Happy New Decade Everybody!
Happy New Year!!




For the New Year....

I'm redesigning my wardrobe to reflect more of me!


Those formal work-clothes, mostly dark-colored, will have to go. The polyesters, too, will be gradually leaving my wardrobe to make room for more cottons and silks. :-)


I don't think I'm ever to go back working in the conventionally structured-work-set-up again. It's just not me, so why die trying?


I wrapped (very nicely) a couple of those very-slightly-used office work clothes in some bright-colored box and glittery Christmas wrap and gave them as a Christmas present to a friend (shhhhh... she shouldn't know that they weren't exactly new :-)). But I know she could make good use of them. As it turned out, they looked very elegant on her, as I have imagined. And she's luving 'em!


Some of the work-clothes went to my cousin who is just starting her work-life.


No more corporate world for me, ha! No more academic too! (seriously!)


Here are some stuff I shopped (ukay) last Christmas.







pink shirt, 20 bucks, 100% cotton
(I found it in a box for children's wear!)








100% silk, 30 bucks
(hilltop market)






black corduroy skirt, 20 bucks










95% cotton & 5% spandex, 20 bucks
(zamora st., market)









100% cotton, 20 bucks
(zamora st., market)










jeans skirt, 20 bucks




i bought the 6 pieces above on the same day,
which cost a total amount of 130 pesos.
however, my lunch that day (with friends) was 169 pesos!
what a disproportion :-(....
i guess i was too hungry and tired from shopping that i didn't care about the meal price!









cute shorts, brand new :-), 35 bucks,
bought 2 days before Christmas Eve








ha... 150 bucks, friend says it's expensive
(though she admits it was a good pick)








brand new swimsuit (but bought from ukay just the same)
it's tag was still attached to it.
expensive - 200 bucks,
'Rush-buy' the evening before a postponed swimming excursion with friends. (jeez! I could have had a 40 bucks discount if I didn't buy it that day!)






and to boot...




leader boots! 150 bucks
(spotted the other evening in front of maharlika bldg )





ohh, hope these will be my last shopping for this year!
haha, definitely so, i think.




fun to be a gal,
tehee! :-)




(ps. and last post for this year! :-)



hapi, hapi, hapi 2010!





A good friend co-organized a Christmas party for children affected by the recent strong typhoon (Pepeng?) that hit the city.







the kids were entertained for hours and hours...







... until they got tired of having fun to be treated with food.
but using styro? (really sorry momma Gaia but i was told it was the most convenient container to pack, and feed 140 kids!) hmmm.








.... then Christmas presents








... simply seeing the children happy, made me very happy.




Joining the event was a good chance for me to re-experience memories of college years when friends and I used to organize similar charity events. (too many years ago already!)

I didn't actually do anything this time since I was only invited to the final event, (yes, the PARTY -- eating and having fun only, I didn't do any of those stressful organizing)...

... and yet, somehow, very unexpectedly, witnessing this event brought me back to memories of years gone-by. Oh, those were the days...



..........................



a funny twist

(in the end, this post about children requires parental guidance!)

there was a random draw-lots for sponsors (yes, I was one of the "sponsors" :-)
somebody was giving away some brand new magazines and other sorts of small giveaways. I was among the less than ten names that was 'lucky' to be drawn.

and guess what I got?!



this was the only fhm magazine being given away, and if you see closer, there's an 'attachment' to it too.


tehee!






Let him who has ears hear.






Jesus said, "Let him who seeks continue seeking until he
finds. When he finds, he will become troubled. When he becomes
troubled, he will be astonished, and he will rule over the All."



Jesus said, "If those who lead you say, 'See, the Kingdom is
in the sky,' then the birds of the sky will precede you. If they
say to you, 'It is in the sea,' then the fish will precede you.
Rather, the Kingdom is inside of you, and it is outside of you.
When you come to know yourselves, then you will become known, and
you will realize that it is you who are the sons of the living
Father. But if you will not know yourselves, you dwell in poverty
and it is you who are that poverty."



Jesus said, "The man old in days will not hesitate to ask a
small child seven days old about the place of life, and he will
live. For many who are first will become last, and they will
become one and the same."



Jesus said, "Men think, perhaps, that it is peace which I
have come to cast upon the world. They do not know that it is
dissension which I have come to cast upon the earth: fire, sword,
and war. For there will be five in a house: three will be against
two, and two against three, the father against the son, and the
son against the father. And they will stand solitary."



Jesus said, "I shall give you what no eye has seen and what
no ear has heard and what no hand has touched and what has never
occurred to the human mind."




The disciples said to Jesus, "Tell us what the Kingdom of
Heaven is like."
He said to them, "It is like a mustard seed, the smallest of
all seeds. But when it falls on tilled soil, it produces a great
plant and becomes a shelter for birds of the sky."



Jesus saw infants being suckled. He said to His disciples,
"These infants being suckled are like those who enter the
Kingdom."
They said to Him, "Shall we then, as children, enter the
Kingdom?"
Jesus said to them, "When you make the two one, and when you
make the inside like the outside and the outside like the inside,
and the above like the below, and when you make the male and the
female one and the same, so that the male not be male nor the
female female; and when you fashion eyes in the place of an eye,
and a hand in place of a hand, and a foot in place of a foot, and
a likeness in place of a likeness; then will you enter [the
Kingdom]."




His disciples said to Him, "Show us the place where You are,
since it is necessary for us to seek it."
He said to them, "Whoever has ears, let him hear. There is
light within a man of light, and he (or "it") lights up the whole
world. If he (or "it") does not shine, he (or "it") is darkness."




The disciples said to Jesus, "Tell us how our end will be."
Jesus said, "Have you discovered, then, the beginning, that
you look for the end? For where the beginning is, there will the
end be. Blessed is he who will take his place in the beginning;
he will know the end and will not experience death."


-- Quotes from the Gospel of Thomas (part 1)





and Buddha belly-laughs!













Rishab's other-worldly art don't stop fascinating me.
by "other-worldly," i mean his subjects do not seem to be exactly of this dimension. I always thought that Rishab is downloading from his memory in another parallel existence. gee!





last night, The Manor hosted an opening of art exhibit, "Ugma," which means: the olden days. exhibit is organized by a sculptor friend of mine to benefit a cancer patient... that's why, "art heals."






tsika tsika...







showing an X - rated shot....................... with friends........................






with the crisp cool air, music and lights, it felt so Christmas!







here comes the show!
tarara!



blessing by the ethereal elders





offer it to the gods





some of the arts by Gilbert Gano Alberto

(click on image to magnify a bit ;)





from driftwood material





(apparently, i was already drunk to care about shooting from the best angles.)




Mr. Gano comes from a family of sculptors from Hapao, in Ifugao. he began sculpting when he was 13... to save trees, he started using drift-woods and stones from the river.








the smoke-pipe


material: stones from Kennon Rd. river




eagle men!


kuya Gano once told me that even stones and driftwood have lives, the artist pick them and help them express so that people may hear their 'voice' and become more mindful of the environment as well as to their fellow beings.
i wonder if that explains the deep but crestfallen facial expression on these faces.








do you know that guy in cowboy hat? i don't but i was sitting next to him in Red Lion pub after we left the Manor... and people were telling me i'm sitting next to a legend. I said, "who?" But I don't really know him, never heard. They said: jeezaz! ask your father, that guy is "sikat!" that it might have just been a wishful dream for your father to even get close to him.

apparently he is one of the 3 masterminds of original Filipino rock n' roll!
true enough, people coming and going out of the pub couldn't stop showing acts of "homage" to him. and even the pub manager filled us with FREE food!

so i said: i take a photo with him then!


if, like me, you also don't know him since you were born at a later time, he is Pepe Smith of the pioneering Juan dela Cruz band. his outer appearance might look foreign but he is Pinoy.



allegedly Pepe Smith quote (?): "If I am not into rock and roll... What am I, executive or executed?"


tehee!





There is a story about how a young man came to the master and said: "I want to become a Christ."


The master said: " How much gold would you give?"

The young man said: "All of it because I could manifest anything even gold if I was a Christ."


The master said: "Right answer, for you have mastered detachment but wrong reason for becoming a Christ." Then the master said: "They will hate you, you will reflect back to them their own lack of self worth, love, joy and bliss, their lack of self mastery. You will also amplify all the fear, guilt, anger, and unworthiness within them for which they will blame you."


The young man said: " I still want to reach my highest level of enlightenment."


The master said: "The first thing you will have to master is any need for approval, acceptance or love outside of yourself, only then will you be able to stay the course, master loving detachment and love unconditional without reaction. Then and only then can you maintain the constant flow of God and serve others telling them what they need to hear not what they want to hear for which again they will hate you."



- James Gilliland www.eceti.org