3 Things Why I'm Thankful of the Internet

Internet is indeed a world-flattener.

For ordinary folks like me, the net has made previously hard-to-find information within a few clicks on the keyboard.

I recall way back in college how I got resigned to the idea that the quotes and clips I've been dying to find won't ever be retrieved.

Well fortunately I live in a time when information became impressively available to everyone.

As a tribute to the good ol' net here are 3 items I finally unearthed.

1.  The rap portion of Superproxy

As a big fan of the Eheads I always croak their songs whenever an opportunity comes. I always get stumped when I get to the rap portion of Superproxy. It was tough to follow the barrage of words.
Well thanks to google that info is now available..

http://lyrics.rebelpixel.com/2006/02/superproxy/

Zipadee do dah Zippa dee day.. Hip Hop Hooray !

2. The passionate speech by Col. Nathan Jessep in A Few Good Men

A movie that talks about honor. I was blown away by the empathic speech of Col. Jessep played by Jack Nicholson in the court room. Definitely unforgettable

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0104257/quotes

"Son, we live in a world that has walls and those walls have to be guarded by men..."

3. That heart-breaking scene in "When Time Ran Out"

This clip from a movie I first saw when I was 5 years old had such a huge impact on me. The scene where the blond girl fell to her fiery death in the flowing lava haunted me in my dreams and probably caused my fascination for mestizas. It seemed that ever since, I always had this yearning to save mestizas.

Thanks to Youtube I had the chance once again to face the monster of my childhood.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9X1hxQmn6c

Decisions

Today my room is a total mess.

Boxes, books and what-nots are scattered all over.

The sudden intruders were stuff moved out of Newton Study Center-Sucat.

Newton had been my first business venture.  It’s main services were review programs for students aspiring to go to premiere schools.

I opened up a franchise in Sucat in summer of 2008. It had been 4 grueling years of keeping the business afloat.  Grueling in the sense that some of my weekends were booked because I had to work for my venture.

If only a consolation, I found a way to channel my passion to teach, by being an instructor in some of the review classes.

Last month, with much pain in my heart I pulled the plug.

I guess my dad’s medical emergency which happened 2 weeks after I opened the business, was a portent of things to come.

With my finances bleeding out to pay for the hospital bills, I barely had enough operating capital to keep the business afloat.

It was out of pride that I trudged on to have the operations running. I was hoping that things would eventually turn around. In due time, the required volume would come to cover the fixed cost.

But salvation never came. And the losses I incurred got bigger and bigger.

I guess my head knew back then that it had been a futile battle.

I gave my heart the chance.

But I realize that sometimes no matter how painful, decisions have to be made by the mind rather than the heart.

The Wedding Hater

I hate weddings.

Maybe because it is a grim reminder for me of the inevitability of growing old.
I am in a stage of my life where I should have already settled in.

I hate hearing crap from the older folks asking .. “so when would be your turn?”. It seemed a foregone conclusion that it’s my turn next or that inevitably I’d end up there.

I hate coming up with lame excuses.
How can you argue with the cycle of life ?... It’s just how things go… You go to high school. You graduate with flying colors. You transfer to Manila to get a degree. You graduate from college. You find a job that assures you of a good future. You find a wife and then you settle down.

That progression is the typical expectation for a great majority of my generation. And more so probably for a great majority of my friends ( probinsyanos, intelligent, middle-income families) .

Fortunately a great niche of my friends are surprisingly atypical. But then even the atypical ones settle down one by one

I detest weddings maybe because I am averse to commitments

Wedding marks a quantum leap in the flow of life. It’s hello to marriage. It’s goodbye to singleness, to freedom, to independence.

I love adventure. For as long as I can remember I have had this lust of going to far flung places I have never dreamed of. This ache, this yearning to commune with the unknown, this insatiable lust for travel has defined me as a person. I have always equated this with the sense of being free.

I love the feeling of going wherever my heart leads me to, of throwing caution to the wind, without worrying about tomorrow, without thinking of anything or anyone.

There is something about marriage that is stifling, constricting. It’s like being tied up to another soul. Decisions that used to be so easy, would now have to be made together. That would definitely be inertia to all life’s adventures.

No.. I love my freedom so much to embrace the married life.

Or maybe I abhor weddings because I have turned cynical.

Oh yes.. Once in my life, I had that epiphany. I met the girl whom I thought would be the mother of my kids. I’ve had a great vision of me spending the rest of my life with her. The images seemed so real and palpable, even as I recall them now. She, reclining on the wooden armchair, watching the sea and the sunset, her long hair billowing in the wind ; Our kids flying their kites on the shores of my childhood.

She had been the singular turning point of my life, my anchor, my compass. She had defined my future.

For that magical moment it would seem that my destiny was forged.
And yet as some love stories go it was never a happy ending. She was THE ONE that never became the one.

My faith and optimism were shaken. I have turned jaded and cynical.

But yesterday something changed. I attended the wedding of a good friend. It was by far the best wedding I have attended. The celebration was not lavish. The number of guests was not astounding. The decoration was not opulent.

It was a ceremony stunning in its simplicity yet intimate. You could feel the sincerity of two souls making a commitment of becoming one. This is what a marriage ceremony is supposed to be.

I admit I almost got teary-eyed when she read her piece during the ceremony. She has been a great friend and I have been a silent witness to her tumultuous relationships in the past. I have seen her cry many times through her heartaches. I have seen her turn jaded and given up almost completely on love.

To see her finally getting her wishes come true was so much overwhelming. So much that my heart would seem to burst.

I am guy who loves happy endings. To see one of my best friends get her well-deserved happy ending was moving enough for me.

I guess deep inside me, no matter how much I deny it , there is still that part that believes in the magic of marriage.

Reminiscing Europe

Next week I will be celebrating my 5th month with my new company. The world of EHS as I came to know has now faded in the background. And I have somehow gotten used to seeing my former colleagues leave my old company. It’s a fact of life: people come and go.

One thing I truly miss about my previous job is the opportunity to travel. I thank GE because it has given me the chance to be in London 3 years back, my first European visit. Looking at the photo right now of the one taken in River Thames, I can’t help but feel nostalgic.

I miss the excitement of being in a new place. Of seeing a new environment for the first time. There is the wonderment of a child for a whole new experience.

It’s this very reason that I am gearing up for my European backpack adventure next year..

My Life According to Eraserheads

My facebook notes page has a farraginous assortment of wacky Q&As, moving essays and whatnot. Here's my favorite of the bunch. the limiting latitude challenges the responder to be more creative. Enjoy..

Time to let those creative juices flowing.

Using only song names from ONE ARTIST, answer these questions. Pass it on to 20 people including me. Try not to repeat a song title. Repost as ‘My Life According to (Artist)’ “



Are you male or female? Pare Ko

Describe yourself: Kaliwete

How do you feel: Futuristic

Describe where you currently live: Alapaap

If you could go anywhere, where would you go: Trip to Jerusalem

Your favorite form of transportation: Para Sa Masa

Your best friends are: Maalalahanin

Your favorite color is: Butterscotch

What's the weather like: Ha ha ha

If your life was a TV show, what would it be called: Overdrive

What is life to you: Ligaya

Your current relationship: Waiting for the Bus

Breaking up: Huwag Mo Nang Itanong

Looking for: Milk and Money

Wouldn’t mind: Sembreak

Your fear: Poorman's Grave

What is the best advice you have to give: Easy Ka Lang

If you could change your name, you would change it to: Yoko

Thought for the Day: Fill Her

How would you like to die: With A Smile

Bigger picture

There are those scenes that simply enrapture you and make you long that you were part of it. And even for a moment, however flitting, you feel a sense of surrender, of connection, of relaxation. I unearthed this photo while browsing through my files in the hard drive. It was taken in January 2008 when I made a side trip to Yosemite Park, after our annual conference in my previous company.

Four months have passed since I transferred to my new job. Time as always just seemed to whizz by. The chasm that splits my present with the immediate past has now become unleapable. I miss the side trips and mini-adventures that my previous job had to offer but I guess they are all now a thing of the past.

The various aspects that I shudder upon during my first few days in the new company have now woven intricately into the fabric of my daily life. I guess all those life-changing decisions I’ve made in the past made me more resilient.

My current job can be taxing in a lot of ways and there is always that danger of getting too self-absorbed that one misses out the bigger picture.

This photo turned out to be an eye-opener of sorts. I realized I needed that occasional dose of getting unleashed from the daily trappings of life and being thrown out there.

And so I made a pact with myself, that before the year ends, I would definitely have a “step-back-and-look-at-the-great-picture” adventure.

Video of our Bantay Pawikan Activity 2008

Sigh... one of my fondest memories in GE ... A volunteers activity where we released endangered marine turtles..

Goodbye GE

It has terribly been a long while since I posted something here on my blog.

Anyway I am about to cap off a 4 and a half year journey with GE. I look back with much fondness at all the memories I've had. But it's time to move on...

Have a hard a time explaining to my friends but if there would be 3 takeways from this change it would be these...

1. Some goodbyes are tougher than others
2. You can take a person out of GE but never GE out of the person
3. Sometimes you have to make a decision not just for yourself

I will expound more on these when I have the time..

A glimpse

I am a bit contemplative right now. Or maybe just nostalgic. I miss Kalsangi. The place that had been my refuge when I ran away from Manila. For two years I have stayed there. It had been my sanctum in the raging storms of life.

I came there with a lot of questions. Not all questions have been answered though. But I guess in life we don’t force to seek out the answers that remain elusive. We must learn to live with the questions and be glad for the ones that have been answered.

I miss the lad that I was when I first came there. Bright-eyed and bushy tailed, it seemed I had a game plan of how I would craft the future.

But honestly now I am not so sure.

Have I deviated from plans that I’ve held close to my heart when I left the place?

I would like to believe I found closure when I went there. I would like to believe that time had healed the wounds. I would like to believe that I have embraced the pain of the past.

And yet there is something about that place that makes me yearn to go back and rediscover the journey that I took.

I miss the person that I was ten years ago.

Tawi Tawi Solar Eclipse Rewind

Tawi Tawi Solar Eclipse Rewind

Amidst the hectic preparation for the upcoming Shanghai Solar Eclipse expedition this July, I can’t help but recall the wondrous and bittersweet events that happened many many years back.

The year was 1995. We’ve set up an expedition team to the southernmost region of the Philippines to witness, a Total Solar Eclipse, a phenomenon, which it seems even now rare and to-die-for..

It had all the elements of a seemingly insurmountable task – a rare event that couldn’t be postponed, a remote location purported to be terrorist-infested, a four-year old organization with meager funds.

We had the guts to venture to a place where no other Phil. University-based astronomical organization ever set foot before.
We had the technical expertise of our founding members (Bamm, Winston, Denncapps and Monchie come to mind) to make the expedition laudable.
But the one thing that we lacked was funding.

As the head of the organization at that time, the greatest share of burden was with me.
We had to ensure that the team had a fighting chance of going to Tawi Tawi.
There was no room for delays.
There was no room for errors.

We might have been experts in identifying the heavenly bodies in the sky, but soliciting money from sponsors, we sucked. Big time.

I recall going from one company to another in my office attire to solicit for funds. At that time I would say I was looking my best. On hindsight though, I might have looked hideous in my oversized yellow polos, slovenly tucked on poorly pressed khakis, not to mention, an obtrusive umbrella and worn-out backpack in tow.

I braved the sweltering heat of the sun (MRT and FX were non-existent yet at that time, so imagine the perspiration I might be having) knocking on the doors of would-be sponsors. Botak, Aboitiz, and Fujifilm. (if we can’t solicit money maybe can save through tshirts, films and transportation)

Looking back I realize how naïve I was of the corporate world. I tried looking for their marketing directors without even setting up an appointment.

Fortunately their secretaries have been very much cordial, meeting me at the lobby informing me that their bosses are outside the office (a story they probably made up) and that they would call back. We never heard back from them.

I recall our team going to ABSCBN to audition for the game show “Ready Get Set Go”. (TV auditions were popular for orgs during those times- some could get a whopping 20,000 in one weekend). Of course we never made it, nor even had a crack at the initial selection process. I don’t blame the producers. Who would want to put a bunch of boring, bespectacled nerds on their TV show?

I even tried tapping our congressman in Batasan but failed to have a pinch of his pork barrel. (now I understand why I partly loathe the congressmen hehehe)

Fortunately some team members were resourceful enough to get us some slots in the military C130 flight to Zamboanga; a tedious process of constant calling which fortunately bore fruit. We were also fortunate to tie up with MSU-Tawi Tawi to give us accommodations.

Despite best efforts, I was only able to solicit PhP 2000, from Hans Arber, an amateur astronomer who incidentally documented the great 1955 Total Solar Eclipse in Manila. (Sir wherever you are, maraming salamat po!)

In the end, the 12 delegates who chose to go, had to raise the money for themselves Monch, Winston, Bamm, Denncapps, Sean, Aleah, Francis, Beng, Lisel,Camilo, and Joan were fortunate enough to get money from their personal circles.

As a DOST-scholar living only on stipends, the PhP 2000 I solicited was my passport to Tawi-Tawi…If not for the kind gesture of Hans I would have never made it.

Though I was immensely lucky to be part of the 12-man expedition I still somehow felt bad because there would have been other members who could have gone had we generated more funds.

I am so terrible with closures and I guess the Tawi-Tawi frustration was something I had with me all these years.

When I heard about the Shanghai Solar Eclipse, I just knew that life was giving me a second chance.

Many many years have passed since my college days. At my current status I could observe this rare event on my own and not sweat a thing.

But I wanted to extend that experience to one, two or three souls who might find the event life-changing. Souls who have the yearning to observe, but like us before, are limited by resources.

So we’re exhausting all means to help them in our own capacity by reaching out to other people in our network

I might have failed once in TawiTawi in 1995. I sure hope not to do so this time in 2009.

I guess despite all these years, there is still that clueless boy in me who once trudged on the desolate hill of Pag-asa.

I know he would be very happy.