question of the month #002

november is here! new month, new question. thanks to all who participated in last month's debut run. this time i'm posting a generic question posed to me a year ago.



when i was first asked this question, only one name came to mind. jesus christ. if you ask me now, i'd give the same answer.

okay, your turn. post your response through the comments link, and feel free to explain your choice. oh, and if you happen to choose some obscure personality for this one, please give us a backgrounder. thanks.

photo archive #004

cleaning out my closet

LITERALLY. i have been sporadically cleaning my room for the past few months, but i rarely make progress. there are always more interesting things to do than to sort junk. however, i seem to be losing more and more things inside my dwelling space, so it's really high time i throw out the unnecessaries. nothing like searching for something to make you realize your room is a mess. my mom's going to be so happy once i get rid of ten-years' worth of accumulated junk.

the cleaning frenzy began with missing diplomas. (high school ones, not university, so don't greak out on me just yet.) now i'm missing a few screws. (they're not just loose, they're really gone.) at least i found some photographs and negatives from a trip last april, which i have been "looking for" the past few months. (i gave up after two nights of rifling through my things.)

i'm giving myself 'til the end of the year to clear out 50% of the things i'm not supposed to keep. hopefully, by that time, i'd have found the things i've been looking for. and my mom would get off my case about my messy lifestyle.

there are still a few closets to clean, but that's a different story altogether. getting rid of material clutter is hard enough for me right now.

if the shoe fits

try walking a mile in it. okay, half a mile. the you'll see how well it really fits.

i made the idiotic mistake of wearing heels to work today. you may not think that's such a big deal, but if you had to walk half a kilometer to your office, you'd understand what i mean. i thought my shoes were nicely "broken in" and comfortable enough already. now i have this weird blister in smack in the middle of the ball of my right foot. my mom and my older sister have it, also. i used to wonder how they got it (they didn't know, either.) now i have unlocked one of the world's greatest mysteries. blisters from ill-fitting, high-heeled shoes. those shoe-makers and designers have a thing or two to learn about ergonomics.

i've still got old blisters from a different pair of footwear (wedges, to be exact). upon examination of my poor foot, i realized my wedge-blisters were almost healed. almost. because i made another mistake of running in them last night. so when i was absent-mindedly peeling my blister (okay, i know, info overload. but just for the record, i was alone in the office then) i realized there was yet another blister forming underneath the new skin. of course, i already exposed the raw skin by then. ouch. multiple injuries by heinous footwear.

i just might take a cab on the way back later. and i'm definitely wearing sneakers to work tomorrow.

aaaaaaaaaahhhh!!!!

my closest friend from high school is getting married!!! aaaaaaaaaaaaahhh!!! i am SO happy for her!!! this, boys and girls, is what it means to be truly happy for someone else. there are very few things i want more than for her to be happy. and she is. so happy.

life is beautiful.

beauty according to imelda

it happened again. members of the opposite sex just smiling at me for no apparent reason. hmmm... i could get used to this.

i never considered myself beautiful. as i recall, imelda marcos said anyone could be beautiful... all it takes is sixty to a hundred and twenty minutes of preparation. if we adhere to those requirements, i would probably be condemed to a lifetime of ugliness. i only take fifteen minutes to get dressed on a regular day. (and that's already more than enough time if i don't think about what to wear.) it takes me around thirty minutes to get ready on those oh-so-special have-to-look-fabulous occassions. really, i don't spend a lot of time on my looks. (insert flattery here, i.e. what? but you look great all the time!- yeah, i know... it's a flat out lie, but you can say it, anyway.)

everyone wants to be beautiful, to want people to notice you for your looks. and for a while it's all i wanted, too. i wanted people look at me and say, she's beautiful or she's sexy or wow, she's drop-dead gorgeous! (i know, i know, dream on, clarice... but hey, at least i'm honest.) it's an ongoing struggle, and an ever-growing frustration. wherever i go, i seem to be surrounded by women much more beautiful than i am. it stinks to feel like the ugly duckling all the time. most days it won't bother me. but sometimes i just get those insecurity attacks much like some people get asthmatic spells. just stick a gorgoeus model beside me and i'll feel like crap almost instantly.

guess what? three of my present officemates are models. and for the longest time i felt really insecure. until one of my guy friends virtually bonked me on the head and said "what on earth are you talking about??? you've got much more than they have going because you've got brains AND beauty!" wow.

yes yes, i have a self-image problem. but ever since childhood i have always been praised and appreciated for my so-called intelligence, and hardly for my looks. plus, every time i show some inclination towards making myself look better, i get shot down with comments on being vain or kikay. for a seven-year-old, that's enough to make you swear off make-up and beauty parlors for the rest of your life.

so here i am, struggling with contrasting views of beauty. i want to be beautiful, but more than that, i want to be attractive. i have met people who are not exactly the most physically alluring, but still they draw people towards them. it's the type of beauty that comes from within. the radiance of a cheerful soul, a gentle spirit, a loving heart. to me, it's the ultimate beauty secret. and it's what i'm striving to achieve.

i want people to see me as a lovely person inside and out. a smart girl who happens to be beautiful. who also has a striking personality and a wonderful heart. i want it all.

i want to be beautiful.

surf's up!

By hook or by crook, I am going surfing by the year's end. I've been planning this for weeks, but something always seems to come up to either delay or cancel my latest adventure. Plus, my parents insist that there should be guys on this trip, because they don't want me or any of the girls driving for four hours on the highway. Ok then. That's one bump on the road.

I consider myself more adventurous and fun-loving than other people I know. Therein lies problem number 2. I can't seem to find equally adventurous people who will go with me. And I am already spewing out invitations left and right. It's not that they don't want to go... it's just that they can't make time or there will always be something to keep them from making a commitment. (Hmm. Sounds like a relationship problem.) Whereas I am in the all-systems-go, pedal-to-the-metal and full-throttle let's-hit-the-waves mindframe. I am not letting anything get in the way of my surfing plans. The thing is, I can't go by myself (refer to problem number 1).

So, to address my surfing dilemma, I am now posting an open invitation to anyone who views my blog - do you want to go surfing??? When - end of November. Where - Beach Break Surf School in San Juan, La Union. Why - 'cause it's gonna be fun!!! Requirements - young, adventurous, knows how to swim, driving ability a plus, willing to spend a few thousand bucks (covers two days and two nights accomodation and surf lessons) Interested? Leave me a message on the comments link, on my tagboard, or through YM (see link on sidebar)

By the way, I'll be making reservations by next week. Nothing's gonna stop me now! Beach Break, here I come!!!

elegy

Do not stand at my grave and weep;
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.

~ author unknown

lost phone!

my mobile fell out of my bag in a taxi cab. i am so upset!!! of all the stupid things to do... sigh. and it bugs me even more that people around me are oblivious to my emotional state. i used to think that i'm transparent when it comes to my emotions. i guess i'm not quite that easy to read... or maybe people are just THAT dense and insensitive. which i take to be the case, because i already told my friend that i lost my phone, and still he keeps asking me MUNDANE questions. i had to explicitly tell him to bugger off before he got the picture. sheesh. men!!!

i can't work. i am so bugged. i hope i can get a new unit from the mobile service provider, since it was a company provided unit (read: FREE). but as fate would have it, when the opreator asked which what phone it was, i told them it was a 6100, and on record the phone i'm supposed to be using is the 6610 (which my sister is using now). maybe i can sweet talk my way into getting a replacement. after all, the unit i lost came from them, too. might as well put the loser magnet charm to good use.

sigh... i KNEW i should have checked underneath the passenger seat of the cab. but i was too harassed to think about it. now i am doubly harassed. whoopee doo. life goes on. i'll bet my dad is going to give me an earful when i get home. oh joy of joys.

up side of the story? i get a new phone. hopefully my mom will have pity on me and fund my stupidity.

what really irks me is that i have to rebuild my phonebook. how in the world do i recall over 300 phonebook entries?!?! i'm still praying that the taxi driver will return my phone... it won't be worth anything because i can blacklist the unit by reporting the imei number to the mobile company. which i will do once i get home. then the sim AND the phone will be rendered useless.

please pray for my lost phone. may it find its way back to its rightful owner.

happiness is...

a starbucks strawberrries and cream frapuccino.

I don't know when it was that I started relying on food and other inanimate objects to pick me up. I do know that people have been disappointing me a lot lately, and I can't count on them for most things. It's sad actually; usually I love people. They do crazy things that drive me up the wall, but that's what makes them beautifully human, and that’s why I love them. For all their imperfections and idiosyncracies, I still look forward to meeting them every day of my life. They make my existence so much more colorful. Crazy and borderline irksome, but interesting nonetheless.

I suppose I create certain expectations of people after I meet them. I never create expectations before; how I relate to people often depends on those first few encounters. And I suppose sometimes I don't form the proper opinions of people. I tend to give them too much credit. So in the end, I am disappointed. Stupid girl.

But with my starbucks frapuccino, I always seem to get what I expect. I guess in some ways, you can't go wrong with processed food.

roller coaster ride

if someone had stayed with me every single minute for the past seven days, he or she would probably have gone nuts. my moods have been yo-yoing from irritated to apathetic to stressed to excited to fuming to exuberant to sleepy to grateful to disappointed to frustrated and finally to just plain tired. what. a. week.

monday night i came home bugged because i couldn't get into my own garage. tuesday night i was tired but forcing myself to stay awake to get some work done. wednesday night i found out that my college classmate's mom passed away, and i started crying. stayed up 'til three am. thursday i drove all the way to sucat for the wake of my officemate's father. stayed up 'til four am. friday night i didn't go to bed at all 'cause i was rushing for a deadline. finally slept 11am saturday after delivering my work. woke up 3am to go to the second wake of the week. got stuck in horrific traffic, reached the place almost 5pm. had to rush home to get ready for alicia keys concert. was a bit too tired to completely enjoy the show, but psyched myself up for it best i can. truthfully, didn't feel as happy i should have been. faked it half the time. went to bed 1am (amazingly, earlier than my weeknights!) woke up 9am sunday to get ready for church. left the house 10:30am. got back to the house 7pm, for dinner out. choir practice, basketball game, coffee with friends and visit to wake in between. oh, and helped someone with a knee injury during lunch. dinner, then went to bed 11pm after resolving issues with concert companion. woke up 8am today, when dad came in and asked if i was going to work. (for those who don't know, i'm supposed to be at work by 8am.) spent the day helping people out doing rush materials. asked for help and got "i'm hungry, let's eat!" and "hey, it's breaktime!" as responses. got immensely pissed, feeling of irritation compounded by files that refused to cooperate. made the deadline, but ended up crying in the bathroom for some insane reason. gave most losers the silent treatment for their insensitive behavior. (improvement, actually, as the old me would have told them off and smacked them at least a dozen times.) i guess i expect too much from the human race. makes me wonder why god even bothered to save us from the hole we dug ourselves into.

maybe i should just stop caring.

backstage

he made a comment. she laughed.

"you laugh easy," he said.

she didn't quite know how to react. she stammered some reply, and he tried to save the conversation by saying it's a refreshing change from most of the people he knows.

she smiled.

he didn't know if it was her smile or her laughter which drew him. or the way she seems to get along so well with the seven-year-old girl across the room. or how she can speak on a lot of different things with a lot of different people. or how one moment she can be in the middle of a crowd, talking up a storm, and the next she's just standing by the corner, watching everyone else go by.

one thing he knew, though. that once the show is over,
he will never see her again.

he's already seen her a few times, actually. he even forgot her name. and now he wonders why he never noticed her before. maybe it's because he thought they'll never cross paths again. and yet here she is,
within five meters of him. life is funny.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

he was not the first person from the group that caught her eye. in fact, he didn't catch her attention at all. but he was the last person she thought of before she went to bed that night.

the few times she talked to him before, he seemed cold and detached. she thought it might be interesting to talk someone in the same line of work, but as it turns out he's not one for starting conversations. so that was that.

except that tonight he seemed more engaging than before. he even made her laugh a few times. "you laugh easy," he told her. and it made her smile.

before the evening ended he casually asked for her number. she had gotten his number, too. to her, it was nothing out of the ordinary.
at least, not at that time.

but when she got home, she felt a strange buzz just thinking about it.

she wasn't expecting him to ask for her number. she had her eye on someone else. but she wasn't going to do anything extraordinary to make some guy notice her. so she just went about her business,
and her business ended her in his company.

life is funny.

men... sheesh!

today is officially I HATE MEN day. for the past 24 hours men have been continually dissing me, and i have had it. i am limiting my interactions with men to PLATONIC FRIENDSHIPS. once i cross the line to romantic relationship, the whole thing goes haywire.

people will ask why i hate men. of course, they will expect to hear what happened that made me come to such a conclusion. sorry, can't. in view of the latest developments, i will no longer include details in my rantings and general posts, because some men with hypersensitive egos might get crushed, do something stupid, and piss me off even more. all my complaints will be detached from the source, so anyone who reads my negatively charged posts will have to take it for what they are. no reasons, no explanations, nothing. i will sound even more insane and bitter than i already do, but what the heck. i seem to be the only one who can take the heat, anyway.

i am so pissed at the male population that i am swearing off men for the rest of the year. longer if i can help it. MUCH longer if they continue to irritate me to the point of insanity.

i do not hate men per se. guys as friends are ok. but guys as lifetime partners? ha! never mind. perhaps this answers the question as to WHY my relationships never worked out. i'm not a loser magnet. men are just idiots when it comes to my love life. blithering idiots that keep ticking me off, at that.

IQ = 10

i'm dead tired. and very sleepy. and it's affecting my mental functions.

for the first time since i can remember, i cannot string two coherent thoughts together. spent an hour in front of the computer accomplishing virtually nothing. when i saw that i was getting nowhere with autocad, i decided to blog. but i couldn't even finish one of my old posts. random ideas keep coming but i can't put them together into a decent piece. i am so out of it. time to call it a day.

soundtrack

sometimes i wake up with a particular song in my head. and it stays with me the whole day. i think of it as the background music in the movie of my life, a soundtrack of sorts.

what's funny is that the songs which go into my soundtrack aren't those that get played on the airwaves these days. songs from a few years back, songs when i was growing up, heck, even songs when my parents were growing up. which is why playing these songs in my head is quite unusual. they're not the result of LSS (which i often have, by the way) or FSS (which is worse, truthfully). exactly how these songs pop into my head i do not know. but they almost always form the perfect audio background to my day when they do. sometimes i would hear a song play in my head during particular "climactic" moments in the course of my day. like i said, it's a soundtrack.

i don't know if anyone else hears music as they go through their day. or if their songs adapt to situations as mine do. maybe i've been watching too many movies. maybe i'm a little crazy. or maybe i AM living in a movie, and everyone else just doesn't get it.