Hello, Unfriend button.

Ah yes, staring at my Facebook friends list. Probably the only thing I can ponder on at the moment after another day of training.

It hit me. I actually did have a falling out with a certain number of people. People who I thought I can keep ’til the day I forget my name and age. Some were from high school. That building with the color blue, which I intentionally ‘dream’ of burning into cinders. Some were from college. Bleak reminders of the several identities I engraved into my unofficial, unauthorized college legacy. I used to call them pet names, some of which I feel awkward to share. They left me one by one, but because they had a reason to. They had lives, too. They can’t just live in my little world forever. They had careers to pursue, people to love. Relationships to nurture. I was just another name. A name they might remember only when they get to peep through the yearbooks. A name that may remind them, hey, isn’t he that queer, fat guy with the glasses and the bucktooth smile?

 

 

And so, along came the ‘unfriend’ button.

The Unexpected Victory.

Last month, I was chosen by my school to be the representative for the Youth category of the Pasay-Makati Skills Competition, under the TESDA banner. As the story originally goes, I was hesitant to actually participate in the said event out of doubting my personal capabalities and the mere fact that I (at that time) didn’t want to have anything to do with other things aside from our just finished restaurant simulation 2 weeks ago. IDK what transpired during the next few weeks, but all I know is, I somehow got dragged into the contest without me even knowing it. As if I enjoyed every single second of last-minute changes and we-were-uninformed scenarios.

This is one of the competition recipes I used. Taken during our dry run 2 days prior.

Dry run of my Pine-Orange Medley. Gotta admit this looks all screwed.

Good heavens. That was supposed to look like fritters. But it came out like a damn omelet. I saved it by slicing it in granola bars-like shapes. The drizzling of the sauce I think didn’t actually help at all.

So, came September 21. Competition day. Here I will share to you several shots from the event. No pressure on my end, until we were all called to start.

The official venue.

Slicing the toppings for my cheesecake (which was a total fail, BTW.)

Made 1-day prior modifications to my chicken recipe. Served a quarter cut instead of the whole damn chicken. Yeah I know. My chicken’s still raw.

If a creme brulee’ and a cheesecake had a kid, it would prob’ly look like this.

Ok. Again, with the omelet curse. *facepalm*

But hey, as my mentor always says, expect the unexpected. And voila’. The photo will speak for itself.

GOLD MEDAL, BABY! BODYBAG!

That girl.

It’s quite amazing how one of the most important girls in my life can carry 2 different sides of herself with the greatest of ease.

She’s the beautiful girl. The one who may or may not want to be a part of the trends. The one who’s unpredictable. The one who gets irritable and suddenly overflow with happiness at the blink of an eye.

Then she becomes the simple girl. The one who finds joy just consuming her heart out to a bowl of rice porridge. The one who’s willing to get her pretty shoes dirty just so she can tag along the wet market, where no abundantly dressed girl has gone before. The one who’s quite giddy just strolling around a cheap mall, not even contemplating on the fact that she could rather spend her time on a better place with either the same person or a different one, for that matter.

 

 

She’s a plethora of many different yet splendid things.

Of durations and advices from friends.

So, it’s been what? 3 years? I guess all my friends are sick of always hearing about how I love this girl who never saw me as something more than just someone who can fill in for free time as a companion of sorts. I’m the guy who never went away from the waiting list. 2 guys and 2 break-ups later, I am still in the same state as I was when all this foolish romantic daydreams started. I was the filler. I did stuff for her when no one else would. The only salary I ever got from her was countless memories and hand-written letters at the back of the receipts of whatever purchase I made while I was with her. Apart from that, nothing. That’s all there is.

I’ve asked nearly every single friend I have right now on what they can say regarding my situation, only to end up with what seems to be copy-pasted advices from each other. I have this feeling that it’s all really up to me as to where this sad man’s adventure is going to take me. It’s funny, by the way. I ask for their 2 cents, yet I don’t follow them anyway. It’s a sick cycle I’ve been running myself into for the last 7 years of my adolescent life. Yeah, I spend time with those friends, but at the end of the day, what it all boils down to, is the fact that there will always be one girl I am not going to get, and that’s her.

 

 

She has me by the neck. All I can do is oblige, because my heart tells me to. I am at a loss of control.

Code red.

Wow. I used to dream abt having Adam Richman‘s job all to myself. So lo and behold, I did. All in one day.

Today, I embarked on a journey again. Same place. Same home. Paranaque. Man, if you saved up 3-4 months worth of earnings (if you’re working), and if you are a foodie, then baby, this is the place to be. This day’s target? Buffalo Wings n’ Things. My bro dared me to try and chow down the spiciest chicken wings you’ll get this side of town. Original bet was supposed to be a platter each (4-5 pcs. on a platter) of the aptly dubbed ‘Armageddon’. The hottest, most mouth-burning serving of chicken wings I’ll taste for the time being, but we cut it down to just a platter for the both of us for fear of not being able to chow it all down, and because we were saving what we can save from our budget to have more fun later. Long story short, abt 20 pcs. of table napkins and 4 full glasses of ice-cold water later, we made it. Chili sauce, (lots of) sweat, and tears.

This is the Honey BBQ platter. I’m a big, big fan of sweet, peppery sauces, so this automatically goes to my favorites list.

This. This, my friends, is the mo’fuckin’ Armageddon. Sure, Mr. Richman has had much chunkier chili sauces from where he comes from, but this? This is more than enough to make even the most bulkiest boy from the city cry and say, ‘uncle’.

 

Damn. If you’re brave as shit to take on that, man I suggest you drop at the nearest branch near you. Lezzgow, son!

Hopes, dreams, and time constraints.

3:10PM. It’s a gloomy Monday afternoon. I’m out of money, so basically I am stuck at home. What’s on my mind? I don’t know. Random things. Things I don’t necessarily have to attend to. Fantasies of ppl and things I won’t have even if I toiled my whole life for it. What’s playing on the background? It can be anything. I’m on shuffle mode. What’s for afternoon snacks? Pick your poison. Where I’d like to be in the next 2 hours? The kitchen. I’m starving, considering I just had lunch fit for 2 ppl, and that was just 2 hours ago.

Why the long babble? Simple. I just want to make it seem like I’ve pretty much discussed my accomplishments when in fact, I have none at all. Oh wait, I do have. My culinary studies. I have several weeks left before I embark another 200 hours of training. I’ve had 700 hours worth of training in college, but all I’ve did was to take care of the sheets and take calls from the front. I never really got to immerse myself in the factory because I was just going through the motions. Simply put, I never gave a single fuck.

Mother never got tired of taking the time to talk to me abt the little things abt life I should expect after this. She won’t always be the strong woman she is now. Sooner later I’ll have to come to grips that I’d be doing things without much help from the ppl around me except myself. It’s a one-man game out there. It’s me against the world. I don’t even know how long I can keep up with my future visions, regarding the fact that my current physical state might not let me make it past my 50′s. I have a list I want to finish, but I might not be able to do that. What strikes me even more is why am I not even afraid to die.

 

 

The hands of time have never been on our side.

Intermittent thrills of the grown-up life.

3 job interviews, I turned down.

I feel like playing cat and mouse with my life right now. It’s like, I want to work, and yet I’m being picky with what job to take and where. I feel like trying to whip up a bargain between my dreams and what I have right in front of my face. I keep saying, If I want to work, might as well go for the big dogs. I tend to discriminate the type of jobs that pay less than what’ll feed you for a whole month, even though I know it’s socially uncouth to do so, because, hell, it’s still a job.

To me, this is something I know I should be concerned about. Times are different now. Everybody has to move and get going. Nobody ever heard of someone who stood high and mighty in his own personal pinnacle without busting a little ass along the way. It does not work that way. My friends have jobs now, because they embraced what they had coming at them. I didn’t. I still play along on hopes and dreams of getting that call from that fancy hotel a ride away from home, or maybe that restaurant I’ve been setting my sights on for some time now.

I am a wreck.