Last February 24, 2010, SM Taytay celebrated the 2nd Annual Rizal Arts Festival to showcase the finest creations of its talented artists. This year’s festival has been opened to artists with different art mediums to proudly display the talented diversity of the artists of Rizal, rightfully known as the “Art Capital of the Philippines”.

The said project is the brainchild of celebrated painter and sculptor Nemi Miranda and Rizal’s first lady – Andrea “Andeng” Bautista-Ynares. Aside from paintings, the exhibit features art in the form of photography, tattoo, sculpting and furniture making, couture and bonsai making. SM Taytay’s Event hall was clad with creations of artists from Nemiranda’s Art Camp, members of the Eastern Rizal’s Photographer’s Guild, the NEO Angono artists and world-class couturiers – Merlino Cruz and Gener Gozum. Tattoo Artist Butch Bautista, had some of his paintings displayed as well, while the Rizal Bonsai Club’s beautiful potted greens decked SM Taytay’s Bridgeway. Read more…

Last September a lot of auto mechanic shops in our area had cars and cars lined up on queue for repair. It was all because of Typhoon Ondoy, which caused lots of cars and houses to be underwater for days, and yeah that includes ours. Since our car is already 14yrs old and we are the third owner, getting a comprehensive insurance is no longer possible, for reasons explained to me by a family friend in the insurance business, reasons I decided to forget. Now I remember a few people in the last company I worked for whose cars suffered the same fate as ours. Some even have brand new cars. What’s sad is that majority of them, has comprehensive insurance that doesn’t cover natural disasters. Yeah I prefer to call it that instead of Acts of God. Going back, one person I know had to shell out Php100,000.00 for the repairs of her car that she got just 2 months prior to that fateful incident. That and our experience, got my husband and I into thinking of getting an insurance for the car, since we don’t have one.

Now if only there’s a way to get an insurance quote without actually having to go out of the house and meet up with sales agent, perhaps, I’d gladly tell my husband to go ahead and get a car insurance. But for now, that’s not much of an issue since we hardly go out these days.

Diet has to start all over again. I’ve not been entirely faithful in ditching sweets off my diet, all because of these seemingly harmless little candies. Ever since my mom introduced me to these harmless looking sweets, I have forgotten my promise not to eat sweets for 2 weeks. And just to add to my torment, these yema squares are just about anywhere. I see them on almost all neighborhood stores and even when I went to the mall, I saw stalls with several jars filled with these treats.

Tsk.. I remember koolaide’s post in her facebook profile, sell me some discipline. I guess I ought to ask for the same thing.

They say that your taste in music reveals much about your personality. The type of songs you listen to are believed to nourish your soul, fueling your drive every time you play them. What kind of songs do you listen to?

Have you ever heard any of Rendezvous’ songs before? Listening to this band’s songs is like going on a detox program: you feel better, soothed, and ready for another day.

Perhaps it stems from the fact that Hagai Izenberg and Itai Simon, the band’s two members, believe in music that feeds the soul. They joined two great genres together, uniting the past and the present as both jazz and electronica are heavily portrayed in their previous three tracks. Read more…

Just want to update you that a scumbag from a Gaza, a Palestinian nation, managed to hack my blog last night. Mr Computer as he calls himself, left a message earlier saying he did not delete anything. Well he did, he deleted one week worth of entries. And so this weekend I have no choice but to reconstruct those entries.

And to that Palestinian worthless piece of s*&^, i hope you rot in hell.

It was a very simple pair of shoes. Size 7, brown, flat, and closed toe  - good for both casual and formal occasions. Yes it may not be branded but what’s special about that shoes is how it came to me. Yes, it did come to me.

I was 16 years old then, a high school senior in one of the well respected institutions of learning in the country. We are not well off, in fact, the only reason I got to study in UST was because of my uncle, who was kind enough to pay for my tuition fee. My father is a pastor of a very small church. And with most small churches, the pastor doesn’t get any monetary support from the church. Read more…

Now that the El Nino phenomenon has once again struck the entire country, it is best to make sure that we have drums filled with water, just in case there’s shortage of water supply. The problem with steel drums is that it gets rusty over time so the water stinks. It would be great to have stainless steel drums, but I’m sure those are expensive. So we’re just going to have to settle with our plastic drums for our emergency water supply. Make sure you do too.

Since I’m currently at home with a lot of time in my hands, blogging, plurking and using facebook occupies pretty much most of my time. Of course, that’s second to my mommy duties. And recently, I have been rather fascinated with joining blog contests. I chanced upon Animetrics blog from her plurk page, we have some plurk friends in common. When I learned that she is going to have a contest to commemorate her blog’s first year, I told myself I’m going to join it. In her teaser, she mentioned that she will be awarding the first person to give an entry a special prize. Too bad someone else beat me to it, but here’s hoping I can convince her to award me one of the prizes.

Personally, I wanted the Neutrogena Wave Starter Kit. But I’m going to opt for a different prize. I wanted to win the ACE Water Spa gift certificates for my son. Since my hubby and I are both in between jobs, bringing the little man to a beach or a pool resort is not that feasible, given our tight budget. On top of that, the reason I wanted to bring him there, is because we were told by his occupational therapist that swimming is a good activity for sensory integration. My son is currently going through occupational therapy three times a week for sensory integration. We have yet to go back to his developmental pedia for the diagnosis and his second check up, hopefully its not Autism.

So I really hope I win the GCs to Ace Water Spa so we could bring him there. It’s also a good thing that the said facility is within the metro so going there doesn’t have to be expensive and difficult.

If you would also like to join the contest, check out the mechanics here.

Been a week from the time hubby went to that final interview for that job he really wanted. And he’s been rather frantic every time his mobile phone would ring or would make a sound due to incoming text messages. I guess the recent global recession has made companies resort to a more stringent employee screening process. Oh well, I guess we just have to pray more and keep looking.

Technology has indeed changed the way things are done these days, including education. While distance education has long been offered in some learning institutions, it was done through mail correspondence. As such, problems like missing correspondence is quite an issue back then. It not only delays the institution, it likewise causes unwanted delay for the learner.

Nowadays, people have the option to enroll in online universities in order to get a degree. It enables the learner to have a flexible schedule, therefore making mastery of subject matter very much possible. Aside from a flexible schedule, the learner also benefits from having saving on costs, costs that are inevitable when attending university the traditional way.

But before you decide to sign up for the first online university you see in cyberspace, there are a lot of things you have to consider. For one, you have to make sure that the institution where you will sign up to get your degree is one that is recognized and accredited. Make sure you are not signing up with pseudo-universities online who intends to rip you off your hard earned money.

Since I’ve been looking for reputable online universities, I recently came across Western Governors University. It was a brainchild of 19 US governors who wanted to provide quality education for more and more people. What’s more impressive is that they are competency-based not credits-based. So no need to work on hours and hours on end to earn your degree. If you can prove that you already know what you were taught that you can quicken your pace and earn you degree in no time. A good example of this is their RN to BSN online program.

For more details about WGU programs please check out their website – www.wgu.edu.