beach bbq at jericho, that was the invite and so i happily obliged. we brought food and drinks and played frisbee till the clouds ate the sun away in one big bite. it was cold again too soon. if only i could tuck a piece of sunshine into my pocket then i would have enough to keep me warm.

after the picnic, we proceeded to y’s hideout at the lions. it has a great view of the city by the sea, made me miss my pad in makati. but that’s a thousand miles away and a thousand times sadder than this place, so i guess there’s no point in comparing. we watched a few japanese movies to immerse the two others who were leaving for nihon late this month.

the people here are lucky, they don’t need a visa to travel around, they don’t care about money they spend in transit or work they’ll miss if they go. very much like those i’ve met in the land of the rising sun who can easily fly out on a euro tour for the golden week. such a big contrast to those left in the southeast who are out lining up for rice and eating salt for lunch. makes me see firsthand how the wealth of the world is so unevenly distributed.

if only i can see beyond my own selfishness and do something more other than whine, i know i can still make a difference.

0700: wake up, shower
0800: meeting to discuss hlr parameters for prepaid mas migration
0900: discuss code changes for pmm
0930: read emails
1000: follow up opm synch with engineering
1002: explain opm synch to new dev
1007: check some numbers for opm synch in staging, prod, opm gui
1010: play around with smp4 install on pantha
1020: reboot machine
1030: start weblogic 9.2, open eclipse, hermes, drop messages, debug
1045: reply to email about hlr meeting minutes
1050: review ppm rfcs
1120: review rfc 73589 for april release
1130: follow up return ticket with TIP
1132: read up on wl92 deployment descriptor errors
1140: continue bssadapter debug
1200: lunch
1300: weekly provisioning meeting
debug bssadapter
1430: follow up on prepaid su07 upgrade specs
1435: check jmstools.jar, decompile and test
1500: read emails
1510: reinstall wlsprov domain, debug bssadapter
1545: break
1600: check errors in d3, out of disk space, need to delete logs
1610: debug bssadapter, hopeless case
1830: giving up, going to the gym
2000: dinner with workmates
2145: home
2200: reprimanded at home
2215: check personal emails, research for work
2230: receive phone call, surf the net
2330: receive phone call from home, home sick

04/10/2008

0100: sleep
0700: woke up sick, back to bed
0900: shower, prepare for work, vpn
0930: walk to work
0945: check emails
1000: check april rfc
1010: rebuild samp jar
1020: continue debug
1100: label samp
1105: debug )*&(^#)*&%^%&^$_*%
1200: lunch
1300: rebuild ea jars
1310: DEBUG !%*@%^&%#(^&%@$#*&^$
1400: label ea jars
1405: DEBUG !%*@%^&%#(^&%@$#*&^$
14:50 review assigned april rfc
1500: revise april rfc
1510: crank up my ipod and RANT!!!!!!!!!!

DAMN IT, I DON’T WANT ANOTHER DEBUG ENTRY. I QUIT.

music is the way kindred souls communicate to each other. you can tell a lot about your friends by their playlists.. each melody represents an era, a feeling, a memory, each word carries with it a pain, a person, a whole other lifetime lived not so long ago.

i have punctuated my life with songs, sometimes when i hear one playing on the radio, a certain year comes to mind, a moment freeze framed and slowly flashing like an old movie on replay. often these hymns are so powerful that they bring me back to a place that used to hurt – a place i’ve covered with cobblestones to hide the bruises. but one tune, one lousy refrain and walls tumble to give in to longing.

memories could be a gift, or a curse, depending on which kind you wish to bring back from the dead. but i know one fact.. never listen to crappy songs on vday =) happy hearts day everyone!

i wake up.
i eat my breakfast.
i take a shower.
i do my errands.
i go to the gym.
i sit at my favorite couch at the coffee shop and order burnt rice green tea.

sometimes i play billiards or badminton or kart racing with my brothers. sometimes the family is complete and we have dinner together.

before i sleep, i read two chapters from the bible and a short story from one of my favorite local writers.

i rarely check my email nor go online, the real world turns and i spin in place. i’ve been doing this for the past five days and yet it feels like a lifetime. i see the same old places but no familiar face greets me. i feel lost.

tomorrow i will wake up. i will eat my breakfast. i will take a shower. the real world will do another 360, and i will still be here, missing the people who used to walk these streets with me, who are now scattered around the world, away from here.

and this is why i know i need to write myself away in words and wish i was homeless again.

Once upon a time I fell in love – the mad, blind, irrational and passionate kind. It happened unexpectedly as all great loves do. I didnt look for it, it just found me while I was busy with the mundanities of living.

I never really knew what it was until it was staring right in front of me. I tried to deny it, push it away, paint it with stipes hoping to make the hippotamus look like a zebra. But it just washed itself, shook its head and stubbornly stayed. Nothing made sense until I admitted that I was in love.

We kissed then lightning crashed on that damp rainy night, and that’s how I knew that as much as I wanted to keep this feeling, this high, this heaven, I didnt want to risk losing the person that brings it. Friendship survives holocausts, other relationships crumble. I had to let it go.

So I went away, I made excuses, it was crushing, it broke my heart into a million tiny pieces that will never heal no matter how many centuries it took. It was stupid, but it was the right thing to do. At rare times when I allow myself to feel, the wound still hurts,

That was 5 years ago, I coasted through life since then and made myself believe that I was fine. Found new people who entrusted their hearts to me but I never kept them. The spark never came back, something was always missing.

Sometimes when all is quiet I would weep and look back at the path I chose, then I would blink the tears away and reassure myself that I made the right decision.

Tonight the ghosts rose from the grave to haunt me, and taunt me and tell me what I would have otherwise missed if I had stayed. But I am too far down the road and I have learned to live with the pain for as long as I can remember that it doesnt seem to matter anymore. I have become contented with the role I chose to play in your life.

I feel a twinge as I read your words – of a new found love, of the same old feeling – but you have become nothing more than my idea of heaven, that place where dreams are made of, I know that’s the best we can ever be – kindred souls. The half that makes me whole.

I will always love you M, and I will always let you go. I hope she makes you happy, I would never wish anything less for you.

I miss you, I miss the way my hand fit yours, and for me, that has always been enough in this lifetime.

Goodbye. Hello 😉

met up with the vip’s at shangrila – my cousin kat, her beau j, my former workmate venn and i sampled the ridiculously overpriced menu while we watched my other cousin neriz and her friend sing on stage. we were like groupies after each set, the celebrities would sit at our table and entertain us with anecdotes. it was a fun night cap to an otherwise hectic day – buying things i need to bring back, waiting in line to claim papers and going back and forth to the office to submit the documents. still need to go back tomorrow for the med exam then i should be done and ready to have a worry free vacation;

the taxi cab is my best friend again these days, as i shuffle my self between that faraway place called work and the tiny bubble i temporarily call my home. one of the drivers talked to me today and told me how his friend has been a victim of a stick up in that area where i was to be dropped off. made me realize how dangerous it could be to be stranded there at night so i made sure to finish everything before night fall.

with my friends either busy with work or sick of it, i spent the day alone with my thoughts while looking at shop windows. events that unraveled these past few days have been both enlightening and disappointing for me. it made me realize that deceit and danger lurk in the most unexpected places and people despite their good intentions always end up doing the wrong things. this reminded me of what my friend said a while back: “it’s not always about manipulation when you lie to get what you want, sometimes it’s just self preservation, a twisted act of selfish love.. hell is paved with good intentions”

there are holiday parties and send off dinner invites left and right, the calories are piling up and my dollars are depleting. this is why i hide in my room at this time of the year. well if only i could, it’s shopping season, time to promote consumerism and commercialism to make the economies of the world turn, that being said, i’m late on my gift buying.

went to ikea last saturday with paolo, my visit to their showroom inspired me to redecorate my room. ordered a loft bed online. will be rearranging some stuff to make more space for a work desk. hopefully, it will look like this in the end.

found a nice gift for saturday at costco last night. now if only i can move my lazy self and find the energy to wrap it. will probably opt for a gift bag instead coz i really don’t want to waste my time putting something together that will just be carelessly torn apart in a few minutes.

funny when you stay away from one far place, something unexpected comes up and takes you to something farther. was supposed to have dinner tonight with workmates but i wasn’t up to it. twas raining and we’ll be taking the skytrain. so i went home and hanged out with my cousin and her friend.

on a whim, quel suggested we go to vandusen and see the festival of lights. gi borrowed her mom’s car and we drove there. it was a serene sight – watching colored drops of red, green and yellow dance around the trees in tune with nostalgic holiday music. almost makes you feel more alone but not when you’re with crazy people.

life is never boring when you’re crazy.

– that’s the budget for the white elephant event on saturday, in case you don’t know what that is – it’s a new way to promote the value of stealing gifts this holiday season. went to metrotown and looked for anything interesting but found none. what makes it harder is that it has to be unisez. probably was looking at the wrong places – american eagle, the source, coast mountain, sportchek, then i gave up and just bought postcards and wrapping paper from the dollar store. i don’t want to be boring and buy a starbucks gift check. half the people are thinking of doing that already. wish i could be as lucky as zet, finding love at first sight while looking at one store window, but then it is easier to find things when your budget is a hundred bucks.

oh well, surely a giant light bulb would pop out of my brain at the last minute and i’ll figure something out. in the meantime i’ll concentrate on my chocklit monster project. hope i make it..

*crossing fingers*

went away tonight, to somewhere i’ve never been to, to a place where i can step out and breathe the cold air till it rips my lungs apart. looked up to a star filled sky and listened to the sound of water breaking the rocks. i almost felt alive again, almost. yet it was empty, the darkness was vast and i could drown in it if i wanted to, i could get lost like so many others are lost everyday. but what’s the point really? when the line between sanity and madness is so thin that you can cross over with the snap of a finger if you wanted to, everything becomes so fleeting and volatile and scary. why do we hang on when it’s so much easier to trip and go overboard and be crazy..

this is one of those days when i just want to hop into a car and drive as far as possible from the toxic waste that is also known as the people around me. i need to find meanings, i’ve lost the motivation to wake up. i’m afraid that if somebody touches me, i will dissolve into molecules.