WHAT AM I LOOKING FOR?

I don't know.. I guess companionship. I good friend of mine said that I am a relationship kinda guy. I've have never been single since 2001. I even forgot how to date..scary. But now that I have truly moved on and dating again, I am beginning to enjoy the single life. I couldn't believe the number of people who actually fancy me! I have 2 proposals, as in to be in a committed relationship. It sounded great initially, but I asked myself just one time, yup just the one.. I think I'd give it a pass ..for now. Maybe I haven't met the right one yet.

Nevertheless, I do believe that I am actually enjoying myself without that 'tied down' feeling. You know when you are in a relationship and the 'reporting' of your whereabouts, your activities. I guess I'm not gonna miss that for now. So far from what my friend Max's statement,..love this guy, he's so funny. Sorry to disappoint you Max but frankly speaking I'm enjoying what I'm doing now..living my life to the fullest and smelling as many flowers as I can.. Bliss!

Understanding Friends

1:00 noon. I am still contemplating whether to take rice or something light today. I read an article saying that after a nice vacation, the 'feel good' feeling will resonate within you and stays there for at least 6 weeks. I must admit I had a great time in Manila last weekend with great friends. You get to know friends much better during holidays because I believe that the inhibitions are less and everyone wants to have fun. Hmm, my stomache's growling again second time in the last 20 minutes. Rice, noodles, buns.. we do this all the time don't we, not being able to choose what to eat.

Having said this, the weather is a bit too hot to handle nowadays so I might just sit in the office. Indecisiveness creeping in,..damn it. Oh Ok, i'll drive out and find something..anything. Like few people I know, they eat anything! I have one friend who has an uncanny ability to eat a lot of rice! 3 bowls at one session.! damn and he isn't that big at all. But where is he now.? I found out something really unexpected after I broke up with my ex. When we were together, we were always in this bunch of close friends who calls, text and go out for lunches, breakfasts, outings etc. However, after my ex cheated and betrayed me for one of our friends,..everyone has more affinity towards my ex. Oh yes, my ex is the more casual, fun, easy going type and i believe so am I. It has been 4 months now and nothing much changed.

I had an expectation that we you are a 'victim', you'll get more emotional support from your friends to get you going etc..those kind of bullshit. Am I bitter? Not so much now as I do know who my real friends after all. When you are down and out, initially they say its ok, you'll get through this. And then they shift to my ex and support the 'betrayer' more..and still are. Gone are the days of lunches, breakfasts, outings together. Hmm stomach still rumbling so I must eat. I guess I had too high of expectations on them afterall, we are friends for over 2 years. I must admit that they may also avoided inviting me, as my ex and the new love are in that group and they are trying to avoid confrontations and uneasiness. Well, I convince myself well enough.

My friend Jeff mentioned that Friends has No season,..but they do. Some anyway.. I don't have much expectations on friends nowadays. I had my share of betrayals by my so called best friend of 20 years. But I forgave him and his shortcomings regardless. I suppose that makes our lives a much more prolific and colorful in some rambling kinda sense. True and good friends are not complicated, I believe. They call you or text you just to say hi. To me, that is enough to justify a good friend. They care and remember.

MY CHRISTMAS TREE

Oh yeah, christmas is just around the corner and everyone's busy with stuffs like,booking their flights back home town, buying christmas presents, planning which church to go to etc. I myself am picking up the pieces of a broken heart. And I must admit I am doing quite well.

I have started dating again and its kinda funny but somehow or rather one or two gave me the vibes. Ssshh..we don't kiss and tell who. So, I am going to spend more time with friends this Christmas and New Year but then again, I have always been even when I was attached. The love we get from friends is different but nevertheless genuine and honest..I'll take it any day. This year, I am planning to give more..

Here I am sitting comfortably in my own office, looking out at the window. Sounds of pitter patter on the window, as it drizzles so lightly. So, I am blessed with a great job & good pay but I do feel sometimes that even my close friends think I grew up with a silver spoon in my mouth. Contrary to that, I was brought up very poor. We never had a christmas tree or celebration of that sort until I was in my teens. Even then we didnt have presents just empty boxes and a dead tree from last year. We had eggs, boiled chicken & kangkong for Christmas dinner. But we were happy. I remembered when I was three, we lived in Papar in an old shack, where you can literally see through the floor and bamboo walls. I never knew what Christmas was. We sold melons and peanuts to school children passing though our old house. And when we moved to Kg.Dabak, Penampang, our home was slightly upgraded to a 2 bedroom wooden house. I remembered putting cotton on plants imagining it was a christmas tree. There weren't any presents but I remembered my mom slaughtering a chicken and we had chicken for Christmas. Dad was only making $700 a month with 4 mouths to feed.

Those days are gone but still a vivid & pleasant, yes,pleasant memory. Years later, I studied hard and got good grades and furthered my studies to UITM and then to Liverpool,UK. I worked hard since then and I am blessed because I am here now and thank Lord Jesus for his blessings. Under my Christmas tree this year, I have presents to give,..a bit of possessions to give to those who truly deserve it. I have love, and I will give to those who truly wants my heart and expect nothing in return. And my warmest wish to all a wonderful peaceful Christmas. God Bless.

MERRY CHRISTMAS ALL..

THE PUB, THE SUNSET & THE CLOSURE

Sometimes we take life for granted. And in my case I probably did. It is true that love hurts and most time it hurts badly. I initially couldn't even register what went wrong when this were doing well. Then I realised that it was not me. Love is gone. It's a great feeling the way how we first met & talked. Never realising that it was the beginning of a beautiful 3 year relationship. I remembered every single moments that we had shared, places gone, things done together. The other great thing was that there weren't any constant bickerings. Yeah sure there were small misagreement but even that lasted longest 30minutes. 5 arguments we had in 3 years. Was that the reason why a relationship ends? There were questions in the initial part of the separation but eventually I stopped asking.

Nevertheless, I finally let go. We do not own people, their minds, their choices in life. We merely choose to live and be with them, sharing experiences and intimate moments. We had our Kalansanan, Mansau, Manila, Cebu, scuba diving, birthday in Sipadan. We had our sunset framed, we had kids whom we love. We have friends most of all. I had two choices. To leave and leave everything behind and changes everything or to remain friends and respect ones decision, to love someone else. Sure, i will never receive text messages at 6:30am to wake me up for work, messages saying 'mahal kita', simple messages like 'don't forget to eat'..those are the things that I have to accept,..gone. Will I miss those simple gestures, simple texts? I definitely will.

I am too tired to find another love. It's to time tasking & I am not going any younger. I have given up on love coz love has given up on me. I simply have to move on with my life alone along a journey that I am looking forward to. Although everywhere I go, everything I see will reminisce the times we were together. I know myself well. This chapter in my life is finally closed and shelved. I will always love you for as long as the waves still hit the shore, as long as there is sunset. My wings may be broken but I will not stop singing, living. Mahal kita pagibig ko sa iyo. Ikaw lamang ang pag-ibig sa aking buhay. At kung kailangan mo ako, makikita ko dito ay naghihintay. I will wait for you. My final closure.

Our Sunset taken 21st Oct 2007

DIRTY PAW & WET BLANKET -Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

She was scratching excessively and seemed unstoppable when she starts whilst making that weird sound. Yuki was having a bad case of eczema due her being a very sensitive pooch. The sound? Oh..well it sounded as if she was making chicken mushroom soup and the bubbling of the boiling soup was near similar, well to me anyway. I had to wake up to find out how she was. 3:00am, great. There goes my beauty rest, abruptly challenged. “Hi princess, you o.k?” as she wagged her tail in delight. I blindly made myself out of the bedroom towards the bathroom where I kept her skin spray. Poor Yuki, being a Japanese Spitz, still not being accustomed to being ‘naked’. The vet had to shave her beautiful, white long coat due to her skin problem. Spraying her back lightly and giving her a nice rub, I left my little Sinead O’Connor back to her slumber beside my bed. Not even bothering to wash my hands, I dozed off.

“Now the best place to go scuba diving in Greece is near the ..” Tit, tit, tit, tit……( I don’t mean one heap of breast).. The alarm went off. I was in Greece with my friend Romeo, scuba diving..muck diving to be exact. Damn, it was a dream. Funny how you tend to incorporate the sounds of your real surroundings into your dream. Remember how you also dreamt of having a pee in the loo and you are actually doing it in bed. Well, that’s another story. It was 5:00am and I have to catch a plane back to work. Opening the door, I braced myself as I knew the rest of the bunch would jump onto me. Rex was the first to jump and followed by the rest, Rocky, Sisqo & Angelo. Hell yeah, 5 dogs. They get extremely excited early in the mornings and then they’d run into the living as if they were looking for something. Rubbing my eyes and scratching my privates, I walked to the door to release the highly excited canines out to relieve themselves. I’ve trained them since they were small, house train them. It took me an average of 2 weeks to train them not to poo-poo and pee-pee in the house. The house smelt of a bad day at the public toilet then but things are much better now. Much, much better rather.

After getting made up and dressed, I woke Romeo up. He had no choice but to send me off to the airport that early. I thank him for being there to take care of the house and the dogs. Aren’t that what housemates are trained for? Bless him. Slamming the door shut, I headed to the check in counter and queued up behind a group of tourists, English. Southern accent. Hmm.. must be from Essex, London or Sussex probably. Having been in the British isle for over four years, I somehow thank my innate inquisitive self. I shared an apartment with a Scot and a scouser (a Liverpool guy). Inquisitive.. well checking out all the clubs and pubs in the whole bloody England is inquisitive right? A whole new perspective I guess. “Please God, don’t let me sit next to someone with bad BO, and I promise to be nice to people for the rest of the day.” That’s a routine I always do before boarding a plane. I’m not being discriminating towards people who believe in keeping their own environment as natural as possible. No, I’m not. I just happened to detest the yield of their so call believe! Oh come on people! Have you not heard or seen adverts of beautiful models slowly gliding their well waxed pits with deodorant? Do I need to purposely gag when you smell and sitting next to me? Do I need to waste my food by regurgitating in front of people and embarrass myself? Lindsay Lohan would have nodding with approval I suppose. Was she the bulimic one? I sat alone. God loves me! Thank you.

CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA

I left KK on the 9th May 2009, and took a flight to KL. My flight to South Africa is at 1:20am.. The flight transit at Johannesburg. When we reached there it was 6am. I had like 2 hours sleep..Cool it was. Then we flew to Cape Town after 1:45 mins. Cape town is gorgeous! The houses namely are beautiful, reminds me of Bondi Beach, sydney. Must go back there.

We started at Table Mountain,..brilliant view and taking the cable car was an experience. Apparently it is one of the 3 fastest cable car in the world and daymn, was it fast! The best thing bout it was it also rotates from inside so everyone has equal chance to enjoy the view 360.

Then it was to a garden called Kirstenbosch for lunch. Ok lah..food not too bad. After that we headed to the hotel to check in..heard me right. I only checked in after 5pm. Later that night we had dinner. Then me and few friends decided to go to Camps Bay and party!! very nice..in fact ..fantastico! I was so dressed up that Jay Alexander from ANTM would have been proud but.. it was a beach party sunday and everyone was wearing casual..talk about feeling out of place. Man..

Day 2: We went to see some seals & penguins. I'm talking about real animals and not the singer Seal and Danny Devito.. although having them around would have made things more memorable. Anyway,..Seal Island is populated with over 50,000 seals,..that's a hell lot of handbags! And,.. apparently the Great White Shark's feeding ground..Yess!! But no... no sharks that day but the view was spectacular nevertheless. And yours truly got a chance to hug a big fat male seal named Pretty Boy.. a very furry boy I must say.

After that we're off to see Happy Feet! Yup..there were many penguins..I kinda find them really cute,..I love dogs more but they are a bunch of cuddles. So I took some shots of these cute, 12 inch animal.

Day 3: Game Reserve, Safari. We took a 2 hour drive to the game reserve to see the Big 5, Lion, Rhino, Elephant... Yes that was three becoz I couldn't remember the last 2..I believe they are Hippos and Zebra?? not too sure.

Day 4: The Winery..my favourite. I actually got tipsy by 2pm after doing the wine tasting. What a wonderful day it was.. The evning was a blast as we headed to Long Street,..where the bars & pubs are. We were recommended to go to club named Chrome. Imagine, oen shot cost about Rd 1.00, that's RM0.50 per hard liquor shot!!! Knowing me..I ordered 10 shots and got myself into much trouble. we danced hard and I ended up having my head suffocated between two heaps of mountainous African breast. I can't remember her name.

Day 5: Nursing a slight hangover..we left Cape Town around 7 am. With me having only 2 hours sleep. And to make things worse..I didn't even sleep in the plane. Watched, Red Cliff2, Ipman & a Korean movie called ESP Coules.. there you go.

I'M STILL SICK!

Today I went to KB with Mesh becoz I'm trying so hard to fight this sickness. I am fever, flu, bad coughing and bodyaches since wednesday. My medication from the doctor has finished and I'm still having on & off fever, chills now and again. My cough was so bad that my throat bled and now it freaking hurts. After coming back from KB (ohh I bought honey..to soothe my throat)..we went to Donggongon to see the doctor again after having dinner. I had a nice chicken lihing soup..yuumm.. Apparently, the Tagal Festival was on today at Buhavan Square, so there were hundreds of people anxiously waitig or the Rainforest beauties to start parading their stuff. Then we met Mamai & Tom, also happened to be there too. Gogds was there too, busy snapping pictures.

Soon after, I went to see the doctor and told him that I'm still not well. Sure enough, I still have fever even after 4 days! He asked me a questioned which dreaded but was playing on my mind. "Are there any dengue/malaria cases at your place?" Daymn,..! Apparently, having on & off fever is a symptom of malaria!! Oh man! But he quicky assured me that having a cough may rule the disease out..but... if the sickness persist even after completion my second dose of medication, I need to go for a blood test. Shit! I hope I dont need to.

Well, going to bed now coz I'll be flying back to Sandakan tomorrow morning. But I'll be back again on wednesday..(Yes!) meeting 2 days. Then weekend will be aramai tii weekend..(need catching up to do).. Bye.

"Love For All, hatred To None"