still giddy until today

i still have that goofy grin whenever i think about "superman returns." brandon routh was just superbly awesome in that film and drop-dead gorgeous. i am crossing my fingers that this superman film will do extremely well in the box-office (maybe beat spiderman) so that a sequel is guaranteed. i'm looking for superman battling it out with more super-powered beings, after all he is the man of steel. thinking out loud, i think what will really rock as a movie will be "justice league." can you imagine seeing all your superheroes in one film? that will be a blockbuster for sure - i wonder if anybody thought about doing that film. you'll have batman, superman, flash, wonder woman, martian manhunter, green lantern and hawkgirl all at the same time. i hope they do one in the future.

why the world needs a superman

i eagerly watched "superman returns" a while and i have to say there is nothing to not love about the movie. brandon routh, without a doubt, is the most gorgeous superman ever. he was enough reason to see the movie. i hate to admit it but while tom welling (of smallville) is equally gorgeous, i don't think he would have looked as hot as brandon in superman's outfit. what i loved about clark kent in the movie was that he was the same clumsy clark that christopher reeve portrayed during his superman movies. bryan singer's "superman" was awesome - i loved the sensitivity he imparted on this superman and brandon's delivery just makes you adore him. the special effects of the movie was stunning, the action sequences were nicely done. the airplane scene - wow, that was a visual masterpiece. after seeing this film, i guarantee you will love love love brandon routh. i know, cause i love love love him already. i don't really need superman - brandon routh is enough.

"you wrote that the world doesn't need a savior, but everyday i hear the people crying for one."

sojourn : fifth week

i can't believe its already been four weeks since i got here in chandler, arizona. after this week, there's two more weeks left and i'm finally going home. i knew when i signed up for this gig that there was going to be a lot of work involved - and i was dead right. things have been piling up big time and i am already having a hard time managing my asia responsibilities with the projects i am involved with in the US timezone. well, i did ask for more projects so i'm not complaining.

looking back, this trip has really been a wild ride. i've gotten to know more about the people here by hanging out with them at dinner, lunch, drinks, bowling, barbecue's and small get-togethers. people here have been asking me if i would take a one-way transfer to the US and i finally managed to come up with a consistent answer "i'm going to consider it." seems like a really easy decision to make except that if i move here, i move here alone. it means leaving a lot of the people that means a lot to me back in the philippines. i don't think i can do that. and i do love the philippines, graft & corruption & all. but we'll see, i've never been much of a long-term planner ... i take it as it is given the cards at the table. i guess one thing i learned is that life is too short to be planning so far ahead in the future - so i adopted this "live for the moment" mindset nowadays.

the work environment here in the US is kinda laid back, like i can go to the office around 9am and no one will care, or i can even choose to work from home if i don't have meetings at the office. it doesn't mean though that i'm not doing a lot of things cause i do continue my work at the hotel right after dinner. the food though at the cafe do not vary a lot and after a while, you just can't take another bite. so eat out a lot at resto's which serve a big plate = get fat. i haven't weighed myself yet but i'm pretty sure i got fat already.

i'm just waiting for the fourth of july sale. it will definitely be big and i plan on roaming all of the malls during those four days - no sense in wasting a good sale, and my credit card hasn't maxed out yet so its too early to think about how to pay for it.

32 flavors & then some

looking back when i was still in high school, i couldn't wait to grow up cause it seemed back then that grown-ups had all the fun. as years passed by along with those fun & sad times, you realize how quickly time pass by and you suddenly don't feel as young as you used to. yes, i am 32 years old today in the US (yesterday in manila) and i no can no longer lay claim that i am still part of the calendar.

looking back though on the past 31 years of my life, i would say that i have lived a very rich life. i have been blessed with the life experiences that has helped shape me into the person i am today - whether good or bad is a matter of perspective. all i can say is that being 32 today meant 31 years of God waking me up everyday and keeping me safe and healthy. so here are the important people/things in my life that i will eternally be thankful for - God above all, of course.

1. family. my family may not be perfect but they're my family and i love them.
2. jacob. my nephew is God's greatest gift to me & my family.
3. friends. i'm thankful for being blessed with true friends who love & care for me.
4. mcbaby. it has always been you, and it will always be you - no matter what.
5. work. working for intel has helped hone my skills to reach my full potential. viva intel.

maybe being 32 isn't that bad at all? i can still call trixy & ria "ate" so that's a relief.

futbol madness

we can't deny that all eyes are on the ongoing world cup tournament, which like the olympics only happens every 4 years. i never really watched football before maybe in large part to how a bunch of men go back and forth across the field trying to kick a goal in. i kind of thought it was boring - but then again, that was what i thought about the formula 1 racing until i got hooked. the world cup is actually one of the biggest events in sports participated by 32 countries all in all.

i first watched the world cup games to support costa rica since some of the my officemates were original tico's before they moved here in the phoenix. while costa rica lost on the eliminations, my interest in the games prospered. who wouldn't want to watch david beckham, cristiano ronaldo, michael owen, philippe senderos, and kaka battle it out in the field. not only are they blessed with gorgeous good looks, but they can really play futbol. i think what is amazingly fun to see during the games is how much the fans support their teams from donning sometimes ridiculously loud costumes, to face paints, to big hats to anything that can catch attention. yeah, that can be how obsessed the fans can get but they do make great pictures.

what is great about the world cup right now is that i am in the US. i am in the timezone where i can watch the games live (well maybe i'd have to work from the hotel) and cheer for which team i still am trying to figure out.

ultimate atkins

our date for the ultimate atkins diet was thought of a week earlier during our texas roadhouse baby back ribs dinner. gizie scheduled the dinner at fogo e brasa (4909 E Chandler Blvd) around 6pm and i got there sometime around half past six. we started out with a few bites from the salad bar - some mussels, shrimps and crabs. as soon as we turned the sign "green" the meat carvers came one after the other putting slices of an assortment of meat on our plates. we dined on picanha (rumpsteak), alcantra (top sirloin), fraldinha (flank steak), lombo (pork loin), linquica (sausage), ham, chicken wings and frango (turkey wrapped in bacon). the meal came with a variety of sides - farofa, fried bananas, vinagrette, rice and refried beans. i had a bottle of bud light which felt good after devouring all of those meat. it was great the first two rounds of the meat but it was becoming more of an ordeal after - too much meat is really too much. i felt ready to throw up after taking a few bites of the tiramisu i ordered. it was a great atkins experience though - something probably you'd do at least once a year - at $49.

chinese food, red wine & a couple of margarita's

papeco sent a late invitation for dinner and drinks yesterday at pf chang's around 7. up for some chinese food were iris, ben, jessica, papeco, arjun and myself. ben ordered a bottle of red wine (being the french guy that he is) and we all had a taste of it. it was a good partner with the fried shrimp wonton and spicy ribs. papeco and arjun picked the dishes and i have to say they were all very good. we also had two desserts after with one like mini-turons (banana wrapped in lumpia wrapper & fried) with awesome vanilla ice cream & drenched in caramel. the other was a new dessert with soft waferlike rods with chocolate inside - then you dip this in a rich creme brulee sauce & roll-it in a bed of nuts. Ultra yum & a calorific nightmare.

i think what made the night enjoyable was the fact that the people i was with were very fun and friendly people. while iris & i have had our share of work troubles, outside of work she is quite a nice person to hangout with. and ben can be real chatty and funny. papeco & arjun were a riot. jessica was her usual talkative self. we actually finished 3 bottles of red wine, me chugging 4 glasses during the whole pf chang's stay - hahaha! we talked about a lot of things, the work-related where we laughed hardest. we talked about the people at work we didn't really like and how screwed up some of the directions we were getting. i was amazed to hear this from these people and it was actually nice to know that you are not alone in your dilemma. mindy came after dessert and we all laughed a bit and decided to move to kona grill right by chandler fashion mall.

kona grill wasn't packed and we were able to find a good table immediately. papeco ordered margarita's for everyone so we got stuck sipping on it while we continued hanging out. there were stories about papeco & arjun's thailand experience wherein they got a taste of the "thai ger" show - both of them thought it was "tiger" but it actually meant "thai girl." papeco got into more detail of those exploits, some of it not for general reading so i gotta skip that. no lurid details on papeco & arjun - both were good boys. i learned that night that papeco has managed to visit up to 31 countries already and mindy around 24 or something. i thought that was really amazing and wished to myself i could do that someday. i'd love to be able to visit or live in another country - the US, Italy or Greece or wherever. we had another round of margarita's before we decided to call it a night. it was past midnight already that time.

i managed to get to my hotel in one piece and just slumped to the bed cause my head was already swirling that time. i realized i was really whacked from all of the alcohol. i woke up a couple of hours later with a terrible headache so i had to chug 2 advils.

i got up at 6am to do a presentation. headache gone. thank you advil.

que vida la mia - reik

Me despierto en la mañana, para verte pasar,
y tenerte en mi mente por el resto del dia...
Que vida, la mia...
Aun no se tu nombre y ya eres dueña de mi,
y me paso todo el dia imaginando tu risa...
Que vida, la mia...
Nose que hacer, para ser el aire que va a tu alrededor,
y acaricia tu piel...
Solo quiero conversar, solo quiero conocerte,
dame un poco de tu tiempo para convencerte,
Yo solo quiero ser tu amigo, y me muero por salir contigo,
dame una señal, solo dame una mirada,
si tu estas a mi lado, a mi no me importa nada,
ya quiero estar entre tus brazos, y me muero por
probar tus labios, rojos, llenos de ti...
Solo dime que si...

Me desvelo en las noches para pensar en ti,
y si duermo solo sueño con tener tus caricias,
Que vida, la mia...
Tengo todo este amor y solo es para ti,
y yo solo me conformo con mirarte otro dia,
Que vida, la mia...
No se que hacer para ser el aire que va a tu alrededor,
que acaricia tu piel...

Solo quiero conversar, solo quiero conocerte,
dame un poco de tu tiempo para convencerte,
Yo solo quiero ser tu amigo, y me muero por salir contigo,
dame una señal, solo dame una mirada,
si tu estas a mi lado, a mi no me importa nada,
ya quiero estar entre tus brazos, y me muero por
probar tus labios, rojos, llenos de ti...
Solo dime que si...

thanks to trixy for sending me this song from her costa rican lulong days!
peace! mwah! =)

a very long saturday : texas roadhouse (part 2)

in one of the conversations going to sedona, we talked about how much we loved the food at oregano's and at the cheesecake factory that it dawned on gizie & larry to take me to the best ribs in town. texas roadhouse was our last stop after our whole day prescott+sedona tour. it was around 930ish when we got to the restaurant along mesa (1605 S. Stapley, Mesa Az 85204). we got a generous helping of the hot off the oven bread + their signature cinnamon butter. man, the cinnamon butter was divine and pairing it with hot rolls was perfect. we were debating whether we should order the full- or the half-slab of ribs where the price difference was only about 4-5 dollars and we all unanimously agreed to take the full-slab and just ask for a doggie bag if we don't finish it. I got mine with mashed potatoes and baked beans. armed with a 22oz tall mug of bud light, we were all waiting to have a go at those famous ribs.


my full-slab of ribs is shown at the left, it probably doesn't seem as much but i can assure you these are generous servings. we all feasted on the ribs and the sidings for a few minutes with larry having no problems devouring the full-slab. i didn't want him to one-up me so instead of eating half of the slab and taking the other home, i decided to show larry and finished the full-slab hahaha yes, the filipino can! hahaha but damn, those ribs were good! could have been more juicier but i finished every last bit of meat there. it was only gizie at this time who had leftovers and a fabulous rib meal for sure the following day. ahhhh, these ribs were really fantastic. if i didn't take those damn mashed potatoes i could have gotten away with saying i was doing atkins, hi-protein diet. hahaha

so anyway, here is what my plate looked like after i ate all those poor ribs. mind you, there were leftover mashed potatoes and some beans but overall, i cleaned out the plates real well. i even managed to chug the remaining bud light.

texas roadhouse. great ribs. great meal.

gizie said there's still one more restaurant (all meat goodness) we will fatten ourselves with next friday. we are going to rest our poor, overworked stomachs from monday to thursday first. hmmm, that may not likely happen since i'm having dinner with joan on thursday. maybe at the cheesecake factory? hmmm, not bad not bad.

a very long saturday : sedona (part 1)

gizie offered to take me to sedona saturday and we made plans for me to pick them up at san cervantes sometime around 10am. i dropped by the gas station because we had to make a stop at the hertz rental for me to do two things : one, extend my rental until july 15; and two, ask for a different car because the ford focus' a/c was whacked. i got a red pontiac vibe which is a hatchback car - it was actually better (and much cleaner) than the focus except for one freakin' flaw, it had a regular CD player so that sucked big time.

sedona, should actually been a two-hour drive from chandler but we decided to take the scenic route and passed by prescott (pronounced by the americans as pris'kuht) which was actually an old town that has a rich history attached to it. it was a quaint, laid-back town which added an appeal to it. that day, there was some activity going on at the park on a lot of people were hanging out with their kids. old folks were lazily hanging out under the shade of the trees. it was a perfect afternoon with the weather sunny, breeze slighly blowing and the temperature somewhere around 95deg F (about 10 deg lower than it was in chandler, yay!). we decided to take a long delayed lunch (it was around 2pm already) at The Palace which was supposedly arizona's most historic restaurant and saloon - something about wyatt earp, etc attached to this town. we had generous servings of sandwiches, me having a bacon cheeseburger while gizie having a meatloaf sandwich and larry a bbq burger sandwich. biting into a big burger with braces can be a bitch so despite looking weird dining on it with fork & knife in hand, it was decidedly the most logical thing to do.

we left prescott with renewed energy and excitedly took the road again to sedona. we did a few stopovers along the way just to take some souvenir shots. the pictures overlooking the red rocky mountains were breathtaking. just being able to see this vast piece of the world makes you feel fortunate. traveling is truly an enriching experience - there's nothing better than seeing it and being there for you to appreciate what you have and the differences that go with it. we went around for a while and had two scoops of ice cream with generous heaps of whipped cream, chocolate & caramel syrup and pecans (giz & i shared, ayt!) to cool it down. we stopped by the mountain rock chocolate factory where larry had (after a scoop of ice cream) a frozen cheesecake dipped in chocolate while gizie & i contented ourselves with a free morsel of chocolate. i must say the chocolate was heavenly - it was rich and had the perfect sweetness to it. while we were waiting to cross the streets, an old lady approached me and asked me what the tatoos on my arms meant and i dutifully told her it was chinese for "come" & "good fortune." and she asked me if indeed i had been lucky with it, and i said "yes." come to think of it, i have been extremely fortunate during the past years. so "thank you God!"

one of the real gems in sedona for me was seeing the church of the holy cross - the church was literally built into the rocks (as you can see from the picture). it was too bad we weren't able to go inside the church because the gates closed at 6pm (yes, it was 6pm when this picture was taken). we just missed it by a few minutes. we again took the scenic route going out of sedona - i didn't expect that scenic meant super rocky roads (and i always thought all roads in the US are paved hahaha) which hopefully the poor car's suspension managed to survive. we took some really great pictures overlooking the valley - now this is where elmer's dslr would probably have come handy and the pictures would have had better exposures, but hey, we do what we can with a point & shoot.

the drive home was a long one and thankfully larry was up to the challenge of it. i dozed off for a few minutes a couple of times which made me realize that posing a lot and having your picture taken is also a tiring job. seeing the pictures though after and being able to capture it made the trip all worth while.

best pizza so far & another great dessert

having gizie & larry around makes it easy to find which places serve the best meals around. in the case of an impromptu dinner last tuesday, i was wondering whether i would like another doze of pizza & beer for dinner. oregano's, it turns out was by far the best pizza i have had in chandler. normally at peak hours, it will take you between 30-45mins to get a table at oregano's but since we were there right before 6pm, we didn't wait long hanging at the bar chugging our bud lites before our table was ready. we ordered guaca tony, which is a guacamole (avocado as better known in manila) dip with basil and roasted garlic surrounded by oregano's paper thin, ultra yum pizza crust strips. gizie also ordered some salad, which she said was for her "the best salad in the world" which after having some, i tend to disagree with her - hahaha! we also ordered two 18-in pizza's, one with pepperoni, ham and another meat and the other was some sorta of pesto chicken mix pizza. i'd have to say the pesto pizza was delish, but the all-meat wasn't bad either. if you are in for thin crust pizza's, then this is it - the crust was really thin and you'd think its there just to hold the other stuff together. now pair those up with your bud lite, and its like a match made in heaven.


we had the chocolate chip and the white chocolate macadamia nut pizza cookie for dessert and i'd have to say it was super yum. i can still feel the chewey, melt-in-your mouth cookie dough topped with vanilla ice cream. gawd, that was good. i have to agree with our server that it is definitely one of the best desserts in the world (at least for me it is).

so now i contemplate, how many freakin' hours in the gym will it take to burn those calories away. i think i've put on like 3lbs already since i got here, there are just too many nice restaurants, it will be a sin not to eat in any of them. so there, if its a sin to not eat in them, then i will gladly follow the rules. kind of a nice way of justifying it right? teehee =)

ang pag-ibig kong ito

Umiiyak ang aking pusong nagdurusa
Ngunit ayokong may makakita
Kahit anong sakit ang aking naranasan
Iyan ay ayokong kanyang malaman.

Mga araw na nagdaan
Kailanma'y hindi malilimutan
Kaytamis na araw nang pagmamahalan
Ang akala ko'y walang hangganan

Ang pag-ibig kong ito
Luha ang tanging nakamit buhat sa iyo
Kaya't sa Maykapal tuwina'y dalangin ko
Sana'y kapalaran ko ay magbago

cheesecake factory

gizie decided to set-up a farewell dinner thursday night at the cheesecake factory for ice since he was flying back to manila early friday morning. so yeah, in the multiple times i have stayed here in chandler, it was the first time i dined out at the cheesecake factory. its not that i don't like food (believe me i love it!), its just that you can get caught up in the multitude of work you have to finish that you can't find time to sit in a decent restaurant and pass the time away (wine or beer on hand). i must say the thai chicken pasta was awesome, the farfalle with chicken and roasted garlic exquisite and the grilled salmon special was perfect. nachos + spinach dip is always good company to a bottle of bud lite. yeah, bud lite's a constant companion these days. the free chocolate bread was warm and tasted like heaven so gizie, ice & i finished every morsel and we had to ask for some more.

as usual, we never finished our portions of the meal and i was stuffed full after gorging on a quarter of the pasta. of course we had to have cheesecake - the dessert is the whole purpose of the meal right? we had a chocolate+oreo cheesecake that was just sinfully delicious that you couldn't help but get a few more bites. larry was giz & i's saving grace on the cheesecake while juan for my pasta and ice's grilled salmon. it was a fantastic dinner, a bit expensive @ $30 each but overall it was worth it. this trip is really becoming more enjoyable than my other trips.
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my trip is officially extended up until w28. already made arrangements to change the date of my return flight to july 15. that's four more weeks of sun, excellent meals, non-stop english and mingling with the locals. there's at least more time to think about getting a suunto and an oakley. oh yeah!

same old, same old

you know what's funny, i can't really hate you. no matter what you do and how much you hurt me, i can't really hate you. i guess that's what suck cause its easy to write it and talk about it but after a while, i realize that i don't want to hate you, or anybody else for that matter. hate is poison and i don't want to live a poisoned life -much less hate you for a long time. i still think you are one nice person and you are an awesome friend - to other people perhaps but never to me. i guess that's what hurt so much cause i tried hard to give our friendship another chance. i had my doubts before, and i really tried to believe other people's assurances - and that was foolish. i've always had good instincts and could read people pretty well, i should have trusted them but i was really blinded and wanted things to work. it does really look like goodbye now, God knows i wish things were different pero it takes two people to make a friendship work, and i can't do it alone.
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just need joan's final approval, but my trip will be extended by 3 more weeks. so i am going to be staying in AZ until W28 - that's until july 15. first time i'm having my birthday in a foreign land. i really miss my real friends and my family. i miss my nephew so bad.

hate

hate probably is such a strong word to describe how i feel about you right now but there's really no better word for it. I HATE YOU. And this i can say for certain, we are so over and i am going to stop giving you favors, and i am going to stop trying to be friends with you. i don't think you're worth it and despite how good and how great you are to other people, you will never treat me the same way and i am not going to take this crap from you.

i totally deserve better. and you are so not the person i thought you were.

mc'd no more?

dear mcbaby,

being away for the last two weeks in a way made it easy to not think about you so much. i mean i still do wonder what you are doing at times and i do hope that some time you think of me too - pero i think that's not too likely. maybe this trip was meant for me to realize how foolish it is to stay so much in love with you, that if i try hard enough, that i can bring myself back to that stage wherein i was genuinely ok not being so into you. i was really there back then, and when i told people i was over you i meant it. i guess being back here is true testament that at times, we do fall back in between the cracks. i just wanted so much to have something to look forward to, to feel giddy and have that doe-eyed look whenever i see you, or take time finding the clothes you'll say "wow" to and you know, just see how colorful the world really is with you in it.

i guess in the next few weeks, i'd have to make that painful decision of giving you up. same old, same old. i realized that us being friends is never going to work out, and its way past the point i should have moved on. i just can't do it anymore you know; my friends are tired of me professing my eternal love for you. i can say honestly that i may never love someone as much as i have loved you - you will always be that person for me. but i need to do this for me, because i don't know how to handle it when you move on to the next stages of your life.

goodbye mcbaby. this is it.

yuan*

craving for pad thai

i was feeling adventurous last saturday and was craving for some delicious pad thai that i mapquest'd my favorite thai restaurant "malee's" and wrote down the driving directions on paper. now malee's is in downtown scottsdale which is 22 minutes @ 65mph from where i am staying. that's 16miles away so driving that far will be a challenge. well sort of, mapquest gave really good directions and i overshot a turn only once but managed to take a u-turn down the next block and figured where malee's was right on time for lunch.

i've only been to malee's once before and having their pad thai was enough to leave an unforgettable memory on my taste buds. when dawn served my pad thai feast, all diet restrictions left me and i greedily ate all my pad thai down to the last bit of chicken morsel left on the plate. to me, that was still the best pad thai i have tasted - and its even better than the one they serve at pei wei's.

so yeah, i know how to drive to malee's already and i'll probably make another trip down scottsdale before i leave for manila.

bowling & bar hopping friday night

yeah, this is a late post - one which i should have talked about last weekend but i was waiting for some pictures and then i eventually got busy. yeah, you heard me, i got busy. dammit!

jeff sent the invitation to go bowling mid of last week and while i decided to work from the hotel last friday, i was even debating whethere i should pull a no-show at the bowling lanes or socialize with our american & costa rican office friends. i chose the latter. there were a lot of people there (arjun, arun, jeff, mindy, dennis, juanpa, juan, ice, gizzie, and larry) when i arrived and they were rounding up their first bowling set. everybody was playing and it was fun to see gizie gracefully walk the floor and sorta put the ball down and let gravity take its course. of course, i'm exaggerating but you do get the picture. i bowled a 120+ during my first set which was fairly decent considering i haven't bowled in a LONG time. my second set was even better, i managed to bowl 148, highest in my group. i showed them we filipinos could bowl - and that wasn't even tournament worthy! oops, i forgot that in between bowling sets, dennis treated us to pizza which was fatteningly delicious - 2 slices and a lemonade. ok, so some beer on the side.

after bowling, eight of us decided that the night was too young to go home and agreed to go on bar hopping - first check out the bars here in chandler, and then go to tempe. we carpooled at our first stop, zipps, which is a new sports bar in chandler. we all had bud lite at zipps and i was eagerly getting accustomed to its light taste. 2 pitchers after, we went to the next bar, i forgot what it was called but this time, we all had jell-o shots ($2 each) which were a bit too vodka-laden and the jell-o was too aplenty it was difficult to swallow everything in one big gulp. when we got into tempe, we went to another bar - this one, more quiet than the others - no dancing or singing here. the good thing here in the US is that they let you sample the beers! so we had around 6 different beers (small glass of course), this time i did pass having another glass in this bar and just sipped some agua instead. next bar again, after showing our passports, paying the $5 entrance, we danced some, had some bud lite and then later on watched gizzie & mindy battle it out dancing on top of the bar/stage. wow, they were really at it you'd think they were auditioning for "so you think you can dance." gawd, tempe was awesome. lots of goodlookin peeps frolickin' in their crumpled shorts, flipflops and their definitely abercrombish get-up. definite eye-candies. last bar we went too was pretty crowded but it had loud, weird music which we danced to on the floor. mindy called it quits around past midnight so we left ahead of giz, larry, dennis and juanpa.

it felt really good to be able to go out and have a good time for a change. it was actually my first time to go bar hopping in tempe. tempe is hot! peeps were hot too! can't wait to go back and drink some more.

extensions ...?

there's a possibility that my trip is going to be extended. that should be good news right? except that i'm kind of getting bored and lonely here in arizona. i mean there's only so much malling you can do and i've already bought a number of items already. i need to phase my spending.

i miss home. i miss my friends na rin. i miss going to the gym. its kind of boring going to the gym here by myself so so far, i've only gone once hahaha. its getting difficult to figure out what to eat every night - not that there aren't a lot of good restaurants here. Its just that when you're trying to eat less and keep your weight, eating out isn't really that great an option.

and i'm supposed to be back in manila on my birthday. and i miss my nephew so much. i want to go home na. but if i need to extend, i have to be professional about it.

snippets of the last four days

the last four days went by like a breeze i almost didn't feel it passing by. it was probably because i haven't been sleeping well (2-3 hrs in broken hours) since i got here. no, nothing is really bothering me - not mcbaby - its my body clock having a terrible time adjusting to the different timezone.

monday
i slept during the most part of the day whenever i felt like it. it was memorial day and my heart just wasn't ready to go shopping yet. partly because i haven't mapped out how much money i can spend for shopping, and since i'm super OC, i needed to know how much i can afford before i start buying. i'm dying though to buy some clothes - damn!

in the wee hours of the morning, across the globe in asia, the coalition belles were playing their hearts out to win the 2nd game of the championships. unfortunately, the other team this time around proved the better team and took the championships. the team played exceptionally well, not having beaten their opponents during the eliminations & semi-finals, to play the games in its full 5 sets. there's still next year coalition belles, being second this year doesn't mean we lost - it just means we're ready to share the blessing.

tuesday
the face-to-face isn't until tomorrow so coming to work around 9am was no biggie - no boss to hound me on my attendance, let alone my tardiness. well, peeps are way laid back here in AZ that they're not really particular what time you come in or even go. i spent most of the morning catching up with gizzie and then when i was about to start working, mindy dropped by and went non-stop on some f2f topics. it wasn't until guia dropped by to pick me up for lunch that our conversation ended. guia was kind enough to invite me to lunch at her house - beef sinigang and kare-kare. it was kinda weird eating them without rice but i did - i think i'm down to 172lbs now and i was like 180-185lbs last time i checked. hurray!

i watched the 4th game of the NBA playoffs between phoenix suns and the dallas mavericks. phoenix won by 20 points! oh yeah. and raja bell was smokin' hotness!

i stayed out in the wee hours of the morning to await the fate of my volleyball comrades as they battled it out for the championship in the last of the best-of-three games. like a repeat of last year's tournament where i missed out the last deciding championship game, my team won! i guess everybody stepped up and played exceptionally well to win the championship. or it can probably be angelo "bertud" taylo's unbelievable luck that swayed the game in our favor. just the same, congratulations.

pedro - finally, after 5 tournaments, nag-champion ka din! coming to our team was really one of the best decisions you made.

baby bro - we did it! yeah, we still have it!

emong - are we still keeping count of how many championships we won?

dj - champion na naman tayo, 2nd year in a row! one more and three-peat na! hahaha

obong - man, you are the best sweeper, hands down!

ja-mes - you are one of the most sipag players around. you toss well most of the time and you really know how to read the game - galing ng mga placing mo!

wednesday
the face to face was quite interesting, there were indeed a lot of controversial topics to cover. for most of the discussions, they actually made sense in a way except for the whole aggregation discussion. i am not belittling or criticizing cristina's work, i think she did a good proposal, its the overall concept of doing aggregation that i don't agree on. i don't think that solves the problem - granted it simplifies the analysis process, although superficially, it won't guarantee we resolve the issues of management. i agree that the key is to simplify the data inputs but at the same time, ask ourselves, are we providing the IE's with the right reports for them to understand what is happening to their capacities?

jessica sent out a dinner invitation but i couldn't go because i had to meet with my boss. dam'mit! i went to the gym instead after the meeting hoping to tire myself well enough to get sleep in one continuous block - to no avail. again, dam'mit!

thursday
2nd day of the face-to-face, usual really lengthy discussions. blah blah blah. boring to speak of it again. it was educational and interesting in some parts but yeah, i am one of those people who have a hard time with monotony.

after work, we went to tempe to a sports bar called "mcduffy's" which was packed by the way by peeps hanging out to watch the 5th game of the playoffs between the suns and the mavericks. the game was awesome right before the final 10mins where phoenix sucked. damn you dallas!!! damn you!!! while i'm not really a NBA fan, i was having fun watching the game. we were all cheering wildly whenever the suns managed a shot, or tied the game, or lead the ballgame. damn, i am such a boy sometimes!

in between drinks (like chugging on the beer), we waited for an hour and we never saw the waitress assigned to our table but we did place our order by the bar. gizie sweet-talked the manager about it and when we got our bill, the orders we placed ahead were free. That was like $30 off the bill. Winner!

so anyway, its 341am now, but i did catch up on zzzzz's a bit earlier and i'm going to work from the hotel later. by the way, phoenix lost. saturday's game is going to be fantastic. now if only i can get tickets ... probably 0% chance. damn.

tomorrow - we're going bowling.

eluding the zzzz's

for some reason, i've had very bad jetlag last two years i was in the united states and back. i got in to phoenix after a grueling 18+ hours of traveling from manila to hongkong to los angeles and finally to arizona. if you think about it, it will be one of the things you'd really hate if you joined the amazing race. of course the consolation there is you get to rest, though a bit uncomfortably but sleep is sleep, no matter how you take it. ice slept through most of the flight from hongkong to LA but i managed to squeeze in "glory road" in between snoozing and snacking. i also did a repeat of disney's "hercules" where i was freakin' teary-eyed when meg sacrificed her life to save herc. it was a good thing the lights were turned off already and ice & the guy beside me were sleeping or it would have been embarassing to be seen crying over an animated film. ha!

not eatin' rice has gotten to be easier over the last few weeks. i do take some form of carbo though in the case of mashed potatoes but lately i've been quite partial to eating salads - i'm no longer shying away from dressings such as caesars, honey mustard and even balsamic vinegrette. i don't think i'm ready for thousand island though - there's something weird about it though i've never tasted it yet - hahaha such an illogical reasoning. i'm gettin' worried about my meals in the states - i am determined not to get fat and its a good thing that the inn where i'm staying has a free access to a local gym not far from it. i brought my gym stuff here - i'll surprise b when i get back that i didn't waste the last 2 months working out for nothing. well, i did have 2-piece chicken & some mashed potatoes from KFC for dinner and had some dr pepper. so i did swear off drinking carbonated beverages but when in the US, i crave for some dr pepper. just love it, i guess. aquafina then tomorrow, and i'll do some grocery and laundry in between doing my presentation for the face to face on wednesday.

so its 1248am here already and sleep eludes me. i forgot to grab my over-the-counter sleeping pills back home (got those last year). i will probably end up buying some tomorrow if i don't get some sleep tonight. i feel kind of weary, don't want to unpack my stuff yet. maybe tomorrow.

new found hangout buddy

two weeks ago, b & i in the middle of working out were talking about how much i was craving for some really good food and we ended up setting up sort of a dinner last saturday. now since i was going to be out for the next four weeks, i decided to treat b to dinner. saturday was pretty much hectic in the morning what with me having to find a tempo dentist to cut/grind the protrudingly sharp wire off my braces. good thing i went to the sorta "referral" dental clinic where i got my dental x-rays and they fixed my dental wire free of charge. i went to have my nails done right after and then went to festival to catch a 1pm showing of x3. i'd have to say x3 rocked!!! the effects were great, and the showcasing of mutant powers was unbelievable. while i didn't fancy the idea that they did not remain true to the original storyline of x-men, the movie was visually engaging. however, to make this the last x-men movie would be a crime. there is just too many potential for the characters and the storyline.

i went to the gym to workout sometime around 4pm. b told me the previous night that he switched his day-off already for our gimik. we were out of the gym around 530pm, had dinner at don henrico's where b showed me his amazing eating powers - i wish i could eat as much as he did and not gain any weight. b is gym fit, around 5'7 probably and is a physical therapy graduate from dlsu-dasma. b told me he hasn't seen x3 yet so i offered to watch it again. watching it again was fine since b footed the movie bill and i actually enjoyed seeing it a second time.

we went to "manong's" for a couple of drinks after the movie where b told me so many laughable & intriguing stories from his internship days. b's stories were interesting and he could really draw you into a conversation. i offered to drive him home since he didn't have a vehicle that night. we decided to stop by starbuck's at shell, got some hot cafe mocha's before going home. b's a great guy and it was fun hanging out with him. i'm sure we'll be hanging out more often when i get back.

why it feels strange between us

dear mcbaby,

i guess not feeling well today sort of amplifies that gloomy, depressing feeling i've had all day. i knew when i woke up that i was coming down with something - i guess i'd have to blame it on my overdoing the gym thing last night and not having enough sleep. its times like these when i am overly sensitive and that i wonder how can things be so suddenly strange between us. we usually say our curt hello's when we cross paths but it sort of ends there. there's not even a pretentious "kamusta?" or some sarcastic or joking remark or anything that can start a conversation between us. sometimes i wonder how we ever ended up like this, somewhat hanging between being friends and being mere acquiantances. i don't know anything about you now and whatever's happening with you, i get them second hand nowadays. i missed those times when you will tell me what's happening and then ask as if my opinion really mattered. it really felt good to be part of your story - but things are different now between us. i guess its my fault mostly and sometimes i regret having had to make those bad choices before. i don't think things will ever be the same between us but at least i'm thankful that in some way, you're still here and right now, that is enough for me.

yuan*

Yellow Cab Pig Out

Bel, Ces, Car & I went to Yellow Cab in Tagaytay to use our supposedly summer outing budget on lunch instead of a real swimming party. For some reason, bel ordered 2 pasta dishes, 1 18-inch pizza, 2 chicken wings and 3 pints of ice cream for the four us. I pigged out on 3 small slices of pizza, 1 chicken wing, sampled the pasta and indulged on the vanilla ice cream. Vanilla ice cream is the bestest - rich and creamy, the taste of vanilla is just divine. Its one of my most favorite ice cream flavors ever. so there, i'd have to make up for this indulgence at the gym tomorrow. pasaway kasi! =)

on drinking & gambling

after attending deg's and michelle's wedding last friday, ali invited us over to her house for an impromptu poker & drinking session. i was debating whether i was going so i decided to stall for time and go home, take a bath and change into more comfy clothes. i was feeling kinda tired from working in the office until 4pm and then attending the wedding and was already looking forward to a restful evening. so was trixy, but i was already texting her and convincing her to go even though i wasn't even sure i was going.

bene called up around 930 talking me into going and because i have a hard time saying "no" (especially if i can't think of any valid or more plausible excuse), i said i'll leave in a bit. i've never really taken a keen interest in poker - i mean the game is interesting and challenging, but i've never really liked gambling, whether it involved loose change or a few hundred bucks. i grew up in mandaluyong where gambling was everywhere - mahjong, poker, cockfights, jai alai and even horse racing. i couldn't understand how people who already had little money left in their pockets will try to gamble their money at these games at the expense of probably putting a decent meal on their tables for the next few days. losing a few hundred pesos probably isn't a big deal to me now, but i just don't like to spend money that way. occasionally of course, i'd indulge and play with my friends but i probably never get the hang of it, my heart's just ain't in the game. i'm not being righteous or anything, i just know what it can do, having seen it with my own eyes growing up. that's in my "sison" blood, and if i am not careful i will end up like them.

so now im down with going there for the alcohol, i don't think i'm much of a drinker. i've never really gotten the hang of drinking more than 3 or 4 bottles of san mig lite. two bottles and i'll start getting all red - probably not tipsy but i'll start being chatty. i am very conscious how much i drink because i know how badly it can affect my judgment and what harm i can cause if i drink and drive. i know because i saw what it can do to my dad and my black-sheep brother. cars crashed, going to the hospital and people getting injured. i can't be part of that. sure, sometimes i drive even after drinking, but i know i can get home safely in one piece. it sure is fun to get really drunk from time to time (when you don't have to drive) but i need to be careful because the "santos" in me can pull me down into alcoholism. and add to that, i get very bad hangovers in the morning. so the mix in my blood poses a dangerous combination, alcoholism & gambling, and when not in check, i'd probably end up with a serious uncontrollable dilemma.

i do love hanging out with my officemates, they are very very fun to be with - except when they're showing attitude (like trixy in her "tigilan mo ko" mode) - biatch! hahaha but they're like that understandably because of their own personal troubles (or the troubles they create themselves) hahaha i think i have a rich mix of friends and it makes our circle colorful enough that i'll never get bored.

i love 'em people!

movie, songs & coffee saturday

me & my mba classmates are really becoming constant hangout buddies and the saturday gimik was something we were discussing over e-mail the whole week. we watched "the da vinci code" from the best-selling novel by dan brown and i must say it is indeed one of the most controversial and thought-provoking plots i have read. controversial because it involves religion and thought-provoking because for some, it will get them to question their faith. i don't really have that dilemma, my faith is unshaken even after reading the book and watching the film. i have to say that despite the movie being true to the book (as far as i can recall), there were definitely some snooze-worthy moments. personally, i was wishing i was watching x3 : the last stand instead. i have a thing for superheroes and super powered individuals, its the kid in me.

we decided to have dinner at dencio's near park square 1 and then proceeded to music 21. as usual, we were treated to jm's smooth vocal renditions of all my life, lately, what might have been, overjoyed and the promise. annie, tm and mitch also serenaded us with some tunes and they were equally pleasant. there were plenty of food and booze around .... pizza, cheese sticks, chicken wings, crackers and nachos. they actually went very well with the beer and pretty soon, i was feeling giddy (not drunk). hearing jm sing "what might have been" and "the promise" made me think about my mcbaby. we shot a lot of pictures and videos from the camera and from our mobile phones.

last stop for the night was starbucks along jupiter (near superbowl) where we had some coffee and some sweets. capping the night at a cafe house has sort of become a ritual with whichever set of friends you're with. i enjoyed my non-fat, no whipped cream cafe mocha but cheated by having a few slices of walnut brownie and chocolate cake - i think i've been cheating a lot lately. but hey, my friends say i've lost some weight already and i think they're right! i think i look thinner already in my pictures but probably 2 more months will close the deal.

we talked about where we will celebrate after our graduation - we're targeting may07 so that gives me two terms to finish. come to think of it, i won't be able to finish by may07 cause i need 3 terms to finish, last term being the OCE --- but i'm not really worried about the OCE - been to too many presentations to get worried about that. i'd love to attend the graduation rites with my school friends, it should feel good graduating with them and they understand all the hard work required to finally go up the stage and receive your diploma. dang, if i am not skipping next term, i can definitely make it to the may07 graduation.

hmmm that's still next year. too early to think about it. right now, i'm just looking forward to our next gimik.

sm mall of asia

at the insistence of my mom, we went to the sm mall of asia on opening day - actually we went there late afternoon (around 5-ish). i have to say going there on opening day, it didn't quite look like the above because i think half of the people in metro manila decided to check it out. i don't know if the carparks were not opened yet or there were just sooooo many people out there that day that cars literally parked through all of the streets near the mall.

we found a parking spot about 2 blocks away and walked to the mall with jacob in tow. whooah, it wasn't the parking lot that was packed but the whole mall literally. all of the restaurants in sight had lines to the door and if you were starving, you would have started hallucinating waiting for your turn at the ordering counter. we stayed probably about 30mins or so just walking and wandering around.

the mall is actually quite nice, it was big and spacious but i didn't really see anything new with what little i saw of the mall. same old shops, same old restaurants. well, there's the olympic sized ice skating rink and the first iMAX theater in the country. i'd probably enjoy visiting this mall next time when there's less than a hundred thousand people in it.

being in tagaytay

the invitation for a tagaytay overnight has been tossed around even when we were in galera and we were finally all set to go may 13-14. it started raining, a bit heavily at that, the whole day friday and the rain was replaced by strong winds saturday morning. that was a clear sign there was a typhoon and it wasn't particulary a strong one but was enough to litter the street with leaves, plastics and stuff and bring down some of the smaller trees. we should probably have canceled the trip but most of us were too excited to get together again.

we should have met at jollibee along sucat road at 7am but eric was late, not because of the typhoon, but because he had to go back and fetch playing cards he needed supposedly for his program. i should have slapped him for coming in 45mins later but the weather was windy, it was cold and i wasn't a good thing to spoil a promising morning. we met up with dada (whose sister-in-law actually owns the house) and her family at mcdonald's at the newly opened caltex gas station along the hi-way. we had a fairly decent american breakfast (except for eric who is a total rice queen, no pun intended!) and we had a good drive to tagaytay - eric riding with me talking about his recent escapades, annie riding with jm, and dada & her family on their car.

the house in tagaytay was actually perfect, it was big and spacious with a to-die for gas range. dada later told us that the owner actually belongs to the clan that owns the max's restaurant chain. yeba! a couple more people came around noon, maria and jim. this was a surprise to us, especially me since i know jim and before this out-of-town, i wasn't that fond of maria. it turns out that jim & maria are together and much later on, as i got to know more of maria, she turns out to be okay, actually really nice is more appropriate. suffice it to say, the people who went to tagaytay were actually bonding pretty well. jim & i had a lot of catching up to do and we talked about a lot of stuff, from them making fun of dino during their cebu trip down to the gym buff pig.

notty joined us later in the afternoon when we went to a clubhouse to play badminton. we played for more than an hour and decided to go home after rather than risk having pneumonia swimming in the ice-cold water with the typhoon still raging. we passed by 7-11 and got a bottle of red wine for later in the night.

dinner was a feast. we were completely stuffed with little room for dessert so we all just took turns freshining up and changing to our sleepwear. the real fun started around 10pm when we decided that it was time for some beer. damn, the beer was ice-cold, it was perfect at a night like this. we opened a couple of doritos and it would have been perfect if we had sisig, or something else for the beer .... ok, next time. jim introduced us to a game called "destiny" which basically lets one person choose any category and each person takes turns saying a word that belongs in that category. whoever fails must drink a half-glass of red wine. i guess after a few drinks (of red wine and beer later), people tend to lose hold of their wisdom and says stuff that are downright funny. that's what's great about the game, people are bound to say something stupidly funny and everybody just cracks down laughing. i think annie was the clear winner in the game, probably because we wanted her to get drunk but she was such a good sport.

sleep came around 1am. it was actually pretty early but beer ran out already and we were kinda beat from all the going around during the day. i woke up without any hangover, which was a clear indication i didn't get drunk last night. we all had a hearty breakfast of mostly leftover food from yesterday plus eat-all-you-can watermelon. after taking a few pictures, we left the house before noon. it was still a bit cloudy that sunday but the wind has subsided so the weather was quite cool. all in all, the tagaytay gimik was super fun, the people who went were awesome. it was one hell of a gimik that those who were not able to go will surely envy.

my mba friends sure are fun to be with.

goodbye alice in wonderland - jewel

It's four in the afternoon
I'm on a flight leaving LA
Trying to figure out my life
My youth scattered along the highway

Hotel rooms and headlights
I've made a living with the song
Guitar as my companion
Wanting desperately to belong

Fame is filled with spoiled children
And we grow fat on fantasy
I guess that's why I'm leaving
I crave reality

So goodbye Alice in Wonderland
Goodbye yellow brick road
There is a difference between dreaming and pretending
I did not find paradise
It was only a reflection of my lonely mind wanting
What's been missing in my life

I'm embarrassed to see the rest is rock n roll cliche
I hit the bottom when I reached the top
But I never knew it was you who was breaking my heart
I thought you had to love me
But you did not

Yes the heart can hallucinate
When it's completely starved for love
It can even turn monsters into angels from above

You forged my love just like a weapon
And you turned it against me like a knife
You broke my last heart string
You opened up my eyes

So goodbye Alice in Wonderland
Goodbye yellow brick road
There is a difference between dreaming and pretending
That was not love in your eyes
It was only a reflection of my lonely mind searching
For what's been missing in my life

Growing up is not an absence of dreaming
It's being able to understand the difference between
The ones you can hold and the ones that you've been sold

And dreaming is a good thing 'cause it brings new things to life
But pretending is an ending that perpetuates a lie
Forgetting what you are seeing for what you've been told

Truth is stranger than fiction
And this is my chance to get it right
And life is much better
Without all of those pretty lies

Oh so goodbye Alice in Wonderland
And you can keep your yellow brick road
There is a difference between dreaming and pretending
These are not tears in my eyes
They are only a reflection of my lonely mind finding
They are only a reflection of my lonely mind finding
I found what's missing in my life

*** i love this song. yun lang.

renewals, adjustments & a long time waiting

i started the day at 6am today, waking up sometime around 3am to work on my presentation for the same meeting. maybe its my fault for procastinating so much in finishing that material but my brain has been bereft of great ideas for the longest time already. my meetings run on until 9am when i finally called it quits and asked that i be excused from the next meeting which was to last until noon. there's only so much phone meetings i can stand in a day.

i left sometime after 1045am focused on accomplishing two things today (meetings aside of course) : one, is to renew my driver's license just in case my trip gets extended (its the boyscout in me); and two, go to la salle, drop all of my subjects, apply for residency and avoid paying 10% of the tuition fee.

i got to the LTO office around 11am and there were not a lot of people, got the form instantly, filled it up and down i went to the drug testing center. damn, i wasn't still in peeing mode after chugging 500ml of water 20mins before i left the house. i went out and downed a liter of C2 green tea and sat there for the next 30 mins willing myself to get this over with - still no pee on site hahaha. i did manage the damn task and it took no less than 5 mins for the drug testing results to be handed back. i diligently marched back to the license window and fcuk, closed for noon break! i walked a few blocks and had some salad at kfc and went back 30min before 1pm.
the rest of the waiting was tolerable, i did get my new license something like 5 mins after paying. except for the waiting, getting a license has actually progressed very well.

i drove like crazy to get to la salle in record time only to find that there were no available parking space at the UM where i like to park. ok, try jollibee -- nada. street across velasco building --- bingo! ok, swipe my freakin id --- "out of school. out of school. out of school." like what the fcuk is that. last day of payment isn't until june 20, so why am i considered "out of school" already? after explaining to the guard, she finally let me in and i proceeded to the gsb office. dang! there were so many people in that office all either dropping subjects, adding subjects or filing for residency. after a while, one told me i should drop all my subjects online. where's the computer? nada! like how the fcuk should i do that? okie, okie ... i called elmer - he's in a bpi bank. scroll, scroll along my contacts ... aha, van!!!! van saved me! van saved me! yahoo! van was kind enough to drop all my subjects for me. so i went back, asked again, filled up another form to file for residency, then queued for the next 30-45mins for a <2min>

i went down to pay for my tuition and there was only 1 window dedicated to the GSB students while the central cashier and makeshift cashiers at the conservatory were practically empty and were for non-GSB students only. i waited for another 45-60mins until it was my turn to pay my P1,300 residency fee - P400 of which mind you were for miscellaneous fees that i don't have a clue what they're for. my legs were practically dead from all of the standing after that it was with great effort that i managed to drive home. good thing traffic was smooth even though it was already 530pm.

so there - a day of waiting, queueing, perspiring, standing and paying. i was so exhausted after that all i could do was take a deep breath, sigh and tell myself "here's what you get for prioritizing work over school." hahaha

the notebook

i first heard of "the notebook" from a close friend who bought and read the book and i think it has been sitting between dan brown's unread "angels & demons" and michael crichton's "timeline" gathering dust for a loooonggg time now. when i heard that they made it into a movie, i was happy that i can skip the long read and just watch the more than an hour-long love story unfold on my tv set.

it took me yet a while before i found the interest to watch "the notebook" and maybe it was because i was bored last friday or i was feeling sentimental. the notebook is above all else a love story between two people of very different social classes (boy is poor, girl is privileged). what is great about it is the kind of love allie and noah shared is something that is real, that lasts beyond time and age and beyond distance. its the kind of love you read in books that while it makes you sigh at the beauty of it, it makes you wonder if a love so perfect and strong can ever actually happen in real life.

maybe it does happen for the few lucky ones but not to everyone.

mcdreamy

dear fish,

so yes, i have to tell you that you are my mcdreamy and that no matter what others say or how wrong it sounds, you are the person i will truly love and adore for the rest of my life. despite the pain, the sadness and longing these feelings brought me, i never regretted having you in my life. you have brought color and happiness in my life that i have only heard of before in fairytales. the world truly was brighter with you in it.

some people told me that what i long for with you is wrong and maybe it is, or maybe it isn't. love never did make a lot of sense to me. i know though that i'm not expecting anything from you, that loving you, even from a distance and even in silence, is enough for me. i know this road i'm in will only lead to more sadness and heartache, and i will have to pick up the pieces of my broken heart. i probably will never be able to love anybody as much as i love you right now and that will be my undoing.

the trip will probably help me clear my head, help me think straight for once and be free of you hounding my every waking hour. that should give me perspective - probably some insane idea on how i can finally move on. i've wished to God long & hard every night for Him to take care of you, hopefully let you know how special you are to me. yes, you are truly special and i envy the person who will be able to make your heart beat like you did mine.

love is indeed tragic.

yuan*

this is not jay

this is dj and i'm still editing jay's blog template. white is too... errrr.... colorless so i changed it to black/gray. still need to edit a couple of items - music + links + tagboard + site meter

then i will edit van's blog template (music + site meter)

then jona's blog (music + sitemeter)

then we lived happily ever after

DJ JEEP

adjustments

i went to the dentist this morning to get my braces adjusted and now, i can already feel how sensitive my teeth are because of the adjustments made. its going to be two more days of agony after today ... aarrrghhhh ... no pain, no gain right.
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my manager has confirmed that my trip is going to push through between w22-25. ok, so its 4 weeks in the US which is actually not bad considering the recent cost-cutting direction. i have to make sure i deliver and 'wow' them during that 4 weeks. wowoweee! i've decided that instead of flying out saturday, i'll bump my flight to sunday so i will travel with ice. its such a long, boring flight and its always nice to have someone to talk to, much more, have somebody take your pictures hehehe
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i'm excited about the trip, really. some part of me though knows i'll be missing a lot during that 4-weeks - birthdays, gimiks, movies and some hanging outs. i hope my baby misses me too.
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lots of stuff to do before the trip ... i have to take care of school stuff, technically drop all the subjects i enrolled online so i won't be charged with the 10% of tuition ... i also have to renew my driver's license in case (for some reason) my trip gets extended. you know, better be ready (its the boyscout in me).

under construction

friend dj is updating my blog template. posts are still readable but there may be some errors here and there (like tagboard not working properly, etc).

thanks dj for lending your talent here.

charcoal & volleyball wins

i'm starting to regret not re-applying sunblock more times than i should have during the last long weekend because i realized how dark my arms are now and how having two-shades of color on your face doesn't really inspire confidence. the vain in me has driven me into a purchase frenzy of whitening soaps and two types of whitening lotion all in the hope that it will help shed out this dark husk that has enveloped my face, arms & legs sooner than it should be.

but right now, i'd have to bear with the folly of my actions. lesson learned : don't use sunblock sparingly. spread & re-apply it like crazy.
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yesterday was the first game of the semi-finals in this year's volleyball tournament. surprisingly (and probably with more luck), we played well against the strongest rated team to actually win the match. not to get ahead of ourselves but we now have a really good chance of making it to the championships. let's keep our fingers crossed.

beach bums & tan lines

after months of planning & schedule checking, the planned out-of-town trip with mba friends came to fruition as we boarded the bus along buendia ave early friday morning. we were en route to batangas pier to ride the ferry boat to puerto galera (uhmmm also called poor man's boracay - pmb) and it was exciting because it was the first time we were going out of town together. annie, jap, eric & i were giddy talking about what we planned to wear, how much we spent on clothes for the trip, gossiping, taking pictures and just plain happy we were all in havaiinas. there were only four of us leaving for galera friday as two others couldn't take VL's that day so they planned to follow the next day.

the ferry ride was uneventful and we docked in galera a little before noon, settled down and had some hearty lunch. it was still a no rice meal for me but i'm getting the hang of it already so it was no big deal. we decided to squeeze in some snooze time and went back to the beach a little after 3pm and decided to hang around and check out some eye candy. now galera's beach isn't really comparable to bora -- there's really no white sand and you have to wonder why "white beach" ever was called "white" to begin with. i thought there were quite a number of people littering the beach that friday so we contented to hang out by the shore while a couple of my friends took a dip.

i first saw "blue" walking along the shores of the beach in his board shorts. he was actually quite lean, well-toned, flat abs, great hair and a disarming smile. he was quite goodlooking and it was obvious he was comfortable with being goodlooking cause he clowned around with his friends. needless to say, he was our eye candy for the day.

after dinner, we decided to hang-out in one of the beach-front bars, ordered some more food while sipping on the the 1st bottle of red wine my friends brought to the trip. wow, i must have had about 4 glasses of wine since i was feeling goofy an hour & a half later. we didn't really stay quite late friday night and we were in all in la la land around midnight. there's still tomorrow to do some partying.

we woke up sometime around 8am the following day feeling refreshed and ready to bum it out on the beach. we had a great breakfast of cheese pancakes and omellette, donned our beach best and splashed sunblock all over. i spent the better part of the morning bumming it out by the shore, contented with people walking past while watching my arms grow darker by the hour. yikes ... after a while, i realized "what the heck?" i was at the beach and i decided that people will envy my tan lines for sure -- unless they become too black that its not considered tan anymore. we goofed around a bit more, taking more pictures and noticing that there were more & more ferry boats docking every 30mins. fcuk, there were just too many people now and its not even noon yet. the flurry of people coming all tugging along their bags obviously was foolish enough not to reserve a place to stay. i whispered "good luck" softly, trying to hide the mischievous grin behind it.

jm & arnold (they call him "naughty" or "naught-naught") arrived around 5pm. they got stuck at the pier due to the sheer volume of people trying to get to galera. there's now more credence to galera being called PMB, its just too accessible and too cheap an out-of-town that most can afford it. good thing we weren't really after rest & relaxation this time around or we have been totally bummed out. we stayed by the beach until the sunset, some friends cooling it off by the beach. we did catch "blue" a number of times while we sat on the sand, ipod on one hand, camera on the other. he's still our eye candy on day 2.

dinner was at a familiar place, we decided to pig it out at manolo's where we had lunch and breakfast. right after dinner, we decided to find a place where we could hang out and get a few drinks but seeing how much people docked the day, that was going to be a challenge. we decided to hang out at the far side of the beach by the shore and sipped on our 2nd bottle of red wine. i was feeling good an hour later and we finally found a vacant table at one of the stalls behind us. we had a few cans of beer, some barbecue and finally a pitcher of mindoro sling. quite honestly, i was tipsy around 1am and decided to call it a night. the alcohol was getting to me and i didn't want to risk having a paralyzing headache the following morning or worse, throw up all over the sand. that is just so unposh.

despite the almost 2 glasses of water i downed before going to bed, my head hurt bad the following morning. 2 advils really work a miracle and i was relieved an hour later. we had breakfast at the usual place and checked out around noon still deciding where we should hang out since the boat ride we finally got tickets for was to leave at 5pm. we decided to just stick it out with some of jap's friends who we thought had rooms reserved but instead were camping out. it wasn't really a big deal cause we just needed a place to stow away our stuff before we the boat trip. lunch unfortunately came at 3pm, too many people having lunch or just cooling off with shakes in hand. we took more pictures later on while we were wating for the boat.

the boat came around 6pm, it was actually more than an hour delayed and we got seats at the far back end of the boat. it stopped in another part of the island where it tried to load more passengers which irked a lot of the passengers and prompted us to start scrambling for the life vests just in case. things settled down as some of the would-be passengers were persuaded to disembark -- it was quite dark already at this time and i was quite scared of the boat ride back. mentally, i was surveying the boat and the passengers and figuring out my escape plan. fcuk, there was none, i was squeezed in between people and the nearest exit is a small opening. if the boat capsizes, i was certain i will drown. i prayed real hard during the more than an hour boat trip and managed a sigh of relief when we finally reached the pier.

the bus trip was ok. we got to manila sometime around 11pm and since the bus didn't stop at alabang, i had to settle for magallanes. i could have taken a cab but i was feeling courageous after the boat ride that i decided to forego the cab and take on the public transportation. for the first time in so many years, i rode a public bus (provincial trips not included), a public jeep and a tricycle going home. i paid in bills because i didn't really know how much the fare was but it was quite fun to relive those years when i used to ride the public transportation.

all in all, the galera trip was quite fun. i managed to hang out with friends from school outside of the usual classroom, impromptu dinners and movies. too bad JM didn't treat us to a song. that guy can really sing, hope he tries out for pinoy idol.

despite blue, it was still my baby who i missed most. so i'm glad to be back.

labor day bike ride

after skipping so many bike rides before, i decided to join this time around. i needed to get some r.o.i. for the bike since this is still going to be the third time i rode the damn thing. i woke up around 5am (after sleeping at around 1am and not having dinner last night - this is going to be a follow-up post) to prep myself because jowell said call time was around 615am at jollibee gma. then somewhere on the way, jowell texted to ask if we can meet at 640am instead (cause he just woke up) and then again at 7am. i was there by 630am and waited patiently until jowell arrived around 710am. the agony of waiting - something i was never really good at. but this time the waiting was a relief to get some more rest.

jowell & i biked for 30mins to get to the meeting place. we only had 1-stop for some fluids but otherwise, i think we were fast getting to the first stop because we had to wait for another 30 until ice arrived with joseph & his posse. we biked for a few more minutes and i was doing quite ok until i lost my gatorade during one of the quick downhill rides so we stopped and brought some water. i was parched beyond belief so i reluctantly downed a pepsi.

i realized later that we were going to bike all the way to sta rosa laguna. while it kind of freaked me out, the ride going was uneventful -- they were mostly downhill so it was actually quite enjoyable freewheeling & not breaking. i realized that at the speed i was going, i would have probably had a nasty accident if my bike skidded or hit a rock. oh well, i'm feeling adventurous these days so might as well live a little.

the views were quite breathtaking. we were riding on elevated plains so we were overlooking a lot of scenery. we managed to take some nice pictures.

we had lunch at jollibee in sta rosa and i realized my last meal was at around 3pm the previous day. so far, i've been running on extra joss, gatorade, a bottle of pepsi and lots of water. i don't think there were even any carbo left in my body to burn since i've been off rice for almost a month already. discipline ... discipline ... discipline.

hell started in the afternoon on our way back. they were mostly uphill so i really had a hard time biking on the way back. i think there were too many stops because of me but i didn't really care. i was ready to leave my bike there if only i could call a cab or have somebody pick me up. i walked through most of the uphill trail and jowell & ice walked some too. on the way back, my thigh muscles locked up and the cramps was unbearably excruciating that i couldn't move my muscles for a few minutes, let alone walk. This happened 3x on the way back and i was near tears during each of the cramp attacks.

we managed to finish biking at around 330pm at jollibee gma (thank God jowell & i didn't have to bike back anymore from our original meeting place). i got home past 4pm, took a shower and made sure to soap myself twice, got in bed but couldn't really sleep. my body hurt every which way and i was so tired i couldn't even muster the strength to eat. i just had soup (soupy snacks) and some microwaved vienna sausage just to have something in my stomach before i go to sleep.

sleep came around 9pm at which time i was quite beat. the bike ride was an experience - it was difficult, dirty, tiring and i was sweaty the whole time. i don't know why i had to go through that torture but i think that more than made up for my missing the gym the last few days i was in galera.