hay

Bourdain in Manila. Why was Juday there?

He also went to Cebu. Prolly ate lechon.

They said he got drunk on San Mig. Hahaha.

The episode will air in Asia in 2010. Anubah. Thank god for youtube!

Tony

Anthony Bourdain was in the Philippines last week.

Gaaaaaaaaaaaaah! I cannot believe I did not know this. I learned about it today when I checked Cafe Ysabel's website for their menus, and I saw a photo of him at the restaurant.

:(

dream sequence '08

I was riding a jeepney on the SLEX service road, presumably on my way home. For some reason I was in a conversation with a stranger, and again for some unknown reason it was very clear to me that he was Atenean. Maybe a jock, not sure. He had a huge torso. Anyway, the jeep finally stopped, and I found myself at the lobby of my old school, UP Manila. It was suddenly raining, very hard. The rain looked like sheets of water falling from the dark sky. Was it nighttime? It was dark everywhere.

I wanted desperately to get a ride home. I needed to go upstairs – I don’t know why but this seemed the way out – but I was extremely afraid. Like there were ghosts waiting for me somewhere in the dark. I saw Ms Jing, one of our consultants, and asked her to come upstairs with me. We did, and again for some reason I ended up in a sort of bay area for vehicles. It was still dark and raining, A jeepney stopped by and I jumped in.

I arrived home, finally. I looked into my parents’ room and saw my brother sleeping face down on the pillows. I went into another room and saw Edward Norton, circa American History X. Muscles and tattoos and all. He looked like a live version of grayscale magazine print ad, meaning he was a glossy gray color. He was sitting on one of the two beds in the room, writing furiously in what looked like a journal. He was writing about his mentally challenged brother. I moved away from him and went to the bathroom. The toilet was full of rust, and there was no water and no tissue. I went back to Edward’s spot and saw his brother instead. He was reading Edward’s journal. I thought, yikes, busted.

At that point I think I woke up. Very physically tired, and puffy-eyed.

Obviously, my strange dreams are back.

Kainis. I don’t like these dreams of mine. They seem so senseless. The thing is they’re not. I believe they do mean something.

But I don’t have anyone to help me interpret them. So hello, internet. Yes, not very reliable, but neither are the books on dreams proliferating in stores nowadays. And I was curious and impatient. I wanted to be placated and humored.

Anyway, since there’s no way to have my dream “analyzed” without paying a fee (and I never would), I resorted to pulling out key concepts and browsing through the “dream dictionary” for available definitions (very scientific hahaha). Thus:

(from petrix.com)

Road. Achievement of something. Direction. Ask yourself about your life's path.

Stranger. Outsider. Unknown. Mystery needs to be revealed.

Dark. Mystery. The unknown and unformed. A place of fear or of potential. Difficulties ahead.

School. Discipline. Instruction. You have the skills to resolve a problem.

Rain. Release. Feelings are pouring down on you.

Stairs. Up or down. Aspirations. Looking to get to certain point against all opposition.

Fear. Unexpressed love. Self-doubts. Courage.

Ghost. Spiritual aspect of self. Memory. Past coming back. Beware of enemies.

Vehicles. Transportation. Movement. Looking for a medium to get where you want to be.

Home. Center of being. Spiritual self. Shelter. Basic need fulfilled. Happiness within the family.

Bed. Retreat from activity. Rest.

Brother. Fellowship. Expect quarrels. Masculine aspect of self.

Sleeping. Relaxation and rest. Unconsciousness. False security.

Back (because it was my brother's back I saw). Misfortune in life and will die in misery (whaaaaaat?). Unconscious.

Bedroom. Changes in own affairs. Concealment of family secrets.

Writing. Communication. Review of your feelings. Record of experience.

Reading. Learning. Information revealed. Escape from reality. Something burdens you.

Rust. Deterioration. Inactivity. Problems that need to be taken care before it's too late.

So how about that? Does it make sense now? Except for the bits on the jeepney being the specific vehicle, Ateneo, Ms Jing and Edward Norton, the explanations have frightening potential.

Also, I ran across another term and remembered I’ve had several dreams (not this particular dream, though) about making pupu.

Defecation. Elimination. Dumping, especially of garbage from the past.

It seems I do more work dealing with my “issues” in my dreams than in real life.

pm break

16.27. I go to the office pantry to take a break from doing nothing. Iced coffee sounds nice. I check, no clean glasses. Ok, normal coffee then. Black No cream, lots of sugar. I sit on a stool by the window, enjoying the warm respite from my ultra-cold spot directly under the overhead AC. I look to my right, at the condiments all lined up neatly, courtesy of our utility guy who shares my surname. I think, given time, I could really finish that entire bottle of iodized salt.

Clouds move in and cover the light streaming into the window. An officemate walks in. “May tao (anyone inside)?” he asks, pointing to the bathroom beside the sink. I shake my head and smile. He goes in, probably wondering what I’m doing in the pantry. Because no one hangs out there alone unless he or she is waiting in line for the bathroom, right?

I say to myself, no one in this office really knows me. They “know” me – my name and what I do and the general perception of me, but not much else. They don’t know that I like to drink coffee black no cream with lots of sugar, or that I can spend an hour sitting and drinking coffee alone, staring at the sky. And surely they don’t know why.

There are probably two or three people here who do know me. They’re the only ones I’d actually consider inviting to my wedding. I think weddings not because I’m having one myself, but because as one grows older you realize it’s one of those events where you really think about who you want to surround yourself with, people who share your truest, deepest joy and understand the meaning of that special glitter in your eyes. Not just anyone. Not just because you’re obligated to tack that generic wedding invitation on the office bulletin board, and then guess who will actually be attending.

Two or three people are enough, maybe. But it goes to show how, despite the fun times, the laughter and the friendly bickering, talking about work and movies and politics, that the office is still such an impersonal, almost manufactured environment.

Except that I hear my officemate pissing in the bathroom, which is such a…personal matter.

Before he opens the door and is embarrassed at the sight of me, I stand up, place my cup in the sink and make my way through our red maze known as cubicles.

Back to my cold spot.

Back to looking like everyone else and thinking how f*cking delicious it would be to break free.

Who knows, maybe that’s what they’re thinking, too.

Homecomings, Conventions

You know you’re getting old when you look forward to ballroom dancing at graduate school reunions. Which is exactly how I was at the UP-School of Urban and Regional Planning (UP-SURP) Grand Alumni Homecoming. Given that I only graduated last year and I'm *only* 26, I shouldn’t have been as excited as, say, EnP Ted Encarnacion, one of SURP’s first ever graduates (batch ’69). But I was excited. I couldn’t help it! I had a blast. It was fun seeing classmates, professors and older alumni let their hair down and get jiggy with it! From Dr Bravo’s dyosa look, Sir Mel Luna’s electric dancing, to Jed’s wavy Harry-Potter-just-fought-Voldemort hair, Cherry with San Mig in hand (classic!), and everyone else laughing and enjoying, well, it was worth the wait. Oh and let us not forget the biggest revelation that night. Edison can dance! And how! He can whip up a mean swing number, my goodness. We will never hire a DI again!

The Homecoming was such a success that when I told Sir Tomi (president of our Alumni Association), "see you next year!" he answered in his typical endearing, flamboyant way, "no, see you in December!" An Alumni Christmas party? Indeed, see you all then!

For me, the event started way before the night itself. A couple of months earlier, Prof Jimenez and, subsequently, Dr Bravo ‘commissioned’ EnPraxis to produce the souvenir program for the event. I thought it would be a snap since I’ve had long experience in layout and publication.

Well it was, kind of, it’s just that it coincided with another souvenir program we were doing -- this time for the Philippine Institute of Environmental Planners (PIEP) National Convention, which was held a week before the Homecoming. Not to mention the other pre-Convention preparations i.e. follow-up of speakers and invitations to participants; tarpaulin, ID and logo designs; convention kits; powerpoint presentations; venue checks and food-tasting; and I have to mention it’s a good thing Ma’am Liza listened when I told her to get rid of that nasty-ugly styrofoam PIEP seal! Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

Speaking of the Convention, that went down well, too. It was much better organized than the previous years' conventions (thanks in part to us hahaha), but it doesn't mean there weren't knots to be untied and kinks to be ironed out backstage. Photofinish pa rin in a way. But I'm glad the cool was kept. ;) We were happy to be there, if only to help take the load off Ma'am Liza and Ms Arlene.

I digress. So…between those two events, we were short of biting off more than we can chew. Before I knew it I was spending days in front of the computer, missing work and getting horribly sick. Not a day had passed after the Convention and we had already moved on to the next task. Two days before the Homecoming I was living off coffee and sleeping a mere 20 minutes. I also felt guilty for dragging Len, Chris, Edison, Vir and Lorenzo down this road with me hehe. Mark doesn’t count because he has no choice.

But I do think it paid off quite nicely. Like Len said, we have arrived (hmm, how many times have we arrived na ba? hahahahaha). It’s fun to be acknowledged for doing something nice. To be introduced to our peers in such a positive way. And the full-page ad in the Homecoming program sure doesn’t hurt hahaha. Ultimately, though, it feels great to have done something truly worthwhile, something you were passionate about and believed in. We do believe in our school and in our professional organization, and I’m glad we were able to contribute in some small way to the success of their much-awaited and labored-upon events.

I would do everything again in a heartbeat. But maybe not simultaneously! :o

*photos here. Len's takes on our fun "Oktoberfest" here.

random, but not really

I am tired. Simply tired. The past month has not been good to me. As the days and weeks went by, I kept feeling more and more alone. Except for Mark, reasons to push myself to the limit and be better and hopeful have becme harder to find.

Or maybe that’s the problem. I’d pushed myself so much I actually fell off.

But I don’t believe that, really. I won’t make excuses for myself or anyone and say ‘oh I worked too hard, I just need to relax.’ Everybody works hard. Everyone gets sleepless nights. Everyone forgets to eat at some point in the day and struggles to remember which of the things on his/her list has not been done yet.

No. Because I can be physically exhausted, sure. But I know how it is to be tired in a good, delicious way, like when you sink into a couch and think to yourself, it was back-breaking but hey, I did good and it was all worth it.

It doesn’t feel that way now – you know, worth it. Instead, it just feels all kinds of defeated.

The problem, I think, is the steadily creeping disappointment.

See, I’m not the person who gets angry at life. I rarely even get mad at my boyfriend, or most people, for that matter. I can debate until your tongue falls off but anger isn’t generally part of my program. I don’t get nasty either. I don’t wish other people ill. I rarely hold grudges. I don’t fire off.

But I get disappointed. Which, I believe, is far worse than any other negative emotion. Worse because it arises from expectation, from hope and faith. Worse because it fills you to the core, seeping into every crevice in your body, and leaving you not boiling in fury, but rather stoned in silent sadness. It dulls you, presses you against the earth, renders you immovable and listless.

I don’t think words are even enough to express the heaviness that I’m carrying now, this palpable weight that is just dragging me down.

***

How and where I am now can be no farther from how and where I was one year ago. And not in a good way.

Was I wrong to stick it out the way I did? To be stubborn and believe blindly that it could be done? Or was my mother right all along?

***

Why do I feel disappointed? With what, or with whom?

I can’t answer that. All I know is that a part of me wants to run far away, to disappear and rebuild myself. To see if I have something else to offer. Because to be frank I’ve given it all I’ve got, and still I came up close to empty.

***

I still believe in the things I believe in. I just don’t know who else does.