mOon$hyn

are there laws that say who can be loved and how much? this is a striking issue that's part of the novel "the god of small things" by arundrhati (sp?) roi. i bought the book on sale a few months ago but only really sat down to read it this afternoon. well, ive tried to read it dozens of times before but i found it hard to understand because of the kind of language the author used. it wasn't really that difficult, just that maybe at the time i read it i wasn't really giving it my full attention. so many other things were going through my mind. so though my marker was somewhere in the middle of the book already, i started reading it from page 1 again, this afternoon. it was a good thing too cause i found that i appreciate more what the author is saying...

the story revolves around Estha and Rahel, two egg-twins (non-identical). Estha is a boy and Rahel's a girl. it was about growing up in Ayemenem. about having divorced parents when divorce was not yet accepted in their society. a society where a woman cannot own property.

i find that the book is about a lot of things, without spelling it out for you. as i said, it asks the question of whether there is a law that says who can be loved, and how much. seems like divorced couples and their children are not one of the chosen. neither are untouchables.

the twins used to function as one. used to refer to themselves as us, we, always as one, never individually. that is until they were separated.

anyway, i had thought of a lot of things to write about the book while i was reading it, but find that i'm at a loss for words and short of ideas now that i'm really posting. oh well....

i believe everyone has a right to love, and is entitled to be loved in return. and it doesn't matter who or what they are. an infant is entitled to love and care from the very people who have brought her into this world. from strangers, even. and as the infant grows, she has the right to reciprocate the love of those who have shown her and taught her how to love. and to love others still. others whom she deems deserving of her love.

love. my boyfriend and i are not in very good terms right now. i haven't seen him since the 25th and we haven't really spoken to each other much these past few days. and something's wrong with him. i mean, he has a problem that he hasn't told me about. he says he's not ok but refuses to talk about it over the phone. but i'm seeing him tomorrow, and i won't let him leave til i get everything out from him. hehe ;)

and i'll be going back to my weight loss program again tomorrow. tennis and brisk walking. yay :D and about time too. :lol: i'm excited again, it's been almost two weeks

sweet sixteen. i was sixteen when that picture (see previous post) was taken. it was the last day of a conference i had attended in bangkok. we (the young people who participated) were given those cute shirts that had tiny stuffed animals sewn on them along with name and description. mine was elephant: large but lovely, big but sweet. vegetarian repast makes me complete. or something like that. i still have that shirt. and it still fits! :wink: i don't wear it often anymore though, specially not outside of the house :)

it was my second trip to bangkok. and everytime i went out of the country, i had (or made :wink: ) enough money that enabled me to buy [i]pasalubong[/i]. this time, i bought shirts for my nieces and little cousins. shirts like mine, those that had little stuffed animals. it was a big hit. :D

how i loved going to those places i've been to attending conferences at a young age. the best part was buying gifts for people back home. i was a good bargain hunter. i learned how to scrimp and haggle for lower prices at the markets [i](tiangges)[/i] in bangkok. in stockholm, small things were good enough. and dolls too. stuff were more expensive there, relatively. there were so many things to buy in paris. it was so difficult to decide what to buy for whom :? and i loved the bakeries, hehe. and the mousse au chocolat. yum! i spent most in japan, i think. i did my 2001 christmas shopping there. cold! brrr...

the sites were great too, of course. paris would be unbeatable. that's one place i would surely love to go back to. i was there in may. it was sunny, but very cool. i don't remember what the season was... can anyone please tell me, May in Paris is what? i'd sure love to see paris in spring time.... will i ever have enough money to travel again? :?

ok, i am not sure if this will pull through and the photo will be shown...

=http://img28.photobucket.com/...

this is the a picture of me taken in September 1997. the one i had written a few blogs ago. :lol:

(i am quite pissed off cause i already typed a really long post, and one that i really liked, but it did not go through and this page refreshed blank. arrrgggghhh!)

so we watched the play [b]agnoia[/b] last night at the fort santiago. just being at the raja solaiman theater brought back memories of when i was so much younger and performed (and rehearsed) on that very same stage. reminded me of how much i enjoyed it. the thrill of performing. how i loved to act. how i was good at it (or at least how good i thought i was :wink: ).

so back to the play. i liked it a lot. not just because i personally knew two of the actors, but because i liked the story, and i could relate. i guess anyone in any relationship (family, or otherwise) would. as my boyfriend said after the play, it was good in the sense that it left a lot of room for the audience to interpret its messages in a way relevant to them.

it was as much about horoscopes as it was about happiness and/or enlightenment. it was about relationships, with parents, with partners.

the first act, the very first scene particularly got to me. there was an angel who was tied on her neck, and she was trying very hard to reach an apple that she found lying on top of a table that was just out of her reach. she did everything physically possible to get the apple but she just couldn't reach it. until she hurt herself, until she got tired. until she got so frustrated. if the apple was happiness, then there a lot of us who are like angel. trying so hard, to the point of desperation, to search for happiness. happiness from outside of us. we search and reach out for it until we get burned. frustrated. until we break down and end up the opposite of happy.

more than the angel's struggle, i enjoyed listening to the lyrics of the background/opening music. i'm having trouble remembering details right now, but i do remember what was going through my mind while i was listening to the song. the song was trying to describe what happiness. a candy. a hug. a smile. discovery. doing something for the first time. the little things. and it brought back to me what i used to tell myself, that i choose to be happy. for indeed, happiness is a state that we decide to be in. enlightenment emanates from within oneself. from acceptance of one's limitations, of one's wholeness. nobody else aside from ourselves can make us happy. no matter what they do, unless we decide to be happy, we will never truly be.

and i choose to be happy, no matter what happens to me or to whatever or whoever's around me. :wink:

throughout the one-hour and a half play, the cast passed this white ball back and forth. at first, the ball seemed to me like a baby that they were delighted to see at first but later on became a nuisance so they passed it on. then it became for me an oracle where they saw their fortunes, their horoscopes. depending on what they see, they were either happy to pass it on or so disgusted that they wanted to get rid of it. then it dawned on me that the ball was enlightenment that they all tried to find for themselves, that they wanted to share with the people around them...

some of then weren't ready to catch it, some were too eager. some just wanted to pass it on. still others cherished it. such symbolisms.

saturn in retrograde. i dont know what it means but the characters in the play said that it meant building new relationships as old ones disintegrate. could be the reason why two couples in the story have split up. the playwright has a point. we turn to horoscopes, to astrology, so we would have someone or something else to blame other than ourselves. so eventhough we are the ultimate creators and movers of our own little worlds, we have other people to blame our hard luck on. this is not to say that those who rely so much on hula and horoscope are not enlightened.

another line that really got to me was: [i]iba-iba naman ang klase ng pagmamahal[/i], that there are different ways of loving. and even if others have a different way of loving us from how we love them does not mean they love us less, more or not at all. it simply is that, they love differently. i had thought the story would focus on same-sex relationships but it did not do that. it was just a story where there was all kinds of love. love of a mother to her children. the love of a long-time married couple. young heterosexual love. love for friends. puppy love (student to professor). homosexual love. none is more fitting to be called love than another. all's just the same, though they're different. it's LOVE.

(more on this later on, in another posting, perhaps tomorrow... ;))

i've spent my day (yesterday) in three different cities: Quezon City, where i live and work; Makati City where the Toshiba service center is located and where UNICEF holds office; and, City of Mandaluyong where Megamall is.

it was such a tiring day. so tiring that joy (who was with me the whole day) and i did not have the energy to walk/jog at the UP acad oval after work. so tiring that i was unable to get up at 6am for tennis. arghh. :evil:

it was fun though. :) it also gave me an opportunity to have lunch with my alfred. he works in Makati too, just a few blocks away from UNICEF which was our second stop.

from UNICEF we took a bus to SM Megamall to canvass for notebooks other than the one we saw at the Toshiba sales dept earlier that day. we couldnt find a cheaper one that had the same specs and freebie (and warranty) that the toshiba offers. so if my boss really wants wireless LAN, that's what joy and i will recommend. if not, we can opt for the compaq presario which is a lot cheaper and is also good.

i was gonna look at tennis rackets but forgot to... :?

from megamall we took a cab to Kamias to pick up our streamers that ate ami and ate regi left in jakarta when they were there last month. someone came from there and left it at an office where we could easily pick it up. we had to wait for about 20 mins before the person we needed arrived. back to Luzon we went.

although i was feeling sleepy when we were in UNICEF, i didnt really feel how tired i was until we arrived in the office. and then, the computer i was using was getting weird. the icons that represent what type of file each document is kept changing. like word documents had the photo icon. weird! it scared the wits out of me cause i was afraid our harddrive would crash or something. i turned it off for a few minutes and it was fine when i turned it back on. whew! hope it still is.

today promises to be another fine day. but a bit busy. i'll be picking up our tickets for a play we're watching tonight. we got it on discount because PETA (who put up the production) is one of our partner NGOs. the campaign committee in the philippines who are having a meeting today are going to see it too. and our office will be taking them out to dinner before the play. alfred is coming too. so will anliza and her boyfriend. :D

more to write about later :D

i wasnt able to post a blog last night.. not because there wasnt anything to post about but rather because i wasnt physically able to. i was soooo not feeling well when alfred and i came home last night. i haven't been feeling well lately. i always feel cold and i have a "cold" i can't breathe through my nose most of the time. i always turn the aircon down at the office but i can't always have my way cause the others feel hot. :(

:evil: alfred and i had a fight yesterday. it was really brief though. and we fought mostly on YM. it was a really petty fight but it could have been blown into proportions, good thing it wasn't. :D so we agreed to meet in Cubao, instead of him going all the way to my office to pick me up. i was in the mood for japanese food and there was a tokyo tokyo resto in ali mall.

i was late (again). our boss arrived in the office just as joy and i were preparing to leave. well actually, we could have left earlier but there was something i had to prepare. i could have done it earlier but i really wasnt feeling all too well. on the way to cubao, in a cab, i was worried alfred would be fuming with anger already. and i was worrying about myself cause i might be too sick to eat properly. alfred was waiting outside the restaurant. sure enough, he was mad. but it didnt take much to convince him to forgive me, specially when he saw how sick i was... so he ordered and we ate. yummy! i tried so hard to enjoy it. chewed and swallowed as much as i could.

back home, he put me to sleep in my brother's bed. he massage my back and rubbed my shoulders till i was fast asleep. i didn't even hear him leave... so sweet my alfred is :D

i'm in charge of "updating" my organization's website and it's fun when i know what to update it with... like last friday i decided to upload pictures from different activities to the gallery section. things went smoothly until i encountered an error. with this i really mean an error: a single line pops out on the screen saying there is an error and nothing i did could fix it. i ignored it thinking things will be back to normal in a few hours. i checked back this afternoon to do more work on the site only to find the error welcome me back to the gallery section. so i got in touch with our web administrator and he promised to check on it. after an hour or so he sent me a message saying that the gallery program was having compatibility errors with their upgraded provider and to be patient while they resolve the problem...

i heard from him again at around 8pm. it was fixed. he says i can NEVER put any apostrophes anywhere in the gallery, not in the image name nor in the description. fine by me. :?

found out that my neofriend fools has been a victim of a neopets glitch that caused her to loose 50k worth of items! :evil:

esban was cute again this morning. came up to our door to greet me good morning. gave me a kiss and a hug and was an absolute sweetheart for a full minute. :lol: of course he was naughty after awhile :wink: last night he cried so hard cause he did not want to sleep in their room yet (w/ his elder sister and parents). i even took him there myself (which i never do). alfred bought him jellyace to keep him distracted but it didnt really work. he still cried for me. this morning they say the first thing he asked for was[i] tito dodong[/i], my alfred. when he was told that he had gone home and was probably at work already, he asked for me. :D

esban's our sweetiepie. he's my cousin ada's son. turning two on march 31st. small in stature for his age but really smart and knows a lot of words already. he's always with my mom in our house. he has stuff here already. and he already knows how to twirl us around his little finger. haha :lol:

forehand sucked. :evil: worked on my forehand for three straight sessions. it was really bad. there were improvements on the third session though. good thing. but it gets frustrating sometimes when it just seems so weak and unstable when i feel it shouldn't be. ah, practice!

i seem to have [b]lost another 2.5 pounds [/b]when i weighed myself about two days ago. brings [i][b]total weight lost to 7.5[/b][/i]. still not enough but also a good start. 8) tito ernie of PETA brought a picture of me taken in '97 at a Bangkok hotel (Century, i think), to the festival (more on this later) today. if i could get to my size in that picture again, i'd be very happy. :D i'll try to post that image here tomorrow...

saw [b]Milan[/b] in the moviehouse Thursday night with Joy. saw it again on VCD with my cousins last night, and this early morning (5am) with my brother. really nice movie. good storyline(s). it's more than a romantic, feel-good movie. if i had a parent or close relative who was a domestic helper (even if not in Milan), i probably would have cried while watching. if you think about it, the scenarios seem to be close to impossible. but they're not. overseas filipino workers in Milan really went through so much hardships: having 4 jobs. going through lengths just to earn extra bucks. feeling lonely even when surrounded by so many people. enormous placement fees. deceptive recruiters and agents. half-day hike that's very cold. illegal status. extra marital affairs. good actors. again, really good movie. i wouldn't mind seeing it another time :wink:

valentine's day is lola's birthday. bought a cookie jar from mrs.howard's for her present. i was gonna bake yoghurt choco chip cookies to put inside it but i didnt feel well in the afternoon so i slept instead. will still bake this week cause the cookies inside of it will not be around soon. [i]konti lang kasi.[/i] lola seemed to like it though. esban picked it. he liked mrs. howard's too, except he was scared of the statue of an elderly woman baker holding mini cakes. dinner was great. auntie becky cooked good dishes. ice cream was good but i didnt even taste the cake. control!

today was spent at the ECPAT children and young people's theater festival held near their office at camp karingal. it was fun seeing the children from different organizations perform their very own productions. reminds me of me when i was a lot younger. :lol: alfred came too, but he was extremely late for our 10am agreement. he came at 330pm. he went out with his friends last night after having dinner here.they went home at 6am. what a night. anliza came with her boyfriend too. i think they enjoyed it, they seemed to. 8) it was fun watching the last three productions with them. dinner at McDo was fun too. :wink: she and i went to the ladies room while the guys were buying dinner. while waiting for the tissue replenishments, a little boy came in and asked us to help him out of his jumper so he could pee. it was funny looking at him. since i really had to go too, anliza took care of putting the kid's jumper back on when the tissue was in place and the kid was finished. the sundae was lousy though, not like sundae at all. had it replaced the first time. but i thought it wouldnt be a nice idea to have the second cup replaced again.

all in all, had a great day today. an average week. :wink: hey, i started the week with anliza and alfred in pampanga. ended it with them too. :lol:

Feb 8 is anliza's birthday. she turned 23. twas the first time we saw each other (not in 7) but in 6 years... and it wasn't weird at all! there was no awkward feeling like when you're meeting with a stranger. i was absolutely comfortable. just like old times. :lol:

Anliza. Chua. Bex. she and i were classmates only for a year. sixth grade. our last year in elementary school. in all my years at trinity i've had several close/best friends. Chua (as i used to call her), was the closest i was with. i don't remember how we grew closer. or how we ended up being very very good friends, but i am truly thankful that we did. and more thankful that now, sooo many years later (10 years!), she is still here. :)

we had this barkada then, we fondly called the gang [i]samahan ng mga lakwatsero[/i] if i remember it right. i'm not sure though. we used to go places after class. we never went home straight after class. sometimes it was our place, or her's, or the mall, or one of the boys' houses. before i met her, i didn't know how to commute! after a few weeks, i could go home on my own. :wink:

on our graduation day, we were both quite late so we weren't able to join our classmates at the top (?) of the line. sumingit lang kami kung saan. so she and her mom ended up sitting behind me and mine. and guess what? our mothers were wearing almost identical blouses! black and white stripes! the only difference was the red stripe by the buttons of her mom's blouse. haha! :lol:

we kept in touch all through highschool, although we went to different schools already (which was a stone's throw away from each other!). she also met Jo, my other bestfriend. i think there was a time when the three of us hung out together.. i dont remember exactly when though...

when we took the UPCAT, we were assigned to the same building, but at different schedules. i took the test in the morning, she on the afternoon. i met her outside when my turn was up. amidst the chaos that was UP during UPCAT, we saw each other and exchanged "goodlucks" and hugs. twas the first time i saw her baby brother too, he's 8 years old now and certainly no longer a baby. so anyway, i got into my first choice of major/degree program while she didn't. that summer, we went out a couple of times. and she went with me to UP for the required general check up. we went to greenhills where i bought a watch (a mood watch that changes colors). we did lots of things. she helped me a lot that summer. we were supposed to go out again to inquire in other schools cause she hasnt yet decided where to go or what to take up for college. but we didn't go. i had to beg off cause i was called in to a training-seminar that i just had to go to. it had started a day earlier and i couldn't miss another day...

that was the last time i saw her or talked to her. her family was moving to pampanga, to her lola's place and there weren't any phones there. we lost touch :( i wasn't so sad though cause i knew she wouldn't lose my phone number. that she wouldn't forget how to get to our house. but we moved out a year later too. :cry:

i had missed her. i was not able to share with her a lot of things. a lot of experiences. and i missed a lot of hers.

but now, we are given another chance. and if her birthday was any sign, we'll be having a lot of laughs (and tears) coming our way. :) i'm looking forward to our next bonding activity. this time, on our own :wink:

alfred was with us in pampanga. they seemed to have taken to each other. at least i'm sure alfred likes her and he understands why i was so psyched up to finally be seeing her again (i was the earliest to arrive at our meeting place, and i'm never early!). and i did not pick up any negative vibes from her about him. yay! alfred, likes all of my bestest friends (bex, jo, mayeen and chelle). and they all genuinely "like" him. i think. hehe :lol:

tomorrow, i'll be seeing my friend for the first time in 7 years :lol: i am sooo psyched up about it. it's her birthday and she's invited me (and alfred) to go home with her to Pampanga where her family lives now.

she's turning 23 tomorrow. we were 16 the last time we were together...

missing... tennis... no tennis wednesday morning cause of a headache. thursday morning my uncle's car was in for repairs and he had to supervise it. thursday night uncle coach informs me he won't be available to give me tennis lessons friday morning cause they have to leave early for [i]Malacaņang[/i]. missing it now... might not be able to hit the first few balls on monday, or whenever it is we'll be playing again... :cry:

missing... walking at the UP acad oval. been busy at work. last night joy and i were gonna walk but plans changed when we got to UP. we still got to walk, but not the usual two rounds (one-hour) walk that we have. [i]pero pinagpawisan kami,[/i] in fairness... :wink:

enough of the missing :!:

actually sleepy already. falling asleep on the keyboard. mistyping. but i dont want to sleep yet...

slept only for a few hours this morning. baked 2 pans of blueberry cheesecakes last night. finished topping 2nd cheesecake at around 430am i think. twas for a small gathering of friends we had this afternoon (at work). aside for my blueberry cheesecake for dessert, we also prepared pita bread for shawarma (yummy). ate nanette brought vegetarian [i]pansit[/i]. ate tere brought us some pandesal and yummy queso de bola (i'm not a queso de bola fan but this one was really good). had a hard time "packing" the cake. almost ruined the first cake while trying to fit it inside a container (tupperware-like). was able to save it, patched it up, hehe. :) got help from my aunt (who's celebrating her bday today) in making a box base. turned out real nice.

i didnt work at all in the office today. just prepared for the gathering which started a little earlier in the afternoon than we were expecting. went home earlier than usual cause joy and ate beng absolutely had to go, and the three of us shared a cab...

didn't have lunch. was really hungry by the time the food was ready. ate 2 shawarma (that wasn't sooo packed with chicken and vegetables). a few spoonfulls of veggie [i]pansit[/i]. a slice of the cheescake. yum!

ahhh... all the more reason why i should be walking... and why i should get back on the court....

monday night (feb2) was japanese night with my boyfriend Alfred, and my dear friend Raechelle. yes, Chelle's here for her check up. she'll be leaving again soon though... in 2-3 days i think... will miss having her around again. :cry: but i really enjoyed japanese night with her. we were supposed to meet at this japanese fast food in the mall, but as she wasn't ready yet when i called her at home (and i was like 15 mins away), i went straight to their house to pick her up instead. which would not have been a problem except that Alfred was going straight to our meeting place and there was no way to tell him of the change in plans...

so chelle wasn't ready when i got there. was surprised to see a dog guarding their gate... hadn't been there the last time i was... which was 2 years ago, i think. chelle's younger brother was there. the same brother i was good friends with :wink: at some point in time... anyway... saw chelle's mom and dad again, and little brothers too (who are not soo little anymore).

half an hour or so later, her mom drove us to the mall where alfred had been waiting for the past 45 minutes. he would have been angry if i was alone. but because raechelle was there, he couldn't show it too much. besides, [i]may atraso rin sya sa kin[/i].

so we had dinner at tokyo tokyo which was one of our (alfred and mine) favorite food places. had a feast :lol: took us a long time to eat too cause we had a lot of updating to do. and i still haven't told her half of what i wanted to say. and nowhere near half of what i wanted to ask. anyway, next time she comes, she'll be staying for awhile. and we've already kinda planned to spend time for movie marathons... spend more time for gossip :lol:

so, it was japanese night cause we also watched [b]the last samurai[/b]. we almost watched the tale of two sisters though. but it being a japanese horror flick changed our minds. we didn't want to get too scared that night... might not be good for the baby. :roll: the choice was good. we all enjoyed the movie :!: we were snickering all throughout the movie, not because it was funny or corny, but because we were enjoying it. well-written story. well-shot picture. nice sceneries. nice lines. a nice movie all in all. (i'm not good at movie reviews, am i?) oh, maybe not an oscar-winning best movie. but good nonetheless.

12 midnight when we left the cinema. chelle's mom was already waiting for us at the parking lot. they dropped us off at the waiting shed outside their subdivision's gate (right in front of the subdivision where we used to live... brought back memories :) ) since it was sooo late already, we decided to take a cab (but none would take us). then we heard (and saw) a commotion right across the highway. teenage boys were chasing after an older man. [i]nagpagulong-gulong na nga sila sa highway e.[/i] then a shot was fired. that scared the hell out of me. they were just a few meters away. so near. well. the shot apparently scared the boys too so they scrammed. but some went to our direction. scared again. [u]analysis[/u]: the boys chased after the older person who must have been a thief or something. but because of the shot, the boys let go and he got away. a security guard fired his gun :roll: we took the next jeep. got off a few blocks away where taxis were waiting.

got home around 1. woke up past 6. then off to tennis lessons 8) fun!