My roommate Candy is down with the mumps. I was not worried. I had 'em when I was little...I think. I had almost everything when I was a kid -- german measles, bulutong tubig, scabies, and chickenpox during college. Thank God I didn't have hepa or dengue yet. But I think that my engaging in contact street games, playing with soil as a kid and wading through flood waters made my body immune system stronger than most because I rarely get sick as an adult.
Just a while though, I was very hungry and riding on the adrenalin of having submitted a document for work through email while fixing myself a nissin yakisoba (emergency food) that I spilled the noodles on our kitchen sink while draining the cup. I quickly scooped the damn thing up and through gritted teeth and curses, poured boiling water on it again (rinse and repeat) and ate it in spite. Nasty, i know! Now, I am quite positive I'll contract the mumps virus again. I saw Candy washing her utensils on the sink a few hours ago. Lighting can hit twice. It happens to a select tiny percent of the population, you know. I think it will happen to me.
I'm so stooopid. And gross. HAHAHA!
6.29.2011
6.24.2011
Places
Time is a convenient mediator, the unspoken assumption being that its passage has neutralized anything sour between us. And so we settle into this jovial repartee, the only difference is that our talk is more comfortable than ever. Why wouldn't it be? There is no longer room for anything to get better or worse. No more that indefatigable possibility of titillation or a chronic danger of offending the other. Instead, amusement is kept in its proper corner, quiet as a twitch of flesh at the corners of your mouth. It is better this way, I think. That you have sealed your fate with the constant even if you've unknowingly thwarted mine into the big wide open. I never liked enclosed spaces anyway. I can manage the dizzying turning and tumbling and freewheeling. As long as you stay in place.
TUMI to me
If I were a guy and would like a bag that can seamlessly fit from the office to other functions (fieldwork, client meetings) that would require me to be on the commute, I would definitely buy something like this: This would easily fit a laptop, folders of paper and other gadgets. That looks like a cord or water bottle compartment up front. Nifty. Also, I like the vertical orientation which doesn't scream the very 1980's attache case.
More guwapo TUMI bags here.
And So
And so you call your best friend
who's away, just to hear his voice,
but forget his recording concludes
with "Have a nice day."
"Thank you, but I have other plans,"
you're always tempted to respond,
as an old lady once did, the clerk
in the liquor store unable to laugh.
Always tempted, what a sad
combination of words. And so
you take a walk into the neighborhood,
where the rhododendrons are out
and also some yellowy things
and the lilacs remind you of a song
by Nina Simone. "Where's my love?"
is its refrain. Up near Gravel Hill
two fidgety deer cross the road,
whitetails, exactly where
the week before a red fox
made a more confident dash.
Now and then the world rewards,
and so you make your way back
past the careful lawns, the drowsy backyards,
knowing the soul on its own
is helpless, asleep in the hollows
of its rigging, waiting to be stirred.
- Stephen Dunn
6.23.2011
So I'm halfway through an e-book I downloaded early this evening. I never thought I'd see the day. I've always been a printed word advocate. Even when I write my reports, I'd prefer to have my materials printed in economode on scratch papers so that I could highlight stuff and scribble unruly notes and make diagrams. I'd just make up to the environment in one way or another by refusing plastic bags when buying things and stuffing them in my tote. It's just that sometimes I have low EQ and I had to read a novel now (despite a looming case study deadline) because I plan to watch its screen adaptation when it comes out in August.
Okay, okay! The low EQ thing is not an occasional thing. Just last night, it took me three tentative trips to the freezers of Rustan's until I finally succumbed to buying a Snickers Ice Cream Bar. It was a novelty I couldn't resist especially because I needed cheering up from my 4-day flu. I like Snickers a lot and to turn it into the same Snicker's Bar only with an ice cream center just made me throw delaying self-gratification out of the window. What can I say? I am a weak individual with zero drive and no will power. And I don't care if I disgust a friend who's all too keen to prove herself to i don't know, herself or the world (these may have been her exact words). It's just that though I love her dearly, I don't see the point of working oneself so hard for the sole purpose of proving you're top-class. At one point or another you definitely will be. And then what? Maybe I am daft and a bit lazy but maybe that's just not my thing.
Yup, the ice cream did taste really goooooood.
Okay, okay! The low EQ thing is not an occasional thing. Just last night, it took me three tentative trips to the freezers of Rustan's until I finally succumbed to buying a Snickers Ice Cream Bar. It was a novelty I couldn't resist especially because I needed cheering up from my 4-day flu. I like Snickers a lot and to turn it into the same Snicker's Bar only with an ice cream center just made me throw delaying self-gratification out of the window. What can I say? I am a weak individual with zero drive and no will power. And I don't care if I disgust a friend who's all too keen to prove herself to i don't know, herself or the world (these may have been her exact words). It's just that though I love her dearly, I don't see the point of working oneself so hard for the sole purpose of proving you're top-class. At one point or another you definitely will be. And then what? Maybe I am daft and a bit lazy but maybe that's just not my thing.
Yup, the ice cream did taste really goooooood.
6.13.2011
"Perhaps the body has its own memory system, like the invisible meridian lines those Chinese acupuncturists always talk about. Perhaps the body is unforgiving, perhaps every cell, every muscle and fragment of bone remembers each and every assault and attack. Maybe the pain of memory is encoded into our bone marrow and each remembered grievance swims in our bloodstream like a hard, black pebble. After all, the body, like God, moves in mysterious ways.
From the time she was in her teens, Sera has been fascinated by this paradox - how a body that we occupy, that we have worn like a coat from the moment of our birth - from before birth, even - is still a stranger to us. After all, almost everything we do in our lives is for the well-being of the body: we bathe daily, polish our teeth, groom our hair and fingernails; we work miserable jobs in order to feed and clothe it; we go to great lengths to protect it from pain and violence and harm. And yet the body remains a mystery, a book that we have never read. Sera plays with this irony, toys with it as if it were a puzzle: How, despite our lifelong preoccupation with our bodies, we have never met face-to-face with our kidneys, how we wouldn't recognize our own liver in a row of livers, how we have never seen our own heart or brain. We know more about the depths of the ocean, are more acquainted with the far corners of outer space than with our own organs and muscles and bones. So perhaps there are no phantom pains after all; perhaps all pain is real; perhaps each long ago blow lives on into eternity in some different permutation and shape; perhaps the body is this hypersensitive, revengeful entity, a ledger book, a warehouse of remembered slights and cruelties.
But if this is true, surely the body also remembers each kindness, each kiss, each act of compassion? Surely this is our salvation, our only hope - that joy and love are also woven into the fabric of the body, into each sinewy muscle, into the core of each pulsating cell?"
- Thrity Umrigar (The Space Between Us)
6.12.2011
Allenated
Watching too many neurotic woody allen films consecutively can get very tiring. I'm glad my last session was a few months ago. Now I'm actually looking forward to this. Reviews say it's the best Woody Allen piece in a while. And a time travel movie featuring portrayals of Ernest hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Salvador Dali and Man Ray? C'mon, that augurs a riot!
6.11.2011
6.09.2011
6.08.2011
If it's just work I'm supposed to do, I would have achieved way much than what I have now. But 50% of my time is spent on other obligations.
Just last month, I helped my brothers look for an apartment, move to that apartment, clean both the old and new apartments and settle them in as comfortably as possible. There were also dinners and lunches with relatives and friends on their return from other countries, their birthdays, and their going away parties. There was acting as travel agent for my parents who will be celebrating their anniversary for the first time out of town since their honeymoon 28 years ago, and the occasional calls and texts for buying stuff like merchandise for the drugstore. I'm in the middle of writing reports for a deadline yet I had to clean up the apartment last weekend for a college roommate who will be staying here for a few days to help settle her sister in her University's residence hall. Today, I accompanied them to ride the train, shop for supplies and arrange the sister's room.
This list reminds me that I still have to ask for my parents' marriage certificates from San Augustin, follow-up reimbursements for that stupid Pacific Educational Plans, renew my passport while filing my parent's passport application forms. My Tita Rosa hates it when I do this, mention things that needs to be done. She says it stresses her out to hear all these things. Which is why since a few months ago, I have stopped mentioning my activities to other people which was just my way of verbalizing these so I can remember better. It's usually not in the form of a rant but more like an enumeration for my purpose. Because really, more than any other time, I am happy to do things for other people now. I figured more than accomplishing things for myself, I feel better when I am useful to others. Or put another way, I hate myself more when I fail people I love than when I fail myself.
My Tita's flagging my toxic nature was timely. Aside from a very preoccupied, somewhat rude and always unavailable City Social Welfare and Development Officer that we my team and I met during fieldwork whom I swore not to be like EVER, it was one of the crucial things that helped me want to be more graceful under pressure. Composure matters especially when people depend on you. And although this was not a value instilled in our household while I was growing up (every little stressful thing is magnified there), I have decided I do not want to spread the negative vibe anymore because life is a handful as it is without people multiplying stress unnecessarily. I am relatively a chillax and jovial person but there is definitely room for improvement.
Just last month, I helped my brothers look for an apartment, move to that apartment, clean both the old and new apartments and settle them in as comfortably as possible. There were also dinners and lunches with relatives and friends on their return from other countries, their birthdays, and their going away parties. There was acting as travel agent for my parents who will be celebrating their anniversary for the first time out of town since their honeymoon 28 years ago, and the occasional calls and texts for buying stuff like merchandise for the drugstore. I'm in the middle of writing reports for a deadline yet I had to clean up the apartment last weekend for a college roommate who will be staying here for a few days to help settle her sister in her University's residence hall. Today, I accompanied them to ride the train, shop for supplies and arrange the sister's room.
This list reminds me that I still have to ask for my parents' marriage certificates from San Augustin, follow-up reimbursements for that stupid Pacific Educational Plans, renew my passport while filing my parent's passport application forms. My Tita Rosa hates it when I do this, mention things that needs to be done. She says it stresses her out to hear all these things. Which is why since a few months ago, I have stopped mentioning my activities to other people which was just my way of verbalizing these so I can remember better. It's usually not in the form of a rant but more like an enumeration for my purpose. Because really, more than any other time, I am happy to do things for other people now. I figured more than accomplishing things for myself, I feel better when I am useful to others. Or put another way, I hate myself more when I fail people I love than when I fail myself.
My Tita's flagging my toxic nature was timely. Aside from a very preoccupied, somewhat rude and always unavailable City Social Welfare and Development Officer that we my team and I met during fieldwork whom I swore not to be like EVER, it was one of the crucial things that helped me want to be more graceful under pressure. Composure matters especially when people depend on you. And although this was not a value instilled in our household while I was growing up (every little stressful thing is magnified there), I have decided I do not want to spread the negative vibe anymore because life is a handful as it is without people multiplying stress unnecessarily. I am relatively a chillax and jovial person but there is definitely room for improvement.
6.03.2011
On Uncertainty
I slept a total of 24 hours these past couple of days and have been eating like a male teenager who's training for a barangay basketball league. I have consumed gallons and gallons of water and yet, I am always tired. Seems like long days on field have taken their toll on me. But another hunch is that something might be subconsciously bothering me. I have lived long enough not to ignore the trend. When I am all mopey, I eat and then sleep!
I was ready to call it a sad day and prepare for another field interview tomorrow but just a few minutes ago, I came across this quote from my cousin in my news feed. She quotes a dude named Mark Batterson:
Lately, I have come to terms with my volatile emotions and accepted that people, including myself, would have to live with my intuitive and feeling nature. I will not change how I am just to make others feel less awkward. I am also in the midst of winging it occupationally and not mind too much if I am not shaping my career the way others shaped theirs, doggedly, single-tracked and with a five-year plan.
I am now convinced that like photographing, life is but a series of reactions and all we can do is react to grace. There is destiny and there is free will. The latter is how you react to the former. There is no "what if," there is only "how then." This is not to say that it is for me not to do anything and just wait for fruitious events to transpire. Like photography, to be able to take a photo, you need to go out there. To seek one's destiny, as it were. I believe that destiny and God's will is the same thing and God's will is most manifested in one's heart's desire. Therefore, I believe that to be able to fulfill one's destiny, a person must seek out that which he truly desires. And one can only do that if one actually dives right into work and reflect some. Not the other way around.
I think I get all those which this Batterson fellow has written in a novel somewhere. But there's one thing left to embrace. Ah yes, relational uncertainty. Romance. Someone tried to teach that to me before but I was still too much a control freak then to be comfortable with the hazy and the unsure. And I bailed even before I could ease myself into the hot and maybe weirdly relaxing pool of sulfur-smelling questions. And he didn't hang around long enough to try to get me in again. It might have looked like too much work.
I wonder how I would fare these days. Of all Batterson suggests, this may be the most difficult. Phhhbt! I am taking one hurdle at a time. For now, my occupational destiny awaits. But I am praying to react positively should the cosmos suggest a romantic clue one day. And I truly hope that I won't be stupid and scared shitless not to astutely pick apart the desires of my brain from the desires of my loins from the desires of my heart. The first two mess things up big time! But maybe please, in a teeny weenie little pleading voice, can i ask that they all point to one and the same person? Pretty please?
Today, because of a cancelled meeting I spent most of the day on the internet, napping, watching a Godard film and staring into space. Oh and I also fixed myself some pancakes twice--for breakfast and dinner (cheese and nutella flavors respectively) because the whole batter batch has to be consumed immediately lest it spoils.
I was ready to call it a sad day and prepare for another field interview tomorrow but just a few minutes ago, I came across this quote from my cousin in my news feed. She quotes a dude named Mark Batterson:
"Embrace relational uncertainty. It's called ROMANCE. Embrace spiritual uncertainty, it's called MYSTERY. Embrace occupational uncertainty. it's called DESTINY. Embrace emotional uncertainty. it's called JOY. Embrace intellectual uncertainty. it's called REVELATION."
And then a eureka moment washed over me. I have always been comfortable with intellectual uncertainty. That I don't know a lot of things don't bother me because I am sure I have the ability to learn things. That a lot of things in life cannot be reasoned and explained is also okay with me and I have deep respect for the mysteries of this world.
Lately, I have come to terms with my volatile emotions and accepted that people, including myself, would have to live with my intuitive and feeling nature. I will not change how I am just to make others feel less awkward. I am also in the midst of winging it occupationally and not mind too much if I am not shaping my career the way others shaped theirs, doggedly, single-tracked and with a five-year plan.
I am now convinced that like photographing, life is but a series of reactions and all we can do is react to grace. There is destiny and there is free will. The latter is how you react to the former. There is no "what if," there is only "how then." This is not to say that it is for me not to do anything and just wait for fruitious events to transpire. Like photography, to be able to take a photo, you need to go out there. To seek one's destiny, as it were. I believe that destiny and God's will is the same thing and God's will is most manifested in one's heart's desire. Therefore, I believe that to be able to fulfill one's destiny, a person must seek out that which he truly desires. And one can only do that if one actually dives right into work and reflect some. Not the other way around.
I think I get all those which this Batterson fellow has written in a novel somewhere. But there's one thing left to embrace. Ah yes, relational uncertainty. Romance. Someone tried to teach that to me before but I was still too much a control freak then to be comfortable with the hazy and the unsure. And I bailed even before I could ease myself into the hot and maybe weirdly relaxing pool of sulfur-smelling questions. And he didn't hang around long enough to try to get me in again. It might have looked like too much work.
I wonder how I would fare these days. Of all Batterson suggests, this may be the most difficult. Phhhbt! I am taking one hurdle at a time. For now, my occupational destiny awaits. But I am praying to react positively should the cosmos suggest a romantic clue one day. And I truly hope that I won't be stupid and scared shitless not to astutely pick apart the desires of my brain from the desires of my loins from the desires of my heart. The first two mess things up big time! But maybe please, in a teeny weenie little pleading voice, can i ask that they all point to one and the same person? Pretty please?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)