Supershortbreak

Hi guys! I am currently attending my final undergraduate semester in school and may only get to sporadically update this mobile phone photoblog for the meantime (or until I adjust to “schedules” like building up my mood to post, to write, to do schoolwork, to finish extracurricular work, etc).

I still photograph daily, though. My October to November 2008 photodiary pictures are here and here.

Also in my break, the Aleli Photodiary somehow got into this list of top 20 Manila photoblogs. Please visit it for more Manila photography coolness!

To those who have messaged/talked to me about this photoblog, thank you very much for appreciating my work :) These messages (even the negative ones) are among the best of motivators a blogger can have!

Be ready to scroll again–I will be back by the first week December!

Remind me why

 

Sunset, graffiti, UP Diliman.

All I want for Christmas is wiiii

To spare my titas the agonizing day of shopping for the Kids for Christmas, my cousins and I created and shared this wishlist:

Everyone wanted a Wii, because Ate Aei said so, bwa ha ha.

We’re going to share it, and the console’s going to sleepover at everyone’s houses! Wii!

We used to bring PS’s and PS2’s over whenever the family had lunch; I wonder why they stopped bringing it now. (I know my brother sold OUR PS2 to buy parts for his super computer, boo). At least when we get a Wii, everyone’s back to gaming again–among us cousins aged nine to twenty-two :D

In rainbows

I was a happy girl at Starbucks this afternoon. Besides getting out of a good business meeting, beside me was this sliver of a rainbow, rekindling this childish energy I never thought I still had :)

Those “CW days”

Lookie, the green thing! Ghost of Christmas Past!

The UP Balay Kalinaw is a very comforting, comfortable, home-y place to be in. 

A few steps away from this picture, one can enter a bookstore selling most of the Filipino poetry books I want to read. I went here to canvas for a book one of my “idol” professors recently released.

Somehow being in Balay Kalinaw reminded me so much of my “CW days” (creative writing). I’d hang out with classmates I’m close with from my creative writing classmates. I’d spend mornings and breaks just discussing with them the meaning of our stories, which part of our lives went into crafting so-and-so protagonist and antagonist. It’s fun being a CW major that way– you are “finishing an undergraduate degree” by contemplating deeply into things, or shocking people with the emotions of your written works no one every thought you could ever convey. You get to dissect all the people and things close to your life, and somehow figure them in with the theories you learned in school to create beauty and art through written works that many people can connect with.

I’m glad I’ve spent a part of my student life in those days of never-ending draft versions and free-flowing venues to create poetic justice.

Nighttime breaktime

Ten minute chance meets under the clear night sky are healthy. Especially after some six, eight-hour marathons of school/work/procrastinating.

Every time I step outside to take a break, my pet cat follows and stands guard and ready to scratch ‘n pounce for me.

Necking disco balls

Awww… how glittery, mirrory sweet.

Sanguine

Greenbelt literally redenned my day and made me soo happy :) Mabuhay Dear Poinsettias in Manila! They look and feel more.. merrier than other red flowers like roses. It’s cool how they cover more space; it looks like a bloodsea, or a sea of flattened cherries, or sparkling vermillion, crimson, ruby, exploding stars, or even nebula..

Floorflower

Is there such a thing? A floorflower (derived from the “wallflower”, someone excluded from all the fun at a party)?

There are moments when I prefer sitting on floors, quiet uninhabited floors and write and think. It doesn’t feel uncomfortable; sometimes it even refreshes me so much that I become somewhat “hyper” at the next class (after discovering a solution to a problem in my “Floorflower” time). 

 

Can diaries change lives?

In an errand to Gateway, Cubao, I got my brother this organizer, pseudo “life-changer” diary-book (This Diary Will Change Your Life 2009) by Benrik publications in UK. It has the Brit wit and humor in it; Kuya’s a sucker for all things black humor and “intelligent” so there.

I’ve been keeping diaries for, like, forever (haha, ok maybe since third grade only). Has it changed my life so far?

Yes. I get to rant, load, and release thoughts that impulse could’ve betrayed me with. I could pretend I’m Anne Frank sometimes, and read my past “selves”, laughing at the stupidest moments I’ve had diligently “reflected” on as a kid.

I’m keeping this photo diary and a real one right now. It’s been eating my time, and I’ve developed some pet peeve whenever someone sneaks up behind my back wondering what I’m writing even if it’s not a diary entry. However, it’s been very fulfilling. I write and unload and be happy elsewhere–yes that’s what diaries fulfill the most I think. To make us forget of the fear of “forgetting” :D

Has it changed yours? 

Hooray, the rain

I like the rain, how it mushes down the pace of everything, be it psychologically or catastrophically. I think that people generally welcome the rain. Here in the Philippines, in schools or the offices, the rain lives up to be a pretty solid excuse to not go to class or work (“Ay nabaha ‘ho kami.” [We were bogged down by floods]). It’s gives people time to think, to take care of their mental selves, to stare out the window, wonder where their lives have gone by or where it’s heading, or whether to dump dude Z for former classmate Y..

 

Escapism through shopping also becomes common these days. See how crowded the malls are during rainy season:

 

Trinoma Mall, QC

Ideals torn apart

I have witnessed friends turn into “tibaks” or activists, a certain stereotype many Filipinos bestow on us UP students. Apparently, most “mobs” or rallies with students in them mostly front UP students. We come from THAT school in the Philippines where students are trained to bravely and confidently question morals, and possibly defy the authorities that give them out; we’d even fight if it was needed.

In college, because we’re young and don’t have much responsibilities like feeding babies and paying bills, sacrificing oneself to physically be present and verbally “fight it out” through petitions, demonstrations, walk-outs (etc) feels.. good. There’s that sense of purpose (I’m doing it for the good of the country, doh), and connection in it (barkadahan, kapihan, and that amazing feeling where you know someone believes in the same thing you do).

Students have a stronger say, and have probably more impact than other activist groups. Students are freshly-educated, and “in the know, now” of both the academe and popular cultures. I think they can “sacrifice” more of themselves too because they don’t have families to provide for at the moment (as for school work, well, we’re UP. We can pull miracle papers and exams off :D).

For clarification, I don’t join these mobs; I go to school. There was a time where one of my closest friends was so close to making me go in one of the event, but I realized at the last moment that I can’t lose sight of the farther future– that I have to “sacrifice” my own time to learn as much as I can so that I can help more Filipinos in the more accepted way: maybe by coming up with a way of giving jobs and venues for development for others.. When I’m ready, and finished off all my selfish motivations (number one is to graduate, number two is to land in a career I’ll love, three is to travel a bit, then four…), then that’s when I’ll whole-heartedly give out what I can for others.

Nonetheless I respect those who do these now. Sometimes I believe they have stronger grasps of meanings in the “real world”, and possibly way more than “apathetic citizens” who themselves undermine the image of the “activist”.

Presentation makes food yummier

..Right?

In a despedida dinner of sorts to one of my best friends who’s off to Cebu, my friends and I ooh-ed and aaahhh-ed at the sizzling/cooking technology of the Japanese in one of the newest Katipunan Avenue restaurants, Sizzlin’ Pepper Steak.

They offer burgers (without the bun but with the sizzle!), chicken, beef, seafood, pasta in mess-free servings (the kind where you’ll literally see “clean plates”). Lots of color, sauces, and “cooking in front of your very eyes” happening there– most meals are served probably 3/4 cooked in these humongous hot plates. A nice cardboard ring covers the sizzling plate to reiterate the mess-free-ness of it all. A giant air vent hovering over each table pretty much vacuums the smoke from the sizzling plates, like this:

Oh, and what’s amusing is that they actually teach you how to eat the Sizzlin’ Pepper Steak way by showing a Japanese instructional video playing in two flat-screen TV sets.

It’s slightly more expensive for regular school lunch fare; you’ll need at least P 250 to get a meal with drinks, but it’s worth it!I guess ultimately we’re paying for the large servings, and food presentation, which is something I’m willing to spend my money for. Eating out is an “experience” where you go for the best, or none at all! :D Because the tables are near each other (12 tables?), plus those air vacuums are kinda huge, the space looks cramped but cozy nonetheless– it adds up to the “charm” and intimacy of the place, perfect for barkadas, or dates, or some spur-of-the-moment Katipunan family dinners.

In the Ateneo-Miriam Katipunan strip, Sizzlin’ Pepper Steak is in the first floor of the new building that replaced the former Chicken restaurant. It’s near Flaming Wings, another fun restaurant with wicked dessert choices and really HOT chicken! But that’d be another blog entry.

UP Padyak wheels

The UP student most likely gets 5-6 classes every semester. Every class could be held in another building that could be about ten frickin’ minutes away. If you’re lazy and have plenty of money, you ride the Ikot jeep. If not (like me), you walk (and could look as sweaty as if you jogged by the time you arrive at the next building).

Now to get to places, you can also ride the UP Padyak bike!

In the line of the global warming and UP centennial spirits, my university and some very generous UP Mountaineers alumni started promoting environment-friendly ways of getting to-and-fro places through wheeling it in with the  The UP Padyak Project. 

A student can rent a bike for an entire semester to use around the campus, and park them in “parking lots” in the most popular buildings/places people usually hang out like, like the picture above taken from the FC-AS walk.

Not only do you get a cool-looking bike as a new biker-lessee, you also get to feel buff-ness, and the environmental goodness seeping in you throughout the sem! Get to burn fat and burn money elsewhere, while parading awesome artwork, and saving Mother Nature! (And spreading the UP spirit too!)

Eeergh. If only I don’t wear skirts all the time, I’m gonna go padyak for UP!

Feel the breeze and spread the happy colors! Support the UP Padyak project in the next UP semesters (or suggest the same project in your college!)

Interested? Visit their official site, and Multiply account now :D