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.
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.
Today I was going through my Picture library looking for any photo that distinctly featured a human face and flowers together in one frame. I was using Windows Live Photo Gallery to go through the albums, and then my attention was caught by the nifty button to create a movie out of the photos. So I used it.
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
I just came off a 12-hour shift.
It was freezing cold inside the office.
I was quite sleepy; and,
I was wearing heels.
The kids definitely weren’t complaining about the heat. Dad even looked quite comfy.
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.
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.
We first saw this trailer of How To Train Your Dragon when we went to see Avatar at the SM IMAX theater. We knew right away that we wanted to see it, and that my nephew Esban would want to see it too. Upon seeing last week that it was already showing at Trinoma, we started making plans to go. Sorry, I’ll get to the movie, just let me tell this backgrounder ok? 🙂
On Monday, Esban didn’t want to go because, ahem, maglalaro pa daw siya. O K ! Haha. No matter what I said, he disagreed, we couldn’t go just yet because he was going to play. I told him we can’t go the next day because I would already have work on Tuesday night. His response: call your boss and say you’d go half day. Toinks! Haha. 🙂 So yesterday, Sunday, we finally got to go and Adam came with us too.
The trailer shows the first scene of the movie. Uh-oh, a thought popped up in my head: there’s too much talking, the kids might have trouble understanding this! But I think they turned out okay, they didn’t ask me too many questions. Kaya lang, Esban had to go pee right when the story climaxed! Kaloka. And Alfred refused to take him out because he didn’t want to miss the scene at the arena where Hiccup had to slay the dragon. So I just went with the poor kid. When we got back, the Vikings were sailing to the dragon’s nest.
The movie is basically about a young Viking who is different from everyone else in their island. Their village is old, but the houses are always new. Dragons are their biggest problems because they always come preying on their livestock and blasting their structures. The Vikings dedicate their time training for and fighting the war against dragons. Expeditions are dispatched to find the dragons’ nest and put an end to them, but none of the boats come back. Now the lead character, Hiccup, is the son of the Viking chief (do they call him that?) but he is not built for slaying dragons. Instead, he buckles a lot and is often in accidents. He is awesome in the workshop though and has been an apprentice in making weapons. All he has wanted was to fit in and start killing dragons.
I think this happens everywhere, not the dragons, but kids turning out to be so different from their parents. Think about all those young ones who are forced to take up courses that they don’t really like and ending up failing miserably. Sons and daughters of doctors or lawyers or engineers who don’t want to be anything like their parents. Yet, that is what everyone expects them to be. For Hiccup though, his dad wasn’t pressuring him to be a dragon-slaying Viking, at least not in the beginning. He was fearful for him, sure that he won’t survive dragon training. And his good friend (the kids call him the uncle) was kind enough to tell Hiccup why:
Despite that, Hiccup persevered to prove everyone else wrong. And he did, though it was in a way that he had never imagined.
The movie also touches on father-son relationships, and how it isn’t always easy to talk to each other. I guess that is the case for all parent-child relationships too. Here it is shown in this scene, although you could also see it when Hiccup and his dad talked AFTER the dad heard the news about how well Hiccup’s been doing in dragon training:
Okay, although I am dying to show more clips of Hiccup with Toothless the Night Fury, I will restrain myself. I wouldn’t want to spoil the entire movie for those of you who have yet to watch it. And I really hope you do check it out, because it’s a good one. It’s not just fun to watch and visually beautiful, it also talks about shifting perspectives, how things aren’t always just how they seem. Training a Dragon isn’t as easy as learning to navigate a computer, or adding more mac memory, but it is simpler and less dangerous than slaying dragons.
Oh and yeah, now I remember, Esban did have one question: Why did Toothless always fly over water?
These days everywhere you look you will be reminded of one of two things: Valentine’s Day and the Chinese Lunar New Year. Both happy occasions fall on February 14 this year, so there’s double celebration, and double reasons for donning red. 🙂
As soon as the month rolled in, you would have already seen decorations and promotions relevant to Valentine’s. One of those that I didn’t mind, and actually participated in, is the Facebook promotional that UNICEF Philippines is running: I Love UNICEF. Here’s their description from the FB album:
Hello UNICEF friends and supporters! In celebration of Valentine’s Day, UNICEF Philippines invites you to Show Your Love for UNICEF! Send us your photo with an “I Love UNICEF” sign and make a statement for children’s rights. Take a snapshot using your webcam, digicam, analog camera or cameraphone with your kids, best friend, special someone, classmates, neighbor, teacher, officemates, everyone and we will post them in the Show Your Love for UNICEF album. Please send any photo up to 200kb with your name and where you are in the world to psfrmanila@unicef.org from February 8 to 14, 2010. Happy Valentine’s Day from your UNICEF family! Click away for children’s rights!
Because I believe in UNICEF’s projects and worked with them in the past, and welcome the inspiration for taking more photos, I sent in my entries of course. My nephews were very willing participants too!
Adam and AJ were here on the day I decided we would join in. They so happily went to find a piece of paper, markers and crayons, and worked together to make this sign. While taking their photos, I also told them a little of what UNICEF does.
The next day, it was Esban’s turn. When he was very small, I took him with me to the UNICEF’s offices while running an errand for work. He doesn’t remember it anymore but it was a fun day. When I told him about it, and what UNICEF does, he said that it was like my old work at Asia ACTs. That part he remembers 🙂
We were talking about bloated tummies at work this morning, and how women get bloated during menstruation. I, of course, had to comment that such was the case with me. LOL. But also that I am bloated every time anyway. Haha. Seriously though, I feel bigger than ever. I feel and I look it. It’s sad really. I heard that bloating and constipation (which I suffer from sometimes too) are symptoms of a colon clogged with too much wastes. Yes, I have been reading up a bit on colon cleanse reviews and it does seem a good idea to do that every once in a while. Not just to lose weight too, but for overall wellness.
