Closet full of memories

Thanks to a half day seminar, I finally found time to clean up my closet this afternoon. I have been planning to do this for ages but I simply couldn't get the time to do it. Everytime I open my closet, I keep thinking, I need to do clean up this mess. I need to get some clothes out of the closet to give space to new ones.

I started rummaging through my things and found out that certain objects inside my closet actually represent memories.

A green t-shirt was bought in the US the first time I was there. It was in that store where I saw this person looking at me intently. I looked at him, ready to confront him what the hell he was looking at when I realized I was looking at Beck!

I also pulled out a blue vest that I used during the 1992 Presidential Elections campaign. I looked at it and I instantly remembered all the places I went to that year and all the things I experienced.

Then I found a couple of tickets to SeaWorld San Diego with a drawing of the Atlantis Ride at the front. I remembered that these tickets were the ones we used in 2004 when we went there with our nephews and nieces. I also recalled that I rode the Atlantis ride with my niece who was enjoying the ride and shrieking with glee while I was trying to suppress a cry for help.

There was also a pair of socks which were already yellow with age. They were my soccer socks while I was still in University. These must be the socks I wore when I successfully saved a goal against a player who hasn't missed a goal until that time. I was proud of that moment because everybody was chanting my name after that save.

I also found a couple of concert tickets. These were the tickets to the very first concert I went to. It was, as written in the ticket,an APO concert. I smiled as I looked at them because I saw this concert with friends from school.

As I went through the things I have in my closet, I separated the ones I wanted to dispose of and those that I wanted to keep. I looked back at all the things for disposal and found out that they too tell stories of my past. Throwing them away will erase some part of my past. With a smile, I put them all in a box and placed them on top of my closet. One day I will open the box again and recall the experiences I shared with them.

Unspoken

I don't know what triggered it but last night while listening to Jack Johnson's "Better Together" I started having these little heartaches. Maybe it's the lyrics or maybe the tune, I just suddenly felt sorry for the opportunities I missed or let go by not telling some persons what I truly felt about them.

You may ask why I didn't tell them in the first place. Well, that's me, I could be open with some people and then suddenly clam up on others. It usually depends on whom I am dealing with and the situation where we are at.

Like at this very moment, I cannot really open up for unknown reasons. Maybe for fear that one of the persons I am thinking of right now will find this blog and realize who I am talking about. Or maybe because I'm scared that one day I look back and read this post only to realize how stupid I've been for telling the whole world about my inner feelings.

When the chance to tell the person what I feel is gone, I feel so bad and blame myself for being so stupid. It haunts for days and something could bring back the feeling of regret for that time.

"Better Together" has this summer, breezy quality to it. It makes you remember some moments in the beach, the coolness of the juice of a young coconut and the warm sun on your skin. This leads us to another quirk I cannot explain.

I feel a certain melancholy when I am at the beach. The sound of the waves makes me feel sad, thinking of things I don't usually care about on ordinary days. There were times when I stand at the beach asking myself where these waters have been, whose lives they have touched and what memories they would tell me if they could speak.

Sometimes I wonder whether this is the same ocean that those people I have met and encountered see and hear when they go to the beach. If it is, then maybe I could tell the sea the things I wanted to tell them. Perhaps when the sea meets these people it could whisper to them the feelings that I have remained unspoken.

Here Come the Rains 2006

The weather bureau has announced the official end of the summer season in our country. That means it's already the rainy season. In fact, right after that announcement, a typhoon entered our country, bringing strong winds and inches, even feet of rain with it.

I remember I complained about the very hot summer we had last year. It was pretty much the same this year except that I didn'’t get "bungang araw". At its peak, I was inside the comfort of our airconditioned office, refusing to get out until the sun has very much gone below the horizon.

But I am not going to talk about the summer of 2006. I'’d like to do something different and talk about the rains.

When I was younger, our elders would tell us to wait for the first rain in May because it is said to relieve a lot of skin problems. So, with school time still a few weeks away, would often wait for that first rain and run in the streets when it finally comes.

Now, we tell the kids not to go out when its raining for fear that they may get skin diseases. After all, the pollutants that hang in the atmosphere might be incredibly too large in volume after months of no rain to wash it down. So talk about how time has changed!

At first the news of coming rains are welcome. After months of sweating due to the heat, the sight of rains washing dusts off leaves, buildings and other things is a big relief and a beauty to behold.

But after a while, when it's been raining for weeks on end, you begin to wonder when the sun will ever come out of the gray skies.

I always wonder why the rains choose to pour when I am about to leave the house for the office or when it'’s time to go home. I just don't like to go to the office with wet shoes or come home carrying a wet umbrella.

Another thing that makes me wonder is about how our government react everytime the rains come.

We all know that for a good number of months, several typhoons will be visiting our country, bringing with it rains that could destroy properties, create landslides and claim lives. Yet government, or even people who live in places where typhoons usually make landfall, act as if it was the first time that happened in their lives. I couldn'’t believe that these people never learn.

I am resigned to the fact that from now until about November, I would have to contend with rainy mornings and afternoons. I am living in a tropical country after all where rains and typhoons are part of life.

Tomorrow, I will go to the mall and buy me a new umbrella and a new jacket to protect me from the downpours that will come.

Breakout Through to the Other Side

About a month ago, I passed the certification exams for Microsoft Office Word and Excel expert level. This means that Microsoft now recognizes me as someone who knows more about Word and Excel than the average Filipino, no, person in the world.

Please…. I know what you are thinking.

Isn’t this the same person who, only a few months back, has been harping about the superiority of the Mac OS X?

I have a simple explanation for that.

Just like any other Filipino office worker, the machines that surround me are all run by the Bill Gates operating system. I do my report in Word, make spreadsheet in Excel and present them in PowerPoint. But at home, I escape from it all and live in a Mac OS X environment. Indeed, I live a double life.

But I haven’t finished yet.

Before getting the certification exam, I and several of my colleagues needed to go through a training program to equip me with the necessary knowledge to pass the exam. And it was given to us free of charge by Microsoft and our office. Even the certification exam was given to us free when I heard that each exam cost several thousand pesos. But is it really free? Nah….

We need to render several hours of service by training other employees in our agency. Indeed, this guy who has been praising the beauty of a Mac a few months back will now start training other people to be enslaved by Microsoft. Talk about breaking out through to the other side!

What if....?

If somebody asks me what I would be sorry for if I suddenly disappear from the face of the earth today, I will have a number of things on my list.

First, I would be sorry for not having to see the coming milestones in my life. These include not being able to see my nephews and nieces grow up, graduate from school and eventually get married.

Second, I’ll be sorry for missing on what the future of music will be. Will Filipino music continue to be sentimental and mushy? Will we continue to copy western trends in music or will our artists finally come up with something that sounds and feels distinctly and originally Filipino.

The next thing that I will definitely feel sorry for missing is the future of technology. I will surely regret not being able to see what the next generation of computers will be like, whether or not users will be able to input by talking to computers or even by just thinking what they wanted to be encoded.
Another area of technology I’d probably miss is the Internet. From web-cams and video conferencing, will Internet communication take the next leap and make people interact with each other via holograms? I know that possibilities are infinite in the wired world. It makes me sad just thinking that I wouldn’t be there to take part in the advances of technology in the near future.

Lastly, I would definitely feel sorry for not finding out the answer to the question that’s been in my head my whole life: What would I be like when I’m 65. Will I be as cranky as my officemate who will be retiring this year? Or would I remain cool as I am today.

Oh these are just few things that I want to experience in the coming years. That is why I hope I could really live longer and see what life, technology and well, me, would be like in the future. I am so excited!