Unexpected Turn of Events

Ok. This is a fan fiction written based on my current favorite video game: Dragon Age Origins. It's written solely for my benefit because I gotta let it out before I explode and more might follow. I suppose I should post it in some DAO forum but for the moment, it's staying here.
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    "Sienne! Have you changed your mind yet?" Alistair was fuming. Zevran knew the male Grey Warden was intentionally raising his voice to make sure he heard. Made sure everybody heard.

    The blond man made no secret of his dislike of the elven assassin now standing quietly near the campfire. No one rose to challenge him either. It seemed everyone else in their little band shared his sentiments. Except possibly the qunari who didn't seem to care either way. The witch certainly voiced out her thoughts but then never brought it up again. Even Zevran knew the templar's behavior was not surprising.

    It was Sienne's that was. He had come to her to die and she had let him live. The irony of it all wasn't lost on him.

    At the moment, the female elf had her arms crossed with a narrowed glance at Alistair.

    "For the fifth and final time, Alistair, I haven't. And I won't. He hasn't done anything since then." Then lowered her voice to mutter. "Not yet, anyway." To which Zevran had to grin. So she wasn't completely out of her mind, then.

    "So are you just going to wait for him to actually do something?" The templar wasn't about to give up easily. "And what if you happened to be dead by then? He's an assassin!" Zevran wondered if Alistair saw him as a threat in more ways than one. He certainly seemed to have more than a passing interest in the raven-haired Warden's well-being.

    Strangely enough, Sienne smiled. "He can try again any time he wants." Zevran's eyes widened. She wasn't looking at him, was in fact still facing Alistair. But he knew those words were meant for him. A challenge, perhaps?

    The assassin had to hide a smile. This was getting interesting. The templar finally admitted defeat and moved away from her but not before glaring in his direction. The Antivan elf smirked. He liked ruffling the templar's feathers.

    He supposed that Sienne's words had not been an empty boast. Like him, she was a rogue and equally experienced in the art of stealth and thievery. He'd seen her in combat and all that backstabbing would make any assassin proud. But perhaps she underestimated an Antivan Crow? Zevran's brow wrinkled. Or perhaps not. He was, after all, indentured to her right now.

    He stole a glance at her, and was surprised that she was staring back at him, a thoughtful expression in her emerald-green eyes. She seemed just as surprised to have been caught looking at him and immediately stood up to engage Leliana in conversation. It was hard to tell by the firelight if she was blushing or not.

    The assassin surmised that despite her words, the female Warden was, indeed, wary of him. Why she even spared him was a question he meant to have the answer to in the days to come. Certainly, it couldn't have been because of that comment about her being a deadly sex goddess? Could it?

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Hind Sight

I'm amused again. I was reading my ex's forum posts in PEX. He has no idea I have an account there and have been shadowing his posts ever since I accidentally saw one of his usual screen names.

I only visit PEX to post in the Travel and Leisure section to get advice on a particular destination. In fact, I've posted nowhere else and just lurk most of the time. Then by sheer coincidence, his username jumped out at me on the main forum page. He was the last one to post.

At first, I was just curious. Surely it couldn't be him. Must be someone else using the same username. So I click the post and.... voila! His avatar is his own baby picture which was also on his FB then. Lol.

So I use the search function to find ALL his posts. Haha. I was quite proud of my discovery. What dark, horrible secrets did he have to tell under an anonymous persona?

Turned out he frequented - what else - the Love and Relationships section.  Oh he had some juicy tidbits to share about my past with him. And what makes me smile all of the time is that he usually changes the story to suit his ego. And I find it a highly entertaining read!

He exaggerates sometimes, saying we lasted for 4 years, when it was only 3 (2 years and 11 months to be exact).  Or saying we had breakup sex. We didn't. I never even kissed him after we broke up. Lol.  I specifically remember an incident when he got angry because I refused to let him kiss me.

Still, what amused me just today was what he said about our relationship. As usual, he was giving a love advice to someone in need (wonder how he got so experienced when I was his first gf?). Then he mentioned that his past relationship with his ex (meaning me obviously) was similar to the poster's.

He said that after several years together, the spark was fading. This was true. But mostly because I never really loved him but that was my mistake, not his. And I will always regret that decision. That I even stayed that long with him.

Then he said that we felt we had to end it. He said he felt bored, stopped being sweet and basically didn't do anything to try and save the relationship. He just let it go. Now, this is what amuses me because it was I, who felt all these things and not him. Even a year into the relationship, I already felt like this which is why I sought solace from a past love. This past love was someone I can honestly say I fell in love with but it never really worked out. And even after a year, still wouldn't work out. Long story short, I remained with my ex.

And I stayed for another 2 years with my ex all for stupid, selfish reasons even though I knew from the start that I would never love him, namely:

1.  He loved me. I was sure of this.
2.  I didn't think I would meet anyone else (I have no idea why I thought this. I must have been desperately insecure.)
3. I already slept with him (yeah dumb reason)
4. I was afraid of being alone.
5. We were living together in a shared apartment. Leaving would mean a total inconvenience for me. (Looking for a new apartment, moving, financial matters, etc.)
6. Maybe, just maybe, if I stayed with him long enough, I could learn to love him like he did me. (wishful thinking)

And when it finally came down to it, all these stupid reasons couldn't hold a candle to what I was feeling: major unhappiness. It came to a point that the thought of ending up married to him literally brought me to tears. He had no ambition, no direction in life. No backbone, didn't know what he wanted and couldn't keep a job. Couldn't even leave a job properly (he went AWOL on his last job) and left me to pay for food and bills.

Every time I came home, he was playing Cabal. And on my PC, no less. He wasn't even looking for a job.

Ironically, it was looking for another apartment that was the hardest reason to leave him. Lol. I just couldn't find the time nor the resources to plan to leave. I kept thinking that if only this had happened in the province where I lived, it would have been so easy to break up and go home. But then, my home was his home too. Sigh.

So finally, I started not to care. I went on trips with friends. I played dota every weekend, coming home late at night or sleeping over somewhere else. I didn't care if he had dinner or not, if the money I left him was enough to buy his food or what. I didn't ask what he did, if he was still looking for a job. I didn't even feel like talking at all. We didn't have much to talk about anyway.

I was waiting for him to get fed up too. We started to do a routine. I wake up, leave for work. I come home. We go out to have dinner without talking about anything really. Return, then I'll be on my PC until I sleep and basically just ignore him. Sometimes, when I eat out with my friends, we don't even have dinner together. And I started to eat out frequently, too.

Sometimes, when I leave on a weekend to shop or do something, he says he'll accompany me. And I say no, just stay here and play Cabal. Inwardly, what I really mean is, yeah stay here since that's the only thing you know how to do well anyway. Besides, I'd have to pay for your fare and food too if you come with me.

My colleagues told me several times to invite him to play dota with us. I never did. I didn't want him invading

I was so mean, wasn't I?

Another thing he wrote in his forum post was that he believed he could've saved our relationship. Now I really wonder where he got that idea. He couldn't have done anything even if he crawled and begged me. Why? Because I didn't love him. I never did. Every time I said those words to him, I knew I was lying. If I did, I'd probably be the one doing the crawling and begging. I'm pathetic like that. Like with my ex before him.

Our breakup was equally anticlimatic. As usual, we were preparing  to go out to have our routine talkless dinner when out of the blue, he asked: "Do you still love me?".

And me, being the subtle person that I am, couldn't really blurt out "No" to his face so I kept quiet. That was enough for him. And finally, finally. We broke up. It was great timing too because if he hadn't brought up the topic, I would've done so by that week.

I couldn't begin to describe how happy I was on the days that followed. I had never felt so free before, or even realized how imprisoned I felt. Even my office mates noticed and said so. They just didn't know why.

And also, I was already falling for one of my colleagues then. We're together now, and planning our upcoming wedding in 2013.

But that's not the point.  I was talking about my ex's forum post. He said he waited for me to say that I got tired because he was a gentleman. On the contrary, as I mentioned above, he was the first to open the topic. But maybe he just forgot. For me, that memory was crystal clear because it was one of my major turning points.

Other times, I glean information about our mutual friends. He doesn't even try to hide some of their names. I think he's confident that he knows no one in PEX. Lol.

I don't really follow his every post. It's just during times like this, when I'm bored in the office that I remember to check. The last time I did was probably three or four months ago.

I have no intention to let him know that I know, of course. Let him talk about me or anyone else he pleases. I'll be the lurker I always was. If that's the only outlet he has to feel good about himself, then who am I to get in his way? Besides, no harm was done.

Of course, he may stumble upon my blog and read this post and he'll find out that I know. But it'll be too late then. Lol.

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Epic Friends Awarding

Yesterday was the awarding of of prizes to the Epic Friends contest sponsored by Toblerone. I was one of the lucky ones to win it even though there were many others who garnered more "Facebook Likes" than I did. Thankfully, I love scrapbooking, and my entry probably won for it's visual appeal. Hehe.

So anyway, I went with my boyfriend to The Spa branch in Bonifacio High Street where the awarding would be held. I've never been anywhere near The Fort before so I was pleasantly surprised with the size of the place. It's like a huge shopping expo.

The Spa GCs

I was supposed to bring my Epic friend (RV) along, but she lives in Bacolod and initially, I thought the prize would be shipped in this situation. Obviously not. So I'll just give her her prize when I come home.

During the awarding, random winners were called out to read their winning entries out loud. While I was listening to them, I remembered why I had decided to join the contest in the first place. I thought the friendship I shared with RV was unique and worth telling. We did lots of funny things like the secret code stuff and letter writing.

Toblerone Cuddly Bears

And then came the actual giving out of prizes. We each got a cute cuddly bear holding a Toblerone, and a The Spa card worth Php 2,000! Nice, right? I figured Charles and I can get one full hour or aromatherapy body massage. Hehe. But I'll see if RV wants to come to Manila so we can use it together.

And lastly, just in case you're interested, here was my winning entry to the contest:

My Epic Friend is none other than RV. We met each other in high school, way back in 1997 and have been friends for 13 years and still counting. We did everything together, shared secrets , and had crushes like all young girls do. We complemented each other's personalities well because Arv was the shy and timid one while I was more outgoing and encouraged her to come out of her shell. She got me interested in witchcraft (for real!) and Moffats songs (in high school) and now, I'm asking her for advice on cosmetics and haircare because for the life of me, I have no idea what products to buy. In high school, we even had a secret alphabet code which she invented and only I could read.


We got separated in college because I took up Engineering in another school and she, Accounting. We still kept in touch and even made a bet that the first one who had a boyfriend would buy a free meal for the other. I lost that bet. One of the funniest things I could remember was we sent each other creative letters while in college. Cellphone and social networks weren't popular back then so we sent our packages (yes, packages because our letters were bulky) to our younger brothers who shared the same school and were also classmates. Our letters were often long, several yellowpad pages, or artistic. We cut and pasted words and pictures from magazines to form our messages. I still have all her letters in a box at home while some are displayed on my wall. Pictured here are my letters to her.


When cellphones became popular, our letter-writing stopped and we kept in touch using text instead. We would meet during university weeks and tour our old high school.


After graduation in college, I moved to Manila and she worked abroad in Dubai. The only communication we had back then was Friendster. When she returned to the Philippines, we still got together every time I went to the province for the Christmas holidays. This last December, we had a chance to see each other again and toured a place called "The Ruins" in Talisay City. She also managed to convince me to have my hair colored and like before, we made another bet that none of us would have our hair cut until December 2010 or else pay 1,500. We're planning to curl our hair the next time I come home. That bet is still ongoing. =)


I am truly grateful to have a friend like her all these years. So that's our story. Hope you liked it as much as I enjoyed reminiscing our past together.

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What do you believe in?

Liz, from project vanity, is giving away three (3) gift certificates from Levi's jeans worth 1,000 each!

What could be more perfect than getting yourself one of those new Levi's Curve ID Jeans? So head over to Liz's blog now, follow the simple instructions and get a chance to win the GCs!

This is my entry:

I believe that life is an adventure, that there is so many things out there are worth seeing, doing and experiencing. I am passionate about travel and I try to get the most out of my life while I still can and maybe, even for a short while, I can feel free.

UPDATE (9/6/2010):
It's a little late but the winners are finally out and I'm so happy that my entry was chosen as one of the winners! Check out Liz's post to check out the other winning entries.

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Thoughts on the Hostage Crisis

Like most other people, I feel the hostage-taking crisis last night was handled in an exceptionally bad way.

What really got to me was that I don't think Capt. Ronaldo Mendoza was an evil man to begin with. What he was seeking was justice. I am inclined to believe that his claim of innocence against charges or extortion and robbery was true, for all he wanted was to be reinstated to the service so that he could still claim the pension, and other benefits when he retired.

Though I don't condone his methods, still, it just goes to show that in the Philippines, if you don't take a stand for what you absolutely believe is true (in this case, Mendoza's insistence that he was unjustly discharged), then nothing will happen. Justice seems to be severely lacking in the Philippines and forced one man, who had served the police force for nearly 30 years to act in such a way that led to the tragic incident. He had served all his life, was allegedly falsely accused of criminal acts, and eventually removed from the force. His father, brother and son were all policemen and he was named one of the country's top 10 best policemen in 1986. What could have made a man change so much?

And why did the police have to restrain his brother right in his line of sight, when the brother wanted to negotiate with him? It is a known fact that it was this incident that prompted his random shooting of hostages.

Why did the negotiations fail? Was his demand so unacceptable that no compromise was met? Why the heck did it take a long time to break the fiber glass? Why did the police even launch a full assault when there were still hostages inside?

The crisis started at 10am. Why didn't the authorities have any strategy up until 7pm in the evening? Why in the world did they use ropes (which unsurprisingly broke) instead of chains when they attempted to pull the door free by tying one end to a mobile vehicle?

The whole crisis surely was an embarrassment to the Philippines but most importantly, it cannot bring back the lives lost on that day.

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