on neighborhood arrest

bunso, docu on phil. children in prison

i've put myself on neighborhood arrest for the day coz i had been fighting off a cold for almost a week already and it finally reached its peak last night with a terrible fever. so, here i am now at the friendly neighborhood cafe taking things slow coz i couldnt bear the thought of lockin myself up at home to recover. that and the thought of doing nothing productive for a day, so ive also already done my laundry. ok, ok, half of it.

johnfoti @ knittingfactory

was all over the city the past days instead of resting as i should have been. thursday night, i attended a screening of bunso, a documentary on philippine children in prison. it was a well-made film, a big hit at the amsterdam festival. a great window on the lives of children who're forced to grow up at such an early age. must-see film. after the sceening, i headed to the knitting factory to see 2 officemates' bands perform. nils played the banjo and guitar for his band future folk. foti played the accordion, keyboards and guitar, and sang for his band. was good to see them showcase their non-copywriting/artdirecting skills in a non-office setting.

nyu almost winning with a buzzer-beater

friday night was sports night. spent it at the nyu sports center playing badminton and racquetball and watching nyu's men's and women's basketball teams get beaten by chicago. once again, in retrospect i shouldve been resting the night off but instead there i was getting my non-negotiable dose of sports and physical activity. quite happy with my badminton skills though. they were able to hold up against those badminton club south asians.

dinner and drinks in astoria

saturday was spent with my old university's alumni association core group. we planned out the year's projects. quite productive meeting but more and more im starting to notice how "different" filipinos work — arriving late (which is now a personal petpeeve), mixing emotions with work, lacking structure, etc... the night was spent in astoria. got invited for dinner and drinks at a friends house. quite an international group actually. most were pinoys and with me were el the dutchie and sarah the dane. quite funny coz there was an iranian guy as well in the party, so there was much debate on who's the most evil of them all, the danes or the iranians. not sure how that ended but i think it was decided that it's still the germans who'd win the contest. it was an interesting collection of people actually and enjoyed the conversations on international relations and cultures and enjoyed immensely poking fun at myself for my 16 years of private catholic university upbringing. on the way home, a bunch of drunk irish white boys were bugging us from the station all throughout the subway ride. one of them was beatboxing and rapping and making a complete fool of himself. the other kept asking us where we were from and couldnt seem to figure out wtf a filipino, a dane, an iranian, and a dutchie were doing together. quite annoying they were actually but what would you expect, turns out they're new in town and came from boston college, yup that's the jesuit university. we kept teasing them though coz something about them calling us dudes gave away the fact that they're not from this side of the world and are most probably some west coast surfer DUDES. bless their souls though coz i have a feeling someone might had beaten the crap out of them that night coz this city's probably not the most friendly with loud drunken white boys calling everyone dudes to their faces.

sugar sweet sunshine

sunday morning was spent having breakfast with el and sarah in the lower east side. should have slept in instead but again there i was freezing my balls out in the cold looking for the cafe where we were meeting. not the easiest thing especially when the person's phone your contacting isnt working. but anyway, it was a nice cozy bakery/cafe they had chosen. lots of nice sweet cupcakes, their specialty, but unfortunately none of us were up to having that much frosting for breakfast. i enjoyed the rooiboa tea and blueberry muffin i had—mmmm, all that antioxidant goodness. by early afternoon, i was doing an hour and half of yoga which i thought would do my cold wonders. instead, i felt sick as hell after. i did feel relaxed though but nonetheless sick as hell, BUT with the very important lesson learned that i must listen to my body and not be pushing myself too hard. and so sunday night was spent in bed. not that i had the energy to do anything else really. got myself a nice long sleep and rest. and a good dose of analgesics to keep myself sleeping and resting.

search for survivors in leyte

here i am now at satchmo's, the friendly neighborhood cafe. getting the rest and breath i should have taken. recharging the batteries with a wheatgrass shot and a nice vitamin-rich fruit shake. it's getting clearer and clearer now why i had to deal with this F-in cold in the first place. it wasnt all that partyin. nor all that sports. nor that freezin weather. it was the wednesday clean up in the office. all that dust caused this allergic reaction. for that, im postponing cleaning up the apartment for when im feeling a 100 percent again. for now, i should really stop this whining. it's getting ridiculous. there's a world out there buried under layers of soil and mud possibly fighting for their lives.