The Sometimes Analogies

Sometimes, we see the big picture by looking at the small detail.
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Sometimes, we try to find what we need but end up finding not what we want. It’s like craving for coffee but preferring Starbucks – an iced grande mocha latte with caramel syrup to be specific-- when we can simply grab the available instant coffee in the pantry and solve our caffeine craving.
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Sometimes we see many opportunities yet we choose not to seize any. It’s like having a multiple choice test item with four options, the last being ‘none of the above’. We try to exhaust our brain thinking of the best answer, and then we realize that we need more time to decide. And when we hear the ‘last-five-minutes’ warning, we simply choose the most likely correct ‘none-of-the-above’ option, give it up and submit the paper. Other times, we take a chance, do a quick ‘mini-miny-mo’, encircle something and wait for the result.
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Sometimes we miss someone but we just won’t admit. It’s like someone offers you snack and you politely refuse by saying ‘i-just-had-snack’ when in fact you still haven’t. It is fear of not getting the same response from the person we miss or of putting ourselves in a very uncomfortable situation from the one who made the offer. We rather keep things to ourselves and without sugarcoating, it’s simply called p-r-i-d-e.
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Sometimes in sharing our stories, we try to cover our personal experiences by saying ‘we’ and by disguising the present with ‘sometimes’.
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Fish, Beer & Hotcake

My Friday night hangout was dinner with Sarita and Carol at Big Buddha Restaurant in Greenbelt 3. This was our first get together in a long time which we have planned and cancelled twice already-- first in December and second was the day before because Sarita wasn't feeling well. Finally, January 19, we made it happen. I preferred this Chinese restaurant from the variety of restaurants Sarita has lined up for us because trust me, I’ve been liking Chinese food lately that I have Chowking for lunch at least once a week. But I guess Chowking and Big Buddha would not be a fair comparison, since the earlier is a fast food while the latter is a restaurant. Big Buddha offers more upscale prices but better service while not compromising the quality of food. Try their Sweet and Sour Fish which is just perfect and only if my mom can cook fish the way they serve it in Big Buddha, I wouldn’t be eating any other kind of meat and mom would be totally happy. For now I have to settle with the happiness of sharing such a sumptuous dinner with two people I look up to so much.

The following night, I found myself intoxicated just a week after my last. The difference this time was I am not with my close college friends I normally share my jug sessions with. Only Rodel, who probably baptized me to the world of SanMig and Red Horse years ago and then two of his friends I am officially meeting for the first time yet I know are beer experts as well. But as much as I like to talk about everything that night like the topics discussed during the rounds of beer, I’d like to keep some things to myself and preserve the mutual respect for other’s privacy. All I can say is that it was one of the best drinking sessions I’ve been to-- engaging conversations, enlightening experiences, interesting people and deep realizations. Upon waking up the following morning, the best part of it perhaps is knowing that I didn’t do anything I would regret while I was drunk last night.

In continuation, I picked up my breakfast at McDonald’s Sunday morning after leaving Rodel’s pad. Two-piece hotcake with sausage and then freshly brewed coffee… yummy! how could you get wrong with that. I never had this kind of breakfast in years. The only problem I had was putting myself to sleep after having coffee and a heavy meal. I realized that I should have been taking some rest since I only had a few hours of sleep at Rodel’s room but when I think about the pan de sal-free, out-of-the-ususal breakfast I just had, yes, it’s all worth it.

My wishful thinking is that I was able to gain at least a pound or two from the food trip and alcohol intake I had in the past few days. If not, at least I was able to satisfy both my needs and wants. I'm cool with that!

The Decisions

After several weeks, I finally was able to post my first journal entry for this new year. This will be the first of what would be my frequent diary-style writing which unlike my previous blogs has a more personal, loose style of telling events and emotions. And guess where I am posting now? I decided to move my blogging from Friendster to Blogspot though I promise to make my blogs more entertaining yet remain very opinionated like what my past posts have been. I hope you like it.

END & BEGIN. The first two weeks of January have been very hectic and strenuous for me. Expecting the roll-off (end of engagement) from the ACCS project, I got to train our replacement for more than a week. Their ages are enough for them to be my mom and dad honestly. However, they are really nice people especially Sir Charlie and Ms. Kakai who even treated me lunch on my last Thursday and Friday, in the project. As of the time being, I am back at bench waiting for my next project assignment and I can only hope that the next one to be something better and to keep me longer (not that I was terminated or something but project engagements have predetermined roll-in and roll-off dates).

OLD & NEW. Finally had my hair color done at a local salon last January 7 (it probably is starting to fade by the time you’re reading this). It took about three grueling hours to get the treatment done and I have very little complaints since the result was good. My hair is now dark brown but when the light hits it, the color tends to look lighter (thank God not purple!). First time to have done this because normally since I started noticing gray highlights on my hair, I’ll buy a kit and let my mom do the trick for me. It’s like 50% cheaper done that way but trying salon-made hair color is better of course.

YES & NO. Just last week, I went to Ideal Vision to get a new pair of multi-coated eyeglasses which I long have planned to get with the confidence that the payment would be reimbursable in our company’s medical allowance. It took me a lot of time to decide which frame would suit me. 24 hours later I got my new eyeglasses, brought it home only to realize that maybe this is not what I wanted. I’d still prefer my single-coated glasses I’ve had since college when I am home and contacts when I go out.

COME & LEAVE. I went to Mark Jeff’s birthday bash in Tanza last January 13, joined by cousin Sheena and Jhing. At first I thought of not coming, but upon considering that I never been out of the house since the 2007 began, I gave it a try. Besides, it was just really nice of Mark Jeff to invite us despite that we don’t get to see and hang-out with him that often. Upon coming I got quite confused if it was Mark’s birthday I was in or his Dad’s because majority of the visitors are perhaps his father’s classmates in elementary. For a while, I also thought he invited us for New Year’s Eve party since there were quite a few distracting fireworks or maybe not, just leftovers from New Year’s celebration. Left the party early, it was an okay night. I got to eat prawns and satisfy my booze craving, I got to hang-out with my cousin Sheena and her new N70 phone, and we ride a scooter with Jess, who I haven’t seen in a long time.

ENTER & EXIT. On January 19, I was rushing to the rest room in Glorietta 4 for a quick mirror check before meeting my friend Sarita for dinner. A man turned his face away from the mirror after checking is look, and I suddenly recognized him and before I could say a word, he exited the rest room, leaving me in front of the mirror thinking to myself… OMG, it’s a small world indeed. I last saw this person stranded in September and I’m still not gonna give any name this time.

Sometimes decision-making is not in our hands and it leaves us with no choice but to just accept it and move on. But whenever we get a chance to decide for ourselves, in the end, we either find satisfaction or regret with the decision we made. We get another chance, and before we could decide to take that chance or not, it slipped away once more. Then, we realize that this is only the beginning of the many decisions we have to make this new year.