Gone Too Soon

I woke up today with the news that one of my friends from high school has passed. We may not have been the best of friends but I think high school was totally different without her. Somehow, she always has news to share with us when we try to gather for dinner at least once or twice a year.

 She has a contagious laugh, so much juicy stories to tell us, and has great taste in food. 

I knew that she was sick for some time but no one dares to talk about it. I saw that she has chosen to live and enjoy her life.

 About two weeks ago, I had this dream about losing my teeth. Whenever I have that dream, someone I know would join God shortly. I did not expect it to be her.

I guess I will lack one face I know if ever we will still have our big clan family reunion.

 I will miss you my friend. I thank you for all the memories. It is just sinking in now how I will no longer see you during school reunions. I will always have the memories of going to your house or you in ours, of the countless birthdays, of sharing one crush but none will admit to it, the school plays, how you always have a quote about love and how much you wanted to play Jules in My Best Friend's Wedding since that is your favorite movie, your dramas in high school and now all the dinners we will have and will miss you since you we will no longer hear your stories.

I will pray that you find peace and I know God will shower you the love that you so talked about when you were still with us. We may not be always in good terms but I thank you for making my life colorful as well. I know you're in a better place now where there is no sickness and just simply happiness and love.

 I'll miss you. Rest in peace Valerie.

God Gave Me You

Finally the video is out for this song. Don't you just love Dave Barnes? To every girl out there, I hope and pray we each find a love like this.


http://video.aol.com/video-detail/dave-barnes-god-gave-me-you/3361293194

Rojas for Mayor

Ok fine. I'm not interested in politics or want any involvement with it in the future but this May 10...to any Ilonggo please spread the word.  Ike Rojas for mayor. Here's what your ballot should look like:

What to do on May 10

I got this from The Tangled Web. Since it's our first time for automated elections, hope the information below will help you.

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Hi everyone,

May 10^th is coming up in a few weeks and this date for elections is our big chance to put into government those who are competent and trustworthy enough to make the best decisions for our country and people.

Instead of trying to convince you who I think you should be voting for, I wanted to talk about how we can make sure each of our votes literally and technically, count. Our country’s new Automated Election System is only automated as far as counting and tallying is concerned. But the actual voting process is all you, and that’s pretty much manually done.

Lots of buzz is going around about a possible failure of election because of the machines, hacking, etc. etc. etc. You can read up about system security here: http://www.ibanangayon.ph/?q=content/faq and thought I don’t know myself how this is all going to pan out, what I know is that the chance of a failure of elections will be larger if a good percentage of us don’t show up at the voting stations because we have our doubts about the system, or if most of us vote incorrectly.

So let’s focus our energies at knowing how we can all make sure as individuals that we come out and vote, and that our own ballot is done correctly, because this is what we control.

Let’s make May 10^th count by making sure we know how to vote (not just wisely, but correctly).

0.     Know your voting precinct. It may have changed from where you usually vote because each precinct gets only ONE PCOS machine (the device used to count votes), so bigger precincts may have been distributed to other precincts this year.

Enter your details at http://www.comelec.gov.ph/precinctfinder/precinctfinder.aspx to know your precinct for sure.

1.     Present a valid, government-issued I.D. to the Board of Election table upon arrival at the precinct. They will give you a special voting pen and ballot folder.

Accepted IDs are voter’s ID, driver’s license, passport, SSS, etc.

2.     Proceed to the voting booth. Don’t rush. Shade the ovals next to your chosen candidates completely and carefully so the machine can read it. Do not fold or make any other marks on the ballot. No erasures may be made on the ballot. Make sure your hands are clean and dry and that you’re not sweating over the ballot sheet (pasmado much?) too. THIS IS IMPORTANT. We have to make absolutely sure the machine doesn’t reject it over such technicalities like this. YOU ONLY GET ONE BALLOT.

3.     Don’t over vote! Though it may be fun to shade circles, we only shade: 1 slot for President, 1 slot for VP, 12 slots for senators, 1 congressman, 1 partylist, 1 governor (provincial), a number of provincial councilors depending on population size (provincial), 1 mayor, and a number of city councilors depending on population size. Shading one too many circles will render that particular section invalid. So if you shaded for 13 senators instead of 12, none of them will get your vote – but the rest of your ballot will be valid.

However, you can under vote. So if you choose to vote for only 8 out of 12 senators, all 8 candidates will get your vote. In the instances you decide to abstain from voting for a particular position, just leave the entire section unshaded.

It would be good to have a kodigo or sample ballot with you. You can download a sample of the ballot for your voting district here: http://www.comelec.gov.ph/2010%20National_Local/ballot_templates.html

4.     When you are done voting, proceed to the PCOS machine. Feed your ballot into the machine (any side up), like you would a crisp P20 bill into a vending machine. When you’ve gotten the ballot in there properly, the machine will print you a receipt. Smile and say thanks!

5.     Return to the BOE desk to give back the folder and pen and get your right thumb inked.

Success! It really wasn’t so hard, right?

The elderly, handicapped, and illiterate may be assisted by a family member from the voting booth all the way until the PCOS machine.

I anticipate there may be people at the voting precinct holding up the line because they are unsure of how to go about this new process. Think of it as 300 people waiting in line at the ATM, all of them having no clue what to do when it’s their turn. Help them along with these guidelines.

Hope you can help me pass on this information to your friends, family, colleagues, household help, church, barangay, etc. etc.

It may be one vote, but it is one vote. Let’s help make all the one votes count!

Thank you for reading this! And to those political mudslingers who spam my cellphone inbox at 3am, you guys are scumbags!

Cheers,

Cels

PS: I’m not affiliated with the COMELEC or any poll watch group, so everything here is summarized from:

www.comelec.gov.ph

http://halalan-2007.blogspot.com/2010/01/know-how-to-vote-on-2010-philippine.html

www.ibanangayon.ph

The Wanabe Chef attempt#2: Lenten Special

My biggest critic strikes again, this time though during good friday. Since we have no funds for an out of town trip and it seems much better to have a rest day and a food day minus the meat of course. I made two meals for Marlon and me.

For lunch we had Steamed Garlic Dory and Buttered Steamed Broccoli. Yes as a preview this is a fish and broccoli day since that's all we have. This seemed to have passed his taste test though. Fish was lightly seasoned with oyster sauce and sesame oil.

 For dinner we had pan fried herbed Dory and Steamed Broccoli with Cheese Sauce. He prefered it to be seasoned with just soy sauce. Fine, next time I will do that.

 We had two bags of Marty's vegetarian chicharon and Pringles seaweed flavor chips. Chicharon is good and oily as usual. Pringles was just ok. I prefer the original one. 

Not bad for the Lenten edition. I will return with better food.Oh well at least he still looked happy.

 

Woo Ri Restaurant

Everytime I end up eating at Woo Ri, it's always with my baby sister Celine. She thinks this is the cheapest place where she can eat authentic Korean food. She insisted that we eat here again but I made sure that we order the Grilled Pork Belly.

The place is run by a Korean family and can be located in a townhouse in Adriatico st. near Rizal Memorial Coliseum. Most of the Korean students studying and residing in the area eat at this place, which I think is a good sign.

As mentioned, I made sure we order the Grilled Pork Belly (200 PHP minimum of 2 servings). The grilled the pork in the restaurant area and serve it really hot. They gave us two sauces, the sesame oil and salt and denjang sauce, a red paste to season the pork. Lettuce leaves, garlic, chili and a bowl of white rice was also served. The best way to eat this is to dip the pork in both sauces, place it in a lettuce wrap, add a spoonful of rice, garlic and chili then wrap it up.

The meal also comes with complimentary Korean side dishes like Kimchi, potatoes, bean sprouts, cabbage and others that are available for that day. We were lucky they were also serving tofu soup that day.

This place is also budget friendly especially that they have big servings. Other dishes to try are, Kimchi rice (200 PHP), Bibimbop (200 PHP) and Korean Beef Stew (250 PHP).

How to get here: From Taft avenue (coming from La Salle), make a right turn at Pablo Ocampo (Vito Cruz), then make a left turn at Adriatico st. Won Ri is located at the 1st set of townhouses in the area. It's in between a carinderia and another Korean restaurant.