on my way to square one

i have been away for too long but, now, i am going back to square one. to the place where broken hearts couldnt seem to touch me, where all i knew was laughters under the blue sky, where life's philosophy could be found in beautiful sunsets and bob guev's class.
bob guev is the guru. he was my philo teacher. he wasn't brad pitt hunky. he wasn't hunky at all but the moment he opened his mouth to speak, every single student in the class would have their light bulbs moment. i remember how in awe i was of him, how his teachings seemed so simple yet encompassing and transcending at the same time. and the best thing was, they were spoken, not in the antiquated language of aquinas or marcel BUT in the taglish filipino that everyone could understand and relate to.
i chatted with a fellow bobby guev-er from university a while ago and he gave me the link of another guev-er's blog. i saw a post which brought me back to my seat at SEC building, in bobby guev's class, a girl who wants to soak in every single wisdom the guru has to offer...

(a repost from kuya ubit's blog)


1. "Kung hindi mo mahal ang isang tao, wag ka nang magpakita ng motibo para mahalin ka nya.."
2. "Huwag mong bitawan ang bagay na hindi mo kayang makitang hawak ng iba.."

3. "Huwag mong hawakan kung alam mong bibitawan mo lang."

4. "Huwag na huwag ka hahawak kapag alam mong may hawak ka na."

5. "Parang elevator lang yan eh, bakit mo pagsisiksikan ung sarili mo kung walang pwesto para sayo. Eh meron naman hagdan, ayaw mo lang pansinin."

6. "Kung maghihintay ka nang lalandi sayo, walang mangyayari sa buhay mo.. Dapat lumandi ka din."

7. "Pag may mahal ka at ayaw sayo, hayaan mo. Malay mo sa mga susunod na araw ayaw mo na din sa kanya, naunahan ka lang."

8. "Hiwalayan na kung di ka na masaya. Walang gamot sa tanga kundi pagkukusa."

9. "Pag hindi ka mahal ng mahal mo wag ka magreklamo. Kasi may mga tao rin na di mo mahal pero mahal ka.. Kaya quits lang."

10. "Kung dalawa ang mahal mo, piliin mo yung pangalawa. Kasi hindi ka naman magmamahal ng iba kung mahal mo talaga yung una."

11. "Hindi porke't madalas mong ka-chat, kausap sa telepono, kasama sa mga lakad o ka-text ng wantusawa eh may gusto sayo at magkakatuluyan kayo. Meron lang talagang mga taong sadyang friendly, sweet, flirt, malandi, pa-fall o paasa."

12. "Huwag magmadali sa babae o lalaki. Tatlo, lima, sampung taon, mag-iiba ang pamantayan mo at maiisip mong hindi pala tamang pumili ng kapareha dahil lang maganda o nakakalibog ito. Totong mas mahalaga ang kalooban ng tao higit sa anuman. Sa paglipas ng panahon, maging ang mga crush ng bayan nagmumukha ding pandesal, maniwala ka."

13. "Minsan kahit ikaw ang nakaschedule, kailangan mo pa rin maghintay, kasi hindi ikaw ang priority."

14. "Mahirap pumapel sa buhay ng tao. Lalo na kung hindi ikaw yung bida sa script na pinili nya."

15. "Alam mo ba kung gaano kalayo ang pagitan ng dalawang tao pag nagtalikuran na sila? Kailangan mong libutin ang buong mundo para lang makaharap ulit ang taong tinalikuran mo."

16. "Mas mabuting mabigo sa paggawa ng isang bagay kesa magtagumpay sa paggawa ng wala"

17. "Hindi lahat ng kaya mong intindihin ay katotohan, at hindi lahat ng hindi mo kayang intindihin ay kasinungalingan"

18. "Kung nagmahal ka ng taong di dapat at nasaktan ka, wag mong sisihin ang puso mo. Tumitibok lng yan para mag-supply ng dugo sa katawan mo. Ngayon, kung magaling ka sa anatomy at ang sisisihin mo naman ay ang hypothalamus mo na kumokontrol ng emotions mo, mali ka pa rin! Bakit? Utang na loob! Wag mong isisi sa body organs mo ang mga sama ng loob mo sa buhay! Tandaan mo: magiging masaya ka lang kung matututo kang tanggapin na hindi ang puso, utak, atay o bituka mo ang may kasalanan sa lahat ng nangyari sayo, kundi IKAW mismo!"

19. "Ang pag-ibig parang imburnal...nakakata kot mahulog...at kapag nahulog ka, it's either by accident or talagang tanga ka.."

LABS KO TO!

Telling It As It Is. A Reply to The Wary Diplomat’s Blog Entry.

I was supposed to be studying for the National Medical Aptitude Test but while I was looking for my study material in my very disorganized hard drive, (I find it very disappointing that a thing which could automatically reboot, shutdown, or correct itself CAN NOT automically organize itself!) I found several articles which I had written and which never made it to the public view...so I am posting them here.

This article was written in response to my friend's blog entry about me. Unfortunately, she had erased her blog and had a new one, which doesn't feature yours truly.



悲欢离合. Joys and sorrows; partings and reunions. This is what traveling ultimately teaches a person.

Plane rides always give me a feeling of metaphysical suspension between the place left behind and the place of destination. It takes two hours from Tagbilaran to Manila; two hours; a good time to adjust from the slow and lazy life of Tagbilaran to the fast paced, time conscious life of Manila; from carinderias to MacDonalds, from Garden Café to Starbucks. When I was still in University, I already had this feeling that Tagbilaran wasn’t quite home anymore but I can’t quite call Manila that either. I had this premonition that I would constantly be hovering over the gray area between A and B. This feeling became more intense when I lagged behind my batch mates by one year after I decided to take a semester off from school and to take a minor in International Business. Different new faces from one class to another came and went and the old ones, well, reality had a way of distancing people to blur. So you see Wary Diplomat, I already had the premonition back then, this angst that I would always be swinging.

It came to a shock to my family when I told them that I was leaving for China . After all, none of them knew that I was really serious about going although, they heard me mentioned it over dinner once or twice before. Only my mother and my younger brother were at home when I left. Two hours after, I was already at the port boarding the last ferry to Cebu. I didn’t wait, I couldn’t. In hindsight, I think I was more like avoiding having to say a long goodbye with my family. I was never good with goodbyes, even until now, I’d rather leave in silence. 12 hours later in China, I saw the family pictures my younger brother so thoughtfully tucked into my backpack at the last minute. Wary diplomat, I didn’t gather enough courage to leave, I simply didn’t have time to check if I had enough of it which I didn’t. I had the feeling again I once had during plane rides. I spent a long time that night trying to sleep, staring at the ceiling cracks, shivering from February winter cold.

I studied at an exclusive school for girls and went to the best university in the country. I could sense that people treated me differently because of this, even admired me. However, it is an entirely different world abroad. No one knows what THE Ateneo was; or Holy Spirit was; or who the Corres were; HECK they didn’t even know that the Philippines was on the map!! In China, I was a tabula rasa to the people, they didn’t know anything about me and if ever I had worth, I had to prove it to them. I experienced discrimination, something absolutely new to me. When I was used to given preferential treatment because of my background, I had to give way to someone else because I didn’t have blue eyes or that my nose wasn’t long. I was given a lower salary not because it was at par to my competence but because it was the price they deemed right to my skin color. I was cheated off my contract, made to do manual labor; carrying heavy buckets of food, cleaning toilets, laundering children’s clothes when I had 3 house helps at home just so I didn’t have to do anything! The first impulse was to call home, get my Congressman Uncle to wage war against the city of Jiangmen unless they honor my contract, or worse, ask my mom to pick me up and bring me home! But, I didn’t do any of those ridiculously childish thoughts. Instead I tried to be diplomatic and mature about it and talked to my superior but when it still didn’t work, I screwed them up at their own game. I signed another contract just so I could get my bonus and then left the school without notice. In one year and five months, I realized that to be too trusting is not always good; to be kind is not always the right thing to do. I came to learn that no one can really be there for you; that one is ultimately alone, and so one has to be strong enough to stand up for one’s self.

Karma. The law of equal and opposite reaction. Yin and yang. Tears in Jiangmen, happiness in Beijing. Bliss came in the form of a walking hairball (hihihi). And after a month or so of seeing each other at work for only ten minutes, once a week; I successfully managed to make a lover out of a stranger. I learned to allow myself to fall. I rode at the back of his bicycle around WuDaoKou laughing myself silly. I willingly gave my hand to be held in public places. It was liberating not to care about who might see me, or what other people might think (“Ang landi landi, sa harap ng maraming tao, nagpapahawak ng kamay!”), or what they would say to my family, or what my family would do!! I honestly think that if I were still in Tagbilaran, I would never get to know the tingling five o’clock feeling of knowing that his bicycle was outside waiting for me. I know I would never have come to know the excitement of seeing someone I had just said goodbye to on the phone. I would never get to experience that want for everything to be perfect to please another. I would never get to know why people sometimes have that silly smile without any reason at all. Wary diplomat, this is what it has done to me; it liberated me from the senseless shackles of what I’ve been taught to do and not to do and to make for myself my own mould. Of course it came to pass that I cried but as cliché as it might sound, I would never have it any other way.

after sex, after lust, after love

Hold it! Before you click the "flag inappropriate content" button somewhere on this page, hear me out first.

Last night, I watched a movie off the internet entitled "After Sex" not because i was feeling horny BUT because I was curious. The movie doesn't have the usual script. It is a quilt of different scenarios of what happens after sex between homosexual couples, heterosexual ones, between "just friends", between stangers, between old timers, and between disillusioned ex lovers. Surely, everyone will find themselves in one of the 9 scenarios and will be left giggling ang sighing.

The movie opens with "love is a leap of faith. it's like throwing yourself out there without any guarantees!", goes through "You're forgetting the first gay couple, R2D2 and C3PO." and ends with "I am honest...I am not ashamed of who I am..."

In the end, After Sex is all about the truth that people find about themselves and about the relationship before the morning comes, when the lights are turned off, after sex.

(trailer)
http://www.supernovatube.com/view_video.php?viewkey=1191238962

trust me on this one. watch it!

time

i am not okay. weeks after the phone call i still turn my neck whenever a yellow car passes by, hoping that it was his, coming to pick me up; my heart still skips a beat whenever i hear a car revved, i still sleep on my side as if he is beside me hugging me to sleep. i still use his coffee cups, i still drink with his glasses, take photos with his camera, listen to his music. people tell me i should throw away these things so that forgetting would come easier. i can't. he was a part of me. he made me happy until it ended. throwing away the things he gave me seems to me that the sadness weighs more than the happiness i had with him. so i hang on to the remnants of pain and bliss.

people tell me too that time heal all wounds, that one day i will not dream of him anymore, that i will stop analyzing how it could had been better. this i truly believe in but how long will i stay this way?i believe that i have to wallow in my sadness so that i can wash it away clean. just when that washing will come, i still don't know. time, may time be merciful on me and come sooner. may it lick my wounds close, but may it leave me with my scars that i may not forget.

it's not in the age

it is 6.30 in the morning and my tranquil morning coffee time is disturbed by the ringing of the bells of the local jinja. an announcement in japanese then came on (i didn't fully understand the announcement but it somehow went like this) ;

"Ms. So and so has been missing since yesterday afternoon. She went out for a walk at around X time. She has gray hair, 130 cm tall, X kg. She was wearing a green X, brown pants, and a hat. If anyone has seen her, please call Mr.X at X number..."

when i heard this kind of announcement for the first time sometime back in 2006, i was immensely surprised. how could a family just let their old walk about alone? it would never happen in the philippines! how busy can a family be that none of them could be left home to look after the elderly? how lonely the elderly must feel; spending their days in dreadful routine of eating and walking about with no one to talk to and nothing else to do.

every time i see an ojiji (an old man) or an obaba (an old woman), with backs so hunched low because of osteoporosis, crossing a road or a street alone, my heart always goes out to them! once, i went to a burger place where the staff's uniform was green shorts, light green shirt and white sneakers, i was attended to by an old woman who could be older than my mother, and my mom' already 63! i couldn't help but notice how her fingers were so wrinkled when she punched in my order.

if only i could speak japanese, i would volunteer to talk to these lonely old people. they are fun to talk to. once i walked to work instead of riding my bicycle and this obaba who was from a place 30 minutes train ride away (that's what she told me) walked with me and we started to chat. although it was clear to both of us that we couldn't understand each other, we just kept on blabbing away! i wondered if she ever made it back home!

i used to want to rush to the elderly and help them until one day, i saw an obaba beating a younger woman who was just trying to help her stood up when she fell. japan has very strong and independent obabas and ojijis.

but strong as these old people may be, they must be terribly lonely with nothing else to look forward to, not even the yearly short visit that their children or grandchildren pay them with, not even the quiet kocha time in the afternoon when they can go back to the memories of their younger days; a past which will slowly fade away in time. nothing to look forward to but the coming of death. death which mercilessly doesn't come along until they are around 93. when they are eating away vitamins and supplements instead of food. when they are already so sick and alone.

my boss is 56 years old. he is single and basically lives in the office already. he goes to the office at 10 a.m. and leaves at around 4 in the morning the following day. he rarely goes out with friends and made nissin cup ramen his daily staple. when he got sick, i made him soup and would sometimes buy him take out just so he wouldn't have to eat the concoction of msgs and poor semblance of food. i would always stay behind for at least 10 minutes at the end of the day to talk to him about anything just so he wouldn't feel so lonely. whenever i go out of the office door, i would always remind him not to stay up so late and not to smoke. he would smile to me and say, "thank you" in almost a whisper. then, i would close the door, make my 30 minutes bike ride home, open my door to my empty apartment, tired, alone, no weekends to look forward to; i would mumble to myself, "loneliness doesn't choose it's prey."

noypi-aussie stat

Mimie, once she knew he was Australian, immediately told me, in an as-a-matter-of-fact manner that 90 % of Filipinas who are with Australians are murdered by their partners. Who knows where she got this fact from or if there was any truth in it at all; she who disliked my Jewish ex boyfriend because it was the Jews who crucified Jesus Christ.(My mother is a devout Catholic and perhaps she felt the need to avenge the Savior’s death by depriving me of happiness.) I told her that 90% is quiet a high number, it would mean that in every 100 Filipinas only 10% would live and who knows in what condition they are surviving; in constant fear I would presume, what with the statistic menacingly hanging over their heads like a pall. One small domestic argument and the poor Filipina could be a part of the statistic.
The population of the Filipinas I imagine will eventually be in negative rate. The remaining others would be paired off with other nationalities for which my mother has some inauspicious statistics readily fabricated, and tailored according to her opinion. And why on earth does it only have to be Filipinas? Her statistic is exclusive only to the female of the bunch, not Filipinos. Sure Filipinas are small and appear to look fragile as compared to their Aussie would-be murderer, but believe you me, there are Australian women who could topple a strong Filipino man with just a single punch!
I have pondered about what my mother’s statistic really means, and I had told him about it. It had became a running joke between us, e.g. “So, is that how you are planning to make me unsolved case number X?” and, it would always send us reeling in laughter. Sitting now though, months after my mother’s now-infamous Filipina-Aussie Statistics, I am alive and well, but, I get the feeling that I am already halfway to my grave when he told me that he never was in love with me.

Sometime Back in 2005~2006

Either on a train to Beijing or to Hangzhou/ or on a beach in Hase Kamakura.

It is futile to fight what you feel; it is insanity to hold back the passion for it will only come back far stronger. Let it flow. Wallow. Indulge. Open the dam and let the raging tides turn and smash the stones together until all is empty. For only then can you close the gate back again and rebuild that which has been destroyed. If you should choose this way, then, we would be treading the same path.
It is not in my place to be wise. I still have a few more years to live before I can sit and ponder. But, if you would be arrogant enough to act the sear, then I say…

I am still not far from that time and place. In fact, it seemed that I haven’t really moved at all…