Article: The Line Between Giving Up and Acceptance

Here's an interesting article I chanced upon early this morning. The title pretty much says it all: The Line Between Giving Up and Acceptance

Here's a two paragraph excerpt that pretty much sums up the whole article.

It became clear to me when I was recently talking with a friend who was agonizing over what to do about a two-year relationship she was in that was laced with conflict and overall pain. She voiced the elevated mantra that so many of us live by as she was debating on what to do next. She said, “I just think that this is worth fighting for, and that if we really love each other it will all work out in the end.” It kind of sounds like those Idol wannabes who think their singing careers are warpaths to be fought rather than elegance to be revealed. It sounds so noble; how can you argue with that kind of fierce desire and commitment?

Well never fear, I found a way. I looked at her with total clarity in my eyes and said, “There comes a point in life when what we are pursuing stops becoming an investment of our time and instead becomes a waste of our time. And it is our responsibility to figure out where that point is and do what needs to be done to change courses.” She looked at me kind of like someone who just saw a possum in the middle of the road with it’s big pink eyes staring in their headlights. You may not know what look I’m talking about, but it’s not a good one.

One may agree or disagree with the author's point. Me, coming from a somewhat similar situation, I can relate to it and I do slightly agree with it. But I think as women though, we are more inclined to be emotionally attached to the whole relationship. We are stronger, thus we attempt to make it work more so, than men. When a man says no, that's probably the end of it. When a woman says no, you can still work your way around to changing her mind. I may be wrong though.

Ultimately in the end, these things, it's always easier said than done. And if getting out of a stagnant and unhealthy relationship means getting hurt, maybe that's what we really have to experience first hand, head on. I did.

Stop fighting for them when all you’re doing is fighting. And start fighting for them when all you’re doing is waiting for the life you long for to magically land in your lap.

To be honest, I do miss being in a relationship at times. But I don't really see the need to get into one now. I meet new people. I can work on myself, prepare myself so that when the right one comes passing by, I will be ready this time around.

In the meantime, I can live my jetsetter life without having to worry about leaving someone behind over and over again. :) Planning to do some nice trips this year - East Coast Canada, Australia are my targets.

Looking forward to a good and fruitful 2011! Cheers!

Long PAL Flight

Couple of things that either irked me, or I found funny during my try flight home last December 21.

1. My flight got delayed for almost an hour and a half. The flight was scheduled at 9:50 PM. When we got to the airport, we found out it was delayed to 11:00 PM. By 11:00 PM, we were just called to board and we actually left the airport at 11:30 PM.

2. Once you're on board, they don't let you sleep at once and it's because the crew will serve you a midnight dinner soon. Not only was the food not good, it was almost 1:30 AM Pacific when we finished. Too sleepy at this point.

3. You can't really sleep soundly in an airplane anyway. So you make do with what you have and you can. But when you are sitting beside this friendly lady, who constantly bumps you with her left elbow, I don't think you can really have any good sleep at all.

4. PAL Flights to and from Vancouver still uses these old model airbuses - they still don't have the lcd screens per seat. You'd have to watch from the center monitors. I personally think they should upgrade the fleet. Manila-Vancouver-Las Vegas flights are usually full anyway.

5. PAL airport design is not good. After disembarking from the plane, you have to walk towards immigration first. The thing is, you have to go down these two long flight of stairs. And take note, only stairs. No escalator. How about if your hand carry is a small luggage? It just doesn't seem right. The engineer or the architect should have thought of considering passengers with luggages when they were designing this building.

6. Carousels in the airport are poorly designed too. Only a few can actually stand by the carousel to wait for their luggages. I had to stand way back, and then take peeks every now and then to see if my luggage is out.

7. But the good thing about the airport? They have porters to help you out, even when trying to get your luggage from the carousel. I just approach a friendly personnel and they get my luggage for me - without asking for any tip! They even put the heavy luggages into my cart.

8. While waiting for my luggage to come out, I heard these two gentlemen standing beside me talking about the flight. One of the men was ranting and said: "Itong PAL talaga, dapat i upgrade na nila yung mga airplane nila. Napakaluma na itong plane na to! Tapos yung mga stewardess, matanda na, masusungit pa!"

Travelling by air isn't always perfect, but it's still something we have to be grateful for. Even though it was a tough 14 hour flight, I'm still thankful that because of them, I was able to come home and be with my family for Christmas. There's still no place like home.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Going home...

My last weekend here in Canada. Oh how I'll miss this place. How fast time flies. It's already been a month.

Finished my initial packing last night. Finally. I have a lot more space and around 5kgs left to spare. Not bad. I'm usually tight with the weight so this is definitely a welcome relief. I cannot wait to go back home. See my family. See my friends.

I will leave my Canada journey with this picture and quote to sum up what I've learned from my one month "hiatus" from the "real world":

To New Adventures

Liz Gilbert:

In the end, I've come to believe in something I call "The Physics of the Quest." A force in nature governed by laws as real as the laws of gravity. The rule of Quest Physics goes something like this: If you're brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting, which can be anything from your house to bitter, old resentments, and set out on a truth-seeking journey, either externally or internally, and if you are truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on that journey as a clue and if you accept everyone you meet along the way as a teacher and if you are prepared, most of all, to face and forgive some very difficult realities about yourself, then the truth will not be withheld from you.

Jollibee @ Seattle

For some reason, I've always wanted to try and visit a Jollibee store here in North America. I tried to last May at Las Vegas, but due to time constraints, we couldn't go. And so this time, when I came here, I heard that there was a new Jollibee that opened in Seafood City somewhere in Seattle. Apparently, from what I gathered, there was even a Chowking, Tokyo Tokyo and Red Ribbon beside it. And... when they opened last October or September, the line was so long.

I know we have a ton of these stores back in Manila. But I think it's just different when you're in a foreign land. There's just something about genuine Filipino that makes you want to see it, try it out, and just be plain proud of it.

And so my aunt, together with a couple more relatives went all the way to Seattle, which by they way is around a three hour drive one way to see Jollibee. So almost 6 hours back and forth. And here it is!!

Jollibee!

I love it. I was so excited to see Jollibee. I don't know why. Must be something about how reachable it is now, even if you're so away from the Philippines.

And there's more! Chowking... And Red Ribbon!

Red Ribbon!

Chowking and Tokyo Tokyo

Anyway, we ended up of course eating at Jollibee and mostly the menu is pretty much the same. Except... here it is.... check this menu out! It's a bit blurry though (just used the ipod touch camera for this shot), but you'll notice that they don't have a 1 piece chicken meal, unlike ours where we have a 1 piece chickenjoy meal. Instead... they only have 2-piece and 3 piece!!! chickenjoy meal! As in! Ang tatakaw talaga ng mga tao dito.

Big drinks too, different presentation...

They do have rice, but you'd have to request it. By default, the meals come with mashed potatoes instead of rice.

My 2 piece chicken joy meal

Of course, what Jollibee will be complete without Jollibee himself?

So all in all... this was really a fun trip. I can't get over how many Filipinos there are here, and that Jollibee is really an institution by itself. Even in North America, hinahanap hanap pa din natin siya. When we were parking, I already saw a couple of Filipinos holding Jollibee take outs! And in the store itself, what's also interesting is that you see non Filipinos (only a few when we were there earlier) trying it out too! Makes you really proud that this is a true blue Filipino product.

I don't really eat much Jollibee back in Manila (I like KFC better). But I was really just excited to go eat here this time around. And it was definitely worth the trip. In fact, nag take out pa ako ng cheeseburger, not for me though, for my coworker here.

Work work work!

Work's been super crazy ever since I got here. The reason I'm here in the first place was because of the urgency of the project. And it's actually a good thing because I have to work closely with Harry because we're refactoring a whole bunch of applications for our upgrade project. Lots and lots of changes. He mostly designs the changes, but I learn anyway. Busy from that end. And then, there's the other tasks. When you're here, you're easily approachable - meaning, anyone can ask you to do something, especially urgent ones. Just as an example, during the past two days, there's been a couple of urgent changes that they need to get in before the lockdown (no changes during the holiday season), and they're rushing me to figure out what's wrong, fix it, get it tested, support testing and finish all these request for change documents! I've been going home late at night the past days.

But you know what, for some reason, when I'm here, even though I have too much work, when I get home, I'm not as tired. Maybe that means I'm finally enjoying the work again, the collaboration, and the opportunities they've given me. It actually feels good. Don't you ever get that feeling? I love it. It's nice to finally feel the excitement to work again. Work's something you should love and enjoy. Or maybe it's really just because my life here is totally relaxed compared to back in Manila.

And who wouldn't want to go to work if you have a view like this when you look up from your desk:

How can you not be inspired to work right? Luckily, it was sunny earlier so I was able to capture some nice photos using my ipod. The quality's not the best, but it works :) My desk it facing the north (mountains are in the North of Vancouver) so lucky me I got this spot. It's probably one of the best seats in the house.

On a different note...

In line with my Yes girl persona (Leda.. check this out), I will be attending a Telus gala event this Saturday with a couple of friends. It's a formal event. Though I didn't bring any formal wear, my friend Christine got me a nice short skirt and tube top to wear. She couldn't let me borrow her other stuff daw kasi it's too revealing! Hahaha I'm not sure if it's really a formal attire, but it works for me. Fits me well. But I'm not used to these types of attires! But have to be able to try it out at least once right?

Almost Christmas!

In line with the Christmas spirit, I've downloaded a ton of Christmas music to my ipod to keep me company on my day to day life. I feel Christmas already. The weather is cool, the house is all lit up, and everyone's in a good mood!

And another thing:

Christmas = gift giving.

And gift giving = shopping.

And so earlier I went to Toys R Us Coquitlam to look at its huge selection of toys. And holey moley! Ang ganda doon sa loob. So big! I feel very Christmassy. So we looked around and these are the toys we got (see below picture). Actually, I only bought two toys for my nephew and inaanak. The rest, my aunt bought at ipapadala sa akin.

Here's my surprise for my nephew Grant - this is a special request from my sister.

I'll worry about how I will try to squeeze in all these (and my) stuff in my two luggages. Hehe. My packing skills will be put to test!!!

Of course, work work work muna this week. Pero next week, the plan is on Saturday, we're going to try out this Japanese Shabu Shabu. And then on Sunday - going to the US. I've been wanting to go there just for the Harry and David stores. And then will try to go to Seafood City in Seattle, apparently may newly opened Jollibee and Chowking doon!

Old Times

I was browsing through old facebook pictures... and I found these!

I believe this was 4th year college. Somewhere in Luneta area. Can't remember the name. It's a small butterfly place yata. We should go back there some time and have coffee. May mini cafe siya sa loob. I don't know if it's still there though. Do you know I still have Jansport bag? I still use it every now and then. That's actually not mine, it's my sister's, but I use it anyway.

And then here's another one. I remember this, one of the last few days in college. We had a huge lunch out in KFC to celebrate! Yes, those were the days.

And now... look at us.

I think si Marcy ata ang biggest change (physically anyway!) haha. Compare mo naman to before and after.

It's nice to reminisce knowing that it's been a long road since. A lot has changed in us through the years and hopefully we've become a better and wiser person too. Who would've thought that we'd end up in this place right now? I wonder what we'll be like in the next 5 years.

I ask myself that, where will I be in the next 5 years? All the paths seem to tell me that I need to make a drastic change, maybe a drastic decision even. I am very confused. So much things to think about. I'd just have to continue praying to God that He will guide me to the right path. Sabi nga nila, all you have to do is trust Him. We may not know why things are the way they are right now, but just trust Him. He knows what he's doing.

Laptop = Waldas

My waldas days is not yet over, apparently.

And I finally got to buy my new laptop!

So the plan was just to buy a netbook. Something to play around with, and surf, chat, the usual. So while at Best Buy store earlier, I just couldn't get myself to buy the little netbooks there. For some reason, I'm just not impressed and convinced.  So I ended up getting the way pricier piece of toy - HP Pavillion dm4.

14 inches
2 kg (with battery)
i5!!
4 gig memory
500 gb HD

Pretty good specs. Hopefully this'll last me for the next 5 years or so. I'm sick and tired of my Acer Aspire. From day one may problema na. And mukhang nasisira na yung USB ports nito and I just don't like it anymore. Mainit pa!

So that's another thing crossed out from my list of "things to buy". I better start saving again. Been purchasing stuff here and there. Walang kapaguran.