extrinsic???

we usually dream and think of going out and mostly we hear our kababayans talk about their experiences in different countries they've been to; and yeah most of the Filipino families have relatives all over the world. there are tons of reasons why pinoys keep leaving and still they come back! when i was a child, i saw my cousins, uncles, aunts, dad and my grandma leave the country and come back from time to time and i have though about doing the same but hesitant as to the consequences and the changes that await me. but then again i was too young to analyze things and so it remained a fancy thought of what was out there waiting for me. attempts! can you imagine how frail and unprepared i was during those instant thought of just getting away and just leave period! i had many opportunities that in the end i chose to stay in the Philippines. reasons?! well, i had quite enough reasons why i had to stay. i couldn't leave mama and i had some battle against my own peculiar thoughts going on and on for the past years. my career was also tremendously playing a significant role in my decision-making so i had professional factors to consider like my staff, my colleagues, my boss and my self-fulfillment with what i have achieved and how satisfied i am with those that i have gained; do i still lack maturity? and all those questions running through my head. recession... funny how this globally dominating plague did not stop me from leaving! and most of them think that i am foolish! yeah, i am! lol but what else can i do? i can't stop it from happening or wait forever before i finally decide! I AM A FOREIGNER. it was an odd thing for me to say that i am indeed a foreigner now when for years the "foreigner" i am used to refer to are those tall and white men who tour my country, marrying brown-skinned pinays. but now i am THE foreigner! lol my job applications are a series of unimaginable totally crazy experiences! i had 15 interviews! not kidding! having this economic chaos can't be harder than any other time in history. i found myself realizing how absurd it is to be in the middle of all this! do i have a choice?!!! lol companies choose the locals over the foreigners and it's a no-brainer! differences--this country is diverse in itself where so many races and languages that you bump into! and i'm one of the pieces in the puzzle. ^^ and yeah, i'm fortunate that the company i belong right now is also a mixture of races-- that i don't feel no prejudice. lol the pinoys at work are cool with me. i guess i'll be so at home here in no time. =)

babydoll

the doll named ANNE♥♥♥


you know you LOVE me...

familia zaragoza

my friends at work had our post christmas dinner. my boss invited me during my long


leave. i was touched that she also invited mark to join. then we exchanged our gifts and some compulsive air breezed through these peeps and suddenly decided to get some shots in a nearby studio.... here you go.......

yui's christening!

[jackie, yui, tito ram, ninang anne and tito mark]

woke up kinda late since i got home late after a long photoshoot but then it's baby yui's christening and so mark and i rushed to the Our Lady of Annunciation Parish.

curby (yui's dad) is a great friend of mine. he was the one who also helped us with looking for our first pad. and yeah i was their cupid! hehe then came my handsome inaanak! ang gwapo ni yui! and when he met mark, sama ng sama! unlike with the other friends like ram, umiiyak c yui!

and as usual, napakanta n nman ako! hmmmp! haha

chilin' @ chili's + JB's birthday

maris and i stayed a few minutes @ starbucks shangri la, had some chat with some TF peeps; had some dinner... well sorry to skip the part where she chewed and dumped a california maki in a napkin! yeah, i wasn't able to get a snap of her doing that! hahaha and so we headed to timog-- where the bars are at.... and our goal for the night was to get drunk.... nah, scrap that! we were just chillin' at chili's... funny because maris didn't like the fried cheese-- my favorite mozzarella cheese. i think she's just losing her appetite becuase she's got colds... hmmm so she ordered a 'calypso cooler' and i ordered chili's 'frozen top shelf' --- a strawberry margarita.

then i had to jump to white avenue bar for JB's birthday. ^^

[me and JB]

gotcha! =)

[2009 planner fresh from the store.. =P ]

and so i've claimed my 2009 planner from the store with mark yesterday... this means i'm going to say "bye-bye" to my 2008... awwww but see it's a new year to look forward to, right? with me, the planner doesn't just function as the future-planning-so-business-inclined-object to start with! my planer becomes my diary when i keep track of my memories for the year, it becomes my scrapbook (oh yeah! the flowers mark gave me are just in it. hahaha nah, just a few petals. =P, it also becomes my sketchbook when i get hell bored.. :P, and it also becomes my song book! haha i keep lyrics and whenever i felt like writing a song/ poem/ musings,,, whatever... i scribble down my planner and yeah, during emergency meetings! hahaha it becomes an agenda/ minutes keeper, too! so it just shows how important a starbucks planner's role in ANNe's life, huh?! hahaha! i chose the red one becuase it's got more chracter thatn the blue and the black. well, my planner for 2007 was a black one (that heavy thing!)... dark blue is okay.. well, could've been better if it was a navy blue. :P halikinu! :P haha ateneo sis-boom-bah! but yeah, i love the red one. =) it works better to my advantage that i don't need to carry a hevy one this time, especially that i'm going for a trip soon... :P

[my 2008 planner-- see, the petals and mark's card!]

[petals, ribbons, card, chocolate wraps! :P]

[boom and anne]

x.o.x.o. gossip giRL

Josh Schwartz, creator of “The OC,” is an executive producer and writer of “Gossip Girl,” and helped turn it into an East Coast version of that other show: “The EC.” It’s a sleek, glossy, musically enhanced soap opera centered on wealthy, gorgeous high school students who connive and cavort to the sound of Rihanna, Justin Timberlake, Peter Bjorn and John, Angels & Airwaves, and Timbaland.
The television version does not violate the books’ basic principles: The anonymous Gossip Girl is an unseen narrator (Kristen Bell, “Veronica Mars”) who blogs about the movements and misdeeds of Serena (Blake Lively), her B.F.F. Blair (Leighton Meester) and other friends as they drink, smoke pot and hook up at trendy clubs.
But the CW adaptation pumps up the importance of parents, particularly Rufus, father to Dan (Penn Badgley) and Jenny (Taylor Momsen), middle-class Brooklyn kids who chafe beneath the scorn of their more glamorous classmates. In the novels Rufus is a minor figure, a scraggily failed poet with bad hygiene; here he is played by Matthew Settle as a former rock musician with romantic problems of his own, including a history with Serena’s snobby mother.
The blending of adult and teenage story lines was crucial to “The OC,” but here it is a glaring violation of the genre.
“Gossip Girl,” along with similar series like “The A-List” and “The Clique,” is Mean Girl lit, mass-market paperbacks that put “Sex and the City” in a teenage context, with lots of sex and erotic brand names like Prada, Absolut and St. Barts.
And while these works are often criticized as a devolution from Judy Blume’s coming-of-age novels, they are actually closer to children’s literature. Like “Peter Pan,” “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” or the “Harry Potter” series, these novels are fantasies and projections of an imaginary world where parents are dead or peripheral, and lost boys and girls struggle on their own with good and evil, or in this case, Bergdorf Goodman and evil.
Even the characters’ names — Blair Waldorf and Serena van der Woodsen — are as fancifully evocative as those found in children’s books, like Willy Wonka in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” or the candy magnate Lord Skrumshus in “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang,” Ian Fleming’s novel for children. (Fleming, whose spy James Bond met up with one Pussy Galore, never quite outgrew that name game.)
Parents matter on “Gossip Girl,” and their negligence veins the narrative as if to explain their children’s excesses. CW specializes in young-adult television, and certain public-trust habits are hard to break, like enriching spoiled, bratty characters with poignant back stories to make them more sympathetic — or justifiable to media monitoring groups like the Parents Television Council.
Oh, and also, Serena and Blair don’t smoke cigarettes. It is an odd crick in our culture that a show geared toward younger viewers will depict minors drinking alcohol and doing illegal drugs, but draw the line at cigarettes. Good citizens complain about the power of the tobacco lobby in Washington, but in Hollywood it seems that the anti-tobacco lobby is stronger, and even more intimidating to industry executives than Mothers Against Drunk Driving, or for that matter, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.
The show even assigns Serena, back from boarding school under mysterious circumstances, a younger brother who attempted suicide and is misunderstood by all but his caring, if troubled, sister. (In the novels he is older, at Yale and an object of female lust, not psychotherapy.)
Children’s book protagonists skirt past private wounds; they are too busy exploring Narnia or Neverland and fending off witches, pirates and Indian chiefs — or hostile saleswomen at Bendel’s.
Only adult fiction indulges the grown-up delusion that children are interested in their parents’ personal lives.
The mothers and fathers in “Gossip Girl” novels like “Because I’m Worth It” and “Nothing Can Keep Us Together” are peripheral figures, shallow socialites, divorcées and Wall Street tycoons who provide credit cards, neglect and a few bare-bones plot points, much the way Mr. Darling’s decision to chain Nana, the nanny watchdog, in the yard gave Peter Pan his chance to fly away with Wendy and the boys.
That “Gossip Girl” novels have no underlying moral lesson is exactly the point; the tale of Hansel and Gretel has no redeeming social message either, except perhaps to beware of candy.

Funny how this series is happening in real life. I mean I felt for Serena. ^^ It's not easy to be popular and though I'm enjoying the attention, at times I wish I was not the noticeable type. ^^ Well... it's inevitable.... No effort at all... Taurus by nature.. :P

rockin' anniversary party - part 1

[grand entrance from yolly! =))]

and i thought i would ruin the party... we previously had a rehearsal, and for some reasons mr. guitarist just had other matters to work on and diasppeared. i merely had time to run for a CD! damn! why'd i have to perform later! argh.. that's what i had in mind.... and then i had to just grab my rockstar outfit to get on with it. yeah, our theme was rock so i had to wear my usual clothes during my gigs! hehe

so here are the snapshots of the anniversary we had earlier at the metrowalk....

[me and sweet annie]

[make-up artist???!!]

[with CJ]

[jonathan!!!]

[dance competition... go malties!!!]

[mai-mai!!!=) best dancer]

[danny, laseng kn????]

[rui and mitch]

[shorty get loose!!!]