the Earth-bound adventures of the Lost and Found

AT home, at the mall, at the cemetery, at the airport... there's no stopping me! Still more things I'd do if i had a digital camera. Taken with my brother's SAMSUNG digi cam during my Davao vacation. (Imagine what I'd do with a video cam!)

Photos of my room, the dining room, kitchen, garage, etc. during my vacation in Davao.

Midnight snack at Farmer's Park, before going back to Cebu, right after night swimming at Punta Dumalag

March 28, 2005, Moonrise at Punta Dumalag. Still taken in Davao, using my brother's SAMSUNG digital camera.

March 23, 2005. Davao at last after a sidetrip in the mountains of Bukidnon. Trip from home to SM, Makro and back.

it's a little too late to backtrack to what i've been up to since i stopped writing in my online journal (last december?), so i'll just start with today, which isn't a bad place to start, right? i'm on leave today but i'm at the office (that's me, internet junkie). just came from a whole-day medical mission at the church. that was good. my first time to join an activity like that. i was assigned to the reception table. even though there were kids screaming while their teeth were being extracted, and i saw all sorts of cysts on different parts of the body, i was glad that at least i was there to help ease these people's suffering. i mean, usually i just see these people on the streets and i feel helpless and do nothing about it. so at least i'm doing something. last night i stayed up till midnight editing my first "short film". it was actually footage of my officemate who didn't know she was being recorded. it amused me how she carried o...

February 24 to 25, 2005. After a few hours in Alegria in southwest Cebu, we proceeded to Oslob on the east. For the first time, I used a cable release on my camera. This is the result of my experiment capturing the moonrise. Next time, I think I should use multiple exposures instead to avoid the streak, but I haven't tried that technique yet, either. This is the same town where Sumilon is.

Text and Photos by Jeneen R. Garcia My first time in Sumilon, the skies were gray and low over the sea. But even that dullness couldn’t keep the island’s emerald tongue of water from surprising the deep blue of Bohol Strait. Sumilon Island, 15 minutes by boat from Barangay Bancogon in the southern town of Oslob, is home to a 32-year old marine sanctuary, the oldest in the country. It is the shallow waters of the sanctuary that sparkle green even from the highway overlooking Bancogon. With stands of forest on a hill in the middle of the 50-hectare island, and lush mangroves surrounding a freshwater lagoon right beside a long stretch of white beach, Sumilon was also declared a municipal tree park in 1990. A lighthouse and a Spanish-era Moro watchtower stand on top of the hill. Sharp rocks line its coves and cliffs. These, and the intricate patterns of trees shaped by wind and salt, hint of a wildness in the island’s natural beauty. Underwater, the view is as breathtaking. Even beyond th...

February 25, 2005. As people were remembering EDSA in MAnila, I was in Sumilon, supposedly to clean up some crown-of-thorns starfish. Ended up walking around the island on the pathway right on the cliff. It was my first time to see everything (technically, not everything, since I still didn't get to see the lighthouse and the watchtower), because the last time , I just took a boat around the island after the dive. The view overwhelemed me so much, I wrote a story (yes, a true one, on what's happening there now) on it when I got back home.

Start:      Mar 8, '05

to be published as lost and found column #15 As far as I was concerned, they were creatures from another planet. Never got along with them, had no idea how to. They spent long moments in front of the mirror before going back to class and sat together in corners during lunch break whispering about the cutest boys. Maybe I’m a late bloomer or maybe I just have low EQ, but I never could sustain conversations with them for very long. And truth be told, it made me insecure. Was I normal? Why didn’t I have the compulsion to blab about the boys I liked? Why couldn’t I look fresh and neat no matter what hour of the day, and bat my eyelashes at just the right time? Thank God this is one of those things that improve with age. Not that I’m evolving into a girly girl, although I now use lots of chemicals on my face other than soap and water. (Heck, I don’t even use soap anymore. We now have facial wash and body wash to suit our sensitive skin). And yes, I’ve developed my own eyelash-batting strat...

Your Brain is 60.00% Female, 40.00% Male Your brain is a healthy mix of male and female You are both sensitive and savvy Rational and reasonable, you tend to keep level headed But you also tend to wear your heart on your sleeve What Gender Is Your Brain?

February 24, 2005. Cebu City Charter Day and I was off to the southwest to join some people supposedly to repair the buoys in the town's sanctuaries. Mostly I just went snorkeling, went around town talking to the local officials and listening to their fisheries problems. But because it was on the western side of Cebu, we got a really good view of the sunset. The next day, EDSA Anniv, I was on the eastern side of the island, so I got to shoot the moonrise for the first time. THAT album coming up next.

Description: We would like to invite you to submit, by e-mail, a poem or two on the subject of Fathers. A year ago, the undersigned made a similar call for poems on the same subject, but we limited the invitees to Filipino poets in the homeland and abroad. The resulting collection, simply titled FATHER POEMS, published by Anvil Publishing, Inc. of Manila, has been quite successful. We said then, in the Intro to that local anthology, that we would follow up a year hence on the same subject, but for an international edition, featuring contributions from poets of any nationality. Thus the current invite, which we hope shall lead to an anthology that will come out in time for the observance of Fathers’ Day in June of 2005. Each contributor to the anthology will receive a free copy and, subsequently, a pro-rated royalty fee. Please feel free to pass on this call to your friends everywhere. By the by, the anthology is not intended to be distributed only in the Philippines. Thank you very muc...