Late-night Rain

I am still up. It is raining outside.

I haven't stayed up doing work since I stopped studying. Tonight is the first time I am working deep into the night.

It reminds me a lot about the late nights I pulled while staying at the dorm. I would have my desk light on. The air would be rather damp. The door leading to the balcony would be open, and if it were raining the way it is right now, I would also have the wind coming in and the sound of rain falling on the plants and on the ground. Usually, if my work was quantitative and computer-based, like what I am doing now, I would have the music playing moderately to keep me company... and right now, I have Nelly Furtado's Folklore CD playing.

The only thing missing is my dormmates. On most evenings, the door opening up to the hallway would be open. But whether or not it was, I would always hear the other girls laughing, talking, screaming, even. On rainy nights, doors would occasionally slam up and down the hallway, blown by the force of the wind entering from both ends. Maybe I would hear the overflow of music from other rooms as well. (And I would find them tacky and sentimental a lot of times.)

Even at 11 PM, the place where I lived was vibrant with energy. But not tonight. Tonight, I am the only one still up. Late-night rain the way I remember it; maybe not ever again.

Dance

I've got this song on my mind! It's not so much the lyrics but the melody. Ironic that I'm posting the lyrics... ;)
I can point out one line that stands out: second to the last line of the song, "Forget where our feet will land"...

DANCE
from Mario Frangoulis, "Follow Your Heart"
[Music: Matteo Saggese/English lyrics: Pam Sheyne]

I see those vulnerable eyes
They're as deep as the darkest of oceans
I sense the loneliest heart
Holding back your fragile emotions
I feel you wanna let go
Inside of my arms just know
You're safe with me, let's

Dance like there's nobody watching
Sing as if no one is listening to...
What you're hearing
Love like you've never been hurt before
Try to forget if you can
And just dance

I've known the coldest of nights
Lay awake try'na stop myself dreaming
There in the emptiest space
In my head the music stopped playing
Right now all I wanna do
Is lose myself in you and me
Just be, let's

Dance like there's nobody watching
Sing as if no one is listening to...
What you're hearing
Love like you've never been hurt before
Try to forget if you can
And just dance

Why don't we dance and pretend we know how to fly
Like we've never been scared of heights
No fear of falling
Love like we've never been hurt before
Forget where our feet will land
And just dance

Perforated Paper

I love tearing perforated paper. It's like popping bubble wrap; there is something both immensely satisfying and comforting in feeling the material give way in your hands. And then there's the sound. With bubble wrap, it's a pop, and with perforated paper, it's a low, drawn-out (depending on how fast you tear it) rrrripppp!

[...Written after tearing the perforations off my eleventh paycheck.]

Ordering Lunch

The funniest thing happens whenever I order lunch at the Japanese counter. They have this budget menu of teriyaki rice toppings-- chicken, pork or beef in a rice bowl for only P69, which is just about the most inexpensive that anything can get in Makati (and being on a self-imposed tight budget, that's the best I can do). Now, each rice bowl has a name: Chicken Crisps, Crunchy Pork, and Sesame Beef.

Whenever I ask for any of the three, without fail, both the order-taker and cashier invert the names, "Isang Pork Crunchy!" A further quirk is that they can never pronounce "crisps" correctly; it's always "crips".

I'm really not sure if the people at the Japanese counter do it to amuse me... because they certainly seem to be friendlier than the rest and they do recognize me whenever I come to them for lunch, which is actually not very often because the quirks surrounding the dish names freak me out in a little way.

Still, for P69 and a smile to greet me, I guess being freaked out is the reason why I get such a good deal. Bring on the Chicken Crips, the Pork Crunchy, and the Beef Sesame!

Half a Year After

Last Sunday (18 September) marked the sixth month since graduation.

I think about these things--about the time that has passed--and always wonder what I have to show for it. Must be a habit I've taken away from school... School, where everyday guarantees every student a good measure of growth, whether intellectual, emotional, social, etc etc etc.

And so I thought about the six months I've been out of school: what have I to show for it? Sure, I have a job, but it's a job that doesn't really bring me any fulfillment. All I do is sit in front of a computer and listen to what people tell me to do. Sure, I'm still learning tons of things, mostly things about the "real world", which I would never have learned if I were to stay in school. But somehow, all of that learning feels disconnected. I don't know to what-- maybe disconnected from humanity, as I have no friends, hold no real interesting conversations, never get to talk about meaningful subjects and am, on the whole, pretty much just a machine churning out numbers and reports.

But today, wow, was the first time in six months that I've felt "real" again.

I arrived half an hour early for a meeting with a client this morning. I decided to hang out in the lobby and let the time pass. I didn't want to appear in the client's office all alone and so early. (One of the negative results of my solitude these past months is the loss of the feeling of entitlement and worth, since I am the "young and inexperienced" and don't really have anything much to say in the matters of high finance, which is marked by tentativeness in all of my actions.) Ten minutes into the vigil, my client walked into the lobby and saw me waiting. He invited me to come up.

Being that the meeting was not supposed to start in a while, we talked about things unrelated to business. This client is particularly interesting because he has a Ph D and his work as an international civil servant has brought him all over the world. He is an Italian national, but has only lived in Italy for six years (from what I gather)! He's lived in almost every continent of the world. And so we talked about traffic in every major city he's been to, about his education and mine and finding common ground in operations research.

Later this evening, I went to an MBA fair. I had just fallen in line at the entrance when I heard my name called out. I saw a classmate from school, not from the same course (ME), but someone I had gotten to know over the years. As I turned to greet him, I saw the familiar face of one of my good friends, this time from ME. I knew he was in the States for the longest time and didn't know that he had already returned. Moments later, another friend came up. God, I was so happy to see these people. I couldn't help but hug them! (This coming from a non-touchy-feely person!)

I made my rounds with them. I intended to grill the school representatives about qualifications, student aid, and other admissions concerns, but I ended up just drifting from one table to the next, stopping only to get the schools' prospectuses (?). I also planned to stay until the end of the fair, when most of the people had left, so I could really have serious conversations with the reps... but I left the fair after only an hour and a half.

I had dinner with my friends instead.

After dinner, as I was crossing the street to my car, someone stopped to let me pass. I was at the center island of the road when the driver of the car rolled down the window and called out my name. Man, I didn't realize who it was! I was squinting and actually replied, instead of a hello, with a "Who are you?!" Turned out to be yet another ME classmate, in fact, someone I had texted just last week! We are also very good friends, and after six months of no contact, I decided to see how he was. The run-in on the street lasted no more than ten seconds, but it sure beat the text messages we exchanged last week.

And so after all of that, today really was my lucky day. For a change, it was nice to feel like my old self, to talk about things I could relate to... in fact, just to be able to talk, and to know that someone is listening who thinks that my words and ideas actually are worth something-- to be able to talk instead of having to listen all the time.

Misono Men

I saw three men eating in the misono grill area during lunch today. I placed their ages at around the 40s or 50s. Two wore a shirt and tie and a dark-coloured windbreaker, while the other, a barong. The three looked liked men who had achieved a certain degree of prominence in their fields.

I thought them to be colleagues of some sort because they shared common features in their appearances. Since I was seated in a table across the grill, I was inevitably able to observe them. But as the meal progressed, I noticed that there was no interaction whatsoever among the three of them.

The men were apparently not colleagues. They had absolutely no relationship with each other. They were individuals who just chanced to give off the same impression and to sit beside each other.

Observing them made me remember the saying, "It's lonely at the top." The three people were probably far enough up the corporate ladder to command many underlings. Who did they have to eat with when the lunch meetings didn't show up on their agenda one day? When I become a vice-president (or maybe even a president, COO or CFO) of some sort one day, will I be sitting in front of the misono grill alone, though next to two strange women my age?

I'm not sure why this is significant enough to blog about... I guess these are the crazy things that pass through one's mind when eating alone.