a walk down the road not known to many

things hadnt been going smooth for me lately. it's nothing too drastic, it's just that my moods keep on getting in the way--which in turn, affects people around me whether i intend to or not. and believe me, i dont.

small things annoy me, pull on my nerves, and trigger my mood swings. i honestly am annoyed when it happens, and it gets more annoying and frustrating when i know about it but cant do anything about it. there isnt really a specific reason "why". i just am. and that is what makes it so hard to deal with. there's no reason to deal with. there's no specific problem to fix--my problem is the moment itself. which shouldnt be a problem. but i make it into one--without meaning to, i assure you.

sometimes, i see myself as a glass of water. small things, big things happen, and it adds up, and adds, and adds until i start to get full, near the brink of spilling over. because i dont often open up or release these pent up emotions, when i do spill, there's nothing specific to focus on. it's the spilling itself. when you add up things and it spills, you cant ask them to come out one at a time, it goes out in a rush as a whole--an entity you dont recognize anymore.

--------------

last night was one of those nights. i got annoyed over such small a thing, annoyance led into frustration and anger. the thing about me is, i act on emotion too often and when the realization kicks in, im too far into my emotions to just pull back with reason. its a one-way drive that i would have to ride until the end. 

this was where L came around. she's a friend of sorts, only known by a very select few. she and i had a talk, a talk i didnt know i needed. i wasnt even surprised that when the moment we started talking, i wasnt even on the edge anymore. i was underwater--just beneath the surface. she talked reason. 

the entirety of our talk was focused on my perspective on failure, disappointment, and trying. im not trying to lift myself up--but im the kind of person (i think) who would rather give than receive. i refuse to take what was given to me unless i really needed it--i didnt want to feel indebted to anyone. i am willing to give out as much as i can without asking for anything in return, because i dont want to expect. cause expectations sometimes only lead to disappointments.

"you dont expect. but it still hurts, doesnt it? you say youre used to it, 
but the truth is, you just disregard it."

why?

it's true i suppose. i guess i believe that if i dont expect--any feelings, any emotion, any pain that comes to me would be entirely my responsibility. 

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"tell me, are you afraid of failure?"

"it's not the failure. it's the disappointment that comes after it. i can handle disappointing myself, but i rather disappoint myself than disappoint others. because disappointing others would also disappoint me."

"so you are afraid of failure because you do not want to disappoint people."

"i suppose."

"you are only human. you commit mistakes. no one is perfect."

 

how do i even differentiate the two? it's a cause-and-effect. one comes after the other, you cannot just take one away. the thing is, i dont want to share myself. i dont want to open myself up. because if i do, my failures would have to involve other people one way or another. and i dont want that. if i fail, when i fail, i rather that i would only be the person involve. its easier that way, at least i believed.

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"you think in a web."

"a web?"

"let me put it this way. imagine a drop of water. it would create ripples wouldnt it? what if it dropped on a lake. would you notice the ripples?"

"no. i suppose not."

"because the lake is too big to be affected by the ripple. you need to learn to see the bigger picture."

it's unfortunate that im writing this down on mere memory--and i might be getting the words wrong but at least the thought is there. i asked where the conversation started--or where it was going. because i was trying to connect things. but sometimes, things are just not connected. some things are ought to be taken one at a time, i guess. and some things, are not worth thinking too much over. because such small a problem, need not to be made bigger. that some things, if left alone, will fix themselves one way or another. there's no sense in kicking yourself too much about it.

--------------

"say for example, you were walking and you fell because the floor was wet. would you just lie there?"

"no. i'd pick myself up."

"and what if you kept on falling? would you just simply give up?" 

"i'd pick myself up again because i wont be able to handle the looks people will give me if--"

"if you just gave up."

"--if i just gave up." 

-------------- 

"the lesson here is that, you need to learn to accept your failures. because lessons are learned from failures and past experiences. keep on trying." 

.

.

.

.

 .

it's unfortunate that i had to write this down on mere memory--and i might be getting the words wrong but at least the thought is there. after all, this kind of talk isnt something you can recreate. but it doesnt matter i guess, as long as i learned something from it. it's not the verbatim that is important, it's the lessons and realizations.

let's see where this will bring me.

--------------

"she can be evil."

"...."

"NOT IN AN EVIL KIND OF SENSE!"

"GAAAAAAAHHDD!"

 -disconnected-

to disappear among other things

so like i said on my last blog, i was away on a retreat so now im back~! for a few day now actually, but yeah i got lazy and ive only gotten to come around and write today. better late than never yeah?

ive much to say really, but its funny how the first two days of our retreat almost bored me to death, not to mention a certain "friend" who im fondly going to call "b" kept on groaning at me about how bored he was and how our speakers are "full of shit" (his words, not mine). nevertheless, the trip was worth it, i suppose.

oh by the way, before we head on into the more meaningful events of the retreat, can i just give a tiny space in this post in dedication to the food we had for three days.

applause please.

i honestly cant remember when was the last time in my entire life that i had that much food in a span of three days! i was still full from the last meal and i have to eat yet another meal within the next two hours. can you imagine, five meals in one day! unfortunately i wasnt able to take a picture of our meals since phones were confiscated during the retreat. but of course there are people, like me, who refuse to hand over their phones. but that doesnt mean i was going to let other people see that, especially the organizers.

surprisingly, after spending two nights in a retreat house, there isnt much "activity" for me to witness--at least nothing i couldnt handle or worth freaking-out over for. curious about the first night though when i woke up--as in totally woken up, with no trace of sleepiness--at three in the morning and for the second night, there was a moment where my hand was pulled from my pillow and apparently i suddenly sat up in the middle of the night then promptly went back to sleep--yeah weird. i know.

anyway, what else can i talk about? its because the sessions were so boring that ive nothing to talk about. i pretty much spent most of my days there eating, sleeping, walking around and reflecting on myself and the things ive done in the past--and the things i should do. it was pretty relaxing--minus the time where we had to sit through hours upon hours of boring talks and sessions. 

however, the part which i would like to take note of, is the candle vigil --which was the last event of our retreat. we, the CAS4 family, were allowed to voice out our thoughts, concerns, and feelings towards one another in a manner that was free and non-judgmental. all in all it was a success as far as i was concerned. most of us, if not all, had the opportunity to throw out those burdens that weve been carrying since our first year of college. and we went to bed that night with a feeling of lightness not often felt by most.

"it's not what you show to others that count, it's what you do."

"dont close yourself from others, you'll never know when someone is feeling the same way that you do, and sometimes, theyre just as scared as you are. learn to give them a chance you would want yourself to have."

pre:retreat

so i wont be around for a few days and i thought i should note it here.

i've been meaning to do this earlier but i fell asleep last night without packing my things so i woke up this morning and went around my room like the little hurricane i am and tried to pack within 30 minutes~ something im good with what with my trips to my cousins' place. what can i say, im a procrastinator.

today is my class' retreat so we'll be going on a "trip" for several days if you can call it a trip. it's an annual thing that my college has where they have you "find" yourself and commune with God and nature again. so i suppose with everything that's happened and been happening and will happen, i should take this opportunity to find my center. i know ive been losing my balance. 

i know i'll get some help doing it. 

here's to hoping i'll survive this with good results!

see you in a few days~!

"i am bad, and that's good"

just how many lessons can you get in one day? 

try in an hour.

let's start first with my day today. 

i went to my college today in hopes of enrolling myself for the second semester, and my last semester--since im graduating this march (hopefully) but i was unable to do so because one of my affiliations were not able to pass some requirements therefore as a member, my clearance was held as well. while that's not exactly my fault, i have nothing else to do but wait until all requirements are settled by that organization.

i was planning to head home after that since ive nothing else to do in school anymore but since i havent seen my friends for a while, i decided to stay and just spend time with them, talking and whatnot. it was entirely on impulse that one of them decided to watch a movie. it actually started with just one of us feeling hungry and wanting a snack. one thing led to another and we suddenly decided that we'll go to the mall and watch a movie.

we honestly had nothing in mind to watch so it was a whatever-is-playing decision on what to watch. wreck-it ralph was one of the choices.

wreck-it ralph is a disney film and surprisingly, and unexpectedly, i learned a lot from it. so here's me sharing this with you. in a nutshell, wreck-it ralph is about a "bad" guy who is tired of his title as the bad guy and prove himself to be a good guy. seems simple enough but it goes deeper than that.

thumbs up to disney for this.

so let's start with this first thing that inspired me: the race car that was made, broken, and remade--and everything that it signifies.

"in order to fix ourselves, we must first accept the fact that we are broken. and sometimes, the result after this realization is even better than the original."

of course, you cant fix something that isnt broken. but being broken doesnt exactly mean youre hopeless--or worse yet, trash. sometimes you have to accept that we arent perfect, only after accepting our mistakes can we move on to fix ourselves and become a better person. "breaking" is merely another way of overcoming our own weaknesses and emerging to be a stronger person with more stacks in experience.  so i guess what i want to say is that, nevermind being broken--everyone gets broken at some point in life, what makes us the person that we are is what we do about it. do we ignore it? do we allow ourselves to be disappointed about it? or do we overcome it?

second: ralph's "reputation"

"just because you and other people around you think or believe youre not doing any good doesnt mean you arent. we all have our roles to play--even if we and those around us dont understand it yet."

sometimes we dont understand why things happen. why us? why me? those are questions often asked when we feel as if nothing goes our way--as if the world is against us. but sometimes, these things are just lessons waiting to be learned. we dont have to understand why--at least not yet. not until we're ready to know why, and why us. these tasks, these roles, these experiences and lessons are given to us, given to you, not to burden you, but so you can overcome it and become a better person. and you know what? it's not a question of if you can overcome it. there is a certainty. you can, and you will, overcome it--there is a reason it was given to you--it's because you can. there is a reason these things happen, whether we understand it or not. i do believe everything happens for a reason. 

it doesnt matter if you dont understand yet why. what is important is that you will. eventually--trust me on this. life finds it's way to explain itself to you. you just need to be patient and be observant. sometimes the answers that you seek is just around a corner. it may not be in front of your eyes, but it is never far from you. after all, part of the lesson is how you get there--not just the lesson itself.

third: ralph

"sometimes people have to do what they have to do even though other people cant understand why they have to do it, even if it means appearing to be the "bad guy" in their eyes, even if it's not appreciated."

while the second "lesson" is about the situation, this one about you as a person, or the people around you. if you understood the lesson before this one, then this will lead you to understanding how people act sometimes. sometimes people do things that you dont understand and there will also come a time when you have to do some things that people wont understand--because you have to, and because it's the right thing to do. because it's your duty and there will be no other way and there are no other people who can do it--only you. sometimes doing the right thing is not the easiest thing and sometimes doing the right thing can risk a lot of things. your friends. your relationships. your reputation. or even you yourself. but you just got to do it--because it is the right thing, because it is what it should be, or maybe because it's the only way. rest assured that you will know it when this time comes and you will understand why and why you. you would know that you have to risk it--because just like in the first lesson, sometimes you need to break things to emerge with something new. something better. 

so maybe we need to think back on the people we originally thought were against us. maybe they were just trying to help us and we only didnt understand then. perhaps now, if we look back to it, maybe we'll find out they were only trying to do what's best for us. 

in our path to understand and search for ourselves, we take on a journey that is far more than we have initially imagined. sometimes its better than we hoped for or it may not be what we expected. and sometimes, after all that we do, after all that we experienced, we return to where we first started--only this time we are better, more knowledgeable, armed with experience and understanding. 

it's ironic really, life. to go so far only to return to the beginning. for you to appreciate what you have and who you are, you need to break away from what's familiar and venture into the unknown. because sometimes, the answer to the question you seek, is you. the only hard part is getting there. and sometimes, help comes from the most unlikely of places.

and now we've come to a full circle.

"searching for yourself takes you on a journey which will eventually, and certainly, bring you back to where you started: yourself."

two can keep a secret if one of them is dead

helloooo november~!

oh god. i havent written and forever! hello hello~ if you are here reading this, you are either a: one of those few who i gave this new link to, or b: someone who is determined to find this page since i changed this a few while ago--granted i threw the link around to see who cared enough or nosy enough to take a peek into this corner of mine. thank you thank you, whoever you are, for reading this--whether youre a friend or not. 

oh by the way! apparently, it has come to my attention that i've pulled some nerves with a previous post. well really, im going on a limb here and assume that it's me she's talking about.

hee~

it would take me a while for me to get over that. ah hah~ blood~ i see blooood~ let me laugh for a bit. youre too obvious girl. how many public, self-proclaimed witches are there around anyway? so im gonna assume thats no coincidence. you really wanted me to see that didnt you? trust me, i honestly want to copy your thoughts and paste it somewhere for my safekeeping! im so flattered. look, im even blushing. eeeee~! god im so giddy. by the way, im not mad. im not even sarcastic about this. im really amused~ thanks for making my night.

i actually planned on not reacting on it but just to be polite since she took some time to react to me, i'd do the same for her. first, if she's indeed ranting about me ranting about her, i'd say she's wrong because i never ranted about any particular person in this blog so far. i ranted about society and a group as a whole, yeah, but not a singular person. i also never assumed im superior over anyone, in fact ive accepted that im a very insecure person, thank you very much. but really, this topic has long been over and it should be down in the basement rotting or gathering mold somewhere.

oh by the way, the world that i crave to be part of? i am part of it, have been for almost a year now. and it's a world not many would understand--and i like to keep it that way. if this makes me weird then so be it. i know who i am, what i can do, and who i can be.

aaaaanyway, moving on.

i havent been able to write on my blog the past few days because my cousin came over for a week and she has been using my laptop. im on my sembreak and im spending most of it sleeping or out and about, just spending time with people i care about and having some leisure time.

speaking of leisure time, my cousin is almost like my little sister. so when she came over, we decided to get our nails done and make some leche flan~! it was fun on it's own. but what's noteworthy is when we went to moa with j. so there's the three of us. as usual, food tripping is a given. mang inasal for lunch and dippin dots, swensen's and sushi inbetween. anyway, im not sure if i mentioned it but ive been forming an addicting habit with playing technika in timezone in moa. so inbetween food tripping, there's me playing technika, me and my cousin playing dance maniax, and me, j, and my cousin playing billiards. we got home around midnight--though it was unfortunate that we werent able to follow the tradition of spending some time near the sea before going home. that was last october 29. and with me and j just being in moa last oct. 20, it's understandable that im broke. hah.

for all saints/souls day, my mom, cousin and i went to the cemetery yesterday to visit my sister's grave. my cousin went back to their place earlier this morning and so did my mom so i got the house mainly to myself now--as well as my internet. so maybe i'll get to return to watching gossip girl and stuff!

i still have one more week left with my sembreak and i'll be enrolling on monday or tuesday, depending on when i'll get the money. i still havent gotten my grades from last sem since im too lazy to go to school to fix my clearance. well, i'll get that done before wednesday--since my class will be having our retreat! man, im finally a senior now huh? one more sem left! 

hello world, here i come~!!

shoot me for getting this idea but--

so i dont know what happened but i suddenly want a change of wardrobe. style. clothes.

oh fuck--im turning into a girl. im actually looking into day dresses and skirts. >>;;

eitherway, if i do plan to go through with this, it would take a while to completely remake my closet. im not that rich you know. but i suppose i gotta start somewhere.

after 21 years of living, im finally getting in touch with the female inside of me. ahah..

perfect for a date

so let me just start this with me saying yesterday was perfect~

j and i went out for a date and even though i was a bit sick, i still managed to enjoy it. and i would be damned if i didnt write it down here--cause if there's a memory that's needed to be preserved in writing, yesterday would be it.

even though i was burning 39 celsius the other night, i was pretty determined to go out the next day and its a good thing my fever gave me a break--though not after i forced several paracetamols down my poor throat. anyway--moving on.

i dropped by j's place first because we had an appointment in a hospital before we went on for the day. one of his relatives were confined so we decided to stop by for a visit. now im not generally fond of hospitals for several reasons--some understandable and some not, but eitherway, unfortunately since i wasnt feeling very well, all i could do was sit in the corner of the room beside the window to prevent myself from throwing up, which i very much almost did. i recovered though. an hour after, we left.

and then there was that elevator ride on the way down. heh. (..that sounded dirty. it's not.)

aaaanyway, since we were in manila anyway, we took a short walk to harrison plaza. it's a childhood thing. we both had childhood memories in that mall since back when we were kids, its practically the only mall where we can spend some time with our families. it's changed now but the fishpond which we both loved when we were kids was still there. happy happy~

after a nostalgic visit to the fishpond, we finally headed off to moa where we spent the rest of the day. originally we were planning for some sushi but since my body was just recovering from a fever and my sense of taste hadnt fully recovered yet, i decided raw food wouldnt do me much good that day. so instead we went to tokyo tokyo (unlimited rice~!) and had this instead~

the beef was a bit oily so i went and had a cup of dippin dots to remove the taste and we decided to walk around and keep the food down. now i usually dont go into gaming zones but ever since the last summer where my cousin and i found some amusement with playing some of these games, i actually decided to step in one and play until i decided im tired and hungry and ready for one of the main reasons i wanted to go to moa: swensen's ice cream. so let me just---

j's treat. it's so-- omfgdelicious. i want some again. but yeah it's a bit expensive but but but-- it's really worth it. i recommend it to people who have the money and want to indulge with ice cream. ice cream is never a waste of money!

so anyway--let's move on before i start craving for ice cream again. another thing i like about going to moa is their tradition of having a fireworks display every friday and saturday evening. it's at 7pm to anyone who wants to see it and even though it only takes a short while, it's quite lovely to watch. but then again, that's coming from someone who's easily amazed by lights and fireworks.

if anyone's gone to moa, you would know about the huge ferris wheel at the back (yeah, by the sea), they call it moa's eye. im not generally a fan of ferris wheels especially huge ones--not after what happened in enchanted kingdom several years ago, but i decided it's not a bad thing to try again since the cars for the eye are enclosed. it's a bit expensive for a single round but hey, stack it up to experience. it's air conditioned inside! here have a view from the top:

anyway, after the food, fireworks, and the eye, we had nothing else left to do so j and i decided to head back to the back of the mall at the sea wall. every time we go to moa, it's been a habit to end the day just sitting by the wall and looking out at the sea just to talk and spend time together. it's a good practice and a relaxing way to end the day. we usually end up going home late because of this and last night is our latest yet. we left around midnight maybe? or maybe it was almost one in the morning but anyway--

there was almost no ride home left at that time of the night. the one we had left was heading for the general direction of home but it was a new way of going home for us. we were quite tired and fell asleep along the way--and we woke up just in time to miss our drop off. and we found ourselves lost. ahaha~ what we did was get off near a gas station and ask our way back home which we did--eventually. again, stack it up to experience! i got home around 3am and since j had to see me home, he got home later after that. while we were very tired, like, come-home-get-to-bed-and-pass-out tired, it's one of those experiences that i'll keep with me you know?

pictures provided by "sammy". hahaha