Paper Planes

At the preschool the other day, some of the kids were making paper airplanes. I tried to do one but I totally forgot from when I was a kid. I had to ask one of the boys to show me how. Anyway, I tried making one today at home and it took me about 10 minutes to figure out how I used to make one.

Do you remember how to make a paper plane?

"Celestine and the Penguins"

I've been volunteering at a preschool since July now and today, the teacher read a book to the kids called, "Celestine and the Penguins". The only other book that I know of that is my namesake is the "Celestine Prophecy"...and I read that one coz I was curious what it was about.

Baklava Heaven

I have a weakness for baklava. I found heaven at this place in Granville, just by the train station:

Abla's Pastries
48-52 Railway Pde
Granville, NSW
Tel#02-9637-8092

If you happen to pass by there, PLEASE buy me some baklava!!!

Knitting

I've always wanted to learn how to knit. So when Customs House in Circular Quay availed free lessons, I immediately signed up for me and my cousin, Michelle. Two heads are better than one in case one of us forgets.

My first project is a scarf. Gosh does it take a long time to do this project. Winter will be over before I finish it. But its fun, very addictive. I want to do a blanket next time.

After taking the class, I've been noticing people on the bus with their knitting kits. Its kindda like when you bought your car, you start noticing people driving the same car as yours. Isn't it?

Michelle, my other friend (Sovanni) and I will make knitting a cool thing to do!

The Sydney Spanish Language Group

I signed up for meetup.com where you can add yourself in to an interest group (biking, foreign language group, guitar, etc). I joined the Spanish Language Group to continue practicing conversational spanish and to meet new people. I've actually become one of the assistants for this group, mainly to provide beginners English to the native-spanish speaking people. Its a good trade off.

I've signed up for the American Expat group in Sydney, watched a game of american football, and met a new friend from Dallas. Its a good network!

So check out www.meetup.com in your area. I've checked it back in the bay area while I was there. There's lots of groups to join in.

Guitar Lessons

My friend encouraged me to start learning to play the guitar. With the spare time I have these days, I cut my nails on the left hand and started to play. It takes time and patience and sore finger tips to learn. But I am glad I am doing it. My cousin also showed me some easy chords to play and make a tune out of it. I can impress some people with a sample tune but that's about it. Just don't ask me to play the whole song. He he!!!

"Bruno" Premiere

"Borat" is so 2006!


The last leg of the "Bruno" premiere was in Sydney and I got to see Bruno make another stunt act: coming out of a pink hummer limousine, disturbing the premiere (his own, in fact), and getting arrested by the police. Its what he does all the time!


I got so close up to him I got to touch his hand! Freaky! That man's got some nice and smooth facial skin and very toned, long legs!

My Adidas

I bought my first Adidas today!

I've been looking for the classic Samoa shoes (see right picture) for months now, going into stores, calling stores, internet search. I even called Adidas and they may have put me through to the warehouse and said, nope! We don't make them anymore. Huhu!!

But I finally found something similar to its style. Its called Beckenbauer All Round (see left picture). It looks nice. Yay!

P.S. In the Philippines, we call chicken feet (food-wise) Adidas!

Twitter

My former boss got me to sign up for Twitter. At first, I laughed. I hear about twitters telling their followers what they ate for breakfast or what they are checking online at that exact second. These people have too much time on their hands.

But I signed up anyway and started tweeting just before I left for the US. And yes, I did have a lot of time to spare. When I arrived back here in Sydney, I started following Twitters such as CNN, NBA, Time, EOnline, Aplusk (Ashton Kutcher), etc. Its actually a good way to get the news you want at the exact moment it happens.

You should sign up for it!

(oh yea, if you want to be my follower, my username is celestine28...not that I have anything interesting to say).

Room for Rent - Orange County ($590)

Our house (a room) at Orange County is available for rent. If you know anyone who is interested, please let me know.



Townhouse in a quiet and exclusive gated community (3 BR, 2.5 Bath, 3 car garage)

• close to Chapman University, new Sports Center complex and park, easy access to Freeway (5, 22, 55, 91), St Joseph Medical Center, Santiago Canyon College
• swimming pool, indoor garage parking + outdoor guest parking, club house
• utilities include water, garbage, washer, dryer (excluding internet/tv cable, electric, and gas)
• cross street: Prospect St (near Chapman Ave)
• 10 minutes away from Disneyland

Thanks all!

Hooters

I was in Dallas this week visiting a friend who has three kids (1, 3, and 5yr old). We passed by "Hooters" and told her that I've never been to one and was curious how it is inside...my thought was a typical hang out place for guys checking out girls with big boobs.

Apparently not. It seems to have been a family-oriented restaurant. They even have kids meal and pass out crayons with coloring activities.

I was even curious what their job applications ask for (not that I would apply). Size and all. But didn't get a chance to. If anyone knows, blog me about it.

No Helmets Required?

I took a picture of this motorcyclist on a freeway in Dallas. Apparently, it is not required to wear helmets in Texas.

Isn't that kindda like the #1 rule when riding a bike?

Jamie Foxx???

Doesn't Jamie Foxx look like Michael Batts, the comedian?

My 15 minutes of fame???

A friend of mine messaged me on facebook and asked me if I was on the TV show, "Ready, Steady, Cook" - it was a cooking show that I was a studio audience in filmed about a year ago. Indeed, that was me with Jen and Alfred (accordingly, I was reconnected to Alfred again and found out he is back in Sydney! Yay!)

A few days later, I found out from Michael, our seminarian friend, that he saw me, Mei and Paul on "Good News Week", another TV show that we attended.

I hope this is not our 15 minutes of fame (just as Andy Warhol said, everyone gets their 15 minutes of fame). That would have been a waste!

The band, Sugar Ray, named one of their albums "14:59". The album's title was a jab at critics who considered the band a one-hit wonder and were merely enjoying their "fifteen minutes of fame".

Easter Weekend

Easter week is one of the Holiest weeks in the Catholic Church (Greek Orthodox, this year, celebrated it one week later based on their calendar). To some, it might look like I went church hopping this weekend. But it wasn't all religious obligations this weekend for me.

Thursday - we went for Holy Thursday mass at St Columba church, our local parish. Friends came over to have the passover/sacrificial lamb for dinner.

Friday - I joined my coworker for the 10am Station of the Cross at St Margaret Mary in Merrylands, checked out St Dominic's church at Flemington, and went to the 3pm Passion of Christ at St Patrick's in Parramatta. Three new churches for me = three wishes!!! When I got home, a couple of our friends came over to hang out with us during this fasting, no meat day. When midnight came, we drove to McDonald's and watched Seinfeld episodes til 1:30am.

Saturday - We did a bit of walking towards St Joan of Arc church in Haberfield (but was closed). We then went to the Easter vigil at the newly renovated St Peter Julian's church in Chinatown.

Sunday - my friends and I went to a service at the Opera House and later went to St Patrick's church in the city for the Easter Sunday mass. A BBQ was followed at our house...another party! Mei and I was bored after the BBQ and watched the movie "Summer Hours" at the local movie cinema. We were still not satisfied so we invited a friend to come over and chat til midnight.

Monday - was a bit of a rest day. We made some pizza at home (from scratch) and had people over again for a mini party!

Geez - what a weekend!

2010 World Cup Prequalifier

April Fools!

World Cup Soccer will be held in South Africa in 2010. On April 1st, my friends and I went to watch the Socceroos beet Uzbekistan at the ANZ arena in Homebush. Its a prequalifier match in the Asian area (I think). Looking forward to more matches and following the games til next year.

House Auction

I was walking around the neighborhood one day and I saw a house auction just around the corner from where I lived. I've never been to one so I thought I'd stick around, read the procedures and watch the auction happen.

They do a lot of house auctions in Australia...you know, where you raise your hand, bid against other buyers and the seller yells out "SOLD" and does the hammer thing. Over here, you have to apply for a bidder's registration number. You cannot pretend to be a buyer when in fact, you are working for the owner. When caught, you can get penalized $50k and the real estate agent and owner might get fined, too!

So we were all called out to the front of the house. The bidding starts and nobody was budging. Ten minutes later, nothing still. I thought it would be more exciting than that. Unfortunately, nobody bid on the house (maybe too embarrassed to suggest a price that's too low???). They had to close the bidding and put the house back in the market.

Coldplay

That was one electrifying concert I've been for so long. Although I only like or knew a couple of their songs from their new album, "Viva la Vida", I had to check off "Coldplay" on my list of things to do before I die.

This was their last concert in Sydney. They've had great reviews since coming down under. And boy was it great! They played their best songs ever including: Clocks, Yellow, Speed of Sound, Hardest Part, In My Place, The Scientiest, and many, many more from their new album.

...and Chris Martin is such a piano man!

Amway

If you've heard of Amway, you know what this is all about.

My cousin, LJ, and I met this lady who told us about an investment, a passive income investment, not relating to stocks and real estate. With the financial crisis, what other investment is safe these days? LJ and I were both skeptical (being typical accountants) but gave the lady the benefit of a doubt. We thought this was going to be one of those pyramid schemes.

At first, the lady was very persistent that we attend this meeting. She wanted to meet the following day, if not the next day, and so forth. So we gave her a chance and LJ and I would go together just in case one of us can't say 'No' and get sucked into this. After two months, LJ and I attended the meeting.

It sounded too good to be true. Its Amway. The idea is, be a member of Amway (or get into their "pipeline" - as they call it), get discounts on their products, you get into a pool of members, meet a sales quota and then get a check for a certain % of points, try to get people to be a member and get a % of their sales. Once you've built your network, the more $ you get from their sales. Its a typical pyramid scheme, but apparently, a legal one. Its SCAMway!

Amway has been described as a cult. Members pressuring you to buy products of great quality. Having to go to meetings and selling motivational materials, telling people how they didn't have to work anymore for the rest of their lives, pressuring new recruits to sign up, etc, etc. According to some people, they've lost friends who pressured them into buying the products, this cult taking over their whole lives with all the meetings and recruiting they had to do, totally annoying other people. In the end, the reality is, a very minuscule % of the people actually receive the big checks.

I'm glad LJ and I had an open mind going to this meeting and being skeptical...and smart. It sounded too good to be true and if you're dumb enough to get sucked into it, well, that's just too bad. My advice is, don't even get into it. If you want to check it out, just be open minded and be smart about it.

Australian Tennis Open 2009

My first tennis grand slam. And so we did our pilgrimage. Three days of tennis matches in the cold, hot, unpredictable weather of Melbourne.

First match: Serena Williams def Shuai Peng...and the list of matches we watched at Rod Laver Arena are as follows:

• Victoria Azarenka def Amelie Mauresmo
• Jo-Wilfred Tsonga def Dudi Sela
• Elena Dementieva def Samantha Stosur
• Rafael Nadal def Tommy Haas
• Dinara Safina def Alize Cornet
• Roger Federer def Tomas Berdych
• Jelena Dokic def Alisa Kleybanova
• Novak Djokovic def Marcos Baghdatis
• Serena Williams def Victoria Azarenka
• Rafael Nadal def Fernando Gonzalez
• Jo-Wilfred Tsonga def James Blake

This year, I wanted to see #1 Nadal, #2 Federer, and #3 Djokovic. On the women's side, Maria Sharapova and Ana Ivanovic. I got to see the men but not the women.

In the end, we watched the Mens Finals at Circular Quay (back in Sydney) to see Rafael Nadal win his first Australian Tennis Open.

I am happy coz I got the champion and the #1 player to sign my tennis ball.

O-le! Ole, ole ole! O-le, O-le!!!