My niece and goddaughter Ycha Shanti celebrated her 16th birthday on National Heroes’ Day, August 30th. It was a simple celebration, but she had a LOT of guests! I’m sure she will remember this for a long time.

She’ll be graduating from high school in a few months, and then she’ll be starting a brand new adventure: college/university life! Earlier this month, she took the UPCAT (University of the Philippines College Admission Test). Soon, she’ll be taking entrance exams to other universities in the metro. I have no doubt that she will find a good school. She has the head and heart for school, but she also doesn’t forget to enjoy and just be a kid.

I heard that she’s also interested in learning photography. Maybe my gift to her would be to help her develop that (since I don’t have the dough to get her her camera, haha).

Mana sa Ninang

Ate, with Da Boys

Me, Papa (our grandfather), and Shanti

with her girlfriends (since they were younger kids)

with her schoolmates, the other boys in her class didn't join the shoot. but there's probably as many boys as there were girls.

All photos were captured by the boyfriend, which explains the abundance of my face in these stills. Haha

Before the bride and groom arrived though, it was just Arianne, Raech, me and Iskra. Okay, before I arrived, Yrish, her baby Sean and hubby Pao were there too. Since I have no baby pics of Sean to show (because I didn’t get to see him in person ), here are photos of our first baby. Iskra and Mommy Raech.

This kid has loads of energy! We were together the week before, for dinner at Max’s. She started out with a really bad mood, but then the playground fixed her up until very late that evening. Just when Max’s was about to close, she finally felt hungry. So napa-chocolate cake tuloy kami!

At Trinoma last Sunday, she was playing with some kid at the Activity Center when they arrived. We trooped to the paid lounge so her mom could try out a dress that Arianne had brought for her and you know what she did while waiting? Wash up! As in she washed her face and arms several times. It looked like she was trying to cool off While there, I remembered how, as a kid, I was half scared, half fascinated by the hand dryers in strange big restrooms like that one. Play wasn’t getting myself wet. It was getting wet so I had an excuse to dry off.

Iskra’s all grown up. She’s in grade school now and I could hardly believe it. To me, she’ll always be this little girl from two years ago:

Iskra

He is Adam, three years old. She is Vien, four years old. You might have seen her elsewhere, she’s appeared in magazines before Hehe. These kids belong to my girlfriends Anliza and Everth. I met those two back in grade school and I don’t see them very often. I crashed their party on Wednesday night just because I could. Haha!

They are so full of energy, and both were talkative (though in different ways). It was so much fun just watching them have fun and fool around. Of course, I also did get to catch up with their moms. Last time all three of us went out to just have a chat was more than a year ago (I think). And I’ve always just heard about their kids and looked at their photos. They’re more lovable in person

We got to talking about how expensive putting kids through school is. And how it might be hard to give the same things you’ve given to your first-born to kids that come after. And it isn’t because you play favorites, but because it’s just too expensive already. They both only have one child each.

Vien started school this week while Adam is still too young. Soon enough, they’d both be preparing for college entrance exams! Hay.

My eldest niece has just started senior year in high school. One time over the summer, her mom mentioned looking for an affordable review center to enroll her in. They want to prepare for the UPCAT (entrance exam for the University of the Philippines). Though I didn’t have to enroll in such classes, I do remember spending afternoons and weekends with my friends going through reviewers and sample exams. Those were enough for me, but yeah, it wouldn’t hurt to have more help.

For some of us, the UPCAT is the most important exam we’ll ever have to take. Others move on to take more crucial, life-altering exams like the LAE for UP Law, and the NMAT to qualify for Med school (it’s like the GMAT for business schools in the US), etcetera.  Oh and that’s not to mention the bar/board/licensure exams you need to take before you can practice what you’ve just spent years studying for. No wonder there is a huge market for review and tutorial centers. We need a lot of help preparing for the many tests we’d have to take. These centers specialize too. You have ones specializing for gmat prep, nursing board review prep, bar exam prep, and so on.

Oh well, life is a series of tests, one right after another.

Hey, how did I get here? One moment I was gushing over how cute Vien and Adam are, the next I’m talking about exams!

Anyhoo, I am so looking forward to meeting up with my girlfriends again and also seeing the kids. I don’t know when that will be, but I hope we won’t be waiting another year for it.

Oh I just remembered! He’s the same Adam on this infant layout, and here with the toys too!

And another thing. Not all kids can be as energetic as these two, let’s not forget them. Please reach out and do what you can for Baby Jon Angelo!

Click on the photo (which I borrowed from the family’s site) to get to his website and learn more about helping out with his cause. I am already cooking up a small giveaway for my birthday next month, and his bracelets will be a central feature of the giveaway. I don’t have mine yet (haven’t ordered), but I sure will have one, along with members of my family

]]> http://verabear.net/2010/06/happy-birthday-baby-jon-angelo/feed/ 3 http://verabear.net/2010/06/bottle-school-project/ http://verabear.net/2010/06/bottle-school-project/#comments Sat, 12 Jun 2010 13:47:51 +0000 verabear http://verabear.net/?p=3024 Two weeks ago, our Corporate Communications Officer sent out a mailer about the Bottle School Project. Tomorrow, June 13th, the Bottle School Run will commence. Runners and everyone else are encouraged to join. Just bring two 1.5/2 liter PET bottles and pay the small registration fee to join the fun run – 3k, 5k and 10k. The bottles, and the money, will be used to build bottle schools in areas affected by typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng.

The people behind the project will be pioneering a build at Maharlika Village in Taguig City. I’m hoping there will be more details at the event so I can learn more about getting involved. Sadly, their website (http://bottleschoolproject.org/) doesn’t have much information.

Here’s a video I found though:

And look at photos from MyShelter’s Illac Diaz’ Multiply page.

I first read about a school made from plastic bottles through this blog post in Be The Change back in February. I am so happy that the technology has been recognized here, and is now being explored.

It makes me feel good that our company is trying to be involved in such worthy projects. I hope a lot of people throw their support behind this too.

And what photos did I use? Those from our Safari adventure!

(This video I just uploaded doesn’t look good! It’s all pixellated. I’m going to try again and then re-upload.)

No, we didn’t go to Africa for this, nor did we drive out to Subic to experience their Zoobic Safari. This is the Safari display of stuffed animals at the SM Sky Garden, at SM City North Edsa. It’s still there until now, if I’m not mistaken.



Ugh, I think my dad chose the hottest day this summer to take the kids there. Or not. Maybe it just felt like the hottest day for me because

1. I just came off a 12-hour shift.
2. It was freezing cold inside the office.
3. I was quite sleepy; and,
4. I was wearing heels.

You know, I’m not sure if they asked me to come along because they needed another chaperone (Mom couldn’t join them because she had a meeting), or they really needed a photographer. Hmmm.

The kids were all willing subjects, okay maybe with the exception of Adam who doesn’t always feel like smiling at the camera, but they all were very eager to post in front of the stuffed animals. I, however, was one frustrated photographer. I wasn’t dressed appropriately. And because of my weight, I wasn’t willing to kneel or able to sit on the floor to get better angles. Tsk. I gotta do something about that. Hehe.

Anyway, here are a few of my favorite photos:

I have a lot on my mind. The elections and all the issues around it. The candidates and their credentials. Work. Some people. The quality of my life and what the future holds. Dahil sa kakaisip, wala akong maisulat.

For lack of a better post, here’s a photo of my nephews Adam and Esban. This was taken when we went to see How to Train Your Dragon on 3d.

Adam wasn’t looking at the camera (phone), I noticed that he usually does that. In contrast, Esban loves having his photo taken.