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Friday, January 30, 2004

Babies, babies, babies

Text message:
"Text from PJ: I gave birth 2 a baby girl last jan22. We named her michelle grace coz she's a grace fr d lord."
Sender: Jeng
Sent: 30-Jan-2004 18:15:44


First baby of the year. Around end of February or March, Cris will give birth to a boy. In July, Es will also give birth. Zhet also gave birth last month.

Lots of babies, huh?

Wednesday, January 28, 2004

Who in the world is Princess Greniger?

I left late because I finished my laundry ... I had to if I want to have fresh clothes to wear tomorrow. If I had left 30 minutes earlier, I'd probably still be late. Today's a day for enduring painstaking traffic.

There's traffic in EDSA because a couple on a motorbike got hit by trucks whose drivers were racing each other. The couple had helmets on but the trucks smashed the helmets as well. In other words, they're dead. One of the truck drivers was arrested. The other escaped. That's the cause for the traffic north of Manila. At the south super highway, which is my route, a truck caught fire and therefore caused another traffic. It's one of the rare days where there are accidents caused by traffics at both entry points to Manila.

I could have spent time sleeping in the bus but i was preoccupied listening to the two students seated behind me. One of the girls mentioned that a professor gave her an assignment which was to make paper on King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Piece of cake? Not for this girl.

Her only exposure to the legend of King Arthur is the movie "First Knight" starring Richard Gere and Sean Connery. Tsk. tsk. I've seen the movie and I could say that it's not a good start ... it dwells on the love affair of Lancelot and Guenevere and not much on the other aspects of the legend.

The other girl, trying to be helpful, told her about seeing another movie about King Arthur but this time a person from the present was transported back in time to the King's court ... I was shaking my head a bit by then. The kid was talking about "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" or a tale derived from that classic. Once again, not a good reference material if you really want to find out about King Arthur and his Round Table. If they're going to go with movies ... I'd suggest they try to rent Camelot which stars Richard Harris.

Then the helpful girl offered whatever info she knew ... that there is King Arthur, and there are some knights, and a princess or a queen whose name is Greniger. I had to stop myself from laughing and tried to muffle my chuckles.

While they were discussing First Knight, I had thought about telling them to try looking for Thomas Mallory's "Le Morte d' Arthur". When the Connecticut Yankee movie came up, I thought of recommending T.H. White's "The Once and Future King" which is a witty take on the legend. However, when I heard Princess Greniger, I wanted to tell them to head to the nearest Children's Library and grab one of the many books on King Arthur ... so that they'll have the names correct for starters! As funny incidents go, this is a classic! What's funnier, although it's also ironic, is that I think both are studying in St. Scho.

I texted this to Rachel, Sam, Jeng and Mimi. Rachel pitied me for having to endure them, Sam laughed and said the kids are out of this world, while Mimi told me to do the girls a favor and straighten them out ... and she meant tell the girls how to do their paper right. I told Mimi that 1. The girls have switched on a walkman and are now singing out of tune while sharing the earphones, and 2. I run the risk of being branded a nosy person to try telling them what to do. And I really mean out of tune.

Are kids really ignorant of King Arthur these days? These girls aren't really dumb ... when someone texted them that the heavy traffic is due to the fact that Wednesday is Baclaran day, they said that's crap and they even know the term psychologists use for people's tendency to make up excuses to explain otherwise unexplainable events. Maybe the professor gave the girl that paper because he was aware that kids today hardly know who King Arthur is.

Well, this is the Philippines, not England. It is not such a sad thing.

Thursday, January 22, 2004

Where'd my voice go?

I woke up this morning to find out that I don't have a voice. My voice was already hoarse yesterday but I never expected that today I won't be able to make a sound louder than a whisper.

Major dilemma!

I had no problem riding the bus ... the bus conductor collects fares by approaching each new passenger. I could whisper and he'd still understand that I'm headed for Makati. When my stop was near, I raised my hand when the conductor asked if anyone would be going down at Buendia ... I was seated at the front so he saw me and told the driver to stop.

The problem was with riding a jeepney. I had to wait for someone to pay so that I could include mine with his/her fare. Then I had to hope that someone would be dropping off near Tordesillas St. which was my stop. All that just to avoid speaking. It hurt to speak and it's bordering on comical to be whispering.

When I entered the computer room at Ateneo for the CSST exam, the proctor asked my name, I motioned that I had no voice so he had to wait till I reach the front for me to whisper who I was. Comic relief before the exam, thank you very much.

According to Ben Gomez, who's always been the proctor for the BAP certification exams, statistically none of the first three to finish the exams have failed. I finished early, but dreaded to be among the first to stand up ... people notice that. During the FX exam in 1997, I waited for Cris to finish and then we left ... being among the first to leave. We passed and everyone had the impression that we were very confident to leave without waiting to hear the exam results ... er, we didn't know we were supposed to wait.

I decided to note down the gist of the exam questions instead as I bided my time. Very naughty, but at the time I thought it was something to do for kicks. When Ben decided to walk around, I packed up and hit the "finish" button on the computer then left.

Everyone in this week's batch passed. Irma of Bank of Commerce and Linda of BPI invited us to eat outside to celebrate. Pia had a lunch date, and I declined, foreseeing the probable difficulty I would have ordering and engaging in conversation without a voice. Iris didn't want to join them on her own so she also declined.

I headed home immediately and checked up on my SIMS .... did I mention that eversince buying that game last January 10 I had been addicted to the SIMS? So far I've got the "House Party", "Living Large", "Hot Date", "Vacation", and "Unleashed" expansion packs. I want to buy the "Superstar" and "Making Magic" expansion packs but I think I don't have enough gigabytes to spare the game from crashing.

Sunday, January 18, 2004

2nd Philippine Science Fiction and Fantasy Convention

Victor told me earlier this week that there would be a sci-fi fair at the Rockwell Mall this weekend. Asked Jon if he wanted to check it out and he asked what the schedule of activities were. I found the sched at their website. Jon picked Sunday - and I think he did so because he wanted to listen to the talk on customizing scale models ... which he was into.

When we did get to Rockwell, the fair was a small event held at the parking lot and I could probably go through the whole thing in less than 10 minutes. Frankly, I expected more. I left Jon listening to the scale model guys while I went through the tents. Most of them are just selling stuff.

When Jon had finished listening to and talking with the scale model folk, we had lunch at Dulcinea. We ordered Paella, but it wasn't as good the one from Illustrado in Intramuros. While we were eating, a waiter dropped a water glass 2 tables away. Minutes later, the glass sheet at a second floor railing cracked. That was weird.

After lunch, we checked out the Powerplant Mall shop by shop. We had intended to return to the convention to see the costume contest but forgot about it. We were checking out a toy store when the costumed convention goers passed by - they paraded around the mall so technically we didn't miss seeing the costumes at all.

When we've combed through the small mall, we flagged down a cab and headed to Glorietta where Jon bought some groceries and I bought the SIMS De Luxe before heading home.

Hopefully, the next convention would be more fun.

Friday, January 16, 2004

So, you can actually find this blog on Google...

Text Message

Discovered GRAPEVINE while surfing d net. Can't beliv i'm part of some of ur stories. Like wat u said in ur site, we shld be vry afraid... Ha! Ha!

Sender:
Rach Yapchiongco

Sent:
15-Jan-2004
23:37:56

I was surfing d net 2 kill time. i google-search myself & 2 my gr8 surprise i found my name in a site. Quite amusing. How much do u pay w maintain d site or is it free? Hans' growing cuter each day. Syempre, lov ur own. :-) Btw, wala na yung dark marks arnd my neck. I gues, dat was part of pregnancy. Ha! Ha!

Sender:
Rach Yapchiongco

Sent:
16-Jan-2004
08:26:05

Tuesday, January 13, 2004

Returning for Return of the King

Broker Prebon Yamane Phils. sponsored a special screening of the Lord of the Rings: Return of the King tonight at the Theater 3 of the Glorietta 4. I got three tickets - one given to me by Prebon, and the tickets given to Vikki and Jong. I gave one ticket to Jon and gave the other ticket to Cheryl so that her husband Bong can join her... she only had one ticket which was originally given to Boss Boy.

Jan, Cheryl and I hitched a ride with Cris to Glorietta, we had a brief snack at Food Choices. Met Jon there - he was lugging a huge bag of groceries which Ma asked him to buy.

If the crowd at the advanced screening was hooting at some scenes that are "slashy", and the crowd last Sunday had teenage girls swooning at Viggo and Orlando, tonight's crowd - composed of bank traders and family/friends was quiet. .. Which brings home how serious this crowd is... and explains how boring I could find my fellow traders to be. He he he!

Screening was at 8pm, so we got home past midnight. I kinda slept through some parts since this is the fourth time I'm seeing the movie (the December screening and watching it 2 times with Sam last Sunday) and I do lack some sleep.

Saturday, January 10, 2004

Another day in Manila

While I was looking for the Praise Song Book and had everyone else in the house looking for it as well, Ma found Pa's class picture when he was training in the army just before World War II came to the Philippines. Jon scanned to enlarge it and today we went to Ocana at Gil Puyat to have the scanned picture printed onto photo paper. Paid PHP100 for 2 copies. Had some of Pa's certificates photocopied as well.

Afterwards, we went to De La Salle University where I enrolled for residency. I didn't know today was the last day so I found myself waiting for my turn at the Accounting office in a looooong line. Gave Jon a copy of the Asian Wall Street Journal while he was waiting at the gate.

It was almost 12noon when I finished, so Jon and I ate lunch at Pizza Hut Harrison Plaza. We had planned to tour Intramuros, but decided to go to Binondo instead. But before we left HP, we bought some PC CDs. I bought the SIMS and a program you can use to design houses. Jon got the latest version of Adobe Photoshop.

To read our adventure in Intramuros, Binondo and CCP Complex, go to my pinoytourista blog here: http://pinoytourista.blogspot.com/2004/01/intramuros-binondo-and-ccp-complex.html

Friday, January 02, 2004

A Day in Manila

Met Sam at Beraldi's Cafe in SM Southmall. We could have gone to Tagaytay, but went to Intramuros instead.

read the rest of the adventure in my pinoytourista blog:

http://pinoytourista.blogspot.com/2004/01/day-in-manila.html

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