(500) Days of Summer
Mark Twain could be tapping in his grave by now because of this movie. The character’s names were crafty drafted from his two famous books. Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.
Let’ dissect: Lead Characters….
Summer Finn – Huckleberry Finn
Tom Sawyer – Tom Hansen
I always thought those names look familiar LOL.
But it appears like Huck is the famous between the two…
Well…not so smart mr. Michael Weber!
…and Scott Neustadter…good luck with the pronunciation
Lonely people are always up in the middle of the night?…That’s rubbish! Seriously, I mean…ok maybe I am a *little* lonely and it *is* past midnight but…well ok so i never realized it until I picked a book from a romance author and i should have never bought that coz it reminds me of things i don’t have. I know it’s a Ha-Ha we all go through that scenario. Well I guess it’s been a long time. And then there are cold nights right? Mind you I’m on the brink of forgetting how those things feel like in real life. Truth is these are the moments I want to buy myself a dog.
Damn those romance authors.
Damn that novel.
Don’t get me wrong. It was good.
Anyway, I don’t think I shared it here about Vin. It was two years ago and i had a huge crush with a person I occasionally met at a 6 month program I used to attend. We never had been formally introduced but we exchanged glances and we kinda get ourselves familiarize. I named him Vin Diesel, coz he does look like the Hollywood star. And you know, to keep him from knowing that he was the subject of my conversation to my friends.
You can actually tell if a person likes you right? Well I can. And it was obvious that he did. And who wouldn’t hate a guy who doesn’t make the first move? And the program finished without a hit-and-run conversation from him. So you know, I was in my late teens that time and you get emotional and crawl up to your bed and ask yourself “IS THERE SOMETHING WRONG WITH ME?” but obviously there wasn’t, and I eventually got over it.
I met him back last week, still wearing that Vin Diesel look and aura. I did have a giddy feeling but i ain’t that stupid before. Funny thing is, when you gave up on everything that’s the part when they started working out. The night didn’t end without him talking to me. We talked for like half an hour and he asked if he could have my FB account. Yeah, i know…network flirting.
So, what do you think?
I lost that loving feeling. There’s no looking forward thoughts…took me about a week to add him coz I don’t want him picking into my personal life. I didn’t imagine this to happen when I used to like him. Took me two months to convince myself…took him two years to actually talk to me! What a crappy move.
You’re late man, I’ve already moved on from a teenager’s crush.
Take that, Vin Diesel.
I met a full length Alice when I was asked what my paramour line from the film is. There hasn’t been a rendition for years for the folks who lived in wonderland, from 1951 full animation and 2010 Tim Burton’s version. I feel sporadic enough to follow up a former relic of this film with a sequel if you will. But here’s an overshadow of what my curiosity has gotten me too far…
Being the nerd of the research I am, I asked Google for some popular Alice in wonderland quotes. They say it must have sounded mundane at first, howbeit quizzical words may have become i think it stored up one of life’s great philosophies. But a few lines in particular strike me as blissful truths that I long for in life:
March Hare: See all the trouble you started?
Alice: But I didn’t think…
March Hare: Ah, that’s just it. If you don’t think, then you shouldn’t talk.
Doorknob: Sorry, you’re much too big. Simply impassible.
Alice: You mean impossible?
Doorknob: No, impassible. Nothing’s impossible.
The Duchess: If everybody minded their own business, the world would go around a great deal faster than it does.
Alice: Oh, no, no. I was just wondering if you could help me find my way.
Cheshire Cat: Well that depends on where you want to get to.
Alice: Oh, it really doesn’t matter, as long as…
Cheshire Cat: Then it really doesn’t matter which way you go.
White Rabbit: [singing] I’m late / I’m late / For a very important date. / No time to say “Hello.” / Goodbye. / I’m late, I’m late, I’m late.
Ah, of course who would have forgotten the White Rabbit…he made me laugh every time. Reminds me of myself if I’m stuck in rush hour of a rabbit’s hole of madness in the modern world. Perchance we all are like him. We hurry to serve the Queen of hearts then off with our heads!
You don’t have the heart to hurt me
It’s the last thing you want to do
But you don’t have the heart to love me
Not the way I want you to
CALLED TO RISE
We never know how high we are
Till we are asked to rise
And then if we are true to plan
Our statures touch the skies –
The Heroism we recite
Would be a normal thing
Did not ourselves the Cubits warp
For fear to be a King –
Emily Dickinson
The subsequent decisions I’m going to make will determine the next two years of my life. Should I go or should I stay? Mr. Frost…will you help me out on this?
THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim
Because it was grassy and wanted wear,
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference
We judge ourselves every day, wondering whether we are making the right choices. The happenings of last year had been unexpected; it goes to the matter that it wasn’t the best Holiday of my life. I’ve been living alone since I started college, but I never felt so alone than right now. After I left home in a daze of mixed emotions and anger at my mom, I took my keys and my bag on early Tuesday morning and drive back to the city and I never looked back since then.
It’s been a month since the occurrence and i still feel heavy with tremors of disillusioned. I guess I’m not that mad at them now, I’m just a little disappointed she could have trusted me than those conniving snakes. I’m her child for the love of God…
The wound still bleeds, but time heals everything right?
So here I am, alone again and starting to pick up the pieces of my shattered life – unemployed and without a family to go home to. More likely, i don’t have anything to call home anymore.
I’ve been sending resumes for three weeks now. Determine to start anew; don’t get me wrong coz I’m dying to leave this city. It reminds me of everything i don’t have any longer.
So I got a call from an agent, representing an employer from Doha, Qatar. Will fly to the Capital next week for an interview, so this is it. Me and my suitcase together again. And that passport will transport me between lives.
I’ve learned that when you’ve been pushed with pain you’re willing to go the lengths of the unknown. Even before I accepted the interview, I research what’s life in there. I’ve known it’s not so bad, I’ll survive.
I will not deny there are times I just sit down and drown myself in self pity. But I give myself a pat once in awhile and just think that I’m not the only one in this entire globe alone too and still seeking for a place called home…or is there?
They say being alone isn’t such a terrible thing. You can do a lot of stuff other people don’t. You gotta live out your life in open air and not worry about a tad. That’s what everyone thought, who wasn’t been there.
There was a time when holidays were my favourite, and then right now it’s just another date. But they’re the worse, you got invent a lot stories to why you aren’t with your family. Then slowly you become a liar and a good one for that matter. And when they know the truth, they sneered like a rose to a weed.
I’m still on a process getting over crying situations i cannot mend. Situations that tear you apart and left you like nothing. It became an acid then a grudge and it’s ugly down there. Earlier this day, after I opened my walk-in cabinet I sat down at the edge and cried like a baby. They called it breakdown; I called it clearing my head. Madonna’s song kept playing inside my memory:
Where do I go from here? This isn’t where I intended to be, I had it all you believed in me, I believed in you. Certainties disappear, what do i do for a dream to survive How do I keep all my passions alive, as i used to do?
I wasn’t complaining about my predicament, I was complaining why I can’t get things right lately. We ultimately will be shaped by the traits that helped us beat life’s adversities. Then I met him, Michael Oher known for Big Mike, the main character on the movie Blind Side or simply the man who was famous for USA Today’s From Homeless to NFL. You see, for those who don’t know him. He went through horrors in life a child and an early teen shouldn’t be experiencing. For those of us of had been pampered since birth, life is fairy tale. But outside the world it doesn’t. And for Big Mike growing up wasn’t easy.
But then you know, some parts of life miracles kind of happen. When your family wouldn’t believe in you chances are some family or someone out there will. I tip my hat to the Tuohy’s. Whenever I go through dark tunnels in my life, I do convince myself that out there someone is worse than what I am right now. But I was about to give up from that philosophy when I heard Michael’s words echoed through my monitor. I grabbed my seatbelt, held on tighter for this is going to be a bumpy ride but this too shall pass. And for that my parting words will be his:
”I don’t dwell on anything. I’m not going to feel sorry for myself because I didn’t have a place to stay a lot of time. It is what it is. We’ve got to go through some things in life. Take it and run with it.” – Michael Oher, NFL
How does it feel having to know you only have 6 months to live?
I am not a direct member of his family but in my heart, i know I’m his daughter. Two days ago my friend told me his father is dying. I sat in her car as she shared to me the bitterness of reality. It came as a shocked for someone who has survived multiple surgeries for cancer and stroke. Memories flashing to me a onetime visit to the hospital where i found him barely talking and barely seeing because he was partially blind, yet he flashes a beautiful smile every time he feels people in his room. When i dropped by he reached out for his hand when my friend told him it was me and laughed with no sound like he knew he was in good company. And there i saw it. I have another father in him.
He came in and out of hospitals with good news of recovery. His son branded him as having 9 lives like the cats. He stopped his addiction to alcohol and became a person with an exchange life. He grew faster spiritually than I could have in two years in church. It is true that your personal devotion with God grows not inside the confines of the church building but with your experience with life in His mercy.
It seems like for months everything is in fairytale moments. Until he visited the States for his immigration visa that he had another painful attack. The doctors found that the cancer had spread and another operation is now forbidden. It seems like the latest science of our times cannot save him any longer. And for a while it depressed him to know that 6 months are all he has.
He shares that when you are weakened by fear of death the devil can easily penetrate to you. But he knew that God held him, tighter and stronger than He had before. That even if a sick man will pray for his healing sometimes God will say no. And from that time on he has nowhere else to go but on bended knees praying not to heal him but to increase his strength to fully accept His will.
The doctors suggested chemotherapy and radiation prove to buy him time with life but still cannot save him from death. He emailed to his eldest son after he finally accepted his fate.
“Cancer has robbed me again of my physical strength. But just like Paul said, i maybe decaying outwardly but inside me grow stronger every day. I am telling you this because i recently found out that my days on earth are numbered. The doctors suggested alternatives but I know it will only get the best of me physically and I don’t want to waste my remaining days in bed but with you. I confirmed my flight back to Cebu on May. I am going home to you and to my Father who assured me that death in him is not lost but gain. I am crying now not because of fear but with excitement that finally, I’m going home.”
The letter was long and that’s as far as I could remember. Tonight on a regular gathering he came up in the front and talked about his life for the last time. He was always been the funny man. But when he got to the part of saying goodbye, i couldn’t seem to brush of the memory of him bowing his head and crying to the point of uncontrollably shaking.
I know that some people will still pray for his healing. But I know that he knew that God is in control of everything now. That even if He said no to our request i know that the depth of prayer in the end is God himself. When we have grown so deep in prayer we focused on God, with or without the answers.
I recently checked on Sagwan Namwaran latest updates and got a daily dose of some current events. The blog that titles “No Starbucks for me thank you” was really interesting, mind you. As the story goes, two Asian youth Ambassadors, Thai Communications undergrad and a Malaysian Law student, visited Philippines recently. The blog hits two main issues: Jollibee and Starbucks.
I’ll start with the later. When Thai delegate wanted to try some local owned coffee shop, they were hoping from places to places until Sagwan suggested Starbucks, the Thai delegate was firm to say, “No Starbucks for me, Thank you. I am in the Philippines; I did not come all the way here just to have Starbucks.” When I was abroad, after hours of promenading streets I couldn’t wait to get a fit of Starbucks’ frap which i did and I just realized from recent readings that I might as well had wasted my roundtrip plane ticket and hotel to absolutely ignore what locals could offer. We do hold nothing against Starbucks and I will be a hypocrite if I won’t say it had been my choice for my Green Tea frap.
I think what opted the Thai delegate to ardently try the local coffee was her fascination on Jollibee’s successful story. [She acknowledged Jollibee’s stature as the only locally owned fast food chain that beat McDonald’s big time anywhere in the world. In fact, according to her, because of its undeniable corporate success, Jollibee is being studied in her university’s Marketing classes. (Sagwan Namwaran)].
Did you know…?
….that Jollibee started as an Ice Cream parlor in Cubao?
…that Jollibee in 1978 pre-empted McDonald’s entry into the country.
…that Jollibee was recognized as one of the “Top 20 Best Employers in Asia” and number 1 in the Philippines.
…that Jollibee was listed as one of Asia’s most admired companies.
And the list of what I found about this Pinoy company just goes on. I figured its accomplishments are something we should mimic. In agreement with Sagwan, The Asian Century is here to stay. If we stay Idle we will be left behind by the wave of the rise of Asia.
I was sentenced guilty by this very words; truth is, whenever my little cousins drag me to Jollibee and do the Jobby dance they saw in commercials. I would eventually roll my eyes and take them somewhere foreign. The night would end up having them pouting on my choice of spaghetti. I was their dream killer. And they didn’t like it.
I never realised Jollibee was part of my childhood. The child in me always saw something beyond the smile of a happy Bee, and every little kids in the Philippines is in love with him, who wouldn’t? Jollibee had been greatly admired by our Asian neighbours. And now I’m ready to sing….
I love you Sabado, Pati na rin Linggo,
Hintay ka lang Jollibee Andyan na ako
Panlasang Pilipino At home sa Jollibee!!!
