Relieved: Comments on the Feast of the Black Nazarene

It has always been difficult for me, someone who a priest has called an "inquiring faithful", to understand many of the rituals and traditions of Philippine Catholicism. Don't get me wrong, whenever I recite the Apostles' Creed, I mean it. It's just that, sometimes, the human aspect of the Catholic Church is not easy to "believe in". Because I often find the actions of many "devout Catholics" to be utterly pointless and adverse to the Christian faith, it's not easy for me to defend the faith when questioned. Many people, myself included, are not good representatives of the Catholic Church.

This Sunday, I felt vindicated when a priest echoed my thoughts in his sermon. Fr. Nolan criticized the devotees of the Black Nazarene in this way. "Mag-tsinelas nga kayo. Baka matusok yang mga paa ninyo. Tingin niyo ba gusto ng Nazareno na magkasugat-sugat yang mga paa ninyo?" Fr. Nolan further told us that when you ask most devotees why they do what they do on the feast day of the Nazareno, they reply "Para matupad ang mga kahilingan namin." I think the priest's internal retort "Ano to, gamitan?" was most appropriate.

It is traditions, no, mentalities like this that make non-Catholic Christians shake their heads at us, marking us as unbelievers who have a very superficial relationship with God.

We tend to treat God like a vending machine. Insert good deed. Select wish. Take wish from compartment below. And when we don't get what we want we become resentful. We smack the machine. We curse at it. We swear never to use it again. This way of thinking assumes that when we do the things good Christians should do, God owes us something. But, how can that be when all the things we have and do are gifts from God? See the disconnect?

The feast of the Black Nazarene is a beautiful example of how Catholicism is still very much alive in the Philippines and how many Catholics are not merely nominal, but are devout. At the same time, to me, it is also a poignant picture of misleading tradition and skewed reasoning.

The Melancholy of Ma'am Kristine: PLP Ghost Stories

Because of my URA appointment, I requested that my teaching schedule be changed. This is how my 6PM to 9PM teaching schedule came to be. And because I feel sorry for my students, I dismiss them as early as possible. This is how my predicament of being constantly left alone in the faculty room came to be.

There is a saying that describes what my co-teachers do whenever they leave me for the night. "Misery loves company", I believe. A lot of my co-teachers dislike being left alone in the faculty room at night for fear that they may become the main character of the latest school ghost story. Before leaving, it almost never fails that a co-teacher would say tell me that "Ay nako, ma'am. Marami talagang multo dito" before narrating his or her encounter with the school's sometimes visible inhabitants.

It's well past Halloween, but I thought it would be fun to tell some of the stories here.

-

From Sir Filipino Teacher
Second Floor Restroom

Shortly after their department head's untimely demise, he went to the second floor girls' restroom to call the janitress assigned to the floor to tell her to clean the department head's room. Because he was male, he could not enter the restroom, and instead called out to the only person he saw inside. No matter how many times he called out to her, the girl in the restroom would not move. He eventually gave up turned to leave only to find the janitress coming up the stairs. Surprised that he had been calling out to the wrong person, he looked back inside the restroom to find it empty.

Sixth Floor

It was late afternoon when he left his students who were practicing their Sabayang Pagbigkas presentation at the sixth floor. On his way back up to check on them, he was met by a number of hysterical students from that class. One of their classmates had fainted because while they were practicing, they saw a group of children watching them and copying all of their movements.

Education Faculty Room Restroom

He says that one of his co-teachers saw a white lady in the faculty restroom.

-

Ma'am Dean
Fourth Floor Senior Faculty Room

This teacher and her student assistant were alone in the faculty room when suddenly the printer began printing a document on its own.

Fifth Floor

She was walking down the hallway when she felt a sudden weight on her back and heard a child laughing at her ear.

-

Sir Natural Science Teacher

Fourth Floor Faculty Room

It was Saturday and he was closing up the faculty room when suddenly he heard someone whispering in his ear.

-

Sir Part-Time Filipino Teacher

Third Floor

He was on his way home after a late class when suddenly a door slammed shut when there was no wind and no one was there. He ran down the stairs as fast as he could.

-

Sir PE Teacher
Old PE Department Faculty Room

Shortly after the untimely demise of one of their colleagues, the members of the PE department were stuck in the faculty room waiting for the rain to let up. While they were doing their business, they heard someone calling out to their companion, "Sir B---! Sir B---!" When Sir B-- went out to see who it was, there was no one there.

Fourth Floor Faculty Room Hallway

On his way home, after locking up the faculty room, he noticed that no matter how much he walked he couldn't reach the end of the short hallway between the faculty room door and the fourth floor stairway landing.

Sixth Floor Classroom

In the middle of his class, his students suddenly ran to the front of the room, frightened. When he asked his students why, they told him "Sir, hindi niyo ba naririnig yung mga batang umiiyak? Ang lakas." He told them to return to their seats, but they were too afraid to do so and he spent the rest of the class with his students seated at his feet.
His students and dance troupe members also tell him that they always see children running around the sixth floor, as if in play. The children run and hide whenever they hear him coming. He jokingly claims that the ghostly children are afraid of his loud voice.

-

Urban Legends
Mango Tree

It's a true story that a girl asked her boyfriend to climb up the school's mango tree to pick some mangoes. The boy fell off the tree and died. Some claim that they see the boy sitting on the mango tree at night. Also, the mango tree doesn't bear much fruit nowadays when it used to bear lots of fruit in the past.

The child in red

A child wearing red is seen in various parts of the school at the oddest times.

Spirit Parade

A couple that used to work as maintenance crew claim that they sometimes see ghostly figures around the school grounds. The ghostly figures enter the school and climb up to the higher floors in the wee hours of the morning.

-

Personally, I've never seen any of these spirits. I have to admit, I fear being left alone, but I don't really have much of a choice. That's life. Thankfully, so far, prayer has kept me safe. And, if I end up meeting one of these ghosts, maybe my prayers can save them, as well.

Dr. Banzon in the hospital

From Dr. Villagonzalo's email to SanD

"Dr. Banzon is confined at the Marikina Valley Medical Center, Room 6011 (9am to 10pm visiting hours)."

Ah... I don't even know where that is! From what I heard he's already lost a lot of weight, and now he's back on the sick bed again. It's a bit more worrying than usual.

The Melancholy of Ma'am Kristine: Midterm Angst

For the midterm results, a mode of 9/40 says a lot.

It says a lot about your abilty to teach.

It says a lot about your expectations.

It says a lot about your need to change some things.

Quite frankly, I don't want to find out what it says, but the numbers are screaming at me in this piercing manner that I can't ignore. Perhaps, it's for the best that I take that GA job.

-

Apparently, there's such a thing as 'too nice', especially if you're a teacher.

-

I'm sure they don't find Physics interesting, but they will be interested in it. Their college lives depend on it.

-

I find it painfully sad that I knew who was going to pass that exam without even giving it. No pleasant surprises there.

Screw you, LiNa@Jobstreet

To keep a long story short, is it too much to ask for a job that has something to do with your field of study?! I did not slave away for six and a half years in BS Applied Physics to become a call center agent, secretary, administrative assistant, tech support, etc. etc.

People who first find out about my course say, "Ah... there are many opportunities in Physics" (provided they don't say, "O? What's that?"). Well, I'm not seeing opportunities anywhere. There are opportunities for engineers, for geologists, for biologists, and chemists. But Physicists?

I don't know... Maybe I'm not looking hard enough. Maybe I'm just being an idiot. Or maybe my pride is getting in the way of employment. I really don't know. I'm from UP, from Pisay, even, everyone else says doors should be opening up for me left and right.

I hate this.

Dream: Rebel Ivan

It's one of those dreams that had no prodding, no source stimulus. Most people dream about things because of a movie or a conversation (much like Ralph does after I make a preposterous proposition of a couple), but apparently, I don't belong in that category. My dreams come from out of nowhere. O_O

It began with an unfortunate event that I don't really remember. I angered someone I shouldn't have: a higher up in the country and that person was making my life a living hell. Of course, my dream had to be set in a world full of political turmoil and uncertainty.

I was just being me and that place wasn't the right place for it.

So, a few UP friends and I get caught in the middle of crossfire between said person who hates me and a rich old guy who looks like Eddie Garcia (Leonard, in my dream, is the one that points out that the rich guy looks like Eddie Garcia). Eddie Garcia lookalike helps us, but at this point, Ivan has already gone missing. Our mutual enemy has taken him as some sort of cruel and twisted punishment for me.

In a swimming pool (yes, a swimming pool, don't ask me why), I was moping and crying right after the lady who hates me tries to kill me by pulling my head down by my hair under the water. Glai helps me out and she leaves me alone. The weird part about my "crying" in my dream is, despite the fact that there was the characteristic tightening of the chest and burning in the eyes, the tears don't fall. So, I generally look like I'm wheezing and hyperventilating, which is very dangerous in a swimming pool, if I may add. Leonard comes by and tells me he saw the catfight. I ask why he didn't help. He said it wouldn't have been smart to get involved in a fight between women. I throw my left Islander shoe at him and it hits him on the back. Glai, behind me, laughs.

Out of the pool and sitting by what looks like a ferry station, I see a small wooden houseboat painted bright yellow and purple. I have a weird feeling about the boat and stare at it. It's big enough for only one person to ride in and looks like it was made to sink, even with its shiny new coat of paint. There is a stick used as a brake and for maneuvering hanging off the side. It's being carried away by the current. While I'm watching the boat, Ivan's head pops out from inside the house. I give a yell and try to go to him, but the boat is moving too fast. He tries to use the stick to brake, or so we could pull him up, but the stick breaks when it hits the glass window of the ferry station. I scream and run, but I can't catch him.

The next scene is, I'm lying on a bed I'm sharing with three other people. The one closest to me is Leonard. Ivan is still missing, and I'm still crying. I wonder out loud where Ivan could be and what could have happened to him. Leonard couldn't tell me that Ivan was alive, but he said he hoped, too, that Ivan would come back. Then, I ask him, "Asan na si Glai?"
Leonard replied, "Umuwi sa Cavite." He takes my hand and squeezes it reassuringly and I cry even harder. I know he can feel me shaking, even though he can't hear the sobs. Minor detail, but dream!Leonard has much smaller hands than the one in real life.

After what appears to be a long time, I wake up next to my mom. I'm back at home. I go to the bathroom to, surprise surprise, cry. While I sit on the steps leading into the tub, Ivan comes in and hugs me. He's wearing a light blue button-down polo with a white shirt inside. His hair is cut in that stupid flat-top hair style that was popular in the 80's, but somehow he looks good with it. As he holds me close, he tells me, "Give me something to miss." For the first time in my dream, I cry for real. Tears begin to fall. Then realization hits me.
"To miss, you mean aalis ka ulit?" I ask him.
He tells me, "We need your help. Speak to the indigenous peoples for us." Apparently, I'm some kind of advocate on the matter. He leads me out of the bathroom, out of the bedroom, and into the kitchen where three of his comrades are. one is a geophysicist, another is some old guy who is a leader of the group, and the third is a familiar face: Peter. Peter greets me and I, him. I ask the geophysicist guy if he knows Lourdes. He doesn't. Peter explains that that guy (Jun?) never got to practice geophysics and that he was a schoolteacher. I take note of that information. The three guys explain to me what they need from me and I agree to help. I ask them how they came across Ivan. If they picked him up after his boat sank, or something. Peter replies, "Hindi naman ganun. Nakita namin siya sa Quiapo. Tinulungan namin siya."
Then, they pack up and leave. Before they do, Ivan takes me into my room to "talk" to me in private. He kisses me and tells me he won't be back for a while. I'm already contemplating how our life would be like. We're not yet married, after all. I tell him it isn't like him to become what he is. He tells me, "The order of the movement is a lot better than the lack of order in the country." He further explains to me that some British group is financing their operations. From the way he talks, I sense that he is not only an "advocate", he is also one of the leaders. We do the deed in my dream, but my brain censored it like an MTRCB member. V_V

I am now sitting in Ivan's camp. It's idyllic, like the small barrios in the provinces we've been to. I'm holding a pad of intermediate paper and a black Dong-A gel pen. I'm writing down what appears to be the fate of those around me. Geophysics guy is still a teacher. The old guy is dead. Peter is highly impassioned to the point that he seems to have lost his mind and has begun sacrificing chickens to the tree spirits. Some of the other members of the camp say they will have words with him once they begin running out of chickens for food, but that he is harmless up to that point. In my dream, I predict that he will get to the point where they will have to restrain his activities. I frown at a chicken that is nailed to a tree.
Then, I have another premonition. Ivan's parents are in danger. The group gets a hold of plans which detail the assassination of two people. Ivan recognizes the locations to be his parents' workplaces. He leaves camp to save his family and I go after him. I watch him get shot because he is outnumbered and ill-armed (Ivan, love, in case you become a rebel leader whose parents are about to be killed by military assassins, if plan to save them, bring more than two bullets, okay?). Because there is an exchange of fire, I can't go to him. I can't see him.

I wake up because the sight of seeing the guy who shot Ivan convulsing as his body is riddled by bullets fired at him by Ivan's comrades is too much for me.

Huh. It's so strange how long and detailed this is. But, that's really what I remember. Maybe I should go see a psychiatrist or something.

Dream: Ghost Fighter!

I was a delusional kid back in elementary school and I liked to pretend that I was Dennis (aka. Kurama from Yu Yu Hakusho). Last night, without any bidding, I dreamed I was Kurama, which was just too weird.

It was a fight. Post Makai tournament. I was Shuuichi. I was standing beside Yusuke and Hiei. The guy we're fighting makes these weird spikes which look like gnarled roots sprout up from the ground. I'm impaled. There are exactly sixteen holes in my body, from the back straight out the chest. Before I can even feel the pain, I am outside the body, watching as the lights go out of Shuuichi's green eyes.

"Kurama!" Yusuke yells from below.

And then, next thing I know, I'm standing at the bottom. The spikes are gone and so is the body. The enemy is stuttering, confused and frightened. Kurama should be dead. I should be dead. Then, I go on to say something like, "My body took a lot of damage, but it's confused. Should it be in this form or in that? That way, I survived."

When I woke up, I was all O_O and "oh, cool". LOL.

Dream: De ja vu?

I had a long conversation with Ivan last night about the things that happened between one of our college friends and myself between two to three years ago. My dream probably stemmed from that.

There were several of us who went out that day. In my dream, it was one of those rare times when our work schedules jived and we ended up whole, as a group. It was a conspiracy, I tell you. Our friends contrived to make that person and I talk. It was a short conversation:

That person: I suppose, because of everything, you're no longer...
Me: Please, I don't want to discuss this. Let's not ruin this reunion between friends.
That person: So you still feel the same way?
Me: Does it matter at this point? I don't see any reason why I should have to tell you...

And then I stretched my arms out, a bit exasperated, and then I felt pain. OMG, the pain in my muscles from joining that Body Pump class woke me up, and I was given another reason why that class is now my favorite. +_+

Save Up?

Perhaps it's the really kuripot side of me that makes touching my savings unthinkable. I'm always thinking, What if something comes up? So, my money is pretty much going stale at the Pasig Cooperative, under the watchful eye of Ka-Impok. I didn't touch the money to buy a new laptop and I have no plans of touching that money to fix up my car. I'm not going to spend my life savings on such short-sighted things. A trip to the moon or a functioning green house in Antartica, now those are things I would spend money on.

A few years ago, back when we were still 2/3 of M13's "Powerpuff Girls", Patty Jhocson and I talked about managing money. She said something along the lines of, "It's not just that we have a lot of money, we do, but there are a lot of people who earn as much as our parents do. It's what we do with that money we have that counts."

And, newsflash, people, she's right.

I didn't realize until the people around me began earning money how most people really dealt with their money. The money that is left in the ATM account that the office uses to disperse salaries is always for something in particular, never for the future. No one saves for a rainy day, anymore. Well, I do, but I've been informed (with as much affection as possible) that I am weird.

But, is opening a bank account really what it's all about? I have a savings account at BDO, where the interest rate is 0.75%. Two years ago, the bottomless iced tea at Chocolate Kiss was worth P45. If I put that P45 in the bank, and I withdrew that money plus the interest it got two years later (which would mean, like, now), I would get P45.6775. That seems like a good deal, considering I just sat around and waited for my money to earn 68 centavos on its own. However, the last time I went to Chocolate Kiss, which was last Tuesday, the bottomless iced tea was worth P48. So my money from two years ago plus interest isn't even worth one bottomless iced tea with the honey watered down.

It's not just about saving up, it's about investing. Yeah, yeah, I know, it's risky business. I know squat about managing a portfolio and my bottomless iced tea money isn't even enough to buy a fund manager his own bottomless iced. So, right now, I'm considering putting some money into a Unit Investment Trust Fund, which is, to make a long explanation short, a fund that allows the bank's fund managers take care of investing your money for you. But I'm apprehensive about investing right now. The markets are unstable (because of social uncertainty and the US recession) and all the banks I've gone to have admitted that the value of their portfolios (and, effectively the money of their investors) are falling.

So, my battle plan is to stuff a certain amount of money (preferably money I earned and not the money I've been saving) into a short term time deposit, let it brew there a bit (earning a couple of pesos along the way), then invest half of it at the end of the year. I'm hoping that the US elections next year and the economic reforms implemented this year will help the market improve by 2009. If all goes well, the rest of my time deposited money will be invested by the end of March 2009.

Does that seem reasonable or should I just ask Ka-Impok to take care of everything?

Missing Methodology...

Modesty aside, when I conceptualized this study on decoupling in August of 2007, I believe I was demonstrating an incredible amount of foresight. I wanted to treat the GDP/GNP and currency as products of a complex system and use them as indicators of economic coupling or decoupling. Basically, I wanted to find out if a model Asian economy (probably Thailand or Indonesia, not the Philippines) would decouple from the US economy and, if so, what next? Would it couple with China? Would some form of independence be achieved? The big BUT of this study, though, is the methodology.

What would be the best way to go about the study?

At that time, I tried to devise a risk, compensation, and response model, but it's a bit complicated (needs to be tested on simpler systems), is computationally expensive (but not as much as MD), and would not be able to work for longtime simulations (try simulating several years). I'm also considering projection methods, which would use previous data to predict the future trends. I'm just not sure what would work well on coupled data like the ones that I would have to use. And then, of course, I could just use differential equations.

Hmmm... what to do, what to do? I want to finish a concept paper on this before June so I can formally propose it to Dr. Banzon and my prospective research partner.

A Little Black Book

My 82-year old grandfather has a little black book. Every year, he changes that little black book, filling it with relevant names and birthdays, with other pertinent information in his life. To a man who came from a time when a man's virility is of utmost importance and is best reflected not just by the number of children he has, but by the number of women he keeps, his little black book is quite important. The worn out little leatherette booklet that I noticed him flick through every now and then, for me, was just another reminder of his many indiscretions as a man of his time.

My lasting memories of my grandfather are of conversations beginning with "O, hija, ano'ng grade mo na?" and ended with "Mag-doktora ka. Mainam na may doktorang nakakabit sa pangalan mo. Nirerespeto ka kahit saan ka pumunta." Even as a young child, I knew how title-conscious my grandfather was. But, to me, he was just a man who came from a time when a man's accomplishments are best measured by the titles he holds and the money he earns. Despite this, he's one of the many reasons I decided to get a PhD. "Doctor pa rin naman, of Physics nga lang," I would joke.

Our conversation during this afternoon's reunion started a bit differently from what I was used to. "I have 47 grandchildren," he told me and Tito Danny, the husband of one of my mother's sisters. I was curious, because I knew he only had 29 grandchildren from his 11 children by his legitimate wife, my grandmother. He opened his little black book and showed me three neatly handwritten columns of the names of his children. I think he had 18 in all. Beside the name of each child, he had written how many grandchildren he had by that child. He proudly counted his grandchildren off. "47," he said with no small amount of pride. I later on learned that aside from the names of all his children, the birth dates and phone numbers of each child was contained in that little black book. Every time he got a new black book, this very important information, he meticulously rewrote.

Now, I'm not trying to romanticize my grandfather's little black book. I don't doubt that amongst the names of his children are the names of some of his friends, even some of his old girlfriends. But, the very fact that he would take the time to write his children's names down in that small volume wherein he keeps what information he considers important to him made me see him in a slightly different light. It made me realize that he did care for things outside his reputation.

Like Clockwork

1. Mood swings that put British weather to shame,
2. Strong desire to stuff myself with all kinds of fattening comfort food,
3. Painful cystic acne that imply that I have yet to win that battle with sebum that began in puberty,

and then, finally, the telltale nearly unbearable pain in my abdomen. Every month, they happen without fail. They sound like horrible things, and trust me, they're no walk in the park, but I'm always grateful whenever I these signs arrive. After several years of periodic amenorrhea, they don't seem so bad.

WTF?! No signal?!

It was, apparently, a nationwide problem. (GMANews.TV)

It was around 16:10 when I noticed that my phone status was "No Access" rather than its usual "GLOBE" or "For Emergency use Only". I was concerned because Ivan, who was supposed to meet me at 16:00 had yet to arrive. I found it a bit strange since I was in an area where the signal is always pretty good.

I did the first thing I always do when I can't get a signal, I dialed *77#. Nothing. Perhaps a phone glitch like "Insert SIM"? I turned my phone off and turned it on after a minute or so. The "Searching" status was on for about five minutes before reverting to the dreaded "No Access".

I assumed the worst and thought that it was because I had yet to pay my phone bill, so I quickly changed into my TM sim. I went to the 7-11 next door and bought a load card for my TM sim, but when I turned my phone on, the status was still "No Access". I was quick to berate myself for losing my Sun sim.

I decided to go old school and use the phone booth, but when I dialed Ivan's cel number, it was unattended, as well. Frustrated, I called Leonard who told me all Globe subscribers had no signal. My first thought was, "Well, crap." After ending my conversation with Leonard, I decided to wait for Ivan a bit longer. When he didn't show up, I went to the badminton place we were supposed to go to, and found him there.

Miscommunication.

-

When I was in elementary, meeting up required that you knew what time you were going to meet and exactly where. With no way to communicate in transit, the need for a definite agreement was great.

In high school, I had a pager. I usually gave the excuse that the messages never got to me, which they oftentimes didn't, so the pager really wasn't much of an improvement. I remember this one time that my high school friends and I were supposed to meet, I waited over an hour for them at National Bookstore only to receive their page long after we'd met up that they would be late.

Near the end of high school, I got my first celphone. I thought it was frivolous and expensive, especially since I already had a pager. Now, it's indispensable. Times like this, I realize how much so.

My, how things change is such a short time...

January 8, 2008

This was a memorable day at the very least. A lot of things happened: some momentous no matter how you look at it while other events were important and noteworthy only to us. There were a lot of reasons to celebrate. Small things, unexpected things, and even things that bring incomparable joy were what colored so vibrantly the beginning of our sixth year together as a couple.

You just know that there are many things to look forward to when you have beginnings like this.

Edges

We picked up my dad from Sta. Ana, Cagayan this Christmas. If you look at the map above, you'll find Sta. Ana at the north-eastern tip of the Philippines. When we went to San Vicente,

I found it hard to deny that we were, indeed, at the edges of the Luzon mainland.

The weather was bitterly cold and, while we were there, the rain wouldn't let up. There was always a layer of mist covering the beach, making it a mystical shade of white-gray. On our last day, I went out with my mom and nephew to the beach, despite the cold, strong winds, and light drizzle. I stood there, on the brown sand, letting the waves lap at my feet, watching my nephew throw rocks at the unaffected sea.

It was an odd feeling, standing there at the edge of the ocean, feeling the sand getting sucked by the current back to the briny deep. Small stones and sharp edges rushed past my feet as I thought of where I would end up if I got sucked in, as well. If I took a few steps forward from where I was standing, the waves were certainly big enough to do just that.

How Do You Fall in Love?

Someone asked me that question last night. And no, that person wasn't asking about circumstances or methods, that person was asking about how I would know if I were in love. That person wasn't asking in general, either. The question was only for me.

I had answered with a cheesy freestyle poem that I wrote right then and there. I really don't know why I bothered to put it in that way or if I subconsciously stole it from some other writer who writes cheesy freestyle love-love schmutz. I mostly got it from a line I told someone a long time ago, "If I knew the reason why I love you, then it would be easy to find a reason not to love you." In any case, my first answer to the question was this:

If I knew the "who"s of who I would fall in love with,
I would not need to pine for that person anymore
If knew the "when"s and the "where"s,
I would not need to search anymore
If I knew the "why"s;
Then I would find the reason not to, anymore
If I knew the "how"s;
I wouldn't fall in love anymore.

To put it simply, if I were to be completely honest, the only answer I would give to that person's question would be "I don't know". How do I fall in love? Like most people, I would say that my heart beats faster at the sight of the one I love. My cheeks become flushed at the mere thought of him. My mind is always filled with thoughts of him and his mere presence makes me happy. Unfortunately, these very things are also indications of an infatuation. How to differentiate love and infatuation from each other is a completely different matter, if one considers these two things different at all.


I believe that we cannot choose the people that we develop strong feelings for, whether those feelings be love or infatuation. But, regardless of this, I also believe that falling in love needs some kind of decision. Two years ago, I would have told you that the key to falling in love is "social distance" and "attraction factor" (the former being explained by my Proximity Theory of Relationships and the latter being a basic necessity of falling in love). However, I've given up putting emotions into these pretty little boxes and tying them up with neat little bows. It's just more fun to see how wonderfully chaotic and illogical feelings are.

So, leaving that tangent, we go back to the question. How do I fall in love? I don't believe in love at first sight because I don't believe we fall in love in an instant. The realization that we are strongly attracted to a person takes a while to set in, at least for me. Once it sets in, the decision to accept these feelings takes an even longer time to make. Only the decision, the transition between "I don't know how I feel..." and "I'm in love!", is seemingly instantaneous. But, like other "Eureka!" moments in our life, it is not, really.

And, falling in love is a continuing decision, in my opinion. I've fallen in love three with three men in my life, but I've fallen in love countless times. At different points in time, I find myself reevaluating how I feel, checking if I still love that person. For our relationship to be meaningful, at those moments, I decide as often as those moments come, that I am still in love.

Birthdays and Murphy's Law

The ultimately pessimistic Murphy's Law says

"Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong at the most inopportune time."

So, when is the most inopportune time for all of hell to break out of the proverbial Pandora's box? I suppose, for a lot of people, it would be their birthdays. Yeah, you know, that one day in the year that you firmly believe is yours despite the fact that you probably share it with, like, 19,125,683 other people in the world.

But really, that's not my point.

On November 22, my brother celebrated his 26th birthday and Murphy's Law decided to pay him its usual birthday visit. There was a typhoon, the car he was using broke down and had to be towed, and my mom and I came home late with his birthday dinner cause of horrendously heavy traffic in Makati. You'd think that despite his birthday track record, he'd be used to bad luck on his birthday. His birthday mishaps has ranged from not getting picked up from school (he was in kinder) to falling off a horse (Tagaytay, when he turned 11) to having an infected ingrown toenail that needed to be operated on(when he turned 21). But, I guess, having a lousy birthday never gets old.

Yesterday, Ivan celebrated his birthday amidst the national crisis of coup d'etat and lousy gray weather. He left the house right before it started raining and got soaked. The people whom he was supposed to celebrate with couldn't come because of the coup and to top everything off, we couldn't stay out too late because of the curfew. Again, despite the fact that he had lousy birthdays before because of storms and such, I suppose it must have sucked to be ODed on Murphy's Law.

But, when things go infuriatingly wrong, there's also a saying that when you've hit rock bottom, there's nowhere to go but up (and what's more "rock bottom" than becoming the poster child for Murphy's Law on your birthday?) My dad came home from Cagayan Valley and the family had a luxurious lunch at the Manila Penn to celebrate my brother's birthday on November 25. He got money to construct enough fishtanks to make our house look like a mini version of Ocean Park, Hong Kong and he seems to be doing much better now.

On the other hand, today, Ivan and I went out on a date. We went for a dip in the condo, we had lunch at Fazoli's, his favorite restaurant, and we had his favorite frappe from McCafe. It was a long afternoon date that I hope made him feel better about the birthday gift Trillanes gave him.

Workplace related Sevens

I got these from the November issue of Readers' Digest and thought they were interesting. While I'm not sure how applicable they are to the Filipino workplace, I thought it would be good to share the tips anyway.

7 Rules to live by when using your work computer

Know your company's computer use policy and comply with it.

Assume that you're being monitored and behave accordingly.

Never bad-mouth your company online.

Don't use personal email accounts or post to a blog.

Avoid transmitting any message that could embarrass you or others if made public

Don't think instant messaging is less permanent than email.

When surfing the Web, never click on something flagged NSFW (not safe for work).

I only know of two or three companies that monitor the online habits of their staff. The article this list came with cited examples of people getting fired for their seemingly "harmless" activity. It's a fun read. While Filipino bosses are generally more tolerant, it's always a good idea to be safe and informed.

The ironic thing about this is that half of the people who will read this post will be doing so at work. LOL.

Okay, onto the next seven. Well, seven days to be exact. It's from the RDYou section of the same issue. The title of the article is "Which is the best day..." and relays which days are most suitable for which office activity.

Monday - Delegating, organizing, and setting goals

Tuesday - Online job hunting

Wednesday - Brainstorming sessions and projection of future plans

Thursday - Ask co-workers for things, ask for a raise

Friday - Confrontation of colleagues with grievances, be more cautious

weekend - well... rest.

That said, I will wait for Tuesday to resume looking for a job.

Note: Above are merely key points in the RD articles they came from. I suggest you read the actual article from the magazine. ^_^

End of Chapter

Allow me to be sentimental for a while. I'll come up with narrations when I feel like it, later on. =p

-

Not surprisingly, it wasn't until I watched something sappy that all that had happened within the last two weeks came to coherent form in my head. It was one simple exchange:

"What time does your train leave?"

"At around 930, I think. I already have my apartment cleared out."

"Oh, is that so? So where are you going to spend the night?"

"He's staying with me for one last time... one last time..."

Suddenly, I was back at Los Banos, having dinner with my labmates. It was around 11PM, of October 24th, the just at the end of the first day of the SPP Congress. I was set to go home the next day, after lunch and the other members of SanD were asking me to stay the duration. But, when I think back, one sentence jumps out at me:

"Heto na ang huli nating pagkikita, uuwi ka pa ng maaga." (This is our last meeting and you're going home early.)

At that time, I had laughed it off as sentimental nonsense and even said that "We'll definitely see each other again". It's only now that it dawns on me that the person who said that now works and lives in Zamboanga. It's only now that I come to realize that, even if I stayed with the lab for my master's degree, the others wouldn't necessarily be doing the same. That, the next time I go back to the lab, things would be drastically different, even if the same people are there.

I remember the happiness and sense of accomplishment of the people who had graduated before me. I'm just like them, I felt those very same emotions. And, perhaps, I should have written something when I was in the height of those emotions. I know I wanted to. But, back then, I couldn't find the words. I was at a turning point, and even if time was moving at the same rate as everyone else's, I was accelerating. I was changing direction. The world was spinning so fast and I got caught in its whirlwind. The pre-defense fear and anxiety, the post-defense joy, the hectic pace of SPP preparations, I never got to savor these moments. I never got to appreciate how these things changed me.

As I laughed and joked around with my labmates, as I discussed plenary talks and future research projects with my adviser, as I silently said my farewells to an old friend, I didn't have a chance to look at myself. Then, for the first time, I realized that it looks like I grew up...

...even a little bit.

Warm and Cold

I read this from a friend's blog and it made me smile. I felt that it needed to be shared, so here we go.

last Monday i was going down the long flight of stairs from the train station, right smack into the heart of the busy, congested highway that is EDSA. at the bottom of the stairs i noticed this one street vendor and one taho vendor having a hurried conversation. it went something like this:

Street Vendor:
[extending a plastic containing packed lunch to the other] kunin mo na o.. (you
can get this..)

Taho Vendor: hindi na, ayos lang.. (no, it's fine..)

Street Vendor: eto naman, sige na! (come on, take it!)

Taho Vendor: [fishes out a couple of coins from his pocket and shoves it into the hand of the other guy]

Street Vendor: sus, wag na! sayo na yan. (no need. just take it, it's yours.)

at that point they were already out of my sight. i dunno if the taho vendor paid for the food that was being given to him or not. but i found myself smiling after that. i'm not aware of the set of circumstances before that scene but it's very nice to know that amidst the poverty in our country some people still care enough to share what little blessings they have. it's strange, though, that i found this display of charity among people both from the lower classes of society while those who are much more blessed choose to turn a blind eye to the plights of the less fortunate.but thanks to those two guys, i think there's still hope for us after all.

Before reading this blog entry from Donna, I heard over the news that a tricycle driver returned an envelope containing P80,000 plus a check to a lady working in a music store. Ate Letty commented on that news segment

Ate Letty: Sana maraming taong ganyan. (I wish there were a lot of people like that)

Me: Marami naman eh. Marami nga lang rin na hinde. (There are a lot of people like that. But there are also a lot of people who aren't.)

Yeah, I know, that's not the nicest thing I could have said, but I was just stating the fact.

Much earlier in the day, Ivan and I were talking over pizza. I was complaining about how expensive the simple act of producing the bound copies of our theses was. He brought up that I had yet to collect (blank) amount of cash from this guy who I couldn't even find. "Yun pa lang, sobra-sobra na para sa thesis mo" (Just that [money] is more than enough for you thesis). I told Ivan that I had long let the money go and he was telling me that I shouldn't trust people so easily (to his credit, he did say that it wasn't really "good advice", but was more practical).

The truth is, I think most people aren't cold beacuse they're heartless; most people are cold because they feel as if there is a need to be. I have the luxury to be warm and giving because I have the extra cash or time or whatever that enables me to be so. For a lot of people that I know, Ivan included, they lived to learn that every centavo they have must be put to good use and accounted for to benefit the family. When that tricycle driver comes to a rough patch, someone might tell him, "Eh ikaw naman kasi, bakit sinauli mo pa yung pera. Ngayong kailangan mo, sino'ng tutulong sayo?" (Why did you return the money? Now that you need it, who will help you?).

So what should we have done?