'and i did that without even studying too hard mommy noh?'

Today i got my son's very first report card.. He is in Grade 1 already and this is the first time that I got a report card with actual grades on it. He goes to MMIS and for his pre-school years, grades on his report card were only letters (A+, VG, G, etc). MMIS doesn't believed in the honor roll so you won't really know how your child is doing as compared to others in his class. they say that its because they don't want to pressure the child, which i also tend to agree..

so anyway,when i arrived from work the other day, my son greeted by excitedly saying that

allen: mommy, mommy, i don't have school on friday.. yehey! yehey!' with dancing motions
me: and i go like'' 'why pangga?'
allen: its Parents Teachers Conference (PTC) mommy.. you have to be there or else teacher will get angry

well, with an edict, who could say no right?

now, this week has been a very hectic week.. i had to attend a 5 day labor seminar while sandwiched in between those days were 2 meetings and simultaneously a 2 day leader's summit was also scheduled which i also had to attend.. all in the same week.. the seminar, the meetings and the summit were in 3 different locations, so i had to travel back and forth .. and god! by the end of the week, i was so exhausted..

and i had to factor in the PTC also or else my son's gonna kill me.. so over the course of the week... i had to remind myself over and over again 'maila, PTC on friday, 1PM, MMIS'.. 'maila, PTC on friday, 1PM, MMIS'..

on wednesday night, just when we were about to sleep, i reminded myself again, 'maila, PTC on friday, 1PM, MMIS'.. 'maila, PTC on friday, MMIS'.. 'maila, PTC on friday, MMIS'.. when suddenly my son said:

allen: oh by the way mommy, i forgot to tell you
me: what pangga?
allen: teacher said i'm in the honor roll
me: (excited).. really pangga?
allen: yes mommy, teacher joy said the first honor is a boy..
me: (doubtful at once): what exactly did teacher joy said pangga?
allen: she said, that its a boy and his name starts with 'A'.. and then she also said it could either allen, aidan or brandon..


and allen, being allen, he promptly feel asleep after saying it.. so me, i was like.. starts with 'A' but it could be brandon? hmm.. something's not right at all...

amidst the busy day ( i went home late last night from the office), while we were again about to sleep, being the stage mother that i am, i asked allen:

me: so pangga, did teacher say who was number 1?
allen (matter of factly): its aidan mommy
me: oh.. did teacher say if you got any place?
allen: no she didn't.. will you still love me mommy even if i am not number 1?
me: of course pangga.. you will always be my number one love.. i will love you even if you're not number one
allen: but you'd love me more right if i'm number one?
me: of course not pangga.. i will love you no matter what..
allen: aww.. that's so nice mommy.. love you too.. (with matching hugs and kisses)

sidenote: when i heard allen say that, it made me realized that we should take care not to pressure our kids too much.. they might end up thinking that failure is not an option and would not be able to live with it...

anyway, this lunch, i rushed to MMIS to get his report card.. and true enough, teacher joy said that allen was an honor student.. allen was second place getting a GPA of 92.48.. to be first honor, you have to have a GPA of 93... that's only a difference of .52...

not too bad allen..in fact.. this is G R E A T !!!

when i got home, i excitedly told him about his card and told him he was honor student.. and allen, being the shy, humble kid that he is said: "and i got that mommy without even studying too hard noh?"

toink! that's allen.. that's my son.. :)

Blogging,, Googling.. Designing...

For the past two week, i've been scouring the net to search for the perfect design for my blogspot.. now, i am not really an internet-savvy type of person, but i tried to understand how to use it as best as i could.. and so i begun my journey in the search for the perfect design..


Stop #1 - Google.com - naturally, as with everything on the net, you start of course with google.. so i typed in 'blog design' and true enough i got a million or so hits...I started clicking and clicking on the links and i found a few interesting sites..


Stop #2 - blogspot template - i entered this website that offered free designs.. in fairness, i was able to upload the design using a tool that ends with an 'html'... now, the problem was it looked bad.. really bad.. so i went back to the original template...


Stop #3 - blogger.com- after going back to trusty google, i said to myself - "why fix the wheel when it ain't broken?" so i decided to improve on the default design of the blog.. now this one i really really like... however, there was only one major problem with it - it doesn't have any link bars... so i went back to the drawing board again...


Stop #4 - twitter.com - i decided to looked at some friends' blog and check how their design looked like... i looked.. i liked... i tweeted them and lo and behold... i was re-directed to another website...


Stop #5 - template.com - i really,really liked the designs and it was exactly what i neeed... the problem was when i uploaded it to my blog, it kinda destroyed the whole layout and the words 'flicker' kept on appearing in the background.. and as much as i tried, i couldn't figure out how to take out the background words.. so at 2 in the morning, i stopped and uploaded back my original layout...


Stop #6 - website.com - then i got the brilliant idea that i should create another website.. i asked my sister the website expert and she said that my blog was already a website.. huh?.. duh, i couldn't get it.. so i went back to stop #1 and thought about mutlply..


Stop #7 - multiply.com - i liked it for the simple fact that i can edit the colors and fonts of the blog entries... what i didn't like was the big ad at the top of the page.. i mean, for whatever reason, i just hated watching that ad telling me i won something and blinking and blinking and blinking.. and man, was that ad big.. so i cancelled my account there..


Stop #7 - livejournal.com - so after so many stops and turns, i ended up here.. now, for the life of me, i couldn't still figure out how to re-design this page but i have a good feeling about this.. i'll explore this again -- spend sleepless nights-- and hope this is it!

"The wondrous feeling of ginpoms"

After a long long time, I got drunk again tonight.. actually, I’m still drunk while I’m writing this but I just felt that I had to write it all down before the toils and boils of everyday life caught up with me tomorrow and I forgot to write this blog.

Our good friend, bruce, who now resides in manila came home for the weekend as he was invited as a speaker in the anniversary event of one of the institutions here in cebu (though, for the life of us, we couldn’t imagine why he was tapped as one.. haha).. so as usual, everytime he was in town, the whole mangtas group met..

Since, it was antonio’s birthday and joy was sick, she couldn’t make it.. mike had to be yaya to his kid so he couldn’t make it as well.. That left me, joey and jipjip. It was mother lily’s birthday so I suggested to joey for us to just met in his house and we’ll just bring food *kuno*… we went to Salinas for dinner.. as usual, bruce was at his hilarious self, telling us about his one hour talk and we got busy updating each other with what happened to our lives for the past 3 weeks (we actually saw each other a month ago) as we waited for jipjip to arrived as he was assigned to bring the _ _ _ blue and mango juice..* he was late by the way*

We finally started with our drinking session.. let me tell you, in case you get the wrong impression, I do not drink that much now *recovering alcoholic* hahaha.. but ginpoms was and has always been my favorite drink.. unfortunately, jipjip bought 2 small bottles, thinking that I was the only who was drinking it.. (hmm.. 2 bottles just for me?..) so we started the tagay and dongkoy (‘unsa man jud ang estado joey?’) me, joey, bruce and jipjip finished the 2 bottles in an hour.. they went on to RH but I declined (I’m an RH girl, but I don’t usually mix my drinks) .. we wanted more so bruce suggested that we go to his hotel (aircon!), buy more stuff and finish it there.. since jessa was going out anyway (by the way, thanks to jessa for a free dinner), we decided to all go out.. and that’s when we all got drunk..

Drinking has always given me that liberating feeling where I can let go of all inhibitions, where i can just say whatever i want and know that i can always blame the alcohol after.. don’t get me wrong, I am not an alcoholic and this is the first time that I got drunk after a long, long time.. in fact, I remembered that the last time I got drunk was joey’s birthday, around 6 years ago, where I also drunk a jar full of ginpoms all by myself (though in retrospect, the last time I really got drunk was January 2010 when we went home to davao and celebrated my aussie’s cousin nim’s birthday) .. for a brief moment in time, you get to feel irresponsible and you get to express whatever you want!..

I don’t recommend this though to be a regular thing.. getting drunk once in a decade is ok.. doing it every night, that’s a different story.. so if you do want to get drunk, I have only 5 tips for you:

1. Drink only with friends that you can trust. When you want to get drunk, better do it with people that you trust 101%, who you know will tell you when to stop and will ensure that you get home safe and sound
2. Don’t mix drinks. If you drink RH at the start of the evening, then drink RH all the way. You’ll end up with a hang-over if you mix your drinks unless you’re really used to drinking.
3. Do not sleep on the way home. Wait until you get home to sleep, otherwise, if you sleep in the cab, you will not be able to go back to sleep once you get home, or worse, you might end up somewhere else.
4. Know your limits. Feeling tipsy is ok, drinking to the point of puking is not. Stop when you feel that you have enough.
5. Drink cold water with ice. When you know your drunk already, drink cold water with ice and you won’t end up the next day with a hangover. When you wake up, the first thing you do is drink cold water again.

Lastly, do it once every so often in your life. At some point, we all need to let go of the stress for one evening and just enjoy. Spend time with your friends once in a while and for that evening, forget about work, stress and problems and just get drunk. Trust me, you’ll face the week with much more enthusiasm 

To joey, jipjip, bruce and dongkoy: till the next drinking session.
To joy, yani and mike: join us the next time 

-ramblings from a drunk dreamer-

What to write? What to write?

I had this blog since 2009, but i haven't been really writing a lot, until last week, when I really made a concerted effort to make articles.. especially when i discovered how to upload pictures into this blog.. hahaha...

When i started this blog, i wanted to make a theme.. like, its to be about travel, or lifestyle, or books, or anything else... but til now, i don't have a specific theme.

first i wanted to write about dreams (well, obviously from the blogsite title right?) - but then, after a couple of articles, i realized, that you couldn't really fill up a blog with dreams - i mean, you can only talk or. write as in this case, about dreams so much, right?.. so there goes that theme...

next, i wanted to write about my son - but i figured, the only person who'd be interested to read it would be me and of course his dadad and most importantly, my son has told me with great emphasis that "mommy don't ever write about me"... so down the drain that theme went...

then, i figured, maybe revolved my blog about my travels.. but i realized that though i travel very often - its mostly due to my work. and let's face it, when its business related travel, you don't get to see a lot of sites especially when your with your boss.. hahaha.... there are some trips where i only get to see the hotel and the airport and that's it.... so, though, i didn't discounted this theme totally, i put it in the back burner..

after that, i thought about movies - hmmm.. though i love watching movies, i am usually able to watch it a few months after it gets showed and i don't really know a lot about cinematographic ek-ek to make an intelligent article about it.. so scratch that one...

so i thought and thought about it and thought about it some more.. i then asked myself - what is it i really like best? - and two things came to mind - gadgets and books.. so i said, yeah, i'll revolved my blog around books. but then, as my friends would say, i have boring tastes - i only read books about authors i like and i only read fiction books, so it'd be really limited..

so i went to the next thing - gadgets - let me tell you, i loooovvveeee gadgets.. but its actually the owning of the thing i love and the getting that thing that i like, so if I write about gadgets, i'd have to research about technical stuff which i don't like.. so its also a NO...

then, i thought about hotels - why not right? i've been to so many different hotels around the philippines, that i figured I could do it - but, i realized that i might not be able to say good things about some of it, so i'd rather not say anything at all.. haha..

and on and on and on it went.. up to now, i don't exactly know what my blog is going to be... i need to research more and find that special niche for me in the blog world..

ideas anyone?

Allen's Eight Birthday on the eight day of the eight month

My son officially turned eight at exactly 7:50 PM. We had a party in the house - and by party, I mean, just us here in the house plus a couple of titas, 1 tito and 1 cousin. We decorated the house all by ourselves and though the results might be amateurish, my son simply loved it..

We bought a simple birthday cake and decorated it ourselves.. as elena said, it looked good and looked like it was an underwater cake with spongebob, squipperd, sandy and patrik. we put in some candles that looked like weeds thus completing the underwater theme :)

I realized that as long as you do things together and you make it a labor of love, no matter how simple it might be or how cheap it is, my son wouldn't mind a bit and would just love it.

At the end of the evening, he said the sweetest thing to me - 'mommy, its the best birthday ever'...

Happy birthday allen! You make life worth living :) Love you very much...

The Child's Song

This song was composed by a very good friend of mine way back when we were in high school. As part of our Music finals, we were asked to compose a song, sing it, record it on a tape and submit it. Since i didn't know how to sing and compose, I asked Bruce to do it for me. We did this in their small apartment in Junquera where he sang the song inside the bathroom..

Bruce, don't know if you remember this, but i am immortalizing this in my blog for you to remember....

I. Come and join me / make a wish
And your wish / will just be true
Cross your fingers / pray to God
And the dream will come to be.

II. When your down / and feeling bad
Count to ten / and don't be sad
Try to make friends / do love you
And you know they will be true

III. Love do make the world go round
Try to love and miss a frown
If there's none that you can love
I'm the one that you can have.

We must be really good friends for you to make my project for me.. hahaha

My Art Works part2

This was one of my first attempt to draw an actual human person.

We had a boy model to follow. I remember my teacher laughing when i made my first drawing. This is how the final one looked..

these were two of my many watercolor attempts..

we were asked to experiment with different colors and paint actual objects...

we were also instructed to do charcoal works... i did a lot but for me these were my best works in charcoal..

this one i did around 10 years ago when i had the urge to draw something... i drew a wall decor which somebody gave me...

not too bad, if i do say so myself...

one of these days, i'll definitely go back to drawing again... it can really expressed how you feel.. why don't you try it?

My Art Works

In the summer of '83, when i was just 11 years old, my mom enrolled me in summer art class. i don't remember anymore whether i really wanted the classes or my mom just figured that it was the perfect way for me to be busy during the summer and not get into trouble. Now, 28 years after, i can still remember the fun that i had during those two months of classes... i couldn't draw that well but it didn't stop me from trying. looking back, i realized that i have stopped trying out things that i do not have any idea about. in that summer of '83, i bravely tried out drawing, sketching, charcoal,. water color and pastel painting even though i know i wasn't good at it. Now, older and wiser, i wish that i could recapture again that innocent bravado where trying out new things is not scary and where i had the courage to just enjoy things. as i went through my files, i saw that a few works remained from that summer.

and so, i am posting these works in my blog, in the hopes that these will serve as a reminder to me that life is one big adventure. all we need to do is just find the courage to live it..

Kindle 3G, Free 3G + Wi-Fi, 3G Works Globally, Graphite, 6" Display with New E Ink Pearl Technology - includes Special Offers & Sponsored Screensavers

oh kindle.. my kindle...

last may 08, 2011, i entered the world of online buying.. and like everything else that i started.. my first purchase was something big.. i purchased a KINDLE..

now i've been wanting to buy a kindle for the longest time. unfortunately, it wasn't sold locally, thus i resorted to the net... after much deliberations, phone calls, consultations and what-have-yous.. i finally decided to buy the kindle through amazon.. and let me tell you, amazon was simply amazing.. i ordered the kindle on tuesday and i got it on a saturday.. the cool thing is that you can even track where your package is already.. simply Amazing amazon..

kindle as defined by wikipedia is an e-book reader developed by Amazon.com which uses wireless connectivity to enable users to shop for, download, browse, and read e-books, newspapers, magazines, blogs, and other digital media. The Kindle hardware devices use an E Ink electronic paper display that shows up to 16 shades of gray, minimizes power use and simulates reading on paper.

no words can simply describe my feeling when i'm using my kindle.. its my daily companion and entertainment. my i-touch took a backstage when it arrived.. well, if truth be told, reading has always been my first love..

instead of lugging around heavy books, i can now carry over 7,000 books in just 1 tablet.. it only weighs 8.7 pounds and when you read it, it is as if you are reading an actual book!! my best friend joy says that she still wouldn't trade her books for a kindle.

but i say, it definitely is worth it :)

oh kindly my kindle.. how i so love you.. now if only amazon could come up with a colored touch screen kindle.. my reading world would be perfect!