Weekly Ketchup 49 - This Week In My Social Life

Wow, I've been busy.

A couple of days ago, I attended another wedding of  another college friend. Nicolai, actually, is someone I had known much earlier, having gone to the same high school our senior year. We were enrolled in the same home study program and would often see each other in campus from time to time, so it was a bit surprising that we'd end up going to the same school, taking the same course, and being assigned the same class in college. Other than that, we have pretty much nothing else in common and there's very little that we can talk about. The one strongest memory I had of her during college was that time I made her cry after I non-chalantly hurled an expletive at her direction during a class recitation.

I did get to know her a bit more after college, though. I found out that this girl has got spunk and an appetite that can best me. She's also got a strong talent for business and sales that I actually wish I had. And underneath that pretty face is a tough, take-charge personality, someone with street smart and who knows how to navigate her way through life.

I didn't really get to know her now-husband Tristan as well as  I maybe should have, so it still came as a surprise to me that I was even invited at all. I'd like to thank them both for including me on their special day and for bringing the college friends together. It's an amazing experience to end the year with these guys for such a lovely occasion considering we pretty much started it bidding farewell to one of our own.

Fortunately, I made it just in time for the ceremony - unlike last week. I got to shoot some videos, including the bride's walk, which I just finished compiling a few hours ago and is currently uploading.

As for the reception, there are three things that will stand out for me:

First, I got to sing "Don't Stop Believing" with another college friend, Lora, who's actually a professional theater actress in the States. That was an amazing experience!

Second, I got to dance and drink practically non-stop. I woke up the next day without body pains or a hangover. Yeah, I felt like 17 again! It was awesome!

Third, another college friend (name withheld deliberately, though it should be obvious among our common friends), in an inebriated state of mind, told me something that got me thinking. Apparently, I am one of three members of our college group who's got a calming presence and that this friend somehow finds zen and serenity (my words) whenever any of us are around.

I had no idea I can possibly have this effect on anyone. I certainly have never internalized it but I'm glad I can be this to someone else. I mean, I have always striven to give off this air of positivity about me - that much I'm self-aware of - but to be able to affect someone else in such a strong manner? That's news to me and it's a wonderful feeling!

Karen Ang's costume-bowling birthday party last Wednesday.
Guess who I am.
Also: I can still bowl (a bit) apparently.

In other news:

A few days ago, I tried to get a salary loan from SSS through their online portal only to find out the HR of our company, despite being registered, hasn't logged into our employer's account for a while and had forgotten our account details. Hence, all salary loans from the company are coursed the old-fashioned way: Through forms and endless lines at the nearby SSS office. And so my application is stalled.

What bothered me most about the whole exchange was the HR and my fellow employees' attitude about the whole thing and other things that relate to online transactions or technology. I'm living in 2014 and these people are stuck in the 90s. I decided then that it's seriously time for a change. I mean, I was gonna quit anyway when I decided to leave the country but now that I'm coming back, I realized I can't go back to the same company. I can't be dragged down by dead weights who refuse to roll with the rest of the tide. I seriously wanna be around people who are at least more cosmopolitan.

Game night with the Boni peeps last night.
I couldn't stay long, though, cause I had chores to do.

In totally random news:

I've also been feeling a little tired and bloated the entire day. It's been one whole week of eating, thanks to a birthday party, a wedding, and, just last night, a little get-together with some geek friends. And this is just the beginning. I hope this doesn't cause me any problems.

And just a little update about this story, our house help has once again left, which means more work for me to do here in the house, which is why this blog is kinda late. I had to get some chores done in addition to not feeling all that well and editing last my video from last Friday.

Anyway, I'll just leave at that. I'm really sleepy.

Weekly Ketchup 48 - The Day I Cried At A Wedding

No, it's not what you think.

First of all, there are three things you need to understand.

a) Marriage, for me, is a legal contract and a human construct. I'm highly suspect of the religious aspect of the whole exercise and I'm sure people are quite capable of staying committed to each other forever without getting society's expectations involved.

Yes, the lovely sentiments behind weddings is lost on me. But I do enjoy the pomp and pageantry of it all. And there's a certain pathos about seeing my friends happy. I may not be much of a believer (maybe being born a bastard out of wedlock had most to do with); however, seeing my friends light up and happy on the biggest day of their life just does it for me.

Call it empathy. But it's there. It's also the same as being happy for other fandoms, which happens to me a lot.

Me being me, I also enjoy the fact that some people regard me highly enough to invite me to their special day.

My collection of invitations by geek friend Jovan.

b) The second thing I need to share is that, while I don't do it professionally (and I certainly don't deserve to), I shoot videos and photos of my friends' weddings. I've been doing it since I got my first camcorder a few years ago and I'm proud of the work I've done, rank amateur that I am.

Yes, I'm aware that couples hire official videographers and photographers to document their special event, which is why I stay way from their range of vision - so I don't mess up their shots. Yeah, I'm respectful like that.

As late as last year, all of my "wedding coverages" have been shot in standard definition, so I was really looking forward to shooting my college friend Jihan's wedding last Friday in High-Def with my swanky new camera.

c) Speaking of Jihan, she just happens to be one of my oldest friends - one of the first I made friends with back in freshman year, in fact. Over the course of our collegiate life, we both figured into pretty much the same activites, including debating and student politics. Actually, I had intended to leave the student government after being disenchanted with the system on my first year but then she was recruited into my party, without my knowledge, and was made to run for office and eventually won. I figured I can't leave her there and so I stayed to help. Halfway through our sophomore year, when I reasoned that she was gonna be okay, I finally left the student council to focus on debating, which was her thing.

I made it as far as I could with debating (won a few medals) but she made varsity. I went back to student politics and by the time we were seniors, we're the head of our respective organizations. Funny how that worked out.

Graduation with junior members of our political party

Yet, we couldn't be more different people. She goes to gigs. I go to conventions. We read totally different books and listen to totally different music. She found her tribe with the debaters and I've always envied their closeness. I won't lie: I really wanted to belong with that group, but even I have to admit how much of an acquired taste I can be. Yet Jihan remained my friend throughout all of it.

It would be years after graduation before I found my tribe with the geeks. And a few more years after that when our circles would intertwine - when Jihan met War who I had previously met among the geeks years before. Funny how that worked out again.

At the Yale Party with Dante

It's an amazing friendship really, even if we don't see each other as often as we do our respective "tribes". The day War brought her to the annual Yale party and introduced her to everybody, I pretty much told her how I felt about the geeks and how it compares to her and the debaters. That was the night I infamously referred to her as "two of my closest friends from college" after she jokingly got offended when I introduced as just "one of my closest friends".

With War, I thought she had struck a good match. Somebody who was just as educated and eloquent (not too mention as good-looking) as she was. And that he runs with the crowd I really hold dearest to me, it's a no-brainer. I'm all for it!

With War on my 30th birthday!
Last year, he told Jihan I looked great for 32!
Yep, I approve this guy!

So you can imagine how important this girl is to me and how I was never gonna miss her wedding for the world. I had to ask her earlier this year before they even announced or finalized their wedding date to make sure that I would still be here for her big day and worked my plans around it (for those keeping count, yeah, this is the first time a good friend's wedding has derailed me). She even asked me for advice months ago about the ballooning number of guests and I had to remind her that it's her and War's day, not anyone else's, so they invite who they want and who they can - unless the parties that insist on adding more names to the guest list are also sponsoring a few extra plates.

You can imagine how much I was looking forward to her wedding. I was gonna dress my best (that doesn't happen very often, mind you). I was gonna bring my new camera and do what I love to do.

My camera's amazing. Love this shot!

Except that I didn't make it to the ceremony on time. I arrived at the last 15 minutes. I was able to catch the kiss but I was so tired that my hands were unsteady, so my footage was a little shaky.

What the fuck happened?

First, I spent way more time playing Dungeon Village, which is admittedly my fault, but damn! If there's another thing you need to know about me, is that I love strategy, simulation, and fantasy RPGs, and that this game is all three and it works on my phone? Well, you can imagine why disaster would strike.

But even then, I had an hour to get to a church that was just 20 to 30 minutes away by cab and that's a conservative estimate! I still had plenty of time to socialize and shoot footage.

Well, if you've been following me on social media, you know what happened. It was just lucky me that apparently last Friday was also one of the dates the MMDA had advised would be hellish on traffic.

So, yeah, there was a moment during the reception at Jihan's wedding when I had to just step outside and let it out. I was so disappointed at myself that I couldn't have done more for "two of my closest friends".

The bride told me I looked great. I'm good!

I still enjoyed everything, to be sure. The food was great, the program was totally chill, and of course, the company of college friends, debaters, and some geek friends (basically, our common circles) made sure I had a great time despite the crappy time I had getting there earlier. I still shot some great footage of the reception though. I just finished editing them and it's currently uploading.

I just really wish I had been there to see her and shoot her walking down the aisle.

Weekly Ketchup 23 - Age of Farewells

My week started out rather sadly. I found out, through the power of social media, that another person I knew from college passed away. Red wasn't my classmate - he was an upper classman, in fact - but we belonged to the same organization: The Students' Democratic Party.  As such, we both figured into some common experiences, including organizing events and running election campaigns (we take politics and governance very seriously in our little college). We weren't particularly close (then again, I wasn't close with a lot of people in college) but in recent years, his was one of the presences I still felt among members of our organization. Again, thanks in no small part to social media, Facebook in particular.

Freshman year with the SDP peeps. Red is the guy in front of me.

Red didn't post anything much. I don't even know what he's been up to lately, if he ever got to law school, or what his job was. But every now and then, he would reply to one of my posts and we'd engage in a virtual conversation. In that way, he was still present to me, even if I hadn't seen him in forever, than many of our partymates. So to find out that he was just suddenly gone really took me by surprise. I didn't expect to be so affected but I was - possibly even more than I was with my classmate Kate who had been absent - actually and virtually - for years.

I visited Red's wake last Tuesday of my own initiative because I had neither the time nor the patience to coordinate and synchronize schedules with someone else, though a part of me hoped to see our partymates there as it would be a good time to catch up. As it turned out, they visited the night before and so I spent the entire hour that I was there by my lonesome. I did get to meet his sister though, which made for one of the most embarrassing and awkward moments of my life. Upon introducing myself, she told me that Red did talk about me, to which I said "Really? What did he say?" I didn't even realize until much later that I didn't get her name or gave my condolences. I'm just really awkward at funerals!

Anyway, Red was just 30 years old when he passed, and so was Kate. That fact reminded me of my own misgivings about turning 30 a few years ago and my latest ramblings about aging. I realized then that there are already so many people I knew in my youth who will never even get the chance to grow old, to say sorry to people that they feel they have wronged, to make up for lost time, to build or rebuild new friendships, to discover new experiences, to dream new dreams and see each one come true - all opportunities that are still available to me and, hopefully, I don't take them for granted.

I remember that when I was in grade school, I wondered what it must be like for my grandmother who I was sure then had already lost so many of her elementary classmates. Flash forward to the Fandom Cafe days and, although I don't recall the exact nature and context of the conversation, I remember that Sandor once said that the age of 30 is when you'd start counting who among your friends have passed  on. Well, here I am - 32 and already four people short of the total number of people I encountered and shared meaningful experiences with in college (aside from Red and Kate, I lost a batchmate and another partymate in the past couple of years). That's not even counting the people I met after college graduation. I arrived on the geek scene pretty late but I was still fortunate enough to meet Ricky and Vic. In recent months, a couple of people I met briefly who were really close to my friends have also passed on. The biggest tragedy, of course, is that they still had their lives ahead of them, that they went before their time. At least, we'd like to think so - but we don't have control of these things, do we?

This is why I hold that birthdays are really important. I used to feel insecure about turning a year older but then, sometime in my mid-20s, I came to the realization that celebrating birthdays really isn't about me but rather it's for the people around me who are are just glad that I'm still around - that I lasted one more year. Sometimes I do forget that but I hope to do better at remembering.

(On a related note: This is why I don't understand why some people opt to hide their birthdays on Facebook. On one hand, I can also make the effort to remember my friends' birthdays without getting reminded by social media. More thoughtful that way.)

Speaking of birthdays, I made it a point to celebrate my good friend Mika's 26th at Agave last Wednesday - despite my aversion to going to BGC on a weeknight. The MRT was down but Jovan, Alec, and I still got there thanks to some last minute rescue from Jon and the BatJon (as Deniece christened his new ride, much to his chagrin). Meanwhile, the traffic was so bad that Mika herself was late to her own party, but the waiting did give me time to catch up with fellow fantasy bookworm Sabby who I also haven't seen in ages!

The next day, I met up with some college friends for dinner at Caffe Dolce. One of our own, Fiona, is leaving with her daughter to be with her husband in China (they left yesterday actually). Sadly, only Pat, Dayang, and myself were available but it's okay - we had fun anyway. We had some really lively conversations about bed times (glad to know I'm not the only one in bed by 10pm), things to do in China (underground cable TV, anyone?), and even got to play some iPad games - mainly because Fiona's daughter was forcing us to. Anyway, I wish her well and best of luck in her new life.

I don't have a nice photo from last Thursday so here's one from 30th birthday.

Sidenote: Another highlight of that evening for me was finally figuring out where the Del Monte/Banawe area is in the grand scheme of things (seriously, I have the hardest time picturing where that area lies)! Yay me!

This is getting a little too long for a reflection and recap post. I wish you all a great week ahead. I just hope that I don't have to say goodbye to any more people for the rest of the year.

Of Them Who Have Rewritten My Story

Madeleine L'Engle

(November 29, 1918 – September 6, 2007)

    It was through her that I first discovered it was possible to tesseract to other worlds.
    Her book, A Wrinkle in Time, was the book I was assigned to do a book review of way back in seventh grade. I remember being immensely fascinated by it back then that every time I'm asked to do a book review of my own choosing, I would immediately grab a L'Engle book from my school's library.
    For that matter, I'm thankful for the teacher who assigned me the book (if I could just remember who it was).
    To this day, I still have the very copy of Wrinkle I reviewed all those years ago. I even re-read it and reviewed for a quick, minor literature class requirement in college. I remember enjoying it again.
    Thank you, Ms. L'Engle. From the 12-year old me.

David Eddings
(July 7, 1931 – June 2, 2009)

    Canada. I was 17 and slightly crazy. I went with my grandmother to the local library for her weekly supply of books to read. I asked if I could also borrow one and, me being me, the book would have to be of the fantasy genre. His weren't the only ones I got but his were the ones that stuck.
    I remember a road trip to Seattle and a camping trip the family took where I brought with me one of the Malloreon books I borrowed from the library. I remember being more entranced by the traveling we took and the wide open landscape because, at the same time, the characters in the book were taking a similar journey.
    It was ultimately that road trip and Eddings' books, among things, that gave my confused teenage self the focus I needed back then. The outcome of that inspiration has been an ongoing project for more than ten years now.
    Thank you, Mr. Eddings.

Robert Jordan
(October 17, 1948 – September 16, 2007)

    In December of 2002, post-9/11 era, I was a college sophomore on Christmas break and The Two Towers was about to come out on local theaters. I decided then to reinvigorate my interest in fantasy books. Flashback to a few years earlier, I had considered to endeavor the same while I was still in Canada and came across one of the Sword of Truth books. The random stranger beside me saw me checking them out and told me that they were good.
    Back to 2002. I thought then that I would walk away from National Bookstore Megamall with Wizard's First Rule. That is, until I came across a series of black books with a nice, almost embossed logo on the cover. The cover alone is interesting but when I flipped through the pages, there were chapter headers, icons, three maps and a glossary at the back! Compared to that, Wizards was just plain boring.
    What I had discovered that day, of course, was The Eye of the World, the first book in The Wheel of Time series. Since then, the stress of college life had been balanced with Jordan's fantastic saga about an epic struggle between good and evil.
    Salutes to you, Mr. Jordan. Thanks for letting me believe in magic at an age where I could have just as easily let go of them. I look forward to finishing the cycle with Brandon Sanderson.

    Of course, some might say that any other fantasy author could have fulfilled the role these three writers played in my life.
    That misses the point.
    If anything, fantasy has taught me that a man's destiny is as much a matter of fate as it is of choice. Maybe something just resonates well with me and their works.

    Even if all three creators have already departed the mortal plane, I don't believe their story has already closed. After all, mine is still ongoing and they remain very much a part of who I am now as much as who I was when I first discovered them.

(Originally posted on my Multiply account June 8, 2009)

4 Medals and a Trophy

Thank goodness for long weekends for the time to get stuff done and be able to blog about it. I haven't blogged in a while and this entry is one of those I've been wanting to share for the longest time.

You see, one of my issues in high school was that I never got to be awarded anything. I tried joining drawing and writing contests but never once placed. Blame it on the amount of great talent we had in Community of Learners. We're a small school, mind you, so it's easy to get noticed if you're brilliant in one way or another.

It's also easy to feel mediocre and unimportant.

It didn't help that I played no sports nor was I academically gifted. I loved doing productions and plays but I'm always relegated among the red shirts. I never really shone at anything!

This frustration was among the reasons I chose to delay college after junior year and fly to Canada to finish my high school (and ideally my life) there.

It was a good call on my part.

About 2 years later, I came back to Manila and enrolled in DECS' home study program. Upon graduation, I clenched my very first medal: 3rd honor (among hundreds of graduates). Not bad considering I didn't have any tutors at all. I would've been first honor and the other two above me would have been Valedictorian and Salutatorian. Sadly, schools are only allowed one of each and since our school had "regular" students as well, those titles belonged to them. A little trivia: Our first honor was actress Dimples Romana.

After that little victory, I knew I was ready for college. So off to UST I went. I had so many plans and things I wanted to pursue, but there was one I did not realize I was even decent at: Debating! Which gave me my 3 other medals.

I had encountered debaters my freshman year mostly because of my political activities. By my sophomore year, I decided to give it a shot and voila! There I was representing Communication Arts (CA) for 2002's AB Debate Series! I was winning my rounds and inching my way to the finals and snagging the 3rd best speaker slot.

However, my promising debating career had to give way to my career in student politics, which was bubbling by then. I won my first election and was holding other positions, so I didn't have much time to debate anymore. I did represent CA again in my junior year though - as a cheerdancer! We placed 1st runner-up!

By the end of my junior year, everyone expected me to run for the student council - an opportunity I've been waiting for since freshman year but ultimately turned down to run for CASA instead. I guess my campaign was bolstered by my winning my first and only trophy: Best Male Presenter of the very first Junior AdQuest, which happened the weekend before the start of campaign season.

Best Male Presenter, 1st Junior AdQuest (2004)

I had never felt like a break out star before or since - getting recognition, earning medals, winning elections. I was on fire!

My last two medals were from senior year. I had to represent CA again for the 2004 AB Debate Series because we had a shortage of members needed to complete the roster. I was awarded 7th best speaker, which is way below the 3rd I won the last time I competed, but it was just deserving. I wasn't training after all, and there were others who did really great during that tournament.

My last medal was for representing my college, the Faculty of Arts and Letters, in the 2005 Crossfire Debate Competition, which was a debate show televised around the campus. Our team managed to make it to the finals but lost to UST High Shool. Again, it wasn't a big loss because we weren't training for it as hard as the other team did, but we gave a good debate. I couldn't have asked for a better round to cap off my career and my college life.

(L-R: 3rd Honor, HS Grad 2001, DECS RESPCI; 3rd Best Speaker, AB Debate Series 2002; 7th Best Speaker, AB Debate Series 2004; Finalist, Crossfire Debate Tournament 2005)

This is definitely a case of "it will come to you when you're ready". It took some time but I got there. I have 4 medals, which I've been meaning to frame for the longest time that I only got around to doing now, and a trophy to display in my room.

Yes, they may not be the ultimate awards, but I did get the ultimate reward: Confidence not to feel mediocre and unimportant anymore. Don't know if and when I'll be able to snag medals and a trophy again, but I'd like to celebrate what I have.

Journeys Part 1: The Thomasian Chronicles

*The first part of a three-part series of stories.

One morning exactly a week ago, I made a spur of the moment decision: Instead of going directly to work, I opted to go the other way and back to school to UST. I hadn't intended to go but a huge part of me was dying inside because I wouldn't be there that evening to celebrate with my fellow Thomasians our alma matter's 400th year anniversary.

As a die-hard growling tiger, I thought it only proper to visit the grand old place even with the lack of pomp and pageantry (and quite frankly - people). Armed with my camera, I played like a tourist at my own school. Upon reaching the España gate alone, I could already feel something was up in the air. The place was more festive than usual at 9am and having had my share of Paskuhans and college weeks during my time, I know how busy the place really gets. Last week's was ten times more amplified.



The other thing I noticed was that I wasn't the only "tourist" there. Everywhere I looked, there were groups of people - no doubt families and old gangs - from older batches and I could hear them talking about their time as students. Often the remarks were how things have changed since their time. Some older folks were even with who I assume are grandchildren who were appropriately dressed for class that day. It was amazing!

I guess the best part for me was being able to go inside my home in UST - the Faculty of Arts and Letters. I didn't think I'd get in what with the lack of proper identification and all, but I did! Just the flood of memories alone was overwhelming. I remember running along the halls for a variety of reasons - catching up to a professor or a classmate or an orgmate, rushing to the photocopier, meeting deadlines, all of it. It was so vivid in my memory it may as well have happened yesterday.

It was a good thing I caught Mam Faye at room 211 - my very first classroom in UST. That's where I met my friends at Saunos and where I had a couple of embarassing moments. Yes, I will never live down that time I was late and crashed into 1Journ1's class thinking it was our class. I kinda did it again when I barged into Mam Faye's class (2CA5) but it's all good.

Another overwhelming moment was when I came across CASA's bulletin board. I didn't think I would be emotional about it but I was. Even if I'm in regular contact with the current batch of officers, it still beats seeing again the part that you had to leave behind when you graduate. It's that legacy you leave for someone else so that they might have the chance to experience what you have.

Of course every Thomasian experience is different. Mine was riddled with constant stuggle and a lot of growing up. I went from over-the-top student to student council slave to mediocre debater to president of one of the biggest organizations in campus. Every now and then, I got to write and dance outside of any class requirements. Yes I was the guy you got sick of after one encounter too many. Evidence here.

Hey, I live less than 30 minutes away! What'd you expect me to do with my overly free time? Study?

This was from my junior year.

Yet for all that, I believe I was one of Communication Art's most promising students (If my mentors could just see me now, they'd wonder "What happened?") I owned my subjects like they were yesterday's news. My approach to academics has always been more relaxed. I never really bothered about grades. They're just numbers. I passed. I learned. End of story. Move on.

Grad photo with the UST quadricentennial emblem.

So many more stories I can tell about the college years but for now I leave with this: I was never really comfortable with uniforms primarily because I have never been a conformist and I grew up practically not wearing one. So I would find ways to deviate - like wearing a printed shirt underneath or wearing my trademark earrings. Oh, and when they stopped for the 3pm Angelus, I moved. I still think it a waste of time.

My school ID pic resurfaced.

Despite such lapses, I am and will always be proud to be called a Thomasian. Not because we have the best academic program ever (Hell no!) but because the place left an indelible mark on me. For one thing, it helped me gain the courage to defy convention, which is something you'll need if you're in the creatives industry.

After only spending about an hour that morning last week, I did feel fulfilled that I have honored my den, my alma matter, and was at peace with myself. I did great during my four years there. Only thing now is that I have to challenge myself to do even greater.

Thanks for the mentors and the memories, UST.