By manilenya - Last updated: Saturday, July 19, 2008

—–across the sea…to be near you…to be free….

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By manilenya - Last updated: Monday, July 14, 2008

What is the difference between spending my weary Sunday afternoon inside my dreary room (which is looked like a dorm, my friend say) with cluttered books, baggy and some mails (not to mention the junk foods, drinks, strings of hairs that fell off my head -I am getting bald soon, me a bald lady, I can’t imagine how I am going to look like- and some personal belongings) and sitting in the shaded part of the park with my current reading and two bags of groceries and of course my undying point and shoot camera?

Because I was again, attacked by monstrous boredom - I compare him with Goliath, and I am David, ready to sling a stone to strike my opponent (monstrous boredom), but instead I hit the shower room, wear my once used jeans and I didn’t forget my shirt of course. I picked my book -the single women’s best friend according to one movie I have watched - and beat the humid weather and yet again, the lonesome street.

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By manilenya - Last updated: Thursday, June 19, 2008

I don’t know if there are surfers or bloggers near around Innisfil and Alliston City that stumble here, but if there’s any, I hope they will see this post. One or two people who will read this plead and will decide to chuck some old and unwanted children’s books in front of my uncle or my employer’s doorstep is huge enough for me and the kids who will benefit this little good deed

My nanay (mother) and I had both agreed that I am not going to send Balikbayan Boxes - full of canned goods, clothes and some necessities the Filipinos assumed relatives left in the Philippines needs and would love to have. We both know that they can buy all those stuff back home with lesser price, so I better send money than goods, I am okay with that.

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By manilenya - Last updated: Saturday, June 14, 2008

Then you tell yourself
What you want to hear
Cause you have to believe
This will be my year

I love this song. I search for the Semisonic’s album where I could see Closing Time, it was one of my favorite song, or I should say still my favorite to this day. We used to play it when we want to shake off the remaining costumers in the computer cafe I used to work.

“It’s closing time, hoist your butt from the chair and leave, come on!”

Closing time
Time for you to go out to the places you will be from
Closing time
This room won’t be open till your brothers or your sisters come
So gather up your jackets, move it to the exits
I hope you have found a friend
Closing time
Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end

I realized that these lines really suits to our regular customers, mostly were students from the nearby schools. They were fanatics, I see them everyday in their favorite computers usually chatting until midnight.

Earlier as I was cleaning my employer’s house which is 10 times bigger than the house where I grew up, I turned on my iPod to its maximum volume. I used my employer’s daughter’s iPod dock so that my music tracks will fill the emptiness of my surroundings.

This Will Be My Year played, it sounds like 80’s to me and the tune totally draw me into the song because I love 80’s music, it made me bring back to an era where I thought that the present was forever..endless….unchanging.

But I was wrong. I need to add 1 every year end, my teacher once told me. And every year, everything’s changing.

And every year, why on earth I have not considered at least one year to be my year?

Not until I heard this song. I feel like I want this to be my National anthem. It is my year according to Chinese calendar anyway.

This will be my year

I am a rat.

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By manilenya - Last updated: Thursday, June 12, 2008

What if I buy this Ladies tank with my own design from Sonicshock, a site where you can make your own T-shirt and ask people I come across the County Road 89 to wear this and invite them to pose for me? Maybe I’ll make another shirt for guys because I don’t think they will buy the idea of them wearing ladies tank right? But if they cool enough to wear this, I guess we’re going to have a street party then. As if….

This is the big project I’ve been meaning to do in celebration of my three years of blogging which will fall on July 28.

If this will happen, I’ll get to shoot 2 birds in one stone. First my walk will be totally different from my previous walk. It’s going to be amazing.

Second, It will hone my interpersonal skills, but I need to pick my guts first to ask people, especially locals if they can do that for me. Sometimes I think it’s easy, no sweat! but most of the times I feel they will just look right through me and maybe laugh back at me. I fear rejection and humiliation of course, that’s why I am having a second thought.

But who’s going to ignore a shirt or a tank that is made of a state of the art digital printing plus a free post of their picture in my blog lol!

Let’s cheers! I am going to buy my favorite wine on Sunday to celebrate my being a Dad also to my kiddo.

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By manilenya - Last updated: Sunday, June 8, 2008

I told myself I need to grow up; I know I need to grow up. Being a 35 year old me and a mother of an eleven year old girl don’t prove that I’m a grown up lady.

Four years ago, my mother was wrong diagnosed by a stupid doctor of an ovarian disease, and she wants to remove my mother’s ovary or else she’ll acquire cancer of the ovary, she said. My mother was devastated with the news and all she can think of is how I am going to live without her…just in case.

But come to think of it, she really needs to think of me because I can’t even buy my own undies at that age. Oh well, I have to say this again and again just to show how dependent of me to my parents my whole life. But I am responsible; I have to tell you that.

It’s not that I never work for all my life during those days, but job was just a small stint. I did a very small business with my sister also, but having seen me in front of my computer all days after work or sometimes while working at the store made them think that I am a rotten tomato instead of rotten tomatoes must throw on me.

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By manilenya - Last updated: Thursday, June 5, 2008

Today is June 5, to this date last year, I think I was on the plane to Japan, and there I stayed for 5 hours, waiting for another flight straight to here (Canada).

I arrived in Pearson International Airport in June 5 also, for there is 12 hours of time difference. When I went outside, I removed my jacket because I thought that it is going to be humid outside. I wasn’t thinking of spring because I don’t know spring. We haven’t introduced to each other yet. I just found out few weeks ago that Spring’s actually name is Rhain also known as Rain.

It is so strange that, these people here are always talking about temperature. Today is 23 degrees and tonight is going to be 13 degrees.

I only see the weather conditions when I am watching news on TV when I was back home. My friend here told me that, maybe because you only have same weather every time.

Anyway, I promised myself a gift for my endurance. 4 years ago, when I finally decided to get off my parents place and giving up everything I get for free, my father told the rest that I’ll go back to where I don’t even buy even my undies. The place where I am protected from storms and flood - if I am not going outside when there’s heavy rain- and I am loved and pampered with fluttered eyes.

Now here I am, have been worked to Singapore for 2 and half years, there I learned that I can cook (bleh tatay!), visits Malaysia and Indonesia for few days’ trip and working as a Live-In Caregiver in Canada for a year now, where I also learned that I can cook some delicious food (bleh again tatay!)

I guess I already passed all the trials an OFW should deal with, although home sickness attack from time to time.

So I decided to give myself a gift, maybe a coffee from Tim Hortons and a walk again to Downtown. One big
bottle of Beringer’s White Zinfandel and Nikon D60? How’s that for me?

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By manilenya - Last updated: Sunday, June 1, 2008

I want to count the reason I feel I had a good walk yesterday. I usually refused the thought of leaving my “confinement”; first I am tired of walking on the same old street. All I see is the empty road, dull front yards and the stillness of the woods – my routine to the park.

I sometimes think that striding the same path over again just adding an extra baggage to my solitude. But I cannot avoid walking down this alley. There are three possible way to get to downtown, I usually use the two, and the last street is going to be a long and tedious pace. That is going to be a horrible walk for me, so I slip out that street to my choices.

Along the County Road 89 (am still stunned with the street names I see, I have never seen a street name like that in Manila), the dreary atmosphere was replaced with eagerness to glance through every shop, I passed by.

Leafing through the pages of Pro-Photoshop Magazine – I, once again, inside the Shoppers Drug Mart browsing through some books and magazines – my eyes settled on the Nikon Workshop which will be held in Egypt. A cost of US$3,500 to experience different kind of Nikon DSLR and the beauty of Egypt in one whole week trip had made me to slip in daydreaming.

I was overwhelmed with the idea; of course I cannot sign up myself to that trip. The reason that I am not a professional photographer didn’t thwart me on dreaming that Egypt Photography Workshop, it is the cost that rouse me.

I left the drug mart and went back down the road, hope to have glimpses of what is new, or what I missed when I walked passed through this earlier.

I saw an Orthodontics clinic which I am very gladly to visit one of these days, the gym that would definitely going to be my hang-out on weekends and…. and the travel agency. What`s with the travel agency?

They are displaying these wonderful pictures taken in Italy and a question “DO YOU WANT TO TAKE A PICTURE LIKE THIS BY YOUR OWN SELF” was written in bold black cut-outs shouting at me.

I have read about Italy in my current reading Eat, Pray and Love. I read about Rome, Sicily, Sardinia, the heart of Venice, Lucca. I read names like Giovanni, Luca and Giovanni and Luca. I have learned the word Attraversiamo, which means “let’s cross over”. This means I need to cross over the street and forget about traveling and taking pictures weather in Egypt or in Italy.

I cross the street but the idea of traveling was still enticing. Why not? Maybe soon I need to contact Italy Vacation Rentals and or London Vacation Rentals (I remember how I envy my friend who had a trip to UK) or Paris Vacation Rentals.

So this is what my walk had given me, a daydream.

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By manilenya - Last updated: Saturday, May 17, 2008

When my employer and I met the for the first time, that was after we both agreed to meet so that we can talk and get to know each other a little, she had mentioned about planning as part of a caregiver / nanny job.

Although I know already that house cleaning and some household chores are part of the job, I was unsure about planning. I know I am going to follow order, but planning? Of course I know it is house matters, so I have to leave that to the couple I am going to be employed with.

After three days of trial, she decided to get me full time and be a “part of the family”. During the working hours, she has to ask me about grocery lists and some stuff that we need for the house necessities.

Stuff for cooking obviously, is one of them. That, now I know is planning. Planning a grocery list and planning what to cook at least for a week. That also made me worries because we have a different kind of cuisine. We Filipinos, can eat their food, but them to eat ours? I doubt it.

However, they amazed me when they like my sea food fried rice, pancit (fried noodles to them), sotanghon (noodle soup) – and I tell you, they share the news to their friends that I can cook a delicious sotanghon. I even cooked chicken tocino, menudo, mechado – which they called beef stew, chopsuey and different kinds of shanghai rolls. I don’t know if they love those but at least they eat it. Or they don’t have a choice?

Needless to say, I get to learn some of their dishes too, and I am glad that my employer also told me that I can learn some recipes too (she has a lot of recipes in the kitchen), and even search some recipes from the Internet for me.

Planning for supper which is Canada’s big meal for the day is definitely a task for me. Since I am not really a good cook, I need a recipe book for a help. But I am not a recipe book reader; I’d rather leaf through my fiction/non-fiction books than a digest full of cooking elements. Yet, I can browse through the net for recipes.

I am glad that there’s a lot of blogs that caters into this topic and I am so happy that I saw the DayRecipe to which they update their blog daily with their favourite recipes that I can try cooking.

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By manilenya - Last updated: Wednesday, March 5, 2008

Sabi ko gusto ko ng pagbabago, ibinalita ko na sa pamilya ko na dahil sa laking syudad ako, gusto kong bumalik sa syudad. Naranasan kong limang araw na walang trabaho at naging nakakabato yung limang araw na iyon. Hindi ko magawang lakarin ulit yung madalas kong lakaran sa tuwing lumalabas ako. Nakakasawa na rin yung pabalik-balik ko sa mga maliliit na shopping mall na pinupuntahan ko. Wala rin akong nakikitang bago.

Sabi ko nga sa kapatid ko minsan habang naglalakad ako, isip lang ako ng isip sa gitna ng makakapal na yelo. Pero minsan din wala na kong naiisip. Basta lakad ng lakad na para bang naglalakad sa ulap habang nakasukbit ang mga kamay sa loob ng bulsa ng jacket. O kaya nama’y hinihipan ang mga kamay sa sobrang lamig. Maya-maya napapansin ko nakatapak na pala ang snow boots ko sa yelo na malambot, biglang bagsak na ang boots ko sa tubig. Para bang eksena sa mga Korean novela na ginawa ng winter.

Sabay tawa siya. Alam na alam niya yun dahil fan siya ng mga Korean novela. Marami pang napagkwentuhan na hindi ko na matandaan, akala ko pa man din may photographic memory ako.

Tinanong niya kung may mga kaibigan na ba ako rito, sabi niya baka mawala ang pagkabagot ko kung mayroon nga. Sabi ko wala.

Sabi niya pa paano daw ako magkakaroon ng kaibigan e masyado daw akong unsociable. May split personality ako sabat ko sa kanya. Mahilig akong mag-isa pero kaya kong maki-indayog sa gulo ng iba.

Ang gusto ko lang naman e magkaroon ng konting sigla ang buhay ko dito. Pwede akong lumabas mag-isa, pumunta sa isang maingay na lugar tutal naman iyon ang nakasanayan ko..ang maingay na lugar, pagkatapos pupunta ako sa isang sulok at bubuksan ko ang pahina ng librong binabasa ko. O kaya naman maglakad-lakad (pa rin), pwedeng bitbit bitbit ang pipitsugin kong camera at kukuhanan ng litrato ang mga paa ng mga kasabay kong naglalakad sa kalsada. Nakita ko ang Yonge St. sa Toronto, ang sarap magkukuha ng larawan doon.

Gusto kong iexplore ang syudad, pero minsan nagtatanong ako kung gusto ko nga ba talaga o naimpluwensyahan lang ako ng binabasa kong libro?

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By manilenya - Last updated: Thursday, February 21, 2008

Nakita ko na naman sila. Ngayon medyo malinaw na sila sa litrato dahil kahit malayo nasa tapat ko lang sila. Pero noong nakita nila akong nakatutok sa kinaroroonan nila, mabilis tumakbo yung dalawa. Noong una pakiramdam ko nakikipagtitigan sila sa akin sa tuwing makikita ko sila. Malayo man, alam ko na alam nila na pinagkakatitigan ko sila.

Noong minsan sa tapat mismo ng deck sila nakatambay. Naghahanap ng makakain. Nang nararamdaman ng usa na may mga matang nakatanghod sa kanya, bigla siyang humalinghing na parang kabayo. Sabay takbo sa gilid ng bahay papunta sa isang sulok ng mga puno.

Iniisip ko kung makikita kaya sila ni Aya, ano ang gagawin ng bata? Ahhh alam kong hindi sya matatakot, mas matapang sa akin ang batang yun e.

At iniisip ko rin dahil sa parang haling akong makakita ng mga usa sa malapitan, baka pag nagtagal ako dito maisipan kong mag-alaga ng usa. Pero malabo. Saka hindi na sila pagtatyagaang hantingin pag nangyari yun. Wala ng thrill.

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By manilenya - Last updated: Sunday, February 17, 2008

Kanina sabi ko gustong kong bumili ng Dance Revo. Gustong gusto ko talaga yun kahit na hindi ako marunong. Sabi ko matututo rin naman ako. Parang larong step-no step-yes lang naman yun diba? Feeling ko kasi kung magkakaroon ako nun at kung gagamitin ko yun, tiyak mawawala ang mga kabilbilan ko.

Ewan ko ba kung bakit feeling maganda ako ngayong araw na ito gayung napapansin ko na bumabalik na naman yung mga flakes sa ulo ko. Sabi ng kapatid ko noong bago-bago ako sa Singapore noon, ganun daw yun kapag napunta ka sa ibang lugar. Nagkakaroon ng reaction ang balat o anit sa bagong environment. Pero matay ko mang isipin mahigit walong buwan na ako dito. Hmmnn baka sabihin nyo sa akin e “paligo lang ang katapat nito.” Naliligo naman ako pramis.

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By manilenya - Last updated: Saturday, February 16, 2008

Kung ang habol mo sa paninigarilyo ay ang usok na lumalabas sa bibig o ilong mo, at paminsan-minsang paglabas nito sa tenga mo (kung nagtitrip o kaya nama’y feeling mo isa kang magician na yosi boy o yosi girl), dito sa malamig na kinauupuan ko e malamang hindi ka na magyosi. Lalo na kapag nalaman mong aabot sa kulang 400 pesos ang isang kaha.

Pero kung adik ka naman sa usok ng sigarilyo (hindi sa nikotina), okey lang. Yosi pa rin.

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By manilenya - Last updated: Thursday, February 14, 2008

Kasalukuyang nasa negatibo otso ang temperatura dito. Kahapon ng umaga pag gising ko ay nasa negative 23 siya, hindi ko alam kung kasama na diyan ang tinatawag nilang plus windshield. Sa totoo lang hindi ko pa alam kung ano ba yang windshield na yan. Hindi na ako magtatanong. Dahil ang alam ko hindi naman ako masasagot. Naalala ko pa ng magtanong ako kung bakit kailangang turkey ang ihanda sa hapag kainan kapag Thanksgiving Day. Kaya huwag na lang. Masasayang lang ang laway ko. At masasayang lang ang ilang minutong pag-iisip kunwari ng pagtatanungan ko.

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By manilenya - Last updated: Wednesday, February 13, 2008

I really think that I owe you a talk but since I am lacking of words every time I speak, I resolute to put those words I can’t utter into writings. Besides, my apprehension started here. Exactly after I read your comment right from my inbox.

I was so ashamed of myself when I saw your comment. I even scolded myself for checking my mail through my hand phone, but of course I know I still can see that if I go online. I know, I cannot run.

It is so careless of me that I didn’t realize that I am going to offend you with that entry. Same as I didn’t realize that I am going to hurt my mother’s feeling when I wrote Ang Babae sa Kahabaan ng Recto (The Girl at Recto Avenue -) I asked her to visit this site and read but I didn’t expect her to root into my archives just like what you did.

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