kuro kuro ng isang binibini

the wonders of divisoria! i went down to divisoria this weekend and i had a blast! i got there around 9am where the multitudes that visit the shopping mecca that is divisoria has just started to build up. divisoria is the place to go for anything and everything -- i tell you they sell anything you can think of. first of all, you have to go there in comfortable clothing -- you don't dress up when you go to divisoria. oh, and leave the bling behind -- you can't wear flashy jewellry lest you attract the wrong attention. be prepared to get your feet trodden and trampled so put on your grubbiest pair of sneaks. you have to have a list when you go there because you will get sidetracked into buying just about everything that you can see. next, you will need a budget -- if you have a target in mind then stregthen your resolve and do not falter. if you are out for a bargain then be prepared to haggle -- oh, the joys of haggling best adrenalin rush you can get without doing death defying...

The way to happiness: Keep your heart free from hate, your mind from worry, live simply, expect little, give much. -- Barney O'Lavin and with great determination i shall achieve happiness...

i went home to the province and it was another one of those gastronomic weeks -- non-stop eating fest -- for real! it starts with the most important meal of the day -- at least for some people -- breakfast! moi of the "aliping sagigilid" and therefore have-no-time-for-breakfast-unless-i-go-on-halfday-leave breakfasted in style everyday i was home. my sister indulged my every whim. i'd wake up and she'd ask me what i wanted for breakfast -- service deluxe! and then of course there was the pool party at my aunt's abode where we had barbecued chicken and pork chops -- juicy! the next day was lunch at my late lola's house where the table was laden with chicken and fish and beef and vegetable galore. after a 2 hour respite we were again munching on picnic staples of chips and ham sandwiches and the all important coca-cola at the cemetery. my aunt commissioned my sister to bake the bestest brownies i ever had before -- with hersheys dark chocolate -- they were absol...

to all you pablo neruda fanatics out there -- sigh! Tonight I can Write NERUDA Tonigt I can write the saddest lines. Write, for example, 'The night is shattered and the blue stars shiver in the distance.' The night wind revolves in the sky and sings. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too. Through nights like this one I held her in my arms. I kissed her again and again under the endless sky. She loved me, sometimes I loved her too. How could one not have loved her great still eyes. Tonight I can write the saddest lines. To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her. To hear the immense night, still more immense without her. And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture. What does it matter that my love could not keep her. The night is shattered and she is not with me. This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance. My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her. My sight searches for her as t...

a friend of mine sent me this mail -- which i am copying verbatim -- a few years back. it is uniquely profound i must say. i have been reading this diary of a 27-year old, Etty Hillesum, who died in a jewish concentration camp in Auschwitz. an adult anne frank actually ...'been reading it for months but i can read it a phrase at a time lang since it is quite profound...here's one of the passages.... 21 October, after dinner It is a slow and painful process, this striving after true inner freedom. Growing more and more certain that there is no help or assurance or refuge in others. That the others are just as uncertain and weak and helpless as you are. You are always thrown back on to your resources. There is nothing else. The rest is make-believe. But the fact has to be recognized over and over again. Especially since you are a woman. For woman always longs to lose herself in another. But that too is fiction, albeit a beautiful one. There is no matching of lives. At least not f...