Scenes from the Sumilao March: San Beda Church

Scenes from the Sumilao March: Paco Catholic School Church

somehow, the blue skies framing the tall spires reminded me of some italian scenery...

for cheenee! imong pics with r friends from sumilao

i-grab na lang cheen,,

Bonding with the Family @ the beach

**sistah, na-miss ka namin!! kayo na lang ni cris ang kulang...

in need of a good story

My father isn't a good storyteller.

Which is why i could never figure how, even after all these years, i can still vividly remember the stories he told me when i was much younger.

Dad had this annoying habit of leaving stories unfinished. Most of the time, he would fall asleep even before he could finish. He would be right in the middle of a tale and then--the familiar silence and the subsequent snore. Whenever he fell asleep, Dad was impervious to my persistent efforts at waking him up and making him continue with his story.

Because of this, Dad often told stories in random fragments which you had to re-arrange in order to build a plot. He would talk about his own Tatay, my grandfather, who fought during the Korean War.

Then he would fall asleep.

The next chance I get to listen to him, he would be talking about his own grandmother and how she had this "anting-anting" that made her invisible to the Japanese.

Then he would fall asleep.

By the next episode, he would be telling me about his own Nanay, my grandmother, and how she saw a "tiyanak" eating a ripe mango.

Then he would fall asleep.

Again.

In spite of protracted plots that spanned several incongruous segments, I was captivated by Dad's stories. While I knew, even at that young age, that some of his tales were rather incredible, I listened attentively and pretended that I believed in every detail he mentioned. Tiyanak and anting-anting notwithstanding.

Dad's narrative style was not spectacular. In fact, he narrated stories if he were merely suggesting and providing simple captions for the images in my mind. He couldn't really paint scenes with words. He wasn't poetic nor dramatic. He spoke plainly, and yet, somehow, he stirred my imagination. I don't know how he did that.

Even now, Dad still isn't a good storyteller.

Though he doesn't fall asleep anymore with his own stories, he already fumbles with his sentences and has developed an even more terrible sense of plot flow and timing.

But when he tries to tell me a story, I listen.

And I don't know how he does that.

talon ng daranak

Riverbanks

dito napadpad habang hinahanap ang pinanggagalingan ng usok-barbecue!

Kikay Bears

experimenting with stop animation.
avon ad kuno. hehehe.
frame by frame,,

meteor shower: Geminid 2007

"Uy, shooting star!!!"
"Saan?"
"Ayun, meron ulit! Yehey!"
"Mag-wish ka na!"
"Ha?! Wala nang shooting star.."

So there we were, all seven of us, on the viewdeck, having a conversation about swimming pools and sembreak plans, when suddenly, we were interrupted by shooting stars.

I didn't even know that there was going to be a Geminid meteor shower that night.

I craned my neck upwards just to catch a glimpse of that elusive heavenly display.

Nothing.

After a short while, i saw three shooting stars successively streaking through the starry night sky. We were all applauding and hooting like giddy children as the meteors vaporized into thin air.

"Mag-wish ka na," Bernie said to RC. Somehow, everyone on the viewdeck made a wish.

I didn't.

Not because I didn't want to but because I didn't know how. When do you actually start making a wish? Do you make it before, during, or after the meteor makes its dash across the sky? I have long asked that question but I haven't really seriously asked anyone about it.

If you make a wish before you actually see one, would that count? Shooting stars could be so elusive, you could have kept wishing and wishing and end up not seeing a single one at all.

Suppose you make a wish as soon as it appears. I tried that many times, with precision and timing, but I often fail to complete the "wish" since the shooting star would have already burnt itself up completely.

Now, wouldn't making a wish after you've seen one, make the whole point of wishing on a shooting star pointless, since you would be wishing on something which has already disappeared?

Anyway, I still wonder about how to do the "wishing on a shooting star" properly. hehe.

by the way, I ended up with six sightings that night.

Oh, and after that, I looked up one of my old notebooks and found an old poem (in Filipino) which I wrote after the Leonid shower in 2002:

LEONIDS 2002

mamaya
aabangan ko
ang pag-ambon
ng mga kwitis-langit.

maglalatag ako
ng banig
at ako'y titingala,
nganganga,
at maghihintay
ng grasya
mula sa itaas.

gusto ko kasing makatikim
ng nagbabagang bato,
tulad ni Isaias,
nang maranasan ko
kung papaano
mag-dilang anghel.

Ascension Youth Choir Outing

Daranak Falls

sa mga AYC,
ayan, na-post ko na rin sa wakas! download nyo na. =)

ascension chapel, payatas, qc

Join the Sumilao March on December 14 [postponed and moved to dec 17]

took this shot of the Cardinal welcoming one of the farmers.

Join March to Malacanang this Friday, December 14. 730AM. DAR.

others shots were taken during the mass at the gesu..

*Text message from Javy Alpasa, SJ:
POSTPONED big church procesn 2 escort sumilao farmers2 Malacanan to Dec 17 mon 530am asembly at DAR bec PGMA agrid 2 personaly mit farmers monday pls pass