Story lines

I miss writing story lines. Maybe I'm not the best writer, but I used to have creative ideas on short stories, lately, I feel like I've run out. So instead of a dump for fiction, I'm using this blog as a dump for my off-tangent, seemingly unimportant musings. Largely insignificant in the greater scheme of things these afterthoughts are merely moments of quiet craziness that I'd like to believe is worth writing.

Naker = Naku + heller.

I am quite literally and figuratively, drowning in work. Yes, been too busy even to drop a line or two on this here blog. But now that I'm here, might as well do so.

Today, I played a couple of hours of badminton, and no more knee pain, YAY! Finally, although, I'm quite cautious now, and I refrain from overdoing it because that 5-day-barely-walk-stuck-in-bedrest nightmare is something I'd rather keep in the past. I don't want to ever have to deal with that kind of pain again. Ever. Although I have to admit, I'm a little rusty. I will get back on track, I'm on it.

Been noticing that gas prices have been up lately and it has landed on the big 50. This is actually a major pain because when I trek out to Manila, I consume a lot of gas, averaging maybe around 5 to 6 liters per roundtrip. This oil price hike is crippling and down right annoying, plus with all the traffic that I have to go through? Ugh, terrible.

Let me air my grudge on TRAFFIC. See there are two ways down the mountain from where I live. One straight through Mandaluyong/Ortigas/Libis and another through Marikina.

Yes, just two routes. ONLY TWO ROUTES.

And on both of these routes, somebody had the brilliant idea of fixing waterworks, expanding roads, building sidewalks ALL AT THE SAME TIME. So both routes are heavily clogged with traffic as one bottleneck follows another. It's such a nightmare because before all of this chaos, I had already memorized the previous waves of off-peaks so that I avoid the traffic, and now I'm just always stuck in the middle of it. Whether I travel in the dead of the night, the slow morning hours, it's always, ALWAYS traffic. In fact, for most days, it's so painful that I'd rather stay at home, or in the confines of the mountain where I live rather than trek out to Manila.

High voluminous never-ending, making-my-legs-cramp, kill-me-now traffic is just too much for my brain cells and electrolyte balance (hello, hypokalemia). Don't they ever coordinate with each other? Don't they understand how difficult it is for the locals to move about if they don't consider the amount of traffic they are causing? This is why disasters are ill-managed in the Philippines. Government bodies NEVER coordinate with each other. They forget that their constituents depend on them to acknowledge that they have to work together in serving the people.

Seaweed Pringles

I am officially back on the treadmill, FINALLY! I did my usual 30 minute, 3km slow jog last night and I am pushing my injured leg as far as it can work without debilitating pain. I cannot emphasize how grateful I am for recovering from the harrowing injury I had to suffer a good 8 weeks ago. I can still remember the five days I had to lie still on my bed due to the pain. There's still a bit of recurring pain, especially on the upper part of my left calf, but properly managed with exercise and good warm-up and cool-down regimens, it's going to eventually go away, fade. Then maybe I can run more efficiently and hopefully play longer on the badminton courts. The knee brace really does help, but I can't depend on it much because it keeps the knee positioned at a very specific angle, at some point it makes the playing more tiring than it ought to be.

Curbing the holiday diet with my "unfavoritest" food, my appetite's arch-enemy.... the dreaded oatmeal. This stuff's so good for me that going through a bowl of it every morning feels nothing short of slow prisonlike torture. Though my recent liking for the Seaweed PRingles does not help with the intended weight loss. It'll be a while before I stop buying a tube of this snippets of heaven.

Making Mojitos on a bright Sunny Sunday morning.

Yey for mojitos!

The thing about living in the faraway land of Rizal is that everything else is faraway. Sure having a car eases the burden of the trip home, but it still is a TRIP. Perhaps I just need better music in the car.

Yesterday was the second time I played badmin after my harrowing injury. When I woke up this morning, I panicked because the pain is present once more. My legs froze up last night, and I was again reminded of how it'll be quite some time before I can push my legs to it's previous extreme fitness regimes. I can't believe that my legs are asking me to be patient.

Opportunity Cost

So last night, I had dinner with a friend after a full day's of shopping at the mall. We had a long drawn-out debate as to whether or not we'd atted a refresher course for our profession or not. It's actually an expensive lecture, spread out in three days. Expensive boring lectures, not quite appetizing. We weighed the pros and cons, the opportunity costs.

What could that fee we'd pay for the lecture otherwise buy?

Movies, shirts, cups of joe, cases of beer, books, we went on and o, making the lecture less appealing. I mean who really wants to attend a boring lecture?

The most interesting opportunity cost that we'd give up the lecture for would be, dinner at Spiral.

And then, I'm convinced that I'd rather have an expensive dinner than sit down for a boring lecture. My friend had been at Spiral before and the way it was described.... ahh. I had dreams about it last night.

Three kinds of chocolate fondue.
Custom-made sushi rolls.
Plates full of freshly grilled lamb.
Shrimp, both shelled and unshelled.

I did dream about having a fantastic dinner at Spiral, in my favorite pretty blue dress. Ahh... Food, glorious food. Nothing can beat that.

Must Hit Save

Yesterday, 4 hours of work went down the drain. I failed to hit SAVE right before the file corrupted. I almost cried.

Beer

Heineken, overrated. Guinness, heavy.
Tsingtao, the smoothest.
Microbreweries, freshly brewed ale, heaven.

Beer is expensive in Singapore, One bottle out there is a case of ale here. Mind you, I drank a reasonable amount when I was there, thanks to a boss whose liver's ironclad. Indeed she is a closet drunkard! There was one weekend, three straight days, we were drinking, from beers to vodka to rum. Totally enjoyed the sangria! I never thought sangria could be so powerful. I thought it was a girly drink, with the fruit juice and the thick rum, but sangria prepared three days and allowed to ferment in the refrigerator can give a kick stronger than the Red Horses out there.

Think like a Tourist, Act like a Local

My recent trip to Singapore was a fun one. Because I stayed there for a month, it was important to budget my dollars well. I had to skip the expensive tourist restaurants/hotspots, and I had to learn how to live like a local real quick. I had to reserve my wide-eyed amazement moments for the weekend, when I can wear the tourist hat and spend a little on "pasalubongs".

Chrissie's checklist in a foreign land:
1. Know exactly where you live. This is important as I wasn't born with an internal compass, I get lost all the time. So the first thing I had to figure out was the public transport to and fro my residence, which took a while.

2. Know how to order food and know exactly what you can and can't eat. I'm not exactly a big fan of hot stuff, but I wanted to try some at Singapore, even if you tell the food vendor to skip on the chili, the food's still spicy! I learned that chili's really good! So now I can take a little bit of heat. I was a little experimental with the food, the range was fantastic, everything was good. Plum powder on sarawak pineapple, yummers.

3. Do not ride the taxis! There was something about right hand drive taxis that really gave me the dizzies. I really didn't like it, other than it was very expensive. The busses on the other had were really fun! I enjoyed the scenic view. Public transport is pretty straightforward and organized, if you know how to read the bus instructions and you know exactly where you are and where you want to go.

4. Invest in comfortable shoes. Singapore is a country where people walked to everywhere. I bought myself a pair of flats that I wore on days that I knew I'd be doing a lot of walking.

More in a bit!

Shame, Potterwatch, Back Pains.

I finally got my hands on a Salman Rushdie book. Here in the Philippines, maybe 2 of his books are on the shelves in the hard-to-find books bookstore. However in Singapore, there were a couple, and one of his books was even on the Best Seller rack. Happiness!

Reading "Shame" felt like reading a commentary on the global issue of Palestine with the slight twist of an epic saga in the making. It was truly one of the most powerful books I've ever read. Maybe Omar Shakil is a real person?

Yes, I saw it, the first part of the seventh Harry Potter. Fans of the book won't be disappointed, it largely remained consistent with the written material. However, one thing really popped up, I realized that JK Rowling used Harry Potter to commentate on the second world war. How familiar is it that an evil man with a grudge against the world, used the concept of righteousness of the Ubermensch to raise the status of the purebloods against the half-bloods, the blood traitors and the muggle-born? WAtching Hermione with a "Mudblood" scar on her forearm is so reminiscent of Holocaust. And that statue inside the Ministry of MAgic, with the muggles being stepped upon by the wizards and witches, that really brought it home.

I am suffering yet again from back pains. This is terrible, after a round of badminton, I realized that indeed it was foolishness to not warm-up properly. EVerytime my lower back muscles tense up, I feel a shot of pain. Lesson learned. Though, this makes me go back to the last time I was in this much pain for my lower back. MAkes it even more painful so to speak.

Kapow.

Yey, it's dairy dash time! Finally free enough to do some bad-ass dashing!

In the middle of crisis management today (two deadlines, both overdue, both draining of the the brain cells), a friend sent a message.

Why do some people bargain and some don't?".

Got me thinking right away, but didn't really have the time to do some writing about it. I had to have a witty answer of course, so I replied, "Because they don't choose to, they don't want it anymore."

And the reply I got to that was, "Hitting the nail right on the head."

Of course.

Seize it, today.

The prepwork for going abroad for work has left me feeling ambivalent, I am almost too distracted to function in normal conversation without my thoughts floating towards the eventual departure. What's four weeks right? And after this, a solid job offer. Wow, almost too good to be true, it's almost unreal.

The last time I asked that question, "Is this for real"? I got into so much trouble I'm still paying for it when I let go of pushing it out of my brain. Sure, that's all in the "Seasons Past" bucket, but when I remember having that bucket around...

Just Cause

Today, I was told by the Boss, "So are you ready to leave anytime soon?". I replied nonchalantly, while playing Tower Defense, "Sure, Oct 8 right?". Quick reply goes, "No, soon, real soon.".

Then the panic crept in. Of course when you're leaving for another country and staying there for a while, you need to prepare clothes, rations, etc. And as the true procrastinator that I am, I delayed it for as long as I could -- until I was told that soon could arrive much sooner than anyone expected. I am a backpacker, I don't travelling into some foreign land with a bag with wheels. Luggage-style bags are for jetsetters and businessmen, I'm neither. I'm an explorer and I'd like to believe that I can do with very little. Or maybe I'm just way too lazy to pack a bag with wheels.

Dream Car

Yesterday as I plowed through the morning traffic en route to my exam, I saw an old beaten up green volkswagen beetle. It was a gem amidst the regular traffic. It looked like it was older than me. It had rusty corners, and the paint job was peeling, the trunk paint was a darker color compared to the rest of the body. But it was still the prettiest thing on the road.

When asked what my dream car is, I always say, a cute little two door red beetle. I remember the only time I was able to ride one. My brother borrowed his friend's beetle for a drive, I was at the back and in the front passenger seat was "Ninang Angin", his now wife then girlfriend. I think I was 5 or 6 then, but I remember it so clearly. It was bright yellow, it didn't have an airconditioner, and it was a noisy car. It was the coolest thing ever, and it actually was my inspiration to drive in my adulthood. Someday, this'll be my ride.

I can see it now, with the top down, cruising along the countryside, with the wind in my hair. One day, that cute little red beetle will be my ride home.

Lockdown

Lockdown starts TODAY.

I am focused like a lightbeam on Friday's Finals. Yes, this is the finish line and I have to do well on the final leg. I am left without time to procrastinate, the delay fish is on the grill and soon be served up with a side of laziness and a plateful of excuses.

It's time to kick ass!

Soft, sweet shots. (Not the alcoholic kind)

I need help.

Can somebody please tell me how to return an offensive shot without giving it to the opponent? I can't seem to command my forehands and backhands to not return said offensive shot to the opponents direction, so much so that he/she will return the shot back twenty-five times stronger either as a full on smash (I actually got clobbered tonight, thrice) or a soft shot in the opposite direction. I obssessed about it tonight, but I can't overcome it. Then there's the service, I need to learn better service shots. I'll float around youtube, figure out a way around my weakness.

I believe that Badminton is my way of playing lazy tennis. I used to be a varsity tennis player, though for the record I was only in the reserve B team, our A team was the strongest in the league so I played few tourneys in my career, but I trained as much as the A team and had as much fun (without the pressure of competition) in the process. I've not unlearned my basic forehand and as such it translates heavily on my badminton moves. But recently, I've learned to unlearn my tennis and play real badminton, intelligent, strategic, powerful badminton. I run better now and have better foresight of offense and defense. I'll probably still be a work in progress for quite some time, but I realized tonight that I can work on my weaknesses, as a true badminton player.

On the positive side though, I landed the SWEETEST soft shots tonight. I was surprised that I could land one, let alone two,(yes I counted), I landed 5! Just a tad bit more, and I can kill them with my demure absolutely-no-recovery soft shots. Sure I'm no Ginger nor will I ever be of Jojo-calibre, but I've come a long way, and kill me for riding out my confidence tonight.

Sweet soft shots, wapak.

One Less Thirty

I'm still nursing a residual hangover from one of the rockstariest weekends ever. I am barely connected to the consciousness of the world at the moment, and as such, I had just asked our staff to procure some pineapple juice. I don't exactly know how this works, but one never questions the potent ability of a good hangover remedy.

Methinks ... I've so much to write about, but currently without enough coherence to do so. It's like my brain cells are enjoying a weekend at a remote island and frolicking in the sand. I am not even cognizant of the time.

I need a nap.

Mrs. De Lima, Thank You.

I've been watching the ANC live coverage of the DOJ inquisition/ fact-finding of the Quirino grandstand hostage taking since it started. And I have to give it up for Mrs. De Lima for taking the lead to answer the questions malingering in the minds of many Filipinos. Having this aired on TV clarifies many things about what truly happened.

Sadly, the PNP is flawed. They better get ready for the onslaught from the international community, most especially the Hongkong government. I hope that the Aquino government rehabilitates the police force ASAP. What an embarassament to the international community if we continue having ill-trained, ill-equipped local policemen. No wonder the Abu Sayyaf in Mindano hasn't been quelled, no wonder private armies are prevalent among the rich and the powerful, no wonder it still scares me to ride the public commute past sunset.

Must study, I hope the Boss doesn't pass on work today.

But It Doesn't Really Matter

I wrote this phrase on my bathroom mirror.

This is to remind me of the true nature of my journey. It doesn't matter how many times I have the bumper of my car fixed, I know I'll keep hurting this car with my driving skills. It doesn't matter how many times I have to nurse sprained ankles and strained muscles, I'll keep on running, I'll keep on playing badminton and yes, I'll keep training in the aerobics class even if I can't even sway with the music. It doesn't matter how many times I fall flat on my face, I'll keep on rising each time and brushing off the hurting. It doesn't matter how many times I have to find my eyeglasses, I know I find them every time I lose them.

I took time off my life to figure things out. Well I came up with a list with what I have figured out so far.

1. Apparently, I enjoy wearing make-up, thanks to my pretty niece Cathy, I've finally acquired the necessary skills to wear proper make-up. I may not be a Ms. Universe candidate, not really my major major cup of tea if you ask me, but I feel better and look more organized with a bit of color on my face.

2. I need to train consistently to keep my energy levels up. Thanks to endorphins, I have a stable source of second wind fuel. I am the laziest person I know, but if my chest is abuzzing with a dose of endorphins, I have to burn this excess energy by working out. I can go through my days feeling like I can do everything (of course with periods of procrastiation in between).

3. But then again, I figured out that I don't have to do everything. Yes, I finally toned the restlessness and the messianic complex to a minimum. Daily activities, simple in its range of activities are surprisingly pleasant. So as I enjoy this sabbatical from the busy, I'm actually looking around and smelling the roses. I'm enjoying this break until I've found that sweet comfortable pace that I can tune my life into.

4. It takes a lot of discipline to be a distance learning student. It's so hard to read school books, but once I have my mojo on, it's game time. And paying for school takes it up a notch. Yes, I paid for grad school, so that changes the dynamic of the game. I am doing this completely on my own. It's quite scary, I must admit.

So yeah, I'm focused like a light beam on the things that really matter. After all, why waste good energy on those that don't?

No way, 10lbs!

As an official member of the Burgundy Biggest Loser Club, I had my official weigh in last Friday. I was surprised that I raked in 7lbs short of what I was expecting. Invigorated by such bewildering news, I venture to share a round of Taebo with the other members of the Club. Then played 3 hours of badminton thereafter. Fantastic. I was literally crawling out of the courts in pain.

Then yesterday, I was still in major major disbelief of the progress I've made, so I went and weighed myself in my momma's scale. Her scale has a tendency to add more than what you actually weigh. So in order to have a more realistic view of things, I decided to check my weight on her scale. And instead of 7lbs, it read, 10lbs. No way, I've lost ten pounds since I started training? In spite of the fluctuations? Still?

The definition's coming back, I fit my clothes better and less out of breath when on the treadmill. Perhaps the hours in the gym, on the road running, playing badminton, embarassing myself in various aerobics classes at the gym are paying off, finally.

No more beer. I'm done with that.

Figuratively and literally. I've finally arrived at the finish line.

Must maintain it though, and keep losing them LBs.

Passion Sings the Most Beautiful Goodbye

Sometimes I dont understand
Why I thought that I had
All the time in the world
To go and see you awhile
For just a little while.

Too caught up in my own life
I didn't see the pain you hid with a smile
And now you're not here with me
Shoulda been, coulda been, woulda been, alright

Wish I knew how to turn back the hands of time
Cus maybe then I'd be here by your side
Wish that I had done just a little more
Wish that I could see you one more time
But I know that God holds your life
Your battle is finally won and he said well done
My faithful servent well done

Too many times in our lives
do we take things for granted
I dont understand it, no
When its right in front of our eyes
Thinking they would be here for all times

Wish I knew how to turn back the hands of time
Cus maybe then you'd be here by my side
Wish that I had done just a little more
Wish that I could see you one more time
But I know that God holds your life
Your battle is finally won

Wish that I had done just a little more
Wish that I could see you one more time
But I know that god holds your life
Your battle is finally won
Wish I knew how to turn back the hands of time
Cus maybe then I'd be here by your side

Wish that I had done just a little more for you
Wish that I could see you one more time
But I know that God holds your life
Your battle is finally won
And God said well done

----
There is truth in his song. When you know they're in a better place, and yet you still miss them, wishing you did more for them.