we just came home from pangasinan (ako, mom n dad). i'm still tired but satistfied anyway... because it was my first and last out-of-town trip for this summer! *hmmmph*. we went there just to attend my nephew's baptism (i'm actually one of the ninangs!) but since the reception was held at a resort... the whole celebration was a vacation for me at the same time!

we stayed at PTA resort-- san fabian, pangasinan. the beach isn't really THAT exotic (compared to other beaches i've been to...) but the sunset is as perfect as in manila bay. last night wasn't so perfect though. i remember... the last time i went there, the sky was mixed orange n purple. the sky last night was just plain red. grrr

isn't he cute?! his nickname is RED. o diba... sounds chickboy! i really love babies! aw! gusto ko na rin magka-baby!!! (seryoso!)

current mood: tired

Yesterday was a super looong day (ngayon lang ako magkekwento kase natulog ako pagdating na pagdating sa bahay kahapon….. hehe… delayed na nga, parang repetition pa nung kay charles! But anyway…) NBI CLEARANCE… Nung morning, I was quite pissed coz my name is in NBI’s database so I had to go back there on May 2 to get my NBI clearance. Buti nalang ganon din nangyari kay Bev, or else nagfreak out na naman ako… or cguro sira na naman buong araw ko (mabuti may kadamay!) but still… kakaasar kase that means I have to go back at Carriedo just for that. Kala ko naman kase, in 30mins may NBI clearance nako ---like abro and mae. Well, dapat ganon... but since may kaparehas ang Aleydis Cabrera, I have to go back! tell me, is my name common that it could possibly match a criminal's name? Ung Beverly Ng cguro pwede pa. grr... weird. baka nga may napatay ako before, di ko lang alam! haha) SCHOOL DOCS... after that.... (after I accomplished nothing in NBI...) we went back to school to pay for our transcript of records and to get our alumni card. one week after grad pa pala makukuha yon? tapos I didn't know na same day pala ung pic taking. so shempre... after masagap lahat ng init and pollution ng manila... ta-dah! pinicturan ako for the alumni card! o diba... wasted look! aargh. when I was there, I remembered how my pic was taken for my DLSU ID. when I entered the ID room (wow, that was 4 years ago!), nakasmile nako... kase previous to that, my friend warned me that the whole process will be so fast that you won't even notice that your picture has already been taken. haha.. so I looked stupid while entering... mukhang wasted, yet naka-smile althroughout! I was not in such mood yesterday so sinabihan ko ung babae dun sa DLSAA office -- "ms, mag-count kayo ha!" hehe... movie: GUESS WHO... after lunch, we watched guess who at RP. we were 7 (ako, aldrich, bev, charles, penpen, ebs and marcy. iba talaga pag biglaan ang plano!). sobrang funny but it had some similarities with meet the fockers... kase it's all about the girl's parents meeting their son-in-law. nice movie though!! I actually liked it more than wedding date. uy there's one line in the movie that I can't forget: you are everything I'm not. sweet! I don't know why basta for some reasons, I found it sweet (and really striking. hehe) tapos there's another... I can't remember what it was exactly and in which part it was said... basta it's like I don't care if im white and she's black.. what matters is that we love each other. parang ganon. I can't forget the line kase after it was said, feeling ko at the back of my mind, may "rebuttals" ako. haha... wag na nga... it's just Ledaism. MOSAIC LOUNGE... Aldrich invited me to attend their "mid-week service" at greenbelt (it's called resoul pala). ininvite na rin nya si charles since he was with us the whole afternoon. we went there around 6pm. Since aldrich had to attend a meeting first, he left us at the mosaic lounge--that's just in greebelt 1, right in front of national sports grill. It's a super cozy place... perfect for those who want to kill time! it's like power books and figaro combined. while we were waiting for aldrich, a lady approached us... her name is ate joji (though aldrich called her tita joji pala...).ang bait nya kase she gave us tea for free! ang sarap pa ng tea... mine was mint while charles' was masala chai. tita joji also didn't know what the latter was so she researched on it through google. hahaha! (yup, mosaic lounge has computers too. astig nga ung setup e.. kase lcd ung monitors, hanging from the ceiling. u won't see the cpu, and everything else's wireless.neat!!!) we found out that masala chai isthe combination of indian spices and vanilla. I love her! she's so cool! super na-enjoy ko talaga ung stay ko sa mosaic lounge. actually, it's my second time to see the place but it was only yesterday when I got to hangout for a long time. maybe starting next month, i'll stay there after work just to skip rush hours! service that ended up in TIMEZONE... aldrich has been inviting me a long time ago... it is only yesterday when I said yes pero... the aircon in greenbelt cinemas didn't work so resoul was cancelled (I guess the midweek service's not meant for me! hehe jk). so... we ended up in timezone g4. we played basketball... tapos charles and aldrich played air hockey (at pati... dance dance. hmm, can u imagine?). saya naman! I wasn't that frustrated kase naenjoy ko naman lahat simula pa lang sa mosaic lounge! we spent the rest of the night at food choices... nagkwentuhan ng nagkwentuhan until 9.. tapos un.. umuwi na kami. aw! what a day... sana maulit !(wag sana maulit ung hassle sa NBI)

current mood: pleased

MEMORIZED KO NA BY HEART:

Interviewer: Tell me something about your thesis, HelloPol.
Leda:  HelloPol is an adaptive political conversationalist, capable
of conversing with users using English. The dialogues of the system rely on
political newspaper articles entered by the user. The system is adaptive
because… blah blah (mwehehehe.. I got this from the thesis abstract)

Interviewer: In layman’s term.. HelloPol is…?
Leda: a… chatbot. (toink… one word explains all)

Interviewer: How big was your contribution to it?
Leda: About 30% (tapos di pinagusapan, un din pala sinasagot ni Elaine
and Paul. That means… uy wala ako iniimply ha! lugi lang yung pang-apat na
member at /100 lang ang ibig sabihin ng percent. hehehe)

Interviewer: What did you learn from your OJT?
Leda: I learned how to convert binary files to jpg/gif… and how to send
these to an mms mobile phone through java mail. (…and I learned that I could
work perfectly with the absence of my colleagues...)

Interviewer: what kind of job are you expecting?
Leda: Anything that involves software developing. So that’s …programming,
testing and documentation. BUT not purely documentation or purely testing.
Purely programming is okay. I’m also expecting a job where I could improve my
technical skills… so this means I don’t want the same job for one year….

Odd response from the guy in TeraSystem: you really are a woman! (ano tingin
mo, lalake ako?) women always say that…. Babae ka tlga… babae ka talaga…. (ooh..
I didn’t know that women are like that…)

Interviewer: you came from a family of doctors right? why didn’t you take
up medicine?
Leda: Because…. I hate memorizing scientific terms.

ETO NMN, FROM TERASYSTEM LANG....

Interviewer: When you created Sapatos online, how many tables did you use
for your database? Around 50…40…? How many?
Leda: Uhm…. 5 to 7. (ooops. ST dude here)

Interviewer: Which one do you prefer: mainframe or client?
Leda: Client (with a confident tone. Tapos isip.. ano difference nung
dalawang un? Haha di ko alam!)

Interviewer: Why are you scared of mascots?
Leda: The first time grimace appeared to me, I freaked out… I was so
shocked to see a super unnatural figure.  I still get the same feeling whenever
I see mascots…

kase ganito yon, before the interview, they’ll give u a form that has about
30 phrases that you have to complete. Some of these were the following:

I am scared of ___
My friends do not know that I am scared of ____
I wish I could remove my fear of ___

In all three, I answered “mascots”. Hahaha nacurious tuloy ung guy

 
Anyway………………. wala lang... sharing lang... I’m so tired of interviews… I have to
choose one now, I guess that’s CAI-STA…

 

matagal na namin pinagtatalunan 'to ni betz: sabi ko, ung kamay nya e mukhang kamay ni obi! sbi naman nya di daw nya talaga kamay un. alanganamang kamay ni obi nasa bewang ko!?! nandeska!!! gawan daw ba ng skandalo. ibig sabihin nawawalan ng kamay c betz? hahahaha! tingnan nyo mabuti! (got this pic from apany's cam)

yup I know, super delayed na tong kwento ko. I promised myself though that I'm gna post this so ikekewento ko parin...

we spent the holy week at sagada (family). I tell you... It's so beautiful that in fact, it made me say for the first time that Surigao isn't the best (among the Phil provinces I've been to, so far). Being there is like being in an enchanted place where you would definitely forget your problems. ndi to exaggerated! Visit Sagada so u would understand what I’m saying :D

ECHO VALLEY. There’s noting extraordinary with echoes actually (though astig kase bumabalik kahit anong sound after 2 secs). What makes it cool is the valley itself… you have to trek uphill before you reach it. You may either pass through a not-so-steep slope, or through a hilly cemetery. Either way, you have to pass through the rocky and steep pathway in order to reach the best spot for hearing echoes. The “valley” isn’t really a valley. It’s a cliff edge where you couldn’t make a wrong step, definitely. It is faced with mountains made of solid rock (that’s why sounds can bounce back and forth). The peak of the hilly cemetery is a big cross, or the 14th station of the cross (the 1st-13th can be seen if you will pass through the not-so-steep slope). Astig kase parang pang-penitensya. Hehe.. kase of course by the time you reach it, you are already tired and dirty!

nyway, few meters after the cross, you would see hanging coffins protruding from the mountain beside it (one of the mountains na sinabi ko kanina, yung gawa sa solid rock). I’m wondering how igorots were able to do that. How can you place a coffin on a 90-degrees standing rock, and how can you let it hang for more than a hundred years? Astig talaga! Sayang ngalang coz I didn’t bring binoculars. We could have seen it more clearly. So sa mga pupunta pa lang, don’t forget to bring binoculars. Hehe..

KILTEPAN. The best place to view the rice terraces. We went there early in the morning (good Friday) good thing I wore double socks and bonnet. It was extremely cold there! In fact, umuusok bibig naming habang naguusap. Again, you’ll hike a little. For this, you also have to trek downhill on a quite steep path in order to get the best spot for picture taking :D

fashion victim.

LUMIANG (Burial Cave). If kiltepan is level 1 and Echo Valley is level 2, this one’s level 3! (level of difficulty pinaguusapan dito ha) this is a cave where ancient igorots situated coffins … coffins with mummified bodies inside (tingnan nyo ung solo pic ko! behind me are coffins). Before you reach this place, you have to trek downhill (again..) the path is rocky and quite slippery because of the dried pine tree leaves. Rocks are far away from each other and same as before, a wrong step will lead you down the cliff! My legs were shaking the whole time. Either sa gutom or takot. Hehe. The hardest part is the one nearest the cave’s mouth. You have to pass through super large rocks which are slippery. Bawal may rayuma! So too bad for my dad… after painstakingly trekking for 15 mins, di rin sha nakapasok sa cave. Aw! Anyway, as I’ve said, what you’ll see inside are coffins. They’re made of solid pine wood that’s why they’re still preserved. They’re all stacked up to the top of the cave, and take note ha, they’re all unlocked. Freeeaky. You cannot completely go inside the cave coz it’s going down and it’s really dark. I described it as “parang papuntang impyerno” seryoso, kakatakot! The exciting part is that we didn’t get a tourist guide for it (sumabit lang kami sa isang tour group. Hehe) there were 2 kids with us …and 2 senior citizens.. mwehehe, but we all managed to go down unharmed.

BOKONG FALLS. now this one's level 4! this is a small falls (as how they call it...) situated right beside a "rice terracy" spot. you also have to hike downhill BUT this time, there are less rocks (dry soil instead) so sobrang dulas! and the pathway isn't continuous...may mga spot na walang aapakan... sa bangin ang deretso. anyway, after trekking downhill, what you'll see is really breathtaking! small falls and small lagoon just at the foot of a rice terrace. sulit ang pagod! next time I go there, sana makaswimming ako kahit na malamig. we took a shortcut going back to the main road. hay, shortcut nga pero mas mahirap! nagbalance kami sa rice terraces (may parts na malalaking bato huhulugan) tapos mas steep ung inakyat namin. though super sarap ng feeling once u finish it! hehe

yun lang napuntahan namin... but there are other things that I enjoyed. yung lamig, syempre. and the food! everything's fresh, and goes perfectly with mountain tea/mountain coffee. sobrang bitin ung stay namin sa sagada. there are about 20 adventure spots pero apat lang napuntahan namin (may kids and lolos kase e!). i'm gna make sure na babalik ako dun. di pwedeng ndi!!!

current mood: hyper

I've been hearing a lot about the book.. and it was only last night when i was able to read it (good thing my sister left hers at home yesterday). it really is a good book! tama sabi nila.. once you start reading it, mahirap nang bitawan! yup it happened to me.. i started reading at 9:30... and i finished it at around 12mn even though sobra antok nako. it gave so much insights about life. nakakatuwa pa kase it seems like half of it was written for me alone. I was so struck by Morrie's "aphorisms".

One of his cliches that I can't forget was when he said that if you want to let go of an emotion, admit or acknowledge that you are holding such emotion (in that chapter about emotions. i forgot which tuesday was that). for example, you can never let go of jelousy if you keep on denying that you are jealous of someone/something. in the same way, you can never let go of a frustration if you do not admit to yourself that you have been frustrated. sinabi na sakin 'to dati ni kittie, when i had probs in letting go. now i remember... it came from tuesdays with Morrie.

wala lang... i just can't forget the line. maybe i'm in such dilemma again. hahahahaha! now i know why i am still stubborn about an "issue". er.... whatever it is... sikreto nalang yon. I just wna share na na-struck talaga ako sa mga sinabi ni Morrie.. not just by the aphorism about emotion, but by everything that Morrie said!

read the book! ang ganda!

current mood: awake

our thesis group decided to play tennis (doubles) this week tapos... BIG FRUSTRATION! sarado yung tennis courts sa Rizal kase daw, under renovation for the coming sea games! err.. frustration talaga. sobrang sabik pa naman nako maglaro ng tennis! the last time i played was four years ago... and i used to love that sport so much that sometimes, ginagabi nako ng uwi from school dahil lang don.

anyway......... nag 'plan B' nalang kami. we decided to play badminton instead... sa sports complex! Astig kase everything turned out to be more fun... kase aside from badminton, naglaro rin kami ng table tennis (o ha.. naging ibang racket sport ang nilaro namin. hehehe). and earlier than that, we played basketball... nung inaantay pa namin si elaine. parang ang siga pa kase ako lang babae na nandon tas nung dumami na ung mga di kilalang guys, umalis nako. hahaha!

tapos naligo kami ni elaine sa sports complex (paul and emman left early). effect: 830 pm palang, tulog na kami! ever since nagstay kami sa condo, eto na ata yung pinakamahaba naming tulog! hahaha! now i remember what paul said while we were playing badminton.. "parang may mali na nandito tayo sa sports complex... parang dapat natataranta tayo..." hahaha! i understood the line even more nung nakatulog kami ni elaine ng 10 hours. hahahaha!

still, ok lang yon for me... kase diba exercise removes stress. ano ba naman ang one-day exercise (nagj-justify si leda...)

current mood: pleased

sa dami ng namamatay, i feel like i don't have the right to whine anymore. kaka-guilty... kase madali ako magreklamo lately (thesis.... y this thing seems to destroy my vacation). but come to think of it, this is nothing compared to the challenge being faced by most countries in asia now. i'm 100 times luckier coz i have a warm blanket to keep me comfortable. we have a roof. we have plenty of food on the table. and best of all... i see my parents everytime i wake up in the morning. thank God! naaalala ko ung ketchup lady. just as in that moment, God teaches me now to see the beauty of life (kahit may thesis and parang stop muna sa social life) :D

current mood: grateful

DON'T READ THIS ENTRY if u're still planning to watch the movie!

astig ung pagiging bakla ni eric quizon. so far, he's the best actor for me (i haven't seen other MMFF entries though... hehe). kris aquino's acting was just fine. sakto kase yung role nya sa totoong buhay so parang there's nothing extraordinary in it. kulet nung part na sumasayaw sila sa bed... mas malandi pa si eric quizon kay kris! tapos funny yung part na hinawakan ni eric ung boobs ni kris. nung napanood ko sa trailer yung movie, kala ko di talaga ipapakita yung scene na yon tapos yunpala, talagang ipapakita na hinawakan ni eric ung boobs ni kris! soft! pero firm..., he said. hahaha! nakaka-touch rin ung movie kase nung namatay si eric quizon sa dulo, he left a novel for kris... and it was their "love story" (love story ng mag-bestfriends). yun pala yon... kala ko, they'd end up together or magiging lalaki c eric sa dulo. hahaha!

nairita ako sa 4 starstruck winners. parang filler lang sila dun. i mean, parang binigay ung roles sa kanila just for the sake of giving them their first movie. di pa ganon kaganda ung acting nila! also, the movie didn't have the spectacle that i expected... parang walang masyadong twist and parang napaka-ordinary nung flow. ndi kase star cinema gumawa eh. ndi naman sa bias ako a! so far kase, the best pinoy movies i've seen were from star cinema.

...but i do recommend the movie! funny and kaka-touch ung ending :D ...nice content too. and like what i said, maganda acting ni eric quizon.

we didn't wait for 12mn... nag noche buena kami before 11pm and after that, tulog na kami lahat. wahaha.. boring. i think it's really like that when your parents are getting old. at that age, they've had enough of the excitement. tatlo nalang kase kami sa bahay e ever since my 2 sisters got married.

maybe they're thinking that staying up late just to eat together would make no difference... since we do it every night! but of course there's something extraordinary... we cooked lots of food the whole day, had dinner with my sis' family (who's just living right beside us), drank wine (of course!), and opened our gifts. happy naman somehow pero ang sad isipin na kami lang ata ung house sa neighborhood na maagang nagpatay ng ilaw. hahahaha... corny talaga!