Category Archives: saintjamesacademy

Pictures from the Days of Our Lives

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I decided to clean up my room a bit after seeing what a mess it was. I was also planning on throwing out some old things I had since the time I came home from abroad 6 and a half years ago. Unfortunately, the things to throw out accumulated throughout that time and has proven to be a very difficult task to do. I have to dispose my broke 6 and a half year old Bombay drawer among other things.

But at the same time, I took this as a perfect opportunity to organizing my old high school photos and placed inside an album given to me by mom about 2 years ago (left untouched until now).

I then began to dig through my old stuff too look for those photos. I was able to found most of them but unfortunately, I can’t seem to recover some of those taken during my 1st and 3rd years in high school (Banahaw field trip and Biak-na-Bato trip respectively) as well as some Intramurals pics taken way back when I was in grade 6.

So far I have these photos taken during my year in Saint James:

Grade Six: Intrams pics including the one with Maviel in it, the one with Rob and Ms Zamora in it (uhm, make that two), and the assembly of pre-school kindergarteners gathering outside at the school grounds. Add to it is a photo of me, my siblings and my cousins just before we march on to my late grandmother’s wake at Concepcion, Malabon.

1st Year:  Pics taken during Intrams, including a 13-year old version of me: fat, chubby, and unphotogenic. This was when I gained notoriety of taking a lot of pictures on events like these.

2nd Year: This one was no different. Pics taken during that year’s Intramurals. They include the vain pictures of Maan, Onang’s critically-acclaimed artwork, and the popular freign exchange Louie Beltran boy, Raymund Anderson.

3rd Year: Besides the usual Intrams pics was the Araw ng Wika celebrations, which covers the contest wherein sections of all levels decorated their respective classrooms with the best depiction of any Philippine province assigned to them (ours was Pampanga’s Best). Oh yeah, that happened to be my birthday, the worst of my then 15-years of exsiting in this world. Condoling picture: the one taken from you-know-who. 😀 Best intrams pic would be the “magpinsan” photo taken from me and Louie! Yey!

4th: Grad pics. It was during this time that I switched from my Olympus TPS (traditional point-and-shoot) camera to a Fujifilm Finepix digicam and later, a Nikon Coolpix L2. I’m planning on printing some of my digital shots since those taken using a digicam could get lost easily. At least a photo lasts a lifetime (by way of negatives).
—-
Microcosm: Payat, nakilala mo na pala si Ellemaj/Jamelle! hehehe!

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The Complex

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        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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The CSB Experience 2: Shakey Sabado and a Silver-Filled Revelation

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Hahaha! What happened last Saturday was really weird! An Intensity 5 earthquake shook Manila for less than 20 seconds and minutes later we were called by the DO to get our things and go take the emergency way out (We were in the middle of watching a boring yet interesting renaissance art movie for Hartds2 in the 7th floor).

At the time before the earthquake was about to take place, i noticed that my seatmate, Dims, sensed a tingling sensation.  I asked him what’s wrong and…It happened.
The floor suddenly shook and it was moving back and forth from south to north. And I felt  las if surfing except I wasn’t.
And I was like:  “Ah…OoooooOOOOooooOOooooooohhhhhOOOooooOooooooHHH…….!!!”
That was like 2 minutes past 11 am.
By the way, I did mentioned in one of my recent blogs (Freecut Sabado…) that I’ve met one of my ex-batchmates from elementary as my classmate in Hartds2. Well here’s how it went on that day:
After we were told to get out of the building ASAP, I took the opprotunity to approach him and asked him if he is indeed the one I’ve been suspecting for a long time now. Considering that he only knew me when I was a newcomer in Grade Six and he’s about to leave SJA come first year high school, I have to introduced myself to him and remind him things that I’m sure my batch knew me about (the lost St. Mark dude after recess, the guy partner of Mavs who wore his school uniform as a costume for a special dance performance watched by the whole school, and “ang batang dinuraan ni Karmelo sa mukha habang nanonood ng laban ng SJA sa Notre Dame sa volleyball nung PE” among others). He did and we were all like “Ahhh…” and “Okay…” and “Asteeeg!”.
Can’t believe he doesn’t know me despite me seeing his face on multiple occasion as wll as the rest of the people I knew in highschool.
Later that afternoon, I found out that the earthquake’s epicenter was somewhere near Mindoro which recorded a 5.8 magnitude earthquake.
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Seeing is Believing

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I got to do this fast before finals ehehehe.

 

Okay, nagmamadali akong magsulat ng mga blog entries ko bago pa amn ako magsimula sa parereview para sa darating na finals next week so heto na iyung lowdown.

 

Nakakatawa iyung nangyari sa’kin habang pauwi ako noon nung Huwebes. Last day na ng mga 2 TH classes ko, Cathwor at Philien. Suwerte pa’t maaga na akong pinauwi after pinakita sa’kin ng prof ko sa Philien ang pre-Final grade ko, 88.

So yon, bumaba na ako, diresto sa may LRT gate ng CSB. Sabay akyat, labas stored-value ticket then nakasakay na rin kaagad sa tren.

Medyo masikip ang kinaroroonan ko dala na rin na maraming mga commuters sa oras na iyon ay pauwi na galing sa trabaho’t eskuwela. Wala rin akong maupuan sa nakatayo lang ako’t kamay ko ay nakahawak sa isang railing/hawakan. Para malibang sarili ko eh pinagmamasadan ko an lamang kung ano ang nasa labas ng bintana: mga gusali, sirang gusali, squatters, malls, at mga estasyon ng LRT.

Nung nagstop-over sa D. Jose iyung sinasakyan ko, e yon may nakita akong babaeng nakupo lang sa may isang pillar ng station, nagse-cellphone.May suot siyang Mapua PE t-shirt. Wala lang, gusto ko lang ipagmasdan. Pasara na rin angmga pinto ng tren so lumingon na ako sa pababalik sa kaharap kong bintana. Doon, biglang may nakita akong isang pamilyar na mukha..

Inisip ko muna kung sino iyon at nalaman ko na si Onang pala iyon. Sasakay na rin sana siya kaso sinaraduhan na ng pinto. Sayang! Naka-uniporme siya na pang CEU nung naabutan ko siyang pasakay na sana ng tren.

Ilang minuto ang lumipas at nakarating na rin ako sa Monumento terminal sa wakas. Lumabas ako mula sa katabi nitong mall, ang Ever Gotesco Grand Central (na bulok na). Pagkalabas ko eh pumunta na ako sa may pedestrian crossing lane. Habang nandoon ako may nakita rin akong isang taong napaka-pamilyar din ang itsura. Siyempre, dagdag na doon ang pagiging matangkad ng taong iyon ay iyung itsura niya ay diko matantsang matignan para at least malaman ko kung tama ang hinala ko.

Nakasuot siya ng pang-nurse na uniform at kulay itim na pantalon. Ang unang sumagi sa isip ko ay malamang si Karl ito. Mukhang tama nga hinala ko lalo pa’t since sumakay siya sa isang jeep na papuntang Malabon/Navotas sa harap ng Araneta Square.

Bihira lang ang mga ganitong pagkakataon, at kung ako ay nakaharap sa ganitong sitwasyon siyempre matutuwa ako dahil matagal ko na sila hindi nakikita. Sino pa ang hindi masaya na nagkita ka ng isang tao na lubos mong kilala ng matagal na panahon?

 

WAKAS

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