actually, what the hell is the difference. all they did was put the sidebar on the left. sheesh

still sense

Too big, she said

and He picked her up

with His Too big hands

and brought her Too far.


Too small, she said

and He brought in another one

Too close, she said

and He put her back

from His Too big hands

and she said, Too far.


then both were with her
in His suddenly not Too big hands
and they weren't Too far, or Too close, or Too small, or Too big, and I'd like to stay just here, she said, and fell asleep. warmth of His hands under her little self, still. rustle of little leaves with her breathing, His breathing.

quotidie: remarkably ordinary (march)

quotidie
060 : 3.01

i've passed by this street a few times going to central london. i think it's piccadilly, or some other known street in the area. these paintings go on for the length of almost a whole park, propped up on the iron railings surrounding it.

there must be at least a hundred of them, and i'm bad at estimation. when i have enough money, i'm going to buy a painting from there. there are some beautiful abstract ones.

i'm not sure if i'd like to sell my art on the streets in the future. in the past it was a wistful, romantic thought, being a nomad artist. but my experiences with street artists (including musicians) of late, mainly today as well, have shaken the nerve that dared to dream that. why is it that they always demand something of me? Don't take photos, Give me money. it's like saying Don't look, Don't appreciate, This is my world not yours.

i'm sorry, i thought art was a movement, not property.

and there i was thinking that this month would go a little slower.

each day didn't feel slow at all, although now as i compile the photos for this album and see the photo from march 1, it feels So Long Ago. like century ago. ages.

march was doubly packed because of The Saturday School, a programme conducted by the Wimbledon College of Art for prospective university students. with my experience there i think it's safe to say that i'm doing at least my foundation course in art with WCA. the AS Level art exam started this month too, which proved to be a struggle in the beginning. i think i'm on better ground now though, after 5 weeks of preparation. i'm really behind in prep work but the easter break should help me with that.

and last but not least: the return to film. i've been getting fragments of memory of what it was like to shoot with film. and last night, i brought back to life my dad's EOS 88. the first camera i ever used as a kid. i pressed the shutter release once, and watched as the curtain shut and opened again, like eyelids in movies. my jaw dropped. hahaha.

my photos are becoming more ordinary, i think.

lightpaintbrush at flickr

SEBASTIAN FAULKS / Birdsong

   
    He looked into the face of the man who stood in front of him and his fists went up from his sides like those of a farm boy about to fight.
    At some deep level, far below anything his exhausted mind could reach, the conflicts of his soul dragged through him like waves grating on the packed shingle of a beach. The sound of his life calling to him on a distant road; the faces of the men who had been slaughtered, the closed eyes of Michael Weir in his coffin; his scalding hatred of the enemy, of Max and all the men who had brought him to this moment; the flesh and love of Isabelle, and the eyes of her sister.
    Far beyond thought, the resolution came to him and he found his arms, still raised, begin to spread and open.
    Levi looked at this wild-eyed figure, half-demented, his brother’s killer. For no reason he could tell, he found that he had opened his own arms in turn, and the two men fell upon each other’s shoulders, weeping at the bitter strangeness of their human lives.

quotidie: remarkably ordinary (february)

quotidie
032 : 2.01

it's been snowing tonight, and will be snowing some more tomorrow and later on in the week ahead.

i like the bright night effect. i like how the air is still and feels so clean after snowfall. i like how the snow piles up on something in perfect shape. and there's the feeling of snow between my fingers, soft and delicate like powder.

it started snowing when we were on our way to mass at around 6:25pm. we hadn't brought hats or anything, so we had to walk in the snow from the car to the church doors. liana went absolutely crazy, laughing and skipping and delighting in this gentle frozen rain.

upon reaching home again after mass, i got my camera and she put a coat on and she slid around. this is her twirling.


this month was made of snow, deadlines, an important realization in perception and a whole new level of ordinariness.

tonight i realize how significant each piece of this project is, each month changing the face of it. how will this month's photos contrast the next? how will it connect? does it mark the beginning of a trend, or an end of one?


lightpaintbrush at flickr

Sir Ken Robinson: Do schools kill creativity?

so i'm three years late. but better to have found it now than never.

in light pursuit of inspiration for my art exam that's starting next week, i found this. what an amazing find.

i read some of the comments on the site where the video was originally posted, and experienced great realization.

can you imagine that this whole world we live in is in conflict just exactly as much as it has repressed creativity?

quotidie: remarkably ordinary (pilot week)

quotidie
pilot week
day 1

our aunt's house didn't have a Christmas tree, so the Christmas tree decorations went onto the lamps instead.

this photo speaks of nothing extravagant of a day that is celebrated worldwide, prepared for for months, sung about for centuries. this photo isn't a massive Christmas tree, or a sumptuous dinner laid out on a table with candles.

but it does speak of an extravagant spirit. it speaks of grandeur in small packages. of makeshift homes and the heart over circumstance.

it speaks of the Light that came into the world on this day: grandeur that came down as a baby and a cold stable turned cozy by spirits of faith.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
quotidie: remarkably ordinary
this is the beginning of my photo project that officially starts in a week: 2009.
just a photo a day. the title of the project is enough to explain its purpose.
please pray for this, because it's not easy for me to produce a photograph that i like, let alone produce one each day.

the pilot week exists for a few reasons:
1. because i was quite terrified anticipating the first of january and the beginning of my lesson in discipline and commitment to a self-initiated project, and
2. because i was equally excited and could not wait to begin.



lightpaintbrush at flickr

quotidie: remarkably ordinary (january)

quotidie
001: 1.01

this first day of the year went by rather sluggishly and void of inspiration. today is also my father's birthday. so when we reached the end of sutton high street, passing by almost all shops closed, thus leaving us with no hot scrumptious food that my mother had ideally planned... my mother was in despair. it enveloped her and it was difficult to withstand and definitely not a way to start the new year. long story short this day didn't go as planned at all. but it did end peacefully, watching The Family Stone on television and hot cocoa.

the year-end holiday season is the least accommodating for introspection, despite it being the most appropriate. family affairs of food and gatherings and travelling time leave little space for thought at the end of the day, what with us feeling full and exhausted and with too much noise in the immediate environment. the only time i was able to stop and reflect was before sleeping past 1am on the first day of the year, texting my best friend. or, scratch that, that term doesn't quite cut it (and it has bad memories tied to it anyway), what should i call you maisee?

i did not think much about the people that have come and gone,. i did not think much about the friendships i have lost, found, and restored. i did not think much of my own growth this year - although i think i've done a fair bit throughout, actually.

but i did think of This. This that fills the photograph. and i realize that everything else falls under It. falls into place because of It.

and i don't think there's any better way to start the year than to keep sight of the Light that is going to get us through it.

-

i took several shots of this, and managed to cut it down to just two. they were almost identical, except for the slight change in angle. this was chosen because He looks like He's looking up, or rising... instead of looking down.

so this is the year-long photo project that i've committed to for this year.

it started on december 25, 2008, to give me a week before the actual beginning, as a pilot week, album of which i will put up separately.

i did not dive into this with any structure except:
1. bring camera everywhere
2. take photos every day, completely regardless of weather or any other cirucmstance
3. write about it and put it up on flickr every day, completely regardless of weather or any other circumstance.


so far, it's been brilliant. this is truly one of the most fruitful things i've been led to do in my life so far. i never thought i could put up with getting a photo i was satisfied every single day, much less write at least one paragraph about it.

but here it is, 31 photos for each day of the month of january, all with at least a paragraph - in the description of each photo, so it would be nice to go through them one by one if you're interested :) - woven as an integral part of each photograph.


lightpaintbrush at flickr

24: on faith and science

i wonder what God's trying to tell me right now.

today, thursday, for the second day in a row this week, i was swept into heated debate concerning religion. "you don't believe in evolution. you don't believe in evolution." a boy named josh laughed. as he spoke from across the coffee tables in the sixth form common room he balanced his chair on its two hind legs, and was constantly swinging back and forth. it made me quite dizzy. round the group everyone so loudly discussed that when a boy from the other end tried to ask me something, i had to shake my head, point to my left ear and mouth the words I Can't Hear You.

josh went on and on, shooting questions like "so how do you explain..." and making grand conclusions like "it's rational thinking!" (with a momentous drop of his chair back on its four legs). for about an hour he went, confident of what he was saying and of the knowledge he possessed. and i had no doubt that he had his facts right, there is research that supports evolution. i answered questions that were asked of me, like why i believe in the first place and what makes me think it's true. but i was not interested in disproving him. "blind faith," he scoffed. "it's not rational."

my only stance was that he couldn't disprove the existence of God, that faith wasn't meant to be rational, that his success in this 'debate' would not change anything except perhaps his boosted ego. my only stance throughout was that i wasn't even trying to debate with him in the first place. "so call me irrational," i said. "maybe i'm crazy. and i don't care."

in the few moments i was given to think to myself while he went on about science, i realized how sad his life was. how small his world was. how confined, how bound he was to facts, and answers, and rational thinking. they argued that religion was a mere mechanism of the human mind to generate answers to its own questions, despite the fact that their own foundation of scientific belief existed for the same thing: to answer questions. why does the apple fall from the tree? how far away is the sun? why is there night and day? science was born from mystery, and still can't answer the question of whether the chicken came before the egg or not.

in comparison, faith preserves the mystery more than it tries to tear it to pieces. faith magnifies the mystery. faith is the mystery.

the girl who had started the debate by saying, "only God can judge me," (which received a round of laughter round the group) couldn't say much besides the fact that she believed, so all the questions were shot at me. then she left in the heat of it because she had to take an exam. and for a moment i didn't think i could stay on and converse with this science brain who couldn't open his mind even a fraction of a centimeter: i was no theologian, i have not read the Bible cover to cover and much less have extensive historical background about it. i didn't have the photographic memory to remember certain things i have read that are relevant, there is only one chunk of text and sprinkled verses from the bible that have been etched in my mind. all i was sure of was the heart inside me that believed, with eyes, i was small.

for a little more than an hour this went on, and it was quite chaotic. the chairs were arranged in rectangular fashion and the length of space in between the two sides were just enough for two pairs of legs and a coffee table. claustrophobic, it felt like being in a prison where everyone thought they were eternally condemned and fervently made heard their discontent. (an interesting but disturbing scene: "we came from apes! we came from apes!") i was thankful for my seat near the corner where i had two empty seats on either side of me (after the girl had left).

i was even more thankful for the boy who sat beside the science brain josh. he was slumped in his chair, looking downwards in front of him. he didn't say much save for some words in support of what i had said, and "there is a God." he wore a long necklace with a cross pendant hanging from it, it was shiny and stood out from his all-black outfit. he wore the face of the silent "this is bullshit." i ran into his gaze often, and every time he caught mine, his gaze would lock and he would shake his head as if to say with his gray eyes, "don't buy it." it's always a comfort to feel i am not alone.


and in true God fashion, the New Creation devotional i get through email says this today:

"... The devil goes about like a roaring lion trying to stir up fear in people with his roars. But the people who are not devourable are those who refuse to be intimidated by his roars because they know that the true Lion of Judah, Jesus Christ (Revelation 5:5), has already come and rendered powerless him who had the power of death. (Hebrews 2:14, NASB) They know that the devil cannot just do anything to them because the Lion of Judah resides in them, and that He is greater than the devil who is in the world. (1 John 4:4)

... Once the devil knows that you know who you are in Christ and what you have in Him, his days of intimidating you are over, and you are numbered among the undevourable!"

the two discussions i have had within two days this week have such a stark contrast. the one before this surrounded me with more open minds and was a lot more ethical when it came to listening. yesterday, for the first time, felt like a personal testimony. i merely listened to myself speak. and in the light of that, today i realized just how much truth doesn't need to be proven. that even me of little faith believing in truth entails the feeling that it simply radiates. that truth preempts everything else.

23

nightmorn bird song
december 23, 2008 (the date is aligned with the title!)
1:29 a.m.

any time i am awake from 10pm to 5am is a time of day called nightmorn. a time deemed special because of purely sentimental reasons: of waking up early and staying up late at the same time; of seeing sunlight and moonlight from a screen; of a stillness and silence that pervades even in the online world; of words exchanged: quotidian but never mundane; of hanging on to words.

tonightmorn, the exchange is cut short and i am left to linger. not quite ready to go to bed, but not quite keen on starting on more work, i linger. i observe my plurk timeline and realize most of it refers to schoolwork of late. and i think That can't be all i can say. so i listen to myself for something else.

and i realize, with the help of some sort of faint familiar sound at the back of my head, that i do not hear birds here in london. i see them an awful lot: i see, on my way home from school, flocks by the hundred flying across the heavy gray skies and into the vivid orange sunset when it is about to rain. i see V-shaped lines of them in the mornings, flying across twilight-colored skies and into a similar vivid orange, a sunrise this time; along with stark white jet streams of flying locomotives that never seem to stray too far from the skies of london.

but i never hear them.

an incredibly ironic - but in a good, amusing way: is there word for a positive kind of ironic? - thing that i should realize this by that faint similar sound that is a bird's song. a sound that a few minutes i catch up on as part of reality. coming from outside my bedroom window. it was subtle at first, with long intervals in between, which is why i dismissed it as something my head just played in itself. but the more i paid attention to it, the more often this little voice rang outside.

i get up from the chair i sit on now and go up to the window. without drawing the blinds first, just listening for the sound without visual observation, as if ready to say Oh i was right, i was just hearing it in my head. but no. it rings again. i smile a little in disbelief. i draw the blinds and open the window. i am greeted by a still, cool air, and it is silent for a few seconds, and then

it sings again. this little chirping, half melodious sound rings through the sleeping, unmoving air. this unseen bird is the star of henley avenue tonightmorn, 1:23am. the voice echoes in a way that it almost sounds ethereal, like it were something taken from the other side of nightmorn. i look down the roads within my sight, scanning in T-shaped fashion. the roads are empty. houses are asleep. at this moment the world is lit by a mellow yellow light, and a fox crosses the road, and a bird chirps. a single little chirping and half melodious sound. the air is completely still, even as some of it lingers inside my room after having shut the window. still, as if it stood staring at me in the space on my left, between my seat and the window. still, as if everything were asleep. except for this little bird, and me.

if i close my eyes in bed, it will feel like a december dawn back in the philippines. back in my bed beside the window in mangosteen st. back where i see big green leaves and a piece of sunrise sky through the mosquito screen and the white grills. if i close my eyes, it would almost feel like being back home. morning instead of nightmorn.

1:53am : i finish writing this post and the bird still sings, a little chirp and half melodious sound, half in reality and half in my head.

untranslatability : isang listahan

during my last stay in the philippines, i discovered a love for our native language because of the beauty of untranslatability. it is almost like there are certain things that we alone can explain, we alone have seen and experienced and therefore have named.

there are so many words and phrases that can't be translated into English, the language i'm more fluent in. i have read somewhere that in the Filipino language, there are:

- eighty-eight words for to see or to look at
- more than one hundred words for the different kinds of touch
- seventeen words that mean to bear or to carry; each one a different way of doing so

help me out please? this list needs:

1. words, or phrases.
   
2. English/Filipino definitions (for those i haven't given definitions, or to replace my attempts, hahah) will be terrific because i want to compile this. 

i'll add to this list as it grows. :)

starting with a few words, everyday words; and some interesting ones i have found so far:

-----------------------------------------

last edited 12.01.08
- separating the real words from the interjections/slang/other colloquial terms. i'm actually not sure of my groupings (obviously i'm no expert at this language. just an appreciator), so if someone can point out real words from slang, then great.
- please try and explain the words you give :)
- let's keep the list clean, yeah? i don't really want a sequel of the many meanings and uses of the F word. haha.

-----------------------------------------

real (for the lack of a better word) words:

• sayang
• kilig
• ipo-ipo (wind that goes around in circles, carrying with it leaves or sand or dust)
  
• matanaw (to see from far away)
• lagot
  
• gigil
• lambing
• buklat (to open, as in a book)
• saraduhan (to close the door on someone)
• tampo
• karagatan
• dakila
• mandirigma
• habang-buhay
• asar
• grabe
• ewan
• hakbang
• laktaw
• matino / tumino
  

colloquial-ness:

• hay nako
  
• ano ba yan
• bakit ba
• ikaw na nga!
• wala lang - "bakit mo ginawa yun?" "wala lang".
  
• pasaway
• jologs
• kwan

22

serendipity met me today. i sat at the bus stop with a gigantic A1 sized folder (actually it was slightly bigger than A1 because it was for keeping A1 paper, which makes it all the more gigantic and hard to carry around), feeling proud of myself that i had lugged the thing from the art room and out into the bus stop. a minute later an elderly but fit man walks by, stops in front of me and:

man: darlin' i don't think you'd be well waitin' fo' the bus he', they've blocked off the roads from there *points behind him* to up there *points ahead*. even i had to park me car round the corner!

Oh okay that sucks i say, stand up and start to walk. we walk together. You in art school? he asks. Yeah, i say enthusiastically, smiling. A bit of an artist meself, he says, More of a cartoonist really, i really enjoy drawing cartoons. he smiles, seeming reminiscent of drawing. I tried to get me work out once, he says, To a friend. I was just seventeen then! he exclaims, beaming. i can't help but keep smiling at what is happening while i walk and watch this man talk to me about his passion for drawing cartoons. It was well near impossible to get work out then, he says. Not a lot of opportunities. i ask him what he ended up doing and he says he became a draftsman. BORRRRIN', he drones, and laughs, and i laugh with him, and he says, But i'm retired now.

and suddenly he's walking a little further and i realize we're going in different directions. he is turning left while i go straight. Well you take care, dahlin'! he calls, waves, and continues his way down the road. It was really nice talking to you, i call, and i watch him walk away for a while before picking up my pace.

then i walked through a car crash site - the reason why roads were blocked - and went on home.

----

last night:

2202. you can't quite nail what makes the tears fall right now.

maybe it's the empty feeling in this house. emptiness caused by laughter you're not a part of. conversations you hear from up in your room. the cold that seeps through concrete walls and glass windows. the collection of unread books on the shelf. the little marks of bronze spraypaint on the desk you use now, the same desk you used for late night artscapades in the corner of your room in manila, reminiscent. the shapeshifting of the inanimate - cupboards doors floors and ceilings windows and blinds three layers of blankets - from familiar to unfamiliar, juxtaposing your mood accordingly. your bed in the top bunk that's almost never made, the bendy lamp that doesn't have a proper mount, the untouched notebooks at the bottom of your wardrobe.

maybe it's eshita telling you about the new boy she likes and how he was seeing someone but made a move on her, and she liked him; and how it reminds you of you. Don't get into the boat, you say, I'm in it and it's no fun at all. the ripples that become huge waves that make you seasick. he knows how to play with words. time is all he'll ever need. it will be better soon, i miss you, i haven't read in the longest time you used to make me read give me a list of some good books? he knows what words do to you. you told him. Forget me, you said, nineteen hours before depature.

maybe it's the battle with anxiety. the thought that your life isn't completely in your hands. the thought that any frustration now is and will ever be fruitless. the feeling of smallness. the little cry, It's all You. in the leaf-less trees and the sunny rain-clouded sky. in the cold wind that kisses my cheek. in the raindrops that find their place on my glasses. in the paint that is stuck in my fingernails, in the photographs i take with freezing but eager hands. in the silence. in the warmth that comes after i've been under the sheets for a while. under the wings of flying birds, in yellow and red leaves that still hang on and dance with the wind, under the wings of flying birds. in the school i will find myself in after two years. in the words i write. in the words love writes across seas and timezones and white screens. in yesterday, today, tomorrow, and the day after and an eternity after that. under the wings of flying birds.

----

(integrating the online identity because it's not good for me to keep all these incongruent web pages.)

21

i must announce that this twelfth day of november (it's the thirteenth now but i haven't slept, so) has been quite productive, despite the fact that i mixed up my timetable in my head and missed art class.

• covered leaf-shaped card with real fallen leaves (of the season, it's autumn), a tedious job with pva glue but moments like these give such homage to the domestic hairdryer!
• cutting card into leaf shapes is a whole different story, mainly of my right index finger's fingerpad slightly bruised due to the grip on the blade
  
• four pages of notes on two poems, a realization that my heart is in adoration of poetry, even though it never can confine itself to quatrains and rhymes and stanzas and lines
• ah even more productive-ness, an internal rhyme was just made in the last bullet point
• an organized ring binder
  
• seven hours of sleep on a weekday for the first time in a long time
• two real conversations with actual people in school today
• my excellent use of bullet points in this entry
• my actual entry existing
  

this isn't exactly of the twelfth of november, but it was yesterday afternoon and still deserves a bullet in this entry concerning productiveness:

• 

20

0011am. there is not much to say these eleven minutes past midnight. i got an online voucher for Waterstone's (a bookstore) today, and that makes me able to buy my own book this weekend. a book with my own money. i haven't done that in a while because i don't even get money here. but this week i happen to have  £6 and with my voucher, i can buy a book with that money.

so many ways to begin by jon mcgregor is a book i've been dying to read for a long time and two weekends ago i found it in a little corner of the bottom bookshelf. it was a wonderful moment finally being within vicinity of the book.

that said, i must link back to the excerpt i posted that is from his first book, if nobody speaks of remarkable things.

click here

please read it. it's beautiful.

i attempted to press a leaf with regular plastic the other day but failed. anyhow, i stuck it in my moleskine. it's a dark red now, but when i picked it up on the road it was a beautiful red orange, just fallen from a tree. without a scratch.

19

0009

can't deal

18

your (abridged) friday and (highly incredibly extremely super greatly diluted) melancholy:

---

the big picture today is 3 degrees celsius, with fleeting cold-caused headaches and 3-for-2 book offers. the big picture today is a mark of a year that has passed. from something to nothing. from struggle to acceptance. of delusion, of What If, of silence that gnaws at your insides, of fleeting lukewarm sparks of hope. from saving to surrendering. from moments to once-a-month. of I Cannot, of the irony of it all, of the great big contradiction of love and bitterness and pet names and everything else that comes in the shiny distracting alluring package of false tacky promise, of the fact that you have never read this part of the world wide web, ever.

cheers.

okay, i am really really decided this time. creative writing. and photography, somehow, hopefully already as an apprentice. please mr/ms professional. i will learn fast.

the decision of the former has been decided based on the residue of english literature that seeps from me as i write. it is doable, of course, and it is quite fun tearing literature apart to analyze it. but this once over-analytic mind knows the effects of such over-analytic-ness on her, and she really does not want to go back to it. complicates her life too much. let me be a kid.

today i found jon mcgregor's so many ways to begin. i stood in awe for a while, holding the book. a book i've been dying to read since i finished his first and found out about the second. it is without a doubt the first book i am going to buy once i have money. i will never forget the wonderful serendipity of finding jon mcgregor, how i scoured the A-Z Fiction shelves in Books Kinokuniya Singapore, how this book's cover caught my eye, how it was shelved wrongly but that didn't stop me from stumbling upon it.


how are you?

17

two and a half hours after midnight of the day i leave the country. i leave the house in one and a half hours. i'll take a shower, maybe a twenty-minute nap, then my bags into the rented van.

thank you everyone who wrote in the big card, thank you kev who drove around getting people to write in it, thank you people who tried to didn't wanted to meet up, i'm sorry i'm not good at organizing parties and keeping commitments and managing time oh how i wish i had more of it, thank you people of this last night, thank you maisee for leading, funny and brilliant how you led and reminisced at the same time,

do crash if you're in town.

16 - retrospect, a little and briefly

fifty-one minutes past midnight, fifty-one minutes past the last day in this country.

when change breathes this close to my face i am always silenced, always caught staring, always listening to the buzz in my head. i always look like i have nothing to say, but i do, i just get caught up in thinking about it or having conversations in my head or using every ounce of me to remember what's happening. to the people on monday night - i'm sorry all i could tangibly do was watch my fingers play with a packet of ketchup.

when change breathes this close to my face i always want to ask, How are you, What did you do today, What will you be doing tomorrow, Can you say you are happy?

what do you do when you're being pushed out the door while still trying to put the shoes on, still brushing your teeth, still looking into people's faces, still putting your earrings on, still trying to say what matters, still checking if you have everything in your bag, still counting your books, still writing a letter, still catching a breath?

it's an hour and six minutes past the last day now, and i am wondering how different it would have been if i hadn't spent a whole year being a hermit and putting my life on hold. would i have been drawn to the same people? would i be the same person that i am now? when Life started in summer 2007, then began these questions and the subsequent musing upon it. i have come to terms with the fact that that year of "putting life on hold" was a majestic momentous grand movement of introspection, which saw the end of my self then and saw the beginning of a renewed one.

somewhat ironic (and painful and wonderful) that this renewed one was to see the end of my self and was to see the beginning of an authentic one.

how many ends? how many peeled layers? an hour and eighteen minutes past the last day now; two thousand two hundred and thirty-two hours past the eighteenth year it's only been. no cookies for the one who can tell me how many more ends, unless you're the one who knows more than the apple does.

but you get a cookie if you know i'm terrified of these ends, if you know i'm excited about these ends... and two cookies if you're going to sit with me and these ends.

September 8, 2008 : CEBU - iii

yay for hidden beaches in hidden members-only resorts. for beautiful handicrafts that started as little treasure of the ocean. for cheap good spanish bread. for the laid back, cheerful cebuanos who beat you to asking if you can take their photo. for planes in the sky. for mr. crab, even though he couldn't climb out of the hole javi dug for an hour, for the dog on the edge of the blue boat. for little boats afloat in the sea. for a 30-peso hat and cheap shades and cheap pizza. for the coca-mangga concotion. for the Great Artist and His little exhibit in the sand, swept ashore by waves. for cool water pouncing on feet on a sunny day. for blue skies.

open your eyes and you'll see He's romancing you, too.

September 7, 2008 : CEBU - ii

not so many photos from the 7th because it was a busy busy day. that calmed down after an awesome massage. and i don't even like massages.

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of old doorknobs and capiz windows, of the texture and color of old walls. of church bells and wooden art and a little bit of abstract. of street children that owned joy in abandon. of cobblestone streets and Magellan's cross. of the hustle and bustle outside the Sto Niño Church. of hip rapping dancing praying women. of glimpses of street life. of a different kind of church altar. of dinner up in the clouds (thankyou Tito). of the dessert bar that was worth more than actual dinner. of childhood stories and life lessons and laughter.