forever

Now, while we're here alone and all is said and done
Now I can let you know because of all you've shown
I'm grown enough to tell ya
You'll always be inside of me.

heard this song in the cab on the way to the airport yesterday. this song never fails to pinch my heart a little. i remembered reading about this from some Tagalog comics like twenty years ago. i forgot what the comics was, must be Universal or some other local one which featured a song embedded in some love story hehehe. it was about this usual boy meeting and falling in love with this girl, they hit it off okay for while then something happens and the girl falls out of love and leaves the guy. the guy ends up devastated and losing his mind. the ending clips showed the guy running after every girl he sees thinking she was the love he lost. awww.

Forever in my heart
Forever we will be
Even when I'm gone
You'll be here in me
Forever

Kenny Loggins

*******************************************

must be quite coincidental that i get to hear this song while i'm on my home to my province and be reminded of my childhood. the home which i've always loved going back to whenever. it never fails to give me utter comfort, pure solace. who cares about news of red alerts and ravages nearby. this is where i grew up and nurtured this wonderful life that i am having.

i'm so glad that i'm just home for now.

...

why does one need to leave?

i know this is the nth time i've been posing this question. and i guess i'll continue asking this as i see more and more people who should be together are kept apart by circumstances.

i am going home soon. i don't have much with me but i don't really want to care. all i want right now is to just be with the people that matter even for a short while.

i'm afraid i've spent a lesser time with Xan this year and i don't really want to lose that chance especially when he is still young. i guess no matter how much i'd get to accomplish, i will always have to blame myself for my misgivings to him. i will never feel fulfilled, i will never feel complete.

i heard some conversation one time about a wife who was prodding her husband to go abroad if only for them to have a better life. i felt so mad, so annoyed. she doesn't have any idea what she's asking for. she doesn't have any inkling how bad it feels being apart from one's family. but being a mere spectator that i was i could not say anything. i can't blame people from dreaming about going somewhere else. from wanting to pursue better places if only to fulfill one's dreams. i detest it yet i myself is in the same situation.

being apart from one's loved ones is never easy. yes, we may be enjoying some little comforts or living the lives and opportunities of what a lot of others have only been dreaming about, still it is never easy being here.

i will forever miss those lost chances, those times that should have been spent being with others instead of just being by myself.

argh, i need to stop.

GMA's Survivor Philippines

i so love, love it so far!!!

i hope it stays as good and as dramatic and as challenging in the episodes to come.

i'm loving the shots and the cinematography no matter how the camera could get quite dizzying at times when there's just too much action.

but yeah, being the Survivor fanatic that I've always been, i'm loving the pilot episode so far.

bigla akong naghinayang bakit di ko naisipan man lang na mag audition ahihihi.

my early favorite so far is Lola Zita, the 46 year old labandera who's a single mom to 7 kids and lola to 14 grandkids! and Yaya Patani, a babysitter from Cebu.

Madaming beefy eye-candies sa mga guys pero well, mas aliw ako sa characters ng mga girls haha!

this is such a great project for GMA. and i'm more thrilled too that QTV 11 will soon be airing Survivor Gabon this month too, yey!!!

(photo courtesy of survivorphilippines.com)

a not so practical tip

i sprayed bath and body works cologne on my floor because i could not stand the smell of liquid wax and chlorox.

oh well, i won't be doing this again sometime soon anyway so it should be fine. but i've to say it just smells so heavenly.

back in my old place, i used to clean my linoleum-covered floor regularly with rolls of tissue soaked in alcohol.

i walk around barefoot most of the time thus unclean floors make me feel icky.

one semi-charmed night

it was a pretty crazy night, i knew there was going to be the longest bar for the Guinness book of world records but i didn't expect it was that long. it was only about 7pm and there were a lot of people already. there were still some vacant tables near the Lourdes Ave. entrance but we were there for Third Eye Blind which we heard was gonna play at the last of the four stages. I was glad I was with friends who had the same 3EB enthusiasm as i got. we trudged on indeed to the frontmost part of the longest bar which was already at the corner of J. Vargas and Ortigas. that was quite a long walk and a lot of elbowing and sniffing of grilled foods and peoples' sweats haha!

3EB came out only at past midnight, i was a bit tired already after having wrestled for some seats at the nearest table we could find. nope, we didn't make it to 1500 crowd nor the 300 crowd. after all we only got the 120 tickets for free so we could not really complain. i only managed to drink one cup of the 2 free cups because i didn't wanna have that urge to pee and use the portalets, eww! hehe. we saw Rivermaya perform and a few other bands who i didn't really know. i heard there was a stampede at some other stage over Sugarfree. Ariel and Maverick were at some rooftop for their own coverage. they were in their usual colorful outfits and it was more fun watching them from a distance instead of those nameless bands who were mostly singing covers anyway.



when 3EB was about to come out we noticed that the 300 entrance was already open so we ran up nearest to the stage as we can. well at least it was just about 50 meters away, yey! when they opened up with Losing a Whole Year i just wanted to cry out and scream. i knew then that i was to have some grand time of my life. playlist is as follows (yep, i took down notes haha!):

Losing a Whole Year
Wounded
*Narcolepsy
Graduate
*Danger
Never Let you go
A Bonfire
Motorcycle Drive By
Don't Believe a Word
Deep Inside of You
Jumper
How's it Gonna to be
Semi Charmed Life
some parts Stairway to Heaven hehe
Encore: God of Wine

*had to ask for titles of these

it was really stupid of me not to have brought my camera, well i didn't know we were going to be able to go that close anyway. and worse, my camera phone died out on me after a few vids argh!!!

but still the experience was all worth it especially when we didn't pay for anything. thanks to friends again, weeeeh!

Stephan Jenkins seemed old, his voice was kinda strained on some parts and it looked weird seeing him jump up and about and screaming.

we already went out right after Semi-charmed Life only to hear once more that they encored with God of Wine. We stayed outside for a bit and saw a lot of emo kids having a show of their own wehehehe...such a semi charmed night indeed!

good old bacolod

i've always loved this place. i once said to myself that i don't mind relocating and living here for good. its local charms, its serenity has always made me feel at home and at peace. it helps a lot too that my father came from the area. most of my relatives are still here enjoying their own piece of heaven.

bacolod will initially strike you as some lazy, all too laidback town. you'll notice people milling around the streets, in the malls, or lazing in cafes and restos scattered all over the city. don't get me wrong though, most of them are actually successful and are enjoying flourishing careers. just that they must be the most un-flurried people i've ever known. they do take pains in dressing up though before they go out. thus you'll see a lot of really well-dressed people sipping coffee or just walking around.



a historian pretty much told me that this is much influenced by the cultivation of the sugarcane industry from way, way back. sugarcanes are known to be planted and harvested only once a year, the rest of the year most of the people spend their time waiting, playing mahjong, hanging out while waiting for the next planting and/or harvest season.

it also has the freshest seafoods and the most ornate, complicated servings of breads and pastries of all sort of shapes and sizes and varieties. haaay, bacolod is one gastronomic haven on its own.

and one of the thing that endears me the most is the musicality of their dialect. too bad my dad, didn't live long enough for us to learn how to speak hiligaynon. but its sound has always been to malambing, so nice to hear.

i will always come back to this town. i will continue loving it and its people no matter what.

Iloilo Churches

i have been to Iloilo several times though this is the first time when i got there alone. i didn't want to just stay at my hotel room for the longest time thus wasting my time indoors so I thought of visiting the many old churches in the area, I did ask some friends, looked up the internet and made up my list. when i got to the city i contacted some taxi driver who could take me around armed with my list and my camera of course.



my first stop was in Molo Church, otherwise known as St. Anne's Church it is also considered as some feminist church as it has most of the female saint statues lined up towards its altar.



next stop was in Tigbauan, sad to say the church was closed that time so i didn't really get to see its interiors.



Guimbal looks so dainty from outside most especially with its yellow stone and dreamy looking drapes. its interiors was a bit plain so i didn't bothered taking pics anymore, yikes.



Miag-ao Church is actually my ultimate destination for this trip. i chanced upon this church years ago on the way to antique. it has been years but it's magnificent image lingered in my mind and i knew i just got to come back and see it again up close. and yeah, i did!



it was about noontime and the church was closed. i managed to approach someone who i've asked to open the church's doors for me saying i just came from afar and i needed badly to see its interiors after showing them my media ID ahihihi.

and lo and behold, i was truly held captive by its ornate design, its gold-ish interior, its high ceilings and well-carved windows.



and i'm not surprised at all if this was marked as some UNESCO Heritage site. It is also culled as a fortress church with its thick walls and secret passages.




my final stop was in Jaro Metropolitan Cathedral just amidst the bustling town of Jaro. The church has Our Lady of the Candles as its patroness and holds its fiesta celebration every 2nd of February with some grand pageantry. inside its church are mostly male saints, thus it is considered as Molo Church's counterpart haha!



just across Jaro Cathedral is the bell tower, it used to be a part of the church's compound but some road was built between them for the government's road widening project.

so that wraps up my early visita iglesia in the now colorful, busy town of Iloilo which also has about 3 SMs, a Robinsons, and a few more Gaisano superstores among all the other establishments in the area. And the new international airport is one thing i was truly amazed too. Viva Iloilo indeed!