does anybody here know sting?

yes, the sting! aka gordon matthew thomas sumner. aka one of my favorite singers. yeah, the guy who stood in the witness stand in the case barry benson filed against humans in bee movie. you'll see why this gives us a clue who jerry seinfeld is talking to. i posed this question to my class and all i got were blank stares. some were apologetic and some tried to really grasp some association. i tried to salvage the whole situation by giving a clue (which was actually a bit dumb coz i said police which made the gap hopelessly wider) which made them even more clueless. so i said he sang every breath you take and somebody enthusiastically said oh, from 50 first dates! as if she won in the lotto. i mentally pushed the game over buzzer in my head. what era is this? i know not all 80's habitues worshipped sting. but those who do, worship him like a god. just ask jessica zafra. who again?

so i made it a trivia and told them that he also sang someone to watch over me, fragile, englishman in new york. and then somebody asked, is he a contemporary of liv tyler's dad? poor sting. he doesn't have a famous daughter that would make him worth mentioning in today's celebrity news. lucky steve, he's got liv. i love steve tyler too. and it's a pity 'i don't want to miss a thing' has been revived so many times over that his identity as the original singer is buried underneath those rehashes. though i love the way david cook belted it out on american idol.

my point here is that i was just so surprised and a bit dismayed that my students do not know sting. i can't help but be a bit nostalgic and remember when the 80's was the present. i have not reincarnated from any other era but i believe it was the best time to grow up in. they call it the age of excesses and the time of hideous fashion but boy, if it were one long movie, i should say that the soundtrack was stupendous. being born in the 70's gives one the supreme advantage of having just the right amount of maturity to consciously live in the glory of the 80's. it seems like being in a perfect bridge that links the past and the present. not too far from the 60's to be actually familiar with the beatles but not to distant that we can't rock with my chemical romance. okay, shall we say dance to britney's gimme more or sing along with disney's high school musicale.

so whether you know sting or not, i love him to pieces and i just love the 80's. i am just so glad to grow up in that era. nothing beats good music to help you get by the odds of growing up. it is just so worth looking back at.

snubbed

how will you feel if the person you adorned with the title 'the one who changed my life forever' snubs you? not once. for the third and hopefully the last time because i don't want to have anything to do with him anymore. huhuhu. no, i'm not literally crying. i have said before that it doesn't matter if we don't really end up together. IT WAS ENOUGH THAT HE CAME INTO MY LIFE AND MADE ME SEE A LOT OF THINGS DIFFERENTLY. as i said before, he made me want to be alive again. not necessarily because of him or for him. i simply want to be alive again after knowing him. tell me if it's making sense. at all.

we stopped communicating for quite sometime. after a volley of emails which he actually started, suddenly all i got from his court was silence. i said something dumb. i think it could be the reason. no, i didn't allude about a future together. not to that extent of stupidity. i just made a very narrow minded observation about something. me and my big mouth. so i gave him time. after a few months, i emailed again. silence again. how many silences could i endure? i gave it another try on his birthday. silence still. painful silence. and then one day, i was visiting one of my social networking sites and found that he was online. should i still bother? my hands became clammy just thinking about whether or not to do it. why not give it one final try? he could just have totally ignored me. but what he did was a bit mean. at least from my wounded point of view. he logged off!!!

maybe somehow i had a fear that it might end in this manner. that it was never really meant to be. and i just deluded my sorry self. but still, to officially stop expecting anything from him is so final. no endings are easy. not even happy ones. maybe more so for happy ones because you will wonder what happens next now? when happiness ends, it could give way to some sadness. or the journey to happiness starts again. in this case, when the expecting ends, i would have to deal with being sad about it. luckily for me. when sadness ends happiness rushes right in. how bad can it be. surely, nothing can end in such a disaster if we just keep on keeping on. after all, life is really just a cycle. vicious maybe depending on your position. but one can always choose joyful. life can be one joyful cycle. and mine just takes on a new rotation now.

nothing good gets away

The day I met Edith Tiempo, I lost my bag. My entire bag was stolen and what is probably one fourth of my life or maybe even more. While I was so high with artistic inspiration, somebody pricked my bubble.

My bag carried an organizer that carried all my other stuff neatly. I could reach into it and know exactly where to find a pen, my phone, my umbrella, even my tweezers. At the police station I wanted to give the officer on duty my business card and I almost reached for my bag. I did not change bags for the past four months so the familiarity was marked. And in a flash everything was lost. Suddenly I had nothing to reach into. My hands were empty.

I described the feeling to a friend and we both agree that the moment you realize you’ve been robbed, everything becomes surreal. In my case it felt like I was hit by lightning and then the succeeding moment was a dream. I kept wishing the dream would end and I would be back to the scene where I still had my bag. The shock was so immense I almost wanted to cry. It felt like I lost everything even my identity. Because legally, I could not transact or drive without my license and IDs. I lost the security of things so familiar and so much a part of me. My red wallet and the bits and pieces of paper and notes tucked in there, the beautiful rosary beads made by my Lola Inse, my purse and keys…

Once, after the incident, I was reading something and wanted to highlight some points and just like old times, I reached for my bag to get the highlighter only to find an empty chair where it used to sit.

I had recently left my job and resolved to rebuild my life with renewed passion. Little did I know that I had to rebuild it literally from scratch. It was so strange to wake up the next day not having a pressed powder or my entire vanity kit for that matter. And so the task of rebuilding my life began. Getting affidavits for ID replacements, closing an account, buying a new compact powder, using the purse somebody gave last December and finally wishing someone could just buy me a new wallet, red of course. Thank God for people who gave me lip gloss for Christmas, at least I had more than a spare.

So how did I survive the entire ordeal? The moment I became certain my bag was stolen, I made a quick rundown of what will probably be forever lost and a tremendous sense of relief washed over me when I realized I left my journal at home. I was amazed at the list of things that I did not lose. It’s uncanny how some things were intentionally or unintentionally left at home. Then I calmly accepted the reality of the moment. Crying was not an option. Because really, what did I lose? Some money? An expensive umbrella? A new French perfume? The habit and security of my red wallet and matching purse? The autograph of Edith Tiempo? Things just came to a quick halt. Then I was astounded how instantly I gained a different perspective. Without my bag, I was still me. Yes, I lost the autograph of Edith Tiempo but her impact on my consciousness was more indelible than that.

Still, I am tempted to think of ways that could have averted the situation. Yeah, it’s over and done but I’m also one who believes in ‘when you lose, don’t lose the lesson.’ Obviously, there is no wiser precautionary measure than being careful. But it’s very unfortunate that some people out there are really just waiting to take advantage of our unguarded moments and turn them into disasters. In that case, what we could do is lessen the impact of the loss by preparing in advance. Like not bringing all our ID’s in one bag. Most transaction will only require two ID cards so it’s better not to risk our IDs by leaving them at home. Keep a photocopy of your license somewhere. It sure will make the replacement process faster. If you keep a USB, throw it away or leave it at home. Upload all your files in the internet. Find a site that will allow private viewing only that way all your files are just floating in cyberspace and available for retrieval anytime. And for the kikays, keep a back-up vanity kit. It’s so horrible to wake up not owning a compact powder or lip-gloss. It’s a girl thing. And leave the bottle of perfume at home unless you have enjoyed more than half of it.

All that being said, the thing I clearly learned from the whole mishap I pass on as a piece of advice. Carry in your bag only the things that you could afford to lose, which means practically everything actually. The ones that nobody should steal, you carry in your heart.