Dear Dia-ry

Yes. This has now become the blog of an Australian Development Scholarship recipient. A full scholarship recipient who will be in Australia by January 2012 to pursue a Master’s Degree in International Business. Allow me to let out a very unscholarly Woohoo!

I submitted my application only about two months ago, but I had been thinking about post-grad studies abroad since I visited my friend Bobbie in Sydney last October. At first it was just a crazy idea, because I didn’t have the money to do it, but I thought it over and finally told myself that where there’s a will… And the rest is history.

Here’s me at my future school. I love it.

I can be almost fearless about huge life changes, though I crave sameness and order in the little things. I order the same meals at each particular restaurant I eat at, I always park in the same areas at my favorite mall, and I buy from the same DVD seller at Metrowalk every time. But I also make enormous decisions in a split-second without breaking a sweat. Moved out from my parents’ house so I could go home anytime I wanted? Yup. Resigned from an extremely lucrative but uncomfortable job? Sure. Signed a contract to sell on a completely new apartment on the same day that I decided that the first one I bought seemed too far away? Done and done. I’ve never regretted those choices. This decision to go back to school in another country is my most life-changing one yet, and I’m extremely excited to see where it will take me.

I’m going to miss a lot of things — my family and friends, my job, my apartment, and my car, among other things. Life here has been pretty easy for me. It’s not a fairy tale existence, but I can’t really complain. Over there, I’ll have to get used to taking public transportation. I won’t be earning a salary so I won’t be able to buy stuff on a whim like I’m so used to doing. Most importantly, I know I’ll be missing being a part of the lives of people I care about. While I’m out of the country, friends will be getting engaged, having babies, grabbing Sunday brunch and drinking on Wine Wednesdays without me.

I have five months to get used to that.

Yesterday, instead of going about my usual Sunday afternoon ritual of lying in bed and dreading the coming of Monday, I went to Intramuros, Manila to go on Carlos Celdran’s very popular If These Walls Could Talk walking tour. My friends and I booked it earlier this week, but since Carlos was in jail for a couple of days for disrupting holy mass at the Manila Cathedral — a separate interesting story — we only got confirmation yesterday that the tour would push through.

With about twenty other tourists, mostly foreigners, we discovered not only Intramuros but also 400 years of Philippine history as we followed Carlos through Fort Santiago, around the streets of Intramuros on a horse-drawn kalesa, to San Agustin Church. Over two hours, he spoke of dates, people, places and events that I should remember from years of Philippine history classes, but which I totally don’t.

I was never into history. Literature and math were always my best subjects — literature because my love for words predates my love for fashion, travel or cute guys, and math because its being an exact science was oddly comforting to the confused teenager that I used to be.

History, when taught with whos and whats and whens, I realized yesterday, is never as engaging as when it’s taught with hows and whys. More so when the tour guide is a performer, using props, photos, music and accents to make the story come alive and peppering his spiel with sarcastic side-comments and wry hints on how he ended up in jail by staging a protest action in church this week, keeping his audience hanging on to his every word.

Yesterday, in a span of two hours, I learned more about my country’s history than in years of formal education at Catholic private schools. I learned about how friendship and betrayal, heroes and fake heroes, freedom and death built our country. Good stuff.

I just wish they could find a way to tell this story to every Filipino kid out there who’s struggling to stay awake in history class, just the way I heard it today.

Last night’s concert was amazing. Thank you for finally coming to Manila to share your music with us.

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Ominous signs that finally made me throw up my hands in defeat and accept that I have noticeably gained weight:

1) I realized that I was wearing the same five outfits over and over again because those were the only things I could fit into. I haven’t worn jeans in six months because I can’t get them over my hips. I’ve even started questioning why I used to like body-conscious clothes so much, because now I can’t wear any of them.

2) I haven’t changed my Facebook profile photo in six months because all my recent photos show puffy cheeks on a round face, no matter how much I angle for the camera.

3) Because of this, I have to wear my hair down most of the time to hide some of the moon face, even when the weather is freaking hot at 37 degrees Celsius.

4) The ten additional pounds that greet me on my digital weighing scale every morning.

5) I had to start shopping for size 4 clothes. I even bought new underwear because the old ones were cutting into my blood circulation.

6) My new gym trainer sneered at my thighs.

7) And I can’t blame her, because MY THIGHS RUB TOGETHER WHEN I WALK.

Having said all these, I hereby promise to lose 7 pounds by July 30. Bawal kumontra. Kthxbye.

I don’t usually pay much attention to politics. Oh, sure, I’ve voted in every national election since I turned 18. And I do make it a point to study who to vote for, from president to mayor (okay, sorry, I do get a little fuzzy when deciding on councilors). But on a daily basis, thinking about politics either depresses me or bores me to tears.

This year, for some reason, I’ve found myself getting more personally involved in the run-up to the May 10 elections. Maybe it’s because all the presidential candidates I’ve voted for in the past have never won (Salonga, Roco twice), and I still think we’re the ones who lost out when they didn’t win. I’ve always voted based on who I thought was the best person for the job, and not just for the lesser of two evils.

Maybe it’s because the “lesser evil” who won in the last presidential elections has raised the level of corruption in this country to such great heights that it pains me to think that she was the “lesser evil” at the time.

Maybe it’s because I see a great candidate running for president, one who has a solid program for running this country, who stands out above all the mud-slinging and black propaganda this campaign season has generated, who even the competition respects and admires, and it really pisses me off to hear people saying they will still not vote for him just because they don’t think he will win. News flash, people, he really won’t win if all the people who want to vote for him but don’t based on this kind of circular reasoning think this way.

Quite possibly, the reason I’m so into the upcoming elections is because I’m getting older, and the next president’s legacy will be what my future children will have to live with as they grow up. And I want the best possible future for my unborn children.

Someone once said that we get the government that we deserve. I’m praying very hard that once the last ballot has been cast on May 10, we Filipinos turn out to be deserving of a president like Gibo Teodoro.