happy onomastico to me...

yesterday was my 'onomastico' or name day. this year, we are celebrating our name day rather than our birthday, something different. st. james of the marches is a franciscan saint, which is why i picked that one over st. james the apostle. after evening prayer, we went to our recreation room and had pizza and champagne for dinner.

man, i look really fat in this picture. maybe because i have a couple of slices in my mouth, or maybe its the fat that makes me look fat. thats alvin with me.

caught a bug,...

...i guess with the cold mornings and warm afternoons, it was inevitable. dont feel too bad, but not too good either. november in rome is usually rainy and a bit chilly, but this november has been absolutely beautiful and it rained i think only 4 times this month. im telling everybody here that it means its gonna snow here. it hasnt been significant snowfall in rome in 20 years.

i tried to make pancakes this morning (take 2), but there wasnt enough mix, so i made french toast and this time, i remembered to lubricate the surface. it came out good.

Happy thxgiving

thats me, stalking the thanksgiving turkey, and 5 minutes later,...

...daniela, our cook, with whatever was left of it...

...chris with our desserts, pecan and apple pie,...

... and thats the table with all of us, minus two people, who are chris in the background and alvin, taking the picture.

i sowed on buttons all by myself!!!

everytime i hear the christmas song, 'i saw mommy kissing santa claus', i always think, 'hey kid, your mommy is a ----'. do i need psychiatric help? if yes, do you know of a good shrink in rome?

i am so proud of myself. my raincoat had a button off and two loose. this afternoon, i took the two loose ones off and sowed on all three buttons all by myself. it took almost all afternoon, but i did it, and really good too. if you are thinking, "you're proud of that? thats sad", im with you

got the christmas spirit...

eventhough the weather here is great, i found myself listening to christmas music. yup, christmas is coming fast. about another 36 days, right? i always get excited before christmas but it usually comes after the american thanksgiving. some parts in rome already have christmas decorations and they are starting to build the crib at st peters square. i know i may sound psychotic, but i miss snow, especially near christmas. but with 15-20 degree weather everyday, i dont think im gonna get much sympathy from anyone, especially anyone in toronto.

'flags of our fathers', A-

being my free day (sunday), me and phil went to porto portese, where there is a huge outdoor market. there one can find many bargains for clothes, shoes and other items. we walked about 2 hours and didnt go thru all of the booths. after, we went and watched "flags of our fathers". i first read about this story on "snopes.com". snopes looks/researches into urban legends to see if they are true. this is the link: http://www.snopes.com/military/sixboys.asp . the story is a little long, but very moving. it pretty much sums up the movie. ryan phillipe plays john 'doc' bradley. one of the better movies ive seen all year. A-

an eventful saturday

i tried to make pancakes this morning, being saturday. i mixed everything perfectly, but when i put them on the burner, i realized seconds later that i forgot to lubricate the surface, all the pancakes were stuck. none of them were salvagable. maybe next saturday ill get it right.

i taught CCD to 10 year old kids today. i couldnt believe how smart one of the kids was. he said, "when adam and eve sinned, they gave everyone original sin and the gates of heaven closed. when jesus died, he went to where the dead people were, open the gates of heaven and let them in". i couldnt believe it! i wouldve been happy if they could say the our father and the hail mary.

on my way home, there was a communist party rally blocking all traffic. as you know, communism is against any religion, but here in italy, people joke and say that they: 1 - dont believe in god, and 2)mary is his mother. not hard-line commies, i guess.

we had a guest over for lunch from the canadian college, fr. peter from london. i had to re-show him the house because the last time he was here, it was under renovations.

a long day...

i had to do a translation, from italian to english. man, it was torturous! italians like to say things in the most flowery way, they dont get right to the point. the problem is that there are phrases where it does not mean what it means word for word, so i got a really funny translation. There was one sentence that went on and on and on. i did a quick count and i got 95 words. yes, 95 words without a period. dear lord! and then i had to type out my assignment for the 'historical old testament' course that is due tomorrow. tomorrow is friday, yahoo!!!

It came!

it finally came! i managed to get a relic of St. Anthony online and i waited nervously for 10 days before it came in this morning. now i have to find out if its authentic. one thing for sure is that it is old, very old.
the first pic is of the relic on top of the document,
and the second pic is of just the relic
i bought it for our convent because the few relics that we had are now inside the altar.

does anyone know where i can go in rome to find out its authenticity? if you do, please leave a comment, if you dont, leave a comment anyways :)

'The wind that shakes the barley' B+

'i watched "the wind that shakes the barley" in the theatres in english. its one of three movies in english that is out this week. its a movie that hasnt opened in the US yet but was showed in canadian theatres as part of the film festival. it won many awards in other film festivals. its not what we call a "feel good movie". its about the irish fighting for independence in the 1920's. some torture scenes i cant get out my head. but overall, it was an excellent movie, well worth the 7Euros. i give it a B+ (im using the Yahoo! system).
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0460989/maindetails

Pictures from Assisi

these are a couple of pictures i took in assisi. above is a shot of a beautiful sunset. unfortunately, it didnt capture all the colors, it was much more beautiful in person.

take a guess who the seven foot friar from sudan is? he looks mean in this picture, but he is a very nice guy, always smiling and friendly. the friar on the right with the poncho is fr. horta from chile. he was the guy in charge of our bus and also my canon law professor. great guy, great teacher, an excellent combo.

Day-trip to assisi

just got back from assisi on a daytrip. it was excellent. on the way there, i pretty much slept the entire 2 hours. we arrived at about 10am at the portiuncola, which is a basillica built around a little chapel built by st. francis. then we went to assisi itself. it was my 5th time there and i never get sick of seeing it. its a quaint town with alot of history to it.
we had a SEVEN FOOT friar from sudan come with us. we walked about 30 feet behind him and it was hillarious seeing the people's reaction when they pass him. alot of "mama mia!!", jaws were dropping and eyes were wide open. he was really cool about it. he stopped alot of times and answered people's questions with a smile. he had alot of pictures taken of him throughout the day.
coming back, i read (yes, i actually read a book!) "breakfast at tiffany's". i watched the movie and was curious to read the book. i realized later, was i reading a "chick-book" (book's version of chick-flick")? i'm scared now.
ill post up pictures tomorrow.

welcome...

welcome to my blog. i hope you dont mind the lack of capital letters and punctuation, much simpler this way. i have a lot of friends who have blogs and after visiting a fellow friars site [federico, "a friar style?"], i decided to get one myself. ill post as often as possible. take care.