Justice for the Maguindanao Massacre Victims

I am still proud to be a Filipino, and I believe that what happened in Maguindanao is not because of race but because of screwed up principles of the perpetrators. They should rot in jail.

Click here for a virtual description of what happened. The article's here.

Please pray that justice will prevail. Am hopeful that Madame President will just forget that the Ampatuans helped her cheat her way into the presidency. Utang na loob naman, Madame. Maging TAO ka naman, please? May natitira pa naman sa conscience mo (sana)?

lovin' the fresh air

Hello everyone! I'm now in Malaybalay City--where my family's been living for the past 5 years. Actually, my dad's been living here since 2001 but my mom and youngest brother moved here in 2004. Anyway, I took a bus from Davao to Malaybalay this morning. Woke up really, really early so that I could pack and prepare for the 5-hr trip. My Tito Eric brought me to the terminal. Too bad I stayed at Davao for only a day--and most of the time I was doing fieldwork. I was able to get a bit of sleep in the afternoon before I went to the Davao Convention Center to check out the bazaar. I was supposed to meet my friend Francie there since she had a stall. She had to leave early, though. I still went to the bazaar--walked around and checked out the stalls...nothing different from bazaars here in Manila, except that everyone was speaking in Bisaya. Hahaha! I had dinner at Coco's, a local restaurant. I asked the waitress if it was the only branch in the Philippines. I figured I'd eat at a place where the only branch would be at Davao to make the meal 'worth it.' I've been craving for fish and chips for the past how-many-days so you can just imagine how happy I was that they served fish and chips at Coco's. Yay for fish and chips! I'm assuming the batter they used wasn't beer-based so it wasn't as good as the ones sold at Chocolate Kiss. My craving for fish and chips hasn't been fully satisfied, so I might grab some tomorrow or on Tuesday.

I'll be posting a few pictures of my trip soon. I need to get some shut eye now...It's going to be a long day for me tomorrow. I'll be back at Manila tomorrow evening, and most probably I'll be able to post another entry some time this week.

As a teaser, lemme share with you guys a shot I took this afternoon here at our house..

see you all next week!

I'll be out of town this weekend, but hopefully I'll be able to post something on Sunday. I'm going to the world's largest city--Davao! :) My trip's for work, though. It ain't that bad. I get to travel :)

Keeping my entry short--what did I have today? Hmm...nothing for breakfast, chicken for lunch, and buttered veggies for dinner. I'm getting a bit used to my no pork/no beef/no caffeine/no softdrinks diet. What day is it? Oh, day 8.

day 6 and 7

Aaaaaack super duper tiring day today. I observed fieldwork practically the entire day today. Yesterday was also a bit hectic though I was only at the office. Anyway, yesterday--I had leftover pasta for lunch and chicken adobo for dinner. Today..err...I didn't have anything for breakfast and lunch because I was too busy running around from one place to another. My first decent meal today was dinner...I had shrimps, yay :)

Okay, I have to work on my lolo's avp and I have to finish it before 12. Goodluck to me!

missing lolo

My mom asked me to scan a few pictures for the avp that'll be shown at Lolo Jake's party. It's been 8 1/2 months since he left us but we're all somehow still adjusting. It's actually still quite surreal that he's not here with us because it's like he still is, sometimes. Anyway, my mom brought a few pictures from our albums in Malaybalay. They made me miss my lolo even more. Out of all the pictures, I like this one the most...

I think I was a year or almost a year old in this picture. Ergs. I'm gonna cry now.

Okay, on a brighter note...to my dearest friend Kaye--who is thousands of miles away and in Italy (she's working and studying there), I wish you a Happy Birthday! Missing you heaps, love. Be good! Baka mamaya sinusulit mo yung "Welcome Back Kiss" mo, ha...Hahaha! Kidding :)

photo credit: Seattle Symphony blog

And oh yeah, my Tita Arlene gave birth last night (at exactly 10:11 p.m) to a healthy baby girl! Yay! The name's Megan Jacinth. We were all hoping for a boy, but we're just ecstatic to have a new baby in the family. If it was a boy, my aunt and uncle were going to name him Jacinto V--after my grandfather. Since the baby's a girl, they decided to play with Jacinto a bit thus the baby's name is Megan Jacinth :)

getting better...day 5

Toxic day at work today, as usual. Juggling two projects--both in the implementation stage so I've been practically running around making calls, fixing questionnaires and schedules and other documents, facilitating field briefings and other meetings for the past few days. I'm hoping that I'll go out of town this weekend--for work, still. But it's an out of town trip!! Who wouldn't want to go out of town, even if it's for work right? Hahaha yeah yeah I'm a weirdo. I have a love-hate relationship with my job. I hate it when I'm super duper swamped with work, but I love my job nevertheless.

So today's the 5th day of my diet...I had some sort of wholewheat/oatmeal cracker (?) for late lunch. I had dinner with Mishi at Shangrila. We ate at Green Tomato--she had the kani salad and I had the shrimp and feta pasta. Mish gave me some of her salad--twas quite good, actually. It had shredded seaweed, too :) I wasn't able to finish my pasta so I brought home the leftovers and I'll probably eat it tomorrow for lunch.

Mish and I did a bit of window shopping at Shang...got a bit depressed because I really wanted to buy a couple of items but I didn't want to spend my money. I need to save up for the gifts I'll be giving friends and family this Christmas. Ugh. Don't you just hate it that you know you have money but you can't buy anything because you're saving up for something else?

I'm soooo craving for Chocolate Kiss' fish and chips. I mean, I am really REALLY craving for it. Shiet.

Day 4

feel hungry. Hahahahaha! Gaaaaaahd this is hard. I'm still alive, though :) Okay..I had a pretty long day. Was at Makati as early as 8 for a 9 a.m telecon with our client's counterpart in the US. My boss was late so I waited for an hour at Starbucks 6750...I didn't buy coffee...just had hot chocolate. How sad. I was busy the entire day from the time we returned to our office until before I went home. I'm still supposed to do stuff for work now, but maybe later because I'm too tamad to do anything work-related now. I had rellenong bangus again for lunch and chicken ala king for dinner (soooo good!), and a slice of papaya...I'm still hungry. I'm trying to control my rice intake because I noticed I've been eating a lot of rice, carbs actually--either bread, pasta, or rice. I dunno whyyy. I think when the ulam's really good I tend to eat lots of rice. I should start working out again. I feel really fat already. I have to prepare for my Sitio de Amor trip this December 5th. My body should be swimming pool-worthy. HAHA!

I want to look like this again :

I want my pre-work body back. Haha!

Day 3

3rd day without coffee...my gosh, it's so hard!! Don't fret, I am VERY committed to keeping my promise. It's just that my body's adjusting..yeah, caffeine withdrawal. I'm actually torturing myself because right now, I'm at Starbucks with my mom. She wanted to do stuff for work here so that she can think daw. Whatever. Hahahaha! Okay, I'm like her so I get it why she wants to work here but I just can't stand being surrounded by people with their cups of hot coffee and smelling freshly brewed espresso. AAAAAAAAAAAH!

It was my Lolo Belo's birthday party this afternoon...It's his 86th birthday. He's actually my Lolo Jake's uncle. Yeap, his UNCLE. The celebration wasn't really that big, just a few relatives and close friends. I'm assuming the food was really good because my mom kept on going back for more. I only had the pasta because it was the only thing served without meat : Boohoo. Actually, it was quite good. And oh yeah, they also had sapin sapin! I luuuuuuuurve sapin sapin. It's my second favorite kakanin (local Filipino delicacies...usually sweet and eaten as dessert or as afternoon snacks) after pichi pichi. I also like kutsina, especially the ones my Tita Arlene buys at Cavite from her family's neighbor there.

Okay, since I'm talking about food already...what did I eat today?
-I didn't have anything for breakfast (as usual)
-Rellenong bangus (milkfish) for lunch
-the pasta for merienda
-nothing for dinner...too full from all the pasta and sapin sapin :

Day 2

I'm too sleepy to make a decent entry so I'll just write down what I had today..I wasn't able to eat breakfast. For lunch, I had one chicken lollipop and a bit of rice. For dinner, my mom and I ate at Kimono Ken. I ordered salmon sashimi and chicken teriyaki. My mom wasn't able to finish her seafood tepanyaki so I finished it for her.

Can I just say...I am dying to get some coffee but I won't. I can do this!

I will survive

It's my friend Dave's birthday today. I gave him my gift a bit early since we won't be seeing each other any time soon, and I wanted to give him something unique. Anyway, a part of my gift is my commitment not to eat pork and beef, and not to drink any kind of carbonated and caffeinated drink. Yes folks, I will give up my dearest coffee for a month. Why? Because Dave's my friend. Hahahaha! Okay, lemme explain...Dave's doctor told him he can't eat these nor drink these anymore, and yeah that really sucks. So, I decided to give up pork, beef, softdrinks, and coffee for the next month so that he wouldn't feel alone. Healthy living for a month...which I hope I'll get used to so it would be a permanent thing. Maybe after my month-long commitment, I can start eating pork and beef--but not as much..maybe once a week. I also think it's the right time for me to stop drinking coffee since I need to go on caffeine detox. My body's so used to caffeine to the point that I'm still sleepy after drinking 3 shots of espresso. Yeap, THAT bad. I'm anticipating caffeine withdrawal, but I know I need to do this. More than being my gift to Dave, I think it's also for myself. I'm really bent on keeping this commitment, so I even made a document to formalize everything--complete with my signature. Hahaha! I even asked Dave to have it notarized (I wonder if he really did get it notarized...).

I wanna share this month long journey of mine with you guys, so I'll be documenting my daily meals here. My commitment started on the 20th, so here's what I had yesterday:
-I don't usually eat breakfast so nope, I didn't eat anything this morning
-For lunch, I had chicken and pesto
-For my afternoon snack--I had the coleslaw from KFC
-I attended my cousins' gig at Magnet Katipunan so I only had calamares for dinner.

29 days to go!

who cares if it's baggy?

photo credit: MK and A images

This is why I love MK and A. They wear baggy clothes like nobody cares. Actually, nobody should care. So what if you like wearing baggy clothes? SO. WHAT?

To you, I miss you like..like...aack I just miss you, okay? That's all I wanted to say. Well, not really but I think that's the only thing I'm allowed to say so there I said it I miss you. Sometimes I just wish things were less complicated. Fak.

for today

..lemme post something in Tagalog (and a bit Taglish--Tagalog-English), okay? Here goes...

Wala naman akong karapatan magselos, di ba? Alam ko talaga wala. Naiinis ako sa sarili ko kasi alam ko hindi dapat. Yung tipo ng inis na naiiyak ka na, alam niyo yun? Ewan ko ba. I've decided to give this thing (not my jealousy, mind you) a deadline. Yeah, an effing deadline. I haven't thought about until when, though. Maybe until my birthday...or earlier. I dunno yet. HAY NAKU KASI NAMAAAAAAAAN. Sobrang this sucks. Although, I'm not totally unhappy with the entire situation. Self issue lang naman ang pinoproblema ko. Hay...shiet.


Okay, am done ranting.

the forgotten Ilocos post

I haven't been able to write the last installment of my Ilocos trip. I've been lazy about uploading the pictures here because there are soooo many! Will do that when I'm in the mood (I wonder when that'll be...hmm..after a million years).

Anyway, Raiz and I spent some girl-friend downtime together at Serendra and Highstreet this afternoon. Can I just say, the mojito at Murray and D'vine is soo good! We wanted to drink more but then we remembered we had to drive home. Murray and D'vine serves gourmet burgers. I had My Son in Law's Spicy Beef Burger...it was too spicy for me :| Last week when Mishi and I went there we had the Angus Beef sliders...pretty good :) Raiz and I wanna go back for happy hour (2-8 p.m). Whattabout 95 bucks for the cocktails?! Not bad, eh? We had dinner pretty early--around 5:30. Hahaha! Spent 3 hours at Murray's and then spent the rest of the evening at Starbucks at Fullybooked...to lazy to walk all the way to the other end of Highstreet for the other Starbucks.

Another chillax Saturday. Yay! :)

fak

Shit..I miss you :|

why I absolutely love Glee

1. Duh..it's about the glee club. As most of my friends know, I love to sing. I'm passionate about music in general. Only some, however, know that I was a member of my high school's glee club. Ever since I graduated high school, I've been missing the club and the girls. I miss singing with the other members. I miss going home late because of rehearsals. And yes, I sometimes miss the times Kuya Jay would scream at us and told us that we sounded like shit.

2. The show is slowly highlighting the other cast members--like for episode 9 it was more about Artie and Kurt. It ain't about Rachel and Finn as much as in the previous episodes.

3. I love the fact that Kurt's dad is pretty open to him being gay. What's great about Glee is that it shows different issues in a not-so-serious manner.

4. Puck's hot. Hahahaha!

The list goes on and on but my brain's starting to lag a bit. I haven't been getting enough sleep lately so yeah...I think I'll just finish watching the last episode then I'm off to bed.

long day ahead my, oh my

I'm still awake but I know I should actually be settling in bed already. I have to be up really early since my brother and I are off to the Dept. of Foreign Affairs to renew our passports in time for our HK trip this December. My goodness, I hope the line's not that long. I have to be back at the office by 1:30 p.m and I think I'll be going home really late. Oh noooooooooooo!

Anyway, I found this really nice planner that I've decided to give to five of my friends who, like me, suffer a bit from OCD (haha!). It's the Got Heart planner. I saw it at Anagon's site

I ♥ the packaging!

Lovely, lovely inside page :)

I love the fact that there's lots of space to write your daily activities

What's really cool is that I'm also helping certain advocacies when I buy any Got Heart product. For more info about the Got Heart Foundation, go here.

Photo credit: Anagon's multiply site

Aldo is ♥

Am obsessing over boots again. I already bought a pair at Zara, but I want another pair..or maybe two. Hahaha! I checked Aldo's site and just got semi-depressed after. Shoes really are an investment.

Here are a few that I liked:

Balduf

Cassella

Buttitta

Brendal

It's finally out!!

photo credit: Our Awesome Planet

The very-much awaited Starbucks planner is finally out! Yay! I've been badgering the baristas at Starbucks Emerald for the past month when they'd release the promo cards for the planner and they kept on telling me it'd come out on the first week of November. Then last week, they told me it would come out on November 4th so imagine how excited I was yesterday.

The reason why I wanted to get the card on the first day of the promo period's because there's a free sticker already so instead of collecting 17 stickers, I'd only have to collect 16. That's still 120+ pesos so yeah it makes a lot of difference especially for us working our butts off to earn a decent living on a third world paycheck. Don't get me wrong, I'm not living beyond my means...I could just be spending my money on other things, or maybe not spend it at all. My savings account has suffered enough because of several 'retail therapy sessions' no thanks to my mom. It all boils down to my lack of self control when it comes to shopping. I don't really have vices--I quit smoking and I don't really drink and go out partying. There's just something about shopping that's so addictive. Like a drug (though I've never taken any kind of illegal drug), there's something about buying gorgeous shoes that makes me high. Okay, Nicole....STOP IT.

baaaaack

I am back to my quirky self. Too much drama is making me feel icky.

My friend Val's actually encouraging me to start another blog where I can just post the chapters to my new pet project: an online series. It's been a while since I've written serious articles and poems and I'd like to dabble a bit in short story writing. I'm not sure how short (or long) the story's going to be. I'm still thinking about the direction of the story. It could be, like, stories within a story. I'll figure something out. My writing juice is flowing and I was actually able to write a chapter already in just an hour. I had Val and my officemate Arlene read it first. They asked me the same thing: when's the next chapter coming out? Hahaha! Good reactions=good sign to continue. God, it feels good to write again! I mean, yeah I have this blog and I post entries more than once a week. But it's different writing something like a short story, with chapters and all that jazz.

Anyhoooo. For some weird reason, I am actually happy with the way things turned out. Yes, I tend to be too dramatic and emo-ish when I'm PMS-ing and having my Cinema One moments of FAMAS monologues so please don't mind my previous 'The Hills' drama episodes. First, I can now actually move forward and not want to be in that situation again. I can actually still be friends with the person, but I can't really imagine being genuinely happy being beyond that because there'd always be this errant thought at the back of my head about the relationship if it's right or not. God I had such a self-pity party this past weekend it's making me hurl.

Segue: I want to go shopping for a nice pair of boots for my HK trip this December. I was looking at Aldo and Zara yesterday and I just got depressed with the prices so nevermind. I'll probably check out other stores this weekend. And I want to go back to Tagaytay to check out the ukay ukays there. My mom asked me to buy nice jackets for my brother and grandmother for HK. She was shocked to find out that my white eskimo jacket only cost 150 bucks when we saw almost the exact same kind of jacket at Zara (though it had zebra prints all over..which I just adored, by the way) that cost almost 6000 pesos.

Okay I should really get back to work.

And I thought watching SATCTM would make me feel all empowered

Watched Sex and the City The Movie on HBO. Felt like crap afterwards. Lots of lines just caught me off guard. Some made me want to throw the remote.

God, I feel like a hypocrite. I've been telling my friend who's going through a break up that crying is normal and she shouldn't stop herself, and that it's going to be harder for her if she doesn't let it all out. I think I should be telling myself that.

I don't know who I should be angrier with. I'm mad at him, but I'm more pissed off with myself for having let that happen. I'm really trying to be rational about everything, but PMS is making me more emotional lately so yeah I'm anticipating that I'll be bitching more for the next few days.

My brother had a dose of my female rants this afternoon and what he said actually made sense and hit home that I wanted to punch him. He told me "Well...you should've asked him in the first place. That's what you get for assuming." Whatever. Ugh. I know, I know. My brother's right. My brother is such a guy--he comes off as such a jerk but he does have a point. I loff you, brother dear...even if you're often such a meanie.

Going back to Sex and the City, I liked a few lines from the movie. Some apply to me now, some I hope I'll fully appreciate someday.

How about not doing anything you'd be sorry about??

I thought I'd still be in extreme pain. But I feel nothing. I'd like some more nothing.

Some love stories aren't epic novels, some are short stories
But, that doesn't make them any less filled with love.

Am having second thoughts about watching 500 Days of Summer...though a couple of people have told me this is the movie I should watch. I was able to download a few songs from the soundtrack, and one of the tracks included the narration in the beginning of the movie. I love the line where the narrator said something like "This is a story of boy meets girl. But you should know up front, this is not a love story."

I am too emotional to even be writing a blog entry. Quoting LC again, "Too much draa-muh".

photo credit: allmoviephoto.com

damn it, Santi!!

Because of Typhoon Santi, my friends and I had to postpone our trip to Laguna yesterday. We'll be going there maybe in a couple of weeks. We were so excited to go there but then we didn't want to risk our lives just to spend an entire day at a farm with strong, howling winds. Twas signal no. 3, by the way. So yeah we ended up going to Tagaytay in the afternoon.

Today's Nov. 1, and I feel like crap. Why? Let's just say I have issues to resolve. There.

I wrote a letter to myself..wanna read it?

Dear Nicole,

Stop it.

Love,
Nicole

As L.C would say.."Ugh..so much draaa-muh". Hahaha!

Will be back to my semi-perky self tomorrow.