Reblogged from Saccharine Irony:

I spent the weekend in one of my favorite places in the world, Malaybalay, a small city of pine trees and streams, seated deep into the heart of Bukidnon province. A year after I graduated from college I was assigned for work in this small city, and this is where I’d spent my work weeks for more than three years until I decided to come home and take up another career. Well, the city holds very, very special memories to me too.  Every cafe, park, and street corner tells a story,  and even the stars, …

Originally posted almost 2 years ago. I just miss Bukidnon. :-/

But here I correct myself. I used to do all these because I was bored and trying too hard to be irresponsible. But these days boredom is an alien concept altogether. I guess it comes with maturity or whatever, but when you get older you don’t really get bored anymore – at this point in your life you’re supposed to already know how to amuse yourself, even if all you have with you is a ball of string. So walking under the rain was pointless really, but I had fun, and after that easy peasy exam it was all I could do to celebrate.

Because once I get home it’s all work and work and more studying. Responsibility! I have several pages and product descriptions to write for my creative copy writing job, five short stories to reread and dissect, and a take-home midterm exam to finish before the day is over. Remind me again why I enrolled in post-graduate literature studies. :p

So a quick snap of my messy study desk (If it’s work I work out of a desktop). A copy of Katherine Mansfield’s The Fly, a pink fluffy pen to remind me that life can be soft and fluffy, a real pen (pointy and not at all fluffy), a notebook, and a bubble-blowing toy I stole from one of the loot bags at my nephew’s 1st birthday party two weeks ago.

Again, just for the fun of it.

TGIF!

So on Chinese New Year, which was declared a national holiday on January 23, I thought about going the sweet and indulgent route, not wanting to commemorate the day buying or frying the traditional glutinous stuff known as Niangao or Chinese New Year’s cake. From around here, the stuff is better known as tikoy, which Chinese stores sell by the boxes.

I had some new flour from last Christmas and a huge dark sweet chocolate bar and some powdered cocoa too, so Moist Chocolate Cupcakes was the order of the day! Topped with chocolate butter cream ganache, the cuppies were heavenly.

After about 20 minutes in the oven and after spreading the ganache I readied the little darlings for a photo shoot. Splintered almonds added a nice contrast to the light brown ganache.

But I was a bit bothered by the ganache; too runny when topped on the cupcakes, and no other directions were given from the recipe other than to spread them so I was worried about having done something wrong in the first place. So I scooped the remaining buttercream ganache into a plastic container and forgot about it in the fridge for an entire day.

One day later, and I was spreading beautifully textured ganache on these moist chocolate cupcakes! I don’t know why I never even thought of chilling it for a bit in the fridge, but that solved the runny-ness altogether. I think leaving it in the fridge to set for about an hour or two is good before frosting the cupcakes with them.

A few splintered almonds and a 30-year old Japanese plate later, I was able to take a really pretty picture in natural light.

Now I’m sipping Chinese green tea to balance out the day’s overwhelming sweetness.

Happy New Year, people.

The best part in any wedding ceremony for me is the bridal march, where you see the bride, in all her regal whiteness, walk down the aisle while a love song serenades everyone. I always try not to cry all over my dress during these times, but I always get teary-eyed at least. These people are in love, you know. Even though they may stop loving each other 10 years, 20 years down the road, you know at least  that on that day, on that hour, these people are in love. They are committing themselves to a lifetime of one another. Marriage after all takes courage; it is often a blind leap into an unknown sugar-coated as forever.

That for me, is a huge thing.

So to say that I am a happy bridesmaid is an understatement. Many girls grumble about being the perpetual bridesmaid and never the bride; but I always take on my bridesmaid role happily and excitedly. Of course I do want to wear a white gown someday and pledge my life to a worthy another, but this doesn’t make me any less happy being a bridesmaid.  I love helping my best girlfriends plan on one of the most memorable days of their lives. I like seeing them through to their happily-ever-afters. And while I always fancy wearing pretty bridesmaid dresses, the thing that makes me the happiest is being there with them at a time when they are presumably at their happiest.

Someday, one day, when I get to have my own happy ending, I do want them to be there for me too. Because that’s what best girlfriends do – happily taking on the role of bridesmaid or a wedding planner, or an impromptu coordinator and speaker when the other is a glowing, blushing bride.

I can’t wait for summer!

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Faith is everything. It is not an illusion, it is not something that you are compelled to believe in because others tell you to, it does not relate to religion alone. Faith is the silent force that leads you from one place to another, it is the strength that you unknowingly hold on to when nothing else is working. It builds hope, it bolsters peace, it keeps humility, it nurtures love. Faith is not the way of the blind or of fools. What good is your wisdom if you have not faith?

Faith is everything because you have it in you all this time, even without you knowing about it.

You retire to bed each night knowing that you will wake up the next morning. – That is faith.

You send your toddler to school knowing that she’ll have a happy time wrestling toys with other kids, and then getting home safely later in the afternoon to tell you all about it. – That is faith.

You choose someone to love not knowing for certain if things will work for the long term, but you try to make things work anyway because you know you are doing the right thing, and because you are happy. – That is faith.

You try to craft your life the best way you can, but you know you don’t control anything. You are a speck in the universe, an important speck may be, but a speck nonetheless. Your wisdom has limits. You don’t have all the answers. But you believe a greater force is at work. – That is faith.

People build bridges, design skyscrapers, make discoveries, go to work day in and day out, save for the rainy days, get married, have babies, plan for their retirement.

Why? Because they know the earth will keep on spinning, that sunrise will give way to sunset, then sunrise again. Because they know their children will grow up to be adults and bless them with grandchildren.

Without any spoken assurances.

Faith. Silent and entrenched. You fade away when you don’t have it.

There is no assurance that the sun will rise tomorrow, or that your toddler will come home after a long day at school, or that your love story will have a happy ending. But you believe in your heart that they will and unknowingly you do things that lead to another sunrise, another day spent in shrieking laughter, another page in that story. That is faith.

Things may not be at their peachiest right now, you may have a pressing question that doesn’t have the slightest semblance of an answer, or you may be at an ugly crossroad just when everyone else is having a grand time. Faith allows you to see beyond any goal you have set, any expectation you have ever made, any dream you have designed. You may not have gotten that promotion at work or your friend may have tossed your feelings recklessly, but you know eventually you’ll have your place in the sun, you’ll have your time. Things will be fine.

If you have not faith, you’ll never get to that peachy place you have in your head.

Everything else is secondary.

I’m no guru whatsoever but I will list here some of the ways that can make you a much happier, more balanced person. I realized all these the previous year, and almost all of these discoveries I made through my own personal journey. After all they say that when you are able to get through a most devastating heartbreak, you can get through almost anything. So here:

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from gettyimages

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1. Stop building walls. Walls can make you feel safe, but they won’t make you any happier. Be as open as you possibly can, but guard yourself. People will always disappoint you, walls or no walls.

2. Throw away your expectations. The biggest culprit to our many little unhappinesses and even the huge heartbreaking ones is having way too many expectations. We often love because we want to be loved back, we become good to people because we expect them to be good to us. And while reciprocation will definitely make our lives a lot pleasanter, what happens when none is given? Unhappiness.

3. Give help. Generously, happily. So you have to put in extra hours at work, without the assurance of overtime pay? Or a friend is in desperate need of a wedding planner and she has enlisted you as one of the volunteers. If we give help generously, happily, we become happier. Why? Because you realize you are needed, you have skills. You are not a waste of space.

4. Pray. It doesn’t matter which faith you belong to, says a friend. When you pray, in praise, adoration, thanksgiving, or supplication, you recognize that a greater power is at work. But then you can’t just simply pray. You have to have faith; you have to believe in your prayers. Praying without faith is an insult.

5. Feed on your faith. Stop your senseless worrying and feed your faith. Did your worrying ever get you anywhere? Nope, except maybe at the ER or perhaps  at your friend’s house while you’re bawling over your imagined anxieties.

6. Laugh. Find hilarity in everything- when your Mom is in a bad mood, when you’re stuck in traffic just when you’ve decided never to be late again, or when people are less sensitive than usual. Try to distance yourself from these things, and since you know things fall into place eventually, laugh.

7. Be grateful. It has been said that when you don’t see your blessings as blessings, they become curses. How chillingly true. So be thankful for everything. Be thankful that the sun streams through your window, be thankful that your phone is working, be thankful that you have your eyesight, be thankful that you have your friends. Or that you have a crazy family. Be thankful even when things are not looking too good. Everything, yes everything, is a reason for gratitude.

8. Forgive in a heartbeat. Let go of all your grudges. Allow yourself to be angry but never for far too long. Forgive people, forgive circumstances, and best of all forgive yourself. Love cannot exist without forgiveness.

9. Love the world. You can never be happy without love, without knowing how to love, without knowing how to love without selfishness, without expectations, without wanting anything in return. And the only way you can love the world is to freely give love. Love everyone. Love your friends, love your colleagues, love the people who exasperate you, love your annoying neighbor, love those who are of a different faith,  even learn to love the people you know you will be meeting in this lifetime but have not met yet.

I know loving people you don’t necessarily like is a huge paradox. But you don’t have to all at once. Oftentimes, the willingness to do so is enough. And when you’ve learned to love, without reservations, without necessarily picking who to love and who not to love, you are no longer captive to your expectations, your need for reciprocation, your craving for attention. You love just because. No whys, buts, and ifs.

In the end, only love can make us happy. Because to love is to be courageous, to love means putting your heart out for everyone, to be fish and fodder for everyone (I got this from the corporate worship last night and I was moved). To love is to accept people for who they are and who they are not and to choose to love them anyway.

The scared ones never get to know what love is like, and so the scared ones are unhappy. And if you have only this life to live, wouldn’t it be a wiser choice to live it in happiness, in peace, in friendship, in faith? In love?

So cheer up, have courage, love, and be a sunshine to everyone. You just might end up doing at least one person, possibly even yourself,  a really huge favor.

Well, this Eco book has a really attractive cover, all blue and gold, and despite its non-attractive price I made my purchase without batting an eyelash. Alas, after a few reading attempts, the book sat in my shelf all these years gathering dust and growing more yellowed by the day. I never went beyond a few chapters simply for the reason that I did not fancy consulting a dictionary page after page! What I did then was to list out all the words that made me feel like some sort of idiot, and then when my patience would begin to run out, toss the book away and opt for an easier read. That had been the way all these years. Until I began reading up on the classics again, from Austen to Kafka, Hesse and Flaubert, and the more contemporary Murakami and McEwan. So now I’ve taken up Eco again.

But to give you an idea as to this royal feast of words, I’m going to type them here. I’d be glad to know what you think.

Gigue. Saraband. Ostrogothic. Versipellous. Spagyrist. Vintner. Tready. Stimulacra. Parallaxes. Tropes. Pullet. Mandragora. Escutcheon. Hircocervi. Nielloed.

And so on and so forth.

Sigh. I have a love/hate relationship with this marvel of a book.

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I can point out many things why this idea is silly, preposterous even.

First, all my friends are on Facebook so if somehow I can’t contact them or send them an SMS, using Facebook chat online is the easiest route to connect.

Second, when you’re working online and you spend a lot of time researching, things can get pretty stale quickly, so that your only momentary reprieve would be to visit a social networking site –  Facebook.

And third, no matter how much I complain that it’s getting lame and how I agree with Dennise that yeah, stalking non-worthy people gets pointless after some time, I still love Facebook. I mean kemmon, you get to rant in your status updates, check your horoscope even when you don’t believe a single word of it, and get to check who’s grown fat and who’s grown bald and who’s grown a beard all in just a few clicks. So why would anyone not love Facebook?

But I needed to spend more time reading. My initial goal was to double the number of books I’ve read last year, which totaled to a measly 15. But just an hour ago, while beginning to enjoy Umberto Eco’s The Island of the Day Before (which I tried for years to finish, in vain. Now on my 7th attempt I have vowed to thumb through to the last pages!) I wanted to triple my list. So that means I need to read 45 books for this year. It’s almost the end of January and I’m still on my third paperback. I’m starting to think I may have been to ambitious with my plans but yeah, reading is reading as work is work.

I plan to beef up on as much classics as I can so I hope after reading Eco I’ll be equipped to take on Nabokov or Dostoevsky or Dante Alighieri. As I’ve said reading is reading, whether I agree with their ideas or get moved by their stories or not.

And even if I don’t go on a Facebook hiatus, the reading holiday is definitely ON.