Still here...

Happy New Year! I am so back after a month long sabbatical.

Our computer crashed. My secondhand laptop went kaput after incessant abuse. I took it a sign to leave for a while. The best thing about being single is that you do not feel obligated to work or feel guilty to bum around.

I was supposed to be on a vacation. We planned it perfectly. We were to go on an outrageous road trip. We would launch at Cagayan North, head to Ilocos then trudge Baguio, and then slide our way to Naga. We would stay at our friends in those places for few days and indulge in crazy adventures. I was all set to go, my backpack was ready and I pictured myself as Sal Paradise in Jack Kerouac’s On the Road.

It did not happen. To my consternation, one idiot backed out the last minute and everything fell apart.

I was determined to wander alone. But as much as I wanted to scour the countryside with a motorcycle and experience a carefree life the way Che Guevara or Jack Kerouac experienced, it was not possible. For one thing I could not drive a motorcycle and for another, its a risky venture. With the way things are going in the country I could be one of those desaparacidos.

So I stayed home and sulked a great deal. I curled up in bed or planted myself in our couch most of the time. I read and read. Watched and watched. And munched disgusting junk food. For quite along time I avoided the sun. With less exposure to sunlight, I noticed I was getting pale. I half expected that I would crave for fresh human blood.

I traveled… well vicariously. The only thing closest to the real thing was when I braved Divisoria with my cousins during the Christmas rush and haggled with salesladies for gifts.

I read Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, re-read Kerouac’s On the Road and Gabriel Garcia-Marquez’s One Hundred Years of Solitude. I watched the Motorcycle Diaries, Clint Eastwood’s Bridges of Madison County, Bertolucci’s The Sheltering Sky, Pollack’s Out of Africa, Minghella’s The English Patient.

Those heavy-themed films almost set me off to a crying fit; I had to take a large dose of anti-depressants.

Then work beckoned. Christmas was nearing and I had no cash. I called up friends for job and I worked for a few weeks just before I went home. I had brief stint as project coordinator for LIBERTAS (Lawyers League for Liberties). It is non-stock non-profit corporation, an organizational network of reform minded lawyers advocating civil liberties, judicial and legal reforms, and ethics in public governance. It is engaged in advocacy work and project management. The project I was in was in partnership with IFES Philippines and supported by the US Agency for International Development (USAID).

Then I went home for the holiday and help organize a big fat family reunion.

So there. You didn't miss much