Wander Why so many Blah Blahs???

For a while, I thought I was dreaming. You won’t believe who I saw tonight while walking along Ongpin St.
—- a korean actress! She was walking along Ongpin just like any normal person! Those who have watched “Sassy Girl Chun Hyang” will surely be familiar with the bad girl in series named “Chae-Rin”. And yup, believe it or not, I saw her in Chinatown! It was already 11pm and there were barely any people walking in the streets so I guess no one really noticed her. I just saw a group of Koreans (tourists at first glance judging from their get-up) walking our way and she draw my attention immediately even in the dark coz she’s kinda striking at first glance with her fair complexion, slim figure and tall height. Tinitigan ko talaga… then namukhaan ko na siya sabay whisper kay BF: “Artista yun!”. I’m pretty damn sure I didn’t get the wrong person coz coincidentally, I’m currently half-way through the VCDs of “Sassy Girl Chun Hyang”. I’ve been watching the series for the whole week so her face is still fresh in my mind. hehe Wala lang… it’s just amazing… ma-starstruck ka ba naman sa gitna ng Ongpin! Korean star pa. I wish I had the guts to approach her and tell her “Ommo! Anyeong Haseo! Hong Chae-rin ee ni?” hehe.. My korean vocabulary is quite limited. :p Now I’m kinda day-dreamin’ that maybe someday I’ll see Rain in the middle of the streets too… haha Dream on!

on the side: I love the soundtrack of “Sassy Girl Chun Hyang” though the story is just A-OK for me. This is by far my favorite –> haeng bok ha gil ba rae - Lim Hyung Joo. The song just stucked in my mind… it’s been for days.

15 minutes to go and I’m off from work. Time flies. It’s weekend once again…

Moments like these, I get drowned in my own thoughts. I don’t know if I should be happy or sad coz I’ve been through ultimate high and low this week. My apologies to my avid blog readers out there. Sorry but I can’t spill everything here coz there are just too many eyes wandering around. So let me just talk to myself here.

I just feel too sensitive at times. I get hurt for the tiniest reason. And I hate myself for worrying too much. Worrying won’t solve the problem. I know that but my mind doesn’t. Problems just keep hunting me whenever I’m idle, like when I’m in the bus, during lunch breaks, before bedtime, and even when I’m pooping my mind is still restless. Geessh… You know, sometimes when problems get worse because of somebody else and they’re just out of my control? And you tried persuading the certain somebody by carefully explaining certain things so that she’ll understand and eventually be convinced? And yet in the end, she just gets mad at you? Argh.. hindi ako mapilit… I just know I’m the one who is right (period).

Could it be… I’m worrying because of… PMS? nahh.. psst.. don’t count!

Happy weekend everybody!

(continuation…)

Hospicio de San Jose

December 26 - a day after Christmas, our choir visited the aged at Hospicio de San Jose. Thanks to our friend for organizing and making Cycle a part of this meaningful activity for her birthday. The place is quite easy to find, but definitely odd coz I bet you’ll never imagine such place exist in Metro Manila. (Visualize) - take Ayala bridge (Finance road to Legarda direction) and turn right at the middle of the bridge. Yes, you read this right! There’s actually a small alley leading to Hospicio de San Jose at the middle of the bridge! If I’m the one to drive, I might bump the car coz the turn to the alley is just too narrow. Hehe.. I need more practice. Anyways, the place is nice and quiet. Fresh air and greens… it’s like you reached the other side of the world. The gathering was held in a gym at HDSJ. Most of the lolos and lolas were on wheel chairs, but some are still strong and energetic. We serenaded them with Christmas carols… and some of the lolas also showed-off their singing talents. Aba, ang galing kumanta ni lola - ika nga nila, parang ibong tiririt ang boses! Non-stop talaga! hehe… After some rounds of singing, food were distributed (c/o the birthday celebrant). Cycle prepared and distributed loot bags (yeah really beautiful loot bags *WINK*) filled with sweets… mostly soft foods. We were also toured around their dorm. It’s clean and nice actually. And there are lots of caregiver looking around for them as well.

* Reflections: Surprisingly, I felt happy after the visit. Heard stories from friends before that visiting the home for the aged makes you feel sad kasi nakakaawa daw yung mga matatanda. I looked at it the other way naman. Although the fact still remains that these people are sad because their family are not by their side, at least they are not totally neglected. In some ways, I felt they are quite lucky for being able to have a place to stay and food to eat. Well, I don’t know, that’s just my point of view. Anyhoo, it’s nice sharing love to the people in need — Give Love on Christmas Day — nga daw.

Yuletide Season 2005

I so love love love Christmas! It’s the time of the year when: (music please)

People making list…
Buying special gifts…
Taking time to be kind to one and all…

The other thing that I love about Christmas — CHRISTMAS TREES!!! I enjoy going to malls, restaurants, friends’ houses to look at their Christmas trees - (kilatisin ba naman ang bawa’t isa? hehe…) I especially like those with a lot of ornaments, angels, ribbons and whatever they could think of to make their tree unique. And of course, being me, taking pictures with the beautiful trees is a MUST (as the pictures show). Our tree? hehe.. Well, apparently we don’t have one in our house. Hehe they are nice to look at, but a pain in the a** to keep after Christmas season. Well, maybe in the future when I get a house of my own. I also enjoy the sight of Christmas lights and decors along Ayala Ave. during Christmas season. Too bad there weren’t much decors these past few years. Tag-hirap yata talaga. Well…

DVD Authoring - IJUKSA

My entire Christmas vacation went here - DVD Authoring. This was when I learned about DVD authoring lingos like mux, submux, encode, decode, transcode and the like. Still quite confused with which is which. Tried tons of software, but finally settled with dvdSanta and DVDLabPro. Actually I just needed to embed the subtitles to the video/avi clips

downloaded from the web, and burn them into DVD format which will be playable by ordinary DVD players. It took me a long time to understand what’s with DVD! VCDs are a lot simplier coz the file structure is more straight-forward. It’s bascially .DAT files in the MPEG folder which are also playable on any media players. Anyways, to cut the story short, DVDs are a lot more complicated. It took me almost 3 hours to convert, proof, and burn a DVD containing 2 hour episodes. And it’s a total of 16 episodes! Whew! Imagine I can’t sleep well coz I keep waking up in the middle of the night to check if the videos are done! I just can’t wait! hehe.. paranoid! Poor computer… if it’s a human, it would have probably had a heart attack because of stress! hehe… fortunately, it didn’t break down.

This is the korean series that I downloaded and eagerly wanted to share with my friends - starring Rain and Shin Min-ah. Ok, I confess! I have totally became a Rain and K-drama addict already! I have totally forgotten what I said in my previous blog entry (see “aja aja”). I started to like Rain as a performer after watching his Rainy Day concert on video. He’s not exactly good looking, rather HOT!!! If you just see how he sings and dances on stage. Who can resist his sexy muscles! haha.. ok too much about that… you might think I’m starting to become a pervert! hehe… Back to the original topic. The title of the series is “Ijukul Nom Ui Sarang” or IJUKSA for short. The english title is “A Love to Kill”. Actually there are other variations of its english title (”A Damned Love”, “This Love I want to Kill”, “A Love of Death” etc). As the title implies, this series is indeed a sad one. I’m not gonna spill everything in detail so not to spoil the excitement of those who haven’t watched it yet.:) Hang on friends - the DVD is done and it’s now on circulation! Wait for your turn.

* For more details, please visit d-addicts or soompi. These two forums are heaven for K-drama addicts! They have everything! Korean, Chinese, and Japanese series, TV and movie soundtracks, latest showbiz news and gozzips - name it and they’ve got it - for free! I just so love the INTERNET!

Welcome 2006!

Year 2006 welcomed our family in a quite unique way — brownout from 1am to 10am! Yeah, this surely is an unforgettable one. Anyways, I enjoyed celebrating the new year with my mom, little nephew and BF. We had dinner and wine drinking session on the night of Dec 31, while watching fireworks (on TV hehe). Then on Jan 1, we had shabu-shabu for dinner! Slurp! After dinner, we went to this new place near CCP for a stroll and coffee (I forgot the name of the place.. Harbor something?). I can feel that mom’s so happy the whole day. I’m glad… mom’s laughter makes me feel good.

- * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * - * -

Whew! This blog entry is a long one… Now I’m am back on track. :p

No entries for the entire Christmas season? Hm… shall I use the reason ‘I was busy and exhausted’ again as allibi? hehe.. For a while, I thought of ending this blog all throughout coz I haven’t been patient enough to jot down blog-worth details. Been staring at this site for days… well, here I am blogging once again

Even though 2005 was over, my mind’s still in holiday mood. Maybe because of the chilly weather these past few days. MAN! I so love the weather! I just hope the cold winds stay a bit longer. I guess the holiday mood isn’t really quite over until Chinese New Year (Jan 29 this year). Anyhoo.. let’s just rewind the time a little bit…

Star City Escapade

I’ve been buggin’ BF for days to visit Star City coz it’s been ages since my last visit. Actually I wanted to go to EK but couldn’t find the time. So, Star City’s our only choice. I was emotionally challenging myself to try the scary rides to prove - (note) to MYSELF - that I am NOT OLD! It turned out, BF had almost gone deaf hearing me scream my lungs out. I couldn’t believe I almost cried.. (how shameful!) Even ferry’s wheel scared me to death! HUHU.. Bah naman! Parang wawarak na kasi ang makina nila! I swear - I will not go back to Star City again! Hehe.. affected ba? Anyways, I must challenge EK next time, or else I won’t have peace of mind. :p

PCCI Christmas Party

Last Dec. 16 our company held it’s annual Christmas Party at Makati Shangrila (o diba sosy?). The theme for the night was “United Colors of Provident”. Aside from dressing yourself up in your best international costume, each team should prepare around 10 minutes presentation that would be judged at the end of the night by the upper management according to creativity, choreography, etc. Our team conceptualized an Indian theme and decided to present our own rendition of “THE GURU” - starring Jim Dimitri and Heather Graham. All throughout December, our minds were filled with the melody ~ Chori Chori Gori Se ~… We didn’t have enough time to practice our dance moves as we were quite busy during those times. Anyhoo, apart from the ramble in the middle of the presentation, our team did well as all the guys were like “bigay na bigay”! We were so happy coz we won the 3rd prize that night considering that we didn’t hope much at all. Actually, we learned from our big boss later on that she was quite worried that our Indian client (also a judge) will get offended with our presentation. Turned out, he loved our presentation coz he knew the movie. Whew! I remember his eyes were like so big out of shock when the emcee announced that we’ll be performing an Indian dance. hehe..

* I assumed to be the unofficial make-up artist for our team that night. hehe.. look how I transformed our team leader from a serious IT professional to a wacky sex guru. haha… kulang nalang sakalin na niya ako! I also did some of the girls’ make-up… not so bad! I especially like the one I did for our “Heather”… Man, I wish I have BIG eyes like her!

Alex and Nancy’s Wedding

December 18 - Alex and Nancy’s Wedding. Our choir sang for the couple during their wedding ceremony. I was quite touched with our acappela version of “From this Moment” during the bridal entrance. For a while, I felt like choking kasi naiiyak na ako pag march ni Nancy sa aisle. HEHE.. To Nancy and Alex, best wishes to the both of you.

One Fine Day

One early morning, BF and I saw this weird looking lizard on the post along Valero St. It’s tail looked so funny. Later that afternoon when we passed by that pole again, the lizard was still there. Turned out, it got stucked on the pole and was hanged to death. Creepy…