Just being there

Dear Svelte,

How are you!? It has been a while. For one thing, I cannot believe my summer is packed. There are sorts of activities and duties that seem to be always emerging. I was expecting otherwise that my summer this year could be the time to think and recharge. But not really, I love the buzz but it is kind of confusing. I keep still though.

Highlights for me? I went to Korea for an official business. One week was good enough. It was tiring. I mean, physically tiring, tending all the needs of our Philippine participants. I love the experience. It broadens you. Koreans are beautiful people or 'they make themselves beautiful.' people.  More than anything, we went home safe and content. Plus the promise that i will be back soon.

You see, Svelte, something happened to me personally there. Not that it involved people. But i was emotional. A desire, an appetite or whatever you call it was awakened. Maybe it is their weather. Knowing the sun here is scolding me. I never felt it before.

I went home, thinking, If i could have stayed there for a few days more, maybe I wouldn't end up feeling something like it is an unfinished business. Yes, that 'feeling something' part.
For days, I experienced what my friend told me, a 'separation anxiety.' You know when you leave a certain place and felt that you would miss it sorely with no reason. I kept that for a time. I never felt it before.

For no reason, i keep thinking of what other things to do. What other places to explore. What jobs would I still want to take. What roles would I portray. What possibilities might it exist. Damn, these existential moments. I feel I should be alive more!? I suspect strongly that this is what is going on with me now.

But there will be no big decisions in the coming months. Status quo is still the option. I cannot afford to believe my fleeting feelings even though inside me, I have volcanic eruptions. For the next months, i will just channel all of these to whatever I have, convert whatever is there, plan whatever is feasible. and perhaps forgetting, and moving on. And yes, I will go back to Seoul. Not for anything, but to just be there.

May all odds be in my favor

Dear Svelte, 

How is everything!? As for me, I have been to Hongkong for a short break Larl. She was gracious enough to do all the itinerary while I became the 'kaladkarin' girl. It felt nice. Hongkong is so cosmopolitan. There is just so much energy there. The Chinese hustle and bustle. And my long walks. My feet and bone joints did not cooperate. True enough, the first day I did after my arrival in Manila was to look for a good massage. 

The reason why I went to Hongkong was 'pasyal.' If I would have been to Disneyland and the Big Buddha, that would be enough for me. We went there to gallivant. Sadly, not shopping. Based on my observations, Hongkong is the best place to shop branded as in the genuine branded items. Say, Louis Vuitton. I believe they are cheaper there than here.  But for a tiangge, Divisoria can rival Hongkong's flea market. Unless I missed Hongkong's secrets. Hongkong's homogeneity of items is boring. To my mind, Bangkok is even better than Hongkong. Bangkok is Divisoria minus 500 pesos on all items!

I left Hongkong with the impression that the next time that I would be back, perhaps I will just be meeting my fiance who has a wife in the Philippines and he will shower me with all the Hongkong goodies. Not to mention those 'Two Girls' brand.

Back here. Post travel, I feel suspended. I mean I have pending two papers for my school and how have I been trying my best to set my mood to write even for a few paragraphs but my muse has refused. I let it flow, short of  'Noynoying'. But I wish to regain the momentum as soon as possible. Maybe after this piece.

____

 

Projectize! That is what the Chinese Horoscope told me early this year as the Water Dragon being ushered in. The horoscope said and I recall that this year can be a pretty good year for me. But I have to do something about it. Oh well, need the logic of horoscope say more! There must also be deliberate actions from my part for me to feel good this year. Or if not, it can still be a good year for status quos! If that is encouraging enough, why not!?

So, I begin to think of very personal projects, which are based on my own passion, on things that I cherish, on things that simply matter to me. I must admit this has taken rather a long process.

It is because of not planning but because personally I am not the one who can take all risks. I mean, for a time, it is just there in my mind as if incubating, waiting for the right time. Then I realize, the right time is actually today, as long as you put consistency and persistence to it.  

# Project Bilat. This is actually the first project that I feel about. Project Bilat is all about being beautiful inside or out. This is not about maintaining facial. Project Bilat is bordering to be really girl looking though. I would not mind. Maintenance is a hurdle of beauty. Project Bilat is lived by the following principles - Project Bilat is constantly beautiful, fashionably bold, simply fresh, outrageously essential, provocatively sensual, mysteriously intriguing, confidently brilliant, and smart looking inside out. 

To be truthful about this, it is really banking on the attitude to grow in beauty inside and out. Plus of course, the effort naman ate. Hindi naman ibig sabihin na puro panloob na lang ate, baka umapaw ate!

I am reminded of Imelda. I am reminded of French women and Marion Cotillard. I am reminded of Adele and Bridget Jones. I am reminded of Mikee Cojuangco and Lady Gaga and Miriam Santiago. Those are my pegs! So keep filling in the kikay kit and updating the wardrobes and keep scheduling to your suki beauty centers. I pray to Divine that 'May all the odds be in my favor.'

#Tikim Project. This is a revelation on my part. I actually maintain a blog on this. I created the blog two years ago and it has been dormant since. Why this project? I want to eat! I want to stop and eat! I want to experience the perfection of eating. It's heaven here on earth. And I want to record my experiences about it. But most of the time, or perhaps all the time, the eating overwhelms the controlling spirit. I must say, I have been to some modest culinary experience (i mean going in and out of the city, food tripping with my best buddies).

So, as long as i secure the blog name (since it is kind of perfect name what I really mean, Tikim Project) then anytime I can just go back and restart all over again. But it has been two years already. And I feel somehow desperate because what big difference two years could make. I could have written lots of entries about it. I could have built my reputation as the next big blogger! This is not about fault finding anymore. Besides, being a food writer is one of my dreams. And yes, this blog is still the perfect place to start. I pray to Divine that 'May all the odds be in my favor.'

# Project Papansin. How I love the name. Kulang sa Pansin. Takaw Pansin. Not Really. It is an alias for my career plan. I do not want to be a dead wood in my career. I want to grow up. I want to be selfish (in improvement). I am hungry for improvement.  Those who grow better are those who seek always to improve, to learn!. More than being a diva. I want to be a mentor. It dawns on me that I need to 'prepare' for the next phase of my career. Which means, I have to make the best out of the opportunities that get into me. And for chrissakes, I need to document them. I do not want to be sounding aggressive, it is just fierce beauty on my part. Char.

But there are some emotional investment to this Papansin project. I mean, there are some weird objectives to it. Okay, Svelte, here I go again. Sometimes, we create seemingly crazy reasons. It is that risks that we subscribe to that we sometimes wonder if all these things of crazy reasons can ever bear fruit. But should one work with faith, you think of collaterals. You believe in reroutes. You work the possibilities . In turn, the guiding star may not even get to your destination. And yes, Svelte, I humbly will accept that.

But If I don't try it, I remain a signpost. I will miss something. I will embrace what will reveal before me. And yes, even though it's going to be futile, based on very crazy reason, I know I must have enjoyed it all along. And yes, 'May all the odds be in my favor.'

Hold on to that dream (a career dialogue to self, part 1)

Dear Svelte,

I still hold on to that dream.

During college, I remember I was passing by our university hospital. There was this effervescence feeling. When you were young, I believe you were more courageous to imagine, to dream. The feeling was I was asking Divine to make me really good in everything I do. I asked him that if ever I won't become a good writer, I just wish for him to let me write as clear as the spring water. I pray to him to give me the gift to communicate. I told him that I am prepared that writing is going to be a crusade for me. All but a ceaseless discovery. I wonder I never really feel imagining to high heavens to become a good writer. A communicator will suffice but not The Writer. And by this getting accolades, getting published.  Maybe that is why writing has always been a struggling activity for me. I never write easy. Maarte akong magsulat. Maraming requirements and mood na kailangan. But I enjoy the process. I enjoy looking into the details. I become obsessed but I keep an open mind. It is in one those few moments when I feel alive. Now I recall, I asked the Divine that writing is a crusade for me. Yes, Crusade was the exact word. He gave me the gift or the will to write as if it is to write with a struggle, to a discovery of the unknown.

I have come full circle to understanding. In that way I become humbled. In this way, I am not bored. In this way, I am inspired. Writing is a journey. There is no perfection at the end of the piece but for me, it is perfecting the Will to Write.  

I remember when I was writing my thesis, it was a career. I exerted a lot of effort for it. I was doing fieldwork in the University of the Philippines Los Banos. I went to great strides in interviewing this community newspaper publisher in Naga City. Kulang na lang naka feather boas ako habang ginagawa ko yun. And yes, it is personally magastos. BUt there was this effervescence feeling. I was simply a student but very much inspired that I was contemplating as a researcher after graduation. And then I found Gelia Castillo in the course of my reading. I found out that Gelia Castillo was the grand dame of Philippine sociology. I suddenly felt connected to her. I did not know why. I began to search her biography and her credentials. All I could think of was after a few research, I wanted to be like her. I began to contemplate that my greatest dream is to become a social scientist! Walang awat! And I asked Divine to help me become one.

Times passed and I have not met her yet. I just go to Youtube or any website and read whatever is there about her. The problem though is I never get the chance to meet her, besides, I feel she's really old already. But it is kind of okay, I am that type that I do not want to know my idols personally or to engage them too much because it will destroy the mysticism.

But I still hold on that dream. I may be in a divergent track (because she is engaged in development work anyway) but whenever I lose steam, she just appears to my mind. I begin to feel a sense of awe. Not foolish, not disillusionment, but the sense of wander. We all need that wanderlust. 

I believe the Divine has laid down every path imaginable for me to be like her. I engage in development work and with local communities and I am positioned to be in something of influence and to make a change, small change at a time. I feel guilty because I sometimes waste this opportunity. And whenever I recall these moments, I cannot ask for much. Because everything is settled. What I asked Divine gave me. I am but humbled. There is always a new found purpose.