BOUNCE!

ATV ng Kapitbahay namin. Mahiram kaya pang High Rock at Isla...



Hearts of fire,
uhhhh...
streets of stone,
modern warrior,
saddled on horses of chrome...



WAKEBOARDING sa TK (Banana Boat Ride din)

MAS masarap pala mag wakeboard sa gitna ng dagat. Naranasan ko ito sa kagandahang loob ng mga taga Isla Sta. Rita, particular na ang magasawang Sherwin at Ayie nuong mahal na araw nung nagbakasyon kami sa TK. Buti nalang ibinalita sakin ng isang taga FaceBook na may motorboat na doon (Nad! Dude, tnx man.) Habang palutang lutang ako sa tubig alat sa pagitan ng TK at Del Gallego napagisip isip ko na mas masarap sya kahit mas mahirap kesa sa nakagawian ng iba na cable wakeboarding.

Ang take off ay hindi basta basta. Hindi tulad sa camsur na may upuan ka habang hinihintay na hilahin ka ng cable. Dahil sa unang hatak palang mabilis na ang cable (31km/hr) mas madali kang dumulas sa ibabaw ng tubig pagkahila sayo para masimulan ang iyong wakeboard ride.

Pero duon sa TK nakalutang ka lang. Hihintayin mo pang mag accelerate ang motorboat at babalansehin mo ang iyong sarili habang unti unti kang uma angat sa tubig. Dapat ay tama ang angulo ng wakeboard sa iyong paanan para pag hatak hindi ka mababaon sa tubig. Hindi dapat gumewang ang tuhod mo o mag iba ang hawak mo sa handle ng lubid.

Pero pag sinuwerte ka namang makatayo tulad ko (pagkatapos ng isang libong beses na pag subok at pagka wipe out tulad nung pic sa kanan) ibang sensasyon ang mararamdaman mo dahil sa lakas at taas ng mga alon na dapat mong “sakyan”. Walang ganoong klaseng alon sa Camsur o sa Lago de Oro.

At habang ikaw ay umiiwas sumemplang, minamatyagan ang bilis at direksyon ng motorboat, sinisipat ang mga pagitan ng mga fishpen na dapat mong layuan pati na ang mga batuhan na malapit sa pampang, bigla mong maiisip…

“SYET!!! Baka may mga DIKYA!”

Walang ganoon sa Camsur o Lago de Oro. Mas masarap ang mga unpredictable challenges ng motorboat wakeboarding sa gitna ng dagat. Kaya ang wakeboarding sa TK? DABEST!

Kaya ano pa hinihintay nyo…

LET'S RIDE!

JUNE 6, 1989... Requiescat In Pace

To my wife, Ayheen, and my Mother-in-law, Letty Decena, D-Day 1989 was the day they lost a sister and a daughter, respectively.

My deceased Father-in-law, Lony Decena, was a Filipino Ex-pat, an OFW working in the US. He passed away 21 years ago. He had to leave the comfort of TK, his family and friends to seek fortune in a foreign land to be able to support his youngest daughter's medical treatment. He was a good man. Exactly 40 days after his passing, on D-Day 1989, Ayheen's only sister, Adeline ("Adhey" to her friends) succumbed to Diabetes Type 1. Those were the saddest days of my wife's life.

I wasn't there. I was not yet a part of their life.

To the good hearted people of TagKawayan, thank you for helping Ayheen and Mommy survive, move on, and triumph over this darkest of days.

Malaki utang na loob ko sa inyo.

Elaine (May 29, 2010; Malate Church)

JGEMSOF BATCH 86 REUNION Part 2

JGEMSOF HighSchool Batch 1986 Reunion

Tagaytay Highlands

MTV From the guys of TK DOWNSOUTH

ROCK ON...

By Spartan Law... (para kay Ninong Ed)

(this was written last April 23, 2007. Published in www.thekid.tk)


Dear Sabine, hanggang ngayon, ang iyong laging bukang bibig ay "Sabine is going to school now".

Well, last week we went to Tagkawayan, your Lola Letty's and Mom's hometown and visited the High school where your Mommy graduated from: Our Lady of Lourdes Academy (OLLA). We went there to pay our respects to Ninong Ed Villaseñor. To your Mom and I he was "Ninong Ed" because he stood as one of the sponsors of our wedding. But to several generations of OLLA students he mentored, he was known by his knightly title of "Sir Ed".

At the most important juncture of her life, Sir Ed was one of those who inspired your Mom to continue her pursuit to earn a medical degree. This despite of the daunting odds and the personal loss she and your Lola suffered that year. They lost your Tita Adhey and Lolo Lony in a span of 40 days.

It was such an impossible dream at that time. But with God's help and with the help of inspiring mentors like Ninong Ed, she moved on to fulfill her dreams.

Sir Ed passed away unexpectedly. The whole town mourned his passing.

He was an institution. He was larger than life. In the end he was buried in the same school that saw him share the best years of his life with the youth that he mentored to adulthood. I think it was a fitting tribute to the man who lead a heroic life.

Why?

Because a school is a battleground for the hearts and minds of the young. And Sir Ed was one of its most gallant warriors. It was only right that his mortal remains be buried in the ground made hallow by his struggle to mold the minds of many generations with the Promethean fire.

There is a battleground in Greece called "Thermophyle" where a band of noble warriors were buried on the same ground where they made a stand against the forces of superstition, tyranny and ignorance. In doing so, they were able to preserve the most precious legacy of that ancient civilization: Freedom of Thought.

Their epitaph reads:

"Tell the Spartans, passerby...
That here, by Spartan Law, we lie."

2013... Para sa mga taga OLLA

D’Great predicted that the world will end on December 31, 11:30PM in the year 2012. Nobody doubted her when she made that prediction back in 2009. After all, she correctly predicted that Kris Aquino will be the first senator of the republic to be voted out of the Pinoy Big Brother’s house. TWICE. She accurately predicted that Korina Sanchez will seek annulment of her wedding to former Senator Roxas so that she can marry Willie Revillame instead. She was instrumental in the capture of Usama Bin Laden-- the US government gave her the Presidential Medal of Freedom for that impossible feat. And on the day she saved the world from economic meltdown, the Dow Jones industrial average climbed to 20,000 points in just 30 minutes. That very day she was immediately given two Nobel Prizes: 1st in Economics and the second, for PEACE.

D’Great was so heartbroken when she made the prediction of the world ending in 2012. According to her closest confidante, Fr. Nicholas Regino, S.J., she decided to enter the convent of Mt. Zion. She can not give any more specific details about her prediction because according to Zion’s Mother superior, Sr. Marydor Somerset, she decided to take a lifetime vow of silence together with the other novices.

And so the whole world was left with no choice but to wait for its coming end which everybody thought was irreversible.

D’Great was NEVER WRONG in her predictions before.

And so, on the last day of the year 2012, the countdown for the end started… Everybody was resigned to their common fate. They have been shedding tears for years and months now, when December 31 came, there were no more tears left for anyone in the world to shed.…

By 11:00 PM… every body in the world came out of their houses to look at the night sky for the last time.

11:15 PM… there was complete silence.

11:20 PM…

11:25 PM…

11:29 PM… Everyone held their breath, their last breath before everybody dies.

10 seconds...
…
…
5…
4…
3…
2…
1…

11:30 came and went. But… EVERY ONE WAS STILL ALIVE!!!








By 11:34 PM, December 31, 2012 , everybody realized that for the first time, D’GREAT screwed up. The whole world was shaken by ecstatic shouts of joy by the living who couldn’t contain their emotions for surviving the predicted end..

By 11:40 PM, Radio, TV and the Internet came alive again, everybody was mocking the once infallible seer for the prediction that didn’t come true.

And so everybody was drinking champagne, celebrating being alive when the END of the world came on

12:00 AM, January 1, 2013…

It was as if God just snapped his fingers and the whole Earth suddenly vaporized, leaving nothing but cosmic dust in its place in the space between Venus and Mars.

D’Great was indeed wrong for the first and last time. The prediction was 30 minutes too early.


(Author’s Note: The Great Seer spent her High School days as a protégé in the prestigious Our Lady of Lourdes Academy, TagKawayan or TK, where students were taught the value of punctuality. They wear time pieces adjusted to be 30 minutes earlier than real time. That’s why even though their classes start at 7:30AM, any one who comes after 7:00AM is considered LATE. Hence, in making the prediction for the end, D’ Great Seer didn’t bother to make the proper adjustment because she has been trained to be VERY PUNCTUAL.)

(Author's Note: the story is just an adaptation of one of the short stories in this book of Isaac Asimov et al. My apologies to those who thought it was an original.)

TK Pix

Written last August 2008

Dear Kids, when we went home to TK last week, I was set up. Your Mom and Lola made made a plan to have the car blessed without consulting me. They asked Lolo Teody (Lola's brother, the one in the bike) to make arrangements with the local priest to spray the car with Holy Water.

You guys actually enjoyed the short ceremony. Lolo Teody also gave you a bike ride just before the blessing.

As for me, I'm just happy I was able to stop myself from turning the car's stereo on while the ceremony was going on. And play Hinder's song in full blast.

Written last August 18, 2008

Pictures were taken this morning, August 18, 6:30- 7:00 AM. Ayheen's Birthday. TK, a town in the Quezon province, is her birthplace.