reunited with ying! was it just a year ago, that we met at booze stop for her and rhap's despedida? how time flies.
ying looks fresh out of the beach, while the rest of us -- office na office! haha!



grinning ear to ear. ok this one, though corporate looking, masaya pa rin!

UN-BUSY
I miss the busy days. It seems I always have free time. after work or in between work.
Or maybe my life has just been reduced to work these days and hence I don’t feel so busy anymore.
I’ve quit gym. I’ve deferred school for one term. And my lovelife is decidedly quiet. Hehe.

Most of the time I find myself na nangungulit sa friends (chai knows about it. Toni. Omar. Marlon. Or even diwa.)
Hayyy. A friend kept telling me, is it because I am single these days kaya I have more free time than I can ever afford. NOPE. haha!
It is really school, the lack of it that has kept me UN-BUSY. I told myself am not enrolling because work will be hectic in the coming months with the transition and all – and also because my conscience has been bugging me everytime I leave work earlier than my two team mates. And then it happened, I did not enroll. the work that I do is still the same. And yes I find myself loitering, waiting, bored…
Ok, I realized that no matter how busy life at work becomes, I will always have time for school. Get what I mean --- it seems a natural course, that time creates its own when you’re doing too many things at the same time. Am going back to school in two months. Can’t wait.

my first kayak experience - there goes me and sands, rowing with might as if we knew where to go!!!

big thanks to sands!

i so much want to go back to july 17th to 21st --- it was my first trip to dumaguete, sands' hometown. perfect company, perfect place, perfect food.

see you around
in less than two weeks, dalawa na lang dito sa pic ang mananatili dito sa pinas.
everyone is moving elsewhere in the world, esp. dubai.
ais is leaving for dubai to join emirates airline -- am so proud of this lady and am so hapi for her coz i know how much she worked hard for this and how long she waited for this. totoo talaga that when you wait long enough, something good and beautiful will always come out of it.


now, its not just one friend who's leaving me, but another one, toni!
not just a colleague at work but a dear friend -- one thing that amazes me about this girl is that she lets you be a friend to her. let me explain. she listened to me when i asked her to defer her resignation even when her heart and mind was all set out to do it. she listens and she trusts her friends.ang sarap nya maging kaibigan.


but to you both, i dont wana say goodbye but see you around.
bilog naman ang mundo, dbaaaaaaa.

a dear, dear friend, sands --- college friend, dormmate, sab sis. ill be seeing you in a week's time.. in dumaguete!!!
i can hardly wait.pero before that, ive to finish a term paper and take my midterm exams, complete client requests and decks and.. the lists go on and on.
no such thing as free lunch talaga. grabeeeeeeeeeeee.

my elective teacher is beginning to get in the way of my evening obsession : the piolo teleserye.
minsan tuloy, i'm regretting the fact that i took mba.
well, if only for his practical, meaningful pieces of advice, i would have totally dropped out of mba (an exaggeration of course)
one such advice:
feedbacks are the breakfast of the champions!
true.true.true.

till closing time
one friday nite..
with no plans,
my high school friends, winespirits and pelicanbrief and officemate and dear friend, toni talked over iced tea, then coffee, then a few round of beers. we got home by 5am after crashing into chakiks, a bar along julia vargas ave, whose owner, toni knows and hence the privelege of staying till closing time haha!
an amazing nite, coz how often it is that two completely different circle of friends meet for the first time and in a few hours end up like really close friends.
when's the next party? oopps, no plans...

Toni, a dear friend answered this question.

she said that opportunities become a problem when
..its too much
..it makes things even more complicated

i say,
..when it comes at the wrong time and in the wrong place

i feel like i'm in a rollercoaster at the moment.
since when has opportunities become problems?

11 hours to naga

My easter break is a joy.

I did not have a bus reservation going home so on Wednesday morning, I found myself in the bus station as early as 630 to be a ‘chance passenger’.
Tin texted and hoped, the bus driver gives me a ‘chance’. I was given one. Though at the last row and beside the alternate driver who occupied part of my seat.
The traffic was heavy on holy Wednesday so I arrived in Naga 11 hours later --- my butt was hurting and my tummy and by then I was dying to get home --- and hug my niece.

official babysitter

I’m the official babysitter to my niece, jenny whenever I’m home. She hollers my name – to get her water, to bathe her, change her clothes, make her sleep, play with her --- in short, I was her favorite company (hurrah!).

sandgirl

On Saturday, we spent the nite over at a nearby beach resort along with auntie eden’s family. Such a restful and refreshing break.

Jenny was of course very excited because she loves the pool and calls the sea, a pool anyway, a bigger pool.

What was funny and weird was that she cannot set foot on the sand because she finds it dirty. Not even boracay when she and her mom went there months ago. So the whole time, she was either on the cottage bench or somebody has to carry her.
That night while my sister (her mom) was feeding her, I showed her excitedly how fun it was to dig one’s feet through the sand. I got through her and slowly she reached her feet to the sand --- and there in no time, she was playing on the sand, with the sand and we could not stop her. At 2 ½ years old, she finally learned to walk on the sand.

We stayed at the resort till Sunday noontime. Well that’s Easter Sunday and my sister’s bday too! Jenny sang her a happy birthday which she sang as ‘happy detday.’ It was hard to pull Jenny out from the waters --- she was so brave and would even insist to us to free her up.
Well, that just really magnifies the truth that she was indeed born (almost) on the beach. My sister was at the beach with the whole family when she was rushed to the hospital to labor. Water. Water.

Last Monday night, when I left for naga, I cant help but really really wish I had more time with jenny and my family. Miss them already.

i love cuddling my niece on my lap -- she calls me bibi, that is without 'tita' before it. my mama often reprimands her for it but hey, shes only 2. and she says it so sweetly so...

a must see




Underwater world, Sentosa Park, Singaproe

a must ride



Cable Car, an alternative ride to Sentosa

Merlion Park at Singapore

...Despite unequal ways
Together they mutate
Explore the edges of harmony
Searched for a centre;
Have changed their gods;
Kept some memory of their past
In prayer, laughter, the way
Their women dress and greet
They hold the bright, the beautiful,
Good ancestral dreams
Within new visions,
So shining, urgent,
Full of what is new.

Perhaps having dealt in things
Surfeited on them.
Their spirit yearn again for images,
Adding to the dragon, phoenix,
Garuda, naga, those horses of the sun,
This lion of the sea
This image of themselves.

excerpt from Ulysses by the Merlion)

One of the highlights of our trip was obviously staying at hangout.

And one of the really nice surprises for us, was the breakfast that they offered --- a tiny, simple but delicious buffet.



This is where we had it --- a very cozy, modern setting and with minimal designs.

The sausages and peanut butter on wheat bread were our favorites and their brewed coffee was awesome too – we would have 3-4 cups in one sitting and neither one of us would feel edgy -- we suddenly forgot all about starbucks and seattles and san francisco or ucc!

First stop: Singapore
With who: toni, a.k.a the ‘life of the party’ and very dear friend

…as if we just went back to our province on a weekend.

We flew from manila to kl and landed in kl at 730p.
Took the airport cab going to puduraya bus station where we booked tickets going to Singapore.

It’s a 6-hour drive (plus 3 hours previously on the plane), we looked forward to sleeping on the bus. At 10pm, we were on board and ready to doze off. The bus is called ‘transnational’ --- a three-seater bus with comfy seats (just what we needed) just like the lazyboy seats you find in premium buses going to bicol.

We reached Singapore at around 4am and took a cab again, costs 150 pesos (or SG$4.6) going to hang-out hotel.

This hotel has a funny story with it haha! For one week, toni and I surfed the net for a hotel that we could stay in --- cheap but neat and safe, those were our requirements. When we asked andy, our british expat officemate, his exact words at our choice hotels were ‘shabby and dodgy’ word of advice: take hangout hotel, it’s a small backpackers’ hotel, a nice leafy area, and 10 minute walk from the orchard road.

So we took his advice and true enough, hangout hotel or more clearly now its called hang-out at Emily park is indeed such a nice, nice place!





this is our room - where we zonked out



and veg out...