pulaw mode

i should really get some sleep. four hours before our flight and i'm still wide-eyed. weee! too much excitement!!!

happy 20th

i want to fill this page with some pictures from the up intermedius' 20th anniversary.

i am so thankful for this group for making me realize that i have a talent to perform on stage...for being my home back in college...for all the super fun memories...for the dramatic meetings...for the sleepless nights of rehearsals...for all the wonderful friends that i will treasure for life...

with "i", i always have something to go back home to...

...and my "anak" surprised me with a note. a habit of his, actually. it's a good thing that i only got teary-eyed this time

i love you, "i" pipol!!!

latest obsession

i got hooked on "once upon a time" since i started watching the first episode. of all the fairy tale characters, i'm especially attached to rumpelstiltskin. robert carlyle, the actor who played the role of the evil dealer, is amazing! i love even the slightest detail when he waves his hand, twists his fingers (showing those awful fingernails), raises his eyebrow and the way he says, "dearie". when he plays mr. gold, i love his passive face when his eyes show the awful lot of things that he knows. i love him!

itchy feet

one sunday october morning, my bestfriend knocked on my door. she knows that i really hate being woken up early, especially on a weekend. but since the door was ajar, she welcomed herself in my room. so there, i can no longer fake my sleep.

me: arrrrggghhh!!!
tara: mader, wake up!
me: arrrghhh! it's a sunday!
tara: i know. we need you so we can book a trip to manila.
me: what?
tara: get up!

before my consciousness surfaced, we were booked for a weekend trip to manila and tagaytay. 

the excitement came later. this will be our first trip outside our comfort zones for this year. our 3-day is full-packed.

in our drafted i-tee, we will leave Iloilo at half past 6 in the morning on Friday. in manila, we will visit diliman, pictorial in intramuros, then in the evening, the most awaited "viva la vida imelda" at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. saturday will be the official tour in intramuros with carlos celdran. aaaahhh!!! we will "walk this way" with him! then in the afternoon, we'll pack up and take the bus to tagaytay for the cold experience. hehehe! there, we'll enjoy the coffee, the view and each other's company until the day after. then on sunday afternoon, we'll be traveling back to manila for an i-max treat! then straight to the airport back to iloilo. 

omg! the excitement is killing me! 

tara sent me a message early this morning...
"two more sleeps"

i replied to her....
"i can no longer sleep"


#our itchy feet love to travel #

midnight snacking

there were three human pigs 

who wandered the city at night

looking for a new place to hang out 

sniff sniff sniff

that's what they did

until they found this small 

eatery on the side of the

sleepy city street

happiness filled them as they

looked over the menu

of breakfast meals

just perfect for their 

piggy tummies that have been 

growling after talking with

Koreans for hours

morning meal

sunny-side up

tocino

rice

as if, breakfast wasn't enough

the three human pigs 

wandered to the nearby 24/7 kiosk

to have some dessert

fruit a ala mode

and 

coffee float 

made their full tummies

bulge

the three human pigs went home

with big tummies

and happy hearts

and they slept happily

until the morning after

last date with the Cullens

i followed the twilight book saga while i was still in stryn. ( i even considered stryn as a perfect description of forks. ) then came the movies...i've seen "twilight" in stryn, "new moon" in roermond, "eclipse" in stryn, "breaking dawn 1" at rob and today, i bade farewell to the vamps, wolves and humans as i watched "breaking dawn 2" at sm city.

i'll love the characters for a thousand years.

forever.

cykel

i recovered some pictures taken ages ago from one photo site. nostalgia overwhelmed me as i went through one picture to another. happy memories splashed through my mind. it's always nice to look back through all those years...the friends that i met and the adventures that we've been through.

of all the pics that i scanned, here's what made me teary eyed...

mr. bruce, princess ishie and lille

the bicycles that have been with me, mabeth and delco in our two years in dk. they brought us from north to south of dk and they have been our constant weekend companions. 

i super miss, mr. bruce ♥

patiently waiting for les mis!

for the girls

it wasn't just a weekend bonding. it was a training. hahaha!

i was so happy to get a message from my high school besties that they're on their way to the city. we met at the mall for lunch. after talking and cuddling with Nene, we checked the cinema schedule. the vampires from forks are going to face the volturis and we didn't want to miss it. however, there was a conflict with their appointment with the OB. for a while there, my mommy friends were torn between watching the "breaking dawn" or going to the clinic for the check-up. hahaha! well, not really! 

gigi drove us to the OB's clinic . while waiting for Janice's turn, Nene entertained us with her smile and laughter. i love carrying her around, even at the mall. in the clinic, she was full of energy and greeted almost everyone. ahhh...don't you just love babies!

after the check-up, we went back to the mall to catch the vamps and the wolves. we left Nene with the boys at the food court, to have some girl bonding. unfortunately, we missed the movie by half an hour and we were not allowed to get in anymore. ugh!

we carried our disappointments down to the ground floor where the boys and Nene were. they decided to do some shopping for the basics like milk and diapers and pacifiers and all those stuffs. 

i carried Nene while the mommies analyzed the difference of one diaper brand to another, the nutrients that one brand of milk has and one hasn't, the wonderings whether banana flavored gerber tastes better than apple flavored gerber, and stuffs that made me feel so out of place.  

it was good that Nene and i really got along well. i just love having her in my arms. she made me feel comfortable. well, not until her diaper leaked. i felt something dripping on my arm and i panicked! my voice raised a few decibels as i ran to Libet to report what happened. 

ugh! i blew my disguise as Therese's mom! i was demoted from being a mommy. i just pushed the cart filled with baby stuffs while Libet changed Nene's diaper. 

it was a fun practice for the bleak future of motherhood. but for now, i have to nurse my aching arms....

number 3

sunshiny

i woke up with a clear head. everything was so light. i even thought i was floating. it just felt...different. i opened my eyes and checked my surroundings. everything was normal. but something's changed within me. all the gloomy feelings were gone. i feel as light as a feather. i feel really good! #morereasonstosmileinthemorning#

quakie

people rushed out of the mall as the 5.6 magnitude earthquake shook iloilo at around 1:20 pm today. 

i was so glad to get out of that traffic jam! 

and thank goodness for there were no aftershocks after that one.

books and more

i am so happeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! 

i've got books to read for the next 10 years! hahaha!

i was worried for the past days because i'm about to finish reading the vampire academy series. i was reading slower than usual, so that i can prolong spending time with dimitri. but sooner or later, i have to let go of him and all the wonderful characters in the story. 

waaahhh!!! i'm so attached to the dhampirs, morois, alchemists and well, strigois now. and i'll miss them a lot. i will miss traveling around the world with them.

i hope the next book will be a hit, too!

#fingerscrossed#

early morning concert...s

now i know...the balay jaro housemates have a common way to relieve the downside of life...

concert! concerts!

i was awakened by the strumming guitar. i still tried to go back to sleep, but a few moments later, the housemates, james and kirk, sang maroon 5's "payphone" in chorus. if i don't know any better, i would have cursed the boys silently. but then, i remember that, songs, indeed, make people feel better. and if it's their way of venting out their emotions, then i don't have any qualms about it.

it happened to james once. for a week or two, he awakened all the housemates with his guitar at 5 in the morning. and it's all because, his girlfriend broke up with him. we let him be and he eventually stopped disturbing our sleep.

well, i had my own episode of early morning concerts, too! when cristian broke up with me, i let out all the hurt by singing songs. i waited for the housemates to be off to work. then fairy mae belvis and i would sing our hearts out in the kitchen. she'd open youtube in her mac and i'd check on the lyrics of the songs in my lappy. and we'd sing merrily, not minding the neighbors or how awful our voices sounded like. 

like all dramas in life, those episodes come and go.

so, i'll just enjoy this live morning entertainment until the boys' heartaches end.

guards on duty

as we passed by our usual route in going home, we noticed these two guards who are sleeping soundly while on duty.

hmmmm... i guess they are guarding dreamland :)

a smile in my heart

11.11

it's the day to give away peppero's in Korea. 11.11. i already got my box of peppero last friday but i didn't open them until today. happiness comes from a box of chocolate covered biscuit sticks. 

happy pepero day, Korea!

grease lightning

the fashion channel of my brain is inspired by the 60's this week. i love prancing around in polka dots, striped, lacy and plaid colorful dresses since Monday (except on Tuesday when i was running late for work and just grabbed a pair of jeans and orange lacey blouse). i feel happy dressing up like olivia newton john. there is a certain feeling of excitement every time the wind blows and i have to keep the skirt down. those moments make me feel like marilyn monroe ^_^

i truly believe with all my heart that the women of the 60's are the most beautifully dressed. 

now, there's one more wardrobe that i have yet to try. one of these days, i want to be in black with pearl accessories and have breakfast at tiffany's.

number 2

number 1

all the small things

i got so inspired by the posts i've read and seen on google about the simple things in life. i was so excited to make a list of the little things that made, make and will make my heart glow. i hope that i will be diligent in this new little project.

info overload

our plan to meet up with our long lost friend from dubai turned to ashes. with nothing else to do in a sunday afternoon, i decided to go with my housemate to a seminar on search engine optimization. i had a slight idea on this topic since i worked as a virtual assistant, until i got sick for being on the graveyard shift, for a couple of weeks. that was the end of my seo days. 

until it was resurrected for a couple of hours today. it went well, so far. i learned that there are a lot of things that you can explore in google. there are a lot of sites to use in searching the web. 

it seemed like the people in the piazza understood each other. they were nodding in agreement to the speaker. they asked questions. while my housemate and i felt like midnight. sometime during the seminar, we asked each other what we have gotten ourselves into.

towards the 3rd hour, i texted my bestfriend. it's a good thing that she and her husband were somewhere near the area. a few minutes after, we excused ourselves and once we were inside the car, we burst into a fit of laughter while sharing to them the confusion and headache that we got from the seminar.

a long walk in the supermarket while doing our shopping somehow cleared the clouds in my head. good thing...good thing...

a dog's hug

i was rolling in bed all day long because of my monthly cramps. the pain reliever put me to sleep but the pain was still there. 

i was reading my vampire novel when my friend knocked on my bedroom door and asked me if i'd go with them to do some shopping at another friend's house. i wanted some fresh air so i dragged myself out of bed, took a shower, then we drove to villa. 

we were one floor away to mader cris' apartment when i heard sam's barks and yelps. i called out his name and his barks became louder. when we were inside the apartment, i instantly kneeled down to greet him. when i settled on the sofa, he snuggled with me. oh, how i miss cuddling with a fluffy friend. we remained affectionate to each other while my best friend tried on some dresses. 

we were done shopping half an hour later. i felt bad about leaving sam. but somehow, i'm grateful that i got to hug him for a while.

in times like this, i miss kuya O, terribly...

             Sam, lying comfortably on mader cris' bed.

bottomline... mothers stories

on tv now is boy abunda's "the bottomline". they're talking about every mother's story. they are stories that i cannot relate to, but the mother's stories of love towards their kids make me cry.

valerie got pregnant when she was 16. she was so in-love and naive. now she's working hard to give a good life for her daughter and to be the best mom...

angela is being questioned by her officemates why she has a baby when she's a lesbian...

chiqui gave birth to a premature baby. it pains her to see her baby in the incubator everyday for two months. the baby has been through a lot of x-rays, injections and medical procedures. as a mother, it hurts her seeing her baby go through all that. sometimes, she wants to give up but when she sees her baby fighting for life, she knows that she has to be strong for her child...

there was a mom who worked in Syria to be able to save more money for the future of her kids. when the war broke, she was reported to the police when she tried to get away from her employer and seek refuge from the philippine embassy. after several days in the prison, she was brought to the hospital and that's when the embassy was able to help her and they sent her back to the country. she was away from her kids for several years. when she got home, it hurt her that her kids seem to don't know her and don't want to be anywhere near her...

another mother was devastated when a woman stole her baby from her...

a mom told her story about dealing with a basketball star player son. hers is a success story because she's always there or tries to be there for her kids...

bottomline is, every mother wants the best for their children. they will do everything for the kids that they brought to this world. they may have different ways of expressing their love... those ways equal to divine and infinite love.

all i want for christmas is...

... a time alone with my comfort movie ...