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my former boss, Kenneth Cobonpue, used to tell me in our "editing" sessions that a great writer is someone who can clearly get his message across to the reader in the fewest words. that was his element -- beating around the bush (oftentimes, sarcastically) instead of saying in simple and forthright words what's wrong. in my case, i drowned the pages that he asked me to fill with too many words for too little ideas.

actually, written expression in few words is a skill that i never used, therefore i did not develop, and for which i would need a lot of opportunities to practice, to be able to succeed at it. i guess, this abundance in page mimics my abundance in verbal speak, aka i talk a lot, especially when provoked. but i like to believe i improved. there was a time when after he checked one of the pages he asked me to fill, he looked up at me and said i was doing a better job, only that, i was leaving. call it a last ditch effort to make me feel good about myself and my future, but i actually took that not with a grain of salt, but with a pinch of pride. i could say sir Kenneth is not only an artist, but also an intellectual; he speaks for what he thinks.

hi sir.

me and ex-boss

what sir Kenneth didn't quite succeed in making me do (even tho he was a paying boss), a social network did.

 

tweet, tweet.

this boss doesn't pay me, but it shuts me up at 140 characters. the only good thing about it is that i get to share my days without the pressure of getting down to the details. if you're a lazy blogger, you're in the wrong place.

~~~

i'm on twitter! 

tigerlove

if there was a recurring theme at last week's roadtrip (aside from loads of food, loads of "WOW" and loads of camera-whoring), it's tiger love, and fantasies of it. i've never seen so many of them beautiful cats in just one week. i think i'm in puppylove.

whenever i see a tiger, i see it as a she and not a different specie from a lion. in fact, it's easier for me to register that tigers are female lions. while the lion is the king of the jungle, the tigers are the queens. but of course, biology says they're not.

the tiger in the photo above, which the fil-am trainer (in green with an ID hanging from his chest pocket) calls baby, is the star at Chavit Singson's Baluarte in Vigan. anybody who dares to risk becoming chicken bones to the angst-y cat can have his photo taken with it.

it's fun, really, when you finish the photo op with your complete bones intact. but i think it's a pandemonium waiting to happen. with these moody and bloody cats, you can't just tell.

to get flicked on by its restless tail is no joke (it's quick, unpredictable, strong = painful), imagine being knocked over by its claws and torn into pieces by its thumb-huge teeth.

the tiger, whom the trainer calls baby, flicks her majestic tail at us (particularly, at me and cai). as with all queen of queens, she hates competition.

(below) tita Rina carefully carries baby Ben, in fear that if he gets a chance to step down, he'll kick the tiger like he does with all mobile things smaller than him (dogs, cats, name it) and lose a foot. after their pictorial, kyra relents and cries. the tiger flicked its majestic tail on her earlier.if Chavit's Baluarte allows you a photo op with his diva pet, the Zoobic in Subic, Olongapo invites you to an up-close encounter with their huge cats during snacktime (what better time?!?). they cage you in a safari-like jeep that takes you to their fenced jungle within the zoo. in this jungle, three of their dozen grown tigers go about freely. a reckless zoo help would lure these tigers to the jeep with bloody, raw chicken. i say reckless because he feeds them without looking whether the next tiger bite would include his thumb.

tio Perok, who visited two years ago with tita Rina and the kids (sans the 2-year-old Ben), said they used to lure tigers with live chickens. how inAnimal. somebody must have issued a complaint since they don't do live chickens anymore, just choice cuts (like the drumstick in the photo below).
queen of the jungle.
beautiful. (favorite photo)
feeling jurassic park! haha.

after the safari adventure, our zoo guide brought us to the tigers' lair. he gathered us for a briefing before entering, which i initially thought was another round of "don't stick your finger in the cage" or "don't tease them". but it turned out to be very informative. he warned us to move away if the tigers flick their tails towards our direction since it's a cue for a big piss -- not for the necessity but to mark their territory. get pissed by the tiger, sure, why not? it would be a cool experience.

apparently not. the smell of their piss supposedly is so rich and foul that it would stay with you for at least three days no matter how many shower gels you smother all over yourself.

they're not very graceful, huh?

eye to eye.can i hug you?
beautiful, just beautiful.
Zoobic's lone white tiger that, disappointingly, they call by one boring... Snowy, because she's white, why not?!?

i would never purchase a white tiger and simply call it Snowy. what about Fierce? or Beautiful? or George, short for Gorgeous? the task of naming P100,000-P500,000 should never be taken simply.
~~~
gotcha! if this were Imelda Marcos, the lady with the thousand pair of shoes would have long sued me.
haha, they're not always poised after all. looking at her in this position makes her look as easy to tackle as a monkey.
~~~
now, if only a cub doesn't cost anywhere between 100000-300000.

little miss sunshine moment

at first, it wouldn't open. the sliding door to the back seats of our van wouldn't budge and slide. it got stuck. mother initially was pissed and verbally assailed on tingtong ("bantay ka sa imu papa!") for not having it fixed before the trip. we had to pass through the back door to get to the back seats.
but en route to aroma resort near bais in dumaguete from san carlos city, the door opened forcefully on its own volition! the roads must have done it -- they were bumpy and uneven and pockmarked. it must have been too much effort for our decade-old van. throughout the trip, we had to stop 7 times, or each time the door opened on its own. we lost track of the family convoy and had to depend on asking-for-directions.

i'm sure the door wanted to burst more than 7 times, but we got kuyang to lean his heavy feet against it to keep closed (see above). i already forgot how the little miss sunshine crew fixed theirs. but definitely, our broken-back-door moment reflected theirs. even mother, who was initially pissed, laughed away her high blood.

and i can hear devotchka in the background. :D

back from up there

after one week road tripping across the western coast of luzon, home has become my space at the third row of our rented van beside my sister iana, and neighbors have become the 400+ kilometers of strangeness that stretches from manila to vigan.

now we're back in our house here in ormoc. i'm still reeling from the awesome-full trip, and this house in ormoc feels like a place we all go house to, not necessarily go home to.

Scared to be Susan

i'm scared to become a Susan Boyle.
she's 47 years old and just found out she can sing.

she sang I Dreamed a Dream from Les Miserables at the audition for Britain's Got Talent and was received with a standing ovation all throughout her performance.

watch here.

little sillies

there are a million silly little bumps in my arms, legs, feet, and hands. they usually go by the medical label allergies, defined as a damaging reply by the body to a substance. but i call them my little sillies. they invade after every beach trip the family makes, so i figured that it must be sea water. i've been having them (off-on-off-on, depending on the regularity of our trips) for years now, but it's only yesterday i finally showed them to pop. he said, "it's the sun."

but i'm hard headed. i don't live next to the beach so whenever i'm in a beach neighborhood, i spoil myself rotten and soak myself in the water and under the sun for hours. i refuse to let my little sillies win.

so after every beach trip, they take their revenge. this time, particularly, they are at their silliest, and reveling while at it. i am attending a wedding on Saturday; and a week-long road trip starting the day after. they've got 1 week to do their fullest potential and leave my body.

but looking at them now, they seem not the smallest chance, relenting! they're itchy and threatening -- the nerve!

them cruel little silly things!

Reunions

one of our dearest cousins Carla (sitting, in black) is leaving for the States next week. she will be based in North Carolina with her sister Karen and her family while she waits to schedule her US board exam for Occupational Therapists. she might return in October or given a leeway, will work for permanent residence. but like with everything, we don't know.

we tried to pull a surprise despedida party for her, which did not work of course given Carla's quick senses. but the party's chief organizers, Carla's sister Katrina and mother tita Mae, were able to gather almost everyone, turning the lovely evening into a mini-reunion.

lovely, just lovely. in the span of the evening, Carla only cried when she saw all the food that her eldest sister, the sweetest Katrina, prepared for the party. it was a Friday so we only had seafoods (Mmmm...): bangus, calamares and chips (Mmmm...), seafood paella, tuna spaghetti. if we abide by Friday's no-meat rule and gained divine favors, we sinned 77 times with the dessert: cupcakes by Monique Gallego-Jarque, mango float (!!!), Tina's chocolate fudges (!!!), and buko pandan. tita Mae also fried turons (banana and nangka wrapped in lumpia wrapper).

the icing in Jarque's cupcakes almost killed me. i wasn't so fond of the base because it tasted almost plain. but i figured if it competed with the sweetness of the icing, it would have sent my calories count right up to the ceiling.

sweet, so sweet.

the oldies in a reunion of their own (that's tita Baby, tita Mae, tita Ines, and mother, with Sam and Maica).later on, we all trooped to The Outpost in Nivel Hills to watch Rescue a Hero, the band my cousin Jason is a drummer of. before the show, i asked Jason what kind of songs his band plays, and he said with a hint of a laugh, sneer, and annoyance combined, "Emo!"

the set wasn't bad at all. i wanted to make out the lyrics, but live sets don't make that easy. their music for some reason, reminded me of Rooney. but in their myspace, they wrote they are influenced by Death Cab for Cutie, Dashboard Confessional, etc etc. each of them did their job, but more kudos to the vocalist who really let his hell break loose on that stage (he exemplified Jason's "Emo!") and of course (but no bias ha!), the drummer. though i (think i) know Jason's been playing the drums since high school, i never could keep his funny guy persona pinned down to the drummer's seat. striking the drums requires intensity and angst, and Jason is very funny. but on stage that night, he tuned down his funny a lot bits and did an impressive thing with those tools. turns out i don't know my cousin all too well.

listen to their music at www.myspace.com/rescueahero.
hey ladies! the last hurrah we had after the despedida party was quite unfaithful to how we did our hurrah years back. we were more gung-ho then, taking tequila shot after shot, and Red Horse Beer by the bottles. that night, me, Carla and Iana had weng-weng (that wicked mixed drink), vodka for Maica, and Tequila Sunrise for Alyssa.

and more second shots.
~~~

a lot of crisp images from my college years have Carla in it. when we played mahjong until 5 in the morning, Carla was part of the quorum. when we gained full backstage access to a Sinulog concert with Urbandub, Brownman Revival, and Rivermaya, Carla was there, too. when we crashed Hale's after-concert dinner, Carla was there with me and Iana. each of those times i got drunk with tequila, Carla was also drunk. when i got drunk at Jason's beach birthday party and dared to walk across the expanse of white sand to the rock island around 30 meters away from the shore, Carla was with me. it was Carla who brought the green facial mask that we put on to soothe our faces before Joey's grandiose debut, and Carla who put on my eye make-up because i'm too clumsy. the first time i got drunk and puked, Carla was there beside me, sitting on the parking lot grounds. watching Jimmy Bondoc in concert, Carla and I realized together that he was hilarious and liked him instantly. I was there when she got together and broke up with a series of guys. she was there to hear me and my dreams out.

so guys, what i'm saying is that, Carla is the culprit of all my drinking sprees. :D
and made my college years a lot more fun.

Coolest Thing (Bais)

the gigantic Manjuyod white sand bar in Bais, Dumaguete is one of the most awesome natural wonders i've ever been to and enjoyed immensely. i heard so much about it from my sister Maica who was there years ago but she obviously strayed in her portrayal because all along, it made me expect only a small strip of white sand, when in actuality, it's HUGE. it stretches for miles (dumagueteinfo.com measures it at 600 hectares, including the submerged areas) along the coast of Bais and Manjuyod.

if you scroll up and check the top photo, you can trace a line made distinct by where the sand bar ends and the cantil (sea cliff) begins. tingtong, ever the daring among us, wandered off to this line to see if there are corals bordering the cliff but he saw only the sand bar falling away at a steep angle to the bottom of the sea. for the first time, the cantil freaked him out. i wanted to check it out myself but missed the chance when i refused to go on my own.

but let this not worry you. the white sand bar offers a great expanse to run around in anyway, and if you're careful and attentive to the direction and strength of the current, there's no chance of finding yourself at the surface of the deep blue sea. the tide was low while we were there that even baby Ben was able to run around on his own. i would have wanted to burn myself more but the oldies were quite wary about the high tide pushing in and hurried to go home. too bad. i was waiting for the high tide so i can swim and not wade through the water. anyhow, i went home thrilled to have been there and to be able to sell this to you now.

the amora resort in manjuyod, where all of us were billeted, reserved one of the four cottages on tilts in the white sand bar. you can rent it for a whole day at P3,000 and plus P2,000 if you want to sleep over. another drawer for this area is that the deep seas some minutes away from the sand bar is a dolphin sanctuary. in fact, Bais more often go by the "Dolphins and Whale Town" than the "White Sand Bar Town".

in our plight to search for dolphins, we moved farther and farther away from Dumaguete and came very close to Cebu that i can already make out the vague green of the mountains. we came across schools of dolphins but they were not on a frenzied jumping and showing off their adorable mode. the boatmen told us that dolphins more likely put on shows on flat, still waters, and not on wavy seas. (the lesson is, start early.) but the search was not completely in vain. the search was actually where the fun was. you just get unlucky, i guess. unlike what animal shows in Ocean Park or Sea World make us perceive them, dolphins are not robots who are told what to do and fed only when they do it, they have their mood swings as well.

~~~
weirdly enough, though the sand in the bar is close to white, the shores of Bais and Manjuyod, just 15 boat-ride minutes away, are not. it's close to black (why is that?). it's like the white sand bar was never meant to be there. it's simply a huge chunk of white sand lost at sea.

the amora resort that we stayed in was huge. tio perok paid a hefty extra to have it exclusively for us for 4 days. it's not an exceptional resort but we didn't mind because the people running it were very hospitable and took care of us very well. we made a sidetrip to Mabinay to see the Crystal Cave. the road to this small mountainous town is pocked with uneven pavements and huge holes, but the Cave was worth the bumpy ride (about 45 mins-1 hour from Manjuyod).

The Crystal Cave is filled to the brim with stalaCtites (from the Ceiling) and stalaGmites (from the Ground). to say the least, i was overwhelmed with wonder (photos to follow soon).

ChinChin

in my 23 years, i only had one true bestfriend.
her name was Chinchin.
i met her in my 11th year.
she died of hit and park in my 19th year.

Chin in this photo reminds me of Clint Eastwood; i should have borrowed a cowboy hat.
Isn't she lovely?
Isn't she beautiful?

(photos uncovered from littleverywhere.blogspot.com)

college, is that you?

this post would not be sincere if i won't start with a confession: every now and then, i look myself up in google. i don't expect to find anything under Maria Vita Tan Rodriguez besides my current blogs and works of people bearing the same name from around the world -- well ok, i do hope to stumble upon anything that somebody's written about me (LOL). that's a long stretch of hope but i never heard there's a limit to hope anyway (LOL again).

a few weeks ago, every now and then happened and i came upon one of the many blogs i ran before ilovemyupper. it existed between may 2004 and april 2005. i had a sincerely good laugh going through personal musings from years ago. at that time, they feasted on the unforgettable Maganaka, other merciless teachers, selfish subjects, no-sleep nights, drinking sprees, brush with fame, and of course, the most relevant to my easily smittened, crushes! it's like college all over again. :D

one post i think any rocker friend of mine would enjoy is called Music to the Core. it chronicles the events of September 4, 2004. oh my gawd! i had my share of pinoy rock moments but that one was the ultimate winner. i totally forgot i had it sketched in virtual eternity in that blog. i remember hanging out with Kevin Roy, Louie Talan, Julie Capana (the-Julie-who-inspired-Julie-Tearjerky) but the small things, the details slipped through the cracks of memory. thankfully, i recovered that blog, and recovered that one day rock affair.

i shall never forget from hereon. visit O0oh, my soul! at www.littleverywhere.blogspot.com
(most probably, i just finished Rebecca Wells' Little Altars Everywhere, thus the inspired title)