Jog

In preparation for my upcoming mountain climbs this year, I have started jogging. Yesterday. With my dog Octavio in tow. I started with 20 minutes per day. Tomorrow I hope to increase it to 30, and then run up and down our stairs at home for another 30 minutes. I am excited. I cannot wait. 

Why this sudden jogging/stairs blah? I attended this Basic Mountaineering Course over the weekend and it inspired me a lot to get fit and climb mountains. When I'm in the mood, I'll write about it here. It was very fulfilling & inspiring. I also met new friends!

I am set to climb Mt. Natib on March 28-29, Mt. Tarak sometime after that, and Mt. Pulag (Akiki-Ambangeg trail) in June. I also hope to be able to join my new friends in Mt. Apo in November, but I need to buy a plane ticket first to secure my spot. Oh well, Mt. Apo is just there, I can climb it another time. 

Now back to work. 

30

I am turning 30 in five days. I would love to travel, but I can't afford it. 

It has been so long since I last read a YA book (I've been reading F. Scott Fitzgerald of late). I'm now reading Cecelia Ahern's "Love, Rosie" (yes because of the film) and it only reminds me of the most stupid mistake I have ever committed in my life. Letting _ _ go (yes, after all these years). 

Right now I feel like there is a void in my chest and I want it gone. 

LB #2

No matter how I LOVE being independent and shit, there are moments when I think it will make me happier if I belonged to someone (maybe, very seldom) or in some group, but I find it extremely hard to blend and fit in.

I savor the moments I get to laugh with other people on a certain joke, exchange knowing glances or smiles with others regarding a certain event, get applauded for a job well done, etc. These happen seldom in my life, so I make sure I relish them, even when I deny it (grin).

I have always found it hard to socialize and make friends, and even harder to STAY in relationships without feeling like the world is crashing on me.

Nothing stays for long, so I take what I can get and make happy memories.

My dog Octavio more than makes up for those "down" times. :-) He's the best.

LB #1

When I was in first year college, I wanted to join the UST Mountaineering Society, but my mom and aunt&uncle (who were financing my schooling) were against it. I cried about it for an extended period, as expected, and each time I passed by the group’s supposed “tambayan,” I would hopelessly wish I could join. In 2013, 11 years later, I officially climbed my very first mountain and fell in love with the experience. Though I was not able to go to the summit (my friends were hungover from the night’s drinking sesh) and it was rainy and I was suffering from colds, I can honestly say I had a blast in Mt. Daguldol. I hope to go back one day and conquer the peak. Next year, I hope to finish a BMC organized by AMCI or, if I enroll in UP for graduate school (fingers crossed!!), UPM. AND RE-CLIMB TARAK RIDGE ON A NON-RAINY DAY.

Quit

I quit my job yesterday. It's a freelance thing, though, but it's one of my "steady" ones. I feel bad, like I've broken up with someone. Except for the financial side, I feel at peace now and more relaxed. Time to get into something better.

99 days of Freedom?

Would I feel free? Will I be able to keep it up? Ten days ago, I joined this experiment called "99 Days of Freedom" where I'm not supposed to log into my Facebook account for 99 days and see what it does to me. The site, http://99daysoffreedom.com/, promised to contact me after 33, 66 and 99 days of non-Facebook and see how I do, and send me sporadic and "completely anonymous" happiness surveys.

Truth be told, I'm missing it now and I do not know if I can keep up. I shamefully miss playing Candy Crush. I KIND OF miss stalking some people and knowing what they are up to--at least through photos posted/tagged, events, likes, etc. Yes, call me creepy, that's how I've kind of always been, but I believe I am not the creepiest there is.

According to a press release, 99daysof freedom is a non-proft initiative launched by Just B.V., a creative communications agency from the Netherlands, as a response to Facebook's controversial mood experiment, aiming to determine "how life without Facebook impacts user happiness."

The experiement asks willing people to refrain from using Facebook for 99 days, complete with an official countdwon, and then comment on how it has affected their personal happiness. They also provide a message board where participants can post how they are holding up during the break.

I'm a freelance writer and I work at home, in our house in the province, far away from my friends. Facebook is one of my few connections with them and my relatives, but it is by far the biggest distraction in my life so far. Meanwhile, people I care about know my cell phone number and if they want to get in touch with me they can just shoot me a text. Or maybe an email. I think what makes Facebook more preferred by most is that they are not required to exert a considerable amount of effort in keeping others updated with their howabouts as one would in making a call where they 1) spend so much for it, 2) become obliged to answer right away and 3) hello, awkward small talk.

Blah, blah, blah, I can go on, but it's beet ten days and what has happened to me? Do I feel the freedom? Yes, I am feeling it, but I kind of miss being enslaved by FB. Funny how change is creepier than us but we succumb to it because we have no choice.

I miss the people I follow on Facebook, mainly those who I like but am not really close to ^_^

I am going to keep this up. Last weekend, I went on a solo trip to Zambales. I'm going to write about it here one time. Next week, I'm climbing a mountain. I hope it doesn;t rain! Right now I'm trying to work but I've been distracted by...stuff.

It is not Facebook;s fault that I get distracted by it. It's my own discipline "issues." I hope the 99-day experiment helps me improve on that aspect. Oh, discipline, I gotta learn you; I gotta do you.

Meanwhile, I'm getting back to work. Bye, non-existent reader!

I quit Facebook yesterday...

...and I am not sure what I feel now. I'm reactivating it after the Holy Week, but I am not 100% sure if I will really do that. If I even manage to stay the hell away from it until then. My fingertips are itching to log-in to my account, but each time I find myself feeling such, I ask myself, "What good will it do?" 

Facebook has kind of taken over my life these past years, and has made me better in a lot of aspects. Because of Facebook I have become a better procrastinator, a WAY better stalker than I could ever have allowed myself to be. Oh, I have also become better at being miserable in so many ways. 

Will temporarily quitting it make me a different person? Will it have an impact on others? What does it even mean? I do not know. I just woke up one day and felt stressed out after checking my Facebook account and decided to quit it for a while. Will my 1,900++ friends miss me? Would any of them even notice? 

Since quitting, I have done more productive things. I was able to watch two movies (re-watched BBC's "Pride & Prejudice" and "Fight Club"), write in my offline journal, write here, cook some weed butter (ha ha) and focus on some work. 

I hope things turn out well. I hope I do not find the pressure to go back to Facebook. I'll try to write here as much as I can--since nobody reads it anyway, save for strangers from a distant part of the world. 

I think I might post recipes here, or whatever. We'll see.

Once upon a night in Makati

February 10, 2014

0500a

A lot of things have happened since I last wrote here. Very eye opening &...I have no other words for it.  I am utterly amazed at God’s wisdom & him letting me make a complete fool out of myself just to make me see His damn point. (Fine. I’m spilling SOME beans. I spent part of the night at **’s room. Very wholesome, mind you. I brought happy brownies & we got stoned. I thought it was going to be a blast. It was fun, but not a blast. Actually it was only borderline fun. He chose to sleep it off. I watched this Thai film then I listened to music on my phone. I was really tired & sleepy & so high, but I fought the force to lay down beside him—since there was no other place to lie down on—because I did not go there to sleep. I went there as a friend who just wants to have some stoned fun with another friend. Agh. I missed having a friend in him. I hope to see him again. AS A FRIEND. You know what, seeing him is helping me let him go & move on. Everytime I see him, I realize there are a lot of things more important than pining for his so-called love. I realized that no matter what the hell happened to us in the past, I don't deserve to be treated like dirt. I am not a slut. I am not a consolation prize. I am not a go-to girl--if you know what I mean. Maybe it has something to do with my "declaration of feelings" last December. Hay. HUGE load off my back.)

Today is Weedsday butter mania

 11A
I have resolved to stay alone and be platonically & divinely in love with everyone around me instead of screwing some poor person’s life just because I want to have a taste of romantic love for an unspecified period of time. I know I will run away sooner or later, and that would not be good. I used to think that me feeling this way is ABNORMAL until I came to accept it. Embrace who I am. I would rather focus on GIVING THE KIND OF LOVE I AM GOOD AT instead of trying very hard & getting stressed out in trying to fit into the mold of being a good girlfriend or wife. I do believe I can be a good mother someday, if that is part of God’s plan for me. I would like to have a son. I will nickname him Jared (after the ever-beautiful Jared Leto!!!) maybe his long name would be Javier (insert name starting with R). The boy will take my surname as I resolve to be a single mom. J Ja would be fine enough a nickname. Jared is hard to pronounce. Agh.

 

Meanwhile, it’s the 22^nd and I have not even looked at my DDT (Damn Dictionary Thing) huhuhu. I'm supposed to submit it in a week. Good luck. Sana ma-release na yung TF ko sa 20Plus. HAAAAAYYY. I really need to find another means to make moolah. Gotta pay the bills & my one last loan @ BDO. Nakuuuuu I wonder how much I still have to pay given my delinquent payment history.

 

Going back to romantic love, I believe in it, I think it is nice & cool, but I don’t give a fuck’s ass if I don’t have it now. I gotta focus on getting my shit together first before focusing on that.

 

Oh, by the way, I spent yesterday baking happy brownies. First, I decarboxylized what remained of the W by baking it at 250-260F for 20-30 minutes until it was brown and crisp. I crumbled it with my fingers until most of it was loose & powdery. Then I cooked it on on the stove, on low, with 1 stick + a little more (next time I should cook it with 1.25 sticks if I wanna yield a stick in the end) of butter for about three hours. After cooking, I strained it very well with a piece of cloth, then proceeded to make two batches of brownies, which I cut into 1.2 square inch pieces. J I took one last night, around 9, then wonders started to kick in at around 10. I was shitfaced by 11pm (YES because my eyes were abnormally bloodshot!), watched The Great Gatsby (it was so good to watch it under the influence—I could feel every twitch in Leo’s face tugging at some nerve in my heart, making my eyes well up) on my phone, then I willed myself to sleep—BECAUSE I WOULD RATHER SLEEP IT OFF THAN RISK my mom seeing me shitfaced. I woke up at 5am. GOD. The last time I was that high was in 2007 or 2008  during my D-days. Goodness. Ngayon I know half a brownie is enough for a fine buzz.

 

1130a

I wanna climb a mountain. That wall near the Sandugo store would be enough. I just wanna climb something!!!!!!!

 

1133a

I choose not to dwell on the bad things unless I wanna get into a bad mood. Back to work. I’m 11 stories behind.

"If you're happy with what you know, do you deserve explanation with what you don't?" -Little Black Book, 2004

I discovered that my boyfriend of two years has been hiding a lot of things from me, things which I have come to know through happenstance and...a bit of stalking. Fine. A lot.

I have a lot of work to do right now, so I will have to write about this thing when I get the time. Ugh. This sucks. I just want someone who can be true to himself and to me as well. I do not think I can spend a huge part of my life with a person I barely know.

Tired

Sometimes all you need is a good cry to get you moving forward, forward, forward.

Self hug

Dear Self,
You are not a failure. Success is around the bend, and, since life only has long avenues for you, you have to keep walking.
Walk briskly, as briskly as you can, if you must, but do not run. Running poses a higher chance of  stumbling* and bruising yourself badly--you might fracture a bone or something, and we cannot afford that. Plus, you know how you palpitate and nearly faint when you force yourself to run.
Keep a steady pace and do not stop. Walk slowly, if you must, but do not stop. You have stopped in your tracks before and look where it got you.
If you must stop to smell the flowers, as they say, do so, but do not get stuck in smelling them all day. You will also have to find a way to plant your own flowers while walking, so other walkers may stop and smell them too. Anyway there will always be flowers wherever you go, they may not just be as colorful and redolent as other flowers in other places.
And always remember that I love you.
XO, Self

*because you know how you can stumble just by merely standing up, and you've had enough stumbling for a lifetime.

Random musing on double mastectomy

So. I just found out today that Angelina Jolie has undergone double mastectomy because she is at risk for having breast cancer. In her NYT open letter Tuesday, Jolie encouraged girls to, well, not exactly, but more or less realize that 'an ounce of prevention is better than a pound (or any insane amount) of cure.'

Last year, my doctor found some small lumps in my left breast and advised me to undergo a breast ultrasound, and so I did. It turned out I had several minuscule lumps in both breasts--oh, my small boobs, I never thought they had it in them! The ultrasound doctor told me to have another one done after six months so they'll see what happens to the lumps, whether they progress or stay the same. If they progress, that is if they increase in size and volume, I definitely have something to worry about. Otherwise, I can go on with my peaceful life and just stay healthy.

Due to lack of financial resources--actually, I had money. I just could not afford to spend them on me, because I had bigger responsibilities to shoulder: brother's college education & expenses, bills, loans, etc.--I was not able to go back to the hospital for another ultrasound. But looking back, I think I should have tightened my belt WAY more and had the damn test done.

Now, I am 28 and I am not getting any younger. My former office mate's sister--God rest her soul--had cancer when she was 24 and died when she was 27. Gosh. Only god knows what could happen to me.

Two months ago, an aunt of mine was diagnosed of stage 1 cancer and had her right breast removed. Her family said that my aunt is now cancer-free, but since the cancer cells in her body are active, the doctor advised her to undergo chemotherapy to prevent it. I do not know if that exactly is the case as I did not want to pry too much, but as of this writing, my aunt has undergone a chemo session and has lost some of her hair. Well, I was told her kids bought her several wigs to mask the baldness. Anyway, I should see her soon. I miss her, but....so much for that.

By the way, I really need to raise funds for my breast ultrasound.

Agh. back to work.

BUT before I go back to work, let me just say that I am, uh, well, flat-chested and a double mastectomy--or any kind of mastectomy--is guaranteed to make me flatter-chested than before. Oh well.

Now I'm really going back to work.

There are so many things I want to just let go right now so I can feel lighter. I wish. I wish.

sad time

I'm deleting my Multiply site soon. I do not feel like maintaining it anymore. I want to delete my Facebook account as well, but since it's the only connection i have with some important people in my life (friends from elementary, long-time friends i rarely see, relatives who hate me, etc.), I can't bring myself to erase it. Maybe i should just screen my friends list. Maybe i am going to delete some profiles in my list. Profiles that bring bad vibes. Profiles that bring so many happy memories they make me sad.

Fail

I would like to think that I am not a failure.

Buckets of lists

I do not have a single bucket list of things I want to do before I die, or at least before I get all bedridden and senile with old age--if I live to be old. Instead, I have several buckets of lists here and there, written on different notebooks, pages of [my] books, personal journals, back of receipts, doodled on cards, typed in my cell phone, etc. One day soon, I'll gather all those and post them here as one long entry, just because.

It would be lovely to be able to cross everything out of that list, but that depends.

Now going back to work.

Musing on Holy Week

There are some (...actually, a LOT of) things I wish I didn't do. Everyone makes mistakes, yes, but mine have put a strain on important relationships :-( I wish I can still somehow make things right again.

Thankful!

I have a lot to be thankful for. 

I have just re-started freelancing and, though I am not yet making steady money, I am happy. I love what I do it scares the daylights out of me. But I am thankful. 

Soon, I will start investing for my retirement. I do not want to work my ass off until I'm 60 (or even 50) and go on living from paycheck to paycheck. I have less than 25 years to make that happen. If there are other less strenuous options to being wealthy, as I am sure there are, I'll give them a shot. 

I do not want to be a slave anymore and I have taken my first baby steps out of slavery. It is not easy, but I know I'll manage. I can do this!

Oh and one of my other plans is to start blogging seriously and sensibly. 

My life has undergone A LOT of changes since I last wrote. I am not in L***** anymore. I quit A****, too. I do not live in I********* anymore. I weigh 1** lbs no longer. :)


I let go of a steady life to follow my dreams. I have a new job now as a writer for A**. My dream is to secure a job in S***** M****. Unfortunately, all my applications have not been considered--as I think, because I have never gotten a single call since I started sending applications in February. Oh well, maybe I do not really want to work there. I can't work in a super structured company who dwell on physical appearances and material things alone. Anyway, maybe I'll get considered, one day, someday. 


My current job lets me work at home, at my most convenient time, which is at night. I love my new job. Fine, I miss my former colleagues in L***** and I kind of miss wearing uniforms, but apart from those, wala na. I do not miss A**** AT ALL. Not one bit. Well, maybe except for my batch mates, who I still get to see once in a great while. I miss having loads of money in my pocket, but I do not miss being overworked with stuff that I drag myself every single motherF-ing day to do. As Meryl Streep, as Donna, in Mamma Mia said in a totally different context, "I'm just...glad that whole part of my life is over!"


Going back to work now. I need to finish five more articles before 2:30 a.m.