please try again

"Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience."
--Ralph Waldo Emerson

our company's biometric system seldom fails in not recognizing me. my officemates go through it with a green light matched with a 'thank you' while i usually get the red light matched with 'please try again.' it's always been just me since the start.

during our enrollment to the system, it took awhile before the biometric print collector could successfully add me. my work buddies didn't have a hard time. one try and they got in. i was altogether a different case. my right thumb failed. my left thumb failed. my index fingers failed. my middle fingers failed. my ring fingers failed. even my pinkies failed. although i was quite annoyed by all the hassle that i had to go through, my officemates and i found reasons to be amused about it. (read: guess, who's the alien?) only out of determination and patience and after several attempts did my right thumb and left thumb finally register. for good measure, my left index finger was enrolled as well.

every time i get the red blinking light, i mutter a 'not again,' take a look at my fingers, and wonder what's wrong. my fingers look like fingers should (and with distinct fingerprints) so why is the sensor being so discriminating? of course, that's what sensors are for but, i mean, why just me?

maybe it's one of the universe's little ways of helping me grow with patience. or maybe i'm really an alien.

could be both.

no, don't ask me from what planet i came from -- i'd still say earth.

meet calamansi

"It's a question of discipline," the little prince told me later on. "When you've finished washing and dressing each morning,
you must tend your planet."
--Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

for over four months now, i've been taking care of two plants. i saved them from the bouquet of flowers my housemate and i brought home from our company's inauguration. when the flowers started to wilt and were about to be thrown, i separated two leafy stalks from the flower basket and, then, assigned a recycled sola iced tea bottle filled with tap water to each. the sola iced tea bottles were the ones i saved from my yellow cab affairs. i don't even know the real name of the plants. all i know is that they look like chinese bamboo and i had faith they would survive in water. they did! in just a matter of days, each of them sprouted confusing networks of roots. they survived typhoon frank, too.

my housemate baptised them with names we could both relate to and laugh over. they have been thriving in water -- both plants have grown longer and had shown more leaves -- since i started looking after them back in june. they're living just in front of our terrace, a prime spot for getting their dose of sunlight. in more than two occasions, i planned of buying them clay pots and transferring them to good soil but i never got around to executing the plan. to compensate for that, i diligently change their water homes every week or two to save them from the competition posed by moss and lichens and to discourage mosquitos from laying eggs inside the bottles.

i thought the third plant that i would care for here in batangas would come from one of the two. i intended to cut the longer plant and, with that, add one more bottle in front of our terrace. however, before i could carry out that simple operation, calamansi came along.

last october 29, 2008 -- wednesday -- during a lunch-out with our boss, my housemate and i fell in love with the calamansi plant we saw being sold for 85 pesos just outside the resto. there were several of them waiting for new homes and new owners but we chose this one that stood out.


meet calamansi
what's nice about it? at its petite stature, it already has fruits -- five of them!

calamansi is my new baby. it sits on our terrace -- a welcoming ornament -- like a favoured plant should. soon, calamansi will have a large clay pot for a new home.

with all that said, i'd like to remind my friends of the gifts of cacti i've been waiting for since november-december of 2007. hmmm... ;-)



p.s. october 29, 2008 was the day before i was to celebrate my year 1 with the company i am currently affiliated with and calamansi is actually my anniversary gift to myself. c",)

pabaon | my 8-year old end-of-october mover is over

"I've always been in love with you (always with you)
I guess you've always known it's true (you know it's true)
You took my love for granted, why oh why
The show is over, say goodbye"
-- from Madonna's Take a Bow

with renewing of the mind comes letting go of unnecessary drag from the past. i am standing on more stable ground now and able to count on that certain brand of confidence i thought i didn't have.

for a time, i stopped writing about that sad feeling that's been nagging me like unwanted shadow since the latter part of 2005. i tried to bury it deep in the archives of my mind, celebrating the happiness that preceded it and the happiness i get from everything else in my life -- because i am capable. the situation, i soon was able to forgive. what i found difficult was forgiving myself.

i had to learn pushing my EQ to the level of my IQ. i invested on that and began to see with brand-new appreciation the fruits of my efforts. see, i was never really able to forgive myself -- only now (and by conscious decision, like forgiving should be!)

i am now a willing student of change. i shall not look into my old notes and old notebooks anymore. it's pruning (and may i add purging?) time.

with me, a clean slate, a full heart -- "whatever way our stories end".

read the lyrics of this song -- For Good -- for a happy goodbye.

I've heard it said
That people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn
And we are led
To those who help us most to grow
If we let them
And we help them in return
Well, I don't know if I believe that's true
But I know I'm who I am today
Because I knew you...

Like a comet pulled from orbit
As it passes a sun
Like a stream that meets a boulder
Halfway through the wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you
I have been changed for good

It well may be
That we will never meet again
In this lifetime
So let me say before we part
So much of me
Is made of what I learned from you
You'll be with me
Like a handprint on my heart
And now whatever way our stories end
I know you have re-written mine

By being my friend...

Like a ship blown from its mooring
By a wind off the sea
Like a seed dropped by a skybird
In a distant wood
Who can say if I've been changed for the better?
But because I knew you

Because I knew you

I have been changed for good

And just to clear the air
I ask forgiveness
For the things I've done you blame me for

But then, I guess we know
There's blame to share

And none of it seems to matter anymore

Like a comet pulled from orbit
As it passes a sun
Like a stream that meets a boulder
Halfway through the wood

Like a ship blown from its mooring
By a wind off the sea
Like a seed dropped by a bird in the wood

Who can say if I've been
Changed for the better?
I do believe I have been
Changed for the better

And because I knew you...

Because I knew you...

Because I knew you...
I have been changed for good.

i got the lyrics from one of the emails that i saw in my gmail inbox today (timely!)

metamorphosis is

"And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect."
-- Romans 12:2 of the Holy Bible

thoughts dictate emotions,
emotions affect decisions,
decisions translate into actions,
actions form habits,
habits talk about attitude and character,
attitude and character make reality,
reality leads to destiny.

with revealed knowledge, we know the end from the beginning.

to change destiny, change reality
to change reality, change attitude and character
to change attitude and character, change habits
to change habits, change actions
to change actions, change decisions
to change decisions, change emotions
to change emotions, change thoughts.

real metamorphosis happens when one changes the way one thinks -- renewing the mind. this is my greatest realization today.

i am grateful for the revelation.

my father's song

see who's the guardian of the mic

this weekend being a videoke weekend with my pals from work made me reminisce about the family videoke sessions in iligan and recall tonight the song that my father always gets to sing. i like the lyrics a lot... the song speaks of love that is always supportive, always sustaining, always reliable. in two words: ever there.

My Love Will See You Through
Marco Sison

When times get rough
And your dreams just fall apart
And sometimes you feel
That you can't go on
Be strong, hold on
For my love will keep you warm
Through the coldest night
Through the rain, through the storm

When friends turn their backs on you
And you're so helpless
You don't know what to do
I'll be on your side to comfort you
My love will see you through

When tears are in your eyes
And you feel like you wanna cry
Just reach out and I'll be around to understand
When you stumble and fall
And you need a shoulder to lean on
All you have to do is call
And I'll be there with a helping hand

When the road seems so long and endless
And all you see is nothing but darkness
Don't give up just walk on
Have faith in your heart
For my love will see you through

My love will see you through
When you reach for your star
When you cross the deepest sea
When you climb the highest hill
My love will always be with you
In everything you do
In every step you'll make
In every road you take

Don't be afraid to follow your dreams....
For my love will see you through

my september 2008

"She glances at the photo, and the pilot light
of memory flickers in her eyes."
--Frank Deford

the highlights of my september? bangs and south korea. did i write bangs? did i write south korea? yup, yup.


see?
as for korea...

i was given clearance to fly all over south korea during the fourth week of september 2008. it was quite tiring. 6 flights in 6 days. preparing for the trip was challenging because work kept on piling up to my neck and over my head even when i was finally about to go and attend to the company-mandated business trip. i wasn't quite ready even when the itinerary and expenses were already taken care of.

even if it was work, i enjoyed the trip and had fun. why could i not? our hosts toured us around. plus, my passport finally got devirginized. haha.

i'll probably blog about my experiences in south korea in a separate post. i took very few pictures (870+ only). you may view some of them (10+ albums only ;-P) in my photo pages in multiply (jr's gallery). perhaps, they can tell you the story.


inside the gyeongbok palace grounds in jongnogu, seoul, south korea
i should be saying help me i'm drowning. so much is going on... but why should i complain? i'm still having fun and opportunities continue to come my way.

i say, bring 'em on!

cooking 101: adobong manok

"Put your heart, mind, intellect and soul even to your smallest acts. This is the secret of success."
--Swami Sivananda

i already talked about doing the laundry in a previous article. now, i'm going to talk about cooking.

my friend, yoni, must be right. i am getting domesticated (and yeah we're growing old. no, i mean, we're growing up.) if before i couldn't be made to deal with mere rice cooking, now i have the will to cook whatever my mind fancies.

i remember that one of my reasons for trying to live far away from the comforts of my own home and family was so i could push myself to take care of my own affairs especially when it comes to doing the laundry, keeping my own place neat and organized, and cooking, among other things. to put that simply: so i could push myself to do household chores. at home, i found it rather difficult to do chores because if i did try to lift a finger and did something as simple as slicing potatoes or hold a broom, people in the house would start thinking something was definitely wrong with me and they'd tease me about it. the dear heavens know i dislike being teased about such things.

when i first moved away from home and stayed in diliman, my doing the laundry was limited to washing my own underwear and socks (as we were not allowed to do the rest of our laundry in the dorm and laundromats took care of my soiled clothes). i kept my side of the dorm room relatively neat and relatively organized (take note of that word -- relatively). i did not cook -- i just didn't have the will but i surely had the thought.

with my stay here in batangas, i re-wrote my own story -- at least, where household chores are concerned. not only did i have the patience and will to deal with my laundry on my own, i also earned the will to try honing my cooking skills (long-been-dormant cooking skills, i'd like to insist. after all, i belong to a lineage of good, if not great, cooks! hehe.)

just recently (read: more than a week ago), i tried my luck with adobong manok. one early morning, i went to the market. i had just alighted from the company bus then and i had just finished a night shift's worth of workload. i didn't know what got into me but i walked my way to the market and bought half a kilo of dressed chicken, had that said half sliced and took it home.

i remember being sleepy and i should have hit the bed right away but...

i had a half a kilo of chicken to deal with. after putting away my bag, i went to the kitchen, washed my hands, and did what i had to do. i had once observed my officemate when she came to visit and cooked adobong manok for us. i somehow had the confidence that i'd be able to cook adobong manok based on that one instance of observation -- with no written guide whatsoever to pull me through. i thought: "i'm gifted with good memory and, should that fail me, i could always go by with my instincts."

i got me some garlic, onion, salt, soy sauce, paminta, and vinegar. i simply mixed all of them ingredients in a clean used-to-be ice cream container. for good measure, i mixed them with my own hands. i then turned on the rice cooker (we don't have a stove in this house and we won't buy one anymore), put some cooking oil inside the cooking bowl, and when all that was ready, i transferred all the pre-mixed ingredients and waited for my adobo to be ready for eating.

either i must really be bad at waiting or i must have been really tired from work or both. i fell asleep! when i woke up, the contents of the cooker was close to drying up. good thing, i woke up just in time (to the tempting smell of adobo and before the chicken and the rest of the stuff got burned, you know) and was able to save the day. whew, that was close. i simply added some water, vinegar, and soy sauce and waited some more until i felt certain all was well with my first ever adobong manok.

it smelled like adobong manok, looked like adobong manok, and tasted like adobong manok. i say, it was really an adobong manok which i was able to cook on my own.

that was more than a week ago. tonight, i made adobo out of canned tuna. next time, i'll try cooking pork adobo. when i cook, it's usually a hit or miss. i tried cooking tinolang manok not too long ago and it ended up being a nilagang manok, pft. hopefully, when i try pork adobo, it'll be a hit.