I Recommend: JUNO

One of this year's must-see movies, Juno proved a tear-jerker for good ol' sentimental-but-trying-hard-not-to-be me. Don't expect dramatics, though. The script and the acting are as understated as a pair of white school socks. Diablo Cody has done a great job with the story, proof yet again that genius doesn't go around sporting airs and an up-turned nose; and that womanhood could be respresented, in turns, by a beautiful, well-mannered, high-heeled yuppie named Vanessa, and a spunky, sassy sixteen-year old named Juno, with her no-nonsense shirts, baggy jeans and dirty sneakers.
There are some things that only women will understand, bonds that only mothers will share with other mothers, as this movie will inevitably prove; but here's hoping that the movie will speak to men, as well, because the men in Juno's world prove themselves worthy of being called men, after all.
The four Academy Award nominations running behind its back should be decoy enough.
So, watch it! Watch it! Watch it!

Not A Party Girl

Glammed-up people streamed into the great halls of the World Trade Center as HSBC's Manila Global Service Center held yet another big-- no, make that huge--party, with DISCOVOLUTION as the theme. Once again, the Senior Managers outdid themselves in proving that it wasn't just the corporate world they lorded over; they could also strut around as Madonna, Rihanna, Justin Timberlake, John Travolta (in Saturday Night Fever), Village People, et al.
Most everyone was in party mode. Even the shy ones found their feet keeping in time with the rhythm and beat of the dance music. No techno here, or house. Just plain old disco, true to the theme of the night.
Drinks were a-plenty, food overflowed. Everyone was dolled-up and in the mood for celebrating. The night spelled F-U-N away.
I had a nice time, sure. I'm not the type who won't enjoy a party here, or there.
But in true Shan fashion, I couldn't help wishing, in the middle of all that gaiety, that I was back in my warm bed, snuggled against my pillows.

Glory Be to the Mind

and its branches of thought:
scattered into alleys,
terrifying in their number
so that there is no way of putting a finger
on one pathway and hope of getting out
into the next and remain the same
as in the beginning
if sameness
is sane-ness
and infinity means one to a hundred

then you can count the trailways
and end up with a number
that might help you come up with what they call
an intelligent guess,
a measured frame to enclose
your mind,
parameters to use in building
the walls that would finally,

finally

guard your thoughts
from stretching out
where it's impossible
to follow.

-from "The Seventh Man," Haruki Murakami's Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman-

"It was the biggest wave I had ever seen in my life," he said. "A strange wave. An absolute giant."
He paused.
"It just barely missed me, but in my place it swallowed everything that mattered most to me and swept it off to another world. I took years to find it again and to recover from the experience-- precious years that can never be replaced."

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In Praise of Work and the Friends We Find There

After a long week at work, it's finally my rest day. Am still recovering from the after-effects of a long break but, all in all, I feel happy about myself (in the workplace, at least). Considering the demons I'm trying my hardest to ward off right now, I'm handling it all relatively well.
I attended two conference calls with the US team, and, in both, I managed to speak up more than the usual self-effacing Shan did, and got good feedback from my bosses. But, more important than that, I'm finally getting to really love my job. I've been watching more of CNN lately and knowing about the Mortgage slump in the US has proven helpful in making me understand how critical it is for my department to be working even harder now more than ever, and for me to use a more strategic and less conventional approach in managing my team.
Our jobs usually suffer when we go through personal trials, but in the end, it proves to be just the therapy that we need in order to get by. My friends in the office have given me so much motivation and helpful advice. Or, if you will, just plain laughter and light moments, which is really all that our heavy, worry-laden minds need, most of the time. Special thanks to my friend Lizette, who, herself, is at a crossroads in her life, but still manages to pop up at just the right moments and linger for a while to provide some wise words and lots of comic relief. Hang in there, girl! We're both gonna make it!

The Art of Curbing

You probably know how it is, when that tiny wail clamped inside your chest balloons into a huge lump of painful, ear-splitting screams. For some of us, it's easy to let it out. Never mind that the odds of being heard by the people two doors away are ninety-nine to one. It's as easy as one, two, three, scream! Then it's all over and you feel a thousand times better where it used to hurt like needlepricks.
For the less fortunate ones (namely, the repressed), shouting is out of the question. The thought of it just never comes, simply because it's not the natural instinct. We probably never learned the trick as children.We feel the gargantuan pain (and we're talking physical pain) shooting up from the chest to the throat and we push, push it downwards so that the effort makes breathing difficult that tears start to well up in the eyes. But we don't stop until we know for sure that we've dug deep enough to bury the scream. And, with it, the pain.
And then the tears never really come.They have retreated, pushed down, as well. And we think, what a feat it has been, what sweetness in the strength of temperance, one more victory for the taking.
Then we sit there staring at some grey wall, wondering when the scream will surface again.
Some person sees us and wonder what we're looking at.

Anxiety is clingy and stubborn and breathes down your neck like some persistent
reminder of an ugly past and a future filled with monsters pretending to be people.

Those aren't people but monsters, that crowd across the room from you
laughing
they are laughing at you.

The worst is always the best thing to think about
(blue is really black the fate of life is death and yes, that image in the mirror
is yours, yours) because it prepares you for when it comes.
Or so you are convinced

because you have been living for too long with that monster
breathing down your neck.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, EVERYONE! HERE'S TO A BETTER, BRIGHTER YEAR.

What Do You Know, I'm Smiling!

And so it shall be that at 3 o'clock the next morning, I will be marching back to work after a long vacation, armed with the dreaded but inevitable extra pounds, my trusty cloths and trinkets of vanity, a renewed sense of peace, and a stouter, happier heart. In fact, banning the Christmases of my childhood, this holiday season has been the happiest I've had in years. Knowing that I would have to go back to work soon enough doesn't seem half as dismal as it used to be, not with the memories of mornings and breakfasts spent at my family's home in Naga still warm against my sentimental heart; the sound of my father's laughter, my mom's words of wisdom, my brothers' stories and my kids' precocious, childish bickerings still ringing in my ears; the feeling of contentment (finally, a word that I can claim as mine) wrapping me like some watchful, protective guardian.
Sigh.
There's nothing like home to rejuvinate a tired, anxious mind (in particular, this mind); nothing like family to remind me (and, I hope, everyone else) that I am not alone, no, never alone.