Follow your dreams, transform your life, take the path that leads to God. Perform your miracles. Cure. Make prophecies. Listen to your guardian angel. Transform yourself. Be a warrior, and be happy as you wage the good fight. Take risks. 

-Paulo Coelho, By the River Piedra, I Sat Down and Wept

of girls and boys

girls will always be girls.
but boys, they can also be assholes.

;)

Manila – A Surprising Surprise

Friday, 8pm, i decided to fly to manila at 6am the following morning for adventure’s sake and for that child in me.

i arrived manila with high hopes but no expectations. but the surprise i intended to give ended up surprising me. and so then the adventure began.

i am mostly in manila at least once a month. so nothing seemed really new. but this time, i wasn’t here for business. i was here for the chase and the adventure and the risk linked with it. and since things didn’t work out as planned, everything went spontaneous.

after arriving from the airport, i went directly to chowking in Taft to eat breakfast. ordered two of the cheapest meal, the plain chao fan, for my cousin and for me.  when we opened our bowls, an amazing surprise, there were three siomais in each. so it was free siomai for us. and i saw that as a good omen. after breakfast, we went somewhere in manila ( name concealed for business purposes) to make sure i earn more than what i spent for this travel. so based on calculation, net profit from visit to follow that little voice in the farthest corner of my soul is Php 12,000 which isn’t bad after all.

i met Ayesha and Bettina next in Vargas Museum in UP Diliman. drank cafe boholano which tastes so good plus the delectable sansrival. and i cried and laughed with them. ate dinner in maxx’s and went to ayesha’s place afterwards for unlimited videoke! and while we sing, i cried and cried again. which was a bit funny actually.

i woke up the following day in a different mood. something with a tinge of adventure and spontaneity. i texted friends and decided then and there what to do. and so lunch was with an organizational head plus a good friend whom i’ve not met for 4 years now. and it was a treat from him in Yellow Cab! spicy chicken wings plus new york’s finest pizza! thank you kuya chad. 

Afterwards, a high school close friend, lomel, asked if i can join him to Market Market to wall climb, a hobby ive never done again since 1 year now. surprisingly, i was still able to finish three walls. these are the tallest wall ive ever climbed!  and it felt so freakin good – to finish them and to finally climb walls again. :P

directly after this,i was invited to go to Alabang Town Center, one of the high-end malls in the region about an hour away from where i was.  i had dinner with an exhousemate and a very dear friend, Rae. she was with her husband, Verge and a good friend, Brian. and we talked about crazy and green stuff which actually made my day. :) we ate dinner in Pepper Rice and chitchatted all night long.  It was good to see her again knowing that she’ll be leaving for good to California on Wednesday. makes me want to feel like this travel was just a blessing in disguise.

i arrived in Makati in Glorietta 5 at 11pm to be able to spend some time contemplating on everything and doing academic stuff.  I stayed until 2am in Bos Coffee to wait for my flight back at 420am.

and so the journey ends.

although the trip didn’t go the way i wanted, it still turned out to be something i wouldn’t regret doing. i won’t be young forever. might as well live the life i can – spontaneous and carefree. this may have brought me tears, but it was worth the peace of mind that i got from the experience – no regrets, no what-ifs nor what-could-have-beens, only what-is.  

hello blog. we meet once again.

hello summer..

hello blog.

every man bleeds

bettina’s one month old dell laptop and two touch screen cell phones got stolen from her room.

on the same day, henning’s surf board broke. and while this was happening, somebody stole his phone.

this happened the next day i got stabbed in my dreams.

every man bleeds.

in dreams

it was night time. 

the place was dark. there were lights from the streetlight but was hindered by the trees from illuminating the streets. i was wearing a red shirt and the shoulder bag which ate bing bought from Italy. i was walking with someone i could not recognize who. as we turned the curve in the street, we were suddenly surrounded by  teenage gangsters. about two or three of them grabbed my bag and ran away. the contents flashed in my mind - the quite big amount of money in my wallet, my phones which contained important information and other important papers. but before i was able to do anything, one boy stabbed me with a knife at the back. i did not feel the pain. i just know that something sharp was behind me. slowly, he held me until i fell lying on the floor and he ran towards his friends. i was struggling to shout for help. but only my mind worked. i thought that i have to save all the energy to stay alive. the last thing i saw was my companion calling for help. and  then everything went blurred and gone. i could only here the noise around. i was alone. waiting. waiting for the sound of help coming. i felt my blood escaping me. then my senses left me. i was gone.

at the moment i died in my dreams, i woke up in the same position i had in that dream. it was dark. my eyes were struggling for light. at that point, i doubted if i was alive.

in that dream, i felt how it felt to be stabbed. i felt the panic. the flash of events in my mind in nanoseconds. i felt the struggle to stay alive. i felt how my senses left one by one. i felt how i waited even in the last moment of my life. i felt how life escaped me.

everything seemed real. in my dreams, it was real. i hope to live longer.