Typhoon Caloy

Being the gamers that we were, we weren't even aware of the storm. All I knew was waking up from the relative comfort of the office sofa, I glanced at the big glass office windows to see a scene that could have been taken from a disaster movie. The wind was whipping trees about and the rainwater was lashing on the cement road. Closeted up there in cement and concrete we could just imagine the fury of the storm at 6am in the morning.

Geared up and ready to battle our way home, we hang out at the side of the building waiting for the bus. We laugh at the tragedy of others. The guy who was panting and pedalling hard while his bike remained almost motionless against the push of the wind. The other guy who lost his red slipper. How they laughed as he chased after it. Another guy who seemed to do ballet and pirhouettes to get anyplace in the face of such a strong wind. And all the time, it seemed the metal post would fall on these hapless individuals.

Finally, after some anxious hours, I am home. Safely ensconsed. But then Miel is borrowed to go to a party. I have never been one to force my will on Miel. I always let him decide. Thus, he left with his grandparents to go to a party I was sure he would enjoy.

It was just us 3 girls in our house. I sleep for a deliciously long time then I wake up to a power outage. There is no electricity and no telephone. Imagine this. A dark empty house with no way of communicating with the outside world. To make matters worse, our phones were dead. No ym. No cable. No telephone. No text. No light. No nothing. Egadz! I could hardly breathe.

I force myself to fall asleep again. There was nothing else to do. I realize then that I was a slave to electricity. The reason behind my puffy eyes and stressed out life is electricity. As long as there was electricity, a city was alive alive alive. I could play online for hours, surf for more hours after that, chat with friends through ym, text them through my celfone, watch my favorite Korean telenovelas for days on tv, go through animax and cartoon channels, etc etc.

But with nothing to do for lack of electricity, I had an unexpected day wherein I slept. Like I havent slept for a long time.

Mind and Body

I love my latest addiction. I am glad my addiction isn't e-parties where friends wanted me to go. Not even games. Okay, well, slightly. My latest addiction is gym. Highly unlikely for me but there it is. Life is a grab bag of surprises.

You have to understand about me. Never one to look into a mirror and study my reflection. Not even in a pool of rainwater. Never one to bring a hand mirror or a comb. Never one to stare at one's reflection in shop windows or tin cans. Thus I could relate so much to Dead who had not a single looking glass in his entire pad. His reason? He hated looking at his reflection.

Hence my focus on things abstract like philosophy and existantialism. A tall, gangly geek who stumbles on her own feet. Who would not look in the mirror.

But Body Balance AND gym has changed that for me. Slowly, I am getting comfortable in my body. Learning to move with it and find the edge of the pose as Rommel says.

Body Balance is a program in Fitness First. It is a combination of Taichi, Pilates, and Yoga. Each pose is beautiful. Painful to achieve and yet beautiful in the extreme. I admire the lines and the form of the poses. Below are pictures of my instructor R, and a fellow Body Balance convert E. Now SHE is good. I am just winging it but getting better at it with each class I attend. Plus F - the Body Balance guru - is a real slavedriver.

Here R stays for a good hour to encourage us and correct our poses.

R and I do the Swan Pose? Not sure about the name. Will have to check with R. I love the tension on the back, buttocks, and legs.

Next, the Dancer's Pose. Isn't it beautiful? I should be able to do this soon. With a bit of perseverance. R paid me the compliment of saying me and E should try out for the Body Balance instructorship. Very off the mark for me but this is E's goal and I know she can make it.

Now, out of the group class. This is my Personal Trainor, P. We were very formal in the beginning but now we are reduced to friendly squabbles when he lets me bitch. It was a very difficult transition for me to start exercising but Paul was very patient. He would ask me for 20 and I would give him one dirty finger. Haha. Out of seventeen students, I have the record of being Number One Pasaway. But not so much lately. I am trying too hard to get from one set to the next. Plus he's sick so I'm being a good girl. Most of the time. But yeah, definitely, I love this guy for helping me.

Before the pics divert the purpose of this entry, the essence of Body Balance is achieving a connection between mind and body. In the semi-darkness of the group class, we move to beautiful music like Sting's Taking the Inside Rail or Texas' Say That You Want Me. The music just lifts me up and transforms.

From Conjure One's Center of the Sun:

I hear violins

When I close my eyes I am at the center of the sun

And I cannot be hurt by anything this wicked world has done

Stumbling

Do past loves really end? Or do we just bury them in Forgetting? The memories heaped on with everyday mundane tasks and new relationships till they are no longer close to the surface. But then sometimes, we stumble upon a scent, a letter, a song.... a lingering reminder of cherry blossom days and somehow... you just have to sit still and go on a short journey of remembering.

Today I hear Sarah McLachlan's Push. We never listened to it. But Sarah will always be Sarah.

They were warm days like these days. The tatami was coarse and sandy on my back. Smoke in my lungs and curling up to the low ceiling. Listening to Sarah's guitar and heartbreaking voice. Listening together. Unnecessary. Words were sometimes.

Then the smoke catches in your throat and hurts. You give a cough and the memory breaks like glass. But not while the song is playing.

Flashes

They say before you die, your life flashes before you like a movie trailer on forward. Well, if my life were to flash before me, this is how the last two months would look like.

First off was the promotion. I got promoted to Manager to G**** Management. Only MY company would come up with such title. But there it is. My hard work and borderline stress problems finally culminated in a promotion. (Oh gads, I remember my trip to the ER fresh from the office wherein I was hyperventilating and blubbering over and over, "I'm not sick! I'm just stressed! Stressed, I tell you!" They had to sedate me to shut me up. T_T

Back to the promotion, my delight lasted for about 5 minutes. Because after the 5 minutes of congratulations from my boss S and HR Manager L, they followed it up with news of S's leaving. That floored me. The best boss I've had all these years, leaving. ^%$&%^&%$##!!! Good things never last.

Here is a picture of S and his 3 dashing supervisors. You can see how crazy he is. I was his particular stress reliever and no matter how much I complained about it before, now that he's gone, well, I miss him. I miss the catch ball games, the pretend "secretary" scenarios, the jokes, the insensitive references to SB, and even getting locked up in the boy's bathroom. There was even that unforgettable drinking session during K's birthday where I ended up crying on N's shoulder thanks to his pranks. But as a boss, he was a professional. Most of the time. ^^

Work is still fun even if we were minus one person. Work is camaraderie. Through payday and lean days. Through food trips and electric outages. Through supertyphoons and holidays at work. Here we are sharing what meager food we could come up with. There's a scramble but you can be sure everybody gets a share.

And K is still around of course. Still as eccentric as ever. What's he doing here? You can guess but I don't have ten years. The guy is playing WOW but the light from the window is blinding him. Hence the makeshift shelter from his brown sweater. Underneath that sweater is my favorite guy in all the universe.

Going home on the MRT with my friends is still the best way to end the day. I COULD get a car but hey, miss out on all our antics on the train? No way. Here they are with Tae and Biik at each other's throats as usual. The last time we rode the MRT, there was this guy with a bag 100% identical to mine. And we were shouting, DESTINY! DESTINY! Despite his i-pod protected ears, he was very red when he left the train. Probably thought we were a bunch of half-crazed loons which wouldn't be so far from the truth.

Here are a few firsts. My first coffee jelly. Cuz and I were going out but to make it a threesome (as was usual in the old days), we invited K along. K had a craving for the UCC coffee jelly. He was adamant that we taste it. So we did. It was jelly cubes with icecream on top. The coffee jelly cubes were really strong. I could feel the caffeine shooting up my veins and bloodstream. haha.

My first overnight on a yacht. Scott had a party and some of us ended up staying overnight because of work the following day. Well, technically, a few hours after since that was already in the wee hours of the morning. Didn't get much sleep though. I was sandwiched in between the bulkhead and a friendship. After a couple of visits in Scott's boat, it was really starting to feel like home.


My favorite part about the yacht was the bedroom on the second floor. Imagine a pristine (or maybe not so pristine) white bed that's native and quaint. And open windows all around that gives you the feeling of being embraced by the sea. The white curtains billow in the sea breeze. It is absolute heaven. Specially with somebody special beside you... sigh...

I want to stop right here.... Because it's such a beautiful memory. And there's nothing wrong in staying here for awhile is there?