i've been kaladkad-ed to somewhere else.

update your links! 

eva cassidy - people get ready
high school musical - we're all in this together
sister act 2 - oh happy day
natasha bedingfield - unwritten
hairspray obcr - you can't stop the beat
rent obcr - seasons of love
once on this island ocr - we dance
sister act 2 - ain't no mountain high enough
alicia keys - unbreakable
sister act 2 - joyful joyful
switchfoot - stars
smashmouth - i'm a believer
blind melon - no rain
u2 - beautiful day
the beatles - all you need is love
james brown - i feel good
u2 - elevation

tignan natin kung di ka pa magkacramps sa facial muscles sa kakangiti sa playlist na yan.    enjoy.

p.s.  ang landi ni john legend.    yun lang.

stage 1:  hershey's mallow blasts (in orange, grape, and strawberry), chooey choco, choco rio, chocnut, and goya silver cups.  accompanied the countless hugs, helped coax out the stories behind the smiles and tears, and rewarded the most inane efforts to entertain the group at the halloween and christmas parties at the catch-up marathon that was the midyear.  i was up till 3 am most of the week-long midyear in cebu, and maybe the chocolate indeed helped but i barely managed to juggle delivering 4 sessions (not to mention hosting/keeping the energy level up at 2 parties), choreographing and teaching dance sequences to a group, and being up and awake enough to listen, listen, and listen.  by the time i was on my last IC (individual consultation), i think i nodded off on a sentence or two (buti na lang madilim).

stage 2:  rhia's chocolate fudge birthday cupcake and peter and pauline's wedding souvenir (a box of mint, hazelnut, and a still mysterious chunk of chocolate i've not eaten yet). made my tongue bleed with the konyospeak i had to speak in a weekend spent with friends from my former life in the upper pay grades.  they're konyo and fun and nice, they're my friends and i love them; konyospeak is a language i've never forgotten (and probably never will); and i still do very much like dressing up and fussing (and spending) on the perfect accessories to match the perfect shoes and the dress, but i think if my friends in social development saw (or heard) me, i'd be an embarrassment to them and their causes.    but hey, it came with a weekend stay at this amazing, humongous, mtv cribs-worthy house in a very secret, posh, location in tagaytay, so, i'm not crazy to refuse!

stage 3:  peppermint mocha, peppermint chocolate and gingerbread lattes at starbucks consumed with tris and may8 within a 6-hour stretch that ended in an early morning flight.  i don't know what the gingerbread latte tasted like, but in retrospect, the mint and chocolate combinations of the other two drinks were apt, as i felt both cool and warm the whole time.  it was great hugging tris again, and though may8 and i were together for a week at the midyear, we only talked about the volunteers then (well, we sneaked in an hour or two making isyus over/about/with kkc) so it felt nice to really talk to her.  that was the warm part.  still, us three and the rest of the kkc had all been leading separate and physically distant lives for so long, there were a few moments of cold silence and not knowing what to say or ask next.  but it isn't a bad thing.  i thought we were these new persons waiting for the others to discover.  that's what we (as in the kkc) were 8 years ago, that's what we are now, and i think that's what we will continue to be - a surprise.  i love you, kkc!

stage 4: in the loot i carried back home to davao with me.  after a week and a half of travelling, i brought back with me a few leftover pieces of strawberry mallow blasts, the uneaten pieces from the wedding souvenir, a pack of choco rio from one of the volunteers, bars of nestle crunch, a box of chocomallows and packs of m&ms from may8.  and to my horror, i discovered i was stocking these along with an unopened box of curly tops and a few pieces of flat tops still in my dorm stash.  you have to understand, i don't really like chocolates - each m&m represents an unborn pimple on my face and each bite is a threat to my [so-called] singing career!  but i won't refuse them, specially because they were all gifts.  and get through them i will, with the pagpoproseso i will have to go through after this long trip.

*** 

the thing with catch-ups is that, ironically, they leave you knowing less about the person once you're through.  i met up with 23 volunteers (my kids, in a way), a wedding-full of friends, a couple of cousins, 2 former roommates, and 2 very special people i've not seen in a long time, eager to level off and see what page everyone is on.  i heard them all,  but i silently wonder why he did this, why she chose that, and i don't always understand.  i hardly know them.  anymore. 

more than that, catch-ups leave you knowing less about yourself once you're through.  through all the chatting and driving and coffee-drinking, i was presented benchmarks, dissenting opinions, and genuine concern for my well-being that had me question my own choices in life.  in the midst of these familiar strangers, i wonder how they see me, and i'm not entirely sure if i'd done good.  i think i've always been faithful to myself, but if we may look at how laundry soap commercials do it, put a white piece of fabric beside one that's been soaked in [the presumably better brand] and you'll see it's not as white after all.

again, it's not a bad thing.  in both cases.  catch-ups mean growth, and they mean change.  and in both past and present tenses.  what i found out told me my friends have become newer versions of themselves; what i didn't find out encourages me to keep worrying about them (that's a good thing right, coz it shows i care!); and what i learned about them jolts me to think hard and fast about myself and what i want to become.  catch-ups are disconcerting, and discomfort inspires reflection, and hopefully, improvement.

magkakapimples nga lang ako.  maraming maraming pimples.

tagged many times over and giving in...

7 songs on recent heavy rotation (mga past 3 weeks lang to)

1.  baby, don't you break my heart slow - vonda shepard and emily saliers.  dahil lang masarap syang kantahin.

2.  defying gravity - idina menzel with kristin chenoweth from the wicked obcr.  dahil mahirap syang kantahin. 

3.  king without a crown - matisyahu.  dahil mahirap syang sabayan, pero sumasaya ako pag naririnig ko yan.

4.  oo - up dharma down.  dahil astig ang kanta.

5.  so come on - love satellites.  dahil indie band sila sa cebu and i'm all for undiscovered bands.

6.  lily allen's whole album.  i'm cheating here by declaring the whole album under one number, but i can't help it.  the whole album's tight, cute, and extremely witty with the way her un-funny themes flirt with funny melodies. 

7.  unwritten - natasha bedingfield.  rah rah song.

8.  (alam ko cheating) invincible - christian bautista.  dahil can relate ako.  at the onset of another birthday, i've been thinking these same thoughts.  how the hell did i get through all that?

i shall not have the pretense to tag anyone because i have been tagged many times over and refused to answer.

it was a 3-day sale over at sm city davao last weekend.  and i'm right again, it happened again.  sm (and the rest of the conniving capitalists of the world) built mountains of those humongous bundles of comforters in the center atrium, slapped big bright yellow price stickers on them, and the mothers of davao went gaga yet again, with their husbands and children running in the opposite direction (whoddya think were gonna carry them bulky packages huh.) 

it never ceases to amaze me, how mothers go crazy over the big, thick, heavy things..... in this tropical heat!!! 

last i checked we still hit minimum temps of 30 degrees, the sun continues to stain our skin to all variations of earth colors, AND we have an energy crisis.  nagka-aircon na ba kayong lahat ng di ko alam!?

mommy mommy mommy, why oh why?  i know those comforters are pretty with their bright, flowery designs and the batting does make them look deliciously cotton-candy-squishy, but why do you keep buying them?  have you forgotten our country's tourism battlecry is sun all year long (just don't tell the tourists it's terribly humid too)?

can't blame the mommies though, maybe they just want us babies to be all bundled up and comfy.  maybe it's the aversion to pasma or panuhot or tun-ob and the war our lolas and their lola's lolas declared on pasma that has been fought for generations.  what is pasma in english anyway?  or maybe they're just mommies harboring western dreams, of tucking in their babies under lots of sheets like they do in many a western soap.  if true, the last case would probably explain the sales in whitening products too.

or baka cold-blooded lang talaga ako.