Love in Animation

Oh my God, I'm in love!!!

I fell in love with him from the very start I met him and I fell in love with him more when I got to know him better. I had a boyfriend then, it was actually my boyfriend who introduced him to me, but my boyfriend then didn't know I fell in love with this man.

But I stopped seeing him when my life started to get busy with figuring out how to pass my major subjects in College, then I started to work after college, then my boyfriend and I broke up, I focused on my career, I had another boyfriend who turned out to be a major ego and heart breaker and then left my home country last year to focus on career again. I never thought that seeing him again would bring back the feelings I had for him like the time I was so in love with him.

I am so thankful that after one tiring day last week, as I sat there flicking on the TV remote, I saw his familiar face...

Meet the man of my dreams...the emperor Hotohori

Isn't he gorgeous? Gosh, I was just influenced by my boyfriend then to watch these Animes and I particularly got hooked in watching Fushigi Yuugi (translated in English as Curious Play).
I think it was school vacation on my college junior year that I started watching it so when school resumed I remember it was showing at around 7:30am each weekday and I could not watch at that time since I had to be on my way at this time to school to get to my 8:30am class so I asked our maid to record the episodes in VHS tape!

hahaha, yeah, I was that addicted. I envy the lead character there, her name was Miyaka, who was a student who together with her bestfriend, was absorbed and trapped in a book they found in the school library. So when they got inside the book they became part of a story and met all the characters where so much love triangle stories revolved unto. I was so much wishing then that I could be the one absorbed by the book and meet Hotohori so he wouldn't get heartbroken for having lost Miyaka to Tamahome, he could have me all for himself, hahaha.

So if I were in anime' , I wonder how I would look like? Which reminded me that my schoolmate in highschool, Abel, gave this as a birthday gift to me 10 years ago...

That's me in anime' form wearing my highschool uniform, hehehe. So cool eh? =P

How do I look? =)

I was really touched about that gift and I was indeed a fan of his drawings that aside from that drawing I asked a number more of drawings from him and up to now I still have them with me. And it's amazing that after 10 years when I had a chat with Abel on Yahoo Messenger just this week I was at last been able to know what the Japanese character beside my portrait meant. I thought it was my name but he said what was written there meant "Michiko Aino", a character inspired by me from a story he was writing then. Gosh, I was so flattered to learn that he made me a character in one of his stories, I am so honored. He was actually surprised I've kept this drawing all these years. But why wouldn't I? It's one of the best gifts to me that I will cherish forever (thank you so much, Abel ! ). ;-)

Picture these

There are two pictures that has disturbed me today and though I would like to talk about them I am not posting them here, nope nope nope, too disturbing for me, sowee. =S

The first one was a picture of an accident in Ayala Avenue in Makati City (which they said happened last Monday, March 13). A man was hit and killed by a passenger bus.

Picture this: A dead guy lying on the street, face literally flat sideways, and his brain literally popped out from his skull and laid a foot away from his head.

It was enough for me to almost barf out and lose my apetite, I had a hard time trying to convince myself to eat lunch (thanks to Omar for sending me that pic, arrrgh =/ ).

The second picture was something that I got from a discussion with Mhean and Maia, my collegues and lunch buddies. They told me about this picture that won pulitzer prize.

Picture this: A famine stricken child from Sudan who was crawling her way to a United Nations food camp and behind her was a vulture that seems to be waiting for the child to die so it could eat it.

Creepy!!!

OK, here's a link, you be the judge--> http://www.huaren.com/UnitedNations/photo-1.htm

It really disturbed me how the photographer was able to take that photo and even get credit for it. He did not at all help the poor child. Anyway, I think the photographer realized it too, as he commited suicide three months later, apparently, from depression.

But I still remember the ultimate picture, well, actually it was a video, that has disturbed me big time. It was the video footage of the killing of a Korean hostage of an Iraqi terrorist group. It showed how the hostage was beheaded using a medium sized knife slowly but sharp enough to slit through his whole neck! It was too much! Beheading using one quick slash (like if a samurai or sword is used) is already disturbing but seeing one get beheaded in a slow manner is just purely unexplainable! I could not imagine how those men could take what they were doing!!! I think for one whole day I could not take my mind off the video, it was like playing in my mind over and over again. Arrrghhh!!! =/

Gosh, I should stop here before I get permanently disturbed.

Erase, erase, erase.

How do you talk to your angel?

I love Paulo Coelho's writing. Each of his books never fail to give me this extraordinary feeling of serenity, and yet the irony to that is I feel this calm with such a great impact in different ways. I can't even explain why it seems that the timing of me reading a particular book, the book's theme coincides in some way with my life.Therefore I can't help but see his books as God's way of consoling me.

Among his books though, at this point The Valkyries would be the book which won the majority of my heart now. Having read four of Paulo Coelho's books before this, I did expect that the book would have the same serene, calming tone common to all of Mr. Coelho's writing but other than that I was not expecting it will surpass the impact that Eleven Minutes has given me.

I started reading The Valkyries on the 27th of January this year. Just from reading the title page, it has already captured my heart as promised as it was about the quest in finding your angel. I read on, without expectations. At page 40 though, I could not help my heart to jolt a little and melt with a smile as I look up, up and away. It was an extraordinary moment with my usual drink at my usual place -- fruit punch at Starbucks Raffles City. I didn't finish the book in one sitting, moreso, it even took me quite some time to read it as the succeeding days and weeks I had a lot of things going on during those times and so like my usual, I brought the book with me always in my bag wherever I went, with the intention of reading thru it bit by bit whenever I got the chance -- while taking a long bus or train ride or while waiting for a friend I was meeting up. So I read on bit by bit every now and then but it was when I was around half way thru the book that I got a long lag from reading it. It was around the second week of February that I think my fellow bookworm friend made a comment about the book. She asked me if I had finished reading it and when I said I have not, she told me to get back to her and tell her my thoughts about it after I finish reading it. It seemed like she didn't like how the book concluded.

So after then I started to have expectations on the book, I expected it would have an ending with an effect of something like that of By The River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept because we both agreed that we found that book's conclusion too hazy. It made me curious so that motivated me to finish reading it soon. So I continued to bring the book with me everday, wherever I went, like it was a necessity like my wallet that I could not leave behind when I went out, in the hope that I could read thru it during my free time. I wonder though why I have not devoted a time to actually put in my schedule to finish reading it at one weekend or something. Maybe because all the while my thoughts were then already in playback.

Anyway, as I've said earlier, The Valkyries was about the quest in finding and seeing your angel. Halfway thru the book, it has already mentioned that angels already talk to us thru different channels, like they manifest themselves thru other people who we encounter in our life. It says that sometimes, you have already seen and talked to your angel but you were just not aware of it because we are too absorbed into our own concept of angels that we expect to find our angel in an image of a beautiful being with white wings. But if you were given a choice, would you like to be aware that you'd be seeing your angel and talk to him if you knew who your angel was? As for me, I was undecided. The thought of seeing my angel gave me both the longing and fear, as I don't know how I should be when I get face to face with my angel in a place where people are watching your every move. I didn't know how to talk to my angel, I didn't know how to do channeling.

Today, I had an hour and a half free to spend the afternoon while waiting for an important appointment. I decided to spend it at Pacific Coffee, in The Hive at Raffles Place. I decided that I'd read the book to pass the time. As I sip my brewed coffee and flip thru the pages, after an hour and a half, I finished reading thru it, until the Epilogue and I was already impressed at that point and have concluded that I liked the book, including how it concluded. But being me, I read books from cover to cover so I read thru further until the last two pages -- the Author's note where Paulo Coelho confirmed that The Valkyries was taken from his real life encounters with finding his own angel so at 4:30pm on page 212, I have concluded that the book has surpassed all the effects of the other Paulo Coelho books I've read. I held on to it tightly as I could not believe the feeling it has brought me. I actually felt like how Paulo felt when he realized how he could see his angel, I realized my angel was with me as well.

Angels guide and protect us, even if we ignore them, they are just there watching over us, caring ang loving us in their own way. Yet sometimes we ask for more from them, we ask for a miracle just to admit to ourselves that they do exist. But really we don't have to test and wait for our angel to say I wish I could promise more before we believe because angels themselves are already heaven sent. So, need not have to wish more, as there has already been so much love given, that love itself is already the miracle we've been wanting to prove all along, manifested in friendship... and this is something that will be remembered...for lifetime.

All in a day's work - a bloody flower analogy

Morning - The intrusion

Though I was already starting to feel lazy when I got to office this morning, I did manage to push myself to continue with the new program I was doing. However, halfway to completing this change request, my mentor approached me to question my function design which eventually led us to discussing it to our manager (take note though: I have already discussed it with my manager last week). Anyway, to make the long story short, my mentor's "minimalistic" (i.e. not pro-user) approach prevailed. And though it has made technical things more simple, I still was not comfortable delivering such an incomplete thing to the user to whom I had already discussed my design considering she is one of those kind users that are easy to talk to. Now I have to go back to her and tell her something like "I'm sorry Regina but the design we have discussed has just been scrapped" in a nice way. As I have told Mhean, my friend-collegue, it is like the user requested that I make a flower and I said ok, I can make a flower but only to tell her in the end I would be delivering only a stem!

That was enough to start up my lazy mood again.

Early afternoon - The catalyst
So I just sat there in my desk, demotivated in what I was going to do next. I decided I would just start with it tomorrow. Then I got an SMS message from my only bro that really made an impact to me. For the 8 months I've been away from home to work, today was the second time I've received a message from him. He asked how I was and I was starting to get sentimental and touched but only to realize that it would just only last for some mere milliseconds as I read the next words in the message asking me for Oakley sunglasses because it's summer! Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat!!???? It was enough to completely put my mood to gloom. I could not explain to myself anymore how I could feel good about myself.

Further into the afternoon - The bloody crime
In my desperation to calm myself and in the hope that my mood could be shifted to a relaxed one, I decided to have a cup of coffee as I have not had a coffee for the day (I had tea with milk in the morning). Sadly, I didn't know that an innocent longing would actually be the cause of a bloody crime...

The villain:

The accomplice:

The victim:

The savior:

The witness:

It was a two-inch slash on my middle finger and I dont know why in the world that the first thing that came into my mind was to take a picture of it dripping with blood before tending to it. Haha. See what a mad mind can do? Tsk tsk tsk... =S

Anyway, like a little girl I went to Mhean's desk wanting to ask for help although I was hesitant because I knew that she doesn't like to see blood. But I had no choice so I showed her my finger wrapped in blood stained tissue. She asked for the first aid kit from our manager and my manager was so kind enough to put antiseptic and plaster on my injured finger. I was really touched both with Mhean and my manager's care for me.

So what is my lesson learned from all of this?

Thou shall not try to open a can of milk just to satisfy your craving for coffee when you are absent minded.