On Running

I’m not a star.

I don’t want to be a star.

I don’t have a great name.

The media have never heard of me; no public, no cheerleaders.

It’s not about winning or losing. It’s about reaching your limits. Going as far as you can go. And then going further.

I don’t collect titles. I collect hours. Hours of hard work. Hours of pain. That’s just me.

I run for the ultimate victory — the victory over yourself.

This is a way of life. There is no finish line. Becoming the best you can be. There is nothing else that matters.

Beating the odds. Fulfilling your destiny.

I don’t want to be a superstar.

I want to be better than that.

Click here to view the embedded video.

One day, when I was a freshman in high school, I saw a kid from my class walking home from school. His name was Kyle. It looked like he was carrying all of his books. I thought to myself, “Why would anyone bring home all his books on a Friday? He must really be a nerd.”

I had quite a weekend planned (parties and a football game with my friends tomorrow afternoon), so I shrugged my shoulders and went on. As I was walking, I saw a bunch of kids running toward him. They ran at him, knocking all his books out of his arms and tripping him so he landed in the dirt. His glasses went flying, and I saw them land in the grass about ten feet from him. He looked up, and I saw this terrible sadness in his eyes.

My heart went out to him. So I jogged over to him, and as he crawled around looking for his glasses, I saw a tear in his eye. As I handed him his glasses, I said, “Those guys are jerks. They really should get lives.” He looked at me and said, “Hey thanks!” There was a big smile on his face. It was one of those smiles that showed real gratitude.

I helped him pick up his books and asked him where he lived. As it turned out, he lived near me, so I asked him why I had never seen him before. He said he had gone to private school before now. I would have never hung out with a private school kid before, but we talked all the way home, and I carried his books.

He turned out to be a pretty cool kid. I asked him if he wanted to play football on Saturday with me and my friends. He said yes.

We hung out all weekend, and the more I got to know Kyle, the more I liked him. And my friends thought the same of him. Monday morning came, and there was Kyle with the huge stack of books again. I stopped him and said, “Boy, you are gonna really build some serious muscles with this pile of books everyday!” He just laughed and handed me half the books.

Over the next four years, Kyle and I became best friends. When we were seniors, we began to think about college. Kyle decided on Georgetown, and I was going to Duke. I knew that we would always be friends, that the miles would never be a problem. He was going to be a doctor, and I was going for business on a football scholarship.

Kyle was valedictorian of our class. I teased him all the time about being a nerd. He had to prepare a speech for graduation. I was so glad it wasn’t me having to get up there and speak.

On graduation day, I saw Kyle. He looked great. He was one of those guys that really found himself during high school. He filled out and actually looked good in glasses. He had more dates than me and all the girls loved him! Boy, sometimes I was jealous. Today was one of those days. I could see that he was nervous about his speech, so I smacked him on the back and said, “Hey, big guy, you’ll be great!” He looked at me with one of those looks (the really grateful one) and smiled. “Thanks,” he said.

As he started his speech, he cleared his throat, and began. “Graduation is a time to thank those who helped you make it through those tough years. Your parents, your teachers, your siblings, maybe a coach — but mostly your friends. I am here to tell all of you that being a friend to someone is the best gift you can give them. I am going to tell you a story.” I just looked at my friend with disbelief as he told the story of the first day we met. He had planned to kill himself over the weekend. He talked of how he had cleaned out his locker so his mom wouldn’t have to do it later and was carrying his stuff home. He looked hard at me and gave me a little smile. “Thankfully, I was saved. My friend saved me from doing the unspeakable.”

I heard the gasp go through the crowd as this handsome, popular boy told us all about his weakest moment. I saw his mom and dad looking at me and smiling that same grateful smile. Not until that moment did I realize its depth.

Never underestimate the power of your actions. With one small gesture, you can change a person’s life.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=366466226709440&set=a.213126718710059.51580.129503333739065&type=1

Waiting

The English poet John Milton once wrote that those who serve stand and wait. I think I would go further and say that those who wait render the highest form of service. Waiting requires more discipline, more self-control and emotional maturity, more unshakeable faith in our cause, more unwavering hope in the future, more sustaining love in our hearts than all the great deeds of derring-do that go by the name of action.

Waiting is a mystery—a natural sacrament of life. There is a meaning hidden in all the times we have to wait. It must be an important mystery because there is so much waiting in our lives.

Everyday is filled with those little moments of waiting—testing our patience and our nerves, schooling us in our self-control—pasensya na lang. We wait for meals to be served, for a letter to arrive, for a friend, concerts and circuses. Our airline terminals, railway stations, and bus depots are temples of waiting filled with men and women who wait in joy for the arrival of a loved one—or wait in sadness to say goodbye and to give that last wave of hand. We wait for birthdays and vacations; we wait for Christmas. We wait for spring to come or autumn—for the rains to begin or stop.

And we wait for ourselves to grow from childhood to maturity. We wait for those inner voices that tell us when we are ready for the next step. We wait for graduation, for our first job, our first promotion. We wait for success, and recognition. We wait to grow up—to reach the stage where we make our own decision.

We cannot remove this waiting from our lives. It is part of the tapestry of living—the fabric in which the threads are woven that tell the story of our lives.

Yet the current philosophies would have us forget the need to wait. “Grab all the gusto you can get.” So reads one of America’s great beer advertisements—Get it now. Instant pleasure—instant transcendence. Don’t wait for anything. Life is short—eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow you’ll die. And so they rationalize us into accepting unlicensed and irresponsible freedom—premarital sex and extramarital affairs—they warn against attachment and commitment, against expecting anything of anybody, or allowing them to expect anything of us, against vows and promises, against duty and responsibility, against dropping any anchors in the currents of our life that will cause us to hold and to wait.

This may be the correct prescription for pleasure—but even that is fleeting and doubtful. What was it Shakespeare said about the mad pursuit of pleasure? “Past reason hunted, and once had, past reason hated.” Now if we wish to be real human beings, spirit as well as flesh, souls as well as heart, we have to learn to love someone else other than ourselves.

For most of all waiting means waiting for someone else. It is a mystery brushing by our face everyday like stray wind or a leaf falling from a tree. Anyone who has ever loved knows how much waiting goes into it, how much waiting is important for love to grow, to flourish through a lifetime.

Why is this so? Why can’t we have love right now—two years, three years, five years—and seemingly waste so much time? You might as well ask why a tree should take so long to bear fruit, the seed to flower, carbon to change into a diamond.

There is no simple answer, no more than there is to life’s demands: having to say goodbye to someone you love because either you or they have already made other commitments, or because they have to grow and find the meaning of their own lives, having yourself to leave home and loved ones to find your path. Goodbyes, like waiting, are also sacraments of our lives.

All we know is that growth—the budding, the flowering of love needs patient waiting. We have to give each other time to grow. There is no way we can make someone else truly love us or we love them, except through time. So we give each other that mysterious gift of waiting—of being present without making demands or asking rewards. There is nothing harder to do than this. It tests the depth and sincerity of our love. But there is life in the gift we give.

So lovers wait for each other until they can see things the same way, or let each other freely see things in quite different ways. What do we lose when lovers hurt each other and cannot regain the balance and intimacy of the way they were? They have to wait—in silence—but still be present to each other until the pain subsides to an ache and then only a memory, and the threads of the tapestry can be woven together again in a single love story.

What do we lose when we refuse to wait? When we try to find short cuts through life, when we try to incubate love and rush blindly and foolishly into a commitment we are neither mature nor responsible enough to assume? We lose the hope of ever truly loving or being loved. Think of all the great love stories of history and literature. Isn’t it of their very essence that they are filled with the strange but common mystery—that waiting is part of the substance, the basic fabric—against which the story of that true love is written?

How can we ever find either life of love if we are too impatient to wait for it?

(source: http://sonoftheprodigal.blogspot.com/2006/02/sacrament-of-waiting.html)
(image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/starrhinight/3091353176/sizes/l/in/photostream/)

After I finished up all the graham crackers on S’mores, I still had a lot of Nutella left, so for my own plate, I also had Nutella in between my pancakes.

Mango Chocolate Pancakes

Note: yep, I know it looks burnt. But it’s really not. I think it’s because it is chocolate flavored, instead of the ‘darker browns’ you see in regular pancakes, this one is ‘darker darker browns.’

Okay, so my first attempt was a MAJOR failure. I was supposed to only prepare 7-8 pieces, but I accidentally poured too much oil and water. I hadn’t realized this until I was cooking the first piece. It was almost 10 minutes and still the pancake wasn’t forming, and I noticed that it was too wet! I had problems with the mixing bowl, too: it was too small when I added the rest of the ingredients for the batter. I had to transfer to a bigger bowl and make sure the measurements were correct, but I had no way of knowing this, so it was all based on hunch. I added a bit more water and oil, and an extra egg. Everything turned out okay.

As usual, I’ll be posting the things I used and the steps I took.

What I used:

1. Maya Chocolate Hotcake Mix
2. 2 pcs. large egg
3. 1 1/2 cup water
4. 1/4 cup oil
5. 4 pcs. ripe mango
6. Nutella
7. Honey

Steps:

1. Dice the mangoes and set aside in freezer
2. Beat eggs in a mixing bowl, add water and oil
3. Mix hotcake mix and stir until blended
4. Preheat slightly greased pan
5. Pour 1/4 to 1/2 cup of stirred hotcake batter into pan
6. Wait for pancake to bubble, then flip to the other side
7. Serve, optionally add honey, whipped cream, mangoes and/or nutella

Aside from the first fail of mixing, the other problem I had was with the honey that I used. Apparently it tasted a bit like lemon, so I didn’t really like my first piece. But for my second attempt, I added only Nutella in between two pancakes, and added a lot of mangoes on top. It was perfect!

What I learned for this experiment is that I really have to be careful especially when I’m just starting out. Also, it’s not only the taste that matters, but also the presentation. I was lucky enough that I was able to ‘save’ the pancakes from utter waste, but I’m guessing it won’t be like this with harder dishes.

Mangoes

Ingredients

Diced mangoes <3

Egg, water and oil mix

Pancake batter

Nutella and honey

Final product!

With kagat!

Update: Take 2!

Having found more time for myself, this is one of the things I’ve been meaning to do for a long time: turn our kitchen into yet one of my labs.

I’m going back to the basics, starting with the easy-to-experiment-on ones and the not-so-healthy ones and I will eventually work my way up to preparing gourmet dinners. I don’t expect to be really good at this by the time I’m done, I just really want to learn. It is, after all, a valuable skill for us guys, right?

Actually, *ahem* someone just inspired me to do this — cooking and baking and posting to my blog. Since I don’t have any new content to post anyway, I guess this Food Trip series really hits more than one bird with one stone. Thank you, Marx!

First up… S’mores!

The making...

This is probably the easiest in my to-make-soon list. It is the first, as well. Hahaha. Anyway, I tried making my own, chocolate-overloaded S’mores.

Almost all Google search results for a recipe of this will give you the same ingredients and steps. From this post onwards, I will be posting what I used, and how I prepared it, instead of using the ones I get from Google. Here’s a quick link if you want to follow the pros: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/smores/

What I used:

1. Paper towel
2. Nutella
3. Goya Chocolate Bar
4. Large Marshmallows
5. Chocolate Graham Crackers

Steps:

1. Place the graham crackers on a paper towel
2. Spread nutella on one side of one cracker
3. Place three large marshmallows on top of nutella
4. Place the Goya chocolate bar on top of marsh mallow
5. Place in the microwave for 1 minute

Result:

Finished!

The end result was ugly. Lesson learned, I should follow the guides. I guess that’s okay, this is my first try. I failed at estimating the amount of marshmallow and the chocolates. It tasted really good — although probably too sweet. I’m sure Irisse would’ve loved it. When I was eating it, the chocolate was dripping all over and it was really messy. But because it was really sweet, I wasn’t able to finish it and my mom ate the other half.

Later tonight, I’ll try it out with smaller marshmallows and the chocolate buttons. Good thing my mom will let me touch her baking stuff later, so I don’t have to go out and buy my own ingredients again. Hopefully, this time it’ll be better.

M.Y. San Chocolate Graham Crackers

Goya Milk and Dark Chocolate Bars

S.M. Bonus Large Marshmallows

The nutella that we all love

Coating the graham with nutella

Marshmallows and chocolate bar on top

Update: Take 2!
It was definitely better this time. Less chocolate, less mallows, more nutella! And I used dark chocolate this time around which I favor over milk chocolate. The only downside was, the small marshmallows we have at home didn’t melt properly even when heated for more than a minute. Actually, what’s weird was that on the outside, it was really crunchy, but inside it was softer. Not the perfect, but better!

I’m gonna try again next time, using the large marshmallows but cut into smaller pieces. Hopefully, it’s going to be perfect. I also wanna try dipping these in LN2! Sorry for the blurred/out of focus photos, I was really rushing to heat this since I was playing Kinect!

Nutella spread!

Tiny mallows. The large ones overflowed!

Goya Dark Chocolate Buttons!

The top grahams!

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Turns out, Zhayne and a few others took their exam the same day I was in Makati! And the places are literally just behind each other! Antel was behind Vicente Madrigal/PBCom tower and we were there roughly at the same time! According to her, after the hell exam, they went to Chocolate heaven. During class time, she gave me chocolates from Chocolate Fire, from her and CRC6. Thank you! > < > <

After class, we were in Cal's car and when we were near Zhayne's place, she reminded me again to get into Google already so she can get in too. Nothing really, I just felt that it was noteworthy. I might have to come back to this post some day.

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Fast forward to March 6, my REAL birthday. I was supposed to meet up with a guy selling a Kinect power supply in Trinoma. Too bad, when I was there, he said that he couldn't make it and we should just reschedule the meet up. Fortunately, I also had other plans!

The night before, Marx asked me if I was going to school. I said yes, blahblahblah, long story short, we set out to have lunch together in Trinoma, and watch Unofficially Yours afterwards. Too bad, we couldn't make it to the movie because of the time! But nevertheless, our plans pushed through, finally, after over a year of it not happening. Trust me, the amount of happiness in this happening is over 9000.

So we went to Yakimix (!!!!!! ) to have a great and sumptuous lunch. We decided that the night before since I know she can't sleep if she hasn't decided where she'll be eating the next day (> and when we were there, I think I ate a little too fast (or is it because of the blue lemonade?) You have to trust me on this when I say that she ate WAY more than me!

She said she’d be getting dessert, but she disappeared for a longer while so I thought she went to the CR. When she came back, she had a plastic bag and I thought it said Yakimix on it. After a while, she opened it and it was an ice cream cake for meeeeeeee!! She knows I haven’t eaten an ice cream cake before! (funny part was she accidentally tilted the cake and was fixing it under the table so I couldn’t see ) And she borrowed a lighter from Yakimix for the cake. When she asked me what my wish was, I was just silent. I couldn’t say, because it probably was cheesy. But I wished for more times like this — I wished to be surrounded with people who not only cared for me but also took great steps to show it make me feel happy.

Did I mention that the cake was chocolate minty and so was the ice cream? I don’t have a picture, but the funny part was when we were eating it, she was only eating the ice cream side. From my view, it looked like she hadn’t touched it at all, but when you flip it over, her side was like a cave with the ice cream already cut through to the middle. We were so full we couldn’t finish it anymore, though.

We decided to go to Timezone and ride the 4D ride thing, but since it wasn’t swipe to ride (my 700+ Timezone load magically reappeared back in GH, talk about a birthday gift from Timezone!), we passed. She had the crazy idea of me riding the carousel and she’d take pictures of me, but I didn’t want to go unless she also did… and so..

Top right: last year's gift from her and Elainey

Really crazy! After riding, we went down to the activity center because gadgets were on sale. Too bad, nothing really great to see there. We decided to go to school after. Before going up to CRC, we went to Chatime, but she dropped by 7-11 first. We both don’t know why, but she got me a Gatorade because of some talk we had a long time before that she’d buy me a blue Gatorade on my birthday. So there. When we got to the office, life resumed as normal.

—

Part 3. Me, Jerk and Neil decided to go to my house. But we went to fetch Irisse first. This is the part 2 of the Japanese birthday. We were watching Prodai in Jerk’s car. Suffice to say, no one cried. Really. But no, really, it was a huge part of my birthday because we were at the scenes that really pierced straight to the heart. As was the theme of my March 4 to 6.

When we go to Irisse, we went straight for Crazy Katsu, which is in Maginhawa, because I’ve heard a lot of good things about it. The food was really great. Serving time was really fast. The rice that came with the meal was surely smaller than if you ordered extra, though. But really, I wanna go back there to try everything!

After Crazy Katsu, we went to Icecreamist and we were lucky because it was finally (finally!!!) open! I got Malt Caramel, Irisse got Strawberry Cheesecake, Neil got Nutella and I forgot what Jerk got sorry. Calvin and Eval followed afterwards. Great way to top off the day.

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—

Looking back, I didn’t want to compare birthdays anymore. I think that as I get older, it’s not even about saying which birthday was the best, nor the worst, but it’s about just being contented with what you get. You might even get surprises along the way. This year was definitely different, as I had expected and posted on Twitter. Receiving my first gift from my guy friends was the first thing, receiving those chocolates from Zhayne and CRC6 was the next, and topping it off was having a candle as a memorabilia and a blue Gatorade gift from Marj was the last. See, the celebration was really different, but I am at my happiest right now.

Around 2:30am, Neil picked me up and we headed to MoA. We got there just in time for the shuttle to BGC. We got to BGC at around 3:30am, an hour ahead of the race. We were actually hungry and sleepy but since there was no food, we decided to just run around and do warm ups. There were also free reflectors being given away, you just have to line up and these guys would tie the reflectors on your shoes for you. Too bad, no pics! Around 20 minutes before the run, we lined up for the comfort room, and we literally finished just in time for the race because the lines were really long.

Fast forward to the end of the race, I chipped in 3:27:31 according to my watch, 3:35:00 according to the finish line’s time (minus 5 minutes, because we were at Wave B, making it exactly 3:30:00 which was my goal!!) and 3:28:33 was my official time according to RunRio’s SMS service. I was so happy to have finished on time! After the run, I went straight to the finisher’s area, but sadly, race kits ran out and finisher’s shirts were stolen. I had to wait in line to get my Bib # logged so I can get my shirt. No worries, I paid for the run and it was well worth it!

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I went back to the car and found the others inside Neil’s car enjoying the aircon. Just shortly after, we left for Zhayne’s house (ikaw na ang may basement parking!) to change and walked straight to Gloria Maris where Alloy and Jag joined us. Just like the previous runs, sad to say, takaw tingin kaming lahat! After just a few orders of dimsum, we were already full and couldn’t finish our main orders. Laughing a lot surely didn’t help there. We ended around past 11, and Zhayne couldn’t join us any longer so she went home.

After that brunch, we went straight to Prome to check out the movies. However, we couldn’t decide, to we went around instead. I got three rounds of massage from Timezone’s massaging chair and shortly after, Jegs arrived. I found her sitting in front of the basketball courts and just couldn’t help but hug her and say sorry. I hope that made her feel lighter, as it certainly made me feel that way. We went to the others who were in Hobbes and Landes. It really surprised me because the guys got me a Pokemon deck! It was my first gift! I was really thankful because I’ve been watching them play for over 2 months and I couldn’t join because I was broke the past months and couldn’t get one for myself! Hahaha.

After all the fuss, we went back to Timezone, played a few games of basketball and other stuff, and headed back to the movies. We decided to watch The Devil Inside. I’m a fan of horror movies but I’m not really friends with them. Most of the time, I cover my eyes and just leave a little space for my eyes. I don’t really know why I do this, because it’s pretty pointless and I still get to see the screen. BUT, at least I don’t scream like a little girl. *coughjegscough*

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After the movie, we went to Cafe Publico to spend a few moments chilling out. Elainey and Keavy arrived, and we played a few rounds of Pictionary. I ordered coffee, because I was really sleepy, and Ferrero Gelato afterwards. Finally, to end the day early, we went to our house to get a few drinks and chill out. Neil had to leave shortly after, as so did the rest. The last to leave was Elainey and Keavy.

When they left, at around 6pm, I passed out. I woke up the next day, 10am. My body was aching so bad. And it was good.

Happy birthday, Marc.

It happens.

When it happens, you won’t want to believe it. You’ll take their word for it when they say they’re busy, swamped at work, “just doing me.” You’ll make excuses for them, put your ringer on extra loud in case they call. But you’ll still feel the change, and because you can’t rationalize it, you’ll try to ignore it.

It’s a specific kind of loneliness that hits you like a wave of nausea. When the two of you are having a beer and you realize that you have both been staring out the same window for twenty minutes, nothing to say, the opposite of a comfortable silence. When they cancel plans consistently and stall when giving you reasons. When you scroll through your contacts and stop at their name and almost call but don’t, feeling suddenly, inexplicably, abandoned and confused.

Sometimes there’s no huge fight that marks the end of a friendship. No falling out, no major disagreement. Sometimes it just falls apart for no good reason. Distance. New relationships. Priorities. Somehow these things can become more important than your connection; they shouldn’t but they do. And as we get older we tend to downsize, prioritize. Trim the corners of our lives, keeping what’s important and discarding what isn’t. Sometimes we stop needing people in our lives and it isn’t even conscious. No one wakes up in the morning actively thinking “Hmm, I think I’ll stop being friends with so-and-so today.” It just goes out with an empty fizz, like a cigarette hitting the bottom of a Coke can.

In so many ways, losing a close friend is worse than losing a lover. Lovers are transient for the most part but friends are supposed to be there for you always, or so we like to believe. Friendship is a special kind of love that’s not supposed to fade. You never expect the one person you thought you could always depend on to disappear without saying goodbye. And when they do you feel sickeningly stupid and cheated, wondering what you meant to them all along, whether you were just convenient or in the right place at the right time. You never really know for sure.

You look through pictures from back when you were happy — holding each other up drunk and ecstatic, working on art projects on a rainy Sunday afternoon — and can’t understand what happened. Reach for the phone. Attach a photo to an email, start the subject line with some fusion of “Remember this?” and “I miss you…” Get suddenly overwhelmed by a horrible emptiness and discard the draft, leaving the phone untouched. History. So much history flushed down a dirty sink.

And the worst part is, you don’t even know how to explain yourself. You know if you bring this up with them they’ll give you a blank expression and a blank excuse. You don’t want to explain how you feel. You can’t. You just want them to get it, to read you like they used to be able to. You want to take them by the shoulders and shake them, screaming Where are you? What happened?! Until you’re blue in the face. But you can’t do that either, because you’re no longer on the same level and it’s going to make you feel crazy.

In life, it’s a given that you will lose people. People will flow in and out like curtains through an open window, sometimes for no reason at all. But losing someone important to you will feel like a suckerpunch every single time, and you’ll never see it coming. Which makes the friendships that do hold out, the ones that make it through countless breakdowns and breakthroughs and changes and years, so damn important.

(from Thought Catalog, image from Designing A Champion)

Still waiting for the official music video.. in the meantime, here are the lyrics.
This song is just so..

Paalam Kahapon
by Ebe Danel

Paalam na kahapon
kay layo na pala ng noon
‘Di ko na inakalang
Darating ang umagang ito

Parang kanina lamang
Nung tayo ay mga batang
Walang kinatatakutan
Sa bukas ay walang pakialam

Iwanan man kita
Nakaukit ka na sa puso ko
Malilimot ba kita
Nakaukit ka na sa puso ko

Paalam na kahapon
Kailangan na ako ng ngayon
Alaala mo’y ikakahon
Ngunit kailan ma’y hindi kayang itapon

Tila utos ng mundong mabuhay
Akong pasulong, at ‘wag paurong
Patawarin mo ako kung
Unti-unti akong binago ng mundo

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