Category: Events

Posted on

Meeting THE Swing Out Sister

Now THIS is fate, fate, fate!

I had to bring daughter C1 to the dentist over at the 5th Floor of Megamall for a long overdue checkup (2 cavities!!!). After that we had a mother-daughter bonding time — shopping for clothes and a quick lunch at Wendy’s.

I told her I wanted to pass Powerbooks to check some books I was hoping to buy. As we passed the ground floor Atrium, beautiful jazz music was playing. Being such a jazz lover, I was of course attracted to the fairly large crowd gathered around the makeshift stage. Ooooh, there was an autograph signing going on! Wonder who it is???

So we go to the front of the stage where a lady with dark hair and bangs was sitting, signing CDs and who should it be???? Swing Out Sister’s lead singer, Corinne Drewery.

Swing Out Sister is a British jazz group from the 80s. Their kind of music is my favorite kind of jazz — smooth, sultry and pop-ish enough for C1 to love Corinne’s style of singing! It is definitely jazz at one of its finest.

Before we knew it, I was buying their latest album, Beautiful Mess, and heading up the stage to personally meet Corinne and introduce C1.

If there was one thing missing in this whole afternoon adventure, it was that I had no camera with me to record the moment. But that’s OK. We went home with Corinne’s new album playing beautiful music for us.

Here’s a sample of Corinne’s jazzy style:

Posted on

Ready to Join Earth Hour Tonight?

Want to be part of the Manila Earth Hour 2008? Wish you could do something to generate awareness of climate change, energy conservation, saving Mother Earth?

TURN OFF YOUR LIGHTS BETWEEN 8-9 PM LATER TONIGHT!

This is a global campaign which Manila is part of. Mayor Atienza has already pledged to turn off lights along Roxas Blvd. My yoga friend Trin, who works for WWF (a major sponsor/supporter of Earth Hour) texted me earlier that they are having a countdown along CCP’s lawn in Roxas Blvd. at 7 PM.

For more details about Earth Hour, its objectives and cities participating, click HERE to read my earlier blog post.

It looks like there is a groundswell of support for this campaign, which is really heartwarming to see.

* When I went to get my sons’ report cards yesterday, I saw a large tarpaulin announcing Earth Hour

* Just today, I already received several texts announcing this and requesting people to join

* Good friend Aly plans a candlelit pizza dinner with the family

* Today, my daughter and I bonded at Boni High Street while waiting for our youngest who spent the afternoon with a classmate in Makati. There, too, the stores will be joining Earth Hour by turning off 50% of their lights.

* Here at home, it will also be lights out for an hour. Although we are going out for dinner, the househelp have already been asked to turn off all our lights.

I will be bringing my digicam along later just in case there will be camera moments relevant to Earth Hour.

Will you join us please?

 

 

Posted on

iblog4: The Bloggers’ Summit

Are you an active blogger? Then come join the Manila bloggers’ summit on April 26!

Last year, about this time, I came across an announcement about iblog3. Imagine, it was already the 3rd year running and I never even heard of such a summit. So, curious me decided to go attend even if I knew absolutely no one in the crowd. My first blog was just weeks old then and I knew next to nothing about stuff they talked about (problogging, Google Adsense, SEO, podcasting — DUHHHH!!!)

By the end of the 2-day conference, I had a pile of business cards from bloggers: probloggers, media bloggers, personal bloggers, and even vloggers. Not only that, I came to know the faces behind the more famous blogs you come across, got more-than-I-could-digest blogging information and even won a raffle prize.

This year, it will just be a 1-day event but still packed with very useful topics you could bring back home for your own blogs. Best of all, it is FREE!!!

Date: April 26, 2008 (Saturday)
Time: 9am – 5pm thereabouts
Place: Malcolm Theater, College of Law, UP Diliman

It’s better to reserve early so that you are sure to get a kit with handouts and be enrolled in their mailing list.

Here are some useful links:

iblog4 homepage

Register for iblog4

List of iblog4 registrants

Since joining iblog3 laslt year, my blogging life has never been the same. I now have thispublic blog as well as a yoga blog, The Yogini from Manila (chronicles of my life as a budding yogini). I  joined several blogger events and now count some of these long-time bloggers as my good friends.

Hope to see you there!

Posted on

Earth Hour 2008

WHAT CAN YOU DO TO REDUCE THE EFFECTS OF GLOBAL WARMING?

Join Earth Hour 2008 this coming March 29, 2008, 8 PM.

eh_728x90.gif

Last year, March 31, 2007 to be exact, Sydney turned off its lights for 1 hour.

– 2.2 million people

– 2,100 businesses

Sydney landmarks like the Harbour Bridge and the Sydney Opera House turned their lights off; weddings were done by candlelight. That collective effort resulted in reducing the city’s energy consumption by 10.2 percent for that hour, equivalent to taking 48,000 cars off the road for an hour.

Inspired by Sydney, other major cities are joining Earth Hour 2008, Manila included (with WWF-Philippines leading the pack). In their website, WWF-Philippines reports that “Pasay City Mayor Wenceslao “Peewee” Trinidad agreed to turn off all lights along Manila’s historical Roxas Boulevard seaside strip for 60 minutes on 29 March to show support.”

 

What can YOU do? The Earth Hour 2008 website gives these suggestions:

  1. Sign up for Earth Hour 2008
  2. Get involved and create a bigger, better Earth Hour
  3. Reduce your impact on climate change
  4. Create your own Earth Hour event
  5. Calculate your carbon footprint

In its list of participating cities, Earth Hour 2008 reports Manila’s vision as follows:

The people of Manila care deeply about climate change and we are united in our resolve to meet this challenge in the best way that we can. This is why the City of Manila has teamed with WWF to make Earth Hour 2008 a success around the world by being the lead city in Philippines participating in the simple but momentous act of turning off the lights for one hour.

Here in Manila we understand that climate change is the most significant threat to life on Earth. One way to slow the current rate of global warming is for each individual and business to make small adjustments to the way they live. To meet the threat of climate change we need to demonstrate how simple and easy it is to make the small adjustments to our lives that begin to make the difference.

An event like Earth Hour that achieves full community involvement in a simple action like turning the lights off can make a huge difference. And even more importantly, it will mark the beginning of a campaign to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of Manila significantly by the time Earth Hour 2009 comes around.

WWF and Manila invite all households and businesses to take part in Earth Hour by turning off their lights for one hour at 8pm on March 29 2008. Information on how you, your business or local community can get involved in Earth Hour 2008 can be found on the Earth Hour website.

Let’s do our share. Pass on this information to your family and friends.

Posted on

A Jesuit ONLINE Holy Week Retreat

candle.jpg

* Do you have access to the internet?

* Do you wish you could go on a Holy Week retreat but cannot seem to squeeze in the time?

Now, you can meet the Lord and have a Holy Week retreat and you need not log off the internet or travel somewhere to an out-of-the-city retreat house. You don’t even have to be in Metro Manila (or for that matter, even in the Philippines).

You can join Fr. Johnny Go, S.J.‘s innovative and interesting ONLINE Holy Week retreat. He is currently the Director of Xavier School.

The online retreat, interestingly called “Meeting Places” is described by Fr. Johnny on his blog as follows:

I’ve called it “MEETING PLACES” because I think the mysteries of Holy Week unfold in three Lenten places: the Garden (Holy Thursday), the Hill (Good Friday), and the Tomb (Black Saturday). If we spend some time in those virtual meeting places, we may encounter the Lord in a special way.

It will come in 3 modules: one each for Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Black Saturday. If everything goes as planned, each module will have video clips, songs and maybe even interactive activities. Starting today, there is already a Preparatory Prayer on the Philippine Jesuits’ site that serves as an introduction for the 3 modules which will be made available next week.

Fr. Johnny qualifies that this is not meant to take the place of a face-to-face retreat or be in lieu of the Holy Triduum liturgical services. However, it is another way by which people can, in his words, “find the Lord in yet another way this Holy Week.”

I invite you to visit the site and more than that, spread the word to your family and friends.

Posted on

We Celebrate International Women’s Day Today!

Every March is International Women’s Month and specifically, March 8 is celebrated globally as International Women’s Day.

On the International Women’s Day (IWD) website, the day is described as follows: “Annually on 8 March, thousands of events are held throughout the world to inspire women and celebrate their achievements. While there are many large-scale initiatives, a rich and diverse fabric of local activity connects women from all around the world ranging from political rallies, business conferences, government activities and networking events through to local women’s craft markets, theatric performances, fashion parades and more.”

Many corporations have began to actively support IWD. Even Google reportedly changes its logo every March 8 on its search engine pages.

google-iwd.gif

I found several activities (many from FilipinaImages.com) in Metro Manila as well as in the provinces that aim to celebrate women and inspire each one to achieve her full potential — to celebrate womanhood in all its forms.

March 9, NBC Tent, Rockwell (7am – 5pm) – all women’s expo and all women’s run of different distances. Sen. Pia Cayetano will be one of those joining the run.

March 9, Quezon Park, Dumaguete City (5am – 10pm) – A 5-kilometer Fun Run/Walk for all women and girls will take place with support from men distributing information flyers on womens rights.

WikiPilipinas is hosting the Portal Encyclopedia of Filipina Women.

Filipiniana.net has a link to Philippine Women Studies which features links to laws relating to women, academic and statistical works on Filipino women, and literary masterpieces written by and for Filipinas.

FilipinaImages.com founders Noemi Dado, Dine Racoma and Lorna Dietz, in collaboration with wikiPilipinas, launched a writing contest, “Filipina Stories” for bloggers.

HAPPY WOMEN’S DAY TO ALL —

Filipina kababayans (fellow citizens), most of all to those who have distinguished themselves in their own fields and given the Filipina a positive image

my Pinay mommy blogger-friends (you know who you are!)

my women blog readers

women all over the world — with special mention to those whose basic rights as women are not respected, upheld or appreciated

WE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE!!!