Welcoming the New Year with My Newest Buddy

During this season of the year, I assume, Starbucks’ sales is twofold higher than any other days.

I think I will be steering clear from indulging in Starbucks for quite a while. I just spent a couple of thousand to fill the promo card with 24 stickers (2 dozens of coffee). Oh, cut that; I actually spent a couple of couple of thousand, since my first promo card with 15 stickers on it was nowhere to be found.

This just proves that if I severely wanted something, I’d go for it. Even if sometimes, it means stepping out of the line. Which I know is not a very nice thing to do at all times.

The planner’s all worth it though. I promise never to abandon it, like what I did with this year’s planner. Tomorrow, I’m going to start using it. I’m going to start planning all the days ahead of me this coming year. And my planner will escort me, all the way.

My Years as a Martian

Reading a friend’s entry dedicated to her best friend, whom she met in college, is a bit heartrending, for the sole reason that both of my best friends in college had left.

Really, I find it hard to mix out with people knowing how they perceive me. I am quite befuddled how I could give such not so affirmative impressions to people. I mean, I used to have a great deal of friends, without trying too hard. But then, now, I am the high maintenance, the detached and distant, the self-possessed, the oblivious, and even the overdressed sometimes. No matter how I wanted to overturn things, I just couldn’t. Proving to others that I’m like this or like that is not easy. How much more when I intend to prove that I’m not like this or not like that? It’s doubly exhausting.

I know, I’m not supposed to please them. Befriending and pleasing are two disparate terms, and the first one of course is the weightier. But then again, it’s hard to make someone my chum or buddy if he has defined notions about me, and does not even willing to grant me a chance to refute his image of me. I feel alienated most of the time.

It’s depressing how after three years, I have gained no more than borrowed friends whose affections ended with each class. It’s depressing how a semester and a friendship end at one fell swoop.

I miss the two best friends who know me as opposed to what people think. I miss being untroubled with them – doing my silly dance moves which they were trying to bop but they couldn’t, warping my face until I was no longer identifiable, making funny or blunt remarks that would shock but would make them chuckle eventually, and keeping them amused by doing tricks with the different parts of my body.

I miss being surrounded by people who do not only see me by the coating.

The One Soul

Since, I think my eighteenth year on earth, I have been meeting a lot of new people. Yet, they don’t usually stay too long in my days and time.

Not that I never liked them, not that I let our differences impede.

If not, then why?

Have you ever experienced meeting a person whom you think would be someone great to fill in the rest empty rooms in your life, yet the more you know things about him, the more you hold back from making him a stable part of you?

I have, during many points in time.

Why?

Because the more I know about the so many things that have happened to him in the past, the more I know about the many people that have been significant to him since the beginning of time, the more I know about the changes he had been through all those times...the more I am convinced that I am no longer welcomed.

I have felt this, so many times. I have allowed a number of souls to just pass by.

But for once, I was able to keep a single soul.

Since our first meeting, he shared a million experiences and moments all throughout his existence that I have never witnessed, shared a million people I have never had a chance to cross paths with, shared a lot dimensions of himself I have not imagined he could be. Yet, never have I felt that I can never catch up and be within his circle of life-long companions.

It was just a single soul that I was able to keep, that I still keep, and I will forever keep. But then, I never felt sorry, for that one soul weighs way more than that of all the other souls that I just allowed to overtake me.

Happy one month baby, I love you=)

To give validity and justice to the previous entry...

Perchance, some people think that writing as a profession is not suitable to be categorized in the other sort, the complicated sort. For some people, anyone who is educated enough can write. For others even, writing is like being a mailman or a cashier, when everything becomes a routine.

Let me falsify this, once and for all.

Many times in the past, I felt so small whenever I’m in a class where training biologists, physicists, mathematicians, and economists dominate. I used to think that the training I was going through could not match up to theirs. I used to think that what I would become in the future would seem so incompetent unlike what they would become.

But then, after a few years of experience and pondering, my views changed. Writing is no easy thing to do. To be a truly eligible writer, one has to go through a lot of complexities, perhaps the same as those who train to be a doctor.

Writer. Doctor. Writer. Doctor.

I am not trying to be humorous here, by comparing the work of a writer to that of a doctor.

Doctors save lives, change lives, and even take lives – that powerful. But, writers have that same power to save, change, and take lives, also.

Some would argue that doctors do such a rigid and tough job everyday, and writers don’t. At this point, I tell them that they shouldn’t take lightly what writers do.

Writers even think more than doctors do.

Here’s another argument I know would raise a lot of eyebrows. Still, I’m not taking it back.

Doctors do what they already know, and should know, by heart. They do what they have learned, what they should have learned along the way. On the other hand, the things that writers have learned all throughout their trainings would only serve as guides and would just help show directions to what they ought to do. Day after day, they start from scratch. Day after day, they press themselves to lift the lids on top of their heads, and whatever’s inside them should vary, day after day.

So whoever said that writing is easy, you might want to give yourself a chance to have second thoughts on that matter.

Mailman

There was one scene that I remember surprisingly from a distant memory, and more surprisingly, which wasn’t my act. I was only a part of the innocent and unthinking audience. It’s a rare chance that I get to recall way too clearly an incident that had happened in my childhood days I had nothing to do with, so this is a shocker for me.

I just finished my first grade in school then; that must have been more than ten years ago. I turned up in my cousin’s pre-school graduation, just for the heck of it, in the same school that I was attending. Like any other kids, I could not stay still on my seat. My butt was itching to discharge itself from the stool. I wanted to go outside and buy myself one of those pink, fluffy cotton candies and double scoop ice cream outside. But being the behaved kid I was, I chose to wait a little longer.

It has been a tradition in Preparatory graduations that every kid is to go in front of the stage, stand at the center of it, introduce himself, followed by an “I want to be…someday”. So that was how it went. But then, everyone was alarmed when a kid, who I used to know by the way because we were service-mates, suddenly wriggled and brawled on the floor while howling when his turn came. When his parents and a couple of teachers went near him to calm him down, he howled harder and screamed that he wanted to be a mailman. Now that was some kind of a clowning. After the ceremony, we knew from his parents that they told him to say that he wanted to be an engineer, when what he really wanted to be was a mailman instead.

I did find it funny. But, when I think about it again now, I had the same dream when I was younger. Not the mailman thing, but the same sort, and not the other sort; the sort that you just get to do the same things every single day, repeat doing those every time, things that are of no complications but seem fun, at least that is what one thinks of them when he was younger.

A cashier - that was what I wanted to be. I thought punching items all day long was fun. However, as I grew older, I realized that it is not a very huge thing to do. It wouldn’t grant me honor and recognition. I would be no one.

As we age and change, our dreams change as well, from the least complicated to the most complicated. I wanted to be a mere cashier in a supermarket. Now, I choose to be someone, and by being a writer, I know I can be someone.

Wherever he is now, I am pretty certain that his dream changed too, into something bigger than becoming a mailman.

To Start Off my New Year's Resolution

In UP, you don’t get to see the same faces day after day, sem after sem, year after year. You wouldn’t have constant companions right from the first hour up till the end hour of your class. Class after class, you deal with different people.

The harder part of all is coming into a class of diverse people; especially if it’s a GE class wherein every college and course, and every classification is represented. This is a challenge I have never come to wrestle.

When I was a freshman, I was very much intimidated to voice my opinions out thinking that those upperclass men knew better. I was extra panicky during exams thinking that I should study harder because those upperclass men were already accustomed with those notorious exams.

Come now, that I am already in my second sem as a junior, yet I still haven’t combat this feeling. I am still reluctant to speak up because of fear that those new freshmen would think how shallow my thoughts are, considering that it is now my third year in UP. I still get flustered before an exam thinking that I shouldn’t have a grade lower than theirs because they might think why I reached this year with a blunt head and an ineffective strategy.

I know, it is just plain paranoia. I never thought of people that way, and so why would they do?

Perhaps, all this time, I am just finding rational and logical excuses not to believe in myself, and ward myself off from exposing what I think I know.

I have this certain pessimism and spinelessness since, God knows when. I need to undress that self.

I’m gonna put that first in my New Year’s Resolution List. I need to say bye-bye to it.

Closet Meme

The left side of my closet: All these are clothes that I still wear, I put all the others on sale, and gave the rest away.

The other half of the right part: Those are all dresses=)

I came across the most interesting survey=)

three random facts about my closet
>They squeak at full volume whenever I open them.
>They occupy an incredibly big space in my room.
>The stuffs inside are arranged, systematically.

three items I’ve never worn but still haven’t tossed
>A number of dresses, I am still waiting for special occasions.
>A pink corduroy pants, because I think my legs look tree trunks on them. Haha.
>A couple of new tops, just because they’re new.

three things I will never ever get rid off no matter how ugly they get
>My spaghetti straps, even if they get so ugly, I can still use them to layer my outfit.
>My rather expensive jackets, because they’re expensive.
>Perhaps my Chucks, I think they would never get out of style, or if they would, wait for a while and they’d be back.

three things I have a surprising number of
>Belts, I used to like wearing them. Although now, I don’t actually need them, I’ve gained so much.
>Shoes that I can never wear in elbi.
>Havaianas, but I promised myself never to buy a pair anymore. Twenty pairs is just too much.

three dominant colors in my wardrobe
>Blue
>Pink
>Green

three colors that are totally absent from my wardrobe
>None, I believe.
>I don’t have all shades of every color though.
>Haha.

three items that people wouldn’t expect to find in my closet
>A leather jacket, I couldn’t believe it myself too.
>Fur-lined sweatshirt from my aunt abroad.
>Loads of minis – skirts, shorts, sundresses.

three items that never fail to put me in a good mood when I wear them
>Any of my hoodies.
>Those whopping t-shirts I have for a decade, I feel comfortable sleeping with them on.
>My green and pink sundress, I feel so girly on it.

three items that made me go, “Oh Lord, what was I thinking?”
>A size smaller 3-inch red shoes I wore during my cousin’s debut, which killed my toenails. Haha.
>Skechers, eeww. I was planning to throw them away but I always forget.
>A fully sequined dress

Terrified

...I am.

In four days’ time, I will give a salute to my sixth semester already.

Frankly, I am not very thrilled.

Yes, the unscathed books and the up-to-the-minute movies can be held accountable to my feeling sluggish. But more than that, I am really scared, because another semester means another pace towards the finish line. Consequently, reaching the finish line means starting a whole, new, different lap – more serious this time, because I should run as fast as I can, otherwise, I will be left behind, I will not survive - the lap, which I prefer to call the real world.

There were times when I was so eager thinking about the future – earning my own money, purchasing stuffs with that money, and learning strategies so that money will never be all wolfed up. This is the first concern – money.

However, a more important matter concerns me – my career. Wah, thoughts speed up my head now, lots of them, and that troubled me more, making it difficult for me to write them all down.

All I know is that, I am neither very smart nor talented. There are a lot of people who write better than I do, way better. So what I need is determination and hard work.

I am not afraid of a number of doors slamming in front of my face. What I am afraid of, is landing a job in a broadsheet, writing obituaries, all my life. I know I can do more than that.

But really, the process, the trail through to it, terrifies me, greatly. I think I need more time to prepare and set myself up.

When I go out, there in the real world, I want to be ready, I want to be sure. So perhaps it is still acceptable to feel terrified.

Principles To Master

Taking the jump with him is something I was never wrong about. Aside from ending people’s speculations about why we were still unidentified, I also allowed myself to unearth new joys of having someone I can view the future with, in a more transparent version.

I thought the move I made would alter nothing at all, and I thought pretty right. Except that everything is a score higher. That is - the love of course, the sugariness, the effort, the spark, and all else nice and positive. Although we have not submitted ourselves yet to wearing matching outfits and I am sure we never will, calling him the boyfriend gives me a tingly feeling and other people seeing us gives me a different kind of delight, something that I had never felt before.

But of course, I know too that the step I made with him isn’t all about the upbeat feelings and the monthly celebration. It’s about obligations, compromise, and setting aside pride, too.

And I am confident to say that I am confident, about the whole US story.

Ever since I had enough understanding about relationships, I have always believed in the principle of Cost and Reward. It says that reward should still be greater than the cost. If one gets less than what he gives, then it can be grounds for terminating a relationship.

He has been the nicest boyfriend one can imagine. He is appreciative of every little thing I do. Doing little, beautiful things for him is a satisfaction because with him, I am never mistreated and I never felt neglected. Never did we do things or offer to do things for each other for the sake of filling our duties, but for the most part that it felt genuinely good, making each other happy.

Another principle I have learned along the way is that of Withdraw and Deposit.

Certainly, relationship is about both the nice stuffs and the crappy stuffs, the wonderful memories and the ones that are rather forgotten, the time together and the time needed to be apart.

Deposits are the beautiful times together while withdraws are the dreadful ones. The principle is that withdraws should not be even with the deposits or else, there would be a zero balance. Worse, if withdraws exceed the deposits, there would be a negative balance. And it would result to bankruptcy. I am also a fanatic of this principle.

And that is what we do now. We stopped bickering. We laugh our hearts out always instead. We create and collect a lot of great memories together and try to dodge from making memories we will soon choose not to remember.

Soon after, we will remember these great moments we have shared, while gawking at our reflections on the moon, counting airplanes that flutter, and shutting our eyes with ourselves folded around each other.

I love you.

This Is How I Spent My Sembreak

Go out and whoop it up.
Taste the saltwater and feel the sand prickles my feet.
Run, work my body out, and let sweat rush.
Spot on bargains and rummage sales.

Huh! I just wish!

My sembreak, although not over yet, did not go exactly the way I thought and planned.

I spent my rather long break from school slumped in bed, staring at the rays entering through the window instead. It created a diagonal beam on the floor, with the shadow of swaying leaves on it. Beautiful, I thought, but all I could do was to stare. I missed out on the sun outside for how many days. I wasn’t able to enjoy it and feel it touching my skin. I was sick and pathetic. Maybe I was paying for the damages I had caused my body during the previous semester.

I had no other means to pursue my Plan A Combo, so I routed to Plan B Combo.

Bury myself to bed and doze all I want.
Grind my mind by reading a few books available.
Get hold of my favorite tv series on pirated dvds.
Check on movies that everybody had seen except me.

The dark circles under my eyes lightened a bit. I scored three novels from my book shelves. At long last, I chased the Gilmores although I am still a few steps behind, I started the new season of Grey’s Anatomy and Heroes, and I had my first favorite Koreanovela. Also, I poked around too many 12-in-one dvds. Not to mention the pleasure I took from eating left-overs and delivered orders.

I did not do exactly the way I thought and planned for the sembreak. But there always comes a second preference. Say it isn’t the best, yet you just have to make the best out of it.

To parcel it up, this year’s sembreak isn’t as bad as I deemed it is. It isn’t bad at all.