city on the verge

There is something fascinating about living in a city that is just on the verge of growing up. You get to watch the buildings grow taller than the trees, the night lights grow brighter than those from the fireflies you used to watch as a kid.

The river that runs through Cagayan de Oro has always throbbed with the promise of the city's booming, but now, it glows, too, with the lights of the young bridges and the new parks. The soil that flanks it has turned to concrete -- an urban jungle where old meets new: motorelas sharing the road with SUVs, typewriter services at the street corner just across the computer store.

notes to strangers

For Valentine’s Day, I'm going to give out a special note. Or 12 of them. And I'm not going to give them to my boyfriend, or to my crush(es), or even to my closest girl friends whom I love from the bottom of my heart.

I'm going to give these notes to you.

a letter to my pre-graduation self

Dear self who’s about to graduate,

Not to be vain or anything, but congratulations! You experienced the bone-crushing pressure, the sleep-deprived nights, and the psychosis-inducing anxieties of tertiary education, but you survived. You struggled, you cried, you commando-crawled through it all, and now, you’re here! You’re victorious! You’re free!

Right?

carousel of sacred places

Free-versing to start the year with. >>>

the camouflage man

This is not my poem, but the sentiment in it reflects mine -- and maybe yours.

5 reasons i'm missing CdeO's night market

It never really occurred to me before that many hated Cagayan de Oro's Friday and Saturday night market/café. I knew they dreaded the traffic caused by the transformation of two of the city's busiest streets into... well, a marketplace. I knew they hated the stench and the garbage that came with it and lingered after it. I knew they would rather steer clear of the laidback -- even rowdy -- masses that flocked to it.

But the Divisoria night market had always been full of people, even on rainy evenings. I was one of those who actually loved it. And now that the city government has finally suspended it, I'm already starting to feel a little nostalgic.

'street' blog

original post from my Multiply, dated 22january2009

i love walking along divisoria in the afternoon. the diversity of people, the action, the noise -- everything is just so thought-inspiring in a strangely beautiful way. and maybe you might laugh at this, but honestly, it's almost like a spiritual experience for me.

so one afternoon, i got to compose a -- how do you classify this? essay? poem? whatever -- in my head while walking from XU to LC. it's really personal, but i'm posting it here for 'preservation' -- and maybe for future inspiration.
:)

words of summer

June has begun, and in this tropical little corner of the world that is the Philippines, that means summer is officially over. And while I am almost-tearfully saying "So long, sweet summer; I hardly saw you this year", there's Pinterest, just starting to bloom with sunshiny posts from the Northern Hemisphere. Every bright, sunny pin makes me die with envy. Why can't summer last just a little longer?

My summer this year had been short and bittersweet, and when I think about it, three favorite words come to mind:

Heliophilia - love of sunlight

Sprezzatura - a studied nonchalance

Ephemeral - lasting for a very short time

So long, sweet summer. Until we meet again. :)

define kilig: Before Sunrise, Sunset, and Midnight

I was chatting with my lovely friend Joyce today, and as girlfriend chats usually go, we spent so much time discussing boys and relationships. Inevitably, we landed on the realm of kilig.

You may not encounter this term everyday (and maybe never in your entire life if you don’t speak Filipino), but kilig is one of the best, sweetest, most positive feelings that anyone on this earth can feel. Or maybe that’s just the closet romantic in me.

Let me try to define and illustrate it with the help of a notorious kilig-inducing weapon: romance flicks. But because I’m very cautious of anything saccharine, I’ll use the subtle kilig factor of Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise, Before Sunset, and Before Midnight.

[Minor spoilers ahead!]

From Before Sunrise. "I like to feel his eyes on me when I look away."

paint my spirit gold

Sunday inspiration: The magnificent lyrics of Mumford & Sons

Nothing Is Written/I Will Wait

pleasant surprise

isn't it weird/amazing when you see a person in a different light and everything changes? :)

#Tyril

summer's so bright

Oh, summer.
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

green heart

Living on my own in a rented space has made me crave for hobbies. Not that I don't already have gazillions. I guess it's the homebody in me that started to itch for a cute living creature to take care of.

Unfortunately, I've proven to myself that I cannot take care of mobile living creatures. Firstly, I travel at least twice every year -- that's why my two goldfish, Popoy and Basha, had to gulp their last breath (at the hands of a caretaker). Besides, I realized that I can't really bear to hold animals captive in such a tiny bowl. Secondly and more importantly, I do not even own this house and cannot control things that happen when I'm away at work -- that's why I cannot own a bubbly, carefree little puppy, either.

The idea of keeping a mini-terrarium has appealed to me for a while now (what better way to use Popoy and Basha's bowl!). So when I saw a mini-flower shop stand set up at Divisoria for Valentine season, I swooned. I went right ahead to look, not at the flowers, but at the potted bonsais.

And imagine my joy when I found this little fella waiting for me on Valentine's Day! Thank you, Dan!

Happy World Nutella Day!

February 5 is World Nutella Day!

Nutella is pretty much like heaven for a breadivore like me, so I couldn't pass up the chance to try out some simple goodies using this well-loved spread for brunch.

11-11-11: make a wish!

They say when the clock strikes 11:11, it's the perfect time to make a wish. Whether it's true or just a childhood myth, we'll leave that for now. What's keeping me excited is that this year, we're having the ultimate fest of elevens -- November 11, 2011 (11-11-11) -- and this happens only once in a century!

Let's do away with the end-of-the-world theories, shall we? Awesome things are brewing up; let's see if 11-11-11 makes them come true.

The Wish: Give me an epic movie!

what's it like to be a meme?

In 1968, Andy Warhol said, "In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes."

Well, welcome to 2011, where practically every person can indeed be obsessed over throughout the globe -- just not always in the fabulous way. That's how an internet meme works. For those in the back, a meme (rhymes with 'team') is basically an idea that goes viral, spreading wildly throughout a culture. And in the case of internet culture, memes can be anything from pictures to quotes to songs and yes, even to people.

Finally, a shot at global popularity. Yay, right? Hmm... why don't we ask the actual, living meme personalities of our time?

*

I'm being cyberbullied -- Rebecca Black

Meme: Friday

two amazing visual blogs

If a picture can paint a thousand words, then we have just found two whole libraries of them. Check out these two beautiful visual blogs that add a fresh new dimension to photography.

Dear Photograph

Imagine browsing through your old printed pictures. A five-year-old you at the playground. Your mom, in her younger days, taking a stroll. Your family's favorite Sunday spot.

Now imagine going back to that memory.

An incredible wave of nostalgia is what Dear Photograph takes us on. It's a collection of photographs "from the past, in the present." The concept is simple but very creative: you take an old picture, go to the exact same spot where it was taken, then photograph that picture in such a way that it integrates with the surroundings. Here's one:

The photos in the blog are accompanied with quiet, introspective, and sometimes silly notes (like "Dear Photograph, I wish I could still Hula Hoop like I used to."), making it a lovelier trip down the memory lane.

when Blue and Green collide

Photo from AdLSU

A little bit of school competition is natural and even necessary. But in some cases, a rivalry rises to such epic-ness and becomes a legendary backdrop to an unlikely yet amazing unity.

Such is the case of the Ateneo-La Salle culture, highlighted in the Ateneo de La Salle University (AdLSU) community.