Well, “new” because I just got into them recently, even if they’ve been around for quite some time now. I’m talking about 43 Things and Twitter. I just recently signed up with these sites and I am hooked!

I’ve been shopping online for the past couple of months. Bad, baaaad for the savings. But I really enjoy it! Check out the following sellers on Multiply:

The Purchaser
Tangles Spangles
Happy Beans Apparel
House of Sugar and Spice
Bags on My Mind

I’m glad that things turned out the way they did. I’m used to working with people who impress me – I get so disappointed otherwise. I remember the time when I first met Mads and I thought I hit the jackpot. I kinda felt that way with the new guy, I hope he won’t let me down.

I’m not like some of my friends who have really dedicated their lives to make the world a better place. I have some friends who joined the JVP (Jesuit Volunteers Philippines) – they actually spent a year of their lives in far-flung areas. I have friends who consciously chose NGOs over money-making corporations. I may not be like them, but I still have that urge to make the world a better place, somehow, in my own little way. Don’t we all have that urge?

I used to volunteer a lot and join outreach projects – that was my little way of helping out. At that time I was able to give some of my time. I lost that somehow, but still tried to maintain something, in the form of yearly donations to Mads’ baby, Jesus Loves The Little Children Foundation. Not enough, I know, but it’s still something.

And now I’m really happy because I’ve thought of a mini-project for me and my officemates. As a background, I really do believe in the messages of the Lance Armstrong Foundation – that knowledge is power, and attitude is everything. That we should all LIVESTRONG. It’s a bit disappointing that they’re not expanding to other countries, but at least their message continues to inspire many people, even those outside the United States. Just recently I ordered the Livestrong Survivorship notebook and gave it to my friend, who has a brother fighting cancer. It’s something he can refer to, and draw strength from somehow. I believe in the LAF’s thrust – research. I believe that this will go a long way, and will benefit many people, even those from other countries.

Sometime last year, I was inspired by an ETC ad about the Cancer Warriors. It’s a local foundation, founded by a fellow Atenean, who’s a cancer survivor. His name is James Auste, and after surviving brain cancer he vowed to dedicate his life to fighting cancer. That’s how the Cancer Warriors Foundation was born. I’ve been a member of the mailing list for several months now. I’ve been wanting to join activities, which unfortunately almost always fall on weekdays. I really do want to help, and just last weekend, I was inspired to text my Globe friends and ask them if they were interested in “adopting” a Cancer Warrior child. James posts lists of children with cancer with their required medicines and treatments, with all the rates. Most of the cancers are curable, except that the families cannot afford the necessary medicines and treatments.

And so the barkada adoption idea was born. I’ve contacted James already, hopefully we can work together on more ideas and projects. Talk to your barkada, your officemates, and if this is something you’d like to do, send me a message so we can discuss it offline.

Don’t you think that world will be a better place if you can save the life of even just one child? That would really be awesome!

This looks like a REALLY, REALLY interesting movie! I found out about it through one of Cyn‘s friends on Twitter.

It’s a romantic musical about the joys and trials of the youth in the 60′s – featuring the songs of The Beatles. How cool is that?! I can’t wait!

Here’s the trailer:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQ6d3m-GFyw]

We left Veramaris at 7AM the next day. Sorsogon City was a 1 1/2 hour drive from Gubat and we wanted to get there early. Ingko was nice, albeit motel-ish. Clarence really wanted to go to the beach, so they went on an adventure to Sta. Magdalena. I decided to stay at the hotel (I know, shucks) because I promised myself that I was going to lessen my unread emails. Well, it was a very productive afternoon because from 300 unread emails, I ended up with 80. Not bad at all. We had merienda-cena at Balkon, then we prepared for the Easter Vigil mass.

The Easter Vigil mass story is something for the books.

The plan was to go to Fatima church for the 10PM mass. Fatima was at the town proper so it was around 10 minutes away. We passed a Church along the way and stopped to ask what time the mass would start, and they said 10PM. So we decided to hear mass there instead. It was the “Our Lady of Perpetual Help” church, which said “Jesus, I trust in you – Our catholic church” outside. Inside, it felt weird. Only a few pews were occupied, even if it was supposed to be an Easter Vigil mass. And there was a table in the middle of the church, with weird-looking candles. I looked around – everything else looked normal. So we waited for the mass to begin. We were even given candles by the people in front of us. A lady approached Sharon, asking her about a ‘reading’ of some sort, so we assumed they wanted her to read. But another lady approached us, and explained to us that it was a members-only mass, and that there were confidential rituals that would take place. She said they all thought we were guests of the reader. She was really nice about it, she even said that it probably won’t be good for us because they’ll be up until dawn. Basically, nice as she was, the reality was that we were kicked out of the church!

Until now we can’t figure out what church it was. Our guess was that it was an Aglipayan church, but we’re really not sure. It’s a really funny story, and we end up laughing every time we talk about it. We ended up going to Fatima, where the mass lasted until 12:30AM.

We left Ingko at 8AM the next day. We wanted to go home on Sunday so that we still had Monday to rest. We bought Pan de Legaspi again, then it was one long roadtrip until Quezon, with some stopovers in between. We had late lunch at Yakiniku, Calauag, Quezon. And then it was again another long roadtrip until Manila. It was uber traffic starting at Sariaya, Quezon, so we went through Batangas instead. Though it was a long trip, almost 15 hours, it was so much fun because of the company. It was so much fun that no one slept the whole trip! We were laughing our hearts out, thinking of all the politicians we could set up with Sharon. That’s another story altogether. We arrived in Manila at 11PM.

It felt good to travel. I thought I wouldn’t be able to travel much this year because of my major trip in July, but I was wrong. I’ll blog about that some other time.

I just realized that I haven’t blogged about our Bicol trip yet. So here goes. A month before Holy Week we were trying to figure out where to go. It just so happened that Heidi, an officemate, was going home to Legaspi City. So we thought of going to Donsol, something which we’ve been talking about since last year. Since the roadtrip was going to be long, Holy Week became the perfect time to go. It was my very first time to go out of town during Holy Week. We usually just stay home and attend the triduum masses. But I told myself it was going to be different this year.

I went with Jovan, Clarence, Sharon and Cathy. We call ourselves the Butanding 5 (haha!) – primarily because it sounds funnier than the Sorsogon 5. We have this habit of naming the travel groups after the places we travel to – we have the Davao 5 (Mike, Clar, Jovan, Mads and me) and the Bohol 4 (Mike, Clar, Jovan and me). We left wednesday night. We felt that leaving in the afternoon would be a bad idea because of the traffic – everyone was going out of town. Plus, we wanted to arrive in Legaspi during the day. The trip was 12 hours long. It was fun at first, with everyone laughing and singing our hearts out. But of course I fell asleep after the stopover at Lucena, and was pretty much asleep until we reached Pili at 9AM. True to form. We had breakfast at Biggs, and afterwards made our way to Heidi’s house in Legaspi, where we had lunch. Free lunch – yey!

Breakfast at Biggs

Lunch at Heidi’s House

We stayed at Vista al Mayon. It was a decent place. The rooms were clean and the bathroom was okay. We slept until around 3PM, then off we went to Cagsawa Ruins. The boys stayed at Vista al Mayon to sleep – understandable for Jovan who drove the whole way! Sharon drove the CRV for the afternoon. (She’s a good driver, in my opinion.) The Cagsawa Ruins was really beautiful, and the view of Mt. Mayon was perfect. Too bad that it was cloudy that day.

Group picture at Cagsawa Ruins

What’s left…

View of Mayon Volcano

Heidi introduced us to Pan de Legaspi and it was so, so yummy! It would have been so much better though with butter! We went to Central Market, checked out some bags, but were not able to buy any. Then it was time for DJC Halo-Halo – the special thing about this Halo-Halo was that it had cheese on top. It was really good! Then we did some toiletries shopping at Gaisano. We picked up the boys then went to Heidi’s house again for dinner. Free dinner – yey again!

Yummy, yummy Halo-Halo!

Friday was Butanding day, so we started early. We were at Heidi’s house by 6AM. Free breakfast – yey for the third time! We arrived at Donsol at 8AM. Good thing that we had reservations, there were so many people and the line was long! Randy was the name of our interaction officer and he was great! We waited for a long time for the Butanding to show up – at one point Randy even asked us jokingly “sino dito may balat?” But, when they showed up, they came in droves! It was too bad that I couldn’t join them swimming – I REALLY want to go back to be able to swim with the Butanding.

Ready for the Butanding!

On a side note, this was a special experience for me because I wasn’t scared of the boat all! I’m scared of boats, you see. Especially small ones. I guess this is part of my practicing the law of attraction. It may seem small to some people, but it’s awesome for me!

We had late lunch at Balkon, at Sorsogon City. The food was GREAT! Lutong bahay right there. The owners were the ones who took our orders so the service was great too. To anyone who will be visiting Sorsogon City, I highly recommend this restaurant/bar. Great Bicolano food at relatively affordable prices. We headed to Jollibee for dessert, then off we went to Veramaris at Gubat, Sorsogon.

The girls at Balkon…

Posing with Jollibee!

It wasn’t a nice place. Which made us worry because were were supposed to stay there for 2 nights. Immediately, we walked along the beach to look for another place to stay. The alternative, Rizal Beach Resort, wasn’t better. The locals even said that we were better off at Veramaris. We accepted the fact that we were spending the night there, but we made sure we had a place to transfer to the day after. Thank God for Romy! We saw him at Rizal Beach Resort, but he was there with friends only for the beach. They stayed at his friend’s place in Sorsogon, so he looked for a place for us and found the Ingko Hotel.

While walking along Rizal beach…

Remember this post of mine from last year, about the Canon EOS 400D? Well, I DID IT! I bought one last weekend and I AM SO GIDDY WITH EXCITEMENT!

I haven’t been able to study the features yet though, I’m planning to do that the minute the I finish the report I’m supposed to submit on monday.

I’ve been thinking about how to blog about this topic because I don’t want to sound overly dramatic. Thing is, there’s no other way to explain it. Basically, my life changed two weeks ago.

I found out about “The Secret” through a good friend. I borrowed the audio CD from our company lawyer and listened to it for 2 days straight. I got to know about the law of attraction, so I aresearched about it more. The basic idea made so much sense, so I started to practice it. And I can tell you now that my life has changed.

It feels so much better to be positive. How you’re feeling really depends on yourself. You can sulk about something, and as you do, you’ll really feel bad. But if you pick yourself up right away and focus your energies on other positive things, then you won’t feel bad. It’s so simple. I’m not saying that we’re not allowed to feel sad, or worried. It’s how you deal with the sadness and worry that matters.

It feels so good to be grateful for all the things that I have. There are so many things to be grateful for! From the smallest thing like your shoes, to the biggest like having wonderful parents.

I hope I can sustain this – it’s hard when it’s stressful at work and when I worry about some things. But when those things happen, I just think of something to smile about and everything’s okay.

I am so excited that one of my favorite books of all time has been turned into a movie! And what a great cast! Imagine, Michelle Pfiefer and Robert de Niro! I don’t like Claire Danes though, but I guess you really can’t have everything.

Watch the trailer here:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdW7rbcfGzs]

And now I’m inspired to read the book again…

Banapple is a cafe/cakeshop/coffeeshop along Katipunan extension, owned by our friend GJ. I worked with him during my PinoyExchange days – he was still with Sky Internet then. And then in ABSi, I turned over my telco relations duties to him. His wife has been baking for a long time now – I have always ordered cheesecakes from them and gave these as gifts to friends. They have also been supplying cheesecakes and pastries to some coffeeshops/restaurants, like Windows. So it was a pleasant surprise when we saw the Banapple sign weeks ago across Kopiroti. They’re expanding!

They opened yesterday – so we made sure that we had lunch there. It was another pleasant surprise that they also offered entrees. I ordered the Herbed Chicken Rolls w/ Basil Cream Sauce (P145). It was good! Though similar, it’s not the usual cordon bleu/a la kiev. I really liked the sauce. And even if I’m not fond of potato salad, theirs is actually good.

Here’s their menu for now:

SANDWICHES
Terrific Tuna Sandwich P85
Asian Crabstick and Mango Salad Sandwich P85
Warm Chicken Salad Sandwich P90
Rafael Maple-Glazed Ham and Honey Mustard Sandwich P110

PASTAS
Fettuccine Jacintha P110
Penne Bolognese P110
Fettuccine Magnifico P110
Pasta Verde P110

ENTREES
Herbed Chicken Rolls w Basil Cream Sauce P145
Garlic Beef Tapa w Creamed Parsley Eggs P120
Glazed Pork Tocino w Creamed Parsley Eggs P110
Breaded Fillet of Creamy Dory w Honey Thyme Mustard Sauce P150

PANCAKES
Buttermik Pancakes P70
Awesome Blueberry Pancakes P85
Chocolate Peanut Butter Pancakes P85

SAVORY PIES
Creamy Chicken Pie P75
Savory Tuna Pie P75
Cheese and Mushroom Pie P75

PIES and CHEESECAKES
Blueberry Cheesecake P700
Two-Nut Caramel Cheesecake P700 (Yummy!)
Chocolate Chip Walnut P480
Banoffee Pie P480 (I love this!)
Apple Caramel Crumblr P500
Snicker Fudge Cheesecake P800
Strawberry Crunch Cheesecake P700
Cadbury Old Gold Oreo Cheesecake P1020
Classic Pecan Pie P800
Honey Carrot Walnut Cake P650
Old-Fashioned Chocolate Cake P650
Super Caramel Fudge Cake P700

Their address is 225 Katipunan Ave, Blue Ridge QC. Phone number 4392675. It’s right across Kopiroti, before Katips. Hope you can drop by!

Thanks to Mikoid for the photos!