the biggest surprise is when i actually surprise myself.
like now for instance. ever so casually scanning people's pages. for some reason ending up on his. and here i swore i would stop.
reading what he has written, i am surprised to realize how affected i still am. by his words, his thoughts, his effect on people, his effect on me.
contrary to what i thought was true, i am still not over him.
surprise.
---
to be continued.
Thursday, July 28, 2005
Friday, July 22, 2005
blur
everything is a blur now. especially when i don't have my glasses on. (the constant butt of jokes in our little chungkua federation)
but since school started, everything goes by so fast. my study time. even the classes (when im not worried i will be called). its the middle of the sem already!
updates on:
my current state of mind:
no longer maniacally depressed, but steeling myself from becoming all hopeful again. more realistic.
a bit depressed with how my grabbing off the spoon turned out. but then again, i expected more of a rejection than that. maybe some people are really like that.
my current state of heart:
bleak. no reason to dress up. no reason to be brilliant. no reason to wake up in the morning all giddy and smiley.
do i believe it will be this way forever? i dont know.
my current thoughts on the state of my friends:
happy. with everyone.
zarah is all european and writing me in bikinis from beaches, from inside the sistine chapel. im so happy shes happy. she deserves it so much.
anna is going to have a little annette! (my suggestion. well, i think its better than zimelda. hehehe) but a little wolfette to train! how wonderful.
gail has already found a job, and a better-paying one at that. i can only hope she doesnt get as stressed as she was at her old job and that she is able to provide for all of her family's needs now.
k is taking her masters, which is always good, and it seems, she is happier with everything that she is learning.
many disappointments on my part though.
barely making enough to pass. not studying when im supposed to. not really doing anything to improve my overall attitude and psyche.
hooboy. people are getting married at 23. and here i am getting all...
blegh.
but since school started, everything goes by so fast. my study time. even the classes (when im not worried i will be called). its the middle of the sem already!
updates on:
my current state of mind:
no longer maniacally depressed, but steeling myself from becoming all hopeful again. more realistic.
a bit depressed with how my grabbing off the spoon turned out. but then again, i expected more of a rejection than that. maybe some people are really like that.
my current state of heart:
bleak. no reason to dress up. no reason to be brilliant. no reason to wake up in the morning all giddy and smiley.
do i believe it will be this way forever? i dont know.
my current thoughts on the state of my friends:
happy. with everyone.
zarah is all european and writing me in bikinis from beaches, from inside the sistine chapel. im so happy shes happy. she deserves it so much.
anna is going to have a little annette! (my suggestion. well, i think its better than zimelda. hehehe) but a little wolfette to train! how wonderful.
gail has already found a job, and a better-paying one at that. i can only hope she doesnt get as stressed as she was at her old job and that she is able to provide for all of her family's needs now.
k is taking her masters, which is always good, and it seems, she is happier with everything that she is learning.
many disappointments on my part though.
barely making enough to pass. not studying when im supposed to. not really doing anything to improve my overall attitude and psyche.
hooboy. people are getting married at 23. and here i am getting all...
blegh.
Wednesday, July 13, 2005
inspiration picked up from here and there
from several journals in a different bookstore
i beg you...to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. don't search for answers, which could not be given you now, because you would not be able to live them. and the point is, live everything. live the questions now. perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer...
- rainer maria rilke
what lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.
peace. it does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. it means to be in the midst of these things and still be calm in your heart.
from a forwarded email:
Our Greatest Fear
Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our greatest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, "Who am I to be brilliant, talented, fabulous?"
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn't serve the world.
There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so thatother people won't feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It's not just in some of us, it's in ALL of us.
As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously giveother people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,our presence automatically liberates others.
-- Marianne Williamson
i beg you...to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. don't search for answers, which could not be given you now, because you would not be able to live them. and the point is, live everything. live the questions now. perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer...
- rainer maria rilke
what lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.
peace. it does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. it means to be in the midst of these things and still be calm in your heart.
from a forwarded email:
Our Greatest Fear
Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our greatest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, "Who am I to be brilliant, talented, fabulous?"
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn't serve the world.
There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so thatother people won't feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It's not just in some of us, it's in ALL of us.
As we let our own light shine, we unconsciously giveother people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,our presence automatically liberates others.
-- Marianne Williamson
Thursday, July 07, 2005
backtracking
you always hear about the ugly duckling who became a swan, but have you heard about the swan who became an ugly duckling?
her name is ia.
she mostly swims in the murky parts of the river. alone.
her name is ia.
she mostly swims in the murky parts of the river. alone.
Monday, July 04, 2005
so true
The thrill of traveling solo
By Emily Giffin
In the next installment of our "What I Wish I Had Known When I Was Single" series, one writer shares how to celebrate and savor the freedom of your unwed days.When I was about 22 years old and in my first year of law school, I remember reading a wedding story in the newspaper about a couple who got engaged in Paris. It was the bride's first trip to the City of Lights. She said that she had been saving it, waiting to see it with the man of her dreams. Her husband-to-be, of course, knew this about her and so he chose Paris as the perfect place for his proposal.
It was the kind of story that makes single women swoon and dream and wish. For an engagement that satisfying, a husband that thoughtful. I remember reading that story and thinking that the bride's plan was a good one. I hadn't yet been to Paris, and so I, too, would save it for the man of my dreams.
Being one to stick to a plan whenever possible, that is what I did. I had many meaningful life experiences throughout the rest of my twenties. I moved to Manhattan, began my legal career, forged incredible friendships, met some memorable (and many other forgettable) men. But despite several opportunities to do so, I did not go to Paris for another eight years. Not until I met my (now) husband. He didn't propose on that trip, but we did visit the most romantic city in the world during that first flush of love for one another. We sipped champagne in our Left Bank hotel, wandered along Parisian streets, sailed down the Seine arm-in-arm. Now we are married with twin one-year-old sons, and every time I look at our photos or read our travel journal, I remember those five days in France with such sweet sentimentality.
Still, there is a part of me that wonders—and will never know—what Paris would have been like as an unattached woman. I read about that Paris sometimes—the Paris that is about being youthful, free, and adventurous in a way you can only be when you're single and the possibilities are endless. I will never know what it is like, for example, to stroll through the city alone with my guidebook, settle onto a barstool in a café, catch the eye of a tall, dark Frenchman…
There is part of me that regrets holding back on Paris in much the same way I would have regretted limiting myself in any aspect of life simply because I hadn't yet found the right guy. For me, it was Paris. (How wistful I get when I watch films like Out of Africa or read books like Under the Tuscan Sun and realize that I won't ever travel fully alone again.) For others, it might be waiting to have sex, waiting to buy a house, waiting to get a golden retriever. Whatever the case, I believe that it is a mistake for anyone to wait for a partner while limiting her life experience in any way. Because even if you later have that experience, it's not the same experience when you do it married. And the more you experience by yourself, the more you will bring to a marriage and the fewer regrets you will have. Being single is no better or worse than the married version of life, but it should be savored and fully lived just as any other stage of life. After all, once you're married, you will be married forever, if all goes well. And just as you can't return to childhood or college, you can't recapture your single days once you've passed them by.
So make your single memories count. Don't save Paris. Don't save your best pair of shoes. Don't save anything. Travel, party, live, and laugh as if it were the very last chapter in your single life. It just might be.
Emily Giffin is the author of Something Borrowed and the recently-published Something Blue. For more information, check out emilygiffin.com.
------------------
so true. i feel affirmed.
By Emily Giffin
In the next installment of our "What I Wish I Had Known When I Was Single" series, one writer shares how to celebrate and savor the freedom of your unwed days.When I was about 22 years old and in my first year of law school, I remember reading a wedding story in the newspaper about a couple who got engaged in Paris. It was the bride's first trip to the City of Lights. She said that she had been saving it, waiting to see it with the man of her dreams. Her husband-to-be, of course, knew this about her and so he chose Paris as the perfect place for his proposal.
It was the kind of story that makes single women swoon and dream and wish. For an engagement that satisfying, a husband that thoughtful. I remember reading that story and thinking that the bride's plan was a good one. I hadn't yet been to Paris, and so I, too, would save it for the man of my dreams.
Being one to stick to a plan whenever possible, that is what I did. I had many meaningful life experiences throughout the rest of my twenties. I moved to Manhattan, began my legal career, forged incredible friendships, met some memorable (and many other forgettable) men. But despite several opportunities to do so, I did not go to Paris for another eight years. Not until I met my (now) husband. He didn't propose on that trip, but we did visit the most romantic city in the world during that first flush of love for one another. We sipped champagne in our Left Bank hotel, wandered along Parisian streets, sailed down the Seine arm-in-arm. Now we are married with twin one-year-old sons, and every time I look at our photos or read our travel journal, I remember those five days in France with such sweet sentimentality.
Still, there is a part of me that wonders—and will never know—what Paris would have been like as an unattached woman. I read about that Paris sometimes—the Paris that is about being youthful, free, and adventurous in a way you can only be when you're single and the possibilities are endless. I will never know what it is like, for example, to stroll through the city alone with my guidebook, settle onto a barstool in a café, catch the eye of a tall, dark Frenchman…
There is part of me that regrets holding back on Paris in much the same way I would have regretted limiting myself in any aspect of life simply because I hadn't yet found the right guy. For me, it was Paris. (How wistful I get when I watch films like Out of Africa or read books like Under the Tuscan Sun and realize that I won't ever travel fully alone again.) For others, it might be waiting to have sex, waiting to buy a house, waiting to get a golden retriever. Whatever the case, I believe that it is a mistake for anyone to wait for a partner while limiting her life experience in any way. Because even if you later have that experience, it's not the same experience when you do it married. And the more you experience by yourself, the more you will bring to a marriage and the fewer regrets you will have. Being single is no better or worse than the married version of life, but it should be savored and fully lived just as any other stage of life. After all, once you're married, you will be married forever, if all goes well. And just as you can't return to childhood or college, you can't recapture your single days once you've passed them by.
So make your single memories count. Don't save Paris. Don't save your best pair of shoes. Don't save anything. Travel, party, live, and laugh as if it were the very last chapter in your single life. It just might be.
Emily Giffin is the author of Something Borrowed and the recently-published Something Blue. For more information, check out emilygiffin.com.
------------------
so true. i feel affirmed.
Friday, July 01, 2005
a note of encouragement
i got the most wonderful suprise today, on an otherwise dreary day. this person never fails to inspire me with her relentless drive to support and provide for her family, and her efforts to keep positive with everything that is happening.
today my good friend wrote me this note:
-------------------------
HI ia!
u know what, everytime i would remember to log in to my blog, i would always have to browse and read through what you have put in your own account. it always inspires me to write something. As I said before, you seem to always have a word or two for everything from the downright mababaw to the more profound and thought provoking things. Even the way you write tells so much about how you deeply you are connected to your life. And that's just so comforting. To witness how one lives so passionately and to be able to share it to others, i think its a gift you are giving to all of us who you are sharing your thoughts to.
I have always admired how you effortlessly create and bind the words to make a beautiful testimony of life. You always inspire me to write. I hope that you be happy and you just keep on writing..
miss na kita..lets share some coffee sometime..pag me work na ko..
labshu!
gailey
-----------------------------------------
its a surprise how my musings spur feelings like these from people. but im glad that they do. but these things are nothing compared to how everyone else inspires me. in the way they choose to get by, the way they choose to live life.
i only hope i can get to that level of imparting good feelings in the future.
today my good friend wrote me this note:
-------------------------
HI ia!
u know what, everytime i would remember to log in to my blog, i would always have to browse and read through what you have put in your own account. it always inspires me to write something. As I said before, you seem to always have a word or two for everything from the downright mababaw to the more profound and thought provoking things. Even the way you write tells so much about how you deeply you are connected to your life. And that's just so comforting. To witness how one lives so passionately and to be able to share it to others, i think its a gift you are giving to all of us who you are sharing your thoughts to.
I have always admired how you effortlessly create and bind the words to make a beautiful testimony of life. You always inspire me to write. I hope that you be happy and you just keep on writing..
miss na kita..lets share some coffee sometime..pag me work na ko..
labshu!
gailey
-----------------------------------------
its a surprise how my musings spur feelings like these from people. but im glad that they do. but these things are nothing compared to how everyone else inspires me. in the way they choose to get by, the way they choose to live life.
i only hope i can get to that level of imparting good feelings in the future.
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