my problem now is what to do with them: i’ve bought a bodybag this year (of the same color), which looks to be much more serviceable than the company-issued one; i’m currently using a starbucks tumbler, with several other tumblers (seattle’s best, disney) gathering cobwebs at home.  and as a souvenir for watching the blueman show, i got myself knapsack/shoe bag, just barely 3 months ago!

not that i’m complaining, i know there are people who don’t get bonuses and stuff, so i’m extremely thankful for that, i just find it (worth blogging?) exasperating that i might not be able to put these goodies into good use after all.

at least there’s always next year.  if only christmas bonus are given every month…

seems like most of my mishaps recently has got to do with contact with water. yesterday’s did not exactly start with water contact problem (i mean, i took a bath, and nothing bad happened!), however during the span of the day lots of bad luck happened culminating with – what else? – a watery conclusion.

i guess enumeration would be the best way to dole it out:

- woke up later than i intended.  i was planning to go to the office to complete some unfinished business, but given the time that i woke up, and the plan for the evening, there’s no way to push through with the plan.

- forgetting to charge my cellphone.  only 4 out of 6 bars.

- miscommunication with kyashi. we again originally planned to meet earlier as we want to get to the 8pm e-heads reunion concert in fort boni asap since that’s the only way we’ll be near the front row (we only got patron tickets).  we met in trinoma at 6:30pm.

- not getting to see e-heads perform. well at least that’s what i’m going to say to anyone who asks me how the concert was.  from our vantage point, we (i mean i, since i think kyashi didn’t even catch a glimpse!) can only see ely and the gang for just a few seconds every maybe 5 minutes, with all the people waving hands, or jumping up and down, or basically just having tall heads blocking the view.  before we went in i heard someone said, miss may ticket kayo? kami wala.  with the amount of live e-heads that we saw, it looks like the tambays outside got the better end of it.

- not being able to record lightyears on video.  my favorite e-heads song! for this one i really felt bad, because i had been planning on this the whole day. just when we decided to get some drinks and move to the sides, the band performed the song. worse, it turned out to be the last song they performed for the night!

- concert getting cancelled halfway as ely was rushed to the hospital.  more on this on a future posting.

and finally,
- going home to sampaloc via taxi, only to find it raining in the area and the roads impassable.  that was already past 1 am.  since i cannot force the cab driver to try passing through the flood, having experienced doing that before myself, i asked him to drop me off at the nearest 24 hour establishment, which turned out to be a mcdo near banawe. i waited for the rain to subside (around 1:45am) and gave the water time to drain.  by 2:15am i was on the move again.  i rode the jeep, only to have it drop the passengers near maceda due to the still flooded roads.  i stood outside the ministop shop for 30 minutes, while waiting for the water level to lower.  when some puvs started pushing through the water, i rode another jeep, whose driver suddenly decided to pass through a different, much farther route (good thing it had to pass through lacson, so i was able to alight there).  with the water lower, and no jeep to tayuman in sight, i decided to walk the last few blocks (~1 km) home.  of course, it turned out that the water near the lacson-espana intersection is still flooded ankle deep! feeling tired and resigned, i folded my pants and decided to wade my way through (what good folding my pants did i don’t know, the water went knee deep near dapitan, my pants still ended up wet).

if it’s any consolation, i found a trike willing to drive me through the flooded stretch of dapitan for a measly 20 bucks.  that was already past 3am.  also, i was half expecting my wallet or my camera to come off my pockets and find their way to the murky waters the whole time, fortunately, they didn’t.

depressing, isn’t it?  right now it got me thinking that it’s not even september yet, more typhoons are to be expected, more bouts with water i’m surely going to lose…

don’t crabs live in water?!

i’ve just received my internal jlpt score, and while it is more than what i expected (especially since i was not able to study, and that the night before the exam i spent the wee hours creating a monthly report!), i didn’t get the least bit elated.  i’m really not that confident that i am almost at the 二級 level (yes, my career high stil does not meet the company target!).  my main concern is that i could not really speak nihongo when the need arises (as compared with some of the people here).  i really wouldn’t mind my score if not for how some view the meaning of its value.  unfortunately, i believe there are those who would think that since one is able to get a certain amount of score, one should be able to read, write, and speak in a certain level.  the life of a japanese-owned company employee.

on the bright side, my ever-increasing score disproves my idea that i can’t progress with my japanese.  progress is slow, yes, but at least there’s still progress!

これからも頑張ります！

thanks to an officemate of mine, we were able to purchase the laptop for only (?) php25k flat. add 900 for converting the ram into 2gig, and we got ourselves one hell of a deal.

more of a luxury than a need (rich man’s replacement for the ds?), although the initial idea why we bought the mini-note was so that i can have a means to contact kyashi when i go to my us vacation in september. however for the 9 days that we own the eeepc, i’ve only used it for maybe 4 hours tops! now i wonder if i’ll really be bringing it to the us with me…

photo courtesy of the asus site. i forgot to take a picture of kyashi and the black version of the eeepc.

during the time when i was blogging heavily (relatively), i was not really concerned on how many people get to read my posts, rather, for my reason for starting one were rather personal (as part of my gift to kyashi). and it being therapeutic and an answer to boredom contributed too. it might sound like i am writing for an audience (although i’m not sure, i’ve yet to re-read my posts), but i can say it’s more of due to writing style (or lack of creativity or talent to write better). nevertheless, i wouldn’t mind if somebody do get to stumble upon this corner, but still no one would find me advertising it away. :p

i’ve nothing against people who count the hits on their blogs. in fact, i admire them in that a lot of people reading their posts can only mean they have a lot of sense and ideas to share and that people enjoy what they are sharing. i’m taking note of this so that in the future, when i begin to look back and reread my blog and begin asking myself how come i didn’t share it with people, i will be reminded of why i originally decided to do this.

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finally found the time to blog again! after months of promising myself to write, my schedule finally gave me a chance!
hopefully this can continue for a while.

the picture was taken on our last outing before i go home to the philippines for good. special thanks to momo-chan for planning and reserving and doing everything to make this happen.

i don’t know why i’m smiling there, after the countless times of falling down the practice ski slope, while everyone from the group had completely traversed the course at least once. some even had the courage to try the actual 2 kilometer course, but my knowledge of my ability overcame whatever courage pride can come up with, and i stuck with the easy (?) slope the rest of the day.

it was an enjoyable experience nonetheless (maybe that’s why i was smiling in the pic!). i might have been the worst skiier here, but at least there’s still basketball to look forward to this thursday!

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for the actual picture, visit the ski resort’s site here. for the personally-taken pictures, check our multiply site, although i haven’t uploaded them yet.

alas, my poor memory does not allow me to remember most of what happened to these vacation trips! to everyone who’s been wondering why i didn’t pursue medicine, now you know why!

1990 (april, may) – US (new york, new jersey, philadelphia, orlando, virginia, california, nevada)
  – Canada (ontario)
circa 1996-2003 – Hongkong (< 5 days)
  – Singapore (< 5 days)
  – Malaysia (1 day)
2003 (may) – Thailand (bangkok)
2005-2007 – Japan (inuyama, kyoto, osaka, tokyo, nagano)

hope i can add to this list sometime soon!

my search results were nothing i expected! but i can say firmly, we do not look alike at all!!!

and no, this is not kyashi speaking.

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see horikita maki in wikipedia.

did you know that the dates 4/4, 6/6, 8/8, 10/10, 12/12 and the last day of february all fall under the same day?

cool!

who said you don’t learn something new at work?