goodbye 2012, hello 2013

                     It's 5:20 am here in Rome. I am wide awake, and there's a lot of subtle snoring going on in the room. It's now official, the year 2012 has left along with its threats of total human race extinction, and 2013 has been welcomed bringing with it hope of longer and brighter days. I celebrated the New Year by going all sleeping beauty on everyone and missing out on all the fun. Yes, at 11:45 in the evening of December 31, 2012, I tucked myself into bed, put on my earplugs, and set my sleeping mask. I zoned out for an hour or so, only hearing whispers, and bits of explosions coming from above the roof, oblivious to the chaotic fun happening outside. Well, at least I started my year right by sleeping rather than by being bitter. The reason for my lack of interest in the fireworks display this year, was that I didn't get to watch it from the city's top view, because my mom couldn't be bothered to come and walk with me there. Shallow, I know. Suddenly I wish for more adventurous parents, but then parents mixed with adventure screams total havoc, so, yeah, I guess I am thankful. And since I mentioned thankful, I would like to thank God for the wonderful year He has given me. 2012 has been nothing more than a year of dreams, and it's still all too surreal for me. Never in my wildest dreams have I ever thought of coming to Rome at such a young age-- thought it was only for the rich, famous, and those brave enough to really step foot outside their world-- but I realized it's for anybody really, anybody whose got a dream in their heart. Before I came here, I was already traveling across the Luzon and Visayas area in the Philippines, and that was an added bonus to my year. I met new people, made new friends, visited new places, and realized new passions, discovering more of me in Him in the process. Thank you for that interestingly fun-filled year, and thank you for the opportunities and the people You put in my life. Family, Friends, Mentors, everyone, thank you for keeping me and for standing by my side always. In memory of last year's New Year's Celebration, here are some shots taken during the first of January, year 2012:

                      May we all have a prosperous and overflowing year of blessings this 2013! For now I have to go to bed, because I need my beauty rest! I am starting the year with more love! Love lots!

year ender

                Last 2011 I ended the year with a bang-- celebrating for the first time, Christmas with my family and relatives in Manila. The year before that, 2010, my dad, brothers and I also celebrated our first Christmas in a new apartment after thirteen years of renting that old, haunted-like house, by the side of the road. This year I celebrated my first Christmas with my mom in Rome-- at least the only one that I can and will remember being with her on Christmas Eve. 

                Three consecutive years of change. Every year holds a promise of something new: a new journey, a new place, a new house, new people, a new adventure-- all of which I never dreamed of experiencing. The year 2010 brought us change, 2011 brought us new hope, and 2012 tested our new found hope. In a few more hours, the old year will end and the new one will start, 2013 will overflow with greater promise, and new starts for all of us even for me. Cheers for being alive and for not seeing the anticipated doomsday! I thank God for the numerous blessings, opportunities, and for every promise that He has fulfilled in my life. Truly He holds everything in His hands. Because of Him I will be ending this year with a smile on my face, and a new dream in my heart: the dream to go the distance, and be who He wants me to be. With every walk down a new street, a ride on a newly departing train, and with every sound of a shutter closing, I am slowly but surely realizing where I want to be headed with my life, on that long, winding journey of finding and discovering. Before I end this year, I would like to reminisce the results of my wanderlust, I will be showcasing below some of the shots I took this year. Yes, this has been long overdue, and I apologize, for lack of a better excuse I will just leave my apology at that.

                  These were taken on the transit from Riyadh to Rome, when I had to sit for twelve hours at the waiting area of the King Khaled International Airport, and wait for the sun to show itself.

               Funny story, some Arab women back at the airport's ladies room actually thought I was Arab also (thick eyebrows. they can be deceiving, yes?) They somehow managed to ask me-- in their own language-- why I was dressed that way, you know, jeans and sweats with no head scarf on. Orrr, maybe I was just really breaking the rules or something. Ha! I wouldn't know.

                The next photos were from my first night in Rome, when my mom and I passed by Piazza della Repubblica on the way home after dinner. Piazza della Republicca is one of the tourist attractions in Rome, and I think it's because of the Fontana delle Naiadi-- the fountain located at the center of the circle with the creepiest sculptures ever to be seen by my eyes-- and I say this without malice, but I've got to hand it to the artist for having such wild, vivid imaginations, of naked people sitting on what appears to be a scary horse and ostrich. Well, according to my research, the ostrich is actually a swan, and the naked people are actually nymphs.

                 Anyway that's all I could upload for now. As simple as it may seem, uploading is really kind of a pain in the butt for me since my laptop keeps on blacking out, well technically, it tends to go all white with the screen and all that crap, and I have to wait for a couple of minutes for it to be back on again. I seriously need to buy an external hard drive! I will be one dead girl if my laptop gets fried (God forbid). But it will have to do for now, because I don't have the money to buy myself a hard drive. I also need to start saving up for that prime lens I've been dying to have for more than a year now, but how will I ever save up if I don't even have a job. So I guess 2013 will be good to me, I'll have a job, I'll travel, I'll shoot and I'd somehow, in a sort of different way, be close to being like Nirrimi-- free-spirited and brave. Ha! Like what the pastor said earlier, "Start to ask big from God, because He is no small god." That's exactly what I will do, ask big from Him tonight. So guys, greet the New Year with awesomeness because it will be awesome! I promise to update sooner, and really get back on those long overdue posts.

updates

                         It's been like forever! I missed the blank page, the unwritten words, the anticipation that tugged at me everytime I would be close to finishing one post. I've long been longing for that inspiration of some sort to flow right through me, and maybe push me to write even just one word, but it never came, instead I got preoccupied with the wrong things, at the wrong times. So much for being time wise.

                     In other news, I have a job! Yey! I was hired to write articles about the places I'm in, and have been to. It's actually my first, I've been writing all my life but I never get paid for the things I write. Now finally, not only do I get to do what I love, I also get paid doing it. It's not really something that huge, but it's big enough for me. Who would've thought that these random travels, and experiences would actually amount to something in the future? Not me-- never even thought of it in my dreams. God is just so good, always. And aside from the articles, I also get to contribute my own photos, plus I get to have credits for them. So yeah. That side of my life has been greener.

                       I have also been learning a lot from the Italian language! Thanks to Nessa and her mom, I've been attending the language class Nessa goes to-- her mom convinced me to go and paid for my enrollment, I couldn't refuse. Besides, I didn't have anything to do but stay in the house all day, and isolate myself. Grazie Zia Ana e Nessa! I've been learning how to make sentences, and I can understand the language more-- no more mouth-wide-open-staring-blankly episodes when people speak to me in Italian. Ha! Maybe if I get to stay until May, (hopefully, with fingers crossed) then I'd be able to actually speak Italian. We shall all wish for that, but for now, I will just have to enjoy the moment, and savor every minute of it.

                         Hmmm, what else? Oh yeah! I went to Verona and Venice! Yes, Verona and Venice! I just had to repeat it for lack of a better statement to follow the first one. And all that I can and will ever say is that IT WAS MAGICAL. Verona was fun, especially with the snow and all-- my first experience with snow and I had to wear non-snow boots, somebody slap me! Venice on the other hand, was, VENICE, straight out from the movies, in all it's romantic glory. When I first stepped out the train terminal, I just had to stop myself from "awwww-ing". But all those details will go to another post, because I can go on and on about how beautiful Verona and Venice was, but not this time, not on this post. Anyways, I wouldn't have been able to experience all of that, if not for a great friend Ate Jeyb, who went through all that trouble of convincing my inconvincible mom, and actually going out of her way to accompany me, thank you!

                           December has so far been so good to me. God put me in a church that is just starting to have their youth group, I have been offered to join in the ministry, and He placed me in the midst of people He knew I would need at this moment. I have been trying to survive lately, and by survive I mean literally survive. My mom's been planning to send me home-- by force. And honestly it has been driving me insane trying to argue with her on that because I simply do not want to leave just yet. I knew the moment I stepped foot in Rome that my mom was going to make me leave sooner, I just didn't know it'd be as soon as when I receive my permit to stay. Every other conversation we had, there would be moments where she would urge me to prepare myself because I would soon be leaving and it killed me everytime she would do that. I resorted to taking my own drastic measures-- I looked for a job-- just so I could fend for myself and not have my mom choking me in the throat just because I was her daughter. Yup, the rebel inside me was being raised to life again, but fortunately God found a way around it. What had been the result of my job hunt, was the church finding me, and offering me and my mom options just so I couldn't leave right away when the time comes, they wanted me to really enjoy my stay here so they offered me shelter. My mom and I haven't talked about it that much, but at least it's better now because I know I have options. See this is why I couldn't bring myself to write about anything. Glad I let that out of my chest now. God will forever be good. He is my best Christmas present.

                               Wishing you guys a wonderful, merry, christmas wherever you are! And oh, for a sneak peek here's a shot of the gondolas in Venice, hope you love it!

taken with a point-and-shoot

silent no more

                        I've been silent for quite some time now, in hopes that the silence would heal me-- but it never did. The more I allowed myself to be engrossed in deafening silence, the more I started to feel like I'm losing myself. I am fine now, well I'm trying to be at least. All the words left unsaid, partly said, or said without definite voice kept piling up into this huge garbage, that I someday fear would drown me. I have come to fear a lot of things, and one thing about me that family and friends know is that I am not a coward-- I do not bow down to any kind of fear, past, future or present, physical, nor emotional. I do not fear rejection, I do not fear my past mistakes, I do not fear the future, and I do not fear death. But now times have changed and I have come to fear everything all at once. The way I see it now, coming here to Rome was a huge mistake, the biggest I've ever made so far. A mistake that I'd have to live with for the rest of my life. But things happen just like that, and no matter how unclear the purpose is to me, I believe my God is busy working behind the scenes, doing His best to make everything work together for my good, and my family's. I may be at my weakest right now, but one day when all of this is over and done, I will arise stronger and braver. I will be back to normal, having the strong, smart, loving, understanding, and jolly self that I once had,  filled with joy and peace overflowing from the inside to the outside. So thank you, to the people who stood, and are still standing for, by, and with me, who believes in me, who cares for me, and who prays for me. Indeed in life there are no battles won alone.

random cold days

                   We just changed our daylight saving time yesterday and we deducted an hour from the time. So that leaves another hour to add to the timezone gap between Rome and the Philippines. Actually as I researched it says the actual daylight saving was on March and it ended yesterday, anyways I don't really get it, and all I know is that the 6-hour difference between Philippine time and Rome time is now a 7-hour interval. Along with the time change came the weather change, everything was cold, gray, and pre-wintery yesterday. I don't know about you but one layer of undershirt, coupled with two layers of thick wool plus scarf is actually heavy, not to mention the layer of stocking, leggings, and socks that I had on that day-- but all of those layers seemed pretty foolish to the gnawing cold that would slap you when you step outside the house. I don't even know why I still felt the ice-cold wind down to my bones, when I was actually wearing more layers than usual. Now I understand why people rarely bathe here and that is not an understatement-- it is so effin cold. Well of course with the heater on I guess it's not that cold, it's even hotter, but we haven't had our heaters turned on yet, they say it's a thing done by the management of the apartment we are living in and usually it happens on the second week of November. So I guess I'll just have to wait for that day. Moving on to other news, it's been a month since I stepped foot on Rome, and needless to say I'm proud I actually made it this long-- ugh, has it really been just a month? Because I feel like it's been months, and it's been dragging, and it's taking way too long for my papers to move. Two days ago I made the boldest decision of my life, to face someone I was not prepared to face, and let me just say it was a complete and utter disaster. After that, I realized some things which will probably act as main factors as to how I shall live my life from now on. But, on the bigger and most important note, I was deeply hurt by the insincerity I saw in the person's eyes. The person so close to me, I realized is dead, and is replaced by someone I don't know anymore. I tried to fight for the person with all of my will, with all of my heart, only to be disappointed at the end because the person I thought I was fighting for, is long gone. And it's useless trying to reach out and even trying other crazy, desperate measures  to save someone dear to you because sometimes, there is just nothing you can do about it anymore. I'm tired. I'm fed up. I'm just plain exhausted. Who would want to continually fight for someone who isn't even there? It's completely absurd, but what's even more absurd is the situation I am in right now. I try to close my eyes, hurt myself, and even convince myself that it's all just a bad dream, but unfortunately how can you wake those who are already wide awake? The irony of my life! My friends were right, all my life I've been living in a cave, isolated by my own principles, by my own cautions, that when the time came for me to see and experience the world for real I could barely stand up on my own two feet because of the trauma that I've experienced. The world is not something I should stay away from, it's something I now believe, I should experience firsthand. All this caution and this belief that I don't need to do what other people do, has made me so secluded, so innocent, and so vulnerable. So now, I will live my life, I will try new things, I will step outside the box you made me live in for years, and you will regret the day you ever made me see the world for real, the day you traded me for cheap love-- because that day, you lost me completely. I will love, I will get hurt, I will fight. I will not be afraid to fall in love anymore, who cares if he will be my first boyfriend ever-- I don't give a damn, not now, not in the future. Nineteen years wasted on principles that never helped me in my time of desperation, and desertion. I won't be a coward, I will be whoever I want to be, do whatever I want to do, and I won't think of future regrets, because I will only get to live my life once. Before I didn't favor the You-Only-Live-Once lifestyle that everybody else is raving about, but after seeing the world and how cruel it really is, I realized that I only have one life, and it would be such a waste to not use every strand of that life to its full potential. Therefore thank you because you opened up my eyes to every heart-breaking, life-tearing, truth-- you will forever be remembered as the one who took away my very soul. I forgive you for your humanity and your weaknesses, but it will never be the same, none of it will ever be the same again.

adventures with ness

                 I've been in a pensive mood lately, for four days now actually. Trying to reflect on something I just recently discovered, on whether I should fight for it, or just let it go. Some things are just hard to fathom really, and the more you force yourself to grasp the reality of something, the more it leads you to believe that the reality you're believing in is nothing but a mere lie. Someday this will all be settled, and when it's time, I shall tell of why there was a point in my life when I wished nothing more but to get drunk on my first beer, get addicted to my first cigarette, and get high with my first weed. But for now, I shall only tell of my adventures with a new friend I've come to know more, and love more while I am in this new place-- Ness.

this is Vanessa, I call her Nessa, or Ness for short.

her smiles remind me so much of a dear friend-- Kaye.

yes, she's a bit crazy also, like me.

               We went to EUR FERMI, a place in Rome, a bit far from the center of Rome, actually this place is the second to the last stop on the Metro going to Laurentina. I think this was shot last week, we were planning to have an autumn shoot but when I saw the place everything was so green, it felt like spring instead of autumn. The seasons here are kind of confusing, it's supposed to be autumn already but there are days when it's still hot outside, and leaves haven't even changed colors yet. There are also days when it's so cold you could wear up to three layers of clothing and still feel the gnawing cold. I blame global warming. The earth is not the same earth anymore, and the results are now becoming more visible. Moving on, we decided that since we can't have our autumn shoot, then we should at least have some fun and just play around and that's exactly what we did-- be goofballs and all. It was so fun, I arrived home a bit late that night meaning 7 p.m since the traveling distance was a bit far. So there you are, I actually was more of a "model" than a photographer during this fun shoot because I have more photos than Ness! And that is why, in between shots my mind would be nostalgic and remember my friends back in Cebu, especially Kaye, because she was always the first to be confident in me and push me to smile for her as she takes a shot of me. If you are reading this Kaye, I miss you! Here is one shot of me which I really like.

And here are the rest of our photos. Thank you Ness for taking great photos of me! That is all. More updates soon, I'm planning on making a video, taking a lot of random bus rides, and having more of my Rome experience because I need a break from all this negative vibe that is going on.

first day of class

                  I had my first language class yesterday and thank God I survived-- literally! I had expected the lessons to be pure Italian with no use of English words whatsoever, even in the dialect that was to be used inside the classroom, but I was not exactly prepared for what was going on in there-- I just thought I was. I originally thought "Oh, it would be fine, I'll just understand it like everybody else does.." but when I got there, I was like "What the hell is the teacher saying?!" I mean, you will literally drop your jaw if you don't even have the slightest bit of Italian education, and I don't have even the tiniest of that education. All I've ever known is "ciao" and "dove sei" for "hi/hello/goodbye" and "where are you", just those words. And imagine I was sitting at the back of the classroom and the teacher was babbling about this and that, and I didn't have the slightest clue to what she was saying. Good thing I sat at the table where all the Filipinos were, but even so, I still could not understand a word, and I couldn't just disturb my seatmates by asking all my stupid questions such as "what is going on?" So I just sat there, with my jaw dropped, and trying to process even just one word into my brain. Jeez. Even with all the movement of the hands and all that body language, I was still clueless. I remember there was this quiz going on a few seconds after I settled down on my seat, and my oh my, was I a complete joke. The teacher was asking us to name the things inside the classroom such as the white board, the chalk, the door, etc. of course I knew what those things were, but I didn't know what their Italian names were and I was like "what do I write here?" All my seatmates had answers while I had none. Of course as a newbie that was excusable, but at that moment I just felt so stupid and I wanted to laugh at myself because I was beginning to think I was in some sort of reality show where I was being punk'd. Anyway, after that horrible exercise everything else just fell into place, later on as the lesson progressed my seatmates were lending me a hand and trying to explain to me what the lesson was all about. Thank God for kind people, if not for them I would just stare into oblivion throughout the whole period and I wouldn't want to come back again. Well I got to learn just some few things such as the use of verbs, there are a lot of classifications and a lot of changing of verbs in the Italian language. I learned to make the statement "Io sono arrabbiata"  which is Italian for "I am angry"; "Io ho fame" which meant "I am hungry"; "Noi abbiamo sete" which is "We are thirsty"-- notice the change in verbs used? Ugh, and I have to memorize all of them. I also learned later on when I arrived home that in conversations the "I", "You", "We" or "Io", "Tu", "Noi" are not that used. So instead of saying "Io sono arrabbiata" you just say "Sono arrabbiata" when talking with someone. My oh my is this so conflicting.  But all in all it was a good experience and I'm looking forward to the widening of my horizons! I have to sleep so Buona Notte lovely people!