...

Here I am, I can't give you anything
Here I stand, I can't turn away
Here I am, don't want to cause you pain
Here I stand, alone and on my own again

At Grappa's with the Grycs

With my favorite colleagues from the Czech Embassy: present, outgoing, and former.

My favorite crazy friend, all smiles under the logo of the best (and only) Czech beer in town.

With our favorite couple Helena and Petr. We will miss them much when they leave, boo :(

Gin Pom and Jazz

My friend Karen is visiting from Singapore. On Wednesday we decided to go to Cena for our favorite gin pomelo freeze. Yum yum!

A pleasant surprise for us: it turned out to be Ladies' Jazz Night, and Sofia (or is it Sophia?) was performing. Err, she's not that great but the music was. Luke Mijares and a middle-aged lady named Nikki jammed with the band -- and were actually better performers, hahaha. I've never been a Luke Mijares fan, but well, he sure knows how to work it. As for the lady, she was just so cool!

I now know my goal in life: to be a jazz singer!!!

****

Yesterday I saw the weirdest thing on the train. The girl in front of me had eyebrows growing forward -- that's the best way I can describe them. If you looked at her from the side, her eyebrows seemed to be like eaves hanging over her eyes. So weird! :P

Sunsets and happiness

I haven't been seeing any sunsets lately.

The last time I wrote about sunsets in my journal, I was quite happy. I had just come to realize that I need not go far to find happiness. That yes, sunsets in Manila are lovelier than those in Bangkok. That I just need to sit still, and see and feel the beauty of the moment -- whether I'm getting crushed by a bunch of people on the train, or enjoying a cup of coffee in one of those glass buildings along Ayala Avenue.

I told myself then that I only need to appreciate the small things around me, appreciate things that I call my own -- appreciate my life! Know that despite the troubles I have, I have so much to be grateful for. Know that I don't need to run off to another place to find happiness, when home is the only place I'll find it.

How easily I have forgotten.

I haven't been seeing any sunsets lately. I blame it on the rain. But deep down I know it's more than that.

How much easier it is to turn jaded from being happy, than to decide to be happy after turning jaded for even just awhile.

I want my sunsets back. But that's pretty much up to me. The good thing is, it's all in the mind, right? Which means I can be happy again.

I will be happy again.

Decisions, decisions

The other day, I had decided that it's better to play the fool than the cynic. Today, I am not so sure.

I am a fool, that's for sure. To stay that way or not is the question.

Hmm.

nice poetry from "In Her Shoes"

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart)
ee cummings

i carry your heart with me
(i carry it in my heart)
i am never without it
(anywhere i go you go, my dear;
and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling)

i fear no fate
(for you are my fate, my sweet)
i want no world
(for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;
which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart
(i carry it in my heart)

?

I feel like my life has come to a standstill and I am just itching for something new.

Always something new. What is wrong with me?

They say happiness is a state of mind. Well I guess there's something wrong with my state of mind.

I had dinner with a friend yesterday and she commented that I seemed unhappy. That's bad. I'm not particularly unhappy. (I just want a few changes in my life, that's all.) But for someone to say something like that, that I apparently radiate unhappiness, well, that sucks. I'm not a sad person, no!

Or maybe I am. And I'm just in denial.

Ugh.