Pegasus Bridge - Like Dogs (Acoustic Session) [HD]

My current favorite song. =) Listen to it and Pegasus Bridge must be famous!

at last and oh no

I just graduated from high school two days ago. The photo shows most of my batch with me in the center, wearing a sexy red tie.

All throughout the ceremony, I had no significant outburst of emotion. No happiness or sadness. I didn't even shed a tear (given the amount of tissue I dampened earlier during our wonderful teachers' tribute to us). I think its because emotions can cancel each other. I was happy that after 4 years in - as what I've heard - the most rigorous scientific high school training in the country, I survived. Sad because no matter how much I wait, there would be no more of the days where my friends and I would sit together in a room as classmates. =(

Truth of the matter is they will still be there. A part of them is always with me and hopefully, a part of me will always be with them.

Philippine Science High School- Western Visayas Campus Batch 2011, I love you! (and because I belong to this batch, that means I love myself too! thats like two birds with one stone. boooyaaaaah!!)

PS: I've been reading articles I have written days, weeks even years ago and there is an overwhelming count of word misuse, typos and embarrassing grammatical errors. Don't judge! hahahahaha.

Please follow me again

My blog was before www.warpedopinion.com until I decided that in order to keep blogging at my own pace and towards my own direction, I had to lose the private domain name. So I reverted to Blogger's free domain service and it has been a couple of harmonious months. Unfortunately, I forgot about updating the FeedBurner widgets on my blog. If you have subscribed before, you might be redirected to the old name which is warpedopinion.com where you'll probably get a "Not Found" notification from your browser.

I am sorry and thank you very much to someone who pointed out, kindly, this error on my FB page. Looking forward to followers who will ACTUALLY get updates. 

A Retreat

Because high school graduations are also spiritual milestones, my batch held a an overnight retreat at a center ran by Carmelite nuns on a mountainside in Duenas, Iloilo, about an hour drive from the city.

The best part of it all was : they served organic food. Most if not all of the ingredients in the food they served were grown from their own land and they are very willing to give up a little flavor just to preserve the 'purity' of our food. No MSG etc. It was a dream-turned-into-reality for me because earlier in life, I get anxious when our viand has MSG added in it. Thanks to our home economics teacher who is always ready with a list of the bad effects of consuming MSG to health. I even remember being depressed over why my detestation towards MSG is never given attention in our household.

Retreat houses are supposed to bring you closer to God and culturally, to achieve this, there must be a sense of fasting. We didn't have it. In fact, it was the opposite of fasting - senseless eating. On normal days, I eat at most 2 very light meals. During the retreat, I ate 5 heavy-weight meals. Rice, pork, chicken, a lot of fruits, and even bouts of white bread. Seriously, it would be very awkward if the Supreme Being visits you and your stomach is grumbling in hunger. I'd prefer meeting Him full with His blessings.

The place was so au naturele. The soil was pure, also the air and the height of the trees suggest that they have never been touched. If only my boisterous classmates weren't there, I should have forgotten verbal language and have entirely submitted myself to subliminal spiritual chatting. Serenity is rare nowadays. 

Even better: I am a fan of house/trance music. Listening to capturing beat patterns while viewing unlimited stretches of virgin trees is surreal. 

Retreats should be done twice a year.

Silvanas-my favorite sweet if chocolates become obsolete or too expensive

My dad just arrived from Nueva Ecija and brought home some of these silvanas and a basket of strawberries.  

I first met these wonderful cream-filled sandwiches last year and it is probably only available in Nueva Ecija. You should try one. No, you MUST try one. Its from First Baker. I'm not really sure why its named First Baker but its possibly from all the first-place medals they get from their silvanas recipe. Or the head baker is Mr. First. Or their son's name is First. Or the bakeshop is in honor of their late dog, First. I should know! 

They have the most wonderful calorie bombs on earth.

If your imagination is exceptional: You bite into a creamier, moist graham. A gentle taste fills your mouth and as you pull your teeth together, a lightly-flavored, white whipped cream escapes from the sides of this holy sandwich. You close your eyes and DIE out of the yumminess. You resurrect and let out an aaaaah as you book your ticket to Nueva Ecija. 

Adding to the Curiosity

A plaque outside of the beautiful New Iloilo Airport.

It is very human to ask why it should happen and why it should happen to Japan. The few times that I am in Manila, I see very similar signs in government projects. : "Philippine-Japan Cooperation Project". They are clearly very good to us. Why Japan? My only answer right now is they are one of the few nations who are powerful enough to handle this magnitude of a disaster. I hope I am spot-on right.

Japan

Japan is still in my shortlist of countries I want to live in before I die. Before all this mess,  I thought Japan was a giant Disneyland filled with people who enjoy life and who believes even in the most outrageous idea. Now, Japan is in shambles and I want to buy a plane ticket and do volunteer work in Japan. I really want to see myself giving immediate help. =(

Unlike my classmates who are worrying over the safety of their favorite Anime authors, I am worrying for my idea of Japan. I hope Japan will get back on her feet and only take proud scars from this catastrophe.

The worst times

Its the last few days before the summer. 

You can only be a high schooler once and our turn will be over very soon. I can only compare this to lying on a train track, with the sound of the engines slowly but painfully filling your ears. =(

MARA CLARA

Its amazing how Mara Clara can confuse me. Is this intelligent plotting or sheer randomness?

I'm watching this show more attentively than any other Filipino show before. Its turning into an addiction and after addiction, I'll probably go into a state of brain atrophy. MAAAAAAAAARAAAAA CLAAAAARAAAA! God, I'm proud to be Filipino! waaaaaaaaaaaah! 

Taxi tatataxi

A military plane landed from nowhere yesterday. I was shocked and my mother was like "those don't have seats. If I remember it right, we sat on our bags when we rode something similar to that." Is there anything in this world that can still surprise my mother??

Moving on....

I'm blogging from my iPod. Realized that carrying around extra kilos of computing power with a laptop is not worth it in Manila.

We rode a taxi to the airport and now I'm waiting for my flight. The taxi driver was the special kind. The kind that gives unsolicited discounts. For a fare that is usually 400 Pesos, he only wanted 250.

This taxi driver had an interesting story and although I won't bet my life on the truth of it, it's worth telling.

The taxi driver was once managed by Light of Glory(LoG), a giant taxi company here in Iloilo. For a few years already, the taxi units of LoG operate on LPG. I have no idea on how it works but they install a compressed gas tank on the back of the car - where LPG is supposedly stored - then the LPG powers the engine. The reason that they tweak their cars into these LPG taxis is for economy.

He switched companies because this new company do not use LPG. He met a doctor once and that doctor told him about the effects of LPG leaks to human lungs. Passengers ride a taxi for at most 30 minutes, too short for any acute effect to show. Drivers, on the other hand, stay on the taxi for long stretches of hours. "6 hours or so", he says. There you feel the effects.

According to his observations, LPG taxi drivers first start losing weight, starts to cough, and in general the health just deteriorates. He was telling this story on top of trance disco music on the stereo which made it awkward. A few days ago, a driver from GDR taxi, another giant company that operates LPG Avanza units, passed away to cardiac arrest. Our taxi driver believes this is not an isolated case and that more will follow.

Even worse, these giant taxi companies sell LPG and pressure their drivers to buy from them alone. Discontented with the money they earn from operating taxis, they even monopolize the fuel. Poor drivers.

He drives a taxi from a smaller company, listens to disco/trance music, fractioned our fare and proudly declared that his diesel car can give good discounts. It's up to you to believe this man

Wohooo!

I'm just trying out Blogger's E-mail posting service. Hope this works!

SOSE Open House

Its our exam week and I have been busying myself looking for reasons why the concept of reviewing for exams is not futile. 

Tomorrow afternoon, I'll fly to the capital city Manila to visit the

If you have read my previous entries, you might remember that I got into Ateneo's BS Health Sciences program. Ateneo is currently number one in my list. My mom and I will visit the school to be sure everything goes smoothly.

 See you there!