Who said "last but not the least" is cliche? The latest -- certainly the last for this year and hopefully my last -- teacher training session I had was a breeze. It took place this sunny Sunday morning (11/27/05, Bruce Lee's birthday) at the Palacio condo. Although the three teachers from Bicol were 1hr 20min late (because they had a gimik with les the night before, hihihi), they were such fast learners that I was the one who had to catch up! My favorite joke: Mother and daughter tomato were crossing the road when, suddenly, a car tire squashed poor daughter tomato! What did her momma say? Ketchup! (Catch up!) Huhuhu. I was able to cover 10 lessons of HTML and CSS in just 1 1/2 hours. You can call that 'bicol express!'

When it's cold.. outside.. it's colder inside this office. And we had two brownouts already. Nasty day. Ma's tuna spaghetti is so yummy it added another inch to my width. =c Can't upload this blog yet. December is, like, so near already.

How about you Ida, what are you thankful for? I give thanks to all the vegetarians in the world, the Filipino athletes and performers who continue to make the Philippines proud (Best of luck to Ma'am Sugar Catalan in the SEAG!), and the writers of magnificent books. Speaking of which *wink wink*, my book titled "Web Design" was released last Tuesday. The cover page was sablay. It was paler than a sick ube fruit. And that's what I get for finishing the book one/two months ahead of the others! Hah! Ok, calm down. There must have been something wrong with the printer's violet hue. "Or something to that effect" as ma'am lesley puts it... The printer better make up for it in the second printing. And let's thank (hope) that people don't judge the book by its cover. Nyahahaha.

After I had my lunch yesterday, I was so sleepy (still up to now!) that I decided to go out of the office -- just for a little walk downstairs. Perhaps I sensed a life form behind the concrete wall at the landing... I tiptoed to take a peek... I saw a huge cat, which had the same color pattern as the very first cat I had: white with lots of black in the face and body. I called out "meow meow." S/he was taking a nap then (I envy this kitty!), so it was startled when a human pretending to be a feline spoke her language, my voice coming from six feet above it. It might have thought I was God. It stared at me. I stared back and smiled. I said, "Come here my child." Kidding. I just continued meowing until the kitty got irritated, like after a minute, and crawled under some plywood. I waited for it to show itself up again. Then I thought about feeding it. I went to our office, retrieved my baunan, went back down, tiptoed again, and plummeted to my death. Kidding (the last part). I dropped an eggplant and it fell at the dusty floor of the mysterious kitty. No response. I stared at the place where it hid for a long time but it never came out. The kitty who looked like my cat with no name.

Does this day suck or does this day suck. No Internet!?! I'm sleepy as a sleepy monkey. Or a sleepy kangaroo. Or a sleepy hollow. Uwian na! Am looking forward to malling with Ayi... Nuckin' futs! I uploaded my Web pages on my other Yahoo! ID, now geocities.com/upkapitas has the index.html of this site! Geez luis! Argh. :$

I thought I can let this pass. But I can't. Yesterday, before I made "beeyatch!!," ma'am lesley and I were making chika about her encounter with mr. von alcantara at the corner of Kalayaan Ave and East Ave. She said von surprised her while she was waiting for a jeepney, and when she boarded the jeep von playfully acted like a holdaper who tried to take her bag. I commented, "parang bata." As lesley made one more kwento, mr. loyne pueblos directed a question at me. I motioned for him to wait because I still had small talk going on with les. After les finished her anecdote on the missing toilet paper, I went to loyne and asked him about his query. He said, "Bakit mo nasabing 'parang bata' -- ganun lang bata na ba 'yon?" I replied, "Um, isip bata kasi." Then he said, "E, hindi isip bata un. Ano ba ibig mong sabihin?" (not his exact words, but I narrate as unbiased as I can) Then I replied, "Makulit." And he fired back ('fired' is the term that approximates his tone), "Un ang sabihin mo 'makulit.' Pwede pa un. Pero 'parang bata' iba na un." I was blown over. For one, why are we having that conversation? I wasn't talking to him, he merely overheard my comment. So I ended the discussion be saying, "Nung sinabi kong isip bata, makulit ang ibig kong sabihin" He can't preach on my choice of words like that. Was he saying I was wrong and I should retract what I said? Well, opinions are not meant to be retracted. (He bestowed a lot of sermons upon me when he was doing my book's layout, I won't let such events go undocumented again.) And I meant no harm when I said "parang bata." Moreover, the term "ang kulet" is overused and sometimes misused by people. I'll give you a scenario: instead of my friendly concluding statement to our discussion, what if I said "You're a self-righteous b@st@rd, you know that?" Now that would be wrong, out of place, maybe in context, but unbecoming of a well-mannered citizen. That's the time when somebody outside of our conversation can actually butt in and tell me, "It's wrong for you to say that to him." Naughty naughty. Loyne, if you're reading this, so we can call it quits, I'm going to language edit you too: the saying is 'life starts at forty' -- not thirty like you said on your birthday. Peace out. --V,

grrr... grrr... I feel like roaring and saying bitch bitch bitch but I know I won't. Besides, I have no valid reason to do so. I'm just bored. Plain bored. Really bored -- it's killing me. Gawd. No Internet (today of all days), no YM (forever na 'to!!), no Friendster (boo..). No nothing. For all I care, I could eat this encyclopedic dictionary and still be bored. I don't even have thoughts right now. Before, I could talk to an officemate about anything and sustain the conversation but today, I can't come up with anything worth saying at all. Shit. What's wrong? Hey, that's a cute pen. Dang! My mind is floating. My lips are hurting -- allergic reaction to Blistex SPF 30, I guess. My body is in hibernate mode. My arms are flabby -- you need to exercise lady. My right eye was bitten by a mosquito while I was sleeping. And my stomach doesn't want food -- a miracle. It's 4 o'clock. Do you know where your sanity is? The great bandiclock ticks... slowly.

Man's ego is the fountainhead of human progress.
   [from: Synopsis of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead]

Our company had a field trip this morning, which lasted until lunch time, at the printing press (it made me hungry because I wasn't able to eat the empanada they provided as merienda -- it had meat, what else?). Mr. JP of Transprint Corp. spoke to us about their processes, materials, etc. The exciting part was when we went down to the printers and witnessed those huge machines do their things. It gave me some sort of intellectual arousal... an awakening... an appreciation of what the human brain can conjure. I've read about the Industrial Revolution and all but seeing technology with my own eyes is different. My favorite machine was the one that sucked one sheet of paper at a time (out of thousands of sheets) and fed it back to the rollers. It was amazing to watch. My book was on its finishing stages I guess, seeing that its pages were on display at a glass panel. Too bad ms. joyce cayamanda can't take my and ms. jiyas suministrado's picture with it. Trade secrets need to be protected. The name of the machines classified. The rejected printouts shredded. No souvenir for Ida. (I took a tissue paper though, hehehe. =)

My Saturday was toxic. Man, if you were me and you had to train 12 non-computer teachers on how to do HTML wearing semi-formal sandals and body-clinging sabrina blouse and knee-length skirt in a day, wouldn't you be tired out of your wits? It was like finishing a video shoot of BEP's "My Humps" in less than six hours. There was no projector so I used the white board, which basically entails having my back turned to the audience and showing off my ASSet because of all the codes I had to write (while explaining them, of course). Then, I had to bend 90 degrees every five minutes to check if each teacher is entering the codes correctly. With only three bottles of drinking water consumed, who can top that?! It was like getting wasted after taking too much alcohol. In this case, I was dehydrated by talking ceaselessly. Speaking of which, I wonder how contaminated our AQUAgel "Pure Drinking Water" is. My pee turns to almost the color of lime when I drink it. Maybe it's from the poso or something.

P.S. Dollar is still with us. Let us thank the gods, I mean, dogs.

My friggin' dog escaped again. The story goes like this noh: we were walking earlier (around 8:30) for his daily bowel movement when, before we turned to the alley leading to our house, he thought about escaping. Knowing what his brain was commanding him to attempt, I did a CPR or Calibrated Preemptive Response by grabbing his left arm and making kaladkad on him to force him to take the alley. In a matter of three seconds, after I released his left arm, he maneuvered -- head and body tugged on the collar, making me chase him -- until he was involuntarily released and was running like mad. I went mad. No. I went berserk. I walked homeward looking like I just killed someone. When I got inside, I banged my fist on my bedroom wall. I told Ma "#@*^#!!" And she told me "*&&#@^(%!!" Then, she resolved to have Dollar mercy-killed. Just like that. One snap and my fugitive dog's facing the death sentence. Now, what did I do about it? I managed my anger. I stated, calmly, "Maybe we should give ourselves a NO-WALKING-THE-DOG week. I never said I wanted him out of our lives. That's the reason why nobody should make decisions when they're mad." I tried to solve the problem. She tried to get RID of the problem. I am in the office typing this. I feel nauseated. I don't know if I am going home to a house with a giddy-cheerful ball of fur who was - is - my best buddy, him cheering me as I open the door. Here, boy. Here.

...eherm, heat stroke. Last Wednesday, I was making reklamo to mr. stevenson lee, my teacher training assistant, that it's hot -- why it's oddly hot. Training drains my energy, true. So I just ignored the heat. When I woke up the next day, I was breathing through one nostril. I felt sick and just wanted to sleep but I needed to go to work and I don't have a valid excuse to be absent because what I'm feeling was INSIDE... until the next day, nagka-lagnat loob ako. Hahaha. The fever was literally inside of me, and, as Adam has verified, I had a heat stroke. He advised me to eat lots of citrus fruits and put antibiotics on standby. Ma told me to drink lots of water. Whenever she went out she bought me my favorite shrimp sandwich; on Saturday it was from Popeye's, yesterday from Wendy's. I did yoga yesterday too, to put myself back in harmony, and I did a few kicks at my punching bag to remove the excess heat from my bod. I was also able to rest (read: sleep sleep sleep) those three days and watch the rest of Ashton' films in my friend's 7-in-1 dvd. [Ashton has got a huge ass. Demi, you are so lucky.]

Ano na namang gimik 'yan?

My blockmate Jemajo told me I was telegenic. I didn't believe her. I was never photogenic -- what would make an action shot different (is that how they call it)? When I saw myself on tv last Saturday, I was like, "Wala lang." But Ma... Oooooo... She was contented with my appearance, for once! Nyeheheheh. So. Here's a list of my purported tv appearances:

1. Ch. 4 > UP Taekwondo Team Demonstration > Pep Rally 2002 > did a jumping turning roundhouse kick (1st in a series)
2. Ch. 7 > Unang Hirit > UP Taekwondo Team Warm-Up Exercises
3. Ch. 7 > Debate (topic: Oakwood Mutiny) > exited using the platform which showed my back to the camera (I was wearing our org shirt: Tasyo 13)
4. Ch. 7 > Jessica Soho Reports (when: after Olympics 2004) > among other UP Taekwondo players, sparred with a male blue belter
5. Ch. 7 > Imbestigador (topic: moomoo, when: 10/29/06) > said "Ngii.. parang si Sadako.... kinilabutan ako dun ah."

There goes my 15 minutes of fame. Or 1/3 of it. ;)