Aids

There is no one more important than you

How i dream of you each day and every moment

Life passes, time moves on, and I only have my dreams to show

You are the wish of my heart, so near yet so far

I know you, yet I do not know you

You are a thought in my mind, a dream so real

In my head your image has played over and over

Your soft cheeks, sparkling eyes and gentle hands

The sweet smile, laughter and warm hugs

How come I know how it is to have you near,

when I haven’t seen you?

Too often I have wished for you to come

Sharing quiet afternoons, rainy days and starry nights

Having mindful walks, long drives, and deep conversations

But at the end of the day, the biggest wish is for me

To have the courage to accept that you are not here

I have often wondered where you are out there

I have asked the stars if you will be a reality

I have looked everywhere and prayed for the universe to show a sign

But all I could hear was a reply of silence

Too many times it seems, too many times

Do not worry though, I am not tired of waiting

Things will come and go but I will just be here

Patiently waiting as it has been from the start

For that day that you take your place,

Here in my life, here in my heart.

 

When I was in prep, the john was always my first stop in school. I always had to go before starting classes. I was such a tense, shy and insecure kid that every morning, I would get butterflies just thinking of school. Even if I already pooh-ed before leaving the house, my stomach had to relieve itself for the second time.

As a kid, I was not wise enough to carry my own tissue paper.

I can never understand why in my school, you had to ask tissue paper from the teacher. Why can’t they just leave some in the restroom?

Can you imagine the total humiliation I would be facing if I stopped my teacher, asked her, in front of my classmates, that I needed some tissue paper? Being caught in a situation like that can mean year-long teasing from classmates.

So, luckily, there’s art class and all those free packs of art paper. I loved using dark colors – red, brown, black, violet, etc. The toilet doesn’t flush in my school, and if anyone saw those dark colors in the toilet bowl—that’s my work of art.

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I don’t want to be caught anywhere without tissue paper. I carry tissue paper in my car and if needed be, in my bag or pocket.

With tissue paper at hand, all I’ll ever need to worry about is a clean toilet bowl. But here in Manila, that would refer to the malls and private offices, never public toilets. I dread public toilets, especially the ones found at government offices. Just in case I need to go and I don’t have a choice, I will probably cover the entire bowl with tissue paper and I won’t sit, I’ll squat.

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Talking about malls, I can never understand why some big names in the industry such as SM and Robinsons are so cheap. Why can’t they provide free tissue paper? Compared to the billions that they make in a year, how much will it burn them to provide this freebie? It’s all about the money than the customers for these people.

(Side note: SM also has the worst men’s urinals in terms of privacy. The urinals are so huge and chunky that they throw a guy approximately 12-15 inches off the wall. Second, there’s no divider between urinals. Can you imagine how awkward it is to pee there? Just a split-second glance to your left or right shoulder or arm can expose, in all its glory, another guy’s private part! I don’t want to see that and I certainly don’t want strangers seeing mine.)

I also don’t believe in charging a customer php15-20 to get better looking restrooms and amenities that should have been free in the first place! Thumbs down to Shangri-la and middle-grounders!

Kudos to Rockwell and Eastwood!  Thank you for thinking of your customer’s hygiene concerns. Thank you for providing free tissue paper and clean toilet bowls.

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When I visited my relatives in the US last year, I had the worse case of irregular bowel movement. Since we were going around a lot and I was not really sure when my stomach will be dropping a bomb, I packed a lot of tissue paper.

It turned out that I wouldn’t be using them at all. From west coast to east coast, I literally pooh-ed everywhere. But the amazing thing is, wherever I went: a cheap isolated town restaurant, shopping malls, interstate gas stations, isolated inns, and even restroom stops in the desert, there were clean restrooms and I can’t believe it, tissue paper!!!

If people ask me what makes the US a first-world country, I’ll probably say that wherever you go in the US, there’s always a clean restroom and lots of tissue paper waiting for you.

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On Love and Pooh

Parokya ni Edgar:

Torpe: O sige, tatawagan ko na (dials the number of his crush)

Tatay ng crush: Hello.

Torpe: Hello, pwede pong makausap si girlie?

Tatay ng crush: Ah, si girlie, tawag ka ulit, tumatae!

I once read somewhere that people who tend to have problems keeping their balance, meaning, they stumble and lose their footing a lot, may need to examine if this is a physically manifestation of their lives being out of balance.

Being out of work early last week, I decided to watch a movie to past the time. And I certainly got a similar “message” from a romantic flick, “Ready to Launch”. In the movie, the lead guy, who refuses to leave his parents’ house despite being over 30 yrs old gets into outrageous and unthinkable disasters. Throughout the movie, he finds himself attacked by supposedly harmless and human-friendly animals (ex. a dolphin, a chipmunk, etc). At first he doesn’t have a clue to what was happening. Then it keeps happening again and again and his friends pointed out to him that maybe nature was sending out signs that there must be something wrong in his life, an imbalance, something that attracted all of these weird accidents. Obviously, he needed to realize that he was overstaying in his parents’ house and second, he was denying his love for the lead girl. When he finally had an epiphany and made changes to his life, the attacks stopped.

Of course the movie had to be humorous, thus, the extreme approach to convey this simple truth. But I think this is an undeniable fact — the universe sends out signs. Whenever we are face with crossroads or important decisions to make — the universe always sends out signs to help us. Always.

Is there really a way to know if you’re living your life in balance with the universe and the powers that be? Yes, of course. Knowing that we have a problem is not the problem. We know what frustrates or disappoints us about our lives. Things that basically, make us unhappy, prevent our growth and happiness. But figuring out how to solve these problems, what paths to take can be difficult. This is where signs are supposed to help us.

But, that’s where the movie and real life differs – reading the signs can be a problem. It’s not a linear thing and it doesn’t happen overnight. Some signs can be as glaring as the summer sun, the solutions as unmistakable as the problems the signs are pointing to. But that’s probably true only ten percent of the time. Most are hard to decipher.

If it happens to us, how can we learn to read the signs loud and clear and know what those signs are pointing us to do?

Well like most people in this planet, I am also struggling to read the signs. Sometimes I get it, sometimes I don’t.

When I pray, I always say, “Lord, can you please send me signs where I’m supposed to go?” I joke around saying that God probably doesn’t hear my prayers because 90 percent of the time I usually don’t get a clue as to what to do.

But that’s not the whole truth. I need to admit that maybe its because I am also blinded by my own ego, that even if He probably sends out all kinds of signs, I am too caught up in my own wants and desires that I miss the signs.

Maybe being able to read signs has something to do with openness. Being able to let go of expectations can be the hardest part — we often expect signs to point to what we actually want to happen rather than what should happen.

Maybe, we also tend to think too much. Because we are too anxious and impatient when it comes to solving our problems, we tend to rush the process of discovery. We become too alert, reading too much into everything that happens to us. Besides, I think the universe operates in the simplest ways. I think if the universe is trying to send us signs; it will communicate with our spirit in the simplest and most obvious ways. You’ll just feel it in your gut. Ahh, there’s the sign.

And furthermore, since we live in modern times, skepticism gets the best of us. It can’t be that obvious! But how many stories have we heard where hundreds of people found what makes them happy through following seemingly coincidental leads or events in their lives? Don’t you think that the universe has enough intelligence to be able to have its ways of communicating to you? Its not mystical, pure luck or coincidence and it can happen to anyone.

I believe reading signs is a skill, it is not something that a few have while most don’t. And like any skill in this world, it takes a little training to make it part of our problem-solving kit. It does however take certain things into account – openness, patience, and believing that the universe will conspire to help you (paraphrasing Coelho in the alchemist).

I once had this Filipino teacher who was so passionate about teaching El Fili and Noli that any idealistic yet innocent high school student looking for his own set of convictions, cannot help but get caught up in his fervor for nationalism.

He was the kind of teacher that was pure energy. Even if he was a small man, he spoke at the top of his lungs, and anyone at the other end of the corridor will wonder where that booming voice was coming from. Classmates hated sitting near the blackboard because he would often spill his saliva while talking, hitting victims as far as the second row. He always carried a handkerchief because he sweated profusely and I’m pretty sure if someone decided to squeeze some sweat out of his shirt and hankie, there would be enough drippings to fill a cup.

He would come to class bringing all sorts of teaching materials that included a cassette player so that there would be mood music (I got hooked to the Dying Young soundtrack because of him), the standard manila paper of notes that he wanted you to remember (so that you don’t spend your time thinking what things are important instead of listening to him), self-painted cut-out figures of characters in the story that also included, if necessary, a full scale painting of the environment where the scenes took place, and (this is my favorite) the occasional objects he used as “symbols” to drive a point.

I remember the first day of class where he brought an onion and a mango and started peeling it in front of us. He said something like (my words), huwag kayong maging isang sibuyas na kapag nabalatan ay wala nang nilalaman, maging isang manga na kapag naubos ang balat ay may nilalamang buto. From the first day of class he was telling us to be more than just a superficial, worldly person and to have strong personal convictions that would be our inner strength in making changes even if the path of change will mean going against popular opinion or doing it on our own.

I also remember the chapter on “bapor tabo”. He exclaimed, “Gaya ng bapor tabo, ito ay simbolismo ng pagiging wala – bilog, zero – kapag walang pagbabago mangyayari sa Pilipinas!”

Honestly, there was nothing new to what he was saying. I’ve heard it before. But somehow, for a moment, time stopped. I was in this trance, vacuum, black hole, and all I could sense was the echo of his voice and the sad message he was imparting. If he was not saying something new, why did it hit me so much?

I looked at the man. He was the real thing—he was speaking from his soul, and the concern was authentic— he was reaching out, reaching out not to stir my emotions but to reach deeper and hit my soul with the question, will you let this happen? Somehow, even up to this day, that particular discussion keeps coming back to my consciousness, will you, Mr. Lim, let this happen?

I can never remember a class where we would not be surprised that the time was up. My classmates and I would have two quick looks on our faces. The first one had hints of being absorbed by the day’s lessons and a slight disappointment of not having more time to discuss the subject matter. This will be quickly followed by a look of deep personal realization – I swear this is true — some would occasionally whisper to themselves and say, wow, hayop, galing! My classmates and I would get such inspirational high that we applauded our teacher after every class.

During high school your mind is like a sponge—you absorb things and lessons without question, taking them as truths. Later on in life, you begin to question them. That’s what college teaches you. In college, your teachers will tell you (at least my Jesuit teachers told me) that you should be critical thinkers—not just accepting beliefs as truths, question them, dissect them. If its based on lies or deceit, not on universal “laws” or truths, it will not stand the test of time.

Why do I always go back to that class and have fond memories of that teacher? At a young age, he opened my heart and pointed truths about the kind of person that I should be. That class changed me. High school is a time when you try to find yourself. Your values. Your convictions. At a time that I was looking for something that would define me, he became my teacher.

It has been a decade since I graduated from high school. But from time to time, I remember the lessons and the challenges he posed a long time ago. As if I’m back at that age of innocence, back at that high school classroom of ours, and I could hear him say, with a booming voice and an excited look in his face, anung klaseng tao ka? Sibuyas o Manga? And those piercing and challenging eyes, that seemed to say, will you let this happen… Mr. Lim?

 

I am proud to say that through the years, I have learned not to be rattled easily by my problems. And if there are negative thoughts swarming in my head, I can keep my mouth shut and not complain but accept my situation. Believe me, if you’ve met me highschool or college time, you’ll be suprised how much I’ve changed. Some would even say that I am quite the opposite of who I was back then. I can definitely say, comparing the old me and the new me (spanning a time line of ten years), the old me used to "think too much" and the new me, as a friend said, "ikaw aids, whatever happens around you, chill ka lang" Brrr. *Loud laugh*

This is usually the case, 9 out of 10 times. And this night is probably an exception to the rule. The old me still surfaces once in awhile, and this night, he comes back to haunt me. Well, there’s always an excuse for nights like this, I AM ONLY HUMAN.

So where to start?

Why am I writing this damn blog anyway? Maybe because there’s nobody to talk to. I mean really talk to, and getting that feeling afterwards that I was understood. Don’t get me wrong, I have very good friends who offer me the usual deep personal talks but I think I can handle figuring out myself on my own. I am my own best friend. I just need to release some negative emotions building up inside.

Now to my monologue.

The question is, to God (the Universe), umm, where the HELL are you taking me? Positives first, thank you Lord for all the lessons I’ve learned from those shit-y moments, especialy the lessons about patience and acceptance. Okay, after acknowledging the good, let me ask you, why one roadblock after another? 

Okay, I did pray for two things, circa 20 yrs old, I remember: I prayed that you’ll change me, that you’ll mold my character. Okay, this MUST be the price to pay: more pain than glory.. ika nga nila, pain is the greatest teacher. True, true.

I also prayed that you’ll use me as an instrument of your will. Do you plan on making me the millenium version of JOB? It seems like it.

For example, these past five years, the only thing I wanted to do was to be a good entrepreneur. And you know, deep inside, that I was doing this because I felt it was where I could make a change. I was "meant" for this.

But five years after, I have nothing to show. N-O-T-H-I-N-G. Okay, I admit my mistakes. I take responsibility for them. My ignorance — "all i need is a great idea kahit walang contacts or resources" — and arrogance — "kahit ako lang mag-isa kaya ko to!" — voila! the perfect recipe to be part of this statistic : 8 out of 10 businesses fail on their first 3 years. Hayy.

But please give me credit for my effort and my never give up attitude. Some bitter sweet memories: I’ve probably asked hundreds of people (mostly friends) to help me with possible ventures, and wasted hundreds of hours convincing them only to be turned down. I have done hundred hours of research in all existing libraries or business centers in manila (even provinces) where some of the clerks of said offices look at me with irritation, "ikaw na naman??"

I admit helping out my dad keeps me busy. For now. Since I can’t build my own, might as well help out in the family biz right?  But it doesn’t do my self-esteem any good admitting the truth. C’mon lets admit it. I am an underutilized, underachieving COO (child of owner). The whole damn business can survive even without me! Nevertheless, I make the best of what you give me.

So, is this all there is? All my goals seem unattainable now. For years, i’ve been praying for help. Can you please send someone to help me, teach me or just guide me how to make things happen? Help me correct my mistakes and teach me how to do it right? No answer. I must have prayed that prayer a thousand times, and even if the tears fell, my prayers were unanswered.

Now, all I pray for is a sign. After everything that happened in the past five years, I’m beginning to doubt if this career is for me. Can you please show me a sign? If I was meant elsewhere, give me the courage to accept my failure here and help me move on and discover what I am supposedly "meant" to do.

P.S. Now I wonder, Lord, will you answer this request? I remember the last prayer you answered, it was three years ago. I think it was the only time you answered me. Alam ko hindi ako malakas sa iyo so I’m not expecting you to answer me. Nevertheless, I wanna say thank you for listening. Thanks.

Wai-ying’s hakao & sharks fin Dimsum,chicken feet, fried tofu, duck rice bowl at/near aranque(?) market in divisoria, shabu-shabu (with wild chicken) at Guangzhou, China, Fish in Chili Broth(!) at Shanghai, kare-kare at my tita’s house in long island, ny, Mie Sapi (beef noodles soup) and pangsit ayam (chicken wanton) at Bakmi GM,  Jakarta, Roast Duck in Singapore, siopao bacon and mom’s spaghetti at mico’s house, lamb kebab, keema with eggplant at mister kebab or behrouz, Cafe Mediteranian’s Vegetable Panini with Hummus, Teriyaki boy’s gyu-don and pork broth with thick noodles, Mcdonald’s quarter pounder US version, Roasted Turkey Leg at Disneyland, CA, Mr Poon’s steamed fish with special sauce, Cafe Adriatico’s Cuban Stew, Sisig at Gilligan’s, Wham burger, Yellow Cab’s New York’s Finest pizza, Isaw and fishballs at U.P., Chateau Verde’s Baked Oysters, Blackened Chicken, and Ostrich Pepper Steak, Napoli’s anchioves pizza and seafood in oil and garlic pasta, Katip’s Balut ala Pobre, Cafe Bola’s Adobo Flakes with Kesong Puti, Pumpkin soup on the way to Baguio, Mexicali’s special Beef Burritos, Fresh Oysters anywhere, Cervini Dorm’s Basilog, Barbecue and Papaitan at Dannylicous, Pancake’s burger steak, SR Thai’s Seafood Rice, Tapa King’s Tapa King or Queen, Pho hoa’s fresh spring rolls and Beef Stew Noodles, any soup at Soup’s Kitchen, Santi’s German sausages grilled to the max, Outback’s Australian rib-eye steak or on cheap days, Bora’s Cyma (for greek food) and Trufood (for indian food), Sizzling Plate’s local porterhouse steak, NYPD fries, Tater’s white cheddar popcorn, Oreos or Chip’s Ahoy in Cowhead full cream milk..(to be continued)