Category Archives: Me, Myself & I

A Moment When Dark Spirits Hated Me

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I have just been in a zoom meeting and encountered a circumstance where I have been slightly wronged.  Though I was not bestowed even a hint of apology, and since the concern at hand has been clarified, I simply let go of the issue and tolerantly charged it to experience.

This zoom meeting experience is nothing but bread crumbs if compared to a huge loaf of an intense situation others may have when it comes to the aspect of forgiveness. I read somewhere that forgiveness could be the most difficult thing many of us do in our lifetime.  It is hard because it is against all our earthly impulses.  I hope that there would not come a time when forgiving for me would be the hardest.

my face being a peace! hahaha!

But I guess on undemanding situations, forgiving is easier than being too proud, too bitter and too loaded with angst and resentment.  Being at peace is the benefit of being tolerant while good will is what you get from tossing away the negatives.  Evil spirits abhor the concept of forgiving and during that specific zoom meeting, those dark hostile forces hated me.

I Miss Going To The Movies

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Do you remember when was the last time you went out, go to a cinema and see a movie?  I miss doing that.  It is so long ago that I no longer can recall what was the last film I saw inside a movie house.

For me, going out to watch a movie is some sort of a social activity.  It’s like having a mini-party that is to be attended either by a bunch of friends, family and even strangers.  No thanks to the ongoing pandemic, I have yet to get inside a cinema and have this mini-social activity done this year!

Yeah, I too is a Netflix subscriber, but I miss the fun of falling on queue outside the theater, the buzz of selecting which time slot to watch at the box office or the angst of running in a hurry because the film is about to start.  I also miss the delight of selecting what to binge and snack on – chips, burgers, hotdogs or a pail of buttery popcorn.

stuck at home, gone grumpy and mad… i wanna go to the movies!

Going to the movies is a perfect social activity for it hits all-encompassing purposes of having an enjoyment, relaxation, stimulation and a sense of belongingness.  But this social communal pursuit seems dying.  Aside from the fear of catching the deadly bug, human beings now prefer watching at the comforts of their home.  Yeah, I know that watching movies at home is more convenient, safer and cheaper but it misses the mark in terms of us being social beings.

I’m betting my skinny butt, count forty or fifty years when people evolved and become solitary species, those cinemas can be considered dead, extinct and a thing of the past.  Young folks by that time would be so shocked to find out that movie theaters run and existed and they would innocuously utter “ridiculous people of the past are so weird?!”

Enough said.  I want to be that weird dude of the future and I definitely miss going to the movies!

Declogging My Brain’s Sewer Line

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Though I am not a writer, I think I am suffering from a writer’s block.  To be more precise an “amateur writer’s block”.  My trend of thought being so comatose disabled me from featuring something special or interesting on this blog for the past few days.  And since I seem to suffer from this condition, I decided to shut up and just revisit my Secret Garden coloring book this weekend.

plants thrive in my secret garden! yay!

This old coloring book has been my laxative-like remedy each time my brain’s sewer line is clogged.  Here’s the page I finished.

failed to do my weekend chores because of this! LOL!

I read somewhere that writing a crappy post such as this one is much better than not writing at all. I hope my loony trend of thought will soon be declogged and feature something interesting soonest!

I Had Coffee With Your Avatar

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Now that the world has gone bonkers, I think gaining and winning friends by the present generation sits quite fine and okeydokey with me.  Generation now would consider that the minimum requirements for at least two human beings to be considered as friends is that they have to have a photo together posted on social media or that one has clicked accept a Facebook invite by the other.

Though I am truly glad that I am not part of this peculiar “friendship” scheme.  I think I would still recognize and accept such a modern way of developing friendships for the mere fact that such scheme and pattern is positive.

It is totally different from the way how friendship develops and flourish during my young though not so vibrant time.  Friendship development and occurrences then were face-to-face, non-tech, unknowing, fluid, extemporaneous and does not require having an avatar.

my present globally recognized avatar! hi friends!

I am not saying that those that I connect with via social media or the world-wide-web as not friends.  They are indeed!  But it could have been more enhanced if I happen to at least smell or touch these new found friends.  Yeah, I am a touchy person (and not a smelly one)!  And I would have love to have at least a coffee or dinner with these new found comrades.

Case in point are the new found friends I developed while writing and posting on this blog.  These are the amazing and beautiful people who cared to read, like, comment and/or follow the Nengkoy blog.  Conversing via the comment sections and responding to emails, believe it or not, has been very fascinating and enriching experiences.  Some don’t even have a face since their avatar would be a painting, a cartoon character or the photo of their favorite pet yet I would consider them as my modern virtual friends. 

And since, like what I have said, the world has gone bonkers, you may not know it, but I have had a coffee with your avatar in the past few days! Hahaha!

Finding new friends is positive and in the affirmative, whichever way a person achieves it would be so fine with me. 

A Plantito with Black Thumb

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I have always recognized that I do not have a green thumb.  Though I love plants and have taken cared quite a number of them in the past, plants don’t love me back.  My relatives can attest that I have purchased countless number of plants in the past, but all chose to breathe their last breath and declined to settle with me in my condo unit.  I sometimes correlate my relations to plants as a form of unrequited love! 

When I and my family would go out of town, I would often suggest to stop at a garden store by a roadside before heading back to Manila for I want to acquire new greens.  “Are you looking for a new victim?” or “You’re just wasting some bucks” are the usual remarks of my relatives when I would suggest my buying new plants.

the recent garden shop where i purchased my succulents… i can hear these greens saying… “no! not me!!!” LOL!

I have always thought that I would make a good gardener because I had an A+ grade in my Botany subjects during my old school days and would even had the time and fortitude of talking to these plants.  But all these photosynthetic members of the Kingdom Plantae refuse to live with me.  My relatives has even tagged me as having the black thumb or even worse the black-kiss-of-death thumb!

Owning and taking care of plants here in Manila is the new craze.  Like me, this has been some of people’s emotional outlet or thing to do and be busy of indoors during this time of quarantining and pandemic. 

This has been evidenced by the steady increase in the number of social media posts of people posing behind, in front or beside their happy and healthy plants!  People call these plant-fanatics and shrub-obsessed folks as Plantitas (for female) and Plantitos (for male) of Manila.

In my recent out of town adventure, I again purchased a new batch of plants to enjoy and take care of.  I hope these creatures are as glad as I am.  I am really hoping that this new batch will live a long life and would finally erase my being a black thumb.

if those trees can run, i’m pretty sure they’ve moved way way farther! hahaha!

my not-so-happy green companions! please don’t die…(my recent purchases)

But if these plants chose to reject me and die instead, I will still care for one and would just have to melodramatically remind myself that old warriors may have to fight a long battle more than once to win it.  And if one zany plant would finally decide to settle it out with me, I will call myself a Plantito who would be smiling while sharing social media pictures with it.

Looking forward to having photos with these new plants!

Her Istanbul Is So Much Better Than My Istanbul

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In my long-ago adventure in Ciudad de Mexico, there was one influencer (YouTube travel vlogger) whose posts about the city made it easier for me to go around.  Her posts about Mexico City was so helpful during that time that I made it as my reference on where to go, what to visit and how to go about.

This vlogger recently posted her adventures in Istanbul, Turkey.  I was a little swollen with pride to learn that I being a small-time traveler actually came and visited years ahead before she did.  I was secretly hoping that she has read a number of my blog posts about Istanbul for her to use as her travel reference of the city.

inside hagia sophia

But when I watched her posts about Istanbul, I was so envious that I wanted to revisit the city and re-do all my lackluster blog posts. Hahaha!  Her vlogs were so vibrant, so appealing and so alive that though I already have seen, felt and tasted what she was featuring, I wanted to go back, do the same and do the way she does! 

I guess I am just bitter that I could not produce a better feature of Istanbul the way other travel content creators do.  Am I really envious about her work? Or I am just finding an excuse because I really wanted to go back to the grand and splendid Istanbul?!

Let me then post a short clip of my personal experience in Istanbul. 

I hope that re-reading multiple times this blog post would in some way reduce my craving to revisit that beautiful transcontinental city.  And to that lady vlogger – whom I refuse to identify and feature here, hahaha! – I do admit that you really do a better job than I do. 

Let me just then be contented with the powerful saying that: “recognizing one’s own weakness is one of the biggest strengths that one can have”. And yeah, I am so bitter and really wanted to be back in gorgeous Istanbul. Hahaha!

I Wanna…

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I hate YouTube today.  Can you just imagine this YouTube thing had the overzealous audacity to suggest a music video on my iPad that would stress, accentuate and lay emphasis on my being solo?!

How could you YouTube?  How could you?! I am so offended because the song’s lyrics is so true in every sense of the word! Hahaha!

Good thing the beat and its remake rendition is so awesome, it indeed made me dance! I’m a goofball and I love Ben Rector by the way.

Smells Like Grandma!

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Have you ever wondered what you actually smell like? Do you know what object when smelt will be reminded of you?

During college, I learned through lectures, readings and studies (Psychology was my major), that olfaction or the sense of smell can harness evocative power towards a person’s emotion.  I personally believe that people can fall in love towards a food, a location, an animal or even a person because of the odorant organic molecules that these objects of affection diffuses.

Just imagine the aromatic smell of coffee that relaxes you in the morning or the joy you feel when you smell freshly baked bagels?  Have you ever wondered why some stunningly beautiful and well-mannered lady can be so head over heels towards a rude dude who only takes a shower once a week? It must be the odor!  Furthermore, multiple journals in Psychology asserts that memories and recollections as evoked by smell are usually localized to the childhood period.

this reminds me of lola teray… ow i wish you can smell this.

All these stance and viewpoints about olfaction were further reinforced when I and my younger sister bought a buy-1-take-1 Japanese-made charcoal soap from a grocery store!  I of course paid for the “buy one” and she took the “take 1”.  Hahaha!

On my initial use and as soon as I lathered it on my hands, a vivid childhood recollection was evoked by the subtle fragrance of the soap!  The scent clearly reminds me of how my Lola Teray (my mom’s mom) smelled like.  On an impulse, my brain suddenly replayed some of the beautiful childhood memories I had when my adorable Lola Teray was still alive.

my lola teray… she smells so good…

lola teray’s photo when she was a chosen subject for a photography session

My family lost my Lola Teray more than 30 years ago, and I could not imagine how an object now can actually trigger and remind me of my long-forgotten scent of my grandmother!  How amazing is that?!  And as soon as I finished my shower, I messaged my younger sister telling her that the scent of the soap reminded me of our sweet and gentle grandmother, Lola Teray.  She agreed!

Now, I wonder how I smell and what odorant chemical compounds that I diffuse?  I wonder what crazy object do I smell like? Hahaha!

My Frozen

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When someone discusses anything about Frozen, young lads and lassies today would link and associate this to the fearless princess Elsa, her adorable sister and the cheerful Olaf.  Yeah, Frozen would be about the fun charming Disney movie and its sequel based on the fairy tale Snow Queen.

young people’s king of ‘frozen”

Frozen today would also be associated to a now classic seven-year-old song where the snow glows white on the mountain tonight and where the wind is howling like a swirling storm inside. Hahaha! Yeah, it is entitled (who would not know?) Let it Go.

But for me, I don’t associate Frozen to Frozen, the movie.  It is because prior to this film, during my younger years, my brain has been wired, stuck and enthused by an excellent 22-year-old song and a music video masterpiece.

I would associate Frozen to a mystifying lady in a black dress who would mysteriously collapse on the ground and would magically turn into numerous black flying crows.  I would correlate Frozen to a lady who tells us that “love is a bird, it needs to fly, let all the hurt inside of us die”

Watch this, this is my Frozen.

Yup, my favorite song in Madonna’s 1998 album Ray of Light is my Frozen. 

But no matter what your Frozen is.  May it be the sensuous song by Madonna or the Let It Go from the movie Frozen, both songs seem to have an interlocking message.  It tells us that we should simply let go because we are considered frozen when our hearts are not open.

Small Victories

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I got two words for you today…  Small Victories.

When I saw these words tattooed on a stranger’s left arm, it suddenly invoked some thoughts and emotions.  I became joyous and thankful.

It made me realize that I have actually been achieving countless small victories.  And though I often brush these aside and do not think about it, seeing the man’s tattoo made me contemplate how lucky and blessed I have been.  That I should appreciate and take into account these tiny accomplishments in life.

celebrate your small victories peeps!

Learning how to cook, freeing oneself from zits, waking up relaxed, sending a civil message to your ex, making someone smile and staying afloat when everybody seemed to have drowned are some of the small victories each one of us has to acknowledge and be joyous about.

Stay alive, be happy and keep achieving those Small Victories!