The girls plus Chloe

Today, I went to see 2 girl friends from high school, School for the Arts. We all had the same major which was music and we were members of the chorale back then. We had a lot of funny and memorable moments in high school and I really treasure our friendship. It has been tested before yet we remained friends. I thank God for girls like them.

The first girl is Jeanna.

Meet Jeanna (Je-nah)

People would always mistake us as twins or siblings.We were both of the same body type; she was taller than me though. She now lives in Singapore with her family. This the reason why the three of us waned to hang out because she doesn't always come home here in the Philippines. Since she's staying here on vacation for only more than a week, we made sure we'll be seeing each other this time around.

Second girl is Sheila.

Meet Sheila

Sheila is the mommy in our group. She already has one beautiful daughter and one on the way. We would both see each other sometimes since she still lives here in the Philippines and I would see her at school back in college. She was the one who initiated our meet-up since we have never had a date (three of us together) whenever Jeanna comes home.

We all missed each other and had a lot of catching up to do. We went to have our caffeine fix at a local coffee house, Coffeebreak, at Smallville Complex. Our time spent there was filled with too many laughters and a lot of reminiscing about our lives when we were still high school. So much has changed now since we all have graduated from college, Jeanna has been living in Singapore for more than 3 years, Sheila is now a married woman with kids and I have been busy either working or having fun. I think our table was the loudest inside Coffeebreak. Haha! 

I actually did not expect we'd continue bonding over dinner but we did. While we were still in Coffeebreak, we had a hard time thinking of a place to eat. Our classmate and friend, Chloe, called Jeanna and informed he's coming with us for dinner. So waited for Chloe to arrive and made him decide where to eat. LOL

Meet Chloe. Yes, Chloe is a GUY! 

He actually suggested a lot of places/ restaurants to eat at. He wanted to take Jeanna to restaurants she hasn't tried yet since she got back from Singapore. We finally decided to eat at Perri Todd's. It's a local burger joint whose specialty is a BIG BURGER! As in as big as a plate! There was a little drizzle going into the restaurant.   We ordered Todd's Potato (i think better than Shakey's Mojos), Pasta Carbonara and Cheese Burger with Bacon. Here are the photos:

Todd's Potato

King Size Burger!

Awesome dinner. It was funny because it was raining so hard and then the electricity shut down due to power shortage. LOL  Good thing we were done eating! Haha! Too bad though, we had to drop Sheila off because... well, her husband's waiting and he'll be calling her and she's supposed to be home by that hour. Priorities do change when your married! ;) Here are the photos from the restaurant:

After dropping Sheila off, it felt like the three of us didn't want to go home yet. So we went to Starmart Jaro and enjoyed ourselves with more laughter, jump shots and water. LOL  Here are the pictures:

Chloe driving my car. hehe

:P

Ice Cream

Me and Chloe

PUUUURRRREEEEETTTTTYYYYY!

Sorry piddy, I ruined this shot! 

Uh, this was supposed to be a peace sign and a horn sign

Timer mode

Almost there. ;)

Could have been the best Jump SHOT ever but... haaay Chloe! 

Pretty twin! ;)

Nevermind

Piddy says "Rock on!"

How did your Monday go? :)

Movie Date + Yogu

Today I went on a date with my boyfriend, PJ. We went to watch a movie because it has been a long time since our last movie date which was Liam Neeson's Unknown. I wanted to watch Fast 5 but he's watched it already. We ended up watching Pirates of the Caribbean. I honestly felt a little sleepy in the middle of the movie but Johnny Depp is always good and his funny antics kept me awake. PJ said it was bitin because of the few fight scenes. I also didn't know what happened to the mermaid Serena and the religious guy. LOL Overall, it was a good movie. However, if you're into the fight scenes and all that, you'll get dismayed. For me, Johnny Depp saved the movie. :)

After the movie date, we decided to buy take-out for dinner which was KFC twister. We weren't in the mood to eat rice. I also told him I'm craving for crepes! I was kind of sad because Crazy Crepes already closed down last year, I think. He then told me that this yogurt place in Smallville Complex,Yogu, sells crepes! I was so happy! Their place is quite small but it was nice since there weren't many people inside. I tried their Mango Caramel Crepe and PJ got a Strawberry smoothie.

I love their chandelier! 

Small working station

Menu

Facebook?

 The Yogu sign outside

Us in our identical FMCC shirts! :)

crepe+yogurt ice cream

i love how they taste together!

Thanks for the lovely date, dad. ;)

DepEd's K+12

The Department of Education is proposing that a child would need 12 years of elementary and high school education aside from the preparatory level before going to college. The 12 years is composed of 6 years for Elementary, 4 years for Junior High School and another 2 years for Senior high school. As what has been observed, most Filipino children nowadays perform poorly in academics and have a lack of interest in studying. I understand that this is alarming and no parent would want their child to perform poorly in class because surely it will affect their future. I finished my college degree back in 2009 and while I have yet to finish or continue my Master's, I'm not quite sure how and why the Department of Education wants to prolong the students' agony by adding a couple more years in high school.

So here's my reaction if I agree with the DepEd's proposal:

No. It is not a solution if their problem is about the poor performance or disinterest of students in their studies. What they need to do, since their department gets the bigger budget is this: train their teachers well to become effective teachers thus affecting the performance of their students and to improve classrooms and provide children with adequate books and learning materials.That way, children wouldn't have no excuse of studying since he or she has access to information related to his or her subjects. With the teachers, I believe that proper training is key when it comes to teacher's performance.
Most teachers nowadays do not even know how to speak the English language correctly (Read: grammatically correct). They do not even know how to pronounce simple words! If you correct them, they would feel offended or insulted and you have put an X mark on your forehead meaning next time you see your teacher and grade on that subject, do not expect a high grade because you just insulted/offended him or her. Don't get me wrong here, I have a friend who experienced this. It was her speech class and she asked her teacher if that's the correct pronunciation of the word since she said, it was wrong. She said it in a nice way and her teacher was offended. Her grades everytime they had written and oral exams were high (ranging from 1.25 to 1.75) yet her final grade was only 2.25 or 2.5. How in the world did that happen, right?

Teachers think they know very well because they are educators. Well, partly, they're correct but if they continue to be ignorant and do not study their lesson more (research!), students wouldn't feel good that their teacher did not study more thus the lack of interest. Teachers should also learn how to engage their students in participation in class but before that happens, he or she should be inviting enough for the students to listen to him or her. I had a professor in algebra before who was just talking to the blackboard doing the solving even if no one's listening. People are throwing crumpled paper at each other, sleeping and some are going in and out if class and he didn't care. That's what he did everyday. They said that your studies or your behavior towards your studies shouldn't rely on the teacher or professor. Have you heard of the term teacher factor? I believe in that and that makes a lot of difference for me.

As for the physical improvements of the school, the school board just needs to distribute the funds appropriately. Most schools nowadays have projects such as new classrooms, additional computers, etc. Appropriate funding is all they need.

Busy Tuesday and Purple Jazz

Tuesday, May 17, 2011, My mom and I had a lot of things to do so we ate at this new restaurant, Purple Jazz, for lunch. It was fairly new since I think they haven't finished all the wall decorations and stuff. It was a nice and inviting place since it was spacious and they have a very unique bar filled with old LP's. So cool. The menu was okay, we went for the budget meal since we just went there to grab a quick lunch. (I'll try the restaurant's specials next time.) I liked the "uniform" of the lady servants in the restaurant. Very cute in their purple mini dress and white high socks! I ordered butter chicken with chopsuey and Iced tea and my mom ordered fish fillet with chopsuey and iced tea. They were good. In a rating of 5, Ill give them 3.5. :) For dessert, we tried their chocolate mousse and I must say it tastes wonderful! It's just like how my mom makes it! Super satisfied with it, also affordable at 100 pesos. The rest of the day was spent on errands, Bible Study at Church and a stroll in the mall.

Here are the photos I took: (Sorry of the low-res photos. Didn't bring my SLR. Took photos with my my phone's 5MP camera.)

Al fresco dining

An old Banjo and some coffee

Sweet treats

placemat: Jazz overload! ;)

My food

Mom's food

My sister dropped by

Old LP's adorn the Bar

Very Old School

My sister and the Mousse

The Bar

Cute Uniforms! :)

comfy seating

desserts

I was not paid to blog about this restaurant, okay? I just wanted to share. :) Purple Jazz is located at the Parking Area of Amigo Plaza Mall.