Where's my stupid mouth?

"My stupid mouth has got me in trouble. I said too much again....... how could I forget? Mama said, think before speaking. No filter in my head...."

Yeah, John Mayer. My Stupid Mouth.

Call me crazy but I actually want to be more like that. No filter. I seriously have waaaayyy too many filters in my head. Whenever I open my mouth to comment on something or to throw out a retort, this incredibly swift alarm system goes off and starts to dissect whatever it is I'm about to say. All it takes is a split second.. and I'm left with nothing. I usually just let out a snort or a confused chuckle or the very handy, "Mmm-mm." It's like one of those cool juicers advertised on home tv shopping network. You put in a carrot and out comes the purest of juice. No fiber.

It's like that problem Meg Ryan had in You've Got Mail. "When I'm confronted by someone I get tongue tied and my mind goes blank. Then I spend the rest of the night tossing and turning over what i should have said." Like that, but I have it worse. I'd replay the conversation over and over again over the next few days then come up with dozens of kick ass comebacks and counter arguments... and don't forget the very passionately rehearsed facial expression and hand gesture. It's self torture, I know. But, come on. We know we can't help it.

I don't know when I got so cautious. I used to be really snappy and somewhat brutal. I miss being like that. Now, I'm just... too polite. Who installed all these damn filters in me??

*opens mouth*
*freezes*
*a million monologues in a millisecond*

..."You can't say that! Ang corny!"
..."Oh no, that'll sound racist."
..."So unoriginal."
..."Mas matanda/bata yan sa'yo. 'Wag kang bastos."
..."Ang baduy, wag mong patulan."
..."Anjan si mama/papa/lolo/lola/tito/tita, di pwede."
..."Baka ma-offend, wag na."
..."Ay, baka secret lang namin yun."
..."Dude, mahirap i-pronounce. Wag na. Baka mabarok ka lang. Nakakahiya."
..."Baka di niya ma-gets yung sasabihin ko. Ang hirap i-explain e."
..."Ang haba ng i-eexplain ko. Nakakatamad. Ang slow pa naman nito. Um-oo ka nalang."

I think in Tagalog so that's basically how it goes inside my head.

Maybe that should be one of my mini resolutions for this year. I should put on my 'stupid mouth' from time to time.

Boxes and Stars

I'm struggling with my "2oo9 Checklist". Tsk. It's March already and I still haven't decided on my targets. I guess 2008 was such a productive (and exhausting!) year for me that my indulgent psyche just wants to kick back and cut me some slack. But noooo, some innate anal force has been bugging me to commit to a few specific, measurable, tangible objectives. Blame it on the college education.

I just started this goal setting habit last year, so it's still a little scary for me. Seriously, I treat it as an 'event'. For somebody who spent her entire late adolescent life inclined to avoid any form of commitment (and succeeded, though rather ungracefully), this is a HUGE change. Writing my targets down is like setting it in stone. From here on, I have to hold myself accountable whether I'm able to tick off that checkbox by the end of the year or not.

Grown up stuff, I know. Hey, I needed to mature sometime, right?

Okay.. so here's my 2009. *inhale*

1. Finalize the evaluation of my Ateneo credits so that I can figure out which classes I still need to take to qualify for an MBA in UCLA, USC and Loyola Marymount. I already sent my transcripts to the evaluating agency. Hopefully, I'll be getting them next week. I don't plan on jumping on the MBA train too soon, though. I just want to get a head start on the application process. I still need work experience and what else.. oh yeah, MONEY!!! Guess I'll be saying hello to the world of student loans sometime in my bright, bright future.
   
2. Review for and take the GMAT. I'm aiming for a score above 600. Eep. Kaya ko 'to.
   
3. Refinance my car for a better rate. I don't know how to do this yet. Maybe through work? I'll get back to this.
   
4. Build my credit. I began doing this with a secured credit card from WaMu last year but they had to close that service due to the WaMu-Chase transition. Boo. So I'm taking my business to B of A. They just approved my application for partially secured credit so.. yay!
   
5. Double my emergency fund. I've been spending too much lately. Control!!!
6. Complete the petition process for my dad. We already filed everything on the last week of January. He'll be doing the biometrics this month. If all goes well, I can tick this off my list by June or July. Woopeiii!
   

*exhale* Whew!

Alrighttt.. enough with the serious stuff. I need 'stars' on my list, too! These are the things I'm actually looking forward to doing this year. :)

1. Take a sit-down Spanish course in a local community college. I was taking tutorials last year but the setting was too casual. A classroom format would probably be more effective.
2. Back to capoeira! I want to do my first batizado and earn my first corda. :) Hopefully get a cool apelido, too!
3. Watch a live Lakers game at Staples. I need to save up for the playoffs!! I miss the ADMU-DLSU Araneta games soooo bad!
   
4. Go beach hopping and learn to surf this summer. I want to visit all the L.A. beaches first. There's Hermosa Beach, Redondo Beach, Manhattan Beach, Venice Beach, Malibu, San Juan Capistrano and also visit the Catalina Island.
5. Volunteer as a Festival Builder for the 18th Annual Festival of Philippine Arts and Culture. I wanted to volunteer last year but learned about the event too late. I'm really excited about this. I've been wanting to work with the Fil-Am community since I moved here! I'll be sending in my application next week.
   
6. Grow out my natural curls. I've been straightening my hair since sophomore year in high school. Ack! That's seven years already??! I don't even know how my curls look like anymore. But, I'm really excited to wear my hair just loose and natural. :) Embracing my true beauty (uhh Dove ad??!).
7. Update my blog at least once a week. I hope to become a better writer. In order to do that I need to write, write more, write even more, write even more than that, write when I don't want to, write when I do, write when I have something to say, write when I don't, write everyday, keep writing (those are the '10 Steps to Becoming a Better Writer' according to Brian Clark). Hmm I need to apply that to exercising..

So there it is. My balls and chains.. erm, I mean, boxes and stars for 2009. "I'll hold you to it!" ...Nice, I'm talking to myself.

"The best way to predict the future is to invent it." - Alan Kay

Bull's Eye

Amazing how life creates a way to answer the questions I randomly throw out into the vast universe. I opened my inbox this evening to find a Facebook alert from a dear friend informing me of a 'Tag' on one of her 'Notes'. It contained this essay from one of my favorite authors, Paulo Coelho. This, for me, is the true mark of wisdom: when one succeeds to simplify profound truths for the 'normal' person to fully absorb. Mr. Coelho is definitely an expert on this. That's why I'm one huge drooling fan.

. . o . .

Closing Cycles
by: Paulo Coelho

One always has to know when a stage comes to an end. If we insist on staying longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the meaning of the other stages we have to go through.

Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending chapters whatever name we give it, what matters is to leave in the past the moments of life that have finished. Did you lose your job? Has a loving relationship come to an end? Did you leave your parents' house? Gone to live abroad? Has a long-lasting friendship ended all of a sudden?

You can spend a long time wondering why this has happened. You can tell yourself you won't take another step until you find out why certain things that were so important and so solid in your life have turned into dust, just like that.

But such an attitude will be awfully stressing for everyone involved: your parents, your husband or wife, your friends, your children, your sister, everyone will be finishing chapters, turning over new leaves, getting on with life, and they will all feel bad seeing you at a standstill.

None of us can be in the present and the past at the same time, not even when we try to understand the things that happen to us. What has passed will not return: we cannot for ever be children, late adolescents, sons that feel guilt or rancor towards our parents, lovers who day and night relive an affair with someone who has gone away and had not the least intention of coming back.

Things pass, and the best we can do is to let them really go away. That is why it is so important (however painful it maybe!) to destroy souvenirs, move, give lots of things away to orphanages, sell or donate the books you have at home. Everything in this visible world is a manifestation of the invisible world, of what is going on in our hearts and getting rid of certain memories also means making some room for other memories to take their place.

Let things go. Release them. Detach yourself from them. Nobody plays this life with marked cards, so sometimes we win and sometimes we lose.

Do not expect anything in return, do not expect your efforts to be appreciated, your genius to be discovered, your love to be understood. Stop turning on your emotional television to watch the same program over and over again, the one that shows how much you suffered from a certain loss: that is only poisoning you, nothing else.

Nothing is more dangerous than not accepting love relationships that are broken off, work that is promised but there is no starting date, decisions that are always put off waiting for the ideal moment. Before a new chapter is begun, the old one has to be finished: tell yourself that what has passed will never come back. Remember that there was a time when you could live without that thing or that person. Nothing is irreplaceable. A habit is not a need . This may sound so obvious, it may even be difficult, but it is very important.

Closing cycles. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because that no longer fits your life. Shut the door, change the record, clean the house, shake off the dust. Stop being who you were, and change into who you are.

. . o . .

If this essay was a person, he would be a grandpa-like figure with a booming voice, shaking his wrinkly finger right at my face. I needed this. Being the kind of person who absolutely hates clutter and delights in spanking fresh new beginnings, it's a terrible wonder how I desperately cling on to things of the past. I'm probably masochistic because I find the feeling of nostalgia addicting. It's just so cool how I seem to always reminisce in sepia (not on purpose, by the way). Sadly, most things are grand only in retrospect.

So I guess this answers my question.

Cycle closed, doors shut, chapter ended.

.. four months?

whoooooooooooaaaa...

it's. been. a. while.

I know, I know.. this blog's main purpose was supposedly to chronicle, in detail, my transition from "fresh off the boat" (F.O.B. as my white workmate puts it) to official L.A. native. But seriously, it's not that easy. Plus the fact that I'm still getting over these dreaded homesickness blues. Yes, everybody.. apparently, even I get homesick. Blame it on the cold western holidays. No puto bumbong... no bibingka... none of that sweet, sweet zombie look us Pinoys get when Christmas is nearing and we're up at 4a.m. every day for the nine days of simbang gabi - my personal favorite of all our traditions.. no ninongs and ninangs to fatten up my piggybank.. no caroling by the neighborhood kids squealing, "Jeengil beels, jeengil beels, jeengil olaweiii!!"... no goofy parols made of walis.. Nada.

Don't get me wrong. I mean, Christmas was still fun. I still got to eat all kinds of Pinoy food, thanks to Nanay Anita and the rest of the Quedit family. I still spent the rest of the night singing Tell Me, 'Til I Met You, Hands to Heaven (Christian Bautista's version, of course) and Torete (aahh.. classic) on the golden Magic Sing mic. I still mixed my beers with tequila and spent the wee hours of the morning hugging the toilet bowl. Yeah, pretty much the same..

Except that I'm not drinking my usual SMB (oh i miss you!) or a lucky happy horse (the special not-so-secret smiling Red Horse).. or the fact that there are no fireworks lined up in the streets in front of everybody's houses.

This is my problem: I keep on comparing. I have to stop if I really plan to move on and build a new life in this new place.

Before I moved here, I had this grand plan. I knew exactly what I was gonna do. I was gonna get a job, start saving, buy a car, get my credits evaluated so I start applying for master's, get a house with my sister, petition for my dad, be active with the FilAm community, make new awesome friends.. I had this amazing picture in my head on how my L.A. life will look like. And guess what? I almost have everything down. It's all slowly coming together. So, what's wrong with me? Why does it feel like there's this giant gaping hole I just cannot fill?

Because I can't let go.

I can't let go of my Pinas life. There's this internal struggle of embracing the new and clutching on with iron claws to what was. But maybe... hopefully... I don't have to pick just one.

Eager Beaver First Time Voter

I finally had time to fill out my vote-by-mail ballot today. I sat on my usual couch spot at the local Starbucks and proudly exercised my right to vote for the very first time. I needed that cafe atmosphere to concentrate (a la college days). The apartment is just way too cluttered and therefore deemed unconducive for serious brain activity. Anyway, it felt absolutely satisfying to shade in that circle for Obama. I'll be mailing my ballot on Monday.

Since this is my first time voting, I so badly wanted to be more involved in the elections. Voting by mail does not exactly place me in the thick of things. I was planning to be a pollworker or a volunteer in my precinct. I wanted to at least be able to vote in person and experience the entire process firsthand. But turns out I have work on the 4th. I assumed that it was going to be a holiday so I didn't ask for a day off. Too late now 'cause the office schedules for the next two weeks have already been put up. Oh wells.

While I was meticulously filling in those little oblongs, I realized that I was a pretty uneducated voter. Tsk, shame. We had to vote either a yes or no on all these propositions which I really had no clue on. What I did was merely read the descriptions and based my decision on pure raw instinct. Haha nice. In my defense, I did spend time on Proposition 8. Choosing "Yes" would mean a ban on gay marriage and supposedly eliminates the basic rights of people. I'm entirely against any form of discrimination. A "No", on the other hand, effectively preserves the sacred nature of marriage which is procreation. This is one of the very few traditions I cannot easily surrender. As you can see, I am completely torn. I couldn't stop debating with myself about this issue ever since I saw the infomercials produced by both sides. I am the child of a staunchly Catholic upbringing, but then again I have somehow developed an independent liberal mindset which mostly subscribes to universal principles of fairness and equality.

I voted "Yes", not because I agree with the messages in their infomercials. I do not believe that teaching second graders that boys can marry boys is a bad thing at all. They are making it look like kids will be encouraged to get involved in homosexual relationships. That is not what 'educating' means. The message was clearly manipulated and twisted and obviously propagandistic. I voted "Yes", because there already exists laws which grant domestic partners all the rights that a state can grant to a married couple. The domestic partner law is already in place and this has been protecting the rights of same-sex couples all over California. So that solves my dilemma. Prop 8 is not an attack on gay couples and does not take away their basic rights. I can sleep easy tonight knowing I made at least one educated choice.

Oh and why did I vote for Obama?
I was sold on that "Yes We Can" video. I'm cheap with positive-energy-art-with-heart stuff like that. ;-p

Mobius

My beginning is in my end... my end is in my beginning.

I was reading this week's issue of The Asian Journal and came across an article insipired by the idea of a mobius strip. The author applied the concept to the currently sporadic U.S. economic situation. I won't be talking about that. The simple philosophy presented by the mobius strip is what got me. I didn't even finish reading that article. But sources of inspiration should not be left unacknowledged. First things first. Basically, a mobius strip is a length of paper, twisted in a loop with the ends taped together. This is what it looks like*:



* Image from Wikipedia.

It is deemed to be a "fascinating geometric oddity" precisely because it is 3-dimensional yet possesses only a single surface. You can prove this by drawing a straight line along the middle of the strip, work your way down and eventually, you'll end up where you started. Try it and see for yourself. It seriously blew me away. These little things amaze me. It's like that day when I found out that boiled eggs spin faster than raw ones. And that's how you tell one from the other without cracking them open. Yeah, I'm a trivia dork. Anyway...

I was able to derive a certain sense of comfort from this. Moving thousands of miles away from everything familiar to pursue the vaguest of dreams is slowly taking its toll on me. Starting from scratch is absolutely exhausting as it is exciting. I've had two jobs in a span of four months and I don't think I'm sticking with the one I have now either. My current job has already stopped challenging me and it's only been two months. I promised myself never to settle. Another thing stressing me out is the fact that I still need to build my credit history which apparently affects every aspect of life here. Everyone checks your credit, from your potential employer to your internet provider. The deal you will get is basically dictated by your credit score, which sucks for me since I don't have one yet. Aside from these, I have to cope with inconsiderate attitudes on a regular basis. I am seriously tempted to bitch out many, many times. But no, I'm way too nice.

Despite everything, I have miraculously remained optimistic. I don't know who or how or why.. but somehow, I have developed this deep sense of trust in the universe. I just know that I will be able to make it. As long as I do what I have to and keep the faith, I will get there.

Think of a car driving through the night. The headlights only go a hundred to two hundred feet forward, and you can make it all the way from California to New York driving through the dark, because all you have to see is the next two hundred feet. And that's how life tends to unfold before us. If we just trust that the next two hundred feet will unfold after that, and the next two hundred feet will unfold after that, you life will keep on unfolding. And it will eventually get you to the destination of whatever it is you truly want, because you want it.

- Jack Canfield (quoted from Rhonda Byrne's The Secret)

That is how I perceive the mobius strip. I may be traveling a twisted loop but I know that I won't fall off. It's a matter of finding your center. There is no such thing as being trapped in an ugly situation. Just keep on moving forward. "Just keep swimming..." (Dora!) The beauty of the continuity this represents has injected much needed confidence in my future and life in general. With so much negativity pushing against every individual psyche, we need to grab hold of every source of sunshine we can get. This has proved to be one of life's basic requirements, if one wishes to stay sane.

Other people would say that this is probably the worst time to be in the United States given the crisis, but I beg to differ. I'd say I'm lucky. If you start at the bottom, there's no other way to go but up. I'm excited to see what else this life has in store for me. I can't wait to vote for the next president, to successfully petition for my parents' citizenship, to buy that car next month, to earn my masters by the age of 26, to go backpacking in Europe, to earn my first million bucks... this checklist goes on forever...

Watch me tick off my boxes. :)

A Wicked 22nd

Birthday wish granted:

I got to watch the Wicked musical at the Pantages Theatre
in Hollywood! :)



The theater was soooo beautiful.

Basking in its grandeur was such a treat in itself!

And then...

I even got to meet the main cast!

(I had to wait at the backstage exit until about midnight.. but hell, I don't care. Haha!)

That's Boq (the Tin Man),
Galinda (Glinda the Good),
Fiyero and...
Elphaba. :)

The cast was INCREDIBLE.

Erin Mackey played the role of Glinda and Teal Wicks starred as Elphaba.

I got them to sign my cd, too!

I am currently on a Wicked high. The cd has been continuously playing in the background as I eat, read, bathe, exercise, breathe..

"It's time to try defying gravity

I think I'll try defying gravity

And you can't pull me down.."

:)

*if you're my in my Multiply network, you'll get to see the rest of the pics here.