Hi there. *waves*

I know, I am a total strange here. *grins*

Yet I wanna tell y’all that I missed you guys… so much.

I don’t know where the energy to blog came from. I am thinking it’s because of the aura. I am seated at the same spot where i used to seat while using my now younger brother's computer with a keyboard-so-perfect (it makes typing enjoyable).Well, the coffee must have been doing its part as well.

So enough of that part.

This is just a short post.

I am here to share my overdue Christmas greeting and a wonderful and blessed new year in advance.

I do hope you had a great time this Christmas, or is at least enjoying this holiday season (for those who does not celebrate it). It's a bit colder this year than the previous ones.

If I’ll still feel energized as I am right now (while writing this) I am to cap as well, all the things I can remember and the overdue posts about my 2015 in my next posts. After all, I will remember this year for the rest of my life with all the sad and happy memories i had and kept inside my memory trunk. So if you are ready to hop on with me, buckle your seats and  hold on really tight as it’s gonna be one hell of a ride. 

Lots of love.

~nat

The kitchen Lab experience

I know this is already late but i will post it anyway. 

That day, the  sun was shining bright, though it rained so hard in the afternoon (i thought it would never stop). I was able to catch some sleep but only just for a few hours and though i needed more, i was a bit giddy that day. 

It wasn't just an ordinary work meeting that day, it was scheduled by the management at the newly opened fine dining restaurant of our very own Dr. Jonathan G. noble and Mr. Irwin Pascual, who are very dear friends and both share a passion for cooking. Well what an exciting treat right? and i never thought i'd be able to set foot on it when it was still being built. Haha. However we are still lucky that we were able to taste the cooking of Dr. Jonathan even before it became viral to the public.

How to get to the Kitchen Lab? 

So we were from San Nicolas, and we had to commute our way to the place. The kitchen lab can be found at the (i can say) heart of Laoag City, Ilocos Norte. It is situated at the second floor of the White house which can be found at the corner across GMW Trans. We took a tricycle, because rain was pouring really hard and to avoid the hassle of commuting from one ride to another. But you can take a jeepney to laoag and a tricycle once you are at Laoag. They'll know where the White House is, for it has been called that way back in the beginning. They have transformed the place into a totally different scene, you could see it from the outside, you wouldn't want to miss the chance to step foot on it. It looks even more inviting in the evening. 

We were asked to wear black and white which was the motif that day. And as we pushed open the door, a staff stood ajar greeting us with a smile.

We had reserved seats at the corner they had probably intended for business meeting and gatherings. 

The place wasn't that big but it was enough, since you wouldn't probably go there to just see the place but to enjoy the orgasmic food they offer.

As my eyes enjoyed such elegance, my stomach protested as it got hungrier by the minute. But we had to wait. 

Our food was already ordered for us even before we arrived. We started the meeting as we waited for the dishes to arrive. If i got it right, it took them 45 minutes to fully prepare it aside from the fact that they were serving other walk in customers that night. 

Truffled Fettucini - fettucini tossed in truffle cream sauce topped with crispy mushroom

Squid ink pasta (seasonal) - squid ink fresh pasta in uni sauce topped with crispy longganisa

CAB Ribeye 12 oz

I didn't care how long it took. It was worth the wait for me. 

The steak was heaven. It was perfectly seasoned, the spice and flavour explodes into your mouth. I couldn't stop eating. (Pardon me for being so matakaw, as i really dig food.) and tasting them made me feel like i was chef gordon ramsey in madterchef except that i didn't know what to say. I am still dreaming of it, i wanna go back. I'd prolly go well some time. Hahahaha. 

Well pardon with the photos as they were just taken with myphone Agua and Ipad mini 2. 

Bon appetit.

Drabble: Pictures

                                                 They say a picture is worth a thousand words.

And as I browsed through old photographs, the door of hidden memories opened up and again stirred thoughts in my head.

I smiled. I frowned. I stared intently on some of them.

These are worth so much more than any gold you can mine or pearl you can find.

Painted all over them were emotions luckily captured at their most precious time.

They speak volumes of the highest decibels. One that even in silence they are ear deafening.

It is odd isn’t it? The magic they bring.

These very simple things.

*photos credit to google

Drabble: Rain

The night grew deeper and I couldn’t wait for it to be over.

At the back of my head I wished for the rain. Somehow this time I wanted it more than I hated the puddles it brings on the roadside.

Somehow I felt like I needed to hear the sound the raindrops make.

C’mon, rain. I breathed.

I needed to drench my soul with the coldness it brings. My thoughts needed to be renewed.

The world looks different when it rains and at this moment I need something to help me look at the world differently.

...So I waited.

photos credit to google

A step away

"Success is subjective.

If you are happy with what you do then you are successful."

That quote i remember coming from the mouth of a lady speaker during my younger brother's commencement exercise  almost 2 years ago. I would have to agree with that... Because i have proven it for myseslf. 

Then i heard a story about happiness and contentment. 

A person is happy because he is contented. He is contented because he is happy. A very simple logic that often times people doesn't seem to realise.

It seems like nowadays, that thing called happiness have become so expensive that only a few people can afford it. But i have seen it around me. It was given to those who knew how to achieve it.

Happiness is not something you just find somewhere else, but i guess it is achieved by giving.

So when my time came to share a story or make a speech at work, i turned the internet world topsy turvy till i found this story of happiness. It was actually hard for me to choose what topic to talk about but when i read this i knew i needed to share it to others and most especially to myself.

I knew that time i needed to enlighten myself about happiness. I had to learn to find it.

--------------

This story is about a beautiful, expensively dressed lady who complained to her psychiatrist that she felt her whole life was empty, that, it had no meaning:

So, the lady went to visit a counselor to seek out happiness.

The counselor called over the old lady who cleaned the office floors and then said to the rich lady "I am going to ask Mary here to tell you how she found happiness. All I want for you to do is listen to her."

...

So the old lady who cleaned the office floors put down her broom, sat on a chair and told Her story:

"Well, my husband died of malaria and three months later my only son was killed in a car crash. I had nobody - I had nothing left. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat, I never smiled at anyone, I even thought of taking my own life.

Then one evening a little kitten followed me home from work. Somehow I felt sorry for that kitten. It was cold outside, so I decided to let the kitten in. I got it some milk, and the kitten licked the plate clean. Then it purred and rubbed against my leg and, for the first time in months, I smiled.

Then I stopped to think, if helping a little kitten could make me smile, maybe doing something for people could make me happy.

So the next day I baked some biscuits and took them to a neighbor who was sick in bed.

Every day I tried to do something nice for someone. It made me so happy to see them happy.

Today, I don't know of anybody who sleeps and eats better than I do. I've found happiness, by giving it to others."

When the rich lady heard that, she cried. She had everything that money could buy, but she had lost the things which money cannot buy.

The beauty of life does not depend on how happy you are; but on how happy others can be because of you.

Happiness is not a destination, it's a journey.

Happiness is not tomorrow, it is now.

Happiness is not a dependency, it is a decision.

Happiness is what you are, not what you have!

-----------

So whatever keeps you from being happy, leave it behind.

Take that step towards it because it is never too far away.

We just have to find happiness within ourselves.

It lives in each and everyone of us.

Remember that happiness is you.

"Happiness is only a step away if only you'll learn to take the next step towards it."

-natnat

Thoughts at 5AM

This is a long overdue post for my brother's reflection paper for his senior year in hig school but it didn't make it on time obviously because it has been years since he graduated and i just found this in my pending files.

Right now i am bored and i am trying to keep myself awake after a dose of coffee which is working the other way around. So i am just gonna share my thoughts in here.

Here goes...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Attending his high school graduation two years ago overwhelmed us both with excitement and nostalgia. There were flashbacks of my high school days and upon writing this one i again dig old memories at bay.

They say High school never ends. Indeed.

High school holds a very special part of our lives which is filled with memories worth more than a million words. That is to me. It is a stage in someone's life wherein they are molded and shaped greatly by the kind of peers they have. Highschool is where you luckily find friends who'll be glued to your lives for the rest of time so long as you care for them enough. Well, in some cases, lucky are those who get to find friend/s that could last a lifetime during grade school days but highschool is a totally different world. It is a world of experiments. Of finding answers on your own. Of trying to unravel life and one's purpose. Of learning how to be independent though you're totally not. Highschool is the world of peers and memories. Sometimes or should i say oftentimes during this stage, peers become family. 

During this time some get to experience their first love, first heartbreak. They learn how to skip classes. How to go home late. How to do an assignment properly. How to hate someone for making your highshcool life miserable. Haha. I was just reminiscing. This is the stage of many First's. This is SPECIAL.

I remember mine and i just laugh. I guess that is how you will always remember the past? You will always end up laughing or smiling unless it is such a very painful one. 

Let me share some...

I wanted to make a research paper of my favourite artist. LOL. I cried because i felt bullied when someone stole my handkerchief, threw glances and i love you's at me, and when i unexpectedly received heart shaped pillows and other gifts during Christmas events. Hahahaha. I was dramatic. I just didn't know how to tell my mum i was being courted. Geeesh. (Now i feel embarassed.) I tried to be bold but i was really shy. I was boyish because most of the time i felt secure to be in my group of boy friends. We threw plastic bottles half filled with water at each other during one of our classes. Sssssh. We almost went home soaked because we tried to bathe each other inside the classroom when the teacher was out. I got into one student teacher's nerve but we ended up being close friends. I used to eat out with friends at Mcdonald's and go home before 10 even if mum already rang me a lot of times. I had silly fights with my best friend and sat almost a chair apart like our arrangements during examination day. I graduated ignoring and partly hating someone who was and became my closest buddy when i entered college.

And so much more. 

It would take me years to enumerate the crazy memories of high school. I could go on and on and on.

I know i am not the only one who feels like this about high school. 

Back then things seemed to last forever. 

We didn't actually care about the future.

What mattered then was the present. 

Life wasn't so hard...

 Wasn't easy either. 

But it wasn't so bad.

And i like how i spent those days.

-Nat

Empty Rooms. Empty.

I have grown so much different from the old Nat who used writing to express herself when left with nothing else to do. I have created someone new. I tried to bring her back but I can’t. Maybe the least thing I could now is to create someone better than who I am now unless I go the other way around.

It’s usually during this kind of time back then when I feel like screaming and I need to talk to people. Right now, I have no one else but you. I am in the middle of my shift and I am having a difficult time sleeping, my chest is heavy like someone is pinning me down and all the thoughts are colliding in my head and it feels like it is about to burst.

These four walls of emptiness gives a man time to think.

And I really need you to listen.

I need you to listen to me, to tell me everything is going to be okay. To tell me things are gonna be just fine. To tell me to stop crying and worrying coz it seems like the tiredness and pressure and the world is making me feel like this. To tell me I can do it. To hug me. To make me feel better.  I don’t feel okay.

I am not okay again. 

Of Time and Faith

“When the heart is able to ask itself and cry, then we can understand something,” 

Certain realities in life are seen through eyes cleansed with tears.” 

-pope Francis

We come to understand life  during tough times. As always i could hardly explain all the feelings i have inside me right now. 

My grandfather, is in the Medical Intensive Care Unit(MICU) and  all of us are troubled. I know... We all know that the inevitable is to happen. No one really knows what is the right thing and righteous thing to do.

I can never say i have been with him through all, but it is indeed painful to watch that life is taken out of him as time ticks by and you can't do otherwise.

I have not written anything for so long and now that i do, it is about this. And i just needed to let this out as i am left alone to watch over and wait... Wait for the end and beginning. People have different coping mechanism with these kind of things. And the lone time of waiting and thinking and doing nothing else as my eyes begin to close from the tiredness brought by physical, mental and emotional exhaustion bring me the creeps. I don't wanna think of it anymore. I don't wanna be here. I don't want to see. 

I just checked on him and It breaks my heart to see him suffer as i have never imagined it. My heart could not fathom the idea but i am trying to be bold. Every single ring, and swinging of the door, every little bit of sound matters. I can all hear them in my head and they signal something, they make my heart race and make my head turn into the direction.

I am not good with this type of situation. I am in the health profession and i have witnessed people fade away. However,  the feeling that someone close to you/your family is hanging by a thread in the balance of life can make your knees crumble. Those moments where you are left with no words to say because you already tried to give all and do everything but you can't just undo it. 

Srsly. This feels different. Like i am in a dream, in a trans where it doesn't seem real... Like the ones i use to see in tv's and movies. At the back of my head i want things to go the other way around.

(Takes a deep breathe)

I cried and i still want to but i have to keep it.

Me:(to self) you have to think of the goodness Nat. You worry too much. Have faith. Pray. He has plans.

At moments like this, being alone is not an option. You need all the support you can get but i am left with no choice. What else can i do? I just turn to Him and let Him be my companion.

I am entrusting this to you Dear God.

" God grant me the serenity
To accept the things I cannot change;
Courage to change the things I can;
And wisdom to know the difference. "

Huuugs.