Bummer...

So, my best friend from the Philippines did not push through with her trip.

I know she did everything she could to make the trip happen but, yeah...

Hmm, I'm really saddened by the situation because I've been looking forward to seeing her. I already made reservations at restaurants, I thought about where we could go, I made dinner arrangements with one of our Japanese friends. I don't really care about having to cancel the reservations.

But I've just been slightly low-spirited yesterday and the other day.

Before the trip was canceled, I fixed my work schedule so that I can take the afternoon of today, tomorrow and Friday off. I also took Thursday off so I could hang out a full day with her.

Now, I decided to open my evening lessons for today and Friday. I could defo use the work.

I chose to keep the Thursday off. Hmm, I haven't had a proper off day since I first started working. I should start having one in my weekly schedule or else, I'll burn myself out fast... even though I enjoy the job. Hehe!

So, I think I'll just do something nice on Thursday and still pretend that the trip pushed through.

Prayers for Orlando...

What horrific news to wake up to.

Prayers for Orlando. Love is love is love. End the hate.

Buhbye, PB...

Over the weekend, I received a very sad message via FB from a friend I haven't seen in a long time.

The message was short.

"PB passed on. He committed suicide this morning."

It wasn't the kind of message you'd want to hear just as your weekend is about to start. It's not the kind of message you ever want to receive. Period.

But there it was.

I haven't really seen PB for a long, long time. I didn't know him that well, too.

The time we got to spend together was very short.

It was such a long time ago. I was starting with my professional life. He was still going through college.

One memory I have of him is that we wrote poetry together... literally.

But as I've said, that was such a long time ago.

Obviously, a lot of things have happened since then.

I wonder though what kind of things. What led PB to decide to put an end to things? And as my good friend Carlo said, he's not even 30 yet. A whole life still waited for him.

The photo above is one of the last entries in his blog.

No, I think it was the last entry.

The following day, he did put an end to it all.

Rest in peace, PB. Praying for you.

Rest in peace, Clarence...

I received really terrible news yesterday morning.

Work friend Engel DM'd me via Twitter that our colleague Clarence was robbed and stabbed to death by by two guys in his own home Saturday night.

I was walking to Greenbelt when I read Engel's message.

After reading his message, I felt my knees wobble and my heartbeat go faster.

It can't be.

Clarence was one of the few people I know from Engel's department (their unit is the other team occupying the floor where my department is). He's always smiling. He's a very nice guy. He's funny.

Whenever we'd see each other along the hallway, we'd always say hi to each other and even stop for some small talk. There was a never moment that he didn't have a ready smile on his face.

So the news of his passing, and in such an inhumane way, was just really hard to believe.

You see something similar in tabloids every day, but this was too close to home.

And I'm sorry but I'm angry at how some of the tabloids wrote the news.

In particular, two tabloid articles had the following titles - "Bading kinatay ng 2 kelot" and "Bading na bisor inatado ng 2 boytoy"

Whattashet?!

And I'm sorry but after reading the different news articles, I can't help but wonder why none of Clarence's neighbors bothered to come to his aid or at the very least, call the police.

All the news articles mentioned that the neighbors were already hearing some noise and commotion coming from Clarence's unit, but no one came.

Dahil ayaw daw nilang makialam. Writing this now, I can't help but get angry.

It wasn't until a neighbor saw blood creeping out of Clarence's unit very early morning that the incident was reported.

I can't help but wonder if Clarence could've survived, if a neighbor bothered to come check on him.

The incident happened late Saturday night. Based on the news reports, Clarence was stabbed not with knives, but with ballpen, fork and ladle. The thought of him bleeding to death, feeling the pain, and maybe even conscious as the world around him turned dark, is just too much.

If there is anything positive about the whole situation, it's that Clarence was smart enough to hide his phone and that he was able to take pictures of the two guys he was with. Good job on that, Clarence.

That should already help the authorities.

Rest in peace, Clarence.

The news here.

Thanks, Sir Sid...

Over lunch last Monday, tragic news was served.

One of my bosses asked, "Do you know Sid Hildawa?" I go, "Yeah, he was my professor back in college."

"He passed away."

Whoa! That was really quite some shocking news. Just a couple of weeks ago, we had an event for one of our community projects with the Cultural Center of the Philippines and he was there. He looked very thin though, and I had no idea if that had anything to do with what happened.

Sir Sid was my professor in two elective classes - Photography and Drawing/Sketching. I took up Drawing/Sketching during my senior year, while the rest of my classmates were enrolled in Anthropology. Hahaha! I was the blockhead so getting a different class - a class that I liked and a professor who I heard gave lots of 1.0s and 1.25s - was my little prize for being the slave of the class. Haha! Anyway, our classes were held every Saturday morning, and for three hours, we would be drawing things of all sorts - rubber shoes, egg with a shadow, a mug, a mineral water bottle, our classmates. My favorite topic was portraits. I was proud of my Marilyn Monroe and my Anna Nicole Smith (before she was a pair of boobs, she was a Guess goddess and I loved her at that time), because I've always thought portraits are difficult. But Sir Sid taught us good techniques and how to dissect the human face.

After college, I took another elective class - Photography. Back then, we used the "original" SLR. Digital SLRs were yet to come. Like with my Sketching class, I learned a lot. And the fundamental principles of photography that I learned and which I have been using in my job are all thanks to Sir Sid. My favorite part in Photography was when we would go to the dark room of CCP to develop our photos. We'd treat the film ourselves and get amazed once the photos we took appear on the photo paper. We were like kids who just saw magic. Haha!

Little did I know that I would cross paths with Sir Sid several years after college. When I joined the company I'm working with right now, I was surprised when I found out that we had a community project with him. It really is a small world. I'm not sure if I ever got to walk up to him to tell him I was his student and to thank him once again, and that's sort of a regret. Hay.

But who knows? There might be wireless Internet in heaven, and Sir Sid might stumble upon this little, personal "tribute." I'll also try to locate my sketchbook and see if I can post my drawings.

Thank you, Sir Sid!

About Sid Hildawa via ClickTheCity.com:
Hildawa headed the CCP Visual, Literary and Media Arts Department. A recipient of the 2007 Asian Cultural Council grant, he was likewise an architect, writer, poet and educator. He was a member of the United Architects of the Philippines and Art Association of the Philippines. He was recognized twice by The Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards. He was also a two-time recipient of the Philippine Free Press Literary Award for poetry; author of Regarding Space, published in 2005 by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts under the "Ubod" First Author Series; and a featured artist in several one-man exhibits.

He was a recipient of the CCP Thirteen Artists Award, a British Council fellow for art and architecture, and a poetry fellow at the University of the Philippines' National Writers' Workshop and Iligan National Writers' Workshop.