Dark beauty

Some three weeks ago we spent a couple of nights in Legaspi City to organize the culminating activity of a disaster project of ours in Bicol in response to the damages caused by typhoon Reming in the last quarter of 2006. There was a tour that took our team together with some local partners and donor organizations to the evacuation centers, avalanche-hit areas, community hospitals, relocation sites and to the famous Mount Mayon which is said to be the volcano with the "most perfect" cone. The volcano was majestic and the sight of it commands your attention even as your plane lands on the airport. It was so pretty it made me forget for a while that I despised everything around me at that time...and that's just priceless!

Overworked

I've been calling in sick for the past three days because of a bad flu accompanied by a fever and I still consider it a blessing in disguise even if I'm about to consume all my leave credits for the next nine months in just one week. Why? Because for the past two months or so I've been behaving like a workaholic Japanese salaryman. I juggle two jobs at the same time in such a way that I have no rest day during the week. I have a regular day job at a Frech NGO where I work full-time from Monday to Friday, but aside from that I do graveyard shifts on weekends as a part-time Spanish-speaking agent for the booming call center industry in Makati.

So it feels good to be just at home and taking a rest, even if my body feels damp all the time and even if just yesterday my stomach would not admit any substance apart from fruits and hot tea. I swear I could vomit just at the thought of sinigang, nilaga and other oily soup stuff your elders, if you were born in the Philippines, would give you in order to supposedly make you feel better. I don't exactly like having to live with my parents but when I'm feeling sick as hell, that's one of the moments I'm truly grateful that they're here to take care of me.

Chasing deadlines

And so it's been roughly 1.5 months since I left Spain and came home to Manila, and now I find myself in front of my laptop in a room very much different from the one I had in Málaga. It's a room I had lived in practically my whole life but now I must get used to it over again. Since the day I arrived, I have been quite busy catching up with family and friends I didn't realize I hadn't produced any writing until now. So, it's taking me some time to finally write this project document. There's now a half-filled page on the computer screen with some occasional scattered notes at the bottom. If I were in Spain, I would probably finish this assignment in a flash because all the information and supporting documents that I need for it are all in. However, there seems to be a harsh spell of hibernation wreaked upon my person that I can't help it at all. To my suprise, I even forgot that the deadline for the document was Tuesday. Somehow, I mistakenly lost track of the passing of the days I thought that February 20 was still Thursday. That gave me some justification to put off the task and go to a friend's house yesterday night for some beer and pizza. Ufff...had I known, had I known!!

Happy birthday to me

Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday to me. Happy birthday, happy birthday, happy birthday to me. I've just turned 28 today and it feels quite odd because I'm leaving Spain tomorrow to go back to the Philippines for good. For the past two weeks I've been very busy meeting up with friends to say goodbye, packing up my stuff, closing bank accounts, paying last-minute bills and simply trying to get over with a thousand things that one normally has to finish when leaving a country. Once I arrive in Manila, numerous lunch/dinner dates will be arranged to meet up with old friends that I haven't seen for a long while, and surely most of these people will ask me: Why did you come back? Shouldn't you have stuck it out in Spain, considering that you already made it there? And I wouldn't be surprised if some of them would think that I was stupid for making this move. Truth be known, it was a hard decision to leave Spain, and Europe for that matter, because I will be leaving behind wonderful people, places and a lifestyle that I've grown increasingly attached to over the past two years. However, I thought hard about it and no matter from what perspective I looked at it, reason wouldn't have me stay much longer. Why? Because I felt that if I did, this country -- and my personal circumstances here -- would shape me into someone that I don't want to be professionally. And I can't live with that. Thus, I finally decided to put an end to this chapter of my life and start a new one in Manila. So...goodbye Spain!...but...to all my friends in the Philippines, see you soon!

Goodbye home sweet home 2