hit the y!rocks concert at sm davao last night to support ebe and brought along friends from the office who wanted to meet him and the other bands playing at the gig.
i've had a few run ins with overeager security personnel in my long concert-going career. the strangest would have to be the bouncers at the media area of a pupil concert at damosa a few years back. they prevented us from taking pictures. we were in the freakin media section. go figure.
the funniest bunch of bouncers would probably have to be last night's. na-test ang maximum tolerance namin sa kanila and talo pa namin si paris hilton at nicole richie sa away-bati frenemy relationship!
the show wasn't full. the ones at the vip section could play patintero 10 on 10 if they wanted to. the general section... well, there was hardly enough people to make a general section so they just allowed people to come into the vip. and there was still enough space to play patintero.
that said, there was way too many security personnel than what was needed. and this is davao. crowds are generally behaved. in fact, crowds are often too behaved that artist-friends even worry if they are delivering a good performance because there is sometimes hardly a reaction. and hello, ebe rocks but did security really expect the crowd to get rowdy to "hari ng sablay"? and it was such a quiet night the other bands, salamin and ney, would probably have appreciated it if a few fangirls/boys flung themselves to the stage just for fun.
so maybe the koyas of the security force were bored, and probably because there were too few people, my 8 friends and i received their full attention.
scenario #1:
friends position ourselves below stage left.
our favorite koya (ofk): bawal dito
friends: (show wristbands)
ofk: bawal dito
friends: huh? kuya, eh may wristbands nga kami
ofk: (looks at wristbands; ours happen to say "artist") artist? artist ba kayo? dun kayo! (points us to stage right)
friends: kuya ba't di kami pwede dito, may backstage passes naman kami
ofk: backstage? dun ang backstage (points to backstage)
me: (forehead slap)
ok fine. we left and moved to stage right. and then, scenario 2 a few moments later, games were going on onstage. they were desperate for contestants so guess who the bouncers encouraged to run up the stage to join?! forehead slap. but hey, thanks for the gift packs and the 500 pesos we used for drinks after!
and then the koyas went schizo again. i approached the stage to take a picture and i found myself with an "escort". and when they noticed us jumping to the music, they asked us to clear out and stick closer to the barrier.
then when the show ended, we went to say hi to ebe, they started to form a cordon of koyas around the artists, presumably to protect their artists from the "crowd," which was basically just the 9 of us. as in it was really just the artists and us in the area. really, what harm can a bunch of little girls do? sa superdami ng mga koya, parang sila na nga ang nandumog sa band. wahahaha. and actually, the band members were moving in and out of the cordon to talk with each other and oblige us with pictures, autographs, so useless ang cordon nila. ang eng eng!
and then, ayun eh. ebe and i were talking when he had to excuse himself because the bouncers wanted a photo taken with him. at one point during the concert i actually saw ofk handing ebe a big piece of paper with his request "makita ka muli." as in one whole sheet of bond paper. haha.
ayun naman pala eh. fanboys in disguise lang pala! and to cap the night, we left the venue to a chorus of the sweetest "bye maam!" from the koyas. kaloka!
you know you've dressed yourself well when the store attendants insist on giving you the smaller size and argue with you and give you incredulous looks when you ask for the larger size.
self-satisfying moment from last night's impromptu shopping :D
i texted about 10 people last night asking about their plans for the davao charter day celebrations (araw ng dabaw), if anyone was catching the parade or going out to see a concert or something. and all of them shot the question right back at me: "what did you have in mind?" one even went so far as saying "i'll go with you whatever you plan." can i not be the instigator for once? please?
i'm at an internet cafe, beside a kid who's too young to read, but is apparently old enough to be allowed by his parents to play counterstrike. he doesn't know his way around the game much coz obviously he can't read, so he loses, and everytime he loses the game he throws a real life tantrum. as in bouncing off the walls, kicking the floor, screaming tantrum. his slightly older cousin is frustrated with him, and they fight in real life. oh. my. god.
one of the suckiest times in life: when you set out with the best intentions to help make something better, but no matter what you do it just doesn't work out, and then you find it's still you who has to clean up the mess after anyway. so basically you got screwed twice over. ain't life a bitch.
this outfit i wore today literally opened doors for me, as in security guards scrambling for the door handles and receptionists offering me coffee, and i was "maam" everywhere i went, not "miss". i mean, i've visited their offices and have had meetings with the CEO before but they were never that nice and respectful.
maybe i should be concerned than flattered because it might all just mean i looked old. but noooooo, because at my dinner meeting, the NOM (nice old man) i was meeting with had to walk over to the other table and introduce me to the two women seated there, and ask leading questions to get them to ask me about our upcoming projects, because they were friends of his wife and he was worried he had been seen dining "with an attractive young woman". and yes he was candid enough to tell me after why he needed to do that, and i was smart enough to have gotten his cue from the getgo. so apparently i was dressed enough to seem like a threat, but classy enough to look like serious business.
i love it!
and the bonus(es)? from all the meetings i had in this outfit today, i got: some really good financial deals, a salmon dinner at a very posh place, a blind date, aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand, the motherlode: a hotline to uaap basketball tickets*.
i am soooooooooooo wearing this more often.
*footnote: unfortunately they might be ringside. :( only the authentic sixth man would know why this is unfortunate. hahahaha. 4peat na!
i actually miss telling (mundane) stories about my day on this blog. facebook, fb stat messages, fb notes, and twitter 140characters just don't cut it.
so today the story was:
i managed a wildlife rescue operation and scurried around a military airstrip today - in heels and a party dress. and, keri lang. haha.
i was at a wedding in the morning (the fourth i attended this year! what's with people these days? kidding.), calling and texting and planning an eagle rescue throughout the wedding rites, in the church, and at the reception. ultimately, i didn't have time to go home to change, and just had to go directly to the air base to meet the plane, with the eagle and our team in it, and the press.
i realized i went on cam to talk about the rescued eagle with chandelier earrings on. bwahahahahahaha.
after a whirlwind morning, i sat down at a cafe at lunch and thought i'd treat myself to a strawberry shake. as i was ordering, a phone call came in requiring me to show up immediately (and inevitably cancel the productive but calm afternoon i had planned). i cancelled my order and rushed out the door. a dizzying car ride, a stressful meeting and five hours later, i came back to the cafe, tired, spent, but determined to have my strawberry shake. and so i did. and then after my third sip, my weak and stressed-out hand knocks the glass over, shattering the glass and making a pink mess on the floor.
my father's day gift was to treat the whole family to the a team. awesome movie! made for a great family date too! the tv series was a nice, colorful childhood memory. even before we got to the cinema my dad already reminded me that BA barracus was afraid of flying; my brother was wondering whether bradley cooper was going to play murdoch or face - and that helped complete the memory for me because i could only remember hannibal, BA and murdoch. my memory of the show was that, during dinner which is when the show aired, i would have our help watch the tv and call me when the team was about to start constructing and implementing their plan, which was my favorite part. that was the compromise, because otherwise we shouldn't be in front of the tv during dinner. my mom didn't have any memories of the show at all, except for the no-tv-during-dinner rule. hehe.
i loved how the movie kept the spirit and the awesomeness (sorry there really is no other word for it) of the tv series intact (three construction/plan implementation sequences yay!), while also sexy-fying the whole thing and making it new. go watch!
iniibig ko ang pilipinas ito ang aking lupang sinilangan ito ang tahanan ng aking lahi ako'y kanyang kinukupkop at tinutulungang upang maging malakas, maligaya at paki-pakinabang
bilang ganti, diringgin ko ang payo ng aking mga magulang susundin ko ang mga tuntunin ng aking paaralan tutuparin ko ang mga tungkulin ng isang mamamayang makabayan at masunurin sa batas
paglilingkuran ko ang aking bayan nang walang pagiimbot at nang buong katapangan sisikapin kong maging tunay na pilipino sa isip, sa salita at sa gawa
* alam ko may bago na nito, pero eto ang naabutan at nakasanayan ko nung mag-aaral pa ako
mascots. went to work today, chaperoning our wonderful young volunteers as they took turns playing philippine eagle mascot to promote the eagle week at the mall. the mascot-eering we've been doing the past few days has given me lots of fun, if not disturbing, insights into people. i am particularly disturbed by people who walk straight into the mascot's path, and yet they don't seem to register what they are seeing. dude, a 4-foot tall eagle is standing in front of you. i'm pretty sure they see the mascot, but they just walked by. strange. and there was more of that in one mall than in the other. i wonder what that says about the malls' demographic?
mass. uneventful. nodded off through most of the homily. but glad i was there coz i hadn't been in a while.
moonrise. on the taxi ride home i saw the moon rise, large and looming and bright and pretty. did a quick stuff drop at home, grabbed my tripod and briskwalked back to the intersection where i saw it. too bad the moon was pretty high up by the time my tripod cooperated. now i'm too lazy to look for my camera cable to be able to post the photo.
mission mass. my thoughts were with jvp batch 31 throughout the busy day. lots of lives are about to change with today's missioning: the volunteers' and that of the communities they serve. go batch 31, kick some ass, so help you God. ;)
menstrual cramps. tmi? what the hey, having to go through a busy day while your insides are knotting up - i deserve to at least declare what i am going through, right?
melancholy. from waning physical resistance and endurance against the tough workdays and the intense pressure ahead; to feeling financially unstable, and generally inadequate; to old pain and new grief brought up in parallel and so randomly it felt ruthless; and the endless questioning what this is all for and if it is worth it, and then not having the family and the people i needed to get me through episodes like this close by.... *sigh*
i've been looking so long at these pictures of you that i almost believe that they're real i've been living so long with my pictures of you that i almost believe that the pictures are all i can feel
remembering you standing quiet in the rain as i ran to your heart to be near and we kissed as the sky fell in holding you close how i always held close in your fear remembering you running soft through the night you were bigger and brighter and whiter than snow and screamed at the make-believe screamed at the sky and you finally found all your courage to let it all go
remembering you fallen into my arms crying for the death of your heart you were stone white so delicate lost in the cold you were always so lost in the dark remembering you how you used to be slow drowned you were angels so much more than everything hold for the last time then slip away quietly open my eyes but i never see anything
if only i'd thought of the right words i could have held on to your heart if only i'd thought of the right words i wouldn't be breaking apart all my pictures of you
looking so long at these pictures of you but i never hold on to your heart looking so long for the words to be true but always just breaking apart my pictures of you
there was nothing in the world that i ever wanted more than to feel you deep in my heart there was nothing in the world that i ever wanted more than to never feel the breaking apart all my pictures of you
***
haaaay. to friendship, to love, to pictures and memories, to risks taken and chances missed, to time and timing, to presence, to absence, to being near yet far, and being far but dear
supposedly starting my friday right by playing "friday i'm in love" but it led me to this. pahamak tong the cure.
and thus i mark my return to multiply, by posting ka-emohan. tsk.
i had been quite critical of SM City's Green Bag campaign. for one, it seemed that the bags were marketed as fashion accessories: cute, comes in a variety of designs (by renowned artists even) and pretty cheap too, so you can have one for every day of the week. true enough, shoppers snapped up the bags like they were the latest in things. i had witnessed a few successful sales of the green bag at the grocery cashouts; shoppers bought the bags because they were cute, or because they were cheap ("35 pesos lang may bagong bag na ako?"), or because they came with a promo (two extra points on your SM advantage card). i've seen people get the bags, but i had never seen someone bring their own green bag to the store.
i had been asked if i wanted one a few times. but i never did because i had long made a habit of refusing to have my items bagged if they obviously fit into what i'm already carrying (and most of the time they do coz i usually carry large totes or a backpack). i also bring my own bags on planned trips to the grocery. i would then politely and good-naturedly point out to the checkout girls that i don't need a green bag because i already reuse what i have on me or at home.
what i get from these incidents with the fashionista shoppers and sm's own cashiers is that people seemed to miss the point. you're not supposed to get new stuff to add to the junk, you're supposed to reuse what you already have! i felt that SM was creating a demand for these bags but for the wrong reasons. if they kept going, i can only imagine the pile of SM green bags gathering dust in people's homes. the campaign had good intentions, but somehow the environmental values that they wanted to push (the 3Rs) were lost or weren't emphasized or reinforced enough.
and then SM launched the "Join the M.O.B. (My Own Bag)" campaign, and i was a little relieved. i went to the grocery today and to my pleasant surprise, all the checkout counters had nothing but paper bags and cardboard boxes as packing materials on them. before the transaction the checkout girl politely informed me that they only had paper bags today, and if it was alright with me. of course it was.
the reactions were interesting. a few clients welcomed it, some were undecided about the development, but everyone was surprised. there were a few debates between clients and baggers because the number and composition of items made it a choice between lugging a big bulky box or several paper bags with no handles on them. the scheme was not unnoticed by the drivers at the jeepney terminal outside the mall, as they saw passenger after passenger coming in with paper packages. their reaction however, was more of concern for economics/customer service for sm: "naunsa na man ang sm, papel na lang ilang kaya ihatag sa customer? (what's happening to sm, they can only afford to give paper bags to the customers now?")
overall, everyone seemed inconvenienced by the scheme. i was a little worried myself because of all days, today was a day i forgot to bring my own bag (it happens), and i feared that the paper bags couldn't handle the weight. i was tempted to request for a plastic bag, and here came the best part of my grocery trip to sm: i was told they were going to charge me P3 if i wanted a plastic bag.
yes! that's the way to do it! i've never been so happy to be inconvenienced, but this is exactly the kind of conditioning that this recycling campaign needs. people have to feel that recycling creates savings for them, and that not recycling entails costs. hit them where it hurts - their wallets - ika nga, and it should teach people to be more conscious.
this is how they already do it in europe. plastic bags cost between 20-30 eurocents each - about 15-20 pesos. that's a lot, especially on a student budget. so everyone brings their own bag with them to the store. there is also almost always a folded bag left in our bikes in case of unplanned shopping trips. lastly, almost all stores designate an area where they leave a pile of used boxes that clients can pick from to pack and carry their groceries. otherwise, you pay the price for a new bag.
i don't know now if SM was deliberate about this, but i really felt relieved that the sale of green bags was followed up with this M.O.B. campaign aimed at shaping people's actions rather than fulfilling their desire to be trendy and fashionable. i think the M.O.B. campaign is only on its first week, and i am eager to find out what happens next. hopefully it encourages all of us to be more aware of our lifestyles and to be more creative about making our lives less of a waste factory than it already is. good luck SM, good luck us.
n.b. SM's M.O.B. happens every wednesday, but why not do it everyday, and everywhere! good luck lang sa gaisano stores - they are stubborn about bagging your items, even if you only bought a pen and you're bringing a huge backpack. then they seal the bags with that heating thing that looks like a giant stapler, forcing you to rip the bags apart to open, so you can't even reuse the bags for the trash can. grrr.
all these years i've never really paid attention, partly because i always go for the burger steak when i'm in jollibee. but today, i realized their chicken really sucks. it's bland, it's dry, and worse, they don't give out free gravy. hello jbee management! your chicken NEEDS the gravy, lots of it, so that it can taste like something and be savory in the mouth somehow.
oh wow, my existence for the day is hinged on critiquing fastfood chicken (courtesy of jbee's free wifi, btw.) can somebody say, "get a life?"
The power of a laugh.With all the reactions I got after posting my photo with former President Aquino, I realize now how blessed I am for having shared that moment with her.Not only did I meet her, but I got to take her around my workplace, tell her about what I do and how fulfilling and difficult it has been.And, she cracked a joke.She cracked a joke for me.
I don’t remember anymore what the joke was, but what I will always remember is the kind of person she was.I was tasked to write an official letter of sympathy to the Aquino family from the organization, and what came out on paper were my own sentiments.I wrote:
To the family of the late Mrs. Corazon Aquino,
Our thoughts and prayers are with you as we too mourn the passing of Tita Cory, defender of the country and its heritage.
We at the Philippine Eagle Foundation (PEF) have been blessed to have her as an ally in the protection of the national bird, the Philippine Eagle.In 2004, Tita Cory generously donated one of her paintings of landscapes to the PEF to generate funds for the work to save the Philippine Eagle from extinction.We are extremely grateful to her for the support she has given and the attention she has brought to the eagle’s plight.
But beyond what she has done for the country, the eagle and the environment, we will always remember her for the graciousness and simplicity of her person.We remember fondly how pleasant conversing with her was as she toured the Philippine EagleCenter in DavaoCity, that we almost forgot that we were in the presence of a woman who had led one of the most important revolutions in the world.Her sincerity remains with us all at the PEF.
In these difficult times, we hope you find comfort in knowing that Tita Cory has sparked so much hope for the country and in our countrymen.We are one with you in praying for her peace.God bless you.
I remember asking her for a quote about the eagles after her tour, and what I got was, “Ang gwapo nya.”I was expecting a long, wordy, presidential-ish statement, what I got was a sincere, candid, and yet poignant “Ang gwapo nya.”That day, I glimpsed not a head of state, but a simple woman in awe and humbled by nature’s gifts.
That is really all we need.To remind ourselves that there are things greater than us:nature, country, God.To think beyond ourselves: neighbors, family, even strangers we somehow affect.And we become better persons, capable of making the world better because then all that we think and do is for the greater good.That’s all we need to be.
