At least once a year I get these ‘urges’ (if you may) to write. And yes! I am currently having that ’urge’. Thoughts just keep on running through my mind and obviously I can’t stop ‘them’. So I decided to write…again.

Prolegomena. (Here’s an SAT word for you.) A preliminary discussion; introductory essay, as prefatory matter in a book; a prologue.

*I’m not actually writing a book, but close enough.

A FOB-ulous Life Of a Pinay. For those of you who still don’t know what exactly a FOB (fresh off the boat) is. Well you can see it in two ways;

Yin (bad): The term “FOB” has been used with offensive intent, often to those with a foreign accent or ethnic style of dressing. Depending on the person’s attitude to the culture in question, he or she may or may not take offense at these statements. The term may also be used by people who themselves were immigrants years ago, in a way turning the insult once hurled at them onto the new arrivals, and in so doing emphasizing their own progress in assimilation or improved language skills.+

Yang (good): The term “FOB” is also used in a less offensive way of describing Asian American youths, as well as those in Australia and other countries that display contemporary East Asian youth cultures. This behavior is part of a new trend of Asian American teens displaying their modern cultural roots (like listening to Asian music and watching Asian movies) rather than conform to mainstream Western culture. Thus the term “Fob” is used in a social context to describe a particular clique or subculture of teens. A few modern day “Fobs” may actually be American-, Australian-, etc, born Asians. +

+Wikipedia+

I see it NOT as an insult and also NOT as a compliment. It just applies to me and to millions of immigrants all over the world; but, shouldn’t it be FOP (Fresh off the Plane)?

…and there’s one of my attempts to joke.

Seriously, though. Who still rides a boat to migrate to another country? Well, okay there’s still probably one somewhere and FOB does sound better than FOP. So FOB it is.

So this is going to be about a pinay, and that pinay would be ME;”my journey through life” in this “oh-so-big” place (Sacramento, Califorina, USA, or wherever my financial benefactors lead me). (…and I joke again!)

In the future…

‘Disclaimer’: everything stated here, unless noted, are solely my opinions about random ‘stuff’. A FOB-ulous Life Of a pinay. Is not meant to offend anybody in any shape or form. And if I do, pls. comment me.

And

MOST importantly… this is all for me. I am not trying to impress anyone. I know at some point i will sound arrogant/pretentious/know-it-all/conceited and all that stuff, just don’t get me wrong.

Did you ever wish that you could turn back time? I do, almost all of the time. I wish I could go back to the past, when I did something wrong, stupid, or humiliating and change it for the better or better yet, just change all of it, so it never would have happened at all. I also wish I could stop time to just savor the happy moments, all the good memories of my childhood. I think we all did.

But if you think about it, maybe it was meant to be, like…err…“fate”. (I still don’t actually know if I believe in this four letter word or not, but what the heck, I’ll give it a shot) Maybe our lives have been planned for us before we even got here. Good or bad, maybe it was/is really for us. As a catholic, I think I should believe in “fate”. But if I were to believe in “fate”, why does HE (God) choose people to suffer?

Maybe HE did plan our lives, but we just intercepted it (without even knowing). Maybe HE did plan a good life for us but somewhere along the path we accidentally made the wrong turn, and instead of going back, we didn’t, we just kept on going. Until we got lost/felt lost, and realized that were not on the right track. Can we still go back? After all the lefts and rights that we did? Is there a map back to THE road? … I hope so.

Or maybe HE did want this to happen. Maybe HE wanted to challenge us. To test ourselves to our outermost limits, to see how we can cope up with life and how we would handle it. Maybe HE wanted us to learn from our mistakes/experiences. An old cliché probably made before we even got here, however why do we sometimes forget about that simple cliché when we make our choices. We often make wrong choices repeatedly, that we don’t even realize that were doing something wrong. Until someone hits us in the head, and makes us realize that we’re not going anywhere, that were screwed up. But what if nobody “hits” us in the head? Will it be too late if we finally realize it just by ourselves? And if we did realize it and if we remember that cliché, does that mean that were going to have a happy life? Or did we just cross one out of the million possible problems that we could encounter in life?

Upon reading this…again. I realized that both my “opinions” are somewhat the same, one way or another. Maybe it doesn’t matter if he planned this or not. Maybe the important thing is to be responsible in our actions and to just take the consequence(s) that come with it, either good or bad, positively. Like my mom would say, “think positive, anak. Walang binibigay na problema si Lord na hindi mo kayang solusyonan.” (“Think positive, my child, God doesn’t give you a problem that you’re not capable of fixing.”)

So maybe it is “fate”…

FATE n.-an event (or a course of events) that will inevitably happen in the future

An ode to the creator of photography!

To the inventor of the first ever camera a.k.a the daguerreotype

To the human being who understood chemistry and actually used it

To the person who worked tirelessly, figuring out how many grams of mercury should be heated for the exposures to turn out and not actually vanish after 30 minutes.

To the guy who made it possible for us to see Abraham Lincoln, Edgar Allan Poe, Mark Twain and many others in the 1800’s

To the father who made “Kodak moments” achievable

To Mr. Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre…

THANK YOU!