A light when all other lights go out!

i want to write but i can't write kc whenever i'm here at work. i have lots of stories to share but i can't tell them. the vibe in this place is just not right.

my brain cells died today. :(

today, i'm thankful to the taxi driver who was able to get me from ermita to ayala avenue, makati, in less than 30 minutes. this was a fairly difficult feat to accomplish given the exacerbated traffic that comes with the christmas season and the proliferation of traffic lights in the city but the driver managed it nonetheless. i had been running errands in ermita in the morning and he must have taken pity on me as i withered in the backseat of the cab, dreading the disciplinary action that comes with tardiness to work. of course, i was praying the entire time, too, because i always feel like my neck is on the line every time. so i guess we can also chalk it up to those things that i term "the Cory miracles". hehehe. and i will perform an act of niceness today as a way of saying "thank you" and as a way to multiply "small" miracles. peace to you all. bye!

at the nelson mandela memorial service, barack obama, one of the foremost leaders in the world, fails to act appropriately. and then he chats it up with the blonde prime minister of denmark, with michelle sitting just right there. so this is what happens: do you think someone got into trouble with his wife that night? lol.

where can i sign up for pilates classes here in makati? :)

hard day today. struggling. wasn't able to get much sleep last night due to too much coffee. i underestimated strong brewed coffee from coffee bean kc.

11/28/2013 (ed. note: bakya ako mag-translate from Visayan to English. and mali-mali pa. my apologies in advance. ^_^) early today, i went to the Supreme Court of the Philippines to process some documents for a lawyer family friend. it was pretty uneventful, nothing basically happened, but i did remember a conversation i had with my housemates related to my going: having just arrived at the apartment, i entered to find my housemates in the sala. tatay* and lotis were seated at a table while mafel was moving around in the kitchen, apparently taking care of some dishes. lotis told me there was mail for me. i guessed it was the Power of Attorney document my brother was sending me for an errand he wanted me to run. i started to open the envelope of the letter. "sus, ito talaga ang hinihintay ko, cor! hindi pa talaga ako umuwi para marinig ko ang letter," tatay cracked, as if the letter were a love note from a secret admirer. i rolled my eyes at the good-natured ribbing...

oh, i remember what i used to be like before. when i used to start my day by listening to his album and end it by doing the same. :)

(ed. note: parts of the conversation were in Visayan but i don't know how to translate it to Tagalog so English nalang. and warning: it gets savage in the end. ^_^) 11/26/2013 i was walking home with pitchie along street sidewalks that lead to our apartment when she suggested that we cook spaghetti when we arrive home. "te cor, let's cook spaghetti when we get home," pitchie said. i reminded pitchie that lotis, her older sister, would have brought home or prepared food for her. "why? lotis will have food for you," i said. "but she didn't let me know in advance. she usually does. so she probably does not have food for me tonight," she explained. "sure she does," i said. "no, she doesn't," pitchie replied. "she does." "she doesn't, so let's cook spaghetti." "let's cook spaghetti this weekend nalang," i suggested. "no," she remonstrated, "no food...

remember this guy? he needed a selfie. ^_^

what sir chief said in response to his daughter Nikki, who said she couldn't accept someone who had once been a nanny as her daddy's wife and her mother: "...it wasn't Maya's fault that she wasn't born as privileged as you..." i heard it as i passed by the tv. :)

so while looking for a job, i accidentally found myself in another one. i have recently taken up...modelling! hahaha! my housemate, pitchie, has decided to start a business selling clothes online. originally, they told mai to model the clothes but at the time of asking mai wanted to sleep so they drafted me to do it instead. before i could make any real protest, they slipped a dress over my head and hustled me over to the blank, white wall of our living room where they immediately got an iPad and started taking shots. see, it was all very professional, hahaha! so i put my hand on my waist, and they arranged my hair to fall on my back so as not to obscure the dresses in any way, slipped bracelets on my wrist and directed me to pose front, back and sideways. they gave directions: relax your shoulders! move to the right! now, left! turn around! another pose! hahaha! langhiya tong mga to. and then: ok, that's a wrap! model, pack everything up! langya. well, there went my 15...

i love new yorker cartoons. now this one's for those who read books - and get sucked into forgetting the line between the life in books and real life. :D

so, i'm here to share some bad news: you know that job i was talking about back in august? i didn't get it. i was hit kind of hard by that. i mean, i knew i shouldn't have expected it, but, at some point, because they had opened their doors a little to me, i kind of got my hopes raised. with regard to my professional life, i had two plans: Plan A and Plan B. Plan A was get a foot in in the international community and then scramble to obtain a master's degree. i was thinking that i wanted to be in the international community first before i begin scouting for master's degree opportunities because i figured that when there, in the international community, i could meet people who could write me recommendation letters to more prestigious and hard-to-enter universities and programs or scholarships. moreover, they might have insider knowledge and information regarding such things. i was thinking of the different kinds of access that would be available for me were i to be...

a little shaky today - probably due to what i just learned. sigh.

i'm wondering if i'm once again ready to put out messages in a bottle. i kind of think i am. it's just difficult because we don't have internet at home and i hate the office which is the only place i can have internet so... but i think i probably should start again. :)

='C hard to take lang.

You can't make yourself stop dreaming of who you're dreaming of. - john mayer :)

"i have to say i have never met a biodata with such unparalleled mediocrity." hahaha! da best.

still kicking myself for underestimating ayala traffic once again. :C

why was it so traffic in ayala kanina??? grrr...:c

tired.

sleepy. yawn.

just walk on and on around the block, daydreaming. :)

i usually begin to feel demoralized during this time. it's relentless. =(

dear cor, paki-dasal itong idol mo na si miley cyrus. ngayon ko lang nakita ang kanyang vid ng Wrecking Ball. hehehehe. fyi, i've long been over her. she tweets annoying things kc. the scales in my eyes fell off. anyone seeking to watch her vid is forewarned. :D

a cynical take on closing your eyes and making a wish, courtesy of the new yorker cartoons:

at 10:30 pm last saturday, i was freaking bored out of my mind. i was alone at home (except for pitchie, the people were gone, and anyway, even if they were present, i still would have been looking for something i-don't-know-what) and i had nothing to do (and the things i ought to have been doing, i hadn't felt like doing that time anyway). ok. having written that, i now realize i'm a liar. first, i claimed i was alone at home on a saturday night, when i wasn't. second, i said i had nothing to do when in fact i did (chores, study for job exams, sleep, etc.). but anyway, now that we've established i'm a liar, let's move on. so i was bored. however, at my invitation, pitchie didn't want to go out, so i texted mai: mai, san ka? gala tayo. let's watch a movie. open pa kaya greenbelt? subsidize kita. i sometimes subsidize or libre mai when we go out because she's a working student. she told me she was just about finished with work and we agree...

zzz. i can't help it. zzz.

yawn.

A. Million People March chai wasn't kidding pala when she said that we had both missed history as it was happening. hihi. B. Miley this New Yorker cartoon says it best: C. Syria syria is currently in the midst of a civil war, the progress of which is still being watched by the world. this is a satellite shot, somewhat sobering, of thousands of syrian refugees fleeing the war, crossing the tigris river and entering northern iraq. on a different note, i find it a little unsettling how events like this are now captured via satellites. in previous times, these types of photographs would never have been possible to produce. i am reminded of the presentation secretary of state john kerry gave for the case of the US bombing syria following the chemical gas attack on civilians that occurred last august 21. he said: We know where the rockets were launched from, and at what time. We know where they landed, and when. We know rockets came only from regime-controlled areas and...

i find these words comforting right now: come on, baby, with me, we're gonna fly away from here. out of this curtained room and this hospital grey will just disappear. come on, baby, with me, we're gonna fly away from here. you were my best four years. sometimes comforting words for a specific kind of pain are comforting words for any kind of pain. thank you for writing this song.

I think I received this letter about two days ago. I was SO happy. Dear _________, Thank you for your recent application for the above vacancy. I am pleased to inform you that you have been shortlisted and you are invited for an examination on ________ (Wednesday), ______________________. Look for ______. Please reply to this e-mail or via sms on or before 30 August 2013 to confirm. Yours sincerely, HR Officer I've been a jittery, floaty, butterflies-in-my-stomach happy about the invite so I thought that maybe writing it out would cure this premature happiness. I haven't even gotten the job yet and already, I'm like so cartwheel-happy... The company has the word "International" in its name. Just getting the invite makes me feel so happy because it's so surreal... I feel like one of those supporters of singers who audition for reality TV singing shows who cry and scream madly when their son/daughter/sib/friend/relative pass the auditions. ...

Some points here contain the story of my life. Good to know. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/20/introverts-signs-am-i-introverted_n_3721431.html

i am bored. i am so bored.

Pitchie was wondering what the difference was between the terms "typhoon" and "storm". However, the house is currently deprived of a good, working Internet connection so we had no way of looking it up. Lotis said that the two words would be defined differently in technical terms. I offered my own take. “Yung typhoon, yung ganun,” I said, moving the fingers of my hand in a circular, cyclic motion. “Yung storm – storm lang.” It was Lotis who noticed that there was something funny with my verbal explanation and laughed. I laughed, too. Let’s codify my explanation. typhoon – with your index finger pointing upward, move your hand in a circular, cyclic motion. Yes, that’s a typhoon! storm – storm lang. O di ba? Very nice explanation! Being the kind of person who is finicky with the exact meanings of words, I want to see whether my understanding of the words is accurate. What I meant to explain was that the term “typhoon” carried with it the idea of winds and the...

Before we go any further, first, a roll call: Members of Valer Club ’12 – ’13 : Chai Cory Mafel Mai Lotis Pitchie

I’m trying to get back to my habit of reporting about the mundane goings-on of my life. I kind of lost the habit of writing about it because I no longer felt the need to (I think most of my writing here was driven by my bout with depression). Anyway, so here goes. Let’s begin with some of the latest ones. House cleaning, August 18, 2012 Venue: Valer Club Lotis, the ultimate house cleaner, was cleaning an obscure spot in the house when she found the remains of a dead lizard. In Tagalog, a lizard is called “butiki”. In Bisaya, “tiki”. Lotis: May patay na butiki! Cory: Ipis? Lotis: Butiki! Pitchie: Daga? Ganda ng communication namin noh? Hihihi. ^_^ (I’m afraid Lala is going to find my sudden, sporadic spurts of Tagalog weird and awkward. Here in the house kc, the lingua franca is Bisaya, not English. Tagalog is spoken only with Mai. But she understands a little bit of Bisaya.)

ouch. :(

i'm tired. :(

sleepy...yawn...

i love how pan de manila's chocolate con leche makes me feel happy. :)

noun. The act of unlawfully killing another human being unintentionally. I just wanted to catalogue the term here because I realized that, for the moment there, I was blissfully forgetting that this existed. It's just that it is one of my hopes in life that I never end up in jail. But though it might be safe to say that I most probably might never commit willful murder, it escaped my consciousness for the moment that there are other less willful ways to end up in jail, and for the count of murder no less. And because I realize I've been complacent and unmindful of such stark realities and how they can happen to me, too, I decided to write an impromptu list of related things that I have to remind myself NEVER to do: involuntary manslaughter (because you can still go to jail for this) murder homicide patricide infanticide suicide (doesn't count in the human world but it's a sin so it's like God would put you to jail in hell) matricide massacre terro...

bored to death...

there's a magic running through your soul. - def leppard, two steps behind

I didn't think that I was going to feel this way at the end of this day: a little sad and vaguely heavy emotionally. It must have started sometime after ten this evening. Lotis and I had talked about changing rooms in the house and it's probably going to happen tomorrow. My roomie, Mafel, stood on the staircase and announced that our room was getting an air conditioner. I said, but oh, Lotis and I are going to be switching rooms now. She asked when. I said this weekend. Then dapat mag-bonding tayo before then, she said. I asked her what we were going to do - dance some sort of ritualistic dance in our room? Heehee. And then realizing she was thinking the move was happening yet on next week's weekend, I said that we were planning to make the switch tomorrow already, Sunday. Sometime later, I entered our darkened room to retrieve something, and Mafel, already lying on her bed, said that she was going to miss me. We always try to lighten the mood during moments like th...

hot and dry season over. rainy season beginning...

Freaky Tuesday Phone Call Today was the day I received a mysterious phone call from Lala. She was calling me and it was somewhat strange because she doesn't usually do that. Things started to get a little freaky when I answered the call and lala seemed surprised to hear that I was at work. Er, aren't you at work, too? I asked. So, uh, yes, I am at work because today is a workday? She asked me if I was free Sunday. Actually, Sunday is Maimai's birthday but I wasn't really sure if we would get to celebrate it since Maimai is not around so I said, Yes, definitely!!! But that, uh, today is a Tuesday so Sunday is still a good few days away as yet, so, uh, couldn't she just have texted me? But then I noticed something. I said - wait, are you, are you whispering into your phone? She said, well, yes, because she's in the office, so... Ehihihi..so, what is up? And then she says she can't say anymore because the moment's already passed. Lol. Ano kaya y...

okay, so i know this is pretty late and the political climate in the korean peninsula is pretty tense right now, but i remember this thing. early march this year, i learned from the new yorker that dennis rodman had visited north korea and was received very well by north korean supreme leader kim jong-un. it was a quite a colorful news item during a time that didn't really see any particularly juicy (or gossipy) items in a while (in my view). it was also somewhat mystifying, discombobulating, and fascinating all at the same time because north korea is known as something of a reclusive, passive-aggressive, belligerent regime and its leader, kim jong-un, is its poster child, while dennis rodman, on the other hand, a name known to even non-basketball fans (like me, maybe?), was a high-profile NBA star. what was he doing vising north korea and rubbing elbows with kim jong-un? kind of weird and freaky, don't you think, and quite likely to grab headlines as might have been intend...

she believed she could and so she did. :)

bangag. :(

raging headache. :( why do i always wake up these days with a headache?

we treat you like family! - bank you know, if banks really want to treat you like family, shouldn't they just be giving us money all the time? 'cause isn't that what families do? 'cause you know, i really really want a new apple laptop and a kindle as well. and the house (unit 4) just bought this amazing new refrigerator and we all love it, and now we're hoping to acquire a new tv as well and maybe a wii console? so it would really be lovely if banks could just REALLY treat you LIKE FAMILY . i think if they really meant it, they should just really follow through by giving everything you just really need in this world FOR FREE . THAT would feel like family. so, here i am, bank-surfing, surfing banks...'cause i'm sort of thinking of getting a credit card and i'm wondering, hmmm, which bank? i have an account with hsbc so i was thinking of opening with them. but according to them, they're just, like, the world's local bank , you know, and ...

i came across the meralco tagline today and it made me think of my blog. the meralco tagline was: "may liwanag ang buhay." flashback to my blog: starglass: may liwanag ang buhay . pwedeeh...hihihihi.

1. "unqualified" i read the editorial titled "unqualified" on nancy binay. i bit my lip as i found it a bit of a stinging takedown on her candidacy. Here's the end part: "Nancy Binay is running on a “Gaganda ang buhay” theme, taking off from her father’s successful campaign slogan. That’s easy for her to say: Life becomes beautiful, is made easier, if you’re someone’s daughter." - PDI Ouch. 2. D. Harwell's "love letter to filipinos" this marks the first time i posted a comment on a news website. right now, i'm absorbed in the activity of checking and refreshing the page for replies and likes to my comment. hihihi. ang loser ko lang talaga. here's what i posted. if you see it on the news page and notice my username, all i can is: wala na akong ibang ma-isip eh! and,anyway, one-time lang naman. :p starglass said: "I found this article very touching. It made me feel like crying. It was very nice. however, I don...

argh, it's no use writing. i'll come alive only after work.

okay, 2 things: 1. i don't feel like writing, however, 2. i feel like i have to write this down. i think that when i look back to january of this year 2013, i might remember it as one of the best januaries i've ever had in my entire life. i think it was a seriously great january. i loved it! and moreover, i think that this january might just be the first of more great januaries to come. you know, i love januaries. januaries are beginnings and they're also when i celebrate my birthday. so they're pretty special for me. and they come just right on the heels of decembers. doesn't that make januaries pretty special? so anyway, i had a great january. there were lots of fun things that happened. let me enumerate some of them: - when i'd get home, maimai would still be up and we'd talk almost 'til morning light. and you know how much i love that, right? i think some of the best conversations i've ever had in my entire life have occurred between ...

aaahh!!! i'm a chris tiu fan na!

sige, next time Coke light nalang. taylor swift's endorsing it anyway. :)

please ship this dress to me. i will wear it; i don't care if there is no groom.

arggghhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! gisapot ko. :(

i read an amusing article today. it reminded me just a little bit of myself and my unbearable job. it's written by simon rich and the characters are simon rich , who works as a screenwriter, and his great-great-grandfather, herschel, who fell into a vat of brine while working in a pickle factory catching rats, got preserved, and then woke up to the 21st century. the article is written from herschel's point of view and broken english. here is an excerpt, where simon is complaining about his job: Herschel: When I first move in with Simon, I do not really understand what it means to be “script doctor.” But as the days go by I learn about the job. The way it works is this: each day, for twenty minutes, he sits down and types up words. The rest he spends complaining. “I’m so pissed off,” he tells me one day. “They hired me to polish the new ‘Spy Donkey’ sequel. But just looking at it, it’s going to need a page-one rewrite. It’s, like, I didn’t sign up for this. You know what I...

please be careful with my heart at Luv U, kaya tuloy nagkakasakit. dah, gabaan, hahahaha! ^_^ i hope to spend this weekend resting. :)

didn't like how i woke up this morning. re-focus, cor. you're off-kilter...

sleep

Yes, it's okay to ship your work. Yes, you're capable of making a difference. Yes, it's important. Yes, you can ignore that critic. Yes, your bravery is worth it. Yes, we believe in you. Yes, you can do even better. Yes. - from his blog

i'm reading the first few pages of the great gatsby. is it a little too soon to be impressed with the book? it opens well. :)

i totally regret eating junk food. (i'm sorry, i'm sorry, i'm sorry :( )

i had a surprisingly nice weekend. friday was bad, of course. that's nothing surprising. i usually feel very bad mondays to fridays, because i hate my work. so let me see, what happened? well, friday, after leaving work, i got myself a jolly hotdog and then stopped by a starbucks store for a mocha frapp on the way home. afterwards,...ohmygad. i don't recall what happened next. all i remember is the mocha frapp, that i let cool on the table and had come back to to finish drinking it an hour later or so. i know! maimai must have been awake as well that time and in front of her laptop. and yes, i remember now. maimai has been a fixture on the living room table this week. i always arrive home to find her in the sala sitting in front of her laptop, doing something, schoolwork or work ('cause she works part-time). friday must have been one of those nights when we stayed up while the wee hours of the night ticked by. and i must have sat in one of our chairs and sighed about ...

i first heard of evelyn waugh through mimi, who used to rave about him the time that the both of us were still in bellecroft and chatting in the night or whenever. there was a book of his that mimi was reading that time - Brideshead Revisited. and now i am itching to read that book. it's the book of interest to me at the moment because of this bit of praise from a writer in the new yorker: Waugh's prose...is something better than immaculate: powerful and stately, sensitive and touching. i want to read something described like that! so excited! i'll be hunting the book down in bookstores from right now! i'm also gonna read "A Handful of Dust" by Waugh as well. because i'm curious to connect with the comments made by the article on the book. i'm piqued. :) and i shared with mimi my piece of amusement with evelyn waugh: mims! dahil dito lang kita mahagilap...hihihi...do you remember evelyn waugh? i just learned he was quite a snob and a bit me...

by the way, i'm extremely shy with you as well. i wonder if that ever occurred to you.

this isn't going to be a very good piece of writing, but i felt like i just had to try to communicate myself. over the weekend, i was trying to come up with a coherent plan for tackling my list of problems and crises. and one of the items on my list was your name. i tried to think about my dilemma with you over and over, and ended up having a thoroughly unproductive weekend. the place where you are in my heart is an area of vulnerability for me, because whenever i try to visit that place to get a grip and a sense of things - what was wrong, why it was wrong, what can be done - i always find myself either in tears or on the verge of it, miserable and tearing myself apart, and awash with guilt and pain. letting you down has got to be one of the most painful things i've ever done in my entire life. i didn't like doing that to you, and in fact, i don't really like doing that to anyone. why did i let you down? the time that you knew me, i was suffering from depression ...

so close no matter how far couldn't be much more from the heart forever trust in who we are and nothing else matters... because it's rare that i'm singing metallica. :) it's the song in the background of the trailer to zero dark thirty. if you listen closely, you'll hear it - eerie and ethereal.:)

hey, are you doing anything later? kc kung wala, maybe you might want to watch the movie zero dark thirty with me? it's action, bang bang. last year ko pa kc hinihintay ang araw na 'to... :) :) :) sooo excited! ^_^

because maya kicks ass! whoo!!!!

syet, ang bigat ng feeling in my heart today. yan kasi.

the work either makes me want to cry or throw up.

come on, baby, with me, we're gonna fly away from here. out of this curtained room and this hospital gray, we'll just disappear. come on, baby, with me, we're gonna fly away from here...

it doesn't really happen like this, right? :D hahahahaha!

jotted this down on my planner yesterday. i had just bought a loose house shirt that i liked and this was what i wrote about it: it is my opinion that a person should never turn down the chance to own an "I Miss You" statement shirt, especially if they're missing someone. ruefully missing you every day. :)

let's watch zero dark thirty, the impossible, les mis, and lincoln!!!! :D

wow, i've never heard anything about uzbekistan before. now i know a few things about it: it's a dictatorship. the dictator's daughter is a beautiful woman who graduated from harvard but does not possess harvard-level english, who is also simultaneously a pop star, jewelry designer, ambassadress, etc. put a face on uzbekistan. i'm following the story. :)

stop leaving things in allison's car... allison: Happy new year din cor! Have a great 2013 din! Naiwan mo pala yung shawl mo sa kotse heheh... ...especially when you can never be too sure of what nefarious purposes others might have in mind for your stuff... cory: by the way, do you have my shawl? lala: can i use it as a rag? nooooo!!! (growling) heeheehee.

it's a shame that people text you and their messages just stay on your phone or they get relegated to the trash bin in time. i've always felt that text messages are a story, a conversation, and details of history or something like that. that's why i'm posting this: clyde: hi cor, nakahinumdum ko nimu, aren't you flattered? hehe. happy new year cor! my response: hoy clyde, i'm not flattered noh! hihihihihi. but thank you and update me on your life. and here's to the auspicious beginnings of 2013 - i tried to cook mongo last night but i burned it. as in wala na siyang tubig/sabaw! and the softened beans at the bottom of the pan were turned brown and a little scorched. di pa naman talaga black but getting there! hahahahaha! and then i woke up late and ended up hurrying my way to work. but i clocked in just two minutes before the time so yay! an auspicious 2013! hihihi! :D