For four years, living in Baguio has been a lyrical ride to self-discovery. It has nothing to do with the scent of pine trees, because the smell hasn’t been that much distinctive and was just completely forgettable. It also has faint association with the fresh air, because Baguio has been identified as one of the most polluted cities in the country. There’s just something beyond words about how Baguio has rocked me to sleep and awakened my senses for four years. Until now, I haven’t had the good fortune of identifying how this place has welcomed me for many years.

Recurrent homesickness has been hellish and irresistible in every sense of the words. The idea of being in the mountains, enveloped by occasional mists and fog, has exacerbated my four-year strife with separation anxiety. Living in the mountains, accompanied by a series existence and non-existence, has been nothing but day-to-day. This series of existence and non-existence has figured so much in Baguio, and their poetry had played along with the smell of freshly brewed coffee in the morning and the breath of cold wind in this nocturne of nondescript melancholy.

You were the one that got away, as far as I remember. And this mountainside was supposed to be my true and only escape. But you went uphill and the music was set right in again, what’s supposed to be cast away suddenly came rushing back. You broke in, for the nth time, my unwarranted guilty pleasure. I found delight in our fleeting and short-lived moments, deliberately forgetting about how you already got away once. The cold mists have become friendly and I was smitten by your one-liner sentences.

But that was all there was. Intermittent have become dormant until it has completely faltered. What was left was a Baguio that could no longer play the music that has mesmerized my ears. A place where its mists could no longer dampen the drought caused by such existence and non-existence. It was guilty pleasure turned wrong for the second time, so to speak.

The coldness has severed the already broken song, and the nocturnal silence has been almost despicable. But it was the place that relived my supposed desire to forget. This is how I realized my love-hate relationship with this place up North. There’s just something I hate to love and love to hate about the place that I have dwelled in for four years. This is the place that, whether you like it or not, drama surfaces like a natural phenomena, like homesickness is its vital subsistence.

I have been homesick for four years – and it was so hard to get over. Not even the saccharine hint of strawberries or the picturesque view of an early morning sunshine could cure these loathing and longing. You came in during the rainy season in Baguio, and I was bathed by the idea of second chances. But the rain subsided awkwardly, just like empty words that were drawn out of context.

Baguio was such an experience, in more ways than one, and I wouldn't have wanted it any other way. I would never recreate it for something else. It would be the same plot, opening statement, and the same closing of curtains. This is the place that have led me somewhere, which was not even because of my academic pursuit. Its greater than that, I suppose.   

I was happy to leave Baguio during the summer, when the flowers were already expected to bloom, when the mists were already losing their luster and when the words were already sunny and full of life. It was a happy ending set right before the backdrop of self-discovery, freshly brewed coffee, and mountains of unwavering desire to move forward. 

This summer, after four years, I will be laying my feet on this memory-laden city. And waiting is almost unbearable.

*disclaimer (like its not yet too late): this story is stranger than fiction, and is just a product of the author's complete envy on her two friends who are already enjoying the coldness in Baguio at this very moment without her... and yes, she is not defensive, not even close. XD

crush crush crush! my crush meter has just updated and has just changed routes. this time, i am shouting "the OLDER the BETTER"! haha. this is one of the funniest occurences that's figuring my life lately. i just can't help it when the person is too smart, too kind, and too generous (uhuh, in more ways than one, omg).


the situation is blatantly surreal but the gestures are just too irresistable - or so i think. i know i am just sensationalizing things up, creating meaning out of the meaningless. but i just appreciate the way this person wastes time lecturing me about education, smart decisions, and planning for a better future. my master's degree was even a topic one day. yes, that's how "mature" the conversations are.

i am just a sucker for smart people. i find so much delight when i talk to them because their words seem to fill up the airheard part of who i am. haha. i always find something so redeeming in them that even if they are far from the usual moviestar material, i still find them knee-melting and worth crushing on :)

this person's moments with me are always fleeting. the texts are almost one-liners. but these are still making everything else spin around me. i get caught in between words when the person is around and stuttering is already becoming too occurent.

i know i should start to question myself about my absurd preferences. i remember liking this someone so young a year ago and here i am now smitten by this other person that's way way older than me. the age gap is freakish, counting it may just sour one's stomach.

but that's just about it. because of the alarming non-inspiration within the vicinity, i am gliding my way to the lower floor. and i hope the person doesnt get the idea. but i doubt, haha.

and for the record, after a year of complete disillusionment over my past impulses, a mere one-liner text from the person made me smile for the whole day - despite myself. yes, despite myself. eewness.

Here are the things really worth caring about in your 20s.

When you’re 25-ish, you’re old enough to know what kind of music you love, regardless of what your last boyfriend or roommate always used to play. You know how to walk in heels, how to tie a necktie, how to give a good toast at a wedding and how to make something for dinner. You don’t have to think much about skin care, home ownership or your retirement plan. Your life can look a lot of different ways when you’re 25: single, dating, engaged, married. You are working in dream jobs, pay-the-bills jobs and downright horrible jobs. You are young enough to believe that anything is possible, and you are old enough to make that belief a reality.

Job

Now is the time to figure out what kind of work you love to do. What are you good at? What makes you feel alive? What do you dream about? You can go back to school now, switch directions entirely. You can work for almost nothing, or live in another country, or volunteer long hours for something that moves you. There will be a time when finances and schedules make this a little trickier, so do it now. Try it, apply for it, get up and do it.

When I was 25, I was in my third job in as many years—all in the same area at a church, but the responsibilities were different each time. I was frustrated at the end of the third year because I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do next. I didn’t feel like I’d found my place yet. I met with my boss, who was in his 50s. I told him how anxious I was about finding the one perfect job for me, and quick. He asked me how old I was, and when I told him I was 25, he told me that I couldn’t complain to him about finding the right job until I was 32. In his opinion, it takes about 10 years after college to find the right fit, and anyone who finds it earlier than that is just plain lucky. So use every bit of your 10 years: try things, take classes, start over.

Relationships

Now is also the time to get serious about relationships. And “serious” might mean walking away from the ones that don’t give you everything you need. Some of the most life-shaping decisions you make in this season will be about walking away from good-enough, in search of can’t-live-without. One of the only truly devastating mistakes you can make in this season is staying with the wrong person even though you know he or she is the wrong person. It’s not fair to that person, and it’s not fair to you.

Counseling

Twenty-five is also a great time to start counseling, if you haven’t already, and it might be a good round two of counseling if it’s been a while. You might have just enough space from your parents to start digging around your childhood a little bit. Unravel the knots that keep you from living a healthy whole life, and do it now, before any more time passes.

Church

Twenty-five is the perfect time to get involved in a church you love, no matter how different it is from the one you were a part of growing up. Be patient and prayerful, and decide that you’re going to be a person who grows, who seeks your own faith, who lives with intention. Set your alarm on Sunday mornings, no matter how late you were out on Saturday night. It will be dreadful at first, and then after a few weeks, you’ll find that you like it, that the pattern of it fills up something inside you.

Don't get stuck

This is the thing: when you start to hit 28 or 30, everything starts to divide, and you can see very clearly two kinds of people: on one side, people who have used their 20s to learn and grow, to find God and themselves and their deep dreams, people who know what works and what doesn’t, who have pushed through to become real live adults. And then there’s the other kind, who are hanging onto college, or high school even, with all their might. They’ve stayed in jobs they hate, because they’re too scared to get another one. They’ve stayed with men or women who are good but not great, because they don’t want to be lonely. They mean to find a church, they mean to develop honest, intimate friendships, they mean to stop drinking like life is one big frat party. But they don’t do those things, so they live in kind of an extended adolescence, no closer to adulthood than they were when they graduated college.

Don’t be like that. Don’t get stuck. Move, travel, take a class, take a risk. Walk away, try something new. There is a season for wildness and a season for settledness, and this is neither. This season is about becoming. Don’t lose yourself at happy hour, but don’t lose yourself on the corporate ladder either. Stop every once in a while and go out to coffee or climb in bed with your journal. Ask yourself some good questions like: “Am I proud of the life I’m living? What have I tried this month? What have I learned about God this year? What parts of my childhood faith am I leaving behind, and what parts am I choosing to keep with me for this leg of the journey? Do the people I’m spending time with give me life, or make me feel small? Is there any brokenness in my life that’s keeping me from moving forward?”

Now is your time. Become, believe, try. Walk closely with people you love, and with other people who believe that God is very good and life is a grand adventure. Don’t spend time with people who make you feel like less than you are. Don’t get stuck in the past, and don’t try to fast-forward yourself into a future you haven’t yet earned. Give today all the love and intensity and courage you can, and keep traveling honestly along life’s path.
 

Taken from Bittersweet by Shauna Niequist Copyright © 2010. Used by permission of Zondervan.
http://www.relevantmagazine.com/life/who

It’s true when they say that life after college swallows you whole – hook, line, and sinker. College is all theoretical, and once you set your feet on the pavement of labor force, you definitely find yourself engulfed by this system of paychecks and paying taxes.
 
You begin to notice how each day makes you older half the time. The wrinkles and fine lines may not be visible on your face yet, but the things that you have to go through everyday when you start working ages you furiously, you won’t even have time to stop and breathe.
 
Your intelligent theories and self-fulfilling ideals already become a thing of the past. Because you’re suddenly thrust into the world of unlikely competition and paying bills. You will always think of college and of the days gone by but you also become rational as you begin to understand that college already bid its goodbye a couple of years ago and will never find the nerve to come back. So by then you come to terms with the idea that things change, and then you let yourself get devoured by life.
 
Yes, you get devoured by real life. Everything becomes habitual and your muscles begin to voluntarily adapt to such unlikely routine. You get to do the same things. Your quizzes, papers, and homework are converted into tasks assigned by your boss – and the result of the task becomes directly proportional to the rate of possible promotion. So you run for your life by ensuring that tasks are done perfectly. But at the end of the day, politics still gets in the way. No pun intended. The kissass people are scattered in places you may never anticipate. And they can hit you in the most unsuspecting instances. You just find yourself being that-second-best because they do every possible way to be that-one-on-top no matter how mediocre they truly are. Hideous are they. And you always have no clue.
 
But you still gain friends and they become the best people you’ve ever met simply because they are also devoured by real life. They are your co-victims, so to speak. And predictably, you content yourselves with your occasional drinking sessions. Drinking suddenly becomes your natural high. Sometimes you also smoke with them because inhaled smoke is another natural high suitable for forgetting how a day sucks the life out of you. Your friends at work suddenly become the best friends you never knew existed.
 
I just resigned from a job that I have been accustomed to for three years. The whole idea of changing career has been a lyrical strife between passion and necessity. I want to say that it’s a leap of faith because I want to pursue this idea that this is what I’ve always wanted. But just like any other story, leap of faith fools around elsewhere sometimes that you have no other choice but to wait in vain. This new job is familiarizing the every nerve of me again. Routine is welcoming me back. And this time, there are so many uncertainties that thinking about these is already becoming a bore. So I resolved to just let things go as they’re supposed to and pursue a full-blown wishful thinking after.
 
There are just so many things that I want to do. There are so many things that I dream of doing, like taking up a masters degree just so I can upgrade an almost non-existent intellect. Yes, it’s true that routine work weakens your logic and memory because you get too much adapted to pattern. And adapting to pattern is, in every way, the doom of your supposed desire to change.
 
Life after college us the REAL LIFE. I want to beg to disagree but the evidences laid on the table are too real to contest. And it’s up to every person on how to deal with it. Its either we deal with it or we deal with it. Good options, right? Because at the end of the day, we all realize that there’s no choice at all.

And with that let us all live.

the girl cant sleep. her eyes have grown tired after nine hours of work but they remain restless. they physically close but deep down they aren't reposing- she can vividly feel her eyeballs travel from one corner to another like encountering REM while being awake. not even her hardcore and pornographic ways of inducing sleep are working to help her. she knows this cant be happening because she still has so many things to do tonight and not sleeping today would mean an additional nine hours of sleep deprivation. and if she does the math, it will sum up to a whooping 26 hours of being wide awake.

she knows she needs to dose off but her whole life wont take a chance on her, pushing her to the limits, dragging her like an addict who is in dire need of a fix. her favorite heroine isn't helping her too well today, and she wants to ask why.

there are so many things in her life now that are either messed up or just plain unfortunate. pardon her for bringing back that other girl whom she thought already died before her eyes. that other girl who was well versed with issues of low self worth. she thought she was able to drown that girl years ago but she keeps on coming back without warning - like an uninvited presence that continuously haunts her for dear life. the predicaments that are occurring in her life now are going on haywire and they seem to enjoy the niche they are in at the moment. she doesn't want to start the year this dark but the past few days proved to her that she still cant get over the other girl who has been so accustomed to nostalgic affairs and sad repulsive words. the other girl just flutters effortlessly, such ghastly occurrence that goes in on one second and dissolves into thin air on the other.

she doesn't want to turn to her friends because she knows they have grown tired of that girl who thinks so little of herself. her redundant paranoia drifted her away from the friends she have loved all her life. but she tells herself, how can "you speak of something that doesn't exist. how can you let out a big smile when all you can do is a pained stare, or a broken smile, perhaps?". she knows she cant masquerade with such vibrancy because with the tired eyes that she bears, not even a fool will find a sensible reason to believe her.

the girl knows she's way overboard of her current state. the girl is fatigued with her thoughts that goes in proportion with her battered eyes and a mind that cant even compose a good sentence. she cant even say anything profound to let the person next to her see through her undefined frailty. the girl is too lost for words and the other girl is pointing and laughing at such misfortune.

she let out a silent smirk. but the other girl is still plunged into hysterical laughter. even in idiosyncrasy, she cant beat her, or anyone else - always the second best, the consistent number two.

the other girl is getting into her nerves. but she smiles as she concocts another plan. the luring scent of sleep deprivation, and her smirk on the loose, she perfected her scheme. she knows she cant go wrong this time. and after that she will sleep.

 

 * nitz and i realized that true friends don't need a glittery extravagant venue for get-to
gethers, even a bite from a humble restaurant can be the best place to pick up where
friends left off. long walks along the highway can already mean a walk in the park for us!

 

 

yup, this may sound a little weird but this is the first time in recent history [from college days to working days) that i was able to celebrate my birthday on the exact day. my college bdays either comprised of murphy's law (like, being ditched by your invited friends in front of the food that you especially prepared for them (2004) and being told that they cant come because they just got home from a major overtime (2007) or thesi sdays (that the only time you can spare was to thank those who greeted you through txt because everyone else is cramming to beat the deadline (2006)] and last year on my first working year, i found myself taking in calls on my birthday. most of the time, all that i have are post-birthday celebrations, post fun moments with friends, post everything.

but this 2008, things came my way. i was able to snag the whole day for myself that not even a snotty/bitchy/grumpy american caller could ruin. i was able to enjoy my 23rd birthday with no other than this superfriend i've had for years (but almost lost). i spent the day, with what your gradeschool schoolmates blurt out as "my bestfriend".

nitz and i started the day at 11am where we met up at sm makati (because being the promdi that i am with makati, the only place i know i cant go wrong in makati is sm). and we had a little chitchat, and had a little smoke (come on, its my birthday. hehe) we were about to go to greenbelt to watch twilight, but the movie started at 1:15 pm. so with an hour to spare, we decided to browse around. yup, i really mean browsed around, just like what my mother always says "magshopping na may kasamang window", because the place is too expensive and too posh for us to handle. and with nitz being galante that day, she offered me to have some coffee first, her treat, she said. hehe. so there, we went to cbtl, and had the time of our lives in reliving our pre-school and gradeschool days. what i love and hate about nitz is that fact that she reminds me of home too much. haha. and its such an irony of us being inside a "very-not-so-us coffee shop talking about the days gone by. we talked about everything and everyone else. i think we missed each other too much because of almost one year of no-talk. (yes, it was dec 14 of last year that our so called "miscommunication" happened. that very day, when i texted her that unforgettable line that vaughne cant seem to get over with. "sana huwag mong hintaying yung time na hindi ka na namin mamiss" ) so we really had a lot of catching up to do and our stories seemed to be endless, like each person in our lives seem to have a story waiting to be told. and being expert chismosas in our own ways, no one was missed out, everyone was given the chance to be laughed at, mocked, missed, and cursed. haha. 

so, after some moments spent with overpriced mocca fraps, major gossiping, and taking pictures, we headed to greenbelt 3 to watch twilight. overwhelmed by the fun i have with her almost made me have my picture taken with the cast of twlight, you know, the life size poster of bella, edward and the cullens we saw in malls, but good thing, the "rational" part of who i am still existed, so i helped myself.

the movie is a true blue example of overrated. yes, i expected so much about the movie which only turned out to be a very high school flick about the star-crossed lovers, bella and edward. what bothered me so much is the apparent overdone make-up Edward had, it was just so funny that the movie went over the top just to exemplify the idea of "bloodless". but it was my birthday, so nitz and i tried to enjoy the movie, because there's no other way to do so.

 to be continued... haha. extreme sleep deprivation striking.

i miss college, so does everyone else, right? especially when you went to this certain university where everything is possible, be it good or bad, bad. haha. i miss the gossips, the trivial things, the eccentricities of all people...

i miss being in this school where being deviant already becomes a cliche. because of the fact that being strange, or trying to appear beyond normal, is the next best thing.

i miss UP BAGUIO!

and so, with nothing else to waste some time with, i tried to search for my name in google. aside from my blog entries, and this article that i did during my journ internship that went to sunstar's online edition, there was this multiply account that strangely had my name on it. and it turned out that it was an account of a upb schoolmate who posted the pictures from UPB's 2nd indie filmfest in 2006. so here are the pics of the groupies that i snagged from that multiply page...

 

the groupies (L-shayne, jayne, cza, chiqui, lizzie, kuya brian, bev)

 

these are some of the stillshots of our entry, BALINTUNA.

(top: happy going home [main character going home from work, the guy in front of her is chiqui's exbf, badong, who wanted to an extra. haha)], below: happy's happy talk [filmed at yfmbaguio]

(below: happy's not-so-happy-conversation with her indifferent father. [kuya hanz (father/film editor] looked very in-character in this picture that it was hard for us to contain our laughter)

===
i miss college. i miss how upb struggled to instill the value of freedom, on how it taught each person to delve into the beauty of being misunderstood.

i miss baguio. i miss the occasional mists that dampen even the most dry heart. i miss the person that i was. that person who thought everything is okay. that person who lost, who never had her happy ending.

i miss the "then" in my life. because two years feel like eons of being away. and three years may already be enough to fully eradicate a certain memory.

...I received an assignment as a reporter, to go back to high school and find out about the kids today. What I ended up finding was myself and that the high school hasn’t changed. There’s still that one teacher who marches to her own tremor. Those girls are still there; the ones that even as you grow up, will remain the most beautiful girls you’ve ever seen in close-up. The smart kids, everyone knows as the brains, but I just knew them as my soulmates, my teachers and my friends. And there’s still that one guy with his mysterious confident smile who seems so perfect in every way. The guy that you get up and go to school for. Southglenn would not have been the same without him, high school would not have been the same without him, I would not have been the same without him.

I lived a lifetime of regrets after my first high school experience, and now after my second, regrets are down to one. A certain teacher was hurt on my path to self-discovery and although this article may serve as a step, in no way he may accept what I did to him. To this man, you know who you are, I am so sorry. And I would like to add one more thing, I think I’m inlove with you.

And now I propose this as an ending to this article and perhaps the beginning to the next chapter of my life. I, Josie Geller would be at the State Championship Baseball Game where my friends, the South Rams are playing for the title. I will stand at the pitcher’s mountain in five minutes prior to the first pitch. If this man accepts my apology, I'll ask him to kiss me, MY FIRST REAL KISS…

my friends told me that i should, in some ways, feel victorious because finally, someone got affected, that being erased just means that someone finally thought that i crossed the line and decided to respond to my year-long idiosyncrasies. after all these months of angsty writings and melancholic affairs, someone realized what should be done. what's just bothering me is the reason why this incident took place the year after. why would there be a need to defer a response you could have shown in the beginning? why now? another rhetorical question.