With the elections out of the way, can we now talk about mundane things, like love and pasts and the fantastic way things manage to resolve themselves with time?
We can? Okay.
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It's a well-known fact that my ex-girlfriend and I are now on civil, speaking terms, though I still haven't seen her since 2007, and that's just fine. And wow, the fact that I feel like I can call her solidly the ex-girlfriend, that I can now say that without fear of reprisal or reprimand -- it's fantastic. I wonder if people wonder about that girl I can't stop writing about c.2003-2006, and well, here's the situation update for you since I've stopped talking about her entirely for the better part of the past four years.
The other night, we were texting briefly about something work-related which turned into a briefer exchange of pleasantries; she asked how Andrea and I were doing, I said we were doing fine (32 months on the 22nd, I said), and I asked back if it were true that she and her boyfriend (edit: whom I had just friended on Facebook somewhere, LOL) were getting married, and she said I was the fifth person in the span of a week to have asked.
I said, you don't post photos like those on Facebook and not court questions about engagement at the very least. She said, Ah you saw? I did the photoshop on that. And I said, Well, a photoshop expert now, aren't we? For a brief moment I was tempted to go the way of Remember that time I used to try to teach you how to work the thing -- but I didn't, because I didn't feel it was called for.
She said she looked at photos of Andrea and I (presumably on Facebook); she said we looked so happy, so good together. She said she's glad I'm happy now, and I said, I'm happy you are, too.
And then she asked, Hey if the rumor of you and I together in college would spread among our batchmates, would it be okay? Because I'm okay with that already. We happened, there's nothing wrong with that, yeah?
I said, not unkindly, I remember between the two of us, you were the one uncomfortable with people knowing. I said I was okay with that, and that I've long made my peace with that part of our lives, and that I was happy she was at peace with it as well.
She said sorry she was so unfair. I said, it's all right, let's just keep the good things in our heads, and do away with the bad ones. I said, It was a different life, no?
A different life. Funny how five years ago, fresh out of college and at the edge of the real world, it was entirely unimaginable, having this conversation, much less going without this person for years. I remember feeling horribly flayed just having to look at their photos together, I remember having to remove her from social networks (at the time, it was Friendster) just to do away with the pictures. I wrote a lot of angry things, I regret some of them actually, and I marked a certain day on the calendar with a sort of grief reserved for mourning could-have-beens.
And then.
And then I fell in love again. CAN YOU BELIEVE IT! What were the chances I'd amble into a new life that would eventually open me up to entirely new things, experiences and opportunities, right? Back in college, a young girl like me -- like me, who liked other girls and not boys -- I was alone and without a community. I didn't know there were other girls who liked other girls -- well, I mean, of course I ~knew, but I didn't know where they were, or if they'd like me at all. This was why I was horribly attached to her - I had erroneously thought she was the last girl, the only girl who would ~see me, and like what she saw. If I am ever going to be glad about anything I was wrong about after all, it would be that.
If I were to pinpoint the exact moment I felt my heart starting up again in a way I thought it would never feel again -- when was it exactly? Perhaps that night in Timog then, in April? I mean, you all know how this part of the story goes, right? I knew Andrea was into girls, I knew she had a girlfriend for a time, and I think that time I saw her dancing to reggae in some street party she had one, too, though it was a different girl.
And then, while I wasn't looking, I found myself in love. Silly organ called the heart. That time we were doing the midterm elections, though relatively the work stress was a bit less by virtue of being younger and still having mid-level management above you. Heh. We had massive losses/resignations, I was out all the time drinking and smoking, then Andrea and I started going out in group dates, and then in book store dates with just the two of us, and then we were texting at regular intervals, and then she was all I ever wrote about.
And then I moved out of the flat I shared with my sister in Quezon City and into a flat of my own in Makati, and then bam, I found myself in a relationship. And then Andrea moved in and three years and one election more later, here we still are, waking up next to each other every single day, and how does this happen, really? How does one go from making all those horrible, misguided decisions to having this life where I don't smoke anymore, or drink so much?
How does one get so lucky?
Well. I don't know. What I do know is that from feeling absolutely shit - you know, times when there are, say, days that you find yourself alone sitting on the floor of your apartment, drinking lukewarm Red Horse out of a bottle while smoking and it's only 4 p.m.? - Life has a way of looking up again. Well, it doesn't happen exactly in the span of a few days, or a few weeks; sometimes it takes more than a couple of months, but the fact is, life takes care of itself as long as we don't do anything to fuck it up while it's on its way to recovery. It's a fun fact, that.
Meanwhile, while waiting I was listening to sad music and writing sad things with empty rooms and ghosts, and watching sad movies and getting drunk all the time and wearing my lung lining thin with nicotine and going home late so I'd be so weary by the time I hit the bed I won't have time to think about how alone I felt. It was a crazy life, and fun as it was, I don't think I could afford that lifestyle again. Hehe.
And then you're all right again. How does that happen, right? For a moment you're just living one day after the other, and then somewhere along the way you find something to look forward to. It just happens, it's insane, and when you pause to look back, you're now standing five years away from something you thought you'd never live through.
How does that happen, right? :) Well, I'm done analyzing the Universe's ways, so yeah, you win this round Universe. Fair and square.
5.13.2010
5.11.2010
election post-mortem
In October last year, I applied to transfer my voting records from Las Pinas to Makati. The last time I voted was in the 2004 presidential elections, and having missed the next two elections in 2007 I was deactivated. The registration attempt took some seven hours.
Yesterday, I was one of the millions of Filipinos who trooped to their polling precincts to cast a vote in the historic national elections - historic in a sense that this is the first nationwide automated balloting involving the use of PCOS machines and shaded ballots.
I cast my vote on the fourth floor of Maximo Estrella Elementary School. I arrived there around 7:30 in the morning and oh my God the crowd was insane. It took me 30 minutes just to get to the stairs because of the people. This was how the corridor outside our clustered precinct looked like:
Absolutely no order here, sad to say. For my clustered precinct (No. 221, if anyone likes to know) people vote in room 403, but there's an adjacent room that serves as a "waiting room". Well, photo above is the non-queue into the waiting room, where people are served numbers. Then people are allowed to trickle into the voting room in groups of ten according to these numbers.
I stood outside the waiting room, unnumbered and sweaty, for THREE HOURS. It was an all-too narrow corridor obviously intended for smaller people a.k.a. elementary students. The lack of organization was insane, and I had to play it by ear and after a bit all of us in line were already sort of friends who were trying to (very loudly) shame people who were cutting into the line. It's like MRT Taft or North Ave minus the jangling coins in my pocket. Haha.
After a surge of discontent (LOL it really was) there was a commotion and all of a sudden I found myself being pushed into the room by a sea of swelling angry people. GREAT.
And then I had a number. VOILA! I was number 45. They were serving numbers 121-130 the last I heard. I never really got to verify up to what number the first round was, but I have a fair guess it went only up to 150 or 200 since it took only about a couple of hours or so before I actually got to vote.Here's a glimpse of the waiting room:
Having spent most of my life falling in line - for college subjects (Hi UP CRS, I remember you - no love lost haha), for the UP Fair, for license renewal, for NBI clearance, for registration transfer, at the supermarket, at the bank, etc etc., I am actually by now a lot more pleasant to queue with, regardless of whether I'm hungry or full. I remember being younger and impatient, and judging by how yesterday I managed to keep my humor despite the heat and the sweat and the fact that I was ALONE in a room full of people I didn't know, well it does look like I've somehow managed to grow up to be a rather patient woman. Hurray for me. (Thanks Dad, these genes are perhaps yours.)
So in effect I was in line from 7:30 in the morning, and I was able to finish voting at around 12:30. I was running on a mug of Nesvita (still off coffee, I'm afraid) and bits of graham crackers. I did a little dance on the inside when the PCOS machine did not reject my ballot on first try. Congratulations, indeed. (Incidentally, Aquino won in my precinct, and I just found out I was one of more than 500 people who voted there yesterday. FIVE HUNDRED PEOPLE. Kaya naman pala.)
Afterwards I went to the office because I wanted to watch ANC and monitor the Internet. Hehe. I ended up spending 12 more hours there, waiting for the Comelec results, the earlier of which they posted at 9 p.m. We waited for the midnight update, sent it to the editors and then went home. (Thanks, Lawrence for staying on as well :))
Last I heard, Comelec tally as of 7:47 a.m has Aquino ahead with 12.3 million votes and Estrada next with 7.8 million. Villar has 4.4 million while Teodoro has roughly 3.3 million.
They are going at lightning speed -- I remember it used to take days to cover as much precincts and they're now saying we'd have a new president by noon. Wow. I remember how in 2007 the ates stayed up late in the office for days waiting for Namfrel's midnight fax. Last night, we stayed late to wait for Comelec's midnight press con on ANC and Twitter updates from everywhere. Funny and amazing how the advancement of technology changes how things work.
I feel hopeful that things are about to be different - not because Aquino is winning, but because of the sheer dedication of the people who wanted to vote, people who actually cared. I was in line with a woman who was so vocal about telling off people who were cutting into line and was complaining out loud about the lack of organization (it really was a managerial mess, I know for a fact Filipinos are good followers and would gladly follow a system, had it been clearly in place at the very start) and at some point, she relayed to us later on, at some point some people from inside the polling place told her she can go ahead and cast her vote right away if that would shut her up. The woman declined the offer, saying she just wanted the line to be followed and that the point wasn't that she wanted to go first. She strikes me as a funny sort, the sort of kapitbahay you'd love to spend afternoons gossiping with about Agua Bendita (haha requisite mention), but right then she had my respect.
Meanwhile, the woman behind me also got offered a number by a senior citizen who did not need the number after all. She also declined the offer, saying it was unfair to the rest of the folks who were still in line waiting for their number as well. See, we're so used to people being assholes that we forget we are still in the midst of people who just want to do the right thing. I was this close to just bolting the line for fear of passing out because of the heat but being with such determined people tided me over five grueling hours of wait.
And that makes me hopeful. Never mind that a convicted plunderer and ousted former president is at number two, by virtue of some 7 million people who think he is fit enough to be put back in office. What matters is if Comelec estimates are right, 3 out of every 4 registered voters cast their votes yesterday. And that is something, isn't it?
Yesterday, I was one of the millions of Filipinos who trooped to their polling precincts to cast a vote in the historic national elections - historic in a sense that this is the first nationwide automated balloting involving the use of PCOS machines and shaded ballots.
I cast my vote on the fourth floor of Maximo Estrella Elementary School. I arrived there around 7:30 in the morning and oh my God the crowd was insane. It took me 30 minutes just to get to the stairs because of the people. This was how the corridor outside our clustered precinct looked like:
I stood outside the waiting room, unnumbered and sweaty, for THREE HOURS. It was an all-too narrow corridor obviously intended for smaller people a.k.a. elementary students. The lack of organization was insane, and I had to play it by ear and after a bit all of us in line were already sort of friends who were trying to (very loudly) shame people who were cutting into the line. It's like MRT Taft or North Ave minus the jangling coins in my pocket. Haha.
After a surge of discontent (LOL it really was) there was a commotion and all of a sudden I found myself being pushed into the room by a sea of swelling angry people. GREAT.
And then I had a number. VOILA! I was number 45. They were serving numbers 121-130 the last I heard. I never really got to verify up to what number the first round was, but I have a fair guess it went only up to 150 or 200 since it took only about a couple of hours or so before I actually got to vote.Here's a glimpse of the waiting room:
So in effect I was in line from 7:30 in the morning, and I was able to finish voting at around 12:30. I was running on a mug of Nesvita (still off coffee, I'm afraid) and bits of graham crackers. I did a little dance on the inside when the PCOS machine did not reject my ballot on first try. Congratulations, indeed. (Incidentally, Aquino won in my precinct, and I just found out I was one of more than 500 people who voted there yesterday. FIVE HUNDRED PEOPLE. Kaya naman pala.)
Afterwards I went to the office because I wanted to watch ANC and monitor the Internet. Hehe. I ended up spending 12 more hours there, waiting for the Comelec results, the earlier of which they posted at 9 p.m. We waited for the midnight update, sent it to the editors and then went home. (Thanks, Lawrence for staying on as well :))
Last I heard, Comelec tally as of 7:47 a.m has Aquino ahead with 12.3 million votes and Estrada next with 7.8 million. Villar has 4.4 million while Teodoro has roughly 3.3 million.
They are going at lightning speed -- I remember it used to take days to cover as much precincts and they're now saying we'd have a new president by noon. Wow. I remember how in 2007 the ates stayed up late in the office for days waiting for Namfrel's midnight fax. Last night, we stayed late to wait for Comelec's midnight press con on ANC and Twitter updates from everywhere. Funny and amazing how the advancement of technology changes how things work.
I feel hopeful that things are about to be different - not because Aquino is winning, but because of the sheer dedication of the people who wanted to vote, people who actually cared. I was in line with a woman who was so vocal about telling off people who were cutting into line and was complaining out loud about the lack of organization (it really was a managerial mess, I know for a fact Filipinos are good followers and would gladly follow a system, had it been clearly in place at the very start) and at some point, she relayed to us later on, at some point some people from inside the polling place told her she can go ahead and cast her vote right away if that would shut her up. The woman declined the offer, saying she just wanted the line to be followed and that the point wasn't that she wanted to go first. She strikes me as a funny sort, the sort of kapitbahay you'd love to spend afternoons gossiping with about Agua Bendita (haha requisite mention), but right then she had my respect.
Meanwhile, the woman behind me also got offered a number by a senior citizen who did not need the number after all. She also declined the offer, saying it was unfair to the rest of the folks who were still in line waiting for their number as well. See, we're so used to people being assholes that we forget we are still in the midst of people who just want to do the right thing. I was this close to just bolting the line for fear of passing out because of the heat but being with such determined people tided me over five grueling hours of wait.
And that makes me hopeful. Never mind that a convicted plunderer and ousted former president is at number two, by virtue of some 7 million people who think he is fit enough to be put back in office. What matters is if Comelec estimates are right, 3 out of every 4 registered voters cast their votes yesterday. And that is something, isn't it?
5.06.2010
inquirer presidential features
On Friday, the Inquirer started running front-page profiles/features on the presidential candidates. Link dump for your reference (alphabetically arranged):
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EDIT: LOL we should've made a bet on who'd go last. We totally called that JC de los Reyes would be the finale. Haha.
- Noynoy Aquino - What’s important is I see problem and solve it (May 7, 2010)
- JC de los Reyes - What we cannot do, God will do for us, there’s spiritual inspiration in us (May 8, 2010)
- Richard Gordon - Step up to the plate, swing that bat (April 30, 2010)
- Joseph Estrada - I want to finish my plans for the poor (May 4, 2010)
- Jamby Madrigal - In serving people, work becomes joy (May 3, 2010)
- Nicanor Perlas - New governance goes beyond gov't (May 5, 2010)
- Gilbert Teodoro - RP deserves to be among world's vibrant economies (May 2, 2010)
- Bro. Eddie Villanueva - Revolution for righteousness leadership (May 1, 2010)
- Manuel Villar - It's not impossible to end poverty (May 6, 2010)
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EDIT: LOL we should've made a bet on who'd go last. We totally called that JC de los Reyes would be the finale. Haha.
5.05.2010
meanwhile, a life roundup
Andrea got back in the country on Saturday, right in the middle of my hyperacidity bout -- which was a kind of nice surprise, since there was no way I would have been in our flat on a Saturday if not for this illness, so YAY. (She says maybe the hyperacidity thing was the Universe's way of telling me I needed to have more oatmeal in my life; I said I would have understood a postcard. Hehe.)
Oh hey, she got me a Panda Hat!
LOL that photo will never get old.
ANYWAY. Andrea has her mega-China update over at her LJ involving pandas, tiananmen square and the forbidden city, the Great Wall of China, terracotta warriors, Guilin, and Shanghai. WHEW. That was such a week.
Anyway again, illness update: been on Omeprazole for roughly a week; stomach's all better now, though I am keeping off soda, alcohol, greasy food and caffeine FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE I SWEAR. Also: Man, Maalox Plus is one tasty chewable tablet. I mean, tastier than bubblegummy Kremil-S. (LOL addict - drug of choice, Maalox Plus. LAME.)
Also, I've managed to finish a few books I've been meaning to finish while Andrea was away, to wit:
(Under cut: Books. WOW.)
Oh hey, she got me a Panda Hat!
LOL that photo will never get old.
ANYWAY. Andrea has her mega-China update over at her LJ involving pandas, tiananmen square and the forbidden city, the Great Wall of China, terracotta warriors, Guilin, and Shanghai. WHEW. That was such a week.
Anyway again, illness update: been on Omeprazole for roughly a week; stomach's all better now, though I am keeping off soda, alcohol, greasy food and caffeine FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE I SWEAR. Also: Man, Maalox Plus is one tasty chewable tablet. I mean, tastier than bubblegummy Kremil-S. (LOL addict - drug of choice, Maalox Plus. LAME.)
Also, I've managed to finish a few books I've been meaning to finish while Andrea was away, to wit:
(Under cut: Books. WOW.)
and now, for your midweek news roundup
Iglesia ni Cristo has officially endorsed Noynoy Aquino and Mar Roxas for President and Vice President. Remember: In 1998, they said Erap-Gloria; in 2004, they said Gloria-Noli. (Reminder to self: For the heck of it just go through May 1992 related reports later.)
I can just imagine being a Villar supporter right now. It must feel like it's already the 4th Quarter with only five more minutes to go and your team's always been so close but the other team's always pulling away at some point, and just now, just now someone from the other team got a steal, hit a three-pointer with it and made the free throw after that because there was a frustrated foul from beyond the rainbow arc, completing a fantastic four-point play and now the crowd is going wild and your corner of the stadium is quiet, save for murmurs of last minute prayers.
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On another development entirely: voting machines have failed tests because their compact flash cards contained wrong instructions. SERIOUSLY? SIX DAYS TO GO AND YOU'RE TELLING US THIS? And now they're recalling ALL 76,000 OF THEM -- apparently, in some areas, votes for Noynoy Aquino and Manny Villar came out counted in favor of administration candidate Gilbert Teodoro, as reported to Comelec by Nacionalista Party.
This sucks thoroughly because if there's a surefire way to sabotage Teodoro's campaign entirely, this would be it. I mean, the guy's not even participating in mudslinging and yet this "eleventh-hour glitch" has already damaged his would-be mandate's credibility, if ever he is elected president by what they tout as the "silent thinking majority" -- and I've been seeing a lot of good friends rooting for Teodoro, mind. And it's a crowd that includes my dad.
So yeah, that said: FIVE DAYS TO GO. May election nga ba o wala?
I can just imagine being a Villar supporter right now. It must feel like it's already the 4th Quarter with only five more minutes to go and your team's always been so close but the other team's always pulling away at some point, and just now, just now someone from the other team got a steal, hit a three-pointer with it and made the free throw after that because there was a frustrated foul from beyond the rainbow arc, completing a fantastic four-point play and now the crowd is going wild and your corner of the stadium is quiet, save for murmurs of last minute prayers.
*
On another development entirely: voting machines have failed tests because their compact flash cards contained wrong instructions. SERIOUSLY? SIX DAYS TO GO AND YOU'RE TELLING US THIS? And now they're recalling ALL 76,000 OF THEM -- apparently, in some areas, votes for Noynoy Aquino and Manny Villar came out counted in favor of administration candidate Gilbert Teodoro, as reported to Comelec by Nacionalista Party.
This sucks thoroughly because if there's a surefire way to sabotage Teodoro's campaign entirely, this would be it. I mean, the guy's not even participating in mudslinging and yet this "eleventh-hour glitch" has already damaged his would-be mandate's credibility, if ever he is elected president by what they tout as the "silent thinking majority" -- and I've been seeing a lot of good friends rooting for Teodoro, mind. And it's a crowd that includes my dad.
So yeah, that said: FIVE DAYS TO GO. May election nga ba o wala?
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