03 | August | 2012 | reading is the ultimate aphrodisiac.

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So, how do I make friends? I honestly have no idea! Maybe I unconsciously steer myself clear of phony people and gravitate to those who will make nervous introductions and awkward small talks worthwhile. Try to keep things light and fun.

How do I make friends online? I’m stumped on that one, too. I guess it just happens? Talk to them online everyday and somehow a bond was forged, personalities were divulged. I am always wary of romantic relationships that started through cyberspace. But friendships? Can it overcome the fickleness that the internet usually portrays?

It can.

I found not just friends, but a family as well (as my GR friend Louize puts it). It is really possible to build these awesome relationships with people you just met over the net.

Forgive my sentimentality.

I have a hangover still from our Face-2-Face book discussion last Saturday. It was about The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. If you frequent my blog, then you know that I hate my first Ishiguro read, Never Let Me Go. But The Remains changed my Ishiguro perspective.

Back to my hangover. Another good friend (Angus) moderated the discussion and we had an activity. Should I want to participate, I need to write stories about Love, Loss, Hope, and Regret (the themes found in The Remains). More out of compliance that’s why I wrote something. The Regret story was easy to write but it put me in a sad mood without my realizing it. After finishing the Hope story, I was fighting tears that threaten to spill. My breath was already hitching. Ten words typed in the Loss story, I lost. I cried. Me crying in my workstation at the office – embarrassing. For a second, I was undone. But I have to get moving. Letting the tears fall was good, but these memories of mine are clouding my mind with despair. I have to finish writing before I lose it again. Before typing the Love story, I can already smile (though bitter). But it was enough to gain my bearings. I wrote the last story in a breeze, for it is a happy memory. I wouldn’t want to dwell on it too much but I felt I need the positive charge.

Angus created a folio for my story (together with other contributors). Every participant was under the veil of anonymity, given the personal sharing. Was I nervous that they can tell which story was mine? No. I was proud of it. I draw strength from these experiences. I draw courage from them, to live my life as I see fit: without regrets.

Unlike Mr. Stevens. Ha!

These people who shared my affair with reading, now also share my affair with living. I willingly let them to take a peek of my life before I met them. I mean, if I want to know them more, it is only right that I let them get to know me more, right?

Reading the other contributors’ stories affirmed my belief that no one should bear their life burdens alone. By telling our tales to others, that alone is a proof that we can and we will survive anything, and everything that bitch of a life will throw at us.

So… my reading life has never been this personal or revealing. How about a hug, then?

Goodreads – The Filipino Group (The Remains of the Day Face-2-Face Book Discussion)

Rating:

Genre: Filipino Fiction > Contemporary | Fantasy

College sophomore Hannah Maquiling doesn’t know why everyone tells her their love problems. She’s never even had a boyfriend, but that doesn’t stop people from spilling their guts to her, and asking for advice. So maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise when the cutest guy in school tells her that she’s going to have to take on this responsibility — but for all humanity.

The Goddess of Love has gone AWOL. It’s a problem, because her job is to keep in check this world’s obsession with love (and lack of it). The God of the Sun, for now an impossibly handsome senior at an exclusive college just outside of Metro Manila, thinks Hannah has what it takes to (temporarily) do the job.

While she’s learning to do this goddess thing, she practices on the love troubles of shy Kathy, who’s got a secret admirer on campus. Hannah’s mission, should she choose to accept it, is to make sure that he’s not a creepy stalker and they find their happily ever after — or at least something that’ll last until next semester. (As if she could refuse! The Sun God asked so nicely. And he’s so, well, hot.)

*****

I have a sucky history with Filipino-written pocketbooks. Way back in the 90′s, I got to read these 100+ pages or so of romance novels by Filipino authors. I was stuck in the province with nothing to do during Holy Week. I asked my aunt if there was something, anything to read. I was given 3 pocketbooks written in Tagalog-English and it was awful experience. Awful in a sense that the authors were trying very hard to inculcate Western cliches into their stories. Awful because I never once thought that the authors were Filipinos while reading it.

I stopped reading them.

Last Saturday, I saw Mina V. Esguerra during my good friend KD’s birthday celebration. She’s very nice. Maybe i can sample one of her books for nicety’s sake?

I bought Interim Goddess of Love in Amazon for $0.99 only. Boy, it was a steal! Kinda short, but I was surprised to have ‘kilig’ or swoon moments here and there. Hee! The mythology angle was fun to read.

Hannah‘s character was okay, although i felt she was more like a high school kid than a college sophomore. Quin… erm, i have a crush on him. *blushes* all business about gods and goddessess; not bothering to take Hannah’s bait in showing any emotion. But Quin in Hannah’s dreams are the best! Can i be stuck in a little bamboo raft with you? *winks*

Then there’s (rough) Diego and (sweet) Robbie. C’mon now, why do i like all of these guys, huh?!

I was like Hannah once. The shock absorber of my friends’ woes on love. I didn’t mind. I just hate it when they come to me and ask for advice but do the opposite. Yeah, yeah. the story of my life (with friends, that is).