My Thoughts, Exactly.
Just try to press that little button that sits atop of my head and watch the sparks fly.
I came home from the Christmas party last night feeling a little empty. I don’t understand it myself..I mean, it was definitely fun, and even if I messed up a little (or a lot), we were still able to somehow pull through with the singspiration (thanks largely to Nikki, Jo Mari, and Harvin. Much love to all of you), plus I was surrounded by people who I really enjoy being with. Maybe it was because I didn’t win in the raffle. Maybe I’m looking too much into this feeling of empty-handedness. Um, yeah, maybe that’s it. No, not really.
I swear, this thought process that comes with being a girl is such a bane sometimes. It must be something bigger than that, you fool.
I woke up this morning forgetting it was my father’s birthday. It’s just too easy to forget because sometimes when you don’t want to remember some things, you end up forgetting everything altogether. So me and my sister drove up to the flower shop near A. Boni and picked out a basket of yellow mums and another one with a huge white…thing in the middle. It reminded me of a big fat goldfish, except it was white. (Don’t ask me how a flower can remind me of a goldfish, defected thought process, remember?) Then we went to Dad’s and I couldn’t help wondering where he was at that particular moment. Could he see us? Does he smile everytime we remember him? Or is he like, sleeping until we meet again? Or is he at that other place…(at that point I decided to just stop thinking about it.)
I attended the service at CBCP today, where Pastor Danny Balete gave a message entitled God Rest Ye Merry. I’ll tell you about it later. The title reminded me of our chorale contest during the fourth year of high school (the one we won, right? Hoho.) And while we sang the song as a precursor to the message, I couldn’t help softening my voice at the beginning (God rest ye merry gentlemen…) and then get louder at the end (let nothing you disMAY!) Hahaha. Memories. Ryan Uy, our conductor, insisted on it at the time, see.
Pastor Danny focused on Joseph and Mary this morning, after which I realized that they may, perhaps, be my favorite characters in the Bible after all.
PASTOR DANNY’S THREE OBSERVATIONS ON THE BIRTH OF JESUS:
Note: Look up biography of Fanny Crosby and Horatio Spafford.
Have a nice Sunday, everybody <3
..you’d find that it has nothing but unicorns in it.
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The Old Lady I Can’t Quite Forgive.
It just suddenly popped into my head this morning: how whenever I see her, something dark still creeps up my beat-beat-beating lump of flesh. She smiled at my mum and sat behind us this morning as I made feeble attempts to hack down what was bothering me.
What’s this?! Eandra…Begrudging an old white-haired grandmother who smiles at people and goes to church! On a Sunday, no less! Egad! *confiscates unicorns*
Noooooooo!
Le sighe. She isn’t bad or anything. (Actually, I wouldn’t know. I don’t know her that well and I doubt she remembers me with that memory that people have once they are over 60.) It would require me to recount an event in my life which most people wouldn’t know how to respond to, and which would leave them awkward, and which, in turn, would leave me awkward for telling it in the first place and making everybody awkward. *Shudder*
Read on, brave heart.
Summer of 2003. My father’s wake.
The days meld in and out. People come in and leave. Some return. In between comings ang goings, they talk with my mother. The ones I know talk to me and sit awhile with me in silence.
One day my cousin comes in. I sit with her just like I do with everybody else. She tries to make me laugh and tickles me. I laugh. I haven’t been laughing for days, I reckon. She makes me happy.
Now, this old lady. She’s there. She glances at me sharply and calls me over to her. I comply.
She whispers something in my ear that makes me cry.
“You shouldn’t laugh. Not in this place.”
I numbly nod and run to my grandmother, and I tell her what happened. She reassures me that the old lady was wrong and that she’d have a good talk with her later. I hold on to that empty promise.
I don’t want to confront an old lady. Especially in Chinese. Especially for something that’s happened many years ago. I used to think that I am a very forgiving person who very easily forgets wrongs, but today, oh today..it is a very discouraging realization.
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I feel better blogging about it. I don’t think I’ve ever told it to anybody (because of my fear of making them awkward). I think…I think I can almost forget.
Huzzah!
I like October a lot. Aside from my birthday being in it, this particular October has been pretty special. (And I surmise that it is God’s endearing little surprises for me, for it being me birthday month and all that.) Hee hee.
I have a lot of Happy Days. Days I just can’t risk forgetting and losing. And so, to share my happiness with the rest of humanity, I will ingrain it all in the immortal annals of Tumblr.
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Life Goals.
It was last Saturday when finally, my Saturday morning class met its end. The CAD exam was easy (thank you, bloody CAD project, for sufficiently preparing me), and I left the hall singing and skipping ever so slightly.
I went home for a quick bite and met up with Mike for church. When we got there, lo and behold! There was Bernard with my skateboard deck! (Sorry for not honoring honorifics. I mean no offense. I am not very used to them.) I asked him if he could buy a blank deck if he sees one, and I suppose they have bazrillions of them in America, where he went. Hoho. One of them found its glorious way here, into the hands of a very thin, eager-eyed girl. Kaiser (my new wooden pet) will be out and about as soon as I find the proper parts, hopefully before the next year starts <3 Thank you for all who have been supportive of this (potentially crippling, but nonetheless) delightful endeavor.
I also discovered that the piano in C1C2 at church is very, very much like the one at home. Perhaps I can go up sometime (or many times) and see if the room isn’t locked.
After fellowship (where we had this icebreaker sort of thing, and for some reason I cannot fathom, I was embarrassed all throughout), I decided to go home and have a better look at Kaiser. Sharon-tsi and and the other people were kind enough to accompany me and Mike over to the trike stop. They are all very nice.
So both of us were walking home when suddenly I saw this really fluffy thing on a leash, bobbing up and down.
A husky.
My heart always stops when I see one. I hurried to catch up with them and guess what: I GOT TO PET IT. I won’t ever forget how it felt. The husky kept licking at me too. So utterly adorable. I spent the rest of the day grinning.
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You Gain Strength, Courage, and Confidence by Every Experience in which You Really Stop to Look Fear in the Face.
That’s what Natalie-tsi quoted to us during one of our Leadership Talks (Fridays 7pm, in one of the Fellowship Hall rooms). I’ve always thought that if you wanted to see what fear looked like, all you had to do was to look in the mirror.
Not always, I suppose. Last Tuesday, it took the form of a monolithic, open air, public bus. (Not that I faced it head-on, or anything.) Me and Vanessa met at school (if I remember right, I only had my morning class, and we just loitered everywhere, met Don and talked about religion), and inevitably had to go home.
So, there we were, at the Philcoa stop. And there it was, looming towards us. Ill-omened, a dark cloud of despicable-ness trails behind. The noise of a thousand buzzards fill the street. We were going inside the creature’s carcass. I exaggerate. We hailed it and climbed aboard.
I’ve never truly been in a bus before. The youth camp Island Adventure didn’t count—that was a decent, well-scheduled affair. But this. The spontaneity, the sheer wildness of wind and inertia and metal and people looking at you and you not knowing where to sit when the bus is already moving at 70 kph..exihilirating.
I rode the bus twice this week.
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End of Semester Celebration.
Technically, I’m not done with my semester yet, but Vanny and I thought it would be a perfect day for a picnic.
October 16, Friday.
That day I woke up accidentally at 5 AM and saw that the sky was a bright aqua. It looked so alien, but I knew it was the same sky I’ve been looking at since I can remember. I tried not to go back to sleep because I wanted to remember how it looked (and I thought that maybe the sky swirls in colors when nobody’s looking) but after a while it settled back into a normal gray-blue.
I woke up for real and got ready for my Russian exam.
It went great.
She brought picnic food and off we went to the spot I shan’t be telling. (If you are curious enough, I can bring you there, but only if you ask nicely.) It had exactly the type of music I like (old) and it had cats. I felt that I could live there forever. We talked about God and how sometimes we get confused about what He really wants for us (I remember one time praying to God: I do not understand You!) and absolutely anything that came to mind.
Then we went cat-hunting. But I’m telling you, they hide from me! :( All I wanted was a cat to bring home and love. Someday, cat, I will find you and you will be loved.
It was 4:15. Guitar lessons begin at 5, at church. We hurried home (took the second bus of my life, felt better) and got home at around 5. I was offering internal apologies to Lawrence, who was expecting us for the lessons, I think. Sorry again for being late. For some reason, I can’t say it directly to you. And finally, we played a little Gymnopedie on the piano for Vanessa. She laughed at our efforts.
I accompanied Vanny to the trike stop, all the while singing Gymnopedie (she the left-hand tune, and I the right) and when she left I was left to sing it by myself on the way back.
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A Little Reunion, and a Seemingly Insignificant Witness.
After Leadership Talk that night, I went out a bit for a bathroom break before Bible Study started, and I saw my sister walk in the fellowship hall. I pinched her and she tickled me and I forgot when I saw her last (maybe that morning, but I felt it was so long). She dragged me here and there, and made me carry her bag, and I was just grinning all the while. When we parted, I saw the nice lady who works at the church smiling at us. It made my heart soar.
I love October, and I’m glad there’s still a little bit of it left.
