up on the roof

They sat out on the terrace, two bodies huddled against the cold night.

It was drizzling slightly as they watched the lights down below. The city, awash with all the lights and life. The sound of shouts and laughter drifted up slowly, along with the pum-pum-pum sound of bass coming from the clubs nearby.

They were silent even as they talked, two strangers sitting in the dark. Their conversation was littered with small talk, punctuated by a swig of a cocktail, or by a shiver in the wind.

It was nothing then.

But, for a moment, she felt a terrifying stab of fear this night would mean more than it was supposed to.

floored

I have a big, wide, stupidly cheerful smile plastered on my face today.

Today was my birthday.

I normally don't celebrate my birthday (I've always believed making too much of a fuss over a single day can only set you up for disappointment), so I wasn't really expecting anything today. Maybe a phone call from the parents, and some text messages and emails from friends. Besides, I was all the way out here in Toronto -- I didn't expect people to actually go out of their way to greet me.

My day started out routinely, without any of that happy-happy birthday mood. I woke up at 1pm, freaked out because I was soooooo late for work, and decided to work from home because I was too embarassed to show up in the office at 3pm. (Yes, Michael, I do still have an ounce of shame :P).

So, there I was working at our dining table and feeling kinda off since I hadn't seen an real live person all day. (I start getting depressed whenever I go a whole day without talking to or seeing an actual person because I feel like I'm in the twilight zone.) I was about to launch into my nobody-loves-me moment, when Iris got home, greeted me, and handed me a plastic bag -- gifts and greeting from the Toronto and Manila officemates.

I was floored.

It's always been a tradition for the Manila team to give a team member a "surprise" on their birthday, but this time I really was surprised. Thank you so much for the birthday card, you guys.... laugh trip yung mga birthday wishes niyo! I'm trying to find my Torontonian papa, just in case Sweetie Cow will never learn to love me. ;) And thank you for the sweetie cows, Cheng! I will call them Sweetie Cow and Sweetie Pao, and they will live happily ever after...

I didn't expect anything from someone in Toronto -- but Mylene, thanks so much for the gifts. Mukha ako lalong Latina sa earrings! Hola! And Iris, thank you for the lovely CD, which I seriously thought I was choosing for you. Hahaha.

And lastly, thank you to those who called/emailed/texted/blogged/Friendster-ed me on this lovely day.

Merci beaucoup!

And so I still have this big, wide, stupidly cheerful smile plastered on my face.

hello, world

Hello, world.

I have never met a person working in the IT industry who has not encountered this phrase at least once in their lifetime. On the contrary, most people in the industry would laugh fondly upon hearing these words, and would reminisce at the significance these two short, seemingly meaningless words hold for them.

You see, for an IT person, this phrase marks a beginning. You remember the day you typed these two words on your keyboard, compiled, ran... and watched in awe as these words scrolled across the screen. It's almost bewildering, how you made that happen. The cursor blinks expectantly, challenging you to do more.

And so it begins. You are sucked into the whirlwind, seduced by the prospect of how much you can do.

And so this essay begins.

In two days, I will turn 24. The past twenty-three years of my life I have never given much thought to turning a year older. I always thought of birthdays just as any other day in my life; thinking of it as a special day seemed to put too much pressure on people. On me, too. I didn't like how on birthdays, you were expected to be happy, as if all the problems in the world would cease to exist just because you were born on this day.

Yet this past week, I've found myself mulling over my birthday. Not on purpose -- somehow the thought just seemed to creep in during those split-seconds the world would pause to let me breathe. Perhaps it's because I'm halfway around the world right now, away from the comforting familiarity of home. Living here has allowed me to view my life in Manila through a looking glass – it’s funny how that can put things in a completely different perspective. My problems, worries, and anxieties seem to have grown infinitely smaller, and sometimes I wonder whether I really should have spent that much time and effort on them.

I got to thinking of the past twenty-three years, and what I have done with it. It all started out rather ordinarily -- I went to school, got a degree, and got my share of those adolescent moments that we always look back and smile giddily about. Then, real life happened.

It has been a roller-coaster ride ever since. The past three years have been spent with me trying to carve my own niche in the corporate world. I have worked feverishly, but I have also been the slacker. I have been the eagerly helpful employee; I have been the haughty worker at the other end of the line. I have been the over-achiever; I have been the mediocre wage-earner. I have fallen madly in love, and I have fallen out of love with my work.

In a moment of clarity, I realized how much IT has influenced my life.

Some would say that's a bad thing, how I let my career shape who I am. Sometimes, I believe them. Maybe it is true. Maybe I have concentrated too much on my career that I have allowed the other aspects of my life to flatten out. But I think of where I would be today if I had not taken IT -- and I cannot imagine being anywhere else.

In this past year alone, I have experienced so many things I never would have thought I could do in a single year. I have had the chance to travel and fall in love with cities that previously had only existed in my imagination. I have had to make big decisions on which opportunities I would take, and which opportunities I would let pass me by. I have had a chance to live independently in another country, and I have learned so much about myself and what I am capable of doing. I have crossed paths with people from places far and wide, and it has broadened my horizons so vastly that I cannot think of living life any other way.

I guess, somehow, that fate just had a roundabout way of making things happen. I always dreamed of this life, but I never expected I would get it this way -- in a rush, when I least expected it. But it's here. I'm here. And I don't think I would be as wondrous, and as grateful, as I am now if I had not gone through all the past twenty three years of my life in the manner that I did.

So what do I do next? What lies ahead?

I don't know. Like many other twenty-somethings undergoing their quarter-life crisis, I am lost as ever. But, for the first time in my life, that doesn't scare me. It only means that my life isn't over yet. There are more moments to experience, more challenges to tackle, more mountains to conquer. It's okay not to have the answer, because sometimes it's the question that matters.

I don't know where I'm going, but I know I will get there, one day at a time. And each day, I will face life with all the optimism I can muster, and say the words that a computer has taught me.

Hello, world.

scrub-a-dub-dub

in my next life i want to be a toronto zoo animal

they eat and sleep all day! (sounds like me on weekdays :P)

it lies in a coffee cup

The Way I See It
When I feel like I'm in a rut, I remember it's the little things in life that are important,

like riding a bike with a friend or eating ice cream with my baby niece.
-Michelle Kwan, as printed on a Starbucks coffee cup


There was a time in my life when I couldn't wait for things to end, or for something to put me out of my misery.

Now, I wish things would never end.

I walked down the street today, reveling in the spring air, and I realized, suddenly, that I was happy.

Happiness comes when you stop looking.

life's a beach

The rain had poured all weekend, leaving Toronto dreary and gray. I felt like spending the entire day snuggled in my bed, but Hoz was only in town for one weekend -- so, I dragged myself from the warm and dry comfort of home to venture out to the Beaches.

A fifteen-minute drive along Queen Street later, we catch a glimpse of Lake Ontario and pull up next to a small restaurant called Spiaggia Trattoria. The restaurant is nestled on a quiet corner of Queen Street East, next to summer homes sloping gently towards the beach.

The restaurant is cozy and warm, the menu impressive (I had the Veal Marsala - grilled Provimi veal, mushrooms, leeks, dried apples, sweet Marsala wine sauce with garlic butter capellini), and the service impeccable. The best part, however, is the sweet old lady who owns the restaurant. In the middle of dessert, she joined us for a little chit-chat and was so flattered we had come all the way from Markham (at least Hoz did) that she gave us a round of drinks and a potted plant to take home. How's that for personal touch? You never get that in the bigger restaurant chains nowadays.

And, in the tradition of How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days, I'd like you to meet our... erm.. love flower. (Iris is taking care of it for her future husband. :P)

So purrrty.

say hello to hoz!

Just when I thought I was back to being a loner again, along comes a new visitor from Manila! Hoz was holed up all the way in Markham, and was complaining of having alcohol withdrawal symptoms, so Iris and I decided to take him to Queen Street West... and get rid of Iris's repressions along the way. ;)

subway culture

Stumbled upon these buttons on spacing.ca:

I want the College, Osgoode, and Sheppard-Yonge ones...

and maybe the Kipling one, too. ;)

strangers again

I couldn't quite understand it.

As we walked back towards Union Station that last night, I was suddenly hit by an overwhelming sense of sadness. This was our last dinner out, our last stroll down Yonge Street, our last subway ride together. Our footsteps were heavy with the impending thought of goodbye. I walked slowly, like I could somehow make this moment go on forever if I did.

Three weeks have passed, and it's time for Cheng & GM to go back to the reality of Manila. It's strange how hard it is for me to see them leave, when I’ll see them back in Manila anyway.

But two months feels like an awfully long time. Seeing them leave meant it was back to 'normal' for Iris & me - back to being strangers in a strange land. Toronto suddenly seemed much colder, and lonelier than ever.

And while I still want to stay here and live this experience as fully as I can, a part of me is terrified that when the time comes for me to finally leave, it will be much more difficult, and much more painful to let go.

If I let this end, it may never happen again.

How do you say goodbye to something so wonderful?

i want yesterday to come back again
nothing is as simple as I once knew
-strangers again, ari hest

the chemical brothers

In the past three weeks, we've had the pleasure of having Cheng & GM to accompany us in our Toronto sojourn. There are so many things to write about, but so little time… so here is my attempt to capture all those memories into a capsule.

Thank you, Chemical Brothers, for making the past three weeks truly wonderful. Ang sarap niyong kasama! ;) See you in July!

before sunset

I listen absently to the constant hum of the train hurtling across the tracks as I watch the panoramas rushing past. The rocky shores of the St. Lawrence River turn into the deserted beaches of Lake Ontario. As the sun sets, the barren farmlands showing the first signs of spring slowly turn into city lights twinkling against the hazy blackness of the sky.

There is something about visiting a place for the first time that always lures you in, and somehow leaves you back ever so slightly different. It's Holy Week, and while this week has not been spent in churches and cathedrals or with the usual Lenten rituals, I am more convinced than ever.

There is a God.

montréal: lost in translation

The sun had not yet risen when we left for Montréal on board a ViaRail train. The island of Montréal sits just five hours from Toronto by train, but it could have been some other place on the other end of the world.

The moment I stepped foot on Montréal, I was enthralled.

I've always had a love affair with all things French. Perhaps it's in the lovely way the language curls on your tongue, or the exquisitely simple taste of French cuisine, or perhaps even the romance of a place called Paris.

I've always dreamed of Paris.

But this is enough. For now.

the kulot goes curling

Curling?!? What's that?

curling
n.
1. As dictionary.com defines it: A game originating in Scotland in which two four-person teams slide heavy oblate stones toward the center of a circle at either end of a length of ice
2. A sport I never knew existed until I came to Canada.
3. Or, as GM succinctly put it, a cross between bowling and a giant billiard table. LOL.

I had missed ice-skating and skiing season (I was too busy the first month! Bah!), so I was bugging Michael to take us somewhere we could get an authentic winter experience (otherwise known as bragging rights :P). So here we are curling at the Avonlea Curling Club:

daytrippin'

My favorite part of this trip was still Screamers, if only to hear Gautam's "Glenn, hold me!"... Sudhir
screaming and running when the truck started going after him... and of course, Ryann's screams over
the loudspeaker... and denying afterwards that it was him. Hahaha. Ryann, tama na deny! Sure kaming ikaw yun!

Special thanks to Gautam for being our tour guide!