What is the essence of life? - Being a Wallflower

What is your worth? and why are you living this kind of life?

Are you truly becoming what you want? or are you allowing other people to mold you into what they want you to become. Being 23 and all, I have realized that the world is cruel and harsh; it has people all around you telling you what to do and noticing all your flaws, but simply forgetting the beauty inside of you. They never really think before they speak, instead they speak with their heart's content not knowing if what they say can actually kill the person inside.

Sometimes I ask myself I'm just oversensitive or if I really should feel sad whenever people say I'm fat, or don't recognize the place I work in (my relatives have an issue with whether or not I work in a big company or not), or think I'm doing the wrong decisions.

I often go to sleep over thinking stuff and seeing all the good that other people have, and realizing that I really don't have anything good to brag about. Why? Well I guess I'm not rich, not sexy. not thin, not pretty, not too smart, not rich, not cool, plus I'm extremely shy and unsociable.

This past few months I have joined a hospitality club with hopes that I can actually regain my social skills and learn how to actively communicate with other people. But I guess that because I have very low self esteem and almost zero self confidence I having a hard time achieving it. There was even one time when I spoke to a guy and he told that he was sorry because he would probably not remember me. He was buzzed, but then again I think it was still half meant. It kinda crushed the insides of me because again, I proved to myself that I am a WALLFLOWER and I expect no one to remember me. People do ask for my name and I introduce myself to people but I also expect them to forget me after the night is over.

It kinda hurts that I already know that people will forget me since I think I'm not interesting at all, and I don't have anything to brag about. I seriously want to know how to be sociable and how to start a conversation right, if there was one accurate formula then I would do it straight away.

Some people just have that spunk, or they could be so physically attractive, or amazingly smart that could make people talk to them, but I guess I have none of that which makes me a wallflower a really good wallflower indeed. I usually cling onto my loud friends and end being the one who laughs at all their jokes.

I am perfectly fine with being alone, but sometimes I'm kind of getting sick of it.

Depressing Sundays - (For the First Time MV)

The Celtics lost...Pacquiao lost..and I don't have a boyfriend

this day seems so depressing..and to makes things worse I present a song that just slams it to me in the face

An Experiment

I just came up with an experiment today but I won't spill any details yet. I'm trying to stop laughing because the 'Project' sounds really absurd.


I will divulge on details on the next few days.


I'm not really expecting anything to happen. Just a few bad things such as:


-I might get cursed
-I might get blocked from a really popular social media site
-I might be embarrassed and humiliated by these people.

LOL

Ciao

Details to follow

~Leanne

Pretty and Rich (the Call me Maybe cover, Pinoy style)

This video is so HILARIOUS...but apparently after watching it the 'bitter' me suddenly sprung to life.

I seriously wish I was tall, rich, pretty, and had a hot boyfriend.

Oh well, maybe there is something in me that is worth envying too :)

Enjoy

xoxo

The Bookworm: Brisingr

I guess I'm gonna make 'The Bookworm' a regular post and place all the books I have on stash.

Basically I LOVE books. But sometimes, I get so tired reading them, especially books which do not have a constant 'exciting' moment where in you get that feeling of always wanting to flip to the next page.

Well, for most books, the only exciting part, is the cover.

So anyway..I bought another book today. ANOTHER BOOK, when I still haven't finished reading the last two I just bought months ago. damn.

Well I bought this one just because it was on sale. It's part of the Eragon book series (yeah, Eragon the movie is actually a book series too). Well, for starters I haven't read book 1 or 2 of the series, and here I am buying the third and last installment to the series. IMPULSIVE BUYER BA? hahaha

So I guess it was a real steal (but the book was a bit distressed, if you get what I mean. Di na sya mukhang bago). It was originally PHP674 and I got it for just PHP175...more than 50% off!!!

Since I don't have a decent camera, and I'm too lazy to take a photo and upload it. Here's a photo from the internet of the book cover.

 

xoxo

Chronic Wheeze at B-side, Malugay

Aside from my love for pinoy rap, I have also gained liking for local bands. Well, unlucky me our cable doesn't have MYX (LOL), which is the quote, un-quote, the number one music channel in the Philippines. Which is why I have to make an extra effort to learn and discover some of the new and upcoming local bands, which I do by streaming through twitter and facebook (really helpful :D).

Last April 24th me and Drei, attended Chronic Wheeze XXII at B-Side Malugay..please see poster below for details:

  

As always, "Filipino Time" prevails, the show started really late, and ended really late too. It ended around 4 am and I had to go to work the next day, but WTH. 

I guess the music scene here in the Philippines is striving, since there are still alot of kids like us who dig this kind of music and have not drowned in the Korean wave. LOL. Look, I have nothing against Korean music, but if Korean CDs have higher sales, than CDs by local artists, well then that's a different story.

Live painting by Chase

yes...it was so hot that everyone wanted to take their clothes off

book sale. I wasn't able to buy anything though, since I still have so many pending reads

 Oh my, they are the Chocolate Factory. You guys HAVE to listen to them. 

The Chongkeys. They all had matching shirts and this guy was so intense. GALING

 *stalker mode*. This is Eight Toleran / Ocho Toleran of Franco. He was like inches from me and we even got to talk to him for a bit. He was soo friendly. I was just too shy to have a photo op with him since it would catch too much attention within such a small crowd.

 

Front man of Wilabaliw. Ian Tayao. Awesome, ear drum smashing performance. 

 

the StickFiggas

 Franco. The band we all waited for, finally at around 'almost 4 AMish", it was their turn to play

Ocho Toleran again. :D

You know that weird moment when you actually saved your camera for a photo op with your favorite band members and your camera just f*cks up? HAHAHA yeah we waited until 4 AM for some legit photo ops, and this is what we got. 

xoxo

Fliptop - the first Filipino Rap Battle League

First time I heard about fliptop was through my brother who apparently downloaded all his favorite rap battles to his phone.

I told him, "What the hell is that?" of course, rap in the Philippines isn't so mainstream since all people want to hear are covers and remakes of old love american love songs. Most of the songs of local artists are merely remakes of old love foreign love songs and because of this the music industry is dying, or it might be dead already. Gone were the days of the E-heads and APO wherein the songs actually meant something. Why do artists nowadays keep reviving their songs? why? may they can't seem to write anything meaningful anymore.

So I stumbled upon Fliptop and the next thing you know it, I've watched so many videos and have been replaying each scene that deemed funny or "astig"

For those that think that pinoy rap is "whack", well wtf have you been listening to yo?

I'd like to say that these are the modern "Francisco Balagtas" of this generation. They're videos are scattered all over YouTube, I'm actually wondering why a majority of the major record label companies have not noticed them yet. Haven't they?

I really hope there would be one talent agency or record company who would sponsor these fellas, since they're really good and they deserve that chance. Something like YG in Korea who manages Big Bang, Tablo and 2NE1. If I had the money, I'd do that myself.

I hope it's never too late before these Filipino Shakespeares would get tired of doing their thing.

Note: I don't think they deserve to be on Youtube forever, they deserve to be recognized at a national and international level.They deserve to have albums each landing on the top spot in the local record stores and not some whack host/guy singing "Ikaw na nga...ang hinahanap ng pusoooo"..lol

Here are my favorite battle emcees:

Name: Zaito

this guy's so effin funny man, he has the heart too. 

Name: Abra

the cutest. hahaha, I've seen him improve through his videos. And he's probably one of the best out there.

Name: Tipsy D

one of the new guys. But he's really good...go watch his videos on youtube, he's done a lot of tagalog versions of english songs

Name: Loonie

I guess he's everyone's favorite. And he deserves to be everyone's favorite

Subscribe to the FLIPTOP page on Youtube.

My Favorite office foods

Before anything else, I guess I have to call April my "Lazy Month". Seriously, I always feel sleepy and I'm always too lazy to do anything. I've gone on a self proclaimed hiatus from writing (work writing that is) and on the last few days of my day job (before I go job hunting again for a new one), I seem to be on a lazy spell.

Oh well, so I just wanted to share some of my favorite foods at work. I DON'T COOK. Most people would bring packed lunch to work, but I totally refuse. Why?

-I'm too lazy to wake up early and cook.
-I'm too lazy to wash all the /dishes that I have used in cooking
-A lunch box is too heavy, and 'unfabulous'
-Packed lunch meals are always boring

So...I end up buying stuff at the mall or buy food somewhere else. I think that food bought elsewhere always tastes yummier. haha

So here are some of the top food choices during one whole day at the office:

I am no photographer so I've used up photos from the internet. I promise that if I can get a decent camera (holla at Sony or Nikon! which of your goodies is the best one to buy?. LOL), then I'll post better photos :)

1. Jollibee Spaghetti and Regular Yum

I am definitely the fast food junkie. This combo is definitely the BOMB! I love how the spaghetti is, it really reminds me of kids parties and happy things. And one whiff of that regular yum, and oh...I have no words...they are just so yummy. Other things I get whenever I eat at Jollibee, is their coffee float (it's a new one, I guess), the tuna pie, and the EPIC peach-mango pie.

2. Chocnut

  

 If other countries have M&Ms and Hershey's Kisses, well here in Manila we have Chocnut! No explanation needed, it's just chocolate and peanuts combined and it is AWESOME. It's the perfect comfort food at any time of the day and I will never get tired or it. This chocolate deserves a place at the 'Philippine Candy Hall of Fame' (if there is one). If you want you can send me an email or a tweet and I'll ship one pack to you. (I'm serious).

3. Great Taste White Coffee

 

I have no time and money to buy Starbucks, even if I am so inlove with Cafe Americano; and because of that I settle with those instant 3-in-1 coffee pouches. My favorite is Great Taste's White Coffee, I think it has more cream in it? Well nevertheless it's great, and it's cheap. I could drink three of these babies in one day at the office. Well, not so much now since it's summer and it's always scorching hot.

4. Nips

 Now you know how much of a junk food addict I am. So NIPS! It's like the local version of an M&M candy, but of course it's way cheaper. It's fun to munch on these babies especially when your stressed out or felling bad vibes on someone at the office.

5. Eggnog by Monde

The sweetest cookie on earth = EGGNOG. Seriously, these are like the things I always eat during dull times when no one wants to talk to me because they are so busy. Pair it up with hot chocolate of Great Taste White Coffee, my day couldn't get any better.

These are top five foods when I'm at the office. How about you? What do love to eat?

xoxo

WE GOT IT ALL FOR YOU! - SM

Since I'm all alone at home, with nothing to do but rest I checked my twitter account, first thing in the morning, and to my surprise it was flooded by all sorts of hate-tweets to SM and Henry Sy regarding the cutting down of trees way up in Baguio to build the new SM Baguio.

For those who do not know what SM is and where Baguio is. Baguio is a lovely place located in the Philippines up North where there are lots of Pine Trees and the weather is cool. The heat in Manila is simply unforgivable so we head up north for some fresh and cool air, and Baguio was always the place to be. SM on the other hand is short for Shoe Mart, which was originally a shoe store and through years has become one of the biggest mall chains in the Philippines, I can sometimes say that it could be the National Mall, since there is an SM mall practically everywhere.

So SM has decided to put up an SM mall in Baguio, one of the very few places in the Philippines without an SM mall. Yes..yes..I understand that building an SM mall means more jobs and a new form of recreation aside from the usual strawberry picking and pink haired horse back riding.

BUT THIS IS WHAT BAGUIO IS KNOWN FOR. The strawberry picking, ukay-ukay, and horseback riding is what charms the people to go to Baguio, we've got enough malls down in the south. Some may say that I'm a bit selfish for not letting the Igorots experience what a mall is, well I don't really think they need that.

So SM has started to cut out the old pine trees (well that is what I have been reading on the internet, quite contrary to what they said , check this link to read the article- http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/business/01/20/12/sm-no-tree-cutting-baguio-mall-expansion), and what makes it more intriguing is that they cut tress at the dead of the night. WHO DOES THAT? crazy shit this people are up to.

(the alleged cutting down of trees at night)

I'm not so surprised at what SM has done, but I'm quite surprised that the Baguio goverment or town hall or whatever you call it has been supportive of this.

Well, I have never been to Baguio. EVER. Maybe because I lived in the Middle East half my life and maybe there really was no reason to go there. I've heard that Baguio wasn't how it was years ago, it's now a bit degraded, but do you still have to make things worse?

I have no words in this SM Baguio incident, but I think it is totally INHUMANE to be cutting all those trees! We've cut so many trees already, and I think we don't need to cut more. We don't need more malls, besides it just adds up to the the trash and pollution that this country has.

I know a mall means more money and jobs for the people of Baguio, it might even help improve the unemployment rate there. It might be cliche to say that 'there are other ways to earn money', cause there aren't TOO many.

All I hope is that in one way or another, every filipino and the Motherland benefits from this crazyness.

Just minutes ago, SM has made a statement about this. Well they ARE replanting according to them > http://www.rappler.com/nation/3646-sm-we-re-replanting-earth-balled-trees

xoxo

Hate Tuesday

Today I took an absence from work.

Last Friday, our manager talked to all of us and told us that after the holidays, NO ONE IS ALLOWED TO BE ABSENT.

unlucky me I caught the flu. My supervisor talked to me and told me that our manager was disappointed that I was absent. It kinda hurts that people get mad at you when you get sick or are too weak and not mentally prepared to go to work. It kinda sucks you know.

But after reading this, I felt much much better:

"I disagree. If I know it's a cold, and I know I'm contagious and not functioning at full capacity, I'm not going to come to work, but I'm definitely not going to go sit in a clinic and take up space in an already crowded and understaffed environment when I KNOW the doctor is just going to tell me to get rest, drink fluids, take some advil. I'm smart enough to do that on my own.
I'm pretty lucky where I work in that if I am legitimately sick, I can take as many days as needed until I'm well enough to come to work. I know that isn't the norm everywhere and I'm grateful for that. However, I think as responsible adults, we should be able to take off the amount of time we need to rest up and be at our best when we're working. Making people work through a flu or cold is ridiculous. I have to be at this job every day for 7.5 hours a day and if I can't be comfortable while I'm here that isn't healthy in itself. Not everyone is a workaholic and wants to push through a cold when 4 days could make a WORLD of difference."

:)

The Bookworm: The Perks of being a Wallflower

I love buying books! The problem is, most of the time I never really finish reading them. hahaha.. I read it halfway than I stop and totally forget about the book, until weeks after I find it in some dusty corner of the house.

Today I bought a new book since I've been reading a lot of 'quotable quotes' from the internet. So I picked up a brand new copy of The Perks of being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky'

I've started reading until page 49, and so far, so good.

It has a 'diary' type of story so expect a lot "Dear ______". It felt like a boy was actually telling a story to me. I could relate since long lost souls have very similar lives with wallflowers.

I hope I finish this soon, and then buy my next book (I'm hoping to get either the Hunger Games or the Game of Thrones).

Have you read it? was it nice?

xoxo

Thai Cannelloni

In a few weeks I'll be leaving my current job in search of more fun and fabulous things to do. In the meantime, this is one of the few things I'll be missing:

Attending Airline parties!

I work in the travel industry, and every now and then different airlines throw little lunch "parties" which they call 'PRODUCT UPDATES' from which they discuss what to expect this year..blah blah blah...I'm not even sure if anybody listens, well I don't.

The last one I attended was held at the Dusit Thani Hotel here in Makati and the lady from the airline kept raving about how good lunch was going to be. Okay so here we go again...I have one word for that: OVERRATED. She kept telling us over and over and over again how good the Cannelloni was.

And guess what...IT WASN'T

Okay it was sort of dry and the cheese and the sauce was too little. The Cannelloni on TV tastes yummier, even if I can't really taste it..LOL..Well it didn't taste bad...it just didn't taste THATgood.

Oh well here's a photo of the somewhat 'malnourished' cannelloni

do not be fooled. O_O

xoxo

The Scab

Yesterday, was the best weekend ever because I got to sleep in the afternoon..LOL..I haven't taken an afternoon nap in ages.

And then I decided to go curl my hair using my favorite Philips curling iron...I was so inspired by those beach-wavy hair I see on TV; and since I was so bored I started curling my hair. It was starting to get pretty, and then BAM! I burnt my face with the iron... god that hurt. Its still stings and I've put loads of petroleum jelly so that it doesn't dry out ugly.

Please pray that it goes away... :)

xoxo

OBLIGATORY LIPSTICK SHOT

ngaaw

this is what happens when I'm left alone at home...doing nothing

xoxo :)

Apo Reef and Pandan Island adventures

I've been really busy lately which is why it took me a month to create another blogpost. lulz. One thing that's going right now is that I'm getting more writing work again which means more moolah for me and more money to buy coffee and clothes..haha

So anyway, last month, last February 3-6, i think, I visited one of the best places in the Philippines = APO ISLAND.

GOD. I never imagined such a place existed. Like come on, if you live and wake up to chaotic noises everyday, you would never think that there was such a place.

Most of the people in the group were divers,  and I had the best snorkeling experience EVER. I now love my snorkel gear and I'm planning to use it again when I go to batangas..haha

So even if it was a bit expensive and FAR....emphasis on the FAR part. It was all worth it. Imagine a life of stargazing, waiting for turtles to come ashore, sleeping in tents, and saying goodbye to all the pollution and insanity in Manila. *siiigh....

This was the boat we rode from Sablayan to our first stop, Pandan Island. By the way, it took me 40 minutes by plane, plus 3 hours by road, plus 30 minutes by banca to get here. Now you know about what I meant by FAR. LOL

fatness..hahaha

After one day in Pandan we headed back to Sablayan which meant 30 minutes again by banca and back to the lodge/inn. We had to wake up at 4 am-ish for the 4 hour boat ride to Apo Reef. grabe ang layo.,When I told my dad that we were in the boat and that I would have no signal for two days, he freaked out. It was my first time to hear my dad talk like that, the aatakihin-ako-sa-puso (I will have a heart attack) lines..hahaha. So 30 minutes into the water and BAM...no more signal..goodbye world..

But, I will never put into words what I saw...it was the best two days of my life...literally. So Instead of typing...

I learned a lot of underwater creatures from Kathy...haha..an attorney..haha. Kathy, you could actually be a marine biologist someday..This my friends is a nudibranch (?) it's the prettiest slug eveer

Nemos :) possessive little things

magical...a flying sea turtle 

Another nudibranch...nice yeah?

Patrick says there a shark behind him..eeep

A pillow starfish...again info c/o atty. Kathy

The people I was with were the best ever. Sean, Michelle, Kathy, JP, Candy, Ads, and Allan. We searched for sea turtles laying eggs around the island, but was unsuccessful, I slept in a tent which felt more like a nap because I couldn't sleep, and I climbed the tallest lighthouse in the Philippines...daw :) haha

The food was great! Akala ko Survivor Philippines yung peg namin dun..yung tipong manghuhuli ng isda...pero ang galing ng cook namin.. :)

Then it was back to Sablayan, another 4 hours by boat and text messages arriving one after the other...sigh I was back to reality..And back to Manila before I knew it

Going here might be a bit expensive rather than visiting freakin' boracay or puerto galera ( ihave nothing against that) but c'mon don't you want to see something that you haven't seen on TV?

Until the next adventure!

xoxo