Being Alone Felt Good… But Never Felt Right

Aaah, love.
I’m still struggling with my emotions, and they suck.
Alcohol is an evil, wasteful thing….and it took away the greatest love of my life.

I keep on telling myself, keep moving forward, keep on going, press on, make yourself a life and don’t lay down to die.
It’s hard.

My interview today went well, I have to wait for the final interview, which will hopefully be tomorrow.
I also got a call back from the Korean school for English, and they want me to meet with them to talk about salary and starting dates…which is excellent….but now I have to think about a few different things.

Number one, Salary…which job pays more.
As a foreigner, I have to renew my visa every few months, which is about 4k pesos a pop….then, I need to think about rent costs, and food….I can feed myself for a month on 2k pesos.
Then I have to think about transportation….which would be less of an issue if I took a boarding room in the downtown core….I don’t mind walking.
Also, every three years, I have to leave the country and come back, so I need a job that will allow me to save up enough to buy a plane ticket somewhere.

Number two concern is Job Security.
I want to live here for the rest of my life.
I will need a job that will be around for a long time, and won’t just hire me for a season, or will run the risk of letting me go when it gets slow.

I really don’t care about socializing or going out or doing things around town….I know I won’t be able to afford it for a really long time… I do want to buy a laptop or build a desktop computer, so that I can maybe start an online business of some sort, continue to keep this blogitty updated, and also to keep up with my photography.

Anyway.
Yesterday, I went out with Ma’am Joanne, another woman I know here, to a place that makes cheese and stuff from goats….It was pretty awesome, I got to see a bit of cheese making, the removal of the whey and putting it into molds.
The owner is German, and he had a unique cheese press that he had a friend weld together for him that was very efficient and very interesting.

I took his business card, and so next time I write an update, I will include directions and the name of the place, which I can’t remember currently.

I also forgot to mention the other day Ma’am Cecilia and I met up with a local photographer named Hersley Casero, and he told me all about his work right now…I guess a few years ago, someone stole a photograph of his and claimed it was their own, and the laughing boy in the picture, he told the media, had cancer….which was, and is not true.

A friend of his in California recognized on the news that it was Hersley’s work, and told him about what was going on….the picture had been going viral, and from that point, they decided to create the ‘Ha?’ project.

It’s a collaboration of artists all over the world, and you can find more information right here in the link to their Facebook page.

I guess that’s all I currently have to say….besides the fact that right now I’m eating a very tasty dish of rice noodles, chunks of really sour green thingies called ‘Iba’, green onion, shrimp, some kind of tasty, yellow sauce…’palabok’ sauce, calamansi, egg, and pork rinds.
It is bloody delicious and I wish I could share it with you all….but only a little bit, because its almost too good to share.

So much for Filipino food being ‘gross’ or ‘bland’ or ‘too salty’…….Goes to show what happens when you’re not afraid of a little social exploration….

The last few weeks have been so good for my mind and soul…getting out and about, meeting new people, being friendly and open to meeting the community will get you very far in the Philippines, and I am living proof….I’ve had it both ways.

Social isolation, sticking to your house and doing nothing but grocery shopping and drinking starts to make you a very cynical, cranky, frustrated hermit-creature here….you end up meeting the lazy, creepy, night-time folk.

Also, there’s a large difference between socializing with gross, opportunistic, exploitative foreigners……and getting to meet the well-to-do, outgoing, helpful, adventurous people.

Pfuh.
Anyway, Until next time!