Never believed that things happen for a reason
But how this turned out, you moved all my doubts, So believe
That for you I’ll do it all over again

Who ever thought a day gone so wrong, would turn out so lovely
Even though the day went so wrong, I wouldn’t change a thing

-- "Again", Bruno Mars

(But this will be the last.)

I told a friend stories of my rabid fangirlism on pop rock bands when I was younger.

I used to scourge for front row tickets, to follow bands to their hotels an hour prior to their concert. I used to spazz, spazz, spazz and spazz about these bands and their band members. I used to love them and day dreamed they'd love me back. You can only imagine how much of a fangirl I was.

Maybe you have experienced that stage as well.

I think that was nothing but a stage for me.

Now thinking of all the trouble I went to... it tires me.

Musicians I like have come and gone in the country, I don't think I was able to watch a single act. (Except for that free Jabbawockeez-Kris Allen concert courtesy of Lia Reyes -thanks!)

First of all concert tickets are so expensive...

Secondly, I don't think I can go through all the spazzing anymore... the effort of running after your idols to get their autographs, pushing people past you so you can get the dead center front row spot.

I kind of feel old. Physically, emotionally and all.

Plus, I don't think I have an ultimate super duper favorite musician today anymore. (Except for John Mayer of course who is one hell of a wise, talented ass. It's weird. I wouldn't even spazz to see J.Mayer. Maybe I'd just stand and listen.)

I feel that I feel too busy to have an ultimate super duper favorite. All I do today is put my player on shuffle or listen to my latest song downloads.

Maybe, today, all I want to do is... sleep when I can, drink when I can, draw and paint beautiful pictures (find my art style), take photos, take better photos, watch a film, shoot a film, spend time with my lover, spend time with my friends, eat out, eat in, play with my dogs, hit the beaches, go on a trip somewhere far.

Man, I am old really...

The outcome of my stressfulness is a little bit of a surrealist kind of poem that I happened to have blurted out to my friend a minute ago. It just popped out of my mind! Pop pop pop.

i am just trying to relax
i want to laugh but i cannot laugh
i want to cry but i cannot cry
i want to jump but i cannot jump because i am seated
i want to run but i cannot run because i am not forrest gump

Times like these, all sad songs seem to make sense. Yes, I've had a bad day.

I enter a roomful of people, spot my friends, with seemingly no room for me anymore. I worry whom to have lunch with. I worry whom to go with after my next class. I worry about going with another group of people, thinking about what they could think at the back of their minds about me. (Please pretend you didn't read this.)

It didn't use to be like this. I wasn't used to being like this.

I am thankful for the handful of people who stay. A friend or two, a lover for the third. What makes me feel sad, is that, no matter how they stay and stick around, there are moments that it just do not suffice.

I don't know why, maybe because some don't really feel like sticking around at some moments.

"Please stay." - A famous quote from our recent play for Lit class.

But some people really go away while your back is turned... literally, and figuratively.

Kahit nakakapagod,
kahit mahirap,
kahit nakakaantok,
kahit nakakatamad,
kahit parang ayaw mo na at pakiramdam mo hindi mo na kaya...

May mga bagay na kailangan mo lang talagang
bigyan ng panahon at oras.

May mga bagay na kailangan mo lang talagang
pag tiyagaan.

Sa huli, pag natapos na ang lahat,
isa lang ang masasabi mo: Sarap.

I'm sorry, sorry for making your life
I'm sorry, sorry for making your life
I'm sorry, sorry for making your life a living hell
- "Sorry, Sorry" by Rooney

Missed listening to this song. Although I cannot exactly relate this song to my week, wala lang feel ko marerelate ko yung chorus. This week has been full of SORRY'S, from me to other people.

Sorry malalate ako.

Sorry may ginawa akong report.

Sorry may plate akong kailangan tapusin.

Sorry uuwi na ako.

Sorry matutulog na ako.

Sorry di ako nakatawag.

Sorry, sorry, sorry.

These sorry's, I didn't want to say them. It's just that sometimes, although you've had your priorities set, you can't avoid to put one on top of another or to disregard some. Extra curricular, academics, my personal life start to clash now. Although I want to be at two places at the same time, I can't. I know I have to concentrate on one thing first, before I move on to the other.

The whole week I slept in the living room, forgetting to eat dinner some nights and disregarding sleep on other nights. I see my mom for less than 4 hours for the day, I only send 2 texts to my boyfriend for the day (one in the morning, one when I get home from school). I fall asleep in jeepneys that I ride in going home late at night. I don't get to go online unless I have to for a homework.

Sorry is not easy to say. Too much of it makes me feel bad. Too much of these sorry's make me feel that I am not good enough. But hopefully it's just all in my mind.

Wish I could still find a way to make it up to every one.

Being in a relationship is not at all easy. You've got to invest in things... time, effort, money and most importantly heart. Being in a relationship doesn't guarantee a great return of investment on a regular basis. Sometimes you give more than you can take, you give things that you can't take back anymore. These are sacrifices you have to make when in love.

Whether you like it or not, things will get rocky. You will feel sad, upset, disappointed - miserable. But the wheel does turn, and there really are rainbows after rainfalls. It might take time, so you've got to be patient. It might take days, weeks, months of waiting for that return of investment that you've been wanting.

His return of your investment will come in acts and things, big or small. When it finally comes to you, it will feel good - as if what you've invested before, no matter how small or great, doesn't matter anymore. What will matter in the end is the greatest return that you'll discover you've had since the beginning, and you apparently have all the time - his heart.

A few months ago I was asked in an interview what I firmly believe in.

I said:

I firmly believe in fate. I believe that if something happened to someone, regardless if it’s good or bad, then it was meant to be, there is a reason it happened, and it happened for the best.

Indeed, it's always true for me.

Take last Saturday for example, when I was supposed to buy 40 orange-colored paper bags (which are so hard to find!!!) to paint with tiger print designs for a make-up project for a class - good thing we weren't able to find what we were looking for last Saturday. Yesterday, my prof said it was alright to get plain craft bags and just attach a tiger accent. It saved me effort and money, thank God. :)

Also yesterday, it took my mom and me more than half an hour in a charms shop in Chinatown just to inquire about crystals as small as my pinky nail. After that, we had dinner at a small Chinese restaurant and as we were walking towards where we were going to ride home, there was a commotion in front of the President Tea House in Ong Pin street. It appears PGMA was going to have a cabinet dinner there. I was able to shake hands with Gibo Teodoro (which is my 2nd bet for president) and it was a nice experience to see PGMA before she actually steps down from her throne.

These are just things that happened to me yesterday, there are still a lot of stories from me. But this is the way it is: life is fate, serendipity, destiny, whatever you call it.

Things just, and will really, happen for a reason. Bad things are blessings in disguises. Think about it, all of us has stories of ourselves during times when we think every thing is messed up, yet in a matter of time the messed up gets fixed. It may not be the way you exactly want it, but in the long run you're going to think that it turned out to be the better. I believe in fate and I believe that there's no such thing as unlucky. We are always at the right place, at the right time, no matter what.

Growing is such a fascination. Funny how back then, I thought commuting to Ayala was so long and far - when in fact it only took one jeepney ride and 20 minutes of travel time to get there, traffic included. Funny how back then, I still took the school bus and to my 10-minute-away school. The only mode of public transportation I knew and felt secure with, was the MRT which just traveled along the long stretch of EDSA and the jeepney from Guadalupe which took me home in a few minutes of travel time.

What an irony: as you grow bigger, your world gets smaller.

I still live in Makati, and now Espana, Manila doesn't seem so far away. What is an hour of travel time, of polluted smoke and vehicle fumes? What is 2 jeepney rides and 2 train rides?

A year ago, when I was fresh in college, I thought going home at 6pm from college was late and unsafe. I thought of fear as the sun went down and I was still in the streets of Manila, struggling in between traffic jams to get to home sweet home.

Now I've gotten used to it. This semester greeted me with dismissal times that I thought impossible: 9 PM, in 3 days of the week (when I only go to school 4 days in a week). What am I and my friends but fearless people, even drinking after 9 and going home in midnight's time.

This is life now. Sleep when you can cos you can't have enough of it. Go to school and have fun with everything, your classes and your classmates. Study hard and be rewarded after. Get out of your classes and whatever time it is, hang out and drink to your bodily needs. Welcome to college. No time is too safe or too dangerous to go home. The world has become small afterall.