...and I thought I was self-sufficient

in china, it did not matter if i had a good set of friends to go out with on weekends or have a good dinner and chat with at the very least. i was happy and contented with my 2 - 42"TVs showing all my fave stuffs from channels back home. it felt as if i were still in Phils..just in a different house few blocks away from my family. i never needed any constant company, cause anyway during weekends i see my fellows at church.

homesickness... that was virtually non-existent in my vocabulary - not at least from being alone. i was bored from work, and that's where most of the issues rooted from.

now that i am far away from home in its truest sense, and freezing in Amman for that matter, I have never felt so alone. don't get me wrong... i am making things happen for myself this time around. i won't give in to my childish ways of dealing with my emotions. i guess it's just funny to find that now when i am ready to build friendships with locals and expats alike, even making a connection proves to be really tough.

it has come to a point when i dread the work hours coming to an end, because by then if i am not heading to the gym, i would have to think of how i'd buy time till it's time to lay meself to sleep. i am no longer self-sufficient, my gadgets won't speak to me. even my small tv won't speak in my language anymore.

somebody help me... i am going crazy... hehe.

...

looking at this sunset, i started to realize how alone i am... how far i am from you... i can only wish you are with me while watching something so breathtaking as this view.

dreaming of you locked in my arms - that's how i get by. i constantly dream of us waking up together again, walking at the beach holding hands and all carefree... i dream of all the beautiful memories we have made... and then i am resuscitated.

i can never be thankful enough for having met a person like you - humble yet so unique... subtle yet so intoxicating... you have completety blown me away... words are never enough to appreciate such a beautiful person...

there are reasons to say goodbye... reasons to let go... but if were strong enough, if i were courageous enough, believe me i shall stand by your side. because i know that as long as i am with you, i am unharmed. i can never know any fear.

as i lay my head tonight, i shall once again imagine you beside me. i shall animate the scene by caressing my pillow so carefully, as if it were your face. i shall turn off the lights with wishful thinking that tomorrow, when the sun shines, i will not wake up alone anymore... instead, i will have you beside me for eternity...

- graham in a letter to katherine

cooking adobo

uhm... boil the chicken in white vinegar, garlic, blackpeppercorns and bay leaves.... then simmer.... then add soy sauce... then simmer again.... and then add salt and sugar (i recommend thai sweet soy sauce, instead of sugar, to those who are into slightly sweet adobos). remove chicken and sautee for few minutes till you see a good brown. Reduce the sauce hanggang gusto mo..hehe... then pour sauce on the chicken.. yan na yan...

you can also add boiled eggs. as for me, potato wedges would complete this dish.

loving Amman

I know, I know... It's still my honeymoon period with Amman and its people, but I must admit it is an extremely lovely honeymoon. Having only been here for 3 days, I do not know much of the city yet. But in contrary to how I imagined the city would be (size and all) from the maps I've seen in the net, I was surprised to realize that Amman actually is a relatively small city... with some of its rings only about 1-2 kms away from each other.


Amman reminds me of Baguio and Greece, because most of the roads are hilly, and all of the buildings are painted white. Talking about hilly roads, yesterday after church I realized the harder way why walking may not be the best eco-friendly solution to moving around... Unless you have super powerful legs and feet, riding a taxi to go places would still be the best option... hehe. Taxis are relatively inexpensive. From my place to here (Fitness First Mecca Mall), it is 540fils. In peso, that would just be 30-40 Pesos only. From my place to my church (that's 7th circle to Wadi almost 3rd circle), it's about 2JDs (140PHP). So it's either proximity of places and the size of the city in general, or the cheap taxi fares... =)

Last night, I went to Carrefour in City Mall, and I have to say that as far as my eyes are concerned, that's the biggest grocery I have seen in my life... It's like 5 floors of SM hypermarket. There is no problem getting my comfort foods here - that's one more thing I love. This morning i munched on buns with nutella... and Doritos, bow. hehe.

Anyway, got to go now... I hope the boiler is working now... otherwise, it's gonna be a cold day again in the apartment... grrrr...

moving to Amman

I died then lived again, period.

I quit my job for a new one, only to find myself jobless in the end. Waited patiently (sometimes impatiently)... Bummed around Beijing till I got yet another bad news. Went home to find my grandma in the ICU - but she's better now.

Anyway, I think it's the karmic cycle.

**
I am about to start my journey to the Middle East. I am not jumping up and down, mainly because the flights are at least 17 hours (can go upto more than 24 depending on the airline you will use). That alone may equate to lesser chance of flying back home. One thing is for sure though - I am happy and excited with the thought of working again soon. Seriously, I think due to the lack of mental activity in the past 1 1/2 months, my brain has already shrunk by 10%... hehe.

I have shopped for all the necessities, though I think I will need to buy some more stuffs when I get back in Beijing. I've heard Amman can easily beat Dubai in terms of average prices of goods.

I have been researching the past few days about the place which I will soon call my new home. So far, so good. I will surely ride that hop-on hop-off tourist bus during one of my first weekends there.

i am a scientist

Dear Ate Charo,

i honestly think that most people have forgotten that there are more thrills outside the walls of their respective companies and their jobs which they take so seriously; well until few days ago, i was one of them.

*********

i am a scientist. you see, in the past 8 months or so, i have been inventing(for the lack of better term) things which I can make myself busy with. On the first few months, i was sending sparks here and there, establishing my presence and making everyone happy with my fresh projects. But on the, ermm, i think 5th month, i realized i have run out of bright ideas. i arrived at my dreaded plateau tad too early.

i got bored (well i still am). i wanted that change in environment; that change in job. it's like wanting to take that u-turn over a big "no u-turn" street sign. i plunged so low that i cancelled my mandarin classes... i stopped working-out... i eloped on every chance of dining out with friends. i stopped living. it has been an office-apartment-office-apartment routine on the succeeding months. i busied myself wallowing; wallowing until i decided on the date when i will tender that one single sheet of shit to end the misery...

too many long lines of rather irrelevant stories more and the bottomline is - i have rebounded. much thanks to my mom who has never stopped squeezing into my brains how hard life in the philippines is right now.

i restarted to count my blessings. i decided to live again. afterall, the thought of being housed in an uberly-fancy condo, living a rather luxurious life, and getting a nice sum of money for merely being in the office 40 hours a week can actually be cool - especially when you see people here and there barely making both ends meet. so what if i do not become a sage at 23? so what if i do not skyrocket up the corporate ladder? there are more thrills to be had outside my company walls, away from this desk and PC, away from the corporate world which for some reasons I have held onto like the single source of life. stupid me.

can it be true then...? that happiness is a choice? i certainly am not happy - well not in the sense like happiness naturally radiates out of me. it's a forced one - in the sense that even after taking into consideration all the cons of my situation right now, i've got to be happy... and indeed, that's the choice i have taken...

...and so like a true scientist, i came back to inventing new things - new things to enjoy, to experience, to indulge on. i am still bored, i must admit, but this time i know better how to deal with it; more importantly, how to cope with it.

Nagmamahal,

Jaybee

jack of all trades, master of none

in this city where eating-out is always a pleasurable experience, i still find myself going for my usual take-out lunch from the nearest fastfood. i come back to my desk and eat in front of my computer. it has been like this for, erm, about 3 months now. ask me why, though, and i do not have an answer. but... erm... well in the past few months that i was silent here and have not posted a single entry, i have sent out about 20 applications to all parts of the world you can imagine. 7 more applications 2 days ago and here i am still. and so i guess the main reason is that i happened to accept the fact that sometimes (or most of the time), i just have to stick with what is readily available, with what i have now. so why choose to squeeze myself into jampacked restos? why choose to continuously think of how nice a change in job and environment can be? in the end, i think it all boils down to truly accepting "you can't have it all".

**********

dunno what has gone through my mind - but at around 10:30 am today, i told beybeh that i seriously want a girlfriend - right here, right now. hehe. i am so ready for it.

having lived it for 4 years now, playing (ok fine, fooling) around is not a bit exciting anymore. it's like i've gone tired of sponge baths in a hot summer day to keep me fresh, and now wanting that sweet precious bath; like having worn leather shoes for the office, rubber for the gym, and now wanting my old pair of slippers which brings undescribable comfort. i miss waking up in the morning and then jokingly picking her nose. hehe...i miss HHWW-PSSP haha. i miss watching a movie with a girlfriend, and then ending up re-enacting some parts of the movie(huh??).. hehe...Truly, a 98m2 condo unit feels quite empty, a king size bed tad too big, a bathtub boring(??), when you live alone.

**********

sometimes i envy the nurses, the doctors, the engineers, the chefs... to me it seems that at the very least, they know where their lives are headed to; they know what they will most likely do for the rest of their lives. more importantly, i believe that they live their lives doing what they are most passionate about. they essentially just have to build on their expertise to get a truly rewarding career.

and then there are the generalists. an economics graduate like me can go to law school, work for a bank, take further studies, teach..and so on and so forth. Seriously, with such infinite options, how would I know what to do with my life? I confess that I am bad at choosing one thing and hanging-on long enough to see what's actually in it for me. You see, fresh from university i initially worked for a bank, then after 2 months hopped to an IT company, then after 10 months jumped to the biggest shipping company in the world. seriously, where am I going to?

if we were rich, i would have gone to conservatory of music. seriously. i know i have the potential; and even if in the end i do not get an awesome salary like i enjoy now, i think i would still be happy and contented each time i see my happy listeners.
**********

hot chocolate

A group of graduates, well established in their careers, were talking at a reunion and decided to go visit their old university professor, now retired. During their visit, the conversation turned to complaints about stress in their work and lives. Offering his guests hot chocolate, the professor went into the kitchen and returned with a large pot of hot chocolate and an assortment of cups - porcelain, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite - telling them to help themselves to the hot chocolate. When they all had a cup of hot chocolate in hand, the professor said: "Notice that all the nice looking, expensive cups were taken, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress. The cup that you're drinking from adds nothing to the quality of the hot chocolate. In most cases it is just more expensive and in some cases even hides what we drink. What all of you really wanted was hot chocolate, not the cup; but you consciously went for the best cups... And then you began eyeing each other's cups."

Now consider this: Life is the hot chocolate; your job, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain life. The cup you have does not define, nor change the quality of life you have. Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the hot chocolate God has provided us. God makes the hot chocolate, man chooses the cups.

***

Actually, gusto ko ng umuwi... as in...

i envy those people who live by the shore, seeing the sea and the sunset each and everyday of their lives; those who can live with few things in their pockets and still manage to be happy, those who could not care less if they only have the plants in the backyard to eat... as long as they have everyone in the family together - i envy all of them.

i do not know how it became this complex, but at 23 years old, i am already miles away from my family and other people i love.. away from the simplest pleasures back home which i will not exchange for anything. at 23, i apparently have stopped from truly enjoying my hot chocolate; rather, i have gone in search of the best cup to contain it - and believe me, it does not feel good.

konti na lang talaga... konti na lang...

weekend in HK

*very delayed post*

3 weekends ago, the company treated us to an overnight stay in HK disney hollywood hotel, plus of course a day in the *wink**wink* theme park.

it was a very rainy saturday... that's all i can say.

making the most out of the day, i roamed around disney and took photos of things i found interesting.

just imagine me running here and there just to get a 'decent' shot of these bubbles..nyahaha. in fact, when the bubble machine stopped blowing, the crew even asked me "do you need more bubbles?... is it ok?".. hahaha

i also took shots of the rather gloomy HK skies...

i ended the day with migraine, and so i did something therapeutic in the evening...

have you splurged on clothes lately? hehehe...

beifangren comes to nanfang - day 2

if you get unlucky, it will rain the whole day; and everything that you have planned for (and even those which you have not), you might not opt to do anymore.

we started the trip to shenzhen at around 11:30am. while hopeful that the rain will stop, i expected that it might last a bit longer than usual. after all, we are nearing the dragon boat festival. i, however, did not expect that it will last forever..hehe! christine and I were not able to do anything at all.


so, making the most out of the situation, we decided to head to diwang plaza. we went to starbucks for a quick refreshment. i had a dark mocha frappucino.

the taste is rather familiar - very much like rhumba frappucino (aww, why was it phased-out actually?!?). haha, i bet you see the big raindrops, no matter how blurred they are, on the upper left of the photo; that's how heavy the rain was.

and after an hour of waiting for the rain to stop (well, it never stopped anyway), we decided to head to jollibee shenzhen! yup yup!






as advised by manong manager, they have changed the menu and the taste of the foods to suit the Chinese palate. well, it cannot be that different, i thought to myself. it was only when i was already pigging-out on my spaghetti and chickenjoy that i realized these are not the Jollibee foods i craved for every sunday when i was a kid! cannot blame them though. shenzhen is not like hongkong where the number of filipino patrons alone can sustain the business. the shenzhen branch has targetted the Chinese market more, i guess.

angal ng angal, ubos din pala! nyahahaha!

when i was still in the Philippines, my jollibee food trip would not be complete without having ube-keso ice craze. however, as that was not on the menu, i settled with halo halo instead.


not that it comes close to what i would usually have in the philippines; but i enjoyed it a lot - each and every "sahog" of it..

beifangren comes to nanfang - day (or evening rather) 1

before anything else, beifangren, when directly translated, means north-place?-person; whereas nanfang means south-place. so, the beifangren came over thursday last week, and we started everything with a sumptuous dinner at 37 degrees resto. as usual, i took my favorite soup-salad-main course set meal.



i love this soup! mushroom with smoked salmon. i am not a big fan of salmon, but when it's in this mushroom soup, it's gone in seconds... the almond gives it a bit of a nutty taste. awesome!









and then i continued with my smoked ham salad. and yes, that's a big chunk of pork over there. the sweet apple sauce combined with something like a thousand island dressing made it for me.










so after the soup and the salad, i had pan fried chicken steak (blah blah i forgot..) with mashed potato. now this dish is simply flawless! if you love some sweetness in your food(like me), then you will love this even more. the mashed potato was perfect. did not even bother to count the calories, nyahaha!






and christine took home 4 cheesecakes! yum, yum, yum, & yum! (clockwise - blueberry cheesecake, mixed nuts, red cherry, and i-forgot-the-name cheesecake)

how many calories can you burn?

*photo taken using N70

Yup yup yup! that is 675.2 calories you see, after 50 minutes of weight-loss cardio workout (alternating low and high intensity). 187 calories more from the rowing machine. so in total, i managed to burn 862.2 calories tonight.. not bad! how many calories can you burn?

happy sunday!

starting today, grocery malls in the pearl river delta region of China (not sure about the rest of it, but i am sure about Guangzhou) will stop giving plastic bags for free. instead, customers would now have to buy them. this is of course to take part in the ever growing call for environment preservation. as for me, i opted to buy the not-so-disposable bag - "for a better world" =)



and yes, those are garlic bulbs... hehe.. i also bought some more veggies for my yet another experimental dish.

i do not know what to name my dish, maybe you can help me.. hehe.. anyways, after mixing the veggies, oyster sauce, ground white pepper, salt and sugar, i ended up with the below.

the oyster sauce and the shrimp gave the dish a seafood-ish taste, while the sugar and the bell pepper a hint of sweetness. the mix of young corn, eggplant and bell pepper provided different textures. so, all in all, it was a good early dinner. =)

see, i am now serious about eating healthy. in fact, when i saw these grains, i have already brought them to the counter before realizing i might have taken quite a lot.

but of course, i am not that perfect.... nyahahaha...

ey wait, it is "naturally fat free!", so it is still ok... hehe. afterall, kindergartens can't live without jelly. happy sunday everyone! =)

hanyu addict

i have always been interested in languages... maybe this is the reason why, ehem, my highest ever score on a class card (99%, believe or not) was from my French class during high school... maybe this is also why i learned cebuano effortlessly... may well be the reason why even on self-study, i was still able to grasp German.

having told you the above, i thought i had a gift for languages - which held true.. until i started learning Hanyu(Chinese). Hanyu, i must say, is by far the most difficult language i have ever known. might it be because of the four tones (i.e, a "flat" ma denotes inquiry, and a "rising-tone" ma means mama)? or might it be because even at its simplest form, which is the pinyin, you cannot just read the chinese words as they are written? or might be because you need to master three aspects of it - the characters, how to pronounce them, and the tone of each of the 855 most-used characters. all these, compared to 26 letters of the english alphabet, which when you try to mix and match, would more or less be read as how you've put the letters together.

oh and i forgot, one also needs to unlearn his English lessons to fully master Hanyu. in general, the order of subject, predicate, direct and indirect objects is the reversed of that of English. "i shall wait for you at the school gate" in English, shall be "i, at the school gate, wait you" in Hanyu.

and so just minutes before this entry, i was running through my vol.2 book, because i wanted to prepare for tomorrow's class. nyahaha, such an exciting way to celebrate a friday-payday...

i am already at the 18th lesson now of my 30-lesson package, which is supposed to equip me with all that i need to come back to philippines in one piece. despite this, i still find myself lost in translation, and i still feel that sensation of braincells at a standstill. nevertheless, not even in a single moment have i thought of quitting... - rest, yes! - but quit, never. i have made a pact with myself that i shall only stop learning Hanyu once my proficiency has been categorized and more importantly certified by HSK Center.

so, after few minutes of revision for tomorrow's class, i decided to finish my last cheesecake. this one's that which has rose petals.

and this for me, is reward enough for the rather chaotic week that has just passed - because afterall, i am just a kindergarten.

goodnight people, happy weekend, too!

cause in the animal kingdom, males are much vainer

having had a waistline of 37 inches when I was 10 years old (and at around 4'7"), it is inevitable that by now, there's that conscious effort to keep the jeans from getting tad too fitting. not again will i look like mojacko.

don't get me wrong, i am not that vain - well, not yet -hehe. i am not even sure why i am writing this entry. maybe it's because my chest muscles are effin' sore.. after sets of inclined, chest, and declined press. maybe to let you know how painstaking looking good can be. maybe to give my record-breaking dumbbell press tonight (at 45-45lbs) justice.

i guess i am merely preparing... preparing by exerting conscious effort to look good, so by the time i find her, looks won't be an issue anymore. oh yes, i have known this for so long - that is, i do have quite a handful of insecurities. i believe working my way to reversing them is not bad after all. in the end, it's a killing-two-birds-with-one-stone situation.

see... at the end of it all... i am still a kindergarten at heart.. cheers!.. hehe

what makes the 5s in 5-2s and the 4s in 4-3s...

ok, as i have said in my last post, there are certain things that make my days here in China a mix of good and bad days. here are some of those which maketh the good ones.

this baby's one big flat screen.. not sure about the size (as it was already here when i moved in), but i think it's 42"-ish






that door you see is the master's bedroom's, and that's where i lay my pseudo-tired body everyday..hehe. i must say it is a "posh" condo unit, with around 100m2 of playfield. there is another room (relatively smaller) opposite that door. can easily accomodate 2 persons. come visit! =)

*****

another thing that makes me happy are the 37degrees resto's cheesecakes. at 15yuan a slice (around 90php), it can easily be any foreigner's "comfort food".

yup! my usual "dabao"(take-out) consists of three carefully selected cheesecakes. last sunday night, i took home mixed-nuts, blueberry, and rose petals (believe it or not!) cheesecakes. i started with the mixed-nuts cheesecake, which in the beginning looked like this




let's not even go to how it looked like after a minute... simply put, it turned invisible.. hehe

*****

was i successful in convincing you to pay me a visit? hehe... lemme know...

[note: i can only post entries, but i cannot see the actual blog... it's blocked... China-wide. so apologies if some parts of the lay-out look funny]

Guess who's back

i am back in the blogging arena. enough said. bwahaha.

there are a lot of reasons why people blog. in my opinion, the below are some:

1. you have nothing better to do but blog
2. you have no one to talk to and share your thoughts/videos/pics with - i mean, not instantly when you find the need for one(or more)
3. and sometimes, as my friend christine simply puts it - "because there's a sense of relief in putting your words out there... those who care can read, and those who don't can ignore... in general, no one really gets hurt"

i guess for me, it's more of the number 3 than any reason else.

*****

living alone, and in China for that matter, has allowed me to master the art of snapping out of my boredom, depression, and at times even desperation. nope, i didn't even need self-help books. it is in my lowest of moments that i found myself tired of being lonely - and just like that, I am able to muster the courage and strength to get back on track. it is a continuous cycle, and that is simply just how it is going to be. when i will take my next bout i do not know, but i am ready... so bring it on..

*****

it is not hard to depress yourself when you live in China. not to mean anything negative (because it's me, not them, just to clarify), but when i arrived here, it was a struggle to understand and be understood. oh yes, baby, you can easily get lost in translation here. the first few months was survival out of body languange, and even now that i already speak the "essentials", i still find myself wondering if my words make sense to them at all. "wode laoshi gaosu wo, wode fayin shi hen hao, danshi wode shengdiao youshihou bu hao" [my teacher tells me, my pronunciation is very good, but sometimes my tone is bad - hahaha]. oh yes, it is not enough to know how to pronounce pinyin, one also needs to master the tones.

*****

in a "normal" week, i get 5 good days and 2 bad days. in some tad too unfortunate weeks, it's 4-3. cheap finds (and i mean it), heavenly-tasting foods, my nice condo (with 46"-in-the-sofa and 42"-in-my-room TVs), 90-peso cheesecake slices, and my Sat TV (which allows me to watch TV patrol every night), are some of the things that make good days. what maketh the bad days? i dare not start.. hehe...

*****

well, i am really happy to be back into blogging... now, more than ever, i shall feel good knowing that i am just few clicks away to my virtual confidant...