coffee break

i recently hosted a couch surfer. a lawyer from estonia studying language in japan. a free spirit in all sense. she’s on a 2 month long winter break, with the philippines as her first stop. fortunately it coincided with our company shutdown so dahon, des and i played gracious hostess. we went on a food trip to up village, the first stop was kiss the cook for lunch, chocolate kiss for dessert, isaw behind malcolm hall and then van gogh is bipolar for a light dinner.

she stayed for 4 days and left for puerto galera for a week of scuba diving. some people ask why i did it, why i welcome total strangers into my house. and i say why not. i do get their concerns; a stranger, might be a serial killer,might be a bipolar, obsessive compulsive. and i get it. though we need to be cautious, we also need to open ourselves. how often can you say that you opened yourself to a total stranger? that you help them, not only to have a roof under them for a couple of days, but also to feel safe and feel welcome. it’s like making people experience the experience you want to have when travelling.

tonight, another couch surfer guest is staying with me until thursday, when he is flying back to korea. he’s a filipino-canadian, teaching english. that same night, a married couple from romania will be staying with me until monday next week. now if my social life would be as active as this…

a new decade. i have been been asking myself what 2009 is all about. it seemed to have come and gone without anything significant happening to me. discounting the ampatuans, tita cory’s death and ondoy of course.

the year seemed to be my stand still moment, a time to reflect. that in hindsight seemed over done. who in their right mind would need a year to reflect? yes, i’m one big crazy. the question is am i that big of a crazy. but who cares, supposedly as long as i have learned something from it. that’s all that matters. between you and me, i haven’t learned anything at all. that’s life for me. it’s a short life, i rather live it.

it’s 2010, supposedly a fresh start. it’s not just a new year but a new decade. in retrospect, i am proud of my career. 9 years in the making to be where i am right now. that in fact is what the decade is all about for me, career building. that is what i have for show kids, an untarnished, shinning and dare say enviable career.

but through it all, all the hardships, pain, travels, employers, vacations that i should have taken, 3 hospitalizations, paranoia, weddings, living alone, deals and pursuits, the years have been good to me. benjamin franklin might be a great man but i beg to disagree. it’s not only death and taxes that are constant in this world, also good friends. to the tsongers, we may not be related by blood, but you are my family. you have put up with this crazy, as i have put up with yours. and it’s no easy feat but it’s something we all have helped to build. so dahon stop your whining and sudden bouts of migration plans, we are here to stay.

ola.

welcome to miami (at least the port)

one thing i like with my phone is that it takes clear pictures and the wide screen that makes it easy for me to surf the net and post this entry. made an impromptu trip to miami because of a family emergency. won’t elaborate on that part; i hate dealing with network giants battling it out for the exclusive rights of my family’s life story. in a nutshell i have to go here and deal. just for 2 weeks, a week in miami and a week in san francisco. i have to stop/go there. since i won’t be going to new york, san francisco is my shopping fix as well as my pick me up for this unscheduled and dreaded trip. hopefully dahon and i get to meet in s.f. at for a few hours and bring her to haight st. she loves everything boho and hippie. you wouldn’t get more hippie where janis joplin once lived. i actually bought 2 “smoking pipes” here. hehehe. but before i go on dreaming about that, i’m here in this  god awful place. it keeps on raining and raining, but at time the skies clear up, and rains again. at downtown miami, later to miami beach and then meet mom at the harbor for dinner. can’t wait for friday to see the golden gate covered in fog. darn it, can’t wear tank tops…

it’s no big secret that i am, and will forever be a cory fan. i’m not a person to be shy for things i believe in, and in fact i’m even proud to say that cory is my favorite president. i remember at grade school that i would go on debates defending then president cory from my classmates. up until recently, when people articulate her lack of governance skills and will power to lead.

let me explain myself. my dad’s family is from a long line of politicians. way before,  dating to my great grand dad. i even saw 3 sacks of puppet money that the japanese handed out during the world war 2 in our old house that supposedly was stolen from the barracks. during the later part of the martial law period, my dad was incarcerated. i was too young to understand it, although old enough to read the letter they handed out our family. all i can make out of it is that it was from malacanang. fortunately my dad was release after the martial law was  lifted, shortly after ninoy’s death. one reason why my mom bade my dad not to enter politics. the letter stuck to me, a letter telling my dad that he was to be arrested by virtue of plotting against the government, my mom told me much later when i was old enough to understand. to some, it may seemed coincidental. maybe it is. but what really made me admire and respect this woman is, i feel for her cause. i feel how important she is to the filipino people. even during the time that us filipinos failed her, she still was there for us. she by virtue of her stature and lineage is not a simple woman. coming from a rich clan of aristocratic hacinderos, married to a prominent and revered politician, became the president of the philippines with both executive and legislative power. these are not what  simple woman face, but she chose to be simple. i guess that is her difference. she chose to be simple, to lead a simple life for her and her family. she assumed nothing but the trust of the filipino men. guarded it to her very last breathe.

on this day that we laid her on her final resting place, i feel a sense of lost. we have lost a good person whose interest is to better us. we lost a person who gave not only her life to the servitude of the filipinos but also the life of her husband in doing so. but i also feel a great sense of pride, that a person as magnanimous as she is, is proud to be a filipino. that is ultimately what i learned from her, to be a proud filipino.

live simple. sounds easy but really, can you? before you draw another breathe and insinuate that it is so, i dare you to live without the very computer you are using to read this entry.

life is complicated as we know it. and ironically, as we move along and get a little wiser, we complicate it even more. we work 40 hours  a week, even more at times, to have the means to make life easier for we. we sweat blood laboring the days to finally have enough means to buy easy living. but most of the time it is that wanting for an easier life that makes it hard. a paradox, a conundrum. you need to wok extra hard to buy time with a ‘professional’ whose advise always read, take it easy cowboy, you’re not in a race. eehh? now you tell me?

life is a race. life is complicated, unfair and will beat you to a pulp when you least expect it. and yet they want us to believe that life is not mean. i know now realize and fully understand that life is what we make it. there is no zen or new-age class that can teach you what life is about or how it should be. in our thirst to make a meaning out of everything, we are left wondering and feeling unfulfilled. why should it mean something? there is no generic, cookie cutter, cardboard layout answer to it. you are not here to leave a legacy, to donate schools or help starving children.t now that would be cruel, setting expectations before hand. but it doesn’t mean you don’t have to help others.  as i see it, to make life simple, you just need to live it. no expectations.

listening to:  
Josh Groban – Josh Groban : Vincent (Starry, Starry Night)