5 min read At the stroke of midnight on the eve of the Lunar New Year, I found myself standing on the famous shorelines of Boracay, marvelling at the fireworks that illuminated its night sky. I was in the company of some of my college best friends, people I realise I’ve now known for half of my life….
Category: Personal Stories
Little Moments That Make Home
7 min read 🎶 Pagbibigyan na lang silangMagkandarapa na manligaw sayoIdadaan na lang kita sa awitin kong itoSabay ang tugtog ng gitara 🎶 Parokya ni Edgar’s Gitara played on the car stereo as we drove through the winding roads of Bohol. It was from a Spotify playlist curated by my cousins who are on average 10 years my…
Warm Fuzzy Feeling
< 1 min read There’s something about rainy days that bring about warm fuzzy feelings. You wake up to a barely illuminated bedroom seeing as the sun hasn’t shone. You decide to lie in bed just a little longer hoping to hang on to the lingering dreamy languor of the previous night’s sleep. To no avail because you’ve already…
One Night
< 1 min read A microstory. “You were gone when I woke up, did I just dream it?” Twenty hours earlier, she would be tiptoeing around his hotel room, picking up pieces of her clothing scattered all over the place, careful not to make any noise. She opted to take off before sunrise with barely any sleep, to attempt…
In Memory Of A Life Well Lived
3 min read I remember that fateful Sunday morning clearly in my head, three years to this day. I was woken up from deep slumber by a familiar ringtone, a call from Tita Lucille via Facebook’s messenger. I had an inkling it was a call to be dreaded. I never get phone calls from family not preceded by…
A Teacher’s Resilience in the Time of COVID
3 min read For the past few months, my Tita Wen, a public high school teacher, would occasionally call me to ask for help in initiating online meetings via Zoom, Microsoft Teams and most recently, Google Meets. These weren’t the most pleasurable of times. More often than not, my patience would already run out five minutes into the…
Mahjong
3 min read While casually talking about weekend plans over lunch the other day, one of my new colleagues said she was going to her friend’s house to play Mahjong. She’s 26. I was surprised. I’ve always thought of Mahjong as a game old people play. It reminded me of my late grandfather who used to frequent the…
The Friends Who Know Their Priorities
3 min read It was towards the end of 2010, my final semester in university and possibly my last chance to find my break into the modelling world (arguably a faster ticket to becoming rich) before I graduate into the real world of working adults. My college, CBA, was having its culminating night in a club in Tomas…
I Wanted to Become A Beauty Queen
3 min read “Gat ngaa wala mo gid sato naisipan mag sali sa mga mutya mutya noh?“ (Translation: Why didn’t you ever think of joining beauty pageants?) I laughed out loud at the question. When I regained my composure, I confessed to my friend Val. Once upon a time I did. In Grade 2, I auditioned to be…
Positive Infectious Encounter (Not The Viral Kind)
3 min read “What scent are you wearing?” I was slightly taken aback. I thought for a moment my Grab driver was trying to hit on me especially because I was wearing a low-cut midi red dress that revealed a bit of flesh. Though truth be told there was not much to show for it. “Oh it’s Chanel.”…