Quotables

"So many boys and so little time."

Said Castella when we were having dinner at CPK.

So what would my quote be?

"So many boys and girls and so little time?"

When you feel you're not good enough...

you may also be in a slump. It's one of the most atrocious kind of self-doubt you may ever experience.

Come to think of it, people who exude the greatest self-confidence might just be the most insecure person you have ever known.

It's both a blessing and a curse.

Thinking that you're not good enough will make you strive to be better. But it would also unleash an entire spectrum of insecurities.

It can even be a double whammy. When you feel that you're not good enough for someone, you work hard to deserve the person.

But when the time comes that you know you already accomplished your mission, you ask yourself - is the person still good enough
for you?

There goes another vicious cycle.

Please lang

Right now I am mulling over the joys of being in a third world country.

Patriotic friends would hate me for this, but damn it, sometimes I wish I was born elsewhere. And let's not be hypocritical about it. Most of us have thought about this at one point in our lives. It has always been at the back of our heads, gnawing at us. The difference is only a few would be brazen enough to admit it.

It’s time for the musical chairs once again. Come January, people would be moving in and out of jobs. Companies that don’t make it would be compelled to retrench its employees, or worse, fold up.

The IT industry is eternally unstable.

Most of my friends and acquaintances in their mid-20s and 30s are seriously considering migrating to another country to escape poverty here and be able to raise their families either in the US or Canada.

Next year, we are facing an ever-increasing budget deficit.

The peso is forecasted to be weak in the light of the country’s higher inflation and lending rates.

FPJ is seriously considering the idea of running for President. With Panfilo Lacson as VP.

And they’re actually on top of the surveys!

So what happens to all of us? Seems like an Edsa Quatro in the offing.

Jaded as Romy was when he said this, I think I’m inclined to believe him now:

If FPJ gets elected as president, the poor deserves their poverty.

Crunch time

I hate to be a Dakila copycat, but I would also have to lay low in posting blog notes.

I'm part of the events committee preparing for the Christmas party [sorry, Mica, I can't help as much as I did before.

I have four papers to turn in on December 14 for school. I'm trying to rake in more points for school. I will soon reap the benefits when I bag that master's degree. Hah!

I haven't even felt the Christmas season. How can I if I don't have the money yet [hello bosses, we need our bonuses!]. And even if I do, I don't have spare time to go shopping for gifts.

Sorry, friends. Seems like your Christmas presents will be a bit delayed.

Demented thoughts from night’s past


What she said haunted me until the wee hours of the night.

“i have very different ideas about being in love and love itself....being in love is a sexual response....it's the desire to end loneliness....it's supposed to be fleeting.....love is the reason you stay in the relationship even after you [have] so called fallen out of love....”

I must agree with her. I have always been a firm believer that love is a choice – to stick it out with someone after the butterflies in the stomach have already subsided. I have long distinguished between falling in love and being in love.

I must say, I fell for her. I’m not sure if it’s just a strong attraction or love. I just know I have fallen. I can’t speak for her, but I know what I felt was reciprocated.

Then our conversation led to honor, faithfulness and fidelity. It was like a reinforcement of our pact, that dance as we might close to flirting and passion, we can NEVER go beyond friendship.

Nevertheless, we still talk about us, how we can stay faithful with our chosen halves, how we can restrain ourselves from falling deeply into each other, how we should just remain friends and how we can still see each other while ignoring that burning desire.

But isn’t it just another convenient set-up for both of us? Come to think of it, we have become free in expressing our thoughts and feelings for each other without the guilt brought about by the actual consummation of an affair.

It has become a safety net that we both created to deter ourselves from wandering and to continue, according to her terms, being “good” and “true.”

Yes, such convenience that it does offer.

Such agony as well.

We can never touch each other. We have to consistently ignore emotions for each other, and repeatedly remind ourselves that there is no future in it for us.

And I have to constantly tell myself, you have fallen for her, but you love someone else.

Of stalkers, flowers and homosexuality
in response to ramit's post

Please allow me to indulge in my very favorite capital sin - vanity - as I write a reply to one posting on my message board.

Wow! I can't believe some people are reading my blog. I never thought some would consider it interesting, as I tend to bore myself at times.

Thanks for the post, ramit. You might want to tell me your blogger, if you have any so I can pry into it as well. I value fairness, you know. Hehe.

The message board wasn't really my idea. It was Jovan's. My blogger was spawned by selfish reasons - to talk about myself, rant and rave about things, write about thoughts that might get me in trouble when spoken or written offline. Reading reactions to what I write wasn't really part of the plan. Not that I don't care about what others think. I don't want my opinion to be tainted by others', most specially regarding things I hold sacred. Yes, I am that stubborn and opinionated.

Reading my blog isn’t synonymous to stalking, ramit. Perhaps it would help me track our common friends if you tell me who they are. Were you talking about Camille – as in Littlefoot’s friend?

I’m tempted to ask you – ASL please? Hahaha. But the question is so 1990s. It wouldn’t be fair as well since you only know me from my postings.

As for the flowers, I don’t mind receiving them but I’d appreciate it more if it were a book, a pack of cigarettes or gift certificates from my favorite boutiques. Hee-hee. I don’t mind giving flowers, though. I am generous in that regard – mixed colors for friends, red for lovers, and white for those I love.

Being bisexual has given me both pleasure and pain, to put it simply. I don’t really like referring to myself as one. I think I am a repressed lesbian [Hahaha. Good thing The Boyfriend doesn’t read my blog!], in the sense that I am more inclined to get attracted to women but for now I chose the heterosexual path. It is safer, more grounded and less complicated. Call me a coward for my choice, but it does work for me.

My Temptress referred to it as love transcending gender. I believe so, too, but some might assail me from glorifying it. I speak only for myself. I am out with my family, to my best friends, The Boyfriend and some officemates.

Yes, my attraction for women landed me in trouble. In high school I was almost stripped off of my honors because of it. My former lover’s mother literally tried to exorcise us – thinking that we were possessed by demons. Damn hypocrites.

Perhaps the bottomline for me was acceptance. I am not a lesbian or a bisexual – I am a woman who has made my own definitions. And a woman, who admittedly is in the middle of living life and learning from it.

Life is not a popularity contest. If you strive to be popular to everyone, you would end up feeling miserable and incomplete. As long as you don’t step on people’s toes, whatever people say shouldn’t really cause you sleepless nights.

When the courtship stops

Why do some men think that when they already have the girl inside a committed relationship the conquest is already over?

Contrary to how they think, women believe that the quest is just beginning.

I think these men (I'm not referring to all of them, mind you) should be placed into some sort of training school where socialization with women is not bound by double-standards and machismo.

I believe that courtship should never end. The wooing never stops. I think I am a valid resource person for this since I have also wooed both men and women in my life. And I never stopped doing so even after they have agreed to enter in a relationship with me.

A man doesn't need to promise me the moon and the stars. I don't even need the vow of eternity as I have issues if forever truly exists.

All I want is constant reinforcement and fine-tuning of relationship, the loathing of complacency and mediocrity.

I thirst the constant intellectual and emotional challenge. I believe in the meeting of the mind, body and soul.

I don't need bouquets of flowers. Flowers, when plucked, are already dead.

But I dread the day when the relationship slides into insipidness and monotony.

Is this too much to ask?

If it is then I might as well convince myself that I would eventually end up a spinster. But I'd rather be one than settle for something less than I deserve.

Habit-forming

Okay, fine!

I will let it out of my chest.

After two weeks I am still affected.

Damn it.

I can't get rid of her.

She's just like a nasty habit that I have to kick out of my system.

What we are fighting for

As I talked to friends over the weekend, I realized that we are all waging the same battles. We are faced with almost the same issues: maintenance of romantic relationships or trying to get one, jumpstarting careers, payment of credit card debts and other growing mortgages.

I received an angst-ridden text message from a friend over lunch, asking for job vacancies. This friend threatens to leave the company if they're not given the year-end bonus they truly deserve.

What are we all fighting for? The bottomline is simple.

We all want quality of life.

Smorgasbord

I'm not really frustrated with my career right now. It's probably because I'm really pragmatic when it comes to things like this. Still, I can't help but think - is this really the path I want to take? I can't be in usability forever. I just can't stand the thought of doing web site QAs for the rest of my life.

True enough, I am with a very equitable employer (and I am very grateful to them), but what's in it for me for the long haul? As to the question whether I am staying here, I think I am for a while. I'm still studying and this is a very good training ground. Besides, I think the organization is worth giving the chance [tangna, loyal!].

As for friendships and romantic trysts, it's really hard to become friends again when you almost transcended it. It's like groping for words to say or things to do. It's like always having this mental checklist and friendship guard whether what you're doing is just being friendly or is it again crossing the line.

And yes, Jovan. It was something very difficult to do, in the sense that I know I could get away with it. Friends won't really be able to stop me, but I know I couldn't get away with it with myself. It's a simple mantra really: thou shalt not make enemies with thyself. Of course, things became easier because la querida is open-minded and easy to talk to. It helped that we are on the same page, realizing that there is really no future in it.

So dude, learn from this experience. Use it to your advantage with that Mayda issue.

Lessons learned over the long weekend

Thank you, GMA, for the long weekend. It made me realize a lot of things.

1. Some things are bound to happen, but some things are also bound to end. No matter how hard you try to avoid something from happening, it still happens anyway. If it does happen, don't feel sorry nor regret that it did. Charge it to experience, and to more expenses at that.

2. Love is but a word. Sacrifice gives it meaning. That is, according to my CEO and the trycicle where this poem was posted. Mushy but true nonetheless. It takes a lot of sacrifice and hardships to keep love and continue being in love. You just have to be sure that it's worth it.

3. When you are faced with a fidelity dilemma and you were able to transcend it, you will never have to be faced with that issue again. Says Marione. I believe so. One you have learned how to fend the temptation off, you would know how to fend it off again when it comes your way in the future.

4. You think you can stop anytime you want, but in reality, you just can't. Because if this were true, you should have stopped even before it started. Hmmm...

5. The bottomline is still what you really value in life. When faced with a lot of choices, the decision would always come down to what matters most to you. There will always be the seduction of trying out new things, but what would keep you grounded is what you consider important and your choice to stick with it.

My own roller coaster ride

I am beginning to form the conclusion that my life is nothing but a vicious cycle. This can be taken as something good, but I take it as something bad for me.

Same pattern of events. Only the characters are changing.

Right now I am again confronted with the dilemma with regard to which values are important to me.

Suffice it to say that it's not my first time to be trapped in between 2 choices that are situated directly at the extreme poles of the spectrum. One way or another, it would change my life.

It is again a matter of choosing between consistency and comfort versus treading the fast, the furious and the very uncertain lane.

If I go down deep inside me, I know what I want, but when I choose what I really want, does it also mean I am choosing form over substance?

The real ones

This sem break is really doing me a lot of good. I spent two nights in a row with long-time friends. Last night, I was with former officemates in Ortigas. I was touched that two of them gave me presents (though not exactly for my birthday). Con gave me a ring from Vietnam with violet stones on it, while Honeypie Lau gave me a purple bracelet.

Everyone assumes that until now, purple is my color, but I really appreciate the thought that they went out of their way to get me stuff that they know I like.

On my way home, I realized that I feel really good that I kept my friends and I already know how to discern who the real ones are.

I remembered how I haven't seen Honeypie for a long time and I just had to call him to cry and lament that I caught my x sleeping with someone else.

Sometimes even if you don't see some friends for a long time, it's not so hard to keep tabs with each other's lives.

You will always have your friendship to come home to.

What a haze!

I think I have the propensity to make my life complicated when things are already falling in their proper places.

Last Saturday was my last day in school for the first semester. After a grueling four hours inside the AVR taking my finals, Mica and a classmate decided to go to Chocolate Kiss to treat ourselves. This same day, I promised myself I will be going to the gym and I will be catching up with all the fiction books that I've been wanting to read. And I have a whole month to do this! This is some sort of reprieve for me.

Come Tuesday, however, my plans took a 180 degrees turn when friends started calling up and inviting for dinner, booze sessions and out-of-town gigs.

Last night, I went out with ABSi friends and The Current Temptation of My Life. I think the booze got the better part of most of us and there was some sort of disclosure about this attraction with me. The feeling was mutual.

I have to admit that I was attracted too. The person wouldn't be called The Temptation for nothing. However, the more logical side of me was still able to psychoanalyze myself and sort out my thoughts and feelings.

The undeniable fact is staring at my face: Friendship is the better option.

I'm not sure if this one is a case of right person, wrong timing or wrong timing, right person. Worse, it may be the wrong timing and the wrong person and it's plain and simple attraction.

The bottomline is: It's just simply WRONG.

Fuck.

You know, sometimes I wish I'm not the thinking kind so I can just impulsively rush through things.

Unfortunately, I've outgrown that.

What a birthday can do

I have been on this face of the planet for 25 years now.

To all those who remembered, thanks so much! I know some people are terrible at remembering birthdays and anniversaries, but I believe that true friends do not forget them.

At exactly 12am, I was in Starbucks with The Boyfriend studying for my finals. Arg!

At 7am, I was woken up by my mobile phone. Jersey girl called to greet me a happy birthday! I couldn't believe what I was hearing early this morning. But no, I wasn't dreaming. It was really her.

I wanted to scream at her but all the anger just melted away. Heck. It's my birthday. I want to start things right.

Thank you, God for the blessings. I've had so much this year. :-)

Ghost of my past [part two]

I have been in a stable and very committed relationship for more than a year already. Before The Boyfriend, I was also quite monogamous with my relationship with the Jersey girl.

This afternoon, Jersey girl's best friend asked me out to dinner. Seems like she's having relationship problems, thus, her need to seek my advice. Like I'm such a pro! Hell! I can't even resolve my own relationship problems.

But I am digressing.

In the middle of our conversation, she told me she needed my opinion because her recent flame is a bad girl like me. Bad what?

I wasn't able to contain myself and told her how come I'm branded the bad girl when her bestfriend was the one who cheated on me?

I just can't get it!

In one of my recent phone conversations with Ian and Ryan, the bad girl issue also inevitably came up. Like I would never be the one to grow old by myself, that I used to be such a player and I can still be if I choose to...

What's up all these?

I therefore conclude that no matter how hard you try to clean up your act, bad reputations will always persist and can even precede whatever things you do at present.

As for this bad girl label, I think I never was. It was just a case of wrong people, wrong timing and high expectations. A matter of crashing and burning.

And crash and burn, I did.

If that's what being a bad girl is, then call me one.

Asar-talo

Asar-talo is when you're pissed off at someone and the person is not even affected by it. Solution: the art of DEADMA. Besides, if the person is such a pain in the ass, logic would tell you he/she doesn't deserve to be given your time of day. Tama ba, M&M?

Ateneo, at last!

I was with V last Saturday, looking for apartments and condo units when Ateneo friends flooded me with text messages saying that Ateneo won - and is now the new
UAAP champion. Cheers, ADMU! Sa wakas nanalo. One big fight - til the next UAAP.


Of long-time friends and separate lives

During Marc's birthday celeb, only a few of the guys went to the party. I myself didn't make it since I was out of town with The Boyfriend that time.

Ryan said they've been ranting that finally, we are growing up. Or, the better way to say it, we have outgrown our regular parties and hanging out. Is this something good? I know at some point we need to outgrow partying - but these get-togethers help us touch-base with each other.

I took this Sex and the City test and see who I am likened to:



But I still believe a great woman is the combination of the four SATC characters.

Unsettling the settled

A flirt buddy.

An ex calling me for a dinner.

The most recent ex from Jersey wanting to get back together.

Had all these happened 1 or 2 years ago, I would have made a major fuss.

I would have to admit though, that the flirt buddy was ONE HELL OF A TEMPTATION.

And yes, I felt stressed when I got the feelers from Jersey girl that she wants to get back together with me. But when I tried hard to search my feelings, it wasn't really love that stressed me out. It was the fact that I was rejoicing her karma. It was like I saw this one coming.

Oh well - the best revenge is not to think about it at all and just live a good and happy life.

It's nice to be cozy, grounded and settled with someone.

The last mile

Sometimes, we get too involved with people. The empathy becomes so grave that the identification with another person becomes too much to handle.

I realized this week that no matter how hard we try to help others, we can only do so much. What is crucial is their decision to help themselves.

It is like throwing a lifevest to a drowning person. It's still her call to grab it or do nothing and end up drowning.

As for me, I can only be messianic up to a certain point.

It's good that I know that now.