Life, Day by Day

SM City Bacolod had the grand opening of The SM Store last April 19, 2013.  Although I was invited, I decided to forgo the event since I could not leave the office that morning.  Besides I really don't like early morning events and this was for 8 AM!  The new department store has three floors that are filled with merchandise enough to make any shopaholic happy for the rest of her life  :)

My cousin works in Saigon and Hanoi, and he has entertained us with stories about his great food experience there.  Well, I have always been curious about Vietnam and was very surprised to learn that there is a relatively new Vietnamese restaurant in town that my blogger and non-blogger friends are raving about.  Three weeks ago, I was invited to join some of them for food tasting in the Saigon Cafe-Garden Resto , unfortunately because of myriad reasons (foremost of which was the time and distance), I have been unable to go.  However, my blogger friends Rick Gotera of Adventures of Hijo A de Pongol  who made the first two invitations, Sigrid Lo of Mama Cooks  and Glady Reyes of Experience Negros  wrote great reviews of the place and they must have love it because in a span of two weeks, they all went back a few more times bringing with them their families.  I feel bad not coming along and so, to atone for this, I am posting some pictures taken from th...

My children Big Brother and Preemie Girl had their graduations this year.  Big Brother finished his Bachelor of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies last October 2012 yet, but he is included in the 2012-2013 annual yearbook since there are no semestral graduations at the University of St. La Salle.  He no longer joined the graduation ceremonies last March because he has started working last January and could not get time off. I am very proud of him and so grateful that God has blessed him with a well paying first job :) And my daughter Preemie Girl?  Well, she also had her culmination ceremony, with a recognition award.......from Kindergarten! Hahaha!

It's funny that despite the fact that I have been a parish volunteer for several years now, I never really wondered why we call the commemoration of the Passion and Death of Jesus Christ, a Good Friday?  I just took it for granted that it is the way it is...up until I listened to the Society of the Divine Word televison presentation of the Seven Last Words this afternoon.  I am embarrassed to say that maybe because this is also the first time that I am giving it my 100% attention, it is only now that I understand why in spite of the terrible events of this day, it is indeed a Good Friday .  The Second Word says it all.

I was driving to work this morning and as usual, I found myself getting annoyed by many wrong practices but commonly done by people that it got me thinking (while waiting for the traffic lights to change)... are these people either clueless or plain thoughtless that they are doing the wrong thing, OR are they people who know that they are doing wrong, but are inconsiderate and plainly just don't care, OR these people are aware that what they did is not quite right but then everyone is doing it, so they might as well do it too, OR people are so used to mediocrity that this has also become the principle they follow in life.

My family's first Honda was not just one but two motorbikes which my father used to go around our small farm.  A few years later both were turned to motorcabs and sold.  This was in the mid 70's when Honda was still known more as a motorcycle brand rather than a car maker.  This all changed when Honda designed the Civic and established itself as a serious car manufacturer.  In the United States, Carr's Honda is a trusted dealer for Honda cars.  Aside from the Civic, there's the very popular Honda CR-V, a sports utility vehicle because of it's compact and classy design. When my sister-in-law bought a red CR-V three years ago I must admit, I felt a twinge of envy :)    I remembered my first ride on a Honda CR-V with a lot of happy thoughts.

Last January 18, 2013 I attended Rappler 's Move.PH Chat Series held at the University of St. La Salle in Bacolod.  Titled " Si Nanay, Si Tatay, Si Toto kag Si Inday ," the rescheduled forum was Rappler's first for 2013, with the overall theme, "Social Media for Social Change".  But the day before that, a few people came to meet up with Chay Hofileña, Voltaire Tupaz and Stacy De Jesus at Cafe Bob's for an informal chat on current political and social issues. We were representatives from civil society, NGO's, reporters from the USLS college paper, The Spectrum, one journalist, a lawyer and of course myself, representing the Negros Bloggers. The discussions ranged from political dynasties in Negros, social media and how this will influence election results in May to the RH Bill (now law) and the idea of a Catholic vote.  We also talked about the reality of still feudalistic practices that some landowners do when it comes to ensuring that their f...