Wednesday, September 29, 2004
lord, please help me. i don't want to go through it again.babyburn at 4:38 PM
Thursday, September 23, 2004
five months
bestfriend will finally be back on monday after almost five long months of emotional roller coaster ride. for five months i have experienced how it felt being a single mom. well not really, one, single moms usually have a hard time making both ends meet while i have two ATMs(Ha!) mine and bestfriends. and another, i never felt alone because i know he's just half a world away and besides that,everything else is the same.i would have to admit that it was damn hard at first. imagine being used to waking up with that special person beside you and all of a sudden the bed that seemed so small now felt so roomy. the dateless fridays. the long talks both profound and trivial. not to mention having to make big decisions without him.
however, the five month experience was not all gloomy and distressing. i can say, it did have its moments. for one, sam and i got closer. we fooled around more. we have become more dependent of each other. we are so close that we now sleep hugging each other during the night.
i got to spend time with my family, that is, papa, nanay, sis and her kids. not that we don't get to spend time together before. it just that, it felt like the old times...when bestfriend and i were not married yet and my priorities different. i made use of this time to make them feel special, whether by treating them out or just chatting with them. it was my way of thanking them for helping me out ALL the time and for being with me come hell or high waters.
i got to spend more time alone reading, (window) shopping or just staring at nothing thinking about anything.
on monday, bestfriend is back and everything will be back to normal. will i miss this experience? yes, i think so, i know there will be times when i want to be alone and do everything my way. but right now, i miss him. my partner. my half. my bestfriend. with whom i feel loved, disarmed, free, happy and excited all at the same time.
so which role will a choose? being a mother? a daughter? a sister? a wife? a friend? being myself? i guess i really don't have to. god i'm blessed! and i thank you because i know that whatever role i'm into at any point in this life, i will be happy because you gave all these people that gave meaning to each role i play.
babyburn at 2:42 PM
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
funny how at 7 in the morning, people riding the mrt all looked so tired and fagged out, to think they really haven't started the day yet. goes to show how just the thought of the work ahead can be so taxing. and it isn't even a monday.babyburn at 3:53 PM
Thursday, September 16, 2004
sa mga putanginang nag se set ng meeting na dalawang oras na eh parang wala pang balak simulan... you all go to hell! unlike you, i HAVE a life!!!babyburn at 5:29 PM
finding my sweet spot
last night was a night of learning and self discovery...well not that i knewmyself better but it was more of feeling the urgency to know myself better. so what am i talking about? it's john maxwell's teambuilding seminar my group at the office attended.
sadly, the team was not able to have the decent dinner we planned to have at cafe bola because we had to endure the grueling traffic every inch of the way from makati to cubao. instead of the hot and creamy pasta we were supposed to have, we had to settle with the nearly cold burgers from wendy's. anyway, the long trip not to mention the grumbling stomach was wellworth it. the seminar was great. well...not perfect. primarily because of some blunders by the production people on the sounds and the lights ,aka, technical problems. i mean, had it not been for these boo-boos, the seminar would have been better.
anyway, john maxwell spoke of his indisputable laws of teamwork. don'tworry, i won't actually dwell on each of them. however, upon hearing this one law, i knew right away, that i had to blog about it because it kind of hit me where it hurts.
The Law of the Niche
All players have a place where they add the most value.
well, this particular law talks about focusing on one's strength than his weakness simply because it IS his weakness. why develop your acrobatic skills when you're good at swimming? why train in playing ball when you're a better dancer? a duck will always be a duck and will never be an eagle. makes sense? well, the basic question is, do i do what i do best???
obviously my answer to the basic question is a clear NO. argh. this is what i hate about talks like this, it makes you reflect and think and pushes you to make sense and make a purpose out of your life.
and what's scary is, the more we focus on the things we're not good at, we kind of lose our touch on the skills we ARE good at, and eventually, as we aim to be good on both things we end up being average on both and good at none. oh that's scary.
but here's the dilemma. i don't know where i'm good at!!! sounds pathetic really, but true. i have been resisting to accept this confusion for the longest time. i DO NOT know where i'm good at. and it's scaring me like hell.
but there's a premise, j.m. said, that everybody is good at something. i guess i just would have to hold on to that premise for now. but really, i REALLY want to know my niche... my sweet spot... my forte... my place under the sun... and i want to know it now before it's too late. five years is quite long a time pretending to be an eagle you know.
babyburn at 10:12 AM
Tuesday, September 14, 2004
sam's visa pic...
babyburn at 4:33 PM
an outing with uncle sam
had an outing at the us embassy this morning. too bad, camera phones were not allowed inside, otherwise, i'd be posing here and there and get a feel of how it is to be there. sigh. the land of milk and honey. how elusive can you get.anyways, not that i was expecting something fruitful from this endeavor, i headed to the place to attend the long-before scheduled interview.
well, i'd have to say, i enjoyed the adventure. watching all these pinoys (me, included) try their luck to be with Uncle Sam. the interviewing area was so full of people, i.e. kids, mothers with their kids, old men wearing their US Veteran caps, old women. i was pretty much amazed at how Uncle Sam never lost his appeal to us noypi's.
anyways, (again) i wouldn't dwell on issues of colonial mentality or war veteran benefits or even how this scheme is such a successful and profitable business, tubong lugaw ika nga. just want to share my adventure as a first time US Visa Applicant.
funny how waiting for one's turn to be interviewed make you more friendly with people you don't even know. ofcourse there's the standard question, "Anong inaapyan mo? Tourist?" and "First time mo?" and "Sino nandun sa states? San kayo don?" and the list goes on and on. all of you are quite familiar who came first and who'll be next. and somehow, you wish the other person well because you waited with him/her.
Person on my left : "Ako na!"
Me : "Good luck po!"
Person on my right : "Naku malapit na ko."
and what's even funnier is how it is so obvious when one has passed the interview or not. a few signs that the applicant failed,
(1) he's not smiling
(2) he walks fast
(3) he pretends he doesn't see you when a minute ago you were talking about each others assets (ha!)
and the particular sign the applicant passed.
(1) he carries a yellow slip (a paper given to passers) and puts it on top of everything else he's carrying such that you will never miss it
oh well. anyway. i passed. sam and i. yabang eh no! :P hehehe... the consul was cool and didn't ask shitty questions. for a while i was scared while waiting because i actually overheard an interviewer asked an applicant the difference between a real and an imaginary number! oh hell! i was so scared i actually browsed through my entire algebra in 20 seconds!
bottomline. as everybody who's been there and done that would say, swertihan nga. yun lang.
babyburn at 4:18 PM
Friday, September 10, 2004
manila manila
as i went home from PGH where bestfriend's dad was confined, i can't help but reminisce how a few years ago this place, manila in all its smell and glory, was once a home to me.for a while there, riding the LRT felt alien to me. it felt smaller and hot. it felt like i was in a time warp or something. and as i passed by luneta, escolta , recto and of course, blumentritt. memories kept crawling back to me.
i remembered how hard it was to commute from UP to my aunt's house in Tondo, where i used to stay. how HARDER it was to commute from Meralco Ortigas to Tondo. how many of my bags were slashed by thieves. how i had to brave the murky floods to get home. how i short of whisper "Balut" to the taxi driver whenever i decide to ride a cab, whispered because i thought the name of the place sounded really bad and that somebody else might hear it. and how taxi drivers refuse in a heartbeat when they realize where my destination is.
but manila is not all bad memories for me. not at all. this is where i had a great time with my cousins. we were like girls living in a ladies' dormitory, watching dawson's creek, tabing ilog, having crushes, talking till the wee hours and just bumming around.
and ofcourse there's bestfriend and our historical cum cultural tours during our first months. on hot saturday afternoons, we circuit the National Museum, Intramuros and yep, Nayong Filipino. we always joked how we looked like house helps on their day-offs.
manila will always have a special place in my heart. it brings back memories of youth both fun and freewheeling...of adventure and of love blooming.
and somehow as i got off the train, i was bemused of how something so familiar can now be so foreign to me. and then i realized that so much has changed in my life...aptly put, so much has changed in me. life has been more complicated yet more meaningful. still, it's freeing to know than i can always look back to manila when life what simpler.
Manila, I keep coming back to Manila
Simply no place like Manila
Manila I'm coming home
babyburn at 9:24 AM
Monday, September 06, 2004
like rats on wodent wheels
last night, my sis and i were having another of our life-sucks conversations. and again,we hit another painful realization how and why life...in more ways that one... sucks. we realized that in our present generation, people live to make a living and definitely not the other way around.
maybe it was the mommies in us talking. maybe because we are a couple of working moms who want to take care of our kids more than anything else. maybe because it pains us to have no choice but to give our kids whatever our job has left of our waking time ... say 3 ... 4 hours tops. maybe because we realized how short childhood is and that we can't be there to witness everything. or maybe because we grew up the same way our kids are growing now.
i recalled how at age 11, i still cried in silence whenever my mom leaves for work and i am left alone. she has not left the gate and i already missed her. it has been like that for as long as i can remember. it did taught me how to be independent. to fix my own lunch. to prepare my stuff for school. but i have always longed. always.
my sis told me how excited she was when my mom suprisingly picked her up in school. we recalled how safe we felt when we saw her at the school grounds looking for us during the July 1991 earthquake. we were both proud and excited and happy when she did those unexpected visits.
it seemed we can never get enough of her. till now, the atmosphere at home is just warm during school break not because it's summer but because she's around...24 hours of her day.
so what makes life unfair? it's not being able do what our hearts wanted to do all along. it's working our butts off to send our kids to good schools who when their time come would be working their butts off too. man, it's an endlesss cycle of studying then working that you sometimes wonder, is this really it???
take Sam's case, she's three years old and is already in the cycle. the cycle that become more complicated and more dangerous as time pass.
and what makes it more unfair is that we have no choice. it's so much easy to say, "I don't care about money. i'll just do what I want to do. write. or teach maybe. or better yet, just be a mother to my kid." but no, oh no. it won't be that easy the same way it will never be easy to see your kid not being able to have the things she wants because you did what you wanted to do. because whether we admit it or not, money indeed makes the world go 'round, especially in these trying times.
and as our conversation ended and painful conclusions realized...we both took a glimpse of our kids enjoying cartoon network...and just...sighed...
babyburn at 4:32 PM
Thursday, September 02, 2004
can you keep a secret?
whew. please. please allow me breathe and recover. i have just finished reading Sophie Kinsella's Can You Keep a Secret? and boy...oh boy...am i in love again!!!
i can't believe how much a sucker i am for romance novels. the book was good. no it wasn't a thinking book, not at all. nothing special really. no twists. pretty predictable at some point. but it's perfectly what i wanted it to be when i bought it at the last day sale at Powerbooks. a feel-good, giddy, funny, dreamy book that would take me some place away from all the pressures and just...you know...sweep me off my feet and have a good time.
well, i did. i just couldn't put it down the moment i read the first page. i mean, the only reading time i have is my commuting time. and i tell you, i really felt thankful that i live far from the city. and last night was the only time i appreciated drivers tailing you on high beam head lights because they were my only light source. boy, i could imagine myself...i looked pretty pathetic. but who cares! i'm in a middle of a gripping story.
the only downside of reading stuff like these, though, is i miss my sweetie more. argh. i mean, i need to unleash all these kilig inside me. too bad, it has to wait till he comes back. haay.
babyburn at 8:18 AM