events - the last couple of days

new doctor

bestfriend last week received the results of the physician's board exams and she passed! YES! after all the hardwork and panic, she's finally made it. we are all so proud of her! :D

siomao

at a spur of the moment, strat and i decided to accompany our officemates to eat lunch out at chowking. in line, a lady was moving around to take the customers' orders. when she got to me:

chowking lady: what's your order, miss?
me: ummm... can i have the chao fan, with siomao...
chowking lady: ummm you mean, siomai, ma'am?
me: yes... huh?! what did i say, anyway?
chowking lady and strat: siomao!

argh! was i thinking of siomai or siopao? or couldn't my brain (or mouth) get it straight?! bloopers! :D

beggars in the subdivision

i passed by the bank today and since it's just walking distance from the apartment, i decided to walk home. you know, to get some "exercise." as i was walking, i saw a couple of ladies with kids on their arms walking around the street. it was getting dark and i was wondering they weren't at home and each one of them were "stationed" at one gate each. when i neared one of them, i heard them asking from the people of the house for some charity. that got me thinking of a time when i was still at home and there was this badjao lady who asked mama for rice because she just lost her home to a fire. mama was kind so she gave the lady a couple of kilos of rice (there wasn't any shortage of that yet at that time). a couple of months after, the lady came back and asked for food, so mama gave her sardines because she pitied the kids the lady was carrying with her. mama thought that would be the end of it but christmas came and the lady came back to ask for food. this went on for a couple of years. i just don't know if she still passes by but i remember mama giving her clothes too, for her and her kids. i also remember her telling the lady that she should stop this begging because she feels that the lady is becoming abusive of other people's kindness.

back to the present. looking at those ladies begging, i remember that old lady and how she was with my mama. today, i think to myself, the world is getting crazier and crazier each day. we could blame them for their lot in life, but can we really blame them? maybe they made the wrong choices in life and now had to suffer the consequences but isn't it so sad that the country's poverty gets bigger and bigger everyday? truly there is something wrong with our system that more people are underprivileged, with nothing to support them but by begging. maybe i blame more the system than the people. and then i think, maybe they should share the blame. i don't know.

all i know is that i am lucky that my parents made the right choices that led me to where i am now.

as i reached home, i saw a girl knocking on our gate. when i asked what she wants, she asked for some donation for some group or something. i didn't get what she said and i didn't want to ask. i feel strongly, at that time, that this wasn't the right place to ask for money. she didn't even have anything to show as proof of her need. so i said, sorry, i don't have money right now. not even coins, she said. i said none, i have nothing to give you, sorry. well, i'm really sorry but i won't give. i hope God forgives me for being selfish.

last thought is that i'm scared of these people. times aren't the same as it was back then that you could trust, even for a bit, strangers. today, i'm scared of people not from the village going around, pretending to beg or sell something when in fact, they could be "sight-seeing" the places they could "raid" from when the owners aren't around. in my stay at the apartment, i lost a phone when someone took it from my second floor room window. isn't that scary? people go to lengths just so they could take and "save" themselves, and yet not do it in the right possible way. they'd rather steal than work.