10.20.2010

i love farmer's plaza!

back from my first trip abroad with alec and van. nalula ako sa hongkong; i appreciated the sights and the tastes the city offered us during our five-day stay there. the wanton dumpling i tried at the SM food court equivalent in their Gateway Mall in Kowloon harbor is particularly good, and my curiosity had very well had its share of ample serving, what with the temple street night market just one block away from the hotel where we were billeted. but it also made me realize how well we have lagged behind as a country. the interior of train stations are much like many of our posh local malls here. and don't bother even thinking of farmers mall in cubao making that list, cuz for that i will not speak to you for months, nor dare utter your name even in hush-hush conversations with the closests of my confidants. LOL. the trip afforded me pleasure, but also opened my eyes that as a country, we have a lot of catching up to do. five days flew fast, like hunters competing for a fresh kill; and after screaming like crazy in disney's haunted hotel and staring wide eyed at those lovely sea creatures wading at the ocean park's many aquariums, i am finally back to reality, and with Hongkong pictures to last a lifetime, LOL.

10.10.2010

zombie!

no sleep last night. i dunno what came over me, that drove me on a read-athon all the way till the wee hours of the morning. i can't easily point my guilty fingers to the lord of the rings, although i must say that tolkien's writing is way too delicious for my starving literary stomach. the last time i had a serious reading fit was when i was still in good ole UP, during my anne rice phase that ended when i started work some eight years ago. the years that followed were years of intense social beefing-up and the physicality of those years rocketed sky-high, just way off the grid if ya ask me; but now it seems the geeky kid has resurrected from the depths and just wants to wreak havoc on my schedule like a rampaging beast. i mean, halleur, i have work to do, and that work demands me to be on my desk at exactly eight in the morning. a four in the morning read-athon finish and an eight o'clock work doesn't exactly carve what one might call a healthy lifestyle. ugh.

4.12.2010

the bumpiest, the swerviest

After a month or so of absence, i finally am able to write again. And guess where i am writing this entry, my dear reader? Where else but on a bus! Hehehe. Yes, on a bus. I’m on a bus, at the farthest end—the bumpiest, the swerviest (hehehe. pardon the word, i don’t know if it even exists at all. It seems my long absence from the blogging world has caused me to get a bit rusty with my command of the English language) part that seems to get better and better with every sentence i am turning. The road thinks he’s gonna beat me to it, and i’m soon to get tired of this attempt to update you. but nope. I’m not surrendering. Nuh-uh. Not one bit. Swerves and bumps be damned!

So. A month! A lot has happened, i don’t even know where to begin! Well lets start with my passions. I’m still as passionate and in love with photography as the day i first clicked my first click. I’ve already a growing collection which, a month ago, had been in dire need of organizing. If not for the week-long holy week vacation that was made possible by the generosity of our lolo johnny, i wouldn’t have even begun the task of building a solid portfolio from the mess that has been four months of just clicking and clicking and no deleting whatsoever (yes, i kept even the blurriest and crappiest photo i got); now i have 427 strong images that would speak directly of my art, or rather, my eye for art in anything and everything that passes me by, captured with the aid of my trusty cocoy.

Gizmo wise, if cocoy has been solidly turning in brilliant performances with every click, gael it seems these days, i find to be in a very sick condition. He’s been constantly crashing on me during the last two weekends that i’ve been using him. i’m getting a bit worried for him, what with just a year and a half of being with me. i’m thinking of having him reformatted sometime soon, if the problem continues to persist. Good thing i have all my important files backed up already.

We’re already approaching the sctex-nlex intersection by this time, and its already dark. There has been some sun in the sky when i started this entry, and now the harsh halogen lights of the sctex are in full blast. Tomorrow's gonna be the start of another work week, which i kinda dread, what with the pile of work waiting for me when i arrive. The surge of new laws and issuances have been in full blast since the middle of last year, that in retrospect its a miracle that i lasted this long, in being able to somehow keep up with all the activities needed to process a single law or issuance. Ang sisipag naman kasi ng mga boss namin. Hehehe. good thing, the benefits keep pouring in, thanks to our tireless union leaders who see to it that dedicated employees like me (hehehe) get rewarded for all their troubles. LOL. Through the efforts of our union, the management has recently approved a mass upgrading of the filled-up positions, and for the first time in six and a half years, makakatikim ako ng promotion, hehe.

This afternoon i posted at facebook a picture of me taken sometime in 2005. That was the year of endless hairgels, when i was trying too hard to look adorable and gwapo like the artista’s that time. Richard guttierez was the toast of GMA that year, doing one primetime show after another, a streak that will continue up to the present. dennis trillio was a fairly new discovery back then, but was a serious threat to richard’s career that bisaya, as have been reported in some gossip shows, had to take measures to ensure that dennis does not eclipse richard’s star. Both sport hairdos spruced up with the magic of hairgels. At dahil feeling matinee idol din ako, hindi ako nagpatalo. Nagtaas din ako ng buhok ko. hehehe. it amused me to think that i was so vain that time. going to my derma, going to the gym, and spending lots on hairgel tubes just to keep that youthful glow. nowadays i’m way past that Richard guttierez phase. I lead a more relaxed life, no longer worrying of not arriving on time at the gym and missing my fitness first classes ; or fretting over the traffic that kept me away my precious treadmill time. i still do yoga, but not in a class. I still run but not on a mill. I grow my hair long, and i feel like i’m jun pyo’s long lost brother. LOL.

Toll booth na. My stint on the road is nearing its end. I don’t know when the next entry’s gonna be, but i sure do hope that when i write my next entry, wala na ako sa likod ng bus. Kahilo, ampotah. Ciao.

3.02.2010

ho-hum.

i rarely post entries these days. if asked, i would usually reason out that i busy myself with other things. photography. yoga. my mini-novella. stuff. but truth is--and this, i've trouble admitting--i've simply lost interest, chronicling the mundane. the wonderful. the magical. the earth-shattering. stuff that make my world go round. like a poetry-reading session i recently attended. or those magical late-afternoon photowalks i had, going around guadalupe with eyvicat. its not that i lost interest in the things that make my world go round. i just got tired writing about them. i don't know if its just a phase. or something that would bury the greenbackseat six feet under. i rarely visit and comment on my virtual playground too--blogs that caught my fancy when the backseat was in its heydays. gosh, what gloomy talk this is turning out to be. i talk as if the backseat will really close. i don't really know what's come over me to write about this, or have the gall to even think about this.

if you'd care to even analyze me, i've the tendency to write on my blog during my most stressed-out episodes. or when i'm too inspired and overflowing with creative and literary ideas. given that my mini-novella's about to end, my life struggles at a stand-still--the ugly sick pig episode ending happily--and no idea for new poems or another novella has sprung out from my mangy mind yet, i suspect this phase will extend indefinitely. and yes, i'm heartily living the life i could only have dreamed of when i was in college. too content perhaps to even write about the little sparks that illuminate the daily gentle life.

oh, on a lighter note, i will be with friends old and new, at boracay this saturday. its my second time to strut the gentle stuff in this lovely island. i hope it would be a much more pleasant experience than my first one back in 2007, when i was down with terrible fever and unfortunately plagued with a bloated face.

ciao. gentle signing off.

1.24.2010

praktis ako ng praktis!

Most of the time I feel like that kid in the lucky me commercial. The crybaby who said to his mom with tears staining his chubby cheeks “praktis naman ako ng praktis”, when he learned he didn’t make it in the tryouts. Well, I haven't really been practicing, in the past two months. Actually I’ve been in hibernation, so to speak, when it comes to the matter of regular exercise; so I have no right to compare myself to the kid. But I share his frustration. Mine’s been accumulated over the years, as I tried so hard to maintain a slim figure through diet and exercise, afraid of going back to my old form—that fat kid everybody loves to squeeze because he’s so squishy-soft, but low in self-esteem coz he’s physically different from all the normal-looking kids around him. But yes, as the past entries lamented, I’ve been letting my guard down. I’m still far from that picture that I loathe looking at, but I will not wait for the time when reality meets history. In the last four days, I’ve been trying to go back to yoga. My sessions have been itty-bitty ones, not the full-length sessions I used to do. Small steps, but steps nonetheless. I’ve my exercise bag with me now, so that after office I could go back to working the treadmill at the gym. As I said in my previous entry, no weights first. I just want to feel the regularity of exercise coming back to my system. Yes, it’s me again back to “praktis ng praktis”, lets just hope I get to see some results in due time. Sabi nga ng nanay sa commercial, “tomorrow is another day”.

1.22.2010

your one minute gentle

nahihilo ako. kelangan ko na talagang magbawas ng kain. ang hirap naman kasing magpigil. kakakain ko lang sa chowking ha--sulusyon ko sa hilo. haay.

i'm discovering the joys of stop-motion animated movies once again. thanks, coraline! napadaan tuloy ako sa friendly neighborhood muslim vendor, and bought an 8-in-1 disc movie collection. marathon ito mamaya.

fuck, napurga ako sa commercials ng mga pulitiko sa bus kahapon. kanina din ulit, kasi maghapong bukas ang tv sa bahay. one could tell malapit na talaga ang election. ang kaisa-isang commercial to make my day e yung commercial ng lucky me about a boy na praktis ng praktis pero di pumasa sa tryout. hehehe, kulit.

tumambling ako sa usapan kanina nung mga kapwa ko nag-aantay na tawagin ang number ng bank teller. apat daw ang thesis nya. hello, buhay ka pa. pinagchismisan din nila yung mga batchmates nilang nakikita nila sa facebook. may koment si ateng bangka sa lahat ng mabanggit na pangalan. sobrang taba. sobrang payat. mukha nang matanda. hindi na nya babalikan yung isa--napagsawaan na daw nya. napalingon ako. hello ate ang ganda mo.

1.20.2010

sunog sa kabilang kalye

Maaga akong nagising, mag-aalas singko pa lang ng madaling araw kanina. Ginising ako ng landlady ko. May sunog daw sa kabilang kanto. Naglabasan din yung ibang mga nagrerent para silipin ang kaguluhan sa kalsada. Fire-out naman na nung lumabas kami at naki-usi—usok na lang ang natatanaw namin coming from the roof of houses. Buti na lang mabilis mag-respond ang mga bumbero namin. The last thing i want to do is to haul my things outside the street at magtatakbo palayo sa nasusunog na unit ko. hehehe. wa-poise.

So ayun, balik na kami sa kanya kanyang unit. Got to meet two renters na nun ko din lang nakita, and malamang yun na rin ang last na pagkikita namin. May kanya-kanyang mundo dito, most of the renters here work at call centers, and malamang yung iba kakarating pa lang from work, nag-reready matulog. Yung iba naman have day jobs like me, and malamang papagising na din to prepare for work. Ako, well nakaleave ako at pauwi naman ng province later, hehe. Since medyo mahaba na din ang tulog ko, i took advantage of having rested my body quite sufficiently, to do something i haven’t done in a while. Since my operation, i had zero physical activity relating to exercise so i tried my left wrist for the first time in nearly two months, if it can already withstand the pressures of chaturanga dandasana. Ok naman, nakaka-balance naman ako with the yoga push up position pero i notice that said wrist and arm kinda tremble with my weight when i lean forward, getting to the full pose. Yes, the operation weakened my wrist. Not the one to easily give up, i pushed myself to meeting the 14 repetitions of a full sun salute cycle i set myself to do on the outset. Natapos ko naman. Yan, puro sun salute muna in the next three days or so, just so masanay ulit katawan ko with exercise. Next week i’ll be including treadmill na, kahit pakonti-konti. Lifting weights will have to wait a little longer. Kung sa body weight nga lang sa yoga, nanginginig na ako, how much more with actual weights? Gudlak.

After that, i got to editing some pictures still in my sd card. Gotta remind myself to buy a reserve card; grabe, in just two months of shooting with cocoy (my Nikon dslr) napuno ko na kaagad yung freebie na sd card, hehe. Pwede na ko umuwi after typing this, actually, pero may bilin pa si geloy, and that anime shop doesn’t open til 12 noon. So i guess, i can still upload some pictures for flickr, and go to the fort to buy cupcakes at sonja’s. Shet, antakaw ko. haha! Hindi kaya!! Gusto ko lang naman patikman si ate, di pa kasi nya natitikman yun. Layo kasi ng the fort kung sasadyain ko straight from work in the evening tapos byahe na din kaagad ako pa-probinsya.. e anong oras na kaya ako makakarating non, no?!

1.11.2010

of ugly sick pig and meat falling off the bone

Go on, sear me a beauty
That’s it—tender, falling off the bone
That one sure looks tempting enough;
Succulent, til the last drop
that’s bound to glaze my lips, wet my tongue
Stoke my hunger for more
As you stoke that fire to a roaring splendor


I intended to post this one over at my poetry site but i was never really comfortable with it to begin with. I honestly think its crap. It must be that i’m still not over with the holiday bug—all those delicious food, haha! Well it just goes to show that gluttony and poetry do not mix very well.

My office pc is finally working—was just delivered today. Now i can finally go back to REAL work. I hope it doesn’t bog down on me again. Hah! So much precious data.. can’t afford to lose a single one.

Anyways, i’t gonna be a real quickie.. its nearly seven in the evening; in a short while the floodway will be teeming with schools of fish all wanting to be out. But this has just to get through : the ugly sick pig incident has finally reached a satisfying ending. Its a hard battle, but i ended victorious. All the hard work has finally paid off, thanks to the people who rallied behind my cause. The ugly sick pig has fallen to the ground. And i couldn’t be anymore happier.