sleepless nights are over .... NOT

hisashiburi desu ne. :)

it's been a long time since i last posted. i've been so busy. right now, i'm just waiting for one sensei to contact me so that i can get his signature for my thesis. today is the deadline, but when Nga and i went to his office around 1pm, he wasn't there. until now, we haven't heard from him yet. so we don't know what to do.

anyway, the draft of my thesis is already finished. i have to review it once again. and prepare for next friday's final presentation. the reviewers will also give their comments on friday and possibly more comments after that. we need to revise again our thesis to include their comments. it will still be a lot of work... so my sleepless night are not yet over, i'm afraid. but it's getting there... just a few more weeks...

papa's 65th birthday

my father celebrated his 65th birthday yesterday, april 16 2007. my dear sister, aiza, requested me to post his pictures here in my blog. i missed the yummy lechon they prepared last night. aiza said that papa insisted that he's still 64, and complained why the candles are for 65. whenever someone asks him how old he is, he always answer 64. i guess he already stopped counting last year, huh.

i called papa yesterday, around lunchtime to greet him. but actually, i also wanted to check if he received my gift. i ordered from filgifts.com an SM card, pre-loaded with 2k. it's kind of a gift certificate, but it's also re-loadable. i couldn't give him flowers, so i tried to search for other things to give. i wanted to give some kind of cake or pastries, but they need about 2weeks of lead-time. so, i ended up giving the gc. anyway, he didn't thank me right away, so i thought maybe it didn't arrive yet. then, he suddenly said he received an lbc package around 8am. i asked where it is from, he said from me. haha he said he didn't open it yet because he was very busy. i told him to open it and he did right then and said thanks (although he still wasn't sure how he can use it. haha). i called again last time, and talked to my mother, too. when i called, they were waiting for papa to show up, already hungry.

i wish my father lots of blessings. may he still have a long life ahead of him. may he be more relaxed and happy.

i've always admired my father. he's the 2nd of 7 children, and the eldest son. he's always supported my grandparents. i forgot at what age, he went with my grandfather's step-brother, selling pillows & blankets. they reached cebu, he studied there. but, for some reasons, he didn't finish his mechanical engineering (sakto ba?) course [sayop daw. it's civil engineering]. he met my mother there, got married in 1972, relocated to cagayan de oro(cdo), and raised the 3 of us there. my father opened a sari-sari store in cdo. it was our only means of living. the earnings weren't great. the store started small. but, through my father's hard work, we were able to go to an exclusive girls' school (now co-ed) in elementary & high school. in college, we went to the best university in the city. and, our only source of income was the sari-sari store. so, i am so grateful to my father for bringing us up the way he did.

again, all the best to papa. belated happy birthday, and thanks for everything.

here are some pictures...

a new post

yeah.yeah.i've never posted an entry for more than a week now. i've been busy. and, i didn't have the time to write anything. i'm still busy, but i'm still confused on what i should start doing first. so, i decided to just write here.

i have more hanami pictures and will post them later.

last apr7, jay & i went to abiko with lloyd, lily, and doc. we watched lloyd's softball game, and cheered for their team. we saw the test engineers there, and cheered for them, too. in the end, lloyd's team won. after the game, we went to shinjuku to meet emman and grace. we finally met roland. grace wanted to go to odaiba (she hasn't been there yet), but lloyd and jay were tired and wanted to go to nanay's. the night before, nanay said she wanted to spend saturday night at jay's apartment. so, lily called nanay with lloyd as director, "nay...nisugot na sila jay ug ryze.....(long pause, nalipay si nanay).... nga sa inyo mi moadto"..or something like that. nanay can't do anything. when she said they have to go to church early the next morning, we replied that we would take the last train home. and, we would just buy dinner on the way. so, we ate kfc at their house, played mahjong, and karaoke. :D

on easter sunday, jay & i went to church in yotsuya, had lunch in yoshinoya with grace & met julius c there. then, we went to aki to buy some stuff. we then went to sendagi to get jay's remaining things. we went to ookurayama eki to meet lloyd & get our purefoods tj hotdogs. then, went home.

i left for nagaoka on monday. i met Nga at ueno eki. at nagaoka eki, i went home directly, while Nga still did some shopping at ito yokado's 100yen shop. emman texted that he will arrive around 6pm. so, i still had at least 1hour to prepare. i went home to clean my room and cook rice. i planned to go to mae's apartment to have dinner there, but since their rice cooker is small, i decided to cook rice and bring there. i didn't have time to cook anything else, since the meat was frozen. so, then i went to eki and was just in time to meet emman as he exited the ticket gate. we went home first so that emman could deposit his bag at my place. we took the rice and walked to mae's apartment. on the way, we stopped by febri's. we ate dinner at mae's and talked a lot. we walked back home past 10pm.

on tuesday, emman & i went to my university. we agreed to eat lunch at the cafeteria. i left emman at the international exchange room so that he can check email and blog. i had to go to the lab to do something, and mae had a class. we met him again around 12nn and went to the cafeteria to eat. he spent the afternoon in niigata.

on wednesday, i left for school without him. he planned to arrive around 12nn and we'll have lunch together (i cooked sinigang) with mae. after lunch, he left for sendai. he hasn't blogged about it, but he said he almost didn't make it to the bus stop in time. he had to run and need to arrange some of his stuff when he got off the bus.

on wednesday afternoon, we have a scheduled zemi, but we spent it rearranging our lab. i transferred to the other side, where i can always see sensei, when he's here. someone commented that we are brave (me, nga, zaidi) for staying here, where sensei is also staying. because normally, students would'nt want to stay where the sensei can always see them.

last saturday, i still went to jusco, walking, even though the wind was very strong. mae came by bike to the apartment around lunchtime (had to borrow money from her since i forgot to withdraw). we left together, separated near 7-11. i then walked to daiso and jusco. i bought 2 puzzles and 1 frame. while waiting for the bus, i had a difficulty holding the frame because the wind was blowing it very hard. i started on the puzzle in the evening, while watching avatar. i continued on sunday, still watching avatar. i finished avatar around dinnertime. so, i concentrated on the puzzle. i was about to stop, when i realized that only a few pieces were left. so, i decided to finish it, and i did by 130am.


my first "illuminating" mickey puzzle


the puzzle i just finished last weekend


my next puzzle




now, i'm back here in the school. i'm going to do what i should do.

oh, before i forget, jay bought a pink dslite for me last saturday. yippee! he'll have to use it first, since i'm far away here.

sakura....sakura....

i wanted to write the lyrics of the song, sakura, but then i realized that all i know are those two words from the song!

last saturday, i went to tokyo for the hanami. lloyd told me to get a map so that i will know how to go to their location. i tried, but i got lost. when i finally found them, jay & joeyphus arrived only less than 5 minutes later. i was supposed to arrive at least 15 minutes earlier than them. i really don't have any sense of direction, even with a map.

that day, there were so many people at shinjuku gyoen. but, it's big, there's plenty of space for everyone. when i arrived around 3pm, many people were going home already, but still many others were just going in. we took pictures, and since they close at 430pm, we left around that time. then, we went to have coffee somewhere, went to bic camera (bought dong's digicam), had dinner at ootoya, and lastly went to yodobashi camera (bought jay's ps3 & addie's psp).

on sunday, jay & i went to their ward office to have his address changed. when we went to the station (the bus stop is there), we noticed that they have some sakura festival. we took pictures there, but didn't eat their bbq. instead, we ate at kfc. then, we went to the ward office, then back to the station to go to kawasaki eki. the mass started at 130pm, we were about 10mins late. there were so many people. and since it was palm sunday, the mass took longer than usual. i had to endure standing (was using boots) for about 1.5hours. after church, we went to eat crepe, went to yodobashi camera (jay bought some cable for his ps3), then met lloyd, lily, doc tess at jiyugaoka to borrow lloyd's keyboard (they were on their way to hear mass at roppongi). since my feet hurt so much, jay had to prepare dinner (longganisa & itlog maalat), while i watched wedding bells.

i came back to nagaoka yesterday. now, i'm in the university. this morning, i listened to a presentation by a turkish professor about turkey & its languages. now i'm going to go back to reading some previous works that are somehow related to my thesis topic.

here are some pictures... will add more later.

rest days

i'm glad for weekends. i can rest. whether it's spent in tokyo (mahjong, wii, overnyt) or here at home just watching movies or even doing nothing, i still consider it rest days. on these days, i try not to think about school. although i'm supposed to think about my research since weeks ago, i still haven't spent any weekend doing that. i hope to change that next month, though. i really do need to spend even my weekends for my research.

i'm going to tokyo again tomorrow. the bisdakgaijins will have a hanami party tomorrow at shinjuku park. they planned to be there at 11am, but i'll just see them there at 2pm since my train leaves at 827am.

i'm just relaxing right now, chatting with a friend, blogging, spamming. i've been so busy last night preparing my presentation, i wasn't able to cook for my lunch and dinner today. so, i just bought bento for lunch, and had sardines for dinner. now, i'm going to start preparing my bag for tomorrow.

bisdakgaijins, see u tomorrow. :D

おめでとうございます,和田-さん

by phone mail:

my email (3/26 17:16):
congratulations!
おめでとうございます。

-ライザ-

reply (3/26 17:32):
ありがとう！Ryzeには本当にお世話になった！ライザのおかげで卒業できたし！ジェイにもよろしく！

sardines or pork & beans for dinner?

i chose pork & beans over chili sardines. though i think sardines is better than pork & beans. but i'm not in the mood for eating spicy food right now, especially since the rice left is not that much. and i also want to eat itlog na maalat. i think it wouldn't go well with sardines. :lol

i think royal tru-orange would be a good beverage.

itadakimasu!

welcome, spring

i feel like it's spring already. with only a little snow here, it seems spring has already arrived. at this time last year, the snow was just starting to melt.

i haven't turned on my heater since friday evening. i washed my towels yesterday, after lunch. so, this morning, i towel-dried myself with a still-wet towel.

there was a little drizzle when i came to school today. i left my umbrella at mae's apartment, when i went there last night. the forecast for this afternoon is sunny. i do hope it will be.

today is the graduation ceremony of the B4 and M2 students of gidai. 6 M2 students and 3 B4 students will graduate from our lab. congrats to them!

earthquake

japan experiences several earthquakes every year. this morning, an earthquake woke me up around 945am. i wasn't fully-awake when the quake continued for several seconds. after it stopped, i looked at the tv, waiting for the news about the earthquake. they usually show some bulletin regarding safety measured. thank goodness, there's no need to worry for our area. i don't know the magnitude of the quake that hit nagaoka, since the news is focused on ishikawa-ken. the magnitude there was 7.1! it was about the same magnitude as the earthquake that happened in nagaoka on oct 2004 (glad i wasn't here yet) that damaged a lot of houses. i keep on reassuring myself that a big quake won't happen in the nagaoka soon because it had a big one in 2004. on the news, about 130pm, 1 person had died and 90 people have been injured.

panic time!

it's now time to panic. but i still haven't started to. i hope i can start soon. 'coz i only have 2 months left to do what i have to do.

since last night, i've got stomachache. i don't know whether it's because of the 2 cups of ice cream i had, or because i didn't have a proper lunch. whatever it is, it doesn't matter. i feel a little better now.

our deadline is on may 24. i have to make a presentation for next friday. i still have no idea what i should put there. i hope i can start working on it tomorrow. yeah, it's a saturday. but i hope to do something tomorrow. i don't want to go sightseeing anymore. not for the next 2months. ugh!!!

anyway, gotta write here that jay transferred to miyazakidai from sendagi last saturday. i helped him pack his things. we slept at lloyd's place that night since we already sent the futon. on sunday, we went back to sendagi to continue cleaning and getting some other things. there are still some things left there, which we had planned to get on wednesday, but didn't.

on tuesday, i went to lily's place to have lunch. doc tess was there. after lunch, the 3 of us went to sakuragicho, just to show it to doc and have her picture taken there. we had cold stone ice cream (i got the mud pie mojo) for snacks. we were joined later by jay on our dinner at wendy's.

on wednesday, jay's company was supposed to have a hanami near asakusa eki. but, the sakura didn't bloom yet. so we just ate lunch at a restaurant, and took the boat trip to hinode pier and back. i forgot it was grace's birthday, until she called me. after the "hanami", jay and i looked for joel's requested book, then went to grace's. we then ate at denny's (thanks, grace). jay & i prepared some macaroni salad for the hanami, but only got to eat a few (at the boat), so we gave some to grace.

i came back here yesterday. on the train to nagaoka, i talked with a japanese lady from yokohama. she told me to visit kamakura, a nice place where there are temples. i'll visit someday. i didn't get her name, but it was a nice conversation.

gotta go home in a few minutes. i'm hungry.