some weekend, huh?

yesterday was one heck of a crazy day. crazy good, not crazy bad. some spontaneous activities which led to some fun, crazy, little adventures.

my friend called and asked me to take a stroll and maybe watch a movie at central world plaza. there were few movies which i can compromise watching but he didnt want any of them. apparently, he was waiting for some thai movie that he was interested watching. so after some while and an ice cream at swensen's, we decided to go to chatuchak (or jatujak depending on who traslates it in english phonetics). we had some interesting finds in this huge, really huge weekend market.

i, in particular, found a second hand copy of franz ferdinand's new cd "tonight." foreign cds here cost 399-450 Thai Baht (1 US Dollar is about 35 Thai Baht). i got the used copy for 180B. the price tag said it's 250B. then i bargained some more. amazing. ive been wanting to buy this album but cant include them in my budget yet. (i just bought maroon 5's 2008 cd again because my niece abducted my copy when she came here for a visit from philippines).

my friend and i walked some more. tried on anything we found unique or interesting. bargained without intention of really buying. then it started to rain. we made it to the nice, equally huge park and what a beautiful sight there was. dark clouds and light rain against neatly manicured green grass, trees and man-made lake. we walked against the light rain looking for some shed. we made it to the entrance of the subway station. it's not so often that i get to see a view like that in bangkok. refreshing.

then we went to the underground shop located next to the subway train station to wait for the rain to stop. sat down. lied down. saw teens practicing hip hop dance. these brought some memories of my college days.

some weekend indeed. little enjoyment without spending a lot of money. some of the better things in life are indeed free (or at least inexpensive). i know it will take a while before i get another experience like this. im just glad i did... yesterday.

now you think im shallow... maybe i am. ^^

what sort of small things have made your life meaningful lately? a day (or night) with a friend? a bar of dark chocolates maybe? a surprise call from a long lost friend? a kiss from someone special? a walk in a park or on a beach? im not even referring to how much you received this month from your company. just some things money cant buy...

it's the season 2b jolly

this is one of my most favorite seasons in thailand. the season of fruit! lately the market nearby is being flooded with inexpensive fruits of many kinds - mangoes, lychees, rambutan, dragonfruit, mangosteen are the major ones. and if you hapen to live in my area, then fruits are a bit cheaper than most part of bangkok.

mangoes are not as sweet and tasty as the variety that we have in the philippines. but still, thai magoes are good substitute. oh, i only eat the ripe ones. i am not fond of the unripe, green mangoes.

dragonfruits are not really sweet for my taste. in fact they taste like water with a little flavor. i didnt like them at first. but i learned to eat them anyway for thier anti-toxin benefit to the body. i usually buy the purple ones. purple and blue fruits like grapes and blueberries are immune system boosters. the funny thing about the purple dragonfruit is that it also makes your spit and poops purple. gross...

it's also the season for durian. that nasty, spiked, smelly, slimy fruit. i never like durian. like never... it's not for its strong, nasty smell but the texture of the "meat". it's slimy, sticky texture activates my gag reflex so rapidly and wouldnt allow my esophagus to take it all the way in. it quickly regurgitates out of my mouth.

when i was living in chiang mai, i hang-out a lot with a singaporean friend of mine. once she asked me if we could take a walk to the market to get us durian and eat by the riverside. i told her i dont eat that slimy fruit. she replied in shock and disgust... "what kind of Asian are you?!?"

no chaos this weekend

i usually spend my saturdays preparing lesson materials for my english for kidz class at the language institute of the university near my place. but when i was offered last weekend to handle another 10-sunday course, i said that i am not taking the course this time. i just want to enjoy my weekends, sleeping late or whatever on saturday nights and to not wake up early on sunday to work some more. some things money cant buy... health, happiness, solitude and inner peace.

true enough. here am i, just sitting in front of my computer. but this time, i am not trying to find for lesson materials or activity sheets. im surfing the net for whatever subject comes to mind.

early afternoon, i downloaded some more music to my new nokia music xpress phone.

then i continued sorting out things that were still in bags and boxes from the time i moved to my new apartment. then listened to my cd collections really loud (but not too loud to annoy my neighbors). also sang along, practiced my larynx on how far it can still hit musical notes. i listened and sang to third eye blind, the killers, evanescence, jason mraz, marron 5, etc and some thai bands. not bad. but too bad i cant really sing at the top of my lungs because it might piss off my neighbors at 4 in the afternoon.

but now it's almost 11 and have to take a shower and go to bed. unless im going on a night-out, alone or with some friends, i try to manage not to sleep too late. it's healthy.

reality bites... again

back to work. after couple of months of vacation... summer break, new school year has opened. been open for a week now. of course i also got to work part time last summer. and they were fun. no stress at all. teaching adults is so much better than teaching children. teaching high school is worst. seriously...

anyway... summer vacation is so over and back to life's realities.

and i thought that a couple of months of break from my usual job would afford me to be back in the right spirits when i return to work. i was wrong. the first day of school opening was such a struggle. or maybe i was just used to the long vacation. so give it time. but no, the feeling lingers. it's not fun anymore doing what i have been doing, where i have doing it for the last couple of years. i know i have to change directions.

so a decision has been made. i have flipped a coin and a decision is made. ok, i didnt really flip a coin. i already know for a long time that i have to make a new turn. i was just kinda scared of the uncertainty that im gonna face. change still scares me. it's a natural feeling. i think.

but im willing to take risks. life, like love is full of risks. and we dont know what good things await us over the horizon unless we take risks.

the decision is simple. im taking a break from teaching and explore new possibilities.

wolverine and the uncanny x-men

so i have seen WOLVERINE. and plan to see it again. it's a tradition... i watch x-men and batman movies twice. three times, even. the stories, of course, are quite different from the tv and comic books which really annoyed true-blue x-men followers. like me. (example, in "the last stand" where cyclops who is actually the leader of the group got killed and rogue who is really powerful in the comic books has voluntered to have hesrself injected with a serum from a mutant whose power was to de-activate another mutant's ability . plus, gambit was missing in any of the three -men movies). it's just cool to see them come to life in the big screen.

despite the divided reviews on the movie, i am fully satisfied with the movie. i just wished they made it longer. but it answered few questions that non-followers of the animation tv series and comic books x-men might have. how he got his adamantium skeleton. how sabertooth became his arch-enemy. how he lost his memory as seen on the xmen movies...

plus the movie included one of the original x-men members, GAMBIT. i just wished that gambit had more exposure in the movie. the original animation and comic book "the uncanny x-men" included cyclops (as the leader), wolverine, gambit, jean grey, storm, and rogue. gambit was left out in the x-men movies. i felt bad for that.

.................................................

when we were in college, my friends and i were x-men freaks. x-men was shown in the philippines friday nights. if we happened to be still studying on friday evenings, we made sure we had our dinner in a food shop with tv. we would promise to order extra food as long as they switch the channel to x-men.

there were four of us. buddies. and we had x-men aliases. alvin, the nerd (he worshipped our phsyical therapy textbooks) was cyclops. vikoy, the playboy (he liked girls more than anything) was colossus. conte, the drunken master (he liked liquor more than anything) was wolverine. and me, the rocker (i was always known as the rock star) was... you're right, gambit.

new apartment

it has been a busy month... busy but having fun.

i have moved to a new apartment. my friends wonder why i keep on changing apartments. the last one i lived in was really good. i stayed there for a year and a half. i was so satisfied with it. but it was expensive. it was a one-bedroom condominium unit. the downside was that since it's a condo unit, i had to have it fixed by myself if something got broken. i had to have my own telephone and internet and cable tv connections. some of my friends thought it was too extravagant and a little unpractical. true. but also because i rented it on a whim. i just needed to leave my previous apartment where i stayed for three years and start over in a new one.

moving to a nw apartment is messy and stressful. but once you're done with the moving and everything, you get the feeling of newness. of momentary excitement and high.

so then last month, i saw this apartment nearby and checked it out. i liked it. it's a studio type apartment like most apartment here, but it's got big space. it's got a really big closet with lots of small other compartments. and it's also got a really wide balcony. so i moved in. but had to sell some of the furniture i bought for my previous apartment, the really nice tv rack that i bought and a couple of bookshelves. some i had to give away. that kept me busy for a few days.

except for the bedrom that i used to have, i am really satisfied with my new place. plus it's cheaper. with todays fluctuating economy, i really have to save a little more...

all the small things...

been a very busy week. but it's worth all the chaos and the exhaustion.

i was invited to teach at a summer camp of the world association of muslim youth, thailand chapter. i woke very early each morning to get to the place. then had to leave lunch time to go back home, change clothes to teach in the university. then spent my evenings praparing for lesson and activity materials for both classes.

but it was fun. i was paid minimally at the summer camp but i enjoyed the company of the campers. they were all high school students except for one who is still in grade six. it's always a great pleasure to be of service to our youth.

my mon-wed-fri classes in the university was also finished last friday. i also got my money from the course already. that makes all the tiredness worth it. havent decided yet how i would reward myself... ^^

then im thankful for the rain for the past few days. it cooled down the temperature a bit, cleaned the atmosphere, and made the trees look greener.

next week, which actually starts tomorrow, will be an easy week. gotta start reporting in school but classes wont start unil the 18th. so there's still time to relax a little. and of course there are two holidays next week.

and tonight im going to watch wolverine with my best friend.

i have learned how to be thankful even in small things. it's a long and winding road in the journey of life but we can always chose to enjoy the ride...