in an environment where talking with someone is almost synonymous to committing a crime, i resorted to talking to myself.  whenever i am doing something work-related such as debugging a program, i talk to myself. unconsciously, i am doing this, till….

(1)  inside a client company, while i was talking to myself, my boss, looked at me, and frowned and wondered who i was talking to.  i was facing to no one except my laptop.  dear friend, then, told me of that when we left the office.

(2)  in a welcome party, held last friday, my japanese colleagues commented
officemate:   hitorigoto shite irun desu ne…
me:      e? hitorigoto wa nani?  (what’s hitorigoto)
officemate:   do to self.
me:     a, jibun to hanashite iru koto desu ka?  (a, you mean, talking with/to oneself?)
officemate:   sou, sou… (ya, ya)
me:     sou desu ne… shite imasu.  yoku shite imasu. (ya right, i do that. i do that very often.)

indeed.   indeed.  i have mastered that art.  unconsciously.  do you think they find me less than normal?  i hope not, for i am so used to doing it now.

Posted: February 26th, 2007 under Funny, Work.
Comments: 5

i woke up 8:30 a.m. today to catch the 9:42 train bound for sone.  i’ll be seeing a dear friend who’ll kindly teach me how to bake a chocolate cake. 

i reached the station and there was she, aya-san, meeting me at the station.  i was so glad to see her.  we head to her place and then proceeded to what i was there for- chocolate cake baking.  she’s got a really nice and clean place.  i had fun measuring the ingredients, mixing them while chatting with her. 

we’re talking about her life and mine.  we’re having a good time.  actually, this is the first time that we get to really chat.  at the church, we just say hi’s and hello’s and that’s it.  i find her really nice as our conversation goes. 

a Christian really does have a light heart.  i mean, that’s how i see her.  she finds joy in everything she does.  and she doesn’t feel bad about all the bad things that come her way.  she has that faith.  and in a way, i am envious for i know i don’t have that much faith as she does.  she handles conversation really well, like she doesn’t have a problem at all.  mind you, she is sick.  her liver is not doing well.  but she is so positive.  i love her.  the way that she is.  she plays the guitar and the piano for GOD.  she paints and creates solid portrait of jesus dying on the cross to save us.  by profession, she is an english teacher.  but her classroom is like a music room and a restaurant at the same time.  she serves meals to her students.  how amazing that is!

after more than an hour, our cake was ready.  i was so excited to see how it goes and how it tastes.  hmnn… yappari oishii.  she took a box and placed 4 of what we made inside it for me to take home.  sore ha ii ne..

she said a prayer for me before i left and it moved me to tears.  she said the words, the exact words i have in my heart.

i learned everything i wanted to learn about chocolate cake today.  and something far beyond that.  how lovely!

Posted: February 17th, 2007 under Passion, Religion, Serious Talk.
Comments: 2

Feb 14, 2007 (Wed) 

today started out just fine. well, my stomach was aching a bit when i woke up but that is just a bit.  i took my jacket and wore my shoes.  off i went jogging for 20 minutes.  stomach check. ops!  aching still.  but only a bit.  rush to work.  read and replied tons of emails to greet friends and loved ones happy vday. 

stomach check.  worse.  then came lunch time.  i didn’t have the appetite to eat what i put inside my lunch box and so i grabbed my po-chi biscuits (cheese flavor) and sip my cold coffee.  that’s it.  that’s lunch.

stomach check.  getting even worse.  dear friend was checking to see if we could go on a group dinner date as we agreed.  i kinda didn’t know what to answer.  dear daddy called up for business-related things.  and then, he asked how i was doing. told him my stomach’s aching but i still could handle.  perhaps, i will need to see the doctor the next day, i told him.  and so, we agreed.

stomach check 2:45 pm.  not getting any better still.  stomach already bulging.  i got to really see the doctor before i end up dragging myself again to get to my place.  and so, i told daddy.

at 3:00pm, i was out of the office again.  it was raining real hard but i didn’t care.  i rushed to see daddy.

“aren’t you pregnant?”  came daddy’s question.

funny.  really funny. 

off we went to see the doctor.  the doctor suspected of it as something caused by a virus.   i insisted it’s not for i knew the type of pain was something beyond that in comparison to the symptoms of that stomachache caused by the virus.  poor me.  the doctor just didn’t mind me.  he said i would need an x-ray of my tummy, which i think means, i need an ultrasound.  but he said it’s so expensive and that he would first want me to try out his wild guess.  darn.  and so, he issued a list of medicines.  we went to the drug store to purchase my meds and off i went to my pad while daddy went to his’.

at 4:30pm i am down on my bed. 

what a lonely valentine’s day!  (i wasn’t even able to distribute the chocolates we bought for the men in the office.)

Posted: February 17th, 2007 under Health, Serious Talk.
Comments: 1

We tend to take for granted the presence of someone thinking they’d always be there.  We tend to delay what is it that we are supposed to say, thinking we’d always have the time to say them. 

Sometimes, it takes losing someone (or something) before we realize we love them; before we feel the intense desire to tell them just how we feel.

Truth is, we lose chances.  And sometimes, when we lose them, we lose them forever.

Chances.  Time.  People.  Love.  Life.  They come and go.  And sometimes, they don’t come again.

Painful, isn’t it?

Posted: February 13th, 2007 under Love Actually, Serious Talk.
Comments: 1

February 2, 2007 (Fri)

I woke up feeling a little pain on my stomach.  I fixed myself still, drank my milk and vitamins then head for work.  The pain was nothing serious.  I arrived at the office and did my thing - program and email.

Lunch Time.  The pain’s still there.  I slouched, surfed the net.  The pain subsided.  A bit.  I ate my lunch - carrots and 2 eggs.  Done.  The pain came knocking again.  That time, stronger.  I slouched.  Nothing happened.

Lunch Break’s over.  Officemates came settling down.  I was sitting.  Struggling to survive.   I couldn’t make it anymore, I thought.  I went down and asked for permission to leave the office.

I left.  was walking towards the 15-minute walk train station which seemed to be the farthest train station i’ve walked in my whole life.  The pain’s so real and so hard.  I felt I could collapse.  I thought about asking for help from among the store owners inside the train station.  I wanted to lie myself down.  I knew I would feel better if I lie down.  But I was too shy to do it and sure thing, there aren’t any beds inside the boutiques.

I rushed to the comfort room, sit on a western style bowl and hoped the pain would subside.  Nothing happened.  The pain only got stronger.  I went out and headed towards the train station entrance to get my ride.  I was literally dragging myself, back folded while walking (like an old woman suffering from osteoporosis).  The train wasn’t there yet. So, I sit on the floor in the waiting street.  Imagine me doing that!  The pain was striking really strong.  I didn’t care looking so stupid on the floor. 

I had my train ride and closed my eyes.  It will be a 25-minute ride.  I was holding on.  That 25-minute ride didn’t seem to be only 25 minutes at all.  It’s like forever. 

Then I went down.  Wondering if I could still survive.  I still had to walk for 15 minutes to reach my pad.  Several thoughts came in - riding a taxi or hitching a ride.  Nothing seemed something I could do.  The taxi fare is so expensive and I couldn’t talk to tell the driver where I was heading.  So, instead of thinking, I walked, back folded still.  Oh my GOD!  I wanted so much to die.  The pain was just so unbearable!  But I kept walking.  My stomach was bulging from the pain.  I was battling against the feeling of losing all my senses while walking.  It’s winter and so cold and the snow was pouring a bit and there was me, struggling to reach home with my stomach at its worst state.  For every pace I took, I thought about how many more steps I had to take to reach my pad.  It didn’t seem to work.  I only felt more bad feeling how much longer did i need to walk; how much farther my pad had become.

I reached my pad, opened the door and undressed myself.  I had the biggest stomach I’ve ever seen on me.  I enveloped myself with blanket then laid myself down.  I knew then I would be alright. 

I could have died.  And I didn’t care.  It could have been better that I did.  I mean, that’s what I thought at that moment.

I trudge everyday the same route.  And yet, it seemed like the longest walk of my life. 

It seemed like I was walking for so long… like, FOREVER.

Posted: February 5th, 2007 under Serious Talk.
Comments: 3

Jan. 30, 2007 (Tue)

we’re rushing inside a busy train station (Umeda, that is) and then there’s this guy I came across with who seemed to be staring at me.  I stared back, wondering if I know him. I was following dad while going down the stairs catching our ride.  He passed by me, staring still.  When I looked back, he was walking towards the opposite the direction i was heading to and yet looking still at me.  And then, afraid of losing sight of dad, I rushed.  That guy went back, pat my back and said,

guy:  Hey, where are you from? 
me:   ..from the Philippines.
guy:  i’ve been to the Philippines a lot of times.
me:   ….
guy:  i transit there often.

i smiled and then had myself vanished with the crowd.

it’s similar to those we see in movies when a guy meets a girl and he says somethin, just about anything, to begin a conversation despite the crowd.

Posted: February 5th, 2007 under Love Actually.
Comments: 2

I decided to leave my blogspot account. it’s been a while.  we have both good and bad memories.  but i think more bad than good. 

 so, here goes a new one.  i hope more good memories will be recorded here.

Posted: February 4th, 2007 under Serious Talk.
Comments: none