:27:00.000-04:00

last night i went to a school-sponsored bingo night. i didn't come to play but to work there. evidently parents from this school (it's not the school i work at. it's a catholic school, just in case you're wondering) were obligated to work during bingo nights or else get fined for 150 bucks. so one of the parents asked me to stand in for her and she'll pay me 5o bucks for it. oo naman ako since i had nothing to do (sadly) and sayang din ang 50 bucks. so off i went to the said event.

the sight that greeted me was one i had never seen before. first, there were a lot of senior citizens there. to be quite honest i don't think there was any bingo player in there under the age of 60 (except for this one boy who was there with his grandma). not to be mean or anything but it looked like a senior-citizen home decided went on a field trip and decided to play bingo instead. i kid you not, there was an old lady there who was already in a wheelchair and a few on walkers already. if you looked really closely, you could see their hands shaking as they marked their bingo cards. moving on, what surprised me even more was that these people took their bingo seriously. they were serious and i mean SERIOUS bingo players. they had bingo-themed seat cushions, specially-made bingo bags that had bingo markers on the side (i didn't even know there existed special markers for bingo!), bingo card holders and a lot of other stuff that apparently were used for bingo that i never knew about. the only times i've ever played bingo were on my sister's school bingo and those bingo games were fun. everybody would be shouting what number they needed next to get a bingo and you could here people talking excitedly as their cards got filled up. but last night was so different. the announcer (another senior citizen) looked like he was about ready to keel over and he would shush people when they started to get a little to noisy (because it disturbed the concentration of the other players) and the players gave you mean looks if you tried looking at their cards. for a bingo game, these people sure were competitive. it was like stepping into a different world.

while i was there, walking around and selling cards all i couldn't help but feel a little sad for them because they have nothing better to do and nowhere else to be than a bingo night. but more than that, all i could think of was that i NEVER wanted to be like them. i don't want to grow up old and have the highlight of my week be friday night bingo. god, i hope i never end up being one of them bingo ladies. please. i might shoot myself if that ever happens. although come to think of it, it was a friday night and i was already doing bingo night so- buti na lang i was getting paid to be there or else i would have felt more sorry for myself.

one rainy day

2007-06-05T17:14:00.000-04:00

last sunday was the pinoy festival at DC and me and my friends were all going to show our all-out support for two of our friends who had bands playing there. fyi, the pinoy festival is an event that pinoys here celebrate every year, just in time for the RP independence day. they close down part of a street in DC and different pinoy bands play and there are a lot of stalls that sell pinoy stuff- food (yummy!), beer (syempre, san mig!), dvds (pati dito may pirated pinoy dvds pa din! wahahahahaha!), and a lot more (pati fake signature bags meron! hehehehe).

syempre i was looking forward to the event since it only happens once a year but lo and behold, sunday came and with it rain. as in lots and lots of rain. normally, rain would make me quit going anywhere and just stay home and snuggle in my bed. but since i was going mainly to show support to my friends, siyempre go pa din. i went there with twinks, george and loy. the metro trip to dc was uneventful. to pass the time, we took some pictures (syempre, camwhores in the train!). when we finally got there, it was raining even harder. when we got to the event itself, everyone was wet, granted there were some people (me not included) who had the good sense to bring umbrellas with them and were less wet than others but all in all- everyone was wet. but syempre mga pinoys talaga. the party must go on. people were still walking on the streets not minding the rain. people selling food were cooking bbq in sticks under the rain. in fairness, masarap yung bbq. i think it must have been the added rainwater that did it. there was no place to sit down kasi the event was done in open air and since it was raining, everywhere was wet (obviously) so we had to eat rice and bbq standing up, our backs against the wind and rain and rain just splashing on our food (yum!).

when our friends finally went up the stage, we had to stand under the rain to watch them because the small tent with seats for the audience was completely filled up. the bands were good but not to be bias or anything i think our friends' band was better than the others. the lead singer had a really powerful voice given that she was so tiny! ang galing niya! plus, i just have to say this, i think it was impressive that she could belt sing that strongly given that her jeans were probably cutting off her circulation because they were so tight! not that she looked bad or anything because she looked great. it's just that her jeans were so tight, really. i don't even think my foot would fit in one leg of her jeans. anyway, i think the highlight if the event was when the band The Speaks came on stage. i know that they had an album out in the RP and they did a song with Barbie but hindi ko talaga sila kilala. but man, did the people go crazy when they went on stage or what! suddenly there was a mosh pit in front of the stage and people were just body slamming against each other. one girl jumped down from the stage onto the the mosh pit. another girl tried to do it twice but kept on chickening out at the least minute. the second time she went up the stage and didn't go through with it i kinda felt sorry for her. i'm not a cool person but even i know that chickening out to jump to the mosh pit twice (!) is definitely not cool. The Speaks were ok. i don't really know much of theor songs but they were good. but i don't think they were that good for people to just be body slamming onto each other and going crazy over them. it was kinda funny how the people were going crazy, like they were on a real concert when in reality, they were just a small crowd in front of an equally not-so-big stage going crazy under cold rain. it was kind of lame actually. but the funny part was when the DC security guy had to go over to the mosh pit and threaten to stop the whole thing if they didn't stop body slamming and then just as he turned his back, the guitarist/bassist (i'm not quite sure what kind of guitar he plays basta he was holding an electric guitar) of the band propels himself to the mosh pit! wahahahaha! you had to be there to see it.

when we finally had enough of the rain and getting soaked, we decided to go home. but unlike the train trip to dc the trip back home was, let's just say exciting (wink wink). we were all tired so we were just keeping to ourselves in the train. we were sitting one seat away from each other, minding our own business when george suddenly moved over to the seat behind me and just started laughing. i kept on asking her what happened and she won't answer because she was still laughing so hard. she kept on laughing until we got off the train and when she finally told us why she was laughing, it totally grossed us out. apparently, they guy sitting behind her got a little too excited (if you know what i mean) and was relieving himself right there in the train. i guess he couldn't wait until he got home to do the deed and decided that the train was the best place as any to jack off. ahhh, you gotta hand it to the pervs out there.

all in all, it was a fun day. even though it rained and we got soaked, it was worth it. i just felt bad i didn't have the chance to buy dvds (hehehe). jologs na kung jologs but i really was looking forward to watching pinoy movies. oh well, i guess that'll just have to wait.

i am boring

2007-05-31T22:24:00.000-04:00

reading other people's blogs make me feel so......inexperienced. i feel like i need to be out there doing more things, experiencing life more. i feel like i must be the most boring person in the whole wide world and everyone else is having more fun than i am. this feeling sucks.i need to stop comparing my life with other peoples' lives.

good news, bad news

2007-05-27T13:15:00.000-04:00

some things have happened since i last posted and i just felt like sharing. hehehe.

well, i am officially a proud holder of a US license! finally, may state-issued license/ID na ako. no more strange looks from people when they see what ID i have. since i came back kasi i've been using my RP license as ID kaya people keep on asking me stuff. aside from that i won't have to worry about driving even to kinda far places kasi i have a license here na.

syempre if i have a license na dapat may car na din diba? kaya yes, i have a car na! it's not brand new or anything but that's fine by me. as long as i can get to places in one piece, i am great. it's a white '96 saturn (i think). it's pretty old but it works great and it was fairly cheap (thanks tyns and tita rose!) so i have no complaints.

the next news is supposed to be good too but for me it's not really a good news. i got promoted. i get to handle older kids, 3- 3 1/2 year olds now. i get a raise with the promotion too. but the thing, these kids- they are MONSTERS. don't get me wrong, they are very cute kids and they can be nice if they want to but when there are 20+ of them in one room- forget it, they ARE monsters. everyone of the teachers in our school never want to go in that room just because of that and now they want me to be the lead teacher in that room??!! i appreciate the vote of confidence, believe me. but still! i just got adjusted to my room now, finally. and i like my parents and i think they like me too and now they are moving me out of there already?! how am i supposed to handle 20+ kids when i sometimes find it overwhelming to handle 9 toddlers?! hay. i could a raise though. it better be a good one because i feel like they are sending me to the depths of- basta yun, you know what i mean. i don't want to make it sound as difficult as i know it's going to be.

so guys, that's what's been happening lately. hopefully everything turns out to be good. pray for me, ok?

my visual dna (thanks to papu)

2007-05-17T21:15:00.000-04:00

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

down with love

2007-05-13T21:39:00.000-04:00

i am tired of people talking about sex all the time. you might be wondering who are these people always talking about sex, well, they are me co-teachers. all day that's what they talk about. i mean come on! we're working around kids tapos it's all they they talk about. seriously, sobrang na-pollute na yung utak since i started going back to work. if they're not talking about sex, they're talking about their boyfriends. not a day goes by that i won't hear them say "i want to see my boyfriend". aaahhh! they're driving me crazy!

it seems like everyone around me is so crazy in love, it's not even funny anymore! maybe it's just been so long since i was in love that i've forgotten how it feels like already. i've forgotten how crazy people in love can be. love makes you do things that never in a million years you could do- be it bad or good. it makes you lose your head sometimes. i heard somebody say that love is hard and difficult, and it kills you sometimes- but it is wonderful. but i've forgotten how it feels like and it makes me scared that i might never feel that way again. it's weird that i see myself as a romantic and yet i'm loveles. it's like the world is playing a trick with me.

and i am not amused.

have i gotten so used to being alone that i'll never let anybody in again? or haven't i just met the right person yet?maybe i'm destined to be alone and i just have to start accepting that fact. i don't know what to think anymore because it's just been so long since i've met anyone who i could even entertain the possibility of having a relationship with that it's making me think crazy thoughts. i'm not looking for love or anything, you know. i am actually ok with my current non-entity of a love life but it just worries me sometimes that i might never meet that someone that i want to be with forever. i do want to have a husband and kids in the future and for that to happen i should meet the potential husband and father of my children (preferably 2) or even know that person by now, right? or am i?

i should really leave these kind of things up to God because thinking about it just makes my brain more confused and mixed up than it already is.

hit my play button please!

2007-05-10T19:43:00.000-04:00

somewhere in a book i'm reading said that nobody plans to put their life on pause but it happens and it's up to you to push play again. well, it got me into thinking if MY life was on pause. i mean, am i living my life the way i'm supposed to- the way i want to. or am i just drifting through it instead of really LIVING it. how can you tell really if your life is on pause? is there any gauge that you can use to find out?

sometimes i feel like my life is on pause. i'm doing things that i'm supposed to be doing but i don't think i'm really living. does that make sense? i feel like my life is just passing me by. how can i get it back? what do i do?! i don't want to be like one of those people who just wake when their 70, wrinkly and old and just come to the realization that they're at the ends of their lives and they have nothing to show for it. i want to experience new things. i want to live life pero feeling ko ang daming limitations right now. i'm not making excuses (at least i don't think so). it's just that right now i feel like i just can't be free still.

*sigh*

**********************************************************

btw, HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to all your moms!!

to my mom, happy mother's day! i love you! super miss ko na kayo! hope to see you soon! mwah!

leaving on a jet plane

2007-04-28T20:50:00.001-04:00

my mom and nate are flying back to the philippines tonight and i feel sad. i am trying to drown my sorrows by watching Whoever You Are (a.k.a Maging Sino Ka Man) and looking at John Lloyd's face (i'm jologs but i don't care. i'm a die-hard john lloyd fan! i still regret not having my pic taken with him when i saw him at podium!ok, tama na. balik sa kwento.) anyways, i just feel alone tonight because aside from the fact that my family is going home, i'm all alone on a saturday night. not that i was ever the party girl who went out every weekends but still- at least when i was back home i there were always friends who i could hang out with kahit kwentuhan lang sa bahay. here, i have friends but i rarely see them and one (paging tynee) even went back home so i'm seriously lacking in company. it's times like these that i really question whether i made the right decision to come here. if leaving everything behind was the right thing to do. i miss being able to just walk over to the corner and drop by deirds' house unannounced. i miss just picking up the phone and calling papu out of the blue. i miss hearing her voice while she tells me all her amusing stories and latest chismis (hehehe!). i miss ian and aldwin texting me asking me where i am and asking me to go places. i miss the xaijua girls (a.k.a. UP peeps) planning a lunch or dinner and me insisting that we have somwehere in the south para malapit sa akin. and i especially miss just sleeping in my own house, seeing my mom and siblings everyday, playing with nate- just living with them. in short, i just miss BEING there.

sigh.

hopefully, this mood doesn't stick because i'm gonna be here for some time and i can't be like this forever. i'm gonna crazy. i have to entertain myself somehow. i have to do something. i have to think what though.

sigh.

i love you, you're welcome!

2007-04-20T23:33:00.000-04:00

my parents, meann and nate finally arrived here last wednesday!! i can't even begin to tell you how happy i am that they're here. kahit na it's been barely three months since i last saw my mom, meann and nate excited pa din ako. lalo na my dad kasi over six months na kami hindi nagkikita. when they got here first thing i noticed was how big nate already is. when i left last february, hindi pa siya ganon kalaki and now, he's a big boy na! he's gotten taller and- just generally bigger than the last time i saw him. since he got here he's been really sweet to me. he always wants to do everything with me. pupunta na lang ako ng bathroom gusto pa sumama! i missed my brother!! and i'm gonna miss him even more when they leave on sunday! man, now i'm getting sad.

anyways, nate was very proud when he saw me and shared that he knew how to say "you're welcome" already. he proved it by saying it all night long. in fact, he kept on ending all his sentences with "you're welcome". let me give you an example of our conversations:

me: i love you, nathan!
nate: i love you, ate! you're welcome!

me: nate, later na yan. kain muna tayo.
nate: o sige. you're welcome.

me: eto na toy mo o.
nate: thank you. you're welcome.

lahat na lang may "you're welcome"! i don't know who thought him that but i think he did his job a little too well.

ang kulit ni nate! but i'm not complaining. i missed my little brother the whole time i've been back. before i went here, we were always together- doing errands, going to the bank, grocery-shopping, mall-hopping. we even looked for per-schools together. seriously, parang anak ko na siya. maybe that's why of all my siblings, pinaka-attached ako kay nate. i was really touched that he wanted to sleep beside me the whole time he was here on vacation. kahit na kulang na lang mahulog ako sa bed kasi hindi kami kasiya (if i bent my knees a little, my butt would be off the bed already) and my back hurt every time i woke up, it was great. sigh. i'm gonna miss him when he goes home. hopefully it doesn't take years before i see him again.

i've just been robbed!

2007-04-18T17:55:00.000-04:00

i have no idea how it happened but somebody was able to charge 28 dollars in my account! i have just been a victim of debit card theft! darn it! somebody was able to charge 28 dollars worth of gas in my card. when i called the bank i told them that it definitely wasn't me because i don't even have a car! what the heck was i gonna do with 28 dollars worth of gas?! drink it?! buti na lang i check my account online and was able to see it kung hindi nawalan na ako ng 28 bucks! i've noticed na lagi na lang ako nawawalan ng money! why me?! do i have a sign on my head that says i'm stupid?! it's definitely not because they think i'm rich, because I AM NOT RICH! far from it! it's a good thing the bank was good enough to acknowledge my claim and credit back my lost money. ang hassle lang ngayon kasi they cut off my debit card and they're gonna send me a new one in 3-5 days pa. now, i have to actually go inside the bank to withdraw money. hassle, man! sigh. i've been here only 3 months and i've already been victimized by identity theft people. wow! just my luck.

happy birthday to me

2007-04-08T02:24:00.000-04:00

my birthday is actually now officially over but still, i think i still have the right to greet myself. my birthday was nothing extraordinary but still this is one of the better birthdays i had. it actually started friday night. i know, i know, it was a good friday kaya lang i had no choice. twinkle, tito ted, tita cora and loy were going to cali the next morning and i wanted to celebrate with them hence the dinner friday night. since it was no-meat friday we ate pasta with shrimp (c/o of tita cora. the pasta was YUMMY, btw.), cheese and veggie pizza (c/o of pizza hut, which were also yummy), chips and sour cream, and for desserts, brownies and cheesecake. it sounds a lot of food for less than 10 people and actually- it was! ang daming pagkain na-overwhelm ako. i really thought hindi maaubos yung food. boy, was i wrong! i underestimated the powers of five hungry (and sometimes not even hungry) girls. we ate everything over the course of the entire weekend. but i am getting way ahead of the story. so, friday night, since some people were going to be late, nauna na kami nila twinks and tynee kumain at syempre mag-magic sing. i've come to realize that it doesn't matter if we have magic sing every time may gathering and we keep on singing the same songs, magic sing will never get old (baka kaya MAGIC sing.wahahahahaha! sorry, i couldn't resist it!). going back to the story, finally faye, phoebe and loy finally showed up and joined in the festivities. we just sang and laughed all night and didn't go to sleep until the wee hours of the morning.

my yummy handa

the "earlybirds"

taking advantage of the mic before everybody else gets here

early saturday morning (and by early i mean, EARLY), i woke up to the sound of wham's "wake me up before you go" courtesy of tynee's alarm. sa sobrang antok ko while looking for her phone to turn it off, i bumped my mouth into a corner of the center table and hurt myself. i even bled a little. after that, i slept again and woke up at around 930 am. by that time, gising na din si tynee so i made breakfast for us. actually i just cooked eggs and heated waffles in the microwave. hehehe. after that we basically just watched tv and waited for faye and phoebe to wake up. at lunch, we stuffed ourselves with crabs. at dahil sa kasibaan ko sumakit ang tiyan ko after lunch hanggang we got to dc and tysons. thanks to kuya don and ate milet for taking us to dc. buti na lang you did kasi if not we would have ridden the metro at pagdating namin sa DC maghahanapan pa kami ng cherry blossom tree na may pink flowers pa. asus. ang mga trees puro green na yung leaves, wala nang flowers eh ang highlight nung trip namin to dc is to see pink trees! as tynee put it, we played find-you-own-cherry-blossom-tree-and-quickly-take-a-picture game. but it was still fun. then we went to tysons (fyi, tysons is a mall. parang atc.) and medyo nawala ang tummy ache ko. hehehe. na-distract sa mall. we got there kinda late na so we only had an hour to explore the place at medyo nataranta kami ni tynee! an hour was not enough for us. we were rushing through the stores (sayang and H&M!. )anyways, i really wanted to buy a pair of gold shoes but wala akong size! kung kelan sobrang decided na ako to buy it, wala akong size! so on the day of my birthday wala akong nabili sa mall which made me kinda sad (in a totally superficial way). when we got to the house, kantahan na naman and then we went to sleep na kasi the next day was Easter and we were going to church early.

ang (feeling) anak-mayaman nagkakamay to eat crab

my birthday picture! (c/o faye)

i love my shirt on this pic! and of course, phoebe who's with me!!

sunday morning, i woke evrybody up and we went to church and we were really late and i felt guilty but i didn't hear mass again. when we got home, we made breakfast and because we were all meat-deprived for two days, meat fest and breakfast namin. we had longganisa (craving ni faye), bacon, sausages and eggs for breakfast. after breakfast, we basically just hung out at the house. me and faye went out for a while to have her car oil chenged but other than that we just stayed at home and watched tv and slept the whole day. tapos for dinner, tita rose and tynee took me and george out to eat at red lobster! super sarap! then we had coffee at starbucks. buhay baboy kami that sunday. grabe!

us: trying to prepare breakfast, george: looking on for moral support

the meat-fest breakfast (at syempre nangunguna ako, may rice na ang plate)

gutom na pero pose muna bago kumain!

my simple birthday dinner turned into a three-day birthday bash (feeling ko celebrity ako, talagang birthday bash!hehehe) and i couldn't be happier (except if my family was here). i was with friends and we had fun and even more food and it was great. i'm so thankful that even though i'm in a foreign country i have friends to spend my birthday with. sigh. thanks talaga guys! and to everybody who remembered my birthday and greeted me, sobrang thanks! it really, really meant a lot that you remembered! mwah!

thank you, zworykin

2007-04-06T09:42:00.000-04:00

i am a tv addict. i watch everything that's on tv, well excpet infomercials (although i think there was a time that i did watch them. but that was when i was way younger). anyways, i have always loved watching tv. i remember when i was a kid, i would watch tv until the wee hours of the morning. and we didn't even have cable back then! i remember that i would watch this tv show Homefront on channel 2 every midnight and that's where i first saw kyle chandler, years before early edition, king kong and grey's anatomy, and crush ko na siya that early on. even now, years later, crush ko pa din siya and it really shocked me when he just burst into a pink haze on grey's anatomy! grabe, one sec he was walking away, the next minute BAM! he was gone, literally. all that was left of him was a pink fog. that must have been painful, i would imagine.

i love tv and most of my friends know this about me. they can ask me anything about tv shows and i would know it. there's no way for me to explain why i love tv but i just do. i am one of those persons that can just sit in front of the tv all day long and would not mind at all. it doesn't even matter if there's a good show on (although it would help), i can sit through a really bad show and still find something good about it. we didn't have cable for the longest time and i still watched tv all the time imagine what happened when i was introduced to the wonderful world of cable. seriously, i would put reminders on my cellphone about all the shows i had to watch because there was just too many shows to keep track of. medyo nataranta ako with all the shows i could watch. having all those channels also made it harder to channel surf eh i really liked channel surfing. kapag commercials i would always be flipping channels. minsan sa kakalipat ko ng channels i would forget or miss the show i was originally watching. las pinas cable made me realize how many good US shows i was missing. before cable, my only source of US shows was studio 23 and you know how delayed they are. pero on cable aaaahhh! natuwa ako with all the shows i could watch! LOST, House, CSI, CSI Miami, CSI NY, may CSI pa bang iba? basta there was just a lot and i loved it! tapos when i got here sa US, heaven! i could watch all the shows on time na! i am still loving the fact that i get to watch new shows that might or might not be shown sa pinas. like now, there's this new show october road which i just love. ang cute ni bryan greenberg (from Prime and one tree hill)! hehehehe.

sometimes i think maybe i'm such a tv addict to make up for the fact that i don't really have a life. i mean, i have no boyfriend. i only go out on weekends and not even always. maybe i watch tv to make up for the boredom that is my life. but whatever the reason is, i still love TV.

*btw, zworykin is the disputed father of tv

2 days to go!

2007-04-04T17:24:00.000-04:00

two days to go before my birthday and i'm excited!!! i don't know why i'm particularly excited about this birthday eh i'm getting older and getting older is not something people generally look forward to. but i just feel excited. maybe because this year i have some kind of plan on how to spend my "big" day. and even though i won't be with my family and my closest friends i'll still be spending my day with good friends. i'm just looking forward to having fun (even with no money). i just really hope evrything goes well on saturday. and guys, i am looking forward to presents! i posted my wishlist. kahit coach bag LANG ok na. hehehehehe. psych! i'm good even with no presents just as long as people show up. =)

aaagghh! i can't take it! i'm so bubbly i'm irritating myself! wahahahahaha!

i am a weirdo, it's kinda scary sometimes.

you've got mail

2007-04-03T18:01:00.000-04:00

i absolutely LOVE this movie! i've watched it for the nth time but it never gets old. i just love tom hanks and meg ryan together! as in! pinagtatawanan nga ako ng mga kasama ko sa house because whenever it's on on TV i just can't help but watch it. it doesn't matter if almost ending na lang ng movie, i still have to watch it. and i always cry when they finally meet as shopgirl and NY152. i'm such a sissy. hehehe. but i don't care. i still love it anyway.

so far...

2007-04-02T19:45:00.000-04:00

i want to write something but i can't think of anything interesting to write about. feeling ko i want to share something- a thought, an idea, but i can't think what it is. i don't know. i might just be bored right now kaya i'm writing a post even though i don't really have anything important or interesting to share.

i've been thinking lately what have i been doing since i got back here. i mean, aside from going back to work. i'm pretty sure everyone has an idea of how my life at work has been recently. hopefully, everything gets better as weeks go by- or my boss finds somebody new to hassle besides me. anyways, going back to my original thought, what have i been doing here since i got back? in an attempt to make myself believe that i've done a great deal since moving back here, i will try to make a list of it starting with:

1. i've opened a bank account. a first for me. before, when i was still in school, i actually put my "savings" in a piggybank, as in yung coinbank shaped like a pig. i think i did that until i was in college already. i know it's pretty old school but i never really thought of opening a bank which is kind of weird for me since both my parents work at banks. heck, my dad used to manage a bank! ewan ko ba, i just never thought to put my money somewhere else safer.

2. in line with opening an account i've also opened a checking account. para akong gaga when i got my checkbooks in the mail. i wanted to write out checks just for the heck of it. hehehe. hindi ako masyadong excited. i didn't care that i didn't exactly know how to write a check. i just wanted to issue one. days later, when i actually wrote a check for something and mailed it, i totally forgot to sign my signature on it and had to ask the person i sent the check to to forge my signature. i know it's pretty dangerous to ask somebody to forge a check, especially here but i had no choice. the check needed to be cashed in right away. besides i knew naman that it was going to be safe kasi family naman yung nag-forge. but still, i know it was stupid and i promise never to do it again. i know better now.

3. i've managed to land a lead teacher position without doing anything. i know i wasn't suppose to write about my work anymore since lately that's all i've been talking about but i felt i just had to list it as an accomplishment- or a quasi-accomplishment, at that. i have my own room and two assistants to handle and direct as i see fit. sounds very accomplished, right? pero in real life, it's not really the case. i can't really do what i want in my room kasi napaka-pakialamero ng boss ko. my two assistants are pretty much like a pretend staff i have. most of the time i end up doing most of the work since i am the lead teacher. come to think of it, landing a lead teacher position was more of a curse than an accomplishment because i got more work without getting more pay which sucks so bad i can't even begin to tell you how much.

4. i finally got my own cellphone line. can i just say that i was REALLY happy when i was finally able to get a cellphone. i can't really think how people got by without cellphones before kasi it was hard on me not having a phone for the first few weeks after i came back. i always had to borrow somebody else's phone just to make a call. nakakahiya na manghiram after a while. i was so happy when i got my phone even though i had to pay a few hundred bucks to get it. plus, i was glad to finally get a start on building my credit. you see, here, everything is about your credit. if you have good credit, meaning you pay all your bills on time, you're not on debt, etc. etc. you can get loans for everything- a car, a house, a new pc, anything talaga. hopefully, i don't do anything stupid to mess up what little credit i have right now.

5. i got medical insurance. now, this is also really important here kasi OA sa kamahalan magpagamot dito. here, seryoso talaga yung saying na bawal magkasakit. lalo na if you don;t have money and/or insurance. recently ko nga lang nalaman that you got charged for calling and being rescued by 911- at mahal siya. when i first got here, my cough got really bad and i wanted to go to the doctor's but pinilit ko talaga to get better through over-the-counter drugs kasi wala akong pera. now, kahit wala pa din akong pera (a large chunk of my salary goes to paying insurance every month), at least i have insurance na.

6. i pay taxes now. the first year i worked here i didn't really pay taxes because my status here was kind of complicated. but now that i am, i am still surprised at how much the government deducts from my salary for taxes. man, nakaka-frustrate to see all these deductions on my payslip. ang dami eh. tapos at the end of the year, i have to file my taxes and then pay up again. the UP grad in me feels sort of guilty that i'm not paying taxes in my own country (and i never did) but wala naman akong choice eh, i work and live here so i must pay my taxes here.

7. i've reconnected with the friends i gained the last time i was here. the said friends wouldn't include twinks and faye though kasi we've been friends practically forever so i don't really need to reconnect with them. we're just friends, no matter how long we don't see each other and how much we've changed since the last time we were together, we're just friends (i tend to repeat myself sometimes). anyways, i'm just glad that slowly i'm getting to spend some time with my last-year-gained friends. it's kind of hard to really spend time with most of them kasi most of them live far away but there are a few (tynee? mainstay sa bahay? hehehe) who live nearer that i get to see a lot. i feel really blessed that i got to meet people that i understant and kapareho ko ng wavelength. but i still miss my friends sa pinas. kahit anong mangayri i don't think any new people will be able to replace all the friends i've grown up with sa pinas. ika nga ni beyonce, they're irreplaceable.

hmmmm..right now, i can't think of any thing else really significant (for me, at least) that i've done since i got back so i think i'm going to stop writing now.

another week ends

2007-03-30T17:43:00.000-04:00

this week passed by past but it really wasn't a good week. mazhar is really getting on my nerves. one of my pretend assistant teachers got suspended. somebody keeps on bugging me, texting me and calling me (feeling may stalker!). hindi naman ako nagfi-feeling pero parang ang awkward lang to be talking to someone i barely know. ewan ko, baka conservative lang ako. hay ewan.

thank god it's friday. seriously, this week was just stressful and draining. now, i can look forward to the weekend. something's gonna happen tomorrow that i'm so looking forward to!! sana masaya talaga toh!

i want to go shopping. just to de-stress. sana lang madami akong pera to spend. hehehehe.

he did it again

2007-03-28T17:22:00.000-04:00

he's trying to get me. i swear, he does it on purpose. looking for things that i did wrong just so may pambara siya sa akin when i try to talk to him about my salary. asshole! everyone in the damn school does something wrong but i'm the only one he catches! everytime! aaarrrggghhh!!!!

i am hating my boss right now

2007-03-27T18:28:00.000-04:00

my boss is a lying, conniving asshole out to make my life hell. he is so kuripot it's so not funny! i hate him! he says one thing to you and then the next day, he changes his mind and denies he said anything. aarrrggghh! i was suppose to get a raise when i became lead teacher but when i asked him about it he said tha he was going to wait a little while becasue he thinks i should be exhibiting more leadership skills. i don't know what more he wants of me. i've assumed all the responsibilities in my room. ano pang gusto niya?! for me to push around my two assistant teachers?! because i am not doing that. i don't want to boss around people. it's not how you show leadership. tapos when i ask him in what specific ways does he see i am lacking in leadership skills, he can't really give me a straight answer. he just keeps on bringing up my offense of dozing off in the room during nap time one time. okay, i know falling asleep is a big stupid mistake pero naman! there were three other people in the room with me! nothing bad could have happened to my kids that day. and i know it's not an excuse but i was really sleepy because i still had jetlag. paano naman ako agad makaka-adjust to the time when he didn't even give me time to adjust. he made me go to work right away. asshole talaga. he keeps on saying that i could have beenf fired for doing that eh hello kaya noh if he only knew that almost all the teachers in that school were falling asleep right and left eh di lahat kami fired na. i was just the unlucky one who got caught! kainis talaga! anyway, he just keeps on bringing it up all the time. gusto ko na nga sabihin that if he wants to fire me then he should just fire me. i can work for somebody else and i don't even have to pay him a bond kasi i was not the one who broke my contract. and i know naman he's not going to fire me because he needs me in the school, what with most of the teachers there quitting every few weeks (most of them quitting because of my boss). tapos pa when i talked to him he had the gall to tell me that him not giving me a raise was not about the money but my performance as a good teacher to the kids. yeah right. kids, my ass! all he cares about is the money and making himself richer. i mean, he was in puerto rica last week and he can't even give me a dollar raise! it makes me so mad!

take a deep breath....woosaaa.......

all i can say is, karma is a bitch.

this is what happens when you're stuck at the house on a friday night

2007-03-23T20:09:00.000-04:00

jalyn is one of the kids in my classroom and she is soooo cute! yun nga lang super aggressive din siya and she bites and pushes everybody unprovoked. pero when she's being nice she's really very sweet and (again) very cute! i love her big hair but i'll never exchange my hair with her. hehehe.

************************************************************************

i never got to watch any LOST episode when i went home last to the philippines kaya i had no idea what the heck was happening in season 3 anymore and i resolved not to watch any episodes of the latest season until may dvd na or may reruns (usually may reruns kasi kapag summer eh). i wanted to watch the whole season from the 1st epi until the last epi para wala ako ma-miss. but no, i couldn't help myself and watched the latest episode last wednesday. and OMG! i don't care that i didn't understand some of the things that were happening. i loved the scene between jack and kate right before jack was about to leave to go back to the outside world! aaaaaaahhhhh! sobrang kinilig ako medyo napasigaw ako mag-isa sa basement namin! wahahahahahaha! when jack told kate "i'm coming back for you..." gusto ko matunaw. sana ako na lang si kate!

i love LOST! i remember watching it the day after it premiered on AXN. it was a friday afternoon and i was getting ready for my college graduation (which i was late for, by the way). pilot episode pa lang sobrang i got hooked already. the plane crashing into the sea. all the people trying to swim to safety. the engines whirring and exploding. kate stitching jack up and jack telling kate about his 5-second thing. i loved it! and kung hindi pa obvious i'm all for jack and kate. i admit sawyer is hot pero jack pa din ako! jack is hot! i want him and kate to end up together kasi i really think they are the one meant to be together. naalala ko na naman yung episode last wednesday when kate told jack not to trust the others and jack told her that he trusted them because kate told him so, when she asked jack to save sawyer. heart-wrenching! i felt sorry for jack.

i know it's kinda freaky that i'm this affected by a tv show but i can't help it. i just get very emotional and involved in things easily. i laugh out loud when i'm reading a funny part in a book. i cry rivers of tears when it comes to the sad parts. i'm very mababaw. i don't know if that's a good or a bad thing.

i need to get a life, i think.

but i still love LOST.

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two posts in a day, i really need to get a life.

i love fridays!

2007-03-23T17:41:00.000-04:00

i think everybody loves fridays for the obvious reason that it is the end of another week of work and the beginning of a too-short weekend. today was even better kasi i had a good friday. first, it was really nice out today. finally, spring na! long winter days are over! ngayon na lang ako ulit nakalabas ng walang jacket of any sort. ang sarap! second, considering that i had 9 two-year olds in my room today- it wasn't too bad at all. they were all pretty good today. nobody was being too stubborn, crying, pushing or worse- biting the each other. i actually felt that the day went by pretty quickly. then when i was at the mall buying food, a woman in line behind asked me where i bought my clothes kasi i looked cute daw! oh diba?! na-flatter naman ako dun. hehehehehehe! too bad for her all the clothes i was wearing (except my shoes) today were all proudly made in the Philippines. pero in fairness talaga na-flatter ako dun kasi naka-bayo shirt lang ako, jeans from divi, white flats from payless and a white bag from SM!

the only bad thing that happened to me today is that i lost some money. more accurately, someone took money from me. i don't know who it was but it's somebody from my school. kainis! i'm never bringing my purse in that school again!

pero all in all my day was really good. sana ganito lagi! =)

little miss sunshine

2007-03-19T18:37:00.000-04:00

** just a warning, this entry contains spoilers! **

i was finally able to watch little miss sunshine and i loved it! last year ko pa gusto mapanood toh kasi i've been hearing so much about it kaya lang i never had a chance to watch it. thanks to tynee for lending me her dvd!

this movie was great! it was funny. it was sad. it had everything in it. it is such a simple story but it really makes you think about your life and everything else in between. olive was so cute and the dance at the end of the movie was a hoot! but i really loved dwayne! wahahahahahaha! dwayne, the nietszche follower, and his pen and small notebook! panalo si dwayne! especially dun sa parts when he wasn't talking still kasi sobrang effective yung anguish niya when he finally talked when he found out he was color blind and couldn't go to flight school anymore. tapos he seemed so sweet when he didn't want olive to dance anymore kasi she wasn't beauty pageant material. i love dwayne (in a weird unexplainable way)! hehehehehe!

nakakabother lang yung ibang girls na kasama sa little miss sunshine. i was kinda scared of them! they looked so made up! and their bodies were even airbrushed just for them to have tans and sculpted bodies! freaky! (hind naman ako masyadong affected noh?)

but all in all, the movie was great (for the nth time)! everybody should watch it!

you should watch this

2007-03-15T18:28:00.000-04:00

i never really cared much about Al Gore or any other US politician for that matter but after watching An Inconvenient Truth, i think i really like him. too bad i'm not an american and i can't vote for him.

the movie really opened up my eyes about the effects of global warming and how serious the problem is. grabe, we are literally going to run out of land to live in when all the ice caps and ice shelf (whatever that is) melt in the north and south pole. it's a scary thought. and there are a lot of other facts mentioned in the movie that were pretty mind-blowing and disturbing. but they were all presented in a way that was interesting and understandable to even the simplest of minds. plus, al gore was a really good speaker. kahit na yung ibang jokes niya medyo hindi ko masakyan and sometimes when the story veers towards gore's personal life medyo cheesy na.

but aside from that, it's a very good movie and it really would make you more aware of what's happening around you.

this week sucks

2007-03-14T18:07:00.000-04:00

i am starting to hate my job. well, actually just the room i'm working in right now and my asshole of a boss. i've been back to my work for barely over a month and yet ang dami ko na nagiging problems with my kids' parents and with my boss. sobrang daming "welcoming" gifts sa akin.

incident #1: my classroom actually got reported to the Child Protection Services (CPS) for alleged child abuse! as in the CPS people (which is kind of like the DSWD back in the Philippines) actually came to the school to interview all the teachers who were with me in the room because a parent from my room complained that her child (whose name is Daniel) came home one day with bruises all over his body. ABA! malay ko naman where he got it! i know i never laid a hand on that boy. sobrang crybaby nga yung kid na yun i would even take him with me to my lunch break just so he wouldn't cry anymore. even one parent mistook him from my son! tapos his mom would accuse me (and the two other teachers with me) of hurting him! kainis talaga! good thing that after the CPS people interviewed all of us they couldn't come up with anything we did wrong. all of my other co-teachers basically gave the same answers to their questions. grr! some parents talaga! i was scared that the police might come and take me away to jail or something! kasi it has happened before in the school i'm working at right now. the teacher wasn't actually arrested or antything but the cops came into her room and actually watched her while she was changing diapers and everything! man! buti na lang that didn't happen to me. my co-teachers were already planning what they were going to do if they get fired and i told them what about me?! i have to go back to the Philippines and they all started laughing at me and reassuring me that i won't get fired and that Daniel's mom didn't think i hurt her child because everybody was telling her that i was her son's favorite teacher. but still! feeling ko tuloy i have a record at the CPS saying i'm a potential child abuser or something! aaggghhh! so frustrating!

incident #2: yesterday, i informed one of the kid'd mom that her son (Euphser, unique name noh?) has been pushing this one boy (Irving) in our room lately. as in, Eupsher always pushes him thinking that they're playing kasi he's always smiling and laughing as he is pushing Eupsher. even when we tell Upsher to stop he still thinks that we're joking and just keeps on smiling and pushing. most of the times we have to carry or drag him away from Irving just so he would stop psuhing him. eto pa, Irving is bigger than Eupsher but Irving is scared of Eupsher because he pushes Irving all the time. so, eto na nga yung concern ko and then i tell Eupsher's mom and Eupsher's mom gets all defensive about it and says that Eupsher is just a baby and he is such a charming boy with great personality. i wasn't even saying anything bad about Eupsher! i just told her that he's been pushing Irving a lot lately and i just thought she might want to know, in case it becomes a bigger problem later on, at least she already has an idea since i told her already. i thought naman she was fine with it. and then kanina, Eupsher's grandma suddenly starts saying that Eupsher's momwas so upset about what i said and they felt i was just picking on Eupsher and was talking about how there are too many black people in the world for me to be putting Eupsher down. and i wasn't even there to defend myself! she was trying to make it seem i was being racist pa! grrr! crazy b***h talaga yun! none of the teachers like that grandma because she keeps on coming to the school and just sitting in the room, watching Eupsher as if we're treating him bad or something. anyways, so after what Eupsher's grandma said i got worried na that the mom might have taken it the wrong way. so i apologized to her this afternoon if i offended her or made her upset about my comment. i told her that i just told her about her son just so she'd know what's happening to him. i didn't mean anything bad about it. but i didn't apologize for telling her that Eupsher was pushing everybody because it was the truth and every teacher in the room knew about it.

incident #3: my a**hole boss told me that i wasn't performing as well as they would like as a lead teacher. after he said that i was asking him in what way was i not doing my job right and he couldn't give me a specific reason and just repeated that i need to exhibit more leadership skills. how the hell would i know what to improve when he can't even tell me specifically what i'm doing wrong?! a**hole talaga! i told a co-teacher what he said and my co-teacher said that just so i won't get a good evaluation and not get a raise. grr! kung hindi ko lang talaga siya kailangan for my papers here- parang ayoko na! tiis lang talaga! sigh...

i hope the rest of the week gets better. please God.

guys, sorry for all the curse words. i've just been having a bad 1/2 week.

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on a good note: my mom, Meann and Nate are coming to the US tomorrow! i'm excited!

an embarassing incident

2007-03-13T17:20:00.000-04:00

so i was at the mall yesterday, applying for a cellphone line and the guy working at the store was asking me for my personal information and when he commented me about my age, saying that i didn't look like i was 22 already i looked at him strangely and corrected him. i told him i was already 23. he then gave me a strange look back and said that no, i was 22. of course, stupid me, wholeheartedly believing that i was 23 told him to do his math. and then i thought about it and realized that- wow! i was 22 still!

how stupid could i be to forget my age?! i really thought i was 23! i've been telling my co-teachers that i was 23 and i even wrote it in here! when i told the people i worked with what had happened, they all laughed at me and said that i was too young to be forgetting about my age. i don't know what made me think i was 23 already but i really felt stupid. i'm still kind of perplexed how this happened. oh well. that's life.

first entry

2007-03-11T16:42:00.000-04:00

i am a nerd. i've always known it but it's only know that i'm starting to realize how much. i'm pretty sure there are more people out there who are "nerdier" (is there such a word??!!) than me but i think i'm really a nerd.

you might be thinking how i suddenly came up to this conclusion. well, i was watching tv today and as i was surfing through channels i came upon this old movie, The Towering Inferno. title pa lang old school na yung movie and it is pretty old kasi it's from 1978 pa. just a background of it, it's basically the story of people who get trapped in a really really tall building after it cathes fire hence the title. Anyways, any normal 23 (almost 24)-year old girl would probably have continued on looking for something to watch but not me. i actually stayed and watched the whole movie- and i was really into it, naiiyak pa ako at some parts. that was proof # 1 of the depth of my nerdiness. the next proof was that i actually knew the actors of the movie (paul newman and steve mcqueen) and i thought they were hot. i mean, these guys are waaay older than i am. heck, they're old enough to be my lolos and i know steve mcqueen is dead already.

i love old things-movies, music, books. heck, even old people (well, old-er guys anyway..paging richard gere...hehehehe). even before, i have always been interested with the past. i love old movies. i love the Beatles. i think they are the greatest band in the whole wide world. i even used to watch their black and white performances on channel 5 when i was 9. i used to love history when i was in school -even now. years before, i would spend my free time reading my mom's old encyclopedias circa 1960s. i won't even pretend to have absorbed all the facts that were in those encyclopedia because i am no promil kid (paging Shaira whatever-her-last-name-is). i just liked reading them because- i'm not really sure. i think part of the appeal was how the encyclopedia looked and smelled. its pages were yellow (because it was so old) and it smelled well, old (because it is old). ang labo ba? i don't know. basta reading those encyclopedias was fun for me. how much of a nerd could i be?

man, parang nakakahiya na toh pero wala eh, that's who i am. that's how i am.

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as i said (wrote) already, i love old movies (kinda obvious with my blog address)- as in even black and white ones. i remember when i was 10 or 11, pinapagalitan pa ako ng dad ko for watching old sampaguita pictures- sampaguita pictures! nerd na nerd talaga. bakit daw ako nagtiyatiyaga manood ng movies that were older than i was. as i got older i just got more interested in old movies. buti na lng may channel 31 dati that showed old american movies kaya i got to know and watch even more movies. i watched audrey hepburn (and fell in love with her!), katherine hepburn (no relation to audrey hepburn), humphrey bogart (i like him pero i could never understand why women wanted him), james stewart and gregory peck (always the nice guys), robert redford (i heart him! i don't care if he's old and wrinkly! if i ever see him kikiligin pa din ako!), barbra streisand (she's great! i don't care if she's a diva. in my opinion, she has every right to be. )- and i absolutely loved them!

i couldn't explain my fascination with those movies then. i still can't explain it now. maybe i'm just an old soul or a romantic. basta all i know is give me an audrey hepburn film anytime and i'll be happy.