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| | Again, here I am apologising for being extremely lax with my blog updates. I guess I have been rather busy lately, I have had neither the time nor the inclination to actually write something, even though I have so much to say and the limited attention span of people who read these things.
Well to start off, I am officially unemployed. And poor. I quit the Commonwealth Bank two weeks after I got back from the Philippines. Reason? Well, I was under increasing stress from university; work demands were totally driving me up the wall. All these major assignments that had to be handed in towards the end of semester; if I hadn't quit my job, I certainly would not have had the time to complete them. And thus I would've had certain failures in my subjects. Speaking of stress, I have just come off a week where I had three exams in four days. Now, that in itself wouldn't be so bad…if it wasn't for the fact that THE HARDEST DAMN SUBJECTS HAD TO BE IN THE FIRST TWO DAYS! ARGHHH.
Anyway, let me try to recount the past couple of months. There are basically two major things that have happened in my life: the trip to the Philippines and when we came back, meeting our visitors from the Philippines. Other than that, my life has been rather dull, ordinary and unremarkable, save for university.
So first things first. My trip to the Philippines.
Going to the Philippines truly was an eye and mind-opening experience. I admit, I was totally reluctant to go to the Philippines in the first place. The only reason why I wanted to go was because it was my Lolo's 80th birthday. Nine days seemed long enough to me; originally we had planned it to be two-three weeks and I felt like that was too long already. Little did I know at the time that even three weeks STILL would not have been enough.
So, here we were at the airport at 7am morning, which was Saturday 17 April. We had the Ocampos seeing us off at the airport…bless their kind souls. We had a stop off in Sydney and my mum made a few friends in the waiting area. I actually had a profound experience with one of the people we met and I wrote it to my friend Rachelle in an email. I expressed it best in that email and I didn't want to rewrite it, so I'll just quote it directly:
Quote:
While I was waiting at the airport, I was telling this Filipina woman at how I don't have a girlfriend and that the whole dating scene sucks. She told me that "Australians, they just leave you. But Filipinas, they stay with you forever". Those words have resonated in my head all this time. And from talking to you, and my cousins, it certainly seems that way. In fact, I have been having such vivid dreams during my stay here and I woke up and found myself muttering "they stay with you forever" while I was half-asleep...because it is such a powerful phrase.
End Quote.
And I found it to be very true.
We arrived in Manila Airport sometime that evening. We had already been delayed a couple of hours because of some refuelling difficulties (apparently). It took us an hour to get through customs and to get our baggage. By that time, we were totally pooped out. It was such a relief to see our relatives. And the first thing to hit you once you walk out of the airport: the smell. Yikes. I didn't mind it at all; I got used to it after 10 minutes or so and never noticed it afterwards, but it would be quite a shock to those not familiar with the country. But that smell has so much meaning...it meant that we are in the country we love. We are HOME.
Anyway, I will keep this fairly brief, as I will write a more structured day-to-day breakdown of our trip and write a more detailed social commentary some other time. But basically here are a list of places/malls we went to: Glorietta, Shangri La, Rockwell, Green Hills, Megamall, SM North Edsa, SM Fairview Greenbelt, Makati, Paranaque, Eastwood, Balut, Tondo, Tarlac, Pampanga, San Mateo, Novaliches, Caloocan City.
I also got to FINALLY meet up with a long-time friend, Rachelle, who I had started chatting to about 5 years ago. We've been emailing each other ever since, but I never got the opportunity to meet her because she lives in Makati and I live in Melbourne. I also got to meet up with Laica and Kuya Jay and we all had dinner together in Greenbelt 3. But I was so privileged to finally meet Rachelle, who had been there for me all these years, during my most difficult times. She is one of the kindest, politest, and most considerate people out there. And she was the same in person as she was through email. I also noticed that she and the friends she brought with her were really shy, so I tried my best to make them feel comfortable by cracking jokes and paying them lots of attention. I am truly blessed to know someone like her and to meet her face-to-face. I cannot say enough about her. Let me just say that her boyfriend is one of the luckiest guys on this earth. One thing I regret though, is that I didn't get a photo with her. I brought my camera and I FORGOT! DOH.
On the Thursday evening, we went up to Victoria, Tarlac and stayed at the Bagsic's. The party was on the Saturday, so we spent Friday just relaxing and hanging out in Victoria.
The party on Sunday was a rather large affair. There were a LOT of people there and everyone there was related to us somehow, either through the Dulu or the Mandap side. It was good to see all these people whose lives my grandfather has touched. Although I could not communicate with them (I didn't know Kapampangan) but it was still good to see my dad, especially, see all the relatives he had not seen for years.
We went back to Manila that night and spent the rest of the time there doing more visiting people and mall visiting.
One thing that will stay with me forever is us visiting Tatay Nonoy and Nanay Inday, the family of Ate Nikka. I've written about her in an earlier blog entry, but I'll recap for those who don't know the story:
Quote:
Actually, they almost made me cry. They reminded me of my cousin, Ate Nikka, who died of cancer at the start of 2001...I loved her to bits and she had only just turned 28 when she passed away. Last Saturday, while at the table, Nanay told me that I looked like her...that was the ultimate compliment and at that moment I almost burst into tears. We both look mestiso/mestisa...her last name was Villa and although my surname is Dulu, everyone says that I look just like a Villa. My mum always says that I look like Ate Nikka's dad when he was my age. Apparently, the Villas had Spanish ancestors and everyone on the Villa side of the family are mestiso/mestisa. But just talking about Ate Nikka made me want to cry and I changed subject because I really miss her so much. She was so beautiful and talented, and she was taken away from us way too soon. She was an actress and singer in the Philippines...our love for the performing arts was the bond that we had. It's so sad that she never was able to see me perform or anything like that...I know she would've loved it. I actually have a framed picture of her by my bedside...I know that she is watching over me and I hope that she is proud of me, that I'm following in her footsteps to becoming a performer. I miss her so much.
End Quote.
It's true what they said about me looking like Tatay Nonoy. Everyone said that I looked like him at my age. One thing about that story that has changed since then though...I have actually found out that I AM mestizo (the proper spelling). My great-grandfather was Spanish who married a Chinese-Filipina. I've worked it out, that from both sides of the family, that I am 3/4 Filipino, 1/8 Chinese and 1/8 Spanish. That explains a LOT.
Anyway, visiting the house was an extremely emotional affair. This was the same house that I had visited, almost 16 years ago. I have an old photo of me with Ate Nina and Ate Nikka, and another photo with everyone else on the corkscrew-like stairs. I finally got to see Ate Nikka's shrine - where they interred her ashes. I took so many photos that night...of the shrine, of the theatre programs that Mikki showed me, of the many photos of her around the house...and also of the staircase that I remembered so vividly. Mikki was such a bright and bubbly boy and told me how much she adored his sister...and also how much of an inspiration she was to him as well. I told him that it was the both of us who were inspired by her.
Before I left, I said a few words and a little prayer to Ate Nikka at the shrine. I choked up and wanted to cry after that, but for me, to see her shrine was some sort of closure, because I promised myself that I would visit the shrine the next time I went to the Philippines. And I had waited so many years.
But what really depressed me was the vacant look in Tatay Nonoy's eyes. Even though it had been more than three years, he hasn't seemed to get over Ate Nikka's passing. He seemed so malungkut every time we saw him. He saw me make that prayer at Ate Nikka's shrine and all I could see was the sadness in his eyes. My heart goes out to him.
We left Manila on the 26th, which was Monday evening. We arrived back in Melbourne on the 27th after 14 hours and two stop offs - one in Brisbane and one in Sydney! Needless to say, I was exhausted. And I had to go back to work the day after!
But I loved my experience. I truly enjoyed my time there. And I want to go back because now I realise that 9 days certainly was not enough. But it won't be for a while.
And it was really good that we managed to visit pretty much all our relatives over there, even though it was for an hour or two, since we had such limited time. Besides the whole Dulu clan, we got to visit Tita Liza with Marivic, Jeff, Grace and Michelle...she is sooooo cute! I nicknamed her “bunso” (which means the youngest child). We also got to see Ate Ayeen's family and their kid, Paula (or Pau-Pau) is so cute as well! We also saw Helene and Tita Eileen. Helene is still the sweet cousin I have always known. She is so kind and I felt sorry for her because everyone made fun of her weight. But to me, she is beautiful because she has such a kind and loving heart. We also got to see our new nephew, Linus, Kuya Bernie and Ate Chiqui's newborn.
But it was good to see them all the same. I miss them now.
The other major thing that has happened in the past couple of months is this family visiting our church from the Philippines.
This family stayed at Pastor's house and we quickly struck up friendships with the family. There were 8 of them - a family with four kids, plus uncle and auntie. We became especially close to the children, three girls and a boy. Janice (who is my age), Happy, Jenny and JR. I helped take them out around Melbourne and also we went to Healesville and Maroondah dam, which is past the outskirts of Melbourne.
They were a very modest and kind-hearted family. It was an honour to meet them. I really liked Janice in particular. But I have not the heart to go into details here. It's extremely personal to me.
Also, Janice will most likely come out here to Melbourne to study her Masters. She has applied for RMIT and Melbourne Uni and she will know over the next few weeks whether she has been accepted. She will come out to Australia either in July or early next year. I pray that she gets accepted into a uni and that she would consider settling here in Australia.
I miss them as well. They were very nice people.
Oh and one more important thing that I have actually known for months, but never have put it in my blog: I have been accepted into Los Angeles Music Academy. I sent off the audition tape by mail plus a hurriedly-written letter that I wrote at Michelle's. They received the package within one week. Remarkably, LESS than a week later, I get an email from the school that I was accepted. I was so happy, yet sad at the same time. I'll reflect more on these implications in a later entry, but I just wanted to let everyone know that I will be in LA by March next year.
This is the plan: My family and the Ocampos go to San Francisco - Fremont specifically, just before Christmas and spend Christmas there with my relatives around that area. They will then go home after a few weeks, leaving me there. I'll probably stay with Tatay Boboy for a month or so, to settle down, before moving down to LA sometime in February. My main concern though, is how I get my drums, my keyboard, bass guitar and amp, 12-channel mixer, computer, iPod, my many CDs and bookshelf of classical literature over there...
It's less than 6 months away now. I am so excited.
- 4. She Will Be Loved | | | Posted 6/16/2004 11:07 AM - 1 view - 3 comments
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