Things to do this Summer

Hi. Are you guys feeling that your brains are rotting from too much work in the office? Do you yearn for some sort of stimulation, whether intellectual, physical, or social? Then perhaps you should try one of the activities listed below. The information has all come to me at the same time, and I'm lumping them all together.

1. Critical Social Theory Group

a gathering of individuals who will read texts and talk about social theory. suggested first text will be paulo virilio's ground zero. gatherings will start mid-April. generally open to all interested individuals. the group is informally based in Ateneo. to sign up in the mailing list, head for badrabbit.blogspot.com

2. Underwater Hockey

for the underwater hockey blurb, I'll just paste the SMS that a friend forwarded to me. i've tried intro last year, and it's quite fun, especially if you like water and competition. more formal hockey school starts sometime mid-April as well.

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Hey, wanna try UNDERWATER HOCKEY? Sign up for ur FREE INTRO on Mar 25 or Apr 1 at Ultra 1-4 pm. Just pay pool fee P150. Limited Slots only. Reserve now! Call/Txt Nikki: 0917-8902330. Xtreme fun guaranteed! :)

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3. Groupe de Conversation en Français

Avril 8, brunch, La Vista, environ 1030.
un petit groupe de personnes qui veulent pratiquer et ameliorer le Français, avec la connaissance au moins du Français de base. :) E-mail si vous êtes intéressé

Books to go + New Books!

Friends,

I know a few of you like books. Since we are preparing to move to a new house this summer, a lot of our old books, some in storage, have come to see the light of day. We have too many of them; we have to get rid of some.

Here are a (partial) list of books that I'm giving away. Some of them are pretty good. Just contact me if you're interested.

C.S. Lewis' The Last Battle (1970 edition)
Peasants and Peasant Societies - Teodor Shanin, ed. (Penguin Modern Sociology Readings)
Signs and Meaning in the Cinema - Peter Wollen*
The Speculative Philosophers - Commins, Linscott, ed.
The Political Philosophers - Commins, Linscott, ed. *
More than Conquerors - Edilberto K. Tiempo
Selected Stories of Lu Hsun*
Brave New World / Brave New World Revisited - Aldous Huxley*
The Sun Also Rises - Ernest Hemingway*
Haircut and Other Stories - Ring Lardner

I also have a few of my Grandfather's old issues of the National Gardener

edited to add:

The Christmas Mystery - Jostein Gaarder*
China Wakes: The Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Power - Nicholas Kristof & Sherly Wudunn

new books:
Now You see it, now you don't! Lessons in sleight of hand - Bill Tarr
The State of the World's Children 1995 - UNICEF
Chess Openings: Traps and Zaps - Bruce Pandolfini
The Home and the World - Rabindranath Tagore*
Guide to Better Bowling - Chuck Pezanno
The Complete Prophecies of Nostradamus
How to Win Chess Games Quickly - Fred Reinfeld
An Outline of American Literature - USAID pamphlet
An Outline of American History - USAID pamphlet (well, more of a book)
A Book of Angels - Sophy Burnham
God's Country and Mine - Jacques Barzun
The Snows of Kilimanjaro and other Story - Ernest Hemingway (Bob, you can have first dibs on this one)
The Oresteian Trilogy - Aeschylus
The Jungle Books - Rudyard Kipling*
Interior Design with Feng Shui - Sarah Rossbach (paperback)
The Prince and the Pauper - Mark Twain
A Christmas Carol and other Christmas Books - Charles Dickens
Black Beauty - Anna Sewell
Questions and Answers on Bringing Up Children - Emma R. Tan
Making Effective Presentations - Robert B. Nelson & Jennifer Wallick
Discovering the Enneagram - Richard Rohr and Andreas Ebert
Love Song - Andrew M. Greeley (hardbound)
The Greatest Salesman in the World - Og Mandino
Webster's New World Thesaurus
Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie (de-faced copy)*
Gulliver's Travels - Jonathan Swift*
The Chamber - John Grisham
The Mill on the Floss - George Eliot
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
Dubliners - James Joyce*
Doctor Dolittle In the Moon - Hugh Lofting*
The Fit-or-Fat Target Diet - Covert Bailey
Bowling - Martin/Tandy/Agne-Traub
Public Speaking for College Students - Lionel Crocker
Literature 2 Selections - Ateneo High School (1994)
Your Book of Secret Writing - Geoffrey Lamb
The Pearl - John Steinbeck
A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
Journey to the Center of the Earth - Jules Verne
The Inferno - Dante*
The Purgatorio - Dante*
The Paradiso - Dante*


* someone asked for them already

new rule! :)
if you're gonna request for these books, and I don't normally hang out with you, you have to be willing to pick 'em up in a week in any of my "territories". Starbucks Katipunan / Coffee Bean Eastwood / Coffee Bean Salcedo

"If you can't change the way Manila looks, change the way you look at Manila"

I spent this Sunday afternoon getting lucky at Lori Baltazar's "tea party" in Malate. Quotations because what occured was more of a cake party, and not just a cake party, but a serious cake party for lovers of sugar, cream and chocolate, of which, I have come to discover, I am simply a rank amateur.

How can you not be overwhelmed with 12 or so cakes there for the taking? Some were very good, some were exquisite, all quite rich. We're talking a banana cream pie, a carrot cake, a strawberry shortcake, mango torte, this nut pie contraption, lemon torte, cheesecake, caramel cake, chocolate xanadu, strawberry short cake, blueberry and strawberry cheesecake, white chocolate cake, and a triple hazelnut mousse.

It was crazy. The cakes were served in two batches to avoid impacho (sp?) as Carlos said, but there was still an audible (yet happy?) groan when it was announced that the 2nd batch of cakes had arrived. Oh yeah, I almost forgot to mention the Ghirardelli chocolate chip cookies. Damn good.

My assessment of the cakes probably was colored though by the heat that was permeating throughout the Living Room. I think some of the other creations would have tasted better in a chillier setting. e.g. the chocolate xanadu. But given the circumstances, the winning cakes for me were the lemon torte and the triple hazelnut mousse, the latter being made with Gianduja chocolate.

Part of the event was a cake raffle, where I parlayed a mango torte I won into a triple hazelnut mousse. I had tasted this mango torte last Christmas and wasn't too excited about it. Thanks to a friend's extra raffle ticket, I also won a framed photograph of Panna Cotta (sp?). [I'll spell check all these terms ASAP, sorry].

Will try to get some interesting photos of the event. In the meantime, lots of info about the event and the features desserts at Lori's blog: dessertcomesfirst.blogspot.com

life update # whatever

ugh. it's afternoon as i type this and i think im paying for last night's episode of temporary gluttinous (sp?) insanity. i wolfed down some chocolate chips and mixed junk food. i think it was just my brain asking for calories.

had the HSBC assessment center bit yesterday, and i thought it turned out ok. i should be getting a call from them by the end of this week, and hopefully the response is going to be a positive one. i find myself leaning towards entering into a position in this company, among various reasons is that they seem to know best who i am and what i am capable of. that can only bode well for me receiving the proper kind of work that won't keep my unhappy. what helps is that friends who work for this company actually have LIVES despite being compensated well. this is a pretty good deal i think. oh yes, their CEO is also a triathlon nut. company culture should be compatible enough.

other things happening include the ateneo aquathlon finally taking place last sunday. just a little hairy and hectic during the morning registration, but over all something that turned out ok. the medal ceremony was nice. the overall winners were teenagers from laguna. nice to imagine that they'll be doing well and great in the future. glad this project is finally OVER. stress for sure. but it taught me a lot of things, and will help in the way that i manage and implement projects in the future.

bob and i have been working on our amazing race video. it's full of hot air. sent a few clips of our work off to len and jojo and they could only say, "yabaaaang". ha ha. well, that's gonna be our little differentiating tactic. we can't be as fun, perky and adventurous as other people, but it won't be easy to top us in terms of sheer arrogance and self-assured smugness. he he. it's an act, folks. though we do loove ourselves. hopefully bob figures out how to do all the editing soon.

what more is there to report? well, a little disappointment that brokeback didn't win. and the political noise going around the internet, "middle class" folks sending around all sorts of e-mails. valid points some of them, some pretty silly points in others. all quite loud, angry, and intolerant of viewpoints other than theirs. kinda shows that they dont think much actually, the fact that everything is black, white and nothing is concilliatory. well being simplistic is always the easy way. i haven't wired my brain yet to think that way about certain things. least of all political, economic issues.

am looking forward to the weekend! bob's b-day AND i get to attend a tea-party w/ lots of cake Sunday. hope ur weeks are turning out good.