1: Apart from tumblr, what do you like to do in your spare time?

• I sleep. Like a lot. I can actually sleep for 12 hours straight. No joke.

2: Name a favorite of each: food, drink, color.

• Food: Pasta
• Drink: Water
• Color: Blue

3: If you married rich and your spouse gave you $100,000 a week, what would you spend it on?

• CDs, DVDs, digital music, books, cameras, AND NECKLACES. And maybe some flowers.

4: Name a favorite of each: book, movie, tv show.

• Book: Lucia, Lucia (Adriana Trigiani)
• Movie: 500 Days of Summer
• TV Show: Supernatural

5: If you were given the opportunity to spend 48 hours with absolutely anyone (living or dead), who would you spend it with and what would you do?

• My daddy. Well basically I would tell him a lot of stories about me, tell him everything. Then I’d bring him to my favorite places around the city. Then I’d tell him to play the music he used to play every morning to wake me up, and we’d dance to those songs like they will last for more than 48 hours…

6: Name a LEAST favorite of each: food, drink, color.

• Food: okra. (google this veggie if you haven’t heard of it)
• Drink: an All-Fruit with Yogurt Smoothie. I tried it before but damn it tasted like vomit.
• Color: Indigo.

7: What do you spend most of your money on?

• Fooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooood.

8: What kind of underwear do you prefer wearing?

• -_____-

9: Name a LEAST favorite of each: book, movie, tv show.

• Book: ———-
• Movie: Twilight.
• TV Show: I can’t decide which to tell you.

10: If you were sat on a plane beside your favorite celebrity, what would you do?

• Calm myself.

11: What is the strangest thing you have in your room? (You are not allowed to explain why you own it.)

• Holy water.

12: What is a weird habit you have, or people have told you have. (Weird, not bad. No nail biting or any of that nonsense.) 

• My friends don’t tell me if they think my habits are weird. They let me embarrass myself.

13: What would you consider to be the biggest insult to yourself?

• Stupid. My ego hates it.

14: What are five things you absolutely have to have in your dream house?

• Pool, vending machine, a bar, a huge walk-in closet, and a Jacuzzi.

15: If you could be reincarnated as any animal, which would you chose and why?

• Dog. Definitely a dog. Because dogs are the most affectionate animals in the world. And I want to guard my owner and make him/her feel loved

16: Which band (current or past) would you want to go on tour* with? (*Travel with, not perform with.) 

• 2NE1!!!!!

17: Name a favorite of each: band, album, song.

• Band: Two Door Cinema Club
• Album: Adele’s 21
• Song: JoJo‘s Disaster

18: Why is your favorite band your favorite?

• Because they play great tunes that are not so similar to the sound most bands produce.

19: How many concerts have you attended? Which was your favorite? Least favorite? If none, who do you want to see live the most?

• I’ve seen only a few (4) and half of them are like, in school. (lame)
• Favorite? Hmm, I’ve no favorite!
• Who I want to see live the most? Adele AND Blue.

20: What is one of your favorite song lyrics? (Who is it by?)

• So don’t you worry your pretty little mind / People throw rocks at things that shine / And life makes love look hard / The stakes are high / The water’s rough / But this love is ours  — [Ours by Taylor Swift]

21: Who do you ship?

• Who do I ship? Fictional characters, you mean? If so, then it’s got to be DEAN and CASTIEL

22: What band merch do you own? If any, whose is it and when did you get it? If none, whose do you wish you owned?

• I don’t have any band merch. Um, but The Beatles or The Smiths would be cool!

23: How did you learn of the band that is currently your favorite?

• Through Dianna Agron (Quinn Fabray) of Glee. She blogged about her current playlist last summer.

24: What celebrity do you idolize the most?

• The most? The type of  admiration that it would physically hurt me if I don’t get to see any of his/her shows? None.

25: Which member from which band would you most want to lather in nutella?

• Hihihihihihihihihihihi. GABE SAPORTA of Cobra Starship!!!

So this list is obviously from Tumblr and I figured it’s cool to do another Q&A here on my blog.

And before I even started answering this, my brother left the house. I thought he’s gonna spend the night here. Damn it.

These are my boys.

The guy on the upper right is my younger brother (John) and my lower left is my nephew (Marco). I basically refer to them as my brothers because being specific takes a lot of seconds. And Marco is like a brother to us now. I mean, what the heck, the boy grew up with us since his parents were not always around.

Anyway, they’re as awkward as me. And even if we fight everyday about who’s going to have the TV’s remote, they’re still two of my favorite people in the entire world.

John and I must leave soon and I still can’t see any changes in his behavior towards it, perhaps because he’s a dude. And I kinda get that. He’s probably just trying to think that things will not change and/or all will be well. I would like to think that’s what he is doing because that is what I am doing right now. I’m kind of conditioning myself about the move but I am also trying to savour every second of my last few weeks here as if things will stay this way forever. I mean, I don’t want to put pressure on the kids. I don’t want to pressure myself too. I’ve so much pressure to meet once I get to Novato so I’d like to have an advanced break, please.

I will definitely miss my nephew. He’s my bitch and he’s my photo-buddy. Unlike John, he takes pictures with me more often. Although sometimes, when he’s not in the mood, I still have to bribe him. But whatever, he still is cute.

Sorry for the old pictures, tho.

This is a sample photo of Bailey’s Chocolate Cake of Chocolat Deep Dark Chocolate Cakes, straight from their website. My sister and her husband came home with two cakes from the said bakeshop because it’s Valentine’s!

With that said, I wish all of you a very happy Valentine’s day! Hug whoever (and whatever) is beside you right now and spread the love, love, love.  ♥

After a  fun-filled day for me and my family, we went to Greenhills Shopping Center (one of our favorite malls) to hang out, eat and have some milk tea (from Happy Lemon, of course).

The tickets in the photo above were the ones my sister and I paid for so we could use their washroom.

One ticket is worth 10 pesos, which is roughly a quarter of a dollar, and is good for only a single use.

For me, pay lounges are quite annoying. Especially if you really, really need to go but you can’t use the restroom right away because you still have to get some coins from your wallet that happened to be inside your bag? It just sucks. Also, in some places, you’d feel like your money isn’t really going somewhere aside from the management’s short but stout pocket. Why? Because the tissue paper, the hand soap,the  rubbing alcohol and the jet dryer are either missing or messed up! Then some cubicles are so dirty, you’d think their maintenance personnel got abducted by aliens and then killed, and that the only reason why you’re going to use them is because you have no choice.

But whenever we are in this favorite mall of ours, I don’t mind paying for those tickets. At all.

Maybe it’s because of the clean ambiance inside; the artistic design of every washrooms, how they maximize their space without disregarding the potential use of it; the complete set of stuff us girls need inside; the funny ads behind every door; and just the cleanliness of everything!

Okay. So I know it’s insane to actually rave about restrooms but I just obsess over cleanliness. I really, really do.

Official, it is.

Mom called and asked me to write down all these information while we don’t have our tickets yet.

Guess I better pick up that pen and start writing those letters…

I know it has been a long time since I have posted my last blog entry and I apologize. My life has been quite uneventful lately which caused my lack of interest to actually visit my blog and tell you stories. Honestly, the only thing that was sprinkling some glitter on my life was the volunteering stuff I got going on, which I will tell you about later, perhaps in a separate post.
So, I would like to assume that a question like “if you were uninterested to blog lately, what changed your mind that brought you here?” is currently formulating in your mind because I will be answering that just about now: I know some of you have read some lines from my Bio page, so you might have the idea that I am migrating like a bird to America.

Well, okay…it’s not exactly going to be just like how birds migrate because it took us more than a year to complete the process, thousands of dollars to pay the fees, and lots and lots of hard thinking. If we were going to do it just like how the birds do it, my mother would be 12 times happier.

Anyway, in 30 days I am about to go on to a new adventure that shall change everything in my life. Me and my brother (hopefully, our sister can come with us too) will have to leave Manila, Philippines and come to California, USA to live with our mom and her husband. And with this new blog post, and the succeeding ones, I would like to record through words and images the last remaining month that I have to spend with most of the people that I love. This is why this blog entry is titled 1 of 30.

I don’t really recall how many times I have talked about, or even mentioned, my migration to America. It has probably been a lot of times already, and what I have probably talked about before all sounded alike. But even though I have been given so much time to think about it, I don’t think my views and feelings about it have changed. I am still, indeed, torn between being happy and being sad about it.

I am happy about it because finally, after almost 10 years, I can now live with my mother. We have so much time lost between us and I want to replenish our relationship. I want to know more about her and I want her to know more about me too.
I am happy because I know there are big opportunities waiting for me there. The economy’s tough right now, I know, but I trust my intellect and my abilities. There will be more than a single trial out there, all set to hunt me, but I don’t care.
I am happy because my world just got bigger: more streets to explore and more people to meet. I know it is not going to be easy for me to deal with people who grew up accustomed to cultures different than mine, but I don’t mind.
I’m strong enough. I was molded this way.

I am sad about it mainly because I am now 17 and I have definitely built strong and solid relationships with a lot of people here, especially with my family members who will be left here, and because of this migration, I have to leave them all behind and start my life over in another country.
I am sad because my pride is aching. If not only because of this migration, I should be finishing right now my sophomore year in college and I should be a part of the graduating class of 2014. But that cannot be! Instead, I have to enroll myself in a community college somewhere in California, earn myself an Associate Degree while I am working. After I finish college, my batch mates here were so done getting themselves a Baccalaureate Degree and should be busy looking for jobs that will pay them well. While I, on the other hand, have to work my butt off two times harder than the last one, so that I could be able to support myself AND/OR save for my dream of attending a university. Well done.

However, at the end of the day, it’s still going to be me and my brother leaving on a jet plane. And all I can do is condition myself everyday while I am still here so when I get there, I won’t go into shock. So when I get there, I will be my brother’s guide, his aide and his confidante. Because when I get there, I will have to face the challenge not of being in a foreign land, but of being the big sister my brother will definitely need.

There is no better exercise for your heart,
Than reaching down and helping to lift someone up.

~ Bernard Meltzer

As some of you might know, I have been added to the ever-growing population of the Out Of School Youth Society for almost two semesters now because of the migration processing we underwent. So because of that, I have become an awful, fat bum. I almost have nothing worthwhile to do, so thank God for literature!

A couple of days ago, my sister mentioned to me that she and her friends are planning of going to three different non-profit organizations that cater people of all ages  and offer their time and efforts to help. I don’t know exactly why they decided to it, but I know my sister was as moved as I was during the hype of the calamity in the southern part of the Philippines and she felt bad that she wasn’t able to help. I guess this is some sort of giving back although the people they’re planning to help weren’t the ones who were affected by the raging storm more than two weeks ago.

And then yesterday, all plans were finalized and my sissy and her husband asked me to make their résumés  for them and I did. While I was making them, I thought to myself, I am not doing anything worthwhile here at home and I sleep most hours of the day, so why not join them? Luckily, my sissy said I could so I edited my résumé right away! :D

By the way, they decided to just go to one institution that cares for the welfare, and serves as the home of orphans, unwanted and abandoned children, as well as the elderly, instead of going to three different ones that caters for almost for the same thing, except that they’re focused on just one group of people, or just one age bracket.

The institution that they have picked is Hospicio de San Jose and it’s located along Ayala Bridge, Quiapo, Manila.

I’ve been in this place before because, back in college, I was a part of the organization called Don Angel C. Palanca Peace Program and visiting this place was one of the few things I was able to do with them. It didn’t last for than one afternoon but it was really, really fun. We went there to have an outreach program and brought with us loot bags filled with a lot of goodies, and some food too for the children.

Hospicio de San Jose provides an outreach program and a Christian, social and work oriented formation program. It is committed in assisting the abandoned people to experience quality life with the aim of making them “agents of social transformation“.

Tomorrow will be the start of my volunteerism and expect me to share my journey to you. ♥

Related articles

• Volunteerism: You Are Needed, the Rewards Are Many (kateschannel.wordpress.com)
• Ho-Ho-Holiday Volunteerism is Here!!! (handsoninlandempire.wordpress.com)
• Global Service Leaders Initiative Intership (socialactions.net)
• Angara urges DSWD and DOH to collaborate on ‘volunteerism program’ (jasondeasis.wordpress.com)

Merry Christmas everyone.
I hope you all will have a safe and happy one. Celebrate the holidays the happiest way possible!

Let’s appreciate the season given to us to spend with our loved ones.
Thank our Creator for all the blessings He has given us.

I AM BLESSED, GRATEFUL AND HAPPY; REGARDLESS.  ♥

Happy Birthday, Jesus.
Thanks for always being there.
Thanks for the GIFT of family and friends.
Thanks for every little thing.
Thanks for accepting me for who I am.
Thanks for showing the feeling of being loved.
Thanks for showing me how wonderful life is, regardless.
Thanks for all the love, care and blessings.
I don’t ask for a material gift. All I ask is a GIFT OF HAPPINESS.
Not just for me, but everyone in the world.  ♥

ONE LAST APPEAL.

The waters in the northern part of Mindanao, Philippines‘ largest island, may have gone away, but the citizens of that area haven’t recovered yet from the trauma and the sorrow the wrath of the tropical storm Sendong (international name Washi) brought them. Many Filipinos are most likely not going to be able to spend Christmas. They lost so many loved ones and see no more hope. BUT WE CAN STILL DO SOMETHING. Let’s all PRAY for their safety & recovery. More ways of helping are indicated here.

Thank you. ♥

Related articles

• Washed Out Hearts: Prayers and Love for Typhoon Washi Victims (flavorinternationale.wordpress.com)
• Life thoughts: a Sendong Christmas (ajvillanueva.wordpress.com)
• Merry Christmas (heycallme.wordpress.com)
• 12/23/11 My Christmas Wish For You (viewsfromsue.wordpress.com)
• Merry Christmas and, Yes, Happy Holidays (gasp!) (rghernandezpen.com)
• A Christmas Post (spontaneouscribblersnotes.wordpress.com)

I don’t know how could I help my fellow countrymen who became victims of the killer storm Sendong (international name Washi) one week before Christmas but to reach out to everyone online who could. I don’t know how many of you will read this but just sharing this post would mean a lot.

26 minutes from now, as updated by NDRRMC Exec. Dir. Ramos, the death toll has already reached 927. Approximately 1400 if you include the numbers of those who are still missing.

Nilson Loplop scans the damage brought about by Tropical Storm Sendong to his family's house in Baranggay Nazareth, Cagayan De Oro City barely a week before Christmas. Flood caused by tropical storm Sendong caught many families unaware as it struck in the middle of the night and destroyed hundreds of houses on its path.

Please help them.
Help me spread the word.

80% of the water pipes in the province of Cagayan de Oro is broken which means they have no clean water to use and drink. They have no food, no shelter and no clothes. Babies, little kids and pregnant women are already getting sick. Funeral homes in the most affected areas already stopped accepting dead bodies since everything has been maximized. Evacuation centers are filled to the brim that public schools in the affected areas became evacuation centers too.

A woman cries after seeing her relative inside a coffin at a funeral house in Cagayan De Oro City on Monday. Hundreds more have yet to know the whereabouts of their loved ones after mammoth floods caused by tropical storm Sendong destroyed houses and separated several families.

At least 19,759 families or 108,130 persons are affected by the calamity according to the National Disaster Risk Response Management Council (NDRRMC).

UNICEF Philippines estimates that 43,000 children are affected by the calamity.

- momblogger

A passing motorist gives a bottle of water to an affected resident of Baranggay Macasandig in Cagayan De Oro City on Monday. Victims of floods appeal for help following a severe shortage in potable water due to tropical storm Sendong's onslaught.

They all need the basics: rice, canned goods, instant noodles, instant coffee, sugar, biscuits (or any dried goods), clothes, blankets, medicines and even portalets.

Here’s how we can all help:

1. In-Kind Donations:

SAGIP KAPAMILYA
ABS-CBN Foundation Inc.
Mother Ignacia cor.Eugenio Lopez St.
Diliman,Quezon City

2. Cash Donations:

Banco De Oro Peso Account
Account name: ABS-CBN Foundation Inc.-Sagip Kapamilya
Account Number: 39301-14199
Swift Code: BNORPHMM

Banco De Oro Dollar Account
Account name: ABS-CBN Foundation Inc.-Sagip Kapamilya
Account Number: 39300-81622
Swift Code: BNORPHMM

Phillippine National Bank Peso Account
Account name: ABS-CBN Foundation Inc.-Sagip Kapamilya
Account Number: 419-539-5000-13
Swift Code: PNBMPHMM

Bank of the Philippine Islands Peso Account
 Account name: ABS-CBN Foundation Inc.-Sagip Kapamilya
Account Number: 3051-1127-75
Branch: West Triangle,Quezon City
Swift Code: BOPIPHMM

Bank of the Philippine Islands Dollar Account
Account name: ABS-CBN Foundation Inc.-Sagip Kapamilya
Account Number: 3054-0270-35
Branch: West Triangle,Quezon City
Swift Code: BOPIPHMM

3. Prayers:

Let us never underestimate the power of prayers. Let’s pray for the fast recovery of everyone who was affected by this calamity.

To everyone who has helped and will help the victims of the typhoon, in behalf of the victims, thank you.

More ways of how you and I can help:

• http://jetiu.blog.com/archives/22/
• http://ht.ly/8361b
• http://gk1world.com/typhoon-sendong-operation-walang-iwanan

Or go on to Twitter and search for the topic Sendong.

Again, thank you.

- Jess.

Related articles

• At least 180 dead after storm pummels Philippines – CNN International (edition.cnn.com)
• Typhoon Sendong in CDO (chaleen24.wordpress.com)
• Ways to Help Typhoon Sendong Victims (lostkidfromdreamland.wordpress.com)
• This is so sad… (ilovemandaue.wordpress.com)
• Emergency Alert: Typhoon Sendong | Donate Now and Save Lives (silentpal.wordpress.com)

I just really can’t go along writing just their names. I feel like I am disrespecting them, even if I’m not in any way. So whenever I have to mention them in any of my post, I always have to include who they are specifically, like “my sister Jacqueline”, or I just don’t bother writing their names at all and just write “my sissy”. Sometimes I think it’s stupid to write stuff that way but I don’t like being impolite.

But why does that make me feel impolite?

Maybe I’m just so accustomed with the culture that we have here in the Philippines.

Here, whenever we talk to our older sisters and/or brothers, we have the right and proper words that we use in addressing them. Kinda close to the “mom” and “dad” thing.

ATE (ah-teh) & KUYA (coo-ya) - They mean “older sister” and “older brother” respectively. But the usage of these words don’t just end with that. We also use them whenever we are going to address any female/male older than us, or whenever we have to call the attention of any females/males that we may or may not know, young or old.

I call my older sister Jacqueline “ate” and I call my older brother Mark “kuya” instead of calling them by their names because that is just plain rude.

Respect.
It’s definitely one of the most important things our parents taught us when we were younger. I honestly feel a little shudder whenever I see/hear teens talk to anyone older than them without respect. Because I believe that if you want to be respected in return, then you must pay respect as well.

So there. Whenever I have to talk to or about someone in my family, I always, always have to make sure I use the right words. I’d rather have an ugly, under/over constructed blog post than to make them think I forgot my morals.

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• 15 Fascinating Scientific Facts About Siblings (nursingschools.net)
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• Should you love your sisters and brothers (wiki.answers.com)
• 10 Celebrities With Lookalike Sisters (bellasugar.com)