LIFE

i just finished reading "night" by elie wiesel. i bought the book knowing it was about concentration camps and thought it would be an interesting read - i forgot how depressing these books are. it's a short book (the story itself is only 113 pages), but it really touches the heart. right now, i can't seem to get my mind out of the story. it's actually why i'm online. i didn't want to fall asleep with "night" fresh on my mind because i know it will give me nightmares. (i get very vivid dreams.) i tried chattting with people, looking at facebook and surfing through my favorite sites but nothing is working. there's a seen in the book (which is a true story by the way) that i can't stop thinking about.

( spoiler alert for those who are interested in reading it. )

for someone who wants to become a writer when she grows up, i write surprisingly little. in high school, i would write and write and write. i never ran out of things to write about. now, when i force to myself to write, my mind is just as blank as the page. i have nothing to write about. people usually have a passion and that's what they write about. there are so many people with fashion blogs or environment blogs or political blogs or food blogs - nothing i can really talk about. the only thing i can talk about is my life and i don't think THAT many people would be interested...

but if i were a good enough writer, then maybe people would be! i read books about people's lives all the time. why not make people interested in mine?

okay guys, this is it. get ready for more entries coming from me!

while i was in hong kong, i ate in spanish restaurant owned by an australian whose head chef is from new zealand, manager is from italy and waitress from the philippines.

as pia's birthday gift, i agreed to write a reflection on how "andoni" after pia's very successful "discussion" on confession decided, after how many years, to go.


( so here it is )

I believe in the separation of the Church and the State.

If you do too, please sign the petition for the passing of the Reproductive Health bill.


http://www.petitiononline.com/rhan2008/petition.html

"Promise yourself...

"To be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace
of mind.

"To talk health, happiness, and prosperity to
every person you meet.

"To make all your friends feel that there is
something worthwhile in them.

"To look at the sunny side of everything and make
your optimism come true.

"To think only of the best, to work only for the
best, and to expect only the best.

"To be just as enthusiastic about the success of
others as you are about your own.

"To forget the mistakes of the past and press on
to the greater achievements of the future.

"To wear a cheerful countenance at all times and
give every living creature you meet a smile.

"To give so much time to the improvement of
yourself that you have no time to criticize
others.

"To be too large for worry, too noble for anger,
too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the
presence of trouble.

"To think well of yourself and to proclaim this
fact to the world, not in loud words but in great
deeds.

"To live in the faith that the whole world is on
your side so long as you are true to the best
that is in you."

last night, nuria, monica's cousin from spain arrived. i immediately called vince since he met her while he was in spain the month before. i didn't know what we could do since unlike the six spanish boys a few weeks before, it was just one girl so it's not like i could just dump her in ice and expect her to have fun on her own.

the night proved to be something which could only happen in alabang.

we met up in my house. suman was supposed to join us also but he backed out last minute since he had to wake up early the next day. i asked vince where we could go and he said that jerome and pat were in ther's house.

now, i'm not close to ther at all! we're hi-hello friends and that's already kinda pushing it - the same goes for jerome and pat. luckily, she didn't mind us coming over so we did.

since nuria and vince ran out of cigarettes while we were in ther's house, we decided to go for a yosi run to ate grace. it was my first time to visit ate grace and i swear, these are the things you can only find in alabang.

it turns out, ate grace lives in district 2 and she has a sari-sari store in her house. she stays open pretty late considering it was around 11pm on a thursday! (she stays open until 2am on weekends daw.) we didn't just buy cigarettes. we also bought a bottle of matador and a liter of coke - already chilled! in her garage, she had chillers everywhere. if you want a nice cold beer late at night and don't want to go outside of the village, then ate grace is definitely the person to go to!

we stayed in ther's house for a bit drinking out of this HUGE glass. (we all agreed that it's actually an ice container.) it was totally trippy because if we weren't teaching nuria tagalog south slang (such as the oh so known duuuuuuuude! and dein!), we were singing to old disney movie songs.

song of the night: circle of life english vocals by ther and spanish vocals by nuria

but since ther is a working girl now, we had to leave at around 1. thankfully, bertha was still willing to host us so we headed over to her house.

by this time, it was just me bertha nuria vince and stephen (who arrived during the latter part of ther's house) and once bertha brought out the tequila rose, we were all just like, "that's monica's favorite drink!" ...

in bertha's house, a "decision committee" was formed to help her reply to some drunken messages from a guy. of course, once she said the guy's name, vince and stephen knew exactly who he was! how small is the world?

we eventually had to go home - but not without making a semi-plan to see each other again soon.

you gotta love alabang!

whose secret is this kaya?

as part of our grade for the spain tour, we have to write something like an article about our experience so here is...

since i can't sleep, i decided to read through my old lj entries and looky what i wrote:

"The sooner I can start traveling, the happier I will be. My school may have changed but I still can’t wait to leave"

i have started travelling. this summer, i went to london, spain, italy and switzerland. right now, i'm in my sister's room in madrid and i've been here for more or less the past two weeks.

and you know what? i am so much happier. even though i have spent the past eight weeks worrying if i have enough money for everything, i'm really enjoying myself. even now that i've settled in the domestic life which involves me washing my own clothes and preparing my meals, i don't mind it at all.

i'm seeing the world, meeting new people and learning new things about anything and everything especially about myself. everyday, i feel as if i'm finally experiencing. i'm no longer patiently waiting for something to happen. best of all, i'm actually speaking a new language. i'm not the best at it but i actually know enough to get by and i can't wait to know more.

of course i miss my friends, the luxury, my sisters and my cat but it's different here. if someone told me that i couldn't go back to the philippines i would be totally fine with it.

in fact, if i didn't have to go home to get my college degree, i'd be working as an english teacher right here, right now.

at first, i wasn't sure if i wanted to move to spain after graduation or not. now i know after i graduate...


you'll come visit me right?

we've been in salamanca for almost a week now and i've been using the computers for internet in our school which is always full, speaks another language (sometimes it's even in chinese) and is sooooooooo slow.

today i found that there's WiFi in the house we're staying in.

damn...

anyways...about the boys

yesterday afternoon, monica and i arrrived in barcelona.

last night, we went out with monica's family friend, his girlfriend and his really cute friend.

today, we went to the chocolate museum.

guess what we have pictures of?
























yes...we were already out with a cute spanish guy and we have no  pictures of that. (monica forgot to bring her camera) plus who knows if we'll be seeing him again...

i'm sorry ginny!!!! hopefully, there'll be loads of spanish citizens we can take pictures of when we go to salamanca next week.

this one´s for you ¨favorite¨.

on the way home earlier, while monica and i were on the metro, a whole gang of spanish boys entered (they were around 9...hey hey heyy...beach bomb boys??haha). i was leaning on one wall and monica was leaning on the other side.

at first, i heard whisperings - right beside my ear! and i tried ignoring them. i even looked at my watch as a sign of ¨i´m not minding you¨. what he was saying was way too fast and foreign for me to understand anyways. i did my best until it came to a point when i really couldn´t anymore. so i looked at them (they were 3) and they immediately asked,

¿como te llamas?

uh....uhm...no....hablooooo.....espanol??? (i tried saying it in my best, i don´t know how to speak spanish voice)

ah! ¿tu eres filipina?

how the hell did he know that! they went on saying ¨muy gwapita¨ or ¨you´re very beautiful¨ then proceeded to ask me what i was doing in spain. ¿para estudiar?trabajar?

spanish boy 1: do you like españa?
den: si
spanish boy 2: do you like me?

meanwhile, on the other side of the cart...

mons was also doing her best to ignore them but the gang pushed one of their own and made him hit her. enter the gentleman who says ¨lo siento para mis amigos. son jilipollas.¨ (i´m sorry for my friends. they are dicks.) followed by a ¨¿como te llamas? me llamo javi. ¿tienes un novio? (do you have a boyfriend?)¨

silence.

we finally arrived at our stop and i was just standing by the door, willing it to open. monica called my name and i realized it wasn´t automatic. i was about to open it but one of the spanish boys already had his hand on the knob and was pretending that it was broken so the metro left our stop before we got off.

spanish boys: sorry!

damn...monica and i had to endure them for one more stop where they were still pretending the door was broken and i had to open it myself.


and what was patxi doing the whole time?

pretending he wasn´t with us!

two london "myths" busted:

1. the london brige: not great! it's a plain bridge. not even worth taking a picture of. if you want a nice bridge in london, check out the tower bridge. (i'm currently uploading the pics in my multiply. let's hope i'm successful so you can see it there)

2. the buckingham guards: you can't just go up to them and try to make them move! they don't even regularly wear the uniforms with funny hats and red coats. (we don't really have pictures of them. only videos of the changing of the guard which i'm tamad to upload)

random lines said while in london:

monica: i feel so ugly here. everyone's so attractive

monica: i want her boots.
den: i want her height!

tour guide: are you chinese?
us: no!
tour guide: japanese?
us: no!
tour guide: ??
us: we're filipino!
tour guide: oh...they speak english in the philippines?

another tour guide to monica: are you latina?

shopseller: sois mexicanos? (are you mexican?)

a typical london outfit: (for me anyways)

tank top
sweater
coat
scarf
hat
gloves
tights
pants
boots

the weather today was baguio-like, but yesterday i was freezing! i already had on three jackets, a tank top and a thin shirt but i was still chattering.

we leave for spain tomorrow!

as monica and i were leaving the hong kong airport, the security guards stopped us asking where we had come from. we replied, "manila". they then told us to go this way to have our bags x-rayed. weird because they weren't asking the others to do the same. as we were placing our bags in the machine, they asked us if we had any wine or cigarettes. no.

looking behind us, we saw a line was forming for the x-ray machine. the common denominator? they were all FILIPINAS.

did something happen in the news which i missed? why were they discriminating us?

on other matters,

monica and i are in london! we're staying in my cousin's place near london bridge but we have yet to see it. oops! we'll be seeing it later as we are taking the hop on hop off tour bus.

we did see this play called into the Hoods though. it was really cool. it's into the woods gone hip-hop and the characters names are changed a bit such as little red hiding hood becomes lil red and cinderella is spinderella. the four things they have to find are an ipod as white as milk, a hoodie as red as blood, weave as yellow as corn and trainers as pure as gold. through out the whole show, the only person talking is the narrator and the rest of the characters use songs and dance moves to communicate. it was totally trippy .

mimic randomly messaged me saying,

"Help me out here. Give me one concrete thing you're afraid of."

only one?

my best friend telling me that she doesn't wanna be friends anymore

learning that i won't be able to have kids

watching a truck's headlights drive towards me and not be able to move

for some reason, there are two tagalog words that have been stuck in my head....


ginahasa                and               abang





yes, i do know what both words mean.