What can I say...

It's been a long time, more than six months. I've been lazy and have mostly reading other blogs instead of posting on my own. A few things have happened...team meeting and trip to Phuket, moved to new house, Ben's done with Kindergarten, and now waiting for Irip and family to come home for a visit.

First things first. My boss decided to have our 2007 team meeting in Phuket or at least, in Phang Nga which is the province adjacent to Phuket (at least I think it is...obviously I won't do such a hot job in travel writing). We stayed in La Flora resort, which was pretty filled up because I think it was peak season. Was there from Nov 22-26. Most of the time was spent in the meeting room, as we learned some new things from our regular workshop speaker, Harry Dillon, and kept each other up to date with what each one of us is doing in our respective areas. It was nice to see the entire team together (Australia, Malaysia, Thailand, China, Singapore, Philippines). Photo below:

The team at La Flora

One of the Andaman Islands, can't remember anymore which one this is, I thought the rock at the bottom right of the picture looked like a beached whale

This one looked like a low-cut boot

Me before making a decision to plunge in

Conny and me after I decided to test the waters

Anyway, during the 2nd day of the workshop, we took half the day off for a trip to one of the Andaman Islands for snorkeling. It was about an hour by fast boat (I got seasick going in). And since I cannot swim unless my feet can reach the bottom, and the sea was quite deep, I was determined to just stay in the boat and watch everyone else have fun. As it was though, Conny (my boss from Malaysia, convinced me to jump in the water at least once. After all, I would be wearing a life preserver, so I took a deep breathe and did jump in. Water was nice and cool, and with the snorkel took a peek. It was BEAUTIFUL, the fish, the underwater plants, I'm so glad I let her talk me into it. Too bad I didn't have an underwater camera. Would've been nice to take a picture. What photos I have were taken from the boat, and here they are.

Coming back from Thailand, I started working myself up for the move to the new house (well, technically, it's not a new house, since we're the third family to move in, he he he), but it's a bigger house than Mapagbigay and since it is within a small subdivision, a much quieter place. We've got a chapel across the street and the clubhouse just next to it, so Ben has a place to play in. We eventually made the move in mid-December, and rather than spend Christmas home in Baler, I asked Papa to come down to Manila and we celebrated the holidays in the new house. New Year was spent home in Baler though, I just couldn't let the holidays pass without going home.

And so now, we've been here nearly four months. We've settled in (although we still need furniture), and we're pretty much used to the extra distance. One nice thing about the house is that we're closer to Kuya Toti's house again, so it's no longer a hassle going over there.

Meanwhile, we are now waiting for Irip, Girlie, Pau and Enzo to arrive from London (via Singapore) on March 26. It'll be the first time they'll be visiting after leaving nearly four years (almost five for Girlie) ago. I can't wait to see them again.

Well, I gotta get back to work. I just felt I needed to get going with this blog again otherwise, I won't ever come back to it. Next month, I'm heading off to Cebu, and I might be able to visit Bantayan Islands. If I do, I should have photos from that.

Read or Die

I spent the better part of yesterday afternoon browsing books at various stalls at the 28th Manila International Book Fair at the World Trade Center in Pasay with Terrie and Carrie. Can't say it wasn't productive, but I have to admit, it was depressing. Depressing because I don't have the resources to buy all the books I want to buy. Well, let's face it, I'll never have enough resources to all the books I want. Nevertheless, I did walk away with six books for Ben and one book for myself.

To be honest, I have more books that I can read. In fact, my reading list is way too long now. But I've always been a reader. Not a voracious reader, but I read quite a bit. I remember when I was in elementary school, I would go through several library cards in a year because of all the books I borrowed. When I was in the States, I spent countless hours in the school and public libraries. Over the years, I must have read hundreds and hundreds of books, if I haven't passed the thousand-book barrier yet. I don't know, there's just something about books that draws me in. And it's very rare that I go into a bookstore that I come out without making a purchase.

Last night, my friend Terrie cited a quote that goes something like book collecting is for the gently mad. I guess we are all partly mad, since we all look at ourselves as book collectors of sort. Me, I so love the smell of new books; it's addictive. I hope that Ben will also grow up loving books. I've started him early, buying him books and reading to him at night. I want him to know that books are not only great entertainment, but great learning tools too. These days he loves looking at picture books, and he can read some of his books now, those especially written for his age. I hope he'll grow up to be a book collector too. Oh nothing like the book collectors of first editions and rare stuff, but kind of like me.

I also bought some postcards of old photographs from Bookmark at the book fair. The photo of a Chinese cobbler caught my eye. I thought it a beautiful picture so I bought the set, 12 photos in all, taken from around the turn of the last century (circa 1900s). I'm sharing some of them now (I'll post all of them in my Multiply site):

This picture of a Chinese cobbler caught my eye

A banana vendor

Executioner (well, this picture was kind of unsettling. I don't know
if the guy is really being executed or he just posed for the picture.)

We also bought a shirt that with "Read or Die" printed on it. You sure are missing out on life if you're not reading.

Feeling nostalgic

I was looking at one of my brother's photo album and found a picture of the old Tan house in Baler. We'd always referred to it as "tindahan" (store) because it used to have a store at the ground floor, first ran by my grandparents, then by Ka Enga (who I think is my grandfather's nephew).

What do I remember about that house? Let's see, let me jot down 25 of them (this is not in any particular order):

1) the wide wooden staircase with the nice balustrades, where I remember running up and down with my brothers and my friends
2) the wall clock (with a silver face and black casing) with a scary (or what I thought then was scary) sound.
3) the old white bookcase with the Charles Atlas body building brochures, and some other books from I think even earlier than WWII, among other things
4) the beautiful floor, made with wide, long planks of narra; no need to polish it, just run the "bunot" or a cloth and it shone
5) there were two water tanks, one was a round, closed tank (part of which is still existing and used today), and the other a concrete rectagular box (my friend Me-Ann and I used to pretend it was our swimming pool
6) two gas pumps at the back of the house
7) the huge generator; i think my grandfather (fondly called Tatay) was among the first to have a generator in Baler, so we had electricity at night, long before electricity became available to everyone there
8) the pugon
9) the capiz windows
10) the big storage space in the second floor, where my friends and I used to hide when we played hide and seek. it was a scary place when i was a kid
11) the bats that hid between the roof and the ceiling and which came flying out at dusk
12) the wooden salt box (i don't know what else to call it) which is in one corner of the store, which we sat on and jumped down from when someone was buying salt so Ka Enga, or whoever was in the store, could get the salt
13) the dark warehouse which we had to pass to get from the store to the back part of the house
14) the big dining table (there were 10 kids in my father's family)
15) the Christ the King statue that was up on one a shelf on one of the posts inside the house
16) a small black/white photo of President Manuel Quezon under the wall clock
17) my father's case of classical music LPs (most of which were Beethoven material)
18) my uncle's collection of 48 rpm vinyl records, which sadly he just left lying around and allowed to get ruined
19) my uncle's bed in the ground floor
20) my uncle's office in the ground floor
21) an old yellowing refrigerator
22) the cabinet that housed everything from plates and "cubiertos" to my father's toiletries to leftover food
23) the nearly floor to ceiling cabinets in the store
24) the makeshift scoop (made from a long wooden stick with half of a plastic oil container) that was used to clean the gutter and also to mark the lines for our "bayato" ("patintero") games
25) my grandfather's b/w portait that was hung on one of the posts in the second floor; i used to always marvel at how much my father look like him

Actually, I remember a lot more about that house. I loved looking out the window to the mountains that looked so close. I loved climbing up those windows too and sitting there with my legs dangling down. The windows were encased with bars, and on there were planks in the bottom so we could sit on those). Sadly, it was torn down to give way to a new, concrete house, which I am sad to say doesn't evoke the same feeling in me as the old house did. When they were planning to build a new house, I keep wishing that they would just renovate the old house. But that wasn't what happened. I wished I had taken more pictures of it, but here's the one I found in my brother's album. This was taken at the initial stages of tearing down, and that's my brother Irip and my nephew Enzo in the pic.


Ah, those were the days...

I got this link from my friend Carrie, and I just want to share it. You gotta give it to those Japanese, they are very good at stuff like this. Enjoy!

One Click

Cool prisoners

I was browsing through some of the gossip sites (I'm a sucker for Brad Pitt and anything that has to do with him, making me a brangeloony, as some of their "haters" call people like me). Anyway, that's not what this blog is about. It's about this video of Cebu prisoners that was posted in one of them sites. The following video clip is of them dancing to Michael Jackson's Thriller and it is soooooo funny. Check it out.




Apparently, there are several more clips of them dancing to other songs. If you want to checkt them out, visit http://www.youtube.com/user/byronfgarcia.Say what you want, but you gotta give it to us Pinoys, even our prisoners are cool. He he he.

I never get what I want...or do I?

I was reading one of my friends' blog in friendster and came across one of her entries. I know I received this in an email sometime ago, and pretty much ignored it. But reading it this time made me stop and think. It goes:

God's Ways

I asked for Strength.........And God gave me Difficulties to make me strong.
I asked for Wisdom..........And God gave me Problems to solve.
I asked for Prosperity.....And God gave me Brain and Brawn to work.
I asked for Courage.........And God gave me Danger to overcome.
I asked for Love...............And God gave me Troubled people to help.
I asked for Favors...........And God gave me Opportunities.
I got nothing I wanted...but I received everything I needed!

I tend to complain, A LOT! Fortunately, I've been lucky enough to have people around me who love me or like me enough to let me rant. I suppose like most people (although most of us wouldn't admit it), I want to have life and things the easy way. Instant gratification, ika nga.

Paying more attention to this little piece this time made stop and think. And then I gave a silent thanks, not just to God, but to everyone who has any connection to me and for everything I have. I know I'm luckier than many people, despite the fact that I may think otherwise at times. This is especially true when I pay so much attention to what I want that I tend to forget what I need. I have asked for strength, for wisdom, for prosperity, for courage, for love, for favors, and many many more for so long, and even got upset that I didn't seem to get them. I guess I've just been looking at things the wrong way.

I don't want to sound like a goody goody person because I'm not, but I should try a bit harder, shouldn't I.

It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them. - Alfred Adler

I dare say, I agree with Mr Adler. So easy to talk of principles, but living up to them, well that's another story. I've got to admit, I've been quite judgmental about some people, and I know I shouldn't be, but some people here in the Philippines make it so easy.

But as I've written in the past, nothing is absolute, principles included. There are times though, when I do wish things were absolute, but...

Oh well, I don't want to wax philosophical. Suffice to say, I wish life was easier.