samu't saring kwento lang.
one night at the casa, JT dropped by to de-stress. as he was opening the (kwatro kantos) Ginebra gin from our "stock", shawie shouted:

Shawie: JUTAY! wag mo uubusin yan ha!
(and then she turned to me)
Shawie: Wag na nga tayo bibili ng malaking gin! yung maliliit na lang.
...kasi nawawalan ng espiritu. sayang lang.


ahhhh...spoken like a true-blue alcoholic! but in fairness, concerned naman sya talaga sa kalusugan ni jutay. (:

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last friday, we celebrated shawie and jen's birthday at the casa. i call the attendance an "all-star" cast because it wasn't just the usual casa people. it looked like a reunion of sorts for our (ex)project. and it felt nice to be catching up, kidding around, and basically reclaiming that old feeling of belonging - if only for a few hours - from the people that i worked with for more than 3 years, but most, i haven't seen or talked to since the start of the year.

and for the first time ever, we committed the gravest sin of all: we ran out of alcohol. we had red wine, 1L absolut kurant vodka vodka kurrant (the current group favorite), 1 kwatro kantos gin (JT's leftover from my story above), and 20 bottles of beer. come 2AM, i was desperately rummaging through our fridge to look for any stock we might have overlooked. i found an unfamiliar-looking bottle with contents that smelled like alcohol and brought it out. that was when i found out that there is one kind of alcohol not even our group can drink: whiskey. hehehe.

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and having talked about "belonging", about two weeks ago, those of us who went to the combined teambuilding (with another project) got a shock of our lives. for years, we were so wrapped up in our world, being happy among ourselves, welcoming new comers and their quirks, not exactly caring about whatever is happening outside our project, that we almost forgot one tiny thing: the world doesn't revolve around us pala.

maybe we just weren't used to being the minority. maybe we were just expecting that we will be welcomed in the way that we used to welcome people. maybe we were looking for signs and things that weren't there: a spark of enthusiasm or eagerness to get to know us as much as we want to get to know them. the effort to make new people feel at ease. any semblance of the closeness that we used to have as a project composed of 60+ people. maybe we're just too hung up on what we used to be that we're having a hard time accepting what is right now.

or maybe...it's just basically not possible to embrace new people into your circle when you can't even embrace one of your own.

we wanted to fit in. we were ready to be a part of them. but maybe they weren't.


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sometimes, it's ok to make wishes. because you'll never know, maybe some of them are bound to come true. (:

back in December 2004. i wrote this entry entitled my selfish, really really impossible wishlist. what do you know, about a year later, i was granted 2 out of 5 wishes (the first and the last). not bad for something i thought was "selfish" and "impossible" huh?

and sometimes i still marvel at how so precise i phrased this particular wish:
a prospective The One who will look after me, and take care of me, and will patiently wait until am ready to love again.

it makes me smile na lang. (:

...now let's see if we can work on those boracay/palawan trips. hehehe.

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and speaking of trips, one of my goals for last year was to go to singapore. i was meaning to take this trip with marlette, but since she already went last year when i wasn't available, the plan reverted back to the original.

so yes, am going to Panglao Bohol on May. yay! this time, not with my beach buddy marlette, but with glenn, cholo and pangga. we availed of the Cebu Pacific promo and we already have our tickets. next is resort reservation and am off to another adventure in one of the beautiful beaches of the philippines. :)