a dream is an answer to a question you haven’t asked..

I can finally officially post these on my resume. Nevermind the fact I barely survived the last exam to complete these certs. Lol.

I know, i know. It took me this long because I’m such a slacker. It also makes my purses complain since the exams are 125 USD a pop. No shopping for me. Boo.

I’m down 2, one more for a MCPD (Microsoft Certified Professional Developer) for .Net 2.0, and another one come July for the 3.5. It’s ok if you don’t know what that means. It just means I’m done slacking off.

I AM FOCUSED! Swift like Mhe on a winter day. Sharp like a Cutco knife. Yeah!

Forgive me, but this will be long. I haven’t blogged in a while, and I feel compelled to write or else I wouldn’t be able to sleep.

Two years ago, I kicked this bad habit of mine. And like any horrible vice, it lead me to a downward spiral of self-destruction, a nasty temperament, and a questionable state of sanity. Unlike people who block out their bad experiences, I try my best to remember to avoid making the same mistakes. Never again.

It’s remarkable how time has flown by. There was a time I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to pick myself up again. I felt lost. I hardly recognized myself anymore. But what I feared most was not feeling anything at all. That I would simply exist. I welcomed even pain, because that meant I was still willing to struggle and I still hoped things will get better.

But good winds blew my way and spring briefly broke through my lonesome winter. I pined for somebody, temporarily. Nothing came out of it, but I was enthralled with the realization I can find beauty in another person again. That my heart beats for more than one purpose.

I fancied more and more people - I pick total strangers lest I lose control and make a total ass of myself. Like that hot, long haired, broad shouldered (although married) Air Canada flight attendant who serviced my area during my Japan-Toronto flight. He spoke wonderful Japanese. I smiled during the entire 13 hours it took to get back to Toronto.

Or that chinese man immaculately dressed in a suit in Hongkong that made me and Maan turn our heads 180 degrees to relish the last few glimpses of his hurrying shadow. He wasn’t particularly tall nor do I remember what his best features were, but at that moment, I couldn’t resist. I had to look back as he forever walked out of my life.

Fancying somebody is like a fresh breath of air. But the best part is not the momentary tingles, but having enough inspiration to draw a plethora of what-ifs. Nevermind if it might not happen, but knowing you have endless possibilities of things that could happen between you and a stranger you’ve been eyeing is what smutty novels and daydreams are all about. Let’s face it, everyone, and I mean everyone has had a romantic fantasy, whether it was spawned by a nice fellow who held the door for you or a bloke you caught looks with for a moment across a bar.

When the daydream has ended, all that’s left is a heart-warming glow reminiscent of high school crushes, previous first dates, old flames, the most impecable of chocolates, or long runs that made your body sing. And sometimes that’s enough to tide us over until the next stranger that walks into your life. Then you can hope that maybe, this time, he/she will stay, maybe just a bit longer than the last one.

The last of all what-ifs is what if we cross paths again? Because of that uncertainty, or rather the possibility (depending on the assumed situation or scenario), we dream again from time to time. You try to stand taller, dress nicer, given the possibility that that hot Air Canada flight attendant has gotten a divorce and remembered you (out of all the other passengers of course, lucky you), and might be interested in coffee. Although you sense the ridiculousness of that ever happening, I always say it can happen. And that’s not just the optimist in me talking. Who am I to say no to a healthy buzz?

The fact is, it doesn’t have to happen. Even a fantasy, if it ever come to fruition, may not go the way you’d want it to be. Nothing is more painful than being hit with the harsh truth that your fantasy is too delusional. Rejection is a tough pill to swallow.

So no matter how much I yearn for any of my strangers, I won’t do anything. I’m happy being safe than sorry. And I have enough restraining orders against me. That last part was a lie, of course. The point is, no matter how pathetic it may seem, I smile because of my shallow affections for total strangers. And that’s good enough for now.

I’ve been having some intermittent server problems due to my “migration to the new platform”. That basically means the hosting company had some server upgrades that I took advantage of, and lead to my offline status for the past month. I also took the time to upgrade my wordpress, security issues and what not.

I should have time to blog considering I haven’t been sleeping lately. The usual 2-hour sleep days. I’m exhausted but my mind is on crack. I dun think anything’s wrong with me aside from an extreme overdose of excitement.

I’m going away for a little while. I need some time to relax, enjoy life a little bit, and rethink my plans for the rest of the year. 2008 will be the year of change for a lot of us. Dream on people, dream on!

I know I haven’t blogged much these days, mainly because it had been a really busy semester. From time to time, I look back at where I am, and how far I’ve come. I tell myself to live a little more, and worry a little less. Have more fun. Spend more time with people I care about. Be a better daughter/sister/friend/acquaintance/stranger. Be calmer and have more composure.

If you died tomorrow, would you die without regrets? Based on your actions today, can you live with your self tomorrow?

The past 2 months was busy with school, finals, and some personal dilemmas. I personally have always tried to solve my problems on my own, and there were always people who knew when to catch me when I couldn’t do handle everything on my own. This time around, I had to do the catching. I had to draw my inner shrink and muster all my potential as a crutch. I listened. I tried my best to be neutral even when I knew it wasn’t going to be well received. I stayed positive for the three of us. I spent hours looking for the right positive statement to send during the ealier days. I had to choose which roles to play. Depending on the choice, you could help a person grow or cripple them even more. Because it’s never easy to say hurtful things to people that you love.

Given the recent events, I had to relive some of the past. I had to dig deep and remember the hard lessons learned, because there are many. And that was how I saw I could help best. And it occurred to me that I always hesitated to say things I find uncomfortable because they hit too close to my heart. So in my own fashion, I share these to you dear reader.

To my bestest friends, thank you so much for keeping me alive, and keeping my head above water. You are my happy place.

To the jebby tribe, we are living proof that distance relationships work (as les said so).

To the people I barely see but share the truest of friendships (you know who you are), we are connected in mysterious ways that I hope will last a lifetime.

To Mida, to me you are a big sister because of your old soul, a friend because you listened and have never judged, and even to this day, my Cuba.

To the people I work with, I don’t get paid millions nor love the deadlines but I love the challenges, and the opportunity to work with you all.

To la familia (cousinz, extended family), I am fortunate to always feel welcome in your homes, because eventhough we are not really related, we are family.

To my sister, thank you for taking my side eventhough it’s not necessary, for putting up with my crankiness when I’m too hungry, and for driving me around. You will always have my love and support.

To my mom, thank you for the silent support and for putting up with me.

To my dad, thank you for not asking the painful questions, and for letting me stand on my own feet.

To the rest of the people I didn’t specifically cite, no meeting is meaningless; everybody is tied by strings of fate; and for every moment we shared in the smallest of way, it is appreciated. The future me is the product of all the interactions with all you people.

And to close, I want to remind everybody that you are loved, relied upon, and well thought of. The world throws roadblocks, but it does not stop. The future is uncertain, and that’s where its beauty lies. Carpe diem.

Taste the rainbow!

A WOMAN SHOULD HAVE

… one old love she can imagine going back to… and one who reminds her how far she has come.

… enough money within her control to move out and rent a place of her own even if she never wants to or needs to.

… something perfect to wear if the employer or date of her dreams wants to see her in an hour.

… a youth she’s content to leave behind.

… a past juicy enough that she’s looking forward to retelling it in her old age.

… a set of screwdrivers, a cordless drill, and a black lace bra.

… one friend who always makes her laugh … and one who lets her cry.

… a good piece of furniture not previously owned by anyone else in her family.

… eight matching plates, wine glasses with stems, and a recipe for a meal that will make her guests feel honored.

… a feeling of control over her destiny.

EVERY WOMAN SHOULD KNOW

… how to fall in love without losing herself.

… how to quit a job, break up with a lover, and confront a friend without ruining the friendship.

… when to try harder … and when to walk away.

… that she can’t change the length of her calves, the width of her hips, or the nature of her parents.

… that her childhood may not have been perfect… but its over.

… what she would and wouldn’t do for love or more.

… how to live alone… even if she doesn’t like it.

… whom she can trust, whom she can’t, and why she shouldn’t take it personally.

… where to go… be it to her best friend’s kitchen table… or a charming inn in the woods… when her soul needs soothing.

… what she can and can’t accomplish in a day… a month… and a year.

I haven’t blogged in a while. I’ve been busy. School, birthdays, cross-border shopping (thank you cheapo US dollar!), midterms and just life in general. I always had things to blog about, floating in my head until the day I have free time. Which isn’t really today, but I needed to sort out my thoughts in a round-about way. Forgive me for the long narrative to follow, but I had to write this down tonight before I sleep.

I’ve always had weird dreams. Just plain weird ones that I should commemorate with a blog post but failed to do so. I haven’t blogged about them because I actually make it a point to go out these days. My friend, Daisy, has made it a point to remind me that as much as studying is a must, I need to have a life. And thinking about her inspires me to just be spontaneous and live a little bit, exams and all haha.

But I digress. I meant this post to be about the other set of dreams I’ve been having. Yes, the nightmares. I’ve had a string of them for the last month or so, even a week where I had a nightmare everyday of the week. Sometimes I remember them, often not. I’d rather not remember them actually, since it lets me salvage the rest of my waking hours for some positive energy.

Last night I had a nightmare. I went to bed at 4:30 am, thanks to a manga called D-ASH. I pretty much zonked out after reading when I started dreaming. I believe I was in a car, and somebody else was driving. I was sitting in the back seat, on the passenger side. Nobody was sitting in the front seat nor beside me. I couldn’t see who was driving. The scenery was something out of Smallville or King City: endless fields of corn or grains. I was staring at the fields when something caught my attention, and I turned towards the front. Then everything went pitch black, like I caught in the middle of a typical Manila brownout. The idea itself seemed ridiculous, considering I’m a moving car. How is it possible to not see anything, even my hands that are in front of me?

Suddenly, for some reason, I knew there was a ghost in the car.

After the pitch black I was seeing, I suddenly saw shadows peering down at me, like I was lain on a morgue table and the shadows I was seeing were caused by an overhead lamp. And I knew those shadows weren’t human. And all this I saw without moving an inch inside the car. My dream self was having a nitemare herself.

Then I screamed. I couldn’t open my mouth, but I screamed. In my head, I screamed so loud because I was honestly terrified. It was raw unexplainable fear that I felt, I needed wake up. I kept telling myself, wake up, you need to wake up. When that didn’t work, I started praying to God.

I’m not a religious person; I’m not constant church goer either. But in times of need and times of sheer gratefulness, I turn to God. I recognize that there is something bigger than me out there, and that He’s there if I call upon Him with all my heart. And last night, I was that scared.

I asked God to wake me up. I was really scared because I was conscious of the fact I was having a horrible nitemare I can’t wake up from. In my mind, I kept repeating, God please wake me up. Just repeating it like shinto priest’s mantra.

Slowly, I could feel my consciousness resurfacing. Slowly, I became conscious that I was in bed, but I still couldn’t move. I needed to be certain I could move, that I was still in the plane of the living. I became conscious of my arms, lain on my chest in a regular way. I’ve woken up from a nitemare before where my arms were crossed in front of me, as if I was protecting myself from a physical attack. Not this time, but the thought didn’t even give me a small sense of relief.

I kept telling myself over and over, come on, wake up. My body soon started responding to my mind’s cries, and I lifted an arm. Relief washed over me. I’m back. Hah.

When I was reassured I was still alive, I said my thanks to God, and begged that I sleep the rest of the night without the nitemares. You might think all this is just inside my head, and I was losing it, but I really felt like I couldn’t have come back from that nitemare on my own. I swear. Few things terrify me, very few things. This experience just topped all those things.

After I’ve calmed down, I started to wonder if somebody was cursing me. And then I actually thought of somebody. I brushed the thought aside because I had consciously decided not to think of things and entities that shouldn’t matter to me because it’s not important. Because my life is my own, and the good shall prevail. Well, something like that.

Sleep beckoned to me, and I did a mental check whether I felt it was safe enough to go back to sleep. The fear was gone. Relieved, I drifted back to sleep. I woke up 5 hours later with a vague recollection of what happened. And now, I’ve blogged about it.

Just in case something happens, I’ll be looking for Louie. But I’m positive I shall be blogging tomorrow.

Not to be arrogant, but I do get quite a few calls from recruiters from time to time. Most of the time I pass mainly because I’m in the middle of a big project (when was I never in the middle of a big project?) and it’s against my work ethics to abandon what I’ve started. Which pretty much sums to me being a sucker because I work so hard for so little.

I’ve received compliments for work I’ve listed on my website. It hasn’t been updated for more than a year now because work has always been hectic. I took the time to take a vacation this year but even that was fruitless since I came back to a mountain of work. Which made me want to take another vacation but we all know I’m just setting me up for more work. It’s a vicious cycle really.

I’ve also had my share of persistent potential employers. Like that one guy who kept calling me about a job I’m not qualified nor interested about. He even called me at work, which is a big NO-NO. A recruiter’s job is to help me get a better job - not lose one.

I got this email a few weeks back. I never did respond to it, a little because of annoyance and little because I was too busy with my Dominos deadline.

What does you being Filipino have to do with me being interested in working with you? Is there an assumption that working with your own kind makes work more efficient?

For the record, I’ve only worked with, at most, 2 Filipinos, both were from my Humber College Helpdesk days. I’ve mostly worked with Asians (UIM & MBCS), Caucasians (Canadian Tire), and a mix of Europeans and South Americans.

I’m not anti-pinoy or anything like that. Brandishing your race just doesn’t seem professional in my opinion, esp. by north american standards. Even if you wanted to, you can’t build an entire company hiring only people of your kind. Why? Because that’s just being racist. Race should never be a predetermining factor to a person’s potential employment.

That being said, just the fact he mentioned he was pinoy sent alarms ringing. I’ve met Filipinos who can’t seem to assimilate or function with non-Filipinos. It’s exclusion by choice, something that shouldn’t be tolerated if you want to get anywhere career-wise. The reality is immigrants will have a hard time getting the job of their dreams, maybe it be because of lack of Canadian experience or the language barrier. You’re not helping yourself if you consciously choose to not interact and learn from the entire multi-cultural experience.

So (name omitted), good luck finding your .net programmer.

This is the Cebu prisoners version of the Haruhi dance I blogged about before. Pardon the quality, it’s the most decent I’ve seen on youtube.

I wish they filmed this during day time or at least with better lighting. I love the Haruhi dance. It’s a guilty pleasure to actually dance it with people well-coordinated and appreciative enough of cosplay and anime. One of these days..

kkhosa: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMnk7lh9M3o

dejibu: hahahaha. this is in the philippines

kkhosa: yeah

dejibu: gay guy in the middle. shamefullll. it’s funny how they actually choreographed it though

kkhosa: so many of them. its a prison

dejibu: yeah it’s a prison. scary hahaha.. gay guy in a halter top.

Like an expected bad scene from a horror flick, I couldn’t tear away my eyes until I finished the entire thing. After dealing with the guilty pleasure, I scanned some of the comments written on the page. One read:

Amazing, Philippines has the best prison system any where if they do this with there free time.

I felt a little twinge upon reading that. But you can’t argue with the notion that they do seem to have a lot of free time if they can come up with an entire choreography for Michael Jackson’s thriller. It would entail at least some minimal practice.

I dread to think that this is where the Filipino people’s taxes go to. And I highly doubt being able to dance like a zombie would lead to a person’s success once you’re outside.

Mixed feelings slowly drowned by embarrassed amusement. Next thing you know, Filipinos would be taking over YouTube the same way it did with friendster. Not very unlikely.

I got 3 birthday cards from Maan. Of which one of them was uncannily the same card that Jebbs and Les got me last year. What are the odds, really?

That was such a nice and heart-warming surprise. It’s nice to know that there are people who go through great lengths to make me feel loved.

I expected my 27th birthday to be a quiet one, mainly because my birthday was a tuesday and the weekend before it was Pride week, while the weekend after it would be Canada day weekend. We were going camping at Algonquin for Canada Day weekend, and camping in the wilderness wasn’t exactly my idea of celebrating.

I actually wanted to celebrate and get together with people for my birthday this year, because there is much to be celebrated. After last year’s drunken stupor and prevalent nightmares, I had grown so much that I’m actually proud of myself. That says a lot when you think about it.

When people ask me what I want for my birthday, I had to think really hard because I’m happy at what I have. My health is good; hell, I can bike 25 kms under 1 1/2 hrs! School’s on summer break, but I passed with decent grades. Work is, well, work; but I got a birthday cake and a belated lunch/transformers-movie group celebration (it was mike’s birthday too - happy birthday mike!) I’m slowly working my way through my debt. I have a newer car that’s been good so far. I’m surrounded by good and caring people. I got warm greetings from the unlikeliest people. Things are great this side of the planet!

But because some people insist on asking what I want for my birthday, my arbitrary gift option these days are biking/running related, like those biking shirts with pockets, or those hip belt with water containers. And maybe good running socks. Other than that, I dun really want anything specific, so the usual things will do.

My family (including Alan) is an exception, of course. From them I asked money towards the Norco bike I bought last month. My mom gave me money, as always. Belle and Alan pitched in too, so that expense didn’t hurt as much. My dad, well, he paid for dinner at a Korean resto that served $7.02 tofu soup. I had to mention the price because the resto had a really odd way of pricing things, like their $0.88 can of coke.

Sarah’s mom got me a cool Algonquin hoodie, which I totally love (sweetest $29.99 hoodie ever!) Hochi, Daisy and Rob got me a Billy Talent ticket, for this friday’s concert. That’ll be fcking awesome!! Jen (from work) got me some bubble bath stuff which I loveeeee. Robbie-kun got me *gasp* Final Fantasy 12 with a limited edition game guide. Hell yeah! Fcking awesome! For that, he got a real hug. Sorry, no ass groping. Hahahahah..

I know Louie got me a Danier bag, but she won’t give it to me til next saturday, when I have the bbq. The dd#2 got me something cool, but I’ll get to that soon. Everybody else gave me all their love, which good as always.

I told Mhe and Abs they could just get me a biking shirt. I guess they weren’t crazy about the idea because they might get the wrong size then we’ll have to go through the trouble of getting one that actually fits. I met up with the duo at Tristan yesterday and they handed me a bag from the Apple Store. They got me an iHome H6, and because I wanted to make space for it, I ended up cleaning my room. Hahahahaha.. It now nestles on top of table beside my bed. So happy, I have a new toy! Kyaaa!!! Many thanks to the dd#2. I will make sure you have good stock of coronas and rice. LOL!

Thanks to the other well-wishers! I’m happy, thanks to all of you.