Scenes from my university

I recently found cause to write about UP-Diliman, the university that I attended for a few years, in rather elegiac terms in a story.

As that story is supposed to be part of a project where both words and images come together, I took it upon myself to add some references for the artist who will draw my story, and to this end I went out last Sunday to photograph my uni.

Turns out it was perfect weather to take pictures: a blue sky overhead, a sun that was not overwhelming in its light and in fact was a bit moody and muted. There were also not a lot of people on the grounds, which my SO and I attributed to that weekend being the first of the semester break, meaning, everyone might have gone home for a couple of weeks.

He and I took turns with the camera. I'm pretty sure that the third photo is his.

The facade of Ang Bahay ng Alumni features a striking stained-glass half-circle window, which unfortunately is not that obvious in this light. [Hint: it's that massive window with the iron traceries.] The name of the building roughly translates to "The Home of the Alumni".

A look up, up, up the UP Carillon. When we were at uni together we used to spend afternoons listening to the distant songs of the bells as they were rung in this tower. Recently the whole thing has undergone a facelift and it now looks much better than it did ten years ago.

The facade of Palma Hall, also known as AS [Arts and Sciences] and LA [Liberal Arts], depending on your generation, as seen through some of the acacia trees planted along the Academic Oval. Photo by my partner.

A photo of one side of the Academic Oval, taken by me while sitting on the sidewalk opposite Palma Hall. I really like the atmosphere in this photo: it makes us look as though we were the only people in the area. In fact there were a few bicyclists making the rounds - I just got lucky; I took the photo while they were still far away.

For all its flaws and strange idiosyncrasies I still think my uni is gorgeous and a joy to be in. I hope these pictures help convey that.

Home Improvement! We finally get a proper closet

The joke of this Sunday morning was, "I want a sonic screwdriver and I want it now."

We WERE watching a couple of guys assemble the closet we'd purchased last week, after all.

Hard to believe that we've been living in our apartment for close to three years and only now managed to have enough money for a closet. That might have had something to do with the fact that moving in had been expensive all on its own, and I was directing most of my money to just getting by.

Now I have some money stored safely away, so I was able to get something we badly needed.


The nice thing about this closet: lots and lots of space for organizing clothes. There's a mirror in one of the doors, too, so it's now possible for us to do a complete check on our outfits before heading out the door.


The main storage space in the closet.

[Yes, those are our chocobos. I took them back home after a brief stint in the office with me.]

Now I have to spend most of tonight organizing a ton of things. Hope that the Internet holds out and that the storm doesn't hit us very badly.

Kanin Club Again: Brunch Before a Birthday

Related posts:
Meal in the City: "Crispy Dinuguan" at Kanin Club, UP-Ayala Technohub
Meal in the City: Kanin Club Redux

As one of us will soon be turning a year older, my partner and I went back to Kanin Club today for a celebratory brunch. Here's what we had to eat.

All photos taken by my partner.

Salad: green mangoes, onions, tomatoes, salted eggs, and bagoong [fermented shrimp paste] dressing. On the menu, this comes with cilantro; we had that taken out of the order since we're allergic to it.

Mains: crispy dinuguan and deep-fried tilapia, and rice of course.

The whole meal before we started eating it.

After the meal, we scotched our plans to go bowling and decided to go eat some dessert instead.

And dessert-slash-early-birthday-cake is Chocolate Fudge Cake from the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf.

Team Chocobo shenanigans

In the previous post I had to use stock photos of my newly-acquired chocobos because I hadn't yet gotten around to pinning them down for a proper photoshoot.

So today I have a bunch of lovely chocobo pics for you to look at. Chocobo picspam attack!

My nuker Chocobo. "Kweh?" *casts Thundaga* "Kweh!"

My healer Chocobo. "Kweh!" *casts Cure* "Kweh?"

Team Chocobo Mages, ready to rock.

Healer: Kweh? Wanna fight?

Nuker: Kweh! This means war!

PJ: Okay, guys, take three steps away from each other and turn around and cast - on my signal....

And now I've got these two cuties guarding my workstation at the office, which reminds me that I will probably want to take my camera to a shift one of these days in order to get a proper picture and give you an idea of where I work. [I happen to be pretty happy with my desktop wallpaper at the office, too.]

This morning I was a bit of a stereotype....

Dregs of a latte + beautiful Parker ballpoint pen + trusty moleskine notebook = a familiar image about writers.

I was fresh out of my Friday night shift and waiting for a ride to a morning appointment. Having already tried to sleep at the office - and failing miserably - I decided to keep myself awake with a cuppa, and while I was there I decided I'd better get some writing done.

This year I'm a bit...daunted about even attempting to join NaNoWriMo. This partly has to do with the concept - sure, I've written fanfiction before, but do I have enough juice in me to pound out 50,000 words of the same?! And it partly has to do with the work, as I'm not sure how I can work in writing 2,000 words a day around the long hours of teaching people how to speak English.

[And November and December are busy months at the office apparently.]

So one of the things I wound up writing in the notebook was a series of questions regarding NaNo readiness. I wonder if I can survive the month if I take on the workload, write the daily 2,000 or so words, and sleep six or seven hours every day.

...Yeah, that's got me quaking in my shoes a bit. Let's see how it goes from here.

Meal in the City: Breakfast at Wheatberry, Scout Tuason, Quezon City

I love breakfasts. That is all.

Here's today's, which my boyfriend and I ate at a bakery and cafe called Wheatberry. It's located near my office and is apparently one of the favored places for meetings and coffee in the area.


My breakfast was a house specialty, the Chunky Corned Beef. Cubes of very nice, home-made corned beef with lots of sauteed onions and chopped garlic, served with garlic rice, two eggs any way (I had mine scrambled), and some veg: cucumber, tomato, and some papaya relish (locally, "atchara"). Delish. I loved the texture and flavor of the corned beef. (Sorry, the picture is a bit blurry, and doesn't do justice to the meal....)


My boyfriend had the Wheatberry Breakfast Sampler: house pancakes, potato tots, two eggs any way (he had his over easy), and breakfast sausage. Those pancakes were, in a word, amazing. We both agreed that if they weren't made from scratch at least they were made from a very high-quality mix, as they tasted fluffier and went down heartier than the standard mixes employed locally. Also, very tasty mini hash browns.

We asked for juice to go with our meals, and that right there was the major disappointment: the orange juice was prepared from a local powdered mix. Really a bit of a letdown since Wheatberry has a wide selection of gourmet teas, specialty coffees, and coffee-based drinks - was it too much to ask for a decent juice selection to go with?

Meal in the City / Quick Photo Post 4: Fried Rice Zombie-Style and Scarf Project 02

Last night I proposed to do a clean sweep of the refrigerator's contents - and there were a few, since we had gone on a small cooking binge last week. Chicken thigh fillet, pork chop, kimchi from the last Mashitta visit. So I made a large batch of fried rice to eat early this morning.

Why "zombie-style"? Because I brought the leftovers back to life. Yummy.

Added to the rice and meat were a garnish of eggs and a can of good local corned beef. We finished off the kimchi, too. Good meal. Have to do stuff like this more often. Yes, I know the pictures don't do it justice.

Here I am modeling the black scarf that was my first completed crochet project. Yep, it's the boyfriend's, and yep, that's him taking this photo and the next.

And here I am with the completed "His" scarf. This means I'm halfway through the project. I'm now working hard on the "Hers" scarf. You can tell I learned my lesson between one scarf and another; I'm better at estimating how long or large a project is and am now buying yarn accordingly.

The Scarf Project 02: His-and-Hers Scarves, Her Version + Prepping for Future Projects

Companion post to The Scarf Project 02: His-and-Hers Scarves, His Version.

The next crochet project I'm tackling is both very easy and very challenging at the same time. I'm making a set of his-and-hers scarves, the intended recipients being my younger brother and his girlfriend. As they'll be visiting from Singapore in late March to help celebrate our youngest sister's graduation from high school and entry into a top-flight cooking school, I'm making these as "welcome home" gifts.

Here is the scarf for my brother's girlfriend in progress. It's 15 stitches wide and is also intended to end up at 80 inches long.


This scarf is in a green-on-green tweed, using a heavy worsted-weight yarn in dark forest green and a light lace-weight one in green-and-gray heather. The challenge is as usual: to tension correctly enough for both types of yarn.


Playing around with a decorative insert led me to making two rows of a really tall stitch, called triple triple crochet. Each insert will be ten rows in from the ends of the scarf, so I'll do a second band.

Future projects below the jump.

The Scarf Project 02: His-and-Hers Scarves, His Version

The next crochet project I'm tackling is both very easy and very challenging at the same time. I'm making a set of his-and-hers scarves, the intended recipients being my younger brother and his girlfriend. As they'll be visiting from Singapore in late March to help celebrate our youngest sister's graduation from high school and entry into a top-flight cooking school, I'm making these as "welcome home" gifts.

What makes this first of two scarves, the one for my brother, easy? Well, there's only one stitch involved, the double crochet, so it's really more of "no-brainer pattern is a no-brainer".

The scarf is 17 stitches across, for a total of about 5.5 inches; and its intended length is 80 inches.

And right there in the picture is the reason - or rather, reasons - why this is a challenging pattern. I'm using two yarns at once: a heavy gray worsted one and a thin teal-blue lace one. You can see how the pattern lies mainly in the interaction of the two colors:

This close-up also shows a few of the stitch markers that I bought recently; I'm using them in this project to mark off every time I complete ten rows.

I took the third photo in macro mode to show how the two yarns look when worked consistently in double crochet to make a scarf.

The other reason why I'm making my brother's scarf first is because I'm also using it as a gauge/dry run for his girlfriend's version, hence the use of the stitch markers. Since I'm going to do decorative stitch inserts in her scarf, I'll use his as a way of figuring out where and how to place the inserted rows.

I'm making rather rapid progress on my brother's scarf and well I should, the "pattern" being hysterically easy and all. It's just that I have to adjust the yarns every now and then so they go attractively together, and that takes a few seconds every time I make the adjustments. Still, this is very therapeutic work and it makes me feel good to know that my hands are adjusting gradually to this very manual craft.

Onward, then.

Scrunchies and a meditation on crochet-based geometry

[Warning, this post contains mathematics. :D]

My sister is going to be graduating from high school in March, and will hopefully be going on to cooking school after that. Since both her school uniform and her love for cooking require her to keep her longish hair under control, I'm making her a series of gifts that will see much use in the days to come: scrunchies, and quite possibly a headband or two.

In particular, there are these: a set of six hyperbolic scrunchies - three in her favorite colors, three more in black. [I SAID there was math involved, didn't I?]




These photos show two of the three colored scrunchies; I'm making the violet one later, and then the black ones. The pattern is based on Cayenne Boyer's Hyperbolic Scrunchie; I've modified the pattern by taking out the fourth and final round. [Pattern remains © Cayenne Boyer.]

The scrunchies take the form of a hyperbolic plane [see Wikipedia entry on hyperbolic geometry here]. For some reason, the craft of crochet has been used, in particular by the Institute for Figuring, as a way of visualizing this non-Euclidean form of geometry; they're the folks behind the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef, based on the techniques of hyperbolic crochet created by the mathematician Daina Taimina.

In crochet terms, it actually comes down to a definite pattern of increases in a piece made in the round, causing the edges to ruffle up.

I don't claim to understand the math behind the scrunchies I'm making, but it makes for a fascinating crafting experience.

I hope my sister enjoys using these.

There's no such thing as having too many pens

Writing arsenal, minus my moleskine-type notebook.

You're likely to think me a dork, and an old-fashioned one at that. "There she goes writing in her blog and all, but it's a post full of PENS! And they're not even those multi-purpose types that take dictation/have a laser pointer/contain flash storage!"

So this photo and this post constitute an ode to my pen collection. You've already met the three pens on top; so I'll talk about the pack of ten (yes, there are ten pens) on the bottom.

Ever since the whole idea of gel pens in an amazing rainbow of colors was introduced to the Philippines around ten years ago (OMG THAT LONG?), they've become near-ubiquitous. And why shouldn't they be? The good brands don't clog and don't leak, write very well even on rough types of paper, and look cool. People color-code notes with them and even create calligraphy and artwork using their bright, vivid inks.

I bought this set shortly after my birthday this year. Since my first introduction to gel pens consisted of sitting in on a focus group discussion about whether the Dong-A brand would even sell well in the country (guess what: it did), I've had a marked preference for these Korean pens. Funnily enough, I use them at work, color-coding my to-do list. Since I mainly use them on 3x5 index cards and on short bond paper I can't complain about the quality of the ink, since the ones at the office are made of relatively good-quality paper stuffs.

I know that it DOES look odd that I'm still thinking about pens but, well, I guess that's what being a kid of the '80s and '90s does to me: I'll lust after techy stuff all right, but acquisitions of pens and papers and notebooks will really make me swoon, since that was what I had when I was in school.

Just about the only thing this collection of pens can't do is fix my wonky handwriting.

Meal in the City / Quick Photo Post 1: Three Meals

A recent return to Cara Mia for breakfast yields these two dishes: top, sausages given quick run through the oven and then served with bread, scrambled eggs, half a roasted tomato, and a hash brown. That was my breakfast.

The BF was supposed to have ordered an omelet with smoked salmon and vegetables, but his eggs arrived folded around just the veg. Kind of a disappointment. The eggs were cooked very nicely, though.

My very first pork katsu sandwich, from Metro, the upscale version of popular Japanese-Filipino fast-food chain Tokyo Tokyo. Whole-wheat the bread may be, but it was toasted to a beautiful golden-brown crust, the perfect contrast to the tender, soft crumb and to the deep-fried pork cutlet. Mmmm. Those billowing white things are actually potatoes in tempura batter, fried and then sprinkled with sour cream and onion seasoning.

Meal in the City: A Japanese Lunch at Sushi-Ya, SM Megamall

Con-going can be a hungry business!

After making the rounds of the booths at the recently concluded Komikon 2009, my partner and I decided to take advantage of an opportunity to eat a good old-fashioned donburi or two. We like eating at the various Sushi-Ya branches because they usually can be counted on to serve decent Japanese food. Plus I love the cold mugicha they pour out for a service drink (i.e. it's free of charge).

Here's what we had that Sunday.


Appetizer: a small serving of maguro (lean tuna) sashimi. We wish that the slices would be bigger, but well, recession and all. Good eating anyway. We dose it with a little calamansi (sort of a cross between a tangerine and a kumquat) before dipping in wasabi and soy sauce.


Oops, it's a little blurry. My partner's rice bowl, with unagi (grilled eel with sauce) on top. I'm not quite a fan of the stuff...but my motto in life is "try anything once". I had a bite out of his meal - it was okay, though there were still a few bones it it, yikes.


That's a hefty serving of agedashi tofu up front, with a nice heap of dashi flakes and a sweet-savory sauce. In the background, my customary katsudon. Sushi-Ya tops their version off with shredded quick-fired nori bits. This was a good katsudon and it paired well with the tofu; the meat still had a little fat so it was juicy and tasty, and then it harmonized with the nice earthy/metallic aftertaste that the tofu had (probably from the water it was stored in).

I seem to be craving for some food, so I think I'll go and see what I can do about a mid-morning snack. Being at the office on a Monday morning, with a persistent and annoying cold, really takes it out of you.

What's YOUR favorite thing to eat at a Japanese restaurant?

Gelato Cakes!

Yeah, I seem to always be posting about cake, ice cream, and combinations thereof. It's my sweet tooth talking, really.

However, with all the bad weather and attendant plunging temperatures in the city right now, I haven't quite been in the mood for cold desserts lately. Still, desserts often have an inherent tendency to look BLOODY GORGEOUS. And the thing I'm featuring here is no exception.

A really great Italian food place called Amici opened an outlet near my office last year, and I had the honor of writing one of the first reviews of that location's food. As time has passed, Amici (Italian for "friends") has steadily become more popular in the local food scene, opening more branches and serving an ever-expanding menu.

Already famous for its take on gelato (the Italian version of ice cream, made without eggs), Amici recently took its frozen desserts one step further by spinning them off into their own brand: Cara Mia Gelateria. Aside from adding new flavors every so often, Cara Mia (roughly, Italian for "my beloved") has also branched out into other gelato delights.


Check 'em out. Gelato cakes! Dense, deeply flavorful, wonderful gelato smoothed into layers over crumb crusts, and topped with all sorts of gorgeous things.

And, in the case of the Choco Tartufo (the dome-thing next to the "Gelato Cakes" sign), COVERED in chocolate cake AND a smooth dome of chocolate itself! It's enough to make any dessert lover go starry-eyed!

Being a massive fan of Cara Mia's gelato flavors (my current absolute favorite is the new Tiramisu flavor), I will definitely have to look for an excuse to eat a slice of these luscious beauties. I've particularly got my eye on the Spumoni Surprise (extreme left in the picture) and the Choco Sans Rival (extreme right in the picture). As soon as the weather warms up, hee hee hee......

Meal in the City: "Golden Brown Waffle" at Pancake House, Quezon Avenue

There's a quote by the nutritionist Adelle Davis that sums up my usual approach to three meals a day:

Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper.

The Philippines has an amazing variety of breakfast delights, which makes the first part of the quote very easy to attain, but sometimes it's nice to take a break from the rice and go for something more Western.

Something like a waffle. And for me, waffles should be crunchy; they should have a golden-brown color that contrasts delightfully against the tawny pancake syrup and the creamy white butter (preferably unsalted).

A waffle is great with just those two add-ons, but I also applaud the idea of coupling its crunch with either fruits or meat.

There's a local restaurant group that advocates the idea of "breakfast like a king" and actually offers pancakes and waffles all day. This is Pancake House - they've been around since 1970, serving breakfast food and other dishes. When I was a kid I looked forward to the times when we could eat their pancakes and their house specialty tacos, as they were always nicely made.

Pancake House has branches all over the country; I pass the one on Quezon Avenue every day on the way to work. Well, one particular day last week I was way too early to head for my desk - I was in the area by 8am, and the office opened at 9 - so I got off the bus at this branch.



My breakfast at Pancake House: their Golden Brown Waffle plus four Country Sausages.

Now I guess I've just grown older, because when I was a child I remember that the pancakes and waffles at the Pancake House were big - the type of big that even some kids might balk at finishing. This waffle was smaller than I remembered.

But man, was it wonderfully crunchy. The unsalted butter was whipped to airy perfection and made a great topping for the waffle, and with the tiny hint of tooth-achy sweet provided by pancake syrup, made for a powerfully uplifting and nostalgia-tinged breakfast.

Added drama was provided by the wonderfully juicy country sausages, each small link bursting with spicy juices. Each bite made a great contrast to the waffle.

As good as this waffle was, I still can't help missing the days when the waffles were big....

Meal in the City: "Diliman Duo" at ROC, UP-Diliman (First Post)

This is a blog where I talk about a lot of things that I find interesting; one of those topics that really get my motor running is food.

Introducing the Meal in the City posts, where I talk about some recent interesting things I've had to eat, with pictures. I'm no expert at taking food pictures so don't be disappointed if it's not food porn-y - but I hope to learn and get there some day. :)

I went to college at the University of the Philippines (Diliman campus) and was mighty pleased then that there were so many foodie adventures to be had there. (Ah, the joys of Rodic's and The Chocolate Kiss, and our favorite street-food stand near the ROTC building!) And glad am I indeed to report that the tradition of good food on campus continues as newer establishments rise up to join the favorites and long runners.

Some couple of weeks ago I went out with friends to do a photoshoot back on the old university stomping grounds. As is usual after such strenuous exercise, the day ended with us settling in at a long table for some grub.

Recently opened at the ground floor of UP-Diliman's Bahay ng Alumni (literally, "Home of the Alumni") is a place called ROC; I think it's supposed to stand for "Restaurant of Choice". Since I was starving after the day's exertions, I ordered a rather substantial plate: the "Diliman Duo", apparently an all-day breakfast meal.

(I LOVE breakfasts. Favorite meal of the day. I always enjoy eating substantial ones and then being virtuous for the rest of the day by consuming smaller portions.)



The Diliman Duo is composed of fried rice, eggs scrambled with onions and tomatoes, fat and juicy longganisa (sausages), and daing (small dried fish). The longganisa was SO GOOD - it was quite reminiscent of the variety that comes from Vigan in the northern province of Ilocos Sur, and even had substantial chunks of garlic skillfully blended in with the meat. The fish were dressed up for the occasion by being soaked in oil that was laced with tiny, VERY HOT siling labuyo (I think they're called bird's eye chili).

The rice and the eggs provided the counterpoint to the highly seasoned meat and fish by being agreeably bland without being tasteless. Juicy tomatoes, too - I was happy that the scrambled eggs were moist without being soupy.

Now this is a breakfast fit for a king. Sure, it was late for me to be eating breakfast, but this one was lovely and filling, and a great way to cap off a day of modeling for friends.

I must go back and try their other dishes. And, wonder of wonders, I missed out on their take on crème brûlée! I won't make that mistake again - I'll be sure to order it next time!