vickyherrera:

“People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered; forgive them anyway. If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives: Be kind anyway. What you spend years creating others could destroy overnight: Create anyway. If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway. The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway. Give the best you have, and it may never be enough: Give your best anyway. In the final analysis, it is between you and God: it was never between you and them anyway”

—

Mother Teresa

And though I’ve said before that the main purpose of this day is to have another day to make myself feel special… let me share to you how this thing actually means more than just cakes and celebrations.

• Being 22.5 means I am six months away from being 23. And 23 is not a very… young number. Oh how I wish I could just be 19 forever. That year in between “I’m finally 18” and “Omigosh I’m in twenties!“ 
• Being 22.5 means I am really getting old. I remember three years ago, somebody asked how old my sister was. And I answered, “Matanda na yun. 23 na yun eh.” Guess who’s turning 23 now! *facepalm*
• Being 22.5 means I am getting older and so are my friends. It means I’m gonna have fewer friends who’d be less patient with my childishness—includes my crazy texts, ideas, demands and useless occasion such as this one. 
• Being 22.5 means I am nearing that age where I’d need to gather my gorgeous cocktail dresses and prepare myself to glam invites to (no not debut parties…) wedding parties! 

What I just said doesn’t at all mean I am nearly approaching my own. All these just make me think what the hell am I doing now?

This point-five is a little reminder of the things I’m supposed to keep in mind before I reach another milestone. Before I, well… yeah, before I reach my real birthday.

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Above is a list of the things I need to work on before I reach my 23rd year. Given that I have six months before my birthday, I gave myself six things to focus on as I  prep myself to adulthood.

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1. Learn how to buy the best and the freshest goods in the wet market. In short, “mamalengke”. Matuto mamalengke.

Some people might not care if they don’t know how to do this because there’s the grocery for that anyway. But it always bugs me how I know not how to buy in the public market. I think I can easily be fooled by the vendors’ techniques in making a rotten fish look fresh by the yellow light, by splashing water over them from time to time. I don’t really know how it works. And I want to master it. I’m a woman, I should know how.

2. Re-learn how to cook Filipino dish.

I tried to learn this when I was in high school. I’d help mom or dad in the kitchen prepare dish for us during the weekend. In my head I was thinking that if I was gonna get married, I should learn and be good in cooking. Thing was, I realized how I wouldn’t be getting married soon, so I easily lost interest. But I did learn how to cook tinola, afritada, mechado, giniling, adobo, sinigang and kare-kare. Which is why our operational word here is: RE-LEARN. *wink*

3. Stop the colored liquid habit!

I hate drinking water. I just hate the absence of taste. I mean, I’m okay with eating a meal and having water, because I’m eating something on the side. But in the office, what I’d always drink while working is iced tea or orange juice. And I know it’s not healthy. So I know that I kind of have to train myself to like it. And to like it solo flight. :/

4. Keep away from being an issue-avoider.

I have this recently developed habit of changing the topic when I don’t want to be stressed by it. I’m pretty sure this is not just me. But I just know I have to stop doing it because it’s very immature.

I remember I have this friend who was asking me about my drink, “Pang ilan mo na yan?” and I answered my friend with “Oh are you guys going to play baseball tomorrow?” Seriously.

But not just that! There was also one quiet time when I could hear God talking to me about this thing. And I just answered Him in my head, “No God, we’re not talking about that. Seriously. UGH. I’m going to sleep now.”

Like who in the mature world does that?!?

5. Get back to reading, miss!

I lost it. I just really lost it. But one cannot be a hopeless case. I can do this. I can do this!

6. Your finances!

Let’s not get started here. If I have a financial advisor, I’m pretty sure he’s already at the brink of giving up with my fluctuating attitude towards my savings and finances. I guess I just have to remind myself of my plans in the future, what I want to buy and that I need to invest my money, so it’d stick in my head that I should save well and good. 

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But it all goes back to me being aware, right? At least I know what I need to work on. Actually, we can’t be sure if six months from now I can get a hold of all these six issues. But why should we be pessimistic? 

I can do this like a boss!
After all, I’ve turned older. ;)

Much to what happened last week, on my half-birthday week, on my next post!

xoxo

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P.S. Here’s a throwback of last year’s half birthday entry: http://jeldirecto.tumblr.com/post/5232794298/my-half-birthday-celebrating-my-21st-and-a-half

I just realized how it has already become a habit for me to check the meanings of songs I encounter. Shoot me a song and before even reaching the first thirty seconds of it, I’m already reading what the song is about.

I started doing this about two years ago. I couldn’t just end with my love for the notes. I really had to know what it meant. So I’d always visit SongMeanings.Net to check what the people are saying about a song.

(Here’s a throwback post from 11 months back, when I shared the interpretations of the most underrated songs of Katy Perry and Lady Gaga: http://jeldirecto.tumblr.com/post/5657770324/the-most-underrated-songs-of-katy-perry-and-lady-gaga.) 

We’d never really know how valid are the interpretations there because SongMeanings is like a forum that allows its members to discuss the meaning of songs. And it’s not like the song writer participates in the forum and actually reveal sthe secret as to what is contained in the song.

But then again, actually, I love the mystery. When I was younger, I was into writing poems and being strangely metaphoric. I lost the art now but I still know the heart of it. I miss it actually. (Hmmm… Why don’t I try to relive that.) So I’m good with three interpretations on hand, wondering which one is right. ;)

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Below is the most the recent song that I had interpreted. If you’re updated in The Vampire Diaries, you’d know why this song is stuck in my head. :P

But even if you don’t watch the series, try hitting play and listening to the song.

Florence and the Machine - Never Let Me Go

Looking out from underneath, fractured moonlight on the sea, feflections still look the same to me, as before I went under. And it’s peaceful in the deep, cathedral where you cannot breathe, no need to pray, no need to speak. Now I am under. And it’s breaking over me, a thousand miles onto the sea bed, found the place to rest my head.

Never let me go, never let me go. Never let me go, never let me go.

And the arms of the ocean are carrying me, and all this devotion was rushing out of me, and the crashes are heaven, for a sinner like me, the arms of the ocean deliver me. Though the pressure’s hard to take, it’s the only way I can escape, it seems a heavy choice to make, now I am under.

And it’s breaking over me, a thousand miles down to the sea bed, found the place to rest my head.

Never let me go, never let me go. Never let me go, never let me go.

—

User yhtrownu said that the meaning is about surrender. I quote:
 

This song seems to be about SURRENDER. Not giving up (an act of despair) but giving in (an act of embrace and devotion). This is about the pleasure of being overwhelmed, something akin to masochistic delight.

Ostensibly, the singer surrenders to the ocean, and lets it pull her to the bottom. All her concerns and prayers are as nothing any more because the all-encompassing sea reduces her to nothing.

But this is more metaphor, than reality, as the refrain “Never let me go,” suggests that life continues after the surrender, and the willing victim desires to be overwhelmed forever. It’s like the moment of orgasm, where you barely exist as a thinking person, and want to stay there forever. 

It’s the decision to surrender to a passion or desire, that others may question (branding you a sinner), but you don’t care, and beg that desire to embrace you foreve, to NEVER LET YOU GO. 

I know the feeling when you just want to surrender and let the flow take you. It’s not losing control. Well maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. But it’s that moment when you allow the current to take you, because it already starts to make sense. Not in your head but in your heart. As it says above, “It’s like the moment of orgasm, where you barely exist as a thinking person, and want to stay there forever.” You know how unsmart our hearts are. I think this can include the battle of the mind and the heart, and you allow the heart to win.

It can actually mean much more. But with just 6 plays in my iTunes, this is what I was able to grasp.

“…that we may enjoy this last night that we have—”
”HUY SIS GRABE KA NAMAN!”
And then I opened my eyes from my deep prayer. “What are you thinking? I’m not yet done!! …as I was saying Lord, that we may enjoy this last night that we have with maluwag na schedule for nights like this. The end of Janelle’s bum life. And please bless this food that we’re about to eat. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”

HAHAHA! What a mess. Mygulay.

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Last night, Janelle and I celebrated the last day of her vacation in Uncle Cheffy’s. She’s now entering med school with a sched that is med. LOLOLOL. I guess yesterday’s the last night that is free from homeworks and papers that are due. So we really had to celebrate (and acknowledge) it.

…with our favorite pizza!

We’ve been craving for this for weeks! Finally, we got to have our most awaited indulgence again!

(This photo was taken using my Blackberry. Actually, this post is really just a comparative review of the camera of Blackberry 9700 and the camera of iPhone 4. All the other pictures were taken using Janelle’s iPhone. Hahahahaha! See what I did there? LOL)

Was supposed to give Janelle a surprise visit at home, but because we now have a way of killing each others’ surprises, tough luck. We ended up dating in Burgos Circle instead.

We also ordered lamb chops because we thought that the pizza wasn’t enough. Little did we realize that it was more than enough. And that the reason why we thought it wasn’t was that the last time we ordered that pizza was when we were sharing it with Benj. So Janelle and I, with Benj… Well, Benj eats like… Benj works out. Benj has a stomach like that of a—. Benj… Uhm… You get the point. HAHAHAHA! 

While eating, we saw a lot of our friends in the place, like PolSci friends of Nadine, Aza and Jerome; and churchmates of Janelle like Gail and Elaine. 

After dinner, we just stayed in Burgos Circle to further enjoy the night. ;)

We got home at 11:30pm and as usual, we parked in front of my house for about 15 more minutes because we had more issues to discuss that can only be done in the car. Hahahaha! That, or it’s already a habit to do that.

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I don’t know. For some reason, I think our friendship has gone deeper this year. Yes, we’ve been friends since 2006, but the development of that has gone more meaningful in the last few months that we had bonding together.

Could it be because of the absence of boys?
(Absence ba talaga? :P) 

Or could it be because of our matured friendship?
Maybe that and the timing of our problems. How we’d need each other for strength. 

There was even a time when the guy that I liked ended up liking Janelle. Some of our friends would tease me about it and would ask me if I hated Janelle for that. “Duh! Shempre hindi. E maganda naman talaga yung babaeng yan eh.” But of course, I get the worst tease about that (HAHAHA BERNARD!!). Lol. Yes of course. Shit happens. What I’d hate Janelle for is every time she’d tease me about dating the dude. And what she’d hate me for is how I’d have a list of qualifications for her kids (“You’re not allowed to have _ babies!” “If you marry this guy, I’m never gonna be a ninang of your kid! Or prepare your wedding! Fine, I’ll attend. But I’ll be at the back.” LOL)

Then I get CSI favors from her. “Can you text _? I wanna know if s/he is _…” LOL. So yes, I am her official fisherwoman. 

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I’ll forever appreciate her patience to listen to my problems, her sincerity and the absence of her judgment. There is just too much in this friendship that I hope the med school sched won’t kill. My four months of being single has led us to uncountable crazy shenanigans—unplanned overnights, Tagaytay trips, movie nights, Wii matches, long landline calls, and visits in church (when she led worship in hers and when I was back up vocals in mine). 

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We’re well-aware that med school is going to ruin the flow of this.

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But I hope that we get to continue our craziness despite the presence of her new-found love: bodies and drugs (with that, I meant whatever is studied in med school). HAHAHAHA!

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And because I haven’t embedded this yet, below is a video of Janelle’s birthday surprise and a song cover that we did for her. 

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I realized I’ve already made posts for Noemi, Bokyo, Nuffies, Vgang, Amelie (lol) but none to you. So here’s what. May this friendship go on and on and on, sis. :) May med school be good to you! And may your alter-ego be active on Facebook again soon. (Asa pako, lalo na ngayon na may med school ka na! Hahahaha!) But I love you to bits and pieces. I’m very blessed you here. Just here. Thanks so much sis! 

xoxo

All this recent cleaning of the shelves allowed me to gather my planners from years back for a moment of reminiscing. 

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Fact. I am a planner person.

All my close friends know that. (If you don’t know that, you have to… well, reassess our friendship. LOL!) Although despite my being a planner person, this post is actually long due. A supposed-January blog entry. Wow. Quite paradoxical of me.

Actually, I am a diary person.

Before I had the urges to buy planners, I was very religious with my Lotus Organizer, an electronic diary, that I regularly updated since Grade 5. It wasn’t much of a ‘dear diary’ thing. I’d write there text messages that I want forever kept, places where I went, or the first to twelfth dance in the high school dance back in freshmen year. (So if you see me giggling when I hear songs like I’ll Be, Last Chance, My Sacrifice, Officially Missing You, it’s because I remember dances with some dudes back in HS.)

And I am a date person.

I know my half birthday. I know other people’s half birthdays (and they don’t even know it’s supposed to be a special day for them). I know the date when I watched this movie with a friend or when I coffee-dated a friend. There’s something about me and my value for dates, as in the day when something happened. Actually, as I was checking some old planner, I even saw one absurd word written there. Quartersary. :/ Hahahahaha! Save your thoughts to yourself. I can mock myself alone without your help. LOL.

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(Left to right: Cosmopolitan Planner 2009, UP Centennial Planner 2008, Belle de Jour Planner 2010, Starbucks Planner 2012,Generic Planner 2011)

I asked my dad to take a photo of these few hours ago. Too bad I couldn’t find my other planners. Would’ve been cool to actually have them all there.

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I started using planners when I was in 2nd year high school. I used to buy a Candy diary (the school journal by Candymag) so I could jot down reminders and post wallet-size ‘barkada pics’ (Remember the days when these were a thing??) on the back cover. I’d usually just stare at those when I was bored in class.

After that, I used a couple of generic planners from National bookstore and/or printed my personalized monthly calendar. 

Below are screen shots of specific dates from each planners that I find, if not talkative, interesting.

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October 28, 2008
A post-written entry of what happened after my birthday, the birthday surprise by my friends and family in Janelle’s house, Kevin kidnapping me so I could go to the surprise party venue (“Why do I need to go to Janelle’s house? It’s my birthday. I need to go home!!” LOL. Turns out, even my family and our dog were at Janelle’s).

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April 30, 2009
Reminders of my TTD’s back when I was still an intern in Nestle and booked dates of movie nights with the girlfriends; “2 Baby Ruth Bars” was actually the free snacks/samples given in the office that I used to take note of because I was too amused that we were given random Nestle products almost every other day.

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February 27, 2010
Birthday reminders and concerts (Yes, Backstreet Boys! :P) 

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April 28, 2011
TBH, I had a hard time maximizing my 2011 planner. I so got used to weekly planners that daily journals became just a big space for random notes and TTD’s for me. 

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March 17, 2012
The Starbucks planner’s design this year is not my favorite (although, I like it more than last year’s). What I like about it is that I see everything I need to do in a week using just one-fourth of my peripheral. But since I write a lot, sometimes, the lack of space pisses me off. On the other hand, this year’s the easiest one to collect (THE OPTION 2 DID IT!)—why I have it. ;)

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Oh I so love how trivial I am. :))

I have two major childhood frustrations. I’ve pondered long on this because I kept trying to think of my third frustration (having just two sounds so bitin) but I can’t really think of the third one. I guess I wasn’t really a frustrated kid. I was hardly spoiled but I was given enough.

I was loved by the parents, titos and titas and was given Simba and Nala toys. Plus the Barbies! And the Barbie house! 

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But of course we all had those toys that we wanted to get that we didn’t. (If you can’t relate to me, then that’s a sign that you were a spoiled kid. Hahahaha!) And numero uno in the list of two is…

A FURBY!

Yes, my dear ladies and gents, I never had one. I had a great love for Gizmo and the rest of the ‘unwetted’ Gremlins, which explains my “need” to have a Furby. But I was never given one. It was always my dream to talk to them. Even though I knew that they’d probably be repeating some weird stuff they say at some point, I just liked the idea of being nonsense with these cute little creatures. <3

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As for the second and last frustration…

it’s the very very old-school pair of ROLLER BLADES.

Actually, there were many phases of this. 

• Phase One was when I was very little and I wanted the Barbie roller skates. 
   
• Phase Two was when I was in Grade 5 and the rubber shoes with wheels became a trend. I was totally jealous of my classmates who had one. Can’t find a photo of it online but those are the rubber shoes that you have to twist because they have buttons on the side. When the buttons are pressed,  the wheels pop out. 
   
• Phase Three was I guess high school. I saw my cousins then still sometimes playing with their roller blades. Or more like the blades were stuffed in their room and they weren’t using them much anymore. But those were my male cousins.

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Okay, why is it relevant to say that they were my male cousins? Hahaha! Well, I guess it’s the basic reason why my parents never bought me roller blades. Because it’s never really a girl thing. They taught me how to ride a bike, but not roller blades. I guess they thought I can really live life not knowing how to use roller blades.

I want to agree here, but I realize now that well… maybe… not. LOL.

Because of that and my little aim of living a life without regret, I decided to buy roller blades two weeks ago.

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I bought that in Chris Sports for P1,290. It already has elbow pads, knee pads, those orange road cones that I will not use, and a really undersized helmet that I will not use. LOL.

Pretty cheap, yes. Before I encountered that pair, I went to a couple of sports houses (Olympic Village, etc) and found ones that were around P1,800 and P2,200 and without gears. And although I was pretty much okay with their prices, a part of me still thought twice about conquering my childhood frustration with P2,200. Hahahaha! 

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So yesterday……………………..

I ROLLER BLADED ALREADY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Wait. Is it, ROLLED or ROLLER BLADED? HAHAHAHAHA I KID I KID.)

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!! LSDFAJLS;EIOWURIOJAKLDSJFKASJVKL;NAKLS;DJFUOEIUROAWI;JDVK;LSJFKLADSJF
JASL;FJL;ASDJFKLA;ERURIOUAWOJFKLDJSLJFSLAJFLASDJFASL;DFJKASSJKFASL;FP
OAEIROIWPFIOPWIFDPSJAKLVJADSKLJFO;IWAEUJKLFJKDSLJGL;SAFJLBNSM,DVCZS
LDJFKJWAO;EIRUAEO;SDJFKLSJAFLJDAWSLFJSLFJASLKNVKNDSKLJFAWEOIRUIOWAF
JDKLSJLFLSDFJASKLFJASLDFJAKSLDFJSAF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

CANT. TALK. WITH. SENSE. IMVERYKILIGANDHAPPY.

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Agh, moving forward. I’m very very happy.

My friend Hsin taught me how. As much as I’d want to say that I’m a very fast learner kid, I’d be honest here that I wasn’t. So I thank my friend for being very patient with me. Hahaha! I got to roll, I didn’t have bruises. I did have a couple of falls but there was a good catch me I’m falling assistance so sall good.

I had good balance but I couldn’t roll far enough to completely enjoy the experience. After probably two-feet distance of rolling, my feet would shake or I’d involuntarily break. Couldn’t roll if the assistance is more than a foot away from me. Confidence level’s a boo. So yeah, I suck. Weird. I don’t get why biking is so much easier.

I might need a couple more sessions but the milestone here is I got to roll already. Doing it gracefully is the next objective.

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Now, I’m very happy to say that I am not very frustrated anymore. If you wanna two over two my frustrations, you can send me a functioning Furby (if you still have it in your bodegas) and I will forever love you. <3 Hahaha!