World Cup semis

Brazil and Argentina were ambushed in the quarterfinals, but that doesn’t mean the World Cup 2010 in South African has become less interesting.

Oh well, many men also hate David Villa now after he helped Spain pull past Paraguay in their quarterfinal battle, which meant Larissa Requilme, who is now a popular star even among the non-football fans, will drop her daring TV stunt.

By the time you are reading this, the Netherlands-Uruguay match has already been decided.

Very early tomorrow, Spain and Germany will also clash for the other championship slot.

While many think that there would be a Netherlands-Germany final, the results of the quarterfinals that saw the exit of pre-tournament favorites Brazil and Argentina proved that rankings and statistics are not always a fool-proof way to pick winners.

The excitement continues to build up going to the final two stages of the World Cup. 

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This is a special week for my classmates from the University of the Philippines College Cebu High School class of 1985.

We are celebrating our silver jubilee on Friday with a series of activities at our Alma Mater.

It will start with a mass at 2 p.m. to be celebrated by our classmate Fr. Rogel Anecito L. Abais, SJ.

This will be followed by a quiz bowl where our former teacher and CAT commandant Alfredo Montaño would be the quiz master.

In the evening will be the dinner celebration at the clubhouse of Maria Luisa Estate Park.

If there is one sport that our class was well known for back in high school, it should be volleyball.

Our classmate and the best in math of our class, Carl Bugarin, served as our captain and spiritual leader. He’s home from the US for the reunion and last Saturday he played with some old friends at the USC Gym.

Our volleyball team, though without a coach and proper training and severely lacking in equipment still managed a very decent third place finish in the now defunct Cebu Amateur Athletic Association back in 1984. We only lost to eventual champion USP and to second placer USC-Boys High School.

We also won the title of the High School Youth (Hi-Y) Club tournament of YMCA and had played in various places.

Some of my teammates are now home like Dominic Chan (Ylaya) from Australia and Richard Villaceran from the US. Carl’s partner in the team, Robert Hipolito is based in Cebu and also had a good sweat last weekend.

I begged off from playing as my body said a big NO when the idea of playing came to mind.

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MILESTONES: Belated birthday greetings to those who turned a year older last Monday – Alex de la Torre, Atty. Eddie Barrita, Junie Cimafranca and Jay Aldeguer.

Belated happy birthday greetings also go to my former teacher Norma Ortega-Tijap and my friend Wilson Ramos, who turned a year older yesterday.

Today’s greetings go to Yamie Vestal, Emil Mercado, France Gatungay, and Nesreen Abdulrauf.

More power to all of you!