An agent of mine once told me that most times, the person that you are in a long-term relationship with would have 90% of all the qualities that you look for in a partner. Yet, you still long for that remaining 10% that the person doesn't have. Because of that, if someone comes into your life who possesses just that 10% you're yearning for, you get blinded. You tell yourself, "this must be the one." You forget that he's only got 10% of what you're looking for, since you are overwhelmed with joy for having found that 10%.

What you need to do is to assess yourself. What do you really want? What/Who would make you happy in the long run? I think one of the important questions is, "Do I imagine myself being married to this person and being happy?"

A lot of people ask me why I take my relationship seriously and why I think of marriage at this point of my life. They say that it's too early. I realize that my pochim defines who I am. Where I am today and all the decisions I've made were influenced by him. I know it's cliche and it's been used to many times...but he completes me. Ü He has 90% of what I'm looking for in a guy and I don't care about the remaining 10% anymore. I mean, we can always compromise on certain things we want in our relationship.

It's been 6 years, pochim, and I feel that I still have a lot to learn about you. And I look forward to it. Every step I take from this point on, I want you right beside me, holding my hand.

During my 1st term in DLSU, in my CRITHIN class, our professor asked us to read a poem by Khalil Gibran. I'm not a poem-person but this one really hit me. I felt the need to share it with my pochim back then. To tell you honestly, I do not completely know what the poem means. Just bits and pieces of it. I just think that the first few lines say it all...

On Love
~Khalil Gibran

When love beckons to you follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.
For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you.
Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.
Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire,
that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.
All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart,
and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart.
But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh,
but not all of your laughter,
and weep, but not all of your tears.
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.
When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart,"
but rather, I am in the heart of God."
And think not you can direct the course of love,
if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
Love has no other desire but to fulfil itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires,
let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

I'm Yours

I just love Jason Mraz and this is one of my favorites. I dunno, it's just so sweet. Ü

Life in a call center sounds simple. You come to work. You wait for that oh-so-familiar toot-toot and talk to someone from the other side of the world. When 01 strikes, you log out. That's it!

For someone like me, who is anti-social most of the time, it took a while before I got promoted. For starters, I do not like to talk to people who have ideas I don't necessarily agree with. I don't talk to people who think that they're better than everyone else and I HATE POSERS!! There's this particular supervisor who always talks about driving a car that he just bought but no one has ever seen this so-called car! I mean, I drive a car but I certainly don't announce that fact to the whole universe.

Anyways, back to my topic. I've never been one to kiss ass. I remember when I was in high school, my friend Charm would always sit in front of class and make jokes. My Statistics teacher would always notice her and would give her extensions for projects and stuff like that. Ugh! That's just not me awkay??

So when it was time for me to enter the corporate world (I wound up in the call center world), I didn't know that ass kissing is a needed skill in order to move to a higher position in the shortest time possible. Of course, having a normal-sized brain counts but in my (back then) naive mind, it was enough that you have good intentions and you are able to deliver quality answers during the interview. But no! I had to learn how to kiss ass. It took me 2 long years to finally realize that. I'm such a late bloomer. Aye!

Anyways, a lot has happened at work. Agents have become supervisors and supervisors became managers. Although most of them really deserve their respective promotions. I can't help but notice those bright and shiny lemons among the plums...they're bright and cheery on the outside, sour and bitter on the inside. Another chapter in my life. I have got to learn how to kiss ass. And quickly.

When I was promoted as a supervisor last December, I was very excited. I looked forward to every working day because I knew that I was gonna learn something new. I thought then that everything I had to deal with was challenging. I had to learn how to get along with my agents and make them feel that they could trust me and I had to learn all this Excel stuff that I weren't too fond of.

Little did I know that come regularization, everything would be different. I would have grown very tired of the seemingly routinary things that I have been doing for the past 6 months.

I guess getting tired and wanting something new happens to everyone who has any job. Whether you're a bus driver or a rocket scientist, you are bound to get very sick of your job at some point.

I guess the only way to go about it is to find a distraction. Either that or find someone to flirt with at work. Haha.

We watched Superman a week ago in Mall of Asia since my potsim scored some tickets to the advanced screening (Yay!). I'm not really into comic-book-turned-movies so I walked into the theater without expectations. I realized though, how hot Brandon Routh is. Hahaha! I heart you Brandon!!

I've always wanted to be a nurse when I was a lot younger. Back then, Nursing was not as popular as it is now. I was probably influence by the plethora of nurses in our family. Tita Juliet is a nurse, so is Tita Vic...as well as Tita Donna...not to mention Tita Roanie. I guess it just seemed like the most logical thing to be, at the back of my 7-year-old mind. I remember I was in first grade, my teacher asked what we wanted to be when we grew up. Most of my classmates said they wanted to be doctors, lawyers or teachers. I was the only one who said that I wanted to be a nurse. I remember everyone looking at me like I was out of my mind. I didn't know much as to what nurses do, except to help out the doctor during operations. I was not aware that being a nurse involved bed pans and urine bags.

The point is, most of the time, we don't end up what we had imagined we would be at 7. I mean, I never thought I'd graduate with a degree in Economics. Hell, I hated my Economics teacher in high school. I never thought I'd have a career in a call center either. No one even wondered (back then) about who the people were behind directory assistance (114), whom I used to call to ask for Pizza Hut's phone number when my dad was in the mood for pizza.

Whenever I think back on the past, I often wonder if I would have been happier had I chosen a different course or career. Could I have gone to medical school had I taken up Med Tech in UST? Or could I have ended up pregnant without a husband?

I know it's cliche but I guess everything does happen for a reason. God did not make me this way (nice and cute) just for the heck of it. All the choices I have made in the past paved the way for me to be who I am today. I am not perfect. I am not flawless (pronounced as 'flow'). I am human. I make mistakes, and will continue to commit mistakes for God intentionally cooked up a special recipe for me to be me. Don't get me wrong, the mistakes I commit today will never be the same one that I will commit tomorrow or the next day or the day after that.