something new and old

2 minutes and 17 seconds. this was the duration of time that everybody on earth, except for 2 unidentified persons, blacked out and had a glimpse of their future.

this is what the new abc series ‘flashforward’ is all about and it’s one of the new tv series i am following. i just found out about this new series by accident. i was trying to see if the new episode of house has been posted online. when it was not, i tried looking for something else to watch which turned out to be flashforward…and now i’m hooked.

the other one is the very popular ‘glee’. “glee is about opening up yourself to joy” and this is what this show does. it’s a musical-comedy about the ‘resurrection’ of a mckinley high school glee club by a teacher named will. catch it on fox every wednesday at 9pm.

these are just the new things in my life. there are a countless others-place, people, friends, season/weather, work, life in general.

i still have a lot of my life before this. family, friends, home…they will never be lost in me because i am going back to them in 8 months. yes, 2 months are up. time is flying really fast with all the work i have to do.

well, i am just thankful for this opportunity to experience a lot of new things in my life…and i am especially thankful for the people who made and are making this experience so good, fun and memorable - people at the kababayan program especially my supervisor, liza; mae and joel and their friends; my housemates earl and ate tess, among others.

crazy

just got home from school. this afternoon, there was a student who was shot by somebody. it was fortunate that i passed by liza’s office (my coordinator) because i was supposed to go to the library where the victim shouted for help. we were locked in liza’s office for about an hour. it was crazy and weird. police officers with their big guns and all let us out.

then we went to starbucks just to meet with the kababayan people and see if everybody is fine. i’m just glad that we all are fine.

such crazy stuff i am experiencing here. all the dramas and being kicked out of the hotel room (because we were too rowdy at a party)…and now this. i’m cool with all these. new experiences. i am learning a lot here.

one month down!

August is over and tomorrow is a new month. this means i survived my first month here in the US, yahoo! as much as i am starting to like it here because the weather is nice as well as the people, i am counting the days until i get home.

anyway, to update you with my life, here goes…

My second week at Skyline started with welcome program and faculty meetings. Extensive discussions on budget cuts were present in all these programs and meetings. Even out of the academic setting, there were talks of budget cuts, foreclosures and hard life.

I was able to register for History 110 (California History) and ESOL 853 (Intermediate Listening and Speaking). The history class will hopefully bridge the gap between my obtuseness of what California is and appreciation of California’s history and its people and culture to survive and live well. The only predicament with this class is the monthly test involving a lot of memorization, which I am not really good at. Meanwhile, I took the ESOL class to learn some strategies on teaching listening and speaking from a native speaker’s perspective. My predicament with this class is that it is kind of boring because I know most of the stuff that we discuss and I guess we are all considered not very good in English.

Apart from these classes, I assist in the FILI 110 (Basic Tagalog) class of Dr. Jeremiah Resus. I was supposed to assist also in the advanced Tagalog class of Dr. Araceli Resus but it was cancelled because there were only 18 students who registered and 11 who showed up on the first day. Because of the budget cuts, they cancelled classes which have less than 20 students. Anyhow, I also assist in ENG 110 (Composition, Literature and Critical Thinking) and ENGL 104 (Applied English for Cultural Production) which are Liza’s classes. All these classes are under the Kababayan Program, the learning community for and by Filipinos and Filipino-Americans at Skyline College, which I think is the most intensive, comprehensive, and active of all the learning communities in all the universities and colleges in the US for and by Filipinos and Fil-Ams.

I also have 6 hours/week of tutorials. However, we haven’t started with the sessions because I have yet to attend the demo session for the Language Laboratory on the second week of September. I am also waiting for a call from the Language Laboratory staff for the orientation on the use of their newest language software, the Rosetta Stone.

My other big blessings are my long-time friends Mae and Joel who are the reasons why I don’t feel so homesick anymore and why I have a laptop and can write about all these.They’ve been my friends way back home in the Philippines and we have been reconnecting here in California. It was also a great blessing that I was accepted at Skyline which is within their area. I’ve been spending my weekends with them and they’ve taken me to some places.

My first weekend here was a tour of the bridges – San Mateo Bridge (which is the longest bridge in San Francisco Bay Area), Bay Bridge, and the famous Golden Gate Bridge – bridges which link one place to the other, bridges which make us see what’s on the other side, bridges which link the gap between two areas.

It was also the start of what the Fulbright Program aims to achieve – to bring a little more knowledge, a little more reason, and a little more compassion into world affairs and thereby to increase the chance that nations will learn at last to live in peace and friendship.

i would love to post some of my pics here but the files are just too big and i can’t convert them to smaller files yet because i have some things to do.

so that’s about it for now. thanks to all those who pray for me. i still need those. ciao!

it's been a long while

things have been a bit crazy in my life so that i neglected my blogging for quite a while. stress. stress. stress. something happened in my life. stress. i’ve been fast-tracking my classes. stress. i’m excited and nervous at the same time about my trip. stress. august 8 is getting nearer and nearer and nearer. stress.

anyway, there’s something new about daughtry that i got from yahoo. here is it…

Week Ending July 19, 2009: Daughtry Makes “Idol” History

Posted Wed Jul 22, 2009 12:07pm PDT by Paul Grein in Chart Watch

Daughtry’s sophomore album, Leave This Town, enters The Billboard 200 at #1. This makes the band’s leader, Chris Daughtry, the first American Idol alumnus to land back-to-back #1 albums. Daughtry rang the bell for two weeks in early 2007. Kelly Clarkson is the only other Idol alum to notch two #1 albums, and hers weren’t consecutive. She topped the chart with her first and fourth albums. This obviously makes Chris Daughtry the first Idol alum who didn’t win the competition to land two #1 albums. (Clay Aiken is the only other non-winner to land a #1 album, though Adam Lambert is likely to join this little club.)

Leave This Town is Daughtry’s first album to debut in the top spot. Daughtry bowed at #2 in November 2006. It first hit #1 in its ninth week. Daughtry has sold 4,494,000 copies. Of the thousands of albums that have been released in the nearly three years since Daughtry, only one other (Josh Groban’s Noel) has reached the 4 million mark in sales. (Taylor Swift, which has also topped the 4 million mark, was released a month before Daughtry.)

Leave This Town sold 269,000 copies in its first week, a little less than Daughtry, which had first-week sales of 304,000. (The softening of music sales in the past three years easily accounts for the difference.) It’s common for debut albums by Idol alums to open with big numbers. The real test is how their second albums open. Only one sophomore album by an Idol album started with a bigger tally than Daughtry managed this week. Carrie Underwood’s Carnival Ride debuted with sales of 527,000 in October 2007. (Kelly Clarkson’s sophomore album, Breakaway, opened with sales of 250,000 in December 2004. Clay Aiken’s A Thousand Different Ways started with 211,000 in September 2006.)

The total for Daughtry’s album includes nearly 63,000 digital copies. That makes it the week’s #1 Digital Album. Daughtry was also #1 on this chart in its first week of release, though with a much smaller total (12,000), which dramatizes the growth in this field in the past three years.

crazy

my life has been really crazy lately. i wrote about the betrayal thingy which i was not sure of at that time but i confirmed it myself yesterday.

this is just how life is…madami talagang tao ang akala tanga ang mga tao sa paligid at madaming tao ang pinagmumukhang tanga…aaaarrrrrgggghhhh!

betrayal

diappointed. deceived. pinagmukhang tanga.

hiding it means it's wrong that you don't want others to know. there are no secrets which can't be revealed. people just can't stop hurting one another... with the words they utter, with the things they do.

it f#@&!ng hurts! reinforced belief. oh, hell!

i want your job

there is this show on the lifestyle network which is titled “i want your job.” it features jobs of some people you would want. i don’t really watch it regularly ( i can’t even remember its sked, hehehe), i just might have caught a couple episodes.

anyway, last night i was channel surfing because there was nothing on which i was really interested in. i caught ‘great hotels’ by samantha brown on discovery travel and living. this was followed by ‘passport to europe’ by samantha also. and i thought…i would love to have samantha brown’s job.

in ‘great hotels’ samantha travels for the great hotels around the world. of course, she stays in the most beautiful room and eats the grandest food (which is also expensive) courtesy of the network i assume…and she gets paid for it!

in ‘passport to europe,’ she travels european countries, stays at great hotels too, eats at good restaurants, sometimes has some special tourist guide so that she sees places not seen by ordinary tourists…and she gets paid for that also!

come on, who doesn’t want a job like that??? i know that part of it is also hard work, but working for that would be really a blast! i want your job samantha brown!

another dream job of mine is to be a narrator for some shows at the discovery or national geographic channel. wouldn’t that be a grand job also?

camping

if you remember, what i did most of the summer on a regular basis was biking with my bike buddies, bob and eg. this summer, i would not be able to do that as per doctor’s advice…so my bike buddies and i started this hot, hot summer with an overnight camping (in front of their house). we pitched a tent, grilled some hotdogs and marshmallows (with some other people), pigged out on junk foods and stayed up late playing psp in the tent, hehehe.

it was fun! too bad we had no pictures. all three of us just haven’t thought about taking ones.

facebook resurrection

i think i mentioned in one of my posts before that i made a facebook account just to contact a good friend of mine in college. well, from then on i haven’t looked at that account nor have i updated it…until today. with the advice of somebody, my facebook is now resurrected. as of this hour, many friends have accepted my invites. i hope that this resurrection keeps me in touch with my buddies - old and new.

happy easter! and ben harper

i just want to greet everyone a HAPPY EASTER! this is the second best day of the year (the best one being christmas).

i was listening to some music in youtube.com and i chanced upon ben harper and his music. he has this type of slow music which makes sense…songs that you listen to for the music and the lyrics because they really say something. check him out at youtube and listen to his songs.

respect and patience

before the summer break, there was something posted on the bulletin board in school which goes something like this: if you ask God for patience, he will not give it; instead He will give you situations for you to be patient.

yesterday was Good Friday.

solemn processions of religious images representing the Passion of Christ, His Death, and Mary’s acceptance of the death of her Son are held in key cities and provinces all over the country Friday in keeping with a centuries-old Good Friday tradition.

observed as one of the highlights of the Semana Santa (Holy Week), a set list of life- size images and key personalities leading to the Passion of Christ, His Crucifixion, Death, and burial are paraded around the streets a few hours after 3 p.m., the time Jesus was believed to have died on the Cross, in elaborately decorated and well-lighted carriages followed by devotees holding candles and rosaries (Hermoso, 2009).

i participated in the Good Friday procession yesterday, as i did every year (except when i was in thailand)…and the procession was filled with instances of impatience…drivers of different kinds of vehicles who can’t wait 5-10 minutes for the procession to pass before they proceed. i mean, out of respect for the tradition and all the people in line who participate in this barefooted, why can’t people do this? there were even some drivers who literally got into the line and passed through. what are they hurrying up for? is it that important that they can’t wait for the short amount of time???

come on people! i don’t know what is wrong with us! is this what technology did to us? it provided us some things which make our work faster and easier but at the expense of losing our respect for others and patience?

this may be one of the reasons why we lack discipline. we can’t even form a line when we transact business. we all want to be first. there are even times when there is already a line formed, and yet many ignore it, choosing to disrespect all those who are in line.

i think it’s time for us to rethink of our values…especially the values of respect and patience. maybe then Christ’s death and resurrection would not have been in vain.

what a day!

yesterday was a strange day…it started out really bad because of some misunderstandings which i should not have been a part of but was forced into it by my boss.

anyway, what happened next was really good. i was informed that i got accepted in the FLTA program! i will not give the details yet because i have yet to confirm and submit some documents. when everything is sure and has been finalized, i will surely write about it.

so, that’s about it. i am still mad at my boss for compromising me…but i am trying to overcome it. i am focusing more on my excitement (and nervousness) on the grant.

finally...

this is the first time in almost 3 weeks that i was able to get home on time, while it’s not dark yet.things have been really hectic in school that last week and this week, we went home at around midnight already. finally, the accreditation is over. we had the closing program this noon.nobody is sure if we passed or not but let’s just hope for the best.

and finally, the sem is over…well, almost because i have yet to give final exams and compute grades. but those are just minor tasks compared to what we’ve been through these past weeks. i think i lost weight again (which i really don’t want) because of late-night work and not eating on time. i hope to regain what i’ve lost now that the bulk of work is over.

well, that’s about it. thanks for all who has prayed for me. i got through it without get sick and i survived. it shall really pass.

new week full of hope

it is the start of a new week.

last week was full of work. there was the public speaker seminar which, in my opinion, was a success. the participants of the seminar participated willingly in all the activities. it was just a bit hard because i had to discuss things in the regional language. anyhow, i think i was able to put the ideas across based on the evaluation…it was also the week of cramming for practicing the declamation piece. i hope the night rehearsals worked for dan…and yesterday was fun strolling at sm with mikee, eg and bob. it wasn’t as tiring as i expected but it was good to be with young people. we also discovered something. it’s a surprise!

and back to this week…on wednesday (feb25), it will be ash wednesday already, the start of the 40-day observance of christ’s suffering, death and resurrection. it will also commence my sacrifice for the 40-day duration. i added a bit of spice in my sacrifice which i hope and pray will work out fine.

this week will also be the cirps week. the competition will be on thursday and friday which i hope will bring blessings and good luck for dan and all the other participants from pac.

this week might also be a very busy week because the accreditation is nearing as each day goes by. documents to prepare, etc.

things will work out fine. i have faith in ouselves and in god and i am ‘positively’ hopeful.

i also hope i’ll have time to update you. ciao!

things are normal

the title says it all…the so-much pressure has loosen up a bit because the accreditation has been moved to the 2nd week of march. the seminar for tomorrow was also postponed for next week.

despite this, i still need to start working on a lot of things to be able to finish them on time. i just have a lot more time than the previous.

well, that’s about it. hope things will turn out well in the seminar next week and that it will be a productive weekend.

thanks for all the prayers. i am getting through fine.

p.s.

by the way, my niece, who’s living with us, has chickenpox. i haven’t had this so there’s might be a possibility that i will contact it. i hope and pray i don’t though.

busy month...and the test results

haaaaay! this month is really a tight month for me. i have lots of things to do and i hope to accomplish all of them on time. my biggest problem is the declamation piece for cirps. i actually don’t know how to go about it and i have to finish writing it in time for the competition. dan, the contestant, will have to memorize it still and he has to practice. argh!

despite all the busy days, we accomplished lots of things anyhow. we’re done with the seminar on campus journalism. the final defense of the abeng students is done today.

…and remember the test that i took last month? i passed it and i got an unexpectedly high score! thanks to all those who prayed for me.

well, i just dropped by to update my blog. things are a bit crazy now but i hope and pray that all things will be accomplished on time and that we will pass the accreditation at the end of this month. i still need some prayers to get through all these without getting sick.

mamma mia and downsides

i remember now that i wanted to talk about the movie ‘mamma mia’. i watched it at the start of this new year and it was a really nice movie. the writers were so creative to have thought of that musical movie. and to have merryl streep and pierce brosnan singing throughout the movie, such an entertaining movie indeed. i don’t know if i liked the movie because i have always loved the songs of abba. anyhow, if you haven’t watched it, do so. it will make your day brighter and it will make you thankful for the music and the joy it brings to our lives. just imagine what would life be without songs and dances, huh.

like last year, the start of this year was not that good for me. i made a mistake which might jeopardize some plans. and i am not really sure if i will pass the exam i have taken this weekend. whatever it is, i know that i did my best. i have decided that i’ll just let go of all these and just wait on the Lord’s plan for me.

i also had problems with two persons in my life. i didn’t, and still don’t, know how to manage these problems. it’s really not my problem but they are in my life so whatever there is that they’re going through affects me as well. i am praying a lot about these too and i hope you pray for me too.

these are just the downsides of my life. i know i’ll get through these rough times. it’s just hard right now.

well, i got some text messages from ate eva today. it was a nice part of today. and today was a really cool day. there’s no need for me to sulk. life goes on and that’s just it…life is.

happy new year

happy new year!!!

i’ve been meaning to post since before the new year. however, there was so much traffic in accessing the internet maybe because of the many people who update their profiles and/or send their holiday greetings. plus, i had to delete many spam comments in my friendster blog site. i don’t really understand why they are there and they just keep on piling everyday.

anyway, because it’s a new year, i will have a new year’s resolution. this is the 2nd year of posting my new year’s resolution. just read on my previous posts because i have mentioned this quite a few times and i even evaluated myself if i was true to the promise, hehehe. and i plan to continue doing it even if 2008 has passed.

so for this year, i resolve to save. i have been working for almost 9 years now and i haven’t saved any penny. i have a bank account and all but there’s really nothing in it. i resolve to start doing this this year because i just thought that i am not getting any younger and i am not getting married anytime soon, maybe not at all, so i need to save for myself.

actually, i heard that what i made and am making are not really new year’s resolutions but parts of my life plan because both of these are long term. i plan on doing these (last year’s and this year’s) for a long time, maybe and hopefully for a lifetime.

i have also finished my list. i won’t reveal what kind of list it is but i finished it before the new year. it is a list i started writing in 2008 so that i deemed it just right to finish it before the year ended.

i planned on sharing something else that i was pondering on but they are nowhere in my mind right this moment. i’m just distracted because there is something big for me on saturday and i am nervous about it. just for everyone who cares, please pray that i get through it, and go through it very well. thanks.

let’s all have a good year! ciao.

jolly christmas and 2008...and a downside:(

merry christmas to one and all!

generally speaking, christmas day was a fun and jolly celebration of jesus christ’s birth. before christmas day, i’ve attended three parties.

i attended two parties in school, one for the institute and the other one for the whole college. the institute’s party was more fun than the general one, hehehe.

i also attended a christmas party with my high school classmates. it was well-attended and fun. lou and her hubby, dave, came as well as fe del and her hubby, star. and this classmate of ours in 1st year, erwin, came too! note: these were the ones who rarely attend our high school gatherings.

christmas day itself was spent at home. we didn’t really have noche buena (we slept, hehehe) but we had the whole day of 25th to celebrate…plus christmas dinner.

the year 2008 was generally good…as you’ve read from my blogs, the year didn’t start out right for me but as the days went by it was fine all along. overall, i was able to fulfill my new year’s resolution to not worry about things i can’t do anything about. there were about 2 or 3 times within the year that i was not true to this resolution, though. that’s good enough, right?

i shared with all most of my ups and downs through blogs so you should know. blogging is actually a good way to share about one’s thoughts and feelings. it’s not everyday that you get to share everything to your family and friends as soon as things happen. while you’re waiting to share it to them, blogging will do, hehehe. many people are afraid to share because they think they will be judged, or they will be seen less by other people. but think about this…when you get to share something about yourself, life becomes lighter. don’t think about what other people will say or how they will judge you. your only purpose is to share . and don’t think that other people will see less of you because of what you’ve done or how you feel. in the end, sharing will make you realize that we are not that different from one another…we like the same things, what makes us feel happy or sad or angry is almost the same, what problems others have are the same problems that we have (many times in different forms only). as long as you’re not hurting yourself or anybody, there’s nothing wrong with what you’re doing so feel free to share.

well, i think i should stop talking and talking (well, writing and writing, hehehe). i’ve said enough.

oh, and the downside i was talking about in the title… i have this big, big problem and i have no idea how to help and solve this problem. please, please pray for me, whoever reads this.

grissom

just finished watching episode 9 of csi season 9, the episode where grissom tells the team that he "has been thinking, more than the usual" and that he is leaving csi. everyone at csi was schocked with the news except for catherine, who "know even before" he "knew".

hope before grissom finally leaves csi, there will be at least an episode where he and sara are on. well, that's about it.