sept 23 = Bimboy!!!

my boys and i had dinner at cafe laguna

yummy super creamy shakes!

bistek tagalog

cafe laguna chicken (i love!!)

then we had coffee at sbucks (baby brother's happy they finally lifted the smoking ban)

cheesecake + caramel macchiato ftw!

From beginning til end you will always be my confidante, my partner in weirdness, and my best-est friend. I love you! Happy birthday! :D

let me tell you something about my tatay

Some of the best things I learned in life (and share with others) I picked up from my tatay. here's my v.01

Read

Tatay and nanay read a lot. They would take my brother and I to bookstores, ask us which books we'd like to read and buy them for us. I started with the obligatory fairy tales and moved on to Nancy Drew, The Hardy Boys, Choose your Own Adventure and of course, the classics. Nanay, being the religious one, also introduced me to the lives of saints. I remember days when it would just be us, at home, having a book each and sharing comfortable silence, engrossed in our readings. Reading introduced me to worlds I didn’t have access to, or didn’t even know existed.

Laugh. Be funny.

My dad looks serious enough but he is one funny guy. I always admire his ability to make other people comfortable by cracking his trademark jokes.

I believe every person should possess a sense of humor. Life is too long to be taken too seriously. Funny’s a personality, a charm and, when life knocks you down, it’s a saving grace.

He also told me to look for a man who can make me laugh. One who gets my jokes, my sarcasm, my hirits. One who shares my brand of humor.

Be respectful.

Being polite will never hurt. It will never be out of style. People may not remember your name but they will forever remember how good you made them feel. People may be rude at you but it will be better to talk it out rather than smack each other off the floor.

Hard work and patience

My tatay was a farm boy. He grew up with six other siblings and so money was hard for them. He worked his ass off so he can go to school and he did. He even finished two courses and some units in law. It took him quite some time but he always reminded us that "patience is a virtue" and it is one virtue he's glad he has.

You own your feelings.

Many times in life, your happiness or sadness has already been decided…by you, by your attitude, and by your expectation of what is and what will be. To hear someone say, “just decide to be happy each day and you will be” sounds too simple, but there is power behind the words of people that say those sort of things. The truth is, if you aren't actively working to fix whatever bothers you about your life right now...then on some level you actually like it or else you'd be doing something entirely different. "that's just the way it is" is not an excuse, because you know what, it only is if you believe it to be.

My tatay, after a breakup, told me this "you're hurt. cry it out. let it all out. then decide to stand up and move on. Do not allow yourself to wallow in self-pity and sadness. You own your feelings. Quit feeling sad and sorry and start moving your way to happiness".

It was difficult, but i know that had it not been for him telling me that, i wouldn't have moved on from that godawful breakup.


Don’t be scared of bugs, spiders, lizards, and all those goddarn insects.

Our house is an old house so we get our share of critters. There's this thing that when a gecko falls on you, it will stick to you forever. And we have some bigger than normal spiders too. My tatay would give me a lesson on the food chain by saying, “You should be thankful that there are lizards and spiders because they eat mosquitoes!” Then he'll add "look at its size and YOUR size. it should be scared of you and not otherwise!"

Share your blessings

When you share your blessings with others, it comes back tenfold, even more. Money isn't everything. It might get you fancy stuff but it will never buy you real love or happiness.

Make memories

Five, ten, twenty years from now, you will still talk about these experiences and no amount of money can ever replace how you felt at THAT moment.

Choose your friends but be a good friend to everyone.

Never tolerate bullshit when it comes to people in your life. Be picky when it comes to a person's loyalty to you. How, when you are down, they would be the first one you would run to and the last one to let you go. Be picky when it comes to people who are unequivocally for you, not because of what you do, but because you are.

Never question your greatness.

I grew up with some insecurities and there are so many things that I am not but my tatay has never made me feel as if I wasn’t enough. My dad believes that I am great. Whether I fly or fail, I know that dad will be the rock that tells me that I am beautiful, special and brilliant. I feel that i have no choice but to believe i really am that - beautiful, special, brilliant.

Find a man who will be your best friend, partner, lover.

I remember one very rare moment, a few days after my "breakup-breakup" that i saw my tatay browsing the net at his office in BJMP and he called me and made me read this (i copied and pasted it and emailed to myself):

"I just don’t want you to want Love so bad that you fall in love with the idea of Love and forget one of the essentials to great Love…and that is finding the right person (for you).

It is true that you can make a person your conduit to Love, but they may not be the one that will sacrifice a part of them for a part of you. And I know, no person wants to hear the word sacrifice and love in the same sentence and these people that despise those words are (later) the most frustrated over it because they think that love just works somehow, minus sweat?

Giving a part of you for a part of them isn’t an either/or proposition and to gloss over the ‘work’ part, which is vital to the long-term viability of your relationship, is to say sewing and reaping only works on the farm, when the truth is, that concept applies to every part of your life especially your relationship(s) with other people."

and then this was what he told me (in essence): Find a PERSON, not an idea. You have to accept each other, flaws and all. You should be able to have comfortable silence. You should have the same values in life. You should be able to laugh with and not at (although sometimes you can't help but laugh AT) each other. You should be able to talk about anything and everything without fear of being judged. It's all about being each other's "ka-unong". Things will get rough at times but if you have this right person with you, everything will be alright. This person should always be that person you'd think and you'd know who'll make your life happier, easier.


Smile

It does not hurt to smile. Strangers may have a terrible day but when you smile at them, it might take some of the negativity away.

I’m always, always thankful that there is such a thing as love, and that my tatay has never shown me anything but that.

happy father's day tatay! i will always be your lil girl bisan gnapahalin mo na ko di. hahaha =)

may 31

may 31 is the date my mom died. it's a day after my dad's birthday.

she died 13 years ago.

a lot of times i wonder what she would say about the things in my life - my relationships, my career, my decisions. everything. more often than not, i second guess myself because i fear that she might not like the decisions i made/make. i still have a lot of my "lost" moments and sometimes i wish that she'd appear in front of me, telling me the answer.

i know that had she not died, i wouldn't really be where i am now but as with what my dad said "your mom always tells you that everything happens for a reason. she left us for a reason but she will always be in us. in our hearts. listen to your heart and you will hear her. you will find her there. everything will be alright. after all, you are truly her daughter".

i miss you, nanay. never a day goes by that i don't think about you. thank you for 18 wonderful years together.

(my boys)

i learned something today

i can be quite thick-skinned. i cry a lot at the slightest provocation but i can really control myself if i want to. i realized i can be pretty cold too. hambal pa gani ni ma'am rose: "grabe ka man ta ba. if i was in your place, while ____ was saying those not so nice things about you, i would have fled the stage and cried my eyes out. but nooo....you stood there and took everything in. smiling. and then you gave your rebuttal with a happy birthday song for ____ to boot! "

i dunno if that's a compliment but i kinda like it!

(and yeah, i cried after i introduced the speaker...but that's away from everyone's line of vision)

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

it's not that i don't know how to fight back. i do. i just choose to fix things properly - without shouting, without belittling someone else, without fighting. as much as i can, i want to just talk things over. i can attack the problem point by point naman without all those hassles.

there are battles which can be won by being soft-spoken. i believe and know that for sure. been there, done that.

brain farts kay kadugay sang erflen

sometimes, you have to feel completely worthless in order to learn what grace truly is.

Relationships are like sharing a book. It doesn't work if you're not on the same page.

Don't you hate it when you feel like your gonna cry but you can't cause you don't want anyone to see you crying? --> I never want anyone to have the benefit of seeing me cry but sometimes I just wanna bawl.

I'm just human. I'm fragile. I'm not perfect. Sometimes I hide sadness with my smile. But that makes me learn how to struggle in this life.

In life you learn lessons, and sometimes you learn them the hard way, and sometimes you learn too late.

New things cannot come where there is no room. --> my aunt told me this when i had too much "ex" clutter in my room. she was right. as soon as i got rid of everything from my ex, i felt lighter and ready for new things to come (which did, btw)

The past cannot be changed, forgotten, edited, or erased. It can only be accepted. --> what i don't like about the past is the feeling of regret whenever i think of the time i could have spent doing something awesome than wasting it on a useless piece of shiz.

Love is like a puzzle. When you're in love, all the pieces fit but when your heart gets broken, it takes a while to get everything back together. --> and sometimes some pieces get lost and that takes another length of time to be found.

They make it look so easy. Connection with another human being. It's like no one told them.. it's the hardest thing in the world.

If you love two people at the same time, choose the second one. Because if you truly loved the first one, you wouldn’t love another one.

More people would learn from their mistakes if they weren't so busy denying them.

Sometimes you just have to step forward, and move on.. no questions, no doubts, no looking back.. Just move on.

Distance doesn't ruin a relationship, doubts do.

Sometimes things happen that you don't understand. trust..it's all part of a bigger plan.

When we lose one blessing, another is often most unexpectedly given in its place.

When one door of happiness closes, another opens but often we look so long at the closed door that we don't see the door that just opened for us

Some people use Love as an excuse to put up with shit that you shouldn't.

It no longer makes sense to you to be "Second" in one peron's life, when you're good enough to be "First" in someone else's.

The silliest moments are what makes the best memories.

I hate those moments right before you go to sleep, when you are forced to think about all the things you tried so hard to forget.

brain farts in nagsasa part 2

I can be smart and stupid at the same time. (hambal gani, "you are the most stupid smartest girl i know")

Sometimes just the act of sharing a painful secret can relieve some of the pain. For a very long time, I kept it in the farthest corner of my mind and my heart. I surprised myself when I blurted it out the week before (and while doing something trivial, like plantsa-izing hair). I dunno what got into me but it just came out and hearing it for the first time from my own mouth tugged at my heartstrings. It came back and it hurt again. So much. But after a while, the pain subsided and it was gone. I guess I just needed the right person to confess it to. I know it's the reason for one of my issues but after hearing it out loud, it isn't as painful anymore.

It's a horrible feeling to lose faith in someone. It leaves you lost and wondering. It makes you question whether you knew that person at all, or whether what you had was for real.

Everyone is a friend, until they prove otherwise.

I need to learn to say no, I'm fed up of being taken advantage of. This is one thing I really need to work on.

I wonder if others have felt like they have no control over their life and how they went pass this.

I wonder if can one get to the future if the (his/her) past is present.

Just when we thought we are matured enough, unexpected events would occur to make us realize we still have lots of growing up to do. I know I do.

Sometimes there are no explanations & all you have to do is follow your heart and hope you made the right decision. Sadly, mine din't go well.

They say the universe has a great sense of humor. That sometimes having your dreams come true can feel like a nightmare.

A woman can be your best friend, worst enemy, the girl of your dreams or the bitch you're scared of. It all depends on how you treat her.

They say every action has an equal and opposite reaction, and once something is set on motion, it can't help up to build a momentum

Eventually, one of two things will happen. He will realize you're worth it, or you'll realize that he isn't. In my case.....yun. hahaha

There will always be a choice. In the end, I needed to make a choice and I chose me.

No me called me a reserved person before, except my mom. and now you.

It's not always because of unavoidable circumstances. Sometimes, it may be due to unforseen circumstances (like the boat having a problem and had us waiting for about 4 hrs? good thing we had kuya larry).


I will never look at escalators and elevators the same way again.

brain farts in nagsasa: part 1

Sometimes you just gotta SMILE! It's a lot easier than explaining why you're not!

I'm proud of my heart. It's been played, stabbed, cheated, burned and broken, but somehow still works. And it still wants to love.

Some people make your life better by walking into it while other people will make your life better by simply walking out of it.

Everyone comes into your life for a reason; some good, some bad. They shape, form and break us. But in the end they make us who we are.

Being single is a good feeling, no drama or heartaches. On the other hand, it gets lonely and you miss that feeling of being taken. (been having that feeling lately)

Life is too short to stress yourself with people who don't even deserve to be an issue in your life.

As we grow up, we realize it becomes less important to have a ton of friends, and more important to have real ones.

Its not easy, is it? Fighting for something you could have had and wondering if maybe it's already too late.

Some people are like clouds. When they disappear, it's a brighter day.

An "ex" is called an "ex" because its a "ex"ample of who you shouldn't be with in the future.

The best date is with someone who can take you anywhere without touching anything but your heart.

A person hates u for 1 of 3 reasons. 1.They wanna be you 2.They hate themselves 3.They see you as a threat

sometimes we learn something new about the past that changes everything we know about the present

There's always some truth behind: Just kidding, Knowledge behind: I don't know, Emotion behind: I don't care & Pain behind: It's okay

The bad things in life open your eyes to the good things you weren't paying attention before.

I HATE it when people only talk to me when they need something, I'm not stupid. I can tell if I'm being used or not.

Some people are real. Some people are good. Some people are fake & some people are real good at being fake

Be careful who you open up to, only a few people actually care, the rest are just curious.

I ignore texts. I let the phone ring. It's nothing personal, but people need to realize that sometimes I just don't wanna talk.

I love late night conversations with people i love.

Yes, I use too many smileys when I type, but I dont care!

I love it when I smile at someone and they smile back at me.

I hate when I look horrible in a group picture and the person that looks good refuses to delete it.

I play with my phone when I'm waiting for someone so I don't look stupid.


I don`t have bad handwriting. I have my own Font.

When I delete someone from the contacts in my phone, its feels like I'm deleting that person from existence.

It's not the song that makes me cry, it's the person that comes to my mind every time I hear it playing.

I honestly think that elderly people are adorable, and when I see old couples holding hands I can only hope that one day that will be me.

A hug always makes things just a little bit better.



(pic c/o tata vinoi...lamats!)

http://princesskumod.blogspot.com/2010/09/ive-learned-that.html

kwestiyon!!

Love is far different from commitment. Love is a gift which anyone can have while commitment is a sacrifice for love that not everyone is capable of.
I find it sad that the word commitment is enclosed with duties and responsibilities that makes it heavy, which makes people afraid. They may be ready for love but not commitment. Come to think of it, isn't love enough to make a commitment? Or isn't commitment enough to show that one loves?

insecurity

"A person who is INSECURE lacks confidence in their own value, and one or more of their capabilities, lacks trust in themselves or others, or has fears that a present positive state is temporary, and will let them down and cause them loss or distress by "going wrong" in the future. This is a common trait, which only differs in degree between people.

Insecurity may help to cause shyness, paranoia and social withdrawal, or alternatively it may encourage compensatory behaviors such as arrogance, aggression, or bullying, in some cases

Insecurity has many effects in a person's life. There are several levels of it. It nearly always causes some degree of isolation as a typically insecure person withdraws from people to some extent. The greater the insecurity, the higher the degree of isolation becomes. Insecurity is often rooted in a person's childhood years. Like offense and bitterness, it grows in layered fashion, often becoming an immobilizing force that sets a limiting factor in the person's life. Insecurity robs by degrees; the degree to which it is entrenched equals the degree of power it has in the person's life."

Dear God
I have no control. I used to think I could control it all. I used to think I could somehow make it go my way. I have come to realize that you are God, and not I. You are in control. So please take control of my life. I guess I just want to be happy but my idea of what makes me happy changes every so often! So please take control.

With much love,
your daughter (the one who is so confused, so lost and would really like to be just fine)

milestone

my brother graduated from college last week and i am about to graduate next week. happy happy!!

anna maria

she's my goddaughter, the youngest of my nieces. she's too adorbs!!

my brother knows how to cheer me up

Pre-Valentine's date with the family

The family decided to celebrate valentines a day earlier so we can avoid traffic and all the hassles tomorrow. And honestly, i would really prefer to just go home after school/work.

we ate here:


This is my plate.


needless to say, i came for seconds...and thirds. hahahaha. but i ate a lot of fruits! and so now i am super full.

i love this day!!! we bonded and talked and ate and talked some more. there is always something new that i learn from my family.
it would be hypocritical of me to say that i do not want to have someone to call mine and celebrate valentine's day with but as of now, i really feel loved and so i will just wait patiently until that someone comes.

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY FRIENDS!!

Let not be today the only day you tell your loved ones how you feel about them =)

today

told myself i'll take some time off today, so earlier this day i started with these




and by mid afternoon...and now that i'm about to end my supposedly rest day, i'm ending with these...


just can't get away from schoolwork.

"Star people are rare."

I chanced upon this book yesterday and immediately got a copy coz my old book got lost. As soon as I got home, I read it again and as always, it tugged at my heartstrings.

This book will forever be one of my favorites. In a world where people tend to be scared of not fitting in, this may be a book for young adults but the message is applicable for everyone. At it's heart, the book is about individuality and nonconformity, but the writer accomplishes much more than that.

allow me to share my favorite quotes from the book:

Stargirl

• “Because I didn’t feel like Susan anymore.” –when asked why she changed her name
• “I’m not my name. My name is something I wear, like a shirt. It gets worn. I outgrow it, I change it.”
• “I root for everybody!“
• “Nothing’s more fun than being carried away.”
• “Nobody has the time. The time cannot be owned. Time is free to everyone!”
• “It (enchantment) started when the earth was born. It never stops. It is, always. It’s just here.”
• “It’s really hard to do nothing totally. Even just sitting here, like this, our bodies are churning, our minds are chattering. There’s a whole commotion going on inside us.”
• “The earth is speaking to us, but we can’t hear because of all the racket our senses are making. Sometimes we need to erase them, erase our senses. Then–maybe–the earth will touch us. The universe will speak. The stars will whisper.”
• “I’m erased. I’m gone. I’m nothing. And then the world is free to flow into me like water into an empty bowl…. And… I see. I hear. But not with eyes and ears. I’m not outside my world anymore, and I’m not really inside it either. The thing is, there’s no difference between me and the universe. The boundary is gone. I am it and it is me. I am a stone, a cactus thorn. I am rain. I like that most of all, being rain.”

Leo

• “In that moonlit hour, I acquired a sense of the otherness of things. I liked the feeling the moonlight gave me, as if it wasn’t the opposite of say, but its underside, its private side, when the fabulous purred on my snow-white sheet like some dark cat come in from the desert.”
• “We had no one to compare her to, no one to measure her against. She was unknown territory. Unsafe. We were afraid to get too close.”
• “It was a rebellion she led, a rebellion for rather than against. For ourselves. For the dormant mud frogs we had been for so long.”
• “We wagged our head and agreed what a goofy girl this was, maybe even officially crazy, but we walked away smiling and maybe not saying but all thinking the same thing: it felt good to get credit.”
• “She did not seem to notice. Of all the unusual features of Stargirl, this struck me as the most remarkable. Bad things did not stick to her. Correction: her bad things did not stick to her. Our bad things stuck very much to her…. All of her feelings, all of her attentions flowed outward. She had no ego.”
• “She was the opposite of cool; she held nothing back.”

Archie

• “My school is everywhere and always in session.”
• “On the contrary, she is one of us. Most decidedly. She is us more than we are us. She is, I think, who we really are. Or were.”
• “She’s anything but. She’s an earthling if there ever was one.”
• “If anybody is acting, it’s us. She’s as real as–as real as Barney.”
• “Every name is real. That’s the nature of names.”
• “Maybe that’s how names ought to be, heh? Why be stuck with just one your whole life?”
• “You’ll know her more by your questions than by her answers. Keep looking at her long enough. One day you might see someone you know.”
• “The trouble with miracles is, they don’t last long.”
• “How did this girl come to be? I used to ask myself. Sometimes I thought she should be teaching me. She seems to be in touch with something that the rest of us are missing.”
• "Whose love do you cherrish more? Hers or theirs? when you deside that, it's all downhill from there."

• “You know, there’s a place we all inhabit, but we don’t much think about it, we’re scarcely conscious of it, and it lasts for less than a minute a day…. It’s in the morning, for most of us. It’s that time, those few seconds when we’re coming out of sleep but we’re not really awake yet. For those few seconds we’re something more primitive than what we are about to become. We have just slept the sleep of our most distant ancestors, and something of them and their world still clings to us. For those few moments we are unformed, uncivilized. We are not the people we know as ourselves, but creatures more in tune with a tree than a keyboard. We are untitled, unnamed, natural, suspended between was and will be, the tadpole before the frog, the worm before the butterfly. We are, for a few brief moments, anything and everything we could be. And then… and then–ah–we open our eyes and the days is before us, and–we become ourselves.”

I hope you, friends, get to read this wonderful book, too.

at lunchtime

dad: "you seem to be feeling down lately. why?"

me: "it's my workload this second semester. i.....(yada yada yada...i told him how i felt)"

dad: "i saw your blog post while i checked my email this morning"

me: "well yeah. i was so pissed and i still am"

dad: "oh c'mon! you are the poster child for positivity! your friends see that. your students see that. you can always see the good in everything. and you let this little thing get to you? that's a shame"

me: nom nom nom (can't think of anything else to say)

it amazes me still how my dad can say so little and yet get to me.

so yeah. i will look for the good in this crap.

will get back to you on that. hopefully soon.

my father, my hero

words are not enough to say how grateful i am for having him in my life.

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY TATAY!

(that's my mom sitting on the leftmost side)

my mom died 12 years ago and it's still as fresh as fresh can get. i miss her badly.

lunch smlunch

I had lunch with my mom’s side yesterday. My aunt just got back from the states and she wanted to gather those who are still here in the PI. It was fun seeing my cousins and their little ones.
What annoys me during these gatherings is the never-ending asking of “why are you still single?”, “Don’t you have marriage plans?” “When will you give your dad an apo?”. I’ve been asked those questions for four years now – as if being single is a crime.
I understand why they’re asking that because they knew my ex boyfriend and I believe they liked him too. There are even pasalubongs for him. They just did not know that my love life has been non-existent since June.
So I told them that he and I broke up. Another annoying thing happened. I heard “oooh”s and “aaah”s and “aaaawwwwww”s. oh.my.gawd.
They then asked why and I just gave them the short cut version of my break up: “it just did not work out.” Of course they were not contented. They had to know the long version. I told them a little bit and another dissection/autopsy was performed. And then the clichés came: “if he’s meant for you, he’ll come back”, “it’s not you, it’s him”, “his loss, sweetie”, “hay naku, marami pa dyan!” (agree ako sa last two! J )
My father was listening all the while my aunts and cousins were fussing over my break-up. He was smiling the whole time. I think he knew how I was feeling (pissed and amused at the same time). It was fun to see my aunts and cousins fussing over my breakup. It was like a bad teenage drama scene.
I know what my aunts and cousins were thinking: I’m getting “old” and I have no one. You see, most of my cousins got married in their early 20s. They now have plenty (3-5, yes that’s plenty) of kids, some are even in high school already. I am the second youngest girl among us cousins and since I reached 22, they’ve been looking forward to my marriage.
I appreciate their concern. Honestly, I do. I just don’t appreciate the pity. They may not say it but I can feel it.
I don’t like people pitying me. I have enough insecurities already and people pitying me are not helping one bit.
So I had to be brave and smile though everything.
Now…what to do with the pasalubongs =)