Ayala

“I’m doing this wrong, aren’t I?” 


You should have said that and tried to salvage what was left of the night. You should have never let go of that hand. You should have slowed your pace and tried to elongate the time spent walking sidewalk after empty sidewalk. 


Damn it, you should have run after, and kissed right then and there, instead of walking head down the other way. You missed your chance and you’ll regret it forever. Why did you have to over-think everything? 


“I like you the first time I met you, and I’d like to give us a try.” 


There. How hard was that to say? You’ve uttered more complicated phrases under your breath, and without even batting an eyelid; what’s stopped you from saying those little words? 


You are a chicken, a damned fool, and a coward. And you wasted far too many moments – far too many chances – trying to be “just friends” when in fact you wanted something more. 


Now it’s gone. Now it’s over. 


Now you have to move on and not wallow like the last time. 


Now you have to think forward, instead of thinking “what if.”

Annie!

Remember her?

She used to be part of every kid's fantasy.  Kids either want to be with her, or be her.

She's the female sidekick of Shaider.  And boy can she kick.


After the show ended, she disappeared from fan consciousness.  Rumor is, she became a Japanese porn star.

But that was a lie.  An evil lie perpetrated by the remnants of Fuma Ley-ar's army.

She's here in the Philippines, working for one of the offices here in Makati.  :-))

Toinkz!




photocredits:
here, here, and here.    

Cravings

Frumpy woman walks into Wendy's and finds it closed.  She was a few minutes late for the last call.    She lingers a bit, then walks away.  Frumpy woman goes back with tall white female along.  


Frumpy woman lingers outside, while tall white female struts alone inside, approaches the counter and asks for service.  Though her tone is friendly, amiable even, there is a sense of her not taking no for an answer.  


All store equipment have been shut down; the registers have been closed; the foodstuffs inventoried and packed.  But tall white female insists on ordering whatever is available.


Restaurant staff accedes, and tall white female is able to order baked potatoes.  She gets four orders for her trouble and insistence.  Amazing, really.


Tall white female turns around, makes a duck face, and leaves frumpy woman to foot the bill.
It really pays to be insistent and persistent, even if it's just to satisfy one's late night cravings.   

Resumes

I'm trying to update my resume.  The last time I did this was two years ago.  


I haven't decided on leaving just yet; it's in the back burners, but I still don't feel the urgent pull to move.  This attempt at a current revision was brought about by something else: an officemate's resume, in fact.  When officemate intimated his plans to find new employment, and mentioned a few desired companies, I said that I know someone who works at XX company, and offered to refer him.


Fast forward a couple of weeks and I get to see his resume.  And managed not to cringe at the sight of it.


It's not that it lacks selling points nor did it not highlight certain key words.  It isn't also about poor formatting or the lack of uniformity in using tabs.  Neither is it about grammatical errors.  It's a mishmash of a little of everything.  I'm not saying that the resume is bad, but that it can be better. But rather than spend my energy on officemate's resume, I'd much rather improve on my own, and instruct him to do the same.


I realize now that it wouldn't be quite an easy task.  I chose the format I'm using because it appealed to my OC sensibilities:  it's clean, it's bordered, it's concise.  Unfortunately, it's also hard to edit, and my frustrations with building it two years ago are haunting me again.  But negotiating with my current format seem to have more benefit over the frustrations of rebuilding my resume from scratch, so I guess I'd have to stick with this.

Battalia Blood Bath

I'm lost.  The directions given me were clear, and the taxi that brought me there knew the landmarks I mentioned.  But that was as far as I was able to follow.  I am in front of Magsaysay High School in Cubao, and across from me, on the other side of EDSA, was Nepa-Q Mart.  But I can't find Victoria School.  And the three locals I asked also did not know where I wanted to go.


There was a place called Victoria, one of them said, but it's on a different side of town, quite a ways away from where we were now.


It was still early though, and my instincts tell me that I'm close, so I walked around at bit to gather my thoughts, and decided to get lost for a while.  And thus, my adventure began hours before the play officially started.

A few minutes' walk, and a couple of t-junctions later, I found out what I was looking for -- the abandoned Victoria School -- the site of the promised blood bath I was to partake with that night.

Battalia Royale is a play loosely based on the novel Battle Royale by Koushun Takami, about a class of high school students drugged and abducted, and pitted against each other in a kill-or-be-killed, last-one-standing, battle to the death.  I have always wanted to see the show ever since I heard about their performance at the CCP.  Due to scheduling problems and work *cough*audit*cough* I wasn't able to attend their performances.  As luck would have it, a friend had a friend who happened to have and extra ticket for the show.  Though I had other plans for the night, I wasn't about to pass up an opportunity, given the reviews I've read online.

And what an adventure it was!  It was raw; it was dirty; it was definitely bloody.  It was so much fun!  I was near enough to see much of it unfold and was lucky enough to evade all the gore.  Others weren't as lucky and ended up looking like a survivor of a massacre.

Choosing the abandoned school as location for the play was a novel idea.  it added a palpable dread and an ominous feeling to the whole set.  And with an almost full moon shining, the final sequences were lent more tension no amount of dramatic lighting could ever replicate.

Considering its a play about children killing each other with us, the audience, egging them on, and at times, cheering the inventive and manipulative acts of the killers, saying that I loved the performance might mean admitting my sociopath tendencies.  But I do love the play, and seeing it made me think how long I would, given the circumstances, be able to hold on to my humanity.

Poor social skills aside, will I play the game, or will I wait until pushed to the brink before I unleash my inner animal?  Or will it be too late, and I end up one of the casualties?  Maybe I will never know, and that would be a good thing.

Battalia Royale held its last performance last Sunday, but given the rave reviews it has garnered, I doubt it will be the last we will see of it.

Devil Dogs

I got home late and I am greeted by a heavy air in my room.  Warm and humid at 10pm, it seems rather unusual.  But with the weather being rather unforgiving lately, it may have just been unspent heat collected over the day; my room being shut the whole day, after all.  Almost immediately after I turn on the lights, the reason for that air of unease made itself apparent.

I love my books.  Even with ebooks and audiobooks aplenty and just a download away, I'd still go for the paper variety.  There's still no replacement for the tactile and olfactory stimulus an actual book gives.  That's why I take great pains to care for my babies; I refuse to open them until I cover them in plastic.  And I cover them again in paper whenever I bring them out of the house.  What the dogs did was so horrific, I was hyperventillating when I saw it.

But who among my little devils could have done it?  And it's not as if I can punish them for the act; it wasn't them after all, who opened the door to my room.  They got in because someone opened my door, and let them.


Punishing a pet for an act they've done hours ago isn't also helping.  It merely confuses their notion of rewards and punishments.  It makes them think that the punishment for greeting you home is a scolding.  And though I seldom pet these rascals as of late, I'd still rather they greet me home than they cower in fear at the sight of me.


Besides, how can I conceive of punishing them when they look this adorable?

Accidental Bartenders Compete!

The day started like the usual food trip weekend, with Lostboy and WanderingWonder meeting me for lunch.  Over the course of the meal, the two told me of the food event they were going to.  Wanderlust that I am, I agreed to go with, and probably sample some more food featured at the event.  Using a bloggers’ pass, we got in without a hitch and without paying the walk-in registration fee.  In there we met other blogger friends of Lostboy.

Being a food and beverage expo, I was expecting various foods from all over and me sampling everything I might get my hands on.  It later became evident that the Horeca-partnered event featured not food, but mostly food service equipment.  There were foodstuffs there as well, but mostly the kind that you have to shell out money for.  Still, it was fun sampling the food produced by the various equipment innovations.

Having met up with other bloggers, we were quite a handful, asking booth after booth about their wares, when ChaSy, the friendly lady from our group was approached by the organizer and was asked, whether we were her students, and whether we would please like to join their cocktail mixing contest.  ChaSy, being game and all, succeeded in persuading WanderingWonder and I to join; after all, it would be fun to join a contest, rather than just covering it.

The mechanics are as follows:  we would mix three drinks, a Pre-dinner cocktail, an After-dinner cocktail, and a Shot of the Night, to be served to the three judges, and prepared within fifteen minutes.  The cocktails should also incorporate the spirits provided for by the sponsor.  We get to use Tanduay products on hand, including their Rum and Boracay variants.

The catch, though, is that we have to provide for our own ingredients.  And glasses.  And cocktail shakers. And garnishes.  And we have two hours before the competition starts.

I enjoy watching Top Chef and the other cooking reality shows whenever I get the urge to watch TV.  I especially enjoy those episodes where they are given a theme and have to come up with a dish in a limited time.  Now I know how they feel.  Like Amazing Race contestants, Lostboy, WanderingWander and I circled the booths buying ingredients for our cocktails, and borrowing utensils, where possible.  We were advised that we will be able to borrow glasses and shakers from the other contestants, which was good.

We realized, though, that the other contestants are HRM students who had ample time to prepare, partake, and perfect their drinks and practice their performance, which was bad.  For us.

It was also at this time that we realized that what we signed up for was a cocktail AND FLARING competition.  Immediately, my mind flashed back to the various TGI Friday’s Bar Competitions I’ve attended, and realized that I will never have the hand-eye coordination to fake this.

Still, the competition went on and we were wowed by the presentation and skill of the other contestants as they created and served one drink after the other.  After their drinks were presented, judged, and put away, I proceeded to drink a couple, or six, of their cocktails.  In order to borrow the glasses, of course; I’m not an alcoholic, after all.

Our pair was called and we had to prepare our drinks.  Talk about going through the motions!  Not wanting to make further fools of ourselves, we had to forgo the flaring part.

We did not win, of course.  But with just three pairs of contestants, they had no choice but to award us third place, which I guess is recompense for our troubles, if not our shame.

2nd Place: Datamex

1st Place: Lyceum University

I’ve made some realizations after this harrowing experience: firstly, to read the fine print before signing on to anything.  The next time, it may not just be our dignity that is at stake.

Secondly, though in contrast to the first: Spontaneity is fun!  And sometimes, there are freebies.

Thirdly: I can still be creative enough when pressured, but without ample resources, though fit for the purpose, the results may not be pretty.

Finally, and most importantly:  I can still pass myself off as a college student.  Ha!  Beat that!