reminder

About a month ago, I wrote these words.

...be less of a worrywart. I need to realize and remember that there are some things I have no control of, and that I can't stress myself to death worrying about those things. That's what faith is for, isn't it? I can't just offer everything up to God and then worry about them after. That's not faith.

...make things happen. For those things I can control, then I will take charge. And then I will let go. I will do everything I can and set my heart on things I really want, and once I've done my very best, if they're meant for me, they'll be mine; they will happen.

Now I need to go back to these words and put each and every single one to heart.

"waiting is a form of imprisonment"

I thank my friend Sam for sharing this essay by Lance Morrow. Bear with me, this is a bit long.

Waiting is a kind of suspended animation. Time solidifies: a dead weight. The mind reddens a little with anger and then blanks off into a sort of abstraction and fitfully wanders, but presently it comes up red and writhing again, straining to get loose. Waiting casts one's life into a little dungeon of time. It is a way of being controlled, of being rendered immobile and helpless. One can read a book or sing (odd looks from the others) or chat with strangers if the wait is long enough to begin forming a bond of shared experience, as at a snowed-in airport. But people tend to do their waiting stolidly. When the sound system went dead during the campaign debate in 1976, Jerry Ford and Jimmy Carter stood in mute suspension for 27 minutes, looking lost.

To enforce a wait, of course, is to exert power. To wait is to be powerless. Consider one minor, almost subliminal form. The telephone rings. One picks up the receiver and hears a secretary say, "Please hold for Mr. Godot." One sits for perhaps five seconds, the blood pressure just beginning to cook up toward the red line, when Godot comes on the line with a hearty "How are ya?" and business proceeds and the moment passes, Mr. Godot having established that he is (subtly) in control, that his time is more precious than his callee's. (Incidentally, the only effective response to hearing the secretary's "Please hold for..." is to hang up without explanation. After two or three times, Mr. Godot himself will place the call, as he should have done at the start.) But the "please hold" ploy is a mere flicker in the annals of great and horrible waiting. Citizens of the Soviet Union would think it bourgeois decadence to complain about such a trifle. The Soviets have turned waiting into a way of life. The numb wait is their negotiating style: a heavy, frozen, wordless impassivity designed to madden and exhaust the people across the table. To exist in the Soviet Union is to wait. Almost perversely, when Soviet shoppers see a line forming, they simply join it, assuming that some scarce item is about to be offered for sale. A study published by Pravda calculates that Soviet citizens waste 37 billion hours a year standing in line to buy food and other basic necessities. To bind an entire people to that kind of life is to do a little of the work of the Gulag in a different style.

Waiting is a form of imprisonment. One is doing time—but why? One is being punished not for an offense of one's own but often for the inefficiencies of those who impose the wait. Hence the peculiar rage that waits engender, the sense of injustice. Aside from boredom and physical discomfort, the subtler misery of waiting is the knowledge that one's most precious resource, time, a fraction of one's life, is being stolen away, irrecoverably lost.

Americans have ample miseries of waiting, of course—waits sometimes connected with affluence and leisure. The lines to get a passport in Manhattan last week stretched around the block in Rockefeller Center. Travelers waited four and five hours just to get into bureaucracy's front door. A Washington Post editorial writer reported a few days ago that the passengers on her 747, diverted to Hartford, Conn., on the return flight from Rome as a result of bad weather in New York City, were forced to sit on a runway for seven hours because no customs inspectors were on hand to process them.

The great American waits are often democratic enough, like traffic jams. Some of the great waits have been collective, tribal—waiting for the release of the American hostages in Iran, for example. But waiting often makes class distinctions. One of the more depressing things about being poor in America is the endless waiting it entails: waiting for medical care at clinics or in emergency rooms, waiting in welfare or unemployment lines.

The waiting rooms of the poor are forlorn, but in fact almost all waiting rooms are spiritless and blank-eyed places where it always feels like 3 in the morning.

One of the inestimable advantages of wealth is the immunity that it can purchase from serious waiting. The rich do not wait in long lines to buy groceries or airplane tickets. The help sees to it. The limousine takes the privileged right out onto the tarmac, their shoes barely grazing the ground.

People wait when they have no choice or when they believe that the wait is justified by the reward—a concert ticket, say. Waiting has its social orderings, its rules and assumptions. Otherwise peaceful citizens explode when someone cuts into a line that has been waiting a long time. It is unjust; suffering is not being fairly distributed. Oddly, behavioral scientists have found that the strongest protests tend to come from the immediate victims, the people directly behind the line jumpers. People farther down the line complain less or not at all, even though they have been equally penalized by losing a place.

Waiting is difficult for children. They have not yet developed an experienced relationship with time and its durations: "Are we there yet, Daddy?" There can be pleasant, tingling waits, of course, full of fantasies, and they are often connected with children: the wait for the child to arrive in the first place, the wait for Christmas, for summer vacation. Children wait more intensely than adults do. Sheer anticipation makes their blood jump in a lovely way.

Waiting can have a delicious quality ("I can't wait to see her." "I can't wait for the party"), and sometimes the waiting is better than the event awaited. At the other extreme, it can shade into terror: when one waits for a child who is late coming home or—most horribly—has vanished. When anyone has disappeared, in fact, or is missing in action, the ordinary stress of waiting is overlaid with an unbearable anguish of speculation: Alive or dead?

Waiting can seem an interval of nonbeing, the black space between events and the outcomes of desires. It makes time maddeningly elastic: it has a way of seeming to compact eternity into a few hours. Yet its brackets ultimately expand to the largest dimensions. One waits for California to drop into the sea or for "next year in Jerusalem" or for the Messiah or for the Apocalypse. All life is a waiting, and perhaps in that sense one should not be too eager for the wait to end. The region that lies on the other side of waiting is eternity.

It's like Lance Morrow can read exactly what I am feeling right now when he wrote this, especially when he said that "To enforce a wait, of course, is to exert power. To wait is to be powerless." And when I got to the part where he wrote "People wait...when they believe that the wait is justified by the reward", I can't help but wonder: will this waiting that I am going through again finally be justified this time?

i felt like i'm in elementary again

I have more than one reason why I love writing (the editorial kind, that is). For one, I get to travel and meet new people, like in last Saturday's assignment. Well, fine, it wasn't like I flew to Cebu to feature a posh resort or something; nevertheless, I was still excited about the trip because it brought me to this big bottling company in Sta. Rosa, Laguna, and it felt like I was having a field trip back in elementary. I saw assembly lines of bottles being filled with sodas and juices, I got to wear a hard hat and this reflective vest, and learned a lot about the process of how a bottled iced tea is made.

Here was how that day went, in pictures.

the week that was...so far

Before I go on to write about my first day of school, I mean, my first day back at work, let me first rave about my trip to the CD/DVD sale last weekend.

Sure, Francis and I promised ourselves to be more careful with our spending especially now that we'll soon be paying for our new unit's equity (down payment). But who in their right mind can resist a sale where original CDs and DVDs sell for as low as Php20 (CDs) and Php150 (DVDs)? Definitely not us.

And so we went crazy and went home with these:

This isn't our first time to hoard. Last year, we went to the same sale by Universal Records and got home with loads of CDs. Majority of my selection were CDs of indie Brit bands, most (if not all) of which I'm not familiar with, but I did not regret buying them. This time was the same, though I bought more DVDs (last year had less good choices) than CDs. So now Francis and I would listen to new albums every night, or watch a DVD that we feel like watching (as of writing, Massive Attack is playing).

If you're envious (haha!) and are raring to go, wait until this weekend (and until this weekend only--Friday, Saturday, Sunday, from 10am to 7pm; the sale has been ongoing since the first weekend of June) then rush to the 10th floor of Universal Tower along Quezon Avenue (that's near Parco). But if don't have time, don't despair; Universal Records usually holds a yearly sale (sometimes even twice a year!), so there's still another chance to hoard. Just be on the lookout for an announcement in newspapers or check out their Facebook page. I'll also post here as soon as I got wind of another sale.

Now on to my return venture into the work force. After two months of leave, I got back to work yesterday. I actually sneaked back in without most of my co-workers noticing me, in the hopes that I can remain unseen so I can pretend I'm not at work yet. But of course this isn't a fantasy world so they noticed. Sure, I was touched when they told me they were glad I'm back. Still, I can't help but feel a tad sad that I'm already back to the grind.

If there's one thing I realized during my "vacation", it's that I'm ready to leave my desk job. I wouldn't be saying this if I were writing this entry three years ago. Back then, I didn't feel ready yet to be a freelancer; I wanted to belong to a team and be able to have summer outings and Christmas parties. It's a funny reason to want an office job, I know; but since there are really no summer outings and Christmas parties have become rare, then what's the point right? Or maybe, I've already grown mature enough to embrace the idea of having all of my time in my own hands. That way, I can control the stress level in my life. Now, I can imagine myself working on a deadline in our cozy pad, without me running like a headless chicken (answering emails, entertaining AE requests, printing documents, replying to a supplier's text message and conceptualizing special executions in my head--all happening at the same friggin' time).

But in life, mature people have to make choices according to their priorities; so I chose to go back to work and try my very best to still put my best foot forward; nevermind if I'm wincing while doing so. I know it's not the best attitude, but that's the least I can do to prevent myself from going jobless and broke (hello, monthly amortization!). And if there's anything I've gleaned from self-help career guide articles I've read, it's this trick to keep one's mind sane at work when mulling over printing that resignation letter: find something you really like to do to distract you from the stress and distress. In my case, that would be photography, music and writing. Staying in my job got me closer to opportunities related to these three (photography and writing, especially). If only for that, I am very thankful. So yes, Imma stick it out a little bit more and wait and see. I've waited for the past three years already, so what's a year or so? Like I have written in a previous entry, I shall grab every opportunity that comes my way and let go of things I have no control of. I'm tired of hearing myself whine without me really doing anything; this time, I will do something and just see what happens next.

On a lighter note, I found it funny when Francis and my mom asked me how my back-to-work day went yesterday, as if it was my first day in school. Where's my allowance, mom?

of christian bautista and tales of a domesticated life

This is my second time to interview a celebrity. The first one was actor JC de Vera for Cosmo mag's Man on Fire section last December. This time, it was singer Christian Bautista, for the same magazine and section, which is due this coming August.

I'm not a big fan, but I must admit he has a swoon-worthy voice. He's really cute, though, and very nice and witty. When he saw my list of questions, he was shocked to discover that I have 43 items on my list. I bet he thought it would take us forever to finish the interview, but I assured him that all 43 questions are "fun" ones, which means he wasn't expected to give lengthy answers (the section is just a Q&A anyway).

So if you're a fan and you want to know more about this hunky singer's opinion on love, marriage, women and many other things, wait for the Cosmo August issue and grab one as soon as you see it on the newsstand. Oh, and Christian will also be in the September issue, so wait for that, too! (haha, shameless promotion!)

In the meantime, here's a sneak peak:

On the way to the shoot venue in Antipolo, Cosmo's managing editor Camille, formerly my co-editor in our department, and I were talking about our frustrations about renovating/improving our respective homes that we're just currently renting. Then we talked about how Francis and I found the unit in Sofia Bellevue. The conversation spun to other domestic concerns--floor vinyls, house cleaning woes, cooking, etc. We both laughed when we realized that it wasn't so long ago when clothes, bags and shoes dominated our conversations; now it's mostly about being (happily) married.

i'm so excited and i just can't hide it!

The suggested floor plan for a 40sqm unit,
which we'll most likely adhere to.
Oh, and ours has a balcony, so weee!

I have a good motivation to work hard (yes, despite my ranting in my previous entry). In fact, right now, my head is so filled with plans for our new--our own--home in Sofia Bellevue.

The dining area/living room and bedroom of the model unit

We weren't really actively looking for our own house. We just made it a habit to drop by those clusters of agents and scale condo/house and lot models frequently found in malls. Francis and I would collect flyers and then sift through them. Then we came across this flyer of Sofia Bellevue, a cluster of mid-rise condo buildings in Capitol Hills. Seeing that the price won't make us empty all our savings in the bank (well, hopefully that won't ever happen), we got in touch with the agent whose name was stamped on the flyer.

The kitchen (my turf! I love the frosted cupboard doors!)
and a sneak peek of the bathroom

Long story short, we saw the model units for a 36sqm and a 40sqm. The latter has more room for two bedrooms, and so we decided to wait for a slot whose monthly amortization we can afford. The more affordable ones were already all sold out; the only option left was either to wait for a slot to be re-opened or wait for the official selling date of the ones in the newest building (there are five buildings, and there's only one building left to be constructed). However, if we were to go for the new building, we'd risk breaking the bank, so Francis and I agreed to just wait for a slot.

Unfortunately, after a month of two of waiting, our agent never got back to us. Well, she did, but every time she does, she always insisted on the new building despite the many times we've told her we can't possibly afford it. Good thing our couple friend, who already bought a 40sqm unit last year (and they're probably busy moving in this week), referred us to their agent, Lawrence. They said he's very diligent and is trustworthy. Seeing there's nothing wrong with trying, we told Lawrence what we wanted, and he assured us that he'll just give us a call or send us a text message if there are any developments. We prayed for it and waited.

The site development plan. Our unit is housed
in Woodridge building.

Then the good news came (story here). We really praise God for saying "yes" to our request. Not only did we get the deal we wanted, we also got a unit that's strategically located--it's on the sixth floor and has a balcony which overlooks the clubhouse and a golf course!

And so now, I am preoccupied with all the design plans possible. Since the actual unit is bare (all of the units are), we have to first erect divisions for the two bedrooms. Then it's down to the interior design. I am super excited because Francis and I have agreed to go tropical/modern zen, with hints of Baguio, since we are so enamored with that place (think Café by the Ruins with a dash of Vocas art gallery; writing about this actually makes me feel all fuzzy!). I'm here wrecking my brains as to how to incorporate Baguio elements--wood, greens, nature, strawberries (this, we have down pat, thanks to the strawberry scented oil we have, haha!), coziness--and everything in between. I guess it's wise to heed the advice of home magazines: make a mood board. So we shall!

I so, so love the feel of this peg! This will definitely go in our mood board.

Oh, oh, oh, I really cannot contain the excitement! It's just really fun and wonderful to finally have our own place that we can decorate and spend time (and money) on. I bet I'll lose sleep just thinking about the many possibilities!

(All images are from the web.)

i shall be back

This is the last week of my leave. After two months, I shall again be back to the grind; and in more ways than one, I feel sad.

Yes, I did miss doing something, but that does not mean I missed my work. I never missed anything about my job, except for my office friends. I never missed the stress, the deadlines, the clients.

It's funny that I missed shooting (as in me behind the lens, not work shoots) more than getting back to my desk. I missed writing for our magazines. These things make me feel much more fulfilled at the end of the day--shooting and writing. I learn from them.

Still, I am thankful for my job; it pays the bills. Yet I'm hoping there's something more...

it was indeed a baguio bliss

It seems like happy things follow me whenever I'm in Baguio. My husband proposed to me there, and this recent trip, our prayer has been answered.

It was our last night in the City of Pines when we got the good news from our broker. We weren't even expecting to get a slot, considering all the 40sqm units in the mid-rise building we're eyeing have already been sold out. So when I got the text from our broker that a unit was opened for sale, I knew right away it was meant for us; and the news was made even sweeter because we were in our favorite city.

This recent trip is more special, actually. Aside from that answered prayer, it was during that four-day stay when I learned how to embrace spontaneity. I learned how to let go of being in control; I just let every day take me wherever it wants. It was really emancipating. I got to spend almost three days of loitering around Baguio alone (while Francis got busy with his convention), taking in the sights, sounds, smell, everything, and being thankful for each and everyone of them. The happiness I felt during my stay was different--it was deep. It's this kind of happiness that was enveloped with the repose I needed.

I went to Baguio to find peace from the past months' events, and I found it. I knew I would. God was gracious enough to hand it over to me, generously.

Looks like I have more and more reasons to come back.

***

Here are the trip's highlights:

(From top) The tunnel that tells me Baguio is barely 30 minutes away already; surprisingly, I even love the traffic in this city; Francis and I got gutsy and tried civet cat coffee--twice! First time in Cafe by the Ruins and second in BenCab Museum (Francis tried cupfuls; I only dared teaspoonfuls); the cozy and budget-friendly Brentwood Apartelle, which became our home for four days; Vocas Art Gallery, which houses Oh My Gulay restaurant, never fails to liven up the senses; another sensory overdrive in BenCab Museum along Asin Road in Tuba, Benguet; An interesting creation by Anna Varona (the time is read counter-clockwise); the picturesque view from the museum's balcony; the very beautiful garden at the museum

unplanned happiness

On the roads of Pangasinan, a few hours from Baguio

This is my second day here in Baguio, and this stay is one of those rare occasions when I deliberately have no concrete plans as to what I'm going to do here. If there are plans, all are sketchy. So yesterday went something like this.

Husband registered for his three-day convention
in Teacher's Camp, then...

breakfast of waffles at Volante along Session Road
before hubby went back to his convention.


Met up with friend Mari-An, hunted for books and had late lunch
(that's Talong Parmigiana for me) at Oh My Gulay resto


Came back to our hotel with these reads


Dinner with the hubby at Ayuyang


And then we capped off the night with a yummy blueberry
cheesecake at Vizco's on Session Road

I feel like I'm Scarlett Johansson in Lost in Translation, only that I'm not lost here in this beautiful city that's saccharinely familiar. I like that I still don't have concrete plans for today's solo jaunt. All I know is that I'm going to have late lunch somewhere in SM Baguio, and then come what may.

Spontaneity is so emancipating!

dainty streak

Anything dainty has always fascinated me (but not including the color pink and heart images, except if they're really irresistibly dainty). So naturally, when I saw these, I was not able to resist buying.

A makeup kit

A bag hook


A fan

Yes, the makeup kit has a touch of fuchsia on it but it's just too pretty for me not to grab. Then I found the perfect bag hook with such a beautiful peacock/floral design. I'm never really a fan of bag hooks because I think it does bags more harm than good--they put more pressure on the straps/handle, depending on the material they're made of. I'd rather put my bag on my lap or on the floor (should be clean) in case there's no more room for it. But then a bag hook can also be useful, especially for my sturdy bags and for hanging a dripping umbrella. (Both the makeup kit and bag hook are from SM Megamall department store). Then, there's that exquisite fan I saw in Landmark. I left my (old) fan, which is a favorite, with my sister; and since she keeps on forgetting to bring it whenever we see each other, I opted to buy a new one. It's suicide not to have one in this humid weather!

Oh, shopping--even for small stuff like these--makes me feel that I'm really back on my feet somehow.