The B*tch Named Luck

Luck. The most loved word just next to words love and lust which ironically all starts with the letter 'L'. One of the most important realizations came to me just a few days ago. Luck is a traitor disguised as a good element.

Let's face it people are sucker for anything big and worth bragging about such as a lottery jackpot, academic honors, promotions or just about anything big. And as always before actions they rely on luck to pave the way to success for them. Call it pathetic but that's the reality. Humans are naturally materialistic and greedy people. We always want something more than what we really need and we thrive to achieve greater things and be bigger than everyone else. So when a big empty but convincing promise appears at our doorstep which promises a chance in glory we hurriedly bite on it like starving hounds even if chances to reach that glory is too slim with hundreds, thousands and sometimes millions others running after that chance. People would rather sit around and forget that the world continues to move forward once they rely on luck. However, these hungry hounds don't realize that the moment they chose to sit around and wait for their so called luck, they have just placed their stakes too high. Every moment they spent in waiting and sitting around were wasted time that they could have used to better themselves, their skills and explore other more realistic opportunities around them. Another minute of waiting could have been the minute when your boss, teacher or some capable person discovered your potentials and offered to help you find your way up. Too bad though because between  the lines separating reality and fantasy people always choose to believe fantasy.

Most people get easily blinded by the idea of "chance". They spend the rest of the time dreaming about what they're going to do in the future with their "winnings" like it's a sure win for them. Acting ahead without doing anything to realistically attain it, a lot of us are guilty of that. Everyone's been there and even if we know that it's wrong, we just can't help but fall for it simply because that's what luck is all about. Personally, I believe that luck does not exist to motivate us to create our own desired results that, we can sit around plot our future plans with the "winnings" thinking that "luck" will do the rest of the work. Rather, luck exists to motivate us that even though we are in the midst of struggle or almost trapped in the sphere of impossibility, good things can still prevail. If only we believe that we can get through it all and work our way through it, we can. Luck is us. People don't just get lucky overnight. Everything is attained through sheer hard work, motivation and skills. A lot of times we see people we admire and envy because of how far they've gone in their lives. We often envy them of their luck in life when actually those glitters we see speaks of the fact that none of it would be possible if not for hard work and motivation. I think that people also tend to believe in the existence of luck because it helps them absorb as much positive energy as they can that too much of it makes them over dependent on luck. This in turn, makes them nothing but stubborn, miserable, frustrated and forever envious of other people's successes.

I hate saying or being told of "Good Luck" because I don't believe in good lucks. There's only hard work and a result. If you don't like the result, then you must find a way to improve it. Your life lies in your hands and yours alone but never in the idea of luck. If you see successful people don't hate on them, imitate them or better outperform them but never ever put your life on break for the sake of luck. Once you get to where you want to be through your own skills I'm sure the feeling and experience would definitely feel so priceless that not even the hundreds of millions of bucks of jackpot prize from the lottery can ever buy.



Now Listening to "Sweetest Thing" by U2.

The Calm Before the Storm

I have been dying to start blogging again after a year of being in hiatus from the blogging world as I have been so overwhelmingly busy with my final year in college. Here I am sitting right now and my mind is totally blank. For the past few months I have told myself that as soon as I dive back into blogging my first entry must be something meaningful and would start at a positive note. I guess my original plan won’t push through as here I am thinking of something positive to blog about but this job-seeking dilemma’s been clouding my mind as it has always been since I finished school. Since there’s nothing really good to blog about I might as well just start blogging about my journey towards finding THE job.

                I entered college with two definite goals. First, to excel academically. Second, to finish college with excellent grades and get a good job, a job that I will enjoy not just a job that I will immerse myself into for the years to come because I need to earn for a living. When I passed my entrance exams in the school I attended my first choice was AB Communication Arts. This is the field I enjoyed and I believe where I fit so I took it even against the will of my mother. My second choice on the other hand was BS Business Administration Major in Marketing. Honestly, at that time Marketing was merely a word to me. I only had a minuscule understanding of what Marketing was all about. I only chose Business Administration as my second course because I know this is what my mother wanted me to take. Also, this was pretty much one of the most popular courses parents wanted their children to take in college because employment under this field is faster and the demand they say is bigger in contrast to my first choice. When I got my entrance exam results, Lord and behold I was informed that I can take ANY course I want even those not included on my top two choices. I fleetingly considered BS Accountancy. I know the employment demand on this field is high and not many people would take this course as it is five years of math which is clearly a mental torture especially if you are not a diehard math fan. In the end I still chose AB Communication Arts and my mother finally gave in.

 To some people especially to highly conservative and traditional parents my decision would appear absurd and totally a huge mistake. I have three reasons why I opted for my first choice. One, I chose AB Communication Arts because I knew this was my forte. Second, I cannot imagine taking another course that I do not like and dealing with it for the rest of my life. I thought, I’ve had enough dramas in my life. I’m living not only to earn money but to enjoy life. What is the purpose of the money you are earning if you’re miserable? Cliche as it may seem but it is true that money can’t buy happiness. Third, if ever I’ve made a mistake in choosing which course I should have taken, I put the blame on the Philippine educational system. I believe that many students take courses that initially attract them and realize later on that they’re not really cut out for it and end up shifting to another course. Such things happen due to the lack of information of the young people regarding different fields.  Right now I’m starting to semi-believe that I may have made a mistake indeed in my choice of course. Back then I did not know that you can work in the field of Advertising or Marketing Communication even if you did not major in Advertising, Mass Communication or Communication. The thing they call brain drain happened. College graduates applied and took jobs that are totally different from the course they studied in college creating imbalance in the business field. This wouldn’t have happened if the people were well educated and given extensive information early on about the different fields they can possibly take on.  Anyway, the thing is I could have easily picked Business Administration Major in Marketing but I decided to take what I really wanted and the field where I want to see myself in the following years to come.

In my entire four years in college more than half of it has been very glorious. So many opportunities that I did not expect to come came along. Due to my determination to turn my life around and start anew, I worked so hard to excel on my studies. Thankfully, my efforts paid off as I cannot imagine how much effort anymore to exert if I did not succeed in excelling academically. Good thing, after three semesters of sweat and tears, I finally made it to the Dean’s List and I enjoyed that sweet victory and title for three more semesters. I never faltered and went nowhere but forward and up. Eventually I found myself finally being recognized by people around but still made sure that I kept firm on the ground. I am going to lie if I said that I did not enjoy the attention of course I did. With it came along a surge of pressure from people which I had to carry along until the end. It was hard but between the life I led back in high school and in college I’d stick to my college life. Everything seemed perfect to me. I hear a lot of people say that high school is the best part of their lives. For me my high school was my college life. It’s the highlight of my life. This is the time where I learned how far I can go and this is where I became aware of the real world around me. This time of my life marked the point where I can say I have changed and matured. It was in college where I got a chance to live away from my own comfort zone—my family, helpers and home. For almost a year, I lived in a dorm which allowed me to play by my own rules. It was exciting because finally I get to taste freedom but at the same time it was also scary as this situation just happened to me without any notice or hint. The moment just came. One day, I am at home with everyone who I’ve lived with my whole life then the next day there I was in my own bed in a room with two roommates who are even three years younger than I am. I was scared because I didn’t know what to expect to myself with the door of freedom wide open allowing as much temptations to come along. I was afraid I might mess up and ruin everything I’ve worked hard for for years or worse even ruin my life for good. I was careful not to do anything stupid but that does not mean I lived a totally boring life while in the dorm. I have to let loose every now and then. I know I deserve to have a little fun with all the stress final year brought upon me, I think it’s important to take a break once a while. I always make sure that I did my job well while I was in the dorm. I always think that I have to stay serious with my studies no matter what, I semi-succeeded on that part, yes, semi-succeeded because I wasn’t able to graduate with Honors which I still can’t get over until now especially when I found out that my average was only 0.0081 shy from the required average for Cum Laude.


 The last semester of my college year was anything but bittersweet.  There where some good moments but there were also some bad moments. It felt like every bad thing that could have happened to me for the first three years all just came along in my final year. My first three years have been generally smooth flowing. I guess all of the problems gathered themselves up together and exploded in my final year in college. It was such a frustrating year in terms of academics. Sometimes it felt like things just weren’t going the way it was supposed to go. So many wrong things kept on happening, one after the another. Though I made it through with really good grades, it wasn’t the grades I wanted. The biggest blow came just a few weeks before graduation. I had to deal with a problem in one of my major subjects which I never thought would ever happen to me as I have always been very strict when it comes to my studies. Whatever happened I still firmly believe that I deserved more than what I got. I know that it was because of this subject why I didn’t made the cut for the Latin Honors.

Now, time to move on. Finally, I have joined the bandwagon, fresh graduate on a hunt for her ideal job. After so many months of waiting for a job I have finally snagged it during the last week of June. So I did my medical exams during the first week of July and passed my requirements on the same week.  The feeling was more comforting than happy actually. I’m happy that I finally have a job and that I no longer need to receive any naggings about job seeking from my forever impatient and control freak mother. All the excitement of job seeking  has totally dissipated because of my mother’s OC tendencies and impatience. Every single day of waiting for a job offer felt like a thousand years for me. It was a mental and emotional torture to me. I always worry that my mother would nag at me again about job and about my course. Of course I had no choice but to listen to her ultimatums everytime. Most of her words were piercing but what can I do, she’s THE mother.  As my mother always says, she is the law in this house and everything must go her way or its world war.  I just really feel that I deserved better. If others made it through I should get through it smoothly myself given how much I have worked hard back in college.

Waiting is the worst feeling in the world. It’s so cruel and torturous because you never know what to expect and when. You just know something about it enough to get you through and feel comforted for a little while but clueless about what really lies ahead and the pain that it has brought along in between. Most of the time I feel like I have already reached the dead end of my life feeling like I don’t know anymore where to go if I don’t see the right path. I so badly want to push forward but I am lost in the agony of waiting. I am just hoping that all of these pains will be worth it and when this is all over good things will come ahead.  

Now Listening to "Elephant Love Medley" by Ewan McGregor & Nicole Kidman for Moulin Rouge OST

Kitchen Wonders

Japanese Omelete Rice with Tomatoes (Dosanko Cooking Recipe)

Creamy Mashed Potatoes

Spicy Cream Dory Fish Fillet in Lemon Butter Sauce 

I was still a teenager the last time I stepped inside the kitchen to learn the art of cooking and to find out if I have a flair for cooking. However, that curiosity almost burned down our house. From then on, I've decided I do not belong in the kitchen. Now that I am 21, and due to some circumstances I've faced for the past year, here I am back in the kitchen trying my luck at cooking. The very first dish I prepared was Mashed Potatoes. It all started out due to my incessant craving for Mashed Potatoes. My biggest fear in cooking was preparing something inedible which would just lead to wasting the ingredients. Thankfully, my Mashed Potatoes turned out really well as I found myself eating it for two days straight. The next meal I prepared which unfortunately I wasn't able to capture a photo of was an Asian Recipe for tofu. I have always enjoyed eating tofu since I was a kid. So, for my next dish I found an Asian recipe that seemed really easy to do. The taste didn't turned out as how I wanted it to be. I blame it on the soy sauce I used. It wasn't an utter disaster but it wasn't what I wanted it to taste like and I'm pretty sure it wasn't supposed to taste that way as well. At first I thought that another Kitchen disaster would stop me from learning how to cook for good but I was wrong. Despite my not so successful follow up dish after the Mashed Potatoes I tried fish. I have never held raw meat for more than ten seconds ever in my entire life. I promised to myself that never will I touch raw meat because I just find it so disgusting. But then nobody learns how to cook without touching raw meat so for my third dish I decided to work on Spicy Fish Fillet in Lemon Butter Sauce. I believe this is my most successful dish as my mom and sister totally enjoyed it. it was only after cooking this recipe that I realized how much my cooking skills have improved. before I could barely touch fish now I'm fine marinating fish and cooking it on my own. This dish took me around 1 1/2 hours to finish. It was an arduous job but still worth doing. Then when I craved for Mashita's Kimchi Fried Rice that's simply to die for, I bought Kimchi and cooked Kimchi Fried Rice. Again, it was well loved by my mom and my sister that I cooked it twice. Then three days ago I prepared this dish called Japanese Omelet Rice with Tomatoes which I saw from a Japanese cooking show at AFC channel. it wasn't hard but it took me hours slicing carrots and onions into bits because I prefer them in bits than big slices. Anyway it turned out really well. Finally I can stop telling people that I can't cook and look ignorant when people talk about cooking.


I pride myself for learning how to cook without help from anyone but myself. One of the most essential things that a person has to learn before dying is to cook. As the cliche goes, food is the way to a man/woman's heart. It is the perfect expression of love and desire. Why? I believe because of the fact that Cooking is a skill that is developed through time. It's not something that you acquire easily. You have to have determination to learn to cook before you appreciate it. It is a tedious process as there are different flavors, and cooking techniques that has to be learned. Obviously time and patience are also two important keys in the learning process. This also answers the question why not all people can cook. I believe that food is the ultimate form of romance because before it turns into a dish, it undergoes so many processes. Initially, it is nothing but a combination or raw ingredients. it is through the skills of the person that these raw products are turned into something edible...something special. The mere idea of putting so much effort into preparing a dish for a person is enough already as a reason why a dish prepared for someone is special. This is not something that everyone can or will do.  People are naturally in love with food and it is something that we can never say no to. It binds friendships, families, lovers and even enemies. A dish is a perfect comparison to relationships. We don't meet people and right away say that we click with them. Building relationships takes time as cooking takes time to learn. We get to know people first and their roles in our lives just like how we familiarize ourselves with different flavors and cooking techniques. From there, we begin to establish relationships with these people just like how we start to finally prepare dishes as soon as we learn the flavors and techniques. I guess this is why food is very close to our hearts. It tells our story.



More dishes to be served soon...


Now Listening to: "Strange" by Tokio Hotel Feat. Kerli