Realization for the day:
Our youngest sister is like the neighbor’s mother cat who has had too many kittens–she no longer wants love. Only food.
#hellokittythoughts #sadbutkindatrue
Browsing Category
Life and Lemons
Ticket to a loooooonnnng ride.
The concept of the Metro Rail train system is to provide fast, efficient mass transportation that cuts through traffic and carries people from end-to-end cities in 30 minutes or less. Just like your favorite pizza delivery service. I just made that up as I typed, because I thought it made sense that people were delivered to places much faster than pizza. The one other metro rail line I’ve been on—the MTR in Hong Kong–seems to agree with me though. After a Hong Kong MTR train leaves the platform, a one-minute timer starts followed shortly by a cool voice on the speaker affirming that the next train will be arriving in 60 seconds. The cool voice doesn’t lie to you. Thus the queuing is rarely crowded and is always orderly (though the Chinese have a predisposition to elbowing strangers unapologetically), and the passengers cross the city in about the same time it takes to boil an egg. I might have exaggerated a bit but you get my drift.
To welcome 2012 I made a list of things I wanted to do, because fulfillment and action were the themes of that New Year. It summed up to be quite a tough yet full 365 days, and I’ve looked forward to seeing it close just so I can start on a blank page. Next level multitasking can do that to you.
So for 2013 I write another list, this time of things I need to learn, because I am always a work in progress. And that’s a good thing.
1. Don’t obsess over things I don’t need to decide on yet. I read somewhere that you pull from the same energy source when you choose over what to wear to work today and when you decide on a big career shift in the future. We only have one brain after all, and it is really a bother to have one like mine that is constantly plagued by an unorganized stream of thoughts. Resolution: stress over the things I can only change now. Everything else will have their turn.
2. Be more firm about those that do. It is like going to the grocery to buy cereal only to see that there are 101 different kinds, and you didn’t even know what the heck ‘shredded wheat’ is. I am often a victim of analysis-paralysis, and really it gets tiring. To self: learn to decide fast woman, and decide well.
3. Save more. Taking ECODEV right after INVEMAN can drill this nugget of wisdom to my skull if nothing else can. I’m looking at you now, Japan and South Korea, not only at your idols but at your impressive campaign to save. It truly was game changing.
4. Love more. This one is free, which is good for #3. Step 1 is to go home earlier whenever possible. Parents nag that it is to secure my safety, but I’m sure there is more to that.
5. Face changes in its scary face. 2013 is a year poised for more change, but only if I allow it. I have been in ongoing transition for a while now, but I am long overdue for big changes. Bring it.
6. Speak as well as I write. Anyone who bothers to read this blog knows I am no Rowling, no Zafra. Still the truth remains that I can string thoughts together better on print, while they jumble and come out in a stutter when I speak. Add sweaty palms and a pounding heart and the phenomenon is complete. I have to win over this battle, and soon.
Everybody says visualize your goals, it works better for me when I list them down. I intend to revisit this come midyear, and hope I am halfway successful by then.
High five for luck, anyone? 🙂
It is not really an invasion, when said man is the father and said women are his wife and children. But any child of an OFW will attest to being so used to absence that presence now is an awkward state. And so it is in the first few weeks to months whenever father comes home for his much deserved vacation from the deserts. I’ve been living through this transition for a while, and there are a few noteworthy things:
1. Driving gets stressful for the passenger. Before any other man protests, this is not a general rule, but in our house it is the woman who drives better than the man. More than an upper hand in skill and reflexes, to be fair it hinges more on the advantage of hands-on practice. Desert living does not require driving down tumultuous city streets. So it must be expected than when handed the wheel, the man will speed up on curves, not read road signs, and narrowly miss concrete barriers. Anyway, no physical harm done yet (knocks on wood). But the drive is no longer the relaxing nap time it used to be for the passengers. I kind of mourn that.
2. I was a prodigy when I was 3 years old, and other related tales. Mother was not much for reminiscing. Father on the other hand, does only that. There were his personal ‘war stories’ that have been on repeat for years now, and then the more surprising tales about his children such as myself being multi-talented in music, drawing and literature in the fresh age of three. First reaction: cool. Second reaction: what the hell happened??
3. I cannot go commando — as Joey from Friends would say it. As a female, I am biologically constituted to spend as much time as possible getting dressed. Corollary to that, I also have my Constitutional right to walk around half naked in my house. Such right is now confined inside my room, with the door barred, and really, where is the fun in that?
4. Curfew is moved to 9 pm. Truth be told, in my mother’s opinion my curfew should be as early as 8pm. But while she is the only parent in the house, that curfew can be extended all the way until 1 in the morning as long as she is asleep and my sisters cooperate. With father home, the two parents in the house tag-team. One minute past 9pm and you already get a text. The digital lasso of freedom in five letters – san ka?
This is a longer list, but the four noted things pretty much sums it up. It gets stressful and pretty loud in our cozy house, and my sisters and I tend to crowd behind our locked bedroom door. Even then I look forward to the day when presence and not absence will be the norm, and a man in our house is no longer an invasion.
Herein is the annual report prepared by the WordPress.com stats helper monkeys (that was a fun mental image). These are hardly impressive numbers compared to those of the popular blogger-cum-celebrities. But still, I apparently got clicks from 109 countries and I think that is awesome 🙂
Hmm, have to be more discerning in what I put in here. Responsibilities, responsibilities~
Here’s an excerpt:
600 people reached the top of Mt. Everest in 2012. My blog got about 8,800 views in 2012. If every person who reached the top of Mt. Everest viewed this blog, it would have taken 15 years to get that many views.
I woke up today with a clear sense of purpose.
This blog was initially created to be a cyber diary. Now diaries have historically proven themselves to be a bad idea to begin with, for one being a very effective blackmail weapon. For another, it is a concrete, detailed record of a person’s follies in the ignorant days of youth. That being said, a web diary is an even worse idea. My mother does not even need to “accidentally” rummage under my bed to find the narrative of my secret hopes, failures and dreams.
So today, in the dying days of 2012, I pledge the next few hours to read through four years’ worth of gripes, complaints, fuck-offs, and just the general outpouring of emotions on the keyboard. I know. Yech. But the fact that I squirm when I read them back must mean I am more matured now than the person who typed these before.
Live and learn, they say. And to move on, hit delete. A few hundred times.
Happy New Year!
