CARPE DIEM

it's not fun getting married to a lot of people

2009-02-18T16:44:00.000-08:00

no, i don't mean being polygamous. in philippine society where families are close and extended families are common, getting married does not always mean getting married to one person. its also 'getting married' to that one person's relatives and family. by 'getting married' i mean you have to as much as possible please the family, be someone that the family would like, open to their comments and suggestions and whatever intervention they want done to your married life. Talk about in-law conflicts. Its more than that.

You can't get away with unsolicited advice which would later sound like they want something about you changed.

now here comes the relatives. coming over to the house without warning. intruding into you private space. meddling into your business like they feel so familiar with everything you're doing and worst -- they'll get into your space and eat up your comfort zone little by little until you feel uncomfortable in your own home. Not to mention the unsolicited advice. Isn't that nice?

In short, they are driving you out of your own space.

Somehow, i never thought i'll get into this kind of common gripe of married women. I never thought i'd feel the same way. When i was a little younger, i thought married life is a bore but it's actually crazy.

When they'd come visit home this April -- i'd probably find my own abode and get out of that messy home. The home they'd messed up.

I need my space

2009-02-18T15:57:00.000-08:00

Yes. S-P-A-C-E. Its all about space.

--
space to do my thing.

--
space to plan my life.

--
space to think.

--
space to do what i want to do.

--
space to make myself comfortable with what i have.

--
and i need that.

--
i need my peace.

--
my space.

--
i don't need unsolicited advice.

--
i can think for myself.

--
i don't need your opinion.

--
Learn to wait if i need it.

--
i don't want people pushing me around.

--
i'm better off than you.

--
all i need is my space.

--
get out of it.

--
go find your own.

--
think you are now a nuisance.

--
think.

--
respect.

--
and go get lost!

we have to go

2009-01-30T00:18:00.000-08:00

today is january 30.
the last day of the first month of the year.

---
and today,
we lost our project.

---
we all lost our jobs.

---
seventeen people.
single, married, head of the family....
we all have stories behind us.

---
house on loans. rents to pay. credit cards.
school. families to support.
long-term plans.

---
we have so many things to think.
decisions to make.

---
and we don't have time to think.
we only have now to act.

---
gone are those days we squabble on charging errors.
gone are those times we envied other's incentives.

---
hating an officemate singing loudly with the earphone on.
promotions. demotions. transfers. resignation.
love interests and teases.
birthday treats. beach outings.nonsense conversations.

---
left are wishes
for people to come again.

---
meet again.

---
somehow,
other opportunities may come.

---
somehow,
we're meant to be somewhere else
better than here.

sticky

2009-01-29T01:10:00.000-08:00

sticky.

like mud in your sleeves.

-----

Ron and i had one late afternoon delight over a dvd and laid a bedding mattress on the floor so we could hop in and had a few snacks to munch.

---

then his ex-gf came in, made herself comfortable beside him and joined the 'party' like one invited guest. anger came rushing into me like i could explode anytime.

---
i stood up, walked away
and tried to pull myself together before i will let loose of anything i might regret later.

---

i tried to be calm and went back to where they are.

---

and i found them in each other's arms.

---

there's nothing more numbing than seeing such a despicable sight.

and my hand found its way to the woman's face.

and the feeling came rushing back again.

anger, hate, despise.

revenge.

---

it just runs through my head that nothing seems to matter at all.

i wanted to do something.

but my mind's empty i just want to scream and shout

and throw things...

and put out all my strength

so i could feel no more...

---

in real life, i never slapped anybody's face.

not that i didn't have the chance.

i don't think i can ever lay hands on someone.

i had too much pride to do that.

pride not to let them see i'm hurt.

---

though at times in the midst of anger and hurt,

we tend to think way beyond what's rightful.

---

and i don't want to go back to that feeling.

not even in my dreams.

---

but this is one bad dream.

it dragged me to a bad past.

and awakened a bad feeling...

---

and stuck like

mud on my sleeves.

the last of him

2009-01-28T23:49:00.000-08:00

it was quite a small gathering. I saw my officemates and our HR officer. Seemed like an orientation program for newly-hired employees and I came in late. Just when I snuck in to settle to an empty chair, our HR officer came by and said “guess who’s looking for you!". I wondered who it could be. Then from a corner came Erwin—not quite different from the last time I saw him. Aside from the long hair, he still looked neat and with the usual artsy get up. and he was all-smiles.

he told me he was surprised to see me and the HR officer told him I was working in the same company. Not sure if I was going to be happy to find a long lost friend as my officemate. At the back of my mind, this might be a beginning of trouble. Knowing Erwin, he courted me when I was going steady with my 6-year old relationship. He was persistent, always ‘the life of the party’… but at some point, just sits on a corner and pin you down with his stare. Sometimes he’d hide from you and at times, he’d stalk you like a madman. Somehow he’s two years younger than me so I found him somehow a little immature back then.

so the full-of-life conversation began again like those old times he'd sit by my office table and made a whole different world out of the stories he'd tell.

I woke up feeling weird. weird because right after I opened my eyes, i had several moments deciphering whether I am in a dream, still dreaming or I’m in the real world.

somehow I was relieved to find out everything was a dream. and realizing I’ll never get into trouble anyhow. Later in the morning, my husband told me I was snoring the whole night.

art search

2008-10-29T06:27:00.000-07:00

art is one of my frustrations. music either. and interior designing and drawing and... i actually have tons of frustrations. i know, because i am impatient.

when i was a little younger, i use to make my own bags with my crochet hook and yarn. i was able to make four with different designs and my dear mother use to sport them to work. then it stopped.

i played with watercolor and tried painting. just in paper. i finished a few so-so masterpieces and i somehow felt it's not just the perfect thing i was looking for. but somehow, it flattered me to see the drawing on my sister's slumbook. she probably liked it. but i didn't.

then i painted mugs. with my little 3d paints, i use to send coffee mugs with little sayings on it for friends' birthdays.

then i started painting shirts and tote bags. conceptualizing is a bore.

then i got into paperworks. with my endless quest of the artistic talent buried in my system, i tried making wedding invites. made money out of it, at some point liked it and at some point, i get disappointed.

but i felt it is where i want to grow.

but for now, i must practice my fingers again on the keyboard. it's been a long time since my hands made music. as soon as i master Rihanna's Umbrella on the keys, i might want to go back again to cardmaking. phew!

When office politics gets in your way

2008-10-10T01:58:00.000-07:00

Office politics is the dynamics of gaining advantage, more often for power and, i'd say, financial advantage too, in a pool of co-workers. I say, it's more of the negative dynamics (as the term politics connotes -- Well who says politics is clean?).

Most often than not, it is the ill-mannered, rude and the trouble-maker who gets the highest chances of being the other party in the versus everyone case -- though it's not always a 'one-man versus the rest' game. Like politics, it could be a majority vs the minority. it could be the active vs the passive, the good ones vs the not-so-good ones, I would not say bad because, somehow, there's an angelic side of each one of us... (take it from my enneagram analysis. lol). but i always believe it is one's values that define which group one belongs -- in a clash of different characters and in a clash of differing principles.

Personality issues... promotion... financial advantage... power and control ... or just feeding one's pride -- somehow these are the common ones that create conflict in the workplace.

it could be a bossy boss (imagine how bossy could that be) who tramples on any one who gets in his way because he feels someone's interested in his position or he could just be someone who wants to feed his pride of being the boss. somehow power and too much pride breeds evil.

not to mention though that even if it's not for gaining advantage, there are just people who get in your nerves most of the time --it could be the uncourteous, self-centered, ill-tempered, greedy, annoying person who wants attention all the time -- and wants to have all. imagine how a nuisance could that be if you have an officemate oozing with all, i say, all of the above.... who can top that?

but then again, i always think it is our values that define our goals. and greed can sometimes eat up what we think is good. and there are always people who step on others to get what they want. but what matters, is how you live up to your morals, how intact are your values, and how you succeed not at the expense of others.

in the end, what goes around, comes around.

teachers gone mad

2008-09-29T05:42:00.000-07:00

it's not that i'm trying to be perfect but if you're to formally teach some children good english - you are expected to be as close to perfect as possible -- or at least, avoid making lousy mistakes on simple grammar and punctuation.

An acquaintance who was just hired as an English teacher in Thailand was so proud of her first teaching job she posted a picture of a manual she said she made for her pre-school class and so sad she had this one on the cover: Inspiring children: inspiring change and most importantly, lot's of fun! That was suppose to be a slogan. Even if you're not an english teacher, you can most probably identify what's wrong with the sentence - lot's is a mess. A simple punctuation--but i don't think it was a mere typo. The letters are as big as the page...and i don't get her slogan not to mention the use of the colon.

From basic grammar, the apostrophe has only 3 uses: to form possessive of nouns (the girl's bag), to show the ommission of letters (who is = who's) and indicate certain plurals of lowercase letters (m's and n's). I don't think lot's of fun would fit into any of the above.

The worst one however, was her reply to a friend's comment: Are you tired maam? the friend commented on one of her pics. She answered, Am i look tired?

Whaattt?

de-stressing weekend

2008-09-26T01:48:00.000-07:00

It was not something we planned to do over the weekend. But when we found out an airline is having a low-fare promo, we decided to get ourselves a roundtrip ticket to Manila. We have nothing in mind but go shopping to a local bazaar that sells overruns (and imitations too!) of Lacoste, Abercrombie, Hollister and the likes. From shoes to bags, to apparels - and just everything you can find.

I say imitations suck but at this time when even the most powerful country in the world is in economic crisis - the 3rd world has a lot of saving to do. But at least, i don't just barge into those low-quality imitations. I was eyeing the overruns.

So, we went to the bazaar on Saturday morning and, just to have a little adventure with the railway transit, we went to Quiapo on LRT to feast on pirated DVDs! (oopps, did i say something about cheating?). I for one, knows it's not good to tolerate this cheats but faced with the reality that original DVDs cost 5 to 6 times higher than the Blue Ray Disc pirates (which has a comparable video quality to that of the original) and an aching pocket, who wouldn't want to save on a movie you get to watch only once?

But anyway, I wasn't much interested on american movies. Not now. I was so into Korean drama series and movies. I don't know. Maybe because theirs are movies that would make you think and ask how. And it's a little conservative than western ones, they invest more on acting and plot which i get to like. They are not at all happy endings. Realistic. So much differences i get to like. and not to mention the DVD shops in Quiapo had very good english subtitles. (That's what i'm looking for!) So i get to buy a few korean pieces for 3 pcs for 100 pesos.

The next day, off we went to Enchanted Kingdom to try out their rides i believe are a good de-stressing activity. You get to shout at the top of your lungs not minding anything and everything around you. From the thrills of the breath-taking anchor's away to the free fall of the log jam diving into the water, every little stress seemed exorcised from your system.

a three-day off for a year's stress -- not bad at all.

home alone, so i write...

2008-08-04T05:44:00.000-07:00

Weird.

I could not remember the first time he said I love you.

...was it because he says it more often, it seems like everyday's the first time...
or was it just we only spent less time together before and we haven't had so much time saying that thing face to face.

i met him the second time at the hotel lobby. I was even thinking if i ever get to remember how he looked. Would I miss to recognize him -- or would I come to know him at once?

as the elevator door widened, I glimpsed around and finally fixed my eyes on the gentleman on the couch. He was staring, so I had a good feeling it was him. I waved. It came out just comfortably out of me - like waving at an old friend. He smiled back. I remembered well when I kid around the second time we met. I sure was confident 'bout kidding around with this stranger. I remembered I commented on how he smelled. I wondered if he ever put potion on it. lol.

We went out and had late night snacks. I can't even remember any of his name that time, if he was murmuring his name and where he's working the first time we met, that even made it more forgettable. The small rounded table at Flame It made the conversation more comfortable. Our feet could touch under it. One lean on the coffee table and elbows could reach another. My phone kept ringing but there's nothing that can put my attention away. Then he asked if i was committed. I said yes. I did not ask him back. I was, at that time, someone who never cared for such questions. I was just simply happy and forgetting a bad life. I was like seizing the moment before it would be over.

I was talking big. Women empowerment. Gender biases. Socio-political concern. We never talk of emotions. Not about love. Not about relationships. We just talked and laughed like we only have the world to us. Only the two of us.

Even saying goodbye isn't goodbye at all. All goodbyes may have been said but we texted until we feel it is indeed time to hit the hay. The next day, he would be right at the hotel lobby, waiting.

coloured

2008-07-31T04:47:00.000-07:00

we had two days off this week since there were few books that came for processing so i had quite a lazy day at home. alone, tired of surfing the net and bored of pounding the keys of my old yamaha psr 230, i grabbed my nail color collection and started painting on my nails.

i painted it with platinum. then on second thought, i started lining the small bottled colors in front of each nail and started to paint a different color on each nail.

awesome. it was in a magazine back cover that i saw the idea. an alternate of yellow green and black on each hand. but i experimented. i chose all glazed colors so they would, at least, be of the same shimmer. the little finger gets a pinkish glaze. the ring finger, platinum. then a repeat of the pink -- coz at i want to have a dominant color... then a golden shimmer before the silver on the thumb.

i used the same colors on the other hand, but i changed the sequence. the dominant color of the left is now the golden glaze. it looked okay - (for me), but i still yet to experiment with other colors.

archwired

2008-07-04T20:27:00.000-07:00

For a couple of months that i was planning to go to the dentist for orthodontic treatment, i was able to finally have my teeth wired yesterday. But i had several visits to the clinic before the installation was done.

So when i started the half-day session, i was feeling weird. Wondering if it would be really painful or what. In the first place, i don't like going to doctors... with all the 'hospital smell' and needles. Anyway, i braved these fears with the hope that my lisping and my overbite will be corrected.

Yes, i have a Class II malocclusion, so the dentist say. Indeed, i have been lisping when i talk and i could not tear food with my front teeth because i also had an open bite. Double trouble.

So i lied down on the dentist chair, opened my mouth wide and closed my eyes. I told myself i just have to overcome my fear at the start -- and the rest would probably be okay.

So the doc polished every teeth and then placed some soury, weird-tasting substance on each teeth. Because i was reading a lot of articles in the net about teeth braces, i knew it was that 'glue' that holds each bracket into each teeth. Where else would i know that if i have closed my eyes for most of the time she was doing the job, but at least, i felt she was trying to stick those small metal brackets skillfully. One by one, she glued the metal brackets and everytime i was told to gargle, i can already feel the metals touching the inside of my cheeks.

Then she placed the buccal tube on each side of my lower teeth which probably holds the archwires that she placed after the tubes were installed. From what i see, it looked like a small hook that holds the thin wires on both ends. Aside from the feeling of heaviness on my teeth, i felt the pain of my lips being torn apart. The doc's assistant was pulling it outwards so they could glue the hook at the molars. Sure, my lips was torn. There was blood from the inside of my mouth. Then she fastened those little rubber bands into each bracket.

Before the session was done, i was made to choose from a variety of colors of the rubber. That made the brace looked like an ornament - with colors from pink to violet to neon green. i would have preferred gold but it costs a little higher so i chose teal instead.

it was like having teal flowerettes on each tooth. not bad. but there was no pain. yes, it just feels heavy with the 'metal feel' on the insides of your mouth.

today, it still feels heavy but i have problems with eating. my right incisor feels numb and i couldn't eat fast nor big chunks of food! and oh my, brushing and flossing has become a tedious chore now. even the touch of the toothbrush bristles is painful on the gumline.. my oh my. but if i'd endure this, hopefully, these will pay off.

it's just that, it's hard to be on a weight-gain diet with this metals on my mouth... hmmm...

What's your number?

2008-06-26T04:55:00.000-07:00

Hoping to find good articles on the net one time, I come across a copy of the enneagram in a file sharing site. It triggered my interest to check again if i'm still a 5. My former supervisor introduced me to this thing -- probably the reason how she knows just how to deal with people though she seemed aloof, yet she is authoritative and kind.

So I scanned through the virtual pages ... and I still am the Observer. Here's what the enneagram says:

5 - The Observer
Alert, curious, inventive, independent, insightful, analytical

How to Get Along with Me

Be independent, not clingy.
Speak in a straightforward and brief manner.
I need time to be alone to process my feelings and thoughts. (very true. i just hate people rushing me to do something even asking me my opinion right then and there. most of the time, i always wanted to be left alone to think before doing something. but of course, not in emergency situations. ;))
Remember that if I seem aloof, distant, or arrogant, it may be that I am feeling uncomfortable. (and don't ever try to call me when i'm trying to flee. that means i don't want to be there. i don't want to be acknowledged.)
Make me feel welcome, but not too intensely, or I might doubt your sincerity. (well, i always doubt...)
If I become irritated when I have to repeat things, it may be because it was such an effort to get my thoughts out in the first place. (one word is enough for a wise man)
Don't come on like a bulldozer.
Help me to avoid big parties, other people's loud music, overdone emotions, and intrusions on my privacy. (number one in my list! call me anti-social. call me introverted but this is my zone.)

What I Like About Being a Five

standing back and viewing life objectively (well, at some point i hate myself for not 'getting involved'... i always wanted to overcome this but it's really a struggle.)
coming to a thorough understanding; perceiving causes and effects ((...and get stuck in my own web of analysis...hehehe)
my sense of integrity: doing what I think is right and not being influenced by social pressure
not being caught up in material possessions and status
being calm in a crisis (probably not true. i always have panic attacks.)

What's Hard About Being a Five

being slow to put my knowledge and insights out in the world
feeling bad when I act defensive or like a know-it-all
being pressured to be with people when I don't want to be (indeed)
watching others with better social skills, but less intelligence or technical skill, do better professionally (what a pity if they're multiplying mistakes!).

Stormclouds

2008-03-05T22:03:00.001-08:00

Hovering,
clamoring
your guilt is showing

demanding.
persistent.
spitting thunders of greed.

when will you ever wait?
do you ever keep your calm?
learn to hide your fear
your anger a weakness.

cover your shadow,
dark clouds of rain!
no need to be loud.
no need to howl.

all has taken refuge
their backs to you
a cloud no more,
but a water impure.

dripping, pouring,
you’re fluffy no more.
drip to earth
you’re bound to fall.