white christmas, finally!

after almost two weeks of steadily rising temperature, it plummeted well below zero overnight and i couldn't be any happier. a few minutes after the first snowflakes fell i was already out and about prancing in the snow forgetting i was only in my cotton pyjamas (yes, cotton. my room is in the tropics haha). anyway, the adrenaline rush lasted only a few minutes before the tugging cold reminded me i should wear warmer, not to mention more decent, clothes especially outside at midnight. it's a really a good thing my flatmates all went home for the holidays so i don't have to be in any way discreet about feeling like a kid running up and down the stairs in record time and making large puddles of water on the floor ^^

it didn't snow much last winter and when it did it always fell on an exam day. every. single. time. so i couldn't bloody well enjoy it. not this winter apparently, yipee!

too thin, couldn't build a snowman, but whatever, haha.

grayer than grey.

:)

my shnowy wintery wonderland.

guess where the wind blows from.

it's mostly bricks but i love my backyard view.

sint-niklaaskerk.

nothing warms the heart more than watching older brothers being older brothers - one hand on the penguin, the other holding their sister's hand firmly, guiding them through the rink; or fathers gliding through the ice, a daughter on each arm. i want one..of each! weh, not really, hahahaha.

flowers for the hanged man.

i still keep my black socks in the freezer, though. who knows i might still get a good macro shot of a snowflake in the coming days :)

bidyow!

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the thing

i admit i harbor the tendency to watch shows for sentimental reasons, like watching the legend of korra as tribute to the last airbender which impressed me so much. i hate korra. i hate how immature her character is and this immaturity reflects in her decisions. i hate her arrogance and her consistent disrespect for elders and authority. i hate how the adults concede to her all because of the fact that she's the avatar. it's a show riddled with bad decisions it's easy to skip through parts and "watch" the 25-minute episode in 5 minutes. she's a shame, aang would have face-palmed himself too many times in his grave.

but some characters i enjoy and it's mostly their parts that i don't skip. two of these are the inventor duo, varrick and zhu li, and in this episode they finally got engaged.

zhu li moon, will you do the thing for the rest of our lives?

if you understood varrick's personality and followed the evolution of their relationship, you'd say this is the cutest proposal EVER in cartoon history, hahaha.

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geminids

it's been rainy and overcast for days but tonight the skies have cleared. outside her window, orion sits just above the rooftop of the next house in the block. to the left, gemini has never been too bright and the city lights on the horizon blurred them even more. she tilted her phone a little more to the left and waited for google to map out the skies in front of her. there. gemini should be somewhere there.

donning on her winter coat and the warmest scarf and hat she could find, she stepped out her window into the neighbor's rooftop and the chilly midnight air.

and one by one, as her eyes adjusted to the dark, she sees them - pieces of rocks burning their way into the earth leaving short trails of light behind. beautiful. romantic, she remembered him saying not too long ago about watching falling stars. camping..would be more romantic, she countered haha. 

they both are.

romantic or not, in that fraction of a second before that streak of light disappeared, she thought about how much she missed picking up her phone and mindlessly fill him in on such a mundane activity such as getting herself chilled outdoors while watching suicidal pieces of rocks dive through the atmosphere. she wondered if he misses her too. yet she knew the answer somehow: no. occasionally, yes, with occasions spanning a few weeks to a few months or when he's bored in transit.

meteor showers are beautiful, she thought. but now they're associated to someone who's been very efficient at making her feel lonely. beautiful but lonely.

clearest photo of the geminids i could possibly take.

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did you know..

it just occurred to me that this is the first time i've ever seen either of the persons behind lighthouse family. EVER. and i've been listening to their songs since the 4th grade. hahaha. omg.

link to youtube video.

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paris 2014

click to video link :)

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i'm sorry :(

i guess if there's one thing i'm really good at, it's pushing away the persons i love most.

perhaps it's caution, perhaps it's intuition, perhaps it's a result of lessons learned. perhaps you're doing what you can to maintain a respectable distance but this dance, this coming together and moving away over and over again, has to stop, right? perhaps i really am just trying to do right by my friends by keeping myself, and you, from crossing the line.

i don't know.

i'm sorry.

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it's a bulgarian bagpipe and persian santur kind of evening

welcome to abbas' birthday dinner, where the celebrant is iranian; the cook, pakistani; the wine, italian; the music, bulgarian; and the people and range of topics, just, international.

the abas and the abbas.

the curried chicken and the fried chicken. hahaha. my photos are twins.

and music?

bulgarian bagpipes
persian santur

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sketch by xperia

xperia has redeemed itself in my eyes! after removing the doodle function from their photo editor they released the sketch app and i'm having quite a lot of fun with it ^^

default scene for any trial drawing whatsoever. ang dakilang landscape with the rolling hills, sun, and clouds.

my personal take on van gogh's starry night with halo, cover by ane brun, in the background :)

apparently it was out since sometime around august. i have no idea why i missed it.

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rooooomiiiiies!

i am SO overjoyed with my room mates. you have no idea how amazing it feels to describe what you're currently working on and actually have someone (out of the lab) understand the whole PRINCIPLE! ward, you're the man! perhaps i really should surround myself with more and more engineers if it makes explaining things a whole lot easier. but, then again, i'd rather not so i could also have variety haha.

either way, i'm still so happy they all had a grasp of what my beam-steering device is all about *tears of joy*

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pwede na ^^

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disconnected

the fine art of composing poems on scratch paper. after all these years, my poetry is still as awkward as a primary schooler's, haha.

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bus 47

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how to move on

1. i don't know
2. i don't know
3. I DON'T KNOW!

ever had that feeling when you were talking with your brother who's currently working in cebu and your conversation led you looking up places on google maps and then suddenly, BAM!, that annoying feeling of missing the place hits you like a ton of bricks.

you remember the beach, the sun, the shadows disappearing at midday, the commutes and the taxis, the mountains oh the mountains, the restos and the karaoke bars, the eatery serving the best bulalo in town, the streetside siomai, green rubber flooring, blue walls and the resounding echo after a well-placed hit, dusty streets, tricycle rides..i hate this feeling.

it throws me off the rocks and now it's 1 and i'm sad and i can't sleep and i have a freaking 6 hours scheduled in the clean room in the morning..

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erwin

prof. dr. ir. bosman.

how to keep yourself awake throughout a coffee-deprived afternoon lecture. and, yes, his eyebrows do that when he's trying to make a point.

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noodels!

noodles + omelette + squid rolls + brussels sprouts + noriiiii! + wanton soup

wanton soup sans wantons! hahaha. i have the happiest tummy in the world right now :">

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nacht van de musea

trick or treatin' for information during the nacht van de universitaire musea.

ready for the night!

Plantentuin

extra extra large asparagus!

*ting! lightbulb!* look for me here in the tropical zone when winter gets unbearably cold haha.

Museum voor Dierkunde
there's something homey about zoology museums despite the extraordinary amount of dead bodies, bones, and detestable worms and insects. probably because iit's museum was very accessible to us as little kids and it's where we spent most of our time while waiting for our parents. there were two injured philippine eagles which was brought to the biology department for treatment one time and they built a massive cage spanning almost three stories for them in what is now the csm atrium. i've seen them a few times but one didn't make it and they had it stuffed up and put on permanent display in the museum. it's one of my favorite displays, the others being the cheetah, the huge pearl-making clam which is now long dead, the horse skeleton, and the sunfish.

anatomy of a lobster.

not sure if saying hi or wants to eat me,

baleen whale.

elephant.

zee camel en zee annoying hooman.

narwhal! haven't heard about these guys for ages!

Museum voor de Geschiedenis van de Wetenschappen

a collection of measuring and characterization instruments. i gotta say, old, analog devices, despite the lack of multi-functions and extremely limited resolution, looks waaaay cooler than the modern touch-screens and automatic machines. old devices are definitely the way to go when you want to capture the interest of young minds.

candies. because what is trick or treat without the sweets? haha.

germanium wafer.

measuring devices for crystallography.

x-ray diffraction patterns. and then i started thinking about fourier transforms >.<

silicon wafer.

kinder activities.

theorized the structure of aromatic rings.

ngano naay keyboard? haha.

analog GIF. say "plateau" and the first thing that comes to mind is, "ha, naay clase? which auditorium?" >.<

huwaaaw! i didn't know plateau also studied this first.

plateau's instruments for studying polarization and irradiance.

jozef plateau (1801-1883)

the famous blue led.

phosphors.

Etnografische Verzamelingen
not very fond of taking pictures of stuff enclosed in glass..but there's a lot of interesting stories behind each display. there's a necklace from a cannibal tribe where each bead represents how many persons they've killed. there's also a carving of the god, vanatu, from india on display. the point of the whole exhibition was to show different cultures as well as to show how migrations and colonization affects these cultures.

hoi, watcha doin'? haha.

Archeologisch Museum

i was expecting dinosaur bones, not pots and pans, bwahaha.

Museum voor de Geschiedenis van de Geneeskunde

..or what i'd like to call, exhibit of torture devices. look at these! without the doctors and friendly nurses they all look like medieval torture devices. eeech.

sinaunang prosthetics.

thank God for anesthesia, i wouldn't need to be strapped down and made to bear the pain while doctors do their stuff.

what does your baby put in his mouth? stuff doctors find in babies' stomachs.

eeeek. you want women to practice safe sex? show them un-romanticized videos of a woman at childbirth. like, the real, gory kind starting from the labor pains, to broken water bag, to slitting the vagina (T_T), to even more labor pains, and where you can feel the pain from the other side of the viewing screen. kids, sex leads to this. nya, manganak pa ka? :P

happy creepy halloween.

even the contraceptive displays look like torture devices >.<

Volkssterrenwacht Armand Pien

view of the "three" towers of gent (sint-baafs kathedral is darker than the night) from armand pien.

3000 kg telescope on top of the plateau. sooo pwetty, complete with the movable dome and everything :">

the maan. the thing everyone's looking at last night.

and finally, yes, i might have taken the opportunity to hack as many portals as the bus route passes. LEVEL 4! oh, yeah :D

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