Year: 2013

All your dead-end fury is not enough

Tina Leave a comment

When Ondoy happened to us (and the rest of Metro Manila) in 2009, we had to leave our dog Batman at home as we evacuated to our neighbors. Batman wasn’t a friendly dog, so bringing him to the neighbor’s house is not really something we can do. So we left him at home, making sure he had food and water and he was on a table while we crossed the street through waist-deep flood to get to safety. Of course, Batman thought we were leaving him in the midst of that scary night, so he tried to follow us. But we were already gone, and he couldn’t climb back to his table…and I honestly thought I wouldn’t see him alive after that night. He was still alive the next morning, but he was petrified after that. He was so traumatized by the flood that he wouldn’t leave our side while we were cleaning up, and when we tied him outside so he was out of our way, he dug a hole and burrowed there, turning his white coat into…well, brown. Then he would start crying, whining at certain times of the day and we’d wonder if he was just hungry or something. As it turned out, he was whining because he could sense the rain, and he was scared.

Batman recovered from that soon after (but he still hated getting rained on after that), but me? I was terrified of tropical storms and typhoons after that. Like my dog, I was pretty much traumatized with what happened during that flood. I disliked rains with a passion, and whenever the rainy season rolled around, I would pray for the sun everyday, because I didn’t want a repeat of the flood. When there’s an approaching storm, I kept on checking weather reports, and I was the one who kept my friends updated with what I know. I wouldn’t sit still until the storm has passed, and I fretted, worried about so many things and so many people because I really just don’t want Ondoy to happen again.

(And it sort of happened again, with Habagat 2011 and Habagat 2012. But that’s another story.)

There’s a record breaking super typhoon right now. If you Google its name, you’ll see so many articles talking about how “catastrophic” this is, speculations on how much devastation it will leave behind. The world watched as it formed, as it grew stronger and moved — with only the Philippines, my home, in its path.

Image from EUMETSAT via Flickr
Image from EUMETSAT via Flickr

There isn’t much to say right now, because as of this writing, I am at home, waiting for Metro Manila to feel the wrath of Haiyan/Yolanda. Honestly, I’ve been waiting for it to happen in the last few days, especially since there was nonstop news about it, in an effort to let the people along its path prepare. But as I read and waited and prayed, I realized something: I’m not that scared of rains anymore.

I don’t know exactly what changed, but somehow I started to not really mind it when it starts raining hard. Maybe it’s because I don’t feel as scared as getting flooded here in our house after we had it renovated. Maybe it’s because I know I can automatically head for my brother’s place in case I can’t go home from work. Or maybe I’ve just learned that there’s really only so much I can do with these rains and typhoons, except prepare and pray. It’s not like I’m Storm or something so I can move these weather disturbances away (can she do that?). I can worry myself to tears, but what can it do?

I’ve written about how I’m learning to pick my battles, and Haiyan/Yolanda is another exercise in that. Last night I was fretting about a lot of things, especially because I was supposed to have an event tomorrow, plus some friends were in or are heading for Visayas over the weekend. I felt like maybe I should do something, but I couldn’t come up with anything. So after I read articles, updated myself with the location of the storm until I could no longer take it, and then I sat down and prayed. Because it was really all that I can do where I am right now.

Maybe I’ve learned to not be afraid of the rains because it’s not useful. Maybe, in the past few months, I see the rains and these winds and these typhoons as an opportunity to learn, to prepare and most especially to pray and to trust God that He is still King over the storm. Any storm.

And that it will pass. It will always, always pass.

Sometimes, it takes something like this to teach you what surrender can mean in a more personal level.

I guess that’s what it means to “weather the storm” sometimes.

There’s a super typhoon here right now, and it’s not over until late tonight, or maybe even tomorrow. But like what one of my favorite bands wrote in one of their songs: Hello hurricane, you’re not enough / Hello hurricane, you can’t silence my love / I’ve got doors and windows boarded up / All your dead end fury’s not enough / You can’t silence my love.

Hold on tight, my Philippines.

Thank you, Singapore!

Tina 4 Comments

I’ve had this post in my drafts for a while now, but I got a bit lazy fixing it and almost trashed it. Then I read this new post in one of the blogs I discovered over the weekend, and I realized that I shouldn’t just let this post fade into oblivion because I’m busy. This is a personal milestone, a check off the bucket list! This should be written down!

So here we go. :)

* * *

The first time I went to Singapore was in 2007, when my dad had a conference and the entire family tagged along. My only mission I had for going there: buy a MacBook. Because, well…I needed a new laptop, then, so that was all what I wanted to do. (I was very gadget-centric back then.)

I did see a few things back then: Sentosa, Ikea in Tampines, and I also got to visit the Arts House to meet some of the NaNoWriMo participants in Singapore. I also got to roam around in Chinatown for a bit, but that was because that’s where we bought our first dSLR for my brother. But there’s not a lot of things I remember after that, because there weren’t many sights to see or places to go within that short span of time that I stayed there. Heck, Universal Studios Singapore wasn’t even there yet.

A few months ago, I was chatting with a friend about how I was feeling restless, and how I wanted to go somewhere. I want to pack up and leave. Go on a trip. There were no immediate trips to look forward to, and I needed something new. Something different. Something, oh, I don’t know, brave? I told my friend that I want to go somewhere, and she said, “Go.”

Pretty much everyone who I talked to about this told me to go, what’s stopping me, and it should be fun, yadda yadda yadda.

But I’m not that impulsive. And where could I possibly go? I’m not sure if I can afford it. Yadda, yadda, yadda.

Still, the idea of going somewhere on my own was very attractive. And I felt like I badly, really needed it. And I figured that if I want to go to New York City someday, I better start practicing now, right?

So I gathered the courage and asked some friends if I could crash at their place if I decide to book a ticket to Singapore. They said yes, and then I gathered more courage and booked a ticket. (Complete with trying to book my flight several times and finally taking a deep breath before clicking that button that confirms my flight.)

Ta-da! I’m going to Singapore!

* * *

My Singapore trip, in a nutshell:

  1. Midnight arrival, and enjoying the internet speed at the airport. (It’s fast, my friends. Very fast. :D)

    Hello, Changi!
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On Courage and NaNoWriMo

Tina Leave a comment

I’m not participating in NaNoWriMo this year because (1) I am too busy and (2) I needed a rest from writing 50,000 words every year since 2005 (count that: that’s almost 400,000 words for the last eight years. 433,000, if you count my 2004). So now I’m not the region’s Municipal Liaison, and I found there’s something different with not doing NaNoWriMo for November after almost a decade (!!!) of doing so.

But that’s not to say I won’t support this wonderful group of writers. So I wrote a pep talk for them this year. I wrote a lot more pep talks in the previous years, but this is the first time I’m writing outside of being an ML.

And as with everything in the past year…I wrote about courage, of course. :)

* * *

Shield-Nano-Side-Blue-Brown-RGB-HiRes

I started 2013 with a word. I started this word thing in 2012, really, but my word for 2013 came to me before 2013 actually rolled around. So it feels like it was an extra-special word because it found me.

My word for 2013 was COURAGE.

It became a catchphrase that my friends use for me: The Year of the Brave. In a lot of ways, 2013 has been that kind of year for me — a brave year. It’s hardly ever easy, because courage is never easy. Just some of the brave things I decided to do this year: travel alone, seek a mentor, read books I never thought I’d read, have difficult conversations and write a novel.

Oh, I’ve been writing a novel since 2004, the year I joined NaNoWriMo. But this year, I decided to really buckle down and finish something I started, because I’ve been having 30 days of literary abandon for years only to end up abandoning the thing I wrote soon after I reach 50k. So th is year, instead of doing NaNo, I decided that I will try to be brave and actually finish that darn story, and actually send it out to the world. (Wish me luck on this, I’m almost done revising!)

I digress, and I will stop talking about that, and go back to NaNoWriMo.

When I first joined NaNoWriMo, I had no idea what 50k really meant, in terms of writing everyday and all that. It wasn’t 100k, anyway, so I figure, why not. And then I failed miserably and I didn’t think I’d do it again, but I came back in 2005, ready to get to that 50k because I wanted it. I kept coming back, because it was fun, even if sometimes I had no idea what I was really doing.

My real point is this (because I’m actually quite rusty in writing pep talks now, really, so excuse me :D): whether it’s your first time to join NaNoWriMo or the nth time, I hope you believe that this is a very courageous thing to do. 50,000 words may not seem a lot, but sometime later this month you will probably wonder why you decided to join this in the first place. Or why you decided to join again. You will hit wall upon wall, you will get busy with work or school, and every little thing will distract you from writing your novel. It will be one heck of a crazy ride for November, and one of the key things for you to get to that finish line is to be brave.

It’s probably not the kind of courage that you see with warriors in a battle, but it’s still courage. I believe that deciding to write that novel, taking on that challenge and finding out where your stories and your characters will take you is a brave thing, and I hope you hold on to that for the whole of November. You are a brave writer, and I hope NaNoWriMo helps you become that brave person you are made to be. :)

And if you hit a wall, or many walls, or if you feel like throwing in the towel, I will give you one more advice that has helped me in the first ten months of the 2013: take it one brave step at a time. One word, one page, one day at a time, my dear writers. :) You’ll get there, and it will be a sweet, sweet victory.

And I will be one of the loudest to cheer as you cross that finish line.

Here’s to you, and all the wonderful brave things you will write this month,
Tina