Every Gising Is A Blessing!

Every Gising Is A Blessing!

Good morning, Unkabogables na mga Kapamilya, Kapuso at Kapatid! Today is a big blessing. Actually, every gising is a blessing. I appreciate it. I won't waste it.

Woke up to quite a rather cold morning while I was somehow comfortably snug in my doona. Though I was still so sleepy, I let out a seemingly naughty smile on my face! Wait…. It's December already?! When the hell did that happen?

My wife also just woke up, the first thing that she did was to weigh herself on the scale, then jumped up and down cause she lost weight. I told her, " Good morning, and I'm happy for your loss."

Sa pagbangon kong ito ako’y dumiretso ng banyo. Umihi with the usual morning hard-on, nag-toothbrush para maalis ang foul morning breath, at naligo para muling feeling fresh. Pakiramdam ko ay sumama sa daloy ng tubig lahat ng dinala kong stress ng kahapon. At sa aking paglabas mula sa aming banyo, tila isa na naman akong bagong tao!

Binuksan ang TV, nakining ng balita sa mga morning shows, Palipat-lipat mula Umagang Kayganda, Unang Hirit at Sapul sa Singko tuwing may commercial kasi iisa lang ang TV namin at gusto ko mapanood lahat ng balita, tsismis at opinyon sa bawat istasyon.

Uy! winner na naman ang Plipinas sa isang beauty contest, Miss Philippines Athena Mae Imperial, got the Miss Earth-Water 2011 title. Jasmine Curtis Smith, sister ni Anne Curtis Smith, topped Yahoo Philippines Year In Review 2011 Bagong Mukha, Nina Corpus scored the highest in Spot.ph Hottest Newswomen for 2011 survey. Winner din si Jeffrey Tam sa Federacion Internationale De Societe Magique Asia bilang top magician in Asia. Twelve years na pala ang Unang Hirit morning variety show, at bigtime hit ang first airing ng Wasak! kahit ito’y male-oriented show. Natalo man ang Team Azkals versus the LA Galaxy, panalo naman si President Noynoy Aquino when he lambasted Chief Justice Renato Corona sa First National Criminal Justice Summit.

Marami pang balita akong napanood habang kumakain ang buong family ng breakfast. Di maiwasang magkuwentuhan  habang nasa hapag-kainan. Pati kasi mga kids namin ay actively monitoring the news at current events that are sweeping the nation. Their growing up is apparently also growing relatively parallel to their new-found interests. Iba na mga kids today, masyado ng smart at opinionated na rin. Mas mature na mga pag-iisip at di na inosente sa mga bagay-bagay. At an early age, our kids also stopped believing in Santa Claus, now, they also stopped believing in Gloria Macapagal Arroyo because of her obvious lies.

After kumain, it’s time to take our Poten-Cee vitamins! This change in temperature is not good for anyone... We should take care of our health! Apple juice sana iinumin namin pero may narinig sa balita, “FDA raises new concerns about arsenic in apple juice”….so bagsak sa tubig na maligamgam na lang kaysa madedo raw sa arsenic.

Ready for work na kaming mag-asawa, while ready for school na ang mga chikiting namin. Too bad di namin matatapos ang buong mga programa. Kailangan kasi before 6 am ay nasa school na mga bata at kami naman by 8 am ay dapat nasa office na.

Forward, onwards and upwards. Eyes on the prize, you'll never know what life brings.  Baka bigla ka na lang ma-surprise!

Outside revealed a thick smog covering the metropolis. I then remembered an interview with PAGASA kanina who attributed the weather phenomenon of smoke and fog to the continuous rain, nakadagdag pa ang large volume of smoke emissions from motor vehicles. Isinakay na mga bata sa kanilang service na maghahatid sa kanila sa school tapos naghiwalay na kami ng aking misis patungo sa kanya-kanyang destinasyon. Bago maghiwalay, syempre kiss muna, pero ngayong umaga ay ewan ko kung bakit ko naisipang dadagan ng hug. Natawa naman si misis, ang korni ko naman daw. Tigilan ko na raw at nahihiya siya sa Public Display of Affection.

Tumungo na ako sa terminal ng sasakyan kung saan may pila ng biyaheng Makati. Wow! Ang haba ng pila. Ewan ko ba kung bakit lagi na lang ako napapa-wow gayong sadyang ganoon naman talaga tuwing rush hour umaga. Pilit pa rin kasi akong naniniwala na someday ay may pagbabagong makikita.

The weather may seem so gloomy but my heart is a beaming sunshine. I would gaze at everyone I meet today with immense love and compassion. I even said to myself: “Today, make sure to see what hinders your life in moving forward, and jump through it. The way to the finish line is to jump through hurdles!”

Kaya tumakbo ako at tumalon para makasabit sa jeep. Ngunit bigla ring baba dahil saka ko na-realize, ay mali!, sa FX SUV na pala ang sakay ko. Dati kasi naman ay may sariling sasakyan ako pero nung lumubog noong Ondoy at ipinagbili ko na lang ito. Halos parang libre na nga lang dahil talagang binarat ako. Na-miss ko tuloy ang pag-da-drive mula Pasig hanggang trabaho ko.

Habang papuntang Makati, ang pinapatugtog sa radyo ay yung isang dating sikat na 80s pop song. I realized that we may not notice it but often, the music playing on radio colors our road experience. If the music is good, traffic ain’t so bad, but put me in a car with bad music playing, and traffic will be torture. That’s probably why people nowadays drive so badly because the music of today are really not as good as the music of yesteryears.

Maya-maya, the girl sitting next to me leans toward me and says, "Hey babe, it's me." Inisip ko tuloy kung saan ko kaya siya nakilala…pero biglang nakitang may nakasabit palang earphone sa kanyang tenga. She was just someone who was hands free on her cellfone. Ano ba yan, sayang. Ang ganda pa naman at ang bango pa. Akala ko ako na kinakausap niya. Ooopppsss, may asawa na pala ako. Sorry po sa tukso.

Maya-maya muli ay natuwa at natatawa naman ako. Dahil mga kasabay kong mga nag-gagandahang Makati office girls, puro nakapikit na, natutulog at may isa pang nakanganga. Buti na lang walang butiki sa kisame ng sasakyan, at walang langaw na umaaligid-aligid at baka pasukin ang kaniyang bibig. Naalala ko tuloy sarili ko noong nag-aaral pa ako sa kolehiyo dahil ganun din ang gawa ko. Minsan pa nga ay di namamalayan na tulo-laway na pala ko.

Biglang namang liko yung mamang drayber, sabay preno kaya tumalsik kaming lahat ng nasa loob ng sasakyan. Ayun…nagising na rin  ang mga tulog na dilag. May tumawid daw kasing bigla na isang pedestrian kaya agad-agad iniwasan. Naalala ko tuloy yung speech ni Noynoy na siya raw ay naninindigan pa ring ang katarungan ay hindi manibelang basta-basta naililiko sa kung saan nais sumadsad ng mga mahistrado. Hindi ito laruan ng mga abugado’t hukom na binabaliktad at pinapasirko ayon sa kanilang kagustuhan.

Tama si Noynoy nung sinabi niya yun. Kaya madalas ay panay bunggo na lang tayo at di magawa ang sapat na pag-unlad at pagbabago.

"If we did all the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves." Sabi ni Thomas Edison, pero kung may hadlang nga naman patungo sa tuwid na daan, ay siguradong mapapaliko tayo, sasadsad at malamang ay masugatan. May all the blessings of the Universe shower down upon us and light up our path....

When a Bully meets the Timid

Pagdating sa harapan ng building kung saan ako nagtatrabaho, tumingin sa relo at aba’y isang himala napaaga pala ako. Agad ko namang naisip “It’s such a joy to come to work no matter how early when you genuinely have fun and appreciate the people you work with.” Pero isang biglang batok mula sa likuran ang pagbating aking natikman. Iyong isang tila “bully” na aking kasamahan ay heto at ako ay muling pinagdidiskitahan.

There's only one thing that keeps me from breaking him in half, I don't want two of him around. Di lang naman ako ang kanyang ginaganyan, pati rin yung iba ko pang kasamahan. Masyado kasing mayabang dahil kamag-anak ng may-ari ng kumpanya, kaya kung umasta ay daig pa ang kontrabida.

Hindi lang namin masabi sa kanya ng direkta na kami ay naiinis sa kanya, di tulad ni Noynoy. Grabe!, it was the coolest thing I've seen that day. Noynoy was bold and direct. Sometimes, you can’t really be polite about some things. When you leave important things unsaid because of 'politeness', nothing changes. The truth will set us free though it truly hurts. When people like to debate or insult within social medias or forums but are not upfront about their true identities, scheming and cursing online using an alias or alternick, and encouraging the people to oppose or even take arms, ang tawag diyan ay mga duwag. The fact is: We could not please everybody. Many of them say they know the key to success, but they should also be aware that the key to failure is trying to please everybody.

Most of the Aquino detractors believe that all their complaining should force or motivate Aquino to change, if that is their belief, then it also stands to reason that the Supreme Court could also change if Aquino complains about them as well.

Most of the crooks in government can hold their heads up high because we are all 'polite' and 'civil' to tell it like it is when it needs to be said. Aquino showed us a remarkable spectacle which surprised the entire nation. My inner twelve year-old was giggling like crazy that day. Para akong bata na dinuduro sa TV si Corona dahil sa sobrang tuwa.

Politeness is saying 'I feel differently' instead of 'You're wrong. If you would ask me, I believe Aquino was actually still too polite when he spoke about the atrocities the Supreme Court represented. Mas gusto ko sana nag-umbagan na lang sila para lahat tayo ay magsaya. Joke!

May mga mabagal rin kasi ang pick up, may patay malisya pa. Pag importante ang sasabihin ay dapat diretsuhin na yung kausap para wala na ring excuse na wala namang nagrereklamo. Malinaw at tapatan na diretsahan.

What exempts the Supreme Court from the same critical eye we have for the other branches of goverment? Though they should be equal to the Legislative and Executive, they should not be exempted from direct and impolite criticism coming from the other two.

Sometimes it's good to put up walls, not to keep people out, but to see who cares enough to break them down. They are the ones worth keeping. Dito malalaman ng Aquino administration kung sino ang tunay na nais tumulong at kung sino ang mapagmalaki at pilit pinaninindigan na sila ang tama at dapat igalang.

I bet the guy who programs the Angry Birds game can't walk into a building without thinking about exactly where he'd hit it to make it fall down. Ganoon din ang mga pag-iisip ng mga taong gustong sumira ng katatagan ng ating gobyerno. Hahanapan ang mga weak spots kaysa patibayin ang infrastraktura.

We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men. Kahit kasi paulit-ulit ang kritisismo mula sa mga kilalang matatalino at maalam ay walang pakiramdam at dedma pa rin ang Supreme Court. Pero wait, di ba ganoon rin naman ang kasalukuyang gobyerno. Pero Team Noynoy pa rin ako dahil ako ang bossing nila. Ang advise ko lang sa kanila ay “There's no use talking about the problem unless you focus more on talking about the solution.”

Hold your head up high and reach for the wifi.

Since maaga ako sa trabaho, I was able to clean out my office computer’s hard drive. Punong-puno na kasi ng kung ano-ano ang laman ng hard drive ko. I cleared out almost 20 gigabytes. A moment of silence for all that porn.

LOL! It wasn't porn. It was just a lot of application support for deleted apps, a lot of Steam things, and a ton of duplicated presentations, music and pictures.

I just realized that I cleaned more space out of my existing hard drive than the total space of every hard drive I owned before it. Wow. Sana magagawa ko rin sa gobyerno ito, alisin ang mga corrupt na trapo at kapit-tuko sa posisyong mga pulitiko. Ilang gigabyte kaya silang mabubura kung ating ikukumpara?

I also took out my personal laptop, it booted and I saw it detect and connect to the company’s wifi. The good thing about wifi is di mo na kailangang magsuksok pa ng UTP LAN cable from your laptop to a vacant data port. Lahat ng computer-related services from the network is all connected by air. I wondered if wifi could also affect sperm, I hope it's not vice-versa because you might get someone pregnant through broadband. I mean, paternity would be so hard to establish especially if we neglect to put an encryption or password. Firewalls would be our equivalent to condoms, and If the application used was pirated, the child would probably be called illegitimate. So, If you have no firewall, no passwords & leave your laptop accessible and open all the time, you more likely resemble a whore or a “pokpok”? LOL!

Similarly, if the government’s plan for a National Broadband Network had push through, it could have opened a lot of opportunities to “impregnate” many government agencies as a lot of security measures are not in effect as we speak. Many are using weak passwords (can’t stop using his birthdate), encryptions that could be easily hacked, and firewalls that allow amateur intrusions. All will easily be susceptible to the fetus virus. Lahat mabubuntis. Pero teka, di ba karamihan naman sa kanila ay malalaki na tiyan. Yung mga lalaki lang naman, at karamihan ay kongresman.

Then our organization’s driver stepped in. Seeing him means our big boss, Country Director and Representative, is already here, in the elevator on her way up from the parking area. The driver serves as her personal driver too. Actually, she is the priority among all other assigned tasks of the driver. That is how it is for all our other sister organizations. The big boss has her own driver always at his beck and call. The same with all our high ranking government officials, with heads up high into the clouds, their vision somewhat blinded by the authority and recognition, never stooping down to the people except during campaigning for the elections. The Supreme Court should look down and see what it has done to the country. Would anarchy arise if the Aquino government continue to question the highest court of the land?

That is a thought that never left my mind eventhough I was so busy with my daily work routine. I knew that there is probably something more to it than what we hear from the news. It is too bad these individuals lives are not an open book so that we could read them from front cover to back cover, too bad they are not like frogs that we could disect and study, and too bad each has their own undisclosed stories. It is the eye of ignorance that assigns a fixed and unchangeable color to every object; beware of this stumbling block. We would not be able to judge fairly, because we would never see everything in its entirety.

Tusok-tusok versus Starbucks, Puso ko'y Titibok-tibok.

At the end of the day, I would again battle the traffic, the pollution, the crowd of many faces, each one hoping to get back home safe and sound. To relax after a hard days of work. Every single one of them is busy with their own lives, and I am beginning to see that just like me, more and more people are getting concerned to what is happening to our country. Each of these faces has a role in our lives, whether directly or indirectly, meeting a person is fate, becoming his friend is a choice, but the rest of our interactions with a person is beyond our control because life is just too complicated to revolve within just one or two persons. Each of these individuals creates repercusions in our lives too complicated to explain. In each of us are places where we have never gone. Only by pressing the limits do we ever find them.

Pero bago umuwi, tusok-tusok muna ng fishball, squidball at kwek-kwek malapit sa may sakayan ng bus. Iinom rin ng softdrinks solo, ayoko kasi ng juice o gulaman nila dahil siguradong tap water lang ang tubig nun at baka pinaghugasan pa. Ano ba ang inaangal ko eh sa kinakain ko pa lang na street food ay malamang hepa na ang aabutin ko. Di ko kasi kaya tumambay muna sa Starbucks at mahal ang kanilang kape. Sinubukan ko minsan pero sa lasa ko ay parang ordinaryong kape lang na hinaluan ng Milo at Nido, nilagyan ng icing sa ibabaw, at sprinkled with chocnut on top. Kayang-kaya ko gawin yun sa bahay. At dahil mura lang ang aabutin, kayang-kaya ko rin magpakalunod sa similarly fancy at exagerrated na kape. Mas masarap pa sa kape dati sa PAGCOR pero di kasing mahal.

Parang sa gobyerno, lahat ng proyekto ay padded ang presyo para may dagdag kita mga pulitiko. Biro mo naman kaunting semento sa kalsada, overpriced at low quality ang materyales na ginamit. Malaki ring porsiyento ng pondo, napupunta sa pagpapagawa ng naglalakihang billboard at tarpaulin kung saan makikita maeepal na pagmumukha nila. Uminom na nga lang sila ng maraming kape, sa dami ng taglay nitong caffeine ay siguradong  matitigok ang puso nilang titibok-tibok.

Kaya naman yata tumatambay yung mga sosyal sa Starbucks eh dahil para makita silang tila nakakaangat sa buhay. Kahit hindi na kumain basta lang makapagkape, latest model ang cellfone, at kung may extra money pa ay makabili ng Ipad o laptop para pwedeng makapag-wifi at maging troll sa Facebook at Twitter.

Hay ang dada ko talaga, tila walang katapusan. Pero ganyan naman talaga ang buhay matatapos lang sa ating kamatayan.

Pero teka….di ba may life after death….Ay ano ba yan…makauwi na nga!

Good morning/afternoon/evening/night. Wherever you are in your day, I hope you're smiling and feeling exceptionally bright. For tomorrow is another day.

At home, lying in bed, getting ready to sleep:

Deep into the darkness peering, long I lie there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before. It was a simple time, just me, my thoughts, a quiet tune, and images of my experiences for the day. I would reconstruct objects as I thought of them, as I wanted them to have happened, not as how I saw them.

I wondered why these things are happening as they are. Then I think I heard a voice say “There is not one big cosmic meaning for all, there is only the meaning we each give to our life. Sometimes in life, you must look at yourself in the mirror and say, " Hey, get over yourself!”

I can no longer change the past. But I could ruin the present if I continue to worry about the future. Whatever my goal is, I should stick to it. I am what I repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit. Anything is possible if I would continue to persist. Nothing is stopping me but myself.

Seriously, just remember that the sun shines on everyone even until night fall. It’s just hidden at the other side of the globe. Hidden, but definitely always there and still faintly brimming with warmth, weak but enduring, ready to shine its brightest again until the next day.

Bukas gigising ako, ngingiti at muling sasabihing, “Every gising is a blessing!”

Ang arte ko talaga! Tama na nga muna.