AndieCrafts

 This is a conversation between Andie and Roa Ming some time today, around 12 noon.

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Andie: Can you please stop crying? You are starting to get on my nerves.

Roa:    I’ll stop once you teach me how to stop hurting.

A:        It’s been two days! You have to get over it! It’s not like you’re crying over a lost love or something.

R:        I know! How can you ever suppose that I don’t know?!? It’s the ugliest and most stupid video in the world, yes!!! I KNOW!!!

A:        If you do know, then why the tears?!? IT HAS BEEN TWO DAYS, GODAMMIT!

R:        Because the moment I remember that I spent a total of half a day on it, it becomes more than just a stupid and ugly video. And the moment I remember that it is more than just a stupid and ugly video to me, I start blaming myself for being stupid and ugly. I start wishing I was never born. I start wishing I read a new book all those hours I spent making it. I wish I were crying over a lost love instead of this. I wish I were dead.

A:         Why do you wish all these things? Especially the last one?

R:        Maybe because if someone up there listened and made it come true, I’d stop hurting.

A:        What makes you think you’d stop hurting that easily? It’s like saying I’d stop being angry the moment a person steps on my foot.

R:         Because the moment I die, I’m numb.

A:        Your body, maybe. But how would you feel if you saw people moving on without a trace of tears on their faces after you die?

R:        Hurt?

A:        Don’t answer me with a question! You know very well what I am talking about! The moment you die, there’s no chocolate mousse to soothe the pain after a really bad exam, and there’s no Andie to get you through things like these. Nothing at all to soothe your pains! The moment you die, and you end up hurting with what you see, you’ll end up hurting for all eternity! And you know very well that when you die, so would I. So keep strong, man! Live your life so that when you die, you’d see a lot of crying that would make you cry, too, but this time, in a happy and proud way. You hear me?

R:        …

A:        I guess that means a yes. Now, for some ice cream…

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The thing about Roa Ming is that she’s emo. And sometimes illogical. Andie, on the other hand, crazy as she might be, has this anger that fires her up without blinding her logic. People can barely tell who they are talking to. They think it’s mostly Andie, when in fact, Roa has been quite dominant lately. People know Andie by name, but not by trait. People know Roa by trait, not by name. People take Andie as the one having the traits of Roa, without knowing that Roa exists.

Roa would kill herself at the littlest bird poop dropping on her best shirt. It is Andie’s job to stop her.

Which one of me do you happen to know better?

I had the funniest experience yesterday. Funny, in the sense that it was quite stupid. But the emotions that provoked these happenings were far from being funny. In fact, they are quite depressing in nature.

On with the events. Awitenista 2008 happened last Saturday, and as a natural consequence of the event, everyone was quite busy to the point of derangement. I had an assignment for Awit, which was to make an AVP (Audio-Visual Presentation) for Awitenista Through the Years. Given this assignment, I stopped reading for 3 days (I have this goal of reading a total of at least 50 books for this year), just so I could finish it slowly but surely. A total of at least 12 hours were spent on that 1″27° presentation for these following reasons: first, is that I wanted to give my best, and although it wasn’t the best AVP on the show, it was, nonetheless, my best; and second, is that I am no Adobe Premiere genius. I have learned Adobe Premiere all on my own, and as much as I would like to have a formal education on the program, I haven’t had the opportunity. So there. As it turns out, my luck seems to favor me quite extra that day. Of the 3-hour show that was Awitenista, my barely half-and-one minute presentation didn’t make the cut. Yeah. Being the leaky faucet that I was, I cried myself silly for the better part of the weekend.

How so? Yesterday was the first decent conversation I had with my family after my dad left a day and a week ago. We were laughing ourselves silly. We do that all the time. But there was a little difference from the usual setting, which I’m not sure whether my family noticed or not. Every now and then, I would excuse myself, go up to my room, cry myself silly for a couple of minutes, then go back down and pretend like nothing happened. This went on for 5 hours. Yep! Stupid, I KNOW!

So I guess this is where I say that my decision to leave is final. This AVP assignment was supposed to make me change my mind, but as it turns out, my mind has geared towards leaving all the more. And I am not one to not take a hint. I GET THE HINT, OK?!?! SO WILL YOU JUST GET OFF MY BACK?!?!

Yeah… I’m kinda pissed of. *Steam coming out of my ears* The thing here is that as much as I love Kalasag, I cannot help but notice that I am beginning to harbor hard feelings towards (trying to be British here) it. I love Kalasag so much, and I can’t imagine myself continuing next year, and then graduating while harboring thoughts like “Kalasag talaga ang sumira ng buhay ko,” and “Kung ‘di ako sumali ng Kalasag, malamang masaya ako ngayon.” I wouldn’t like it to end that way. It’s good to end something that started good even at least semi-good (take that!). That way, nobody gets hurt, plus I get the chance to look back to good memories, not hard feelings.

I might be talking out of impulse here, but I’m a girl with the temperament of a raging and hungry bull in an arena with matadors. So sue me.

Yeah… I better get going now… I guess my eyes aren’t swollen anymore… Time for my Thermo exam (which I should have studied for last week, except that I spent all that time doing the AVP that was extremely useful)!

Let me begin with an extremely long prologue.

Saturday, February 9th, was the start of a series of stressful days. It’s only a week before Awitenista 2008, so go figure! Anyway, I had Systems Engineering to attend to, and, of course, the legendary Awitenista. For Systems, I barely managed to e-mail Anton the queuing data I took for the days I went to McDo alone on time. Then I was able to arrive in school just minutes shy of my professor leaving. Oh well. Me and my good luck. And don’t even get me started with Awit.

Upon reaching the office (Kalasag), Kuya Winston was sprawled on one of our couches like a dead man. If I did not know any better, I would have thought he was overdosed on drugs or something (imagine this: He was lying so still, and his eyes were half open, and I honestly believed it wasn’t going to be long before he would start having seizures). Again, IF I didn’t know any better. Just so everyone knows, Awitenista brings with it a series of symptoms all of the parties involved in making it a great show could never escape from: symptoms such as eye bags, asal adik (aka Am I Drugs? Syndrome), failed quizzes, and missed exams, among others. Anyway, there were so many things happening in between (between Kuya Winston’s death sleep and the next thing I can remember happening), but I can barely remember them (clearly, another symptom brought about by Awitenista). Before I knew it, we were on our way to SM to retrieve my new pairs of glasses (with a grade of -4.25, I cannot posible consider anybody wrong if they assumed that I was near blind), and consequently, on our way to Lispher Inn.

Lispher Inn is located at 13 Juna Avenue, Juna Subdivision, Matina, Davao City. Quite a convenient place to be located, seeing as how near it is from SM, NCCC Mall, St. Paul’s Cathedral, and a lot of other service establishments. It’s a really clean place. Semi-quaint in terms of its charm. I haven’t been able to try out the rooms yet, though. But that’s not what this entry is written for. It’s about Avenida.

Avenida, Lispher Inn’s restaurant located on the first floor of the establishment, agreed to host the 8th leg of the Davao Food Trip. The funny thing about this is that although I’ve lived the past 20 years of my life (which means all of it) here in Davao City, plus the fact that our house is a 5-minute ride from Lispher Inn, I have never stepped one foot on its premises, all the more eaten it’s food, until last Saturday.

Generally, the ambiance of the place is not unlike that of Lishper Inn’s (or what I’ve seen of it, which isn’t much, really). Chairs with delicate curves, and tables with much more delicate ones, are neatly arranged around the place which is quite spacious in comparison to other small restaurants. Avenida is actually a good enough place to have a nice and quiet dinner with your family.

Avenida served us three courses for this leg of the trip, namely: Beef Misono, Tuna Belly, and Sizzling Squid. Very simple names, actually. Which doesn’t surprise me the moment they touch my tongue: the simplicity in taste is quite a refreshing break from all the overwhelming flavors that exist out there.

First off: the Beef Misono.

I had no idea what Beef Misono was. But considering the fact that I didn’t know what watercress was (kangkong gud, bet you didn’t know!) until five minutes ago, I guess that isn’t too bad. The thing with their Beef Misono is that simple as it’s presentation might be, the taste is quite exquisite. The same goes for the sauce that comes with it. Perhaps that is the reason why they say it is Avenida’s specialty. Anyway, seeing as it’s my first, I guess the next Beef Misonos I get to taste will have quite a benchmark to overcome.

Next in line is their Tuna Belly.

The name is quite simple for this delectable dish, so in the spirit of IE4’s habit of renaming dishes (take this: Butter-Sugar Grilled Banana on skewers = Ginanggang, nyahahaha!!!), I decided to rename it Tuna Belly with Watercress (apply apply!!!). It was really good. I really like tuna belly and kangkong, I mean, watercress, and the lightness of these two combined was really good for my tongue and for my waist (as if I had one!).

And last but not the least: Sizzling Squid!!!

The best thing about the squid was the way it was cut. The trouble with squid is that it is so difficult to eat in public without any danger of rendering yourself damak in other’s eyes. The way the squid was cut made it easier to chew, and made it easier to combine flavors with the other ingredients of the dish. Like the other courses we have had for the night, it was equally simple without compromising the taste.

The thing about the food they serve is that Avenida seems to specialize in Ilonggo and International dishes. But if the rest of their menu would leave the same kind of impression on me, it would take just a few moments shy of a second for me to claim their type of cooking as Dabawenyo style. Haha! BB!*

The 8th leg of Davao Food Trip was actually good enough to make me relax despite the fact that Awitenista is literally licking at my heels. And considering the stress levels I am actually trying to crawl my way out of right now, that can mean anything but bad.

Again, Lispher Inn is located at 13 Juna Avenue, Juna Subdivision, Matina, Davao City. You could contact them through phone (082 299 2610) or by e-mail (info@lispher.ph).

*BB = Buot-buot (^-^)

I have just transferred my entries from my 3 year-old blog (Musings of a Deranged Mind) and my emo blog (The Chronicles of Roa Ming) to this blog. Yahoo!

I have two new blogs coming up, and being the xml-illiterate that I am, it’s taking a bit of time to finish churva-ing (layout, posts, and other blog needs) … Haha.

OK. I think I have to go to the Sexual Abuse Seminar which I am an hour late for. Ciao!

We all mature: one way or another. It is one of those simple facts of life we could never escape from. There will come a day wherein we realize that we have changed the way we view things, mostly for the better, without even knowing it (unless, of course, we were born to be naturally evil and inhumane, which has an almost nil chance of happening to any human being). Just a few hours ago, THE DAY made itself known to me.

Like Dorian Gray and Lord Henry Wotton, I used to value physical beauty above a lot of things, but quite unlike them, this is rather unconsciously observed. Do we not, as kids, often play with playmates that look as pleasant as their genes, or as their parents’ money, could bring about? I was guilty of this, but I fear not for my soul, knowing that a lot of people were, too. Anyway, there was this kid whom nobody really liked too well. I was not exactly the popular kid, but I found myself to be at higher ground than she was because at least I had some “friends.” She was the kind of kid others would run away from when she came to the playground, as if she had some sort of extremely deadly and highly contagious disease, or that she was the ”it” of one of the many-oh-so-many games we used played when we were kids. When I come to think of it, I could not come up with even a single fault she had that I once found so major. She was not ugly; although she was rather plain-looking. She was not shabby. She was not abusive, like I had been and sometimes am. I knew very little of her then. I still know little of her now, but somehow, I know better than I did then.

Her father was also a subject for scrutiny to my then young but extremely criticizing eyes. She looked so much like her father, and so everything I came to associate with her, which are now all forgotten, were things I associated with her father, too. Her father and mine had the same job, and they both (our dads) had this stressful look about them, but that which I did not mind seeing in my father, and yet found so annoying in others. He had dark lips which I was used to associating with mean people. And that was the end of it. I seemed to have hated them both, apparently for reasons I thought were good enough back then, and I determinedly decided to never have anything to do with their family. Period.

Or so I thought. I never encountered the girl again until university. I always saw her about campus with this big smile on her face. She looked so different from when we were kids in grade school, but maybe that was just a product of the many prejudices we have that shape our memories much more than we wish they would, or even much more than what is good. And given the label I have given her back then, I always ended up hesitating to greet her. I guess prejudices built from youth are difficult to remove from seemingly stable adult systems. I went about the hallways without even giving her a little glance whenever I passed her by. I know she knows that I can see her, and she, me, but people just act stupid when they don’t know how to act, and by that, I am no exception. I can’t exactly remember when, but she just sent me a friend request on Friendster, for which I did not have enough arrogance and insolence to reject. From then on, she would greet me first whenever our literal paths crossed (She greeted first, not I, usually so due to my convenient myopia, ADD, and, again, sheer hesitance).

Or paths crossed again today, but this time, I really had no inkling of her approaching presence. I was on my way home while she was on her way to somewhere in the school. All the time I was walking, I was really preoccupied with my heavy backpack and of all the things I have to do tonight (this long entry not included). As I was walking up some steps near Roxas Gate, there she was blocking my way, saying “Hi!” with this big smile on her face (which I found to be the extremely contagious disease that she had all along). I gave my startled, yet equally cheerful reply, and went on my way with a much lighter heart, surely, much lighter than my 10-kilogram backpack.

I rode a jeepney home. I am not sure where and when her father entered the jeepney (or where he left, for that matter), but it took a while before I noticed his presence. I am sure not to be mistaken with what I saw, though the two crossing of paths that have been extremely coincidental and at the same time related, and happening within a few minutes of each other at that, might leave one to think that I might have been on drugs, or that the heat of the 3 o’clock sun was producing mirages of the most realistic kind before me. He was there, but just like his daughter, he looked quite different from my remembrance of him. Yes, his hair was starting to thin quite badly in some places, but he could not look any more pleasant than he did today. His lips, once black (or that could have just been my imagination, too—you know how kids could be), have now turned into a pinkish-pale color, the kind I associate with kind men. I heard his father stopped at his work, and has now become a teacher. Maybe that’s the reason why he looks so fulfilled. I know his current job can’t possibly pay as well as his former (he used to be a sea farer), but what is money compared to one’s fulfillment? I can’t say for certain whether he knew me or not, but for the better part of my ride of home, I pretended to be asleep while listening to my iPod (as I usually do).

It is weird to have this kind of encounter (the most remarkable in my year so far), given that I just finished reading Dorian Gray yesterday. I now no longer have that “never have anything to do with their family” sort of attitude. In fact, I wish to be given the chance to be invited for dinner and know them better. It’s a n occassion I don’t count on happening, if happenstance or my will were to be depended upon. Happenstance often do not work for you if you pray with all your might that it might do so, and my will is greatly overshadowed by my hesitance to bring upon any significant progress. At any rate, I am just so happy that this day happened the way it did. Realizations are good for the soul, and anything good for the soul is something I need more than anything in the world right now.

It has been an extremely long while since I last had a Friday night at a place other than the couch at our living room or snoring like a bear inside the cave that is my room. So it came as a really pleasant surprise that Kuya Winston signed me up for the 7th leg of the Davao Food Trip at Aseya Bistro Royale. And seeing as how much my social life has improved over the past few months (to get it right, you have to be as pessimistic as you possibly can), I decided to join. Besides, who in their right mind would say no to free food? Wait. I’m not in my right mind. Hmmm…

After sneezing at the gym (20 minutes on the treadmill is a sneeze… a sneeze, I TELL YOU!!!), Kuya Erik, Kuya Winston, and I headed for Aseya Bistro Royale located at Humberto’s Inn, J. Palma Gil corner Padre Gomez Streets. And if you happen to die without ever, ever enjoying a meal at Aseya, you’ll be missing 4.68 %* of your life (humans have an average lifespan of 30,000 days, and 4.68% of that is around four years. THAT IS LONG!).

ABOUT THE PLACE…

The design of the place was something I would choose to do for our own dining room. The lighting was good, and the entire setting gave of a sense of homey-ness I could not find anywhere else but, of course, home. What I loved especially about the place were the curtains and the bamboo place mats, mainly because I was looking at them the whole night, contemplating whether such decor would look good in my room (the dining room, in the case of the bamboo place mats). If you desire going to place with a coffee shop-like ambiance but with a menu that contains things other than coffee and cheesecake, then Aseya is the place to be.

ABOUT THE FOOD…

OK. There were about 10 Davao Food Trippers (hehe… sounds awkward… oh well…) during this leg of the trip, and most of them probably wrote about all of the food, and so I shall spend a greater deal of my time writing about my favorite courses of the night. I’ll give you a hint: TOFU AND SUKIYAKI!!! (*points to the title with this big stupid grin on her face*)

I have always been a big tofu fan, and after tasting the Tofu with Chicken and Mushrooms served to us, not going back to Aseya is no longer an option. Their tofu had this natural ability of melting in one’s mouth after barely touching it. Plus the mushrooms and chicken were able to impart enough of their taste to the tofu, which made my constant picking at the tofu plate (and consequently picking up the last piece) come as no surprise.

The thing that drew me most to the sukiyaki was the fact that it had tofu. And mushrooms. But because the last sukiyaki I ate scared both the living daylights, and the desire to eat any more sukiyaki for the rest of something you might wish to call my existence, out of me (I beg you, do not ask), I was kind of hesitant to try it. Good thing I wore contact lenses that night: nothing could ever defeat the power of the eyes in stirring desires in the stomach (just look at the photo, man!). If you ever had as much bad experience with sukiyaki as I did (or not… doesn’t really matter), I swear you’re missing another 4.68%* of your life by not eating Aseya’s sukiyaki.

Aseya also offers a variety of food, such as:

The Aseya Salad. It is really just like your average salad, except that it has an amazing dressing made of peanut sauce, hoisin sauce, and sesame seeds. Plus it has this really, really big kropek (about half the size of the plate) that I was scared to try. OK. I take average back. Make it a more-than-above-average (^-^) salad.

The Tom Yum Kung. This reminds me a bit of the time we spent in Manila when Sir Jess (owner of Cover and Pages) made us something like this. Although I was scared to try the shrimps (asthma trigger, nyaha!), the soup was really good. It is much lighter than it’s original counterpart, but I did not like it any less. Think sinigang-ish and kare-kare-ish with a tinge of spiciness in it. It was good. Oh yeah.

Kamemashi. I remember Kuya Blogie saying something about how exotic the name sounds, but all it really means is “Food in a Bowl” (or something like it). Cute. At our table, we had the one with crab meat (Aseya has four types of Kamameshi). All I can say is that it was worth the asthma attack I had that night.

The last, but not the least, are my dearest friends…

…Goi Cuon…

…and Muphad Kaprao.

I had very little of these dishes, and frankly, I wish I had more.

ABOUT OTHER THINGS:

February 1 happened to be Aseya’s anniversary, and so they gave us this pair of adorable chopsticks as souvenirs. How kind of them.

As for the service, the servers were polite enough. One thing I found notable was the fact that they asked before removing items, plates, and bowls (empty or not) from the table. Many food service providers (formal name for restaurants, nyaha!) fail to practice this simple act of courtesy, and so I give two (three, if I had an extra) thumbs up to Aseya for the extra care they give their customers.

I have told you once, and I’m saying this again: You are missing 4.68%* of your life by not going to Aseya. If you wish to call before dinning (they are open from 6 AM - 11 PM daily, save on Mondays, when they are closed by 2 PM), you could do so by dialing (082) 222-3831 local 131.

*This 4.68% is something what my mother would call BB (buot-buot, nyaha!!!)