only in our Country

how i hate that phrase

i love the Philippines, no doubt.
but i don't like it when people go around saying only in the Philippines will you find bus drivers causing traffic jams or only in the Philippines will you find corruption so rooted in our system or only in the Philippines will you find a jeepney or a tamaraw

no matter how true
no matter how huge a source of pride
no matter how inconsequential
no matter how pathetic
no matter how significant

'cause i don't think it's the best way of putting things.
it corners an issue or a problem or a fact in a way demeaning or confusing

or hopeless.
which i believe isn't. no matter how many times she said hello to garci or how many times he bribed a police officer or how many times i arrived late for an appointment

this country needs many things.
rephrasing a huge lot of statements sure is one of them

lisnin to a simple life
sortof readin accounting
feelin kinda drowsy

Sunday morning

rain is falling.
steal some covers
share some skin

i have a good number of hours for myself and i'll be narrating a good number of things below so forgive me.

man of la mancha was good. i can't help but think how pragmatism and idealism were portrayed and defended so well in one play in a play. thanks enzo for the tickets. i'll watch again thanks to sir allan, who was great on stage. also aldonza, sancho and don quixote. i thought i'd get sick of that impossible dream song already but i didn't.

went out with blueREP friends and just discovered what two unusually stronger long island iced teas could do to me- leave our main door unlocked. these guys were all good too

yesterday was the first time we met ms chari as a sweet charity cast and so we had our first reading of the script as well. i got the baseball player and waiter roles as part of the ensemble. it was when i said goodbye to AAI's enemy of the people as well [not that it said hi to me] in a rather amusing way

yesterday was also the first time i immersed myself with musmos as a strainer. musmos is a socially-oriented org catering to school children through apostolate work. i was literally surrounded by katipunan kids [these were restless 6-12 year-old kids] as we taught them how to make Christmas cards. it was real fun, thanks aj. i'll be reflecting on precious and ariel's words, musmos kids, as i write my experience for strains evaluation

lauan invited me to a mountain hiking thing today but i refused. i better get some rest first. then study a little, read this org development book a little, do some blueREP and strains carolling stuffs, follow-up mea docs and lex snipe a little.

i'll confirm on tuesday if i'll host this conference for the environment. woohoo
and finally my calculus ain't failing me

lisnin to 89.1
sortof readin the half-blood prince. i'll finish this now
feelin kinda well and good

i Pray

Permit me,
at least from afar or from the deep,
to look upwards toward Your light.
Teach me to seek You, and reveal Yourself to me as I seek;
for unless You teach me I cannot seek You,
and unless You reveal Yourself
I cannot find You.
Let me seek You in desiring You;
let me desire You in seeking You.
Let me find You in loving You;
let me love You in finding You.
0 Lord, I acknowledge and give thanks that You created in me
in Your image so that I may remember, contemplate, and love You.
But this image has been so effaced by the abrasion of transgressions,
so hidden from sight by the dark billows of sins,
that unless You renew and refashion it,
it cannot do what it was created to do.
0 Lord, I do not attempt to gain access to Your loftiness,
because I do not at all consider my intellect to be equal to this task.
But I yearn to understand some measure of Your truth,
which my heart believes and loves.
For I do not seek to understand in order to believe,
but I believe in order to understand.
For I believe even this:
that unless I believe, I shall not understand.

-Anselm's Proslogion

just had to search for this online after our theo teacher shared it as the class' opening prayer earlier. i must say i find his class very enlightening. it is very important to me to put into words what God is all about and so far my teacher is helping me with that.

reason and faith, side by side by side. God sure answers some of your questions in the most interesting of ways

lisnin to rent.
sortof readin my accounting homework
feelin kinda amazed with how my classes this time seem real interesting. economics makes me want to be an economist, theology makes me want to be a jesuit, law makes me want to be a lawyer, accounting makes me want to be an entrepreneur, the rest makes me want to be a teacher. seriously, i wonder

alive alert awake enthusiastic

thanks to this totally loaded day

from absorption of deficit to the law of natural order
from client engagement training to doing the fosse walk
from osa to oas then oas to osa then...

need lotsa rest
but i just had to share this. [from ren's blueREP pics archive]















i haven't seen so many bored people in one pic. hihi
i sorta miss the memories but we're all making new ones

lisnin to dido
sortof readin stuff for calculus
feelin kinda overwhelmed by that talk on fosse and all that jazz

the simplest things

make me happy

keeping it simple
was what today was all about. lovely

"my girl" is a thai movie about jaeb and his childhood friend noi nai. saw it earlier and it sure is a great movie- light, feel-good and beautiful.

about a guy recalling his childhood memories from the games to the name-calling to everything little boys and girls do
even my 2yo cousin, miggy was touched. im going to see it again
'cause it's so simple yet so true

totally different from what pluralism dictates as discussed earlier in theology or from having no par value shares in a corporation as discussed in law and totally similar to using the chain rule in calculus earlier or keeping strokes consistent in table tennis, also earlier today.

was pissed they'd cancel sweet charity rehearsals 'cause you'll only find out during the time you're supposed to gather round.

but "my girl" lightened up my day. eventually it'd be without the quotation marks

lisnin to hey mr. producer
sortof readin the onion
feelin kinda in the mood to reminisce. old friends [the film was totally about that too, how everything else can change but how friends remain]

but us old friend, what's to discuss old friend
here's to us, who's like us? damn few
-merrily we roll along, sung during "hey mr. producer 's final bows

Apple bytes

while i sorta believe that Apple, the iPod, steven jobbs and macintosh all tend to be overrated by most of us, it sure gave me a powerful insight

on how they do it. and how, perhaps in my own right, i may do it as well.
churning out ideas everybody seems to love

got this from time.
Apple believes that beautiful ideas are lost when passed from one person to the next, say from the designers to the engineers to the actual makers of a car. concept cars look so good you want to own them but when a company makes the car based on that design, it sorta is different. and one gets disappointed

Apple believes that the team who conceptualizes an idea must design it and must make it itself. [notice how Apple is a lot like Sony, Dell and Microsoft combined- they do everything from the hardware, the software, the operating system, the iPod, iTunes, etc] the end result is one that is so close to the originally conceptualized beautiful idea

but you're better off reading the actual article, "how apple does it" by lev grossman and cupertino on time magazine's november 14, 2005 issue.

i love the idea. to me, it's totally like de bono's six thinking hats idea. it's a whole new way of doing things, far different from Ford's assembly model and if you read further about Apple's way of doing things, it's almost against the Adam Smithian model as well.

i like it. i want an iBook

lisnin to sweet charity
sortof readin "what was God thinking? science can't tell", an article on this hot debate on intelligent design
feelin kinda occupied with a number of things

gotta love some Loving

on the way home from makati i was wondering why people get attracted to certain people, why it is better to be attracted to someone, why it's best to be with someone you're attracted to.

like that real nice greyhound jacket. or that fine black umby.

yeah, she caught my eye
as we walked on by.
she could see from my face that i was
fucking high...
we shared a moment...

when i got home, my lola and tita shared how they hated the guys of their life during the first times they met. three generations on falling in love, all over the dinner table. i miss how my mom and dad would talk about this, over the dinner table too.

mush.
i hope they'd get me as host for this conference on the environment. fingers crossed

sniff.
some people want it all

lisnin to if i ain't got you. i don't care if i sing this song a hundred thousand trillion billion times, i feel that same way every time -alicia keys, unplugged
sortof readin organizational development and transformation
feelin kinda driven

dazed, with days

gone by
been rather sleepy lately.

cat lights look good at night.
got to hang out with highschool friends at eastwood earlier. one of those nights when everyone else was unimportant and it would seem that we could misbehave and shout and do whatever. but we were decent. old friends sure are easy to laugh with. spent lotsa time talking bout old times and new times

time.
today i joined blueREP's sweet charity. music rehearsals started today and we touched around three songs already with manman, funny musical director. he gave us a 30minute break while the ladies worked on hey big spender.

during the break, i got to sneak in strains' general assembly. this was a super important meeting for our org because we were to decide whether strains should remain as ateneo's office of student activities' arm or a seperate org in itself. my opinion is that it should stay as osa's arm but i haven't heard everyone else's opinion 'cause i had to go back to music rehearsals.

i'll learn the decision tomorrow. paps sorta talked me into facilitating for blue Christmas, a socially-oriented activity, i think. tomorrow i'll find out. right before sweet charity music rehearsals, again.

right after that we'll be having a wine-tasting activity at lauan study center. it's this group i'm joining and they're pretty cool. i had to be there tomorrow instead of an engagement activity with musmos at cubao because i missed today's orientation seminar.

the first week of my seemingly busiest semester ever just ended. most of my teachers are good so far. subjects with bad teachers seem relatively easier so it's tolerable. the drive for that target qpi is still there.

i pray it stays.
even when dazed

lisnin to the 99 vma performance of eminem, dr. dre and snoop dogg
sortof readin harry potter and the half-blood prince
feelin kinda sleepy. but must say i feel real Christmas-y lately.

everyone's a little bit Racist

it don't matter
if you're
black or white


enlarge picture. one "found" groceries while the other went looting.
let's go racing

anti Anticipation

against anticipation. or not.

one rule when handling a pistol is to not anticipate.
do not anticipate the shot, otherwise you freak out.
experience proves this. one's first few shots tend to be shocking you sorta anticipate the next one as you slowly pull the trigger.
it can blow your brains out

one rule when exchanging lines with a co-actor is to not anticipate.
do not anticipate the next lines, otherwise the whole scene would look unreal.
experience proves this. good directors notice it quickly when one is anticipating his scene partner's lines which shouldn't be the case 'cause "everything in the scene is supposed to happen for the first time for that character".
it too can blow your brains out

one rule when planning events and managing them is to anticipate.
anticipate everything that could go right or wrong, otherwise you wouldn't know what to do when something unexpected happens.
experience proves this. contingency plans and support always come in handy. this is one huge part of organizational development,
which can also blow a strainer's brains out

to do or not to do
i thank God for giving me enough time for deciding and enough friends to lean on.
decisions to make

lisnin to altered statesmen, boris yeltsin on discovery
sortof readin se-ed's modern english-thai dictionary
feelin kinda happy with 3 of my classes. i'll know the rest this week

hitting Targets

i must admit i sorta wished the shooting range was closed today. i never handled a loaded gun before and when you listen to my uncle's pep talk, you'll really get scared. plus a waiver saying the shooting range is not liable in case you die didn't help

but i kept my hopes up that i won't freak out and while we waited for our turn, i was all calm and yawning. thanks to my tito and our nice instructor randy, i had fun doing target practice.

real cool. a 45 caliber gun my tito bought had a permit that expires in days so he wanted me to try it before he renews it. considering it was my first time, i did pretty well. hit the x spot a couple of times which was good, according to the instructor and my tito. nice

target for this sem? a 3.4
target for strains' engagement with musmos? 4 saturdays with katipunan and cubao kids
target for the blueREP carols? lotsa fun memories and 10grand
target for sweet charity marketing? 2 sponsors
target for ads? 3 non-varsity training sessions
target for lex? a final design for its pins
target for mea? complete HR documentation
target for other orgs? a quantitative target

lisnin to baltimore. hark, i hear the harps eternal
sortof readin carolling updates
feelin kinda well. head was real heavy all day thanks to my sinus. now i'm well, triggered by much-needed facial crap

waves at Waves

is waving hi much like waving goodbye? or do we even wave hi

our pirated batman begins dvd suddenly went russian on me. around 15 minutes and i was hooked already. i loved batman. except the kapows or the batman beyond series or george clooney's nipples in batman & robin. yes, there was nothing i could do with them going russian. real funny

today was wavy. mood swings left and right. by me and people around me. perhaps it was the weather. but it was good to see people from strains and blueREPpers who haven't appeared lately and blockmates old and new and future orgmates and studycentermates.

from badminton [thanks mikes, marts, miggy] to little mermaid [congratulations bea, jepoy, maita] plus a meeting and a corporate show rehearsal in between, the weather was and is hot.

and did i say congratulations to little mermaid already? some songs i really love and even if we missed the opening [which also happened for once on this island, another musical based on the little mermaid]. story was good, script was good, energy was good, songs were good, crustacea was bad. i mean evil.

guys catch it! sm megamall cinema 10 by trumpets.

lisnin to ragtime the musical. i miss this
sortof readin instructions on designing pins for ateneo lex and instructions on being a good unit docs liaison for mea. must work
feelin kinda optimistic. in an almost creepy way

hedonistic: for your viewing pleasure

visit hedonistica or exopolis, you guys!

jack of all trades

incrementalism is when one puts a little here and a little there. at the end of the day, you get a little of this and a little of that. butter becomes too thinly spread you can barely taste it

the thing is, a good enough amount of this and none of that is almost always better than a little of this and a little of that.

sen. roxas pointed out that that's one mistake the government has been doing over and over. a little for defense, a little for health, a little for education and a little for that bridge by the river.
i pointed out that that is one huge problem of mine too. i do a little of studying, a little of working out, a little of performing and so on.

it's sad.
cause at the end of the day i can never be as confident as everyone else on a particular field.
so i ask: do i really have to choose? when is too many too many? when am i spreading myself too thinly?

and i answer: i don't know.
maybe i will forever be just a member of the many orgs i participate in [for me, for the org or both]. maybe i will end up like sen. flavier a.k.a mr. quorom who is always present in committee meetings to make sure it meets a quorom. maybe i will die with the words "the guy who tried everything but never really succeeded on anything" on my tombstone.

or maybe i'm just thinking too much, which is another problem of mine my friends would love to point out. maybe

but for now, i'll keep this in mind: the pareto principle.
the pareto principle states that 80% of our productivity stems from 20% of our priorities.

and what's cool is everything seems to fit into place. no conflict in schedules so far
looking forward to what's to come

lisnin to desperate housewives. not so interesting to me
sortof readin wikipedia
feelin kinda uhm-ok-y

some failure

type failure on google. click i'm feeling lucky.

gloria ain't so bad. or maybe they're both the worst disasters to hit our countries.

some Threes

a facial scrub
a back massage
a haircut

just what i needed, and boy are these three better than a caffeine fix
after three long days, the first three days of what i see as the most fruitful six months of my ateneo life

days both exciting and exhausting

lisnin to jack tv, the daily show with jon stuwart
sortof readin Is OD Still Relevant?
feelin kinda good. in fact i feel i'm feeling too good about the next half of this schoolyear i might not end it as expected

i needed Tonight

Except for that stupid splitting headache I had, today was fun. -Tanya Manalang

my headache wasn't so bad and for me, tonight was fun.
after one long day, i sure needed tonight!

and i spent it in the least planned way. those types of nights were hours before you thought of something better to do. in the end you do something you need

woke up the earliest in like 15days or so, 7am.
for a comelec consti plebiscite orientation. VOTE YES!
then lunch with a new found tita at eastwood. POMELO SALAD
then meeting up with blueREPpers for a promil corporate show. GO KAKKI GO MACKY
then meeting up online with strainers for musmos. GO GELO

then tonight. met a new friend, anj. bought a new shirt, pink. tried a new resto, heaven n eggs. had a new drink, xocolat. in between sorta splitting headaches.

tanya, the lady who started singing this encantadia song which reminded one of women in labor, was the lady who started singing this encantadia song which reminded one of women in labor. no one else. sure you can borrow the pink nirvana shirt but only if you lend me your highschool uniform for the party. sounds fair

lisnin to alicia keys unplugged, again. plus follow me song in the background, noisy party downstairs
sortof readin strains team prometheus stuff for musmos
feelin kinda sleepy but got loads to do. eek

a money thing happened

finally got my hands on that alicia keys unplugged cd. thanks nyl
also norah jones live in new orleans,
mp3s of jason mraz live and black eyed peas' monkey business
soundtracks of dirty dancing 2 and love, actually
plus a bossa nova cd. which reminds me of vica's cd

it's a good mix of old and new music. at a good price

money sure isn't everywhere. went around to do groceries and man does it cost you. plus i couldn't find nusica, only nutella for my choco spread. so i went with goober, which sounds like booger only yummier

but i still remember senator mar roxas saying to us seminar-goers that the philippines has a lot of money. his complaint is that there are no projects. period

that's all he said. but i always want to think that really he meant no good projects.
no good projects worth the money

so im thinking, what if i give him a business plan. jerah, my friend in cebu and louie, my dad in strains talked about entrepreneurial ventures lately and so i'm like why don't i come up with one
and so rice wither spoon was born. i want to sell hanging rice or pusu, as we call it in cebu, here in manila along with other rice meals that need no spoons, such as those rice balls my mom made me when i was little to make food more appealing. i need a business plan

and maybe i should just call it pusu. rice wither spoon is so legally blonde. i need partners. py is interested. anyone else? how 'bout le pusu

but money still isn't everywhere. a studling of mine [it's this concept in mea where upperclassmen called studs are assigned a couple of freshman called studlings to befriend, encourage, kumusta here and there] had her account hacked by some guy who was asking me for money or at least cellphone load

i am stupid cause i sorta believed him. i fell for it. he, or she [the hacker], was telling this story about his tita in the hospital and they need to call his tito in the states so if i could lend him 3 thousand pesos. i was sorry anj all the time. good thing i didn't have enough money in cash.

minutes later, the real angelica shows up telling me she was hacked. whew. watarelief
and to think i was mugged thrice already. damn it. God sure is good, otherwise i would've lost that money to some user

while we're on money, [i don't know if we should discuss this already] blueREP is doing another corporate show. woohoo i love it.

starting tomorrow, it's going to be real busy already. for the sanggu constitution plebiscite, the ads-inquirer debate competition, strains engagement meetings for musmos and acomm, and rehearsals, and class. and life

all for money, well, hope not.
all for Him

lisnin to wild horses - alicia keys and maroon 5's adam levine. they should air this unplugged concert again on mtv
sortof readin gmail conversations. sabs sought advice from strains upperclassmen for certain teachers for certain subjects. nice replies. im goin to need them too [must read more html tutorials, i was attempting to change lay-outs (see bloground) but i just couldn't get it right. i ended up tweaking the colors]
feelin kinda ready for the days to come.

future Bloground

portrait of the inventor rational

eek. sounds scary
but that's what the jung typology test showed. thanks pearl and ren for the link
makes me wanna be a management engineer again.

nahh. ENTPs are cool and clever
finally finished eternal sunshine of the spotless mind. finally
not bad at all

losing Wait

i am selfish because
i hate waiting for other people when i do not really
care if other people are waiting for me

punctuality isn't part of my system [read against early birds, ha on sidebar].
waiting isn't either

even if she's the girl of my dreams. no
especially if she's the girl of my dreams

fuck.
so while i wait, i think of something to put me outside that state of waiting, replace that state of waiting with a state of something else.
my state of something else for this moment is this

how to start november right:
1 lose the urge to cut class simply because you can
2 lose the urge to not sleep simply because you fear waking up late
3 lose the urge to buy something you simply want unless a 14-day period has elapsed
4 lose the urge to point your finger at other people, literally
5 lose the urge to cram simply because you think you have no time
6 lose the urge to wake up simply because you have to
7 lose the urge to think of another urge to lose.

uhm, so i wait...

lisnin to music from and inspired by the motion picture i am sam. long title, good cd
sortof readin economist backgrounders
feelin kinda down and heavy