scrub?
okay, so i was reading my kuya's blog... he asked what girls think about guys who live with their parents. the situation that kuya was saying included the guy being in his mid-20s, and him making payments for the house he helped them buy. i don't see how that could be such a bad thing, unless his parents are treating him like a teenager or something. but i personally don't know anyone (right off the top of my head) that is in this situation.

in the group i've got, i don't know any girl who's got her own place (apartment or house). we're all over 20. but i think it's just a typical girl thing that their parents let them stay as long as they want. it's not that our parents don't want us to move out, or that they won't encourage it. it's just that they won't boot us out of the house. besides, it's not that bad. some of us are spoiled and we don't have to pay rent or do anything for our parents to help support the family. the rest of us support our family in different ways, from just paying to keep gas in the car, to contributing a bit to the bills, to helping out our siblings so our parents won't have to worry about them so much. yeah, that's pretty much how it works in my neck of the woods. i know of a few people that strongly believe that after 19 (that's when you're considered an adult in canada), they will kick their kids out of the house to fend for themselves. unless i know that my kids are going to be able to do what they want to do (ex. school, travel, or work) AND support themselves financially, i won't even hear of that. the last thing i'd want is to kick my kid out of the house before they felt they were ready... imagine having to pay off student loans or credit card bills or having no real work experience so you'd be on welfare before the age of 20. and on top of that, they'd have to pay rent, electricity and grocery bills every month... maybe it's just a maternal thing, and i know this is a worst-case scenario, but i'd hate to think that my kid could have a really rough start on his or her adult life.

of course, if i think back to how i was when i was 19, well, i guess i was mentally ready. but i was still in school... definitely NOT financially ready. it's sad that money has to play such a big part, but it does.

but as far as if a guy was in this situation, i dunno. i think most guys make a point to be independant of their parents as soon as they can, regardless of if they still live with them or not. i know of some that live on their own, and those are the ones i hardly see cuz they're always working. of course, it would be a bit of a drag if you wanted to have a romantic evening with a guy and you couldn't cuz his mom and dad were upstairs watching television or something... privacy and independance are the main advantages to having your own place. but really, a guy (in his early to mid 20s) living with his family doesn't bother me so much. it's not like he'd be living in his parent's house forever. besides, it's different if a guy owns his house and has his parents staying with him rather than him living with his parents. now, if he complains about his living situation and is doing nothing about it, then i would consider him a scrub.

pender island
man, i am so beat. i just got back from sabby's uncle's cabin on a local island and was that ever a well-deserved rest! first off, this cabin was BEAUTIFUL! it was a log-cabin, with 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, a great kitchen and dining area, and a living room with a gas fireplace and a HUGE view of the lake. it was right at our back yard!! this morning, deer were grazing in the yard, the sun was shining, and the girls and i canoed out to the middle of the lake and sunbathed on these raft things... it was SO sweet. i wish we didn't have to come back so soon... after this beautiful weekend, i really feel like my summer is over. i guess it's cuz work for me is an elementary school. it's like waaaay back in the day when you were a kid. once you saw the school supply shopping commercials on television, you know another year of hard work and effort is on its way.

cool... take 2
so my kuya told me that this friend of his wrote something about my "cool" entry in her blog. her name is bernadette and her blog is pretty... well... COOL (really, it is!). it's true, that it's all in how you say it, and i agree with her... it's got such diverse meanings for such a little word. i really have a special place in my heart for this word. but just watch... the english language will eventually collapse on itself because every word will want to be the same word... okay, maybe not, but hey. it's still a scary thought.

i need...
music!! argh, i was thinking i could just chill back and blog while listening to the latest mp3s sarah and i downloaded on this ancient machine... but it's just not working. oh well, i guess i could listen to the radio... but i really felt like listening to some sugar jones, the canadian popstar group (yes, from the tv show). i'm quite impressed with their voices, actually. i heard a taste of the australian popstars group bardot, and they're just okay.

but anyhow, i'm just taking a break from doing some work. need to do some mindless blabbing...

is there another word for COOL?
i was talking to a friend earlier and he likes to say the word cool. that's not a bad thing... i use it a lot too. i (and others i know) use other words like sweet, tight, awesome, and all good to mean the same as cool, but cool comes up the most in conversation. i think it annoys some people (mostly the ESL kids i talk with... or old people ;op ) but i don't think i can help it. although, you'd have to be really cool for me to say you are (yeah, i'm talkin to you PAWNK!... hehehe).

got books?
reading is something i used to have to force myself to do. now i wasn't one of those kids who absolutely despised reading. i actually really liked it. i was just kinda slow at it. and of course when i got to the highschool level, i read what we had to read for english or literature class, so i didn't really have an urge to read other books when i had free time. but in university, i found that reading was one of the best ways to procrastinate (next to playing video games, watching movies, and email). now, since i go to the library almost every week to get kids books to tutor with, i look around for books i'd like to read that have more than 15 pages, pictures optional.

the latest one i have is just SO good! i've never been interested in anything more than the bare minimum about history, but in the last little while or so, my interest has been sparked. it must've been around the time i was reading timeline by michael crichton... anyhow, the book i've got now is about the battle of stalingrad. it's the setting for that movie enemy at the gate was about. yes, it has to do with the war, a topic not many of my friends talk about, but the story is just SO unbelieveable.

*grumble*
i have so much to do. this weekend i'm headed out to a cabin on pender island with sabby and the girls (i wonder if more than jason and rick will be joining us to represent the guys?..) so we have to do some major food shopping soon. then when i get back i've got to get back into the intensive tutoring scene... then our dragon boat team will be hella practicing for our victoria competition in a couple of weeks... then i'm off the following weekend with my little sister to L.A. for our cousin's cotillion.

i guess most of these activities are going to be fun... i'm just complaining about the busy-ness of it all. i wish me and my friends could just sit back and chill together and not worry about work or anything. at least it'd be a relaxing end to the summer.

sonho meu
that's the name of a brazilian song i'm listening too... i think i've practically memorized it already. and for those who know me, it's not unusual. there's just something horribly wrong with me. it's that damn "phonographic memory" i've got with songs, and it doesn't matter what language they're in either. now if only i could learn a filippino song other than nandito ako...

sugar
i love sugar. and i really like those crazy asian candies too. the other day, i went to richmond with annie and we spent $20 (canadian... so that makes for about 12 of your american bucks) on chinese and japanese imported candy. now before you go on thinking "what? is that candy really that great?" i have to say YES it is. there are so many cool flavors that north american candies wouldn't have. like lychee, mango, muscat and green grape to name a few. there's a buch of weird ones too (like scotch flavor.. eeep!) but i'll tell you about those if we ever have to eat it. the best tasting candy we bought has to be this lychee flavored chewy candy. yummy!! we tried the mango version of it, but it tasted pretty bad. and now i'm chewing on some sour green grape flavor gum drops. the candy has a site... it's so funny, the characters on the site really look like the character on the package! annie picked up this bubble gum that has fizzy popping things in the center of it. it really made us salivate. the most interesting one has to be the peach-grape flavored gum. it had a cotton candy consistancy and turned into chewing gum once it hits your saliva. it was really neat. but weird at the same time. you gotta wonder what kind of kicks people get out of buying this regularly. there's this one candy in front of me with a cartoon of a hamster on it... it's got a website too... and my candy really looks like that! these candies are so entertaining.

nekked!

so i went to the nude beach in vancouver called wreck beach for the first time last week. it's such a beautiful beach! remind me to take you if you ever come and visit me, and provided that the weather is good. it was so much less crowded than the local beaches, and that really was refreshing. plus, the area has some historicity (is that a word? well it is now!) to it. back during the war, we feared that we could possibly be attacked, being on the pacific and all. so there were three big guns placed up above the beach level (around where our museum of anthropology is), and a couple lookout towers on the actual beach. it's really cool.

i can't really tell you much about the naked people though. i was busy walking around looking down because there are a ton of big rocks just waiting to turn your ankle for you. but when i DID look up, i saw an awful lot of women with those ugly banana shaped tits. i know i have far from the best tits in the world, but i'm sorry, they were quite gross. no real nice boobies were hanging out (pardon the pun!) that day. i also saw a lot of big ol' burly men, with itty bitty wee wees. the younger, fitter men were either too far out towards the water or sunbathing on their stomachs so i couldn't really get a good look at their packages. aww shucks. but i must mention that there was this one guy who looked pretty relaxed, sleeping sprawled out on a big log, with the largest penis i've ever seen. it was just laying there on top of his right thigh. it was easy 6 inches long. but enough about that.

food... yummm

on friday, jason and i went to a barbecue at one of our brazilian student friend's homestay house. it was so sweet. he had a pool and a jacuzzi. this is not a common luxury for us vancouverites, because it's usually rainy or cold 9 of the 12 months of the year, so most of us spend our extra cash on hard-top convertibles, or trips to warm and sunny places. lucky for us it's been sunny for 3 weeks straight so this bbq came at the perfect time. we didn't do much except for chill by or in the pool all night, but it was all good. eating barbecued steak, chicken, and sausages was fine by me!

mmmm... more food!!

saturday was jp's (my godbrother) birthday party. it was another barbecue, this time at a park in new wesminster (for my cali friends, picture oakland, but with more apartments than tenement housing). the amount of time it takes to take our skytrain from downtown vancouver to there is about the same amount of time it takes for the BART to take you from downtown san fran to the second oakland stop (if i recall correctly, it's the west oakland stop). funny, isn't it? anyhow, me and char chilled and ate steak and rice, and reminiced with our godsiblings. we are all pretty much around the same age, and we often wonder when we get older, if we'll be running the family barbecues as much as our parents run them right now. it's funny, but we all see it as a kind of torch that will be passed to us, the younger generation, to preserve our filipino culture through family traditions. it's really interesting to think about, cause we're all canandian, and canadians are notorious for not having a specific culture. that's what we get for having a multicultural society rather than a melting pot.

and you'd think the food would stop there. that same evening, i went to sun sui wah, a great chinese seafood restaurant, for cin's 24th birthday. i gotta say, if you love seafood and chinese food, go to a really good chinese seafood restaurant. it's delicious! and as odd as it may sound, jellyfish tastes AWESOME. i can't describe how it's cooked, but it's not as gross as you'd first think. it's so delicious. i had such a good time that evening, mostly because i was hanging with people i don't see very often anymore. but regardless of our busy lives, we never lose touch. it's so great.

all for you
so last thursday was supposed to be janet jackson's first concert of her all for you tour. it was to be here in our very own GM place arena. she rented the whole place out for most of june so she could practice before the tour started. but it ended up that the concert was postponed until monday the 9th. regardless of the delay, it was SO worth it! this woman is amazing. her choreography was perfect for every dance number, and her singing was so on key it gave me chills. and the place was full up til the rafters. it was a great concert.

and of course, how could i rave about it without raving about 112? these guys are the best guy r&b group i've heard live since the days of boyz2men. sarah and i went to their first performance out here and it was beautiful (wouldn't you agree craig? ;op) and their second apperance was just as great. if ever you get a chance, check them out live. it's so worth it.

until i write again...

dragon boat

holy cow am i tired (still!) of this past weekend. the vancouver alcan dragon boat festival started on friday and ended sunday. did you know that it's the world's largest international dragon boat festival? i just found that out myself. as for my team, team apocalypse, we did pretty well for ourselves... we won silver in the second highest recreational team division. it was a great weekend, despite the stress of it all... i'll tell more about it later when i post the link to the pictures.

so much to read...

and so little time! there is just too much information out there. it's times like this i wish i could read faster... much like that guy on the speed reading infomercial. he just runs his finger down the page and he's done. PLUS he says he understands every detail of what he just read! my friend andy had some sort of reading product like that when we were in highschool. i wonder if it worked... think it's just a crock? but it would be SO useful!! take my daily interests for example. i have email that i read, respond to and compose, i like to read at least the front page of the paper to see yesterday's news, i read about more current events online, i write in my blog (not all the time, but i'm consistent), i tutor/teach kids constantly, and if i'm not already square-eyed from all that information, i like to read my book before going to bed. and of course i feel bad that i can't email back everyone that writes me, but let it be known that i at least read what they write. it's usually by then that i'm so burned out from all the words i see in a day that writing more is just torture. i should start typing with my eyes closed... if you can handle the typos. i can't wait til voice command technology becomes more refined and less expensive. forgive the corniness, but it'll be a sight for sore eyes!!

hey mer, how's life?

that's what everyone's been asking me lately. no one's seemed to catch me at a full stop for the last month... well, in a word, my life is BUSY. like i told my kuya, i'm kinda torn among three things: my job, my family, and everything else (all lumped into one big pile).

work is work

work is keeping me busy, but that's just temporary. it's report card season again, you know. you will not believe how many teachers know very minimal about computers, and typing is not a forte they all posess. the last day of school is on the 25th, and the report cards have to be entered into the computers/system by this weekend. that amounts to stress on them which, suprisingly, doesn't stress me at all... although, it's not enjoyable sometimes when you have to teach a weathered teacher how to save their work. you think they'd be as open to learn as they are to teach. some of them are just so cranky. whenever i encounter a situation where a bad attitude is involved, i try my best to remember it. that way, if i find myself acting that way, i can remind myself how stupid it looks from another person's shoes. it's just a theory, and probably a bad one, but i'm hoping to become a better person that way.

thicker than water

my family is doing fine. we've got lots of flowers, and my relatives are always bringing over food with their well-wishes. it's hard doing all the things i have to do, let alone the things i want to do when we have to make sure my mom's not doing anything but relaxing. and the relatives mean well, i know, but sometimes i have the feeling that too many cooks spoil the pot. one weekend a couple weeks ago, i went out for a walk at queen elizabeth park with jason. no one was expected to be here, but low and behold, the relatives came and a party ensued. it wasn't something that would have been highly recommended, but it happened anyway. everyone was fussing over anybody that asked mom anything, cuz "she has to rest! don't disturb her!!" it got hard to bear. as much as i know i should've been around, i'm kinda glad i wasn't. you know how family can be. i'd have probably gone crazy.

life?

i don't have time for an interesting one. i've got jason (thank GOODNESS) so he's what keeps me smiling mostly. i don't know what i'd do without him.
tonight is the big fundraiser for my dragon boat team. it's gonna be at daddy o's. this place has been renovated since it's early days of being big bam boo. it looks good... but i'm not too sure about the two cages with elevated podiums some girls choose to dance in. i guess that's what happens when your club also hosts "ladies night". hopefully, there will be some happenings worth repeating... then maybe my blog/my life will be a bit more exciting. strange, my entries used to be less mediocre than this... maybe someone stole my qi...?!

let's recap last weekend... before this one starts!

friday, i went downtown with mom. aside from running errands (ie. shopping), we paid a visit to ming, our jeweler. now, someone once told me that in life all you need is a good doctor, a good lawyer, and a good barber/hairdresser. well i can't help but think that a jeweler should be up there somewheres. it's just so much more worth it rearranging your old jewelry than buying completely new ones... at least in mom and my case :o)
anyhow, she had some of her pearls set in white gold. one cultured pearl was set into my lola's engagement ring band, and sized to fit my finger! i know this might be boring for most of you, but if you ever get the chance to see this ring, WOW is it ever beautiful!

an ice cold beer makes you wanna cheer...
(yes, i think i will start putting titles on my entries now)

saturday was my dragon boat team's first race of the year, and my first race ever. i was more than a little bit nervous about it... i was worried i wouldn't be loud enough, or that i'd fall out of the boat mid-race, or that i'd make us lose. but it turned out to be SO fun! it was like a track meet on water. although, getting soaked after our final race wasn't quite as fun as we played it to be (no thanks to darryl! you are SO going to get it boy!). but the salty false creek water stinging my eyes didn't matter. we won :o)

mother's day "lupper"

see, it would've been a brunch if we had actually had it before noon. instead it was a late lunch or early supper, or "lupper".
annie, bébé (a.k.a. rafael), and i cooked buttermilk pancakes and omlettes for our parents and us. it was hilarious trying to get bébé to cook with us. he's only 7 so imagine the excitement in the kitchen. tune in for a repeat performance this father's day.

i miss cali

i can't help but think how beautiful it is down there at this time, while up here, sun is quickly becoming a myth. monday was crazy torrential rain all day. by 9pm, there were power outs in many parts of vancouver... of course, the other reasoning could be because california has been sucking out all OUR electricity... what is up with that? i thought you guys were a rich state! freeloaders ;op

so i'm in the field of education... now, i know i can do it, but do i really want to do it? the idea of having a winter, spring and summer vacation is just great, and i must say, that is what first attracted me to teaching. of course, i was six years old. now that i've grown a little bit older and wiser, school is still school. i liked it when i was a kid, i liked it less when i was a teenager, and those who know me well can tell you how little i liked it in university. now that doesn't mean that i'm against teaching or education or anything like that. i'm all for it. it's just that i'd rather do something i like. i had to man the fifth grade yesterday afternoon when the regular teacher was called away. i am familiar with the class, and was prepared to have to deal with complete chaos. well, it didn't end up being complete chaos, but there were always the kids who were intent on not listening. boy were they in for it.

see, the fifth grade has a nickname for me: nice lady. some have even come up to me and said that they weren't scared of me. that kind of concerns me. does that mean that i have to be "scary" to be a successful teacher? by successful i mean getting the respect that all teachers should have from their students. after all, teachers are trying to teach the kids something that they'll be able to use sometime in their lives. it's just so hard when they don't want to listen. not only do you get a bit ticked off when they refuse to cooperate (trust me, teaching is a thankless job), but imagine having the opportunity to make an impression on a child's life and it turns out that it's a negative impression instead of positive. yikes, the repercussions could be severe!! i'm all for being a pillar of the community, but i am just not comfortable knowing that getting the kids to listen and obey means that you'd have to be some sort of dragon lady. well, i don't know if they were scared of me after yesterday, but the two kids that i had to give lines to must have serious hand cramps this morning. my new nickname: don't mess.

my goodness... i just finished catching myself up on my kuya gary's blog. i have so much to say about it! i can relate so much about a lot of things he's grown up with (mind you i'm only 2 years younger than him, so we did pretty much grow up in the same generation). oh no, i feel an essay coming on...

for those of you who don't already know me, i was born and grew up in vancouver. contrary to the popular belief that there's a plethera of filipinos here, the only ones i surrounded myself with (short of my ninangs, ninongs, titas and titos... but they don't count because they're adults!) were my godbrothers and godsisters. they are without a doubt the coolest flips i know out here. in school, i had two main circles: the "frimmers" (i was in FRench IMMERsion from kindergarten to grade 12... the majority of them were caucasian), and my chinese friends. neither of these groups had any filipinos in them. of course now my circles have a bunch of cultures in them, still with a big chunk of chinese, some caucasians, and a few non-chinese asians... and still not so many filipinos.

it's a bit weird if you step back and look at it. i know i'm not a traditional filipina (i date non-filipinos, i didn't have a "debut," i can't speak tagalog even though i understand it enough...). i really consider myself to be a canadian-filipina. i was brought up to believe that i'm canadian first, then my ethnic background. but it's not that i'm ashamed of my roots... it's just that i was born in canada, not the philippines. i was brought up in a canadian environment, not a filipino one. and even though my immediate influences (my parents and our close family friends) are all filipino, with their filipino values, morals and beliefs to impress upon me, they've taught this all to me but in a sort of adapted form from when they were young, therefore in a non-traditionally filipino way. they are all very open-minded and realize that bringing up a kid in the filipino way in a non-filipino environment would be difficult. as long as the kid knows to appreciate his or her roots, then i figure it's all good.

a really interesting part that got me was kuya talking about being "white-washed." now i've never considered myself to be that at all, firstly because i don't have enough caucasian friends that i'd consider completely caucasian. the majority of the ones i know are what we like to call "eggs." white on the outside but yellow in the inside. they all have a sort of asian streak in them. one who lived here all her life had to move to the east coast to go to university. the next time i saw her she was telling me how out of place she felt because there were so many blondes and no black-haired students on campus. it took a while for her to realize that she wasn't asian and that she wasn't sticking out like a sore thumb.

the second reason why i've never thought of myself white-washed was because, well, if you've ever been to vancouver you'd know. there's just a ton of asians out here! for example, my chinese friends totally thought of me as an "honorary chinese." i even picked up a few phrases just from being around them so much. i guess you could call me "yellow-washed" if there were such a thing.

i used to consider being called a "banana" was akin to being called white-washed, but not anymore. i've been called a banana, but not because i'm "more white" in the inside, but because i'm just not a traditional asian. i guess being a banana is not as extreme as white-washed. so i guess then me and my friends are a bunch of eggs and bananas.

although it could seem like it, i don't think i really have a problem finding my identity. i know my blood is filipino and i'm really proud of that. it's where my parents are from. but i am also a canadian. it's where i'm from.

last night i had such a blast. i went out to 'lil cin's" surprise birthday dinner and everyone was there! and it was sooo good to see the clan. i've only been the "honorary richmond-ite" for 5 years but the history i've got with them is huge. epic even! honestly, they're the high point of my post-secondary life. and despite the things that happen to each of us individually (family, friends, school, jobs... anything that keeps us too busy), you'll always know that it's impossible to lose any of them. it'll only be a couple months and then another big get-together happens. i think it's these things that keep us tight. besides, everyone's a unique contribution to our circle and i think all of us know that it'd be retarded if any of us weren't there. sabby and a few others realized how hilarious it was that there were a bunch of ex-girl/boyfriends at the table. good thing we're all good with it, otherwise there'd be some show... ;op

of course not like gossipping, er, um, i mean, reminiscing wasn't fun enough! hehehehe...
i'm just glad that i'm on our side and not on the side of anyone that would be dumb enough to mess. we'd take anyone and laugh them out of the room! we're not mean people, we're just tight. and it's not like we bite... well, maybe except for jac... ;op

so it's been practically a month since i wrote last. i humbly apologize to my faithful readers... if i still have any... if i had any at all!! ;op
but to at least keep up with that last entry, i did buy a dress. no it was not from zara (but that might change tomorrow). it's this cute lilac coloured sundress and i just had to have it. lucky for me it was on sale! and as much as i convinced myself that i wouldn't need new shoes with it, i just might look around...

and what else is new?... hmm... i got asked back to work at the elementary school for next year. it's really great... i guess. well, it keeps me busy. now i'm just worried that i won't be able to get my previous goals accomplished as quickly as i wanted to... like finish my degree. don't get me wrong, i'd much rather finish school than be stuck in a part-time job, especially since it feels like full-time with part-time pay and crappy hours. you must understand that with the elementary school comes the students that want to be tutored after school... some days i work from 8:30am to 8:30pm. that wouldn't suck if i were baking all day or something, cuz at least i'd be moving. but having to educate a kid requires sitting still and focussed non stop, not to mention getting the kid to sit still and be focussed. seriously, by wednesday, my adrenalin keeps me going til saturday morning when i can actually sleep in. depite me not being a smoker or a drinker, i think i'm just as unhealthy and abusive to my body as the next guy.

okay, so contrary to what i said before, i controlled myself and didn't go to zara yesterday. good thing too. i'm dying to get an ibook so i shouldn't be spending my hard earned cash on dresses that i look great in. there'll be other dresses, later on in the season when everyone is already set in the trend... okay maybe i can buy one dress.

speaking of dresses, penelope cruz has really great ones in that movie of hers called "woman on top." too bad that movie licked. if you haven't seen it and don't want to know what happens, skip the rest of this blog. but i don't suggest watching it anyways. this story is about a girl who needs to control everything that's happening to her otherwise she'll get sick. literally. she meets a guy and they get married but he's a real macho type man. he likes to be in control. this guy ends up cheating on her because when they have sex, he can't be "on top." i find that kind of weak but hey, i didn't write the screenplay. she predictably runs away and tries to start anew. macho man chases her down and tries to win her back and she tells him she doesn't love him anymore. i thought by this point in the movie that she was just going to do everything she wanted... be independant and all. and it looked like it was headed that way. but by the end of the movie, she succumbs to her macho husband's charms and actually goes back to the guy. it doesn't really live up to the title i guess. maybe it was a sarcastic title...

you know what i hate? i hate it when i'm just doing some harmless window shopping. if i go into it thinking "i won't find anything special" i ALWAYS seem to find at least one thing that i like. and not only do i like it, but it ends up fitting me perfectly, AND it always seems to look good. well, today after work i went to zara, my most favorite store on robson street. not only did i find 3 dresses that i like and look great on me (last time this happened was recorded in my november blog), but one of them was particularly gorgeous, and was only $69!!! *sigh* if only i had the guts to spend flagrantly. chances are i will drop by zara again, and i will rave more about it throughout the week.

AIYA!!!

so how do i look?... thanks to kuya for making my blog work again... and for putting up a pic of me so people can see me in my natural state (yes, phone and all!!). but why must it be THAT picture? as long as you're alive, that photo will haunt me, huh? curse you and your webcam!! ;op kidding!! but if anyone turns into stone, it's on YOUR conscience not mine!

anyhow, tonight i brought jason out to meet a few of my friends. we went to this japanese restaurant in richmond... the company was good but the food was debateable. that's all i'm gonna say about it because even the thought of complaining about the food quality makes me a bit ill. needless to say, i've been drinking gingerale since i got back... that was almost 7 hours ago.

earlier today i had to work at the college, so i was downtown. on my way back home, i was on the bus and it was packed. i was standing in the front trying not to step on peoples' feet or elbow them in the face. but there was this one man who just ticked me right off. he was standing behind me with his back to mine and he was leaning on me. yes, his ass was pushing up on me! YUCK. as if i were some sort of pillar to support him!! i was so not impressed but instead of shoving him off of me, i decided to move up a bit into some space that just cleared up. i was soaked from the rain and really tired so getting into a confrontation would just put me in a very bad mood. it worked out for me because aside from him losing his crutch, the bus started to move and he damn near fell over. i don't care that he was an old man and could've fallen on his ass. he was invading my already very small personal space. besides, it could've only been worse if i had more energy. i'd have turned right around, waited for him to fall, help him back up, then thrown him back down... "fallen and can't get up? well next time, i'll break your hip!!"

yesterday, i had some vietnamese food with sabby. gotta satisfy that craving! but anyone who likes it knows there's just something to that food. it's like drugs. you just crave it like a junkie wanting a hit. imagine that: "hey man, i just need a hit... just one hit of pho!" kinda like the mcdonald's french fries effect. you eat one then before you know it, you're friend's supersized fries are gone. i swear they must be lacing the frying oil with cocaine or something.

tomorrow... wait, i guess it'd be today.... anyhow, i'll be at the movies watching "enemy at the gate" with jason. oh yes, for those of you who have just started to read about my mundane life in vancouver, jason is such a great guy. i met him at the college we both work at and i had a crush on him since he first said hi (draw parallels to jerry macguire NOW). this is the same guy i went with to the van deusen botanical gardens when we jumped the fence. neil is his much cooler twin brother. now before anyone gets all up in my face about that last sentence, let me clarify. i say jason is cool, but neil is cooler. jason says i'm cool, but that annie is cooler than me. therefore, the "cool" twins hooked up and all is well in the world... well, all would be perfect in the world if the "cooler" twins hooked up but i'll leave things like that to the fates ;op ... i'm so excited to see the movie! i'll review it in my next entry. sleep right now would be good...

my eyes are still square from yesterday...

neil and linda invited jason and i to playdium last night. it's this massive arcade in the metrotown shopping centre. it was so fun! i killed so many bad guys with all sorts of weaponry... automatics, revolvers, sniper riffles, machine guns and tanks. soon after came the racing games. and then i had to play the dj-ing game to see if i could cut it on the one-twos. that i need to practice, that's for sure. but a good oldie that i always gotta hit is the dance dance revolution game. shoot, that game is just so fun. we all had a really great time. but was i ever braindead on the way home! i still can't hardly stare at anything for too long or else my eyes turn it into pixels. you gotta love the joys of computers :o)

it's so beautiful today. i almost just want to go shopping. i realize that living in vancouver, we're like chickens with our heads cut off when the weather gets nice. the things that have crossed my mind for ideas for things to do today were:

- clean my room
- do the laundry (which i really don't desperately need to do)
- surf the web
- eat
- go to the gym
- go shopping

all these things that involve staying inside. i really need to get into the outdoorsy mode. and it's not even that i'm lazy. i just don't have any ideas! maybe i need to surround myself with people who know what to do in the sunshine... or maybe i just need to move to a place that's almost always sunny...

6.2

that's the magnitude of the earthquake vancouver had yesterday. a lot of buildings swayed but barely anything broke. some people (including yours truely) didn't even feel it. i was with a bunch of hyper second graders at the time so i really didn't notice the extra movement. but seattle was a complete wreck! i think it hit at 7.0 down there. the "big one" is coming.

on a completely different note, i went to safeway the other night and i saw a girl that looked just like phuong! i was so shocked. i was staring at this petite asian girl, with a short haircut, wearing a long camel colored wool coat (it reminded me of phuong's camel colored "robe-ish" knit sweater), and these super cute shoes that have soles that look like warty bumps... you'd know them if i showed them to you. but my goodness were the ressemblances eerie! her height and build, the way she walked... this girl's lips even looked like phuong's! if i heard this girl speak, and it sounded like phuong, i would have totally gone up to her and said "hey, are you related to phuong?" creepiness.

it's such a beautiful day in the neighborhood!

today is the third, or even fourth day in a row that it has been just amazing weather for us in vancouver. with all this sun (and my allergies in full swing) it feels like spring! but i don't want to jinx it. watch, it'll end up snowing again by thursday. well, i hope it won't.

yesterday, i thought it might be a nice day to stroll downtown, with the sun out and all. but it ended up that jason and i went for a walk around kits... it's a fairly yuppy area, kinda like where my kuya lives in san francisco actually. it's near some (over-priced) shopping but a little walk from there gets you to the planet-arium (ever watch south park?.. hehehe funny episode, that one), a couple museums, and the area where our dragon boat practices are held. then we walked along the water, towards the beach. what's really neat in kits is that you can look right across the water and see downtown and the beach on that side. from where we were, downtown looked busy with people, families enjoying the sunny sunday afternoon no doubt. it made me happy that we decided to stay on the vancouver side.

today i should be at the college. i would usually go, but my head is just fat with pain. why i'm at a computer is beyond me. i should just be sleeping. but believe it or not, i am closing my eyes as i type... talk about skills ;op hehehe. the only thing that sucks about this sudden beautiful weather is my allergies. as long as i survive it with minimal drugs, i will be just fine.

aiya.

i hate not keeping up to date with this thing. now i've got sooo much to say!

okay, let's start from the night that i last wrote. i was over at jason's house tapping away while guests were slowly trickling into his living room. he was having a little get together and i was being a little bit anti-social. no matter. after the blog, i ran upstairs to meet some of his friends. then neil arrived. he's jason's cooler, better-looking, and more charming twin brother. and the fun didn't stop there! a few minutes later, annie and chris arrived. now imagine, two sets of twins at one party? yes it was entertaining. i was seated in between jason and neil and do they ever sound alike! annie was on the other side of neil and i think the idea of "stereo sound" was not too far from his thoughts. that was a fun evening. there's just no comparison to being a twin... people like us are just born cool.

on valentine's day, i had to go to the elementary school. oh, the kids were so cute! there was even a kid who bought his girl a huge heart-shaped box of chocolates, and his buddy bought a pot of tulips for the girl he liked! when i asked them if the girls actually liked them back they both said "yes, of course!" so i asked what the girls gave them, and they answered "well, we're too young for kisses, so they gave us hugs. big hugs." now, what can i say to that? these kids are in the fifth grade and are sweeter than the majority of guys i know!! if you are a guy who is having girl problems, and is older than 10 years, take note of this. you might learn something!
my highlight of valentine's day at school has got to be the candies and cards i got! the one i like the most was this cute card that had a bumblebee on the front and in a heart under it was written "BEE my valentine!". i just love that card! it reminds me of the simpson's episode where ralph liked lisa and gave her a card that had a train on it and said "I CHOO-CHOO-CHOOSE YOU!". hehehe that is just too funny.
but i must have had the best valentine's day evening ever that night. i spent it with my favorite twins, feasting on chinese take-out and watching the ManU game (which was horribly boring except for one or two minutes of it) instead of temptation island (which wasn't on that night... aw shucks. no, i am not a big fan, they are). it was a good, lazy evening.

friday night, i hit kits pub with jo and victor to support something that slips my mind at the moment, and it was fun. now, no offense to any caucasian people, but that evening was the "hip hop and r&b" night... and just watching them dance made it hard for me to keep my rythym! heehee, i'm just joking! it was just that i was on a dance floor with only 2 other non-white people. i think it's the area that the pub is located, but i really just felt like i was back in victoria (there is a higher caucasian population there than in vancouver... out of my experience, that is). after getting warmed up, jo, victor and i went to palladium. now this will be the last time i will mention myself going to palladium. the evening was nice, there was a lot of people there, and of course, the music was just sooo good. but i realized that i knew a good amount of people there. that is not a good sign for a clubber. for goodness sakes, i saw craig in the vip line! for as long as i knew him, he did not like clubbing at all. he hated it! that has GOT to tell you something. as jo foretold the first time we hit it, "i give it 2 weeks. after that, it'll be so mainstream and the crowd will consist mainly of children born in 1980. that's when it'll be over." so it is. *sigh*

but let's get back to updating. on saturday i went to a play at the gateway theatre in richmond called "mom, dad, i'm living with a white girl." it was a comedy but the ending was so serious. i found it almost extreme. i'll get into it in a later entry.

sunday was great. i got to practice calling for the dragon boat team i'm on. it was fun. i just got to sit at the front of the boat, yell at the paddlers to go slower or faster or at least to the beat of my voice. i'm pretty much the metronome. and i think i'm rather good at it. but after all, i AM filipina. we're born with rythym!

so my updates are getting a bit thin... sorry. i'm just sooo hungry now! i'll fatten them out later :o)

oh yeah, this is all updated for the sake of my kuya gary. happy now kuya? ;op heehee