Just like everyone else's year-ender post. Only that it's different. :-)

What essentially comes in my mind right now is what Nicole Krauss once said:

“When will you learn that there isn’t a word for everything?”

True that. So, instead of thinking about a word for everything, I would rather put this on by thanking. 

I have here some recipients:

1. GOD

To the Most Highest, I come to You today-- to thank Thee for a year that's done, and Thee also, for the coming one. 

Lord, You have been there to keep me whole throughout the past year and I am counting all the gains and losses with all joy because You made my life purposely driven in Your will. 

You break and make me only to teach me what I have to learn in this life. 

It wasn't a pretty easy year for me, Lord, I know, but Your grace has been ever-sufficient to me. And I can never thank you enough for all these. 

You have kept me walking. You have kept Your precious promises. You have fought and claimed that the battle is Yours. You left me wanting for no more.

And for these, my only prayer is that, once again, make the next 365 days of my life Yours. Take all of me and let it be used for Your glory. :-) 

2. FAMILY

To my ever-dearests, I love you. 

To my mommy who's been my filter and sponge, thank you v.much! I wouldn't be as enduring as I am if not for the things that I've seen in you. It is from you also, whom I draw out my strength. Ikaw lang kakampi ko lagi eh. Haha! 

Just so you know, I keep all the pieces of advice well in my heart and mind and as well as the generic names of those medicines in my planner (Sorry po, I'm really bad in keeping those labels). 

P.S. And for pushing me to wear dresses and make-ups, thanks always. Hihi. You're right, I shouldn't have wished for a pair of chucks and a knapsack. ;-) Prolly a nice and huge shoulder bag and ballet flats instead?

:-) Love you, mother goose!

To my daddy who's been the living rod of guidance in my life, I can only sum up everything by saying thank you. I have learned a lot from you, dad. Read: A LOT. You have always been the constitution personified. Some may not understand you, but don't you worry, your daughter is one of the few who tries to (along with mom, my sibs and a man you know of.) In all good ways, I appreciate the times wherein I have to be under your discipline just because I know from Whom and Where you get all the rules. And you will never run out of ways to make me walk in the straight path. I'm sorry for disappointing you because of my stuborness, but I promise to make it up to you with every chance I get and that will be always :-) 

P.S.

I will always be my daddy's girl. Just growing, maturing, learning. 

You are my mentor, my jedi master. Love you, 'di! 

P.P.S.

To my parents, I saw the love of Christ in you. :-) 

To my brothers Joshua and Paolo-- laugh out loud! Haha! I love you both in all ways! Thank you so much for all the fun and not-so-fun times. I was looking through our kid pictures the other day and I can't help but laugh at how we've grown up together. You see how my look changed? LOL! We've had a lot of countless catfights that we could laugh and learn about now. They say they're normal for kids like us. And I've always been thankful to the Lord for having you both in my life. Thanks also for the love and respect that you're giving me as your ate. :-) High five to that! Here's to more bonding moments! I love, love, you Josh and Siopao!

3. FRIENDS

Should auld acquaintance be forgotten and never brought to mind? 

To those who know who you are, I am glad and thankful to have each and every one o'you in my whole 2010. I won't be naming your names 'cause I might miss out on someone due to memory failure, but as I've said, you can tag yourself here if you're sure that you're my friend. ;-) Okeh? 

My best friends are the photographs that remind me of a lot of memories and more than a thousand words;

My church friends are my accountability partners, my co-fishermen and servants in Christ who I grow up with spiritually. 

My USTe friends are more than my academic tag-alongs, the people I burn the midnight oil with-- they are the few good ones who know about how I deal with my studies.  3 months left for all my journmates and off we soar! 

I love you belly much!!

4. FRIENDLIER

Thanks for Autumn and everything that goes with it. :-) I've known you as God's first and that's the best deal that I love about you.  

The project will always be yours.
I will see you soon. 

Here's to more P.S.es!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FOR EVERYTHING, I give all my thanks to the God of my life Who Himself gave and taketh this year away with so much love, grace and faithfulness. :-) 

Semper Fi, You are.

Always faithful.

*Semper fi has been my lappy's password all year round. Shhh.. ;-)

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU!

Q012

I hope you will have a wonderful year, that you'll dream dangerously and outrageously, that you'll make something that didn't exist before you made it, that you will be loved and that you will be liked, and that you will have people to love and to like in return. And, most importantly (because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now), that you will, when you need to be, be wise, and that you will always be kind.

                                                                                                                                                                                              Neil Gaiman

Q011

May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.

                                                                                                                                       Neil Gaiman

NOTICE

Henceforth, all posts will be for the new year that's named 2011.

This year, I believe, has a lot of things to look forward to. :-) 

And by the grace of God, all will be well and all will be met. 

God bless you who reads this. 

Q010

Lay me down on a bed of roses;

Sink me in a river at dawn;

Send me away with the words of a love song.

                                                                                                                   The Band Perry

STRAIGHT FROM THE BOOK: MY NAME IS MEMORY By Ann Brashares

Ann*As promised*

• I have seen beauty in countless things. 
• She honored herself with the idea that maybe he needed her, that maybe she was the one who could understand him. 
• "If he liked you, you would know it."
• How many times could you give up on someone you loved?
• "This might be the last time I see him, " she said plaintively. "I don't know what will happen after this. I need to make him remember me." 
• "I thought the year would end and we would all go our separate ways and we could never have talked to each other," she said bravely.
• "I'm so sorry. I love you. Do you know that?" He was holding her, pressing his face desperately in her hair. "I always have."
• He'd push her. He'd scared her. He besieged her. He'd vowed he wouldn't and he did.
• She is my doing and my undoing. She always had been.
• He tricked himself into thinking that she would look into his eyes and remember, that love would conquer all.
• "You were supposed to remember... him." Esme said it loudly and with indignation. "You were supposed to remember how you loved him. He said he would come back, and you promised you would remember him."
• "I thought maybe you finally gave up on Daniel and decided to move on, but now I'm suddenly thinking that's not the whole story."
•  That was the first time I knew her and loved her. I loved her innocently then, I promised you. Even in my mind.
• How much silence was lonely? How much attention was unsettling? How little attention was cold?
• There are short periods of joy you have to stretch through of empty years... You have to make them last as well as you can.
• "You're a good man and I do not understand you."
• When you live as long as I do, always is a crippling distance.
• Smell was like the wormhole connecting you to the other parts. Memories of smell didn't fade, and they short-circuited your entire psychology. It is the closest thing to time travel on this earth.
• As I've said it's desire more than anything else that keeps us coming back for more. 
• "I loved him. He didn't want to leave me. He said we'd be together again. He said he wouldn't ever forget me, no matter what, and I have to try not to forget him. That's why I wrote the note."
• "This didn't happen by accident. You are my first memory every time, the single thread in all of my lives. It's you who makes me a person."
• "I'm sorry for what you've been through," she said. "I can't stand to think of the pain you've been in. You deserve better."
• "I'm a stubborn chit, you know." I held her hard. "Yes, you are. But you are not hopeless."
• "You'll fall in love again. And maybe you'll look back and remember me every so often. And when you come back again, I will be waiting for you. I will find you."
• Please believe him. Keep your heart open to him. He can make you happy. He has always loved you, and you once loved him with all your heart.
• "You are a hoarder," Ben said to me once. "You hate to let go."
• "Attachment disorder" it said in big, sharp print at the top.
• It was the thought of her that kept me moving forward.
• "Love who you love while you have them. That's all you can do. Let them go when you must.if you know how to love, you'll never run out."
• "You love your memory but you need to love your girl," she said by way of parting. "You remember what is lost, and you forget what's right in front of you." 
• "Next time?" "Next time,"she said. It was a ritual between them. It was always next time. She wanted something to hold on to so she could believe in next time.
• Some chances you really did lose.
• "I still love you, and I think about you all the time. I'm not down there. I'm right here."
• He loved it because he'd been loved.
• It was not a smile but like a smile.It wasn't a face of fear.It was an expression of faith more than anything. She had faith in him and the things he promised her. She trusted him.
• No! If you don't have a choice, you had to make a choice. If you didn't have options, you made some. You couldn't just let the world happen to you. 
• "I know I said I'd let you, but I can't."
• He had to fight. That's all he had. Not memories, nor experiences, not skills. He had a will. And his will was to fight until he couldn't fight anymore.
• Don't you go yet, he begged his heart.

"I need to tell you something."

"Okay."

"I'm glad you told me."

"Yes, because now I can tell you that it's okay."

"What Daniel taketh away, Daniel giveth."

"What do you mean?"

"You gave more than you took, my love. We're all square."

• I get defeated or discouraged, and I die because I've figured there's always a new life and it will be better. But nothing can be better than this life, because I have you.
• You promised me, she said to him in her thoughts every morning and night and a thousand times in between. I love you. I won't give up on you.
• Love demands everything, they say, but my love for you demands only this: that no matter what happens or how long it takes, you'll keep faith in  me, you'll remember who we are, and you'll never feel despair. Yours forever,...

RUGRATS

Me and my brother Pao | Before going to the clan's Christmas party,
we stopped over a flower shop in Tagaytay to buy lola some flowers and pots.
Yeah, we were left inside the SUV. Thus, this. 

STRAIGHT UP

Yes, this space badly needs real updates. I've been such a busy bee lately (yessir, even on a Christmas break) due to thesis. :-)

Well anyways, since I'm already here, I'll just tell you about how I was while I'm out of here:

1. As to what I've said, my partner and I are currently taking care of the last 2 chapters of our thesis. And with that being said, it has been my daily grind to go to The National Library to gather data or to stay somewhere (usually in Starbucks) for at least four hours to tally the results from our coding sheets OR to do both. So, I usually leave the house at 7:30a.m. and go back at 9/10p.m. It is quite tedious, but I am keeping my hopes up that by the grace of God, we will be able to finish it on time (2nd deadline, I mean, on January 8).

2. I already got my Starbucks 2011 planner last Monday (20 December-- 5 days earlier than my deadline). Huzzah! :-)

3. My daily Cavite-Manila-and-back trips are being spent up very well on reading. :-) Last week, I finished reading Ann Brashares' My Name is Memory in three rounds.

I will post some quotes here, I promise. :-)

3. Just finished reading On Love by Alain de Botton. Man, love philosophized?? Whoa. I am so short of time, seriously, to do a review of it, but anyways, what I can say about On Love is that I saw myself switching to each and every character's personality all throughout the book.

Another thing: You better watch out on going to airports especially when you're single and available. Hahaha! 'cause you might fall in love with a lady named Chloe. ;-)

I'm giving it 4 stars. Please spare some time to read it. :-)

This is one of my favorite lines:

"Every fall into love involves the triumph of hope over self-knowledge. We fall in love hoping we won't find in another what we know is in ourselves, all the cowardice, weakness, laziness, dishonesty, compromise, and stupidity. We throw a cordon of love around the chosen one and decide that everything within it will somehow be free of our faults. We locate inside another a perfection that eludes us within ourselves, and through our union with the beloved hope to maintain (against the evidence of all self-knowledge) a precarious faith in our species." 

4. I had a very merry Christmas with the fambam! We had so much fun time with my ever-so-loved Lola Chol and the rest of the Pineda folks. Sublime!

5. Today, is the 27th of December, a national holiday. That means, we will have another day of break in thesis work and I will start on reading Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird.

So, off I go and will write on till next time! Ciao!

/pardon this entry

REALITY INSIDE A COFFEE SHOP

(Click foto to enlarge)

I KNOW I WILL NEVER BE

... as awesome in cooking as my daddy.
Kekekeke :-p

Who says you can't treat yourself on a Home-Alone Friday? :-)

Grilled pork and honey BBQ fries 

And this is one among the many things that I can't do in the dormitory. :-)

Q009

The heart has its reasons

which reason knows nothing of.

                                        Blaise Pascal

Lord, give me just enough.

Not too much that I'll forget you;
not too little that I'll forsake you;
but just enough.

Just enough to get by.

HOME IS WHERE MY HEART IS

Home = Hope

A haven that vacuums almost all of my insecurities.
A place where burdens grow lighter.

In sheer desperation, I just want to be in the comforts of our home, bury my face on my parents' shoulders and tell them how bad my day went. I wanted them to know that today, I am unwell and traumatized by what had happened earlier and how I opted not to tell the people around me why I am like this.

I need my dad's advice.

I need my mom's comforting words.

I badly need to go home.

But where am I now?
About 60kms and 3 hrs away from my mom.
Countries away from my dad.
And yeah, actually, just a day away from them.

This is the  time when I just wanted to be a daughter, let alone being a student who needs to stay here in the city to meet some deadlines.

P.S.
Of course, I know I'm not the worst, the farthest, and the saddest. And that I should be thankful about. Still.

P.P.S
Thank you, Heavenly Dad, for Your saving grace that keeps me on looking forward. I love you.

P.P.P.S.
/EDIT *phone rings* It's daddy.

Q008

"Dear God, I prayed, all unafraid
(as we're inclined to do),
I do not need a handsome man
but let him be like You;
I do not need one big and strong
nor yet so very tall,
nor need he be some genius,
or wealthy, Lord, at all;
but let his head be high, dear God,
and let his eyes be clear,
his shoulders straight, whate'er his state,
whate'er his earthly sphere;
and let his face have character,
a ruggedness of soul,
and let his whole life show, dear God,
a singleness of goal;
then when he comes
(as he will come)
with quiet eyes aglow,
I'll understand that he's the man
I prayed for long ago." 

— Ruth Bell Graham

Q007

It is life in slow motion, 

it's the heart in reverse,

it's a hope-and-a-half:

too much and too little at once.

                                                      - The Wait | Rainer Maria Rilke 

INFIDELITY

I am caught between two.

It was this Thursday night when I realized that I am absolutely capable of loving two entities. Just because I couldn't help it.

I was invited by Kim, a very dear friend, to her place and introduced me to this writer named Haruki Murakami. I know that his books are up for digs, scattered everywhere, and that a lot of people that I know of have a greater understanding about him and his creations. I can even laugh at myself from the delayed appreciation.

Only that, I wasn't paying much attention then.

So Kim handed me the book South of the Border, West of the Sun and as I was browsing and reading through the highlighted lines from it, I easily had this different kind of connection. I gasped in agreement and said, "maybe, this is indeed a story of a love in a cool climate. I'll give this book my attention." More so, I am actually thrilled as a lover than a reader.


I know that I still have to finish up reading Catching Fire (thus the infidelity) which I am pressured to do so just because. Kill me now. And you should know that I really am in love with the series. But due to some reasons, circumstances have filched my time to curl up and read. But it's okay.

So here I am, finding a good reason to stay longer in bed because of being sick. This is the perfect chance to spend time reading 2 books, almost both at the same time. After a chapter in Catching Fire, I'll switch to read a chapter from South of the Border West of the Sun. They do well in taking turns and it feels good.  


Thanks Murakami, I can totally relate to this book.

P.S.
I'll be posting some of my fave lines here. :-)

Q006

All I could do was remember. Like an endless tape loop, memories of the night before replayed themselves, over and over. 

                                                     -Haruki Murakami | South of The Border, West of The Sun

Q005

It is a risk to love. What if it doesn't work out? 
Ah, what if it does?

                                                                                          -Peter McWilliams

SEND ME

On 13 November 2010, just another day, a friend told me:

Kristine: Kaks, are you aware that you have a way of calming the heart? May it be distressed or breaking and hurting or outraged. Even when it seems insane, you can deal with it. I hope life's kind to you as you're kind to it. 

This may prolly be one of the sweetest things I've heard and the reason why I am always thankful for the people that come across my daily life-- may it be a stranger, an acquaintance, or a loved one. And in return, I have one thing in mind-- a prayer, an aim: "May I be a channel of God's goodness and faithfulness to someone else's life."

That...
... in the midst of a stormy circumstance in life, I am the one who says, "Keep calm and trust God."
... I may be the lover of the unloveable;
... I may be the bearer of the unbearable;
... I may be the last to let go of the rope or maybe the one who's left holding the ends of it.
... my life be so consecrated to God so that His love may be seen in me.

And may this be the prayer of each and everyman.

This idea sounds to be a tall order, but not as impossible with God.

So in this light, I would like to add one more tag in this site. I'm gonna call it Love Extended. Need I not to explain further, aye?

Happy reading. :-)

39 DAYS TO GO

Promise you will be

Nobody else's little Christmas tree

I'll make you sparkle, just you wait and see.

This is part of today's roster of activities: assembling/putting up the Christmas tree we bought at Designer Blooms-Alabang last Sunday. The old tree's already in its retirement age so we had to look for a new one. :-)

By the way, we had it arranged by some designers from where we purchased it (part of the scheme). And they arrived for service ahead of time! I dint get to talk with them a lot and helped (I really wanna!) but the lady in black said that we'll see her next year. LOL. Anyways...

I'm so excited for Christmas!

How about you?

CHRISTMAS AND ANY GIVEN DAY WISHLIST

Some cold air convinced me that I should put up my list before this day ends. Haha!


So far...
*IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER*


1. Moleskine Music Journal

2. Dave Eggers and Nick Hornby novels

3. The Architecture of Happiness by Alain de Botton

4. Come Thirsty, Traveling Light, Next Door Savior (3-in-1) by Max Lucado

4. Belkin Verve Sleeve with (or without can do) clip for iTouch 4g

5. Staedtler Triplus Fineliners (20s)

6. Hot Wheels (Porsche, Mini Cooper, Shelby) or The Godfather 1940 Cadillac Fleetwood Die-Cast Car (1:18)

7. Korg Chromatic Tuner CA-30 or a multipurpose tuner 

8. Roxy or Billabong knapsack

Not so graphic like this. Solid colors will do.
There's one in MOA that I like. Mom knows. LOL

9. Vintage Shirts from Zara/Trafaluc

Can spot these in Trafaluc MOA. I want the one with Kellogg's.  :-)

10. Bean Bag

11. A visit and something from Heima

Located at Bel-Air II, Makati. Prolly you'll find my bean bag there. :-)

12. A pair of Chucks | Dr. Seuss Collection

13. Anything with Union Jack like Converse "The Who" ;-) 

14. Anything Adidas

15. Locket-- a classic piece

16. Something specially-made. Something with the sender's personal touch. A letter. A poem. Anything with my name on it. :-) 

17. A MEMORABLE FELLOWSHIP/DATE WITH MY LOVED ONES.

And when I am placed in the middle of loving and all of its uncertainties, hear me say, 

"If God be for us, who can be against us? Seriously."

OH WELL

This is one of the days in my life that doesn't wanna end.

So far, I'm good with some natural tendencies.

Why?

1. Church went great and lovely. We learned lots of stuff and I'm blessed to be blessed! :-)
We learned about the 3 principles of parenthood. Here are my notes for the morning service:

2. The globe spun for the Pacquiao-Margarito Match.

Look what have you done with the people, Pacman!
LOL to the people in ATC who desperately wished for the Pay-Per-View.

Anyways, Congraaaaaaaaats, Pacqs! :-)

3.THIS!

 Current read: The second installment of The Hunger Games series.
Gameface: ON!

4. CAFFEINE OVERDOSE.

Or maybe, just enough to keep me awake for the best number of hours. LOL. I feel so great right now. Can you feel? LOL.

Anyways, this is just a quick update, ya'll. Bounce! 

Q004

The love I've known is the love of two people staring not at each other, but in the same direction. 

                                                                                                            - Frank Bidart | To The Dead

THE HUMDINGER

Just so you know, I've got my eyes on you. Nuff said.

Q003

She wants to know if I love her, that's all anyone wants from anyone else, not love itself but the knowledge that love is there, like new batteries in the flashlight in the emergency kit in the hall closet. 

                                                       —Jonathan Safran Foer | Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

FIRST DAY, SECOND SEMESTER

Get a pair that's tailored for floods

Old folks talk a lot. This is one I ought to love.

The clock ticked slow.

First class for the opening of the second semester was Media Ethics and Libel Law. You can practically feel something fierce with the subject name itself- something that might get you into serious trouble in the near future. I was actually expecting a terror professor to handle this subject--I was actually expecting my Philippine Government Constitution professor way back my freshman year, not saying that I was actually a cliffhanger all the way through. Define trauma.

But it seems to work out in a way contrary from what I am expecting. For this subject, I will have Ms. Alice Colet Villadolid. She shares she's the careful type of person. I suppose she is, and she will with regards to her grading system. I can see she's nice. Oh, please? I will strive the hardest for this. Despite all my pet peeves in memorization.

Today:

• It rained so hard that I have to brave Dapitan's streets and get drenched. Umbrella seemed to be invisible. I even went to school in flip flops
• Pigged out with my roommates at Wok, Dapitan. We even made a lame Vlog. For our eyes only.
• Got the wifi back. Yaay! 
• Currently watching: Iron Man ;-) Okay, late bloomer. But, better late than never. 
• Will be pulling out an all-nighter. 

Just a foto with bad exposure. My notes earlier. :-))

Q002

There's just this for consolation: an hour here or there when our lives seem, against all odds and expectations, to burst open and give us everything we've ever imagined, though everyone but children (and perhaps even they) knows these hours will inevitably be followed by others, far darker and more difficult. Still, we cherish the city, the morning; we hope, more than anything, for more. Heaven only knows why we love it so.

                                                                                           —Michael Cunningham | The Hours

Q001

Sometimes, language is the sound of longing.

                                                              —Simon Van Booy | “Snow Falls & Then Disappears”

AH, CHILDHOOD!

I have a lovely light...

I'm a friendly little star you wish upon each night. 

                                                                 - Twinkle,Twinkle Little Me, Stevie Wonder

These are some of my kid snaps I dug from the foto chest. Most of them are taken in Jeddah, S.A. 'cause we stayed there for three or four years and there's one taken here in the PH.

You have to agree, I izz soo cute, yez?! :-))

I rock my bangs. LOL! I think I'm 3 here.
In our unit

Green Apple, my love. :-)
A snap when I turned 4.
@Pizza Hut

Greet the 4-year old pizza monster a happy birthday ;-)
@ Pizza Hut

Baby Chun-Li ;-))
I think I just turned 1 here.
@ our House in Las Pinas, PH

Since there's no PH Christian school  nearby,
my parents sort-of-like homeschooled me
instead.
Paper, pencil, and that F1 poster at my dad's nook. ;-))

I grew up wearing jumpers! LOL. I love them!

I AM THINKING ABOUT...

1. pitching my favourite quotes here. And when I do that, for sure, it would be A LOT. And most of them will be cross-posts from my alternative blog. I will place them under the "words that strangers put in my mouth" tag.

2. not going out of the house tomorrow. I want to spend my last day of semester break at home. Will be packing up also. Dorm life is coming back soon.

3. doing my Christmas wishlist. Hohoho! :-p

4. DL-ing more tracks for new mixtapes. But 4shared.com's being laaaaaaame these days! I hate it. Where else can I DL?

5. Ustetika :'-( Am I gonna push through? November 11 is coming real fast!

6. the wifi in our dormitory. Is it fixed now? I'm gonna be pissed if not. Oh, please.

7. our thesis. We can do it, right? Please balieve that we can. Just before USTe's Paskuhan. 'cause I want to have a decent Christmas break! Looooord, please?

8. our church's choir preparation for the Christmas presentation. 5 more Sunday rehearsals to goooooooo!
Lezzdodizzz! Hallelujah Chorus, please be kind to us.

9. catching up with a lot of people that I badly miss. Nangungulilaaaaaa!

10. the SB '11 planner. I'll start collecting sticks this week. I promise I will get more hot drinks than frappes. For the sake of my diet, okay? :-)) Whip cream break.

11. The Helium Party. It's something about letting go. And my friend and I will do it at the bay, real soon. Will do a separate post about it. Prolly on the 3rd or 4th week of this month.

12. my grades for this upcoming sem. I will break both of my legs for this last hurrah! I will try to love the unloveables! Hahaha!

13. more books to read! Yeah, despite all the loads that will soon come my way. :-) I will always find time to read a book every month, at least. This is one of my favorite escapes. So please, let me.

14. one particular person. No fail these past few days.


15. living healthy. Hahaha! I'm serious!

16. Ugh! I have lots of things in my mind awhile ago and I forgot about some of them! I hate my memory.

THE GAME IS ON

I've never been the one who's up-to-date with books. What I mean to say is that, it is unusual for me to get a newly released book that's still hot on the tracks. Unless if it's a tray of Krispy Kreme doughnuts. Ha!

As far as I know, Suzanne Collins's The Hunger Games (first book of the trilogy) was released on the year 2008 and I was never aware of it since last August *kill me now* when Mockingjay (third book) became the talk of the town. 

I've read a lot of good reviews about the book and how the story interests me. 

So after all those Googling and stuff, I decided to get myself a copy this morning before going to National Lib for thesis and even asked one of my friends to buy his own (on this same day LOL) so that we can both read the series and race till Mockingjay. 

And this is my lunch:

The Tuna Thing from BreadTalk (I forgot the name, sarreh. I skipped Floss today LOL);
Oishi Smart C+ Pomelo ;
the new buddy next to Chbosky's (which I finished reading last week)
and what made me the happiest is Hall and Oates's You Make My Dreams (from 500 DoF OST) that was played

One good way to feed your appetite ;-)

LIFE AND LOVE AND ADRIATICO

The day went pretty good after a series of "reasonable delays" and stuff re: thesis at National Library, after the crazy rain-then-shine transition, after being trapped inside the serials section that smells like "dead newspapers" (Dead? Yeah!) and kiamoy. Wait, do you know what kiamoy is? If yes, then Congratulatioooons! If not, then where have you been? LOL.  Aryt, to whom this kiamoy info may concern, (Goodness I never thought I'd be talking about kiamoy here!)

Kiamoy, in Google definition:

 Dried preserved plums coated in salt, sugar, and licorice powder. Intensely salty and sweet and sour all at once. NIBBLE ONLY. DO NOT POP IN MOUTH WHOLE. The seeds are still in the plum, and the flavor is VERY intense. Great prank food. 

They are the orange ones you can see along the racks of sweet beans, peanuts, green peas and stuff in a candy store. If you've been to Aji Ichiban, then, you can see lots of kiamoys there. 


Okay, let's move on, shall we? 


Thesis Mate (Tim) and I decided to go and drink caffeine at Starbucks Adriatico before going home because we have to talk about the most vital things that took place in her life lately and how I've been wanting to tell her to ditch out her thoughts about suicide and all its friends! Yeah, too much about Plath and Palanhiuk. We talked like we haven't talked for months! LOL. But seriously, if we could just talk everyday without thinking of deadlines and school stuff, we will definitely do so. 

There we had the time to update each other of what took place yesterday especially with Tim and all I prayed for while she was recounting the story and up until now is that she finally finds her true happiness with God taking control of her life. She explained things really well an d I got the point why she's been such a cynic lately in terms of dealing with things. 


So when it was my turn to talk, I told her about a book I've been wanting to purchase since I read about its review last week. It's called The History of Love by Nicole Krauss. Thank heavens for the speedy wifi  that I got to tell her about its  summary and share my favorite quotes from the book. :-) She said she likes to have her own copy too and that made me happier. Just another kindred spirit, yes?


We left SB just a little later than the sunset and walked along the streets to Quirino. My mind was still attached with the topic about books so I suddenly blabbed:

Me: I want to "write" again. And I meant that in the sense of how these novels that I've read inspire me. Literature. Do you think if I've gone out from my comfort zone, if only I can go out to different places, I could write better? 

(Sometimes, I like asking rhetorical questions just to prove a point or fish out opinions.) 

Tim: Why of course! Your wide exposure to your surroundings define your way of writing. And of course, you just have to seek for a wider perspective. Talk about going outside yourself. You can't always ask your readers to fit in your shoes. It's the other way around, mostly. You sell books that way.

Me: I wish I'm that "exposed writer" that you're talking about. I've always wanted to write a book or something but my lack of acquaintance to the outer world bounds me. I know that's a bad reason and I don't want to be complacent about that. 

I want to write because I love writing and maybe that would be an enough reason to explain everything. 

Once upon a time, I used to write about "them". I wrote about the chronicles of their life and death, of their politics and social status, of their probities and immoralities, of their happiness and pain. But I wrote them all for the dailies, for requirement's sake, for training. I barely wrote about them with my own judgments because my job was to narrate the story as is. But as my literary inspirations grow, so is my desire to write and have my own say about these people and their lives and put them in paperbacks.

Yes, I started talking about going to the library and how I hate to be there because of the smell. 


But over and above all, it was just another Friday full of thoughts. 

FROM NOW ON...

I won't be naming real names. And try your best not to figure out who they are 'cause chances are, you know them obviously. LOL. Labo. 
Fine?


I mean nothing sleazy about this. 
Honest.

Stark once said he can fly after testing the suit's capabilities. 

Then, Sir, I have to tell you this: You're flight is my desire.