I [heart] Cebu

In my second or third day in this city, some friends back home texted me asking how I was doing. I replied, "I love this place, and I think it's going to love me back." Six weeks later, I'm still feeling the same. Affection, though, is not really the right term for what I feel for Cebu. "Comfortable" is more like it. When I came here, I never felt apprehension or any negative feeling. It was like walking to the next corner of a familiar neighborhood, even though I'd never been here before.

I think age 23--last year--was the worst year of my life. This year is going to be the best--and it will happen here.

Holier than man

I've just finished Jiang Rong's Wolf Totem, and my nose is still clogged up. The book is supposed to be bloodcurling, rugged, and hence masculine, but tears would just well up in my eyes every thirty pages or so.

This book is ultra special. This is the first book I bought here in Cebu, and I bought it with the check PDI sent me for "Worth a million." But Totem occupies my current most-favorite list not because of those awful high school-y reasons, but because of the author's sheer masterful storytelling. It's a novel that reads more like an action-packed socio-politico-cultural documentary. I can only agree with San Francisco Chronicle, which describes it as "an intellectual adventure story . . . Five hundred bloody and instructive pages later, you just want to stand up and howl!"

Wolves now are the holiest creatures for me, even holier than human beings. Like the nomadic Mongols in China (or, at least when modernity has not yet destroyed their practices), I want a sky-burial when I die. I'd like my corpse to be taken to the woods, where wolves will eat my flesh and bring my soul to the grassland god, Tengger.

Judiciously

After the "Syudi Rolly" episode (Yes, it is almost history. I'm no longer rendering so much overtime work. Got burnt out after one week--one week!), I'm stuck with another monicker: Judiciously.

No, it doesn't have anything to do with my second name (Jude). It has something to do with what I said during our monthly calibration (That's "meeting" for you.) As it happens, each new editor are compelled to ask at least one question. So I made one about introductory phrases. I told them I'm confused whether to put a comma (an issue so significant it could be the solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict) or not in some introductory phrases. "So what I do," I said, "is I do it judiciously--"

An uproar followed, with some jumping at the nearest PC and acting as though they're checking the word out in Merriam-Webster online. When the noise died down, some reviewers answered my question--and each wickedly used "judiciously" at least once. Now they seem to be taking every chance to tease me with the word.

That's it. Next time I've got to pick my words more, well, judiciously.