The piece below was written by Karen Kunawicz circa 1997. Sometime way back in 2004, I was given a clipping of her column where this article appeared and I have hung on to it ever since.

I am sharing this because of sheer angst overload for editing and plotting my novel. In addition, I have taken Panadol and ivy-leaf cough syrup for my little ongoing cough-and-cold problem, hence my brain is woozy.

Be very, very afraid, peons!

What is the sound of a heart breaking?

It is the sound of someone curled up in a tiny ball crying softly in the night, the sound of the first unwanted teardrop touching your skin, it’s the sound of a telephone that doesn’t ring, the sound of regret pounding inside your brain with every heartbeat, it’s the whispers of the toy animals he gave you.

It’s the shuffling of feet walking away from you, the sound of your soul shattering into a million pieces, at recognizing the word goodbye, it’s the soundtrack of memories torturing you, it’s the sound of your own feeble hands desperately trying to push back the hands of time, it’s the sound of all those years disappearing into the vortex of Cupid’s kitchen sink, it’s the unrelenting, plaintive baby meows of an abandoned kitten outside your door.

It’s the sound of the rain that has never ever stopped, of all the doors of the world shutting at the same time, of raging, howling storms in the night when there’s no one there to hold you, the sound of your voice as it screams back at you, the echo of I love yous burning holes in you, the sound your heart makes as it tells you to lie still because nothing you will ever do will matter without love.

The sound of the waves at the polluted beach you went to as it moves from the shore and crashes inside your mind, of the sniffles that make up your pathetic S.O.S. to the world, the cracking of the brittle black-red petals from the sidewalk vendor roses he gave, the sound of music he made going straight to your gut.

The sound of the things in your room being thrown around and landing on the floor, the caress of kitchen knives on skin, the sound your throat makes as it swallows your saltiest tear.

It’s the sound of your own voice calling out to someone who isn’t there, of dying birds getting splattered on a city pavement, of terms of endearment used a hundred times a day struggling to crawl into a vacuum of forgetfulness, it’s the sound of your own sobs keeping you company, it’s the cold, uncaring stillness of the air you share your space with.

Destruction isn’t always as noisy as bombs exploding. Sometimes the ultimate catastrophe can be as quiet as a feather falling on the floor of a Zen monastery.

No one else can really hear your heart breaking except you.

I have been quite active on FaceBook during the past few days, uploading various photos from way back when and tagging people with whom I have previously lost touch.

Thanks to social networking sites and the like, I was able to reconnect with friends and acquaintances from as far back as elementary school!

I was tagged by the above-mentioned people in their own albums as well, much to my geeky delight. Hence, I would like to share these photos which I did not have in my own collection before, but am very pleased to have found online after all these years.

The Blue Quill Editorial Staff, with our adviser Miss Girlie Libutaque. This was our publication during high school and the photo was from my junior year days.

High School Senior Year Acquaintance Party, where I am posing with my perennial partner Ramon. We always end up together in photos, somehow. He hails from Ajuy, where I have tons of relatives – he’s the brother I never had!

During freshman year at University of the Philippines, Iloilo City campus. These are my blockmates, which includes a lot of close friends.

University junior year, when I won landslide as the College of Management’s representative to the University Student Council. During my term, our departmental sports teams Scions (Accountancy majors) and Tycoons (Marketing and Management majors) won first and second places, respectively, overall in the annual sports festival. Oh, yeah!

I really enjoyed cleaning up these photos and subsequently uploading them to share with my readers. It feels so good to revisit my school days – they feel like a lifetime ago.

Tomorrow is my birthday! Gosh, how quickly time flies. Tonight, I am celebrating with Peter by going out to the clubs for a high-protein dinner with drinks and music, of course. Perhaps we could also catch a movie, we shall see.

This is one of the best videos I have seen this year!

Less than three minutes long, this anime-style short piece was shared by a friend a while back but I never did get the chance to see it in full until today.

Full credit goes to the brilliant Mike Inel, who is a Philippine-based digital colorist by trade. Visit his DeviantArt page for more samples of his brilliant work.

Back in February 2010, I went home on holiday to the Philippines. My vacation leave was officially from 11th February to 26th March – around 45 days of work-free, worry-free, food-loaded days, most of it to be spent in my home country.

I never did get the chance to blog a lot about the trip. I’m sure that most of it I could not chronicle quite clearly now, nearly six to seven months later. However, I found some pictures in my cellular phone and digital camera and wanted to share these.

On the Cebu Pacific flight from Manila to Iloilo. Taken 15 February 2010. No, I was stubborn and did not switch off my cellular phone when I boarded the plane. I did eventually, though, after snapping this pic.

At the La Paz home of my paternal grandparents, with my uncle and mom. Brought loads of food and a cake to celebrate my grandmother’s 82nd birthday! Taken 9 March 2010.

With Peter in Barangay Nino, Concepcion, Iloilo, during our visit to my maternal grandparents. Our background was our trusty 4WD white Fortuner transport. Taken 14 March 2010.

Our farewell dinner shortly before our flight back to Muscat. We had a light meal with Melody and Genefel at Max’s Restaurant in SM Makati. Taken 24 March 2010.

For sure, pictures of smiling people are loads better to see on a Filipino’s blog rather than an angry rant on the August 23rd hostage crisis in Manila. Perhaps later?

“I just want you to know. I would never hurt him. I love him.”
“I know. I also know it can only bring him unhappiness.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because part of him is a man.”

I was browsing through the TV Shows category of The Fanlistings Network while waiting for WinZip to download when I came across the approved FL for the 1987 television series Beauty and the Beast.

The show was aired on Philippine television when I was still very young, but I can recall clearly that the story had a modern spin on the fairy tale.

The series starred Linda Hamilton as Catherine Chandler (Beauty) and Ron Perlman as Vincent (The Beast). It had a modern-day, urban backdrop.

Catherine was pretty much an ordinary working girl based in New York City. One day, she was beaten and left for dead in Central Park, where she was found and rescued by Vincent, a magnificent and noble man-beast.

Their extraordinary love story then began, a meeting of two vastly different worlds – Catherine’s glittering city apartments and law firms and Vincent’s mysterious underground dwellings and its outcast inhabitants.

Beauty and the Beast was a deliciously dark yet romantic show, with a beautiful soundtrack entitled Of Love and Hope that features heart-wrenching love songs and the hoarse, sexy voice of Ron Perlman reading poetry.

In the Philippines, I could occasionally hear the show’s theme song, The First Time I Loved Forever, still being played on the radio, most often during the wee morning hours.

The First Time I Loved Forever
Lyrics by Melanie Safka

The first time I loved forever
Was when you whispered my name
And I knew at once you loved me
For the me of who I am

The first time I loved forever
I cast all else aside
And I bid my heart to follow
Be there no more need to hide

And if wishes and dreams are merely for children
And if love’s a tale for fools
I’ll live the dream with you

For all my life and forever
There’s a truth I’ll always know
When my world divides and shatters
Your love is where I’ll go

This is an e-mail that went the rounds of lots of virtual mailboxes. I got such a great laugh out of it when I first got the message in my inbox some time ago.

I am feeling a bit disillusioned with my home country, so I might as well share the reality and get a chuckle out of it.

Well, I shall not give away the punchline or anything. But be sure to look at ALL the cars, from beginning to end – in THAT order!

A side note: I took the liberty of editing the pictures and putting the captions on them, but these images are all copyright their respective owners. Just did a bit of tweaking for the sake of fun.

THE BEST POLICE CARS IN THE WORLD

After my month-and-a-half vacation in my native country, Philippines, earlier this year, I returned to Oman on 25th March. I left a humid, sweltering country, rife with brown-outs, and returned to a hot and dry Middle East, smack dab in the beginning of the summer season.

No complaints there, though – sacrifice comes with the territory of being an Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW). I was back in circulation on 27th March and have been at work since then.

The Philippine National Elections took place last May 10th. I take no shame in saying that I did not register for Overseas Absentee Voting at the Philippine Embassy here in Oman. Thus, I was not able to cast my vote.

I do not regret my decision to boycott the elections. I honestly like none of the presidential and vice-presidential candidates. A few of the senatoriables I found massively amusing and entertaining, but none of them really deserved my vote. In the local arena, in my native city, I found the candidates to be either traditional politicians (trapos, a local term for dish rags) or severely elitist.

In the end, I could not find the energy to haul my arse to the crumbling villa that housed our embassy, even though it is literally across the street from my office.

Honestly, the only person who deserved my vote of late was Rica Paras of Pinoy Big Brother: Double Up. I diligently cast my save votes for her a few times when she was in danger of being evicted from the Big Brother House.

This is the first blog entry I have written from my hometown in the Philippines since October 2007, when I moved to Oman. As such, this is the first time I have come back to my native land.

It has been quite a long time now, more than two eventful years, yet it feels like I first stepped onto the international flight away from home only yesterday. So much has changed yet it all feels strangely the same.

People have aged and grown, come and gone. Places have been built and destroyed, beautified and left to the mercy of time and decay. Money ebbs and flows, most of it moving away from our grasp so quickly as prices have all gone up. There are little victories and small defeats, glorious milestones and ugly consequences.

I am sure the above will still apply when I come back home again in later years.

When I arrived home, one of the first things I noticed was the addition of a small wooden plaque to the wall. These words were inscribed on the plaque:

Winners or Losers

The winner is always a part of the answer
The loser is always a part of the problem

The winner always has a program
The loser always has an excuse

The winner says, “Let me do it for you.”
The loser says, “That’s not my job.”

The winner sees an answer for every problem
The loser sees a problem in every answer

The winner says, “It may be difficult but it’s possible.”
The loser says, “It may be possible but it’s too difficult.”

On a final note: Happy, happy, happy birthday to my grandmother!

It is official.

At exactly 3.18 A.M., Philippine time (GMT+8), 1st August 2009, former Philippine president Corazon “Cory” Aquino was proclaimed to have passed away from a cardio-respiratory arrest. She was 76.

Cory was hospitalized several weeks ago due to the fast-advancing state of her colon cancer illness. She was first diagnosed of this last year, 24th May.

Her only son, Senator Noynoy Aquino, just made a statement over international television (through The Filipino Channel in this part of the world) that his mother has joined her Creator. The Aquino family asked for some time before they would face the world later today to answer pressing questions from the media at around 11:00 AM Philippine time.

Over the past few days, the only reports that trickled out of the Makati Medical Center was that Cory’s condition was “stable.” Nothing more specific was disclosed until very early this morning.

Rest in peace, Cory. You will finally be able to join Ninoy, our hero and your love, in Paradise.

Hell’s bells!

I never realized this photo existed but, yes, it does. Gosh, I never expected to see this online, and in FaceBook of all places!

Anywho, my longtime friend, high school classmate and college schoolmate Ramon (now based in Dubai, OFWs r0x0rs!) recently uploaded this picture onto FB and tagged yours truly. Ramon is the one right in front wearing the very Miami Vice white jacket.

No need to point out where I am in the darned photo, naturalmente.

My dress was made from the softest blood-red velvet my seamstress could find in Iloilo City at that time. I designed this gown myself and it remains as one of the finest, well, finery I have ever worn.

At one time or another, I was a member in one of the gyms or fitness centers in my hometown, Iloilo City.

These pictures were taken in July 2007 at Winners Gym Super Studio, the last gym I was a member of before I traveled to seek my fortune in the Sultanate of Oman.

Super Studio was located at the Robinson’s Place Iloilo City building, right down the street from the Super wet market. This is where a lot of bodybuilding champions to train and work out. A couple of their instructors were also acclaimed Philippine bodybuilders. What can I say, this place was hard-core.

All photos were taken (again) with my Nokia 6600. Sorry about the resolution! XD

Shi at the Super Studio gym floor. Lots of mirrors, a la Enter the Dragon! XD

Shi at the Super Studio Weights Area. This is where I pumped iron like mad, especially for my triceps.

Shi at the Super Studio Cardio Area. I am on the manual cross-trainer. Feel the burn, baby!

Sadly, news has reached us that this gym was closed last year due to the dissolution of the partnership that owned and ran it.

Another fitness center opened earlier this year at the same place, but the owners, the trainers and the crowd are vastly different from those with whom I was familiar.

Yesterday’s rather sentimental post prompted yours truly to go through some more folders of images downloaded off my first-ever camera phone, ye olde Nokia 6600.

I found some very interesting impromptu photos taken sometime in June 2007, featuring a stuffed animal I christened Bogart.

Bogart lives on the desk of my Mommy Lerma, a former colleague, a longtime neighbor, and a very cool mother figure who makes the best pork estapado in the world.

Bogart, full body shot

I am not exactly sure what kind of animal Bogart is supposed to be, but he seems to be a hybrid dog, cat and mouse. Now, that is enough to give any living thing an identity crisis.

Anyhow, he is proudly hand-made, as it is common in the Philippines for people to make stuffed toys at home as some kind of “sideline” business.

As I love all things cute and cuddly, I wholeheartedly support this up-and-coming cottage industry. Of course, I also have my very own collection of these homemade goodies, most of them lovingly created by my Nanay Pagit.

Over morning break one day, I found Bogart on my desk, smack dab at the center, sitting there like he owns not only the whole darned table, but the entire building and the ground it stands upon.

Bogart and Shi face off
“Grrrr…”

Bogart drinks coffee, right out of Shi’s cup. The nerve!

Bogart eats otap, a local delicacy biscuit made in the fair province of Cebu

Bogart chows on durian – the fruit that “smells like hell but tastes like heaven”

Bogart and Shi’s lavender Nokia 3530. Is he planning to send an SMS to someone? Or is he reading my sappy love texts? Ewww.

Really, who can resist Bogart’s hybrid charm?

Not a soul!

Shi and Bogart lurrrvvvvve each other

I last saw Bogart in September 2007 when I went to our office for the last time before my trip to Oman. He was still on my desk then, and I feel that he remains there until now, waiting for me to come back.

For a second face-off.

There are some things that have become a significant witness to one’s life. If these inanimate objects were alive, they could very well be able to tell great anecdotes about you.

Needless to say, there are very few things that have played witness to so many events in my life, none more so than my paternal grandfather’s circa 1970s Toyota Toyopet.

Toyopet, my paternal grandfather’s car, parked in their Iloilo City home

Here are the top dozen milestones that Toyopet has witnessed in our family’s history, in no particular order, though perhaps chronologically:
1. My parents’ wedding
2. My birth at Mission hospital
3. My baptism
4. All my birthdays while I was in the Philippines
5. My First Communion
6. My first day I officially reported to school as a kindergarten kid
7. My elementary and high school graduation ceremonies
8. My high school junior and senior proms
9. The time I served as Iloilo City Girl Mayor
10. My various literary and sports championship events
11. My college theatrical forays
12. The time I had a 40-degree Celsius fever and had to take the Civil Service Professional Exam – in which I got a rocking 95.95% score

Toyopet, front view

All these photos were taken in 2007, several months before I left the Philippines for Oman. Apologies for the not-so-very-high quality of the images – you can only do so much with a Nokia 6600 camera phone.

Toyopet, back view

Toyopet was originally orange, but when my grandpa retired in the early 1990s, he invested a bit of his pension in an engine overhaul and a slick silver-grey paint job.

I also learned to drive in this car – it is manual and very straightforward. I knew how to steer, shift gear, brake and everything else on this vehicle, with the Iloilo City Fishing Port as my practice track.

Toyopet, right side view

The last time I rode Toyopet was in January 2007.

My grandpa, now in his late 70s, no longer drives as much. At one time or another, he mentioned that he wanted to sell this car, mainly because of its value as a “well-maintained vintage.”

I was adamant that he not part with Toyopet. I would buy it from him, if it came to that. I want this car to stay in our family, not for its practical use, but for its sentimental value. I care for this car like a member of our family – we have been through so much together.

Toyopet, left side view

To make the long story short:

I love you, Toyopet. I am never gonna let you go.

And, yes, I miss you.

I just heard over the news that the Filipino nurse reported to have carried swine flu into Saudi Arabia has fully recovered from the illness and has even gone back to work at the King Faisal hospital in Riyadh.

However, reports on TFC have also confirmed that A (H1N1) has reached my hometown, Iloilo City. The initial case involved only one person verified to be carrying the virus. I hope the spread will not be rapid and rampant.

I am praying it will not infect any of my family or friends. With times being hard economically as it is, getting sick is out of the question, especially with the strain it will put not only on our bodies but also on our meager budgets. Not to mention the social stigma it will carry at work and with other people!

On the Gulf front, swine flu has reached Oman as well. I got this piece of news from two sources – (1) local news and (2) word of mouth (no pun intended).

From the first source, it was reported that there were three Omani students who have been infected by the virus. It is a good thing they were identified and subsequently medicated, but no other details were given as to who and where they were.

These people arrived from the United States, where they caught the illness. In addition to the summer vacation and the corollary influx of students coming home, lots of people have been going out of and coming into Oman for holidays.

The second and more intriguing news source relayed to yours truly that a Philippine national working at a popular American fastfood chain in Al Khuwair caught A (H1N1) while out of the country and only discovered he or she (gender not disclosed) was a carrier while already back at work in Muscat.

What’s more, the fastfood’s aforementioned branch was closed for half a day earlier this week as a precaution, presumably for some quick-fix disinfecting and to make sure all their other staff have not caught the virus.

However, I must emphasize that the second case remains unconfirmed by local authorities and media as of this writing.

Given the pandemic levels that swine flu has already reached, it would be better to err on the side of caution.

On a lighter note, Diana Vilibert shared this swine flu shirt at Nerve Blogs: The Modern Materialist:

And, no, I will not mention anything about its medical and factual veracity.

I never really realized how much I miss my home country until I read this nostalgic entry from my friend Genefel‘s blog. I have been away from the Philippines for nearly two years now. Come the first of October 2009, it will be exactly two years to the day.

To be honest, I miss so many things from my hometown, the beautiful coastal Iloilo City, foremost of which are my family, friends, old colleagues, the accessible public transport system, and the delicious, affordable food.

I am dying for a piece of Jolibee Chicken Joy or a slice of Andok’s liempo. Or at least a proper KFC Original Recipe meal, with steaming-hot gravy and a cup of rice.

However, I miss my pet Japanese Spitz doggie, Pikachu (yes, shamelessly named after the perky, literally electrifying Pokemon), much, much more than all the aforementioned Pinoy culinary delights combined.

Pikachu up close

Pikachu from another angle

Pikachu giving me a wet kiss on the cheek!

The above photos were taken back in 2007, give or take few months before I left for Oman. I found all these files from the memory card of my trusty Nokia 6600. Apologies for the not-so-high quality of the images!

Pikachu is not a pure Japanese Spitz. Her mother, Choco, was, but her father was apparently a strapping poodle. Thus, you can see that Pikachu has inherited her sire’s big eyes and floppy ears.

My doggie has been with me since May 2003. She was so tiny when she first arrived at our home, being only a few months old back then. She didn’t know how to eat from her pet bowl, but would guzzle milk like there’s no tomorrow.

Pikachu grew fast and shed and grew back her thick, fluffy, white fur even more quickly. She liked to eat my favorite food as well – chicken liver, baked ziti with mixed tomato and carbonara sauce, roasted and butter-fried chicken, among many others.

I intend to go home early next year, perhaps sometime during the first calendar quarter. I will finally see my pet in person again, not just from a fuzzy webcam feed.

My mother always tells me over the phone that my baby has gained lots of weight because she now has even more food to eat, what with yours truly working abroad and all!