christmas greetings and people missed

everybody is texting with their early christmas greetings, but each happy message would only drown me deeper to some strange sort of loneliness. i don’t understand how or why i’ve learned to dread the whistle of my cellphone, which seems to sing every 5 minutes today to announce yet another advance christmas note made in haste and sent to many others in the phonebook.

so far, i have 23 messages waiting to be read. they can wait, i’m sure—wait without experiencing the numbing pain of waiting, which we all know too well. besides, it’s not even christmas yet. and i can always turn to my phone anytime our foreign turkey will be a little delayed for our christmas eve celebration.

nothing’s really boring ‘round here today (especially since the arrival of our guests from new zealand, who are occupying the lower floor). there’s constant noise and movement, and we never run out of things to busy ourselves with. it’s so easy to get distracted, to forget the lingering face of the man you probably love or the laugh of your “other mom” who is in a different continent.

but that’s just the fake truth i want to believe about missing people close to my heart and mind... no matter how this home bustles, how my activities occupy me, i can never rid myself of the image of the man who’s taught me so much about life and the world, or of the voice of the cousin i call mommy, who helped my amah look after me with love throughout my childhood.

each time i read my friends’ greetings and wishes, i’m reminded of those 2 people. i just probably miss them so bad—even more than i miss my father who is in a distant city, i admit.

life’s like that, i guess. sometimes the people we care about and who care for us are too far away. in such a happy time like this, when we could celebrate our savior’s birthday with them, they’re not around. all you’re left with are dreams and memories of them that make you cry your eyes out.

happy christmas, nevertheless! god bless everybody.

early christmas

of all the early christmas parties i've been to this year, the 1 we had with our partner communities today is, by far, the best. it wasn't extravagant or anything like that but we had so much fun and i enjoyed every bit of it.

it was great to be reunited with the younger teenagers from an underprivileged community we've been helping with the basics of community theater. they're wonderful people who've taught me several things about life and love. and i'm not fond of them because they think i sort of look like an actress named angel locsin. lol!



really, these kids are inspiring and have much to offer the world. they hold a big chunk of my heart and it was wonderful to play and hang out again with them today.

on the fire and chin-chin gutierrez
some friends were just teasing me about how serious i am about saving trees and how i could pass as chin-chin's long lost daughter for it. and so out of the blue, it was all over the news... that a fire burned down the home of 1 of the people i've looked up to since childhood—

some1 i truly think is not only a fine actress, but also a real hero for using her celebrity status to encourage filipinos to celebrate our culture and to educate many people about the environment... this is why i feel terrible about some fire eating her house up, hurting her and her mother, and all that before christmas!



when i met her not very long ago, i saw that she radiated so much love. what a great person, i thought. and when she learned i've wanted to meet her since i was way younger, she just embraced me!

surely, she's touched more people than i can count with a hundred pairs of hands. losing everything after the fire will only prove god is good to those who are good and that she will never go without love. i really, really wanna do something for her now, too.

tanned and tired

7 hours of sleep?! i must've really been exhausted. originally, i only planned a short siesta so i can do homework but i snoozed like there's no tomorrow until 10 pm!

the maarte in me knew we weren't spending the day in a dreamy getaway but in order to keep my mind off the man i probably love and the chaos of school, i decided to go with some crazy new friends to the beach. these people are a lot of fun but the little angel on my right shoulder is right in saying that i had a selfish motive to decide to tag along.

and to prove how anti-social-ish i get when something is wrong with my head, i left early with a small group of beachgoers who—probably like me—do not get the art of passing time eating lechon and drinking beer, doing karaoke, and having really loud laughs.

but with a siesta that ended up in 7 hours of sleep, i must’ve really been exhausted. and clearly not only because of the beach trip.

as if my life's interesting

sunday's still sweet, even with this headache. i'm typing with the rain and the news competing against each other in the background. it's nice to wake up this late again, to find the house half-empty with people and to have the chance to write—with the rain and all—after one of the busiest months of my life.

there's a lot of writing for me today—school work, this lame entry to resurrect "tralalalala..." (why i disappeared and burned my blog is a long story and i'd rather spare us the gore), article assignments, etc. my head spins just by thinking of everything i have to accomplish in such a short time!

the spinning goes with what's left of the tingly throbbing from the alcohol i had last night. "you're not used to it," our amah said, passing behind me with my laundry. i also remember being congratulated for becoming tipsy for the 1st time. i’ve never had more cocktails until how much i was allowed in the sparkling new cebu international convention center (hint, hint).

the sort of high the red drinks gave me remind me of elevator rides—the feeling that your brain’s out floating above your head... now i don't think i'd ever want to be smashed! hahaha. nobody wants any1 drunk and smelly during the 12th asean summit, too.

oh, talk of the summit! it's inconvenient (clearly not only for me) how it's moved to january because of a typhoon-slash-terrorist threat-slash-political commotion-slash-water leak in the cicc. though it could be a form of escape from the reality of an all-girl catholic school—especially from having to wear the ugly school uniform—i'm becoming worried about missing classes to "serve my country"...

for crying out loud, i think 3 inches is enough pile of paper to write for extra credit! haha.