It has been more than three years of joys and pains, shared with this blog. But it is time to move on to a new dream land. I have carried my rather little list of links, of people I miss from miles away in the new blog.

I hope those who still happen to pass by would take a look here: http://southeastface.blogspot.com

I know it's been ages and I'm not even sure, if this blog is still functional. Lately I realised what it means being caught up in every day life, when I have no more time to sit and doodle.

But then when you truly love to do something, it's a mistake to keep it waiting. It's important to make time for it. And so here I am. Our race against time, against being able to maximise every minute of it, to be able to do something worthwhile is an obsession.

I've been too exhausted phsyically and mentally, these past months to be able to write here. I feel it's unfair to just drop in and say a word. I've been obsessed as well trying to post in such a linear fashion, narrate everything like a book, when my life isn't at all.

So how it's been? My absence does not constitute anything much in this virtual world except that I just really missed inking the randomness in my life. As always, the cathartic nature of this exercise is what keeps me coming back to it. It's free and poses no hassle of wasting someone else's time in case they get bored. But sometimes, it also makes me think, am a better off expressing myself this way than ending up blabbering empty lines with someone else, boring them with pointless stuffs to talk about? Is this a cover up for a weakness?

Well then, let me open up the days I've been 'offline'. We just moved in to a new apartment in a commercial district and much closer to where I work. So again, I am busy arranging the house, putting things in place, while in between I sulk at the idea that I no longer will have the chance to be visited by peacocks once again.

I used to stay in an old villa neighboring old palaces of sheikhs who must be keeping peacocks in their backyard. One fine morning as I prepare myself to work, I opened my front window to get some fresh air and started sipping my coffee. And then I noticed three big peacocks roaming around our front yard! They were like prisoners who have escaped looking for a refuge, while freely checking out a new hide away. It was such a rare and delightful experience. (But what a let down to realise afterwards they were all male peacocks and could not show off colorful feathers!)

I just could not explain my happiness that rare instant. After that incident I realised how true it is that there are things in our life which could happen only once. I guess this is one of them. They are beautiful but momentary, ephemeral, like a passing glance. They are not meant to stay. But the feeling was surely familiar.

But my present is more pressing than any other thing such as that experience. They are only meant to be savoured at times like this, when I can share it with you without thinking of the many other things I need to do or where I need to be at right after this.

So maybe this writing process is a reprieve to the every day life, because it will always be a struggle to be able to make a point. To try to become less meaningless in what we do or what we engage into. It is a daunting task to become sensible as to why we do things. But this is the only exercise that makes me see how real and imperfect it is to live, to love, and to make things happen. This is also the only exercise that makes me see and accept what I can do and what I can't. What I can give and what I can't. What I can give up and what I can't.

I am not hoping I'll see peacocks visit my apartment window one fine day. As it is here, pigeons have already asserted apartment windows are their territory. Have a wonderful Friday!

My Lakbayan grade is C-!

How much of the Philippines have you visited? Find out atLakbayan!

Created by Eugene Villar.

Got this from Liloch's site! I so miss to write and this is all I could post!

The speech below was forwarded all over the UP Republic, which has found its way to build its pillar (UP sa UAE yahoo group )as far as the desertland, apart from the plenty of ways it could get into my email.

So anyway, I just thought for a change, why not post something that's not my own thoughts?
I somehow agree with Mikaela. Yes, I support and do believe in originality. I believe that's our only way to find out the rest of what is yet we can discover about our lives and our potentials to change the way things are. There's no hard and fast rule, is there?

I am sure that the path I am taking is nothing of a 'road less travelled', neither could I say my life at the moment is as original as it may seem to say it is leading to a groundbreaking path. But as far as moving on is concerned, I am pretty sure I couldn't be anywhere happier than here and now.

I owe it to the university that has pushed me to explore beyond boundaries, that has opened my mind about the realities I live into. UP will always be a nostalgic significant part of me but I have realised more than what it has given me.

The only time I recited a speech was when I was six years old, the first time I stepped into school. It was written by my grandaunt for our kindergarten graduation. I remember so well its title, ''Ako'y Nag-aaral" (I Am Studying), its first line, Ako'y nag-aaral, upang matuto, at gayun din lamang ay malaman ang maraming bagay...(I am studying to be able to learn, and at the same time, to be able to know about the many things...) This might be a bad translation..but that's the gist.

At least, by far, I am quite sure I have been living that speech (in many other ways than being inside the halls of official learning), which I delivered more than 20 years ago and I think, will always be my guiding speech in life.


********
Valedictory speech of Mikaela Fudolig, 16 yr old, summa cum laude BS Physics UP Diliman

"Take not the road less traveled"

One of the things that strike me as being very “UP Diliman” is the way UPD students can’t seem to stay on the pavement. From every street corner that bounds an unpaved piece of land, one will espy a narrow trail that cuts the corner, or leads from it. Every lawn around the buildings sports at least one of these paths, starting from a point nearest to the IKOT stop and ending at the nearest entry to the building. The trails are beaten on the grass by many pairs of feet wanting to save a fraction of a meter of traveling, no matter that doing so will exact some cost to the shoes, or, to the ubiquitous slippers, especially when the trails are new.

What do these paths say about us, UP students?

One could say that the UP student is enamored with Mathematics and Pythagoras, hence these triangles formed by the pavement and the path. Many among you would disagree.

Others could say that the UP student is naturally countercultural. And the refusal to use the pavement is just one of the myriads of ways to show his defiance of the order of things. This time, many would agree.

Still, others will say that the UP student is the model of today’s youth: they want everything easier, faster, now. The walkable paths appeal to them because they get to their destination faster, and presumably, with less effort. Now that is only partly true, and totally unfair.

These trails weren’t always walkable. No doubt they started as patches of grass, perhaps overgrown. Those who first walked them must have soiled their shoes, stubbed their toes, or had insects biting their legs, all in the immovable belief that the nearest distance between two points is a straight line. They might even have seen snakes cross their paths. But the soiled footwear, sore toes, and itchy legs started to conquer the grass. Other people, seeing the yet faint trail, followed. And as more and more walked the path, the grass gave in and stopped growing altogether, making the path more and more visible, more and more walkable.

The persistence of the paths pays tribute to those UP students who walked them first – the pioneers of the unbeaten tracks: the defiant and curious few who refuse the familiar and comfortable; the out-of-the-box thinkers who solve problems instead of fretting about them; the brave who dare do things differently, and open new opportunities to those who follow.

They say how one behaved in the past would determine how he behaves in the future. And as we leave the University, temporarily or for good, let us call on the pioneering, defiant, and brave spirit that built the paths to guide us in this next phase of our life.

We have been warned time and again. Our new world that they call “adulthood” is one that’s full of compromises, where success is determined more by the ability to belong than by the ability to think, where it is much easier to do as everyone else does. Daily we are bombarded with so much news of despair about the state of our nation, and the apparent, perverse sense of satisfaction our politicians get from vilifying our state of affairs. It is fashionable to migrate to other countries to work in deceptively high-paying jobs like nursing and teaching, forgetting that even at their favored work destinations, nurses and teachers are some of the lowest paid professionals. The lure of high and immediate monetary benefits in some low-end outsourcing jobs has drawn even some of the brightest UP students away from both industry and university teaching to which they would have been better suited.

Like the sidewalks and pavement, these paths are the easiest to take.

But, like the sidewalks and pavement, these paths take longer to traverse, just as individual successes do not always make for national progress. The unceasing critic could get elected, but not get the job done. The immigrant could get his visa, but disappear from our brainpower pool. The highly paid employee would be underutilized for his skills, and pine to get the job he truly wants, but is now out of his reach. And the country, and we, are poorer because of these.

Today, the nation needs brave, defiant pioneers to reverse our nation’s slide to despair. Today, we must call upon the spirit that beat the tracks. Today, we must present an alternative way of doing things.

Do NOT just take courage, for courage is not enough. Instead, be BRAVE! It will take bravery to go against popular wisdom, against the clichéd expectations of family and friends. It will take bravery to gamble your future by staying in the country and try to make a prosperous life here. It might help if for a start, we try to see why our Korean friends are flocking to our country. Why, as many of us line up for immigrant visas in various embassies, they get themselves naturalized and settle here. Do they know something we don’t?

Do NOT just be strong in your convictions, for strength is not enough. Instead, DEFY the pressure to lead a comfortable, but middling life. Let us lead this country from the despair of mediocrity. Let us not seek to do well, but strive to EXCEL in everything that we do. This, so others will see us as a nation of brains of the highest quality, not just of brawn that could be had for cheap.

Take NOT the road less traveled. Rather, MAKE new roads, BLAZE new trails, FIND new routes to your dreams. Unlike the track-beaters in campus who see where they’re going, we may not know how far we can go. But if we are brave, defiant searchers of excellence, we will go far. Explore possibilities, that others may get a similar chance. I have tried it myself. And I’m speaking to you now.

But talk is cheap, they say. And so I put my money where my mouth is. Today, I place myself in the service of the University, if it will have me. I would like to teach, to share knowledge, and perhaps to be an example to new UP students in thinking and striving beyond the limits of the possible. This may only be a small disturbance in the grass. But I hope you’ll come with me, and trample a new path.

Good evening, everyone.

By Mikaela Irene Fudolig
UP Graduation 22 April 2007

First things first, thank you to all my friends who remembered me on my birthday. I really feel special just knowing that you do remember my day (and make me feel that you really do remember, hehe).

Anyway, weeks have passed and I really missed doodling here. I don't have any reflections written yet after that. I was a bit busy churning my new routines, doing some editing jobs now in a place they call here Media City. Here, there's city for every industry or for anything at all. And media is clearly defined as an industry. (Yes, I am back to money-making, not so much though, I try to be modest in many ways, but not in the false way.) Probably one day I'll have the chance to write about it. I'll be ashamed to call myself a journalist. It would be a disgrace to the word. Yet so many call themselves so. For me, it all boils down to purpose, intent.

At 29, I am not shy I have reached this age and still ranting. I realised I should be proud ranting. Some people have just grown tired of it. Or have forgotten to care about even the simplest things. They just keep moving on, go with the flow. Try to be happy (or pretend to be happy). As for me, I am not perfectly happy. I am unhappy at times. I am content with some things in my life that I couldn't ask for more, but somewhere down deep, I know there's more we have to strive for -- far more than jsut having the means to do things. Isn't that what keeps us alive?

So, on my birthday, my husband gave me a tinnie-minnie gadget called mp4. I didn't know at first what was the difference with the mp3s. It is very common for me to see joggers, walkers or bus riders to have something inserted right through their ears. Nobody bothers to listen to chit-chats ( I love inadvertent eavesdropping!) on the bus. But what I loved about this mp4 is that I can jazz on the bus with Monk or Davis. Or groove with the African music, or simply trip hop with Nitin Sawney. I discovered how it has become a very effective stress-buster! I travel almost two hours a day coming back home because of too much traffic. So I loved it because it is fun and it is practical.

I realised how I've become more practical. I'm not a gadget fad crazy. I really am, and believe so, old-fashioned. Perhaps, I've become more practical, always weighing the value of something over thoughtless happiness. When you know how hard it is to earn one's corn, you realise how to value every penny. And when you realise how to value every penny, you learn how to focus and prioritise. (Yes, I have successfully become a 29-year-old adult!)

But my point is, I really loved the gift. Listening to the music I like as opposed to watching palaces as I pass by the beach road every five in the evening, gives me a different feeling. I have loved riding the bus even more. Of course, at times I purposely take it off my ear. It's nice to listen to Filipinas chit-chatting about work, what food to cook at home, whose boyfriend broke up with whom, or simply ranting about a 'different' smell. But what I love more is I also hear a different language, some words not so familiar, some talks so fast, it sounds like a chirping bird. But it sounds really nice and alive. The whole bus is so alive! Those moments made me feel I belong somewhere, that I am part of a past experience although I may have been silent about it at times.

Despite the system that runs this world, there were moments that I felt some level of cultural blending here. Maybe because we all share the same trauma every day, waiting for the bus to come, and hoping that we'll get a seat.

But the best feeling is that I am proud that have come from a place I love, that I represent and it represents me into this world where everything does not always spell a fair chance. It's also not so bad to revel at that, and pin my hopes on small, small things.

I've started picking up on interviews once again. And although, there were some good options in the market right now, I have to admit that I still can't seriously get myself into it. I know for a fact that I cannot stay like this forever and at some point I have to stop wishing and dreaming of something that just can't happen now. No matter how hard I try to look into the things at hand, nothing can come out of it that would significantly change the way I want things to be.

There may be few people who can be so uncompromising during these times, and I wish I could be one of them. But the fact is, I am not there. I am here. I have made choices and I feel more real than imagining that I could be more real if I happen to be somewhere else. While I try to pull the few different strings that hold up my life, I should let lose of a few others to sail through.

In a few days, I have to make a decision, go back out there and earn once more a different experience, even if, somehow the experience seem predictable. Just being here now at the comfort of solitude most wives perhaps would have been through, I realised that I can just stop at that and see that I am still so connected to the world that runs outside, because basically the production of life is always concerned about home. In fact, I can see more of how the world runs its mundane role every day here than when I am outside. Maybe because I see the dirt of the world gets piled up at home. As cliché as it may sound, we will never know what things really mean unless we are there, right in the middle of experience, our great, great teacher.

The times I feel disconnected though are those that when I take a walk in the park and see the flowers that never wither or grass that's always freshly trimmed. No matter how beautiful the sun sets against this backdrop, I feel like I am living in such an artificial place. Perhaps, because I just don't admit that at times I miss the discomfort of Manila. The news that matters here are certainly far from the news that matters at home. I feel like an outsider watching a desert city come to life. The beauty becomes so numbing, like an art in a floating world. And then I begin to descend in the feeling of unworthiness of my search. I know, a bad thing to say.

Reality, if we really want to see them, will always try to buckle down our armors. Hope at times are very difficult to find. And for people like us who love to take comfort among words, it's always nice to end with this flicker:

"But the lamb looked at me and spoke to me through his eyes. He said that I should forget forever my unworthiness because the power had been reborn in me, in the same way that it could be reborn in all people who devoted their lives to the good fight. A day would come--said the lamb's eyes--when people would once again take pride in themselves, and then all of nature would praise the awakening of the God that had been sleeping with them." -- The Pilgrimage, Paulo Coehlo

The fact is I don't know where to begin.

So let me ask one thing, how do you, in a more personal level commit to environmental preservation? I mean, is it true at all despite everthing going on around us or everybody is just fooling around?

Yesterday, I went to the supermarket and decided to buy this recyclable shopping bags. So, they are being friendly to the environment. Why not? No, finally! And me being me, I said yes, why not? Even if I had to pay 2AED for it. Was it a joke?

When I got home and started unpacking the groceries, there is one plastic inside carrying the juice and I asked my husband, Why is there a plastic here? He said, Well we have to separate the juice from the other goods, like disinfectants from spinach. And so on and so forth. Yeah.

Do you use brown bags or plastics? What do you do to the mountains of grocery plastic bags? Use them as trash bags? Thing is, in a city that has lots of money, some recycling businesses are very choosy about their stations. So I'm back to square one.

It was like when me and my mother used to argue a lot about burning trash. Ok then, you know about global warming, greenhouse gases. So what? She'd say, and what we will do with all the trash that is not being picked up? Which means, ok so you know all the effects, but who gets the work done?

We all know the whole gamut is much bigger than anyone of us, or do we? But I just wonder who really bends to pick up the trashes? Sadly, true love hasn't come around Mother Nature.

I should learn Arabic. In addition to French and Hindi and Punjabi. I should have studied Linguistics. I don't know. But I know I should learn more languages now that I am concentrated on practically nothing.

I sometimes hate my state. I am always thinking, my husband says. But now, I think I am fine with it. Even if at times, some thoughts are really depressing. Even if at times sporadic thoughts make me get out of bed and open the PC at 4 am. I am starting to learn how to handle it well. I don't know, maybe because when you are getting used to something, you learn how to manage it well.

I feel more alive now. Oh God, I am surviving.

"I'm sitting here in limbo right now, and I know it won't be long" - Tuck & Patti

I was just listening to Tuck and Patti, trying to dance away my rather indescribbable state and then I read this news on the paper: 'Predatory' cow eats chicks alive'. Sorry I can't find a link here but it was reported by Reuters from Kolkata, India. Mind-boggling. I was...stunned. The report said ''lack of vital minerals is causing the behaviour".

How do you handle this kind of oddity? Well, if like a DoLittle I can talk to animals, I'd say, "Hey, I made a vegetrian paté', and it's a vegan recipe!"

Yeah, it's just great. I tried this eggplant paté the other day. It was tasking but really worth it. The taste was so great I can't believe I made it.

First, I grilled the eggplant and peeled off the skin after it was a bit cold. Then I food proccessed the sesame seed and olive oil for the tahini. I grounded some cashew nuts as well. Then I put them all in the processor, including the eggplant, onions and some capsicum (red bell peppers), very little amount of salt and black pepper..and finally lemon. If you are interested, here's where you'll get a recipe. Tells you where I am in this limbo.

Happy Women's Day!

After becoming a veggie-convert for a few years now and preparing Indian menus for many months now, it seems I have forgotten the taste of authentic Pinoy tastes such as adobo. Lately, I realized Pinoy cooking preparations and its tastes are quite simple.

So here I’m sharing with you a freshly invented recipe out of my desire to taste once again those tangy memories of bistek without the meat part. It surely is a lot less complicated than preparing masala!

Round slices of potatoes
Mushroom or Tofu (for meat replacement)
Thinly sliced garlic
Onions cut in rings
Soy Sauce (The authentic Silver Swan is still the best!)
Lemon (The Great King of Citrus Scents, Calamansi will be best, if available)
Salt and Pepper

I fried the potatoes and tofu first until slightly brown. Then I removed the oil and retained about two tablespoon for the garlic and onion sauté. Once the garlic and onions were a bit brown, I put back the potatoes and tofu and sprinkled it with black pepper and mixed them gently. Afterwards, I put the soy sauce (pour only reasonable amount which means, don’t soak your potatoes and tofu in soy sauce, just enough as sauce). Then I squeezed half lemon right over the pan, and let it simmer for about 3-5 minutes until ready for serving. For a spicy twist, pepper flakes also give a little color to the presentation.

So there you go. Have a happy veggie meal!