Love.Risk.Surf.Live

Saturday, Training day So glad I trained this morning. Loved the feeling of catching your breath and sweat trickling down your face. Program: 3 sets of 500m (half boat), 3 sets 0f 50 power longs. Isa and I were assigned to be the pacers for the second half of the boat. Pressure! The pacers sets the pace of rowing. The rest of the paddlers follows your rate, and movement of the oar. Ok so that's the feeling of being the pacer. I never felt that kind of intense tiredness before. Plus the fact that the boat seems heavier because we were the first one catching the water. Solid training. Looking forward to next week!

by Mark Meily Of all the Cinemalaya entries, I chose to see Donor since it received the Best Picture and won awards for Best Performance of an Actor (Baron Geisler), Best Performance of an Actress (Meryll Soriano), Best Performance of a Supporting Actress (Karla Pambid), and Best Production Design (Aped Santos). Visit Cinemalaya for the synopsis and to know more about the Director. Organ trafficking in the Philippines is quite alarming. The Director said that the Philippines is the third highest in the world. That's how poor our country is. People resort to selling their organs for money, to sustain daily needs. I couldn't bare the fact that some people really go through the process. But I'm hopeful that our country will rise and be as rich as the other top countries.

I learned a new site from Neka via Plurk . It's Gooveshark . I'm starting to love this site. It's where you can listen to any song for free. It's very user friendly and easy to navigate. Type the song or artist you want and a list will be shown. Click play and voila! Music to your ears. Must try and I suggest you add it to your bookmarks. Happy listening!

Yesterday was the Philippine Dragon Boat Federation's Second Leg Regatta. By 7am the womens team started warming up. We were on heat 1 and up agains 3 other teams. By 7.30 the womens team loaded the boat. It's already my 5th race but I still feel nervous, add to that the new form we'll be trying out for the first time on a race. We've been practicing the form for weeks. We haven't perfected it but at least for the starts we are able to execute it well. "Attention! Are you ready??" shouts the umpire. Followed by the gun shot! and ROW!!! The team reacted quickly. Our program was 30 power starts, longs, pick up, last kick. I love the starts! I felt the boat so light. Surprisingly with the new form, we were ahead all the other teams by a boat's distance! But then towards the last 150m we bugged down and couldn't sustain the rate any longer. We finished third on heat. Not bad but I know we could have done better. Back to our tent, the rest of the mens t...

Victoria's Secret

Poster created by Kira Gauce The UP Marine Biological Society is having a Fluidsurf sale. Proceeds will go to the upcoming International Coastal Cleanup this coming September at Isla Verde. Buy PINOY, support Local Products! I will post the link soon so you can see the stocks available.

Here's an article written by Isa Salonga, my fellow Assumptionista and UP MBS member about skin diving. Open publication - Free publishing

Exactly 4 days until the Dragon Boat Second Leg Regatta. I feel bad I wasn't able to attend training this morning. Only a few of us in the womens team weren't able to go. Sad! I want to see a boat full of women paddlers. Anyway UPDT loaded 2 boats, one for mens and one for womens. I have a class Wednesdays and Fridays at 8.30am which is why I was hesitant to train today. My first class is critical. I can't be late. I hope to train this Friday. I'll probably bring Chevy so I won't be late. Good luck UPDT. Bring home the bacon!

I was browsing the net to find the schedule of Cinemalaya 2010 in UP. Luckily I saw one. For the benefit of those who want to watch in UP, here's the schedule. Tickets cost 80 pesos. Contact Aaron Caparaz at 09083977856. JULY 20 / TUESDAY 5pm - THE LEAVING (Ian Dean S. Loreños) 730pm - MAGKAKAPATID (Kim Homer Garcia) JULY 21 / WEDNESDAY 5pm - HALAW (Sheron Dayoc) 730pm - SI TECHIE, SI TEKNOBOY AT SI JUANA B (Art Katipunan) JULY 22 / THURSDAY 5pm - LIMBUNAN (Gutierrez Mangansakan II) 730pm - REKRUT (Danny Añonuevo) JULY 23 / FRIDAY 5pm - SAMPAGUITA (Francis Xavier Pasion) 730pm - MAYOHAN (Dan Villegas and Paul Sta. Ana) JULY 26 / MONDAY 5pm - VOX POPULI (Dennis Marasigan) 730pm - SHORTS A* BOCA by Alistaire Christian E. Chan, BREAKFAST WITH LOLO by Steven Flor, DALAW by Janus Victoria, DESPEDIDA by Borgy Torre & FACULTY by Jerrold Tarog JULY 27 / TUESDAY 5pm - SHORTS B* HARANG (BARRIERS) by Mikhail Red, HAY PINHOD OH YA SCOOTER (I WANT TO HAVE A BICYCLE) by Hubert Tib...

Turn in those trash at home into cash! The UP Isko Cleans UP (UP ICU) headed by Anna Oposa will hold another recyclables fair at UP AS parking lot. Now's your chance to respond to Mother Nature's call! Help protect our environment by simply disposing our garbage properly. Hand in those batteries and tarpaulins piling up at home or in your respective org tambayans. If I'm not mistaken UP ICU had a recyclables fair last February. I earned 40 pesos for turning in busted printer, dvd player, and some plastics! Not a big amount but hey, at least we've got more space at home and the fact that you know that the items turned in will be used again. Support this event. It'll be a big step towards saving Mother Earth!

It's my first ever long drive! I've been driving since I turned 17 but never drove long distance. I only do city driving. But today I got the chance to drive to Malvar Batangas, my father's province. We were invited to go there for a get together because our relatives from San Jose came home. I find city driving a lot stressful and tiring. There's traffic, reckless jeepney drivers, motorcycles that suddenly pass by, people crossing, beggars knocking on your window. Driving out of town makes you sleepy at times. You can speed up until 100 or more. Much more expensive though because of the toll fees. Can I just say that Slex has improved, although the roads not as beautiful and as wide as Nlex, at least road construction is over. Next target is to drive all the way to La Union! Yeahooo!!

I long waited for this day! UPDT (UP Dragon Boat Team) training. My last training was a week ago. I really want to train on weekdays but I might not be able to make it in time for my class. It's my second time to try our new form . I'm getting used to it and I'm actually loving it! I felt the boat's intensity and strength while rowing. We had 4 sets of 300m race course. Program for the set: 30 starts, longs, pick up. I felt the boat's speed when we did the 30 starts. Longs was just too short. Longs is done to give the paddlers time to catch their breath. So from 30 power starts, we shift to longs, where we should have a higher recovery when rowing. Surprisingly after around 4 or 5 longs, the pick up command was called. When pick up is called, the idea is to maintain the same rate as the longs but the pull is stronger. Finally the easy command was called! "Easy" command signals everyone to stop rowing. Wow! I never felt the 300m such a short distance until ...

I tried enlisting Film 110 many times and every time I don't get enlisted. Luckily I got it this semester. Film 110 is offered by the College of Mass Communication (CMC) under the Film Institute. Film 110's course title: Basic Photography. Class requirement-- Single lens Reflex (SLR). I really want to learn how to shoot artistically and to know how to use the SLR we have at home and of course how to develop photographs. Here comes the dirty work in Film 110! This afternoon was our first hand experience of printing our photographs. It was a long and tedious process! I think my muscles firmed from agitating the developing tank for so many times. After the final step, photo gloss, moment of truth.. here you will see if you took photographs successfully and did the tedious steps of agitating using the different liquids correctly. For my first roll, only a few photographs were ok and visible. The other were blank frames. Huhu, my heart sank! So I had to shoot again and do the proces...

I was encoding scores of my students late night around 11pm when strong winds started blowing. My computer began flickering. Then poof! There goes the brownout. Good thing I was able to save everything. I managed my way to my bedroom using my handy dandy primitive phone . The darkness left me nothing to do but sleep. But the strong whistling of the wind didn't permit to. I could hear the wind making scary sounds on the roof. The trees hiphop dancing (the intense hiphop dancing) I couldn't figure the wind's direction. There was rain but strong winds dominated. It was the first typhoon to hit the Philippines. Signal number 2 raised in Metro Manila. The next day, classes were suspended. I went out of the house and saw the damage Basyang left. Fallen leaves, tree branches all over the street. Our mini garden was a mess. But thank God no one got hurt and there was no flooding!

My Saturday was spent for extra curricular activities. No acad stuff at all! My day began early morning 5am at Mcdo Katipunan for the dragonboat training. Our usual meet up place of the Katipunan Crew. Before it used to be me, Bry, Neka, Klar and Mannix. But now we're getting bigger that one assigned car of the day is sometimes not enough. Anyway, loading time yesterday at 6am. 30 push ups welcomed us for being late! Program for the day: 2 sets 20 drops, 3 sets of 300m, then switch sides. What made the training harder is the new form that our coach wants us to do. Before we were used to bending our digging arm but this time both arms should be locked straight. It forces us to twist our body and make the movement of our paddles come from our upper body and not from our arms. Apparently there were studies that show that straightening both arms maximizes the pull more. Yes, entry of the paddle is much shorter but the intensity of the pull is much stronger. Everyone on the boat was sti...

Poster made by Kira Gauce MBS apps and mems acquaintance party tom! It'll be the first time we'll ever have an aquaintance party. Hopefully all the apps will attend. It'll be the perfect time to get to know their co-apps and the mems as well. An afternoon of fun games, over isaw-fishball-kikiam! By the way we're still accepting applicants. For more info contact Jun at 09178849644 or visit UP MBS . You might want to check previous entries under MBS .

The first time I heard of Gelatissimo was from Keevee. It was one Friday Club with MBS. We were having dinner when she highly recommended that I try Gelatissimo at Greenbelt 5. Finally I got a chance to taste it. Right after filling our stomachs with Mesa's finest Filipino dishes, we had Gelatissimo for dessert. I ordered Caramel Macadamia. Very delcious! Just right sweetness and smooth texture. There was a weird flavor Gelatissimo offers. It's called chili choco! Mix of spicy and sweet. I wonder how it would taste. I better try it next time. My other entries under food, I posted in Wordpress.

Uncle Marcus, Auntie Aster and Malaya came to visit the Philippines. We had dinner last night at Mesa, Filipino Moderne in Greenbelt 5. They serve the all time favorite Filipino dish. We ordered Pomelo Salad and baked scallops for appetizer. For the main course we had, sisig with egg, beef two-way, crispy hito, chicken binakol, laing two-way, and the best seller 1/2 crispchon two-way. Bagoong rice. Lahat masarap! Notice the two-way on some of our orders? It's called two-way because they are two dishes in one order. So the beef two-way was cooked in two different ways. One is crispy fried beef while the other one is beef cooked in coco nut. The crispchon is a MUST TRY! It's two way because half of it was chopped while half of it were wrapped in pandan crepe. You know what they do with pecking duck. The meat, strip of crispy balat, strip of cucumber, and some herb all wrapped together using the pandan crepe. Very delicious! Add to that the three kinds of sauce to choose from, the...

The University of the Philippines Marine Biological Society is an environmental organization that promotes awareness of the marine environment through the sport of skin diving. Application is ongoing. Interested applicants may contact Jun at 09178849644 or visit UP MBS for updates. To learn more about the organization watch the video created by Lia Cura.

Yesterday I met up with Tita Irene in Galleria. I borrowed her phone for now. My Nokia 5300 phone hasn't been cooperative this week. Before all incoming calls can't hear me, now I can't see anything! Backlight nalang! Ok so I borrowed her very primitive Nokia phone. I don't even know what model it is. A very simple phone for calling and texting only. No radio, camera, music. One distinct feature, it has Flash light! I'll be using this until my Globe plan offers a free phone. I'm still at awe of the various phones available today! Before you're good with a call/text phone, but now because of the fast paced technology, you have to blend in or be aware of them. Otherwise you'll have a hard time to keep up. Others are already enjoying the comforts of the new technology, while you are still stuck in your old school ways. I won't be surprised if in the future schooling would also be different. There won't be books anymore. No more chalk/board. Everyth...

Ok so this is my second blogging site. I finally decided to create an account here in Blogger because of the varied applications/widgets you can use. I used to write in Wordpress . I created an account there because it was introduced to us in my Educ190 class. It's very limited though compared to Blogger. You can't upload videos there unless it is in .ppt format. You can't explore and make designs on your homepage unlike here in Blogger. So there I'll use this account from now on. I'll link my Wordpress account here too.