a picture a day: february 2010

the second month of my on going project 365. it's an open ended project, anything goes, but with one rule: at least a picture a day.

for the january 2010 album of my project 365, click here.
for the march 2010 album of my project 365, click here.
for the april 2010 album of my project 365, click here.
for the may 2010 album of my project 365, click here.
for the june 2010 album of my project 365, click here.
for the july 2010 album of my project 365, click here.
for the august 2010 album of my project 365, click here.





2010.02.01 scavenger, mango ave., cebu city.




2010.02.02 late afternoon sun bursting through the clouds, cebu city.




2010.02.03 idle computer monitors, suggesting either a switch to new technology (read: LCD), or of business slowing down




2010.02.04 high school students going home after evening class, on a 13C jeepney going to talamban, gorordo ave., cebu city.




2010.02.05 a restaurant waiting for customers, raintree mall, cebu city.




2010.02.06 a wooden eagle statue my late stepfather brought home after a trip to banaue.




2010.02.07 a problem of disposal, maguikay, mandaue city.




2010.02.08 is it just me, or is that a look of resignation in the chicken's eyes? on a 21B jeepney somewhere in mabolo, cebu city




2010.02.09 crumpled bed sheet. for some reason, it makes me think of mountain ranges.




2010.02.10 reminds me of the matrix, with fish instead of humans, and without the cables and plugs. fish for sale outside mandaue central school, mandaue city.




2010.02.11 the doors to what was formerly bigbucks cafe, formerly veloute cafe, formerly chazyl mae restobar, now dark and empty. f. ramos st., cebu city.




2010.02.12 construction, archbishop reyes ave., cebu city.




2010.02.13 before race day, a tacky singlet that i will not be wearing.




2010.02.14 butiki




2010.02.15 at the supermarket after valentine's day.




2010.02.16 danggit, for pasalubong.




2010.02.17 at saints peter and paul church, ormoc city.




2010.02.18 what's inside the cabinet? at the sto. nino shrine, a museum which was formerly a mansion built for imelda marcos that got sequestered by the PCGG after the 1986 EDSA revolution, tacloban city.




2010.02.19 a foggy samar at sunrise.




2010.02.20 my nephew, at the breakwater of macarthur park, palo, leyte.




2010.02.21 sunset, ormoc bay.




2010.02.22 early evening news: a firefighter on tv.




2010.02.23 airplane and power line. the only picture i took that day.




2010.02.24 sm parking lot. the only *presentable* picture i took that day.




2010.02.25 garbage disposal team from a neighboring baranggay. garbage seems to be a recurring theme for the month of february... makes sense...




2010.02.26 moon, clouds, tree: variations on the theme "things above".




2010.02.27 animal and plant fibres: my cat's fur and a walis tambo.




2010.02.28 my godson, who automatically does the peace sign every time i take a picture of him.

a picture a day: january 2010

the first month of my on going project 365. it's an open ended project, anything goes, but with one rule: at least a picture a day.

for the february 2010 album of my project 365, click here.
for the march 2010 album of my project 365, click here.
for the april 2010 album of my project 365, click here.
for the may 2010 album of my project 365, click here.
for the june 2010 album of my project 365, click here.
for the july 2010 album of my project 365, click here.
for the august 2010 album of my project 365, click here.




2010.01.01 the new year from our window at home




2010.01.02 full moon, cebu city




2010.01.03 a drink of water from daddy




2010.01.04 joshua 24:15




2010.01.05 danny's workstation




2010.01.06 yesterday's news




2010.01.07 beggar on a jeepney from sm to ayala, mabolo, cebu city




2010.01.08 at my cousin's wedding, the church at punta princesa, cebu city




2010.01.09 teddy bear on the floor




2010.01.10 her corner of the world, near cebu metropolitan cathedral, cebu
city




2010.01.11 can flattening, fuente osmena, cebu city




2010.01.12 singing blind men, pier 4 terminal, cebu city




2010.01.13 sto. nino de tindero, downtown cebu city




2010.01.14 sinulog decor, osmena boulevard, cebu city




2010.01.15 cleaning up the memory cards




2010.01.16 a devotee waiting for the sto. nino, basilica minore del sto. nino, cebu city




2010.01.17 a fellow photographer waiting for the rain to ease, abellana sports complex, cebu city




2010.01.18 dog figurine




2010.01.19 wednesday, thursday, friday




2010.01.20 a fading portrait of my late stepfather




2010.01.21 tricycle driver, mandaue city




2010.01.22 a family begging, near the iglesia ni cristo on mango avenue, cebu city




2010.01.23 at the neighborhood fiesta, mandaue city




2010.01.24 man on crutches, downtown cebu city




2010.01.25 from walden, by henry david thoreau




2010.01.26 packing for a trip




2010.01.27 at the dock on my way to negros, bato, samboan, cebu




2010.01.28 rocky road, basay, negros oriental




2010.01.29 tapaseros on a smoke break, basay, negros oriental




2010.01.30 boy looking out from a window, bato, samboan, cebu. i noticed a weird white whispy something in the photo. and even weirder, the first floor of the house also happens to be a funeral parlor. hmmmm...




2010.01.31 graffiti as classified ad, or classified ad as graffiti, mabolo, cebu city

the pond at the park

here's a haiku-ish piece i came up with while i was staring into the green pond at family park, a "snapshot" of the moment, inspired by the "pan of stars" haiku i read some weeks back. if you're wondering what it means, i wrote it to mean nothing else but my own confusion. any other imagined meanings are welcome :)


the pond at the park

the clouds floating under
the water confuse me:
are the fish swimming?
or are they flying?

bananas on a fruitstand: an exercise in seeing

one thing i really want to learn is seeing. not merely looking, but seeing, as if the world was all sky, and everything in it clouds, and everything not just a something but anything: anything that the wind and your imagination dictates the something to be. this was also inspired by charles simic's watermelons hehehe :)

so watyatink?


bananas on a fruitstand

many-fingered hands
grabbing at your eyeballs
staining them yellow

my 6th published article

my 4th in the inquirer :)

http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20090314-194116/Liars

the thing is, i'm not so comfortable with the way they edited it... the one speaking no longer sounds like me :( oh well... it IS their newspaper... and i have to be thankful they published it...

here's my original version:

http://chroniclesofadisturbedmind.blogspot.com/2009/03/liar-liar.html

liar liar

i lied.

but not in the same magnitude, or rather, hilarity, as miriam defensor santiago's lie. as some of you might remember (which is, in itself, a miracle, given the pinoy's typical amnesia regarding such matters), she announced publicly that "I will jump headfirst from a helicopter in Luneta if Estrada gets removed from power". to probably much of her enemies' rejoicing, things didn't turn out as she had anticipated. people power kicked erap out of malacanang after. she would have to jump headfirst from a helicopter in Luneta, as promised. later, when reporters found her skull intact, they asked miriam about her promise. in characteristic candor, she replied smiling: "i lied".

and my lie certainly wasn't in the same league as gloria macapagal arroyo's, when she said on rizal day 2002 (or, on rizal's grave, as conrado de quiros would unceasingly point out), that she, so as to not bring even more divisiveness to an already divided country, would not run for president on 2004. ladies and gentlemen, such is the sad state of our politics.

nonetheless, given the puniness of my lie compared to the immensity of both elected (or not) government officials' lies, we still cannot gloss over the fact: i lied.

it happened like this. even with my shampoo's packaging declaring it to be anti-dandruff, one saturday morning found me with a severe case of it. apparently, my shampoo wasn't working. so later in the afternoon, i rushed to our neighborhood grocery to buy me another shampoo.

now that i think about it, i guess you people didn't really need to know about my dandruff... so let's continue...

i got myself a bottle of another anti-dandruff shampoo, which was worth 99 pesos. before reaching the counter, i scanned the contents of my wallet and found just one 100 peso bill, the rest being 500 peso bills (which is not to say i have plenty of spare cash. most of it was for our electric bill and rent). the 100 peso bill would have been convenient, not just for me but also for the lady manning the grocery counter. but then, i thought, i might need some change. so i decided to just take one of my 500 peso bills. the lady in the counter scanned my bottle of shampoo on the barcode reader, then i handed her my money.

the lady frowned. she asked, 'wala kay 100 lang sir? (don't you have 100 pesos?)'. for a millisecond there, a part of me was saying 'maybe i should just admit it'. but it was too late. unwilling to wait for my conscience to enforce its decision, my neck muscles then acted independently and proceeded shaking my head to tell the lady 'no'.

the lady sighed in resignation. she opened her cash register and took her last two remaining 100 peso bills, took four of her last five remaining 50 peso bills (i noticed that there was just one left), then took a single peso coin to give me my exact change of 401 pesos. she practically had no more change left.

i *could* blame my neck muscles for the incident. but my conscience didn't see it that way, and then went on bothering me for the next 2 hours or so.

but had i been strictly honest, i would have told the lady, "yes ma'am, i do have a 100 peso bill in my wallet, but i need the change. so, no. sorry, here's 500 pesos, and please give me my change." but... damn it... that's plain rude. and the choices look stark: either you lie (or at least not tell the truth), or, you do tell the truth and then end up being a complete asshole.

for some reason, i feel like quoting the nationalist historian teodoro agoncillo, who once said, "those who are afraid to make enemies cannot be expected to tell the truth". or something like that. i think. which is not to say he was encouraging us all to be assholes. or that i'm using it as an excuse to lie. or am i? wait a sec... am i making sense here?

i could have just given the lady my last 100 peso bill. period. maybe it's not really an issue of telling the truth. it's an issue of self-sacrifice. not that i'm trying to sound noble here, but it now seems to boil down to this: "am i willing to suffer the minor inconvenience of not having change instead of bothering the lady in the counter in addition to lying to her?"

so i guess that's it. i would have avoided bothering the lady. i would have also avoided being bothered by my consciece. gloria arroyo would have avoided being so despised. and miriam... well, she can be very entertaining, so let's just leave it at that.

but then, had i not lied, i wouldn't have been able to write this piece at all. i guess lying still has its uses.

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it took me one and a half months to finish this piece. i guess that's how long it took me to admit to myself that either way, even if i lie or i don't, i'm still being an asshole hahaha.

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published in the philippine daily inquirer 3/14/2009 :)
http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20090314-194116/Liars