Pasalubong

Jay got back from Turkey yesterday. (Finally!) And he brought me, among other things, this lovely necklace with an eye pendant. I think it's called "nazar".

I guess I'm now free from all evil and harm :) If not, well, I will be quite fashionable and full of charm :P

Okay that was quite lame. Haha. Here's a short explanation of it instead:

Throughout the whole human history, in every culture and religion, the eye figure has been considered as a powerful talisman to defy evil forces. The blue evil eye beads of Turkey - Nazar Boncugu say "Mash Allah" -- meaning "God has willed it".

In Turkey, wherever you look, you'll meet plenty of eyes looking at you. Here it is a real evil eye bead paradise. People hang a small evil eye amulet from the rear view mirror of their car, keep several small evil eye beads or charms on hand to give to guests, and hang an evil eye near their door in the home or office. Glass evil eyes are worn, often in the form of jewelry: evil eye bracelets, evil eye necklaces, evil eye anklets, gold or silver evil eye charms and pendants, blue evil eye decorative talismans, evil eye earrings, rings and plenty of evil eye ethnic jewelry sets.

It is common in the Turkish culture to give a gift of a "Blue Glass Nazar Boncugu". The shiny bead gives protection and brings luck to all. With its warm blue, the shine it has derived from the fire and the smiling face that's a typical feature of the Anatolian people, it gives happiness to friends and beloved ones.

Teşekkürler! :)

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I have a new key chain. Radka, our Consul, just came back from a trip to Nauru. But no, the keychain's not from Nauru. It's from her short stopover in Australia.

I recently decided that if anyone gives me a key chain from any country, I would have to visit that place in my lifetime. So I guess that that's one more country on my list.

My list's still pretty short though: Malaysia, Italy, Japan, USA, Singapore, and Australia. I need more keychains! And from more exotic locations please... ;)

10 Things I hate about You

I hate the way you talk to me, and the way you cut your hair.
I hate the way you drive my car.
I hate it when you stare.
I hate your big dumb combat boots, and the way you read my mind.
I hate you so much it makes me sick; it even makes me rhyme.
I hate it, I hate the way you're always right.
I hate it when you lie.
I hate it when you make me laugh, even worse when you make me cry.
I hate it when you're not around, and the fact that you didn't call.
But mostly I hate the way I don't hate you. Not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all.

Just a thought

The truth is, we can live without the people we love. We may eventually forget them. We may spend the rest of our lives wondering about them. Still, life would go on without them. It's just a matter of choosing whether to make the best of that life or not.

How to say goodbye

Here are some photos from my trip to Legaspi. (Thanks Mij!) These were taken on the day we left for Manila. (See July 9 entry)

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Gather just outside the garage














Strike another pose on the driveway














Take a final photo before entering the car

A bright spot in my otherwise dull existence

Had dinner with the Gryces last night at Cena. Loved the drinks (gin pomelo frozen, yum!), loved the company even more. I will miss these colleagues of mine so much when they leave. :(

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I really need to find something to do. Perhaps German classes. That should keep me busy for awhile. Oh well, can't wait for August. That's when classes start.

Great expectations

They say that when you expect too much, you hurt just as much when you don't get that what you were hoping for. And thus, one mustn't expect too much.

Well I don't expect much. I don't have grand expectations. I have dreams, but I'd like to think I'm a realist. Still, I have had more than my fair share of disappointments. And I'm just beginning to realize why.

My problem is that I get excited easily. Even over the smallest things. I like looking forward to things. Even those of the least bit of importance. And so too do I get disappointed easily. Even if it's just a small thing.

I used to think that the phrase "great expectations" meant grand dreams and ambitions. Now I'm seeing that any expectation can be great, it only depends on how much you care.

Maybe I should stop caring so much.

Basketball fever

I watched three basketball games at the Araneta Coliseum yesterday: China vs Syria, Philippines vs Lebanon, and Talk n Text Phone Pals vs Alaska Aces.

The first game was inconsequential. I felt no urge to cheer for either the Chinese or the Syrians. But the game did get a bit exciting towards the end when the Chinese rallied and even got the lead for awhile. Still they were no match for the Syrians who were bigger and taller -- if my memory serves me right, haha.

The second game was much more fun and exciting -- it brought out the cheerleader and Filipino in me. I'm a mere fan and no expert, but I think it was great team work that allowed the Philippine team to win over the Lebanese. They just had two guys (no. 11 and 15 -- their names are kinda hard to remember) who were doing most of the work. But for the Philippines, everyone was really working hard. Top scorers were Jimmy Alapag (most deserving MVP of the Invitational Tournament), Mark Caguioa (started slow but finished with a bang), and Kelly Williams (great offensive and defensive plays). Others quietly contributed points here and there while playing great defense. Okay, I will stop the commentary right here. Haha. It was a great game, that's all. :)

Even after those two previous games I was still keen on watching the third game, the 5th game of the PBA Championship series between the Talk n Text Phone Pals and the Alaska Aces. I'm more of a San Miguel fan so I wasn't really planning to cheer for either team. But since it's not fun to watch a game without taking sides, I decided to cheer for Alaska, out of loyalty to my mom. :P Unfortunately, we were seated on the Phone Pals' side so I had to keep my cheering to a bare minimum. I could have lived with that. What ruined it all for me was the rowdy crowd that just wouldn't stop!

I mean, there is rooting for your team, and then there is plain lack of courtesy and manners. My friends and I were stuck in the middle of a group of well, die-hard is the word I guess, die-hard Phone Pal fans. They were just quarrelling everyone: the referees, the players, the audience on the other side, and even each other. One lady (well, not quite) was screaming curses at the referee for, what was in her opinion, a bad call, with her young daughter right beside her. I was appalled to say the very least.

Oh I cannot begin to describe the behavior of the others in the box with us. It was just horrible. To think we had patron seats! I think the people in the upper boxes had more fun watching the game. We did not enjoy the game anymore, even though it was actually a quite exciting game -- high scoring and suspense-filled. It could have gone into overtime! But I'm not gna start on another commentary... hehe.

Anyway, I went home with a terrible headache. And the resolve to not expose myself to that kind of abuse ever again. I think I shall settle with watching games on TV and subject my siblings to my occasional screams and running commentary instead.

Why wait?

The Sacrament Of Waiting
Fr. James Donelan, S.J.

The English poet John Milton wrote that those who serve only also stand and wait. I think I would go further and say that those who wait render the highest form of service. Waiting requires more discipline, more self-control and emotional maturity, more unshakable faith in our cause, more unwavering hope in the future, more sustaining love in our hearts that all the greatest deeds of deering-do go by the name of action.

Waiting is a mystery - a natural sacrament of life - there is a meaning hidden in all the times we have to wait. It must be an important mystery because there is so much waiting in our lives.

Everyday is filled with those little moments of waiting (testing our patience and our nerves, schooling us in self-control.) We wait for meals to be served,for a letter to arrive, for a friend to call or show up for a date. We wait in line at cinemas and theaters, concerts and circuses. Our airline terminals, railway stations and bus depots are great temples of waiting filled with men and women who wait in joy for the arrival of a loved one - or wait in sadness to say goodbye and give the last wave of hand. We wait for springs to come - or autumn - for the rains to begin and stop.

And we wait for ourselves to grow from childhood to maturity. We wait for those inner voices that tell us when we are ready for the next stop.

We wait for graduation, for our first job, our first promotion. We wait for success and recognition. We wait to grow up - to reach the stage where we make our own decisions. We cannot remove this waiting from our lives. It is a part of the tapestry of living - the fabric in which the threads are woven to tell the story of our lives.

Yet current philosophies would have us forget the need to wait "grab all the gusto you can get." So reads one of America's greatest beer ads - get it now! Instant pleasure, instant transcendence. Do not wait for anything. Life is short - eat, drink and be merry because tomorrow you will die. And so they rationalize us into accepting unlicensed and irresponsible freedom - pre-marital sex and extra marital affairs - they warn against attachments and commitments - against expecting anything of anybody, or allowing them to expect anything of us - against dropping any anchors in the currents of our life that will cause us to hold and wait.

This may be the correct prescription for pleasure - but even that is fleeting and doubtful - what was it Shakespeare said about the mad pursuit of pleasure - "Past reason hunted, and once had, past reason hated." Not if we wish to be real human beings, spirit as well as flesh, soul as well as heart, we have to learn to wait. For if we never learn to wait, we will never learn to love someone other than ourselves.

For most of all waiting means waiting for someone else. It is a mystery, brushing by our face everyday like a stray wind of leaf falling from a tree. Anyone who has loved knows how much waiting goes into it - how much waiting is important for love to grow, to flourish through a lifetime.

Why is this? Why can we not have it right now what we so desperately want and need? Why must we wait - two years, three years - and seemingly waste so much time? You might as well ask why a tree should take so long to bear fruit - the seed to flower - carbon to change to diamond.

There is no simple answer - no more than there is to life's other demands - having to say goodbye to someone you love because either you or they have made other commitments; or because they have to grow and find the meaning of their own lives - having yourself to leave home and loved ones to find your own path - good-byes, like waiting, are also sacraments of our lives.

All we know is that growth - the budding, the flowering of love needs patient waiting. We have to give each other a time to grow. There is no way we can make someone else truly love us or we them, except through time. So we give each other that mysterious gift of waiting - of being present without asking demands and rewards. There is nothing harder to do than this. It truly tests the depth and sincerity of our love. But there is life in the gift we give.

So lovers wait for each other - until they can see things the same way - or let each other freely see things in quite different ways.

There are times when lovers hurt each other and cannot regain the balance of intimacy of the way they were. They have to wait - in silence - but still present to each other - until the pain subsides to an ache and then only a memory and the threads of the tapestry can be woven together again in a single love story.

What do we lose when we refuse to wait; when we try to find shortcuts through life - when we try to incubate love and rush blindly and foolishly into a commitment we are neither mature nor responsible enough to assume? We lose the hope of truly loving or of being loved. Think of all the great love stories of history and literature - isn't it of their very essence that they are filled with this strange but common mystery - that waiting is part of the substance - the basic fabric against which the story of that true love is written.

How can we ever find either life or true love if we are too impatient to wait for it?

Trips

I just got back from Legaspi. I was able to spend four days at home. Oh god bless the Czechs for their holidays! :)

It was all unplanned, it was just lovely: EVERYONE went home. Siblings 1 to 13, applicable spouses, nephews and nieces included. My mom couldn't quite decide which grandchild to play with! And which child to scold for all the merciless teasing and bantering going on. Haha.

I had a grand time taking care of my nieces and nephews, particularly Martina and Alfonso, the youngest of the group. I felt very much the proud aunt for achieving the feat of making them fall asleep in my arms. It felt so good. I think I have baby envy, hahaha.

Anyway, I can't wait for the photos. (Mar, Fif, Chiara: *hint*) We don't get together so often like that, so photos are in order. I will post some soon as I get them.

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Still don't know when Jay is coming back. Ay ay.

How is it possible to miss someone so much when you've lived more than half your life without him anyway?

*sigh*

You just have to love Pablo Neruda

If You Forget Me

I want you to know

one thing.

You know how this is:

if I look at the crystal moon, at the red branch

of the slow autumn at my window,

if I touch

near the fire

the impalpable ash

or the wrinkled body of the log,

everything carries me to you,

as if everything that exists,

aromas, light, metals,

were little boats

that sail

toward those isles of yours that wait for me.

Well, now,

if little by little you stop loving me

I shall stop loving you little by little.

If suddenly

you forget me

do not look for me,

for I shall already have forgotten you.

If you think it long and mad,

the wind of banners

that passes through my life,

and you decide

to leave me at the shore

of the heart where I have roots,

remember

that on that day,

at that hour,

I shall lift my arms

and my roots will set off

to seek another land.

But

if each day,

each hour,

you feel that you are destined for me

with implacable sweetness,

if each day a flower

climbs up to your lips to seek me,

ah my love, ah my own,

in me all that fire is repeated,

in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,

my love feeds on your love, beloved,

and as long as you live it will be in your arms

without leaving mine.

Ho hum

I am waiting again.

Waiting for Jay to come back from Turkey.

Waiting for August to come so I can go to that interview for a job I really want.

Waiting for Thursday to come so I can fly back home.

Waiting for something exciting to happen in my life.

Ho hum.