i need a happy thought. am feeling a little bit down.

was in boracay last weekend with my good good friends A and B. A was there for a wedding she had to attend and B and I tagged along. perfect excuse to get B out of manila, and to the beach. the last time B was in boracay was 12 years ago, when there was no electricity yet and the expats walked the beach topless and in their thongs.

the last time i was in boracay was in 2005 and it's almost as pretty as i remembered it to be. only this time we had accommodations at station 1, which was way better than staying at nami (even if the place rocked, it was very far, and it felt like i was in a different continent then).

i am not sure how A and B would feel about my posting our photos in public so i'm posting only mine. but after a week i'll be tearing them down, just because.

so here's bora in the afternoon we arrived:



dinner was at this greek resto (operated by the same owners of mati that used to be in powerplant)



the following day we had lunch at aria, hoping to outdo our lunch at gastouf (how do you spell that again?) which was a disaster.

that night B and I had sisig and bulalo while A was at the wedding reception (which, btw, we wanted to crash but didn't because we did not have proper attire for a wedding reception.) but the bulalo soup was very good.

well, in between, we did some swimmin

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Okay, that photo doesn't show me swimmin. but i did. only i don't have a photo to prove it. [i had a massage at the beach and even have a photo to prove it. but you won't be seeing that, of course.]

this is me at cyma being fried under the sun. if only the uncle-types at the other table were not around, i would've removed my shirt as A told me that I was wearing my swimsuit anyway.

[PHOTO DELETED]

my favorite place was at jonah's where we had yummy shakes and tacos.



3 days was too short a time to be in boracay. we should've taken monday off.

all in all, i had a good time in the company of good people. babalik kami.

i've been planning to write this post but didn't know how. how do i tell you about my first badminton tournament? that i did want to win all my 3 games even as i made an announcement that i was playing for fun?

my partner and i competed at level D mixed doubles. we lost our first match, almost won our second but lady luck was completely on the other side. finally, when i've conquered my nerves, i told my partner that we were going to win our third match. and we did. 35-23.

after the tourney my partner texted me:

"you made me proud today, especially our last game. it was you, all you."

damn. shet. na-touch ako. my partner was a national volleyball player, a professional coach. he's playing badminton as a new sport.

anyway. i told him that we were going to be champs one day. i hope this happens before i ruin my knees.

am at bo's drinking green tea blended and this song is playing in the background:

If you're feeling sad and lonely,
There's a service I can render.
Tell the one who loves you, only,
I can be so warm and tender.

Call me.
Don't be afraid, you can
Call me.
Maybe it's late, but just
Call me.
Tell me and I'll be around.

anyway. this song reminds me of that scene in when harry met sally when sally has decided to shut harry out of her life. you'd think that when harry met sally is a comedy and it is, and yet that scene in the end when harry delivered his big speech about wanting to spend the rest of his life with her asap now na chu chu, i noticed myself almost in tears.

recently i watched a film that had the same effect on me: the godfather 3. of all of them, the godfather 3! you'd think that with sophia coppola's terrible acting and crooked smile nobody would ever cry over this film except sophia herself when the critics butchered her, but, without warning, i did cry when michael told kay that he still loved her, and she said that "for whatever it's worth, i've always loved you and i think i always will." damn. nakakaiyak 'yun ha.

pero after that scene close to the ending, the suspense was too much for me. i couldn't go on not knowing how it was going to end... was michael going to be ambushed??? i fast forwarded and saw his daughter die. good. i rewinded and watched the remaining parts of the film with the same contempt for miss coppola.

on involvement and blandness

these past days i've been involved with a friend's (D) life story. it's quite interesting really. it's about the past that has recently made its way to see D in the face. D was not prepared and has regressed to the old D eighteen years ago. yep, 18.

i wonder how anybody could remember what life was like 18 years ago. 18 years ago i was graduating from high school. 18 years ago i had long hair, high-teased bangs and wore paper pants. that's all i can remember.

D, however, remembers everything. so we talked about it 3 weeks ago and have been discussing it every week since the past came to haunt D. we average talking for 4 hours over coffee and cig, while mosquitoes buzz over my head and under the table. the security guards at the coffee place where we meet complain about us leaving at 230 a.m., when the place closes at 1 a.m.

so everyday there's an update and i am involved. today, i got an update. when D asked about me: this is what we ended up discussing:

D: we watched SOS last night. ang galing pa rin.
me: hmmmn. am not a fan. never seen them perform. i also don't like going to concerts anymore. na ha-hassle-an ako.
D: hassle? y?
me: i guess unless super gusto ko yung group, or artist, ayaw ko nang pumipila. i just want to go home now and sleep hehe
D: ang arte naman! concert lang e!
me: yup. nacocornyhan na kasi ako. old age siguro
D: e puro matatanda din kasama namin kagabi. age bracket mo.
me: mismo.
me: am losing interest in things, generally.
me: midlife krisis
D: hmmmn
D: losing interest... as in tired? bored?
me: maybe bored
me: maybe tired too
D: no drive to get on with life?
me: not naman life
D: ano lang?
me: parang cynicism.
D: cynicism saan? u said not life, so what, where?
me: cynicism that something great will happen pa to me
me: parang feeling ko, ok na to, whatever na lang
me: burning out siguro
me: arising from a series of disappointments
me: natuto nang wag na lang ma involve in whatever life may have in store for me
me: haha. drama noh. not really.
me: am just as bland talking about it as my coffee
me: bland bland bland
D: well
D: but meron pa namang ok di ba. ok sa buhay
me: siguro kaya din involved ako sa buhay mo
D: mukha nga
me: kasi it's something to talk about
me: something thats more interesting than my bland life
D: whoa
me: am not complaining. am just stating a fact.
D: got lost there
me: thats ok
me: you need not follow me. kahit ako di ko alam san papunta haha
me: ang daming comments arising from SOS haha.

well, need i say more? it's tuesday and i'm bored and tired. and i have only had maybe 3 hours of sleep. i did a godfather dvd marathon last night. can't believe al pacino didn't win an oscar for any of that.

see? this post is aimless.

later.

it has been a while since i last wrote something substantial (read: interesting) here. medyo i've been feeling some downtime inspiration-wise. parang walang magandang bagay na pwede kong isulat dito.

until it hit me.

over aristocrat dinner sponsored by the brand-new atty. M, i introduced the topic: if you could go back to college, what would you do differently?

nobody was prepared to give a ready answer, so i gave them my answer. here it is: if i could go back to college, i would not be timid.

i'll tell you about me when i was 16 years old. i was painfully TIMID. i was not assertive, i was a wallpaper. i didn't voice out my opinion, i was shy, i was invisible. yes, invisible.

my colleagues were surprised to hear this. for some reason they can't seem to see me as timid.

i had culture shock during my first year, first sem in UP. coming from an all-girl high school, my first day in a co-ed school was SHOCKING. a male classmate who was going around our classroom to collect P50 for the class fund finally came up to me and asked for 50 bucks. i remember him, and i remember me thinking: bastos naman ng lalaking ito. why? because he was probably about one foot away from me. at 16, my concept of personal space was conservative. i think now you'd have to do more than stand one foot away from me to be bastos.

anyway.

so that was me in first year college. since college meant going to different classes with different people, i didn't have a ready set of friends. during my first year it felt like i was just floating, fleeting around school. i went to class, got out of class, then went home. i didn't have an org, i didn't have anything to do. i wasn't ready to explore college life.

later on i had a few friends. but my memory of undergrad with these friends was limited to all the clean, nice things that we latebloomer girls do. we ate at casaa. shared money to buy food at the end of the day. we slept in our own cars at the parking lot. we watched movies and did group studying. we didn't drink, didn't smoke, worst of all, we didn't do boys. (i don't mean do, do. we didn't date them, we didn't talk to them. we looked at them from afar. we talked about K while he talked to the pretty girls. we looked at the girlfriends of the nice looking boys and figured out what was wrong with them. ha ha. there weren't too many boys who liked us. or me.)

anyway, fast forward to law school. at this point, E, a colleague and almost a batchmate in law school, interrupted me "eh namayagpag ka sa law school."

well. in the same way that i'm quick to admit what a real dork i was in undergrad, i was probably quite the opposite in law school. in law school i made a wonderful self-discovery: when i spoke, people listened to me. i made a lot of friends, females and males alike. people made me run as class or sorority president, even the student government (but the latter - this i did not do). my no-boy slate in undergrad became the opposite in law school. while i didn't have a lot of boyfriends in law school: there were a few boys and stories worth talking about. but not here. buy me a beer and i'll spill like the bottle you will buy me.

going back: if i could go back to college... i wouldn't be shy anymore. i'd have more faith in myself and be friends with the boys. i'd experience love so much earlier on. i'd be crazy! so crazy my mom would have to drag me home. hee hee. ayan kasi, i'm such a latebloomer now it appears that there isn't really a reason for me to be rushing into things.

last night i got my first yonex racket. congratulations and thanks to our newhire M, who promised to give me his extra (still new) yonex racket if he passed the bar. of course he did. and i got my racket. congrats atty. M!!!