I love ANTM's Tyra Banks!

Ive been a fan of the show! Feeling model or secretly wanting to be a model. Hmm, that might still be true in the future, i hope! Anyway found this while bloghopping. Tyra Banks greeting the filipinos mabuhay!

tyra's twit..

Mabuhay ka din tyra!

Bagsik ni Typhoon Ondoy

Tried our luck to go to alabang today via carmona, but SLEX at southwoods was flooded up to the waist. Glad we had a u turn slot and re-routed to tagaytay then via amadeo. I knew there's a storm coming pero sumuong pa rin kame sa baha. That's what you get for not watching tv or even listening to the radio or just plain being pasaway. Today was a little bit tiring. All the rain and all the videos i watched on tv are about the sad scenarios due to typhoon ondong.

a common site here at manila area - baha all over the city!

More sad news is that my sister's flight to boracay is rescheduled due to bad weather, a friend is stuck in his car for 12 hrs and will be sleeping in gasoline station tonight, tomorrow's run was also cancelled. More importantly though is many of my kababayans might not have a warm bed to sleep in tonight. More worst is that homes are destroyed, people died. i do hope things will get better soon!

New Balance Power Run Raising Hope

EVENT: New Balance Power Run Raising Hope
Beneficiaries: Carewell Community, I can serve, Philippine Cancer Society
When: Spetember 27, 2009
Where: Bonifacio Global City

race route for the 5k category

It was months since my last run, the earth run. Due to financial and time constraints, i have been lazy to join runs. I do run in the area where i work. This week, i will have to do trainings in preparation for sunday's run. Of the the runs this september, i chose the NB run because i heard, they won't be profiting from it. All proceeds will be given to the beneficiaries of this run.

Good luck to all runners. Hope we will be blessed with good weather. rain or shine, i will run though. :)

Tulong sa Lantuyang by ADTREk Mountaineering Club

What: ADTREK ' s “Tulong sa Lantuyang: Ikalawang Yugto Tungo sa Kinabukasan”
Where: Lantuyang, Baco, Oriental Mindoro
When: August 25-26, 2007

Aside from mountaineering, Adtrek is also dedicated to helping our fellow kababayans. I remember this first outreach program i joined with them. We went to Lantuyang, distribute school supplies, learnign amterials and books; repair of classrooms, educational film showing and games.

First ride sa Ro-ro


Sample backpacks ready to be given away


teaching aldo - my new friend


aldo special mention - most colorful whale

i am happy to have spared some time with our new mangyan friends. till next time... Aldo might be grown up by now. it has been two years since. time flies fast...

The Reversals of Fortune

Chuck Bass: We could never be boring.
Blair Waldorf: You say that, but I know you. You're Chuck Bass.
Chuck Bass: I'm not Chuck Bass without you.

so excited for the next season! what's in store for bff's serena and blair? hmm...

Prepared Remarks of President Barack Obama Back to School Event

reposting from: http://www.whitehouse.gov/MediaResources/PreparedSchoolRemarks/

Arlington, Virginia
September 8, 2009

The President: Hello everyone – how’s everybody doing today? I’m here with students at Wakefield High School in Arlington, Virginia. And we’ve got students tuning in from all across America, kindergarten through twelfth grade. I’m glad you all could join us today.

I know that for many of you, today is the first day of school. And for those of you in kindergarten, or starting middle or high school, it’s your first day in a new school, so it’s understandable if you’re a little nervous. I imagine there are some seniors out there who are feeling pretty good right now, with just one more year to go. And no matter what grade you’re in, some of you are probably wishing it were still summer, and you could’ve stayed in bed just a little longer this morning.

I know that feeling. When I was young, my family lived in Indonesia for a few years, and my mother didn’t have the money to send me where all the American kids went to school. So she decided to teach me extra lessons herself, Monday through Friday – at 4:30 in the morning.

Now I wasn’t too happy about getting up that early. A lot of times, I’d fall asleep right there at the kitchen table. But whenever I’d complain, my mother would just give me one of those looks and say, "This is no picnic for me either, buster."

So I know some of you are still adjusting to being back at school. But I’m here today because I have something important to discuss with you. I’m here because I want to talk with you about your education and what’s expected of all of you in this new school year.

Now I’ve given a lot of speeches about education. And I’ve talked a lot about responsibility.

I’ve talked about your teachers’ responsibility for inspiring you, and pushing you to learn.

I’ve talked about your parents’ responsibility for making sure you stay on track, and get your homework done, and don’t spend every waking hour in front of the TV or with that Xbox.

I’ve talked a lot about your government’s responsibility for setting high standards, supporting teachers and principals, and turning around schools that aren’t working where students aren’t getting the opportunities they deserve.

But at the end of the day, we can have the most dedicated teachers, the most supportive parents, and the best schools in the world – and none of it will matter unless all of you fulfill your responsibilities. Unless you show up to those schools; pay attention to those teachers; listen to your parents, grandparents and other adults; and put in the hard work it takes to succeed.

And that’s what I want to focus on today: the responsibility each of you has for your education. I want to start with the responsibility you have to yourself.

Every single one of you has something you’re good at. Every single one of you has something to offer. And you have a responsibility to yourself to discover what that is. That’s the opportunity an education can provide.

Maybe you could be a good writer – maybe even good enough to write a book or articles in a newspaper – but you might not know it until you write a paper for your English class. Maybe you could be an innovator or an inventor – maybe even good enough to come up with the next iPhone or a new medicine or vaccine – but you might not know it until you do a project for your science class. Maybe you could be a mayor or a Senator or a Supreme Court Justice, but you might not know that until you join student government or the debate team.

And no matter what you want to do with your life – I guarantee that you’ll need an education to do it. You want to be a doctor, or a teacher, or a police officer? You want to be a nurse or an architect, a lawyer or a member of our military? You’re going to need a good education for every single one of those careers. You can’t drop out of school and just drop into a good job. You’ve got to work for it and train for it and learn for it.

And this isn’t just important for your own life and your own future. What you make of your education will decide nothing less than the future of this country. What you’re learning in school today will determine whether we as a nation can meet our greatest challenges in the future.

You’ll need the knowledge and problem-solving skills you learn in science and math to cure diseases like cancer and AIDS, and to develop new energy technologies and protect our environment. You’ll need the insights and critical thinking skills you gain in history and social studies to fight poverty and homelessness, crime and discrimination, and make our nation more fair and more free. You’ll need the creativity and ingenuity you develop in all your classes to build new companies that will create new jobs and boost our economy.

We need every single one of you to develop your talents, skills and intellect so you can help solve our most difficult problems. If you don’t do that – if you quit on school – you’re not just quitting on yourself, you’re quitting on your country.

Now I know it’s not always easy to do well in school. I know a lot of you have challenges in your lives right now that can make it hard to focus on your schoolwork.

I get it. I know what that’s like. My father left my family when I was two years old, and I was raised by a single mother who struggled at times to pay the bills and wasn’t always able to give us things the other kids had. There were times when I missed having a father in my life. There were times when I was lonely and felt like I didn’t fit in.

So I wasn’t always as focused as I should have been. I did some things I’m not proud of, and got in more trouble than I should have. And my life could have easily taken a turn for the worse.

But I was fortunate. I got a lot of second chances and had the opportunity to go to college, and law school, and follow my dreams. My wife, our First Lady Michelle Obama, has a similar story. Neither of her parents had gone to college, and they didn’t have much. But they worked hard, and she worked hard, so that she could go to the best schools in this country.

Some of you might not have those advantages. Maybe you don’t have adults in your life who give you the support that you need. Maybe someone in your family has lost their job, and there’s not enough money to go around. Maybe you live in a neighborhood where you don’t feel safe, or have friends who are pressuring you to do things you know aren’t right.

But at the end of the day, the circumstances of your life – what you look like, where you come from, how much money you have, what you’ve got going on at home – that’s no excuse for neglecting your homework or having a bad attitude. That’s no excuse for talking back to your teacher, or cutting class, or dropping out of school. That’s no excuse for not trying.

Where you are right now doesn’t have to determine where you’ll end up. No one’s written your destiny for you. Here in America, you write your own destiny. You make your own future.

That’s what young people like you are doing every day, all across America.

Young people like Jazmin Perez, from Roma, Texas. Jazmin didn’t speak English when she first started school. Hardly anyone in her hometown went to college, and neither of her parents had gone either. But she worked hard, earned good grades, got a scholarship to Brown University, and is now in graduate school, studying public health, on her way to being Dr. Jazmin Perez.

I’m thinking about Andoni Schultz, from Los Altos, California, who’s fought brain cancer since he was three. He’s endured all sorts of treatments and surgeries, one of which affected his memory, so it took him much longer – hundreds of extra hours – to do his schoolwork. But he never fell behind, and he’s headed to college this fall.

And then there’s Shantell Steve, from my hometown of Chicago, Illinois. Even when bouncing from foster home to foster home in the toughest neighborhoods, she managed to get a job at a local health center; start a program to keep young people out of gangs; and she’s on track to graduate high school with honors and go on to college.

Jazmin, Andoni and Shantell aren’t any different from any of you. They faced challenges in their lives just like you do. But they refused to give up. They chose to take responsibility for their education and set goals for themselves. And I expect all of you to do the same.

That’s why today, I’m calling on each of you to set your own goals for your education – and to do everything you can to meet them. Your goal can be something as simple as doing all your homework, paying attention in class, or spending time each day reading a book. Maybe you’ll decide to get involved in an extracurricular activity, or volunteer in your community. Maybe you’ll decide to stand up for kids who are being teased or bullied because of who they are or how they look, because you believe, like I do, that all kids deserve a safe environment to study and learn. Maybe you’ll decide to take better care of yourself so you can be more ready to learn. And along those lines, I hope you’ll all wash your hands a lot, and stay home from school when you don’t feel well, so we can keep people from getting the flu this fall and winter.

Whatever you resolve to do, I want you to commit to it. I want you to really work at it.

I know that sometimes, you get the sense from TV that you can be rich and successful without any hard work -- that your ticket to success is through rapping or basketball or being a reality TV star, when chances are, you’re not going to be any of those things.

But the truth is, being successful is hard. You won’t love every subject you study. You won’t click with every teacher. Not every homework assignment will seem completely relevant to your life right this minute. And you won’t necessarily succeed at everything the first time you try.

That’s OK. Some of the most successful people in the world are the ones who’ve had the most failures. JK Rowling’s first Harry Potter book was rejected twelve times before it was finally published. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and he lost hundreds of games and missed thousands of shots during his career. But he once said, "I have failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

These people succeeded because they understand that you can’t let your failures define you – you have to let them teach you. You have to let them show you what to do differently next time. If you get in trouble, that doesn’t mean you’re a troublemaker, it means you need to try harder to behave. If you get a bad grade, that doesn’t mean you’re stupid, it just means you need to spend more time studying.

No one’s born being good at things, you become good at things through hard work. You’re not a varsity athlete the first time you play a new sport. You don’t hit every note the first time you sing a song. You’ve got to practice. It’s the same with your schoolwork. You might have to do a math problem a few times before you get it right, or read something a few times before you understand it, or do a few drafts of a paper before it’s good enough to hand in.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you need it. I do that every day. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength. It shows you have the courage to admit when you don’t know something, and to learn something new. So find an adult you trust – a parent, grandparent or teacher; a coach or counselor – and ask them to help you stay on track to meet your goals.

And even when you’re struggling, even when you’re discouraged, and you feel like other people have given up on you – don’t ever give up on yourself. Because when you give up on yourself, you give up on your country.

The story of America isn’t about people who quit when things got tough. It’s about people who kept going, who tried harder, who loved their country too much to do anything less than their best.

It’s the story of students who sat where you sit 250 years ago, and went on to wage a revolution and found this nation. Students who sat where you sit 75 years ago who overcame a Depression and won a world war; who fought for civil rights and put a man on the moon. Students who sat where you sit 20 years ago who founded Google, Twitter and Facebook and changed the way we communicate with each other.

So today, I want to ask you, what’s your contribution going to be? What problems are you going to solve? What discoveries will you make? What will a president who comes here in twenty or fifty or one hundred years say about what all of you did for this country?

Your families, your teachers, and I are doing everything we can to make sure you have the education you need to answer these questions. I’m working hard to fix up your classrooms and get you the books, equipment and computers you need to learn. But you’ve got to do your part too. So I expect you to get serious this year. I expect you to put your best effort into everything you do. I expect great things from each of you. So don’t let us down – don’t let your family or your country or yourself down. Make us all proud. I know you can do it.

Thank you, God bless you, and God bless America.

Pasalubong Galore

This week was full of pasalubongs from friends. We Filipinos do love love bringing home pasalubongs and giving them to our families and friends.Its one of those traits that sets us apart from other nationalities. So here are some of what i received!

roasted highland legumes: iligan's cheding's

Honey spread from Bohol Bee Farm fr ecks

Reese chcolates from maimai

Puerto Princesa City Tour

Iwahig Penal Colony

This was our first stop on our city tour. We rented a tricycle for the city tour. other trykes offer 600 pesos for 4 hours tour while others offer 100 per hour. Also, you can just avail the package of 600 for a city tour. Your service is an aircon van and travel is much faster. Prisoners are free to roam around the compound. This is a prison area where the inmates are given a chance to become farmers and workers in a vast land.


They also sell hand made crafts which are being sold in their souvenir shop.

An inmate took this picture for us. :)


After buying our pasalubongs, inmates again offered key chains/souvenirs. Pwede lang daw sila mag-offer kapag nakalabas na ung mga turista. Actually, mas magagaganda pa nga at mas bago ang mga gawa nila kesa sa mga andun sa shop. So you might want to consider buying from them too when you visit iwahig prison.

Crocodile farm

Crocodile farm Opps! this farm opens at 2pm on holidays!

Baker's Hill

life size cartoons


mini aviary


goodies for your eyes only!

Baker's Hill We had lunch at Baker's Hill.

Bawal na pong magpasok ng pagkain sa Baker's Hill. MAy corkage fee. Just a reminder to those who will be going to Baker's Hill.

Mitra's Ranch

After a sumptous meal at baker's Hill, next on out list was Mitra's ranch.

overlooking the hunda bay

Rancho Sta. Monica, the Mitra's hilltop ranch house of former speaker ramon v. mitra on the top of the hill overlooking honda bay islands It has a magnificent view of the city proper and honda bay. It is also a favorite pasyalan for families and barkadas.

After Mitra's ranch, we went to the palengke for more pasalubong shopping! we bought cashew nuts. There are also kasoy being sold at the airport so you might also skip this one.

Popo- potipot!

potipot island is located at uacon, candelaria, zambales and is accessible by a 5 min banca ride



preparing for an overnight stay. we had to bring our own drinking water. no water source and electricity on the island



"kailan ba kita masisilayan muli? o popo-potipot island! "

kimmy and brutus

i was hesitant at first to watch this movie. on the last day of my home visit, my mama and my sister bonded by watching this movie. it was a very funny movie. the kind of will ferrel movies. puro ka-shongahan! eugene domingo was great in acting out two characters! perfect for de-stressing!

Paparazzi

i'm your biggest fan, i'll follow you until you love me

Cheap Palawan Accomodation

Being a budget traveler, I always look for the cheapest but comfortable place to stay. Fan rooms are okay with me since I spend most of my time touring the place. Upon searching the internet, these were my top searches for a cheap accommodation. These were my choices when I was looking for cheap accommodations in Puerto Princesa, Palawan.

1. Aniceto's Pension 71 Reynoso Street, Puerto Princesa City

Telephone: 6348.4346667
Email: arc_tess@yahoo.com.ph

2. Banwa Pension
122 Liwanag Street Puerto Princesa City 5300
email: Jane@banwa.com; info@banwa.com

rooms available
Priestess Room ( Double Room-king size bed with private bath ) : P750
Gugma Room Primera ( Double Room with bath ): P700
Gugma Room Segunda ( Double Room 2 ): P450
Single Room : P350
Dorm Bed : P250/ per night

Note: we have 2 dormitory One has 8 beds(bathroom inside the room) Other one has 5 bed(common bathroom outside the room)

3. Manny's Guest House
#2 B. Mendoza Street Puerto Princesa City, 5300 for reservation: 725-1938/0919-8871911 email: emmanuellucena@yahoo.com website: mannysguesthouse.sulit.com.ph www.travel-philippines.com

I am so happy we stayed at Manny's Guest House. Sir Manny was very responsive when i first started emailing him about the room rates. We stayed there for two nights and we slept soundly. There are three spacious fan rooms on the second floor. the largest room has a double and 2 single beds and costs P600 per night. The other 2 rooms both have double beds and is priced at P400 and P500. Unlike other guest house, Manny's guest house has ocean views. So the weather is cool at night too.

ocean view

common area


guest foreigners also stays here

Manny' Guest house has a common bathroom, common living room and you can cook your own food too at minimal fee. Tours can also be arranged by sir Manny. Wi-fi is also available at P25 per day.

with sir manny and family