- last night's play-doh project -
grabbed from chireh's flickr page (http://flickr.com/photos/santos1978/283652848/)

- hapi bertdi kuya! -

is the resemblance evident - http://www.flickr.com/photos/santos1978/273979840/in/set-72157594316851840/?

- why i love kids -
jeni forwarded this email to me ... it's really beautiful ... read on ...

What does Love mean?
A group of professional people posed this question to a group of 4 to 8 year-olds, "What does love mean?" The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined.

^ "When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love." Rebecca-age 8
^ "When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth." Billy-age 4
^ "Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other." Karl - age 5
^ "Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs." Chrissy-age 6
^ "Love is what makes you smile when you're tired." Terri-age 4
^ "Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK." Danny-age 7
^ "Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more. My Mommy and Daddy are like that. They look gross when they kiss" Emily-age 8
^ "Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen." Bobby-age 7
^ "If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate," Nikka-age 6
^ "Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it everyday." Noelle-age 7
^ "Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well." Tommy-age 6
^ "During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling. He was the only one doing that. I wasn't scared anymore." Cindy-age 8
^ "My mommy loves me more than anybody. You don't see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night." Clare-age 6
^ "Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken." Elaine-age 5
^ "Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford." Chris-age 7
^ "Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day." Mary Ann-age 4
^ "I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones." Lauren - age 4
^ "When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you." Karen-age 7
^ "Love is when Mommy sees Daddy on the toilet and she doesn't think it's gross." Mark-age 6
^ "You really shouldn't say 'I love you' unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget." Jessica - age 8

And the final one -- Author and lecturer Leo Buscaglia once talked about a contest he was asked to judge. The purpose of the contest was to find the most caring child. The winner was a four year old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman's yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there. When his Mother asked what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said, "Nothing, I just helped him cry"

- wiken flashback -

* friday roxy night *
this is what i call my "semi-natural" high - 4 shots of semi-diluted tequila, loud music and semi-tireless dancing *i get tired from too much dancing*... chireh and i have been to roxy gazillion times .. the cover charge is still at 300NT with 200 being consumable ... but it's the first time that we got 8 shots of tequila for our 400NT ... and that's berfore 12mn ... prior to last friday night, 400NT equals 2 shots of tequila if bought before 12mn and 4 shots if bought 12mn onwards ... which brings me to say that it's semi-diluted :) ... well, tinamaan pa din naman kami so i've nothing to complain about ... going to roxy is not as fun as before, though (http://demensya.blogspot.com/2006/06/meat-day-roxy-99-night-yesterday-was.html) ... i guess chireh was right ... maybe roxy was getting too old for us ...

* saterdi international day *
together with chireh, i went to taipei american school (tas) - where papa d is teaching - to attend their international food festival ... tas is around tienmu area which, i believe, has a high population for foreigners ... mostly, caucasians ... certain areas in tienmu has a different feel ... it's like i'm not in taipei ... and this is the same when i was inside tas ... it was so ... "international" ... different shapes and colors ... different culture and upbringing ... the food fest, by the way, showcased stuffs from US, japan, malaysia, singapore, india, denmark, new zealand, australia etc etc ... weird thing about me was i only ate hotdog on a bun *kamot ulo* ... and coke ... i'm so international ....

after the food fest, papa d invited us to go to this hiking place near his house ... still around the tienmu area ... that place was really fabulous ... we stayed there for some time and it was so relaxing ... so peaceful ... it's the kind of place that makes me appreciate where i am right now ...

hey jeni, if you're reading this, we went to jiantan as well and we ate your favorite dish - http://demensya.blogspot.com/2006/09/iniinggit-ko-si-jan-jeni-as-promised.html

* sundi slacking day *
my abdomen hurts since last night ... i was starting to worry ... thinking that i'm coming down with something ... and then i realized that it hurts given certain movements only ... it doesn't hurt all the time ... and then i realized it's my abdominal muscles (fats???) hating me ... for dancing way too much last friday ... kulang na ako sa praktis ...

the movie entitled prime (http://imdb.com/title/tt0387514/) is nice ... it's a may-december love affair between rafi (uma thurman) and david (bryan greenberg) ... rafi is 37 years old, just got divorced and has lisa (meryl streep) for a pyschologist ... david is 23 years old, jewish, an artist and is lisa's son ... rafi and david got together ... intially, without the knowledge of lisa ... but after getting details from david and rafi ... she was able to put two-and-two together ... everything seems to be working out well ... it even appears that lisa has gotten over the fact that rafi is 14 years older that her son and is not jewish ... but rafi and david still didn't end up together ... no matter how they love each other ... what's up with that? ... but i like it more because of that : )... it was saying that love isn't always enough and meryl streep said sumtin like, people fall in love, *sumtin, i forgot*, and they move on and that's ok ...

- an inconvenient truth, indeed -

our company gave free movie tickets for this al gore flick ... we were having second thoughts about going ... chireh and i even expected the film to be ... you know ... boring ... ho-hum ...

but after seeing the film, i'm glad that we gave it a chance ... we were glued to our seats the entire time ... all eyes and ears to al gore ... and it's not just because al gore is cute but because al gore are saying things that actually make sense ...

inconvenient truth talks about global warming and it highlights the changes from then and now ... increase in the impurities in our atmosphere ... more of the sun's heat trapped on earth ... earth's temperature continuously increasing ... polar ice caps melting ... flooding in one part of the earth ... drought on another part of the earth ... extreme weather changes ... recurrence of diseases ...

i used to be so apathetic about environmental issues ... i had this sooo incorrect notion that i have so little to do with it ... i felt that a "lowly" being like me doesn't have any impact on it ... it is only now that i realized that i am guilty - just like a lot of us are ...

i found some pictures online just to show how far we've gone in destroying the only planet that we can call home -

upsala glacier in argentina ... supposed to be covered with ice ... less than a century difference(http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1176980,00.html)

drought in australia ... causing deaths of farm animals ... (http://www.dwpicture.com.au/gallery.asp?cat2=Drought&cat3=Drought%20Scenes&cat=Drought%20Scenes&cat3_number=53)

slash and burn agriculture in peru (http://travel.mongabay.com/pix/peru/manu-Manu_1024_2892.html)

destruction from hurricane katrina (http://www.katrinadestruction.com/images/v/biloxi_mississippi/)

storm aftermath in the philippines (http://my_sarisari_store.typepad.com/)

so there ... what can we do about it? ... drive less and take the mrt ... you can also walk and ride a bike instead ... recycle more ... conserve natural resources ... and the list goes on ... want to know more??? ... then go visit this website - http://climatecrisis.org/ ... and even if i won't get any penny from it - i would also recommend that you watch "an inconvenient truth" ...

- today's play-doh project -



(über-thanks to my dir pwend - obstinate chireh - for the pix)

- hi, i'm teacher anne -
my baptism of fire on teaching

thanks to chris and may, i finally got the chance to take a stab at teaching kids - for real. chris was not available for his class today (by today, i mean friday :) ) so he asked me to subsitute for him - to teach a 2-hour english class to at most 11 kids who are at grades 5 to 7 ... being the "noble" person that i am *as my friend chireh commented*, i did it probono ... i was just after the experience and not really the money ...

i was apprehensive at first since i have no formal training ... but i know i want this - so i decided to plunge ahead ... i also thought that this will be a good chance for me to gauge if this is really what i want to do ...

the lesson plan ...
we're to study english conversations ... considering the age of my students, i believe that their attention span is still not that long and they can get bored easily (even at age 27 - given the "right" circumstances - i still get bored easily) ... chris told me that they have games available in the school ... but i decided to create my own (with a little help from the internet ;) ) ... so here was the final plan -
(1) getting to know each other
(2) conversation set 1
(3) living sentence game (http://french.about.com/od/teachingresources/a/livingsentences.htm)
(4) conversation set 2
(5) buzzer game (a question is asked to 2 kids and whoever presses the buzzer first will have the chance to answer)
(6) conversation set 3
(7) flyswatter game (http://french.about.com/library/teachers/bl-moustique.htm)
(8) assignment notebook (this is a standard for evey class, kids need to write what they studied as well as their assignment)

the preparation ... a day before my first teaching stint
i only got a hold of the reading material last wednesdi ... so came tarsdi ...
1) went to the school to get a feel of the venue ... chris also gave me a CD with all the lessons from the material
(2) went shopping for colored papers, colored pens, desk buzzer, flyswatter etc etc ...
(3) spent ~4 hours to come up with the game gadgets
(4) spent ~1 hour to divide the conversations from the CD and copy them in my laptop

the preparation ... 1 hour before my first teaching stint ... started having butterflies ...
i felt just like this yahoo emoticon ->
(1) brushed my teeth
(2) combed my unruly hair
(3) made sure i don't have anything up my nose :P
(4) farted *i'm not sure if this was really necessary*

the preparation ... 30 minutes before my first teaching stint ... butterflies almost gone ... just plain pumped ...
(1) re-arranged the seats
(2) checked and re-checked my materials
(3) wrote needed info on the white board
(4) put up materials that needs putting up on the board
(5) opened media player on my laptop and set up the track list with the conversations
(6) opened the aircon
(7) sat down and waited

the verdict ... i want to teach : ) ... i had sooooo much fun! i believe i was able to keep their attention - no small thanks to the games that i prepared ... i had an audience of 9 kids - 2 of them were boys ... they were a little rowdy but it was okay ... everyone cooperated ... and i think they had fun as well ... as for learning something - they were able to answer my questions during the game ... and that's *kul* enough for me : ) ....

here's my teaching turf ...

- wednesdi fright night -

chireh and i wanted to relax ... we felt that we needed it ... and so we came up with a "game plan" for tonight ... the goal - to be scared out of our wits ... the non-supernatural way (http://demensya.blogspot.com/2006/05/not-so-silent-hill-httpwww.html)

first stop, blockbuster and rented the following dvds -
* rockville slayer - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0389475/
* hostel - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0450278/
* texas chainsaw massacre - http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0324216/, we've actually watched this already and it's a "sure-fire winner" on the scaring category

next stop, city super and bought the following munchies -
* mixers cheddar
* lays barbecue
* butter crumble waffles
* cheese party pack - tomato, green pepper and ham flavor
* pinot noir wine

and then our fright night started ...

rockville slayer ... hmmm ... rockville slayer ... ho hum ... rockville slayer ... when the film started, we were saying that it's a B movie ... less than 15 minutes into the film, it became a C movie ... maybe even an F movie if there's such a thing - strawberry-colored blood, forced dialogues, irritating acting, slow plot, definitely negative on the scare-scale for this one ...

hostel ... we had high expectations for this film because quentin tarantino presented/produced it (i don't know which one it is) and he definitely didn't let us down ... the twist in the film is awesome! ... 3 guys stayed in this hostel which encourages "promiscuous behaviors" ... it was all fun and sex *of course :)* at first but as it turned out, the hostel is really just a "breeding ground" for soon-to-be slaves of a business called "elite hunting" headed by an aspiring surgeon who never got his dream kasi pasmado ang mga kamay nya ... what does elite hunting do? for a fat fee, it lets the "power trippers trip" and the "masters play master" - with all of their brutality ... magaling ... the film was well presented and yes, it does have the quentin tarantino touch all over it ... chireh and i were a little iffy about the title ... i mean, we expected that the actual killings will happen in the hostel e nde naman gnon ... well, we can't really complain since we can't think of a better title ... chireh: "surgery", aneh: "frustrated surgeon" .... hmm, baka mas ok yung "elite hunting" for the movie title ...

i guess it will be another fright night tomorrow - we've yet to finish the texas chainsaw massacre ...

- today's play-doh project -
http://www.flickr.com/photos/santos1978/271307118/

- mga mumunting pangarap 2 -

we've just celebrated the mid-autumn festival here in taiwan (http://www.chinavoc.com/festivals/Midautumn.htm) and our company gave each employee a 1K NT Sogo gift certificate ... i tried looking for some running shoes ... some shirt ... but i was not successful ... and then chireh and i saw this!

instructions are sooooo needed ... chireh and i were thinking, and kids at age 3 are supposed to be doing this??? :P

but we were able to make it work, finally! me with the "Über-pose" here in taiwan

chireh, with the "virginal pose"

and our final creation for the day ... bon appétit!

... one thing i've learned about play-doh - for kids, it may just be a toy but for adults, it can be therapy ...

- inconvenient devil -

i just got back from a "movie date" with farfetches and papa d ... we were supposed to see a film with socio-ecomonic political relevance ... "an inconvenient truth" starring al gore, which based on my search, talks about global warming (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0497116/ , i initially didn't know what the movie was about) ... but the show time was too late so we decided on "devil wears prada" instead ...

well, what can i say ... the film is cute ... feel-good kind ... plot isn't deep but as i said, it's cute!

i think anne hathaway is pretty even if she has this ever-present eye bags ... and by the way, i think that the character is not really different from what's in the princess diaries - you know, the simpleton who becomes fabulous but who stays grounded ... something to that effect ...

meryl streep was amazing ... she fits the "devil" character really well ... soooo her ...

after watching the film, i wanted to start losing weight ... go down to a size 4 from uhm, size 6??? hmmmmm, size 8??? whatever ... and then wear the clothes that anne hathaway got to wear ... well, most of them ... not all of them ... i think some were too much for me ... hindi ko kayang i-carry, in short : ) ...

- quintessential song for 2 days now -
this may sound cheesy but i just have to say it - beyonce rocks! : )

and veoh rocks for making this video available!

- working, away from the office -

one of the things that i like about my new job - definitely, a breath of fresh air for me - is that i can work anywhere i like as long as i get the task done on time and with good quality.

so, for a change of scenery, chireh and i decided to go to starbucks at renai and work from here ... for 500 NT, we got a one-month wireless connection (no limit) at any starbucks branch ... it's too bad that cameras are not allowed ... the view from where we are seated is relaxing ... it would have been really nice to take a snapshot of this moment ...

- just "plane" bored, oct 6, 2006 -

i'm blogging from the plane ... airplane ... jetstar plane bound to singapore ... no, not really blogging cause i don't have a connected pc right now ... but yes, i am blogging using my pen and a magazine ... what magazine? the complimentary magazine from jetstar. i don't have a clean sheet of paper but i'm bored out of my wits and i need to write something ... anywhere.

we - chireh, farfetch and papa d - left for taipei at around 630 pm i think. the pilot said that we'll arrive in sg at 1120 pm ... it feels like we've been travelling for ~4 hours now but when i asked papa d the time, it's only @##$*@ 840 pm!!! hay, we got a budget flight so there's no free food ... which is okay but i didn't expect that there will be no in-flight entertainment .. no tv! ... i'm not asking for individual sets ... you know ... the big projector screens will do me just fine. but why am i bitching? it's a budget flight, anne ... a budget flight. so there.

i brought a book with me ... wrong books. one is about living in balance telling me i'm asleep and a book on mythology. don't get me wrong, these are excellent books ... just not appropriate to alleviate my boredom. chireh and i ordered some nuts for 2usd. it was alright. i was entertained for a moment there but when the nuts were gone ... i'm back to being stone bored. i'm still bitching, am i? i'll stop that ... should i go to sleep? i don't want to sleep. i tried - in vain. baka dahil excited ako to see jeni ... hmm, i'll make a list! yes, i'll make a list on how to avoid being bored on budget flights *without disrupting other passengers, that is* ...

1. think about your purpose in this planet
2. look outside the window and wonder, "what is out there????" *recommended for night flights*
3. compute your chances of winning a lottery ... or compute the square root of 72,638,510,249,872
4. play spirit of the ballpen - don't know the game? ask me. but there's a catch, it requires at least 2 players
5. play spirit of the coin - see item 4
6. come up with a design for your own budget airplane
7. do interpretative dancing ... on your seat ... with or without music
8. order in-flight refreshments ... order a lot.
9. write on yourself ... example to follow.
10. stare into space

finally, we've arrived at changi airport, terminal 1 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Terence_Ong/Gallery/Changi#Terminal_1) ... this airport is nice ... not too-high ceilings but modern-looking, colorful, vibrant ... i love it ... if this place speaks of what to expect in sg, i'm definitely excited ... off to meet jeni now!!

note - after meeting jeni, we headed to our hostel - the inn crowd (http://www.the-inncrowd.com/hostel.htm) in little india ... the streets of sg are fabulous ... the architecture is amazing ... it was like travelling along a very, very big makati city ...

- my hero, oct 7, 2006 -
we started our day by looking for another place to stay ... the atmosphere of inn crowd didn't suit us ... we were expecting more - as an example, quoting what they said in their website - "personal moment in our country club styled toilets & showers" but that was soooo not the case ... the 3 adjacent shower rooms don't have a main door ... don't have individual drains ... 2 toilets are sharing one main door ... meaning, to go out of the second toilet, you have to go through the first one - literally go through the first toilet ... some more thoughts on these from my dear friend chireh - http://www.flickr.com/photos/santos1978/263126308/. so we transferred to madras hotel (http://www.madrassingapore.com/) where we got a family room - the five of us together in one room and we even have our own bathroom ... and it was clean and private ...

segue ako ... i like the "exotic-ness" of little india ... the buildings - low and colorful - definitely transported me to india : ) ... i know, i've never been there but i bet it has the same feel as this india in singapore ... the streets can be dirty but it didn't really diminish my appreciation of the place ... i am so amazed with their culture ... some men and a lot of women still wear their traditional garb ... they were celebrating Deepavali right now (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diwali) and it's so colorful ... what i've seen in their culture is full of color ... i soooo like it ...



before we got around the city, we had to "battle" the transportation system (i think this is normal whenever you visit a new country) ... sg has those vendo machines for mrt tickets ... and it took us a while to figure it out ... and it was like it's running windows 98 on a pentium 2 ... ok, i'm exaggerating ... but the fact still remains, the machine is slow ...
+

today's itinerary

(1) national museum - just saw the cartier exhibition ... the museum only had a soft-opening ... not much to see yet ... some of the cartier pieces were nice ... but most of them were .. hmmm ... too flamboyant for me ... no pictures allowed ... but here is the facade of the national museum ...

(2) lunch at a nearby food court ... many many choices!!!! ... i got a vietnamese grilled pork and jeni got a chicken biryani *need to find the picture*

(3) this isn't really a part of today's itinerary but it would explain the title - "my hero" ... hmmm, heroine??? i'll stick with hero :D ... jeni and i went to the restroom to wash our hands ... when we got there, there was this old indian lady in a wheelchair who was getting mad at everyone ... she wanted to use the toilet but there was no stall for handicaps ... soooo, she ordered 4 of us (jeni, me and 2 singaporean girls) to help her ... carry her and help her do her thing ... which happened to be thing number 2 ... the singaporean girls were scared and they were way too thin ... and the stall was small ... it ended up that only me and jeni were assisting the lady .... and later on, it ended up that only jeni was assisting the lady because 3 people can't fit inside the stall ...
i was soooo proud of jeni - how she handled everything .... she was calm and understanding and comforting ... the lady was scared that she might fall - she kept saying something like this in her high-pitched voice - "please don't let me fall ... please ... please hold me" .... and jeni just assured her and assisted her ... the lady was sincerely thankful ...

(4) singapore art museum - a lot of contemporary pieces and there were a number of filipino art work ... i can't help but feel proud ... one of them was called "kinupot" by edgar talusan fernandez was so moving ... it was a sculpture covered with a white cloth with silhouette of hands and feet *and head, i think* trying to "get out" of the cloth

(5) night safari (http://www.nightsafari.com.sg/index.html) - this was a blast ... closest i've been with wild animals ... their tram ride around the zoo is cool ... too bad none or our cameras worked because the lighting around the area is not really good and flash is not allowed ... and there this area where you can get way up close and too personal with bats ... creepy but fascinating ...

- hapi bertdi farfetches! -

^ we celebrated farfetches bertdi today ... together with papa d, chireh, mae and chris, we had dinner at this quaint moroccan resto called river side restaurant - http://riverside.network.com.tw/. it's located inside the taipei national university of the arts so after dinner, we walked around the campus. in one of their buildings, there's a really great view of the city ... by the way, i love the resto's mint tea/milk mint tea.

thanks papa d for the pix!

- i am now officially a techinical writer -
updated: *i was going through my blog when i noticed this ... i thought, "what the fffuccc" ... and here i am saying that i am now officially a writer and i can't fucking *pardon me* spell the word technical correctly??? what's up with that!*

wwweeellll, semi-officially, that is ... i've yet to create my own technical document and have it reviewed and have it mocked/praised *whatever the case maybe* ... but i've moved already and i personally think that's a start : ) ... here's my new working area -

thanks chireh for the help and the fiture!