10/28/2015 ‒
The special kind of everyone

It's always weird seeing a famous person in your midst, doing normal people things. Simply put, he's a famous person, and he never does the same things as you, right?

A few years back a bunch of NBA players came to Manila to play. Somehow I got a ticket, despite not being a basketball person, or a sports person - but then again, my dad and my brother are; boys' night out, you could call it.

I was buying some hotdogs (as you do) before the game began, and on the same queue as me was Andrew E.

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10/25/2015 ‒
Everyone

Everyone, I learned over the past few years, is misunderstood.

Everyone is also complicated.

Everyone is complex.

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10/15/2015 ‒
The past is terrible, but isn't the past so much better than the present?

Miriam Defensor Santiago chose Bongbong Marcos to be her running mate in 2016.

In an instant, people hate her.

Well, I'm just judging from the usual social media avenues. I'm judging from this one millennial who, just two days ago, was all praises after Miriam announced her bid for the top position in the land. At last! I now know who to vote! Today, said millennial is all, I don't know you anymore.

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10/13/2015 ‒
Would Miriam make a good president?

"If I become president some time in the very near future, this country will be much better than it was before."

That was Miriam Defensor-Santiago, right before announcing that she is, indeed, running for president in 2016.

"Today, this country suffers from the malaise of plunder. Plunder is when you look at a person and the person looks at you and you feel like eating each other up. It’s like cancer. The one thing bad about cancer is it tends to eat up its neighbor."

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10/01/2015 ‒
My friends in exotic places

Yes, yes, social media is around mostly to tell other people how awesome your life is. What else explains seeing an endless stream of vacation photos, food photos, outfit photos, desk photos, couple photos, you get the idea, right? And perhaps the only time you see something mundane on your feeds - say, someone doing the laundry - it's often done ironically. "My life is not glamorous. Look, I still have to do the laundry!"

I know this, and I'm still trying to get used to it. I could claim, all I want, that seeing these things don't stir me like most people, I do. No matter how I convince myself that I am doing fine, saving my money for the more sensible things in life - a future together, for example - I still sit here wondering why I don't get the chance to do the things they do, or, specifically, the things they post about. Look, a friend posting a photo of her coffee cup at some third wave coffee place. Look, a friend posting a photo of a bowl of ramen sold cheaply at some hole in the wall place somewhere. Look, a friend posting a photo of herself dragging whoever she's with towards whatever door that is in wherever tourist trap they're in. Yes, I know it's shallow, and yes, I know it still, somehow, sucks that I'm not exactly in their shoes.

"I think that's smart, saving up," Nat told me in that rare video call we had a few weeks back. Well, it wasn't much of a video call because I had terrible lighting and everything just lagged.

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