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yes, i’m alive. i know… i know… i’ve ignored this blog for too long already and it isn’t because nothing interesting has been happening to me lately. i guess i’ve been too preoccupied with tumblr and facebook. truth is, i haven’t felt like writing in the past couple of months. i’d start an entry then have no time or inclination to finish it through.
i’ll try to run through the stuff that’s happened to me since i last posted.
A Close Encounter with Ondoy
i actually have a half-finished entry on what happened to me and my sister that fateful day but i never got to finish it. so here’s my sister’s account and some pictures for those who really want to know what we experienced. for those still wondering… yes, i did save my lingerie collection. it was one of the first and few things i ended up saving from my room. 
surprisingly (or maybe unsurprisingly), that’s the question most of my friends have asked me post-ondoy. well, at least i can say my friends know me well.
when events like this happen, you get to ponder on a lot of stuff. i realized how lucky ayn and i were that we just lot material stuff and neither of us got hurt. it was a miracle that the water level stopped just three steps shy of the second floor, or else we would’ve had to move to the roof.
my mom was here on and off since then since repairs had to be made to the house, and each sunday she’d bring us to church. i remember that first sunday, sitting in the pew, watching a video montage on the havoc that ondoy wreaked in metro manila, struggling to fight back tears as images of loss and destruction filled the screen. so many people lost so much… valuables, houses, loved ones. a part of me felt the pull again, the same pull i felt when i requested to be baptized. it’s like God was saying… come back to me child. but once again, i’ve brushed it aside. perhaps someday i’ll be ready to embrace my christianity again but right now i won’t be able to fully commit to it yet.
Meet Lexi
i’ve finally gone digital. do i hear sighs of relief from some of you there? haha! well, i’d already bought a D40 kit when i was in the US but it didn’t arrive it time. since the kit is more expensive here, i reconsidered and decided to get a Lumix LX3 instead but then there wasn’t any stock available anymore. so i had to wait months and months before i finally got my hands on this baby. and i am loving it oh so much! don’t worry, this doesn’t mean i’ll be ignoring my film cameras (any more than i have been lately. haha!). i love shooting film too and don’t plan to stop any time soon. 
The Sweet Escape
aaaahhhhh boracay…. the fine white sand, clear blue water, relaxing atmosphere and hot guys (huh? who said that? hahaha!) before you think, wow ang payat naman ni tisha sa pic na yan, hindi ako yan ok!?! date and i decided to join mela (girl in the picture with nina) for an impromptu trip to boracay for halloween. it was very last minute since we booked our tickets a couple of weeks before the actual trip. and it was just perfect! it was a great weekend… we partied all night, slept till noon, watched a few games of ultimate, sunbathed, drank mojitos during sunset, dressed up for halloween, flirted with cute guys, met some cool new people, laughed a lot, swam in the cool water, walked along the shore… *sigh* i really wish i lived by the beach.
Thrilla in Manila
i haven’t been training lately. i’ve been too busy with work and fixing the house. but i still decided that i wouldn’t miss Manila Spirits so i joined the party team, Breakfast Club. i finally got to wear a pink jersey!!! yey! it went perfectly with my black&pink cleats, pink socks, pink sports bra and pink bikini bottom. even my skirt had a touch of pink. matching kung matching, diba?!
we didn’t win a lot of games (understatement of the weekend!) but it was still a whole lot of fun. the sun was unforgiving on sunday though, the reason for which i was sick the entire week after. i realized i miss ultimate so much. i should make more time to train again. 
~
so there you go… that’s what i’ve been up to while i’ve been MIA. there still are quite a few stuff lined up the next couple of months. christmas is fast approaching and so are the parties! i promise to write more often though.
Stray Italian Greyhound
Vienna Teng
Oh no not now
Please not now
I just settled into the glass half empty
Made myself at home
And so why now
Please not now
I just stopped believing in happy endings
Harbors of my own
But you had to come along didn’t you
Break down the doors, throw open windows
Oh if you knew just what a fool you have made me
So what do I do with this?
This stray Italian greyhound
These inconvenient fireworks
This ice-cream-covered screaming hyperactive thought
God I just want to lay down
These colors make my eyes hurt
This feeling calls for everything that I am not
I’m not that kind
I’m so good at shooting down any notion
This tired world could change
It’s all been bought
Or at least that was my line
No use in spending all that emotion
When there’s someone else to blame
But you had to come along didn’t you
Rev up the crowd, rewrite the rule book
Where do I go when every ‘no’ turns into ‘maybe’
So what do I do with this?
This sudden burst of sunlight
And me with my umbrella
Cross-indexing every weatherman’s report
I was ready for the downslide
But not for spring to well up
This feeling calls for everything I can’t afford
To know is possible now
What do I do
With a love that won’t sit still
Won’t do what it’s told
What do I do
With a love that won’t sit still
~
ayn and i were able to get our mom to let us join mimay and her boyfriend mike on a roadtrip to Santa Cruz and San Francisco last weekend. we got tickets to watch Vienna Teng at the Rio Theatre in Santa Cruz, CA. mimay and ayn are big, big fans of hers. i just jumped on the chance to have a few days of freedom from visiting relatives. and mike came along to drive us around.
we had dinner at this pizza place, Tony and Alba’s, where i saw the cutest guy i’ve seen so far since coming here. he was behind the counter and i was too shy to flirt with him. i think i lost my touch with the lack of flirting and alcohol these past few weeks.
The Paper Raincoat opened for her. the band is a collaboration between Alex Wong and Amber Rubarth, both very talented artists. i have a crush on the former. you all know i’m a sucker for a guy with a beautiful voice who could play multiple musical instruments. amazing! hehehe. he also co-produced Vienna Teng’s album with her. i really wanted to have a picture with him after the show but we couldn’t find him in the crowd and we were in a rush to head back to SF already. we got a picture with Vienna Teng though after mimay fibbed a little by telling her we came from the Philippines specifically to watch her perform. hahaha!
here’s a youtube video of a cool a cappella song, “Rewind”, which The Paper Raincoat also performed in the concert we watched…
after getting tagged in more than a hundred photos on facebook, i’ve decided it’s about time i wrote about my latest boracay escapade. as my close friends know, i’ve come home from boracay with some really memorable stories. for those expecting something juicy, sad to say but i was sort of tame this time. hahaha!
chillax friday
we arrived at the beautiful white sandy shores of boracay early friday morning, had breakfast at real coffee and immediately started working on our tans. (wag na kayo humirit na hindi ko na kailangan ng tan, alam ko na yun. sinamahan ko lang si joy and nina.) we decided to have a seafood lunch at the talipapa where we pigged out big time! we spent the afternoon sunbathing, swimming, watching the pickup in front of hey jude, drinking beers and camwhoring. this would be the pattern for the rest of the weekend.
the registration party was a bit boring, like it normally is, so nina, gb, joy and i hung out at hey jude instead where we met a really hot bartender. after two rounds of drinks we joined some friends at the registration party where we had a couple more beers. nina and joy decided to call it a night but gb and i joined some more ultimate people at a party in summer place. we turned in at 2am, i think. not a good idea considering we had games the next day.
“ay, may tournament nga pala” saturday
yeah, so i really don’t join the boracay open for the games. i already know i’m a klutz when it comes to running in the sand. this time around i wasn’t as bad as i thought i would be. it helped that we were 8 girls in our roster and points were sometimes short and definitely far between. after our games we headed over to jonas for some refreshing shakes. we hung out by the beach drinking beers, and singing and dancing to songs by boy bands, christina aguilera and britney spears.
some highlights from the saturday night party:
- photo ops with marc nelson. hot-ness!!!
- marc nelson giving his number to one of my friends. panalo talaga!
- nina joining the beer drinking contest but pouring probably half of her drink on the sand even before drinking it. daya!
- some really weird dancing and making out happening onstage.
- the shot attack. in fairness, masarap siya!
- finding roxy’s phone vibrating in the sand only to have it stolen later on in the evening
- post-party isaw-an. yum yum!
party sunday!!!
another game day under the heat of the boracay sun! it was pretty hard to be playing while dehydrated from a night of drinking. thankfully, the day passed by pretty quickly and by 3pm we were camped out by one endzone, drinking our beers and watching the finals between the Boracay Lovers, a team from the US, and the Boracay Dragons. it truly is a spectacle to watch the Boracay Dragons play. for the sixth time in a raw, the Boracay Dragons win the boracay open championship proving once again that they are unbeatable in their home turf.
my flight back to manila was at 630am so i already knew that i would be partying all night long. i’m really proud that i didn’t get wasted although i did reach my happy place. i don’t remember some of the pictures anymore. what’s new?! hahaha. nothing really crazy happened on sunday night just a lot of drinking and camwhoring.
at about 3am, we headed to jammers for some food. by this time i was really sleepy so i ordered a cheeseburger and promptly fell asleep at the table. i woke up to eat my burger but then fell right back to sleep immediately after eating it. hahaha! by 4am, we headed back to our rooms to take showers and pack and by 530am we were on the boat that would take us away from the island. i slept most of the way back to manila and my office and felt terrible at work. well, i was sleepy and a bit hung-over so by 3pm i excused myself and headed home.
i brought along a bunch of my cameras and film but was too lazy to take pictures much to my regret. argh! here is a collection of some of my favorite photos…
boracay is always a fun experience especially when you’re with a bunch (and i mean, a big big bunch) of your friends. this trip will be a very memorable one, mostly because of tons of pictures we took on the trip. i wish i could’ve stayed longer but most of my leaves are reserved for my US trip which i’m leaving for next week. yey! so hopefully, i’d have more “interesting” stories to tell from that.
a few friends (nina, joy, rissa, jj, renan) and i headed to La Union last weekend to attend the La Union Surf Break. there was supposed to be a beach ultimate tournament but it was cancelled. we decided to go ahead with the trip anyway. we headed out from manila on friday evening. while a few of us fell asleep for a couple of hours during the 6-hour ride, we were all able to participate in a roadtrip game called Five Questions where suprise! suprise! most of the questions were of the sexual or romantic nature. after exhausting tons of questions, we got tired and started dozing off. we arrived at La Union at around 4am where we continued our sleep.
saturday was such a beautiful day. since it was just a chillax weekend, most of what we did was just lay on the sand soaking the rays of the sun. we swam a bit, tossed disc a bit and crowd watched. rissa was the one who said what i guess all of us were thinking, “ayos! tayo na ang pretty girls sa beach!” and i agreed with that with all humility. unfortunately for us, the number of hot guys were sparse until we saw a couple of hot foreigners tossing disc. joy wanted to go up to them and ask them if we could toss disc with them but i wasn’t feeling up to that pickup. when i finally agreed to do it, they had moved to the shoreline tossing with a kid, so we had to retreat. we then came up with the brilliant idea to start tossing near them and have the disc thrown a bit too far to where they were. it backfired though when one of the guys caught the disc then casually threw it back to nina. they disappeared after a while so we decided to direct our attention to taking sunset pics. nina isn’t in any of the pics because she was busy surfing. hahaha!
after freshening up for dinner, we set out with the task of finding where the cute guys were hanging out. we found them at a inihaw stall where we eventually decided to order dinner. there weren’t any tables available so we just had our food to go. we made renan and jj go back to the restaurant of where we were staying so they could reserve us a table (and well, so that the cute guys could talk to us without the two of the there.) we chose the most strategic spot to stand where we could see the guys and they could see us. however, none of them approached us. in fact, a few of them left the table after a few minutes. one guy asked us if we were waiting for the table to be free but we said we were just waiting for the our food to be served to go. we quickly realized the error of that answer but couldn’t take it back. after our food came, we walked back to the restaurant to have dinner and plot how we could hang out with those guys.
after dinner, we went back to our room to freshen up once again, this time to beautify ourselves more. yes, we had a plan! unfortunately when we left our room to search for the guys the were nowhere to be found anymore. so we went back to our room dejected and ready to consume some alcohol. there was a group already drinking outside our room and they offered us beer. so we started out hanging out with them, making our own party in the hotel we were staying at. they asked us our age and we told them it ranged from 23-25 which shocked them because they thought we were in high school or college and that we were with our dads. hahahahahahaha!!! yes, they thought renan and jj were our dads!!!! winner talaga yun!!! =))
last september 26-29, 14 of my friends and i spent the weekend touring my hometown Davao City. it’s my hometown but i was just as much a tourist as my friends. Davao City has always been my haven from my hectic Manila life so i normally spend my days there at home, reading or sleeping. just goes to show how much you can take your hometown for granted.
since we were only spending 4 days and 3 nights in Davao City, we made made most of our time. we were able to cram a beach trip, white water rafting, an ultimate pickup with a local team Badgoyz, pasalubong and suha shopping, and enjoying the local nightlife. so here’s a photo semi-diary of what we did there.
Sept 26: Arrival at Davao, Isla Reta, Pasalubong Shopping at Aldevinco, Dinner at my parent’s house, Drinks at Bakbak
our flight to Davao was at 4am so none of us had much sleep the night before. however, since we didn’t want to waste our time in Davao, we left our bags at my grandfather’s house where we stayed then went to the dock with the boat that would take us to Isla Reta. we met with some bad luck because the boat we rode took it’s sweet time to fill up all the seats. i think it took us 2.5 hours from the time we got to the dock to the beach. we made good use of that time in the boat by sleeping. hahaha! after our brief beach sojourn, we went to aldevinco to buy some sarongs and native stuff then we proceeded home to freshen up before heading to my parent’s house for dinner. my dad couldn’t resist and gave them a 30-minute sermon on predestination. i really was hoping he wouldn’t do that but my friends were all respectful and (half) listened to him while he was speaking. after dinner, we headed to Bakbak to have some below zero beer to cap off the night.
Sept 27: White Water Rafting, Dinner at Food Galore, Ultimate Party at Fahrenheit, Drinks at Bakbak
this was the highlight of our entire trip… the white water rafting!!! we were all excited and scared at the same time but we got through it! check out the video for some of our white water rafting action videos. it was super fun!!! a part of me wants to take up rowing as a sport now. problem is i doubt that i’ll ever wake up in time for the training. hahaha! credit to jb and claire for making the video. =)
we headed home to freshen up for dinner at Food Galore then an ultimate fund-raiser party at Fahrenheit.
Sept 28: Breakfast at Mcdo, Eden Nature Resort, Pickup with Badgoyz, Dinner at Flyover Ihawan (not so sure about the name), Drinks at Francis’ House, More drinks at my house
according to our itinerary, we were supposed to go to Camp Sabros in Mt. Apo to try out the 2-minute zipline but we were all too tired from the previous two days’ activities that we opted to have breakfast at Mcdo instead. hahaha! well, in our defense, it would’ve been a two-hour drive to Camp Sabros and a two-hour drive back and none of us was up for another long jeepney ride. after lunch at the house, we headed over to Eden Nature Resort for some nature tripping. we also managed to squeeze a pickup game with Badgoyz. after dinner we went to Francis’ house for drinks. then we had more drinks at my house after.
i jump like a girl. hahaha!!!
Sept 29: Back to Manila
we headed back home to manlia at 12nn on monday loaded with scrapes from our rafting adventure, kilos and kilos of suha as pasalubong, and tons of fun memories. out of town trips with friends are really so much fun!!! i’m already looking forward to the next one.
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