"The words that enlighten the soul are more precious than jewels. " - Hazrat Inayat Khan

Yeah. I've been enlightened. A bit late, but still, you know, better late than never. I just have to say, and I've thought about this many times, I am who I am. Take it or leave it. The only person who knows me inside out is me. Not my husband. Not my parents. Not my sisters. Just me. And who I am is forever changing. The person who I am now is different from the one I was just this morning. Life experiences, and I do have a life, continuously mold me into what and who I am.

The only thing that will never change is my wish for every person whom I know to find their own happiness. Because, despite my frequent bitching about my personal life, I am generally blessed and therefore, generally happy. I have a husband who loves and admires me and whom I love and admire in turn, kids who are wonderful and smart and healthy, and friends who appreciate what I am able to bring into their lives, and for whom I am immensely thankful.

I am aware that in the same way that another person can never truly know who I am, I can never know another person as much as he knows himself. If there's anything college philosophy taught me, it's that I am responsible only for how I feel for another person. The rest is up to them. This is not to say that I am not affected nor hurt. Of course I am. But I am 29 years old. And I will act like one.

As if I didn't have enough problems, Jaden decided to surprise me with this last night:
Excuse the dark photo. But it's our couch and it's been ripped open. Don't ask me about the farm animals. I just found them there when I woke up this morning. I saw an upholstery repair shop near our house on my way to work but I don't think I can have the couch repaired this week. The state of my finances is, as usual, nerve-wracking so I think I have to put that off until the end of the month. By that time, I think, the couch would have been fully ripped apart. Jaden also took it upon himself to decorate the other couch with holes. Maybe he felt that the sponge inside couldn't breathe. Whatever. He's been punished. And I talked to him about it several times. I should've counted the holes on the other couch just to be sure. I wonder what the little tyke is doing now. Maybe punching some holes in our mattress. *sigh*

Labels: rant

Yesterday Joks, Jaden and I attended a mass for our dearly departed former boss. After the mass, we were treated to lunch in the Kanin Club in Westgrove, Alabang. It's near Vicki Belo's clinic (my former co-workers told me they saw her eating there as well!)

Anyway, lunch was fab. The kare-kare was okay, the tahong, too, everything they served us. But what really got my attention is this heart-attack inducing dinuguan.


Mind you, it's not just your regular run-of-the-mill dinuguan. It's crisp and crunchy deep-fried pork and innards wrapped in a thick bloody sauce. Yum. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it.

Since I already ate so much, I thought that I would skip dessert. I thought wrong.

Behold, the turon.
Like the dinuguan, this one's special as well. Inside, instead of the regular banana and langka combo, you will find, to your extreme delight, strips of macapuno, pieces of nata de coco, sago, mung beans and ube haleya. Yes, it's the halo-halo in a turon. I ate so much I found it hard to breathe on the way home.

Labels: food

Shameless plugging alert:

So my friend and co-worker got her own domain. Take a peek at her crazy world at http://blog.hey-liz.net

In other news: We're getting new PCs. Because the old ones are made of cardboard and styrofoam and are like ticking time bombs that self-destruct like those Mission:Impossible thingies (remember those). It's weird that we've been screwed over by Koreans, seeing that hey, we're a Korean company. Back when we were still shopping around for PCs, I really didn't think it was a great idea to get PCs from those guys but I shut up because hell, I'm just a writer. Much as I like being proven right, it still sucks to have PCs that are as fragile as glass.

Oh, and it was Jaden's 3rd birthday yesterday. We just went to a toy store where he whined for a bike (later, tyke) and got a Spideyman magnetic slate instead.

In college, lovable, adorable Fr. Nick Cruz let us watch Il Postino. It has been my favorite film ever since. I even have a CD that has Neruda's poems read by actors and actresses such as Madonna and Andy Garcia. That was my first ME purchase in the early days of my first job. I spent many many hours listening to the CD. It takes me back to my college days when love was such a foreign, unreachable star to me. And as I listen to it now, I am saddened once again. Not for a love that was lost, but love that was never given to me.

But life indeed is strange, sometimes. For now that I have found a love that wraps me in its sweet, unconditional embrace, he is still alone.

Labels: pablo neruda, random rambling

While stumbling around the net today trying to look for topics I could write about for work, I came upon this article. Briefly, if you don't have the time to follow the link, it tells of a social experiment that the Washington Post did in a subway about" perception, taste and priorities of people." The results were disheartening. The story captured my imagination so I decided to see if there was a video of it or about it on youtube (since, well almost everything is on youtube nowadays). I got lucky on my first try and saw the video (below). There was one woman who recognized the violinist but I decided to exercise my creative freedom a bit. And so here's the script I came up with.

Laying his bag on the floor, the violinist took out his violin from its case and began to play. As the music flowed from his heart to his violin and to the milling crowd at the subway station where he stood, not one of the people passing by looked his way. The violinist closed his eyes as he continued to play. When he opened them again, he saw a child staring at him, rapt in his music. His mouth agape, he continued to watch even as his mother pushed him towards the stairs that led to the platform. At the top of the stairs, the boy looked back one last time, clearly wishing he could stay and listen some more. The violinist smiled, ever so slightly, and closed his eyes again.

Labels: current, youtube

At last, rain. I thought it would never come.

Labels: my kids, random