Taking a Break

A cup of lemon tea at Figaro.
Inside Figaro
Originally uploaded by 2amigas.

Snapshots of KL

Nasi Lemak and Mee Goreng

View of the Old Court inside the National History Museum


My Armory


Football Fever


Jamek Museum...where the river splits


Morning fare outside Central Market


My lunch...curry,curry and upo with lentils

Fab Finds

A Canon camera from ebay.

Seed blouses in Bukit Bintang, 50% off!

Jeans from Diesel at Suria.

2 Roxy and 1 Billabong shirts at Petaling at 15RM each!

Pressed flowers at Isetan.

Buy 1 take 1 choco balls in a tin can.

-What more can you ask for?!

***
Belle

cheesy and corny and chocolatey

In between writing reports, I was busy texting . Good thing, my reports don't look like they came straight from a mobile fone.

It has been a couple of days since the last time I actually saw his face flashed on my fone's screen. Cheesy maybe. But, can you blame me? I haven't seen him for almost a year now. And I am not actually talking about my ex flame who I haven't seen for ages...after our you-annoy-me-too-much farewell at the airport a year and many months ago. Back to writing reports and texting...it makes report writing a much enjoyable job. One might even mistaken it as moi writing a kilig story for this blog.
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Last night, I met old friends of mine from high school. There were only four of us here in Manila...well, Rhe was visiting from the US. We still look giggly (less giggly pala) and a bit older (but still giggly and love to tease everyone). From old love teams from high school to wacky stories and ex boyfriends. ExBF...how you love to not talk about them or tipong giving the >>Shrug<< pag tinatanong tungkol sa kanila.

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Believe it or not...I am actually watching the PBB teen ed. And I am rooting for Gerard for no apparent reason. Aargh. Or probably, his name is the surname of Liverpool FC's captain..Steven Gerrard. Connect?! Should I shout "Ole, England" this coming World Cup?
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Too many chocolates for the day. I had some c/o KLIA Duty Free (Ritter, after eight, choco with coffee beans and something with nuts but not Van Houten naman). Rhe and Ryan gave me a Nestle Symphony. Remy handed me some babe ruth straight from Singapore. But that I love the most? Durian hopia from Davao.

lobster

Curry Talks

(Straight from KL, My)

Curry..curry...curry. That was my breakfast this morning...and my ulam this lunch. Yum yum yum...

Love

Goin to KL

But yes, I am going there again....

Barbie Rocked the Dome

Last Friday could have been one of those ordinary Fridays where I would sit at home and watch Bubblegang. But courtesy of Ellaine (aka Corinne), we got 4 tickets to Barbie Almalbis' concert in Araneta. It was a last- minute invite but what the heck, the tickets were free and I just work nearby.

So, together with Shirl and 2 of her pang-Starstruck kids- Mikey and Mike (they are not twins, btw), we trooped to the Big Dome and watched Barbie with Kitchie, Rocksteddy, Hannah of Session Road, and Nev of 6cyclemind.

For me, the concert started ho-hum. Salamin opened the show (lead is Paolo Valenciano who could be mistaken as a baby Bamboo but with the voice of Reg of Greyhoundz). Then came Rocksteddy and Barbie, at last! Everyone went wild when Teddy went onstage. He got this stage presence - blame it on Idol ko si Kap and Sugo?-and wild hair.

Syempre, the star of the night was Barbie herself. With a backdrop of a dollhouse, she first sang Tomorrow, rock version. And of course, it was followed by her hits when she was still in Barbie's Cradle.

She and Kitchie sang Firewoman with Barbie on the keys and Kitchie on guitars...well, it was cute. Honestly, I enjoyed Barbie and Hannah's set. Those were the songs, we grew up with. And she started out with Sweet Child of Mine. Hehehe...very early 90s.

I did enjoy the Little Jagged Pill duet with her mom. Wow, rocker rin si mother! And she can play the guitar too! And her mom looked so young, huh.

She had a song for her fiance. Untitled pero sweet and cute. God, ang haba siguro ng buhok nung guy. She even said that since she is the singer, she'll do the harana for the guy.

The concept was great. I love majority of the songs. I enjoyed the last 4/5 of the show.

So, did she rock a Big Dome? Definitely. Big Time.

Harassed at Work

I’m just too stressed out at work this week. Running for meeting after meeting, then coming back to the office to return calls, reply to emails and work on my reports. Plus a dozen more tasks in my to-do list.

3 upcoming events in 2 months! How harassing could that be?! The big event comes July 1st, but you know how THEY work, as early as now, there are some awesome ideas thrown in, pero ewan ko lang, how many per cent will be accomplished on the actual event. Good in lip service, that’s what majority of them are. No wonder my recent meetings run for more than an hour just to discuss 1 tiniest detail. Too many cooks spoil the broth, really.

The impending maternity leave of one of our buntis colleagues (well, 1 of the 4 of us here in the office, pero sya lang ang buntis, don’t get me wrong on that) is such a nightmare too. Meaning, I’m left with me, and only myself to do the menial tasks, and being my right-wing. Might have to hire a temp, or maybe take in one of alaga’s to work for us on temp basis. Whatever the case, this may at least ease my burden. I’m keeping my fingers crossed on that.

No time to sneak in Friendster, or even a quick grab a decent brewed coffee at Mister Donut (Starbucks just kills my finances now).

On second thought, I can maybe sneak in Friendster, and update my profile and photos. And maybe “stalk” on someone on my friends list. Hmm, when was his latest update again?

Good way to de-stress eh?

`STF

Bonding with Bagets

April 27 to 28, I was out of town for a Summer Camp with our charges. Our alaga’s. 9 of them, some are even taller than I am. With American nicknames, but Pinoy looks and values. Sabi ng iba, patayuin mo lang sa tabi, baka me magtanong sa kanila in English. Pero kawawa, baka matameme lang sila at di makasagot…poor kids…

We were on the road at 630 AM, on the way to Los Baños, Laguna. Sounds a swimming gimmick? I just so wished, but it wasn’t. We’re on the way to “somewhat” transform our kids – age range from 13 to 20 years old - to be more confident, more loved and loving, and more independent as they can be. 2 days were actually not enough, but we wisely spent every minute of it.

“Thriving and Surviving Adolescence” was the program’s theme. Aha, I wished I could turn back time. But well, I’m still adolescent by heart. 16, 17, 18…feeling ko actually, my age stopped at 23. Either it’s a good or bad thing, I still don’t know. J

We hired professionals to facilitate the flow of the program – Who Am I?, Affirming Self-Worth, and Communication Styles, Yes/No and some interesting topics. I couldn’t delve the details of the discussion since we were under oath of non-disclosure. All I can say is, I’m proud of my alaga’s. Mana sa akin – merong mga ma-showbiz, some are very articulate, and more mature than their age. They freely shared their feelings and emotions to us, and have freely expressed what’s on their minds.

4 of them (plus Agnes) stayed at the house over the weekend. Friday night was spent on movie marathons, gorging on junk food, drinking Coke, going through our books, (ha, there are a couple for their reading pleasure, i.e. Harry Potter, Bob Ong books, etc) and scouring our limited CD collection. Much to the bagets’ delight, they saw Bamboo, Mojofly, Brownman Revival CD’s. Sorry though, no Hale or Cueshe CD’s in our collection.

Boy, I miss my kids already. Can’t wait to see them at the end of this month for our scholarship orientation. And hopefully, I won’t be the “strict” Ma’am they came to know, but a more relaxed and caring Stage Mother for all of them.

`STF

www.americanassociationphilippines.com

April has come and gone...

Too many backlogs for me, and yes, I am so guilty.

I dunno where to start…start with the most exciting happenings for the past month. Or maybe even start chronologically – parang daily diary. Or maybe start with the ones I’m looking forward to. I dunno where to continue, or even end this, considering the not-so ample time for my blogging nowadays.

Okay now, so these are all random thoughts.

Exciting happenings for April? As if meron. April is/was an exciting month for me. 2 years ago, I met….erase, erase. Maybe discussing about April is bad at all.

April is Avril in French…Avril is the name of a college friend whom I was supposed to meet her with the fiancé for dinner last week. Saying di natuloy. Still wondering what happened – maybe they didn’t have much time left before their Saturday return trip to Switzerland. I miss Aves, we shared some common things in college, and both of us were asthmatics. In sickness, we bonded, ikanga. I met her fiancé over YM when he occasionally sneaked into our conversations. Such a nice guy, this Patrick. Sana nga matuloy na kasal nila. I’m such a sucker for romantic weddings and so-in love couples.

Avril is also…Avril Lavigne, the Canadian (aah, the connection again!) rock superstar. I can relate to almost her songs. “Complicated” is our videoke song (or let me correct that, Agnes’ videoke piece, walang palya ‘yan!). “My Happy Ending” is the one for me.

“You were everything, everything that I wanted
We were meant to be, supposed to be, but we lost it
And all of the memories, so close to me, just fade away
All this time you were pretending
So much for my happy ending"

And yes, I’m still looking forward to my happy ending. Sana naman it will come ASAP.

`STF

Mud About Springs

One of the developing mud holes in Mudsprings in Mt. Makiling.

Yesterday, I went to UPLB with some of my officemates. They went there to attend their college homecoming while I tagged along at naki-homecoming. It was a joyride of sort - eating kropek that was sold by roving streetvendors, singing very 80s lovesongs and overtaking slow drivers along SLEX. Since all of my companions are LB peeps, they decided to tour me around their college...sat by their frat/soro tambayan, visited their school buildings and showed me their favorite CR (well, Verns fave, that is.) But the highlight was the visit to the mudsprings. It was not just a bumpy ride and a hike. It was walking in my glorious sandals. Letch*!&$**

Although I was able to withstand the pain and kept my balance while hiking, I was pretty uncomfortable. After a few hundred meters of walking, almost sliding and breathing above normal, we were able to smell sulphur and see the bubbly mudsprings. Actually, it looked like a pond with smoke and bubbles and smelled like foul cooked egg. Aside from the pond, there were "baby springs" - holes that resembled volcanos since they were emitting gargling/boiling sounds while releasing fumes. It smelled bad, actually. We were not allowed to go near these springs yet we managed to stretch the chicken wires and had a good look at the boiling mud. Hehehe

We went back to our vehicle and there, I managed to get a view of where we are. We are indeed in Mt. Makiling...almost in Peak 2! The ground was carpeted by brown leaves, the sky was covered by large branches and our posts were tall trees. It was a change of scenery. The feeling I had right at the moment was that when I am stuck with endless skies and powder sands between my toes. It was amazing! Not really a big feat to boast but being able to see it (on a tourist trail) and enjoy every moment of the hike [and suffer (kalyo, kalyo, kalyo)] are enough to blab around.