Homesick

I haven't been able to update my blog in a while. Somehow I could not post successfully the past two weeks (all i get are blanks).. It has been busy too the past week with ella's visit to KL. My bestfriend came to visit last Sunday and stayed for a good four nights. I wish it could have been longer coz I miss having her around. Communicating through sms is not enough. I miss our telebabad nights and our foodtrips back in manila.

I guess I'm getting a bit homesick too. It's been almost six months since I've been home. I was talking to charles last night and I told him how living in a suitcase can be tiring at times. Going to the UK was a blast but it also made me realize how much of a wanderer I've become. Or should I say a traveller. And sometimes I just look forward to the days when I can sit back and relax in the comforts of the places I belong.

Being here in KL is good. I've met lots of new people and basically I got my big adventure in life. But I also miss home. I miss my cat, my car, my mom and my sis. I miss badminton nights and my night time kwentuhan with luis. I miss isaw and fishballs. Hard to admit, I even miss cafeteria food in ateneo. I miss my afternoon merienda with ces, weevens, oliver, cha and maan. I miss mimopie and mardet's wisdom. I miss hanging out at Maam Len's place and my inumans with witart. I miss that Burger Machine holed up near katipunan aurora that Luis and I would stop at on our way home from our late night badminton. Sige na nga I miss traffic na din--the manila style.

People may sometimes disappoint us but knowing that there will always be someone and someplace where you will belong is a reminder that hope will always be there.

Life is a choice they say. And despite missing all these people, I am happy here and I'm glad I made the leap of faith to come here. I've learned that in the end, only one person can make you really happy-- YOURSELF.

loving yourself and allowing yourself to be happy is truly the greatest love of all (no matter how cheesy the song goes).

elections

i feel awfully guilty.

i didn't even know who the candidates were for today's elections until today election day.

it wasn't because i didn't care. maybe it was partly because i didn't want to read about the sad truth about our politics-- that people do not necessarily get voted for the capacities to run the government but for reasons unbenknownst to many.

but who am to bitch right? i did not even get to vote today. like millions of other pinoys abroad, we failed to do our civic duty today.

but still i find myself thinking, what now for the future of the country? seeing the list of would be senators make me cringe to the thought that the country that i left would be in a no better position when i get back. how then can my dream of returning in the not so distant future and settling back in the land i called home become a reality?

i wonder.

so i send my prayers to the heavens--that's all i can do for now.i pray for a miracle that the heavens might intervene to save our country from doom.

i pray that the right people get elected. and even if they don't that the people who will eventually end up winning will realize that they were elected to serve the people and not themselves.

i pray that the people who had the chance to vote today did so with the right mind and the right heart.

and i pray that those who will eventually count the votes will count the right votes and not the paid ones.

i dream of one day going back home for good. but i hope that when that day comes, the philippines will once again shine it's brightest like the way my grandparents used to talk about.

i still dream. so maybe there is still hope.

Going Back...

16 days passed by so quickly. Now it's time to go back. I can't believe that this trip is indeed over. After months of preparations and seemingly never ending hitches, my two week stay in the UK will finally come to a close.

We had a bank holiday here over the weekend so I took some time to visit an old friend in Northampton--my original marekoy--Jeanette. It was great to catch up with her after not seeing her for two years. We got drunk while singing in her living room (magic sing eto!) and we pigged out in homemade japanese maki/sushi that we made that afternoon (dahil lang sa wasabe paste, napaluto kami ng sushi). We even found some time to play a bit of badminton (kahit singles) despite the freezing weather. It reminded me of the time we played at the pearl and in tagaytay. Only this time natural aircon na di pwedeng sabihan na "pakihinaan please!". We took tons of pictures and of course di kami naubusan ng chismiss about our lives.

It's funny coz Jeanette and I didnt have much time to become close when she was still in Manila. We were becoming friends pa lang when she was about to leave for the UK. Yet somehow we managed to keep in touch. Once upon a time I jokingly told her that one day I would visit her in the UK. Who would have tought that the joke would really come true?

freezing again

my hands are semi frozen again. It's 15 degrees here in nottingham right now and although locals claim that its perfect weather, for a tropical country die hard like me, its almost like winter.hahaha. I woke up this morning almost unwilling to get out of the warm covers of my bed. Then I remembered it was almost 8am so I had to rush down the breakfast hall for my traditional english breakfast of orange juice, tea, toast and sausages. I was craving for some tapsilog but of course there's nothing close to that here in England. Oh well, we can't have everything right?

Last night's dinner/drinking session with angeli was nice. We caught an early dinner at the Rose and Crowne pub where I had a rump steak along with beer. I was so hungry since I didnt have anything for lunch save for a bar of caramel brownies and a cup of cappucinno. The dinner turned into an extended kwentuhans about life's little mysteries. It was really nice. There was no game last night so the pub was pretty quiet save for a few diners. When the pub started playing loud spice girls songs we knew it was time to go home. By then it was almost 10pm. I walked back to my flat at cripps hall and pondered on how easy it was for me to walk at such a late time alone in england but not in my own home country. It was a sad realization that my beloved home has a long way to go in ensuring public safety at night. I think I was more scared of seeing ghosts than bumping into criminals in nottingham. There was an eerie silence in campus and with my overly active imagination, syempre i kept thinking of all the moomoos that could pop out.

I still have a few days left here in England. I hope to maximize the time left to exploring this beautiful country some more. After all this may be a trip that could only happen once in a lifetime.

conversations...

"Too often, the thing you want most is the one thing you can't have. Desire leaves us heartbroken, it wears us out. Desire can wreck your life. But as tough as wanting something can be. The people who suffer the most, are those who don't know what they want." -Meredith Grey

one of the things i find myself enjoying in this trip are the conversations i have with angeli. since were the only pinoys here in the university we're sort of bonded by our history together. in the past couple of days we've talked about almost every possible topic imaginable from the mundane to the serious stuffs of life. we have a lot in common pala and it's nice that i have a friend from home here in the strange country of united kingdom. and though we may have come from different backgrounds at home i realized that we do share passion for a lot of things.

we often talk about our desires and wants and dreams. we call them our hope lists and how we often adjust them to meet the needs of the present. i found it nice to finally find someone who could understand my current philosophies without thinking that i am such a weirdo for not wanting what every other girl wants. after all who wouldn't want the barbie fantasy right?--the perfect life with the perfect family and perfect job.

perhaps it's our psych background or our quirkiness that makes us like that. but it was quite funny that we both agree that what we have right now may be the best for now. and that despite not having that perfect life were supposed to have, hey we are happy. and maybe its not about finding that perfect life that fits the perfect mold but rather finding your bliss with the present.

im not sure if im just saying all these things because im getting my taste of independence right now but in a way i find value more now in the things that i do. like mariel, i may have decided to march down a different kind of path for now but i am happy. and i guess for the first time in a long time i actually have no care about what others may think about me. at last i finally found that confidence to strike it out on my own.

meredith grey is right, not knowing what you want is the worst desire of all. maybe this time by getting to know myself a little bit better i'll get to discover the real wants of my heart and not just the wants that the world set out for me.

who knows.

The UK Adventure so far...

If someone asked me a year ago where I would be today, never would it be in my wild imagination that I'd be halfway around the world at this time. Living from paycheck to paycheck, one cannot possibly fathom the possibility of even going anywhere. Yet now I am here in the UK for an adventure of a lifetime. Who would have known right?

Funny how fate can bring such unexpected blessings. I took a giant leap of faith in my desire to get something out of my boring life and I ended up with a grand adventure.

Been here in the UK for one week now and so far its been one adventure after the other. Nottingham is very very cold and windy (although sabi nila hot na now since its springtime). But the views are fantastic.It looks like a scene straight out of the victorian novels or jane austen's books. So far i've been around the city a bit and also went to newstead abbey--lord byron's home.

Last weekend I went around London with my friend Gilbert who hosted my london adventure. It was tiring but fun. Nakakaaliw to get lost all over london with a friend. We ended up riding the wrong bus so san san kami napunta. At least I was with someone when I got lost. It would have been a bummer kung magisa lang ako.

We visited the famous sites of course including the castles-- Buckingham and Kensington plus the tower of london and the walked around the Thames and the London Bridge. I saw the eye of London and saw Big Ben. The highlight of my trip included hearing a high mass inside Westminister Cathedral. There was an eerie feeling inside and hearing the mass in Latin made it so solemn. Wala akong masabi

I still have a week left here. I hope to see more sites and try more food. Although the food here can be bland most of the time experiencing them is still something nice to try. So far I loved the spanish resto we went to the most as well as the english pub Angeli and I ate at last night. It was a truly authentic British experience.

Still I miss home a lot.Especially when you realize how expensive living here is. But there's nothing like pinoy food to cure homesickness. It's funny though that I travelled 16 hours all the way to europe just to eat daing na bangus exported from the Phillippines. buti na lang Angeli has so much pinoy stuff in her flat that I got my fix of datu puti suka, silver swan soy sauce and even daing na bangus!Yan ang tunay na foodtrip!