Traversing SLEX

SLEX. South Luzon EXpressway. This major Philippine thoroughfare, which connects CALABARZON to Imperial Manila, has been and always be part of my life. Why not? As a kid growing in a province, I look forward going to the 'big city' whenever my family goes for Christmas shopping or to experience the things only the city can offer. After high school, I can't wait to take that first bus heading to my dream of higher learning. You see, most Filipinos have this notion that studying in one of the colleges/universities in Manila gives one a certain prestige back home. Not to mention being enrolled in those well-known institutions with their pride colors, animal mascots and basketball teams. And going to the city means traversing SLEX. So the recent editorial cartoon in the Inquirer didn't have a hard time getting my attention. I'm aware of the ongoing SLEX upgrading and rehabilitation project since May 2006, and I well remember the stressful bus rides due to these stone control devices/barricades that re-route traffic in a haphazard fashion. The usual one-and-a-half-hour San Pablo-Manila trip becomes a two- to three-hour butt torture. I bet the 1956 Ten Commandments or The Sound of Music or Titanic can be played on-board JAC Liner from the start and be able to finish it. But the cartoon depicts it a bit creepy: Death welcoming motorists to an unwelcoming SLEX; at least the coniferous trees are still there amidst the morbidness. This might be due to the hazardous nature of the recent construction works and the increasing probability of a vehicular accident. The editorial cartoon might want to tell those people involved that they are not doing a satisfactory job specially in traffic flow management and safety. Well, I already told myself that sooner or later the ongoing project will be messy since SLEX is always expecting a huge volume of motorists (CALABARZON, afterall, is on the rise). An irritated and exhausted driver sometimes looses sound road decision-making. Anyway, they say the project is set to finish by March 2009 and, like in the NLEX (it's northern counterpart rehabilitated by 2005), the temporary nuisance is a trade off to a much modernized highway. Just expect higher toll fees though. Haha! From one nuisance to another. Welcome to the Philippines!

The ominous caricature is far from the nostalgic picture in my mind. I still want to imagine SLEX with its tree-lined highway, the Mt. Makiling from the distant southern end and the rice field on either side that boasts of its lushness and of the fresh air waiting to be inhaled. This picture will stay even with the rice fields being bulldozed to make way for future subdivisions. It will stay. At least a fantasy of one who used to be a probinsyano (a Pinoy word concoction of "someone from the province") kid who takes joy traversing the SLEX en route the big city. At least a comforting bus ride of one who used to be a student then a professional working in the city en route a place for the weekend respite. And as I outgrow that childhood fantasy, traversing SLEX seems to reduce to traversing a one-way path – a direction that shall only lead me beyond the greens and blues of Mt. Makiling – back home. Yes, I had a change of heart. If after graduating high school I planned of getting the best education, build a successful career and then settling in Manila, today it remains the same but not the place to settle. If my adolescent impulse is to leave that place I consider lame and boring, now I like to go back and redefine those words: simple and quiet. I guess the smog and congestion succeeded in diminishing the value of being a Manileño on a personal level. Besides there are lots of Pinoys who are still city bound. I might as well be one less of that count. I don't hate Manila, don't get me wrong. I still love going to the malls and other places of interest (haven't been in Intramuros actually). But if I were to fulfill one of the things in my bucket list – that is, having a house overlooking Mother Nature at one of her glories (see the full list on the side frame) – I love it to be back in my hometown. I don't mind being far from the political, economic and cultural capital; I'll build my own version in San Pablo. The plans, however, may still change. Anything can happen in the next years specially now that working means traveling. I might end up somewhere else but I bet it would be due mainly to the future Mrs. Brosas. But for now, I would love to turn right to that exit at the far south end where the coconuts grow.

The kid had grown, the probinsyano is now homeward bound and an all-new SLEX will be there paving the way.

GMT -3 DST Sao Paulo, Brazil

Status Message

I always enjoy checking out the status messages of my online friends/contacts when I sign in Yahoo!® Messenger. Maybe because of their diversity: from the verbatim to the personally tailored, from the trivial to the profound, from the lame to the overly creative, from the somber to the optimistic, from the hilarious to plain stupid rudeness, from the appreciative to the repulsive view of the world.

Status messages were introduced by instant messenging/chat providers to let users inform the rest of the online community whether one is available, offline, idle or busy. It's a convenient civil way of saying "ok, let's have a chat" or "leave me alone". Then it started to evolve towards the personal.

I am one of those people who usually speak to the world through status messages, and I believe that there are those who share the same pleasure in reading these. It's like a speaker-listener relationship. This only shows that no matter what's the medium or the venue, we all communicate. Everyone expresses sentiments. Everyone takes notice. Then there are some who shall respond. And I guess having personalized status messages is my subliminal way to solicit response. I reckon it's human nature. It's my nature to brave the social weather by letting people know my current status and by discovering theirs. My interest to status messages may be due to my inner desire to know other people's thoughts (even superficial) and feelings. You see, I'm always on a look out to people that I may be in a clash with and how I could formulate intra- and inter-personal compromise with them; in short, I adapt myself. I guess it's a defensive mechanism to eventually fit in the group.

Well, this is beyond the chat rooms.

But admit it or not, status messages are written all over us.

GMT -3 DST Sao Paulo, Brazil

An Hour I Lost

GMT -03:00 Brasilia

This is my current timezone; a reminder that I am left behind eleven hours back home. And coincidentally my current location is the Portuguese equivalent of my hometown (i.e. São Paulo - San Pablo - St. Paul).

07:00(GMT-3 São Paulo) I woke up, took a shower and prepared some breakfast (sunny-side up)
18:00(GMT+8 San Pablo) On my way home probably coming from a friend's house, my work in Manila or SFC gathering

08:00 At Bras (São Paulo's Divisoria) buying Havianas for pasalubong
19:00 Still on my way...

12:30 Just arrived at the hotel; prepared late lunch
23:30 Watching late cable movie or hooked up on the net

15:00 Laugh trip: Supahpapalicious (Vhong Navarro)
02:00(the next day) Just pulled the blankets on

18:00 Laundry then dinner
05:00 Zzzzz

21:30 Suspense-thriller trip: Mirrors (Keifer Sutherland)
08:30 Zzzzz

23:41 Started a new blog entry
10:41 Out for a Sunday activity

Then on a blink, an hour passed.

Not in a metaphorical sense. Physically, and instantaneously, one hour has been skipped. Today is when Brasil's southern states implement Daylight Saving Time (DST). Yes, we Filipinos had this kind of practice, albeit experimental, during the Aquino's and Ramos' Administrations. Though I didn't share the same enthusiasm as with those who proposed it back then. Either I was too young (yes, believe it) or I didn't feel any significance, effect or whatsoever. And now, it's like an old idea that's beginning to sink in as a new one.

Now I'm just ten hours behind but 1 hour wanting. There was this awkward feeling when I adjusted all my clocks (i.e. laptop, PDA and cellphone) forward one hour at exactly 00:00H today. It's like loosing one hour of my life. But the funny thing is that DST is just a convention that everyone agreed to do at a specific time; physically nothing has changed. The integrity of space-time continuum is still intact and the universe is far from extinction. And I don't think anything in this world can change that.

Like I said before, we are living this life in only one direction. We can look back but then we are still pulled to that one direction, forward. We can stop for a while but then we are bound to continue on. Conventions invented by humanity such as the DST can make time look forwarded or its reverse but time is more than humanity itself; it encompasses it. It's like an invisible plane where we all stand and move. But unlike us, humans, it does not change form. Yes, one can argue that it's relative (maybe ask Einstein) but still it's one hell of a hard-wired frame – at any given point on that frame, everyone is bound to move towards the direction it goes. I can race time. I can make it slow. I can stop. But then it's just me. Before I know it, time just passed. And I can't blame the universe for not having enough time. Like I said, it's already hard-wired.

An hour or two can't be lost. Life is.

GMT -3 Sao Paulo, Brazil

Soulmate

Does she exist?

But why would I consider the idea if I don't believe with it in the first place? Trust me, I don't. That is, if one will define a soulmate as the one and only other half of one's soul, for which all souls are driven to find and join. Or anything to that effect that draws definition from the mystical; a definition that has been here since Plato's time. The question, however, does not incite my personal belief rather it begs to redefine the very meaning of it. And if I were to rephrase the definition it would be like this: the one and only other half complement of one's soul, for which all souls are driven choose to find and join be in mutual union. To explain in parts:

1. complement of one's soul - does not necessarily mean compatibility; personally I believe she is someone that shall make a good monster slayer. I have a Mr. Hyde inside, a vicious monster, and I desperately need a slayer. Hmmm.. I'm looking forward to that battle soon. But the one thing I'm sure of is that she is not, and shall never be, half of my soul. The only half for that matter. Who said our souls are made in half? We were made in God's likeness and I don't think He is in half. Maybe that's the problem with some people I call 'love martyrs'; thinking that life's over if the perceived other half went gone. There is one good thing that we can learn from Narcissus: love your self first.

2. all souls choose to find - no magic; no supernatural force; no destiny. It's a choice. And if someone does not wish to embark on an odyssey, then I guess one has already chosen to cease the existence of a soulmate. So you see, there can never be another half. Just another one.

3. be in mutual union - one-way discernment shall never work. It should be mutual. I can call my all-time crush my soulmate but it just diminishes my own definition if she does not feel the same way back. She will only be a "soul" but not a "mate". See how can people misuse the term? Well, it's their choice of word as I have mine.

One will argue that the idea of a soulmate does not fall on that life's category I call love. It is just an idea that someone exists as the other half of you that sooner or later you will bump into in a place foretold by the stars. A soulmate, some say, can either be of the two natural genders. Well if that would be the other definition then I totally dismiss the idea. Yes, God created the world in pairs but that was in the beginning. Towards the end, all He wants is for us to be one community; one body (1 Corinthians 12). No need for that one and only someone (be it a girl or a boy) connected to me by a somewhat supernatural umbilical cord.

But then, I chose to personally define my soulmate as a she. And please note that it is a choice; we have been given free will. Destiny is just one of those Hollywood flicks. But then again, bells and butterflies are not all bad. Just don't get too mesmerized by them.

Come to think of it, I almost found her by way of definitions 1 and 2.

The third sucks!

GMT -3 Sao Paulo, Brazil

Shit happens...

...everyday.

We can't do anything about it. It is part of the system. It is one of those things uncertain that we expect. If we try to prevent it we are doomed to constipation. And I don't want to feel constipated; it hinders other activities that are worthwhile. So it would make me feel better if I accept the fact that shit happens. It would make me better. Of course, the mess it will make is like falling in a pit of crap. And what do you do if you actually fall in it? You frantically try to get out. It depends on the depth how much time we can get out though. Yet somehow after falling on different holes and pits, we manage to be good at getting out faster no matter how deep. Then it becomes part of the system, and life goes on.

But some people will still be miserable with their shits.

I don't know with them but the last time I checked I did flushed mine.

GMT -3 Sao Paulo, Brazil