A light when all other lights go out!

I want to make a change in my life. Don’t get excited, it’s on nothing big. Just an itty bitty teeny weeny tiny change actually. I want to arise on the dot in the morning when my alarm rings. I am a haggler when it comes to getting up. I haggle with the good Lord for a little more shut-eye, just a few more minutes, or I bargain it out of myself. And I’m proud to say I win almost every negotiation every time. I’m writing about this now because for the first time, I realized a heretofore uncovered dimension for this unsavory practice of mine. I realized that it felt important for me that there would have been someone who cared about waking me up and whom I could count on to be tough about it when I am weak. I realized that something so mundane may not really be as mundane after all. President Barack Obama once spoke of how he had a hole in his heart (the size of the state of Miami, joke lang!) for where his father ought to be. He spoke of it in sadness, acknowledging of the fact that a ...

What do you do during the weekend? Describe. I sit in my favorite corner at Starbucks, wearing my favorite blue Guess jeans, a black top with pink embroidered flowers and a gray cotton jacket covering my shoulders. On the circular tabletop in front of me lies a plate empty of its contents, save for a knife set across it, stained with hardened chocolate. To its right stands a tall size mocha frappucino in its transparent vessel, looking barely sipped as yet. A green straw is inserted through the opening on its cap. I take out a book or a reading, or a pen and notebook. Once in a while, I let my gaze slide among the occupants in the half-glass encased café and I spy two yuppies with nurse’s caps perched on top of their heads, snapping pictures of themselves with their digicam. I snap out of my reverie with the ringing of my phone and it’s Clyde. She wants to know if our Katipunan rendezvous is still on. I reply it is. I get up and gather my things but before I leave the mall, I make a fe...

Speaking of Time, I just wanted to write about this. I started scribbling on the margins and in between spaces in my Time Magazine. I would put in comments like for example: “Nam Yong [of LG Electronics]…is a CEO who believes in taking aggressive action and living with it. Once he decides that it makes sense to move down a path, he doesn’t look back.” (Schuman 2010, pp.42-43) And then I would scribble: (arrow) Don’t you just love it when people get gutsy and go all-out??!! Another example: “Nam says, ‘To show some profit [in a recession] is important, but not as important as long-term sustainable profit. This is a time to really come up with long-term competitiveness rather than short-term profits.”(Schuman 2010, p.43) And I underlined the whole quote and wrote, as though nodding vigorously: True of life as well!!!!! Hahahaha! ^_^ So one time, I texted Lala: Sweet, don’t buy a Time mag na. I have with me the issue about only children and I’ll hand it to you when next we meet. That time...

If there’s anything Time Magazine has taught me, it’s that I don’t value the things I don’t work hard for, or at least those things which cost me nothing – no effort, no pain, no part of myself. I started regularly purchasing a Time Magazine for my own mental and educational consumption when I entered the university and for as long as I remember, I seem to have been always perennially casting the magazine longing glances every time I would pass them by – in National Bookstore, Fullybooked, Seven Eleven, Rustan’s Supermarket in Katipunan…wherever. Last year, Lala and I thought to share a subscription for the magazine. (Hey, weren’t there some freebie involved? Did they deliver?) So for a year, the two of us received every issue of Time Magazine that we wished for. And was it heaven? Hell, no. We felt inundated. We could barely keep up with the reading. The subscription has expired already and we still haven’t gotten around to finishing our backlog of outdated Time magazines. For some re...

I lamented to my boardmates before: My Korean students don't laugh at my jokes. I pouted. "What jokes?" they asked. "Well," I explained. "My student and I were discussing an article about superstitions. And I asked him if he was superstitious. He said yes. And he said that he believes in dreams and that if one night he would have an awful dream, that he would absent himself from work the next day. And then I said to him: You know what, James, I'm superstitious too." "Really," he asked. "Yes," I affirmed. "I believe it is bad luck to believe in superstition." Silence. I waited for laughter. Nada. I smiled to myself. "I was just joking," I reassured him. "Anyway, going back to our discussion..." And another time, a student shared with me that he jumped rope for exercise 500 times a day and that he was presently aiming to raise the bar to a thousand jumps. "Wow!" I commended him. "That...

I was lolling at Starbucks earlier when I suddenly felt the impulse to heckle my bestfriend Lala. She was at work and since I didn't want to catch her while she was busy (and would therefore bite my head off) or in a bad mood (repeat aforementioned consequence), I decided to text her, to give some sort of heads up and to obtain a green light for a quick call. Cory to Lala: Psst! Are you busy? Was gonna make u a 1-minute call. 60 seconds lang naman. Tas I'll be yammering at a rate of 5 words per second lang naman. Pagbigyan mo sana...Hahaha!^_^ I didn't get a reply until about 7, with Lala apologizing about not checking her phone until early that eve and notifying me that she'd be home around 8:30. I was at bellecroft yet again. While there, I kept time with the clock and took note that it was too early for me to call. However, I left bellecroft at 8, and was not able to make the call. I stopped by SM North and bought one whole Red Ribbon chocolate mousse cake for the fo...

31 Nice Things About Him (That I Like) ^_^ 1. His eyes 2. His smile 3. The way he looks at me 4. his sense of responsibility 5. his boyishness 6. his lovableness 7. the way he drives his car 8. his love for classical music 9. his love for his sister 10. his patience with his parents 11. his love for philosophy 12. his background in Toronto 13. his childhood in Bulacan 14. his voice 15. his fondness for his nephew 16. his respect for women 17. his cooperativeness 18. his managerial capabilities 19. his thoughts 20. his intelligence 21. his love for fine restaurants 22. his conversation 23. his niceness 24. his clean habits 25. his industriousness 26. his kindness 27. his tech-savviness 28. his diligence 29. his ideas 30. his law studies 31. his age. =) * 'Cause I wrote this when he turned 31. Advance happy birthday. God bless sa law studies mo. I hope that you'll ace the bar and graduate well soon...though not necessarily in that order. :) ** It's not the same without his na...

One time, I remember, my bestfriend Lala and I were at SM North. She and her boyfriend were, at that time, celebrating their first ever "sort-of" anniversary. And she was sharing with me a poem that she had written for him. She wrote it down on my notebook since she didn't have a copy with her and anyway, she knew the poem by heart (haha, no surprise there!). After reading it, I asked her to explain to me what she meant with her metaphors and personifications and figures of speech. When she was done, I inquired of her deadpan, "How come our friendship doesn't inspire you to write poems?" I was joking. She rolled her eyes at me. So I was surprised when one January morning, the morning of my birthday, she presented me with a poem. My friend is a very good writer and she wrote this poem for me so I'd like to take this opportunity to re-publish it. Since it's for me, I assume that she is sharing with yours truly some of the intellectual property rights t...