you're welcome!

I opened my email today and got a letter from the World Wildlife Fund.

0910 bc

I never thought I would be able to go to Mallberry Suites on time for the Planning Meeting of the British Council Teachers' Club. It has been a year since they were able to come back here to meet the teachers here in Cagayan de Oro City. Although they was suppose to the be a transport strike (which I never actually felt that day) I still was able to go and good thing Myki (unexpectedly) was also there. Although I'm not very good at getting along with new people, I was able to know and be acquainted with fellow educators both young and veteran.

The almost whole day brain cracking session made us come up with activities for the whole year. I just hope all the activities would come out well. There's one coming up this May.

ask your doctor about it

If all else fails, ask the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Sniff.

niga higa laugha

Just encountered Ryan Higa on Youtube and boy, this guy can really make me laugh. This 18 year old comic genius has parodies and comedies up his sleeves and he can surely deliver. Just watch his videos and you'll agree with the rest of his views (more than seven figures and counting). He has come up with movie in minutes and this one is niga higa's take on Twilight.

and the camerlengo is ewan

"Here it is." A student of mine handed me a book that looked bloated I never realized it was mine. "But, what happened? This was definitely not in this condition before." I blurted my quick response. Seeing me disappointed, the student said his apologies. He was not the person who I lent my Dan Brown's Angels and Demons, he actually got it and made the mistake of getting it wet - a worse thing you could do with a paperback (there are a lot of other ways - like burning it). He was actually waiting for the hand of God (my hand for the matter, considering that I could have made his school life worse for this simple mistake of ruining my book) to punish him but I don't remember doing anything like that. I considered it more as an accident. I just remember how disappointing it felt that day. I even thought of getting myself a new copy (which I never did since I still have the bloated paperback with me).

I always thought this story was better than that story about a codex that "shook" the world (how come? there isn't even a key?) . While reading it, I even had a scene in mind where the camerlengo encourages everyone to pray (I hope I am not going to be disappointed this time).

Why Ewan? No offense, I don't have anything against this guy. I must say this guy has talent! (no pun intended) when he did Moulin Rogue, The Pillowbook and Starwars. I just had someone else in mind.

Anticipating for its opening in cinemas, I was thinking of reading the book once more.

Oh, the kid failed to graduate that year and I have absolutely nothing to do with it or was it because of the book. Really.

This photo is by Photo By: Zade Rosenthal. © 2009 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

booklat - children's storytelling

I got to be invited by the Culture and Arts Office to participate in their storytelling program in celebration of Book Day. The way to the Learning Center in Zone 12 Upper Carmen was a bit challenging and we had to some uphill walking. We got very excited to see that there were many kids waiting for us that morning.


I got to share with them the story of the Three Little Pigs and Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. We even got to dance and count and act (the list goes on when you're telling stories for children)


Thanks Sandre and Vic! I had fun working with you guys.

the winner stands alone

Be careful what you wish for. I remember wanting to get a book to read and this beauty appeared in multiple copies on the display window of National Bookstore. My hands were itching to have one. I got out of SM with it.

i want the whole world to know about my infinite mercy...

What would you have done if Jesus asked you for this favor?

We got to the shrine before the mass started. Call it a miracle, I was never grumpy when they woke me up even if I slept at around 2am. I didn't even doze off while we traveled from the city to El Salvador where the 50 foot Shrine of the Divine Mercy stands and overlooks the Macajalar Bay.

There were already a lot of people so we decided to stay where we could still breathe air (that says a lot about the pictures). The mass songs naturally echoed through the hills and made me sing (wait, it made me sing... the repertoire is so familiar) I sms (sorry) Jake -

"Are you at the Divine Mercy Shrine? Are you conducting the choir today?"

There was something about the mass (the people and the sacrament) that made the event solemn. I just appreciated Msgr. Monsanto's sermon that sounds more like a classroom lecture which comes complete with a ppt presentation (hey, if you want to learn more about your religion, might as well get it from a "teacher", right?).

I tried to get my way around the shrine (I had my camera with me, that was my excuse) to take some shots around. Again, the mass overwhelms me with their reverence. It wasn't the Malasag bedlam I had in mind minutes before we arrived.

An hour ago it was still dark with the stars and the moon above us, an hour later the sun bathed everyone as it rose from the bay.

When we left, a family friend we tagged along said something about the mass and how it felt good having it to start the day. That made me think I haven't been attending masses early morning. Something about starting the day right, I guess.

After the mass Jake replied with a "Yap. How was it?"

I said "It was lovely, it was so familiar. Afar, I could see the conductor's hand move I swear it was you."

future reads

I havent been reading lately. Would someone please recommend me a good book to read? Yes, I have some books unread or half-finished but there is something about just having a new book (smell the fresh crisp paper) and what new adventure it holds in store for the reader.  I was going over the old books I have in the library and I have this volume 1 of a 1959 hardbound book "A Treasury of Great Science Fiction" which had short stories of fiction writers who have the eye for what the feature has in store. It has with it a story by Philip K. Dick which was odd because it involved aliens (recall: Men in Black - the farm guy whose body was used as a skin by an alien? yeah, that one)

Microsoft has presented what it thinks the world will be in 2019. Now so far distant future. Please dont tell me you dont see some similarites with Minority Report (which in fact was also by Dick)

things to discover

Okay, Discovery Channel is where I would usually stop and be a couch potato when I have the remote in my hands (though its not the only channel I get to dwell). Well, the world is really awesome and everyday you get to learn more and more things about it. So what if some things are not as necessary for you to live by, but then again, it would'nt hurt to know about things, right? 

MythBusters is just such a great watch that every episode is never a bore. Adam and Jamie try all these myths, urban beliefs and legends etc (things we just hear or even talk about but dont try to really verify it) and try to make it work to see if they are busted or confirm. Grant is such a great guy in the show with his knowledge of robotics.  Tori and Kari have also been coming out with their own investigation and probing to some myths, and they even learn from what viewers have to say and do them again.

Whether in a forest or a desert, Bear Grylls seems to survive every time with his skills and techniques in Man vs Wild. You'll never know when you'll be needing those survival skills (if you get lost or something). Of course he has aids with him in the show (duh? who takes the camera shots?).

I wonder if Discovery Channel will still have another season for Most Evil. I like what Dr. Michael Stone has done in his research in his "scale of evil". Creepy but still makes me want to watch it. 

lost contact

Im turning off my phones starting today. I decided to turn it on all on Sunday. A little sacrifice won't hurt. My apologies to those who I wont be able to reply to.   

suddenly i see

Just when I thought I would end up in the house the whole week (not that I'm complaining) Cathy called me up and invited me to hit the pool. She wanted to celeberate her birthday with her friends and we all ended taking a cool swim at Basamanggas. 

staple diet for the week

I just wish I don't get so weak I couldn't raise a finger as the week comes to an end. The people here at home have this and I just wish I could have more than suman and mangga. They're preparing binignit for the next few days. Let's just say its not something I really crave for. I should have started my fasting weeks earlier so that I be able to endure the week's fasting. 

look, a present!

I went to Fr. Pen's office to discuss matters about my plans for the next year and he gave me this cute little stuff that actually made me smile the whole day. I never expected to have been given this present from a friend at Xavier School, Ma'am Je. I brought it with me all afternoon and showed it to people I encountered in school. I think the note says it all (I got a little bit artsy and made it camera ready). Some special people also got what looked like strawberry, flower and I got this shark note clip ready to attack on anyone who tries to mess up already messed up cubicle.

do not kill the messenger who comes to tell the truth

Why are We a Nation of Servants?

By F Sionil Jose

Here we go again, some inconsequential columnist in Hong Kong takes a cheap shot at our unhappy country, calls us “a nation of servants” and immediately an uproar, and magma feelings of hurt are unleashed. Editorials, columnists, politicians are outraged — they demand apology as if one would really salve the bone-deep insult. It was the same sometime back when an English publisher defined “Filipina” as a housemaid. Such insults hurt profoundly but the pain fades quickly and soon after all that enraged outburst, we settle down to the same complacency, we continue sending more of our women abroad to be raped by Arabs, demeaned by Malaysians and Chinese, heckled by the Brits. What has our sense of outrage brought us?

Go to Hong Kong, to Singapore. Visit the Star Ferry environs in Hong Kong or Lucky Plaza, and Singapore’s Orchard St. And there, on Sundays you will see them, hundreds of Filipino domestics, yak-yaking, socializing on the sidewalk, having a pleasant respite from their work.

To the visitors, tourists and the natives, they are a piteous sight, illustrating so clearly and so well how this country has sank. As a Filipino, having witnessed such, I am utterly shamed. I do not blame our poor women for their sorry condition, for I know only too well their plight is the only way by which they can help their families at home and survive.

It is such a boring cliché now, but back to the not-so-distant past: Filipinas was the second richest country in the region, next only to Japan; our universities attracted students from all over Asia, and we had the best professionals, the most modern stores and hospitals.

And what was Hong Kong then? There were slums crawling up those hills on Victoria island, and slums all over Kowloon. Singapore as an English naval base was like old Binondo, with its small squalid shops and equally small houses.

But look at Singapore and Hong Kong now, then look at our country and people.

Sure, you can find in Makati magnificent mansions, the biggest luxury cars, the tony restaurants, skyscrapers. But elsewhere the ugly sprawl of slums, the very poor who now eat only once a day. We must ask ourselves that question, why we became “the hewers of wood and drawers of water” of the world. What happened to us, a very talented and heroic people with a revolutionary tradition?

Once we have answered this question, then we should no longer wonder why there is a continuing diaspora of our brightest people, of our women. It is then the time for us to be truly enraged — not at that Hong Kong columnist — but at the creators of this dismal miasma we call Filipinas. Do not kill the messenger who comes to us to tell the horrid truth about us. Ingest his message, then turn all that outrage, that vehemence, to the Filipinos who turned this beautiful country into the garbage dump of the region: the oligarchs, the Spanish mestizos, the Chinese Filipinos and the treasonous Indios who sent their money abroad instead of investing it here in industries to create jobs for our people. Then it is time for us to rail and condemn the crooked politicians who are the allies of these wretched rich who permitted the relentless hemorrhage of this nation’s capital.

Revolutionary tradition? Ask those rebels why, after 40 years, these leeches are still feasting on our blood!

The Philippine Star

magnolia ice cream is back! even better!

I got the chance to drop by the local supermarket and to my surprise I got hold of what every little kid during my time wanted. Magnolia is definitely back to bring all of those who love ice cream back to their childhood moments (remember Anton Ego having his taste of Ratatouille). I was suppose to get any classic flavors they still have but then something better caught my eyes. I got the tub (paid for it) and almost ran like that kid who wanted to show his mother the stars in his hands after a good day in school. Chocolate Creme Brulee is a Limited Edition but I hope I could get more of this.

It does bring back all the good memories. I even recall having enjoy ice cream with a burger in the Magnolia Ice Cream Parlor inside Gaisano City.