The Untold Story

I have a confession to make.

The reason why I resigned, left everything in Pinas is not
because of an IT job.

The real profession that I'm in now - modelling! :)






Dont you think the camera loves us? :)

P.S. This is TRUE............NOT!

(You should know this punchline if you've watched Borat. :p

Okay, this was taken during lunchbreaks while going to canteen. We discovered this nice tunnel and my officemate decided to bring her newly bought camera so that we can have a pictorial. :) Pasado ba?

It's a Play

This is something new.

Nanood ako ng play! May attention span is not so good
but I'm glad I didnt doze off on this one.

Acting is quite good. Shakespeare reminds me of the good old high school English class days. :)

Food Lab: Episode 1 (cont)

Cont..

I didnt know there seems to be a limit for the maximum # of images that can be uploaded in one blog entry?!

Normal dishes (continued)

Spaghetti Sauce - I learned this from a housemate. They said you have to add condensed milk to get the rich creamy taste (I'm talking about Filipino style spaghetti)




Nilagang Baka - quite normal





Stir Fry Pork - normal again




It's seafood time!

Sinigang na Hipon - prawns swimming in the soup





Oyster Clams - notice I started putting some greeny leaves for garnishing. (Hindi pla maganda tignan sa picture kung plain. hehe kulit) Did the leaves make any difference? :)





Brocolli with Shrimps and Crabstick - this one's nice. However nagmemelt pla ang crabstick at high temp, see the red strips starting to break away. So they have to be added a few seconds before serving.




And finally the STARS (hehe so far)

Chicken Gordon Bleu - chicken fillet wrapped with ham and cheese and fried in butter. Looks good? This costs much I think in resto. Nagustuhan ng mga kasama ko, okay daw :)





Almond Lychee - ibang level na, pati dessert kinareer na rin! :) I made the almond gelatin, hndi yan binili na gawa na ha :). It's the first time my Filipino housemates tasted something like it and they say masarap daw, hiningi pa sa kin ang steps and ingredients. (I didnt know this is considered a Chinese style dessert btw)

Just let me know which one looks best. :)

P.S. I'm running out of things to cook :) and also, I need to practice my photography skills in capturing more 'aesthetically enticing' dishes. :p

Food Lab: Episode 1

Welcome to the official launch of my Food Lab Corner!

--IMPT--
Disclaimer (agad):
Okay, I know how to cook a few simple dishes, pero hindi ako magaling ha! 'Marunong' is far from 'magaling', at least in my vocabulary. :p Just to set the correct expectations :). I'm just a beginner tinkering with my 'food lab' during my free time. Edible naman mga naluto ko (sabi ng mga nakatikim), but not yet 'qualified' as masarap in my standards. :) But one day, I'm gonna make it big! haha

Here's some of the first few tries:

Ma Po Tofu - one of the easiest to prepare. I can make one in 5 minutes, provided that I have the mixes. (pandaya) :)





Omelette - the nicest omelette I've ever made. Presentable naman dba?




I sometimes get challenged with not so common dishes:

Sweet & Sour Fish - goodness, I didnt know that I bought the fish with all the innards still intact, meaning not yet cleaned. For the first time I took out all those gills, scales and laman-loob and my hands got stained with the smell.. yeeks. :) Btw image attached is the uncooked version. Mom has to see this, I'm sure she'll be proud of me afterwards. :)




Another challenge: Chicken Feet

It gives me a weird feeling while cutting the feet into two. I can feel the finger-like bones splitting into 2 with my knife, like the fingers of a child. Sheesh, I'm afraid to have nightmares at night with the chicken ghost running after me. Ayoko na atang ulitin. I'm again proud to say na malambot naman yun end product (w/c by
the way mahirap palambutin ang chicken feet) :p




Normal Dish:

Fried Chicken...(nothing unusual to describe.. speechless)





Adobo - normal lang din.





Sopas - shredding chicken strips takes time, but overall, color's quite good.

Officially Missing

Holiday again in Manila. (grrh) :p

I got a text message from my sister saying they'll be going to Shang Heat this afternoon for lunch (one of the pig out sessions).
Everyone's there, mom, my sisters, even my nephews, except me. :((( It's the first time I'm not present.

So sad.. Shangrila probably is something close to my heart. I miss the memories, the food and the place too. :(((

Math Trivia

It was funny I bumped into this Math question last week. The daughter of my housemate is in the 4th grade. (Btw, not sure if housemate is an acceptable term, probably people here just pick it up from Pinoy Big Brother :)) Anyway, this 4th grade girl usually has some Math or Science homeworks and she sometimes asks me for help.

For Math, the past questions are not so difficult, usually questions that you can answer with just a glance, if you know what i mean. Example, a drawing of a triangle, angle A=35, angle B=85, angle C=?.

Then one night she showed me this question:
A piece of wire 18m long is used to form different rectangles. There are 4 possible rectangles that can be formed. Give the corresponding area of the 4 rectangles.

Hehe napaupo ako at kumuha ng lapis at scratch paper. Nakakahiya naman if an Engg grad cannot solve a grade school level Math question.

The first thing I had in mind was to use X&Y in solving. However after writing the first equation, I got stucked, I cannot think of another one based on the problem. (You need 2 equations to solve 2 variables right?) If you can solve the above question in 30 seconds, then probably you're a genius. :)

Start solving it now.... :p I'll post the answer some other time. It's actually not that difficult, medyo confusing lang sa simula.
..
..
..

They also have some weird Science questions. (suko ako d2) Example:
Joe's heartbeat before using the treadmill is 80/minute. After 15 minutes in the treadmill, his heartbeat rises to 130/minute. What is the cause of change?
...
???

'Malay ko'! What is the scientific explanation behind the respiratory system?! I cant remember. :) Is this some sort of oxygen intake, inhale-exhale acceleration thing?

:p

Commute Bloopers

I had a new blooper last week.

There's an option to take a company bus going to office every
morning, around 8:20am. Sad to say, I still miss it at times, too early for me :) With the frequent rainshowers during the mornings, the envt is just too 'conducive for sleeping'. :)

Last Tuesday I fortunately didnt miss the bus, I hopped in and do my
usual small naps when commuting alone. (Yeah commuting doesnt hinder my desire to sleep, whether in long or short trips) The bus ride takes around 30min. Normally I wake up by myself when the bus stops, some sort of a natural instinct. That day I was so sleepy that I didnt automatically wake up when the bus jerked at its final stop. A guy (probably mid-30's, fatherly figure) from the bus nodged my shoulder to wake me up and told me to go down. It was so embarassing. I get reminded of the incident whenever I see him, and we're in the same client company. These past few days, i try to exert a deliberate conscious effort to be alert, awake. :)

I still have other commute bloopers that I can think of back in Manila.

1) This was similar to the earlier one. I was in good mood one afternoon in December (2004) that I decided to go to SM Makati to buy some stuff to cook, it's near my offce anyway. (I seldom cook back then) Because of my experimenting and 'mataas ang pangarap' culinary habits, I bought some packed crabmeat and scallops from SM grocery. (see, they arent the usual dishes to try for a beginner) I took a bus home that day, from SM Makati I took the LRT bus that stops at Gil Puyat LRT. That day was so hot, and traffic jam all over that I again fell into a short nap. When I woke up, the bus was still moving as-slow-as-a-turtle, I saw this big building labelled 'Cuneta Astrodome'. Sh*T! I dont know this place.. the conductor told me that I can just get off at the final stop Baclaran) which is a few minutes away, then walk to the Baclaran LRT. I asked for another 2nd opinion, the same was told, 'oo lakarin mo, malapit lng ang LRT'. It took me like 10min to find the LRT, it wasnt near at all! I had to pass by a long stretch of
tiangge similar to Divisoria. Imagine walking with the wet seafood stuff in your hand starting to defrost and drip. Yikes. Never again.

2) My officemate and I took a bus after office hours, we were going towards the same direction that time. Because I dont want to have him pay for my fare (we just met for less than a month), I made a hand gesture to the conductor to get my fare. The conductor was walking slowly. My impression of a conductor is a guy who wears a polo..usually a blue one. I waved my hand again subtly, with some paper bills, signalling for him to get it. However this conductor seemed to ignore me on purpose and continued to walk slowly. He seem to have an irritated look on his face. Then he walked passed me and took a seat at the back of the bus. The reality is, he is not the conductor. Goodness, I mistaken him for one :), he is just an ordinary passenger. My officemate kept on giggling when we alighted.. 'loko ka.. mapapaaway tayo ng di oras
sa ginawa mo'.:)

3) There is a queue for FX to Ayala, somewhere near the Gil Puyat LRT. It's actually a common queuing area for buses/fx going to Ayala. The vehicles 'queue' and people just hop in. (It's not the people queuing waiting for vehicles to arrive. These public transport 'FX'es can take any forms, sometimes shabby ones, sometimes slightly newer ones. One afternoon I saw a slightly new van parked in the queuing area, the door was not locked so I just hopped in the passenger seat at the front (the one near the driver seat). After like 15seconds, the driver arrived, he was wearing a polo tucked in to his slacks. He got seated and was very surprised to see me. He was silent for like 15 seconds with a puzzled look staring at me. I was actually feeling impatient because he still didnt want to start the engine. Then he said to me 'sorry miss, this is not a public vehicle'. My golly!!!##%@. I looked back and realized, indeed there were no other passengers. But hey, it's not my fault. Why did he park in the queuing area?! and why did he leave his car unlocked?! I said sorry and hurried down, I can feel my face turning all red. It was so embarassing. But I guess the owner of that car was humiliated as well.. because I mistaken his van for a pamasadang FX and him for a driver hehe :p.
I guess that for the past few seconds he wanted to scream at me, thinking that I might have some bad intentions with his van or with him, but probably he saw that I looked decent and proper thus he held back.

I dont know which one is the standout episode. I do hope there won't be a sequel for any of this.