Sometimes there's just no point.

I'm tired. I want to stop. But maybe stopping is not the answer. Maybe it's in going on that one finds strength. Does strength come with a cold, unfeeling heart? Or does one need that cold heart to be strong? If that's the case i'd rather be weak than callous.

Weak and broken. But I'm tired of being broken. I need to be whole.

and sometimes i forget.

Went to Quiapo yesterday afternoon with my Ama. We brought with us our old old old 35mm p&s cameras with the hope that they would be fixed.

We got off the jeep at rizal ave and walked the busy streets. Its streets are filled with every electronic-related stuff one can think of. Speakers, diagrams, IC's and parts. My dad walks soo fast. It felt like I was halfway through the 8-minute tae-bo work-out when i got to take a rest at the store that sells diagrams. Then we continued walking and walking til we started seeing vendors with all sorts of potions and labelled bottles and herbs and fluids, and sure enough we were near plaza miranda already - the wide plaza in front of Quiapo church.

A few more steps and we're at Hidalgo, the street where the camera supplies and repair shops are. We went from shop to shop and none of them wanted to repair my sister's p&s camera. They said it can't be fixed. A sidewalk camera repair guy said there's no fixing needed, and it only needs to be cleaned. So in the end, we left it to a repair shop for cleaning. The shops also rejected the pentax rangefinder. For my p&s camera i got a polarizer.

I bet i'd still get crappy pics, with or without the polarizer :p

Kit arranged a get-together at megamall yesterday afternoon at starbucks along mega strip. Kit and Mike and I were the only ones who showed up ;p Dublin was still at Boracay, pentuna was at a family reunion, bloodymary was at the hotel, and the others, i'm not sure..

After coffee / chocolate drink we checked out the galleries at the fourth level. The main gallery featured an exhibit called Freakshow, abstract expressionistic works by seven ust fine arts graduates. I liked the works by a lady named marga!. She paints stars and concentric circles and ringed dots in nice oranges and blues and beiges and matte gold.

After checking out the galleries at the artwalk we headed to powerplant. I finally got to see the place. Unlike the sm malls, this one is not convenient for commuters, but surprisingly the place is packed. A lot of people everywhere. (And i thought .ph is a poor nation..)


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_ reading . Sputnik Sweetheart - Haruki Murakami
_ hearing . nothing
_ feeling . tired

Back. And it looks like I'm not the only one with the short break coz there was a huge traffic along the north express on my way here.

I didnt have the chance to get out of town or go on a trip somewhere outside my parents' place, so i spent my almost-three-day break reading the books i brought home. When i got tired of reading I looked for the sheets of logic problems i used to spend time on years ago while waiting for a potential employer's call and when i found them erased all the answers and started answering them all over again. No, my break wasn't boring. Can't wait for the next longish break so i can erase the answers and do them again. arf!

Good thing channel 2 aired some really nice 70's classics to cover their regular programming. Himala was one of them. It's not exactly nice, but it's surely a classic. Who doesn't know Nora Aunor's line "Walang himala!"? The other good ones were Ganito Kami Noon, Paano Kayo Ngayon, which reminded me a bit of Forrest Gump, and Lino Brocka's Insiang.

Back to work tomorrow. Bleh.

Went out last night with tats and had dinner at la tienda. I had paella negra. Hmm, it was ok, but not as good as the one i ate years ago. Their iced tea tastes like lipton's instant tea. Not good.

It's fun to get away from canteen food every now and then, but that would probably be the last resto-eat-out this month. If i don't stop myself i'll be broke soon.

I had lots of moping free time after work last saturday. Eloi was at home cleaning her new room so i invited myself over. Their new place has a little porch facing the bay. It's a nice view if you'd tiptoe and deliberately miss seeing the shanties at the foreground.

We went out at around 7 and had dinner at the town center, then did some browsing and drooling at powerbooks. When i was in college my wish was to own jolis or a national bookstore branch so i'd have a huge supply of art materials. Now my wish is to own one powerbooks branch. Having both would be kewl too.

Back to reality.. I was able to get Murakami's Sputnik Sweetheart at a discounted price. A little more time was spent on browsing basic photography books and Gaiman's sandman collections. Wish wish.

I was able to borrow some more books from eloi. Lots of books to read. Can't wait for the 3 day break.


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_ reading . Coraline - Neil Gaiman
_ hearing . Waiting in Vain - Annie Lennox
_ feeling . better

Days and days and days spent here and there. Stopped at smwest on my way to malolos and had dinner with my sister. She was as talkative as ever. It's the end of the term and she won't be seeing her students anymore, and she had all these stories about what they answered for the bonus part of the exam. Every now and then I had to remind her to put the spoonful of chili con carne into her mouth and finish dinner.

And again, that silly girl overspent the last few days and will have to use up her coin savings til the next payday. It's one silly trait I have too, sometimes, spending the last money i have on things that are not really necessary til I have nothing left even though I have to wait a few more days to get my salary. The sense of adventure! The adrenaline rush! It probably has the same effect on me as with people who enjoy extreme games.

Spent most of the malolos trip sleeping. Went to town center at the mid of the day to get some medicine for my parents and went to the bookstore to check out the photography book i saw the last time. It wasn't as good as i remember, and it's too old already, information wise. I checked out the other books they have and got C.S. Lewis' The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter for 10 pesos each and a beautifully illustrated A Ride on the Red Mare's Back for 65 pesos.

That was a good trip. :)


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_ reading . mtv ink's latest ish
_ hearing . If You're Not the One - Daniel Bedingfield
_ feeling . better

The 10 pm update: Re-computed most of the data. The report is 80% done. Did i mention that it's needed tomorrow?

Gonna head home now and eat some ice cream. And return to work at 6am tomorrow. Yayy! Work is fun.

Back to back 12hr shifts on a sunday and a holiday could be fun. Not too much load and not too many people around. But when you're consolidating 5 months worth of cost data, and when the bosses want the cost details per vendor per machine, and when you have 8 machines working in the line, and when the cost data that was provided is wrong and you have to find out what went wrong by re-computing and re-analyzing huge excel worksheets, and when the other data that you need are in another pc which right now cannot find its excel.exe even if you've turned the whole cpu upside down, and when you can't open the files through the network because the ics disabled sharing of its drives because the drives have a virus, and when you can't copy the files in a disk because they're a bit huge, and when you can't send it via notes coz the mail servers are down, it's NOT fun. Not fun at all. >_<

And then, just now, as i was reading what i've written, i remembered i installed ws ftp on that pc and i can upload those friggin' files somewhere. bling! bling!


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_ reading . data and some more data and more data and
_ hearing . Linger - The Cranberries
_ feeling . angry ok confused
_ thinking . Ranting rules.

Went to pansol laguna yesterday together with the senior engineers and their families. Eight hours was not enough for the swimming trip, specially coz it's during the day. Half the time the sun is high that it can bake and toast anybody in the pool. That time is good for eating in the nipa hut and listening to the videoke singers and entertaining the senior engineers' kids though, so it was still kewl.

~

I hated the trip back. Everybody was tired and sleepy, and I wasn't. My mind is not a good companion on quiet trips these days. I don't like the conversations that it starts up.

Hmm.. so maybe now it's safe to update this again. Last tuesday a different template shows up everytime i push the publish button. Hrmp.

Headed to mega after my 12hr shift yesterday and waited for kikay a bit. We had a really filling dinner at kitchen, thanks to their huge delicious servings of dishes called 'egg on' and 'grounded rice' and bottomless pandan iced tea. I've only been there once and i already love everything about that place, from their stainless steel-covered tables to the red-chilli-pepper-on-powder-filled-glass centerpiece to the salt-dish-that-serves-as-table-napkin-holder. Nice.

I've been missing my t.e. friends so it was really good to have an impromptu dinner with one of them. I think it was almost 11 when we said our goodbyes.

I wish I'd see the others soon too.


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_ reading . The Umbrella Man and Other Stories - Roald Dahl
_ hearing . nothing
_ feeling . tired and sleepy.

the silly april fools trick is messing up my posts.

umm.. it IS a trick, right?

What my sister thought was an exhibit of children's books illustrations was actually an exhibit of the works done by the participants of a kiddie book illustration workshop. And the participants were kids. And i went all the way to u.p.'s vargas musem just to check it out. And eloi took a leave from work just to see it. Owwwkay. Darn false advertising. Silly sister ;p

The trip to the Chocolate Kiss at the alumni building made up for the blooper. It's a smallish place with walls covered with kiddie book type drawings. Neat little place that serves yummy cheesecake. We could see all the works from where we were sitting, but we changed tables before our orders were served just so we could check out the other works ;)

To satisfy our craving for art, eloi and I headed to megamall and checked the galleries at the 4th level. I was a bit surprised that she likes seeing paintings too. I've known her for quite some time and have stayed with her and her family for more than a year but i thought she was only interested in kiddie type drawings. Heh 8)

That was a kewl afternoon. We should have something like that every week. Hmmm...