thanks to barok english...

i have been wondering what to do with myself once i will go home and take a breather for at least a month. then, suddenly, as if by divine sign, i saw these funny pinoy signs on facebook and instantly, in between reeling in laughter and going to the toilet to pee, i had a vageu idea of what i would do while relaxing in perlas ng silanganan... here are the pix

FROM THE PHILIPPINES!!

( jojie alcantara's website )

(retiner,bres, and other oral accessories...with name mind you!)

FROM CHINA:

(USA BUCKS only accepts payment in dollar? i think...)

FROM JAPAN:

(courtesy of stephen)

(it's all about believing in the unbelievable...and then go WAO!)

nyahahahaha!!!!! the grand idea is still to keep on teaching english until people learn to use it properly. but, then again, proper english isn't much fun at all isn't it? now i am back in the slump, but at least i am already smiling,no, roaring in laughter! all these barok signs point out one thing though, one thing which is somehow a source of comfort for me; these signs just show that as long as there is still barok english out there, i can always (mimic) teach english, a temporary thing to do which keeps me afloat while i figure things out!

like a headless chicken

my male friends tell me to date men as if there is no tomorrow. my female friends say i should cry my heart out and binge on chocolates. my mother say i should pray. you told me to forget you. tell me, how does one stop thoughts on rainy monday mornings? how can one ask them to leave?

i am trapped in my apartment. it is pouring outside. i am pacing my tiny rokujo apartment not knowing what else i can do to keep myself busy. i should have gotten a psp and play super mario like crazy. i should study instead of staring out of the window into the rain wondering if you're keeping warm.

i should be strong enough. if only weakness doesn't exist...

Telling It As It Is. A Reply to The Wary Diplomat’s Blog Entry.

I was supposed to be studying for the National Medical Aptitude Test but while I was looking for my study material in my very disorganized hard drive, (I find it very disappointing that a thing which could automatically reboot, shutdown, or correct itself CAN NOT automically organize itself!) I found several articles which I had written and which never made it to the public view...so I am posting them here.

This article was written in response to my friend's blog entry about me. Unfortunately, she had erased her blog and had a new one, which doesn't feature yours truly.



悲欢离合. Joys and sorrows; partings and reunions. This is what traveling ultimately teaches a person.

Plane rides always give me a feeling of metaphysical suspension between the place left behind and the place of destination. It takes two hours from Tagbilaran to Manila; two hours; a good time to adjust from the slow and lazy life of Tagbilaran to the fast paced, time conscious life of Manila; from carinderias to MacDonalds, from Garden Café to Starbucks. When I was still in University, I already had this feeling that Tagbilaran wasn’t quite home anymore but I can’t quite call Manila that either. I had this premonition that I would constantly be hovering over the gray area between A and B. This feeling became more intense when I lagged behind my batch mates by one year after I decided to take a semester off from school and to take a minor in International Business. Different new faces from one class to another came and went and the old ones, well, reality had a way of distancing people to blur. So you see Wary Diplomat, I already had the premonition back then, this angst that I would always be swinging.

It came to a shock to my family when I told them that I was leaving for China . After all, none of them knew that I was really serious about going although, they heard me mentioned it over dinner once or twice before. Only my mother and my younger brother were at home when I left. Two hours after, I was already at the port boarding the last ferry to Cebu. I didn’t wait, I couldn’t. In hindsight, I think I was more like avoiding having to say a long goodbye with my family. I was never good with goodbyes, even until now, I’d rather leave in silence. 12 hours later in China, I saw the family pictures my younger brother so thoughtfully tucked into my backpack at the last minute. Wary diplomat, I didn’t gather enough courage to leave, I simply didn’t have time to check if I had enough of it which I didn’t. I had the feeling again I once had during plane rides. I spent a long time that night trying to sleep, staring at the ceiling cracks, shivering from February winter cold.

I studied at an exclusive school for girls and went to the best university in the country. I could sense that people treated me differently because of this, even admired me. However, it is an entirely different world abroad. No one knows what THE Ateneo was; or Holy Spirit was; or who the Corres were; HECK they didn’t even know that the Philippines was on the map!! In China, I was a tabula rasa to the people, they didn’t know anything about me and if ever I had worth, I had to prove it to them. I experienced discrimination, something absolutely new to me. When I was used to given preferential treatment because of my background, I had to give way to someone else because I didn’t have blue eyes or that my nose wasn’t long. I was given a lower salary not because it was at par to my competence but because it was the price they deemed right to my skin color. I was cheated off my contract, made to do manual labor; carrying heavy buckets of food, cleaning toilets, laundering children’s clothes when I had 3 house helps at home just so I didn’t have to do anything! The first impulse was to call home, get my Congressman Uncle to wage war against the city of Jiangmen unless they honor my contract, or worse, ask my mom to pick me up and bring me home! But, I didn’t do any of those ridiculously childish thoughts. Instead I tried to be diplomatic and mature about it and talked to my superior but when it still didn’t work, I screwed them up at their own game. I signed another contract just so I could get my bonus and then left the school without notice. In one year and five months, I realized that to be too trusting is not always good; to be kind is not always the right thing to do. I came to learn that no one can really be there for you; that one is ultimately alone, and so one has to be strong enough to stand up for one’s self.

Karma. The law of equal and opposite reaction. Yin and yang. Tears in Jiangmen, happiness in Beijing. Bliss came in the form of a walking hairball (hihihi). And after a month or so of seeing each other at work for only ten minutes, once a week; I successfully managed to make a lover out of a stranger. I learned to allow myself to fall. I rode at the back of his bicycle around WuDaoKou laughing myself silly. I willingly gave my hand to be held in public places. It was liberating not to care about who might see me, or what other people might think (“Ang landi landi, sa harap ng maraming tao, nagpapahawak ng kamay!”), or what they would say to my family, or what my family would do!! I honestly think that if I were still in Tagbilaran, I would never get to know the tingling five o’clock feeling of knowing that his bicycle was outside waiting for me. I know I would never have come to know the excitement of seeing someone I had just said goodbye to on the phone. I would never get to experience that want for everything to be perfect to please another. I would never get to know why people sometimes have that silly smile without any reason at all. Wary diplomat, this is what it has done to me; it liberated me from the senseless shackles of what I’ve been taught to do and not to do and to make for myself my own mould. Of course it came to pass that I cried but as cliché as it might sound, I would never have it any other way.

after sex, after lust, after love

Hold it! Before you click the "flag inappropriate content" button somewhere on this page, hear me out first.

Last night, I watched a movie off the internet entitled "After Sex" not because i was feeling horny BUT because I was curious. The movie doesn't have the usual script. It is a quilt of different scenarios of what happens after sex between homosexual couples, heterosexual ones, between "just friends", between stangers, between old timers, and between disillusioned ex lovers. Surely, everyone will find themselves in one of the 9 scenarios and will be left giggling ang sighing.

The movie opens with "love is a leap of faith. it's like throwing yourself out there without any guarantees!", goes through "You're forgetting the first gay couple, R2D2 and C3PO." and ends with "I am honest...I am not ashamed of who I am..."

In the end, After Sex is all about the truth that people find about themselves and about the relationship before the morning comes, when the lights are turned off, after sex.

(trailer)
http://www.supernovatube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=1191238962

trust me on this one. watch it!

blame it on the stars

Date of Birth: February 20,1981
Time of Birth: 12 noon
Place of Birth: Tagbilaran City, Philippines

click OK

What follows is your personal natal chart information, as well as interpretations of the positions and aspects in your chart.

Tagbilaran 0 Philippines 02/20/1981 12:25 - Julian day 2444655.68Adjust -8.00 ST 22.40 Lat 9.39 Long -123.51

Pisces is a sensitive sign—both sensitive to criticism and sensitive to others' feelings. They believe in people, are deeply hurt by compassionless human behavior, and have a hard time saying no.Many Pisces seem almost allergic to things like shopping lists, maps, directions, and instructions, and for some brave souls, even watches — they prefer to feel their way through life than to follow some plan.She is compassionate and sentimental.

You have a deep need to understand the world around you. You have high ideals and you have your eye on what's on the horizon. You are looking ahead, and at times can seem quite restless. You are proud of your knowledge and of your morals.

Your opinions are usually strong and you are an independent thinker.You are also very witty and others enjoy your playful and sometimes mischievous sense of humor.

Your identity rides on your sense of personal freedom. You are a very dynamic person who questions tradition and authority, yet, paradoxically, you can be quite set in your ways! Although a humanitarian in many ways, you can be a little brusque when it comes to sentimentality or what you perceive to be excessive attachment to the past or to tradition.

Her thirst for knowledge is never satisfied. She is full of mental activity. She undertakes exhaustive studies, always studying for pleasure. Likes journeys to faraway places, and can go to live abroad.She cannot stay in the same place, likes change even if it means a backward step in her professional career.

Her emotional and sex life is powerful and rich. She lives out truly passionate love affairs.Finds love abroad or marries a foreigner.She is very happy abroad.Likes long voyages, things foreign, water.Either marriage with a foreigner, or a marriage abroad, or marriage with a foreigner abroad.

Makes a good mother, watching over her children, spending the night in an armchair near a sick child, caring for and calming him/her with patience. Knows how to look after her home perfectly, how to iron out difficulties by her practical sense and thanks to her intelligence.

Natural death in very old age. Inheritances.

That's myself there folks! And people say that one's personality is a product of socialization and genetics, well, they couldn't be more wrong, it's all in the stars!

http://astro.cafeastrology.com/

time

i am not okay. weeks after the phone call i still turn my neck whenever a yellow car passes by, hoping that it was his, coming to pick me up; my heart still skips a beat whenever i hear a car revved, i still sleep on my side as if he is beside me hugging me to sleep. i still use his coffee cups, i still drink with his glasses, take photos with his camera, listen to his music. people tell me i should throw away these things so that forgetting would come easier. i can't. he was a part of me. he made me happy until it ended. throwing away the things he gave me seems to me that the sadness weighs more than the happiness i had with him. so i hang on to the remnants of pain and bliss.

people tell me too that time heal all wounds, that one day i will not dream of him anymore, that i will stop analyzing how it could had been better. this i truly believe in but how long will i stay this way?i believe that i have to wallow in my sadness so that i can wash it away clean. just when that washing will come, i still don't know. time, may time be merciful on me and come sooner. may it lick my wounds close, but may it leave me with my scars that i may not forget.

coffee politics

since i came into the right to suffrage, there had been many elections in the philippines which i didn't vote for. it used to be because i had important thesis to do or some other schoolwork but then after university, ignorance of philippine politics and being jaded of the trapo (trash) politics became the reasons why i haven't voted in any elections.

don't get me wrong, i came from a family of political background but i really do not know why my cousins or uncle or the countless other politician relatives were elected to office. first of all, philippine politicians do not have clear cut idealogy. and even if they do, they have to articulate it in a very simplified language that the masses can undesrtand...which isn't much. so philippine politics has basically become a politics of pizaz and jazz, of mud slinging and vote buying. so tell me, who wouldn't be weary in all these things?! however, because i still believe that the filipino people deserve someone sensible than the incumbent ones, i have volunteered to non partisan vote counts whenever i can.

it was only recently that my interest in politics was born. it may just be unfortunate though that i became fascinated in american politics rather than the home grown ones. i have been following the primaries since it started thanks to cnn's the situation room's video podcasts.i am amazed at how different a republican's stand is from a democrat's on issues such as international politics, the economy, and social security! further, i am impressed at how each candidate know their policies so well and can navigate around them so deftly that they defend their policies so strongly to be different and better than the other's. i am astounded at how the political analysts know very well the demographic of each state thus enabling them to predict who would win in a certain primary!

my store of politcal jargon has already included words such as the starbucks voters; those educated yuppie uppity (NOT ELITIST! mind you)voters who are pro obama, and the dunkin donut voters; those blue collar workers and single mothers for clinton. if the electorate demographic in the philippines would be defined according to the coffee that they drink, there would be the roasted rice voters, the hand to mouth who drink coffee made from boiling roasted rice in water, and the 3-in-1 voters, the haves and educated ones. however, these two vote not much according to a candidate's platform of government but more on how much each candidate is willing to pay for their votes....(quack, quack, quack, quack!)

two days ago, i saw these interviews of sen. clinton and sen. obama by cnn's wolf blitzer. it strikes me as odd how sen. clinton got the vase of roses as her background while obama has the picture of the white house behind him...hhhhmmmm is that indicative of which candidate cnn is secretly supporting?

(wolf blitzer's interview with sen obama)http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2008/05/08/tsr.obama.interview.full.cnn?iref=videosearch

(wolf blitzer's interview with sen clinton)
http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/politics/2008/05/14/tsr.clinton.interview.cnn?iref=videosearch

of course people say that sen.clinton should quit the race but, i say jia you to her. fight on till the bell rings! whether it's sen. obama or sen. clinton, they'll surely win against sen.mccain. it just bother me though as both democrats once said on an interview that when they become the president, they would cut US outsourced international business operations! if this is true, then i suspect that many filipinos who are working for call centers or in the IBO industry might have to go jobless! but then again, that isn't until november.

(i am not making any sense in this post am i, i truly believe so, politics isn't just my cup of kape)