Archive for May, 2008
Filed under Photohunt, beach, travel
I’ve been meaning to play in Photohunt, which I heard through Bing, but I forget to post each Saturday. This time I didn’t! 
The theme for this week is Self, and so here is my entry.
I look like a 12-year-old, no?
The photo was taken earlier this year in Boracay, an island in the Philippines famous for its long stretch of white beach.
I didn’t realize somebody sneaked to take a photo of me. I must have been thinking of something while looking at the sunset.
Filed under celebrations, personal stories
Today is my birthday. At this time last year I was on a road trip from Kentucky to New York to Washington, D.C. My friends and I welcomed May 28 at an inn in Baltimore, Maryland, before moving on to spend the day in Washington, D.C.
It was Memorial Day and we were in the capital city, so I got to witness all the holiday hullabaloo. Patriotism was thick in the air, there was a parade, and there were booths and goods everywhere.
This year the midnight is rather uneventful. While waiting for the rain to stop so I could go out and grab something to eat (I live in a part of the city that never sleeps), I was blog-hopping when I realized that it is May 28 already. I realize it’s too late now to go out, I am starved, and the only person with me is my roommate, who has fallen asleep. Kamusta naman.
So in an effort to come up with something profound and thought-provoking (because, after all, I am supposed to turn a year wiser) on this milestone of my history, I dug my archives to check my old birthday entries. Here are the ones I found for 2004, 2005, and 2006. I can’t find the one I wrote for 2007, or maybe I did not write one. Be warned that I was just kid when I wrote those entries. I pray to the high heavens that you notice at least a slight improvement in my wisdom through the years, otherwise I am a total failure as a citizen.
I better sleep. I have a long day ahead. Maybe I’ll have the inspiration for that thought-provoking birthday post after the parties are over.
Filed under personal stories
My housemate, Janice, who is marrying next month, is having her and her fiance’s parents over for the traditional pamanhikan. Thus I was banished to the confines of my room lest I disrupt the business meeting downstairs.
I don’t know what has come upon this house, but three other housemates are getting married this year. Our evening bonding times, during which we used to joke around, are now devoted to drones about marriage and child-rearing, and I am left out.
The only ones who are not into the marriage thing are us three youngest housemates, ages 21, 22, and 23. Whenever the others start talking about marriage, we’d roll our eyes and start looking around for dinner plates to wash.
I can’t imagine myself marrying anytime soon, and I don’t like it when someone asks me when I am marrying. (Can’t they see that I’m too young?)
Continue reading this entry »
Filed under corporate shit, culture
I slept late last night to hear out an American colleague’s frustrations about the American workplace. I work closely with Americans everyday, so I knew what he was talking about.
American work ethics is not ideal, as what most Filipinos perceive it to be. Whenever I tell people where I work, they would say I am very lucky, and then assume that I have money more than I can spend. Which annoys me, because first, I am just another wage slave, and second, they don’t know what they are talking about.
I’ve had frustrations at work, and I am not talking about discrimination here, no. I can honestly tell the world that I have been treated as an equal, that my opinions were valued, and that my abilities were recognized even though I am Filipino.
Continue reading this entry »
Filed under blogging
There’s an experiment going on that aims to find out how long it would take to list one million blogs.
I’ve added my blogs to the list. Quest for the True North is at #1575, and Little Light is at #1576.
Go ahead and add your blogs, my beloved three readers.
I am curious how many blogs there are on the web. I wonder if there is a way to find out?
Filed under beach, travel
I just got back from Nailon Beach Resort, which is in the suburbs of Bogo City, four hours north of Cebu City.
It’s not a white-sand beach like the other beaches in Cebu that I’ve gone to, but the resort is pretty enough to lift one’s spirits. I stayed in a room by the beach. The room opens into a balcony where you could sit and talk the whole night with the sea in front of you. It’s perfect if you have a special someone with you.
more pictures here
Anyway, it’s one beach down on my list. I drew up a list earlier this year of places in Cebu that I would like to see.
Among others I’ve gone to Olango Island, famous for the migratory birds it protects, and Malapascua Island, famous for its dive spots and white beach. Malapascua is the less developed version of Boracay. In fact, people call it “little Boracay.”
These are the remaining Cebu beaches on my list:
1. Bantayan Island - Bantayan is perhaps the most popular out-of-town seaside destination among Cebuanos. I’ve been meaning to go there ever since I don’t know when, but every time a group organizes a trip to Bantayan (I never go places on my own. That would be lonely), something always comes up and I am left behind.
Continue reading this entry »
Filed under human interest
My housemate, Cathleen, brought home some jumbo-sized bananas that she found in a market in Negros.
I have never seen bananas these big:
We placed the bottle of Sprite there for comparison. As you can see, the bananas are longer than a 1.5-liter bottle of Sprite.
It took us two days to eat these. We had to cut the bananes into slices and eat the slices one at a time.
Maybe there really is a kind of banana this big, but this is my first time to see one.
Filed under blogging
It seems that everyone is still talking about the iBlog4 Summit. I was there, actually, although it was like I wasn’t. 
I skipped the morning session and dozed through most portions of the afternoon session. 
I was late, I left early, and I kept going out in between talks, thanks to my friends who were outside and texting me every now and then so we could eat, stroll or just hang out in the Sunken Garden. (I hope none of the organizers ever read this).
I’m the kind of person who can skip anything except a good night’s sleep. I had worked until the wee hours that morning, and only had time to go home and pack my clothes before I left for the airport at 3:00 a.m. Yep, I had to fly in from Cebu.
I got in on the first flight, so I thought I could go to the summit early. But as soon as my head touched the pillow for a quick shut-eye, I lost my resolve to go and forgot about the summit.
It it weren’t for the beep of an sms I received at around noon, I wouldn’t have woken up. I dashed to the venue to find out that they were having lunch already. I didn’t have the guts to show up and claim my free lunch, so I stayed in the Sunken Garden and watched the Team Sunburn Garden play football.
Continue reading this entry »
Filed under spirituality
TK here tells his daughter about the true north.
True north could mean many things if taken figuratively. It could mean a person’s moral compass, or simply, our conscience, that part of ourselves that bugs us until we give in to it and do what it asks. It could be taken to mean our intuition, that quiet part of ourselves that knows and understands things even if these are irrational. It could be understood an artist’s reservoir of creative wealth.
We got all these from one Source, to which we are all connected.
A teacher taught me recently about the concept of the “center,” that part of ourselves that is connected to the Source. Awareness of that Source spells the difference between peace and quiet, love and hate, and acceptance and discrimination.
My quest is about finding my place under the sun. I still don’t know where I would be five years from now, but I trust that in time, some sort of pull would point me to the way, and then I would know.
