A light when all other lights go out!

when it's time to walk that way, you want to walk it well. :) - goes for everything else in life.

about Don again. i texted him one night. it was late and i was in starbucks trying to wind down from the flurry of high-pressure activities i have at work. i was simultaneously wondering how i was going to work out my schedule while wishing there was someone to talk to. so i texted him. the dialogue is nothing special but because the guy is, it's special enough to write down here. cory: hi, good evening. i'm just texting because i wanted to distract myself. you don't have to reply if you're busy. yesterday, i learned that when i'm stressed out, i tend to look for conversation. you're a candidate, haha. :) don: i'm not busy but i'm in bed almost ready to go to sleep. i'll reply until i fall asleep so shoot... :) cory: may kwento ka? did you do interesting things today? have something big happening tomorrow? :) don: interesting? uh, not really, was in the office thinking about filing a case for tro/injunction against the bureau. don: tomo

you know that moment when you try to solve something you've been grappling with for 7 hours on a weekend and your boss solves it in 30 sec of her first few minutes in the office? i know, i know, there's a gulf of a difference between me and my boss in terms of knowledge, experience, acquired know-how, level of decision-making, but...yeah. hahahaha! i am in awe.

there was that time when i asked, how art thou? you said, i'm fine milady. you know, to be honest, i wish i don't, but i miss you.

i just wanted to talk. is it okay if it's just rambling, not written well? i've been having difficulty, emotionally, in carrying out my work. the intellectual part of it is not what i find difficult. it's the part where i'm working on it in an environment that is not filled with people other than myself - meaning to say, that i am doing overtime work on saturdays and sundays and there aren't a lot of people around so i somehow feel so lonesome. it would actually help if i were to do my work in a coffee shop but i don't have the means for that right now. i don't have a laptop and a car for transporting with me office documents that i need, which can be voluminous. so it looks like there is nothing to do for it but to endure. and i will have to remind myself, cor, it's worth it to endure. it's worth it.

i look at my schedule then think about my project and i feel a sense of an impending disaster. :(

two weeks ago, 17 and 18 to be exact, i came home just a bit bummed out. i had attended an international conference on fiscal openness and, on the afternoon of the 18th, had to race out of the conference and back to the office to take notes on a meeting that high-level bosses were having. and, in the whole of those two days, i had found myself in the dismaying situation of barely being able to grasp the matters being discussed at hand. i was really bothered about it. the coming monday, 21 of this month, september, i wasn't going to proceed to work directly because i had a dental appointment so i was sitting on a chair in our living room thinking about what i felt was a shocking situation of me not being able to follow work discussions. i was wondering what i could do about it. my mind immediately referred me to don. i wasn't sure if i could enlist don for help but i decided to test the waters. i sent him a text: Don, hello. good am. are you busy? he replied: Hi cory.

my crush just came in into the office and asked me if our boss was there. did not realize how bashful i was around him until i saw how i absolutely did not know how to talk to him.

(disclaimer: don't expect well thought-out pieces from me as i write while i watch 'a gentleman's dignity'. this is merely flash writing.) ^_^ i'm currently watching south korea's 'a gentleman's dignity'. i was looking for entertainment - the gripping, nuanced kind with a bittersweet payoff, the kind that is offered by koreanovelas - so i surfed the korean menu a bit. i first tried 'master's sun' by the hong sisters but i didn't get hooked. i was longing for a kim eun sook story but i had already seen 'the heirs' and 'secret garden' and i hadn't liked 'lovers in paris' when i remembered - i hadn't watched 'a gentleman's dignity' as yet! minutes into the episode, the series already had me laughing, and the actors had won me over. i like kim eun sook's taste. the first episode has what i look for - it is funny, insightful, sweet and meaningful. and it's witty too. consider these

i have a secret. i think i have a crush on this guy named glenn. he works here; he's from a different unit but has the same oversight boss as me. we never really work together but during the past few days, i attended some events that he was working on and it was in those days that i saw glenn smile at me TWICE. it was a grin, actually. and a terrific one at that. i saw glenn grin at me like he was christmas and it has been driving me to distraction ever since. the first time happened while the crew was hanging out together at a booth in a governance fair at the convention center here in the city. jojo and ludell were talking and when i approached, they told me they were talking about me. they said i was like one of those characters in the movie Inside Out and that i looked pretty that day. glenn looked up from where he was sitting and he grinned at me. i wondered if i was imagining things. the second time was at work. i was in their office taking up something with his collea

i am so THANKFUL EVERY DAY to have an EXTRAORDINARY BOSS. happy birthday!

"this is the moment that we must meet". - pres. barack obama, opening remarks on open government partnership. short, but a great speech. :)

surprisingly, i received a text from him today. it registered on my phone - 11:02 AM, 8/20/2015. he said: Hi. How's it going? me: hi! things are great. i'm having fun. how are you? he: good din. glad to hear you're enjoying your work. sana matuloy kayo in the future. at first, i didn't understand what he meant. then i surmised that he was probably referring to that time when i had asked him regarding the possible use of their family resort for our event. the plan had been aborted; we had the event, a strategic planning session, held within office premises instead. me: u mean the strat planning session? medyo we got burned na kc sa mga ganun eh. i wanted to have some of our events sa [name of resort] but the procurement process is so tedious. but i'll be recommending the resort naman every opportunity i'll get. :) then i decided to take the opportunity to give him more explanation regarding the internal happenings that had affected the planning proces

8.19.2015 my first brush handling rallyists/protesters. dealt with them while wearing a flower-print skirt, pastel pink top, and white cardigan to boot! (sabi ko pa while going out to meet them under the heat of the sun - can i bring an umbrella? omg, heaven help me. ^_^) our chief information officer agreed to have a meeting with three of their representatives, which took place, and i contacted staff to help provide technical support to our CIO. watching our CIO work, i wondered whether i would ever acquire that type of political finesse/skill that one has to have to deal with these kinds of things. i think it must be a mark of a good public leader. a requisite, perhaps. at the moment, i rather doubt if i'll ever have something like it or even attempt to cultivate it in my personality. at the back of my mind, i think i had always flagged it as one reason why i shouldn't be persuaded to be in electoral politics. if i didn't have that factor, i knew it couldn't

found myself with some unexpected free time on my hands yesterday and immediately decided that the best way to spend it was to meet up with lala. so i texted her: lala, hello. are you free? would you like to meet up for a spontaneous early dinner or something? she replied: hey cor, can't do spontaneous today since i'm working from home and can't leave late afternoon na. what about spontaneous tom? hehehe. sadly, a planned spontaneous activity the next day wasn't a go for me: nyek, i can't do a spontaneous tomorrow, hehe. i had an upset stomach last night and couldn't sleep so i wasn't able to report for work today. i'm okay now but it's too late for me to go to work. let's plan more spontaneous things soon!!! she agreed: let's let's! get well (more? hehehe) dearling. i don't know why, but that text exchange was riddled with oxymorons. :) speaking of spontaneity, i arrived at work today only to usher myself straigh

i think i write a lot about love in this blog but is this the first time i'm explicitly writing about romantic love? :) on and off, i'm following the voice kids season 2, sometimes even while i'm in the office during weekend nights when i need to work, and i find some of the song performances simply magical. i am sometimes left marveling at these kids and the magic they can bring to the stage. how do they do that? i am mind-blown. this rendition of your love by alamid is my favorite from what i've seen so far. the other one that is just as memorable for me is gian's take on ed sheeran's thinking out loud. this performance of your love is on replay for me right now. these kids, under the terrific guidance of coach bamboo, were able to bring out in a different kind of glory the magic and the meaning of the song. it was like the love being talked about was a truly wondrous thing. your love is like the sun that lights up my whole world; i feel the warmth i

so today marks the end of a two-day seminar we are co-hosting with the government's procurement policy board. and surprisingly, i am EXHAUSTED. i'm a little taken aback to find myself tired because though my workload is heavy, there are many days when i don't find myself that tired. the seminar was great. admittedly, on the planning side (that's me and the office team i belong to), we didn't deliver as optimally as we could but there's nothing to be done about that now. our boss pointed out our shortcoming on that score - in the part that was the most important - the invitation of participants. i understood the correction immediately from the onset but felt the disappointment keenly at the close of the event. the subject matter was super weighty, important and so necessary for government and the country that i felt it wasn't something to be taken carefree-ly. the seminar was something that people who cared deserved to have. and not just people who cared,

5:50 PM. 8.12.2015 Witnessed for the first time the ARRIVAL of the BOSS. Ooh...#BOSS #CLASSIFIED :D

as usual, i got only a quote to write in, because i have no business writing in length when i got no time to write. :) i got only a question. From thought catalog: "There are so many roads you can end up taking in life, but who would have thought I’d end up without you?"

june 30, 2015 - here in the office. quietest day i've had in the nearly three weeks i've been here so far. with jing and amy and dred. 4:40 pm and i'm tired. made calls for several hours, studied my tasks. lee's last day today. knew him for only a short time. i'll have a busier day tomorrow, i guess. i won't finish nalang my calls for now? whatcha think? :)

"And you're not in love (with me), and I don't know why". - A1 song, 2002 apparently. it came on while i was working. very apt words for that kind of emotional situation, right? filing it away to somewhere at the back of my mind. :)

It stars Asia's Prince Charming, Lee Min Ho. :)

I'm fine since you didn't ask.

What girl still thinks of the world as a fairy tale? (rewording of a subtitle i read from my love from a star)

okay, so i know that love me like you do by ellie goulding was drafted specifically for the movie 50 shades of gray but i just simply love its chorus. so inspired. :)

haist. lee min ho is dating someone already. can i go back to the time when i didn't care at all? heehee. ok, ok, i'm going back to stuyding now.

i appreciated this: keep your head up. God gives His hardest battles to His strongest soldiers... okay. sige, kaya ko 'to. na-strengthen ako kc, sa situation ko, as far as i can see, things just seem to be so overtly and subtly difficult.

i see that lately when i come here i only talk about songs. that's because those times are usually stolen moments from long hours of being in front of a computer or laptop working on something, or as is the case at the moment, studying. i came here because i just wanted to note something. i noticed that when i'm already several hours deep into work/study, there's a song that i appreciate unexpectedly hearing. it gives me an unexpected boost of energy and motivation because of the inspiration it provokes at a time when i'm already tired and my endurance is strained. it's like when you're already dragging your feet along and then you're reminded or inspired to pick up your pace. the song is chasing cars by snow patrol: if i lay here, if i just lay here, would you lie with me and just forget the world? forget what we're told, before we get too old. show me a garden that's bursting into life. when my work gets too technical, mechanical or borin

sometimes, there are just some things you can't break free from. and it drives you crazy in your head and in your heart. and there's no solution for it. if there's really nothing you can do about it, try a song. mine right now is taylor swift's "out of the woods". "out of the woods" was a song taylor swift wrote about the anxiety she felt while she was in this relationship that she didn't know was going to work out or not. and i remember liking what she said about it, how even in those kinds of things, it's still beautiful and worth it because it had, somehow, the things that you were looking for - you know, the things that people look for in love. i kind of feel envious that she was able to encapsulate her feelings in a song that would go around the world and remind her, the other person, and the world just how beautiful it all was and is. for me, maybe listening to "out of the woods" is a way of looking at an old polaroid of a

so, here i am, holed up in a room in a hotel, working. bec it's already past 2 in the morning and i'm worried about working this late when i am actually still very much sick, i just wanted to remind myself, in case i forgot to reflect on it, that this is actually a good first new experience for me. my first baby step toward an industry or field i could actually be perhaps destined for. :p (a silent thanks to God, Mama Mary and Pope John Paul II)

spin that record, babe. :)