Jem's Pix

pinilit lang ako ni jem na i-upload itong mga pictures n'ya :P

jem with the israeli filmmaker tomer heymann, october 2007

elon & otep at sm marilao, summer 2007

alo's high school graduation, march 2007

New Pix

I (from the Philippines) was having a conference call with Ate Dinah(from England), Ate Mhie (from the US) and Ate Tet (from Japan) on Saturday. It was actually fun. While I while growing up in Pulilan (a few years ago), I honestly didn't think we would come to think. I grew up with no electricity in the house, and now, everything and everyone is just a mouseclick away.

Anyways, here are some of the pix Ate Tet and Ate Mhie send to us while we were talking:

This picture was taken when Ate Tet visited Ate Mhie and Kuya Knut in New Jersey earlier this year.

Ate Mhie and Madam Zulma
Manami and Moemi
Ate Bhe

Ate Bhe and Ate Dinah when they picked up Ina from the airport last year.

Singapore offers study grants for Filipinos

ey, guys, you might want to try this out.
goodluck.

Singapore offers study grants for Filipinos

Inquirer
Last updated 08:15am (Mla time) 09/20/2007

MANILA, Philippines -- The Singapore government has opened the door to Filipino students wishing to avail themselves of 120 full-time courses given in five government polytechnic schools that offer a three-year diploma program.

The grants include tuition of SG$10,340 per year and permission to work at part-time jobs. On graduation, the students must work for the government or a private firm in Singapore for three years at an average start-up salary of SG$1,800. They can also apply for permanent residence in the city-state.

Toward this end, CSC International Consulting, which has offices in Singapore, the Philippines and Canada will conduct a free one-day seminar on such topics as the Singapore government polytechnic grants, the Singapore employment pass certificate and the Canadian skilled worker employment visa.

The seminar will be held on Sept. 22 at Cityland Tower, Chino Roces Avenue (in front of Don Bosco), Makati City.

Interested parties may obtain more information or make reservations by calling 0916-325-8726.

click here for the original article

and the winner is...

i don't really know if you care. but i think you ought to know who won in our first ever poll on:

who's the better actress--is it vilma santos or nora aunor?

both have definitely numerous awards in their bags, and have glorious track records both in the award department and the box office.

without further ado, i'm now going to open the envelop. and the winner is...

drum roll...

it's a tie!

oh well. we got 4 votes. not bad for a first time. hope we do better in our future polls.

anyways, our next one is:

kung 3 hibla na lang ang buhok, saan mo sila gustong tumubo?
a. sama-sama sa tuktok
b. sama-sama sa kaliwa
c. sama-sama sa kanan
d. isa sa tuktok, isa sa kaliwa at isa sa kanan

Congratulations to Ate Mhie

After months of waiting, Ate Mhie finally got her green card today.

Yey! Congratulations!

That means that she and Kuya Knut will be coming home for Christmas this year.

Blog Updates

Hello everyone,

First things first: Happy Birthday to Ate Bhe, Jem and Kuya Joey. The celebration will be tomorrow, in Meycauayan, Bulacan. Hopefully I can take some pix so I can post them here next week.

I will try my best to keep this updated. If you will look at the left side of our blog, there is a new item--a survey. And the first one will be: Who's better? Is it Nora or Vilma? I know most of you still recognize these two. So hurry and cast your vote. I promise it will be worthwhile. Let's see if heated arguments will ensue because of this :-)

Anyways, try to visit this site as often as possible. Leave your messages here for everyone. If you want to post a blog, email it to me and I'll do it for you.

Also, make this your default homepage (Ctrl + D). You can also perform your searches on google.com on the google bar on top of this blog. And click the ads. The more visits to this site, and searches and clicks on the ads the more money our site will earn--in US dollars. Advertisements on blogs make money, according to a college who gave up his job to concentrate on blogging.

Thank you very much. Take care. :-)

jem, rap & xe bonding @ trinoma

on august 12, i met up with jem at rap. we went to the newly opened ayala mall "trinoma" and took pix of ourselves. probinsyanung-probinsyano ang dating kumbaga. piktyuran sa mall, sa garden, sa fountain. hehehe.

here are some of the pix.

kuya knut & ate mhie: snow in summer?

ate mhie emailed me this photo several days ago. it's rather funny so i thought i had to share it with everyone.

hope everyone's doing fine.

New Beginnings

First off, I would like to apologize to everyone who celebrated their birthdays in April and May :P Connecting to the internet has become rather hard for me since I left my regular job at ABS-CBN. (Boohoo! No more free-internet!) Anyways, as soon as things settle down, I'm hoping to get my own DSL connection at my home.

Anyways, let us all congratulate those who have been blessed to go back to school / work this month: Jem, Rap, Angelus, Joshua, Kevin and Mayang.

Randell's contract expired several days ago, but he's hoping to get re-hired in the next couple of week.

Congratulations, too, to those who are starting a new chapter in their lives: Joseph, Jerome and Marilou are incoming freshmen at the Bulacan State University. And I will be handling a couple of classes at the University of the Philippines in Diliman--"Scriptwriting" and "Language and Grammar of Film." If all goes well, I might try being a full-time faculty next semester.

Congratulations, everyone.

Apologies if I've left anyone out.

happy birthday, manami!

It was Manami's birthday last May 3. The whole family went up to Ate Bhe's house and celebrated there.

Here are a couple of pictures taken that day.

some family photos

kevin and ate dinah at lola lucing's. christmas of 2001 (if i'm not mistaken). bakit parang dumikit ang mukha ni kevin sa mukha ni ate dinah? baka nagkamali si ate dins at elmer's glue pala ang nagamit niyang facial wash nung umaga.

joshua and ate mhie. gutom na ata si joshua. at mukhang problemado.

manami and moemi during their visit here in the philippines in 1999 (0r 1998).

rap, moemi, randell, kambal, jem and manami.

ate tet and kuya akira's kasal. from left: jem, camille, ester (ester... esther... sige na nga, balat na lang), diane, bethel, ate tet, kuya akira, me, tito ian, robin, randell. front, from left: gelli at manami. moemi wasn't in the picture kasi tinotopak.

from left: ama, ina, ate tet, kuya akira, kuya akira's mom, and a friend.

Happy Graduation... x3!

Happy graduation to Marilou last Wednesday, March 21.

Happy graduation to Jerome and Joseph, too. They will get their diplomas today.

Coongratulations, guys. Goodluck to college... and real life :0)

Here's a "Farewell," a popular graduation song during your Mama's high school days (hehehe) so you may not be familiar with it. Anyways, hope you enjoy it just the same :0)



Farewell

We used to be frightened and scared to try
Of things we don't really understand why
We laugh for a moment and start to cry
We were crazy

Now that the end is already here
We reminisce 'bout old yells and cheers
Even if our last hurrahs were never clear

Farewell to you my friends
We'll see each other again
Don't cry 'cause it's not the end of everything

I may be miles away
But here is where my heart will stay
With you, my friends with you

Yesterday's a treasure, today is here
Tomorrows' on its way, the sky is clear
Thank you for the mem'ries of all the laughters and tears

And not to mention our doubts and our fears
The hypertension we gave to our peers
It's really funny to look back after all of these years

Farewell to you my friends
We'll see each other again
Don't cry 'cause it's not the end of everything

I may be miles away
But here is where my heart will stay
With you, my friends with you

Farewell to you my friends
We'll see each other again
Don't cry 'cause it's not the end of everything

I may be miles away
But here is where my heart will stay
With you, my friends with you
With you, my friends with only you

A Matter of Taste... and Names

A couple of amusing articles about Filipinos' penchant for "weird" food and "unique" names by a British correspondent assigned in the Philippines.

Here are excerpts from his articles:

Matter of Taste
by Matthew Sutherland

I have now been in this country for over six years, and consider myself in most respects well assimilated. However, there is one key step on the road to full asimilation, which I have yet to take, and that's to eat BALUT. The day any of you sees me eating balut, please call immigration and ask them to issue me a Filipino passport. Because at that point there will be no turning back.

...

Here, however, no one bats an eyelid. Then I noticed how many people have what I have come to call "door-bell names". These are nicknames that sound like -well,doorbells. There are millions of them.

Bing, Bong, Ding, and Dong are some of the more common. They can be, and frequently are, used in even more door-bell-like combinations such as Bing-Bong, Ding-Dong, Ting-Ting, and so on. Even our newly appointed chief of police has a doorbell name Ping. None of these doorbell names exist where I come from, and hence sound unusually amusing to my untutored foreign ear.

Click here for the full article.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOEMI!

Funny Lines - Humor at Call Centers

Some very funny lines from a call center human resources person. Take note these are actual statements.

Click here to see the post.

Welcome

Ate Tet called earlier today to ask me the address of this blog.

Anyways, she told me she was going to show this to her kids. So...

Welcome Manami, Moemi and Kuya Akira! :0)

I would also like to greet everyone who come and check this blog. Welcome, y'all! :0)

While we're at it, let's all congratulate Ate Bhe for getting a new visa.

Belated Happy Valentine's everyone!

By the way, I want to congratulate myself, too, for finally having electricity in my condo! Hahaha! Candle-lit nights are finally over. :0)

8 Long Weekend Holidays in the Philippines in 2007

Someone actually found time to research all the holidays in the Philippines. Complete with infos whether they are considered long weekends, and where to spend them.

Nice one.

Click here for the compelete article.

Enchanted Kingdom 2006

On the last week of December 2006, we went to Enchanted Kingdom in Sta. Rosa, Laguna.

Here's the only photo I have of that event.

Those who took pictures there, please send me a softcopy so I could post them here. Thanks.


From left to right: Rap, I, Jem's friend Jasper, Jem, Jerome, Robin, Joshua, and Kuya Joey

Everybody else was still waiting for their turn.

7 Steps to be Debt-Free in '07

I was going over my old emails when i chanced upon this interesting forward.

It's about becoming debt-free in 2007. Basically, it's offfering 7 no-nonsense tips in managing one's finances, etc.

Check it out.

eighty eight

it was ama's birthday last january 30. i felt like writing down a few words for him on my blog.

you may want to check it out.

ate tet in the u.s.

got a call from ate mhie and ate tet a couple of hours ago. we didn't have the chance to talk much. apparently, ate tet was really tired and had to have some rest.

anyways, here's the photo that they sent me. it was taken shortly after ate tet arrived.

dates needed asap

ey guys,

i created this blog where we could post messages for one another.

but the point really is to create some sort of a calendar and countdowns for the birthdays and anniversaries, etc, of each of us--as the name of the blog suggests.

this way, if we want to know what's been happening to one another, or who's going to add another candle to his / her cake, etc.

anyways, i need your help. i only know the birthdays of immediate family members. i need those of the extensions. please keep send them to me asap.

but let's not limit ourselves to birthdays. it would be great if everyone could be kept posted when it's somebody's anniversary, or when someone is graduating, or when my movie is coming out in the theaters (hehehe! i just had to mention that. sorry. :0)

so, there it is. let's keep this blog alive by visiting it often and contributing thoughts, infos, dates--practically anything under the sun.