Happy (Homesick) Holidays!

This was my very first Christmas away from family ever.
Feels weird, and different. Although I did get to spend it with my relatives in New Jersey, its still different when you're with your family. It was fun anyway and a different experience,
and the food was great! My aunt is a great cook and I'm stuffed as usual! I will eat like a pig while I'm here in NJ before going back to starving student mode back in the city! (just kidding ma, dont worry, I'm not starving!)

yep, that's where I would have stood!

During normal days homesickness doesn't hit you as much. It's when the holidays come in, like Christmas or Thanksgiving where you see everyone talk about visiting their families that you realize you aren't able to do the same thing, although you wish you could at times... this is the first year I was in Grinch/Scrooge mode: avoiding xmas carols, songs, commercials! billboards! arrrgggh!

Now before I break down into a homesick monologue any further, I thought I'd do a little something to help cheer me up... or at least distract me from homesickness. :P

Ahhh... nothing like one of Santa's elves to help cheer me up. ;)



Happy Holidays everyone!
-Ramon

more eating!!!

had a nice little get together with friends from SVA, more FOOD!!!
oh yeah the waiter looked like Stephen Spielberg too.

SVA Xmas Party!

I think its normal that people would be hungry after a whole week of stress...

nyaaarrrggghhhh!!! not meeeeee!!!!

sfx: soft breeze...

good stuff. see you all next semester!

Finals at SVA!!!

cue final exams montage music...

oh well, glad its over, goodluck to everyone!

The fruit of Dr. Moreau: The Grapple

Here's a fruit that would make Dr. Moreau as giddy as a schoolgirl, and would be set alongside dolly the sheep and the mutant kfc chickens as one of man's attempts at screwing with nature.


alright so its not really a genetic mutant crossbreed freakfruit, but was probably a crate of apples that fell in grape juice, and some marketing genius thought he'd make a million bucks out of this.

First day of snow!!!

First day of snow in New York! weeeeee!!!

of course I couldn't go skating or make a snow angel or whatever... I was too cold to move. :P

It does look cool though (for someone who comes from a place with a 80-90'F average! mwahahaha)



enjoy it...

enjoy...


..coz when the snow melts, it mixes with the dirt and becomes dirty grimy mud resembling chocolate cookie crumble slush that flies to your face when some inconsiderate jackass speeds through the road in his stupid car. :)

-Ramon

A strong lock doesn't always protect your bike...

well at least we know the lock works!

nice day!

Contentment

Here, the Nintendo DS beats the new Intel Mac Pro and a SUN workstation! take that!

my first new york bomb scare

.
.
.

the bag was found to contain nothing, and the the gallant bomb disposal man walked back to an applauding audience.
The end! (for now)

Give in to the fruit!

I thought i'd never get one, thinking it was all just a fad and just the same as every other mp3 player there is... but all these hours spent commuting and staring out the window drove me to let go...

You win apple! I shall remember this day...


woohoo, my very first ipod. a black ipod classic 80gb. :)
I must say it lives up to its hype. I'm glad I got one, but i'm glad I waited too. hahaha... poor guys spent the same amount a few years ago for a 10gb ipod... and I've got 80! wahahaha....
alright i'll keep quiet now.

-Ramon

Welcome to the SVA MFACA program!!!

Now before you turn your tongue into a tourniquet, SVA is short for my graduate school, the School of Visual Arts. and MFACA stands for Masters in Fine Arts, Computer Arts!

Time to meet and greet your fellow SVA grad students!

It was really great. They had this meet and greet on top of a gallery in Chelsea, and the weather was perfect!

School of Visual Arts!

This is it... I've travelled halfway around the world for this school. Its different seeing it in a website or through forum comments and all... now I am standing right in front of it!!!


freebies galore!!! Filipinos love freebies. :)


oh yeah... I went to the wrong school. apparently the graduate building is 3 to 4 avenues away. silly me.

I am in NEW YORK!

It's a good thing the NJ Transit is quite organized so you know where youre going. after harrassing a few passengers with a few "where am i" tourist questions, I was reassured that I was on my way to New York.

90 minutes later, I arrive in port authority, excited with what lay beyond these walls. I step out to be "greeted" by people selling the daily times and handing out the AM newspaper, and some hotdogs too. To my surprise, Times Square was just a few blocks away!

I made it!!!

from Tanjay, Negros Oriental...




such a beautiful day too! well time to be tourist-y for a while. The naked cowboy scared me.

PS: Happy birthday Glob!

-Ramon

Fulbright Gateway Orientation: Portland, Oregon

From there I met all the other Fulbrighters who are starting their program for 2007.
An amazing group of people, and you can see that these guys will somehow shape the world later on. They were all so intelligent.

The most smartest peoples! :P

Anyway, yeah this was probably the largest group of intelligent people gathered in one area at one time. All of a sudden I started wondering what was I doing here...? :-S


One of the aspects of the Fulbright program was the orientation of the foreigner to US culture, to minimize culture shock, and culture crashes (i miss that comic!- its a local comic. google it).
It was pretty interesting, but I must say coming from the Philippines which is pretty westernized already, I had an easier time adjusting than others. In fact, the Philippines is so westernized, it's like we're the unknown state of the US.

But we're not.

me and some of my Fulbright buddies. one of the more interesting things you find out when meeting people from other countries especially if you share a common history, (our four countries- Philippines, Mexico, Argentina, Panama all have Spanish ancestry) you just cant help but be amazed at all the similarities you share. similar language, same expressions, same celebrations, same cuss words (well similar ones), similar mannerisms! it's like finding a long lost cousin. :)

Portland, Oregon

nice of them to explore the town inbetween orientations! :)

Arrival at Ondine Hall

We were all given a residence called the Ondine Hall, a dorm in Portland State University.
A beautiful dorm I must say.

nice beds, great desk!
yeah i like the window. :) shotgun!

nope, this is not a hotel, its the dorm's bathroom. never saw one so clean and pristine! i guess you can tell a lot about the town by their bathrooms.

Ondine Hall is a student dormitory for Portland State University. A really nice place to stay btw...
I've seen the town passing through, its really beautiful! but more on that later...

17 hours later...

17 hours later I landed in San Francisco international airport. And wow, was it a mad house. Everyone was rushing to get through but everyone had to funnel through these xray gates, metal detectors, and airport security examining or at least trying to examine every piece of hand carry we had.

My backpack was one heavy brick to carry around too (i had my laptop and other important documents and chargers inside!). So lugging that around was no picnic, believe me.
it was pure chaos. good thing it didn't take so long as I had a 40 minute window to run across the whole airport to get catch my connecting flight!

Pictures would have been great here, but given that this is a point of entry of the USA, I decided not to tempt fate by snapping pics for my own amusement and having that being mistaken as something else.

Phew! 5 hours later, I make it to Portland, Oregon!




10pm, local time, I am in the luggage pick up area. Its cold, I'm tired and I dont know anybody at all. Then in a little corner I found something quite reassuring...


woohoo! I was in the right place! I was tired but at least I was not lost! and my bags were with me too! Yeah!

-Ramon