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To summer!
Although I’ve spent most of my days confined in an eight to five work shift doing things which are dubbed to be of confidential nature, this two month hiatus from the textbooks has topped the charts of what my twelve year old self sheepishly coined, “Nikki’s Best Summers.” Apart from the unpredictability of the summer weather which I oftentimes liken to the mood swings of a fifty three year old menopausal, the randomness of events and the fabrication of unexpected plenitudes have thrilled my ovaries to its depths.
My God, how beautiful life can be. It was just right I started out the summer wandering around the unadulterated waters of Sohoton with no-less than my favorite people in the world(who later in the trip had to withstand my three hour whining from those wicked spasms.)But prior to that stinging Buscopan injection was the wondrous sight of exquisite corals seated on fine white sand both caped by seas bluer than a heartbroken fourteen year old Miley Cyrus wannabe. I don’t think my words would do Sohoton and all of that God-showered splendor justice so I might as well let the pictures do the talking.
I’m high as a kite at the nonce. But this time around, I impute such to the unsullied joy I believe only the Holy Spirit can bring… and to all that Susan Isaacs and Junot Diaz scintillating fiction I’ve been feeding on these past few weeks. I’m guessing the endorphins from MWF swimming helped too. That two day high calorie family reunion in Laguna put all those laps to waste though.But who gives a rat’s ass? I love family reunions and all that binge eating, endless babbling and karaoke hogging it comes with.(I can’t wait to see all two hundred of you next year!)
Time sure is a killer. Before you know it, bikinis are turned in for rain coats, and fiction for theory. Damn I’ll miss waking up to the smell of toasted bread and crudely cooked oatmeal in the morning. Damn I’ll miss my parents’ hurriedly planted kisses as I dash out the French doors in my fifteen-minutes-till-I’m-late-for-work flesh. But like all good things, summer too must come to an end. And pretty soon, so will college and my reckless teenage years. But although goodbyes usually call for maudlin moments of you and some good old photographs at two o’clock in the morning, I’d personally screw the drama. Life is too beautiful to waste looking back. There’s just so much in store, so much to look forward to. I don’t know about you but I’m tickling to know what God has to offer next. I’m hoping, no, I’m begging, it’s a 180 though.
Logos Hope
You know I’m excited about something when I glance at my watch every thirty seconds. That’s what I was exactly doing(with some serious foot tapping) during the last ten minutes of Theology class. I couldn’t wait to hop in the Logos Hope, a boat that holds the world’s largest book fair manned by Christian missionaries from all over the globe. I had the opportunity to converse with a couple of volunteers and was deeply inspired by their stories and their passion to spread the Word of God. Some of the volunteers had been on the boat for almost a year and had been to numerous countries doing missionary work. Uggggh, sends chills down my spine! I’m seriously considering joining the crew after graduation for a couple of months before I start working(or Law school). We’ll see where God leads me.
The weather was just beautiful.
Unleashing the artist in me. NOT.
This says so much about us three! Forgive me for appearing a little too self-righteous! HAHA
This was my favorite part of the boat, the Life X-Perience. I’m tempted to tell you everything about our little simulation in an HIV patient’s life. But I wouldn’t want to spoil it so you better go check it out yourself! On a side note, I can’t wait to work with World Vision!
So, if you have the time, do visit Logos Hope. Entrance fee is only Php20.00. They’ll be in Manila till the 15th of March and will then be sailing to Subic and then all the way to Indonesia.
Quote reblogged from If you do, you start missing everybody. with 39,781 notes
Date a girl who reads. Date a girl who spends her money on books instead of clothes. She has problems with closet space because she has too many books. Date a girl who has a list of books she wants to read, who has had a library card since she was twelve.
Find a girl who reads. You’ll know that she does because she will always have an unread book in her bag.She’s the one lovingly looking over the shelves in the bookstore, the one who quietly cries out when she finds the book she wants. You see the weird chick sniffing the pages of an old book in a second hand book shop? That’s the reader. They can never resist smelling the pages, especially when they are yellow.
She’s the girl reading while waiting in that coffee shop down the street. If you take a peek at her mug, the non-dairy creamer is floating on top because she’s kind of engrossed already. Lost in a world of the author’s making. Sit down. She might give you a glare, as most girls who read do not like to be interrupted. Ask her if she likes the book.
Buy her another cup of coffee.
Let her know what you really think of Murakami. See if she got through the first chapter of Fellowship. Understand that if she says she understood James Joyce’s Ulysses she’s just saying that to sound intelligent. Ask her if she loves Alice or she would like to be Alice.
It’s easy to date a girl who reads. Give her books for her birthday, for Christmas and for anniversaries. Give her the gift of words, in poetry, in song. Give her Neruda, Pound, Sexton, Cummings. Let her know that you understand that words are love. Understand that she knows the difference between books and reality but by god, she’s going to try to make her life a little like her favorite book. It will never be your fault if she does.
She has to give it a shot somehow.
Lie to her. If she understands syntax, she will understand your need to lie. Behind words are other things: motivation, value, nuance, dialogue. It will not be the end of the world.
Fail her. Because a girl who reads knows that failure always leads up to the climax. Because girls who understand that all things will come to end. That you can always write a sequel. That you can begin again and again and still be the hero. That life is meant to have a villain or two.
Why be frightened of everything that you are not? Girls who read understand that people, like characters, develop. Except in the Twilightseries.
If you find a girl who reads, keep her close. When you find her up at 2 AM clutching a book to her chest and weeping, make her a cup of tea and hold her. You may lose her for a couple of hours but she will always come back to you. She’ll talk as if the characters in the book are real, because for a while, they always are.
You will propose on a hot air balloon. Or during a rock concert. Or very casually next time she’s sick. Over Skype.
You will smile so hard you will wonder why your heart hasn’t burst and bled out all over your chest yet. You will write the story of your lives, have kids with strange names and even stranger tastes. She will introduce your children to the Cat in the Hat and Aslan, maybe in the same day. You will walk the winters of your old age together and she will recite Keats under her breath while you shake the snow off your boots.
Date a girl who reads because you deserve it. You deserve a girl who can give you the most colorful life imaginable. If you can only give her monotony, and stale hours and half-baked proposals, then you’re better off alone. If you want the world and the worlds beyond it, date a girl who reads.
Or better yet, date a girl who writes.
Source: blitzkreigkate
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[Flash 10 is required to watch video]It was heartwarming to see my sister excitedly preparing her “exquisite” dinner buffet for Jerrold last night. I was amused at how she had suddenly transformed from the nonchalant hipster I’ve always known her to be, to the ultimate hopeless romantic. She painstakingly bought flowers to adorn our boring dining table and some good old non-alcoholic wine(lol) to set the mood. I felt bad for being around in the condo and ruining that supposedly romantic moment. Forgive me. It’s not my fault that God hasn’t finished writing my breathtaking love-story just yet (I’m going to tell you guys more about my whole I Kissed Dating Goodbye mantra some other time..or not.). But hey, at least they had someone to take their picture and eat the leftover steak.
I must say, we’re not getting any younger. I can’t believe my wrestler of a sister, Katrina, is all grown up and madly in-love now. I can’t believe my Ate Kring is giving birth to my first niece this April. And I still find it difficult to digest that Jammy, the CEO of our fantasy corporation manned by Tizzy the Yellow Bunny and Shallom the Stuffed Rabbit, is now working in a real corporation with real people. But what I find the most unfathomable is the fact that in less than a year, I’ll be done with school and will be facing the most gruesome question man has ever asked a fresh graduate: What are you going to do next?
Somehow, I’m still stuck in a childhood fantasy. I oftentimes find myself rolling around in bed and talking to my mom in my “baby” voice(that annoys the hell out of my sisters) to relieve myself from chores. Oh, it works like a charm. Every. Single. Time. But when my best friend of twelve wonderful years died last December, I couldn’t help thinking that perhaps, it was about time I grow up. While just about everything and everyone, and I for that matter, were changing, Trixie was the only thing that remained the same. And I loved how she would wag her tail and play with me the exact same way she did when I was an innocent eight year old girl . But I look at myself now, and realized that I’m not a kid anymore. And no, I no longer have the license to play my games and take no responsibility for my actions.
I know, I know. I sound like some woman undergoing a mid-life crisis. But no, this is what I like to call reflection. As the great philosopher Socrates once said, The unexamined life is not worth living. (I actually learned something from Philo 101!) So, I’ve been doing a lot of reflecting these past few months, especially after my conversion. And I have come to realize that all we really need is faith.
I admit, I am afraid of growing up. I am afraid of failure. I am afraid of loneliness. I am afraid of uncertainty. But like I said, all you need to do is to cast all your cares unto the Lord, and He will give you rest. For as long as you seek first the Kingdom of God, everything else shall be given unto you. And while it’s easy to utter such words, like you, I face much difficulty completely letting go of the pen and entrusting God to be the author of my life story. But then again, all you really need is faith. Faith that God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.
Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own. Matthew 6:34
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Why women cut their hair post-breakup
You’ve already narrated the tale of how he broke your heart to a handful of strangers; and yet, you deem all that trash talk is not enough to pay the price in full. But don’t fret. There are still thirteen more ways explicitly listed on wikihow.com on how you can get back at your ex.
It’s amusing how some people go the extra mile just to inflict hurt on someone they once claimed to have “loved”. But while there are some breakups that end up in smiles and life-changing realizations, some unfortunately end up in pure bitterness. Some even end up in a parlor. Ten inches chopped off leaving you with that wild bob cut hairdo that is definitely unflattering to the cheekbones (or lack thereof). Eyes fixed on the mirror with a forced smile as one consoles oneself that this is good. This is a change of lifestyle. Out with the old and in with the new.
One of the cardinal rules of breakup behavior is having that cathartic post-breakup haircut as fashioned by the famous Hollywood actress, Keri Russell. Like nuns before entering the convent, the broken hearted chops off her locks to signify a new life, a new beginning. Petty as it may seem, a woman’s hair is one of the things that define her—her style, her personality, her “statement”. Cutting it off post-breakup would mean cropping him out of your life the same way you so eagerly cropped him out of that Facebook profile picture once you went from “In a relationship” to the (dreaded) “single”.
But this crazy comes in other forms and is driven by other reasons and motives. Through the history of mankind, one things remains a perennial mystery—womankind. And out of the wide array of eyebrow-raising behaviors, these three make it to the hall of fame.
Indulgence
He sleeps with a hooker? You sleep with your new Louis Vuitton. He always cancels your dinner reservations? There’s always that tub of Ben and Jerry’s. He’s always on a boys’ night out with his friends? Never to fear, Johnny Walker will keep you company. But like the Victoria Secret spring collection that goes out of trend as quickly as it gets in trend, the comforts of these transitory-reliefs disappear faster than you can say “single”. As the effects of alcohol dwindle, you are sobered back to the depressing reality consumed by that sense of emptiness. This is especially true in a relationship where the girl is passive dependent. Scott Peck speaks of this issue of passive dependency in his work “The Road Less Travelled” as an illusion of love because of the intense attachment it creates between two people. When one depends so much on the other to feel loved, to feel important, the absence of the other would create a void that would have to be continuously temporarily filled .But because the effects of these “comfort buys” are short-lived, one will never attain that peace of mind until she finally draws the line between dependency and love.
Promiscuity
Some women take breakups better. They celebrate their new found liberty by hitting the local bar and by hitting on the local men. After two years of a terrible relationship, women feel that the moment they change their relationship status, they’re out and about to paint the town red yet again. The attention given to them heightens their trampled self-esteem and sometimes, even reassures them that they are in fact, desirable beings. Yes, these women crave for self-gratification. If that were the case, there is an apparent dependency on the other in order to feel loved, to feel wanted. This behavior reflects the kind of relationship she had—one which was not built on true love but on selfish, pleasure seeking intentions. Instead of building each other up and encouraging each other’s spiritual and personal growth as Peck has discussed in his work, these couples were more concerned with making themselves feel better.
But after a string of one night stands, the woman is left feeling empty and unloved as one man after the other walks out the door. And although she saw that look of regret on her ex-boyfriend’s face as she passed him by in her body-sculpting strapless dress, that sense of victory eventually faints and is replaced yet again, by loneliness until she finds another man to call her beautiful.
Success
And some women have no time for foolishness. There is no such thing as retail therapy or a steamy sauna bath with your ex’s best friend. These women know better. Their secret to sweet revenge is sweet success. And so, a woman such as these, armed with that sharp pang of bitterness, is willing to jog the extra mile or win that next promotion to prove that—alas, she isn’t just one of the millions of fish in the sea. She is, in fact, a pearl.
When one has invested so much of herself on the other, the latter’s abandonment would chip off a big chunk of her, and her self-esteem consequently. The recognition of her successes will make her feel like she’s good enough once again; and might just fulfill her hidden agenda of making the loser feel he had just thrown away his winning ticket to the lottery. But this kind of crazy proves to be sometimes beneficial to the woman in the long run as she becomes better off in life in terms of plaques and fat paychecks. But there is danger to this as the woman might lose her sense of self when the medals cease coming along.
But all these quick fixes are precisely that—quick. And through time, they reveal the depth (or the lack of it) of a relationship. Because true love sticks it out to the very end, despite annoying snores, despite incongruent schedules, despite the painful and sometimes shameful realization that your prince is most of the time actually more of a frog; because after all, true love extends much more beyond the honeymoon. And as you’ve made that conscious decision to have a prolonged extension of one’s ego-boundaries, you just might find that you have in fact found your coveted blue moon.
So the next time you hit your favorite salon after a messy breakup, remember that it was most likely a relationship that was doomed to fail because both you and your partner weren’t committed enough to make it last. So then, before you make any drastic decision, ask yourself: Is a breakup from a shallow relationship really worth chopping off those eight inches worth of perfectly conditioned hair?
No, I don’t think so either.
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Le wishlist
Hey mom! Hey dad! Now that I’m old enough to know that Santa Claus doesn’t exist, I’m writing a letter to you guys instead. Hohoho! Time to get in your red jumpsuits and fill in my Christmas stockings with these goodies. I kid, I kid. But just in case you decide to get me something for the holidays, here’s a list to make your lives easier.
…and you’re welcome.
Nikki’s Christmas 2011 Wishlist
1.) A pair of these shoes in size 8. I’ve searched everywhere with no luck.
2.) A heartfelt Christmas letter. I love reading letters as much as I love writing them.
3.)Hand wraps to go with my boxing gloves. Yes, I’m enrolling in a boxing class once I get home. Don’t laugh. I am desperate to shed off the 15 pounds I gained here.
Look what came in the mail today. Yes, they’re pink!
4.) A good book.
5.) Ray-Ban wayfarer. I’ve developed an obsession with sunglasses.
6.) 4.0 Clear contact lenses. Have pity on the legally blind.
7.) A decent haircut. I’m still dealing with the parlor mishap I had 6 months ago!
8.)A laptop jacket for my 18 inched baby.
9.) Shu uemura eyelash curler. They don’t sell it in Sephora! Need I go to Japan?
10.) A 2012 planner. This I NEED.
11.)Some quality time with my family. :’)
And yes, I intentionally ended my list with that in hope of not sounding too materialistic. And to add that dramatic effect of course. But kidding aside, I think that Christmas is not just about receiving the lavishest of gifts; instead, it’s about being with my loved ones and embodying Jesus’ example of helping and loving those who are in need. That, I believe, is the true essence of Christmas.
*But please don’t let that last statement stop you from getting me something. HAHAHA After all, I’ve been nice this year. Or not.
i can’t help but marvel at your beauty wish i could meet you in person
Oh wow. I’m pretty sure you’d take that back when you see me right now though. LOL. What stress does. But thanks! I appreciate it. :)
Have you ever been inlove?
Infatuated?Yes. Countless times actually. But in love? No, I don’t think so. Not yet. ;)
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