a wedding and graduations

a close friend of mine is getting married this saturday! it must be the
most anticipated event of the year for us, his friends, and for him
too, of course. seems like it was only last week that i told him how
fast time flies when you're anticipating an event. and now that
event is only three days away! it seems like it was only last month
that we found out that he already has a girlfriend hehehe.

to Voltaire and Dona...CONGRATULATIONS AND BEST WISHES!!!

and tomorrow is my little sister's high school graduation. seems like it
was only last year when we rubbed chilli on her fingers so she would
stop sucking them and then feeling remorse afterwards cause she
wouldn't stop crying because of the burning pain in her mouth. she
was only two years old at that time, i think. still can't believe that
she'd be in college in a few months' time.

to Mimi.......CONGRATULATIONS AND GOOD LUCK!!!

while next month, my youngest brother will graduate from college--- finally!!!
took him five years to finish a four-year course. seems like it was only two years ago when the tip of the fence he was climbing ripped his left thigh open and had 24 stitches(i think) to close it. he was only five then.

to michael....CONGRATULATIONS AND WELCOME TO THE WORLD OF WORK, PRESSURE AND UNEMPLOYMENT!!!

haven't posted anything for quite a while but i hope to post more in
the coming months. that is, if i don't have any extracurricular
activities that will take up all my free time........

missing letters

when i was a kid until i was in college, when emails and the
internet were still a thing of the future, when one reliable way of
communicating with friends and loved ones from far away are through
exchanging mails, getting those mails from the postman or the post office
is a sure thing. now, however, all the mail we get are postcards. i
wonder why? maybe because there aren't any money attached to them?

it's frustrating when your family, relatives and friends tell you
over some other form of communication(either through the phone or text
message, or by email) that they've sent you cards or mails or pictures or
cds in the mail and you never receive them. you wait for those precious
mails for days, or weeks, or months, or years, until eventually you accept
the fact that those mails are gone forever.

i wanted to believe before that those mails probably were
addressed incorrectly, or they might have gotten lost. but those lost
mails are just too many for me to believe that those were just
coincidences. and it's amazing when we still continue to receive
postcards which means that the addresses printed on the mails sent by
the same relatives couldn't be incorrect. i don't want to think negative
thoughts and assumptions about what the people at the post office here
in the philippines do with our mails but i'm starting to lose my patience
with them!

i remember when i was still in grade school and some of my
classmates have their fathers or mothers working abroad. and i
remember some of them telling me that if i were to insert money in my
letter or card, that i should cover it in carbon paper coz the people at
the post office sort of scan the letters(i used to imagine that they have
some sort of xrays for those) and take the money inside. at least in
those days, people still receive their letters though the money have
already mysteriously disappeared. but now though, i believe that the
possibility of getting a letter(especially from abroad) by using mail is only
10%, whether there's money inside or not.

i understand that these are hard times and people will try to
get money in whatever way possible. but to open other people's mail to
look for money and then just throw them away when there are none are
just not right! i am aware that a lot of people work in the post offices
and that the emergence of emails and other delivery services nationwide
and internationally are threatening their jobs. but i believe that this is
the time to gain people's trust and confidence so that they will still
continue to use the mail. what the people in the post offices don't
understand is that by opening other people's mails and throwing them
away are just hastening the extinction of the postal mail. people will no
longer trust them and use other forms of communication instead. and it's
sad, really.

i myself already told my cousins and our other relatives years
ago that if they have pictures they wanted to share with us, then it
would be better if they send it through email or to link us to their
website. at least we are sure to see them all 100%. i told them that
after one of my cousins told me through email that she probably sent
three mails already containing pictures and we haven't received even one
of those. but we got her postcards though...

what prompted me to write about this is my brother's message
that i got last night that he sent through a friend who came home from
his ship. he told us that he sent a cd containing his instructions for
some stuffs that he needed for us to buy for him in the post office.
surprise, surprise! we didn't get anything from the post....

i don't want to generalize and i believe that there are those
who still do their jobs with integrity in the post offices especially those
who work in the provinces. but those who don't are giving most of them
a bad reputation. i hope they see the error of their ways and do their
job honestly. i don't want the post offices to disappear coz i still like
receiving mail from the post now and then. it's got a more personal
touch between the sender and the recipient. that's why i still have all
the mails i've received ever since i started writing letters....

lost things and a party

i seem to be misplacing a lot of things lately, it's getting
frustrating! last week, i couldn't remember where i put my newly-bought
.3 pen that i use to write in my diary. this weekend, i found out that my
mobile phone's cover is missing. this morning, i can't seem to find the
sketch i made for the character that i'm modeling right now in maya.
nakakainis! i guess i'm not as organized as i thought...

had a small get-together with some of my friends last friday at
market market. portia, my high school and college friend, came back
here in the philippines two weeks ago from china. i wasn't able to see
her when she came home last year so when she sent me a message to
meet up with her, i also asked a couple more of our friends to meet with
us--hazel, a high school friend of ours, and yeyeth, our college friend.
it's amazing how old friends can talk so freely with each other that it
doesn't seem like it had been years seen we last saw each other. and
it's amazing how, six years after graduating from college, none of us is
married yet ^_^(yeyeth has a boyfriend though). portia will be leaving
again for china this weekend. i guess it'll be another year before we can
have another get-together like that.

my family and i went home to lucban to celebrate my
grandfather's 80th birthday last weekend. it never occured to me that
he was already 80, it always seemed to me like he was always 73
hehehe... i can't believe my eyes when i saw him dancing a little at the
party when only a few months ago he was sent to a hospital. it's a good
thing that he's feeling a lot better. i hope we'll still get to celebrate his
90th birthday ten years from now.

libro, bookstore, rides and prophecy

i've been running out of books to read last december and since i didn't have time to roam the malls and hunt for good books to read because i was among the nytshifters in the office, i asked one of my friends if he could give me a Garth Nix book for a christmas present. i was so happy when he gave the whole Abhorsen trilogy instead of just the first book! and now i find myself hooked to anything that garth nix wrote! i went to National Bookstore this afternoon to buy a plastic cover for my books at home (i started covering my books completely instead of just the covers so as to protect them from dust, heat and paper-feeding insects). but when i saw copies of nix's "The Keys to the Kingdom"'s first two books, i couldn't restrain myself from taking them off the shelf. so even though i only had 500 bucks in my wallet i decided to use my father's credit card for the moment and then pay him later. and lucky for me, the bookstore's got an ongoing sale until the end of the month! so i got a 20% discount for those books. i'm almost done reading the Abhorsen trilogy and i wonder if the other Old Kingdom book(actually, it's just a short story), "The Creature in the Case" will ever come out here in manila? i hope garth nix writes more Old Kingdom novels... anyway, i guess i'll just have to start reading "Mister Monday" and "Grim Tuesday" while waiting...

one of my friends celebrated her birthday last week. and because she's a bookworm like myself, my friends and i decided to go to Fully Booked to buy her her present. it was the first time we've visited Fully Booked since it was moved to another floor. it was still as huge as ever but the floor plan is very different from before that a person could get lost easily inside hehehe. good thing there was a map.^_^ i hope i can go back there soon.....

my family and i, and my brother's friends went to Eurostar Carnival at the Global City last sunday. hindi ko akalaing mahihilo ako sa mga rides doon noong pagpasok namin dahil kokonti lang naman yung mga rides nila kumpara sa mga rides sa Enchanted Kingdom. pero pagkatapos naming masakyan nang isang beses lang yung iba, i don't think i can ride them again! sobrang nakakahilo pero nakakatuwa rin....bagong thrill, bagong experience hehehe..... buti na lang hindi ako ang nag-drive pag-uwi namin sa bahay ^_^;. kahit nahilo ako doon, babalik pa rin ako kapag nagkaroon ng chance (gwapo rin kasi yung mga foreigners na nag-o-ooperate eh hehehe ^_^)...

the animated movie we made is doing well in the states. never imagined that it will become #1 in the box office. never imagined that my name will be immortalized in the credits of a movie. it seemed such a long time ago when my college friends and i went to watch Space Jam in Cubao. we did not leave the cinema immediately and we just sort of sat there watching the credits roll by. i didn't know why i said it then, coz we were studying to be future interior designers, but out of the blue i told my friends that one day they will see my name in the credits section of a movie. i never imagined that what i said then will come true! honestly, my name has come up in other movies as well. but those are just from the local movies here in the philippines(i used an alias on one of them). pwede na kaya akong maging fortune teller? wahehahaha......teka, eh hindi naman ata nila napapanood pa yung mga pelikulang ginawa namin, so hindi pa rin nila siguro nakikita ang pangalan ko sa credits, waaaaahhhh!!!!
aryt, that's all for now....till next entry!

the holidays are over!

haven't visited this blog o' mine for quite a while now. i
haven't been able to write anything coz:
a) i'm too busy watching animes/cartoons/movies/tv series in
my computer
b) i'm too busy surfing the net and looking for whatever i
could think of
c) i feel like i have nothing significant to record at the
moment
d) i didn't feel like writing thoughts which i think should only
be kept to myself
e) with the knowledge that some of my friends read this
blog, i wanted to write things that are worthwile to read
hehehe
f) i haven't been able to open a computer for most of the
holidays
g) i've been in a "holiday mode" so i didn't feel like writing
anything at all
h) too busy reading a book
i) etc. ^_^
i know i have a lot to write about. but at this moment, i can
feel my "procrastination mode" taking over so i think i'll just
write about whatever it is i was going to write next time.

adieu!

inkspell, hp4, and others

my friends and i tried to get our pictures taken from
a neo-print booth last week. it was our first time to
use one and we kept giggling and laughing all the
time. i'd like to try it again, but with my siblings this
time.













haven't been able to post anything here for a while
and a lot have happened. i still keep thinking how
we are already on the second half of november
when i feel like it's still september. where have all
the days gone? as i grow older, the days go faster
and shorter. my brother left yesterday for japan
and he'll be boarding his ship from there and will be
gone for at least 6 months again. my sister has just
finished defending her research project and i'm proud
to say that she's got a 97% grade for it! our
japanese spitz, champagne, is now pregnant
and will be giving birth to puppies soon. my
grandfather was taken to a hospital but is now
getting better. my mom has had her hair dyed a few
weeks ago and i think she needs to have it dyed yet
again. my dad was interviewed by our president,
GMA, last saturday coz the topic of the discussion
was about seafaring jobs. my other brother is still in
college and doesn't want to get a side job even
though he spends only 6 hours a week in school.
our movie's trailer is now being shown on the web.
still can't believe that it will finally be shown in the
theaters! well, in the US anyway, we're still not
sure if it will ever be shown here in the
philippines.my birthday's just around the corner and
i'll be a year older again. whew! time sure is a fast
runner!


i'm nearly finished with reading "Inkspell" by Cornelia
Funke though i really wish that i'm still in the middle
of the story. it's such a wonderful book that i wish
it would go on and on. well, it still has another book
coming(after all, it's a trilogy) but i can't wait! it's
just so wonderful!!! i remember reading the first
book of the trilogy, "Inkheart", and it instantly
became one of my favorites. when i found out that
it has a sequel, "Inkspell", i couldn't stop myself from
jumping up and down in the bookstore with
excitement. i was just so happy that the story of
Inkheart still continues and that it still has a third
book coming. and i was never disappointed even
once while reading the sequel. i just love the stories
of Mo, Meggie, and Dustfinger. i wonder when the
third book will be released?

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire has been
screening here in the Philippines since wednesday,
16Nov, 2 days earlier than the release in the US.
but i haven't seen it yet (i don't have the luxury of
spending the night out watching movies because of
my second job). but tomorrow's a saturday so i
hope i'll get to see it then. however, some of my
friends who have seen it already said that the movie
was too fast paced and a lot of the things in the
book were not included. well, we can't really include
everything that happens in a more than seven
hundred-pages-long book into a barely 120-minute
movie. and i think i've read enough about the
making of the hp movies from their preprod to post
prod days from the web that i think i already know
what scenes they retained for the movie. whatever
my friends say, i'm planning to enjoy that movie
when i see it. ^_^.

comparisons between myself and a character from a korean soap

had a much-needed rest yesterday. though i still
wasn't able to get a full 8-hour sleep, i got to lay
around the house all day and do nothing but watch
another korean tv series, "My Name Is Kim Sam
Soon".

it's a good enough soap for me and it was rather
surprising that i did not shed a single tear for the
entire series(i usually cry whenever there's a
tear-jerking moment in an episode). but i think i
would have enjoyed it more if i watched it with my
sister. lots of funny moments and i guess it's
because i can relate to the heroine of the series.
well, the main reason why i asked my friend to buy
me this series is because i've read from korean
websites that the heroine, Kim Sam Soon, is chubby, not so
pretty, already 30 years old and still doesn't have a
boyfriend. i was kinda curious at first if the main
character would be a lot like myself. i'm not yet
thirty(but getting there), i'm chubby, and i also don't
have a boyfriend. i think i also act the same way
that the main character acts sometimes though i
think that she's more sensitive and more feminine
than i am. oh, and she also cries a lot (i only cry
when i watch a movie, a tv program, or when i read
a book). but the similarities end there. i'm not as
unfortunate as her situation in life and i'm not as
desperate to find a boyfriend. unlike her, i have
friends who i spend my free time with aside from my
family, i'm the eldest among four siblings, i don't have a funny name , i'm not as
loud as her in public places, and i can't bring myself
to wear girly clothes hehehe(she's always wearing
skirts and high heeled shoes). so i think that if i
were in her shoes, the things that have happened to
her wouldn't have happened to me. i still envy her
though...getting herself a handsome, kind, rich,
sensitive and funny enough guy who's crazy for her
and doesn't mind if she's fat or not. sigh!

sometimes i feel depressed after i watch feel-good movies or tv series like that. i get more convinced each time that good things like that only happen in the movies and not in real life. from my position, i can't tell if i were to end up with a richer, cuter and smarter guy or with a less fortunate, not-so-handsome and not-so-smart guy. i know, i get too picky most of the times. one of my friends even told me to "lower my standards". but i also know that though we always set standards for our ideals, the ones we end up with are always an exception. crazy, crazy world. all i want is to experience something romantic and out of the ordinary before i turn thirty! (like being stranded in europe and meeting the man of my dreams there harharhar!!!)

...........i'm starting to babble.........
.........ookaayyy.....
.......enough for today...........