holy week, 2005

"everday is like sunday,
everyday is silent and grey"
-morrisey, everyday is like sunday

wednesday night, alabang

one good thing with being alone is that i could work without distraction. no tv, no radio or cd. all the novels and magazines i bought lying on the apartment floor, read and done with. i was able to finish a painting in time to take it home during the long weekend.

an acquaintance once asked me before if the reason why i don't have a girlfriend is because i look at it as a 'distraction'. and i could only laugh and say 'no'. i could not think of anything better than improving your relationships, whether with your parents, family, friends or God. but then how can i explain this in words without sounding like a hypocritical sage? even writing about it in this blog gives me the urge to roll up my eyes. leave me to my periods of solitude. regardless if anyone notice the difference, it makes me a better person.


good friday

ever heard the song 'everyday is like sunday'? well that song comes to mind whenever i spend maundy thursday and good friday at home. i could swear that, during those days, i ( and the whole household ) move in bullet time ( the slow motion effects in matrix - for the rest of the people who doesnt know that they actually named that effect ) but i admit all those inactivity allowed me to think about a lot of things. not least of them is my decision to take steps in having my own solo exhibit...

toilets

public toilets, bus stop, north ave. cor. edsa

at first glance, i thought the one in the middle is for the 'third sex'. it was only on closer look that i was able to read the sign at the top of the door.

paranoia

one thing i hate about the 'war on terror' that the government is bandying about is that it has turned the country into a virtual police state without the benefit of a formal declaration of martial law. conrado de quiros discussed this mindset on his column there's the rub on the march 8, 2005 issue of the philippine daily inquirer. this is the kind of paranoia that makes journalism one of the most hazardous jobs in this country.

i myself experienced this paranoia firsthand while taking pictures inside the mrt:

stranger: ( looking at the camera on my neck ) boy(duh), are you thinking of taking some pictures here?

jb: yes, si...

stranger: well you can't do that. it's against the law.

jb: but am not taking pictures of the mrt by itself. my focus is also on the view outside the window.

stranger: no, sir. sorry, sir. am a security officer employed here in mrt. ( bringing out an official looking id from his bag. he was wearing casual clothes. he turned to his companion and murmured. i caught the word 'sabotage' during the exchange. )

jb: but, sir. this is a camera. not a bomb.

stranger: no, sir. it's the law.

jb: they actually turned THAT into a LAW? ( and since it's already near my stop and i don't have time to discuss the intricacies of the first amendment and the philippine constitution, i let it go at that.)

( it's cowardly of me to let it go like that. but it was a sunday and i was eager to go home, he,he. )

one only has to look at these images to see how the camera could show us what the 'war on terror' really meant.

fifteen years ago

11 o'clock PM, greenbelt park grounds, 3 college friends

...i wonder what job we will get once we graduate?...why not start our own design studio?
...hey, are you serious with that band?...nope, just want to jam once in a while...
...remember ( name of girl )? what ever happened to her, bok? someday we will be able to afford hanging out at tia maria's...hey howbout eating out once a month at that pizza place in west avenue?...

renovated greenbelt park

closed gate

taken during one of those nights when i got home late.

shibumi

looking at my small room, i realised how little i need, in terms of material things, to live. yep, i got the smallest of the four rooms available ( by choice ) and it is less well appointed than the one i was used to. i think i'm in the process of learning that my happiness isn't connected to the ratio of the things i have or don't have. don't get me wrong here, am living above poverty level in this country and i haven't gone to the extent of giving my possesions away. but i could still remember the things i thought i could not live without as a kid. toys,tv...guess i have to thank my parents for teaching us kids to make do with the things we have...and working hard ( and honorably ) for the things we want.


neon, feb 28, 2005 - digital camera courtesy of louie

apart-ment

last sunday night, i moved to my ( i share it with 3 other co-workers, so i guess i should call it 'our' apartment. but that somewhat reminds me of a conjugal property, so i'll stick with 'my' ) apartment. work on the insect screen was still ongoing so i opted to stay for the time being on one of the room upstairs. it was tiring cleaning up the room, in addition to the fact that i spent the afternoon driving from our home in quezon city to alabang, and back - moving stuff. and once i got to bed, it was heavenly - for the mosquitos. i think they have this messaging network to tell them where fresh blood could be had. so i spent the night covered in blanket ( something i seldom do ). morning came and i woke up to the sound of...birds? yep, birds. a welcome difference to the sound of tricycle motors that often wake me up back in quezon city. but the restless night took its toll and i spent the whole day fighting off drowsiness.

last night, monday. the screen finally got installed. spent sometime, cleaning my own room and moving stuff from upstairs. i still need an extra plastic box, and i should really need to install window blinds...zzzzz


living room curtains, morning, quezon city

my first blog of the year

work sure do get in the way of blogging. don't get me wrong, am thankful that i have a regular work. but i'm like those old computers - not good at multi-tasking. so that's why it's been awhile since i posted anything here.

ever since as a kid, i've looked at going to the beach as something you enjoy with family or friends. our parents used to take us for a swim in manila bay ( it was still clean at that time ) near baclaran every summer. going to the province is not complete without a day or two spent swimming or just eating ( he,he) on the sea shore.

but the landslides in quezon ( a province we have to pass by on our way to bicol )and the tsunami that struck the nations around the indian ocean last december 26, 2004 brings home the fact that nature could also be a destructive force. something we, who earns a living inside an office room, often forget.

that's why i also look on those days i didn't post a blog as a time of silence for the souls of the victims of these tragedies...and those who survived them.


saturday afternoon, bohol

inbetween storms

zambales, facing china sea, the booming surf could throw you off your feet


fan and dashboard of a jeep taken on my way to work.

soundtrack

friday:

sometimes i feel that i live my life set to a song...last friday, the song is from the smiths - "bigmouth strikes again".


magallanes bus stop

distance between

received an e-mail from a friend who is now working in tanay. THANK GOD for e-mails!

----
our subdivision was covered in smog as i was walking home. it was not that thick, just enough to be noticeable. i wonder when will car manufacturers be able to make a practical, environment-friendly alternative to the combustion engine. will it be powered by hydrogen or electricity?


the road at the back of pldt, makati.

night...

due to the closure of some of the gates in our subdivision, i am forced to take the long way home everytime i go past the alloted time of 9pm. this could be cause for gripping especially when you're tired ( or if you need to go to the toilet, he,he ).

but most of the time i welcome this added walking distance as a sort of buffer. a time to shed the worries and pressures of work in exchange for my responsibilities as a son, brother, uncle and friend.

years ago, a man i have great respect for, taught us a definition for the phrase "work for a living" that i have tried to adapt to my work attitude. am not sure if i have succeeded. but, hey, i need to hope that the god of failures would eventually get tired of seeing me. right?

---
the fx taxi that i rode home last night was playing one of my favorite indigo girls' tune. and one of the phrases in the song got stuck on my mind the whole night...if i could reap the praise of strangers but end up on my own...all my life is for a song...but maybe i was wrong.

breakfast at...

sometime ago, the company required us to be at the alabang office at 7 AM for a team building seminar. for me, who hails all the way from novaliches, that would mean waking up at 3AM. luckily, i kind of overestimated the travel time and i end up arriving at alabang junction at 4:45 AM. to pass the time i waited for the local jollibee branch to open at 5 and had my breakfast there.

as i leisurely ate my breakfast and watch the lightening sky, a touch of nostalgia came over me as i recalled the number of times i had breakfast at the jollibee branch of maxilom avenue back when i was working in cebu. i don't know what's the case here in metro manila, but, in cebu, i was surprised that a lot of people patronize jollibee for breakfast. and it's not just office workers but whole families, with the parents wearing their office uniforms and their kids on their school duds. made me wonder if the notion of a family eating breakfast together AT HOME is still valid.


maxilom avenue, cebu seen from the pedestrian bridgeway.
on my first day in cebu, i walked the whole length of this avenue looking for a ride back to my hotel.

continuation...

found out that my friend tom finally got his act together and was able to continue his blogs, albeit on a different blogname. anyone interested may access his blog under 'friends' on the side of this blog.

one other friend just caught the blogging fever. welcome ron. i guess he started blogging as a kind of release valve to the pressures brought in by work ( and people, and articles in magazines and...the list i think is endless, he,he ). kidding aside, i'm glad there's another blogsite i could visit in case i got tired working.

oh, before i forget. enzo also built his own blogs. i'll link his blogsite later on.
and in case he visit this maybe he'll remember this pic:


church seen through a belfry window, bohol,2003

guilty

a friend came by my workstation this morning and accused me of not updating my blogs. what with all that has been happening this past several weeks, well, i stand guilty of the charge.

our office has moved to its very own building. its just a block or two away from common goal towers ( our original location ) but, without the gazebo and proximity to ayala town center, it seems a world apart.

the building we transfered to still has no elevators. that's ok since our department is in the second floor. but with all the construction and drilling noise going on, we can't really concentrate on our jobs.

what's new

been tweaking my blogs lately. notice anything new on my site? yep, i now have a list of 'friend' ( only one, he,he ) and some sites that i usualy visit in the sidebar of my blogs...wish i could do more, but when it comes to html, the only thing am good at is cut and paste.

late

i wonder when will the philippines have a public transport system that runs on a given time schedule? it seems i got the award for being late the whole week.

punch...

sometime ago we had a visit from an aunt who usually tease me about my carefree life:

aunt: hey, your parents are getting along on years, when will you introduce to
them the girl that you'll marry?

me : well i already asked the girl, but her family doesn't want us to get married.

aunt: why not? you have a good job, you're not a pauper. do you want my support in asking her family to agree to the marriage? i'll talk to them. who doesn't want you to get married? her parents? her brothers and sisters?

me : he,he...it's her husband. he,he.

aunt: !@#$%^&*()

nephew : het tita, be glad it's NOT her husband AND 20 year old SON/DAUGHTER

he,he sometimes you are given situations wherein you can't resist using those punchlines

afternoon

been looking at my collection of photographs and i realized that i have an affinity for taking pictures from the top of buildings. maybe its a drawback from childhood when i realized that the neighborhood looks (better, he,he) different when seen from the top of our guava tree.

chairs