Thank you and Goodnight, 2012!

Thank you so much, Lord,  for the year that was.

From Google Images

For fantastic old friends..

VOC loves

High School Tropaks

Bestfriends

..and for great new ones.

Infy friends

The Amazing Wave 22

Abi and Magot

FPO folks

For the gift of a new life..

The Prego with Sisterettes

Welcome to the world, Kaiser!

Tita Lel and Kai

Our Beautiful Baby

 ..for a new job that I love..

and for a cozy new home.

For a family that inspires me to keep going..

Mama and Papang

Ate Mich and Baby Kai

Chini

Glenn

Jicjic

CJ

..and for the man who teaches me to keep on loving.

 Looking forward with renewed hope and faith for another year.

Welcome to Lel, 2013!! 

Weep with Me

weep with me,
like the rain on a summer
day's eve,
like waves crashing
upon rocks,
like dewdrops on a blade
of grass

cry with me,
cry up a storm and pour
it all out,
like the wind in the meadows
or a raging waterfall,
wail and scream like
lightning and thunder,
like fire crackling, like hail
and storm.

then sleep with me,
through the sound of snow falling,
or the lullaby of angels
be still and drift upon
waves of comfort,
as still as the night,
as silent as a tender thought,
come and weep with me.

by: Lelel (c) 2005

from Google Images

Don't Look Back

look away..turn around

don't let me see the pain in your eyes

don't let me dry the tears

don't let me see the frown

don't tell me that the moonlight is pale and

the sunsets are lonely

don't speak about the never ending

dusk, or the coldness in your heart, or

the stars that won't shine because

they've all fallen down

don't pull me into the emptiness of

the night, or your lifeless smile

because the bridges have all been burned,

and our sand castles were swept by

the tides long, long ago.

all we have left are the footprints to nowhere

so just look away.. don't ask me

to take you into my arms because they've

grown weary holding you

all these years

so walk on and don't look back because

a pause too long or a sigh too sad

would melt my heart and make me

take it all back,

so while you still can, walk away

and don't look back.

by: Lelel (c) 2005

from Google Images

Emo Sunday

I'm having one of those black hole episodes again.

From Google Images

Read it Before you See it

Books being adapted into film is not a new thing. It's not a bad thing either. Although these days, the practice of turning bestselling books into movies is getting so severe that I'm wondering whether the film studios are running out of ideas for original material. They seem to be just waiting for new critically acclaimed books to be published so that they can make a movie out of them.

There's also the new thing going on with classic fairy tales being given fresh twists in the big screen. Red Riding Hood, Beauty and the Beast, Hansel and Gretel, Alice in Wonderland, to name a few. Just recently, there were even two movies within a year about Snow White (one of which even sparked a cheating controversy involving a certain famous on-screen vampire love team, but that's another story.)

These days, when there's a new movie coming out, I don't get surprised anymore to find out that there's an existing book upon which the movie was based. I'm even thankful about it because if not for the movie, I wouldn't even know the book existed. Or if I did know about the book through previous encounters in the National Bookstore shelves, I wouldn't realize that it's interesting until they made a movie out of it. That's exactly what happened with the Hunger Games. I've been dismissing that book during my frequent excursions to the bookstore. Not until I got wind of the ongoing filming of the movie last year did I pick up my own copy, and I'm glad I did because I liked it.

There's a certain feeling of mixed excitement and dread whenever a book that I've already owned and loved for a long time gets to be the next "chosen one" in a film project. It's because when you read a book, you're practically making a movie out of it already in your head. It's exciting to see that amateur version you conjured in your mind get translated into an actual film by professional movie makers, not to mention the special effects that they can add to make it even more mind blowing. However, you also feel a little apprehensive due to the ever-present possibility that Hollywood could just as easily spoil the experience for you by not doing it justice in the big screen.

Right now, I am looking forward to the upcoming movies based on two of my beloved books: Life of Pi and The Perks of Being a Wallflower. These books really touched my heart and made me shed a tear or two when I read them back then. So far, I am pleased with what I've seen in the trailers, so I'm really hoping I don't get disappointed when I finally get to watch them in the theaters.

"But right now, we are alive and in this moment I swear we are infinite."  

"Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any believer. What is your problem with hard to believe?"

Habagat

The past week saw the people of Metro Manila and other nearby provinces in Luzon devastated yet again by another natural catastrophe. There was no storm signal, no name for the heavy (and seemingly endless) downpour of rain and strong winds that came beating down on all of us. The result: floods, landslides, loss of property and business, and worst of all, loss of precious lives.

I was a stranger to floods until I came to Manila in 2008. I pretty much grew up in paradise. Puerto Princesa is a beautiful city that is seldom visited by strong typhoons, never shaken by earthquakes, and due to the abundance of trees and strict anti-littering ordinances by the local government, never experienced any floods.

When I started working in Manila, I stayed with my sister in an apartment in Mandaluyong City. I was an online English teacher for Korean students and my work schedule was from 2 PM to 11 PM. Imagine my consternation when, one stormy night in August four years ago, I came home at midnight and found all of our things floating in knee-deep murky water inside our small rented space! Everything was wet, wet, wet! Our bed, our clothes, our shoes, our appliances. My sister was not home from work yet at that time. It was a good thing that the main switch for the electricity in our unit was located outside the main door and one of our fellow tenants from next door was wise enough to turn it off during the height of the rain and flooding that afternoon. I shudder to think what could have happened if the electricity was left on and our appliances had short-circuited. That experience was very traumatic for me. I honestly considered packing up what was left of my belongings and heading back to my parents' house in sunny, storm- and flood-free Palawan.

Me and my sister making emote while cleaning up after the apartment disaster in Mandaluyong.

After that, we moved to Rosario in Pasig City because it was nearer to my work in Eastwood. We were still staying there when Ondoy ravaged Luzon in 2009. Thankfully, our street did not get flooded at all, although we experienced two days of blackout and had no water from the tap for a day. We were luckier that time because we didn't directly experience the wrath of the infamous Ondoy, although we didn't fail to feel and see how it broke a lot of other people's hearts and lives. Just a few blocks away from our area was Ortigas Avenue extension going to Rizal, where a lot of people who were determined to get home to their families on the other side were seen on TV clinging to Meralco wires just to cross the deep flood waters. It was surreal.

Presently, we have an apartment in Makati conveniently located near the central business district and Bonifacio Global City. It was flood-free here last week, not even an inch of water in the street. I also didn't have any trouble going to and from work (our office is just ten minutes away from my house), apart from the wind trying to poke holes into my umbrella every time I go out into the rain, but my sturdy 'brelly and I braved through it all like real troopers! The location of our current home is so convenient for me that if only my beloved company hadn't declared a suspension of operations last Wednesday, I believe I would still be able to report to work in the height of the Habagat fury.

Although it didn't affect me that much, I'm still grateful that the rain had ceased and the floods in affected areas are now subsiding. I was very worried because many of my dear friends and some relatives were impacted by the recent tantrum thrown by Mother Nature. It was another harsh reminder to us all that there is a price to pay for every act of neglect that we do to the environment. On a positive note, yesterday morning when my Mama and I were in the marketplace, the lady selling dried gabi leaves for laing proactively offered not to put our purchases in a plastic bag. Instead, she looked for a space in the bag that my mother was already carrying, and stuck the package there. Para wala nang masyadong maraming plastic, sa panahon ngayon dapat magbawas na tayo ng plastic, she mused. I gave her a resounding, Tamuh! I left the market grinning, thinking that environmentalism is still not a lost cause.

Vanilla Ice Cream

Today marks the ninth year of my crazy, roller coaster relationship with my Mr. Curly Top.

It's amusing to see some people's reactions when they learn about my "very long engagement" with my guy. The exclamations of disbelief are exaggerated, bordering on comical. Sometimes it's a pain to have to explain to people how come we've been together this long yet we haven't settled down yet. There are those who are merely curious and mildly interested. These types are easy to handle. I give them a simple and brief explanation and they immediately get it. But every once in a while I would encounter someone who seems to have a better idea of how to live my life for me, and would insist on coaching me on what I should be doing, forcing their own views on how things should run in my world. I tolerate those people as best as I could. After all, everybody is entitled to their own opinion.

It was especially tedious today. It came to a point when someone analogized that it's like I'm eating vanilla ice cream everyday, since I've been with the same guy for nine long years, and I've never been with any other boy before that. This person believes it's laughable that I never gave myself the chance to try the other ice cream flavors out there. As soon as I heard that comment, I turned around and snapped, "Yes, we're a vanilla kind of couple, but I guarantee that our vanilla life is anything but bland and boring. The variety of flavors that we can cook up with our vanilla tandem would blow you away!"

I didn't really do that.

It crossed my mind, but since I'm a peace-loving citizen of Makati, I didn't. I just grinned and quietly committed homicide in my imagination.

I thank the heavens for the handful of friends who've known us the longest, those who were there to witness the budding of this romance, because I never feel the need to explain and defend myself to them. They just stand by us in the passing of the years, happy in our triumphs and supportive during our occasional breakdowns. I am also thankful for new friends who don't really know my Curly Top that well yet, but they can understand that I am happy with the life that I share with him.

Cheers to 99 more years!

Thank God it's Saturday!

I've recently come to love early Saturday mornings with a passion.

It's been four months now since I started working on a graveyard shift, and my work week ends when I get off the Friday shift at 11 AM. While most people extol the mantra Thank God it's Friday (allocating the night for good times and fun-filled night-outs with friends), I prefer to spend my Friday afternoon-to-evening-to-midnight-and-beyond comatose in my bed. Best of luck to any friend of mine who's looking to spend a great Friday night hanging out with me, because I'll be MIA, out of reach deep beneath the folds of my bed sheets.

After a 12-hour (or more) sleep, I usually awake from hibernation at around 3 or 4 in the morning every Saturday. My first requirements for the day would be food and coffee. After that has been satisfied, I would tidy up my room, and then get down to some serious Me-Time business. I would download the latest episodes of whatever TV series I'm currently hooked into. While waiting for the torrents to finish, I'd check my emails, like and comment like crazy on my friends' statuses and posts on Facebook, stalk some celebs on Twitter, lose myself on StumbleUpon, watch the latest Ellen DeGeneres clips on YouTube (and eventually getting lost as well, usually ending up watching a video of topless guys with rock-solid abs singing Call Me Maybe), read some of my friends' latest blog entries, or try to write something in my own blog. Once my eyes get tired of staring into the monitor, I'd momentarily abandon the laptop and grab a book from my shelf, and catch up on my reading.

I am currently reading A Storm of Swords, been at it for 3 weeks now, almost done but I really find it easier to watch the Game of Thrones on TV than read George RR Martin's thick tomes! I believe this is the only exception to my personal rule of "Read it before you watch it," when it comes to books being adapted into TV and the big screen. Also, I've started reading e-books! Anyone who knows me well enough would know that I prefer the hard copy over e-books. For me, having the copy of a book on your computer or iPad or Kindle or what-have-you is not the same as OWNING the actual, tangible book. But early this month a friend of mine emailed me a copy of the Fifty Shades trilogy, along with other chick-lit books, and I decided to download the Adobe reader for these types of files (I didn't even have an idea how to open the files at first, that's how ignorant I am of these e-books!), and voila! I now am in the process of becoming an e-book reader. (I'm still not converting, though. I'm just giving it a chance, hehe!)

 

Still trying to finish the third GoT book, only for the sake of randomly blurting out spoilers to friends who don't like to read the books but are anticipating the TV series' season 3!

So there, every Saturday morning, when the rest of the world is still slumbering, I am wide awake with my books, my TV series, my laptop and stable internet connection, my coffee and food, just basking in the peace within the four corners of my room, and rejoicing in the thought of not having to go to work today. As an added bonus, it's raining outside today, and I just love it when it rains, but only when I'm snug and comfy inside and am not required to go out!

Thank God it's Saturday!!!

Kaiser Elric

I'm now an aunt!!! Hooray!!!

Our little Kaiser Elric came into this world via caesarean section on Wednesday, July 11, 2012, just moments before 6 PM. My sister, Ate Mich, was wheeled into the labor room at 10 AM of the previous day. Her attending doctor attempted to deliver the baby via normal delivery, but my sister's blood pressure was higher than expected and the baby was losing a lot of water inside the womb so they finally decided to cut my sister open.

But enough of the gory details of childbirth! Here's the first glimpse of our precious little one who weighed into the world at 5 lbs, 8 oz:

Kaiser Elric, July 11, 2012

He is the newest addition to our family of 8, composed of our darling Papang and beloved Mama, ate Mich, me Lelel, bouncy teacher Chini, Harry Potter lookalike Eng. Glenn, chickboy Jicjic, and kulit bunso CJ. So far, baby Kaiser's Lolo Papang, tita Chini and titos Jic and CJ have only seen him through pictures and videos that we posted on Facebook, because they are all back home in Puerto Princesa. Only Mama and tito Glenn, who recently got hired on his first job here in Manila, (and me, of course!) were present to welcome our Ate's tiny baby boy.

I'm so looking forward to the day when baby will meet the rest of the family. Each one of us is already claiming that he looks like him or her. I'm sure this first grandson in the family is bound to be much more spoiled than his tito CJ!

My Precious

I've never been a very outgoing person. It takes me a considerable amount of time to warm up to new people that I meet. I'm not a snob or anything. I'm actually quite nice and pleasant. But I don't let people into my life that easily. It would take a while before I allow someone to cross the boundary from "stranger" to "acquaintance," and then from "acquaintance" to "friend." It's not surprising that I only have a handful of people in my inner circle that I consider as really close friends. These people are my chosen ones: those special individuals who have the rare ability to make me laugh, cry, and feel happy and blessed just by having them in my life. They are the people who make me feel good about myself, who have proven that they always have my back and my best interests at heart. They are the people that I cherish the most, that I won't be able to live without. They are God's gifts to me.

In the first quarter of this year, I moved from one job to another. Sadly, I had to leave behind a bunch of dear friends who were my colleagues at my former place of employment. I missed them terribly and we promised to keep in touch, which we did by way of emails, social networking, and text messages. We were always making plans to meet up for lunch or dinner, a weekend brunch or a movie date, but none of those plans materialized. Life happened, we got caught up with our busy schedules, and before we knew it, half a year had gone by without us seeing each other's faces. Although I am happier now with my new job and I've met a new group of colleagues with whom I get along with superbly, I still can't help but feel lonely whenever I remember my girlfriends. I used to see them everyday at the office, eat lunch with them during breaks, and we used to share details of our lives with each other. They've become like sisters to me, but now we only get to text or chat online during weekends.

When I realized that the main reason I was feeling down these past couple of weeks was because I haven't seen my friends for a looooong time, I immediately sent them text messages and emails full of "drama". They responded quickly, and we were able to make last-minute arrangements to meet up for a Saturdate yesterday. I was so delighted to see them again, and all the months apart didn't put a toll on our friendship at all. It's amazing how we picked up where we left off, as if it was only the day before when we last saw each other. We did what we loved doing together best: EATING! Aside from filling our stomachs with yummy food, it was also a gabfest as we filled each other in with the latest stories in our lives. At the end of the day, we were all tired from walking around the mall, talking nonstop, laughing out loud, and just generally monkeying around. But it was one of the happiest Saturdays of the year for me so far. Before parting ways, we promised that our next get-together won't take another half-year. And I'm intent on keeping that promise!

Here's a touching video that my dear friend Bei did when I was about to resign from my previous company:

"True friends don't say goodbye. they just take extended leaves of absence from each other." ~ Bea


..so after half a year of an extended leave of absence, here's my joyful reunion with two of my most precious gals! :D

Saturdate lunch @ TGIFriday's Trinoma, and yummy desserts @ Parvati

Love Affair with Books

When I was growing up, I was very shy and not so keen on meeting new people. I liked keeping to myself, usually just reading or writing in a corner. To an outside observer, I may have looked like a very lonely kid, but the truth is I was at my happiest when I was all by myself, with only my thoughts and musings to keep me company. It was during those peaceful moments of "aloneness" when I can let my imagination soar, dream and plan my life ahead, figure out what I want to do with my time here on earth.

My favorite haunt back then was the library at my old school. It was situated at the fifth level of an old building on the school grounds, and that building didn't have an elevator. You would have to be a very determined student to brave the five flights of stairs up to the library, and this is exactly why it's one of my favorite places in the whole campus--it's usually deserted. Only a handful of students can be found up there on any given day. I used to pretend that I owned the place, and I prowled the aisles of books like a boss. I spent most of my free time in high school and college up there, combing the shelves and hunting for interesting reads.

The thing is, my mother didn't approve of me reading fiction. Whenever she caught me with a novel in hand at home, she would click her tongue and comment that I'm just filling my head with make-believe stories. The only kinds of books she approved of were my school textbooks. But fiction is one of my first loves, so I had to find a way to continue my love affair with literature without upsetting my mother. Aside from turning the school library into my second home, I also learned to sneak rented books into the house behind her back. At night, I would pretend to be asleep until my whole family went to bed. As soon as all the lights in the house were out, I would turn on my flashlight and read in bed throughout the night. It's not surprising that I developed poor eyesight later on in life, and now I have to wear eyeglasses or contact lenses all the time. But I have no regrets even if  had to sacrifice my 20-20 vision due to reading in poor lighting conditions. Back then I thought it was so cool of me, being a rebellious little devil and defying my mother's orders under her own roof. I devoured all the thick tomes of American and English literature, Penguin Paperback Classics and Reader's Digest issues that I checked out from the library. I also rented Archie's comics, Sweet Valley High series, Babysitters' Club, Fear Street and Goosebumps horror novels, and Love Stories series from the local bestseller's book store. I had to scrimp and save my meager lunch money to afford the book rental, but it was all worth the trouble.

Looking back now, I realized that most of the interesting books I have read as a young girl were either borrowed from the library, rented, or lent to me by my college best friend who had such an extensive collection of books at her house. I couldn't even afford to buy my own copy of the Harry Potter books that I adored as a teenager so I just borrowed from my classmates. That is why as soon I started earning my own money after college, I also began building my book collection. As of today, I'm the proud momma of a modest bookshelf overflowing with all the books that I love. Since I'm no longer a child, my mother can no longer dictate to me what I can and cannot read. So I make it a point to purchase at least one new book every payday. Someday, I'm going to build a house with a large library in it, and I'd spend countless rainy Sunday mornings there, cooped up in a window seat with a book in one hand and a steaming mug of coffee in the other.

From Google Images

"In books I have traveled, not only to other worlds, but into my own."

High School Drama

I was confined at home on a Saturday night due to a combo of flu and pharyngitis. After emerging from a 12-hour, medication-induced coma, I found myself sitting in front of the television and watching the Saturday night episode of PBB Teen Edition. PBB is acronym for Pinoy Big Brother (the Filipino franchise of the popular reality show). If watching a group of individuals sitting around and occasionally dancing, arguing, playing while trapped in a big house wasn't bad enough, this version of the show showcases teenage housemates. This is going to be interesting, I thought. A dozen or so hormonal girls and boys, living under one roof, free from parental control, with cameras religiously capturing their every gesture to validate their attention-starved egos..there's bound to be lots and lots of drama here! Sure enough, the show exceeded my expectations. I was able to sit through 10 minutes of it before I crawled back to my room, repulsed by the teen drama I just witnessed. Why am I so affected? Mainly because it reminded me vaguely of my own high school days.

I know this would sound so unoriginal, but I consider my stint in high school as the worst 4 years of my life. On hindsight, it wasn't that bad though. It was during high school when I met some of the friends that I know would be in my life forever, including my best friend. I also met my soul mate--the man I'll spend the rest of my life with--on the first day of high school (although back then we didn't have any inkling that we'd end up together, but that's another story.) Looking back to it all, I can now laugh goodnaturedly and tell myself that it's no big deal, that I survived despite my teenage awkwardness and emo tendencies. However, I can still remember how it felt like. Somehow, while I was still there and experiencing it all, it felt like hell for me. I hated every moment of it.

If I could go back in time, I'd definitely go back to high school to give the 12-year-old me a lecture on how to survive the next four years without getting scarred for life.

Don't be too hard on yourself. It's good to study hard but it's not a mortal sin to have fun once in a while. Some of the most important lessons you will learn in life are not from the pages of a textbook or written on the classroom whiteboard by a professor who looks eerily like Einstein. Open yourself up to new experiences, don't confine yourself inside your self-made box.

You will learn through your mistakes. While still figuring out who you are and what your place in the world is, you'd sometimes make a fool of yourself, go through painful humiliation and commit social suicide. The good news is that you'll live. You will get over it. In a few years' time you'd be able to reminisce and just laugh at how silly you were when you thought it was the end of the world just because your frenemy let it slip in front of the whole class who your secret crush was.

Don't be such a nerd. Although being cool and popular is not the singularly most important achievement at this stage, if you could avoid looking and acting like a big dork, then that would help you heaps. You may have convinced yourself that your mental aptitude is way above the high school drama that everybody else is preoccupied with, but when you go to college and study Psychology, you'd realize that you only hated the guts of all those pretty, popular girls because you were secretly jealous of all the attention they were getting.

Don't be too obsessed with the future. I know it's tough being in that not-a-kid-anymore-but-not-an-adult-yet phase, but if you keep on looking ahead and wishing it would all be over, you'd miss out on a lot of things. Take time and smell the roses, enjoy being a teen, goof around with your friends, fall in "puppy" love, make fun of the teachers behind their backs. Before you know it, four years have gone by and you'll be stunned to realize that you will miss all the crazy retards in your class after all. So make the most out of this stage in your life when the most complicated problem you'd face is just finding the value of x if 2x - y = 13/8y + 69.

Oh, if I only knew all these nuggets of wisdom back when I was a teenager, it would have saved me a great deal of drama and stress!

“It was only high school after all, definitely one of the most bizarre periods in a person’s life. How anyone can come through that time well adjusted on any level is an absolute miracle.” 
― E.A. Bucchianeri, Brushstrokes of a Gadfly