digitaldaydream

it's nice to see old friends back on LJ! hope we keep it up. i know i promised grace & mika a year-in-review post and i promise i'll get around to it. i'm still in davao and enjoying spending time with my family. we're only all together like this once a year, and it's been fun. little sister and i got kicked out of our room because the a/c is busted so we're camping out in the den. which means - marathon glee sessions and direct access to the kitchen... all in all a good time.

also i'm trying to finish dan brown's new book, the lost symbol, before i have to return the kindle. after the first few "pages" of the book i finally adjusted to reading on a screen and now i'm 83% done with the book. i have it down to an exact number because the kindle doesn't show page numbers, it shows locations and percent done. a little weird. nothing will replace a real book of course, but this is a worthy challenger for someone who is always on the road - and books are cheaper on this thing too.

i haven't stopped eating since the holidays started and thankfully that ends tomorrow. back to regular programming, and i'll make time for the yearend post.

happy new year all!

A few months ago i was reading a NYTimes article about how the Large Hadron Collider, 15 years and 9 billion dollars later, isn't quite working. My brother looked over my shoulder and asked what I was reading about and i struggled to explain the LHC.

Fortunately, the scientists at CERN aren't too concerned about fixing the LHC and now devote their time to dorky rap videos to explain to us common folk what a giant particle accelerator really is. I didn't find this myself, my closet geek of a boyfriend did!

i want to write about politics and the whole noynoy - mar thing soon... but for now i just want to say that i am happy noy is topping the surveys and upsetting villar, because i can't stand villar, don't trust him, and am glad that this is going to shake some of his confidence. a source close to me met with him last week and he said that all villar talks about is himself (ako ito, ako ganyan, ako ako ako...). trapo! now that mar is out of the picture i want to learn more about teodoro. but at the end of the day one of the things that's important to me in a new president is that he will prosecute GMA once she is out of office. and gibo won't do that.

i had a really fun weekend. we went bowling in eastwood and it was so much fun! at 10PM it turned into disco bowling complete with disco lights, neon balls and blacklit lanes. too bad they only serve beer.

as much as i love beer i have finally admitted to myself that i am allergic and it makes my skin itch. sad face.

another discovery of the weekend is patron XO cafe - tequila + coffee = amazing coffee liqueur! so so yummy.

leaving for the states for a month at the end of september. i'm excited to see my sister and ogle beautiful shoes.

four out of the ten deadliest ferry accidents in the philippines happened to ships owned by sulpicio lines. full list at the inquirer

June, 2008: MV Princess of the Stars, owned by Sulpicio Lines, capsizes at the height of a typhoon. Of the 850 on board, only 57 survive.

September, 1998: MV Princess of the Orient ferry, sister ship of Princess of the Stars and owned by Sulpicio Lines, sinks off Batangas City. About 150 die.

October 1988: MV Doña Marilyn, owned by Sulpicio Lines, sinks off the central island of Leyte, leaving more than 250 dead.

December, 1987: MV Doña Paz, sister ship of Doña Marilyn and owned by Sulpicio Lines, collides with an oil tanker off Mindoro island, leaving more than 4,000 dead in the world’s worst peacetime shipping disaster.

WTF? at least one major disaster every ten years and they continue to operate? sulpicio has a horrible track record like and looking at the data, they haven't done much about their safety record.

 i want to start LJ-ing again but i twitter too much and writing more than 140 characters feels weird.

last night i cooked sun-dried tomatoes and garlic oil pasta. today i made a creamy mushroom and tuna sauce with fettucine.

i came across something pretty LOL-tastic. Victoria London (as in THE victoria london, our very own)'s online store that sells "sexy clubwear" "costumes" and lingerie... except they all look like lingerie to me.

as she says at the top of her page, "enter at your own risk."

i'm celebrating my birthday a little differently this year. i funded a project called "making little dreams possible" - where 30 sixth graders from two of the farthest schools in my town here in sarangani are brought into the city for two days of learning and fun. yesterday, they visited the central elementary school and made friends with other kids. then they visited a power plant and even got to walk through the control room with lots of computers and switches and buttons. back home, they don't have electricity. after the power plant, we took them to the ocean - and this is the first time they saw the sea up close.

where they live, they can see the lights of general santos and the surrounding towns. what i was told was that all they wanted was to go where the lights are - and that's where we're taking them. today they visited the airport and fish port in the morning. this afternoon they're going to visit two universities and get to watch a movie, eat in jollibee, and possibly go bumper cars.

the goal of this trip is to encourage these kids to attend and finish high school, and realize that there is a bigger world out there for them to conquer. all of the children had never been in a car before and had never been to the city, either.

it takes five to six hours of walking to get to their villages.

one of the mothers ran after her child to press some money into his palm -- all of two pesos. she has never been to the city, either.

in these two years that i have lived here, i have had so many experiences and interactions with people that really changed my perspective and also made me realize the kind of work i want to commit my life to.

i continue to believe that education is the way out of poverty and the way towards peace and development. it sounds like such a cliche but nothing is truer than that.

"this odd conglomeration of mostly working infrastructure and unimpeachable cultural security, this city where you never have to wonder if the movie will open or the band will play or the author will read, is a place I shall never take for granted."

i'll see you soon, nyc.

from here

I can't find a big size of the poster but here are the deets - i won't be in town but LJ's very own wexistence  will be there!


On May 11, 2009 we will begin our COUNTDOWN TO CHANGE as we encourage Filipinos to vote for reform in 2010.

365 DAYS TO CHANGE is organized by Artists' Revolution, and headlined by the enduring Apo Hiking Society, as well as Joey Ayala, Isay Alvares, Robert Sena, Kjwan, Jon Santos, and Juana Change.

More artists are being invited so STAY TUNED for the evolving artist lineup!

For tickets to 365 DAYS TO CHANGE...TODO NA 'TO! please contact: CHINGKEL, AISSA, or MENARD at 8982913, 8983221, or 8997691 loc. 2222-24.

NOW NA! :)

JR and I are heading to Japan for Holy Week! Thank god for the two long weekends and cheap PAL tickets. Round trip Manila-Osaka flights were $240 roundtrip plus taxes...it comes out to just under $650 for two tickets. 

We're both big fans of Japanese food and are determined to make the trip a feeding frenzy. We start out with a night in Osaka then two nights in Kobe and then we head to Kyoto for three nights and then we spend the rest of the trip in Osaka.

We're going to Kobe just for the beef. I've already found some good restaurant recommendations. I discovered this site called Bento that has english reviews to restaurants around Japan. Kyoto is a must-see for the temples but I got overwhelmed while doing research because it sounds like Kyoto has more temples per square mile than any other place in the world. Or something like that. But thanks to piracy and illegal downloads i found a copy of Lonely Planet Kyoto on torrent. Someone had taken it out from a public library and scanned each and every page. Thanks a lot, whoever you are! Lastly, Osaka is where Takoyaki and Okonomiyaki originate from. We also downloaded Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations Osaka episode and got excited about all the food. Bourdain goes to this tiny sushi restaurant that has all of six seats and everything they served him just looked so good.

The challenge of course is the language barrier but I'm sure we'll manage, and that is always part of the fun anyway.

The other bonus is that we're going right smack in the middle of cherry blossom season!

I have to say, it feels good to be back on LJ.

And welcome back, Mika and Jill! ;)