Felinity

June 28, 2009

admittedly, we’re not cat lovers in the family; we don’t actually love them as they should but we don’t hate them either. its coexistence afterall. its just respect to another life-breathing entity. i will not call it affinity; more like felinity. i thought at first that this word is non-existent in the dictionary; but i was wrong. its there! and i am using the word in a way to replace affinity, hehehe. the correct meaning is here.

this is then a tribute to the felines that freely roam our backyard in the province. we actually don’t own one, but one day one came and then another and then we noticed there’s a clowder of them already. we just can’t drive them away and so mom would give them food and they all stayed.

so here goes, one “catty” scene:

Would you dare disturb a cat who is probably in a magical feline world divinely resting like this one? and look at the position. it deceived me at first. I thought it was dead and so i went to take a look. then i saw it was breathing. that made me go back to our house and get my camera.

oooopsss, sorry! the shutter sound woke the cat and she sleepily flipped to see who is the culprit.

she looked at me accusingly. hmmm… am guilty.

and so she bolted and with grace and felinity left me to continue her interrupted sleep.

with persistence, i followed with my camera. she felt it and she looked back seeming to say, “Hey, don’t follow!”

Okidoks. So much of this already. Let’s give her rest. She must need it. :)


A Taste of Ivy League

June 8, 2009

I dragged myself to work today. I actually started to draft an sms telling my boss I will be out. But knowing I have a lot of things on my list and Friday (June 12) is a non-working holiday in my country, I have to really forced myself to report. I head on to iron my clothes (i do this everyday, mind you), went to take a bath, change and prepare myself to work. I was early to log-in at 8:06am for my 8:30am office call time.

I did accomplish a lot. Three emails to India answering technical specifications and queries, instructions to my small team, programs running, emails to colleagues in the business, calls, etc.  All in all,  I can say I had a productive day. I earned what the company pays me for the day plus more.

I went home excited to hear Robert Shiller of Yale University lecture on Financial Markets. His course is ECON 252. I am not enrolled in his class but last night, I downloaded the first series of his 26 lectures on the course. I slept late and that’s probably the reason why, I was about to declare I have a Monday sickness to my boss.

Anyway, call it late, but I just learned that lectures from Ivy League universities have become available in Youtube. Know why I learned about it? Its from our April 27, 2009 TIME magazine subscription which i don’t get to read regularly because i had it delivered at home in the province, hehehe. I went home last weekend and catch with my reading. See how old fashion I am. There’s an online version yet, i don’t read them. Tsk, tsk, tsk,… as if I have time.  Hmmm… anyway, on page 27 of that Magazine, Legendary lecturer Marian Diamond was featured. In the text, it says “In March, YouTube launched an educational hub called YouTube Edu, dedicated exclusively to videos from the…”.  All I can say is WOW! I need to see this.

And so last night, i get busy. Right this very moment I am downloading several lectures from this site. The moment I reach my place from the office, i switch on my machine, plugged in my portable 320GB Buffalo and then hear the opening class of Prof. Bob Shiller’s ECON 252. If that is not awesome then tell me what is!!!

I am in the Philippines sitting in front of my PC and having a taste of an Ivy League education. Thanks to YouTube Edu.

Am looking forward again to learning great things. Life is just great! :)

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=8F7E2591EE283A2E

lost in a convent

May 9, 2009

So what am i about at 12:34am sunday morning? can’t sleep yet though my eyes and body would want to have a well-deserved rest. am inside one convent room intended to be occupied by someone who feels like she has a vocation in a nunnery.   actually i have been in and out of this convent for several years now. of course, not for reasons everybody was thinking, hehehe. I believe I would get smirks and even sneers, if i say i am becoming a Nun. I am too incorrigible, too spirited and much untamed for this vocation, methink. Okidoks! Now you can tell me to get lost! :)

see this picture? shhh… i am in this room writing this blog while my subconscious is trying to solve the research ‘mystery’  i am presented with. see? the reason i am here  is to do some number-crunching for a study. and before you accused me of anything untoward, i am working gratis et amore. hmmm… does that smell like free coffee, hehehe. NOPE! Go search for the meaning. Don’t be shy!

I came ready you know. I brought my old reliable machine with my pirated copies of unmentionables. Look, am no saint but the Sisters here call me an angel. And I can’t convince them to believe otherwise. Or probably this is why am i called here time and again, they may have a secret mission to convert me. Whew!I think sometimes, I should be running like a demon in the opposite direction. Because much as i don’t want to disappoint them, i think am not carved to live a pious life. Sorry Sisters and forgive me Lord, for the Nuns are innocently sleeping and I am here writing a blog and not concentrating on the data analysis i was supposed to be doing.

Tsk…tsk…tsk… i better return to work. I now have the answers.

Peace be with me. Amen.

Gotta go.


Surfacing after three long months

April 8, 2009

Here I am again after more than three months of hibernation. Its not hibernation really because i have been active all the while, albeit, in other activities. I really don’t feel obligated to write here anymore like i used to. Let’s just say that sometimes i am more motivated to record my thoughts so as to have something to look forward reading and laughing about someday. Its fun sometimes when you get a little older to read the infantile thoughts you had at one point in your life. Oftentimes when I chance upon what i have scribbled in my old journal or a random notebook/paper, i will have fun laughing at the silliness of things I felt strongly about then that I find very trivial in the present. See? Nothing beats that, harharhar.

Its true! Journaling online is somehow revealing. Though I tend to classify myself as a very private person and blogging is a public thing, I still write for my own pleasure. I just take it as accidental if somebody happens to know me passes by virtually and reads the words I have written here. There I go in my defense again.

Hmmm… so Christmas and New Year has passed. Christmas gift-giving stuff and New Year fire-cracker stuff done during that long holiday. I had planned to wrap-up my 2008 during that break but nothing happened. Well!

I have a new boss this January. Not new actually, because she was my former boss in another financial institution. Together again!

February came and pass, and that was it. Nothing note-worthy. February 28-March 3, I was off in Coron with some new friends. I went gallivanting with folks i haven’t meet before.

A month after and I went back to a different beach in Subic. Been to another part way back. Their beaches are not are spectacular as the ones lining my coastal province.

This April, friend Rey is getting married. Sooo happy for him he found his commander in life.

We’re up to the Holy Week now. Tomorrow, I will be province-bound! I don’t know when I can write again. I’ll just drop a few lines here when my fingers get itchy again and when the bout attacks. ü


2009 Year of the OX for the Rat-born

December 18, 2008

Chinese horoscopes for people born in the years: 1900, 1912, 1924, 1936, 1948, 1960, 1972, 1984, 1996, 2008.

The Year of the Ox begins on 26th January 2009.

For the Rat, the year of the Ox brings a more tranquil time. This will be more a year of peace with less rushing about and less haste. It will be a time to get to know yourself better and to aim quietly toward your personal aims.

Or, if there were any changes that took place last year, these will have brought quite a transformation into your life and now comes the chance for you to take it all in. You will be able to come to terms with all that has gone before, relax in the present and then decide on what you really want to do with your future.

Rat’s Health in the Year of the Ox

Your health will be reasonably good. You will make steady progress throughout the year and the one area you should walk away from, however, is other peoples’ problems. If you allow yourself to get dragged into a friend, neighbour or relative’s troubles, this could be your downfall.

In February and March an air of deception could cause some confusion. You might feel as if someone you had trusted lets you down but are you jumping to conclusions? Before confronting others with your feelings, look more deeply into the matter and you could find that someone has been acting with your best interests in mind, after all.

Romance in 2009 for People Born in the Year of the Rat

A love-affair which didn’t come to much in the past may be re-kindled towards the end of March. What makes it different this time? Circumstances will have changed. This time you are more willing to be open and honest with each other and whatever forced you apart now seems to be the source that brings you both back together again. A heart-to-heart will sweep any remaining traces of antagonism away.

At home, good planning is your key to happiness and contentment. Think carefully about what you want from your family life in general and then work steadily and patiently toward those goals over the next few months.

The stars caution you about a good opportunity that falls in your lap from out of the blue in April. Someone could be trying to manipulate you for their own selfish reasons so be on your guard.

Take another look at an irritating problem that has so far defied solution. With a little imagination and divergent thinking, you could come up with the ideal answer and you will wonder why you never thought of it before.

Friendships in 2009

New friends or commitments will get you thinking along new lines in July and August. There may, however, be times when you might be troubled with memories you would rather forget or phobias triggered by a past event. You can deal with these successfully now by seeing them for what they are – past and gone – and refusing to allow them to interfere with your future.

Likewise, if you are feeling a little sentimental, living in romantic memories and times-gone-by, this could have an adverse effect on a current relationship. You can’t recreate past experiences, no matter how hard you try. What you should be doing is creating happy memories now in the year 2009, to add to the store you already have.

End of Year Forecast for Rat Born People

The end of the year could be a bit of a strange time if you are undergoing any sort of test or examination. You might feel as if you haven’t done very well only to get results that outdo anything you have attempted so far in a similar vein.

Finally, a sought after social invitation could come your way at the very end of the year 2009 via a friend of a friend.

Reference:  http://astrology.suite101.com/article.cfm/2009_chinese_horoscope_for_rat_animal_sign


my unanswered leave request ü

November 27, 2008

So what do you say, when you send an sms to your boss for a leave and got no answer?

Its a long weekend and I am making it longer by asking for a leave tomorrow. Yeah, probably its asking too much. Monday (December 1) is a holiday and here i am asking for a leave on Friday. That would give me  fours days of unadulterated fresh air and healthy foods eaten with the company of loved ones. Ahahaha!

I got silence from my boss.  If only he knows…

I want to travel province-bound early so I can have a free-ride. My sister’s driving home  tomorrow and she needs company to a four or so hours of travel. If don’t go with her,  I will be commuting and competing with likely vacationers who would ushering to the bus station. Hitching with her would give one stingy person an equivalent of one-way fare. Hmmm, not that i hate commuting. I also like it. Gives me pleasure to wrestle with empty seats when we are competing for few available ones. Hehehe, isn’t that fun especially when there’s a fair competition to land on one. Its like that famous Trip-to-Jerusalem fun game. Although, admittedly, i got pestered oftentimes when people who don’t know how to compete fairly gets to be the first to rest their asses. Grrr… or should i telling my self, “whoever says that life is fair anyway”?

I got silence from my boss.  If only he knows…

December 1 is the death anniversary of my father. Hmmm… makes me sad. We lost him early. And whattalife it has been. Still life has been good to us. We’re a bunch of toughies now, i would like to believe.  My not getting a nod for a leave tomorrow is nothing. Though, i would appreciate if my boss allowed me.

I guess i should report tomorrow morning and then try to ask instead for a half-day leave. What do you say? Nothing beats persistence, hehehe. Maybe i’ll just my sibling to wait for me in the afternoon. Otherwise, she’ll miss a lively chatter from a very good story-teller like me. Ahahaha, tell me how could a non-writer like me tell a story. You know, I am bluffing.

Hmmm, anyway… If you still haven’t notice, I am writing now so i could have an entry for this month, hehehe. Miss these moments when I could just write and press the keys and see the letters appearing on the screen. Free-flowing letters coming from nowhere and meaning nothing. tsk, tsk, tsk, what a crap am I. Just came from a meeting with one of our foreign consultants and he is asking for a lot from our team. My boss is not there, but he probably knows i should be reporting tomorrow so i could get things done and lessen some head aches. Okidoks. Yeah, i know he’s a good guy. For all i know he just didn’t get what’s my sms about because he’s full and got enough of trouble already to trouble answering a leave request. But don’t we know that silence means YES. Yahoo!

What do you think would happen if I just don’t report tomorrow? Would i still have a work to return to on Tuesday?

Hehehe… what a nice question to end this entry.


Images from Aguilar

October 27, 2008


St. Joseph The Patriarch Church of Aguilar, Pangasinan


Aguilar Town Proper taken from the Church Tower

Aguilar taken from the hills of Sitio Aliling.The small white spot is the Catholic Church.

Hills and mountains going to Sitio Mapita in Aguilar, Pangasinan


Rice fields in Sitio Tambogan


morning in lingayen beach

October 17, 2008

One early Saturday morning, I went to Lingayen Beach together with my younger sibling’s family.

These are the some of the images I took home:

Not so much a picture but there I saw how physical hard work is needed to have fresh fish in our platter.

While these men are towing fishing boats for their keep, a child in the background is oblivious and absorbed in her own activity.

A child throwing a fistful of wet sand into the air.


nameless greens 1

October 4, 2008

so what do you do when you have a simple camera and a lot of greens at home to take a snap at?


A neglected vine with beautiful white flowers.

One of my mom’s treasured variegated bougainvillas.

Purple flowers from butterfly-shaped violet leaves. I don’t know the name of this plant. Can someone give it to me?

I don’t know the name of this one either. ü


Guess from what tree this flower came from? Its Averrhoa Bilimbi!!!


rarer and rarer

September 30, 2008

so its becoming rarer and rarer. a once a month kind of thing. just like going home in the province. its a monthly thing now.

its just that scheds just got busier and busier. and to think that what i really want is a simple life and my boss would tell me, it cannot be in the corporate world. if you want to rise, sooner or later you have to accept the fact that life would not become easier only busier.

and so when i have the chance to go home, just the mere thought of seeing the greens and fresh air i would be inhaling in the province would make every cell and pore in my body tingle and jump with joy.

From Everything Green at Home