"This is a man's world...

but it ain't nothing without a woman or a girl"

James Brown

1933-2006

"If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sign you're not doing anything very innovative. "
- Woody Allen

there's a storm coming. but i still AM going.

i'm not worried. really.

birthdays aren't so bad after all :) thanks, pa! thanks, trish and trina!

and thank you god for french cafe music and the beatles!

i've been saying it all year and i'll say it again now: i don't like being a grown up.

there's just so much to do these days that it's hard to not act like a psycho. one minute i'm tense as hell because there's just not enough time to get everything done in time, and the next minute i'm laughing my ass off over the smallest thing because i need to find pleasure wherever i can or else i'm gonna kill someone. what really sucks is that now that i've so much to do, my insomnia's cured and i can't function without atleast 6 hours of sleep! someone told me that it's just because i'm doing so much within the hours that i'm actually awake. BULLSHIT! if i do so much then how come i'm still behind??? the last two weekends i spent at the beach i didn't even take a look at my laptop...it's just too much sometimes. i'm beginning to hate the convenience of being able to work anywhere. there's just no excuse for being lazy anymore...and yet, i still manage to be, once in a while. this weekend i'm spending in the city...holed up in the computer room where i'll be furiously typing and designing away...then next weekend....well, let's just say i don't know if i'll be able to upload photos...don't want evidence landing in the wrong hands....

i'm convinced that only one person reads this blog, and that's zita. hahaha! but anyway, since she asked so nicely, here's an update...

my 25th birthday is coming up, and it's freaking me out! not because i'm getting old, that's inevitable, and 25 isn't really OLD. but the fact is, i haven't got much to show for it. i'm 25 and still have a few more terms of school left. i haven't done nearly half of what i wanted to do before i turn 25. A quarter of a century old and all i have to show for it are photos i take of other people and the sunsets in matuod, a few small time graphic and production projects here and there and a used eurail pass. But what is all that, it's just things and money. But isn't that how you measure a person these days?

I gave up defending myself by way of saying that i've had significant experiences, but intellect and spirituality means nothing these days if you can't back it up with some mundane responsibility or piece of paper that says you've graduated or you earn this much money. Why is that? Why is it that a 25 year old who's graduated from college and has a good job, but refuses to move out of the "safe zone" that's been deemed by society is a better person than i am?

don't get me wrong, education has considerable value. if i didn't think so, i wouldn't have gone back to school. but if my worth is going to based on a stupid piece of paper that says i've gone to so and so college, or a piece of paper that says i have this much money in the bank, then what makes all the meeting people and going through shit and getting yourself out of shit worth anything?

i love getting tipsy...so sue me! it's fun! it's even better when you're tipsy and the people around you are as tipsy as you. cheap alcohol...thank you, side bar!


miguel can tell you himself...it was lust between him and ronald. although, i was the one who wanted to steal him. there were rent-a-cops there. i couldn't do it. i'm getting soft in my old age.

to love with abandon...mc do...love ko 'to! hahahaha

aren't mcDo fries the best food in the world when you're drunk????


bea....COME HOME!!!!!

more images from the storm.

along south super highway....

look ma...no ugly billboards!
forgive the skewed photo

images from after the storm...

glenn's finger...this is along ayala

the park on front of glorietta 3.i can't remember experiencing a scarier storm. maybe it's because the house had gone through some dubious "renovations" last year, i wasn't feeling too safe. not to mention that the fuckers next door still haven't cleared out all the waste from that dump they abandoned so a large g.i. sheet flew right into my lolo's window and cracked the glass right above his head as he slept. but the afternoon was alot better. hanging out with my dad and his friends along with glenn and cio, eating shabushabu...puts alot of things in perspective. i mean, there i was sitting in a room with airconditioning, eating a good hot meal while there are people out there who're losing their homes in the storm. what more those who don't have homes to begin with? where do they go to find shelter? the streets are flooded, things are flying all over the place, i felt like dorothea in the middle of the tornado. i don't feel guilty for what i have, my family works hard to keep our house and to put food on the table, and we never waste as long as we can help it. but i do feel like i could do more. but what CAN i do? i'd really like to know.

mabe i do feel guilty after all.

i miss my hair.

let me just say that my family is a big group of people that you don't wanna piss off, and yet, it's so easy to piss them off. not exactly the kind of people you would think of spending copious amounts of time with on an island far from civilization. but they're MY family and no one else is allowed to say all that about them but me. and they can be fun when they wanna be. with all that being said, i'm about to spend a whole weekend with them and a class of sixth graders at the beach. wish me luck and pray that i come back alive.

on the other hand, i'll be in the beach while you b*tches are here in the sweltering, polluted city. :D this thought makes me happy.

hey you, little girl with the fake smile. i hate you. you should know who you are. i really hate you.
you wanna know WHY i hate you? because you are not the person you made yourself out to be. you big fake.
i. hate. you.
i hate the way you tried to steal my friends. i hate the way you claimed bits of my personality to be your own but then ditch me because you can't handle my intensity.
i hate you.
and the main reason why i hate you? because i was always there for you, without you even having to ask. and when i needed you, you refused to be there for me because my problems were too intense.
no one's perfect. i admit i'm intense. i'm also lazy, flakey, moody and temperamental. i'm over sensitive and i like to curse alot, and there's alot more that's wrong with me too...but you're not so great yourself. if you were really a good friend, you would've duked it out with me and confronted me about what was bothering you, but you didn't. you just went around telling people all sorts of shit about me. did i "ditch" YOU because you can barely carry a meaningful conversation? because you're shallow and pedantic?

NO I DID NOT! BUT YOU DID.
and because of this....I HATE YOU.
but lemme just say that as i'm writing this, i have a smile on my face...because i also wanna thank you.
because i hate you, i realize how much i love my friends. the ones who don't run when i have a problem. the ones who roll their eyes when i'm having a temper tantrum but don't leave me because i'm having more bad days than good. the ones who confront me about what's been bothering them. the ones who aren't FAKE!!!
you're probably reading this and wondering "is it me?" if you really wanna know if it is you...ask yourself this...where's the bob marley cd with my name on it?
yeah, that's right. YOU!!!! I HATE YOU!!!
you'll get what's coming to you, little girl. you just wait.

i cannot even begin to describe how elated i am at this moment. i just came from defending my thesis to a panel of professors and they all gave the green light! i am so so so happy! the response to the project was all good, and aside from some formatting adjustments to the research paper, the general consensus is that my research was in depth and my paper well-written.

i was so nervous going into this. i was afraid that i wouldn't be able to properly articulate my objectives, but i did it! I did it! I FREAKIN' DID IT!!!!

so now, on to the fun part...first is the website, which should be going live in a month and a half, so keep your eyes peeled for that. then i have a million people that i have to talk to about contacts and music and x-deals and money....oh my god, the money!

please , people! help with the sticker project! copy paste these two photos, print them on ordinary sticker paper or whatever you wanna print them on and just stick 'em all over the damn place! in your cars, your notebooks, laptops, on posts, sidewalks, bulletin boards! give them to your friends, your family! litter the whole goddamn country with these! they certainly are better looking than politicians faces.

i am two days away from finally being able to defend my proposal for my thesis. i don't think i can explain how much i want this! i can see exactly where i want this project to go and how it's gonna look...and for once, i'm at a loss for words to articulate something that i feel passionate about. i'm just so blessed that i have friends and family who are as excited as i am about this that they're willing to help (especially suki and miguel, who are gonna play a big part in my thesis) and i'm even luckier that my dad is behind me on this a hundred percent. and even though it's gonna cost him an arm and a leg, he could not be more excited than anyone else. except maybe me.

so, wish me luck...because if my proposal is denied, i really wouldn't know what to do with myself. i know that there's nothing else that i wanna do except this.

fat people don't flunk cooking, so it's not really surprising to most people that i can cook. but i am SO pleased with myself! i finally tried cooking paella and the first time i did AMAZINGLY well, and while the second time was a little lackluster because of a few missing ingredients, it wasn't too shabby either! i am SOOO proud of myself!

the first time i went to fete, i was with my dad. it must have been about 10 years ago. since then i've gone every year with the closest friends i've had at that particular time in my life, depending what i was into that year. but with no fail, every year, whether we go there together or not, whether we're on good terms or not, trish and i always meet up at fete. even when we don't plan to meet up, or we don't call or text each other, we will always find each other there. and even if it's at a time when we aren't exactly each others favorite person at that moment, when at fete, all that drama goes out the door. trish and i have been making fete memories every year, and every year there's always some new drama or excitement that we can laugh about that's always just ours, hers and mine. it's consistently one of the highlights of my year.

tricia! what am i gonna do now that there's no fete this year??? waaaahhhhh (this is me bawling like a baby)

www.frenchspringinmanila.com

The Da Vinci Code sucked serious ass. I've been saying it since i first heard about it, and i'll say it again now that i've seen it: Tom Hanks is so not right as Langdon. Even Audrey Toutou sucked as Sophie. The script was bad, the writing was bad, it was all bad. Bad, bad, bad. I'd like to give criticism that is more constructive than that, but it sucked so much that i can't come up with anything else that describes it better than that.

this is from an email that tricia*alon sent me. it's funny because i've been saying over and over the past few days, when did we all decide that we have to grow up? but today is the day of my first class for this term, and i just realized that i atleast know where i am now, which is trying to finish school. and sure, it may be taking alot longer than it would most people, but atleast i know where i am and what i'm supposed to be doing tomorrow. and where will i be one year from now? hopefully going to class on the first day of my last term in school. so it may not be an ideal situation, but atleast i know where i am, where i SHOULD be going. so maybe i shouldn't be thinking about what happens after school. i'll just worry about that later. right now all i should be worrying about is getting to class on time.

Being Twenty-Something

They call it the "Quarter-life Crisis." It is when you stop going along with the crowd and startrealizing that there are many things about yourselfthat you didn't know and may not like.You start feeling insecure and wonder whereyou will be in a year or two, but then get scared because you barely know where you are now.You start realizing that people are selfish andthat, maybe, those friends that you thought youwere close to aren't exactly the greatest people you have ever met, and the people you have losttouch with are some of the most important ones.What you don't recognize is that they are realizingthat too, and aren't really cold, catty, mean orinsincere but that they are as confused as you. You look at your job... and it is not even closeto what you thought you would be doing, or maybeyou are looking for a job and realizing that you aregoing to have to start at the bottom, and that scares you.Your opinions have gotten stronger. You seewhat others are doing and find yourself judgingmore than usual because suddenly you realizethat you have certain boundaries in your life andare constantly adding things to your list of what isacceptable and what isn't. One minute, you areinsecure and then the next, secure.You laugh and cry with the greatest force of your life. You feel alone and scared andconfused. Suddenly, change is the enemy andyou try and cling on to the past with dear life, butsoon realize that the past is drifting further andfurther away, and there is nothing to do but stay where you are or move forward.You get your heart broken and wonder howsomeone you loved could do such damage to you.Or you lay in bed and wonder why you can't meet anyone decent enough that you want to get toknow better. Or maybe you love someone but lovesomeone else too and cannot figure out why youare doing this because you know that you aren't a bad person.One-night-stands and random hook-ups start tolook cheap. Getting wasted and acting like anidiot starts to look pathetic. You go through thesame emotions and questions over and over, and talk with your friends about the same topicsbecause you cannot seem to make a decision.You worry about loans, money, the future andmaking a life for yourself... and while winning the race would be great, right now you'd just like to bea contender!What you may not realize is that everyonereading this relates to it. We are in our best oftimes and our worst of times, trying as hard as we can to figure this whole thing out.

talk about a symbolic end to summer. it's almost as if the whole universe decided to let me know that it's time to buckle down. so, the rains started early this year...in time for my first week of school. and grey's anatomy's 2nd season is over...in time for my first week of school. and so is lost. and desperate housewives. as if the gods of tvDOM and internetDOM have said "alright now. that's enough downloading! time to start thinking about that thesis project! time's a-tickin'!"
for to be my supposed "last summer", this was a pretty anti-climactic one. There weren't any trips out of town (sorry, i know this may make me sound jaded, but a weekend in matuod is no longer a trip out of town.) there weren't any stay out all night drinking sprees. there weren't even any stay IN all night drinking sprees. no wild drives, no lounging around at the malls. i got drunk ONCE this whole summer, and it wasn't even enough to get me to puke!!! how disgusting is that??!!??
when did we all decide we were grown up???

i love commercials. and i especially love advertising gimmicks. check out this site and you'll get both. and for all the guys. . .trust me, you'll love this.

http://www.clickmore.com/

i heard once that the families we're born into are merely start-up families that prepare you for the real family that you'll get along the way. well, i love the family that i was born into. but just the same, there are a few people out there that i know i can't live without. you know who you are.

being in the city during summer is torture. i don't have any money to do anything. everyone's at work, so even if i could do stuff, there's no one to do anything with. and getting a tan at home in the city just seems so not right. even if i'm just at home, i feel like 50% of my tan is actually dirt and smog. there's nothing good on tv, it's too hot to drink, the best view i have here is the kamias tree beside the pool. so sad. i swear, if only we were hooked up to the internet in matuod, i'd spend the rest of my summer there. i actually could do that, only thing is, i need my weekly fix of the most recent lost episodes. stupid tv show. so now i'm stuck in my room waiting for my downloads to finish while listening to al green (for soome reason, listening to al green makes me feel like i'm in the beach. weird cuz i don't listen to al green when i'm actually AT the beach.), wishing i were at the beach. but let's face it, being at the beach without friends is pretty much like stealing the answers to an important exam and not sharing the answers with other people. you pass the test, you know you're not gonna fail, but there's no one to celebrate with when you don't get caught.

what i learned while cooking spaghetti in my lolo's kitchen (feel free to apply these lessons to real life...outside the kitchen)

1. good help is hard to find.
2. common sense is not so common.
3. no matter how much people volunteer their help, they don't want to get their hands too dirty.
4. too many cooks do not spoil the broth. but they do cause break-ups, family feuds and dinner getting on the table late.
5. no matter how hard you look, that important ingredient you know you set aside long ago just isn't there anymore. and no matter how many people you ask, nobody will admit to having taken it.
6. someone will always say that they have a better recipe for spaghetti.
7. there will also always be someone who thinks they know just what to put in your sauce to fix the problem. even though you never even knew that there was a problem with your sauce to begin with.
8. just a little bit of spice can turn things around. spaghetti in meat sauce is now bolognese just by adding a pinch of paprika.
9. cooking becomes a science when you meticulously measure and temp. but wouldn't you rather be an artist? measure with your senses and throw away the rule book.
10. don't worry about everyone else. you're done cooking it, go ahead and eat it. everyone else can feed themselves. if they're hungry, they'll eat.

a bit late for a new years reflection, but this is what i learned from last year.
no matter how far you've come over the past three, four, ten years, you can fall even further than that within a day. and that no matter whose fault it is, in the end, it still takes two to tango. saying sorry only hurts when you don't mean it. friends are good, and the good ones will stick by you until they can't take your sorry ass anymore. but the better ones will eventually miss said sorry ass and will always come back. families are a bitch, especially big ones. but they love you. You and your stupid sorry ass.
and the best thing i've learned from last year? i may be a stupid, sorry ass, but hey...you all love me anyway.

ADMIT IT!