Laiya Aplaya, Batangas

Posted by Mia Venus on Wednesday, 16-05-2012 Leave a Comment

Just when I thought that the Cagayan/Ilocos escapade was my first and last vacation, my mom took us all to Batangas last Sunday by surprise. Well not literally, and not exactly the surprise you were probably thinking… I’ve been blabbing (and nagging) about going to Batangas all week just because I want to go on a vacation with my fiance. Of course, I know that I would have to be with the entire family when we do that, and it really didn’t matter to us. Luckily, my “convincing” powers worked and mom planned a 2-day vacation in Laiya Aplaya, Batangas. This particular vacation then became a pre-birthday celebration of my younger sister, Phoebe, who celebrated her birthday last May 8th.

And since I was the one who brought up the idea of going to Batangas, I was tasked to find the cheapest white sand beach resort we could find with the things that we will be needing such as enough beds to sleep on, an air conditioned room, a private bathroom, a stove and a grill. Luckily, I have stumbled upon Sigayan Bay Beach Resort’s website as I was searching for a resort in Google. It was the perfect place for us.

We left Antipolo at aboutt 5am last Sunday and arrived in Batangas three hours later. We had breakfast at this infamous restaurant (sorry, I cannot really remember the name T.T) which serves the best “Gotong Batangas”, well at least that was what we were told. And although I was not that convinced with that claim, still I think that the food was reasonably priced and delish! I never thought that there is a goto that could look and taste like Beef Ribs Stew, and the best part? It was not served with the porridge! Shocking. Forgive my ignorance. Here are photos.

When we arrived at the resort nearly an hour later, we had to wait for a couple more hours to check-in. It was then that I found out that there really is a standard check-in time, thanks to my fiance for telling me that. I suck at those things, you know? Things that a woman should know just in case it would come in handy when she starts traveling. Don’t know if I made sense there, but I do hope you “somehow” get the point. Anyway, while waiting for lodging to be available, the resort manager was kind enough to let us stay in a cottage for free. That’s probably what I really love about that resort, apart from the clean facilities; the management sticks to the rules but gives us alternatives.

The first day consists of mainly the kids swimming and making sand castles under the scorching sun, while we, the adults, stayed most of the time in the cottage talking about random stuff, eating while taking constant walks in the beach when we can. But we don’t stay too long, not until mid-afternoon when the sun was not blaring his rays on us. I even tried making the watermelon eye make-up I’ve been dying to try on my baby brother. He was sweet enough to let me do it and even pose for a photo. LOL

Later that evening, my fiance and I decided to take a walk on the beach and much later on decided to take a drink while we wait for the high tide. We took with us a bottle of brandy and thought we’d try the two new flavors of Tanduay Ice. I’m not really a fan of carbonated drinks, especially sodas but I thought giving T-ice a try would not really hurt. All we did was talk about random stuff, mostly about that day when we got together two years ago. It was also in Batangas, but in Lemery. This was better and more romantic, but nothing could beat the thrill and fun that we had in Lemery. We also catch up on the things that we missed while we were apart during the past couple of days before that night. It was really fun, and the brandy was smooth. I didn’t feel it kick in, which was great but we did feel really sleepy afterwards. We had such a long and tiring day.

The next day was as equally fun as the first. Mac and I woke up quite early, and decided that we take a walk on the beach. We didn’t catch the sunrise, like we did in Lemery and we definitely cannot sit on the lifeguard bench, but we found this little hut not too far and decided to sit there instead as we admire the beach. Later that morning, they played beach volleyball, a sport that I never learned to play due to the fact that I (probably) lack the skills. Mac and I waited for the peanut-brittle like thing vendor while they played, and luckily one happened to pass by. Mac immediately bought me my favorite native treat, whatever you call that peanut-brittle like thing. I just sat there watching them play as I munch on the peanut-brittle like thing trying to figure out how the game works, but gave up moments later when their ball accidentally got stuck on a roof. We decided to take a break and buy ice cream, and then later that morning we had lunch, packed up and left the place.

I’ve been hearing from my mother that we’ll be coming back in the same place in three weeks to celebrate my baby brother’s third birthday. Well, I really do hope that we do go back to Batangas. I fell in love with the place already, something that I never thought I’d do… I used to hate the beach for the reason that it gives me sunburn and the sand was quite uncomfortable in my feet whenever I go back to the house, but that was when I was younger.

Thanks to Mac, my fiance for making my most romantic dream come true two years ago, and making me love the beach more than any other place in the world. :heehee: Well, of course thanks to my mom for granting me this small but very meaningful wish.

Thesis

Posted by Mia Venus on Saturday, 21-04-2012 Leave a Comment

I have no idea what’s going to happen next to me and my group mates. After our terrible final defense which resulted to a re-defense turned conditional, we’re still wondering if we were ever going to make it through our junior year.

I am honestly really pissed with our research coordinator right now, and its simply because she’s forcing our panels to have us to re-defend our paper. In the first place, that bitch does not have the right to decide for the verdict of our paper, she’s just there to “help” us defend our paper properly and “help” us to understand our panels questions if it becomes too complicated for us to answer. But she was not doing her duties at all, she’s just yelling at us literally and she was just making us feel we’re hopeless and useless people.

The so-called “help” and “consideration” she’s giving us seemed like a burden to her, and we don’t really understand the logic in pushing down on us the fact that she’s “helping” us to lift our conditional status to major accepted.

Gosh, she is sooo irritating.

Terms and Conditions

Posted by Mia Venus on Saturday, 18-02-2012 Leave a Comment

Sometimes, I wonder when I’ll genuinely smile again.

Recently, I’ve been forced to smile for the sake of saving myself from downright depression and from keeping myself isolated from the world. I never knew this relationship I am in would get to the point of breaking me into a million pieces. I never knew that I am bound by the terms and conditions of a man who’s so icy cold when we’re not together. I thought that he’ll be like no other, that he’ll be different, but instead he turned into someone even worse. Sure he doesn’t hit on girls or even dared to look at one, but who knows right? He’s already too cold, how can I not even think that he tries to at least look at other women… but anyway, that’s not really the problem.

I just hate waking up in the morning only to find my inbox empty, and I had to send him a text message just so he’d text back. Sometimes, I miss being his princess, but I know I’ll never be his princess again knowing for a fact that we have grown apart despite of our closeness. I really hate writing about this, but since I have no one to actually talk to and since no one would actually understand, I’d have to write about it instead of keeping it locked up inside that might probably get me really sick.

I can’t believe that I would relieve the moment that I most dreaded to happen again and that is become the same old puppy girlfriend that I once was. I know I deserve something better, but apparently no one believes that I do. I also can’t believe that of all the people in the world, he’d be the one that would break and shred me into a million pieces. The man whom I least expect would do it to me… the man whom I loved more than anything else felt that I never loved him back. I don’t really know why he thinks of me that way, but it seems that he thinks I’m a selfish bitch, and that I don’t do anything to make things work between us. That I’m a bossy piece of shit that he once fell in love with.

Now he’s so broken… that’s what he said he was, and I try my best to fix him. But I guess I will never make him whole again… I’m never going to be genuinely happy ever again.

Bookworm Mode

Posted by Mia Venus on Sunday, 12-02-2012 Leave a Comment

I have been dying to bury my nose in books that I WANT to read for ages now, and it was only the other day that I was able to finally sign up to GoodReads.com and start doing what I actually WANT to do. I seriously am getting tired of scanning ebooks and articles related to my thesis topic, and somehow I felt that I am being deprived of my rights to read what I actually want to read. I eventually stopped reading those terrible things and I honestly haven’t read much of anything recently, just a couple of WordPress tutorials, tweets and text messages.

What I have been doing is just staring blankly at my manuscript file a couple of times a day, and watch as the MS Word cursor blinks at me every few seconds, which apparently is waiting for me to do something about the darn document but I just end up closing it after half an hour of trying to squeeze out something from my brain. It’s a waste of time, that I end up making a new theme for this site just to make my day a little more productive.

So going back to reading, I decided to start reading again to kill time instead of doing random things on the web that apparently leads me nowhere than creating a new theme. It’s a good thing that Mac finally had my PSP fixed, thank heavens for that. It took him ages to do it ha-ha! So I installed Bookr in it earlier this evening, downloaded a couple of PDF ebooks and started reading the first on my “to-read” list.

I got the idea of having my own to-read list from my goodreads account, my goal is to read at least five novels a month and the first book that I have on my list is Love the One You’re With by Emily Griffin. It’s about a woman in a perfect marriage, who runs into a man from her past after eight long years thus igniting a long dormant emotion. The woman then questions herself whether she’s living the life she is meant to live or not. I fell in love with the plot and so I decided to get my bony hands on a copy and so I did. I honestly am too preoccupied with a lot of things the entire evening, one that involves another McDonald’s dinner with my fiance and our friends, that I didn’t get the chance to focus on reading the ebook on my psp. But I did start reading it, and I am actually in it’s second chapter. Hopefully, tomorrow I’ll be able to read a good chunk of it and finish it in a day or two since it’s not really that long.

I was thinking of putting up a book review section in this site but I don’t know where that would lead me in the future. I don’t think I could do it consistently while I’m still studying but I might still give it a shot when I get the chance. I try to do a lot of things that I like right now and I guess a book review section is a huge leap so I will take things slow and do things one at a time. Besides, I have a huge chunk of inevitable “responsibilities” that I have to attend to pfft. Boo! I wish I’d get out of school soon… but I still have a year and a half to go. T.T Oh time machine, when will you ever get invented?

Anyway, here is on my to-read list for the month of February :

Love the One You’re With by Emily Griffin
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
The Six Wives of Henry VIII by Alison Weir
Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare

That seems to be a really interesting list if you ask me. Oh and if you have a goodreads account you may follow me goodreads/miavenus ^_^ ciao!

What’s next?

Posted by Mia Venus on Saturday, 11-02-2012 Leave a Comment

Midterms week is over, thank God for that, but I still had to work on two papers for my major and they’re due next week. As usual, I haven’t started writing them since my head is still too preoccupied with the possible ideas for a new and original theme for this site. I know I have changed themes a couple of times this past month, but trust me it gets really addicting. So I’m glad to say that I finally made a theme that I might keep like the pink one. I would have liked to make it a little better if it were not for the things that I need to do for school.

Here is a list of what I need to work on and if possible, finish over the weekend.

watch three movies of my choice, and write a paper relating its plot, characters to events, and characters in Greek Mythology. I’ve chosen the Godfather Trilogy, The Phantom of the Opera and I’ll be replacing Jaws. It’s boring. So far, I’ve seen the first movie of the Trilogy, and the entire Phantom movie. Still looking for a movie to replace Jaws.
Write a paper on interventions that teachers could give their students who are having trouble learning the English language. I haven’t even started writing this paper yet.
Look for an Aphrodite costume for our Greek Mythology human museum for the college fair this coming week.
Edit and revise a good deal of things from our thesis.

There is not much on my list, but trust me it’s a heap load of work. I don’t even know how I managed to survive up to my third year in college… Hopefully, I’ll get through this as I did in the past two years.

I honestly don’t think that I’ll be teaching in the future, except of course when I do my internship. But apart from that, envisioning myself as a teacher is a big blur. I asked my mom if I could take a six month course in web and graphic design and she gladly agreed to it knowing that my greatest interest are on those things. I love my mom for that, even if she’s a total pain in the butt at times, I know that she knows me and the things I want to do in life.

If I will really become a teacher, I doubt that I’ll teach in High School as I just realized that I have very little patience with bratty people–young, bratty and spoiled beings we like to call high school girls and boys. If I will teach, it will be children that I will be teaching. Pre-school people are not only cute, but they’re also very adorable, lovable, sweet and are easier to scare. But of course I’ll be the lovely and sweet pre-school teacher… if I ever decided to be one. But so far, I know where I will excel as an individual–if not in the family business, it’s definitely doing the things I love to do like writing and designing.

I know some people would think that I am really immature thinking that I’ll make a living doing the things that I love to do, but I don’t intend to keep it as permanent job trust me. I wish to work with my mom and help her in the business, but at the same time I want to do something that I want. Trust me, coding and draining story or design ideas takes off a good load of stress, I just really wish I had enough time in the day.

Le sigh. For now, I could only work hard towards getting a degree in teaching while listening to The Beatles.

Midterms

Posted by Mia Venus on Wednesday, 08-02-2012 Leave a Comment

It’s midterm week, and to be honest I haven’t taken up any exams yet. For one reason, my exams are packed tomorrow and on Friday. Another, I opted not to take the exam for my Monday class, and lastly the exams for my major subjects will be passed next week, so I am definitely going to work on them this week. In fact, I have started working on it, but I cannot seem to finish a movie these past few weeks. Dunno why, but I’m hoping to get things done over the weekend.

I haven’t reviewed yet, and I’m quite nervous about my grades for this semester I’m definitely going to get another three I presume, but I am keeping my fingers crossed for having at least 2.8 as my lowest. I know I have no one to blame but myself, but school is really boring these days… my mind is set on other stuff that I cannot focus on my studies, except for my major subjects. I wish they’d just give us major subjects instead at least they’d be of our interest and perhaps that would make us strive more. I just hate minor subjects, especially when some professors would give out a shitload of tasks as if it’s a major subject. The thing with our school is, both minor and major subjects weighs evenly which sucks–BIG TIME.

I wish I could go back to the time when reviewing wasn’t so much of a chore… yes, reviewing used to be fun to me dunno what happened, but it’s definitely not the sudden change of my group of friends, because my set of friends now are more into reviewing than the previous ones.

In other news about my life, I’ve been out practically the entire day. First, I went to the mall with mom and Mac to get my eyes checked on Ideal Vision since I’ve been whining about not seeing things clearly from a distance for days now. But the people from Ideal Vision told me that I don’t need reading glasses, but I wasn’t convinced because I know that there really is something wrong with my eyes. So my mom took me to a real Ophthalmologist after lunch and there we found out that I’m near-sighted, obviously. So the doctor told me I’d need to wear correction glasses since I’m still quite young, and recommended that I pay him a visit at least once a year to check on whether my eyesight have improved or not. I’ll be getting my bony hands on my new correction glasses in about two days, and I can’t wait to wear them, seriously. The doctor even suggested to just wear it inside the classroom if I’m not comfortable walking around wearing it, but I think wearing glasses is nothing to be ashamed of. I already know that I am a nerd in someway and friends and my fiance already knew that too, so there’s really no problem, and the hell do I care about what other’s would say? It’s not like everyone knows my name to judge me easily just because I’m wearing glasses, right?

So it’s getting quite late… I’m going to watch Jaws now. Ciao!

Allergy and Friends

Posted by Mia Venus on Monday, 06-02-2012 Leave a Comment

Today was the start of the midterm exams, and I didn’t take my exam this afternoon for the reason that I don’t feel prepared in taking it. I honestly am backsliding on my academics these past two semesters, it seems like I no longer feel like studying especially if it’s not a major subject. I know that most of it are important in my field of choice, but I just could not seem to grasp well what today’s subject’s real purpose in my chosen career. Apart from that, the professor continues to bore me to death every freaking Monday afternoon and that makes me want to skip her class. I use funny excuses like I’m working on Mondays, and that I have the tendency to get stuck on an island somewhere in the Quezon province because of work. She eats it up, seriously, but to be honest I no longer do that. I no longer go to that island every darn weekend. I just need a good excuse to skip her class, I told her last week that I would just like to take her class as a tutorial due to the reason I’ve stated above, but she seem to be hesitant. So I might just attend her class next meeting instead, and try to take the exams this week as to not prolong the agony of seeing her and hearing her life stories in class.

So anyway, I woke up this morning with a bad case of allergic rhinitis. It’s really nothing new as I often get it whenever I’m exposed to a very cold environment or a dust-filled place. Today’s case is definitely the cold environment. I’m living in the far east of the metro, and the weather here is nothing compared to the excruciating heat that Metro Manila has. It’s always cold up here, even during the summer. Although it gets scorching hot as well, but whenever evening comes it’s always cold. I suffer from allergic rhinitis a lot because of the constant change of my environment’s temperature and I have to admit that no matter how much I love this place I come to the point of almost hating it because it gives me puffy eyes, a sore nose and a drowsy medicine from the school clinic. I went there earlier this afternoon and asked for an anti-histamine, but the nurse gave me something else which name I honestly could not remember. But I remembered taking the same little pill more than a year ago due to the same reason, and I remember sleeping for like six hours straight in the school clinic because of it. Same with today, Mac picked me up and we had a late and extremely heavy lunch in Mang Inasal (again) and during our trip I could feel my head getting heavier and heavier.

Even as we ate, I grew sleepier and I’m no longer sure if it was the chicken oil that I mixed with the rice that was making me feel that way but all I know is that when we finished eating I could barely get up from my seat. I had to literally hold on to Mac’s arm and drag myself out of the restaurant. We took a tricycle home because we’re too fat and lazy to walk due to eating too much rice for lunch. When we got home, I felt the medicine took its toll on me and I eventually fell asleep. I honestly have just wwoken up nearly an hour ago I have not even changed clothes when I jumped into bed earlier, but I feel fresh now having changed to my night gown and washing myself. I am just waiting for Mac and perhaps I’ll sleep again.

In other news about myself, I feel like I am being somehow used by my best friend in college. Although perhaps it’s just me and this stupid pre-menstrual syndrome that makes me feel this way towards her, but I what I feel now is that she is making use of my skills and resources to get things done for her. At first I didn’t mind, but recently we got to the point of just doing it all for her while she sits in a corner and chat with people on Facebook. Sometimes it pisses me off, but I love her so much, she’s like a sister to me and perhaps it’s just this stupid pms that’s making me feel this way. Although I must admit that she do have an annoying and convincing trait that makes it hard to tell her no, and that’s exactly the problem with me, I guess. I could not deny her a favor, I love her so much that I could not deny her a single favor. Le sigh. I wish I could get this feeling over with, I just hate it. Tomorrow we shall be doing what she needs for her major and perhaps we could start working on editing our thesis.

I really do wish we finish early so I could do my major exams and pass them on time next week. I badly need a break from school, I just want to work online. I really do pray and hope that God will help me land on a good online job that pays well, I’m willing to work hard for it. I just don’t feel like teaching in a real classroom area, I’m feeling that I didn’t made the right choice of career but then again, where would I go with a diploma in IT compared to a degree in teaching, right? I might as well make use of my degree in the future to earn money… I badly need to earn since I realized that I am the type of person who wants a lot in this life but could not get them because of the lack of financial resources. Besides, I wanted to help my mother out in raising my two younger brothers. If only an online job would come my way soon.

Day and Night Out

Posted by Mia Venus on Sunday, 05-02-2012 Leave a Comment

I woke up early this morning since Mac and I have decided to jog (again). It was quite successful compared to the last time, and I must say, I ran better this morning than I ever did during our previous morning jogs. Nothing special to some, but I consider it as a personal achievement. Ha-ha! But of course, I get tired easily after not jogging for practically a whole year, so we brisk walked instead and had “Taho” for breakfast. After that, we roamed around town, by literally taking the long way home. It was fun, I love walking in my rubber shoes; reminds me of the time when I was about seven or eight (or was it nine? LOL) when my brother and I would take long walks on a weekend morning and rent a bike… sadly, I never learned how to ride a bike and I get teased a lot by my friends because of that. It’s so much of a big deal now than I ever thought it would be. Ha-ha!

Moving on, when Mac and I got home, mother asked us to take my younger brother, Daniel, to the mall. He just got out of the hospital yesterday after a week of being confined due to a severe case of pneumonia and he badly wanted to go out, so Mac and I agreed. We took him to his favorite place in the “entire world” which is the arcade, he obviously had fun. Reminds me again of the time when I was about his age, my pops would take me and my other younger brother to the arcade every weekend after a movie and we’d play all afternoon. Just watching Daniel play and have fun makes me really happy on the inside, I feel like an accomplished sister for taking him to the mall without our mom. We had lunch at Mang Inasal, but we had to buy Daniel his all-time favorite meal, which is a Jollibee fried chicken because he wouldn’t eat anything else. After that, we went back to the arcade for another hour or so before we finally decided to go back home. Pictures below xD

Finally, this evening… just when I thought I’d be bumming around all night Mac asked me if I would like to go out with our good friends to the church, he promised to eat at McDonald’s after so I agreed. I’m going to be really honest, I’m not a church person anymore, well at least not a catholic church person. But I gave it a shot again earlier this evening, it wasn’t bad and I guess I kind of missed it but it only left me hungry for more of what the gospel and the homily wanted to convey. I’m not anti-catholic or anything, please don’t get me wrong, I was born and baptized as one but I guess some people, as they grow older, starts to question a lot of things and tends to seek their own solace in terms of religious practices. I’ve been there, and I have found comfort and satisfaction in a Christian church. There’s really not much of a difference, we still all believe in one God, I guess it’s only a matter of worship structure that we differ.

So after the mass, we went to McDonald’s and had fries and drinks. I had coffee, as usual while they had their own choices of drinks. It was really fun hanging out with such a great group of people, they are exactly what Mac and I needed right now, a great company to help us ease the great deal of stress that our family and (my) academics had infested on us recently. Mac and our friends is definitely my comfort zone, and my mom of course, but not all the time do I get to have an alone time with mom so most of the time I am out with Mac and our friends to have a little fun. I would definitely want to do it again next time, and I do hope that when I do I’d be done writing my thesis.

No Rain. Just Pure Sunshine.

Posted by Mia Venus on Thursday, 02-02-2012 Leave a Comment

Welcome to my blog site, No-Rain.Org! I have recently adopted this domain from FanStar.org and this shall be my personal journal and portfolio site.

The theme is made by me, I had it hand coded in Notepad ++, and it is pretty simple with regards to its color scheme and structure but it’s more than that. I used earthly colors, especially green because it is said that the color green symbolizes self-respect and well being. Green is the color of balance. It also means learning, growth and harmony.

The site color scheme reflects my current state in life, but the other way around. I would very much like to make my life as green and meaningful as this site’s current theme… so follow me and my daily travails and adventure in a cold and confusing world most people like to call “life”…

See you around.