central park..

..i miss you so.

dream a little dream

The weeks that passed since I got home from vacation was a blur. I had only about 2 days to catch up and then I was forced to get back to the groove again. It seems things got worse now at work, when the other unit I was supporting started having problems with their system as well. Last week I started staying later and later in the office again, just catching up with reports and other stuff the bosses asked from me. My lists of deliverables just gets longer and longer, it seems I don’t get anything done at all. I’m just glad though that I love the work that I do and the people I work with. So I don’t mind all of these that much.



The news of the week is Candy’s wedding. The ceremony and the reception afterwards were lovely…I hope it was everything that Candy dreamed of. I remember how we got to this day, Candy kept putting off preparing for the details of the wedding that I was the one panicking for her. Even our gowns as secondary sponsors were fitted about 3 weeks before the wedding! Thank God even if my gown was super tight at the waist it was still wearable. At the wedding, Pixie made me give an impromptu speech, much to my shock. I wish I had something prepared so that my message was more special, more from the heart. Once I’m up to it, I hope to write Candy a letter and tell her what could have been my speech.

I remember feeling sad about 2 weeks ago. I was telling a friend how after the trip to NYC I had nothing to look forward to anymore. And then she mentioned that there was Candy’s wedding. Now that was over too. Sigh. Now I need to plan something soon , something worth dreaming about again.

back to reality..soon

i'm dreading monday. monday means back to work. it's not really the work that i hate, it's the commute. i hate having to wake up early and standing in line to wait for the service. it's that part of my daily routine that i dread. obviously something has got to change. moving out to get an apartment closer to work is out of the question -- how else can i afford to go travelling again? and about getting a car...well that has to wait until i've paid off the bills i accumulated from this trip.

darn. i wish i live in a place where i can take the train to work.

sigh.

glad to be home

arrived in manila a few hours ago after about 24 hours of travelling from US. i'm still reeling from lack of sleep and fascinated and bewildered at the same time to notice that funky manila smell: mausok. i guess one only notices it after leaving the country for so long (as if). my brother was telling how good i smell, i guess i smell like a newly opened balikbayan box from US hehe.

anyways. i'm leaving in a few hours to go back to the airport TO GET MY LUGGAGE. something went wrong with the luggage compartment of our plane. either we we wait til 330 am (we arrived almost 11pm) or have our bags delivered to our house. the delivery option would've been ok but we have to authorize the airline company to open our luggages for inspection. a big no-no. i have bags there. as in bags i brought for myself and for pasalubong. good thing i placed the sport watches i brought for my dad and brother on my carry-on bag (thanks to the nightmare i had in new jersey about coming to manila and finding the watches stolen from my luggage). i so wanted to hit the pillow and sleep for hours and hours. looks like sleep has to wait.

finally

after weeks of waiting, i'm finally having my well-deserved and much-awaited US vacation. i'm now at my aunt's house in fort lauderdale and living the suburban life. i tell you, that "suburbia" song by pet shop boys plays on my head whenever we pull in and out of the drive way. i love it here, everything is clean and the streets are wide and no traffic jams! so far we've been downtown to los ojos and miami. the rest of the time we're out shopping. i think i spent half of my budget for shopping here in florida already, and i haven't been to most shops yet! yikes! and oh, we heard mass last sunday. everyone is old (at the mass at least). i was half expecting to see jerry seinfeld's mom and pop whenever i turn my head.

i've been keeping myself up to date with that swine flu scare here in US. it's bad that most of the cases are in NY, where i'm planning to spend 2 weeks of my vacation! i hope it doesn't get worse.

pictures soon.

Once more, with feelings

Once again I was present at the Eraserheads reunion concert. It was held last Saturday, March 7 at SM MOA concert grounds and was attended by an estimated 100,000 fans.

How do you like our new house? The 'Heads perform acoustic. Photo by: Dan&Neva

This concert wasn’t as surreal as the first one – that it started with spine-tingling “Alapaap” and that it ended with shocking news that front man Ely had to be rushed to the hospital right after the first set – there was none of that drama. If anything, “The Final Set”, as what the concert was called, was more relaxed and full of fun surprises. When the concert started with a fast song, “Magasin”, we all knew this one was going to be different. And it was. Ely was more engaged with the audience, he responded “kayo muna” when we shouted “group hug!” and when a man from the audience shouted “I love you Ely!” as Ely was singing the lounge version of “Kailan” Ely responded, “I love you too, pare”. More than that they showed how unpredictable they still could be as they were 10 years ago. They changed some of their lyrics, in “Magasin”: “ngunit pangit ka pa no’n…hanggang ngayon”. And in the already naughty “Pare Ko”, they added more, well naughty lyrics: “sabi nya, ayaw pa nyang mag-asawa, dehins ako naniwala…ayun pala, magaling lang sha sa kama…akala ko ay dehins pa.” That got us, the crowd, screaming.

Ely in excelsis: confetti showered upon the stage and on the crowd as the band played "Ang Huling El Bimbo." Photo by: ikissfootball

There were other moments during the concert that got us cheering and screaming like mad: Raymund standing next to Ely as they listened to us sing-along to “SloMo”, Marcus singing the reggae version of “Wag Mo Nang Itanong”, and at that part where Ely had us chant “Francis!” before he sang the chorus of “Kaleidoscope World” for his dearly departed friend FrancisM. If I may be candid, sometime while Ely was singing “Pare Ko” I started to cry. The song was sad in itself, and I was feeling nostalgic: here is the band that made songs that had become part of my teenage years. It felt a lot like saying goodbye and I wasn’t ready yet.

Thank you Ely, Raymund, Marcus, and Buddy for the 2 reunion concerts, for performing one last time as a band and for playing the songs we all loved. Those nights would never be forgotten.

Group Hug: We are the Eraserheads. Photo by Dan & Neva

the year that was

I didn’t have a life in 2008. Work was like a vampire that sucked me dry until I didn’t have energy left to do anything else. Airplane rides and beaches were traded for many long boring meetings. I had way too many midnight cab rides going home instead of road trips with friends. Weekends were gone, for my only free time was Sunday and it was spent sleeping in. 2009 promises to be a great year. If my plan pushes through I’ll be stepping inside a plane again flying half way around the globe taking a bite on a big apple. I can’t wait.