thoughts after window shopping and futsal

I ate a wholemeal vegetarian pizza from Breadtalk about an hour before training and it boded well for me. That’s why I didn’t feel too tired during futsal today, even though we were playing on and off for four hours. I even sort of got into my groove and played one game – well, compared to my usual – fairly well (so I’d like to think). My teammates were great so it was cool that we were passing and progressing towards the opponents’ goal (this is not the usual scenario when I’m playing so pardon the giddiness associated with tonight’s experience). I don’t remember though if we did score.

I initially thought that eating that whole thing (it was around a foot long and about 3-4 inches wide) wouldn’t be good because I’d be so full. Surprisingly, it was helpful as a snack since my last meal was around 1pm with a measly (yeah, it was!) serving of rice and fish fillet that wasn’t artfully presented, the accompanying dip sort of making up for it. I didn’t get to eat snack earlier as I planned because well, I was much too engrossed window shopping. I was already planning to see what Saizen’s Trinoma branch has to offer, looking for the True Value outlet where it is situated, but along the way, I passed through National Bookstore. I saw one of Jamie Oliver’s books from the display window about how anybody can cook so I went in to see that book. Unfortunately, I caught sight of the bestseller pile and the young adult and kids’ section behind it. There was something about Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s new book, after The Shadow of the Wind and one other, but it was nowhere near where the promotional material says so. I also saw a sort of biographical comics about different famous celebrities such as Elvis and The Beatles. The Beatles was the only one whose pages I peeked at. There was more text than speech/thought bubbles. The art – hmmm, unremarkable. I think the writers/publishers could’ve done better and not just sort of belittled each of the members’ attempts at going solo, limiting a child’s view about what caused the Beatles’ eventual breakup. I didn’t read everything, just that one part, so this judgment is not for the whole book. There was also a picture book of Alice in Wonderland featuring scenes from the Tim Burton movie.  I wandered through the cooking section and saw a memoir of two Café by the Ruins kids. I’ve only heard of this place and it’s located up in Baguio. Two of the kids who grew up there were talking about their memories and they also had recipes of favorite treats. I wandered through the fiction section and found an open copy of Murakami’s A Wild Sheep Chase. Interesting read. I guess that’ll be the next Murakami I’ll buy. 

A night in Bulacan

It is possible to be thinking about two different things at the same time. I know I was doing it awhile ago while playing Dynomite. I was determining where to hit each egg given me to reduce the descending mass that threatens my game life. Then out of nowhere, my musings about what happened yesterday and events related to it were trickling in one by one. Now that’s multitasking.

Yesterday, my former SFC workmates and I had a dinner date at Guilbert’s in Plaridel, Bulacan. This came about because of a random thought one July evening as I was eating exorbitantly-costing (but it was somebody’s treat, so no reason for me to complain really) nachos with very little cheese sauce, some ground beef and tomatoes at a place called Homer’s as my companions and I whiled away the time before the 2:30 am live telecast of the semifinal matchup between Deutschland and España. In comparison to Homer’s, Guilbert’s taco salad has more nachos, lots of cheese (grated, covering the top of the nacho pile), with cabbage, beef and tomatoes completing the package and we (like four of us) could fill our stomachs with it and feel a bit full afterwards. And for half the price of Homer’s. So that random thought was tweeted and posted to facebook as a status message. And when one of my ex-workmates, Mayette, liked it, I commented that we should eat there next time. And so last night was the set date.

Last night was my fourth time there. For a Saturday night, it didn’t seem all that busy. I even thought we would be waiting a long time for our orders, but as it turns out, it was quite a slow night. We ordered the taco salad right away. It was served almost immediately and we promptly dug in. Somehow, it didn’t seem to be as much as how I imagined it before. And nobody commented that he/she was already quite full – probably because it was already around 8 and we were all positively hungry. I wanted to try the Sizzling Balut (recommended by many) this time, but nobody was keen to second that choice. So we had Tuna Bicol Express (which didn’t taste much like tuna, and it wasn’t so spicy or whitish as well), Laing (served inside a buko shell – quite milky, unremarkable taste) and Kangkong sa Lechon (which really was lechon sa kangkong – there were literally very few pork skin pieces on top of the kangkong cooked in some brown sauce). This Guilbert’s trip is perhaps the least remarkable of all if we’re talking about the food. My previous forays here all ended up with me thinking there are more surprises here when I come back another time. I guess the crowning glory would be the Tanduay Ice which Mayette insisted everybody have for at least one round, making Jay-r forego the buko juice he initially ordered, but which he eventually had after that one round. Tanduay Ice is really nice tasting but with a kick. First had a taste of it in Feb 8 also in Bulacan, on my second to the last day at work.

The five of us former Unit C housemates and Mark were supposed to be eating and celebrating today. But unfortunately, Pam, the sosyalera (a realization c/o Jay-r that was a point of, well, mirth), is unavailable because she’s working the night shift that week. It would’ve been a triple celebration because she just celebrated her birthday on the 20th, Jay-r was celebrating his today, the 25th, and Mark just got his separation pay which amounts to quite a lot, now that I think about it, although no figures were mentioned. Pam and Jay-r are both still working at SFC while Mayette was transferred to the sister company TOFC. Mark resigned beginning May so he had one month to go. Then Ces had to resign a week after and I followed the following week. So much for resigning early. He was the last one to exit even though he had planned to resign way before the thought even crossed my or Ces's minds.

All throughout dinner, we were just talking about SFC/TOFC stuff since we can’t help it (and which actually constituted the majority of our topics), competence, kinds of leadership styles, spas, Pam, Enchanted Kingdom, work plans, future directions interspersed with laughter, bathroom breaks (I’ve had four trips there due to two bottles of Tanduay Ice, following the first round with another bottle as its effect wore off), drunken banter and downright silly questions (Jay-r (while Ces was feeling his upper back): Ayan o, diba masakit?).

We stayed there till it was near closing and somebody was already exhibiting signs of drunkenness - all the way through the jeepney ride back to Malolos and at 7-Eleven where we had coffee (my first time to see and try this – they had French Vanilla, Banana Frost(?) and Cappuccino at half the price of what was available in the usual coffee shops) before heading home. Jay-r turned 22 (although it wasn’t supposed to be until 3AM), and eventually the drunkenness wore off, and we were lucky to find a van bound for Cubao at the unholy hour of 1 AM in a place like Malolos. So us three girls were south-bound and I eventually alighted at Road 20 at around 1:30 AM. There were quite a number of street lights on, so I decided to just walk back to the house, foregoing a tricycle ride. It was fine because it was already quite cool and I can handle clumps of people along the way anytime by just ignoring them.

(I just realize as I'm about to post this that I've got no good ending in mind. hehe. That's why the need for parentheses.)

ranting somewhere in philcoa

Eyes hurting, eighty-peso dinner gobbled down in less than 20 mns., yellow lights flickering in my eyes as the multi-propellered ceiling fan tries to keep me cool.

staring at the pc monitor for 9 straight hours isn't something i'd gladly do but i'm doing it through my own fault. i'm putting myself and ma'am djanna into a lot of pressure rushing the writeup of my thesis like this when i've had two whole sems and the start of the summer term to write it. i've never worked well planning things ahead, or doing things ahead for that matter. Papers photocopied and pdf files downloaded semesters ago only got to be read now, less than a week before final manuscript submission and it's not like it's very easy to do a writeup and look for supporting data in other references when the data you obtained seem quite out of the ordinary, the expected trends were not there. and the data changed from one phase to the next. and i'm not really sure how much to assume, and how much to keep searching in the world wide web. does it surprise you that i'm writing this on paper? well, i am a bit surprised. i can't believe i'm still writing, like i can still churn out ideas on paper. it's been a long while since i've last written my ideas on paper. and it's been awhile since i've written anything this long so my hand is kinda hurting.

why are Filipino TV networks so intent on fueling the stupidity and prejudice that already abound? i've at for less than an hour in front of the boob tube, switching the channels from one station to another. this was around 6-7 pm on a sunday evening. many families would be at home, kids watching whatever's on tv unguided. TV says: it's right to make fun of fat people, of who they are and what they wear; it's good to make fun of gays, and make them do ridiculous things for the rest of the TV-watching public to see. Why do you make kids do antics on TV and frighten them while doing it, all the while catching the whole thing on tape? Why twist public service announcements so that the public including kids could laugh at them? why make kids act like adults, delivering lines which would not benefit you or them, teaching kids watching that it's alright to be like them and do as they're doing. The Waldorf style of teaching is right: television should not be viewed by kids...

Hmmm... I gues i've had enough ranting. my eyes want to go close already. one more thing. there has been so many online communication tools already, different sorts of RSS readers, twitter/plurk, and many others i don't know about: del.i.cious, diggit, stumble. i tried seeing what twitter was all about. was tempted to create an account for a bit. but then i'm not online all the time. and for me to fully make use of it, i have to subscribe to other users using it. that'll add to the tons of things i read on the net or the other things i have to do when i'm online. maintaining an online presence is not very easy. but i'm in [it already]. it'll be hard to get out of it. so there, i think i need to sleep already.

Es regnet.

Es regnet.

++

A face change for my blogspot site. Got bored of the almost colorless interface it's been in for quite awhile. Amazingly, my cbox account seems to have gotten deleted or lost or something. Couldn't access it anymore to change some settings on my tagboard. It recognized my username but i've got no emails whatsoever on my new password.

++

The rain has stopped.

++

Been in a writing mood for the past few days already. Wala pang umaabot sa space na 'to. Hanggang mood lang, wala pang topic o kahit anong ideya. Pero bumabalik ako dun sa mga panahon na naeengganyo akong magsulat - mapa-blog, fanfic o maikling kwento. kaya eto na lang ang nagawa ko.

++

Kainggit ang mga taong maraming libreng oras. kasi kahit ang dami ko nang libreng oras, ang dami ko pa ring ibang ginagawa.

++

napa-facebook na rin ako. dati sinabi kong di ko na 'to papatusin. e kailangan sa isang trabahong ginagamapanan ko. ayan, nagkaroon. at medyo nawiwili ako dun sa notes feature niya. iniisip ko pa kung anong mga isusulat ko dun sa latest note kung san na-tag ako.

medyo hindi ganun ka-straightforward iyong interface niya. di mo kasi agad makita iyong group kung san admin status ka. o baka kulang lang ng tweaking sa settings. pero tiningnan ko na iyon dati wala naman akong nakitang kahawig sa gusto kong mangyari.

++

nakakain na rin ako sa bellini's. sa Marikina branch na nila 'to. inaya ako nina joyce at macel last night for dinner, supposedly, at a thai restaurant in marikina. andun na sina ate beng and dylan. i was determined to decline kasi masakit na mata ko (from puyat and staring in front of the pc for almost the whole day beginning the other day). then treat na lang daw. ayun, went with them. when we were on the way, closed na raw iyong thai resto so we proceeded to bellini's. ate beng and dylan already had dinner so they just had dessert and tea at the italian resto instead. macel ordered spaghetti with seafood baked in aluminum foil, pasta with prosciutto for joyce and me and campagnola (pizza). masarap! masarap talaga. kailangan maulit. there were breadsticks provided nung una which we (the three of us) devoured since past 9 na iyon and we haven't eaten. we even asked for seconds and even thirds pa ata. then they gave shots of sweet wine for each one of us. the owner (my companion presumed he's the son of the owner who's at the cubao branch) was trying to get our opinion on our dining experience so we also got to take a picture with him. and those pictures - since they're in macel's cam - have the possibility to no longer see the light of day. so, well, i'll just imagine bellini's through my memory.

++

it's almost three. need to leave. will futsal myself along with other sikad peeps. ah yes, and something that would pass for lunch.

miss writing. but not like this. like something else. like in estupadoink.blogspot.com or other. anyway, need to go now. like you would care.

++

[edit: 022509]
P.S. somebody posted the pics of which i was speaking above. teehee.
so we have the gang at Bellini's: seated-beng, joyce, macel, I; standing - owner, dylan

[what has happened]

my life is such a mess, but before i depress myself which i am wont to do everytime i think about it, lemme just write about the pleasant things that i've learned or experienced these past few days or weeks. it was the thought of such things while i was walking home tonight which actually spurred me to write after months of silence (well, at least on this front - so much has happened, just wasn't in the mood to write during those times).

so, where to start...

hmmm... to fellow ft students out there, can i just say that fn (nutrition) subjects are so much fun. for those not in the know, we only have two fn subjects in our curriculum, and yet, these are the only subjects where we are able to cook meals or dishes which we get to sample for purely hedonical reasons (i.e., parameters for evaluating each dish are only qualitative such as "i like this cabbage salad in mayo with paprika extremely", or "i like this kare-kare very much", or "i dislike ampalaya in whatever preparation it is done in moderately" using the 9-point hedonic scale). this afternoon was the second session wherein we've cooked the dishes we've planned. the first one was the result of our planning for a given set of meals per day given a person's height, weight and energy requirement given his occupation. this was accomplished by using the Food Exchange List (FEL), an extremely helpful tool, especially if you're planning special meals such as when you are dieting. you are actually able to limit your calories, but then, to be able to provide more variety, you should be quite well versed in substituting food items as well as able to prepare them in a variety of ways so that you won't get bored with the usual stuff which you prepare, which i think i am wont to do since i don't have enough knowledge on cooking foods. the lesson is that with more meals per day, you are able to distribute the carbohydrate requirements in terms of food items. in our case, we only had three meals: breakfast, lunch and dinner and the requirement for the normal diet for a healthy person is that a minimum of 65% of the day's energy allowance come from vegetables. therefore, for breakfast of an adult male with an activity of the typical jeepney driver, we prepared a breakfast of 2 cups of cereal with low-fat milk, a slice of Gardenia wheat bread with four teaspoons of strawberry jam and a small piece of apple. for lunch, we had one-and-a-half cup of rice, tinola (with chicken breasts and sayote), 1 serving of lakatan and two teaspoons of iced tea. dinner was fried tilapia with sauteed kangkong with soy sauce, sauteed togue and buko juice. we also got to eat among others, buttered rosemary chicken (oha oha! o di ba, something close to gourmet cooking - well, at least from my point of view, since di naman ako napupunta sa mga fine dining places dito sa metro). =)

today, we prepared low- and high-calorie dishes. our group was assigned to work with vegetables. for our low-cal, we had steamed vegetables: young corn, carrots, brocolli, cauliflower, pechay, button mushrooms with a very minimal coating of butter and salt. our high-cal dish was kare-kare, the peanut butter and fatty pork slice upping the calorie content of an otherwise very low-cal dish had we used only vegetables. of course, the peanut butter taste of it was more than what i was accustomed or else used to, especially since it's been ages since we had kare-kare with genuine peanut sauce at home. mom had resorted to using only the kare-kare mix in recent years. however, to macky, our chief kare-kare cook since it's his favorite dish, the peanut butter taste was less than what they usually prepare at their home. i also discovered a new way of slicing eggplants. haha. what joy...

other dishes called for entree, dessert and beverages, appetizers and salads and cakes. thus, today's banquet (haha! i wish) included brownies for a high-cal dessert, a low-calorie cheesecake (cream cheese was replaced with cottage cheese) which still needs freezing at the moment (tomorrow is when we get to sample it), adobo, watermelon smoothie, hawaiian lumpia, cabbage salad (with raisins, cheese, onions, mayo and paprika) and ensaladang mangga. the cabbage salad was mexican-inspired, and the mayo didn't taste revolting at all, which it usually does, with the mixture of ingredients and more importantly, the large influence due to the paprika, which lends the salad its taco-like flavor. the hawaiian lumpia was also quite an interesting dish with sotanghon, ubod, pineapple and tuna flakes, among others, inside the usual lumpia wrapper complemented by a sauce with a tart taste which, if you would believe, has fish sauce (patis) as one of its ingredients. by just stretching the imagination, and combining food items with different sorts of spices, one can actually come up with many interesting dishes. a frustration of mine, actually. i'd really like to have the knack for combining different sorts of items and subsequently, ingest wondrous flavors, much like the chefs in 5-star hotels who create masterpiecese which less than 1% of the world get to witness within a span of 24 hours and never to be experienced again. the last holiday's chef didiere of the hotel poop come to mind.

those dishes i've talked about here, except for the ones which our group prepared, are courtesy of group one's executive chef, diana dreza (dood, apprentice ako sayo!).

***

last friday, i had the pleasure of watching pinikpikan's sir sammy asuncion do a hegalong solo with a perc accompaniment (i forget the specific instrument which was used). it was my first time to see him perform, not even with pinikpikan, although they'll be performing at this week's Friday Film Bar (6.30 pm at the Ishmael Bernal Gallery (back of UP Cine Adarna) featuring student short film Sakdal Laya, the full length In The Red Korner by Dado Lumibao and Bong Ramos, a not-to-be-missed performance by Pinikpikan and free-flowing tea and coffee).