Friday, August 29, 2003

Ties that bind

My first grade teacher has Stage 4 breast cancer that has metastasized to the bone. She was one of my favorite teachers and she and my mom became close because she lived one street away and a certain United Nations day incident where I represented Japan.

I don't remember most of my teachers from grade school; but her I do remember because she was a big part of my life. Maybe I was more awestruck by teachers then; but maybe it was because she was a wonderful person whom I felt was like a second mother to me. Too often we take our teachers forgranted; it's poignant to note that there were some people who were totally devoted to that noble profession, who could reign in a class of 6-year-olds, even if she had to threaten to pull down some people's panties at some time or another.

I guess I wanted my other classmates to know and a lot of these people that I haven't heard from in ages are coming out of the woodwork. We might come up with a video or a big card with pictures or something... but what's most important is that we give her our support and prayers. And after two decades, we still know her, we still hold her dear enough and think of her enough to at least try to do something, and we are trying to do that together--I'm proud that I was part of that class.

Thursday, August 28, 2003

Reasons to stay up late

  • Mars-watching
  • Star-gazing --> glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling
  • Journal-writing
  • Hair-conditioning

  • Worrying about the error in the system
  • Alias and CSI: Miami
  • Plotting my next article
  • Listening to Natalie Merchant
  • Thinking about five years ago
  • Wondering about migrating
  • Talking about nonsense with Nins
  • Fantasizing about a day at the spa
  • Wednesday, August 27, 2003

    Generations, England and Michener

    Blame it on James A. Michener's Poland. I don't understand why I thoroughly enjoy sprawling sagas that take place over the course of x generations spanning centuries. Am currently finishing Sarum by Edward Rutherfurd, his first novel, which I bought because it was only PhP55 at Book Sale and had a picture of Stonehenge on the cover. It's quite funny that character traits can survive generations but then I've seen some survive survive from my grandfather to my father to myself.

    Maybe I like this book because I like England; I'm a closet Anglophile, I guess. My most favorite things about England are the druidic mysteries, Stonehenge, the Arthurian legends (which are touched on in Sarum), and Elizabeth I. In this vein, I thoroughly enjoyed Marion Zimmer Bradley's Avalon series: The Forest House, Lady of Avalon, Priestess of Avalon and The Mists of Avalon.

    About James Michener--although he has many a sprawling generational saga, two of his books that I thoroughly enjoyed didn't exactly span centuries. Instead one was about the space race (Space) and the other was about writing and literary criticism (The Novel). It's highly probable that the sophisticated tastes of today's literary purveyors have outgrown Michener, but I must admit that the old guy told an entrancing tale. Here's to Michener, bard.

    Monday, August 25, 2003

    i'll stop the world and melt with you
    and Concerts

    Modern English's 'I Melt With You' is playing on the radio. I like new wave songs but oftentimes I jumble them all up and mix up titles, singers or both. But I like them because they remind me of when I was a kid. Ah, those were simpler times, the People Power era. Kris Aquino was still a nene teenager in glasses. The Flight of Dragons was great animation. All was good. And no thanks to The Princess Bride, I think I still believed in finding true love then.

    My friend is offering me a ticket to the Plumb concert on Saturday. I wanted to watch, too--however, a prior commitment means that I have to wake up well-rested early Sunday morning. I don't know when I last went to an actual concert. I think it was Gary V. at Hard Rock in 1997. Happier times again. Is a gig at Hard Rock considered a concert? If not, then it was the Sting concert in '96, good times with Mike, Via and Mandy. I've since lost the souvenir shirt that I bought. But I still have the memories of Sting taking off his black shirt (hooie!). I've realized that I haven't actively been watching concerts or gigs, although I claim to like music. I wonder. I was supposed to watch Alanis when she was here at the height of APEC but ended up going to a friend's party (yes, Maita was that important to us). Of course if Natalie Merchant (and--wishful thinking--the rest of 10,000 Maniacs) included the Philippines in a world tour...

    Reign of Terror

    It's starting again, the robberies and kidnappings. It seems to be a cycle, gaining momentum and culminating every election season. Of course I have no hard evidence (ah, that CSI would be believable in a Filipino setting) that corrupt politicos are behind this particular crime but it seems to be the default notion to close to campaign period. Because they'll be needing the money, of course: it takes money to win elections. Would that this weren't true. But we live in the Philippines.

    I was brought up to love my country and my father has always vowed that he would never leave the land of his birth. But right now he's almost prodding us to try and find work and relocate abroad.

    Sometimes I am afraid--because I was born female; because I am in the middle class, a bit removed from poverty but still not in the power circle; because we may be targetted because of our family name when after all we are the poor relations; because lawbreakers don't excuse good people just trying hard to earn their keep from their rounds; because I am, to a large degree, helpless.

    And so we live in interesting times.

    Saturday, August 23, 2003

    Office Radio

    Am at work to check on the monthly run for our agents' compensation system but system operator is actually playing bowling for our tournament first. I should have slept in. Grrr! So here I am blogging...

    Am tuned in to K-Lite and heard No Ordinary Girl by Anika Paris. Quite upbeat. Sometimes I wish I could feel this way again someday. Ah, a song for the future:
    Pardon my presumption
    My dubious intentions
    It isn't very often
    That I fall this hard for someone
    And I know this may sound crazy
    I don't wanna freak you out
    But give me just a moment
    To tell you what I'm all about

    And then a blast from the past. I never forgave myself for falling for a person who sang Everything But the Girl's I Didn't Know I Was Looking for Love to me--hook, line, and sinker. "And if you left I would be two-foot small/And every tear would be a waterfall." Well he was five-foot-two small and had a steady girlfriend when he sang that to me.

    And finally there's Plumb's Worlds Collide: A Fairy Tale, very much for now:
    Together we seemed perfect
    A fairy tale for show
    And looking on the outside
    You'd never even know

    That we're just not right
    When compromise is wrong
    Seems out of sight
    In this place we belong
    Giving everything

    Giving everything for love
    I'm finding out that it's not enough
    There's nothing left between you and I
    I'm finding faith but losing us
    Where worlds collide

    In my good friend Mike's words: it's all good.

    You're fading out, what did you say?

    Thursday, August 21, 2003

    Fight for the future

    The workweek comes to an end this afternoon, thanks to the martyred Ninoy Aquino who at least didn't have to see his youngest daughter grow up to be a garrulous unwed mother-cum-gossip show host-cum-liposuction client. Twenty years ago he died. Twenty years since I helped my father rain confetti down Ayala Avenue during various rallies and then his much-attended funeral.

    Ninoy Aquino was a brilliant man. I was only 7 when he died but I felt the impact because my parents totally followed his career and constantly extolled his virtues. They thought that he would be the one to drag the country from the mire in which it seemed to have settled and was still sinking. But that was not to be the case. A still-unknown gunman took his life twenty years ago today.

    My father has a picture with Ninoy Aquino, with Ninoy's arm around his shoulder. I keep it in my room, telling myself to have it blown-up and framed one day. My father used to work for the Cojuangcos, the family of Ninoy's wife. But ten years from now, I feel that noone will see the significance of that picture anymore than they remember that so many years ago, a dictator declared martial law and rounded up political prisoners left and right, some of them never again seeing the light of day. The Marcoses were said to have plundered millions of dollars' worth of government money and it took three years after the martyrdom of their staunch opponent Aquino for the People Power revolution to take place and install Ninoy's widow Cory to the Presidency.

    Our country still hasn't recovered. Maybe if Ninoy had been President. Maybe, maybe, maybe. I can't say that it really would have been much better if he had lived, it's all maybes. Why celebrate something that happened so many years ago? It's all in the past anyway. Why celebrate, then? If only to give us inspiration. One man fought the good fight and died for his principles. We don't have to die to make a difference but the question is, do we even want to make a difference? I remember that a long time ago, I did. I don't know if it will take the 20th anniversary of a hero's death to reawaken those principles but it won't hurt. Today is an important day, if only to remember that there have been people, Benigno S. Aquino Jr. in particular, who so strongly felt for this country that most of us are dying to leave.

    So, today I remember Ninoy Aquino, Edgar Jopson, Lorena Barrios, Lean Alejandro... my generation caught a glimpse of them and their heroic stance. Could we have imbibed nothing? Were their sacrifices all for nought? Will it take a whole new string of martyr deaths to jolt this country and its leaders into veering into the right direction?


    Posted to riannesravings@yahoogroups.com

    Unreal Love


    How can you tell someone that you REALLY love them and hope that what you have lasts a long long LONG time and then break up with them two months later?

    Human nature. Circumstance. Constant change. Deception?

    How could he?

    How could I?

    Wednesday, August 20, 2003

    Being Published

    Got my first article in a major mag published this month. I still don't know how much I'm earning for it, but it's a nice feeling seeing your name in print on a glossy page which you know a few thousand people at least will be reading, even if it is for a chick-mag. Tell me what you think if you've read it.

    Musings

    I don't know what's worse: having to ask "Am I fat?" because you need to be reassured, or not having to ask if you're fat because you know you are and just have to live with it.
    __________

    Having Ps.300 in your wallet till the end of the month sucks big time. Sucks even more when you're in a 12-step program to rid yourself of your credit card addiction.
    __________

    Joey asks Pacey, "Do you know why we're friends after all this time?"
    Pacey replies, "Because we suck at meeting new people?"
    Was actually rooting for them to get back together when I was channel-surfing last night and recalled that a few years back, some conversations over coffee actually were about Dawson, Pacey, Jen and Joey. Back when we were HFLK--Happy Fun-Loving Kids.
    __________

    Hate it when other people use my mug at work. You just suddenly see it on their desks and you're helpless because you don't want to seem like such a bitch who gets agitated by such mundane things...
    __________

    Why is it so easy to procrastinate?!

    Tuesday, August 19, 2003

    The sea-monkeys have my money!

    Had a blast last night watching Pixar's Finding Nemo. Yes, I had high expectations after Monsters, Inc., and the Toy Story movies which I thoroughly enjoyed. Pixar has a way of involving both adults and kids in their comedies: there is physical comedy and a whole bunch of one-liners and running gags for the more mature audience. Needless to say, I enjoyed both tremendously.

    There had been so much hoopla about this movie, Andrew Stanton's brainchild: the various features (especially on Disney channel), the so-many-years-in-the-making, the thrill of having Albert Brooks, Ellen DeGeneres, Geoffrey Rush, and Willem Dafoe voicing an animated feature [which I am not feeling for Brad Pitt, Catherine Zeta-J.-D., Michelle Pfeiffer and Joseph Fiennes in Sinbad... maybe because I really have a crush on the Green Goblin dude]. But I was not disappointed. Pixar has made a beautiful movie, strangely hypnotic like the aquarium channel (sometimes looking even more vivid and real than the aquarium channel!), with a whole lot of love. I already marveled at the CGI of Monsters, Inc. This movie's animation is pretty darn great. Aside from the rendering of the ocean (diffused light, currents, and particles floating), there was a particularly wonderful sight of water gleaming off a fish's scales. I suggest you watch it somewhere near the middle of the cinema where the screen is the only thing that you see. Superb.

    Albert Brooks' Marlin is a neurotic father who loses his wife and almost all his children to a barracuda, and as a result is overly protective of his one remaining son Nemo (voiced by Alexander Gould) who has an abnormally small dorsal fin. When Nemo is caught by a diver and placed in a fish tank in a dentist's office, Marlin takes on the ocean, meets the memory-challenged Dory (played to scatter-brained glory by Ellen DeGeneres), some sharks (Bruce Humphries, whom I particularly know as Dame Edna on Ally McBeal, plays a great white named Bruce, an homage to Jaws), sea turtles, angler fish, jellyfish, and pelicans, and rides the East Australian Current (the EAC), all to find his son. Nemo, meanwhile, ends up with a motley bunch of fish who have neuroses to rival his father's, a weird fraternity thing and a working knowledge of dentistry. Most remarkable of these is Gill, a Moorish Idol voide by Willem Dafoe (yay!). There is Bloat, voiced by Everybody Loves Raymond's Brad Garrett, and Geoffrey Rush's pelican Nigel who has befriended the fish-tank bunch and brings news of the outside. Even the Hulk's Eric Bana, Bruce Spence (the Mouth of Sauron in LoTR: The Return of the King, as my friend Mike pointed out) and the West Wing's Allison Janney are in on the fray in supporting roles that really work to weave a wonderful story together.

    Never mind that fish can't have facial expressions or swim backwards and swordfish don't actually fence-spar with British accents. Who cares if it's highly improbable that fish and pelicans can be friends? What matters is that this movie, for lack of a better term, simply rocks. Pixar has done it again: this is one movie that you can watch over and over, especially since I haven't spotted the Hidden Mickey. Just stop your kids/sibs if they try to liberate your pet fish by flushing them down the toilet, especially if your pet fish are arowannas. Finding Nemo is a wonderful find [pun intended], a respite from the wham-bang action films that proliferate during the American summer, a modern-day fable about family life that touches the hearts of kids and grown-ups alike. Even those of us somewhere in the middle.

    These sea-monkeys can have my money anytime.


    Posted to riannesravings@yahoogroups.com

    Monday, August 18, 2003

    Song for my lovelife



    Numb
    U2

    Don't move
    Don't talk out of time
    Don't think
    Don't worry
    Everything's just fine
    Just fine

    Don't grab
    Don't clutch
    Don't hope for too much
    Don't breathe
    Don't achieve
    Or grieve without leave

    Don't check
    Just balance on the fence
    Don't answer
    Don't ask
    Don't try and make sense

    Don't whisper
    Don't talk
    Don't run if you can walk
    Don't cheat, compete
    Don't miss the one beat

    Don't travel by train
    Don't eat
    Don't spill
    Don't piss in the drain
    Don't make a will

    Don't fill out any forms
    Don't compensate
    Don't cower
    Don't crawl
    Don't come around late
    Don't hover at the gate

    Don't take it on board
    Don't fall on your sword
    Just play another chord
    If you feel you're getting bored
    I feel numb
    I feel numb
    Too much is not enough
    I feel numb
    Don't change your brand Gimme what you got
    Don't listen to the band
    Don't gape Gimme what I don't get
    Don't ape
    Don't change your shape Gimme some more
    Have another grape
    Too much is not enough
    I feel numb
    I feel numb
    Gimme some more
    A piece of me, baby
    I feel numb
    Don't plead
    Don't bridle
    Don't shackle
    Don't grind Gimme some more
    Don't curve
    Don't swerve I feel numb
    Lie, die, serve Gimme some more
    Don't theorize, realise, polarise I feel numb
    Chance, dance,dismiss, apologise Gimme what you got
    Gimme what I don't get
    Gimme what you got
    Too much is not enough
    Don't spy I feel numb
    Don't lie
    Don't try
    Imply
    Detain
    Explain
    Start again I feel numb
    I feel numb
    Don't triumph
    Don't coax
    Don't cling
    Don't hoax
    Don't freak
    Peak
    Don't leak
    Don't speak I feel numb
    I feel numb
    Don't project
    Don't connect
    Protect
    Don't expect
    Suggest
    I feel numb
    Don't project
    Don't connect
    Protect
    Don't expect
    Suggest
    I feel numb
    Don't struggle
    Don't jerk
    Don't collar
    Don't work
    Don't wish
    Don't fish
    Don't teach
    Don't reach
    I feel numb
    Don't borrow Too much is not enough
    Don't break I feel numb
    Don't fence
    Don't steal
    Don't pass
    Don't press
    Don't try
    Don't feel
    Gimme some more
    Don't touch I feel numb
    Don't dive
    Don't suffer
    Don't rhyme
    Don't fantasize
    Don't rise
    Don't lie
    I feel numb
    Don't project
    Don't connect
    Protect I feel numb
    Don't expect
    Suggest

    Don't project
    Don't connect
    Protect I feel numb
    Don't expect
    Suggest

    I feel numb

    Over the weekend

      Am grateful for
    • Friday evenings with coffee and close friends (and wedding paraphernalia)
    • Saturday lunch badminton
    • girlfriends
    • baptisms and weddings which serve as mini-reunions
    • sisters with whom you get along more as the years go by
    • guy friends with whom I can still have movie dates
    • CSI's first season on DVD

      Too bad
    • rains stopped me from seeing an old friend last Saturday; although the rains were heavy for only a short amount of time, our cute barangay is in one of the low-lying areas of the metro and alas! we were flooded in.
    • after so long, I don't like the feeling of watching movies by myself anymore, although this was the case most of the time around '99-'00.
    • someone watched LXG na! :(

    Friday, August 15, 2003

    Farewell

    Sighing, placing
    hand on cheek
    bid goodbye
    say no more
    then start to cry

    Opened doors and
    shattered glass
    Overjoyed
    don't know why

    ________________________

    Applicable 11 years ago, and still applicable now.

    Outages and Crushes

    There was a blackout in NYC, Toronto and other cities before I left the house this morning. What a panic! People were on the street walking home, some were stuck in the subway and trapped in elevators. Was just wondering where were all the generators? Was there never any need for them? Even the phone lines were dead, we couldn't get to our cousin in NY. She was probably at the hospital anyway. Filipinos must just be chuckling: di sanay ang mga Kano sa brownout! Unlike here where Luzon-wide blackouts just mean candlelight dinners, thoughts of coups that just go away after a while, a few mosquito bites but no stop to neighborhood karaoke-drinking sessions. Just scary because of all the terrorist stuff going on. Sigh. Life goes on.

    Was at Aposento with Ryanne and Eisen a few weeks ago. Rygirl requested for Crush by the Dave Matthews Band. Of course, they played Crash (Into Me) instead. Haha! When I was in sophomore year I had a crush on my Quantitative Methods teacher who looked like a Chinese Jojo Lastimosa. When I started teaching a few years later, I didn't have a crush on him anymore, but I took to calling him "crush" to his face (yes, even if he was married). Funny, he started calling me "crush" too. We still call each other that. Now in the office, there's this person I call my crush too, who also reciprocates. We're like a mutual admiration society. Only thing is, she's also a girl.

    Thursday, August 14, 2003

    ka-blog

    Perhaps my blog title would be more recognized by people who grew up with access to Aliwan komiks or something. As in: Kablag! "Ay! Nahulog ang ale!" Oh well. So why in heck did I choose it? Lord knows. There must be some sort of subconscious meaning--I can always say it's like jolting back to reality or something of the sort--but the truth is I just felt like it at the time. Weird, you say? Welcome to my world.

    Mars Attacks, and
    Old and New Friends



    Mars attack #1
    Saw the planet Mars last night. Made like a lunatic and stared at the moon and the bright dot beneath it for a good ten minutes. I'd forgotten about those emails that Mars is the closest its going to be in 200 years or something. Nins was calling from outside, she'd tried to take a pic--failing miserably with our puny digicam. There was just a sense of awe that I was seeing something so far away. Something that was even mythical. Somehow there was a feeling that everything was right in the universe.

    Mars attack #2
    Have cut myself down to one chocolate bar a week. Had my fix--a Mars bar--when I got home last night. Funny that it was the same night that I saw the planet with the same name.

    Old Friends
    Actually, former students-turned-friends. Saw EA on my way to Rustan's to buy a gift for Norman's baby and dragged him to the children's section. I guess guys can go shopping with girls as long as there's a lot of conversation--problem is, if you're going with your brother or husband whom you're with 24/7 (ok maybe 14/7), you end up talking about the same things. Had coffee with Ger and talked about psycho girlfriends (I've recovered from that bout of insanity, thanks!); then saw Raymond B. near Shell house. And to think it was a Wednesday night, not Friday night at Greenbelt 3.

    New Friends
    Finally met a good friend's significant other last night. Suffice to say that I'm interested to get to know her better.

    Back to work!

    Wednesday, August 13, 2003

    My ideal job...


    is not a job... it's a thing...!


    Ideal Job


    What's yours? Find out here.


    Hehe... haynaku Ger puro tayo kalokohan!

    Trece de Agosto, or
    Lost Friends


    Chinky is 28 today.

    I had a wonderful friends in Grade School. We had Nancy Drew discussion groups, made code names for both the popular and annoying kids, and played patintero in the vacant space in front of the chapel. It wasn't a waste of time to watch cars go by, but you could also borrow games from the library (Lover's Date, Casino and Monopoly), and then grab an Icee from the store across the street afterwards.

    Chinky, Gay, Emily and I were inseparable for quite sometime. But as things are wont to do--things changed. Chinky left for the States; Gay transferred to Manila Science High School; Emily and I were in different classes; and eventually even after all the tears and promises, we were going very separate ways.

    It's Chinky's birthday today. I don't even know if she still lives in West Chester. Gay is married and is leaving for the States soon to work and probably settle there. Emily is a lawyer with whom I occasionally get in touch through email. Do they even remember the same things that I do? Someday though, I hope that we can get together and catch up. And then go on with our totally different and far-apart lives.

    What am I?


    Got this from anjel.



    I'm a muse. Fancy that!

    What legend are you? Take the Legendary Being Quiz by Paradox

    Tuesday, August 12, 2003

    Yikes!

    I just had to make my blog PINK!

    Avast!

    I made a side trip last week to those places that Bong Revilla would always visit--but never seem to be able to close down--and got myself a couple of items that I knew would be worth my while: bootleg copies of The Princess Bride and Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.

    People who know about my fascination with the Lord of the Rings books and movies know that I am fascinated by Legolas Greenleaf, even as an illustration on the cover of the 1985 mass market paperback of The Two Towers. I wasn't surprised that people would take to Orlando Bloom, who was plucked from obscurity and thrust into heartthrob status by the films and his bow-plucking and horse-mounting skills as Legolas. It was because of him that I was excited to watch Pirates of the Carribean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. Bloom plays Will Turner, a straight-arrow [no pun intended] blacksmith-turned-hero when the pirates of the Black Pearl led by Captain Barbossa (Geoffrey Rush) take his beloved, Elizabeth Swann (Keira Knightley, whom I just watched on Bend It Like Beckham the night before), to undo a crew-wide curse. Will enlists the help of the pirate -and former Black Pearl captain- Jack Sparrow, er, *Captain* Jack Sparrow, memoraby played to the offbeat hilt by Johnny Depp. This turns into a fullblown adventure as the duo (namesakes of the two gay men in Will and Grace) dodge the Royal Navy, confront the cursed pirates, and uncover some secrets along the way.

    Depp as Sparrow was an endearing cad, and while Rush was rightly gruff as Barbossa, he was more menacing in his undead persona. Bloom wasn't much a stone's throw away from the character of heroic Legolas but with a little more chip-on-the-shoulder and no blond wig. Knightley, meanwhile, could have added a little more spunk to her character but she was alright, nonetheless, for an 18-year-old... she's younger than my youngest sister for crying out loud! However, imho, there was little if any chemistry between Knightley's Elizabeth and Bloom's Will--suffice to say that there seemed to be more chemistry between Will and Jack. Underused were Jonathan Pryce, whom Filipinos will always know as The Engineer in Miss Saigon, in his role as Knightley's governor father, and Jack Davenport as the navy captain Norrington whom I remember from Talented Mr. Ripley, both of whom are talented thespians in their own right.

    As I have never been on the Pirates of the Carribean thrill ride in Disneyland, I couldn't get the references to the ride, but what the heck. This movie was quite a ride on its own. Of course I've been pretty parched by way of good action-adventures the past few months: did I mention the last action-adventure-comedy I saw was Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life? Well PotC has a slightly longer title and much longer shelf life. The characters may be a tad stereotypical [even Depp's Sparrow, who is a stereotypical libidinous drunken rock star in the mold of Keith Richards] and the story a bit conventional, but it works. We aren't after the complex human relationships after all. The action scenes are lively, rugged, as befitting a pirate adventure, and the although the scenes are mostly at sea, the colors are still vivid (and so is Johnny Depp's kohl). There is much good old swashbuckling fun although I wouldn't bat for historical authenticity. But then, we don't watch pirate adventures for authenticity, do we? There's a good 15 minutes that could have been edited out, though, it wouldn't have mattered to the story--you be the judge of which 15 minutes those would be. Anyway, it's good, not-so-clean (first Disney movie to rate PG-13), totally entertaining, and not just all mindless, fun.

    [Aside: I'd watch it again on the big screen, though. There are some particular scenes--did I say they involved skeletons?--that I would really like to see up close. Paging my movie buds! Other movies to watch in the cinema this weekend: Finding Nemo, and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Order of importance: Finding Nemo first, then PotC then LXG.]

    I'd forgotten that The Princess Bride had pirates too, particularly the legendary Dread Pirate Roberts. The Princess Bride is one of my favorite movies of all time. But I have to watch it again first so that the memory is fresh when I write about it. Who knows? Perhaps the dazzling effect it had on my idealistic 15-year-old brain will be different when applied to a cynical 27-year-old. Till then, or maybe earlier.

    "So we're all men of our word really, except Elizabeth, who is, in fact, a woman."

    aswang in the city?

    I wasn't able to sleep much early yesterday morning. Was hearing footsteps on the roof and actually saw a shadow on the skylight. Then some hammering sounds. You can imagine poor duwag me... My dad had to check outside the window of the upstairs bedroom but we didn't see anything. It was a cat, said dear daddy o' mine. Funny, the footsteps sounded so heavy; and a cat can't hammer, for crying out loud!!!

    I couldn't sleep much after that and decided to take the morning off from work. Hey, something good came out of this after all!

    Denise says baka aswang. Aaak aswang in the city! Doesn't help that my mom's family comes from Capiz, said to be one of the aswang-infested spots in the Phils.

    I learned that I didn't know what to do if there was an emergency. I know now--dial 168. But sometimes it doesn't answer. There are also PNP emergency numbers--I used these once when there was a rumble at a bar where my friends were. But that was 9 in the pm.

    So who do you call for help at 3am? The Ghostbusters?
    second time

    I had some problems posting my last blog and I was disheartened, ready to give up. And I checked today, and suddenly it was posted! Grr... argh!

    Thanks to Ger-ber, who gave me this idea (and the site URL) in the first place. It's much easier than that other blog site I was considering.

    My Ravings group will still continue, though. This is for random thoughts (to borrow the name of a good friend's blog), fits of insanity and bouts of paranoia... teehee!

    Later.

    Thursday, August 07, 2003

    it starts today

    and the rest is history...!