A Hard Choice To Make

Let’s say you are in a certain situation. You get along pretty well with your immediate family, at most. Your parents are good together when the going’s good, but they are horrible when they don’t get along. Yelling and screaming, along with name calling, even in the night, when they are about to go to sleep. Your siblings are good people, but the laziness means you do the house chores by yourself even when they are on their day off as well. You feel bad for your mother, who is the only other house cleaner when you’re not around or at work. You know she stresses out about this because technically, she’s chronically sick and the rest of the people at home are adults, who can but will not help with the house chores or cooking unless instructed to. You all work different schedule so it’s never the same person on the same day off. The house is a 2 storey with a basement. Having 5 adults in there means a messy house because 3 of them do not have the initiative to help around. You’ll have to either yell at them or pretty much beg them to help, which you’ve done for years and honestly, you’re just fed up with it so you don’t bother anymore and just do it yourself to avoid the stress. Now the choice is this: do you leave them; move out on your own so they can learn (hopefully) to do things for themselves, knowing that your mom will be the person who will be most affected, since no one will be helping her anymore? Or do you stay to avoid stressing out your mom, but you pretty much let the others get away with being lazy, because you know you won’t be lecturing them anymore after years of trying?

It’s a hard choice, but I think it’s necessary for those 3 to realize that they can’t live like that forever. It bothers me that they don’t even think they should be doing those things, when you get them to do one thing, they’re done and will often say, “It’s your turn this time, I did it last time.” It’s not so dysfunctional when we get together, watch a movie, go to church, eat out, etc, but when it comes to those things, they don’t think of it as a mandatory thing. I feel like they don’t know the rule of division of labour. If all they do is eat and sleep and go to work, then I don’t think I can live like that anymore. It’s not fair to my mom and to myself. I wish my mom could move out to her own apartment so those three could see how it is just by themselves. I’m sure they’ll survive (LOL) but they won’t be as clean with their living space and there will be a lot of finger-pointing and swearing around dinner time when there’s no food ready, or impromptu laundry days because nobody will think to do it weekly. I think I will need to come home a few days a week to help my mom out, but they don’t need to know that.

Ok, the plan is to save for at least 4 months of rent money ($4000) so that if/when I change jobs early next year, it won’t be so hard on me. I’m thinking early June 2014 to try out the moving thing? I don’t have much stuff.. just a lot of clothes. and books. and shoes. I can’t wait to buy my future furniture! If I can find a house for rent, and a roommate, that’ll be awesome! I hate apartments.. I’m a hermit so, as little human interaction as possible is great. Ahahaha!! No, I just want to be able to put my music loud and have no one complain about it. =) That’s the big plan for next year!

Here We Are Again

Absolutely restless. I don’t know what it is, but this always happens every single year. I feel trapped, in this place, in my life, in this state. Right now I’m hoping it’s not because it’s ‘that time of the month’ because otherwise I would feel like this every single month of every year. LOL! Yesterday, I told my best friend that if she was truly planning to get a house next year, I wanted to be the one to rent a room because the whole family was driving me crazy, which is mostly true. Each of them can be very annoying, as I know I can be, at times.

Usually when I feel like this, I re-focus myself so I don’t get that feeling that everything’s hopeless, or that I’m stuck or I’m always going to be the same. I’ve even set up my most important goals for this year, in order, as (1) buying a new car, (2) switching my work to something more interesting (a.k.a. community workplace) and (3) finishing (or writing as much as possible) the mermaid story. So far, I’m missing a huge whiteboard to visiualize my goals on. Then the party can really start!

For the car, I’ve been reading up on buying a brand new car and what to anticipate financially, like gas, repairs, and insurance. So far, I’ve looked at my paycheck and calculated my current bills/expenses and added on to that the bills/expenses for the new car. I will still have some money left but for the next few months that will be allotted to the trip back home that the whole family is planning. Once I’ve secured the car goal, I can focus on my goal #2, because the car is actually necessary for it. I work in a hospital, so it’s a frontline job, and I do love working on my unit: it’s busy, the staff are godsend and there’s always something new to learn. The problem is, I do not see myself working there in the next 3-5 years. I want to be more ‘upstream’ and working towards prevention and helath promotion. That’s why I need the car because it’ll be a lot of driving to and from places in order to develop my network and expand it. I have to meet a lot of people, which should help improve my social/people skills (killing two birds with one stone, eh?) and in turn improve my self-esteem. Yes, I need help with that because I’m the kind of person that acquiantances or co-workers will think is very reserved or quiet, while friends will think I’m not and my closest friends know I’m a little crazy. Of course, I am tangenting off topic again, so let’s re-group: After goals #1 and #2 are started, goal #3 will be much easier to focus on; I just hope I get started on it before I leave for New York next month so that I can say that I’m still working on it even though it’s the least priority for this year’s goals.

If you think back, and say to yourself: what did I accomplish last year? I became more personable at work, rather than being the hermit that I usually am with people. I went on a trip with my family to Minneapolis (bonding time! LOL), where my dad’s cousin lives. Then I went to Vegas (parent-free, for the second time!) with my best friend. I started learning some French. I paid off most of the credit card balances that I was having trouble paying back from the previous year. I got myself a Google tablet. I helped my aunt when she needed some moolah. It’s not a very long list, is it? I think that’s why I feel incomplete because I feel like I could have done more with my time last year (Yeah I say that now, but with a full time schedule, of course it was hard to do much else). Am I being too hard on myself? Probably. And yet, I still feel unfulfilled…  so this year, I’ve made some goals and I will accomplish them all by the end of the year. =) A mini goal is to register for that French class at work!!

The Summer Queen

This is the sequel to the The Snow Queen, written by Joan D. Vinge. So! I have finally found the time to pick up this story again after months of hiatus from my lovely books. I will tell you now, at first I was getting slightly confused from the different times that are passsing from different worlds but later on, I realized that I would have to rely on the author to state how much time was passing rather than trying to guess.

And guess who’s back? The guy who made me cry in the first book: BZ Gundhalinu. How I wished that he would have chosen to fight for Moon in the first book but I guess, without having passed through those obstacles (apparently in “World’s End,” he had almost gone insane but was saved by… I can’t say, otherwise I’ll be spoiling the book for those of you who wants to read it). The past events turned him into the person BZ is now, in The Summer Queen, and I really think it was for the best. Although, deep inside I have this nagging fear that he would be too late if or when he gets back to Tiamat. Sparks is an excellent secondary character, but that’s all he’ll ever be. His situation from the previous book did nothing to endear him to me and his actions in this sequel are–so far–not helping to make me sympathaize with him. It’s something about how he deals with things… almost in a childish manner, that makes him a turn off. BUT!!! Let’s not be hasty; I am still a hundred pages away from the halfway mark of the book and so far, everything that’s happening is sort of making sense to me. The first book was definitely faster paced but this book lets time pass so you really see what’s going on, how the next generations are turning out, how past characters get re-introduced and how the plot slowly but strongly ties itself together. I love it!! Do you want to know who had moved me to tears in this one? Jerusha; this is from what I’ve read so far. We’ll see as I read further in the book if that will change or not.

Disney’s Paperman

This is absolutely perfect! I stumbled upon this short quite by accident, I didn’t know what it was about but I’ve read comments about how good it was, and so I thought, ‘Hm, this might be an interesting movie, I guess.’ I didn’t even know it was just a short film and by god, the music is divine! It’s so hopeful, and it makes me feel like it’s always summer, even if it’s snowing outside–the warmth of the music and the revelry it gives off is addicting; I have it as an mp3 file so I can listen to it when I write my stories, hahaha! And also it gives me renewed hope that someday, somewhere, that special someone meant for each one of us will show up and smile and say ‘Hello.’ It reminded me of my childhood summers, of the warmth of the sun, of laughter and sweet memories. It just gives off such positivity that when you listen to the music, you just feel enraptured and truly alive within those moments.

See? It’s making my words flow like young river eager to get to the sea and greet the ocean. It’s like a rush, a natural high, an overwhelming dive into all those positive emotions, and I can’t help myself from being carried in it’s magic. It’s poetry embedded in music. What more could you ask for?! It’s almost like heaven on Earth.

The animation was perfect, too. It was really sweet and touching and makes you believe in love again. It made me think that in those little moments in life, there’s so much potential in every single one. For someone who had long learned to dismiss the little things in life, I suddenly remembered how I used to be: curious, happy and full of hope. (I’ve said that word more than three times now, right? LOL! It’s true, though!) It’s almost sad, though, because you know that such things rarely happen in real life. And yet, that’s why there’s hope, that’s why we’re human–made to feel, to sense and to grow beyond what we know as normal or real. To me, anything can be real. Reality is subjective, is it not? It all depends on individual perspective. The short film was like a reminder. You know that normally doesn’t happen, but are you someone who’ll accept that or are you someone who’ll make something like that happen? Will you be an outlier or will you be part of the norm?

Paperman is about a regular guy who meets this girl in one instant and hardly even gets the time to ask her name before she’s gone again. Then seemingly, by consequence, he sees her across his building. A sign? Maybe. Here’s where the story might differ, had it been another person and not our “paper man”. Where he had made a choice and followed it up with his actions, another might have just ignored the moment and moved on. Someone else who tried as far as the paper planes might have given up halfway and said, ‘Ah, screw it.’ But our “paperman” didn’t give up; he kept trying. (Try and try until you succeed!!) I feel like the film is a lesson. When you pursue a goal, you’ll get there and be rewarded. It might seem hopeless throughout the entire journey, but with perseverance and determination, you can do anything! That kind of lesson.. LOL, yes, i’m blabbing on and on. Give it a watch and listen to the music as it fills your heart with magic.

 

Work Can be a Little Stressful

I should tell you I’m so happy to be out of my 12 hour full time position. I should be telling you how much time I have now, to spend with my family and friends and let’s not forget  the always necessary ‘me’ time. I should be glorifying the 8 hour position like it is no other. I should tell you how absolutely wonderful this is and how I really appreciate the extra time. Yet, we all know, there’s a counter balance to all those good things coming to me. I guess what I’m trying to say is, even though I really do enjoy my part time position right now, the fact of the matter is, my pay check is a little lacking. Hear me out first before you start thinking I only think about money–because I don’t; as long as I have enough, I’m good. With that said, here’s a break down of my expenses per month: $500 for the student loans, $500 for the house/utility bills, and $400 for my credit card bills and of course I try to save $200 for a car that I will be getting this coming April or May 2013. So far, that is a total of $1600. My bi-weekly pay is less than that amount. And then add the extra expense of getting the house fixed up in the Philippines. So far the last amount I’ve given was $900. I do help with groceries: $250. Let me tell you, I’m stressing out with all this; before, when I was a full-timer, I didn’t worry about this because my pay would cover most of it and I’d still have enough for my savings. OMG! I am telling you, I am so lazy to pick up, but apparently I have no choice if I want that car and I want to save up for the vacation trip on October. Although it’s more fun to be only at work for 8 hours, I still have to go pretty often. Lateley, I’ve been only having 1 day off in between my shifts. I normally have a maximum of 3 days for a stretch, but now, with all my pick ups, I work at least 4 days and I have stretches that are 7 days long. =( I just wanna cry. I can’t enjoy my life. LOL!! Well, technically I’m working so I can enjoy my life, but the day-to-day isn’t as fun when you’re working so often. To me, it feels like I’m only on my break when I’m at home, then at work, it feels like I live there. Boo. That’s never a good thing. Next year, I won’t be doing the same thing. This year has a lot of expenses going on: 1) the trip to New York with my friends, 2) my car and 3) the family trip back to Philippines. See? Expensive stuff. That’s why I’m mentally affirming that I have $20,000 so that iit’ll come true; at least, I’m hoping it will. If I become a workaholic this year, that money will surely happen. BUT! I don’t wanna be a workaholic… hahaha!! I will look for a much better position at work next year. There will be lots to talk about this year, if all goes well. Wish me luck!!

Google SketchUp

Here is the final  out come of the drawings/reproduction of the house in the Philippines that I’ve been working on in the past months:

Unfortunately, I couldn’t use the colors that I wanted for the outside of the house because our neighbour there already used the colour, so we’re okay with this sunny colour. =) My mom’s cousin (my aunt) lives in the house with her 5 or 6 kids. They are very good kids and are smart, but their family doesn’t own a place, so my mom thought of having them “take care”  of the house, but technically speaking, it’s their house now because my family’s never going to live there; vacations, maybe. But we don’t have money for the back part yet; we’ll do that when I win the lottery next week. =)

The main house will be my aunt’s place and the additional apartment style in the back will be for rent unless we are there for a vacation. This way, my aunt can have a bit of an income for her family while her kids are still trying to finish school. So far, the renovations are being done inside the house. The ceiling is being changed, the electrical & plumbing stuff, the washroom, the kitchen (used to be my brother’s room, when we still lived there) is now an open concept kitchen, which makes the inside of the house look much bigger. We actually bought cabinet doors from here (Ikea) and had them sent in these big package boxes, along with the gas stove we brought with us here from 10 years ago (coz it never got used, haha!). I sent most of my gently used clothes (too small to fit me still) in those boxes, and some of the stuffed toys that are just sitting in the basement. There’s so much stuff that really should be donated and it’s too expensive to ship them all to the Philippines even if I really want to do so. There used to be 3 bedrooms in that main floor (the bungalow area) but since they ripped off the wall, it actually looks much better. I can’t wait to go back this October! We’ve used up quite a bit of our resources, but personally I really want that house to survive for years and years to come. I want my future grandkids to still be able to see it. LOL! I’m thinking waaaaay ahead of time.

Did you see the backyard? Hahaha, my dad wanted to just make the back completely made into a separate household; he wanted the house to be almost like a duplex, but I told him I wasn’t spending all my money on something I wasn’t going to use. The repairs on the main house is expensive enough, thank you. Anyways, we’re getting the windows changed, the two bedrooms air-conditioned and all the doors changed, too. All the floors will be tiles including the bedrooms. So much to do and they only started about a month ago.. A few days ago, my aunt posted photos in Facebook and looks like a total disaster right now. LOL! Everything’s under construction so that’s why it was looking like a dump. The kitchen at least is getting tiled, the backsplash tiles, I think are also being put up. The outside walls are being re-plastered and then it’ll be painted. The roof was the first one to be fixed, coz it was starting to leak through tiny little holes. However, we are on schedule, the money is a little tight, but we can sacrifice a little luxury here to make the house in the Philippines livable for my aunt and her kids. =)

Did You Know… (3)

…that I talk my guardian angel ever so often? I call it that but really it’s like a conversation with a detracted part of myself. LOL, I seriously have conversations, like how I pray at night. It feels like a mini therapy session. I ask something, my guardian angel answers back, and the answers are either good or bad. Good, in terms of how I take it, and bad when I can’t take it, for example, if the truth hurts, I just pout and try to change the topic. That’s crazy, eh? But that’s how I de-stress myself sometimes. It’s like my own portable therapist that I can access at the very end of the day. Just like how I write on this blog to regain control of myself whenever I start feeling so overwhelmed with daily life. I named my guardian angel, too. Do you have one?  :D

Addicted!

In the past few months, my main past time was video games; Dungeon Defenders to be more specific. This game is awesome! LOL, at first, I would only watch my brother and sis play it and think ‘Bleh.’ Then one day my sis didn’t have anybody to play with, so I said sure, and I was already thinking that I wasn’t going to like it, but that I’d help her level up, anyways (coz she made me use one of her players, the mage one). So there I was asking her how to make or use the damn ‘towers’ and then next thing you know, I was hooked.

The four types of characters you can use: Mage, Knight, Monk, and Archer.

We are currently at Level 71 and it now takes 7 million experience to level up to the next one, which is okay since I have a highly upgraded staff that can do one-hit wonders. Hahaha I’ve been playing it with my friend, and now we’re both at level 71. Hahaha! And we have trophies; lots of trophies! Some of the maps are hard to finish, especially on ‘insane’ difficulty.

So basically, it’s self explanatory: you defend your dungeon from the enemy. You have a number of crystals to defend and the enemies come at you in waves, so you have a build phase, where you can strategically put any bombs or guns or blockades–and then the attack phase, where you go crazy and attack goblins and ogres and dragons. It really is fun, the challenges are especially addicting because we can only last so long against the hordes and hordes of enemies attacking us all at one go. If you have a PS3 (I don’t know if it’s on any other console) give it a try and you’ll see what I mean. I’m on a break from it because I’ve picked up a lot of shifts at work and I don’t have time for it yet.. =)

Thoughtless Words Are Fatal

Here we go again. To all the awesome moms out there, this post is probably one of your worst nightmares. I will start with a little background information: my brother is the type of person who is outgoing, confident and can easily get along with other people. He is also, among other negative traits, very easy to deceive. Example: a few years back, the two of us were walking to Safeway when this guy in a random truck stops him and asks him if he wants to buy a sound system, with random reasons of why he was selling it from the back of his truck. Being the ever cautious one, I was already starting to dismiss the guy even before he finished explaining. My number 1 thought:  a stolen system that they’re trying to get money from. So there’s my brother, easily being taken in by how cheap it was ($200) and that it’s brand new and was a 7 or 11 piece set. Then he turns to me and says, “Can I borrow $200 from you? This is a really good deal.”

To clarify, the thing was not a brand name I even recognize. I was appalled; his decision making when it came to sudden purchases, and an expensive one at that, was shocking. I said no, and he still bought it with his own money. I couldn’t believe he brought home that thing. I didn’t say anything because I knew he would get mad at me for questioning his decision. So we get home and surprise, surprise, my parents were livid.

Now that same trait of being unable to think his decisions through has at least three occasions that I know about. The most recent one is this: My cousin calls to tell him that a highschool classmate of theirs is asking her for money (loan) and she asks him if he can loan the guy some money. This is all on speaker phone and my parents could hear the whole thing. After hanging up, my mom tells my brother, “Don’t lend them money, you don’t even know if they’ll ever pay you back.” To which my brother apparently replies, “You guys didn’t pay for my tuition fee.” I guess I can’t explain the context properly, but he was trying to say that they shouldn’t care what he does with his money. (I don’t know why he had to mention the tuition fee at all though; I got student loan to pay for my tuition fees.) This is of course, so hurtful to my mom, who starts screaming at him in anger. Then she started crying.

My mom can easily make me cry, but I don’t think I’ve ever said anything so hurtful to her that she would cry. My brother on the other hand, has done this before, mabe a few times already. It pains me to see that she loves him so much and yet she hardly gets any thought in return. He then rationalized that he’ll eventually pay back my parents for all that they’ve done for us. Wrong. Who says any child can even dream of repaying what their parents did for them? We can all try, but anyway you put it, our parents fed us when we were all crying babies and changed our diapers and lost sleep to comfort us. Can all of us say we would change our parents’ diapers when they become incontinent? Can we say we’d have the patience to deal with our parents who had developed Alzheimer’s or dementia? Most of us would have no time for that and lots of excuses would come out to justify our actions. I don’t understand how my brother could forget the very simple fact: He wouldn’t be alive if not for our parents. I don’t know how he can even think that he doesn’t need parents. Just because he works now, he thinks he’s so awesome, that he’s so independent. He isn’t. He totally lives like a prince at home. Rare would be the time that he would think of helping out around the house. He eats, sleeps and leaves the house to party or to work. He’s like that on repeat. I learned to not mind it because it stresses me out and i know at this point, he isn’t going to change anytime soon. I feel bad for him and at the same time I’m mad at him. He thinks paying them back with money is going to amount to the same thing as taking care of them. Never in my life have I put money as the most important thing to me; it pays the bills, but that’s not the goal of my life. My brother keeps wanting to foster kids (to get more income) in the house so he wants me and him to pay to get the basement finished, but I know that the situation in the house would only get worse. And who decides to foster a child with the thought of getting rich? Am I crazy or is that just plain heartless?

Anyways, I have to sleep now, otherwise this topic will keep bugging me. ‘Til next time. Goodnight.

The Chances

Vicious curling arms encased the smallest of seeds

Wrought in fear and darkness of the acidic, unfeeling minds;

They creep ever so slowly to rot the virgin inside.

 

A solitaire princess, atop the glass throne,

Never forgives and rarely forgets the tragedies

From seeking the dearest hearts to look upon her broken mirage.

 

One flight was all it would take, one touch to break the spell

To conquer the ocean, and thus to live a free soul,

Crossing the unknown and that which is known to man…

 

One word could alter the chaos, and set right the pendulum;

While the Father can only watch, unwilling to aid,

The brushes of fate keep fading with the moon’s shadow.

 

As the telltale thunder bolt that stopped the flood

Crashes against the wall of the human heart–a flesh easily wounded;

A spirit unbound by tedious patterns hides itself in diffidence.

 

Growing, it shall gain wisdom; feeling, she shall gain dreams,

As the seed flourishes, a kinder being smiles,

For the chances that had been taken were but a whisper of the heart

 

Of how a young maiden would paint the garden of Eden

The colour of contentment, an ever eclipsing happiness

Rising and ever transcending, unsurpassed in its magnitude.

 

Then the seedlings shall soar above the yearning clouds–

A wish to escape the cruelty of fences that break the fragile branches;

As the witching hour waxes, they shall wound us no more.