James’ Series of Unfortunate Events

Nge….Mukhanag malas ko ata ngayong Pasko. Sunday pa lang, nagiging masama na ang mga araw. Hindi ako sigurado kung baubuhay pa ako hanggang sa susunod na linggo.

  1. Sunday: May dumapo sa’king tae ng ibon sa buhok ko pagkapasok ko sa simbahan sa Malabon.
  2. Monday: Sinira ng bunso ko iyung Skullcandy headphones ko nung hiniram niya nung Sunday. Naghahalaga siya nang Php2k! Nung Monday ko lang nalaman
  3. Tuesday: Grace period, buti na lang!
  4. Wednesday: Bisperas ng Pasko, aksidente kong binasag isang lababo sa banyo ng ninang ng mommy ko sa Maysilo, Malabon. Isasara ko sana iyung pinto bago ako magbanyo kaso hindi ko napansin na may nakakabit pala itong hook na kailangan tanggalin bago isara ang pinto. Pagpilit ko pa lang na isara ang pinto, di sinasadyang nahatak ko ang nakasabit nitong lababo kaya nahulog ito at nabasag! Diyos ko!
  5. Thursday: Hay, Christmas na Christmas, nangyari na naman. TWICE! Kakain sana ako ng tanghalian nung family reunion namin kanina sa Malabon. Umupo ako sa isang plastic na upuan at nilagay ko pagkain ko sa isang maliit na plastic na mesa kasabay ng ate ko’t pinsan. I-addjust ko na lang sana sarili ko sa upuan nang nabangga ng mga binti ko ang mesa’t napahulog ang isang nakabukas na bote ng softdrinks (soda ko!). Natapon, kumalat sa mesa. Nangyari uli nnung pilit ko uli galawin sarili ko.

Jeco, mahal ba ako ni God?  Minamalas ‘ata ako ngayon!

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Reality and Dreams: Sleeptalking to DS

    It happened again.

     This occured around 2 or 3:30 in the morning after I went back sleep from closing the gates of our house after Ate left to join her choir for the traditional 9-Mornings Christmas Mass held in Malanday, Valenzuela.

   So I was in this building which I assume to be a school. I remember doing something which made my body move uncontrollably while I’m deep in my sleep. Suddenly, an old high school friend, Nikko DS, appeared and he was asking me a question. Can’t really remember what he asked me nor what I answered about (I get amnesiac a few minutes after I finally woke up). But how I answered him was what made me really fall of my bed!

     My mouth was moving, I was saying words, I mean intelligible words, speaking as if I’m actualy answering his question in real time. By that time I was doing that, I became aware that I was talking in my sleep! Don’t know how that happened but I felt very aware that this part of my body is moving upon orders coming from my brain.

    I woke up with a fright. Thinking, “Ano lang ba ang nasabi ko?”.

It’s been going on around me for quite sometime now, since my Prep days when I first discovered that I could sleeptalk as well as I could have strange premonitions when I’m sleeping.

Speaking of premonitions, I haven’t had any for the past few months or so but when an occurance happens in front of my face, it triggers something that somehow made me remember that I may have had a vision about it. But so far, there was none. My premonitions somehow makes me some kind of a psychic, can’t really foretell events but in a way knows that those premonitions may happen sooner than later. Record to date would be my “Oh my God I was in a place with 3rd Year High School students sitting on the floor and my Chemistry teacher is walking past them” vision last year which only took a day before it became a reality.

Until then, I will now put myself to SLEEP.

Goodnight!

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The Rolling of the Chairs

      Ironic, I’m already 18 years old but I’m still fond of rolling myself on wheel-powered chairs like a 4-year old boy, you know the ones you see on offices?

    Yesterday was no exception, we were at my mom’s temporary office inside the ECDP Building and the first I did was sit on a rolling chair. But it’s not just me, but a dozen other kids who were there for the annual Christmas party. Too bad, the party proper was held on Jollibee Harrison Plaza but nevertheless, it didn’t stop me from rolling like crazy.

    It’s really unfortunate that my old playground (my mom’s true office in the DOF building) is still under rehab until later next year. It has a large enough space for kids to play around with chairs.

HISTORY: (Loading history-buff mode)
 Blame me because I’m guessing it was me and the first generation of DOF kids who first introduced the idea of using wheeled chairs as play things. The new-found tradition was then passed by succeeding generation and is still pretty much alive today!

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The Complex

        Every year, me and my siblings would accompany my mom to the annual Children’s Christmas Party held inside the Department of Finance building. But for this year, the party was to be held, inside the ECDP building within the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Complex, for the DOF building is undergoing renovation after a massive airconditioning breakdown took place earlier this year, forcing the DOF to move its offices to the nearby ECDP complex.

    Fortunately, I get to see the wonderful exteriors of the complex itself. It’s BSP’s exterior which fascinates me more than its rather blant and unsafe looking interiors of its buildings. The exterior found within BSP is creatively planned and landscaped in good taste. There’s pretty much a lot of greenery found inside the complex which, added to that the wide space provided by the wide distance of the buildings between each other inside, gives people a sense of ease and sanctity with matching wind effect.

       A little piece of history I found unearthed is the ruins of what was remained of an old colonial fort called Fort Abad. Little do I know about this piece of old structure but other than the similar colonial arhcitecture it shares with the well-known Fort Santiago, it somehow gave Manilenyos an idea of what Manila was back then, as the whole stretch of Roxas Boulevard used to be one stretch of a beach extending all the way to Pasay and Cavite.
 
           The buildings are well designed on the outside, very reminiscent of the Marcos-era architecture propagated by Former First Lady Imelda Marcos. One design that caught my fancy was the almost shoe-box like layout of each of the buildings, similar to the design followed by SM North EDSA and SM Megamall. The DOF building and one of the BSP complex building are connected via a bridge which also serves as a facade for people preferring to walk outside of the buildings.

    Also an ergonomic plus are the availabiltiy of facilities/walkways for the physically-disabled like those who ride on wheelchairs.

     But that leads me to the worst part about the complex, its interiors. The ECDP building is probably the best case to highlight a design gone wrong. If it looks good on the outside, it’s not much of an eyesore (because unlike the DFA Building, it has a lot of green space), the inside is.

1. It smells like someone from 30 years ago smoked like crazy just before airconditioning units became the ideal alternative for electric fans.

2. The already-dim lighst are in dire need to repairs

3. Ventilation is rather mediocre or just below it.

4. The elevators looks like one of those deadly quadrelateral  killing machines seen on the movie “Hyper Cube” for it looks, feels, and functions in a very unsafe way.

5. The corridors/hallways is a blah. If you were able to watch old 1980’s movies starring Dawn Zulueta and Sharon Cuneta where they were working in as office girls, you may have ntoice that their working area is made out of wood. It’s the same here, except that the wooden walls are in dire need of varnishing to make them at least look shiny.

6. There are few offices inside the ECDP building’s 8th floor that looks so decent, but looking at my mom’s temporary office (Fiscal Policy and Planning Office) there, it kind resembles my mom’s previous office way before she moved to her proper office found at the more-tolerable DOF building. The only redeeming factors would be the sleek looking Fuji PC’s and the cool-looking office tables.

7. Don’t even start me up on the bathrooms, the male restroom is poorly maintained, smelly and lacks basic restroom necessities like soaps and tissue-filled containers. The sinks are supposed to be used for washing hands not washing dishes for crying out loud! And one of the sink doesn’t work because the leftovers brought by the washed dishes had all bt cloged it up.

8. Back to the hallways, the dim lighting and the wooden walls remind me of a psycho-horror thriller where the victim is being chased  by a killer while running on an endless hallway with nowhere to go.

Unfortunately, I didn’t brought my camera with me that time but I do have pics of the exterior from last Friday. Enjoy!^

Coming up next: The Rolling of the Chairs

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Jaime and the REAL EDSA Adventure

This is the aftermath of “Alyssa’s Place @ Merville Subdivision, 90210”.

     From the side road near SLEX/South Superhighway/Skyway; Me, Sheena, Pax, and Angie took a cab and drove all the way to South EDSA where I was dropped off. I had my dSLR and my laptop left behind in Alyssa’s since it was late and I might get mugged by criminal elements.

        Anyway, from the south side of EDSA, I crossed the avenida by way of the overpass which is kinda difficult. I have this sort of fear of heights except that I’m afraid of wide open spaces whenever I’m in the middle of a bridge, fearing that I might fall. I could even feel my legs trembling! Hahaha!

    After successfully crossing the overpass, I waited patiently near a gas station to hitch a ride on an aircon bus en route to Caloocan. It was already late past 11 and i getting a bit cold. Fortunately, I was able to ride one and seated at the front row near the aisle.

      The bubs’s radio is set on 90.7 Love Radio where it was airing this not so-heart-to-heart program called “TLC: True Love Confessions”. Supposedly, the programs premise is for listener’s to share their love problems to the DJ and the DJ would give them love advice. Problem is, instead of giving listeners an advice about love, the DJ merely laughs AT the listener and his problems with matching laugh stingers in between!

 And I thought advice programs on radio aren’t supposed to be comedic in any way. Grrr….

         In order for me to at least drown my ears from further hearing the halakhak that was coming from the irritating DJ’s mouth, I had my headphones placed on my….head and turned on my I-Pod.

    As I listen to the first 14 songs from my playlist, the bus is moving along the 23.8 kilometer stretch of Epifanio delos Santos Avenue. I passed by Rockwell, Shaw, Robinson’s The Forum, Paragon Plaza, Reliance, Shangri-La, SM Megamall, Farmer’s Market, Gateway, Araneta Center, Cubao, Quezon Avenue, Trinoma, SM North EDSA, the ongoing construction of the LRT-MRT Loop, and finally MCU where I dropped myself off and walk across McArthur Highway. I bought some mineral water from Ministop Monumento since I was really thirsty. The supposedly “water” contained on a glass untouched during the party was in fact, Sprite.

       From there, I finally took a jeepney ride home, arriving at 12:30 in the am.

BTW, tumawag sina Pax para kamustahin ako habang nasa bus pa ako, at tinext nila ako nung nakauwi na ako’t matutulog na. Salamat at may mga kaibigan akong maasahan talaga! 😀

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I Saw the Sign

       Early this morning, just when me and my family arrived in time for Mass, we went inside the church and were about to take our seats. Somehow, out of nowhere, I felt something fell on my head, something that had landed on my hair. Using my right hand, I tried to feel whatever was on my hair. As I removed my hand from my head and took a good look at it, I almost yelled after what I saw: “Yaaak! Bird Poo!”

     Yuck! I just can’t believe it! Of all the places and of all the people that bird could have placed his “gift” to, why ME?! Good thing my mom had those wet tissue wipes so i could clean my hand and my hair. Boy, was it so creepy having a bird befall on you its manure!

    Then again, I look at the incident on a different viewpoint. Somehow, it came as a blessing in a nasty kind of disguise, a sign from God. Earlier, I was having second-thoughts whether or not to attend the funeral of my cousin’s lolo, humbly called “Grandpa” by Ate Lora and her siblings, that was to be held in Heritage Park in Taguig. In a way, the “poop” incident somehow made me decide that I won’t be joining my parents, Ate, and Jorge to the funeral after-all.

Sooner after, me and my Kuya went home, ordered some Jollibee take-out and had my hand and hair washed clean.

What a weird and nasty sign God gave me, don’t you think?

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Tech Problems

Mukhang nagkakandarapa sa aking mga braso ang sangkatutak na tech problems.

1. Ayaw gumawa ng album para sa mga bagong uploads ang Multiply Photos
2. Ayaw magstreaming na naman ang Quicktime (Error -2048)

At least eto ung pinaka-main problems na hinaharap ko. Ang ginawa ko:

1. Kinontak ko customer service ng Multiply, sabi nila, gagawin nila ang lahat kanilang makakaya kaso hassle talaga kasi ang dami kong mga litrato na kailangang i-upload at siyempre puwede naman sa facebook kaso 60 pics at a time siya per album habang may hangganan kada buwan ang sa Flickr. Di gaya sa Multiply na quantity is no longer a question (as for quality, it comes with a price).

2. As for Quicktime, hindi ko ito maintindihan. dati ung Error -2**** ang pinoproblema ko pero after rebooting, okay na. Ngayon, heto naman Error -2048 ang nakakabuwisit talaga! Sinubukan kong i-reinstall uli Quicktime pero mukhang may problema: Hindi na available sa Mac OS X 10.4 ang current Tiger version ng Quicktime kasi hanggang version 10.4.9 na lang siya. Kainis! Solution is for me to have to have a total software update on Mac OS X Version 10.4 para maging compatible na siya sa bagong version ng Quicktime and other similar programs. Kung hindi ko to magawa in ASAP, di na naman ako makakainig ng online streaming on the safety of my laptop every again!

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Na-USTe Ako!: Kay Tagal Kitang Hinintay/Si Jeco Na-USTe!

After card distribution last Friday, I decided to accompany Jeco and Raymond in UST for the annual Paskuhan, a Christmas fair held every year in the Pontifical University. In the past weeks, us three had already agreed as to when we’re going to meet up in UST and this is one is a perfect time to do so.

                I left for UST at around 6pm and texted Raymond that I’m on his way. By the time I arrived at Dapitan before 6:30 (After meeting some groovy traffic along the way), I noticed that I’m running out of cellphone load so I went to a nearby loading station to reload, unfortunately, the lady there said they’re loadless, the same with Ministop Dapitan which, unfortunately, doesn’t sell cellphone load.  I don’t want to ask my mom again for additional load after I exhausted the reload I got from the day before.

             I texted Raymond that I’m already in the Dapitan gate so from there, I waited. Unfortunately, Monde didn’t reply to my succeeding text messages as I was waiting for almost half an hour. I decided to look for a loading station within the Thomasian ground, at their famous food strip by the carpark. I paid the reload lady Php 20.00, told her my number and simcard affiliation. Again, for some reason, I haven’t received any text afterwards and my existing load continues to deteriorate.

         The ground itself is jam-pack crowded with people that kept coming in, including outsiders like me. Not just outsiders but also missionaries asking for donations and little carolers trick-or-treating people nearby.

       I was about to give up until I saw at least, one Jamer in the area, Von. Von was with his girlfriend for almost three years. I asked if he had seen Jeco or even Raymond, and he did. But the bad news, it seems like nakakawalaan kami.  It was already past 8 and if the two aren’t able to show up before a quarter until 9, I have to leave.

               I was seating in bench at the quadrangle and I was facing the entrance of the Faculty of Civil Law. Seated with me was a girl with her boyfriend. Because I’m so desperate, I politely asked her if I could borrow her phone to text Raymond, urging her that it’s an emergency.  She lend me her cellphone and texted him right away. When that didn’t work, I went around  to look for them. Von saw me again and said that he just saw Jeco and Monde and pointed them where I  was just then. Coming back from where I was seating, looks like there’s n certainty if we’ll ever see each other so I looked for another person whom I could borrow a phone and, this time, call Raymond. Just as I was calling them, nagkita na kami, grabeh!

It was already past 9pm and I still haven’t eaten dinner. Just so we won’t spoil the night, we watched the ongoing concert at the UST soccer field where the last act for the evening was none other than BAMBOO!! Jeco and I brought along our dSLR’s and took pictures like crazy.

 

         The concert was over at around 10:30, people were starting to leave pero kumakalam ang aking tiyan. We went to McDonald’s within USTe and bought myself double-cheeseburger, a large cup of Coca Cola for myself and another for Jeco who gave me money for his royal thirstiness.

                Outside the Dapitan gate, we were fetched by Monde’s parents who were waiting for us, parked near an old Caltex/Chevron station. Monde’s parents drove past H. Lopez Avenue,  Radial 10 Road (near Letre) and dropped Jeco near the infamous SSS office (where there was a shootout that took place a couple of years ago). I was then dropped somewhere near the loading area of jeeps en route to Monumento in Concepcion, Malabon. I took a jeep ride until dropping myself off near Francis Market, Acacia and from there took a jeepney ride en route to Paco, Bulacan (instead of Polo, Valenzuela for there were none available at the meantime). I dropped off in Panghulo (still in Bulacan) and from there, walked to cross the border before arriving finally at my house past midnight!

 

Remember: There may be One La Salle, there’s also One BENILDE!

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