finding peace up the mountains

Sta. Catalina, Negros Oriental--twas a longish 3 hour drive up the rough roads to the mountains and we felt we've been driving like forever we thought we would never see any more civilization. but of course we we're wrong. there nestled up the seeming wilderness lay a community, with the school surrounded by small homes with neatly manicured gardens.



and on top of it all was a teacher who braved the perils, gave up her city life and lived and cared for the children and the community. it is truly very inspiring to be able to find people like them. they who chose to give up a what may be a more comfortable life if only to give a better future for other people.



it is truly in these kinds of journeys when you feel you've been renewed from all the weariness brought about by our day to day existence. i still feel quite jaded by it all but somehow i'd feel that somewhere out there, people are actually living a more peaceful life brought about by their own willfull decisions. and yes, anyone, wherever we are can have this same peace. this same happiness. it's just a matter of making a choice. :)

i should be loving my life...

...but what is holding me back???

single thoughts

am so fixated with this song right now...haay, i wish i can just hug eddie vedder and comfort him haaay...

I know someday you'll have a beautiful life, I know you'll be a star
In somebody else's sky, but why
Why, why can't it be, why can't it be mine

a different community

we went to makilala, cotabato right after the elections...though the air was still a bit tensed we really didn't have any choice as it was what our schedule could allow. one of the highlights though was visiting this community which they call the New Israel.

I was able to interview their baranggay captain and turns out that her father is the founder of the said cult which they call the Moncados. They consider their community as God's chosen site for His 12 twelve tribes. They have their own rituals and practices and are basically vegetarians. They are the believers of its founder Moncado thus are called the Moncadistas.


the activity though was an Operation Tuli for the their kids below 9 years old...there actually had an overwhelming response as people poured in in spite of the rains. our host happened to be one of the military doctor who helped organize this event.





twas indeed some kind of an experience. the locals prepared so much for it they even gave us corsages as a welcome gift. they served us lots of food nevermind if we have to eat them while hearing young boys screaming in pain in the background hahaha!

guilty pleasures

after havin lunch and coffee with an old friend, i dropped by national bookstore to get me some good book to read. oh well, i found myself on the comic book section and found these:



i already have both books alright but aren't they lovely??? i sat there for a while and contemplated on it, after all one comic book costs P839 and the other is at P979, phew! i texted my bestfriend, i felt i was such in a dilemma haha! she told me to close my eyes and choose eenie-meenie-miney-moe...but the stubborn one that i am took both and ran straight to the cashier before i could change my mind hehehe...

smart bro has to wait, never mind if my brother's gonna kill me!

at least i'll have something to pass on Xan when he gets older :D

happy gorgeous mommy's day to me!!!

finding one's bible

"i spent today outside a funfare. Since I can't afford to fritter money away, i thought it best just to watch other people. i stood for a long time by the roller coaster and i noticed that most people get on it in search of excitement, but that once it starts, they are terrified and want the cars to stop.
what do they expect? having chosen adventure, shouldn't they be prepared to go the whole way? or do they think that the intelligent thing to do would be to avoid the ups and downs and spend all their time on a carousel, going round and round on the spot?

at the moment, I'm far too lonely to think about love, but i have to believe that it will happen, that i will find a job and that i'm here because i chose this fate. the roller coaster is my life; life is a fast dizzying game; life is a parachute jump; it's taking chances, falling over and getting up again; it's mountaineering; it's wanting to get to the very top of yourself and to feel angry and dissatisfied when you don't manage it.

it isn't easy being far away from my family and from the language in which i can express all my feelings and emotions, but, from now on, whenever i feel depressed, i will remember that funfair. if i had fallen asleep and suddenly woken up in a roller coaster, what would i feel?

well, i would feel trapped and sick, terrified of every bend, wanting to get off. however, if i believe that the track is my destiny and that God is in charge of the machine, then the nightmare becomes something thrilling. it becomes exactly what it is, a roller coaster, a safe, reliable toy, which will eventually stop, but, while the journey lasts, i must look at the surrounding landscape and whoop with excitement."

i'm glad i found this book at this point in my life when i've been having a sorta roller coaster ride of my own. but then again i've always believed that our lives are always beset with ups and downs and we just live through the motions each day.

it's great to find a book which almost details what you feel and how you go about it and offers wisdom to deal with it. i admire Maria, the lead character, a young Brazilian woman who was brought to Switzerland supposedly to work as a dancer but ended up on the streets and working as a prostitute. she seems really sexy and gorgeous, and witty and strong while fighting her own demons like any seemingly weak woman out there as well.

i could read her diary over and over again and still see new light each time. and even if i wake up feeling gloomy one day, i'd only reach out to the book read some excerpts and feel great about reminiscing those times when we did have that one great love we know we'd never regret having and being thankful for that moment when we we're genuinely happy. after all, in this crazy world, being happy even for a day is already a miracle in itself....sigh....

and did i tell you that this book is oh so steamy, hot, hot too?!!! Eleven minutes is theoretically the actual time that sex happens. and this is what people think most about all the time. a mere eleven minutes hahah! but then the challenge is how to make that eleven minutes extend up to eternity. and that could only be achieved with love...oh well...

this book also details the journey of a woman who's slowly finding her own sexuality leading to her happiness. and how her profession has taught her a lot about men and how to deal with them. maybe i should be a prostitute then hahaha!!

i'm making this my bible for now. YOU, go read it and be enlightened!!!;)

single thoughts

(i guess this will come out as a series of thoughts now. let's see, let's see...)


I'm telling this to myself from now on:

"no one else can make me happy, sad, miserable, freaked out, ecstatic, furious, depressed, angry, melancholic, problematic, joyful, gloomy, etc...but MYSELF...

and XAN of course."

goin loco in ilocos II

am at loss for words...let the pictures speak for itself then...:D



mangoes for Juan Tamad...just lie down and bite off from the tree yum-yum!!


don't really mind pickin mangoes for life, weheheh....


what's an Ilocos trip without the empanadas??? hmmm....


Paoay Church







Fort Ilocandia




Hope to come back for more!!!!

goin loco in locos

pagudpud, ilocos norte---it was a 12 hour long bus ride but what the heck, we only had to sleep naman and i've got my music companion with me so no fuss at all. and what more, i was with Lala, my bestest friend since grade school and it was gonna be our first road trip together along with my work partner, Rick. i knew this was gonna be a really eventful one even if we had no resort reservations haha! we were warned we might have difficulties especially since it was a weekend but then trips are always coupled with fun and adventure, di ba??? what more, we got on board an ultra girly pink bus so could anything go wrong???!!!

we arrived in pagudpud at about 8am and asked a tricycle driver to bring us to a resort in Saud beach...he took us to Klasik beach resort and at 1500 per night for the three of us we no longer hesitated nor got picky and just got it at once. we were tired and sleepy and still grateful that we managed to get a place that fast. ;) kaso, the resort is far off saud beach pala, nasa gilid lang and our beach front is rocky, not "swimmable" at all.

we decided to take a tour instead to be scheduled at 10am later that day. we we're supposed to go to the many different attractions in the area. thus after breakfast and some shut eye we we're off to the tour yi-ha!

first stop was the maira-ra blue lagoon and it was indeed heaven! we got there around 1130, the sun was at it's brightest yet no one was complaining. by 12 noon we almost had the beach to ourselves!! i tell you, i've been to most beaches in the area, what can i say, am that beachy eh hehe...and this maira-ira has to be the best one i've gone to. forget bora or even the ones in palawan and bohol, this one is tops!!!

we left the lagoon almost 1am and dropped by the bantay abot. we took pictures then went off and looked for a karenderia to eat in. at least mura lang. from there we went to patapat viaduct. there's really not much to do there aside from more taking pictures of that long bridge.

from there we dropped by agua grande, great place they got in there. it's where fresh and sea water actually meet and it was refreshing to just take a dip there and the water was so cold. one could also get a free massage from the rushing water. ;)

our next stop was the kabigan falls. we we're told to prepare ourselves for a 30 minute hike and it was like 2pm hahaha!!! but with all the sunbathing that we've done who are we to complain of more heat :p but then i wasn't so impressed with falls sorry...i'm from iligan and we have tinago falls back home. once you've seen it, no other waterfalls could even come close. :D so i no longer took a dip there. better to go there dry and leave dry in the sweltering heat of the sun.

we paid extra to our guide for a trip to the windmills. it's quite far, we actually dozed off on the trip. it was gonna be another 15 km or so. and the windmills look scary up close huh! it's like aliens were gonna come out anytime heheh...we took more pics and just enjoyed the view and rushed back home to catch the sunset.


saud place looks good but am not able to appreciate the beach a lot. there were seaweeds, the brown ones, and the water was kinda rough unlike the one in the lagoon. oh well, it was great to laze around still, wait for the sunset and watch the world go by.

after our shower we went to to get dinner yey! and we're all famished from the tour. will post the pics later but be prepared to drool!

we had a couple of beers after and just laid down on the beach watching the stars. whoa, i haven't really done that in a while and it was just relaxing gazing at the twinkling lights at a distance, marvelling at the great places we've been to that day.

the one thing i don't like in pagudpud though is all bars and restos close at 10pm heheh...well and good though at least we can turn in early and sleep better.

more pics here!

angels or devils (dishwalla)

just can't help but listen to this song over and over again....sigh.


this is the last time
that I'm ever gonna come here tonight
this is the last time - I will fall
into a place that fails us all - inside

I can see the pain in you
I can see the love in you
but fighting all the demons will take time
it will take time

the angels they burn inside for us
are we ever
are we ever gonna learn to fly
the devils they burn inside of us
are we ever gonna come back down
come around
I'm always gonna worry about the things that could make us cold

this is the last time
that I'm ever gonna give in tonight
are there angels or devils crawling here?
I just want to know what blurs and what is clear - to see

still I can see the pain in you
and I can see the love in you
and fighting all the demons will take time
it will take time

the angels they burn inside for us
are we ever
are we ever gonna learn to fly
the devils they burn inside of us
are we ever gonna come back down - come around
I'm always gonna worry about the things that could break us

if I was to give in - give it up
- and then
take a breath - make it deep
cause it might be the last one you get
be the last one
that could make us cold
you know that they could make us cold
I'm always gonna worry about the things that could make us cold

QK at 10!!

we used to call ourselves the Quatro Kids, no, not because we had quatro as grades but only because we were in senior year back then. wow, that was ten years ago haha! anyway, we met again yesterday and i was quite surprised that we haven't changed much...we're still noisy and playful as ever hehe....

looks like we haven't aged much huh!! :P