Paradise Philippines

[in celebration of a brand spanking shiny new year, lemme give a quick recap of the year that was]

the year began  with me and dad carefully treading the plains of our relationship, finding out which parts are rocky, which parts are easy to walk along, which roads we need to take and which we need to pass by. i must admit that we almost lost our footing and stumbled, but yeah, we cloong on and on, and the month of love brought us to the turning point of our relationship. and on my bestfriend's birthday, no less. if i had to assess, that day defined what we are today. we were, as he said then, revitalized. and how refreshing that made us feel. bestfriend was going through some tough times at that too, as i remember, even with about 5 different guys all wanting to own her. a lot of them are really nice, but there's not a single one that i really wanted her to end up with. not even a long time friend. i guess, i have to say, not one of them really deserves her. love month was the first love month i had with someone special to share it with. the third month brought the happiest birthday on record, the cutting of a very frayed string, and marked the end of my student life. the month of fools kicks off the summer season, and with it the beginning of my adulthood also started. no bum mode for me. Dad was liberated from his dungeon in May, and so was I. or so i thought. apparently, the big mamu still wanted to haunt us, even after we shook her off. June and July brought a flurry of attackers, both to me and to daddy, which prompted the first change of my username (brownwrapper). August wrapped the first year of our happy happy coupling, and the intense desire to find a new job, hence the flurry of obsessive jobhunting and prompted a multitude of resumes passed to 3 million comapnies who probably wondered why in the world a journalism graduated is a applying for a job so totally unsuited for her. yes, i was that desperate. LOL. Septembie was when i took flight from my job/gilded cage, and dad's scary encounter with almost death. October took me to a new path, a road where i could see myself finally settling in. oh, and i started my coffee addiction. and my love of changing ym status depending on what mood i'm in. hardy har har. November, lovee turned 22. And December, is the month of the fewest entries! hurrah!

come to think of it, 2006 was the first full year i spent with daddylove. and what a wonderful year it was.

[/end of the not so quick recap] 

some people just flipped and turned the whole Subic rape case in some kind of racial issue. flipped, i say. they're both people. sometimes it seems that some OA Pinoy feminists/activists are mad at Daniel Smith because he's American, not because he raped Nicole. Flag burning? it's so NAZI. Just think, if it was a Filipino soldier who did that, would this case get the same kind of attention?

i think not.

there's such a thing as reverse racism. pfft.

SOME RECENT LOVE AFFAIRS:

:: over the past 4 years, ever since i first became a member, i've had an on-again, off-again love affair with PEx. Right now, it's on-again mode, and i've read some good threads and even got into some healthy debates. reall, PEx is a very good vocabulary sharpener. lol.

:: i have to admit that i have this love thing with strategy and IQ games. Cake Mania, Classroom, Diner Dash, Battle Realms, i lap em all up. I once bought a set of those shape thingies that you have to put together to form a shape, and if i was halfway through the shapes when i lost the set. but the once game i have not yet accomplished is the rubix cube. and when i saw an officemate do the darn thing in a couple of minutes, i just know i had to do it. so daddy bought a set for me. yay! wish me luck in my rubix cube endeavour. harhar.

:: Gilmore Girls

:: Work. i love work. all the finger-crossing and excessive and desperate hoping just might pay off soon.  

:: i love cooking. i love eating what i cook. most times. we know why my flabs are taking a life of their own, yes?

:: fireworks. i love watching the sky get all colorful and glittery. i like thinking that inside those folded pieces of scratch papers, a flurry of starshowers and color are hidden, waiting, just waiting to fly. new year was a blast because i got to watch some very beautiful fireworks, eventhough i smelled like gunpowder afterwards. harharhar. 

;; i love our things. everything is more fun when i'm with him. i'm never bored because we laugh, we fool around, we, er, makefunofotherpeopleharharhar, we play games. we're just so crazy we're in love. or maybe we're so in love, that we're crazy.  

A few more days and it's our monthsary again. time really does fly sometimes. i'm so in love that it's almost a sin.

[[testing]] 

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In tales that start with onceuponatimes, Faeries know of a Boy who had a silver tongue. They would gather round while He spoke, and they watched in awe as he wove word after word, phrase after phrase in and out and over each other. 

And in the middle of a mound of Faeries all entranced by the Boy, there is one Special Girl Faerie who watched more closely than the others. She does this while wishing that she, Girl Faerie, also had his Gift. You see, Girl could not speak. Oh everyone remarked how pretty her smile is, how it lights up her face and how her eyes danced with the stars, but no one has ever heard her Voice. Girl did not know how she could communicate without a Voice, and big patches of Girl's time were spent sitting on a petal, watching the other Faeries dance and laugh and chatter and play. And so she hid behind her smile.

She sometimes wished Eyes could speak.

And Girl wished this as Boy painted the sky with his words, smeared the pearly pavement of Faerie world with bright, sunshiny colors of his stories, and then oneday in a onceuponatime, she felt IT. IT was a beat that came somewhere from her chest, and she felt a hot rush of blood through her body. Watching his wrought, curly phrases made Girl feel alive, and while the voice from her chest was a small one, it made Girl ecstatic.

...at last, a way to Speak. 

So she closed her eyes, and taught her heart to utter little syllables and hum tune-snippets as she sat on her petal. In time her Special Voice learned how to speak and sometimes even sing. She and Heart became good friends, and Girl listened to everything Heart tries to tell her. Many a-days, she just lay on a flower and watched the sky turn pink with her heartsongs, until one day Girl heard someone say: "You have a pretty voice,"

It was the Boy. Girl opened her eyes and gave him a smile, her whole face lighting up and her eyes dancing with the stars. --011107

I don't know how ABS-CBN thought they could get away with it, but their "new" soap is a shameless, screaming, blatant rip-off from Jennifer Love Hewitt's "If Only". And if you somehow missed that, you must be going senile because the similarity is just striking. Lightning striking, I say.

But then again maybe it's just me because i can't possibly forget something my mother made me watch for about 5 times (she liked it that much).

They could have made the death of the girl more creative. I mean, something other than an accident with cars. Like, i don't know, a fire maybe? Or maybe the girl noosed herself to death, whatever. That whole Lazarus-ish plot is waaaayyy tired and old and molding. Bumenta na yan eh.

Well, hey. What can we say but if it was not imitated, it can't be Pinoy.  

--------- 

i want to do something. if only i knew what that is. phhsssshh. 

Having a smashing sense of humor (even if it's only in your opinion, harhar) really comes in handy when you inevitably find yourself in tight corners and sinking in deep, stinking you-know-what. So you got transferred to the position you crossed all your limbs for. And you found out that, OMG, you STINK!!!! And that no matter how much information you take in one day, surprise!! There are loads and heaps more just waiting to pounce on you.

The good part is, you actually love it.

The neverending, vicious (and sometimes torturous) cycle of learning+application, it keeps me on my toes. It keeps me from getting bored. And it gives me this delicious kind of hunger that makes me want to gobble up every possible tip and info I can lay my hands on. Handouts never looked this beautiful. So I stink right now, so what? At least I know that there isn't anywhere to go but up.

And at least I can still cheer myself up.

So yeah, I was feeling pretty muddled all week. And I just wanted to do something. A break of some sorts. And since I'm feeling kind of show-off-ish right now, lemme just take y'all to a trip down to Desktop Lane:

It's probably pretty obvious from the fact that my desktop is just dripping with pink that I've got AYLABPINK stamped all over my face. It's sickly sweet, yes? But it's so cute. I like.  

Methinks that it's probably some kind of only child syndrome (oh! all those years of loneliness!!) that I name every cute, colorful thing that I own. Except perhaps my undies, hardyhar. So one day while taking a break from all work-related info overload, I browsed DeviantArt for a new wallpaper, and I saw MUYMUY. And what can I say? It was love at first sight.

Nothing much about this one really. Except that it's PEEEENNNKK!!

What did I say about naming every colorful thing i have? Here, guys, you will see, the VIBs. The VERY Important Buttons, harharhar! Everything I need everyday, they're all here. Jus a click away. Or two clicks. Whatever.

Other buttons I use every now and then.

Here, my friends, you get a glimpse of what it is that me, a pathetic SEO noob, tries to battle every day. It's a mesh of webpages, free tools, paid tools, articles, more articles, Excel sheets, Word files, txt files, etcetera, etcetera. We see my brains splattered on the screen, yes?

And this is what keeps me up and running. Need I say more? Yeah I'm all mush, but you like me. herher.

[WHOOPS! JUST A DISCLAIMER]
Having been a blogger for more than 3 years now, I normally don't go around picking fights with co-bloggers. Usually I'm the get-in-not-interesting-skip-it-get-out kind or lurker, or if I do find something nice, I make a comment to say what I liked and agree/disagree with the blogger. If I find something I don't like, I normally just skip that page.

Unless.

Unless some blogger pissed me off in one way or another. I'll leave you guys to guess/ponder on what that may be.

The big news yesterday in animaldom is the Komodo dragon from a British zoo in Chester, England that hatched baby Komodos without ever having been associated or never once interacted with any male Komodo. Yep, it's the animal version of the virgin birth, and Flora, the eight-year-old Komodo virgin mom, is apparently oblivious to the much excitement caused by the fact that she is now both a mom and a dad (isn't that such a single-parent cliche? lol). Other reptiles are known for reproducing asexually (parthenogenesis), but Flora's virgin birth is the first record of such with Komodos.

Komodos mainly inhabit central Indonesia, and is a part of the monitor dragon species. They can grow to approximately 2-3 meters, and they are the largest living specie of lizards. They have such a limited population, with only about 4,000 Komodos still alive--another reason why Flora's virgin birth caused such excitement with the proprietors of the zoo and every animal enthusiast (yeah, that includes me).

According to Buley, the leader of the zoo's expert care team, the newborns are thriving, healthy and are now enjoying a diet of crickets and locusts.

And I must say, with (small) miracles such as this, who could deny the existence of a higher being?  

[[more critter babble]]

Bandila featured one Suzanne Lanares (I'm not sure if I spelled her name right, my apologies) last night, who founded Animal Kingdom Organization. The organization's main goal is to save askals (impounded dogs) from being "put to sleep", or, more accurately if you're in the Philippines, save them from becoming this night's pulutan.

If I had to state a reason why I am so attached to kids and animals, I would have to say that it's because they're really the only creatures on the planet who has no concept of ulterior motives. Especially with dogs: if you have one you know that they're the kind of critters who would give their love no matter what.

It broke my heart to see Bandila's videos of those doggies being captured. I'm glad that there are still some people like Suzanne who cared enough to try and save them. I couldn't have said it better than she did: "Importante and magmalasakit sa dogs. Hindi lang sa dogs, sa lahat ng animals. Kasi wala silang voice, tayo lang ang voice nila."

One of these days, I'm going to visit their place in Tarlac. And the pawikan sanctuary in Batangas. 

One of these days.

Some Boy: No one’s leaving no one. We own the sun. We own each other.
That Girl: Is that a promise?
Some Boy: No, it’s the truth.

 Like he said, yun yon eh. :D