SELF-PORTRAITURE: March 2011

Kidding. Just showing off my photoshop skills. Ha!

Okay, here I am.

At Vinyl On Vinyl, The Collective. Behind me, my favorite painting there.

We have finally arrived at the last week of March (like it's a place). My nephew, Tony, turned seven yesterday and again, all of us here at the homeland missed it. He had a little kiddie party. Every time my sister, nephew, and niece turns a year older, I always wish the entire family could be together but I know the most important thing is, we're all well at the time. I wish everything goes smooth and their plan to come visit next year pushes through. ONE WHOLE MONTH WITH MY LOVES. God! 

Stop the presses! This just in!

I'm going back to school this summer to enroll my internship units. What happened was, I got on the job training last May without enrolling because we (Mimie and I) got the call about a month after the summer enrollment was over. We had to wait a whole year for this and now, here we are. Although I have like 3 more subjects left to take, I'm starting to get my hopes up about graduating this year. 

Fuck. For real. Buckets of tears.

Mine and my parents' tears, that is.

Fuck. I seriously hope this is going to happen. My parents will be happy. Big pats on their backs. It will be awesome for them. As for me, who was never a fan or a big believer of diplomas, I'll be the same. Maybe with a higher chance of getting a job, but I'll be the same.

Passion eat!

My new gastronomical blog is up and running!

Go ahead and visit, follow, or bookmark it if you have a knack for cooking or if you just want to gawk at yummy food photos the way you do dirty pictures for fun and excitement. Haha!

click below!

Do-It-Yourself Eats


Thanks!♥

It's about time!

Well, as you can see, I'm back in blogger. After almost 8 months of nothing in here (but a lot in real life), I'm truly happy to be here again. It had been quite a good year so far and I have a feeling it will work out wonderfully throughout the end of 2009. There were some down times and minor ruckuses but it's so much better than haplessly being stillborn in life right?

Let me put all that this blog has missed in a nutshell:

January : Sinulog + SRA Anniversary + One of my best buds Mirza visited Cebu and I've met the good guys of DFP.
February: Cooked a lot in school and Partied a lot with my best buds, Mimie and Kiko.
March : Was bartender for a day (!!!) and made a rock and fashion show happen. And was in the news for the first time in my life. lol
April : Flew to Manila for this and this and this!
May : It was my birthday of course! :)
June : Back to school... but before that, my favorite getaway. Saw a great band live and met a bunch of awesome people. :)
July : Cried watching the TWINKLE DUDU reunion show.

And now, it's August. So what's new?
I'm pretty much addicted to Twitter and Facebook but I know all things will wane its selves. lol
I am still in school but not as busy as before. This will be my last year (hopefully and supposedly, whichever comes first!) one more term and I'll be ready for summer internship. Hooray. I'm teary-eyed. I never thought I'd be able to get this far to finishing something but I've done it. Almost there.
And yes, I have the most amazing pet cats in the world. I love them.
And I look forward to seeing my sister and her family (especially the kids!) in December. They are going to stay here for almost a month, Christmas to Sinulog 2010 so I foresee a solid vacay mode on for me. She's booked us to stay at a resort in Bantayan Island which is majestic. It's going to be our family's first time there together.

I am stoked.

I'll post more real soon. It's good to be back.

I missed you! ♥

I'm sad I'm not a geek.

As much as I would die to be in a classroom with an intellectual teaching the class, that is not going to happen. Not in a million years and not in the school I'm in. As much as I would die to be in a classroom where the teacher would throw reading assignments enough to make the class' nose bleed, these are things that are made out of movies, daydreams and English majors. So if you belong to a school or a class like that, you better make the most of it and learn to appreciate intellectual insults scrawled on your reaction paper. Thank the heavens that it was even read. I have been in and out of college for almost ten years now and there is barely a single change in course outlines. I understand that these things must be tried and tested to work but it just doesn't seem enough! When will they start pumping out brilliance from people? Or is that even part of the plan? Or is school:diploma the be-all and end-all for us students?

I know I sound like a geek. I'm not. I'm sad that I'm not a geek. I even doubt half the school's population would agree with all I'm whining about but I'm just sad that my handbook doesn't include a single poem from Cummings (nor coming) or Yeats (though we were taught about yeast). I'm sad that the arts and sciences subjects are the least favorite of the students and people cuss out Filipino and History teachers. I'm sad that the teachers are too tired and indifferent to make the kids like them. I don't blame anyone. I'm just sad.

I know people are born intellectuals but they can be made too and even genius babies couldn't grow up genius without the resources, without being taught. I'm sorry if I sound OA. I'm just upset because today, a teacher skipped an important chapter in our textbook probably assuming we learned all that in high school. She should have known 90% of us were powdering our noses when we were 15. I wasn't. But them.

Sigh?

I'm upset because my seatmate got into college without knowing what a postman was.


What is a rhetorical question?
Who the fuck cares anymore?

Writer.

Last Friday, right after I turned in my exam paper, my teacher (who is also our H.R.M. and Tourism department's Chairman) asked me if I'm graduating this year. I said no and that I expect to graduate next year, at least if everything stays smooth-sailing. I asked him why and he told me that he had been planning to come up with a magazine for our department and he'll be getting me as a writer.

I said yes.

I've had some people ask me to write but it's definitely my first time to be asked by a teacher or an authority to write for something as important as a school publication. Voluntarily contributing is one thing but being tasked is a whole new level. I felt glorious. I also thought to myself 'yes, finally.' I wanted to do a Tom Cruise at that moment but there was no couch. Truth is, I've been feeling quite low the past few weeks and this was, as far as I can remember, the best pick-me-up I've ever had.

I've been writing since I knew how. Although I admit that right now, I love reading more than writing. One reason could be because I feel inadequate and that I need to learn more. Plus, I am my worst critic. Thank God for computers, can you imagine how much paper I'd be wasting for revisions? But I figured, I wouldn't be able to enhance and improve myself unless I practice (ergo, this blog among other things). More practice will ensue for me if that magazine will realize materially. I can't wait.

I will totally spill all the details for sure. Celebrate with me when it happens?

Once upon a homework...

Absorbed with all the school work and preliminary exams, I had been slack in here as well as my other blog. Plus, the computer modem had been blinking it's lights telling me that he's giving up. No internet at home for a couple of weeks. Now, with a brand spankin' new modem and some free time, I'd like to share something I did for my History 3 homework. Let's geek out.

My reflection on Mikaela Fudolig's valedictory speech, "Take Not the Road Less Travelled" on April 28, 2007 at UP Diliman.

When I was sixteen, the thought of going to college and picking out the course I am going to take had dominated the end of my high school days. Something that would assure me of a high-paying job, my parents agree. Something that I would enjoy doing, I agree. Ultimately, these are the common goals I shared with the hundreds of us flocked in the coliseum with our white togas and nostalgic hearts on.

What does an average sixteen-year-old’s thoughts involve? Friendships, family and future. Which comes first, depends on the person. When faced everyday with the news that our country’s economic stability is going nowhere but down, and that there are easier ways to overcome life’s difficulties, the average sixteen-year-old will most likely take the easier way to things. Who cares about dreams when your stomach is empty? Money is power and the lack of it is the dark and unthinkable future. In the olden days, people go to college for prestige and recognition. Diplomas framed in every living room. Today, people go back to college after a year of working odd jobs having to face with the fact that a diploma is a necessary requirement to get promoted or even hired and graduating students usually are working full-time way before their graduation pictures are taken.

If I am sixteen today, what Mikaela spoke about is a kind of dreamy, illusory advice by a girl who obviously has everything. Intellectual prowess, well-to-do family, opportunities from left to right. But I am not sixteen. I am a twenty-five-year-old who had dreams broken, opportunities passed up, and is trying to rebuild her life. With this, I can compare her valedictory speech to a tank of oxygen for a dying patient.

True enough, she has a gift of superb intellect and money but her VISION and POSITIVITY are qualities that intellect can not manipulate and money can not buy. She had sensed that the Filipino youth are the most affected and aggravated by this country’s moral and psychological landslide. The Filipino youth had become a staggering drunkard, a pregnant teen, a child laborer, a hedonistic bastard who’s losing hope and losing trust in the country’s leaders.

This sixteen-year-old encouraged us ‘not just to take courage, but be brave… not just do well, but excel… not just take the road less traveled but make new roads, blaze new trails and find new routes.’ She encouraged us to dare to step up and stand out. Her speech tells us to do something now and it’s not only addressed to all the sixteen-year-olds in this country but to every single adult who has greater fears than ten year old children.

It amazes me how Mikaela Fudolig was admitted to college in UP Diliman at the tender age of 11. It amazes me how she graduated at the top of her class. But what truly amazes me more is how this kid with bigger opportunities waiting for her outside of the country had chosen to offer her teaching services to the Filipino students at UP Diliman. For this, I salute her not only for her age, not only for her intellect but most of all, for her Filipino heart.

*Mikaela Irene Fudolig is a Filipina who graduated at 16 years old as a summa cum laude with a general weighted average of 1.099 from the University of the Philippines, Diliman. She was only 11 when she entered college, under an experimental program that would test if the possibility of gifted children entering a university will not compromise their emotional and social development. The experiment was a success.

*To learn more about Mikki, click here and here.

*To read her valedictory speech click here.

*To hear it, click here.