My mind wanders far
into the white clouds I soar
the world looks peaceful
into the white clouds I soar
the world looks peaceful
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
THIS HOUSE IS EMPTY(ING) NOW
I have been busy packing stuff lately for my eventual move to Antipolo. It's becoming a pain as the day goes by because aside from the fact that I am not really getting the help I need (just the sight of a wall-full of DVDs is daunting enough), I have to quite literally pick up the pieces of a tragic 2007. The clothes of my late mother and yaya have been picked up yesterday by aunts from Laguna for distribution (to whom I have no idea). I have started to throw away things I know I won't need anyway, and hopefully sell some stuff that are still in excellent condition. I really just want to bring as few items as possible. In fact I have no plans of unpacking once I get to my new place. Everything will remain in their boxes until I have purchased a place I can call my own. Antipolo seems like a nice place to live in, although my heart is really in Manila.
I have been talking to my dog (you know, owner-pet relationship) and telling him of the huge space he'd be running around in once I start working at the farm. That'd be 2.5 hectares of unexplored territory for a dog whose life practically was the stairs and the dining room where he stays more often. He seems excited about the prospect. I hope he gets to mate soon because he's been having more hard-ons lately (it looks really gross). My aunts haven't been spared the embarrassment of being pumped during their vacation last week. Oh, well. Kahayupan talaga.
It's already the 21st and that's 8 days to go before my lease expires. I have practically vacated mom's room (the most difficult of all to work on) and my yaya's room is next. My song for the week is Elvis Costello's This House is Empty Now. How appropriate.
I have been talking to my dog (you know, owner-pet relationship) and telling him of the huge space he'd be running around in once I start working at the farm. That'd be 2.5 hectares of unexplored territory for a dog whose life practically was the stairs and the dining room where he stays more often. He seems excited about the prospect. I hope he gets to mate soon because he's been having more hard-ons lately (it looks really gross). My aunts haven't been spared the embarrassment of being pumped during their vacation last week. Oh, well. Kahayupan talaga.
It's already the 21st and that's 8 days to go before my lease expires. I have practically vacated mom's room (the most difficult of all to work on) and my yaya's room is next. My song for the week is Elvis Costello's This House is Empty Now. How appropriate.
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Sunday, February 17, 2008
WHOAH
Here's a post from Dean Jorge Bocobo. This was posted re the post below. Wow. Thanks so much, sir, for dropping by!
Three ducks in a pond,
The blue sky beyond,
White clouds on the wing.
What a little thing
to remember for years.
To remember with tears
Three ducks in a pond,
The blue sky beyond,
White clouds on the wing.
What a little thing
to remember for years.
To remember with tears
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
SAD
Found this pretty little thing squashed on the red floor at the gazebo. So sad. Somebody must have stepped on it.
"Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it." - W. Somerset Maugham
GETTING INTO THE GROOVE OF THINGS...
Finally had the chance to work at my new desk at the farm today, February 13. I finished several forms, i.e. forms for the staff's personal information (which we have none of), incident / complaint forms, and even monitor sheets for lavatory maintenance. I am so intellectually stimulated right now (oh, yeah! Bring it on!) that I have decided to start working on the job descriptions for the issuance of contracts for the non-permanent staff.
Anyway, I have posted some photos of my work station. The farm just got me a 19" flat screen LCD Samsung monitor (very fitting for a size queen - kidding!) and approproated this circa 1911 Chinese elm wood desk shipped from Hong Kong in 2004 for my use. Very nice. I have to be careful about having moisture or water destroying the surface.
The new desk lamp is nice. We got it from Blims on a sale. It's got this retro feel about it that I like very much. I only want warm yellow light when I work.
The vase is made of multi-colored rubber pads that I got many, many years ago during a export overrun sale in Malate. The brass incense stand is a nice little piece I got long before Nayong Pilipino closed. It's got two dragon heads for handles. I saw some of this being sold in this antique shop in Megamall and they were going for Php 2,000 each! Ugh. Maybe I got mine for a steal back then (or maybe mine is a repro, but who gives a fig). The papyrus stalk I got from the swamp earlier this afternoon.
I wish I could keep my desk clear and clean all the time.
The vase is made of multi-colored rubber pads that I got many, many years ago during a export overrun sale in Malate. The brass incense stand is a nice little piece I got long before Nayong Pilipino closed. It's got two dragon heads for handles. I saw some of this being sold in this antique shop in Megamall and they were going for Php 2,000 each! Ugh. Maybe I got mine for a steal back then (or maybe mine is a repro, but who gives a fig). The papyrus stalk I got from the swamp earlier this afternoon.
I wish I could keep my desk clear and clean all the time.
Sunday, February 10, 2008
AND NOW, A FEW WORDS FROM OUR SPONSOR...
Closing Cycles by Paulo Coelho
One always has to know when a stage comes to an end. If we insist on staying longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the meaning of the other stages we have to go through. Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending chapters – whatever name we give it, what matters is to leave in the past the moments of life that have finished.
Did you lose your job? Has a loving relationship come to an end? Did you leave your parents’ house? Gone to live abroad? Has a long-lasting friendship ended all of a sudden? You can spend a long time wondering why this has happened. You can tell yourself you won’t take another step until you find out why certain things that were so important and so solid in your life have turned into dust, just like that. But such an attitude will be awfully stressing for everyone involved: your parents, your husband or wife, your friends, your children, your sister, everyone will be finishing chapters, turning over new leaves, getting on with life, and they will all feel bad seeing you at a standstill.
None of us can be in the present and the past at the same time, not even when we try to understand the things that happen to us. What has passed will not return: we cannot for ever be children, late adolescents, sons that feel guilt or rancor towards our parents, lovers who day and night relive an affair with someone who has gone away and has not the least intention of coming back. Things pass, and the best we can do is to let them really go away.
That is why it is so important (however painful it may be!) to destroy souvenirs, move, give lots of things away to orphanages, sell or donate the books you have at home. Everything in this visible world is a manifestation of the invisible world, of what is going on in our hearts – and getting rid of certain memories also means making some room for other memories to take their place. Let things go. Release them. Detach yourself from them. Nobody plays this life with marked cards, so sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Do not expect anything in return, do not expect your efforts to be appreciated, your genius to be discovered, your love to be understood. Stop turning on your emotional television to watch the same program over and over again, the one that shows how much you suffered from a certain loss: that is only poisoning you, nothing else.
Nothing is more dangerous than not accepting love relationships that are broken off, work that is promised but there is no starting date, decisions that are always put off waiting for the “ideal moment.” Before a new chapter is begun, the old one has to be finished: tell yourself that what has passed will never come back. Remember that there was a time when you could live without that thing or that person – nothing is irreplaceable, a habit is not a need. This may sound so obvious, it may even be difficult, but it is very important.
Closing cycles. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because that no longer fits your life.
Shut the door, change the record, clean the house, shake off the dust.
Stop being who you were, and change into who you are.
One always has to know when a stage comes to an end. If we insist on staying longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the meaning of the other stages we have to go through. Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending chapters – whatever name we give it, what matters is to leave in the past the moments of life that have finished.
Did you lose your job? Has a loving relationship come to an end? Did you leave your parents’ house? Gone to live abroad? Has a long-lasting friendship ended all of a sudden? You can spend a long time wondering why this has happened. You can tell yourself you won’t take another step until you find out why certain things that were so important and so solid in your life have turned into dust, just like that. But such an attitude will be awfully stressing for everyone involved: your parents, your husband or wife, your friends, your children, your sister, everyone will be finishing chapters, turning over new leaves, getting on with life, and they will all feel bad seeing you at a standstill.
None of us can be in the present and the past at the same time, not even when we try to understand the things that happen to us. What has passed will not return: we cannot for ever be children, late adolescents, sons that feel guilt or rancor towards our parents, lovers who day and night relive an affair with someone who has gone away and has not the least intention of coming back. Things pass, and the best we can do is to let them really go away.
That is why it is so important (however painful it may be!) to destroy souvenirs, move, give lots of things away to orphanages, sell or donate the books you have at home. Everything in this visible world is a manifestation of the invisible world, of what is going on in our hearts – and getting rid of certain memories also means making some room for other memories to take their place. Let things go. Release them. Detach yourself from them. Nobody plays this life with marked cards, so sometimes we win and sometimes we lose. Do not expect anything in return, do not expect your efforts to be appreciated, your genius to be discovered, your love to be understood. Stop turning on your emotional television to watch the same program over and over again, the one that shows how much you suffered from a certain loss: that is only poisoning you, nothing else.
Nothing is more dangerous than not accepting love relationships that are broken off, work that is promised but there is no starting date, decisions that are always put off waiting for the “ideal moment.” Before a new chapter is begun, the old one has to be finished: tell yourself that what has passed will never come back. Remember that there was a time when you could live without that thing or that person – nothing is irreplaceable, a habit is not a need. This may sound so obvious, it may even be difficult, but it is very important.
Closing cycles. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because that no longer fits your life.
Shut the door, change the record, clean the house, shake off the dust.
Stop being who you were, and change into who you are.
Friday, February 08, 2008
EGAD.
Yesterday, February 7, I finally found a new place to transfer to. It's just a studio space, something like twice my Mom's former room in Las Piñas and a little smaller (methinks) than the space I have now - the attic - which I call my room. Those who have been to my room say how large it was. This is because of the high ceilings and the nice window facing the street. And yes, that small door that leads to a small veranda on the roof. Perfect for balmy nights, just sitting out there and watching the night sky.
The place I found is on the second floor of a large house in the same village where my new employer's office is located. What I liked about it is that it's just a spitting distance from the village gate, that it has a balcony overlooking the street (except that this balcony is also the alley leading to my neighboring studio unit where I was told a lady lives alone. (I haven't met her yet. I hope she is nice.), and that my windows are wooden and done in the French style, which kind of reminded me of our house in Cagayan de Oro.
The thing is, the bathroom cum toilet is just 1/4th of what I have at the moment. Shockingly cramped. The shower head - egad! - was placed right across the toilet seat (which means you can do two things at the same time). And the tiles are dark green so it's dark (obviously), which will definitely kill my habit of reading in the bathroom (and brainstorming, too).
Well, the space definitely calls for a Queer-Eye-for-A-Straight-Guy moment. I wish that the owners (the mother, who I got to chat with on the phone this morning, sounded really nice; one can't really say the same for their daughters!) will allow me to repaint the room as it is done in green and white at the moment. I doubt that they will allow that as green appears to be the color of choice for this room (remember the bathroom tiles?) but the entire house is in white and blue. Surreal.
All my exposure to home decoration (thanks to Real Living and Metro Homes) will surely be tested. I just remembered that I didn't see a cabinet for clothes. My new employer have already offered the services of the carpenter. Goodie.
My real problem now is how to cram a three-story house worth of stuff into a studio room? May God and the universe help me.
The place I found is on the second floor of a large house in the same village where my new employer's office is located. What I liked about it is that it's just a spitting distance from the village gate, that it has a balcony overlooking the street (except that this balcony is also the alley leading to my neighboring studio unit where I was told a lady lives alone. (I haven't met her yet. I hope she is nice.), and that my windows are wooden and done in the French style, which kind of reminded me of our house in Cagayan de Oro.
The thing is, the bathroom cum toilet is just 1/4th of what I have at the moment. Shockingly cramped. The shower head - egad! - was placed right across the toilet seat (which means you can do two things at the same time). And the tiles are dark green so it's dark (obviously), which will definitely kill my habit of reading in the bathroom (and brainstorming, too).
Well, the space definitely calls for a Queer-Eye-for-A-Straight-Guy moment. I wish that the owners (the mother, who I got to chat with on the phone this morning, sounded really nice; one can't really say the same for their daughters!) will allow me to repaint the room as it is done in green and white at the moment. I doubt that they will allow that as green appears to be the color of choice for this room (remember the bathroom tiles?) but the entire house is in white and blue. Surreal.
All my exposure to home decoration (thanks to Real Living and Metro Homes) will surely be tested. I just remembered that I didn't see a cabinet for clothes. My new employer have already offered the services of the carpenter. Goodie.
My real problem now is how to cram a three-story house worth of stuff into a studio room? May God and the universe help me.
Thursday, February 07, 2008
TOUCHED FOR THE VERY FIRST TIME...
I read in a forum thread that Justin Timberlake will be in Manila in March, Madonna in April (whaaat?!), and Harry Connick, Jr. in May.
Whoah.
Hope the rumors become true.
Note: None of the Madonna fans I know believe that The Madge is really coming. In fact, nakipag-away na ako and I was insisting that I just read it and that mine wasn't THE official announcement. Talk about shooting the messenger. Silly.
Whoah.
Hope the rumors become true.
Note: None of the Madonna fans I know believe that The Madge is really coming. In fact, nakipag-away na ako and I was insisting that I just read it and that mine wasn't THE official announcement. Talk about shooting the messenger. Silly.
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