Awoo awoo~

It’s been a while since I’ve last seen a..uh, piece of a totem pole of sorts while walking on the street.

What is it???

RIP to the institution that feeds your mind

I mean, COME ON! Why leave trash where it dejectedly sits and greets every passer by a looming trashy, after-party-ish morning?

Placing garbage where they should be is so simple and easy and supposedly habitual already amidst all the effed up complexities of the world O_O Or is it precisely that, that it’s so simple that some can’t even afford as much as a muscle twitch to throw it out in fear of losing energy for their next big intellectual battle?

PUCHEH!!

Take your pets out to play in public! 

What’s “routine” and “exercise” to Poochi here (or your pet dog) may actually be a serendipitous moment of connection for strangers and create an afternoon they’ll remember for life!

GRRRR!

The head-grinding drill of all sorts of street (de)constructions projects in my neighborhood can seriously drive me mad..Ugh! Don’t they know that people are trying to enjoy the wonderful February mornings? One without waking up to the sound of the d-d-dr-rr-rills?

Is election time near already?

Is it worth the energy to stay and stand the noise?

PRRRR!

 

GIANT KITTEEEEHHHH!!!!

One of my super rare visits to the mall, a shop I forgot to note about, in SM Megamall 

Kawawang Metro Aid

Look at all those leaves—a version of “Philippine autumn” at school:

I can’t work when the weather’s this good because I’d rather spend all this time just being outside! It’s so refreshing, especially knowing that there’s city muck and dust to greet you as soon as you plunge in those streets just a few blocks away.

I wonder how street sweepers feel when it’s the January-February, tree-shedding-leaves season.

Martian crime scene

Cherry

This is one of my missed “tambay” places in highschool: Cherry Foodarama in Congressional Avenue. Up to now, I still wonder why it’s called “Foodarama”.

Circla late 90s and year 2000—on the second floor of this huge grocery, there used to be two Japanese novelty toy stores there where I got all my original Pokemon, Sailor Moon, Tamagotchis, and other Japanese toys. There were also two game shops where I got all my pirated PS One/Two CDs.

Only one of each store exists now. Even the Japanese store only sells overpriced Hello Kitty stuff (which stocks could even have come from DV instead of Japan for all I know). 

Everything changes huh? Good thing the grocery still looks the same.

Andalasia/Andalucia

Ay sus, silly me for interchanging the two, and insisting they’re the same name:

Andalasia is the animated Princess land in the movie Enchanted.

Andalucia is the coffee place in Antipolo owned by a young, savvy real-life dentist couple who are churchmates of a friend. Noticeably, the husband IS a music buff, and the wife is an unstoppable “shopaholic”/fashionista :) Seeing the owners hanging out there on their “day off” from their dayjobs, and hearing James Morrison (a favorite :D) and some nineties alternative music play in the background instantly made me love this place. Too bad it’s kinda far away. ^^;

In How I Met Your Mother, Tedd tells Barney, “We should buy a bar!”

I say, “We should buy a cafe!”

Old Balara

I learned English from a school five minutes away from where I took this picture.

I don’t think I’m THIS bad:

Your grim face and bouncer-pose, along with what’s painted beneath your feet makes me really scared to park at your place now koya:

“Jamaica <3’s Edgie” on the store shutters, and the man and his, uhm, chicken. The contemporary tree carving:

Morning sky

I’ve been up and about on the streets as early as 6am daily for a while now. I used to do it for jogging waaay back; now I do it for classes, school errands, and meetings with friends (especially if you know someone who insists on meeting at seven before church or work!).

“Waking up early” is a good reason to continue my feeble attempts in following the “healthy sleeping time” that’s so lovingly endorsed by people who hate stress :D

Anyway, I consider early mornings as a good way to start the day. It’s nice, and calming, like what you see in this picture: weird, windy sky abstracts, and that extraterrestrial-looking dimple in the sky that is the moon.

Sandy sky

Today is a “24-hour-days”, starting with editing two papers from 4am, a class a 7am, an interview at 10, another class at 1, and when I got home, got into some hours of floaty-headed moments like this wonderful sky.. then a lot more later, went back to work!

..yahoo, thesis! Hahahaha!

Yellow roe and Activism

Hello yellow balloons! Your airy goodness fill up the world with such happyness— and across distinctions, classes, races, and age groups, too!

**

Hmm. 

WHAT IF activists used yellow instead of red in all their fights instead?

I feel that the color red is being so exploitatively used for such purposes. It’s so easy to fall back to it, to use that color that immediately provokes rage, passion, angst (plus everything else along that line). It’s just like how easy it is to get angry these days.

Like the total wholesomeness of the Cory-Aquino-yellow days, people could’ve appeared less aggressive against the government in using yellow. But this color’s optimistic hue could portray peace, and more hope for more Filipinos. Why not silently “move” the other true public by allowing them to hope instead of letting them wallow in self-pity?

Instead of attempting to “save” the people by badgering them with the sad truth, I think it’s actually more selfless of us to do acts that lead to happiness. It’s the one that takes the most effort, too, but it’s worth it because we’re still all that after that “happy ending” (or beginning) of our lives.

It’s a challenge to all of us to spread smiles, keep our hopes up, and live on amidst all the crazy things happening everywhere :D

The power of a one-line message

“Who wants to eat at banapple with me t0m? :)“

- reads somebody’s text message, dated 02/01/2008 17:39

 

The power of a one-line text message can pull together nine people out of their lonesome, innocent Saturday evenings– mix them all up for an exciting night of gatecrashing..

and datecrashing!

..and of course, of catching up on who’s the unexpected prom queen of someone’s high school, and confessions of love that withstood college and high school (and gradeschool) years! Coolness XP

I’m really happy I somehow landed in a small school in elementary– everyone understands others a little better without all that effort of fitting in! And besides it’s the season to be decidedly-not-lonely– I feel super lucky these people always manage to pull me out of ruts I could never get myself out of.

**

“Spend as much time, with as much people close to my life as I can,” reads the sole new year’s resolution of one of my friends.

And sometimes, all it takes for people to be together is a simple, hopeful single-lined message from one person to another. Believe in your luck of a “good timing”, everyone needs this sort of thing once in a while :)