pictures!

CHARLES' 2ND BIRTHDAY

i love this picture. it really sums up the personalities of the 3 siblings. if you knew the type of people they are, you'd laugh at this pic...in a good way, of course!

uncle david and charles

birthday boy



CRUISE TO MEXICO, SUMMER '08

no, we are not trying these on for fun! standard emergency drill...

go for the GOLD, baby! we totally won at family feud, got these gold medals, and went around the whole night sporting the gold! so. much. fun.

the girls after dinner

view of the sea

we were on the bus to rosarito and there were these people that were singing songs that i've never ever heard of. they were young like us, too! so, maria and i started singing hiphop songs to our friends and they would guess the song.

** next picture post: em, fran, and chellebee's visit to SF! **

an early start...

to summer '08!

what's on the (tentative) itinerary for this weekend? well, let's see!

• thursday evening - drive down to southern california. one white truck. 5 squished passengers. 2 flying into lax. ETA: 2am.


• friday - disneyland, baby. haven't seen you for about 3 years...oh, how i've missed thee!


• saturday - visit mesa court and tour the area. drive around irvine and get my cousin acquainted with the usual eateries and hang-out spots.


• saturday afternoon/evening - sprit rally!


• saturday evening - *secret*


• sunday - mass at the 'faith. drive back up to northern california. ETA: 8pm.

in case you didn't know, my cousin, stephanie, got accepted into UCI! :) she's planning on entering the school of engineering as a civil engineer. last weekend she flew down with my sis and took a day trip to uci during wayzgoose. she loved it and came home very excited. i'm hoping to gently push her into liwanag and get her in early -- you know, before all the others. hey, she's free to make her own decisions, but it may help to steer her in the right direction. :D i'd feel so much better about her being so far away if she was in the right hands.

anyway, the plan is for her sib's to come along with us. my sister and her bf will meet us there since they have travel benefits and can basically fly wherever they want. should be a fun road trip if everything works out.

anyone else going to rally?

welcome back to reality

we arrived back from the philippines friday evening, and would you believe i'm still jetlagged? how long does it take to shake this thing?!

we all had a splendid time! while the country itself is an interesting place to be in, i always tell people that the reason i have so much fun in the philippines, year after year, is because of my family that resides there. we only get to bond once a year, and it's always such good quality time. because my pinsans are quite shy, it always takes them a day or so to get warmed up. they are absolutely terrified at speaking english, and i can't very well speak tagalog save for one word exclamations (i.e. galing! social! ay nako!), so most of our conversations are in broken english and one word tagalog translations. it's funny that although language sometimes creates a barrier, the actions that take place between us speak loud and clear.

i have a few stories about our biyahe, but for now i leave you with one that was quite amusing.

while waiting to see my uncle who is the mayor of sorsogon (those are my pinsans you see in the beginning of the video), david and i happend to engage in a short conversation with one of the secretaries in the office at the municipal building. this is how it went:

male secretary: so, are you guys, like, from the states?
d&d: yes.
male secretary: like, born and raised?
d&d: yes.
male secretary: so, you guys are like, american?
d&d: umm, yes.
male secretary: wow, that's great!
d&d: (smiling)
male secretary: well, i really hope that when you get back to the states, you will vote for ramielle malubay. we're all voting here for the next american idol to be a filipina! (huge smile on his face.)
d&d: oh, yes, of course! (trying to hold in our laughter...)

it was really funny. i don't mean to poke fun at him, because in actuality it was rather cute that he would take the time to ask us to vote for a fellow filipino. talk about filipino pride!

i miss them already...

one week to go...

'til i get to visit the motherland!!! although i am very excited, i can't help keeping my excitement at bay until the day we leave. see, it's the end of the 3rd quarter at school, and you know what that means! report cards. ugh. i despise them. i dislike anything that has to do with grading. i just want to teach, you know?! forget about the grades, the percentages, the tests to administer and calculate...just let me enlighten their minds with the activities! oh, how i wish it was that easy. alas, it comes with the territory.

it's going to be quite the busy week for me. i'm going to try and pack my things this weekend so that i don't have to worry about them, but seeing as though i have an academic decathlon to attend to and playoff games to cheer on for my boys, not to mention it's david's weekend off, i'm not sure if packing will find its way into the schedule.

we're actually spending a lot more time in bicol this year -- 1.5 weeks instead of the usual 1 week. not sure if this is such a good idea as days in the province tend to move extreeeeemly slow. we're only spending a few days in manila before we depart back home, but i never really liked/enjoyed manila too much anyway. it's crowded and stuffy and the only thing to do is shop, which can get monotonous after just one floor of mega mall or mall of asia.

trying to see if we can watch mymp, hale, or kamikazee. doesn't look good so far, but i think we may be able to visit mymp at a cafe they're playing at a few days before we are scheduled to leave. too bad we can't see hale...it's david and my favorite band. on our many roadtrips from the bay to socal or the other way around, we would both sing to their songs, especially this one:



and this song was really popular the first time i went to the philippines and i absolutely love it! there's a punk version and an acoustic version -- a lot of other bands perform this song as a cover but i think kamikazee's the original. i never knew what they were saying until i saw it on tv while over there and they put the lyrics at the bottom of the screen. gotta love that karaoke.

overwhelmed.

i finished packing up the rest of my stuff in my old classroom today. i was lazy to finish cleaning my classroom out right after school because i was just so anxious to start my vacation. since then, i've spent a week in socal and a week in vegas. i'll also be in socal this weekend for my dad's association's (CAUSA) party. tomorrow i'm going to bring all my stuff to my new classroom...my new school. stopped by there today, and this is what i found:

* tons of teaching resources
* multiple supplies (something i was lacking at my previous school)
* a thick layer of dust along all the bookshelves and files
* file cabinet drawers filled to the brim with lessons and units
* old & faded posters on the walls and bulletin boards
* miscellaneous desk decorations, none of which i particularly like

it's only my second year teaching and so i am still fairly new to the game. i'm not sure what to do because a part of me wants to sweep out everything from the classroom and just start anew. that's what i did last year (although there wasn't too much to sweep out) but it's just soooo much work to do for just one year! what if i don't end up staying at this school? and i'm the kind of person where my environment has to fit me and be comfortable. i don't know how comfortable i'll be with other people's stuff around...stuff that i really don't want to use.

oh well, such is the life of a teacher. i'll figure it out. right now i'm just a bit overwhelmed with the whole thing.

however, i'm also very excited for some other stuff coming up! i'm teaching 8th grade religion next year in addition to other subjects, and i'm sooo looking forward to it. so much you can do with 8th graders and faith. i'm also excited for this and this. summer '07 is proving to be very exhilarating thus far.

all star game was today. pretty exciting that it took place in the bay...i kinda wanted to go and party tonight with all the fans. too bad barry didn't hit any homers...ichiro's was pretty cool, though.

VEGAS was truly amazing. =) my cousin, pj, who turned 21 last friday, my bro, and my other cousins were pretty much drunk the whole time we were there. fyi - flying home after drinking all night and not sleeping is not a good idea. i had to navigate my 18-person group through the las vegas airport, check them all in at the counter, and get them through security. it took us almost an hour. by then, my hangover caught up with me. in the air, i was nauseous and throwing up the whole time. good thing i was sitting next to strangers...

i'll post pic's later...




* by the way, i'm having the same problem that gian is having...it won't let me post any titles! so weird...

hello, summer!

a couple nights ago a stayed up 'til 4am scrapbooking. SUMMER is finally here...

it has been nice just being able to stay up late and wake up whenever i want to. such freedoms that have been unknown to me for a while now! i've busied myself with lots of reading (just finished flowers for algernon -- great book), creating, and vacationing. my week down in socal was wonderful, as usual. most of the time we helped david's sis and bro-in-law move into their new house. after finding out what they payed for their awesome house, i started to rethink my desires of purchasing a home in the bay area. it's ridiculously expensive up here, and every time david and i look around at places to live i get more and more discouraged. but, as david says, we'll get there someday. anyway, it was good to catch up with old friends again. yougurtland proved to be a very interesting place to be. my one major goal was to talk to fr. pat and attend mass at interfaith on sunday, and we were able to do both. i told david that one of the reasons i love fr. pat is because he is just so real. tell it like it is, no bs-ing, no sugar-coating, flat out real. i love that about him, and i think i like to see that in people in general. he told me i should basically give my former "boss" (who happens to be a priest) a piece of my mind. when i told him i was scared, he said to write an anonymous letter! he is too funny...

my fam just planned an impromptu vacay to vegas. well, they planned it and i had to book the flights. i was on the computer for almost 4 hours yesterday trying to find a decent price for flights to vegas for 14 (yes, fourteen) people. but it all paid off...$148/person (UAL) on www.cheaptickets.com! the only thing is that we're gonna be there for about a week. what can you do for whole week in vegas?!

got my hands committed to a couple other things coming up soon as well...

1. souvenir program for my dad's group's big event in july.
2. my cousin's debut (a night out in Hollywood, baby!)
3. Liwanag Family Ministry stuff.
4. going back to school.
5. scrapbooking. (i just needed one more for a list of 5 things. i know, i'm weird.)

so, this summer shall be quite interesting. lots to do. lots to look forward to. excited for the days ahead.

welcome, summer!