Category: aisensed
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Ponkan, Pahinungod, and memories of Coron, Palawan
How do you properly send off a person to heaven or beyond? Do you write a farewell note in his timeline? Do you put a sad-face icon? Do you re-visit pictures and smile at the memories you created with others in this short life? Maybe a big thank you. The world has its share of […]
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Hocus Bogus
I took to social media the war against the Philippines’ biggest corruption scam, and almost forgot this blog as an equally powerful platform. Here’s one status I shared: You know, one of the things that irk me in this issue is how some people can easily register dummy corporations and foundations. Three years ago, when […]
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Elephants on canvas
Part of my 2012 bucket list is to paint because for so many years, I’ve been telling myself that I’ll paint. I draw and sketch, but never have I painted. Whenever I come across a painter, amateur or professional, my line would always be “teach me how to paint!” and always I’d get this look […]
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Noel believes
Noel Torreta is mestizo. At any given time, he looks like he could recite poetry in Portuguese, with his eyeglasses hanging at the tip of his nose, his eyelids masking half of his eyes in a way that says what are you talking about, darling. Along the aisles and corridors of the Department of Humanities, […]
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2012 may be a year of success, says the Dragon
The 28 and 40 year old Rats can look forward to some easy successes and unexpected good news. Happy Chinese New Year! What I love about this celebration is the astrology. Like many people, I take these predictions as a suggestion or possibility and not the end of the road fate for me. This Year […]
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Because I want more cupcakes
If you’ve been reading my blog, you’d notice I’ve been writing eulogies for friends and former students. I remember my boyfriend telling me one time that he doesn’t know how to feel about eulogies–people should be saying nice things to one another when they’re alive, not when they’re dead. I wanted to argue, but I […]
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Coming Full Circle
Last month, September, I turned 27. No fireworks, no champagne fizz. My celebration of life was quiet, with friends, in a town tucked away at the foot of a mountain. Twenty-seven. An odd number. Odd. One observation: I have come full circle when my age turned odd. Somebody said I got some dream job.
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first two weeks of work
My work is more complicated than I thought: my “colleagues” are all over the world; I do my work at the International Rice Research Institute, but I’m not an IRRI employee; I’m required to fly to other countries soon and I am not required to stay in the office. It’s as if somebody saw my […]
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happy days are here
with my tiny nephew. It’s difficult to think of sad things when this toddler is around. Running, jumping, rolling around. I hope days like these, when I do nothing but look after him (cook for him, give him a bath, prepare him milk, play with him), won’t end. He loves to sing bahay kubo […]
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Happy April Fool's Day!
Funniest that happened so far on this first day of warm April, somebody read my name as: Ei-Li Mashalint It was in a hospital. And I was waiting for my name to be called. When no one’s standing, I asked the local who called out “Ei-Li”: Did you say “Aileen”? She said, yes, Ei-Li. I […]
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first earthquake, then tsunami, then crippled nuclear plant… and now, snow
Reading the papers everyday silence me for hours.
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Day 6 in Singapore
Finally I managed to get out of our block and visit Singapore’s Fountain of Wealth, Esplanade, and Marina Bay, check out a bookstore, feel the city while dining and walking and smelling, visit the art corners, and watch people. In the middle of all these, while listening to a band playing by the beautiful bay, […]
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open letter to my nephew’s mother
Dear Micon, Your baby’s fine. That pretty much answers your everyday question, “How’s my Marcus?” Last holiday season, I was in Laguna for a couple of weeks. As you noticed in my facebook status, yeah, I did finish three novels in less than a week because I had nothing else to do but look over […]
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oooh. from elbi!
It’s Soundskool season again, I realized. It’s like a band talent search sponsored by a certain coffee brand. I’ve been to two Grand Finals by way of my friend who’s from Nestle Philippines. And each year it gets better and equally fun because of the Pinoy bands that they invite to perform (and mentor the […]
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to die for, in the weeks to come
Cine Europa 13 Movie Schedule: September 10 12:00 PM: Svetat E Golyam I Spasenie Debne Otysyakade (The World is Big & Salvation Lurks around the corner) – Bulgaria 3:00 PM: Vratne Lahve Empties – Czech Republic 6:00 PM: Frytelig Lykkelig (Terribly Happy) – Denmark 9:00 PM: Kielletty Hedelma (Forbidden Fruit) – Finland September 11 12:00 […]
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why is everyone so emotional this time of the year?
June and July are the time of the year when many people have low happy hormones. Must be because it’s the end of summer, start of duties, no bonuses. Somehow, people born under this time exude the same nonchalance. I am thinking of “Cancerians.” One night, my mother and father were talking about a difficult […]
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last love letters from the University
Because I heard that today’s the first week of classes in UPLB, I looked at my files and kept in touch with the past, if only for a minute’s worth of quiet happiness. Caution: there’s a lot of me in here.
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whatta nikko dday
So ends last night the widely advertised PLDT Watchpad Crew search held at MCafe Ayala Museum in Makati. After getting toasted under Caramoan sun,
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the french connection (part 2)
Last week, I was stuck in a room somewhere in Ayala, with a French man, and this is part of our small talk. Monsieur: tu es arrivé ici comment? (how did you get here?) Aileen: uh, je prend le metro, le mrt. (i took the…mrt) Il fait chaud!!! (It’s
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the french connection
Here is my providential interview (part 1) with a French man: (I enter the room, smiling like silly and stupid and clueless and wasted) Monsieur: Bonjour! aI: Uh, hehe, bonjour! M: Comment ça va? I: uh, bien! M: oh, ça va bien. I: ah, oui, ça va bien. M: D’accord, d’accord. Vous parlez français? I: […]
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when my archenemy taught me that natural beauty does not exist
I stopped being pretty when I was a kid. After that, all the world’s grime polluted my skin and bones. Til I no longer cared how I look. See:
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homelessness: a long word that never ends
After living in elbi since 2001, I partly said goodbye in 2008 when my housemates and I gave up our apartment, which I seriously, seriously treated as my home. So where does a homeless stay? PASIG & QUEZON CITY
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Home before I was Homeless
I was in my third year of teaching when Kei and I looked for another apartment. Together with then newly-hired teachers, Janette Malata and Buena Carla Ferma Zaldivia (my quirky friends in college), we landed on a spacious, elegant-looking, 8000-peso-unit near the University. Expensive, I know, because our taste is.
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how do you say goodbye if the end of the world is just like switching off the lights?
Everyday, life is one day less
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will travel, will go malling, will check in, will live
As of this writing, 473 cases of a(h1n1) have been tallied, one just died, and classes are being suspended in the Philippines, but the Department of Health sees no reason to panic. Travel companies do.
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Rallied (a vocabulary exercise on ambiguities)
DESPITE the a(h1n1) scare in Makati, friends and I went to the Ayala rally yesterday to rally our contempt against ConAss, the rallying point of the corrupt specter and power-hungry fiends housed in the Congress, which rallies, in stealth, around the change of constitution but not the constitution of people in Malacañang, all tactfully hidden […]
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Voyeurs and Savages
This is supposed to be an angry post against all the men, and women and gays and lesbos, who have uploaded and downloaded sex videos on the Internet, but it’s kind of too late, or too corny, or too moralizing to do that, besides, I dont have enough energy to be mad at billions of […]
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The Weird Creature in Joseph’s Artwork Called Naga
One night his brother Amando asked. “Jo, what’s this you have drawn?” Eight-year old Joseph looked at the piece of paper. the boy who created, err drew, naga “Naga,” he said with a straight face, one that does not invite more questions after that revelation. “Na-ga? What’s that?” the brother asked as he looked at […]
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