Mid-Year Check

Four days into 2012, I wrote this to-do list for the year. We're at the halfway point now, so I think it's time for a self-check.

1. Sign up for the next cycle of Mandarin classes.
I'm actually in my third cycle for the year and pretty happy with how I'm doing. :)

2. Re-read the Bible two or three times.
Ha. Yeah, this isn't happening.

By three times, I meant once each in three different languages: Tagalog, Cebuano, and English. Things were going well until I hit a speed bump at Genesis 5. Yes, yes, call me lazy.

In the end, I decided that with all the things I wanted to do — apart from all the things I had (have) to take care of every day — I had to accept that I didn't have the time and commitment that such an ambitious project deserved.

I did, however, learn some interesting things about myself and language. Though I never spoke Cebuano/Bisaya growing up and mostly use Taglish in everyday conversation, I found the Cebuano Bible much easier for me to grasp than the Tagalog. Osmosis, I guess; the sounds of Cebuano in my head were just warmer and more familiar.

I guess that's how I came to the only conclusion I got out of this interrupted project: If I ever study a Filipino language seriously (again), it should be Cebuano/Bisaya. While Tagalog seems more practical considering that I live in a Tagalog region, I can't help thinking of this quote I first posted after I finished Basic Chinese 1:

"Learning a language, even a natural language, is more of an emotional decision than a practical one. It’s about belonging to a group."
— Arika Okrent, author of “In the Land of Invented Languages” (source)

There's something special in the conscious choice of a language to study. I didn't choose for English to be my first language, nor did I want to study Tagalog Filipino* all those years in school. Chinese is only the second language I chose to learn because it felt important; Bisaya, now that I think about it, now that I remember how alien I felt coming home from the States, was the first.

*I'm using "Tagalog Filipino" here the same way people use "Mandarin Chinese."

3. Move out of Cubao within the next six months.
It took five months, but it finally, finally happened. :)

4. Finish at least two economics reference books.
Hay, another reading project abandoned, for now.

I am, however, reading more business and economics news these days, and when I remember, I put in a half hour or so at Khan Academy.

5. Use my induction cooker.
Cris gifted me with a proper saucepan, and since then, I've used the stove to boil pasta, fry an egg, and watch Cris make noodle soup, hahaha. Baby steps. Half point?

6. Travel out of the country at least once.
Not yet, but soon, soon. I have a ticket to Beijing in October. :) If stuff goes really sour with China before then, I'd like to rebook for Malaysia or Singapore.

7. Email my parents more often.
I have upped my emails in the past six months, but they're still not as frequent as I'd like. Half point.

8. Get rid of old/unneeded belongings.
I did a lot of throwing away during the last stages of the move. I still have a big bag of clothes and bags to donate, but they can wait under my bed till the next charity thing at Mikko's church.

9. Get my college stuff out of storage and sort that, too.
Hmm, I forgot all about this. :|

10. Invest.
I've actually lost a lot of money recently, if we're talking about the amount in my savings account. But, I suppose new things for the apartment and the massive deposit are a different kind of investment.

Still hoping to get my balance up to a certain amount and then plunge into a financial instrument, though.

11. Read at least 50 books.
So far, I've read 13 new ones this year and am in the middle of a 14th. That's less than I'd like to have read by now, but at least I'm reading.

12. Make more complicated popup buildings.
Only three so far: The Great Wall (1, 2), a kind of landscape of Santorini (1, 2), and an imaginary Aztec temple that I decided wasn't worth photographing.

I hope to have more time for buildings once I've finished settling into the new apartment. I also have to buy a table for working and eating on. :/ Half point for the six-month mark, then.

13. Visit Luneta on a Sunday morning
I've actually been to Luneta twice in the past six months, though both times on Saturday afternoons. It was still nice, though.

15. Use my Ayala Museum membership at least once a month.
Hey, looks like I skipped 14.

This makes me feel so bad, but I haven't been to the museum once since the year began. I wanted the membership for what I'd imagined would be a year of being single and bored.

16. See Picasso's "Suite Vollard."
Yup.

17. Visit Manila Ocean Park.
I'm thinking of striking this from my list. Friends have told me it isn't worth it. :/

18. See my childhood friends more often.
I've seen them only a couple of times, so I'm not removing this item. Maybe just a half point for this one.

19. Hang out with Internet friends IRL sometime.
I ran into Lance (@bottledbrain) at the museum on the last day to see "Suite Vollard," but I was about to leave already. :s

This kind of thing takes planning and courage — and more planning than courage. I can't even see offline friends without planning a month or so in advance, and something usually happens to cancel the plan. My offline friends are increasingly online friends, too. :|

20. Spend a weekend in Baguio.
Not yet.

21. Spend a weekend in Corregidor.
Not yet.

22. Find out if that thing they keep saying about my great-grandfather is true.
*sigh* Not yet.

23. Be a better editor.
Hmm. I'd rather not go into details, but suffice it to say that I can still do better. Half point?

24. Redesign certain company websites for fun with MAMP and a local Wordpress installation.
I actually did this and then showed the results to someone at the company who had a little more power to suggest Wordpress. But, the group handling the site in question decided they'd rather keep the current CMS. Oh, well.

25. Watch at least two Filipino plays.
Forgot about this one, too.

26. Finish at least one abandoned story/essay and submit it somewhere.
My interest in creative writing beyond this blog seems to fade more every year. There are just so many other things I want to do also.

27. Get a pet.
I'm definitely looking forward to this, but this might have to wait a while. I've got a lot of big expenses coming up in the next six months (a table, a bedroll, people's birthdays, my birthday, Beijing, Christmas, maybe one more cycle of Mandarin), so I don't know if I'll be to squeeze a pet in until next year.

28. Be open to whatever's around the corner.
I definitely think I deserve a full point for this, but I'm not taking it off the list. :)

That makes 10 points, if I've counted right. I guess it's not bad.

Would it be cheating if I made a new list of priorities and things to do for the rest of 2012?

Shelves

It only sank in yesterday that this apartment is the first place, apart from my childhood home, that I can really call "mine." I've been living in Metro Manila for four years now — about seven or eight if you count college and living in the dorm — but it wasn't until I started sketching layouts for my apartment and debating on whether to get a dining table that the meaning of these acts and how far I've come really dawned on me.

Sure, I'm still renting, but really, I've never felt this free. However hospitable and generous my relatives in Parañaque were, I always felt I was encroaching on my sweet younger cousin's space. When I left Parañaque, I shared a condo with my college roommate Myka, but however well we got along, there was always the uncomfortable business of splitting bills and chores, timing when to bring our boyfriends up and when to disappear, and somehow knowing that the idiosyncrasies we dismissed or rolled our eyes at in college were somehow magnified and different now that we were supposed to be grown-ups.

And after that, there was Cubao, where I did have a room to myself, but it never felt "mine." I told the landlady it was only for six months, and though six months came and about 18 more went, I always told myself, "I'm going to get out of here." That's why I never thought about how to decorate the walls or how to improve my storage options; in the back of my mind, there wasn't much point if I was going to leave soon, soon, soon.

I don't read fashion, travel, or design magazines because they give me uncomfortable, I-want-my-life-to-look-like-this-but-I-can't-afford-it feelings. Last weekend, though, upon our mother's suggestion, Mikko handed me an interior design magazine as a housewarming gift. And after I warily cracked it open, I found myself thinking, "Hey, I can actually do this." I still couldn't afford anything in that magazine (which — ouch — dubbed itself the "cheap" interior design magazine), but it did send home the idea that I had the power to make my place feel less like a well-lit bodega and more like my home.

Maybe we underestimate how much physical distance, space, and freedom can contribute to our mental and emotional senses of freedom. My room in Cubao was not only small but also irregularly shaped and prone to dust from the highway; my furniture was where it was because there wasn't any other way I could arrange it. I ate and worked on the floor with my back against my bed frame and my feet up against my cabinet doors. When I started drawing and cutting buildings, I did so with the cutting mat on a clipboard in my lap. The longer I stayed, the higher the stacks of books and papers I had to step over to move from one corner of the room to the other. I used to collect materials for collages and other craft projects, but they only became a source of exasperation and frustration, because creating and keeping things required more space than I had.

I never had visitors over; visitors couldn't come upstairs — I had no chairs to seat them with, anyway — and the kitchen where they were allowed to hang out was dark and depressing. And while my housemates, landlord, and landlady were nothing but cordial and even nice to me, I was a grumpy shut-in who didn't want to have anything to do with them. The way they or some sign of them popped up everywhere, every day, was just another reminder that this place wasn't "mine."

That's why, when I started sketching layouts, considering tables, and plumbing Apartment Therapy for ideas, I felt my life opening up in yet another way I hadn't known it could. Guys, I can put my stuff on shelves now. I can prepare food on a kitchen counter. I can eat that food at a table. I can clear that table and make things, and then I can display those things around my room. It sounds so small and silly, but honestly, I'm tearing up a little at the thought.

It's a rented space, but the freedom to move and move things in that space somehow makes it mine. Maybe it'll just be for a year; maybe it'll be for three, five, or ten. But it's still the first place in years that feels like mine, to stay in and live.

(The last time I cried over furniture was the day my Parañaque relatives bought new shelves for my cousin's room and said I could use half. I don't know if they'll ever know how much that meant to me. I bought the same type of shelves for myself when I moved to Ortigas, and I plan to get a second set for my apartment now. It's not just that they're modular, affordable, practical, and actually kind of cool; they've also come to signify the ability to make home.)

Enjoying the View

The view from my new apartment, which I moved into on Saturday, overlooks a nearby subdivision where I can see kids playing basketball, people walking their dogs, and trees, trees, trees, trees, trees. And in the distance, behind a layer of smog, is the Ortigas skyline and a bit of Greenhills.

In the past two days, I have drunk in the view and felt myself in other places, particularly gorgeous green Singapore or just somewhere like home. I think it's because it's a little hard to believe that I am right here in Quezon City, that this view is mine, and that this life is my life.

The dark cloud over everything in the past month or so has been my own fear that all this amazing stuff — my wonderful dream of a boyfriend Cris; my move-enabling, actually enjoyable job; and now this fantastic apartment — will be taken away, just as so many other things were taken away or I was pushed from them. So, I half don't want to believe in them to make the impending pain of losing them easier to bear.

My friends (rightly) say I'm being ridiculous, being afraid of things that haven't happened and may never happen. Cris would say that people don't know they can choose to be happy; "We're going to be happy, Kat," he likes to remind me.

I know, really, because in the past few years, I told myself to choose happiness and work on whatever would get it for me. I wanted career fulfillment, some nice (if only rented) real estate, more family time, and more love. But really, I wanted to be at home in myself, to learn to be my own anchorage, and to architect my heart into the haven I longed for amid all the changes, disappointments, and adjustments.

The thing is, I did that because of the disappointments; I did that while telling myself, "Life is not entirely the wonderful thing you've dreamed about; just roll with the punches and find something to smile about regardless." I guess it was really just another way of saying, "Life will get better, but not by much, so don't ask for much; be content with what you get."

And then, life got better by a ton.

And quickly, I realized that while I was good at living like happiness was a light at the end of a long, long, long tunnel, I wasn't prepared for when I found myself standing outside with the sun in my face and the sea at my feet.

Or inside a new apartment with the lease in my name.

It was just so much easier to be self-confident when I had nothing to lose and nothing to miss. That's it, I think. In a weird way, the lack of fulfillment was armor. I'm so much more vulnerable now that I'm where I always wanted to be, with the kind of people I always wanted to be with, and doing the kinds of things I always wanted to do.

For the past couple of years, I lived believing happiness depended on strength in the face of difficulty; now I find it depends on openness and vulnerability in the face of fulfillment, especially fulfillment you never thought was possible.

This post features photos by Cris.

Prayers these days are alternately, "Thank you, God," and "Oh, God, what happens next?"

More of this, I hope with all my heart. Please let there be more of this, and help me to enjoy it.

Packing Up

I'm moving out of Cubao this weekend.

I'm happy about the change; I wanted it for the longest time but was never really able to pack up and go until now. And while I no longer detest my current neighborhood as much as I did when I first moved in, I know it's the right time to move out.

Cubao, or at least, the part of Cubao where I live (and will have lived), is an in-between place. Physically, it's between Araneta Center and Anonas and thus between any decent place to eat or get transportation; it takes a little extra effort to get to or from anywhere.

But when I think of the dingy bars, abandoned buildings, motels, and dusty hardware stores I saw every day, as well as my own street's sari-sari stores, low-rise offices, suburban houses, roosters, and sidewalks decorated with animal poop, I think of myself when I first moved in, still between being a clueless kid and getting my shit together.

I was between working for my parents' friends at a job I'd accepted mostly out of quarter-lifer desperation — no one else seemed to want to hire me — and believing I could find and be offered a new job by myself. Once at that new job, I was between existential, "do I really want to do this for the rest of my life?" crises and learning to just do the work, enjoy what there was (is) to enjoy, and make life outside the office rewarding enough to compensate for having to write (and now assign) yet another article about _____.

I was between being angry and disappointed with myself, for not having attained/achieved everything I'd expected to have achieved by the grand old age of 22, and being proud of what I'd accomplished instead, kahit papaano.

Faith-wise, I was between the loss of a sense of belonging and frustration with the community I just no longer belong to; and a quiet contentment with the few prayers I still say, as well as acceptance of the good that conservative religion can still do for other people.

I was also between using fight-or-flight in an increasingly serious yet still kinda new relationship, and learning to just do things because I loved someone who deserved an awesome girlfriend. And when we broke up, I was between bitterness, disappointment, and rage; and celebrating how I had, in the process, still become the kind of person I'd wanted to be at the start.

More recently, I was also between a crippling fear that I couldn't open myself up to another person again, and allowing myself to just step out and be happy with someone amazing.

So, this upcoming move to a nicer apartment (and tighter budget, haha) feels like a natural next step. And when I say I won't miss Cubao, I say it not out of dislike for the neighborhood (it's actually improved in the past couple of years) but out of recognition that you can't and shouldn't miss something you've outgrown.

Sure, I know that the years to come will involve a lot more moving on and, I hope, moving up. I hope I'm as ready as I feel. But for now, I just want to dwell.

Actually, I know I have to relearn dwelling; for so long, the mantra was, "Just hang in there till things get better." I'm slowly rewiring myself to accept a new one — "Things are now awesome! You can now slow down, stop worrying, and enjoy them."

--

It's easier for me to throw or give things away now. I no longer feel the need to save every last bus ticket and piece of ribbon. I'm looking forward to getting home tonight, sorting my belongings, and putting some of them in bags that will end up on the curb or at a church.

I am actually thinking of throwing out or shredding* my old diaries, every last one, even the first one I wrote when I was just ten. Little things — the lack of clutter in my family's new house, the clandestine visit to the now-empty old house, an article I read about the imperfection of human memory, the way the silver paint has flaked off the shoes I wore to my senior prom, my own general lack of concern over my inability to find certain photos in my hard drive — are telling me, the present is just as important as, if not more important than the past.

I'll still try not to forget things, and I know I can't ignore how much the past has shaped me. But, the more old things I hang on to, literally and figuratively, the less room I have for other good things that may come.

* Burning would be more dramatic, but that would be bad for the environment.

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First, I have to find the truck guy's number.