good news

just found out that my friend way back in grade school finally got hitched! :)

everyone's getting married now... wow! makes me want to get married now, too!

funny and yet sad coz i haven't got anyone whom i want to go to the altar with! hmmm....

but to my friends, Congratulations and may you stay as strong together as you are now today! :D

meaning to

i've been meaning to write here the last couple of days but now that i'm in front of the computer, i don't have much to say. the last few days saw me doing a lot of things at work, and yet, it doesn't seem that i have done anything. repetitive work doesn't give one such satisfaction when results often changes and in this instance, change happens in just a couple of clicks and a couple of seconds.

the last few days also saw me with a lot of things in my mind: office work that saw its deadline come and pass by, school work with which i haven't read halfway through the first two required readings, house work, and him. yes, always him, but let's not get into that.

with the start of classes, arrival of my cousins, and... okay, i would own up to my fault -- laziness, i haven't gone into badminton workouts for more months than i can count. i missed an opportunity to play poi with this cool group with whom some of my friends are members of, missed a sailing weekend opportunity. even yoga, which i only do from time to time, has become just a distant memory. all i could do when i get home is eat, rest, surf the net and watch tv, just to drain whatever's been occupying my mind at the office. it's bliss but it's a sinful bliss because i know, these are not productive ways of spending my "for-me" time at night. yet, these are the only things i could do eventhough there are still other things i need to do -- write a bit for my thesis, for example.

now i just remembered that i had to iron my uniform for tomorrow. at dinner tonight, i have already planned what to bring for lunch to the office.

oh yes. interesting part of the last couple of weeks is the visit of my cousins from the us. i was happy to have finally met the guy my dearest cousin married in hawaii. they're not the "sweety" type but they fit - i even saw them fight at one time! really funny. after our other cousin's wedding, we had a chance to bond at their hotel room. for a while, it was like when we were still kids - some in high school, some in grade school. the only thing that made us realize that we were getting old was the addition of sex in the conversation. how we got from horror stories to sex stories was entirely hayden's fault. imagine, even the pinoys in hawaii are updated on the happenings of philippine show business. thank you for tfc, i guess? :P

interesting also is the fact that starting with my cousins' arrival and short stop at our apartment, i have been silently monitoring myself and my sister. when i saw my cousins a week after for the other cousin's wedding, i was also monitoring them silently. at the office, i let the guard take my temperature whenever i arrive early in the morning. Yes, you guess! i was monitoring ourselves for any sign of the (A)H1N1 virus. hey, it doesn't hurt to be vigilant! :) and i'm glad to say that this, today, is the last day of my monitoring. i'm virus-free! thank God!

oh! i was also at mass yesterday and although i can't remember most of the sermon, i remembered what the priest emphasized: "Have Faith in the Lord."

he said that other people have faith in the Lord but sometimes, something stops them such as fear. well, fear is the opposite of faith. we should trust the Lord and let go. people say that they are afraid of a lot of things, like rejection. this piece of truth pierced right through because i profess that i trust the Lord and have faith in Him yet when it comes to asking one of the most important thing i want in life, i'm afraid to ask Him because i'm afraid of not being given this. it's such a double-blade. then the question is, do i really have Faith in Him. the answer is Yes, but how come i'm still afraid to ask. because it is probably impossible? yet nothing is impossible to Him. it is scary and until now, i'm still afraid of asking it outright.

Lord, give me the courage to face my fear and truly have Faith in you in the truest sense of the word. Amen.

now it's time to go to sleep. sleep well, then. and yes, i miss him.

not part of it

hey, you've been confused for the longest time and now, other people are confused as well. please, don't make me feel that i've added to your confusion because i don't want any part of it. fix yourself first and maybe we could talk about it. but for now, don't make me a part of it. i have problems of my own.

.....


..... yet, i still need you.

:(

great relatives

thank God for good family. Ate J and Kuya K arrived today bearing my sister's bilin. since they had to rest for a bit before going on to the next leg of their trip, they stopped by the house to eat and have a little chit-chats. so glad to see them, including my aunt and Kuya I.

thank God for a loving family!

heartbroken

... times two.

the gran, the horse, the white man, and the bread

so i guess this is why we are what we are. handed down the generations, it seems we cannot escape from it, nor trying hard to escape it...

this is the story my mom told me when i was a kid, and repeated with her visit...

once upon a time, there was a lady, my great-gran, who sat squat-style like a poor little girl that she was when along came a sound of hooves. she was scared and could only cower down when she saw a big, big, big horse (as in really big in her own words) with a white man atop it. she was more afraid when the white soldier spoke to her:

"you! stand up there!"

all she could do back then was follow, so she stood up and looked way up, up, up. then the big man said,

"do you want bread?"

and holy, holy, holy! what a big bread it was!

---

and that, ladies and gentlemen, was my great-gran's experience with a white man and his horse. or should i say, that was the white man's experience with a cowering simple girl.

no wonder they looked down upon us before and no wonder, maybe, that experience has never left our culture. we are easily awed when we could have stood up and say, "Hey!"