this weekend

i attended the soft opening of SIGWADA GALLERY. i'll be writing about that in a bit.

sunday. i went with susa to the manila international book fair at the sm mall of asia. i showed her my mom's book on IMCI (buy it, wannabe nurses, BUY IT!) published by C & E. lotsa lotsa books, but sadly--and susa and i both agreed--the prices of some books were still too high. while she looked over at the psychology shelves, i busied myself with anthropology and culture, until i ventured over to some 'international' pub houses, and got myself a book that cost (blimey) eight pounds (times seventy pesos as the discount price). it is a book on NUMBERS.

yeah yeah, i hate math. but i love facts (useful or not), and numbers, words, events, whatever. numbers have stories. like, for example, this bit on my birthday number FOUR: lots of famous fours like the Four Horsemen, the Fab Four, 4/4 time, four apostles, Journalism is the Fourth Estate, among other stuff i'm too lazy to rave about just now. anyway. made my point, i bought a book about numbers (Arcturus Publishing--"arch to arcturus, head on to orion," says that constellation reminder/memory device).

before i met up with susa i was itching to buy a new notebook and a pen with which to make lists. every now and then i would have the impulse to scribble something, and susa was kind enough to heed my whining. she accompanied me to the stationery section (this was still in sm san lazaro, before lunch at Jonas and the reunion with Ting--TING!!!--who was so detached from everything he didn't know what happened to Tads). new notebook, yey! i proceeded to do my 'me time' and so i made lists on music i like, my favorite films, shows, songs, things in the world, what i want to achieve by the time i'm thirty, pet peeves, the autograph book stuff. it was fun, really. now i can revive my friendster profile. hahaha.

the best part of the day? hot chocolate at chocolat.

sample list, just to give you an idea:

*THIS IS SO ME! (random, i think i listed down some 100 words/phrases here)*

• taking photos
• old houses
• greens
• water
• heights
• rain
• white cotton shirts
• secret compartments
• flowers...in a pot
• strawberry ice cream
• constellations
• carrots
• Quiapo
• parks
• genealogy
• letters
• pets
• fun facts
• champorado
• malong
• photographs
• notebooks
• maps
• rollercoasters
• knots

et cetera. as for the 'stuff to be accomplished by the time i'm thirty', well, it was pretty difficult writing them down. secret muna. hahaha. okay, i included the "doing Ph.D." here as well as "Batanes" and "Cook well" so it's very...flexible. :) anyway. i like lists. and word associations.

susa called me a geek when i said i could enumerate the 22 bones in the human skull (22 is susa's birth day number, we were browsing my new book). no i said, it's something we all learned in physical anthropology. "you're still a geek," she said. sige na, geek na kung geek. i have pet rats too.