I’m not sure if it applies in other countries but in the Philippines the latest ad campaign of Nescafe is, different people with different personalities can get along no matter how different they may seem.  In the new ad clip that they were showing on the tv was a teenage boy going to college in a cafeteria and the people around him are from different races.  Races meaning they’re like from outer space.  Other people might think it’s insignificant.  The creators were just trying to be different but actually it is a symbolic way to show that people are different from each other, from our appearances to our behaviors.  Different races mean we have different cultures and beliefs.  We might agree on certain things but disagree on a lot of things.  However, no matter how big our differences are from each other, there will always be something that is common between us.  We just have to find that thing that will start a friendship and understanding other cultures.  And on this clip, it is drinking Nescafe.  Isn’t it cool?

My mom and her siblings were born and raised in one of the towns in Samar.  I always thought of the place as an enchanting place.  My siblings and I would spend our summers there with our cousins when we were kids.  And my mom and her siblings will usually tell us about their adventures when they were younger.  One of the favorite stories that I love to hear is the story of one of my aunts.  She was the eldest among my aunts and she was a good cook.

She was the one who taught my mom how to cook.  Since my aunt is a good cook, a lot of people will ask her to prepare the dishes that they will serve during special holidays.  And after cooking my aunt will usually drink “tuba” (a local wine made of fermented coconut water/juice). At that time the bridge that was connecting the town to one of its “barangay” (local term for a village) that is located on the other side of the river was still made of wood. One night after she cooked for one of their relatives, my aunt went home after midnight.  She was accompanied by two of their cousins.  It was very quiet for the people in the town will usually go to sleep early since most of them are farmers.

So there were only three of them on the bridge when they heard footsteps behind them.  During that time, women wear wooden slippers which we call “bakya” and the bridge was lit by gas lamps.  They were a bit tipsy then but they had goose bumps.  My aunt asked them to check out who it was because there were talks about a big piggy that stands on its two hind legs and wears a pair of “bakya” on the bridge.  People at that believe in “aswangs” or people who transform into monsters and eat people.  So they looked back and they were taken aback when they saw what it was.

It was the big piggy in a bakya.  And it was so big that my two uncles got scared that they almost carried my aunt to the other end of the bridge and ran like hell.  It was so funny and now that I’m older, I still find it funny.   However, I can’t help but ask; maybe they were just drunk that they imagined things.  Maybe it was really a pig on the bridge which got loose from a pen somewhere and that the tapping on the footbridge may have been created by the hoofs of the pig?  Or maybe it was just a very fat woman who never goes out of her house during the day because she doesn’t like the sun?

Why do some men ask the woman that they like if they can court her?  Didn’t it ever ocurred to them that this is such a big turn off for some women?  Asking the girl if they can court her is like asking the girl if she wants to be their girl. Why can’t they just go to the girl’s house and court her without asking for her permission? Isn’t it more romantic that way?

Personally, asking a girl if a guy can court her is like soliciting information.  It’s like the guy doesn’t want to take a risk in courting the girl. For me these men are afraid of rejection because they are looking for an assurance that they will get something out of the effort that they exerted. I do understand that time is very important to people.  And spending it on someone who will not like us is like time wasted.  However, LOVE is a gamble, a risk.  You do things for the person that you love without expecting anything back from them.  You can’t even expect the other person to love you back or love you back as much as you love them.  And besides if the girl doesn’t like you, I think the girl will tell you about it the first time that you court them. Cause hey, they wouldn’t waste your time as much as they won’t waste their time over somebody that they don’t like.  Remember the guy who wants to court me when I was in college? I told him to look for another girl on that very day that he started to court me.  Because I don’t see any reason to have him court me when I know from the start that he is not the kind of guy that I would like to spend my time with.  It may seem harsh but if you’ll think of it, I am doing both of us a favor.  I’m just being fair because if I let him court me overtime, I might agree to have him as my boyfriend not because I love him but because of the guilty feeling that I have wasted his time and because I gave him false hopes.

I’m not into perfumes. I seldom use cologne when I was growing up. It’s because some scents destroys my appetite for they’re too strong that they tend to distort the aroma of the food that I’m eating and I really hate smelling like everyone else. I always believe that your scent is like your signature. It is because through the perfume or cologne that you use people will know that it’s you when you walk into the room. I used to buy two types of cologne and mix them to come up with a unique scent. That is why I really like the scent of Bath and Body Works’ Mango Mandarin body splash. A lot of people use Victoria’s Secret but me I prefer Bath and Body works. The price is almost like Victoria’s Secret but what made it special is not a lot of people can find it and uses it. Mine was brought by a friend whose friend went to the US. She made me try it and I started using it. It’s very refreshing especially if you put it on in the morning. And the scent really lingers on your skin and clothes. I only spray it on once a day and it will last until I arrive home from work. A lot of people will ask me what the brand of my body spray is and asked me where I got it. But sad to say they couldn’t find it in any local stores. I haven’t even seen it in Manila when I was there last month. It’s just too bad. I guess if I run out of my body spray I will have to make do with whatever is available around me.

I love Cebu for many things. Aside from the people who live here, the province has a lot of beaches to go to. There’s Bantayan and Malapascua with their white sand shores. Moalboal and its dive spots and Argao whose shores is really good for skim boarding for its flatter and the sand there is very special. What made it special is its brown color. It looks like ordinary soil but its sand. I’ve never seen brown colored sand. I’m used to seeing white and gray but not brown colored sand.

Then the mangoes here are very affordable. It’s very sweet and succulent. In Samar the prices of Mangoes can go as high as 60 pesos per kilo for vendors will buy it from other places but it isn’t as sweet. In Cebu you can buy it at 30 pesos per kilo.

Then you will find all the conveniences of living in Manila but it’s not as expensive, as crowded, as traffic and as polluted. The taxi driver here does not demand tips and will give you your change no matter how small it is. The life in Cebu is not as fast paced in Manila but it’s as progressive. People here still have time to spend with their families and relax.

Have you ever noticed in the old movies when they punish kids especially when the setting is on a ship? They make the kids peel potatoes. Like how difficult is it to peel potatoes? I have peeled a lot of potatoes in my life and trust me it isn’t as punishing as what other people think. Unless of course if we a knife with a blunt blade. But if you use a sharp knife or a peeler, peeling potatoes is like child’s play. Peeling squash is much harder to do. The squash in the Philippines is very hard so even if you use a very sharp knife it will take a while to peel. I guess this is one of the reason why people in Cebu no longer peel their squash when they cook it. Now you would think wouldn’t it be hard to eat if it’s as tough as I said it is? The answer is no. I am wondering myself but no matter how tough the squash is when it’s raw, it becomes really soft when you cook it. Like the potatoes. It’s a tough crop when it’s raw but it could become really soft when you cook it.

I really enjoy peeling potatoes. It’s very relaxing. You should try it. Use a knife though when you peel it because you can observe how the skin curls when you peel it in a circular motion. Or if you’re relly in a hurry, you can use a peeler.

I have a friend who hates being called a brat and denies that she is a brat.  But she is a brat.  She’s just in denial but she really is a brat.  At first she’ll be the one who’ll be teasing everybody.  But in the end, she’ll be the one who gets pissed off with everybody.  Just like earlier, she was throwing jokes at everybody but when one of our friends asked her what she wants to do with her laptop, she just decided to go home and got into a taxi without looking back at us.  Now, is that an act of a matured woman?  Her aunt asked her what she wants for her birthday, she answered I want the world.  So her aunt started ranting about who knows what (my friend couldn’t tell us what it was because she hung up the phone).  She was asked a serious question, she answered like a brat would and she expects people to treat her like a matured person?  Right…

It’s almost 1 PM.  It’s time for me to go to sleep if I want to have a good temper later.  I really need to have at least six hours of sleep every day cause if I don’t, I can feel the stress build up and my temper becomes short.  A short temper is something that I don’t need right now.  If I want to be a good people manager, I need to be very patient with the people that I work with.

By the way, I am proud of myself today.  I was able to stop myself from buying something that I don’t need at least as of the moment.  My friend was trying to convince me to buy a flash drive and I was able to say no.

I watched a movie entitled “The Perfect Stranger”.  I’m not sure if you’ve seen it but I’m guessing that not a lot of people have seen.  It is a movie about a girl who had a conversation with Jesus Christ when she went on a trip to get away from her parents who were “nagging” her to believe in Christianity.  I’m not going to narrate the whole movie but there was this interesting part of their conversation where “Jesus” told her that he hates religion because it made things appear as rules to its believers.  Just like going to church, for some religion, it is a rule that you go to church in a certain day of the week.  For some, its Sundays while others it’s on Saturdays and etc.  For my religion it’s a Sunday.  I watched the movie on a Saturday so the next day as I was preparing to go to church, it suddenly struck me.  Hey, I don’t really have to go to church every Sunday.  God never set the rule that everybody should go to church every Sunday. The important thing is you believe in Him.  So I said to myself, I’m not going to church today.  I’ll go when I want to go.  But a little while later, I realized that things only become rules when we start to consider them as rules.  It’s like setting a rule that your black pants should be hanged on white hangers.  If you consider going to church or believing in God as a rule then it becomes a rule.  If you choose to go to church because you believe in God then that’s a completely different thing.  See this is the common mistakes of some people.  They are too religious that they tend to see the word of GOD as rules which have to be followed.  And in turn they miss out on a lot of things.  They stick to the rules of their religion that they end up making decisions that makes other people suffer.  Like for instance, there are religions that prohibit blood transfusion.  They said that blood is very sacred and we shouldn’t be putting other people’s blood into our bodies for that will impure our blood or something.  And whatever happens to us is God’s will, which is really outrageous.  Why then did God impart this knowledge to man? Why then did man discover this knowledge?  Isn’t it because God wants us to use it to preserve the life that he has given us?

Having watched the movie I realized that I too thought about the things that has to do with the church are rules.   Like the Pharisees, I looked at the bible as a book of rules. A book of what is to be done and things that we shouldn’t do.  But it is not a book of rules. It was supposed to be a declaration of God’s love to his people.  I guess this is the reason why I stopped attending the religious affiliation that my mom and used to belong to.  I wasn’t really clear about it before but now I know why.  It is because they are imposing a lot of things to their members when it shouldn’t be.  Just like setting the rule of tithe giving and the sharing of your problems.  It may good for people sharing their experiences because that will help other people in certain ways.  That will give other people ideas on how to handle situations that are similar to the situations that other people have faced.  But the imposing of tithes and rules on how a member should act in the society? No.  I don’t mind giving the tithes but you shouldn’t force people to do so.  I can understand that some people only make enough income for their needs.  We shouldn’t make other people suffer for the sake of the rules.

So now, I no longer go to church on Sundays because the people in the church said so.  That people are supposed to go to church on Sundays.  I now go to church on a Sunday because I want to offer and spend an hour of my life listening to God’s words.  Because I’m not there for the people of the church but because I believe in God and I want to spend time with him.