Wasted on the Way

I submitted the first draft of my thesis last Tuesday (two years of work on Philippine tax reform)!  Then, I found myself humming and singing this.... 


Wasted on the Way LyricsArtist(Band):Crosby, Stills, Nash (and Young)
(Words & music by Graham Nash)

Look around me now
I can see my life before me
Running rings around the way
It used to be

I am older now
I have more than what I wanted
But I wish that I had startedLong before I did

Chorus:
And there's so much time to make up
Everywhere you turn
Time we have wasted on the way

So much water moving
Underneath the bridge
Let the water come and carry us away

Oh when you were young
Did you question all the answers
Did you envy all the dancers
Who had all the nerve

Look round you now
You must go for what you wanted
Look at all my friends who did and got what they deserved

Chorus
And there's so much time to make up
Everywhere you turn
Time we have wasted on the way

So much water moving
Underneath the bridge
Let the water come and carry us away

And there's so much love to make up
Everywhere you turn
Love we have wasted on the way

So much water moving
Underneath the bridge
Let the water come and carry us away

Let the water come and carry us away

Attachment: CD4 - 01 - Wasted On The Way.mp3

soulmate

I must confess, I have not been really just writing my thesis.  The past month, there were days when I wouldn't even come out of my dorm.  Sundays, I have to drag myself out of the room because I have to go to church.  The previous post about the book that I am reading, I was like only getting the topic on tax reform among developing countries.
Half of the time, (well....maybe more...okay, a lot more!) I've been glued to my notebook watching online kdramas, jdoramas, anime, movies - practically anything that would keep me from writing the thesis.  I've seen When Spring Comes, Hello, Miss!, Thank You (I even watched the finale of this drama on livestreaming at an MBC site) and am watching H.I.T and Taerung National Village.  I've seen the Japanese movies Suki-da, Nobody Knows, Heavenly Forest and am watching Liar Game and Operation Love, both on-going soaps.  Throw in the anime Rome x Juliet.  The thing is, with all these soaps and movies, I don't even know what I've written in my thesis draft.  What the... I am not even confident of what I'll hand in to my sensei on Tuesday, the deadline.
Getting to the title (I tend to write long intoductions), I've  finished watching this kdrama, Soulmate.  It was shown in Korea last year and I've heard very good reviews about it then but I was kinda withdrawing from watching kdrama at that time.  I was more into jdorama's.  Plus, I really hated the title.  However, the first few episodes were funny, the male lead kinda grows on you and the female lead - well, I am glad that she's not really that pretty and if I have a style, as in fashion, I think, I'll be happy to have hers, except for the striped jackets....I also like the fact that she got excited getting those sneakers from her old boyfriend.  Really, I'll be happy to get those pair, except the color, I saw that design in silver....
I don't really want to go on about the soulmate concept and all those things.... I'm just happy that this drama's different from the usual fare.  You know - being in love with your sibling who turns out to be not really related to you, engaging in the usual love triangle or square and of course, dying from cancer.  This one's just different.  Towards the end, I kinda regret that the characters have changed, matured or grown-up.  I think, I love them all when they were being awkward, getting drunk with their friends and asking themselves the question, is he or she the one (soulmate)???
But really, the best part is that this drama's OST is one of those things that made me thankful that I am a fan of Korean dramas.   

Hyogo, Summer 2005

Spent two days with my homestay family (the Murota's, Kikkuko-san - home stay mom, Murota-san - dad works for Toyota nagoya, Chibi-chan - their dog and some of her friends. Went to a shrine, participated in tea ceremony and attended mass at a Catholic Church in Ashiya.

Osaka, Summer 2005

First home in Japan - JICA Osaka International Center

Added pics rescued from yahoo photos - most were taken during the orientation seminar and nihongo class in JICA-OSIC

Hyogo, Fall 2005

Spent a day at Ieshima, Hyogo. The bus tour was sponsored by JICA-Furea. Most participants are Kobe-JDS 2005 batchmates. They said that this is the furthest province in Hyogo and experiencing economic downturn due to low birthrate and outmigration. Made some japanese rice cakes with other JICA participants in HIC.

Few days after we settled in our own apato, most of the JDS Kobe students joined this cooking class sponsored by JICA volunteers. We learned to cook okonomiyaki....

what i'm reading

Should be doing chapters 5 and 6 of my thesis.  I keep putting it off - the writing part but it hounds me while watching soaps, heating my meals and surfing the net.  I still have 12 days to write them.  It used to be 30 days....

Then I chanced upon the blogs of my former NGO co-workers.  From a comic convention in New York to peacocks in Davao and beaches in La Union, I can just picture them while reading their entries.  Plus at the corner, they have the link of the books that they're reading or have read.  Definitely more interesting than the ones that cram my table, bed and floors.  This is the only one that I can get a picture of from amazon but it can fairly give you an idea why I only have 12 days and am still procrastinating.  Why did I ever work for the tax agency?  Should have stayed with development work....

Okinawa 2006

Kobe University 2006 Study Tour in Okinawa with Ogawa sensei.

Kyoto, Fall 2005

Spent a day with Kikkou-san, my homestay mom, in Kyoto. She took me to see a Noh play, helped me read my fortune from the Heian Shrine and marvelled at the magnificence of the imperial palace.

Kyoto, Summer 2005

First trip to Kyoto, siyempre we stayed at Nova's apato and toured around Rits (didn't take pictures pala in the campus - anyways, marami sa blog niya) and Kinkakuji.

Added earlier pictures from the JICA observation tour of Kiyumizudera. The pics were taken early July 2005, using Janie's camera.

Tokyo, Summer 2006

Took few pictures because unexpected things happen during this trip. We survived the trip to the big city with lots of help from friends....

Hiroshima, Fall 2006

Best tour ever - Melissa and I paid 5,000 yen for a bus tour to Hiroshima. Spent two days and 1 night there with Kokokoronet volunteers and foreign students from Hyogo International House. We met 2 pinoy students from Hiroshima, forgot their names....

NYC, Spring 2007

Visited Santa and Kiril in New Yok. Finally met Cosmo and Spunky. Toured NYC with them....

NJ, Spring 2007

spent five days with the family... watched pinoy soaps in tfc and pinoytv

Okinawa 2007

Kobe JDS Fellows Study Tour 2007

Second time in Okinawa - went on an island hopping tour: ishigaki, irimiote, taketomi

Hokkaido, Winter 2007

spent a week in the cities of sapporo and otaru. stayed and lived with the monks for a weekend and practiced zazen

kobe scenes

i'm uploading photos to free some space in my notebook. these are under the folder: kobe scenes. i don't know why these pictures got under this category but pressed for a description to write here - i think these are the everyday kobe scenes, season after season, that i want to capture and remember...

i guess, i'm preparing to leave this home for the real one.

kobe shinrin shokubutsuen

after hiking and climbing mount rokko three times, i finally got to bring my camera. went there summer last year and twice this spring. now i have this sense of fulfillment - i think i can now understand the rush and excitement that photographers from the national geographic feel. it's as if you are given the chance to capture fleeting moments of beauty, wonder and miracles....