I spent the Holy Week without any funfare.  I never went to the beach or a far away place to have a long vacation drenching my skin under the scorching heat of the sun.

I was neither ultra religious this Holy Week compared to the previous years when I was almost staying in the Church everyday; from the rising of the sun to its setting. [Read more →]

I went to Manila last week. The travel was hellish, as traffic and the scorching heat combined their powers to torment travelers like me. A sound was echoing inside my head, “am I already in hell?”

When I arrived in Pasay area, I immediately looked for the nearest comfort room (yes, Filipinos use comfort room instead of rest rooms which many foreigners say is the more proper term) to relieve myself from discomfort. Actually, I was preventing myself from peeing on my pants while inside the bus. [Read more →]

Another blog post about jeepney and hopefully this one will not really paint the obvious picture that I am one big jeepney fan, not to mention that my father actually fed his family out of sweating it out on the steering wheel 6 days a week.

Well, weeks a go I shared about my love of choosing to be on the front seat of the jeepney and solicited some thoughts from readers of why do many Filipinos love to be on the front seat.  With such a question, I’ve got this interesting comment from CamilleDL:

“think because there is less chance that you will inhale smoke from cigarettes. Unless the driver is also one of the smokers )LOL. Hahah.

I just want to share this one with you. I’ve noticed that almost all of the jeepneys that I see when going to school have those stickers saying “100 % smoke free”. I feel so happy every time i encounter those jeepneys… but I got irritated one time when I rode a jeep where this sticker is also posted. The driver was accompanied by his wife and THEY WERE BOTH SMOKING!! )=) LOL.”

Agree, unless the driver himself is one big smoke belcher, then you better jump off the jeepney to save your life from instant death.

This wonderful comment from CamilleDL made me think as I take a jeepney ride everyday on my way to work:  why is it that despite of all the hanging warnings and posters pasted on the jeepney walls crying out that smoking is prohibited, many are still made to suffer the toxic smoke from commuting cigarette smokers?

I remembered this encounter with a guy who was puffing his cigarette next to me inside the jeepney.  The poster says:  No Smoking!  Yet, that guy seemed not to care as he enjoyed each puff while the person next to him (that is me) was already trying to put out from his bag a breathing apparatus and an oxygen tank.  What I did was to confront the guy and said, “Hey, here is 2 pesos and stop smoking.  Buy yourself another stick of cigarette when you reach your house and puff until you die.  I don’t want to exchange my precious life with your two-peso cigarette!”  And the guy stopped from smoking inside the jeepney.

After that I told myself that the smoke from the cigarette makes me grow some devilish horns and a pointed tail.

I think, with due respect to all those who smoke, people who do not smoke do equally have the right to free themselves from the effects of receiving second-hand smoke which is more dangerous.

Enough of things about me now, I can see some devilish horns starting to grow on my forehead, LOL!

Once again, off to you guys.  Have you experienced such same encounter inside the jeepney wherein some people smoke without a care despite of the sign of “No Smoking” or despite of existing local ordinances prohibiting smoking in public places?  How did you handle such instances?

Image from SetonBlog

A good number of people love green jokes.

As verdant as green fields are the minds of many people on spontaneously injecting green jokes on cozy conversations with friends.

Count me in; a good part of my brain is green.

I love green jokes during casual conversations with close friends and during exchange of text messages with co-workers.  These jokes tickle my fancy and bring in a different kind of laughter and satisfaction than the usual jokes and funny lines I bring in the table. And those who hear them are tickled in a very different way as if each ho-ho-ho is sublimely asking for more.

But green jokes in front of students are of course “no-no”.

Green jokes are bought by those who listen them and enjoyed much by them because maybe I think, a good part of the joke is up to one’s imaginations.  They leave a very wide and open area for mental exploration as the subject of the joke is not directly revealed like the way people imagine what Mona Lisa is actually thinking with her puzzling smile.  Me though, maybe she is listening to a green joke by Leonardo Da Vinci.  It is actually the essence of the joke; let your mind wander to uncharted sexual territories and fancies and be tickled just by the thought of it.

A great part of the joke that makes is so special is because of its obvious sexual nature with which sex we must admit brings a whole new level to cherubic masks we wear.  First, because sex is taboo for many; second these jokes reinforce one’s sexual fancies to some extent.  Green jokes unleashes if not plays with that sexual animal in you.

But I have observed that many of those who are comfortable to sharing green jokes are those who are working as Campus Ministers, Guidance Counselors or religious.  Hmmm…They say, it is because they are comfortable with their sexuality while others say these jokes are indicators of many suppressed feelings and thoughts.  Well, I think it could also be a combination of both.

How about you, do you love cracking or listening to green jokes?  Any thoughts about it?

photo by gotomycodes

I am not scheduled to make a post today.

But I want to.

For no other reason but because it’s my Birthday! I am now 25 at 26. A quarter of a 100-year life that I wish t reach, of course minus all the carcinogenic stuffs in all our food. Oh, I am getting old.

I don’t really celebrate my birthday. First, coz I am quite a practical man. Second, I know myself very well and so secured of who I am, that I do not get jealous with our neighbors’ birthday parties full of colors and clowns. And third, coz I just don’t.

Are these things I am saying already symptoms of a quarter-life crisis? For God’s sake, spare me the tricks, but just give me all the treats today.

Received so many beeps from my phone today, usual birthday greetings from all of my friends and loved ones.

We love you.

Good health…Success on your career…etc

Thanks for all the greetings. I know that though these greetings were the same greetings I received many times on my previous birthdays, and the same greetings I also send on their birthdays, I could feel the genuineness if their thoughts and love for me. Tears, tears, tears….hu hu hu

On my birthday, I did not avail of a birthday leave from our office. I am at work. Kill joy? ahahaha!

But on my birthday, I thanked God first for the gift of life; for 25 years of existence, and for the gift of blogging and twitter, and french fries and basketball games, ehehehe.

And the usual thing that I do on my special day is that I make wishes and goals for myself before I receive another birthday cake.

1. Publish another book or material this year (which hopefully could be my second).

2. Be on the Top Commentator spot at Jaypee’s blog, which will be my gift to myself. Right Jayps? ehehehe

3. Finish my Masters degree this year. “Hey, your thesis should have been on my desk long ago! Are you waiting for the apocalypse?” Ows, that was the voice of my thesis adviser. “Wait Sir, I am still tweeting here…?”

4. Enroll as soon as I finish my masters to a PhD program (for promotion).

5. To be consistent on my blogging, and make this blog widely-followed and read.

6. Take care of my health, career and relationships.

7. Throw off the trash bin twitter, it jeopardizes my studies…wait, what have I said? Ows, I see, I only have 6 wishes and goals this year eh?…Yes.

So once again, I would like to greet myself, A Happy Birthday! Happy Birthday Elmot! You are now 25!

Don’t forget your gifts to me guys, (medium size)…wehehehe. Oh, where is the cake?

Days ago, I went to Ortigas after work to meet a lady who wants to make business with me. Though already very hungry, tired, exhausted and pissed off with the guiness-world-record-only-in-the-Philippines traffic, I still kept my cool and told myself not to ruin my day, since it was already dusking anyway.

She then texted that says: “mit me at rob gale, jst txt me f ur thre n. tc” and of course with the infamous smiley.

I then replied intinctively as fast as the flash of lightning: “s rob gale ur bldg? wer s it? landmark pls”

And whoah and behold, her reply: “ei, dats ROBINSON’S GALERIA. tc” And again the smiley, but I was thinking that it was laughing out loud and jeering at me this time.

I was sitting in the bus and thinking of not proceeding to meeting the lady anymore (maski nasa megamall na ako) and just tell her that I was lost, or the traffic was really eating me up alive or just tell her that I am having an LBM. Anak ng putik, pahiya ako dun ah!

Anyway, a commitment is a commitment.

We met at Starbucks and she’s a nice lady of 24. We talked about business over a cup of 150-peso coffee (mahal, kape lang naman!). And without even noticing it, we shared about our lives spontaneously. What hit me in our conversation was when she told me that she is a Catholic but is a practicing buddhist. At that, they have a group composed primarily of young professionals coming from different religions and walks of life and what binds them together is their longing and constant yearning for inner peace against the turmoils around us. The group she said, does not convert anyone who wants to join to buddhism but they are just taught there to live the way of life of a buddhist; their primary practice is meditation.

We parted ways that night with lots morsels of wisdom for one another. And thank God, my blooper and being dumb about “rob gale” never surfaced on our conversation.

I was pondering on my way home with the TV on the bus turned on. The evening news. Now far from “rob gale.”

I said to myself that I need a sense of peace, inner peace.

Bad news, harrowing stories of despair, fear, anger and death very unimaginable but are happening flashing before my eyes. I know that at some points of my life I already experienced it, but now I am really longing for it. All of us were in front of the televison being forcibly fed with the evening news(?).

Inner peace. How?

And like a snap in the air, I remembered the words of my Catholic-practising-buddhism-friend: “Inner peace comes from being conscious that you want it, need it, and ultimately does it. Pray, to the One true being in our your life. Be silent and this time listen.”

Yeah, I need to go back to prayer. And this time, LISTEN.

I opened my bag and took out a book about inner peace and meditation that she let me bring home.

I opened the first page: “Life is like a vast ocean. Though the drops of water are dirty, if they fall to the ocean, they does not make the ocean dirty.”

really do not know why the things that I am always sharing here are those that have gone past, usually things that had happened yesterday or days ago. I am not really used to hooking myself up in front of the pc and cry out of what i feel at that very moment with the words exiting and racing through my fingers. I am not really used to such a kind of thing. I love to experience things first and look at such experiences from a distance; then share them here for public consumption. Others maybe would say that I am just streamlining the things that I want to share or talk about or write so that I could not be dissected by those who frequent my blogs. I think…No. I am just that type of person who wants to silence his big mouth first before blurting out what he thinks and feels.

As we walked out of the campus yesterday with a gloomy horizon ahead of us (I do not know why almost so many of my stories are all about our going out of the campus), some students brushed us aside as if there was a giving out of christmas gifts or palace kickbacks at gate 1 from some Santa Clause or palace official. As has always been true, going home is still the sweetest part of the scheudule of classes of students; while others maybe, will still have their last period in the mall or computer shop which make them even more excited like there’s no tomorrow. While we were talking about our planned night out, a lady with a big tummy and wide smile painted on her face suddenly embraced me in front of so many students and in front of my officemates. I was left dead silent.

“Sir, tingnan mo buntis na ko. Dahil po sa inyo!”

Ha???!!! Deep inside me I was murmuring words I myself did not really even understand. What do you mean because of me??? I do not get it, my inner silent scream. Some people were already looking at us with eyes of suspicion or what the heck those staring eyes even mean! I was trying to unlock her embrace but she was just so happy to see me and tell me she was pregnant, and take note, pregnant because of me. Different thoughts were already racing inside my skull and paranoia was making me really feel very uneasy. I was telling myself that I will not be hearing the words, “you are the father” for the final salvo of the encounter at gate 1. No way! It was only then that I managed to ask her but with great caution.

“Kamusta naman po?”

“Ay Sir, alala nyo po nung nagmodule tayo tapos tinanong nyo ko kung ano wish ko. And ito po nagkatotoo na at last! Four months na.”

Hah…what a sigh of relief! Vindicated from my stupidity and malicious thinking that has clouded both of my left and right brain. Yes, I remembered that module and now I remembered her! In that module, I asked each one of them about their greatest wish and had a so much fun talking about it. And that lady (her name by the way is Charlotte) said she wants to have a baby and has been praying for the angel to come to their life for a long time already. Then, all of us offered a prayer to one another and some ritual. The module ended with me telling Charlotte, “wag kang mag-alala, pagkatapos ng module na ito, mabubuntis ka na.” And we all parted with smiles on our faces and happy contented hearts.

“Sir, ipapangalan ko po sa inyo ha! hehehe!” Next module ulit.”

“Naku, baka mabuntis po kayo ulit sa susunod na module. Mukang gusto nyong makarami agad ah.” We all laughed. “Oks po, ingatan nyo baby no ha.” My last words to her.

Wooh! I was thinking of changing career. My collegues told me tat I have a very fertile tongue at that (literally? parang ang pangit!), or even qualified to become a fertility statue? Definitely it was God’s hands that caressed her tummy and placed a little angel there. But for us in that module, it will constatantly be a great source of inspiration for me in the work the I do everyday…ah, no, in the ministry that I do; that God’s hand and grace always work in us, overflowing in us

(Wag naman sanang mabuntis lahat ng participants ko sa module ha. Naku, patay tayo dyan!)

Rain is really pouring so hard and punishing our roof, already telling us to pack our things and head home or else we could end up floating in a sea of mud and brownish flood with all sorts of unimaginable garbages (yuck!_). Time to end and click shut down (PC). Time to go now, hopefully no pregnant lady would again tell me that she got pregnant because of me. Well, it all depends on the situation.