Last week at work, my boss was in a phone meeting with someone in Malaysia. We were in the next cube and can hear him loud and clear. Then he went... "I feel hot today"... My friend Pol & I burst out in laughter saying... "Whaaatt? You're HOT today?" That was the joke of the week! --- See, phone meeting bloopers happen a lot at work, especially since English isn't our first language. My friend Carl, in one of his first "international" phone meetings was asked the question... "How's the weather there?" He went, "It's shiny!" -- Then stopped thinking...that was supposed to be 'sunny', right? He couldn't get over that. He's still having nightmares up to this day, right Carl? Hehehe... I guess it's a lot simpler to write in English than to spontaneously speak it, simply because, when writing, you've got time to edit -- a luxury that you don't have when talking. There's no "Cut! Wrong word, try again..." My mom knew this, and tried to help us kids by declaring that at dinner, one day of the week, we were to speak English....you know, basic stuff like, "Ate Tata, please pass the soy sauce". School also tried to help by requiring us to speak English, well at least in English class. 1 word spoken in Visayan or Tagalog would be fined. I don't remember the rate, but I do know that most of us chose to say "Can I borrow your pen?" than get fined. Must have been significant. But see, despite those measures, I am still not immune to blooper incidents in phone meetings. And I guess, nor are my friends at work. There will always be slips... which I think is great because we will always have something to laugh about! ------Ahem, just want to warn everybody though: Beware of Boss Bobet.... He's HOT these days! hehehe...

[Some lyrics of the song "In Your Eyes", by Peter Gabriel] Love I get so lost, sometimes/ days pass and this emptiness fills my heart/ when I want to run away/ I drive off in my car/ but whichever way I go/ I come back to the place you are/ all my instincts, they return/ and the grand facade, so soon will burn/ without a noise, without my pride/ I reach out from the inside/ in your eyes/ the light the heat/ in your eyes/ I am complete/ in your eyes/ I see the doorway to a thousand churches/ in your eyes/ the resolution of all the fruitless searches/ in your eyes/ I see the light and the heat/ in your eyes/ oh, I want to be that complete/ I want to touch the light/ the heat I see in your eyes/

Revisiting the 80's. "Say Anything" was on TV last Sunday. I enjoyed watching it again. I didn't find it cheesy, like those early Freddie Prinze Jr high school flicks. Of course, I'm a little biased as I had always been a John Cusack fan. Anyway, there's this great Peter Gabriel song in there... the one that he played in his cassette player while standing outside Ione Skye's house (That scene killed me. The first time I saw that, I was in tears). Let me find the lyrics... just a sec

That's it. I confess. I cannot be trusted with the remote control and cable TV. I spent the week-end at my brothers' place in Quezon City --- and I was stuck there in their cozy little seat Saturday night from 10pm to 5am! 7 full hours! damn! -- and it didn't seem that long. Anyway, the fact that I don't watch any TV during the week could be a contributor to such odd behaviour. (Yeah, it's odd because I even pay attention to commercials.) And it's even "odd-er" that I don't own a TVset, isn't it? Told you I was strange...

Emotional investment --- I was telling a friend to stay away from this. I'm not sure if that was sound advice. But I do know it's one of the ways to prevent oneself from being caught in a downward spiral into the blackhole of grief and sadness. Not many people are pretty smart about emotions -- we can't change them BUT we can certainly put up a shield. Heart-breaker shield --- Activate!

"There's nothing I hate more than nothing. Nothing keeps me up at night. I toss and turn over nothing. Nothing could cause a great big fight! -- hey talk to me.... hey talk to me now... are you feeling, blue?" - edie b., shooting rubberbands at the stars album

For this blog, I am going to talk about 'moments'. I mean, each of us have our own moments, don't we? Moments that can be described in one spectrum to be -- wonderful! amazing! fabulous! once in a lifetime!. Now this type is way up there! They can make us feel high, like we've been drugged-up or something. Of course, these moments, as they occur, have a certain lifespan. This could be in time units such as, a couple of days, a few hours, minutes, even seconds. But these things could survive in one's memory for years; and one can re-live such moments by looking through kodak prints or telling stories to anybody who cares to listen. ---- Then, on the other end of spectrum are those -- sad, melancholy, 'bad trip' kind of moments. There is no escape from such kind. We have to live through them, learn from them, and get strength out of them. I mean, we can't be all fabulous all the time. We could get bored. If we're fab all the time, complaints could come in such forms as -- "Man, I'm tired of being happy all the time." Doesn't sound right. Of course, these dark moments also have durations. They can be longer than days... and could take years even, depending on how long we hold on to them. Therefore their lifespans are self-dictated. It's our choice to keep or let go. Letting go seems to be the better option. ----- Lastly, there are those moments that are in between... you know... those everyday moments -- my personal favorite. The ones that are not very spectacular -- but not bad either. Examples would be -- hanging out with my brothers... exchanging playful insults to one another, playing billiards, drinking beer, watching comedy on TV.... Or a phone call from my Mom and Papa -- Papa giggling about how Mom walked out from this Rated-R movie that they watched on their 30th Anniversary... Or having dinner at my house with friends, having coffee &/or wine afterwards & chatting about anything... Or even simpler like cruising through C-5 with Josh Groban's "Vincent" on the stereo, and I'm singing along. That one was good, I felt so content... like I couldn't ask for more. Anyway, to wrap this up, in my mind, there are three colors of moments -- White, Gray, and Black. Each important, but with varying frequency of occurence. For me, Gray happening more than Black and White. Kinda like a Bell Curve... (stat geek!). I wouldn't expect yours to be the same. But maybe this could be something you can think about.