opened gateway

when i was a student, i kept on wondering when could i possibly put into good use the things that i was learning that time. 

a lot of times, those learnings (plus the additional ones) were used naman. 

but the wedding at supposedly-pagsan-only-but-actually-in-lucban-quezon provided the ultimate (so far) test site for my lesson in video. 

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craters start to abound (again???)

craters on the face of the planet are not visually pleasing. 

for the longest time, the earth revolves safely and confidently  for almost a year since its dismal 2005 performance.

2005 will go down in history as the year that every line of defense including the fortress had collapsed. 

all sort of means to revive the troops were of no help. not until the team went back to basics (and included the patron of hopeless cases in the picture).

it was a loooong process until everything was in good shape again…

not until two or three days ago, when craters start to abound again!

oh no… we no longer want to experience what happened in that inauspicious year of 2005. the sufferings, oh well, though it was worth it, are the hardest one could ever experience. 

this time, i think the defense is being put in the test again.

will it submerge in the craters or will it survive the challenges?

will find that out in following days.

no *sparkles for the moment.  

sissy smile

another happy day today.

got the chance to bond with my not-sisters-by-blood-but-sisters-by-heart, ria and jax.

it was a schedule-filled day today but a dinner sprinkled with laughter could erase the stress enveloping my body. 

i've never been so happy in my life in spite of the looming "bump" right smack on what the eyes can easily see. i almost forgot "it" but these two just kept on reminding me! oh well, i still enjoyed it.

series of unfortunate events happened when we were having our dinner:

> low confidence level the whole day

>my knife slipped. it fell on the floor. jackie's laughter reverberated inside the store.

>was eating the for-three-people salad. in my earnestness to finish the whole thing just in time for the dessert, i had to fit in a leaf of the romaine lettuce in my (small) mouth. again, jackie laughed. as she laughed a parcel of whatever i was eating fell on the plate. it was small lang naman. kaya, it was nothing. 

> then, a morsel of rice suddenly slipped past my throat without notice. so, i experienced that "samid" moment. as expected, jackie laughed to the fullest!

those unfortunate events may happen one after the other but it was okay if you;re with people whom you could enjoy each moment. 

*sparkles! 

stomachache.

it's a happy day today.

i've finished all what i ought to do. still mommy ria is on the road. she's finishing some errands.

happy…happy… still have time to have a second round of sleep.  

what shall i tell you? hmmm.. oh, yeah!

yesterday was a great day. 

it started with laughter and ended with stomachache and "locked-jaw" because of , still, laughter.

we went to calamba, laguna for the pre-nuptial photoshoop of sir darwin and ma'am ingrid. a polite and very kind couple. the astonishing site of ayala greenfields provided the background for the photoshoot. digicon team was on time. yes…yes…new life. but the couple was 2 hours late. but it was fine. we had a talk with ate jenna, whom i've met for the first time. she owns the catering group. ate jenna is an undiscovered comedienne. we did nothing but to laugh as she recalls her "journey" collecting things related to her, in her words, "future husband, hon. rep. timmy "c"."

we couldn't breathe because of continuous laughing. we thought the stories would be the end of it, not until she showed us the "album." in there are the various photos by hon.rep. timmy!!! shots taken from the net, from the newspapers…everywhere.  there are pictures with the parents, pixelated photos, and high school graduation pix! (apparently, the guy is a hard-core lasallite). we couldn't stop laughing. the album also contains plastic bags with the congressman's name on it, stickers, and literally, other things related to the guy.    

oh, i got it wrong. it's not just an album. it's a scrapbook!

when the couple finally arrived, we had to put that scrapbook aside to deal with the photoshoot.

well, nothing significant happened during the shoot; only, it rained. hahaha! we thought it would be postponed. thank  the divine, the sun still appeared after the rainfall.

when it's our time to pack things up, i received a message from tita cecille requesting me to move our 8pm meeting today at 8pm again.

it's good news especially to ate jenna.

it only meant that we could extend our kuwentuhan. 

we stayed at their cafe house located at the 5th floor of their "executive building–" the calamba executive center.

up there, we planned how are we going to contact the congressman. we also planned for the congresman's photoshoot.

oh boy, the girl is so "obsessed" with the guy. just a mention of the guy's name, she always goes nuts.

after that,

on our way back home, we planned not to pass by the skyway, since it wasn't already traffic and we were not in a rush, anyway. not until we received mimai's text.

she was in masas-greenbelt with officemates. just across them, her ex-beau and her ex-friend (the cause of their break-up) were there celebrating the latter's birthday. 

we immediately changed our minds. "to skyway!!!"  because we wanted to see this long-overdue and long-awaited moment.

we even invited some gmg people. hahhaha! only jem and mommy denz made it.

we left calamba at around 09:45. were at pasong tamo at 10:17. we flew just for this "moment."

so there… i will not tell you what happened during this encounter. but, it was all worth the rush.

i decided to sleep over at the buena-fee's residence. since it was an on-the-moment decision, i didn't bring personal stuff.

so, i had to buy disposable undies at the nearest convenient store. we were all laughing in the car by the mere thought of buying disposable undies. "they might thought i would be having wild sex, tonight!"

when we were at the store, we found this pack, and grabbed it. jax didn't want to prolong my embarassment. but she said, "mamaya, hindi pa mag-register ang price. mamaya tanungin pa at isigaw kung ano yung item." we were laughing hard.

lo and behold.

the price didn't  register at the POS. "tol," called the cashier, "magkano 'tong siopao!" jackie almost rolled on the floor laughing. 

i couldn't hold myself either.

when we reached the car, that was the time we erupted to laughter. we told the story to mommy ria and mimai. we were all laughing out load. literally. then, i opened the packaged. picked one of the disposable undies which resembled a towelette one could see in a chinese restaurant. the "shoughter" (shout + laughter), probably, was heard outside. jax couldn't drive properly; lest, breathe. when i unrolled the undies, it was like a shower cap with two extra holes! i even wore it on my head.  jax could no longer look at me. she said she couldn't laugh hard any more. her stomach was starting to tighten. 

hahahahhaha!

well, those are the things happy people do when they smell like grasses, when they are  tired, and when they have to be in a rescue to a friend who, for the first time, has seen her "exes."

*sparkles! 

in the corner

…waiting to be noticed.

for those souls who do not fully understand the intricacies of weaving words, they would look down on scribes.  it is as if they were second class citizens of the creative world.

because almost the entire population of this world can write, "writing" (the art that i'm referring to) has been relegated to something ordinary. like the mysteries of the earth (rising of the sun, delivery of a new born child, budding flower, etc.), which happens on a daily basis, writing is simply, "plain." 

for a tyro writer such as me, i say, writing is not a walk in the park.

like any other angels of the artistic world, writers require a lot of preparation to produce their next magnum opus. 

like the other artists, they get inspirations from various sources that may ignite what could be the next "writings of the century."

selecting words that precisely convey the abstract thing in their mind is an arduous task. arranging them to form coherent sentences is a whole lot of another story. see, it is a long process that requires dedication, passion, and vision from the writer.

for those of you who look down on scribes, pity you. you do not know the power their pens have.

*sparkles! 

and there it was…

amidst all the paper chaos, the looming deadlines, and the droopy eyes,

i hit the "send" message.

let this entry be the silent witness to the day i've unleashed, once again, that courage residing in me.

geesh… the fear is still hovering on me like a cloud poised to send  rainshowers.

*sparkles!*  

unit 731 - dante’s inferno in asia ("abandon hope, all ye enter)

he ordered killings by the thousand. he killed with impunity. and he received awards for outstanding contribution directly from the hands of a prime minister.

shiro ishii, the asian version of auschwitz's angel of death, dr. josef mengele, schemed and executed asia's answer to auschwitz-berkenau.

in the article, published on the daily mail website, "doctors of depravity," author christopher hudson reveals the montrocities happened in unit 731.

i was appalled by the acts of barbarism by the imperial army of japan. the author may not provide a blow by blow account of these horrors, i couldn't help but to stop as i reach the end of each paragraph.  the article provides bloody innards on a silver platter. one must have a strong mind, heart, and yes, stomach to finish the article.

did the world know about this? or a better question, would have been, did the world do something to bring this issue to international tribunal? did the perpetrators suffer the consequences? or they led a life free of guilt?

i'm offering this entry as a fulfillment to a promise i made to elie wiesel, a holocaust survivor himself.

sir elie, i shall remember.

if you have the time, PLEASE DO READ THE ARTICLE (which i've already included here for your convenience).

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the best!

for more than a year that i'm organizing (or helping to organize) events, this one is, by far, the best.

the big task: to raise P30,500 in 48 hours for kuya man who is still at the philippine heart center.

seemingly a difficult task.

well, it was.

but because there are still a lot of people who are always ready  to lend a hand, the task was a drop in a bucket. 

hours after i sent the message, we hit 3,000+

then, it became 10,000…

then, it jumped to 21,000…

then, as the day ended, we hit 27,400.

as the deadline neared, a 14,000+ pledge  from a donor in the US made us all yell and jump when we received the information.

even before the deadline arrived, i've already turned-over the pledges to gary, the most affected of us all.

truly, a difficult task seems easy if everyone helps to achieve it.

*sparkles! 

the alikabok anthology

vol. 1 

ext. parking. day

JAX and I parked the car in a lot somewhere near lasalle. this is where our looong journey would start. 

we had four options going to the next stop: (1) cab, (2) jeep, (3) fx, or (4) lrt .

we picked the 3rd option.

it seemed that luck was on our side. the usually-stinky-hot FX was nowhere to be found. the fx's aircon, surprisingly, was doing it's job magnificently.

a good start for a long day.

jax almost fell from the back of the fx. ahahahah! she alighted while it's still on the move. an almost accident but became a hilarious incident!!!! can you spell F-U-N-N-Y?  

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