Entry 8: Notebooks

Notebooks pull my heart strings.

I am a highly disorganized person. I make plans as I go, pick random choices, and misplace stuff often. My passwords are a set of ineffable characters – just because.

Stories of people are etched in my brain but details of tasks simply elude me. I need notes.

That’s why notebooks pull my heart strings. Taking down notes is my defense against my own, messy self. Posted below are just some of my favorite journals I kept over the years (Yes, some are Barbie-covered tomes).

We are all differently wired. Some are anal, others are neurotic. What matters are not the psychoses we are born with but the efforts we make to balance those compulsions. Let not our brand of oddities get in the way of our goals.

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Entry 7: Independence Day

June 12 often translates to Kawit, Cavite, Emilio Aguinaldo and, the Philippine flag. To many, this mirrors truth.

While we know the facts on paper, what lacks is an understanding of what we really celebrate every year. Today, how do we really define "Independence"?

Skip the history lessons. Elementary already covered that. Let us ask ourselves, "What does Araw ng Kalayaan mean to me today?"

In the microcosm I belong to, I define the Filipino Independence as a state where one (1.) harvests the best from what the world offers and (2.) makes those work to his/her advantage. We live in a borderless era. Globalization is at hand and the Filipinos have successfully embraced it.

It's just too ubiquitous for us to miss. It's in our jobs, modes of education, vessels of communication, policies, preferences, scientific breakthroughs, and everyday innovation. The Filipino has found his/her way to the world and has harnessed what's good to better our nation.

While many put forth that globalization will lead to a flattening of our culture, I do not share the same thoughts.

Culture is alive! It is the collective face of our ways of living. It has never been dictated from a book. Rather, it has always been a result of how we decide to live our lives. It is not what "should be" but "what is". Thus, our culture will not be "flattened". Filipinos always have a way of acculturating things: adding our own Pinoy flair to something that used to be "foreign".

Three hundred years under Spain, 48 years colonized by America, and some 4 years held captive by Japan--those taught us resiliency. That is what I celebrate every June 12: our successful evolutionary niche of resiliency that hoists the Filipino up after every arduous chapter. We have developed a psyche of continuously striving to marry the best of other nations with our own flavors, strategies, and situation.

Freedom is not just being unbound. It is also finding roots in many shores but still recognize which is home.

We easily reduce June 12 to a piece of cloth and a memory in Kawit, Cavite. But let us remember that we write an infinite story -- history. We are responsible for finding meaning in our daily Filipino affairs; and it is not an option but a moral duty.

Maligayang Araw ng Kalayaan!

Entry 6: Mirror, Mirror

ONCE UPON A TIME is a new series in ETC. The pilot episode featured a stunning witch with wonderful smoky eyes and a plot-turning curse. Eons before, what would have I looked like as a scheming witch? That got me inspired to pick up a mirror and utter vanity’s ultimate prayer: “Mirror mirror on the wall”... I bet you finished the sentence in your head.

Entry 5: Silver Triad

New things are brats that taunt "use me, use me". It's guiltless to give in if those were new clothes, pens, or books (i.e. in that case, let me edit and say "read
 me, read me"). However, if we are talking about silverware, that's an entirely different case. Unfortunately, that is the story today.

I am fixated with collecting and redeeming so I took on the Shopwise Sola challenge. A couple of weeks later, 12 stickers filled my card. Last night, I found myself home with a glorious three-piece set of Swiss silverware. It was exquisite and free!

Today, the urge to use the spoon-fork-knife triad woke me up. I thought lunch would satisfy my will to use Sola. I was wrong. On the contrary, it left me wanting more. Sunday was spent with five meals. Even cheeseballs were absurdly eaten using those evil silvers (Who eats cheeseballs with a spoon?).

This could be a good thing, though. Sola might inspire me to prepare packed "lunch" and save up cash. On the downside, we are three weeks closer to Elle's wedding where I, as those who might know, should fit in the dress and not the other way around.

I hope my inner sloth would balance the picture and discourage my lazy bottom from preparing (and eating) five meals a day. Nonetheless, I am very pleased with my well-earned and happily redeemed silver triad.

Entry 4: Post-Dessert Dessert

Kahlil Gibran once said, "Work is love made visible." The great thing about love is that it is unconditional so when you do get something in return, it feels like the dessert after the dessert (which is always sweeter!) Last quarter, I got two post-dessert desserts. When those two 8.5x11 proof of appreciation found its way to our home in Laguna, my parents' faces were welling with pride. It was priceless. Thank you, Lord!




Reference:



Certificate 1 - April 14, 2012
Certificate 2 - May 29, 2012

Entry 3: Left Lens

By some mischief of fate, I never get it right with my left lens. I would have added “no pun intended” but for those who know me, I am always in for the “pun”.

January 2011, I threw out the used saline solution in the sink—with my left TORIC contact lens still suspended in it! Seconds after I realized this, the tap water was already storming down my response to astigmatism. There goes 50% of good vision.

I felt guilty literally flushing 6K worth of TORIC “down the drain” so I never planned on subscribing to contacts again. I went back to wearing glasses. Yet I seem to be in the habit of screwing the left.

It was a rainy May 29^th 2012 when I put on my purple company-paid Revlon specs. I went inside National Bookstore and everything in my left eye seemed unclear. I thought the downpour blurred my lens. I was wrong. My purple specs now frames only one lens, the other half seemed to have popped out. Guess which lens drowned in the puddles outside? Yes, it was the left one.

Fortunately, I always have a spare for the basics, including glasses. Yet I guess, I need not buy an entire frame altogether. I should probably just tuck away a couple of left lenses.

I have been told that I am a predictable person. I can take that. Yet having predictable mishaps is just plain cruel.

Entry 2: Windows

This entry is written in the comforts of my fairly-lit, crème-washed, artificially ocean-scented room 23 floors above the ground. I am sitting in a leather cushion which I snatched from our living room while my housemates are out for the weekend. When I look around, I see my wardrobe in front, the left is occupied with a bunk bed, in my right is a wooden closet, and at my back is the highlight of the room, a three-paneled, sepia-toned glass window.

I have always been amused with windows. They allow one to be in two places at once. Back at home, I used to have a wonderful view of the sky, mango trees, and lush greeneries in my room. Yet in this city room I rent, all I see are rows of people ridden-panes.

The nostalgic orange sky or the occasional perching doves appeal not to my “neighbors” here. The only time they draw near the window, is when nicotine calls them. Some people embellish their spaces with florals or items of aesthetics; not my neighbors. Their idea of urban décor is smoke butts collecting in the trellis.

I have no problems about that. The entire Metro Manila lies in a blanket of smog anyway. I just hope people who live in this building would be more human-like. They seem detached from the stories of the streets, songs of the Aves, and beauty of the sky.

I think the closest window they frequent are those labeled as XP, Vista, or 7, so to my neighbors who are interested, these are just a few of what you folks have been missing:

 

 

Entry 1: Welcome

How we spend our days is how we spend our lives. Ergo, more uneventful days mean an uneventful life. Let this project counter that.

This LJ of sorts is one of my thousand attempts to maintain a vessel that documents my thoughts and years of existence—or subsistence. I hope this one will be more fruitful than futile.

Unlike how usual episodes open, let us not begin with how the subject came to be. Life is now so why not open with “what is”.

Reader beware: I write as I think so forgive the superfluous, random, and disorganized entries. I hope you enjoy reading as much as I take pleasure in stringing words into everyday stories. :)