An Ode to Him

Do you know how you make me feel?

Double sixty beats per minute - so much zeal.

Do you know when we talk,

a beautiful chaos builds in my mind - utter bliss

When we see each other once or twice a week,

I see my future and giggle for when we kiss.

And when you call me baby, darling, or love,

you are the chocolate I want an unlimited serving of.

I want to love you until the sun explodes in five billion years -

no other force can stop me, hoping to age with you, my dear.

Prognosis for Peaceful Meals

My sister can be described as an equal rights advocate - her ideals fashioned after her education in the country's top state university. A liberal college hippie so to speak. My dad on the other hand portrays the role of right-wing extremist Bill O'Reilly - ideals wrought by his conservative interpretation of the Bible compounded by extensive historical and political reading, away from society sparked by his poor social skills at large.

Weekly lunch dates can be a drudgery with the two heavily consumed in antagonistic political commentary seemingly interminable  and I play the role of an automaton bobbing my head in a fast motion at my desire to speed up the speeches respectively, and to, despite my love for Article III Section 4 of the Philippine constitution, direly enjoy my meal and get by another lunch date in one piece if not in peace in spite of my dysfunctional family.

Sometimes crying abounds after an arbitrary exchange of words delivered in raised voices and irate facial expressions. My prognosis? Eat humble pie to pour oil on troubled waters because being family is being stuck with each other until the day you rest on your deathbed.

Climbing in the Philippines

An IMC Project: Mt. Pulag - Valentines Day, 2014

It's an amazing process of self-discovery to hike in a country that offers various mountainous regions and each mountain promising a unique adventure.

Up to now, climbing has been a great way to push myself  harder and to  knockout negative notions I have about myself. It has been a reason to bond with friends, meet new ones and learn from the group dynamics. It's a great way to go back to basics and appreciate nature firsthand to be able to effectively and proactively preserve it. Peace is radiated through me when I climb encouraging me to do it over and over again.

In climbing, every moment is cherished and every lesson is treasured.

True to the poster I made for my Graduate program course on Integrated Marketing Communications, I have climbed ten mountains in a span of twelve months between 2013 to 2014. Here are some of the recorded memories from those climbs.

1. Mt. Tagapo - 438 masl

    Talim Island, Laguna de Bay

First time hikers: Nina, Lets and Myself 

First time campers: Maan, Nina and Myself

2. Mt. Sembrano - 745 masl
    Pililia, Rizal

The tree pose that started it all 

3. Mt. Pico de Loro - 664 masl
    Maragondon, Cavite + Nasugbu, Batangas

The climb that sparked valuable friendships

4. Hike for Maan to get inked by Mambabatok - Wang-Od
    Buscalan, Kalinga

Badass = Maan

Original cast of Tuna and Friends 

5. Mt. Maculot - 930 masl

    Cuenca, Batangas

Jessie!

A writer, A scientist, A banker, 2 future doctors and 2 engineers

6. Mt. Batulao - 811 masl

    Nasugbu, Batangas

with 3 Food Technology practitioners

Maan got swag

7. Mt. Tarak -  1,130 masl

    Mariveles, Bataan

Pre-Pulag Climb

"explorer"

TNF official photographer: Hanna Banana

8. Mt. Pulag - 2,922 masl

    Bokod, Benguet

Sunrise by the Sea of Clouds

Seeing the Cloud of Sea

-10◦C temperature

9. Pico de Loro Take Two

This is what happens when Prof. Joey is late

Couple rash guard

Jessie and Hanna

The challenging monolith

10. Mt. Makiling Traverse - 1,090 masl

      Sto. Tomas, Batangas and Los Banos, Laguna  

Fear of limatik wiped away at the click of the camera

Cover photo-worthy

Fearless Jess

Dawning Realism

FADE IN:

EXT. THE NEIGHBORHOOD - DAY

Paul and Inns are walking at the busiest street to get Japanese food
after having Korean ice-cream.

                                  Inns

            That was once a meat shop
            then it became an eatery. 

            Now it's trying to be something.

                                Paul

            Trying to be something. If my life had
            a title, that would be it. First the laundromat,
            now this. Are we moving in together?

                                Inns

            Don't flatter yourself.

                                Paul

            Are you cheesy? Here's a bougainvilla
            flower.

                                Inns

            Put it away.

EXT. A COMMERCIAL ESTABLISHMENT - MIDNIGHT

Khan and Inns en route home after a spending the entire day with friends.

                                Khan

             Bouquet of flowers. Are you
             the cheesy type?

                                Inns

             I'd rather receive a letter. It lasts longer.

             Can we be swift? I may have a tazer but
             it's still a dangerous place.

                                Khan 

             Actually, there's a reason why I brought you
             to this dark, abandoned area.

                                Inns

             Crazy.

INT. A BOOKSTORE - EVENING

Lee and Inns meet upon braving the wrath of rush hour traffic.

                   
                                Inns
             Not all the time, crazy.

                                Lee
             It's true. The way to find out if
             he's a keeper is if he treats you like
             a princess even after sleeping with you.

                                Inns
             Okay, noted.

                                Lee

             Do drugs. Sleep around. Have a crisis
             of faith. Do a 180, get therapy and then meet
             a decent guy at one of the therapy sessions.

                              Inns
             I've just had my birthday.                               

                              Lee

             Oh wow, happy 48th! You should treat me then.

                              Inns

             Shut up. You treat me.

                              Lee

             Okay. Coffee?

INT - THE OFFICE - AFTERNOON

The temperature's chilly at Inn's office. Ping goes her social media messenger notification.

  

                                 Jay

               Busy? Coffee? 

                                 Inns

              Just because a girl is nice sometimes,
              Does not mean that's she's interested.
              It can also mean, a. she's being polite.
              b. she's feeling sorry for you.

                                 Jay

              You're always mad. Chill. I'm just being
              nice, and you're just being polite.
              So, coffee?

                                 Inns

              I'm busy. Sorry.


EXT. - THE NEIGHBORHOOD  - DAWN

Inns is stationary jogging waiting for her jogging partner.

                                 Lucs
               You know, I thought you were
               going to be busy yet hoped against it.

                                 Inns
               Not for you. Let's run.

                                                                                                           FADE OUT

                                THE END
                                                             

Stress Alleviation

Stresses in life can easily be outmaneuvered by cutting connections with the root of the stress. Shutting out the wrong people. But how do you identify who's unhealthy for you?

If you knew me back in high school, I'd had an infamous image of being mataray. I didn't see the point of befriending classmates who had a reputation for cheating, skipping class, drinking and engaging in intercourse at such a young age. I did not see the point of callously entertaining just about any male who thinks I'm 'smart' or 'girlfriend material'. I just never saw the point.

Just as a politician is with taking an unpopular stand on a controversial issue, I took in negative feedback and I had my fair share of classroom taunting. I did cry. I did think about switching schools at a point but I refocused my lenses on them - their idea of fun and friendship as hedonistic and them reaping zero harvests at zero investment after and I felt sorry. Today, we are civil toward each other and although they've become mothers and fathers in their teenage years and have not gotten diplomas and degrees, they do seem happy.

Fast forward to the workplace and who knew that my work would not be spared of abundant, immature, and inarticulate males. If they think that the technique to getting a girl's attention is to tease her day in and day out, they are in over their heads. So I changed tact and chose to ignore unless the dialogue presupposes business then yes I'm up for it otherwise, a simple morning greet would elicit a cold three-second stare.

It's tricky at first because no one wants to be perceived as arrogant but the benefits of not having to be on guard at an intellectual and emotional provocation is like the feeling I get after working out. It feels hella good.

If I don't learn anything from a person, when I'm not challenged to think, If I feel less about humanity let alone myself when I'm around someone, then it becomes pointless and I cut all communication to alleviate stress.

The Aftertaste

Your absence caused rain
Your reason pulsated hurt and disappointment through my vessels
'I'm missing you' you utter
Yet everything isn't the same

You kept talking despite the rain
'Maybe it's my fault', you grappled
But you never brought an umbrella
Clarity was elusive and I came home sick and in pain

Our plans faded along with false charms
We got to savor the sweetness even if it didn't last long
I want to shake your hands
Whisper to you my fears and my hearts demands

Yet I sealed my sentiment with a stamp
You chose not to respond
No regrets, no wishful thinking,
We both just became bland

A Pig in a Poke

At the dining table, across a voracious reader animatedly relaying his book conquests, words abound with learning about that culture, the plot-twists, that man, the woman, and that creature.

I am looking down, staring at my food, fiddling with my spoon. Lifting my head, meeting his eyes, unbeknownst to him that my mind wandered elsewhere, my eyes intent, successful in seeming they care. I abhor doing this but It can't be helped, I would also like to give as much as take.

I pause. I wouldn't want someone adrift whilst I talk.

New to the land, to the office and me, that afternoon what separated him and me was a table, our food and hot green tea.

He majors in Finance and I couldn't even properly compute the division of the tab at hand. A natural klutz I even spilled the tea I was pouring unto his cup. The waitress feeling embarrassed for me, looked at me gently and I felt reassured thinking that it can't go any more bad.

I took an abortive pause. Steeped in what could be a date disaster, I quickly engaged him in a light dialogue.

I initiated it as a favor. Confused with how I felt at the time, dining was replete with rants and vents and this wasn't the first occasion. He's the intermediary between my thoughts and the guy in question. We both know what we have is platonic and for that I'm grateful.

I paused. I thought you can have males as friends after all.

Fairly new to me, I expressed interest in the proposition. Indiscriminate of the intention, I said, how can it hurt, it's spectating, talking and eating though can be done alone, I answered in the affirmative without hesitation.

Expressing hostility is not something I want to do but it was due to a provocation. I'm not cut to play games and that was the resolution.

I took a pause during the listening and I hesitated with what I saw.

An eminent rejector and an occasional rejectee, this is the attempt, an openness to what could be. I abjure the high probability that it might be time-wasted but I won't ever abrogate the chance, though small that a lasting connection is formed.

The Breakable Fortress

'You should stop talking about he-who-must-not-be-named', my sister says, her eyes gravely addressing mine like a child reprimanded for breaking the living room vase.

'Are you trying to tell me that I'm an annoying-ass-person?' I ask, even if I know that the answer is yes. I've gotten too many eye rolls from friends, 'wasting-your-time-on-him' advice from my mom every time I bring him up. I can't blame them. He is the political unrest in Syria of international news, and the bombings in Mindanao of national news - nothing but negative and retrogressive.

'It's not for us, it's for you. This is so unhealthy. You're living in the past,' she asserts. I look at her and think to myself that she's more the adult than myself.

I told her, 'I'm not in love with him. I'm in love with the idea of him. Actually no. He is this fortress I've built around myself, like a turtle shell. I conveniently hide under my shell for fear of what is to come. The downside of it is that I've successfully tricked myself into thinking that I'm in love with my shell when logically, it can't feel, it can't love me back.

With a clear mind now, I ponder at the reason of why I liked him in the first place. He does not seem interested in what I have to say. He talks about other women in front of me, he even went to mention 'beauty and brains' women that he is interested in and he does it nonchalantly too, as if I'm not there.

Then I realized, there are plenty of people who are genuinely interested in what I have to say, I know of someone who sweetly asked me about my blog. The idea that someone is interested in my thoughts, my ideas help me in chiseling the sturdy fortress I've been suffocating in.

A Monday

The significantly low temperature made me think twice about getting out of bed. Wrapped up in my wool blanket curled in a fetal position with my cheek against my pillow, my bed was the ultimate temptation for sleeping in. I still had to get up though. It's the first Monday of the new year after all.

The sun was behind an array of grey clouds. As if that wasn't gloomy enough, my call time at work is at 9am and only at exactly 9am sharp do I leave the house. What an utter disregard for the cliche 'new year, new me' anthem. I was never one to draft new year's resolutions anyhow.

I bid my lola good bye and kiss her cheek as is the usual routine every morning before I leave work.
She watches by our gate until I get a pedicab. As the pedicab makes a u-turn headed towards the gate of our village I wave and smile at her.

I am now left to myself and this is how it is every five days a week for an hour or so of commute. An hour of contemplation if not reading in between commutes -the latest conquest being Erich von Daniken's Chariots of the Gods.

The pedicab ride to get to our subdivision's gate takes around five minutes in one straight street as our house's. The wind was blowing strongly that day. The driver was silent. I usually look ahead, breathing in whatever oxygen the assortment of trees on our street can offer before the pollution whacked at me by pujs.

I then see a police officer questioning the newspaper vendor at the right side of the street. I look left and see another police officer questioning three residents outside their home. The pedicab continue to drive past and I see a group of people crowded at the left side of the street. They had blank faces that expressed solemnity. I look right and a fewer number of people were looking at the other side and some at me having the same blank faces. I look left again and then I immediately got goosebumps at what I saw.

In front of the bakery was a corpse under a tan colored sheet. There was a motorcycle three meters left of the corpse and it between the motorcycle and the corpse was a middle-aged woman of Middle Eastern descent crying and a Middle-aged man kneeling by her knees facing her, crying as well. I look at the corpse again and I see bright red blood oozing from his head. Splattered on the floor are brain meat.

Looking away, I felt disgust at how humanity can be so cruel. A witness to a violation of what separates man from animal, though shocked, a surprising calmness blanketed my fear. Selfish as it might seem, a bit detached I must admit, I had to be calm and not entertain thoughts of fear. I have got to get used to a world where man has the capacity to either be pure or evil. I had to be ready, I still had to go to work, I still have to live and it's just the beginning of the week.

A Principle

I woke up to screams in the middle of the night. I was six years old vacationing in Brunei where my parents worked. I got up from the comfortable queen-sized bed I was sleeping in. I saw my dad standing by the door of the walk-in closet. He was pointing aggressively at my mother with his devil-like face shouting angrily at my mom. I walked past him and saw my mom seated at the floor of the walk-in closet, her eyes all swollen. I sat at her lap. I didn't know what to do, It was difficult to understand. I just knew that I had to remember to make light of it someday.

I climbed up to the second story of my Lola's house in Bicol. I was still six. I climbed up to tears. My mothers'. She was sitting on a cushion at the hallway. My Lola, along with my Titas and Titos surrounded her sympathetically. My dad was standing in the middle, once again with his devilish face, roughly pressing his point-finger at my mom and angrily uttering hurtful things. I forgot what I did, I forgot what was said, but I remember the sad, concerned faces. I remember my mom's reddish face from her continious crying. That I could remember.

I was in first grade and woke up one day to news of my dad to be deported from Brunei because he beat up my mom again but someone had to the courage to report it to authorities. Only then did I understand.

Upon comprehension are emotions I strongly felt; I felt relief and anger. At least he can't hurt her anymore. At least she won't cry anymore. She can cry of other reasons but not from pain caused by someone who was supposed to love her.This was was relief. I also felt a nagging feeling of anger towards my dad. Maybe because I wanted to understand why he did those things. I wanted to know why he was capable of doing hurtful things to my own mom and his own love. I wanted to know why a thinking human being would be so adamant and primitive to be able to inflict physical and verbal pain on someone he is supposed to love. I felt anger and shame at the fact that he is my dad. Why did he have to be my dad I remember recalling.

I grew up to a dysfunctional family. I have five half siblings and one full sibling. We all grew up together at my Lola's on my mother's side. All our dads were absent up to a certain point that is. My eldest kuya seperated from his wife. His wife cheated on him and now has another family. He on the otherhand is with a girlfriend right now. Second to our eldest, another kuya also seperated. He cheated on his wife and is currently building a different family now.

I used to believe in forever. I used to believe in the ideal. When I say I don't believe in marriage, it's not because I don't want to be tied-up. It's not because I want to sleep around but it is because I don't believe in forever. Nobody respects the sanctity of marriage anymore at the rate of people getting legally seperated, annulled and divorced. So let's save the money, the time and effort. Let's save the heartache and not commit in forever because there is no such thing.

If a person is willing to stick it out with me forever that'll be a gem. If the idea of dating me forever doesn't appeal to you, I won't stop you. If you want to have kids, build a family, don't let me stop you from your dream. I just don't ever want to wake up and be the one crying and be the object of screams.