Bisaya Bloggers

A month ago, we spent 4 days in Cebu and our 9-month old Andi finally experienced her first airplane ride. My wife and I had apprehensions on how she'll respond to the sudden rise and fall in altitude because from her elevator rides, she really gets fidgety when the ...

why are fear and insecurity getting ahead of me? I was supposed to go out alone last night. Maybe have a beer in a dance bar or somewhere. I've first planned to go to Alchemy. I even planned what to wear.

But last night, I realized how much of a coward I am. I can't go alone. My body is just refusing to go and get ready. So I ended up sleeping the night away. If I could only hit myself... I don't know what happened to my plan of "rewarding myself".

Today, I'm planning to go to the mall. I've already thought of bringing my 2 pairs of shoes to Mr. Quickie to have them repaired. Then, probably it would be good to watch Transformers. I also have to do my grocery. I already ran out of shampoo and deodorant. Then I've thought of having a bottle of beer in Gerry's Grill.

Plans, plans, plans... But can I do them? -Alone. I am a coward. I know, I'd end up turning round and round in Market Market because I can't decide where to go or what to do.

Cai included me in her list of newcomers for the Alexa train (thanks Cai!), so here’s my own post about it. Sorry I’ve made this quite late due to my recent blog hiatus. This is a way to increase our Alexa rankings with the ‘redirect.alexa.com/redirect?’ inserted in the blog url. According to Carl Ocab, “The idea is to make a list of bloggers with an Alexa redirect link to their blog. We all know that if you go to a site through an Alexa redirect, the visit is recorded by Alexa and it adds to your rankings!”

~Start Copying Here~

Alexa Redirect Train by Carl Ocab

Rules:

1. Put anything you like above this list – Chit Chat, talkies, introduce what this is. Something like that
2. Start copying on the “~Start Copying Here~” and copy all the things listed without removing the links (Of course, the train would be no use without those links)
3. Move all the sites labeled “Newcomers” to the list labeled “Oldies”
4. Add 5 sites that you want to include in the train and make their link like this: http://redirect.alexa.com/redirect?www.example.com then invite them to join the train.
5. Visit all the listed sites! (That’s not much work! Remember, if you plant good seeds they will also grow good) and look at your high Alexa ranking next week!

Newcomers:
Essential tidbits
Rainydazeee
Techxplore
Simple Pleasures
Cmoud

I'm proud to tell you all that, while I was away, I was making something out of my life.

June 15, 9:00 PM. I attended the informal orientation for Rock Ed volunteers at the Transcend Bar of Ponce Suites. Gang Badoy (one-half of the hosts of Rock Ed Radio, the other one being the much-worshipped Lourd de Veyra) was there, and so was Tado. Pepe Diokno (of Inquirer's Super!) and filmmaker Kidlat de Guia were also in attendance, although the only ones who talked during the orientation were Gang and Tado.

On the other side, the volunteers were made up of me, Ate Ayyi (Rock Ed's Coordinator for Mindanao), a brother and sister pair from USP whose names escape me, this other mountain-climbing dude whose name, again, escapes me, and a group of black-shirted punks. There were others, too, but they came much later so their names also went inside my brain's trash bin. One of them was this lawyer-slash-musician who reminds me of Emily the Strange. All in all, there were only about a dozen of us, which surprised me, considering that I sent messages of invitation to almost all the names in my phone's inbox. Sigh. But Gang was appreciative enough of the crowd that came, however small we were. She thinks it's much better to start with a lean-and-mean core group of volunteers that can deliver, as opposed to a whole battalion that can't commit.

..

...

*clears throat*

...

I'm not really one to elaborate. And I really don't feel like making an impassioned piece on how Gang's words moved me to action. All I want to tell you all is this: I can do something. We all can. We don't need to do anything grand. For starters, we can just work with what we have. That's how RockEd started. Simple.

Right. Now let me get to the part where I ask for your help.

Please help.

This is a good article was really struck with what she said
because I do feel like I'm starting to be a witch especially
now that Joshwa is on vacation.

Witch mother
BREATHING SPACE By Panjee Tapales
Sunday, July 1, 2007
Mama, are you a witch?” my little one asks. He has developed a fascination for witches that is reaching an amusing peak. Yes, I always answer, even if I know that certain people — and I won’t mention names — are itching to replace the first letter of that word with, uh, something else. “Bad or good?” he wants to know. That he needs to ask doesn’t bode well for me, but I insist on finding comfort in this faint display of doubt.

I’ve always had a thing for witches and people have referred to my mother, sisters and I as a coven, more for our razor-sharp intuition and extrasensory perception (dulled only, though repeatedly, by love) than any actual witch-like traits, i.e., warts, black robes, hooked noses, black, bubbling cauldrons… you get the picture. So, I actually delight in my own child trying to verify my sterling witch roots. Yes, I am a witch, inherently good until I became a mother and the hormones became crazily more female. Well, okay, it isn’t just hormones. It’s mostly fatigue, too, brought by the daily demands of hands-on, conscious motherhood.

There are days when equanimity escapes me and every ounce and drop of patience along with it. It happens, especially if mommies don’t get enough sleep, thanks to several unwelcome nocturnal visits from their children. It also happens when, already robbed of sleep, mommies are rudely awakened by pre-dawn whining, especially since rules are very clear about that tone of voice, that early in the morning. My boys have been told, even shown, that whining is the vocal equivalent of dragging a rake through my innards, but even that rather evocative visual flies out the window once they have decided to have a go at it. These are a few examples of what brings out my inner traditional witch and when that happens, even the crazy hormone-challenged woman in me looks like Mother Teresa. Yes, there are days everything rushes to the surface and I simply let it fly: big eyes, bellowing angry voice, slamming, banging. Rage.

But, oh, the guilt. The guilt.

Just this week a brief exchange with some mommies over our “bad behavior” proved that every mother 1) carries too much guilt; 2) does her best to be warm, gentle, kind and loving always; 3) inevitably fails at number 2 and finds herself raging, yelling, screaming, threatening and generally becoming a bad witch; and then 4) repeatedly opens her baggage to accommodate more of number 1. We also own too many books about how to be better mothers where we are told how to control our tempers, to always use the “I” voice, treat our children with respect, kindness, warmth… you name it, we’ve read it, tried it, failed at it and hated ourselves for it. Such is the emotional drama of real moms everywhere.

During this mommy-beating session, I did share that children needed to see their parents being wicked — not every day, but they do. No, I didn’t make it up. One of our Waldorf mentors sent me a very short paragraph written by author, Dr. Till Bastian, aptly entitled “Children need wicked parents.” In it he shares that children need to know how far they can go because they do go astray when they have no limitations and boundaries. So he suggests we dare to be “wicked” sometimes, make unpopular decisions, because these belong to the hard side of education. Children who have never experienced such a boundary cannot find their foothold on life.

Of course I know that ranting and raving are not the best expressions of boundary, but I am also very slowly learning to accept that part of me as real. It needs taming and transformation, but there it is. It is the part of me that arrives when I reach my own boundary. I have an amazing capacity to be stretched, then stretched some more when other people have long since walked out, but when I arrive at the boundary, I am there with bells and whistles: WITCH ON WHEELS. There is no turning back. This is a boundary my children know and respect though I am adding less volatile versions to my growing repertoire.

During an endless bickering session between my boys that would not die no matter what, that continued in the car as we got in to run an errand, I decided I had reached my limit. I very calmly asked for the car to stop so I could leave. I wasn’t angry at that point and quite beyond exasperation. I was just tired of it all. So I thought it best for them to run the errand, bickering all they wanted, while I escaped into my quiet home for a good half hour of peace. The car stopped, I said goodbye, opened the door and left. No drama. Later on I was told that the children were seriously silent the whole trip. Now if I could always be that calm.

The very first time I lost it with a child, I called his teacher looking for solace, asking what I might do to take it all back. She gently reminded me that you couldn’t take these things back (thereby causing my heart to hemorrhage) but that if I worked on myself and tried to overcome and transform such weaknesses, the child would also feel my striving. Human striving is a lesson of love that the child imbibes. So we strive.

Alas, it is a lifelong process. Every mother will still have her bad days, despite all her efforts, but it helps to know that we are not alone and as long as we keep striving, keeping up the fervent pleas to the heavens to help us be better today, tomorrow, the day after, reading all those good parenting books and trying out every little tip, counting beyond 10, taking deep breaths and then switching to Lamaze breathing because, what the hell, it might work, locking ourselves in the bedroom just so we can calm down and get it together, doing all this every day — then I’m sure all is not lost.

At a bookstore a year or so ago, a dear friend looked at me and said, “Look what my son asked me to buy for him.” I looked at the heavy book in her hand entitled, Son of a Witch. We had to laugh. It was clear what that made us.

“Mama, are you a witch?” Yes, I am. “Good or bad?” he continues. Like all difficult questions, this one begs to be thrown back. So I do. “What do you think?” I always ask. “Good!” he has unfailingly replied. As long as I’m getting that and my son still sees the good in my witch, I know I’m still being a good enough mother. I am still mother-woman-witch — my home trinity. I can’t be that bad.

Mothers today need to open their hearts and forgive themselves because being a good enough mom is already quite a feat. True and present parenting is a tough job (and don’t let any CEO bully you into thinking otherwise). We have to learn to stop beating ourselves senseless because nobody else will be kind to us about our weaknesses. That’s also part of being a mom. We bathe all the wounds, including our own because that’s just the way it is. So mommy witches, open your hearts and let yourselves in. You are not alone. We are all here rooting for you. We see right into your love and goodness. All will be well.

While I have had many looks on the subject of Microfinance over these many years, it might be apropos to give it that old college try of laying out all the possible unvarnished results, both pro and con, on the subject. Especially given the wide acclaim and commendable laurels now heaped upon it by the global community, capped recently by the Nobel Peace prize choice of the father of the movement, Mohammad Yunus.

Now since global attention has been riveted to it, promises of billions of dollars more have been generated and gathered for its many ambitious plans. The august United Nations has lent its own somewhat tarnished credibility by posturing a more aggressive stance against the worsening global poverty and promising to promote microfinance activities. In the process, bringing in hardy support from the private sector, ranging from an unlikely ally in the person of a George Soros and from the usual overnight billionaires, the likely benefactors of the tech era; and yes, even internationally-revered banking institutions like Citigroup and Deutsche Bank have joined in . Thus, to date billions of dollars have been marshaled around the globe to fund various microfinance projects from an array of institutions all united under the umbrella of microfinance institutions (MFI).

So, is global poverty on its way to a museum as Mr. Yunus forecasted for Bangladesh?

First, some sobering generalizations before delving into the particulars.

1. Is poverty, whether globally, country-wide, or even community-wide, completely eradicable? The realistic answer would be NO. Even the most prosperous country in the globe, the US, unabashedly declares its own poverty rate at double digits, 10-12% of total population. So imagine how much truly more in countries like China, India, and countries in continental Africa? Did not even our Judeo-Christian master, Jesus Christ, admit that “the poor will always be with you”? Thus, even granting the best of human conditions, poverty will continue to stare mankind in the face in its many ugly manifestations The best that can be done is to “alleviate” it as much as is humanly possible.

2. Microfinance is not the one singular wooden peg that when applied can nail global poverty to its coffin, rather think about it as one of many nails applied to a cage to keep pernicious poverty at bay and not allow it to rampage through entire communities or countries.


3. Somehow like any newly emerging solution Microfinance has to evolve into as many manifestations as may be required by unique sets of circumstances prevailing through the very diverse regions of our geography.

Once our diffused perceptions about Microfinance get grounded on the harsh realities detailed above, then maybe we can view and use it in manners befitting our reasonable expectations of it.

But first, the escalating and stark presence of poverty globally could no longer be ignored in the august chambers of international bodies and even in the ornately-adorned corporate boardrooms. These people knew that some things urgent had to be done to address it, or even the promised equalizing benefits of globalization will fall to naught.

And the microfinance movement was germinated to address that huge chasm that forever alienated the poor from having access to credit and resources that would allow them to alleviate their dire conditions. The movement gathered steam and now was become a world-wide movement, supported and participated by a myriad of organizations most with the clout to gather and generate billions of dollars of resources.

And microfinance, or microcredit, or micro loans, have become household names empowering countless numbers of the poor to get control of their miserable lives and help themselves with the resources now available to them.

But our No. 1 assumption above tutors us that the “poor will always be with us”, we can only alleviate conditions from among their numbers. Thus, we are now shown that by and large microfinance has helped those primarily above the poverty line, rather than those in the lowest rungs. And we can find the easy answer within our very own human nature. Unfortunately, not many of us are born or were designed to be entrepreneurs, to use tools (resources and skills) to catapult ourselves way beyond subsistence levels. Many of us are simply good at being good industrious employees or followers. Enterprising capitalists will have to show us how to optimize our earning capabilities and productivity. And also, with very meager resources, the poor’s capabilities to take risks are severely restricted, inherent business risks in economic activities that could bring better results.

In its earnest efforts to operate microfinance as a “market-based” business, we are finding out that at times interest rates charges are higher than what other more informal sources like moneylenders charge. Thus, in effect those microcredit clients are not getting optimum impact from productive endeavors they are engaged in. Thus, many continue to wallow in the mire of subsistence levels.

Therefore standing alone microfinance cannot hope to tackle the formidable task of property alleviation, regardless of the ardor and/or resources ploughed to it.

A three-pronged approach is recommended, adding big business and the government into the mix.

We have learned that markets alone, however free and equitable, cannot stand the rigid tests required for an effective solution to global poverty. Labor-intensive Big Business with its acquired capabilities to generate good-paying jobs, their being able to avail of economies of large scale, their deep pockets to afford them to use new and leading technologies, and very importantly, their abilities to improve individual workers’ productivity opening the avenue for them to earn more from their labors and thus improve their collective lives, are a good instrument for poverty alleviation. Entrepreneurs should be goaded and/or encouraged to spread their reaches to those areas in dire need. And in an imperfect world of finite resources, many instances may require that elusive capital be devoted to endeavors generating more jobs rather than to nobler endeavors such as microfinance activities

And for their part, governments should undergrid free markets with serious and earnest support, so as to become vibrant and effective participants in bringing about change. For there are certain common-good activities that governments are tasked to perform as primary responsibilities for their very existence, monopolistic public services that should form the basic infrastructure from whose level property alleviation should start from. Such basic services as public water, farm-to-market roads, public power and energy, public waste disposal, and yes, public health care.

Right now situations abound where even if the poor have considerably improved their lot and yet they still are unable to avail of some of the most basic of public services such as good potable water and sanitary waste disposal systems.

Thus, this irony. Where one capital city in South Asia boasts of an astronomical increase in the number of cell phones owned by the residents, and yet, 50% of them defecate in public because they have no toilets.

How sad, indeed.


Related reading.

"so, go ahead emo boy, let those white asses enslave you for some time. when you're rich and lifeless, buy a life. ;o)"

i cant...

now vera's bugging me why cant i
she's bugging me who

yet she doesnt know
she has a guess

and i say she aint right...

my birthday passed... didnt even see you...
didnt even come to me...

someone came all right...
not you...

i hope someone got to you
told you to care
told you to feel

cuz you didnt

now i think you do
even when i dont see you

damn... bug in my shirt
dogs all over the place

bark

I really like my penmanship here. It's loose and flows freely. It does not slant too much and the words kinda float in between the lines. I usually take as most of the space but this is also college ruled paper, so the spaces are not that big.





You can see how I cross out mistakes. And how I add another word before the margin. :) I use fine black ink, the finer the better. This one's from Japan.

****
This is in response to an old (2005!) post by Ate Pen. Before, I had no scanner nor camera. I don't think my handwriting changed much since then. :)

If you think the written words are familiar, you might have read them a couple of posts back, in Wanderlust: My Parents' Legacy.

Bayanihan SEO Contest was supposed to be launched last June 12 to felt great to be Pinoy as it celebrates Philippine Indendence Day. But it was now moved and announced today Sunday, July 1, 2007 due to some reason i dont know *heh*. I recieved Marc message in Yahoo Messenger just late this afternoon informing [...]

On early morning Friday, I was naked. How it all happened, I am about to narrate now. No, I did not suddenly become a pervert and enrolled in a shirtless and pantless club, like they have in the states. But it was one morning—about nine o’ clock in the ...

I finally arrived in Bandung after an eight hour train ride from Yogyakarta. If Yogya is the cradle of Javanese culture, Bandung is said to be the cradle of Sundanese culture. The weather was a bit cooler since Indonesia's fourth largest city is 2,520 feet above sea level. And because it's closer to the equator, average temperatures don't vary much from a low of 22.9 C in July to a high of 24.2 C in May. The city is known for its large collection of Dutch colonial and tropical Art Deco structures. And thus, I decided to take a walk around Bandung even just for a few hours to check them out.

So from the Bandung Train Station, itself an Art Deco structure, I walked towards Jalan Asia Afrika where many of the buildings could be found. Since it was still early, I waited at the steps of the Gedung Merdeka for the Museum of the Asian-African Conference to open.

The museum chronicles the events of the 1955 conference which has been Bandung's claim to fame. Twenty-nine young (and old) nations from Asia and Africa met in order to build solidarity with the continuous fall of colonialism. I was able to see the hall where the conference was held. There are two rows of flags, the first with those of the 29 countries which participated in the 1955 conference; and the second, the countries of Asia and Africa during the 50th anniversary in 2005, obviously a much larger group since most countries in the region gained their independence after 1955. One thing it chronicled as well was the change in the blue field of the Philippine flag which was much lighter in 1955.

Close to the Gedung Merdeka is another Art Deco gem of Bandung, the Savoy Homann Hotel, its new design completed in 1938.

After about four hours in Bandung, I decided to make my way back to the train station for my trip back to Jakarta. I had been told that the views along the way would be refreshing. And I was not disappointed. They also had rice terraces. And the thing I liked about the rice terraces there was the houses blended well with their surroundings since they all had clay tile roofs. I hope they cover the galvanized iron roofs in Banaue and other Cordillera towns with cogon grass or nipa so that they don't look like eyesores amidst our grander and more majestic rice terraces.

Bandung is also known for its shopping. But I didn't get a chance to shop. Maybe next time. It's best if you shop with friends and many locals say Bandung is a group destination. And if you're wondering about the title, "Halo-halo Bandung" is a popular revolutionary song which was inspired by the 1946 Bandung Lautan Api (Bandung Sea of Fire) where the residents and combatants, as a sign of defiance to the Dutch who demanded the surrender of the Indonesians, deliberately burned the southern part of the city. More photos in Multiply.

Technorati Tags: bandung, west java, indonesia, travel, travel blog, art deco, heritage

Every time I visit a Southeast Asian country, the variety of food choices never fails to amaze me. Indonesia was no exception. And thanks to my SSEAYP friends, I had an unforgettable food adventure that undoubtedly left my palate yearning for more.

On top of that list is the sate ayam or grilled chicken skewers in Jalan Sabang, Jakarta. What makes this dish a winner, given that there are sate or satay is found around the Malay region, is the saos kacang or peanut sauce which tastes like heaven! I also had sate babi or grilled pork skewers in Kelapa Gading, but the accompanying sauce was the regular barbeque sauce we have here in the Philippines.

Of course, there are the nasi or rice dishes. I enjoyed the really sweet nasi gudeg in Yogyakarta. This dish is actually several dishes put together. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I got to visit the kitchen to see it being made. The first component dish, duck eggs are first hard-boiled, then shelled, then re-boiled again with different ingredients and spices until it reaches a dark brown color. Another component is the chicken dish. They were also grating coconuts and chopping some young jackfruit at the back for another dish. There was also a tofu and cow skin dish. The last component was white rice. They prepared large servings beginning the night before for sales the next day.

Nasi liwet is boiled rice with sambal goreng labu siam which is fried labu siam or chayote with chili and coconut milk. The dish is also served with chicken also boiled in coconut milk and a hard-boiled egg. I had this dish in Kelapa Gading and it was quite tasty. I also had ayam goreng (fried chicken) with nasi putih (white rice), lalap (vegetables) and sambal (chili) at a warung in Yogyakarta. They say the chicken is marinated in coconut milk.

The most popular rice dish is nasi goreng which is literally fried rice. The rice is fried in kecap manis or soy sauce and is often accompanied by additional items such as a fried egg, fried chicken, sate or krupuk (fried crackers made of shrimp or vegetables).

Then there are the salads. Gado-gado is a vegetable salad served with a peanut sauce dressing. The vegetables, which may include shredded or chopped green vegetables such as cabbage, cauliflower, green beans, watercress, and bean sprouts; carrots, cucumber, peas and tomatoes, are either served raw or blanched. Sliced boiled potatoes and boiled eggs are sometimes added. This whole mixture is topped with the peanut sauce and krupuk.

Ketoprak is another Indonesian salad which is noodles, tofu, bean sprouts and vegetables topped with peanut sauce and served with krupuk. Then there is the tahu goreng medan which is tofu, bean sprouts, vegetables, topped with peanuts, fried garlic and a sweet soy and chili sauce.

A favorite fruit salad is the rujak. The typical Indonesian fruit rujak consists of slices of assorted tropical fruits such as jambu air (water apple or macopa), pineapple, raw mangoes, bangkoang (jicama or singkamas), cucumber, kedondong (great hog plum or hevi) and raw red ubi jalar (sweet potato). Sometimes Malang variants of green apple, belimbing (star fruit or balimbing), and jeruk bali (grapefruit) are added. But what made this fruit salad really tasty was the peanut sauce. The sweet and spicy-hot bumbu rujak (dressing) is usually made up of water, gula jawa (coconut sugar), asem jawa (tamarind), grinded sauted peanuts, terasi (shrimp paste), salt, and cabe rawit (red chilli). But the one we tried at Plaza Indonesia had rumba, an Acehnese fruit, instead of tamarind to make the sauce sour.

Lumpia semarang is like the regular lumpia we have here. It’s filled with bamboo shoots, dried shrimp (ebi in Indonesian) chicken or prawn. It's named after the capital city of Central Java in Indonesia, Semarang where it was created by Chinese immigrants.

Roti cane, which comes from Aceh, is just like roti canai of Malaysia or roti prata of Singapore. It’s the curry sauce which makes it different since its redder than the others mentioned.

I also had martabak telur sapi, which is thin dough filled with minced beef, garlic and onion, and vegetables, and fried on a griddle until it turns golden brown. In Indonesia, it is served with a sauce made of vinegar and palm sugar. It’s similar to the murtabak in Malaysia.

Pempek, a specialty from Palembang, are large fish balls or fish cakes with an egg inside. They are deep fried and served with a spicy vinegar sauce. It was sold with another dish called tekwan which is pempek with soup if I'm not mistaken. This is a tasty snack.

For dessert, I had es campur, which literally means iced mix. In other words, it’s the Indonesian halo-halo. They put in kelapa muda (young coconut), avocado, cincau, jackfruit, kelapa kopyor (kaong), and tape (fermented cassava). It is then topped with shaved ice, condensed milk and pisang ambon (banana) syrup.

In Kota, we bought cincau from one of the street hawkers. It’s a cold drink of cincau (grass jelly) with ice and pandan syrup. Anyway, that was just the tip of the iceberg when it came to Indonesian dishes. But it kept me busy eating the whole time I was there!

Technorati Tags: indonesia, travel, travel blog, food

I'm going on a blog leave, but just for a couple of days. I would explain why when I come back. In the meantime, here's an experiment (and I'd appreciate your help on this one). There are articles on the DIGG Tipping Point, which is basically the number of "diggs" necesary ...

Matthew 8: 5-17 Gn 18:1-15 / Lk 1:46-55 Lord, I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof; only say the word and my servant will be healed. For I too am a person subject to authority, with soldiers subject to me. (Matthew 8:8-9) What does it take to be Christ’s soldier? Intelligence? Strength? Courage? Honor? No, it just [...]

from where he was, he can’t tell that it was high noon. his blinds covered his windows entirely, leaving just traces of light creeping on the lines under the door. he wakes up with a throbbing sore throat, the worst he ever had. instinct tells him to grab his celfone. he scans through some unread messages. [...]

a couple of weeks ago i wrote an entry about formal themes and how difficult it was for me to compose them because i cant find the right words to describe the place.. well, i found this in my baul of photos. ladies and gentlemen, this is where i spent my summer vacations. if only i [...]

Hooowaaahhhht?!!? Why do I have to always explain things that I shouldn’t in the first place? Enough of telling people around. Screw understanding. This just cements everything that I have come to believe about people and why they should quit telling they know what you feel and they understand. They don’t fucking understand you because they can never fit in your shoe. Bratty? What’s the fucking big deal about it? Bratty is for sissies and elitist dimwits who get what they want at the flick of their fingers. But the world doesn’t work like that man. Perhaps for all you self-deluded pricks and your thinly imagined world of banalities. Not for me and not for all those people who are going through a lot of shit.

Photocredit: Thanks to ka0rg for the caricature

           This is supposed to be Xenia ’s Season Two and when she asked me what season my life series is, I asked back, “Season what?” Season Nth?!! No matter how many seasons I claim, I never tire to complicate my life. Feeling artista, whatelse…             The new job has a lot to do with [...]

"We are a population of desires, and the only thing which holds us all below excess is other people's opinions." That sudden, if subjective, thought lashed lazy reflection into frenzied attention; unfolding the conversation backwards to its birth, a mutual tapestry unrolled from storage, guilty consciences reviewing every wrinkle of blame ...

Finally...I’m home! :) Arrived safe and sound this morning, and finding time to update this blog though still groggy from my trip. It’s good to be back and blogging from the comforts of my room. So I’m still in a vacation mode, and I do hope to snap out of it soon so I could condition my brain back to work mode.

Oh well, how about traveling virtually and dreaming of Hawaii? My cutie sis suggested the place since we could drop by my Auntie L in Maui. I have some idea of how the place is since she often sends us thru snail mail some family photos and a lovely photo calendar of Hawaii’s beautiful scenic spots especially at the Big Island, the largest island in the Hawaiian chain, with its blazing volcanoes, lava deserts, mountains, rainforests, crystal clear waterfalls, meadows, lakes and of course the gorgeous beaches.