a tsunami of emotions and memories.

i've been thinking about the 2003 show a lot! that show will always be a special place in my heart. i got to be on stage for the last time with my BEST FRIENDS! ITLOOOOOOGGGG!! 4EVR! glittery vests and all. that was really the last time that the cast was one before the separation. my first production back after hecka years. for some reason, i keep thinking back to the first time i saw my lil sis xle. it was before halloween and rehearsal was at this elementary school. she was wearing a cute beanie with two ears and an earring in one of them. correct me if i'm wrong... maybe my memory isn't that good =p but when i saw her, she just... seemed familiar. like i knew her already. i didn't know what it was, but something. a connection. and then when she told me that her kuya did the logo for lumpia. AYY YAHHH!! how weird and random is that. i think i remember doing a myspace search on sinag-tala way back in 2002 and saw this name xLe. i was happy that someone loved ST as much as we, the tropas did. and here she is... the assistant director now :)

getting back to that first rehearsal... it was my first day back in sac after many many years away. thanks to my NAG and true friend for welcoming me back and for getting both me and beej back where we once called home. grrr... what was the name of the song i first learned back. a flood of memories came back. i will always be enternally grateful for you raine.

i miss health for all. it just doesn't feel the same without it. don't get me wrong, i happen to love change... but after so many years and memories of being and rehearsing in one space... and then it's gone. one of my favoritist memories, there are so many, is one of the last nights the four of my dearest friends were there and sr_benedict was doing an exercise with 2 of my lil sisters while me and bitoy played catch near the kitchen. both of my sisters walked around in a circle as nag sang... me and beej just stopped. man, that was a moment! :*) mixed emotions, but every time i hear natatulog ba ang diyos, that is my memory and it goes into playback. so when i heard mr. pure energy sing it on october 29th... more than a flood, but a tsunami crashed over me. luckily i had my lil one next to me for the comfort i needed. thx.

oki doke, i'm getting phglemt at work so i better stop now. hehe. see ya!

grrr... i'll write more later

can't believe how many posts am i putting up in here. sleepy.

breath in.... breath out... focus... concentrate

so i went bonkers this morning. had time to take a time out and reflect, which happens to be all i've been doing is reflecting. i'm a fricken mirror. bouncing back the memories and intended memories.

i need to closure. a dear friend gave me the advise "well if you can live with it..." it is good advice, but it kinda forced my hand. and at the time, i was very comfortable with just living with it. di bale na lang. but this isn't normal to miss someone this much. hopefully, i've matured to the point of not missing this person on a "more than personal" level, but i miss her as a friend. a best friend. i broke down (not figuratively) and wrote her a short note. just missing having her as a friend...

later gator...

ta-da

free write. nobody reads this anyways :( like why would i care anyways. whatever. i'd say something right now, but... fck it. my heart's not in it. so i'm like driving and i was thinking that the whole experience is like a drug trying to get that initial high. it's gone. that feeling. actually what is going through my head is passed it. feeling so insignificant. like i don't matter anymore. grrr. another phase i guess.

choices. mid-life crisis? starting to re-evaluate the choices that i've made over the last 10 years of adulthood. regret is something that one should never have cuz it goes against the mantra of living today for today. guess that why i was sad a couple of weeks ago when i found out about this raise i was getting from work. a couple of years ago, i had to make a choice between living in a mountain of debt while living with *** family or get a good job with a chance of having money to support a family. now i have been fortunate to have the $$$ but lost the family. no regrets, conrad.

sometimes when i go up to sac, i ... it's not about me. that's what i have to keep telling myself. grrr.... whatever. no let me be honest. i feel stupid sometimes for driving up there. wtf? crazy? dedicated? stupid? a lame attempt to try and recapture memories of a time long passed? a feeling of wanting to be accepted? venting! AHHHHH!!!!! shit.

Ah Basta...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MEB!!!

so i was backstage left last night near the green room, and as the music started playing for the bows, i got sad cuz this really is my last show. i don't think i'll say this outloud, cuz like everything i say outloud for some reason never sticks. i said that last year was my last and guess what, i'm in this years show again. honestly, i really like the program this year. good mix of fast and slow numbers. we have ballet, a beautiful piano solo, a strong song called freedom which I KNEW was going to be my favorite number ever since i listened to the cd that first night that USA unveiled the program, an awesome duet with two talented girls that is sure to bring the house down, and a really cool EDSA segment that needs to have it's own 2 hour show! hmmmm....

speaking of which... well, my script was totally gutted. the only remants left are actually the two that i'm most proud of, the monologues by my lil sis and tues!, so much better hearing with the band last night. the sad fact is that if my heart was a 100% in it, i'd be devastated and crushed to see that almost everything i wrote isn't going to be used. but kinda sad because i'm not that affected by it...

if anything, i wanted my last show to be really special. last years show was special to me. for so many reasons... but yeah. looking back on the years that i've done the show and the touring ensemble, so many memories come back. last year and in 2002 brought back many more from the wings and watching all the kids and new people in it. i can still remember my first number ever. i wore a construction-worker orange silk shirt for "Ah Basta". was that our opening? if not, it should be cuz it was so fun and hammy! i just loved watching beej perform that cuz that was one of the only times where we could pile on ham over cheeze over ham and topped off with more cheese... and it'd be alright. i remember rehearsing at magellen hall and i was wearing my green mossimo "golf cap" and really hearing the first time ever that anyone has called me kuya. and with that word coming from this special person still tugs on my heart a little... even after all these years. anyways, that first show was at sac city, and even though that was so many years ago... and i have the highest propensity to forget even the littlest things, i remember those moments like it was yesterday. i wonder if the kids/teens/adults will feel the same about this show 11 years from now. i hope so... and i hope that some of them continue to be friends for this long. sure, distance can be an obtacle at times, but good friends are like stars... even though you don't see them all the time, you know that they will always be there. (saw this on a magnet at a store near my work.) apologies for those who catch me staring into space these next couple of days. my minds going in rewind, and replay on all these special moments with this company that have formed me as an artist and as a person.

another reason that i'm hoping that this will be my last year is that i'll be doing something artistically next year. there's so much that i need to make happen for the simple fact that i need to do something that i can be proud of. recently, i've been hiding behind the facade of trying to do something to make others proud of me. one of my quirks is to not only try to do everything for everyone, but to also try to make them like me. in doing so, i lost track of who i want to satisfy and make proud the most. me. i'm always proud of my lil sisters and what they do, whether it be being a manager of her own store, or singing a national anthem in front of THOUSANDS of people, or being assistant director for the company that gave me a start in this crazy art world. i hope one day i can have them be proud of the one that they can always all kuya. but it really has to start with me. it's coming. so many ideas. so little time. man, a year by flew... make that 11 years, have flown by so quickly. where'd it go?

whoo-hoo, christmas shopping!

I'm on ebay right now shopping for christmas gifts! whoo-hoo! I didn't even get the idea to do this until a couple of friends told me that they were doing the same. finding a couple of things, but not as many as i want. i'm pretty sure that i'm going to try to do most of my shopping online this year for the uniqueness of gifts. gad a month to go. need to buy now so that they'll be here for christmas! errr.. won't get paid til wednesday though.

was depressed yesterday, because of a lot of things, so in true tropa23 fashion, i spent money! when i'm malungkot i spend, when i'm mainip i eat. neither one of them is good for me :) so after my ma kept badgering me to go out, i took the family to bay street to hopefully watch a movie. to no avail, the movie i wanted to watch and take me away from sadness wasn't playing. at least i took my mom to rubio's and she loved the fish tacos! afterwards, i saw this guy with a sign which read, TOWER RECORDS GOING OUT OF BUSINESS SALE. got more depressed cuz i started thinking about a brother who's worked there for a long time, so i needed to see what was there. i bought a lot of cds! i have an 80G ipod with a lot of empty space still even though i loaded my entire cd collection onto it, so i needed more! got jocelyn's latest cd, as well as fatima's :) and another pinoy "serenade" collection cd, which i had bought a couple of years ago but she got custody of it! i also got the best of huey lewis and the news! i miss their style of music and has still yet to be duplicated. oh, and i got a dvd for a Christian musical named Hero. I saw the cd soundtrack like forever ago, but didn't get cuz i wasn't that impressed by the music, but if i got to see it on stage, then that's different. most of the cds were 40% off. the hip-hop rap cds were 80% off... but i'm not too much into that. i'm not hatin, i'm just not into it.

A Realization

Never say never. i've lived long enough to know this rule almost sticks to all situations. i've just come to the realization that this is most likely to be the last time i'm on stage with my sinag-tala family. i'd be with them right now had it not been for the guilt laid upon me to the tune of, "i barely see you and you're going again. you were there last night. THEY MEAN MORE TO YOU THAN ME?" egads. however, after i got the green light to go, i'm just not physically able to. i just got so tired all of a sudden. i didn't help that i got home late last night.

swerved a couple of times last night. honestly, i don't even remember how i got home the last couple of miles. it was just like a dream. unfortnately, this wasn't the first time that this happened. i must be getting older. well, couple that with the driving being so damn lonely. sorry to sound kawawa, but just need to vent. and it's a lot easier to be kawawa to a blog than to actually tell someone about this.

fortunately, i'm only in two numbers. still, i feel so bad about not being there. crap, i wish i could have the power of teleportation like hiro from heroes so i wouldn't have to drive. i'm really proud of everyone in the show cuz it looks like that everything is starting to come together. that's another reason why i feel bad about not being there. i want to share their experience. but if i really wanted to do that, i would have signed up to be in more of the show.

on a side note, i'm annoyed about something that happened, or more literally, not happening in the show. really annoyed. i know that this person doesn't want to talk about it, but she DESERVES so much more! i'll leave it at that. grrr. kakainis ko.

but i digress. still annoyed.

i wish i was there. i wish i could get up there. kawawa na man. sobra. better stop. i'll write more later.

Get a life NOW!

I was forwarded this by one of the special people in my life of whom i know will always have my back. thanks sis!

Get a life NOW!
by Jim Paredes
Get a life
Humming In My Universe
Philippine Star
November 19, 2006


(This was the column that should have appeared at the Philippine Star today. Instead, they printed a rough not-too-edited article I inadvertently sent. If you haven't read the Star version, just read this one.).

There are days sometimes when I feel the world forcing itself on me and claiming all my time and attention. I feel like this when there are deadlines to meet, bills to be paid, obligations to attend to, work to be done, and a million other things that cry for immediate attention. Surely, we all go through times like these, sometimes too often that we feel the need to put our lives on hold until we have done everything that we need to accomplish.

Many of us see life as nothing more than fulfilling the chores that daily living entails. We live in sleep mode, numbed by the drudgery of the 9 to 5 routine where a 24 hour day, a week, month or even a year does not come close to what we imagine as really living. We get up every morning and live our day just as we did the day before and the day before that and…

We reserve “getting a life” for some other time and place when everything we’re supposed to have done is finally done. Only then do we feel that our life can really begin. Trouble is, we almost never get to the “living” part because ironically, we are too busy with the business of living.

I believe this is one of the biggest causes of our misery. While we wait for “better times” – for the house to be paid, for the kids to grow up, for when there is more money to spend – to have a life, the opportunity for living passes us by. To me, this is brought about by the belief that some things are more important than others, a notion that 99.9 percent of people accept as part of life. And if we were talking of time, it seems that many of us believe that the present should always be sacrificed for a brighter future. Why not live in the now as is, where is, chores, duties, obligations and all?

Problems-- economic, social, romantic, psychological, etc. may give us reasons to be miserable. But I think the problem lies not in the fact that these issues exist. Many of them have always been there and will continue to be there in varying degrees. The problem lies in the mode we find ourselves in when we deal with them.

Many of us see our lives as repetitive, boring, and our work aimless and soul-killing. Why? Because it does not allow us to rise above the gross, quantifiable level of caring for our obvious physical and material needs alone. We are stuck in the crude literal plane where we do not allow ourselves to engage in imagination, creativity and mystery. Many of us downgrade our capacity to enjoy life.

But if we could open our senses and allow ourselves to go beyond our usual perceptions, we can begin to see that behind the ennui of our literal life is a reality with no boundaries. Einstein says that imagination is more powerful than knowledge. Why? Because imagination is not afraid to delve into the unknown and the mysterious.

Opening ourselves to the mysterious lets us see more meaning in everyday events and occurrences. The literal suddenly becomes a portal to the symbolic. Life stops being a dead-end but opens to a bigger arena that draws us to a larger experience. Where life used to be humdrum, it is now magical, even mystical. The ordinary opens up to something special and even life-enhancing. All of a sudden, we are in harmony with a vibrantly awakened Universe that wants us to be awake as well.

We should try putting ourselves in a mode where we pay close and intense attention to details all around us—a flower in bloom here, a beautiful sunset there, the food on the table, a pleasant person we meet during the course of the day—and be present to everything that we encounter. We may even try to be more adventurous and imagine that every detail we encounter is there because it has an “appointment” with us. We should at least experience a sense of wonder and awe.

If we leave ourselves wide open, all of a sudden, poetry, art, even God, can enter our lives through the window of irrelevance.

When this happens, our take on our own life and the events that happen become puzzle pieces in a cosmic conspiracy theory. Something extraordinary is unfolding all the time!

Have you noticed, for example, that when people we love die, we “see” them in our dreams and sense their presence in the most mundane places and events? We suddenly inject meaning in ordinary things, more than usual. A gust of wind, a butterfly, a door that suddenly slams becomes, for us, a significant “visitation”.

Waiting for something special to happen before we start living, as if happiness is in a place and time other than where we are, makes us lost in our own meaningless lives. But if we can apply a sense of wonder to our chores everyday, even the mundane could enchant us. We would not have to wait for another time and place and circumstance to be happy.

When we awaken to the present, life stops repeating itself. Everything becomes new, magical and meaningful. It spells the difference between being awake and being asleep, between living 10,000 days and living the same day 10,000 times.

This is really all there is to life. This is as good as it gets. Salvation is right where we are at this very moment, as I write and as you read this piece. If you still think it is somewhere else in the past or the future, I imagine you are a very lonely person.

There is no need to search further. In the ordinary is where the portal is. We just need to wake up to it and it becomes special! ###

Coming Full Circle

:o/ honestly, i was going to say that i was disappointed to know that my script that i wrote 11 years ago, and later resurrected this year by my lil sister, xLe, won't be produced. BUT it's for a good reason. a couple of postings ago, i wrote that i'm still trying to find myself as an artist, and thanks to her and a book that i've just finished called, "Naked Playwriting". Along with being creative and experimental, part of being an artist is to be able to not only stick by your creation, but to also fight for it.

"The art of playwriting lets us see through someone else's point of view. It does not set out to reaffirm or entertain, but to eliminate the sameness that breeds ignorance and to enrich our experience of life." - William Missouri Downs and Robin U. Russin, "Naked Playwriting: The Art, the Craft, and the Life Laid Bare"

One of the reasons i wanted to get into writing for the stage was to seek acceptance. The first thing i ever wrote was a PCN script for Samahang Pilipino in 1995. i was 21 or 22 at the time. i wrote the script in a couple of days in a mad fury. The characters came to me in a dream and started speaking thru me. i didn't realize at the time that this was a blessing from God to allow me to take these people in my dreams and put them on stage. Through the rehearsal stage, this dream got altered because of what the rest of the cast and production needs. I wouldn't go so far as to say that i was spineless for allowing myself to change my vision for this acceptance because something came out of that experience... i knew that was something i wanted to do for the rest of my life. if sacrificing a part of this inkling of what i needed to find for myself, then i can say that this was worth it.

the funny thing is that, as i said earlier, one of the reasons why i did that play was for acceptance and to make friends. sadly to say, there is only one person that i truly became friends with from that PCN cast. He is BJ Alisago. Right after that experience, we joined Sinag-tala and the rest is history. Also goes to show, that I didn't find my true friends until after college, and i am SO BLESSED that this happened this way. don't get me wrong, i am sad that i didn't keep the friends that i had in college, but unfortunately, when i hung around these people, i always felt that i wasn't free to be myself, despite the fact that i didn't know who i was until i joined ST. my ST family has been by my side for over 11 years now. even through my time away, i came back and they accepted me back like i never left. that's what family means. a lot of things has happened over the past couple of years to cause this family to break apart, and i really miss some of the ones whom have put a lot of their lives into the show, but the heart is still entact, and a lot of us are still beating. that's all we can do.

so in a way, i felt like i have come FULL CIRCLE with this pcn latest episode. it's where i started this journey as a playwright (i think i became an artist with my first written song at 15) but instead of looking at it as closing this loop without a production, i've started another loop as an artist who has, with the help of a strong pinay, become a stronger person. on a side note, i can't wait to get our certificate in the mail.

Getting out there

I spoke to a dear friend earlier and as usual i start rambling on about all my insecurities and happenings and after i said something i came to the realization that i like being me. i like being myself instead of trying to be something that i'm not or rather what i want to become. as headmaster says.... just be. and i guess that's what i'm constantly struggling with. Thank you, Lyn!

on tuesday i did something new. i signed up to sing some filipino christmas carols for the parol stroll on dec 9 at yerba buena. i'm so excited to see parols. anyways, my first rehearsal was on tuesday. there wasn't many people there, but i was excited nonetheless. i needed this shakeup, if you will. i needed to meet new people. it felt like being a freshman in high school again... or better yet, like my first year at sac state, when i didn't know anyone and not sure how to meet new people. nervous. i kept thinking to myself, is this how some of our new cast members feel when they first join sinag-tala? and i kept hoping that these people would accept me in their group, just how i want to make new cast members feel like by accepting them into our awesome family. to a certain extent, i feel that i was at this rehearsal.

first, we did a couple of stretching excercises and then some vocal warmups. then we jumped in to a couple of songs. off the top of my head, i can't recall the names of them. one of them was for sure Kasadya... but in tagalog. :) i kept thinking in my head that i wouldn't know how to pronounce any of these words had it not been to my Sinag-tala training. i've been doing ST for so long that it was kinda hard to keep my excitement/voice down. i didn't want to make it sound like i was being yabang. but i was thinking that more than being/sounding mayabang, i was being proud. proud of the fact that i can do this because of ST and all the amazing artists connected with it. =p

all-in-all i was just proud of myself for getting out there again. taking a step and a chance. i still have to work on being quiet, especially since i don't really know these people. we'll see how everything goes.

A TV is Just Furniture

not hungry. had a lot of work to do to get our site ready for the holiday season. so frustrating at work when things don't work and i have no control over it.

i made a committment, and i will honor it. sorry. i have to honor it.

i wish i were in sac tonight. actually, i wish that i was in sac period.

tv sucks sometimes. whatever.

A Journey into the Dark Abyss

feeling guilty and sad that i wasn't able to do something yesterday that i SHOULD HAVE DONE. i mean, i didn't know that i could have after the fact, but i should have. what happened to my kuya skills? grr.

oh, i was supposed to have jury duty today, but when i called last night, it said that i have to call back later today to find out my fate.

*sigh* wish i was living in sac...

so many thoughts running through my head that i wish they would slow down even a little bit for me to question them. time runs so fast.

i wish that i were more eloquent sometimes. i'm so "simple". i don't know how to be poetic. i'm like a lyric in an rj jimenez song - cute but not deep. i should work on that. read more maybe. or more so, in order to get deep, i have to get deep within me, where the indescribable words are. sometimes i feel like porky pig, when he tries to say one thing, but struggles, and just uses a more simple word to say. i question whether i can even be a successful writer because of this flaw. i'd love to be quoted someday. i wanna be deep... but at the same time, this "flaw" is one of the things that i hope can relate my writing to a wider audience. this thought was brought about by a posting of one of my lil sisters... she used "squallid"... wow. such a good word. especially in the context in which it was used.

todays lesson: get deep.

Ms. Gigi Van Tran and a Cayote Walk Into a Bar

in getting ideas for characters, one of the writing books i have say to take certain characteristics of people whom you(i) admire. in no order, here are some of the characteristics of certain people that i admire and hope to someday obtain:

- i admire people who can speak the truth and be honest. a true friend will tell you the truth no matter if it will hurt you or make you mad or upset, BUT will do so out of Love and not spite.

- i admire ones who will always have a positive outlook on life. no matter how the odds are stacked against him or her, this person will see the brighter side of things and no that there is another day to make things better. no day but today!

- people who give everything of themselves while doing anything (like singing, acting, or accounting) are people i admire. it's their undeniable true passion in what they do that inspire me.

- conviction. a trait of taking a stance on something and won't back down is only something i hope i can be able to have and do. a quote that has always stuck with me is, "if one sits on the fence, then one day that person will fall onto the spikes of that fence." pretty morbid, but true. take a stand, but be willing to listen to other sides.

- i admire people who have humility. we're all God's children and even though some are blessed with extraordinary talent, i look up to the ones who don't brag about what they have or what they have done. for they don't need to. just be humble and don't take advantage of what God gave you by throwing your "success" in the face of others. let your work speak for itself. "you listening, panky!"

- action speak louder than words. again from my writing books, action moves a story and keeps the audience tuned in instead of out. i look up to people who take the leap and just do things instead of saying they will. just do it and take a chance cuz nothing will move forward if you don't... and like days in a calendar, it just keeps moving forward...so keep up.

it's time to get off my soapbox and get some sleep. there's so many more people that i take something from that make me who i am, and i'm SO BLESSED. thanks to everyone that has touched my life in someway or another, and to more people that i'll meet in the future.

Footprints Leading Nowhere

in case anyone wonders... these last couple of titles are just random titles of plays that i will someday write. getting older, i've been really thinking about what my life means and what kinda "legacy" i want to leave behind. i really hope that i have left something so far. i hope that i've made someone laugh or smile at some point in every day that passes.

one of the other things i've been thinking about lately is "how can one be considered an artist?" i used to think that all artists are people who create things from nothing - a blank page. the artist is one who is the originator of something that is brand new, like a script, a movie, a song, a poem, a story, a dance move etc. - i was ignorant to leave out the performing arts, like actors, singers, dancers - the performing artists. but watching these people have made me appreciate how much of an artist these blessed individuals are. i'm so blessed to be in the company of some of these amazing artists and when i see them perform i'm just so amazed by the passion they exude and what i try to emulate. the other part of art that can't be ignored is how much WORK is involved in being a GOOD ARTIST.

with regards to this thought, i've wondered what kind of artist i want to be. i've been so lucky to be on both sides as a creative and performing artist. i unfortunately believe that i'm mediocre at both at best. i guess that's why i've been thinking about it because i want to get good at at least one of them. for me it's the creative art side. i just feel more comfortable and challenged by being "behind the scenes" rather than in front - i'll leave that to my talented friends.

The Mystic Manong known as Juan Carlos

not sure as to why i'm feeling this way. i got a raise today at work... but for some reason, instead of being happy about it, i feel myself more depressed. egad, there should absolutely be no reason to feel this way, but i just do. when my boss first told me, i felt kinda excited, but then i felt sad cuz i didn't have anyone to share the news with. actually, i was proud of the fact that i was recognized for all the hard work i've been doing, but at the same time, i don't want to brag about it. maybe that's why i got sad. but after some thought, i just thought that if i couldn't tell my friends because of what i thought they would think of me, then maybe they aren't really good friends, cuz instead of being supportive and happy for me, then in my screwed up thoughts, they would think that i'm bragging and make them feel bad... and that's something i'd NEVER want to do!!! so in a way, it's denying my happiness for the sake of not making anyone feel bad. crap, why am i wired this way?

after telling my mom, i told one of my best friends, cuz i knew that she wouldn't take it the way of my worst thoughts. plus, i needed to tell someone, and i trust her with so much that i knew i wouldn't feel bad about telling her, even tho i kinda did. grrr. that's it i won't tell anyone else. again denying my joy.

i feel so bad about not being able to go to sac tonight. but i think that i'd feel worse if i went up there, and hour-and-a-half, stay for about and hour, and then 1.5 hrs back.

gad. a lot to feel bad about today. *sigh* just one of them days, i guess.

on a happy note, i get to do some shopping tomorrow at work! :) hope that there's good stuff for costumes!

you know what, i've had this strong urge to go on one of my "trips" again - a trip somewhere far without telling anyone until i get there. i wanna go to pi so bad! especially this time of year. i woke up this morning with the tv on tfc and saw all the decorations on ayala ave in makati. ahh... i miss that street! never got a chance to go to the museum. grrr.

i signed up to do some voice workshops (singing class) @ bindlestiff. part of the promise to myself to get out there more. it's for a performance on dec 9 for the parol fest in sf. i remember bitoy telling me about it when he went... uh, i'll keep that convo between us ;) talagang crazy! anyways, i had a thought on the ferry back home as if that fest will be the same time as the st cast party. if so, i'll most likely be in sf for the parol fest.

not to dis my family in sac, but i've been thinking a lot about why am i going to sac so much for st... er rather the look people give me as to why i'm in sac again! even for like an hour or two and then drive back. crazy i know. but on one of my commutes up 80, i got to thinking... man, i need a life. i will always always miss and need my sac family, but i need to start... you know.

what am i doing with my life?

oh welps!

stuck

feeling stuck... er... in a rut i guess is a better term. been asking myself what or who am i. i've been moving so fast doing so many things lately, that i've finally stopped to ask myself what do i want from life? i've done so much and i've been so blessed by the people who've touched my life. is it my ego that's talking by saying that i want more. so much more. life is so short and i guess i'm at a point where i ask myself, is this it? is this all to my life. i get up, go to work, deal with all the bs there, come home, watch tv (at least there's PDA EVERY DAY :)), go to sleep and start over again? is this all? if i died, life would still continue, but everything would still go on, like if i weren't even here in the first place.

which brings to mind, what if i weren't here anymore. sometimes i walk across a street in sf, in the back of my mind, i think, what would happen if the approaching car didn't stop. would it hurt? i've heard that if you think about something enough time, it will eventually happen. i'm not suicidal. i don't want to die. but sometimes i just wonder. have i done enough in my lifetime to satisfy myself. i wonder if i just made some kind of dent in this world. not being yabang, but i know that i've made a difference in the lives of others, because that's what i try to do, but... more. i guess that's why i want my play to get produced by someone i don't know. just anyone. then i'd know that what i had to say, moved someone. and they believed in it enough to share with others. i thought of producing it myself, but it would go against what i had hoped that my story would accomplish. i'd be almost ashamed if i had to produce it. kinda admitting that it wasn't good enough for anyone else... like me.

urgh! why can't i just be satisfied? if the world was so small, how come it feels like i've seen so little of it. di ba? it's getting to the point where i just am not happy with anything i do. grr.

ok, conrad. pull urself together and figure out what you need to do. (i'm only talking like this because i'm assuming that noone else is reading this) after the show, i need to go somewhere. i need to do something new. a new year is coming and i need to do something to turn my life around. quit my job? find another one? join a club/organization? meet new people? make new friends, without forgetting/neglecting my friends/family? fall in love? forget... ok. this is getting somewhere. good. i'm feelling better, then again, actions speak louder than words. but at least it's a starting point.

better end things here for now. ttfn.

the green dwarf under the welcome mat

my mind's been so blank lately. since tuesday, i haven't been really feeling well. not in a cold/flu sense, but in a really really tired sense. i've been going to sleep at around 9 - 9:30ish and waking up at 4 - 5ish. then doing the same routine over and over again. urgh. i have so much to do, but totally feel like im unable to. not sure what it is. stress maybe. hopefully. it's just stress... i need to see a doctor.

wat else. i need to start looking for another jobby job. i don't... i really don't want to, but it's just frustrating feeling like everything i do i might break the site just because the back-end has so many issues. grrr. i feel so nerdy at work too...

:( letting go feels like it's going nowhere. i've always had the attitude of "if you want something done, you have to do it yourself." the problem with that is that it builds the attitude of being too independent and feeling that i ALWAYS have to do everything and not ask for help, which is my problem at work. back to the play - i guess it's a ego/pride issue of wanting to be good enough, where someone, outside of my friends/family, sees how good i think i am as a writer. one of the reasons why i wanted to become a writer was the feeling i had when i got the email saying that my short play was going to be produced. it was a feeling of... one of my dreams have come true. this was something i wanted, but never thought it'd come true and it did. grrr... and now that i have something that i love and i need to have seen, i want others to see it too. maybe it just sucks! grrr... so frustrating.

my tagalog sixth sense is disappearing on me... when i first got tfc, it felt like i knew 80% of what was being said, but lately it feels like i only gets 30% of wat's being said. grrr. that's annoying me too. but this isn't keeping me from watching the best tv show in the world: Pinoy Dream Academy :)