I was quite hungry this morning, owing to the fact that I stayed up half the night cleaning the apartment. While trying to decide whether I should cook or eat out, I came across Minnette’s latest entry in Lafang List, so I decided to go to one of the few eating places in our area that I actually like to dine out in - a restaurant that serves a buffet of American, Chinese, and Japanese dishes.

I’ve been to this place several times in the past year, often with friends and at times on my own, so I know the menu pretty well. Their sushi is pretty good, and I was looking forward to sampling them today.

On the way to my table, I came across one of the waitresses, and smiled in recognition. Jill (not her real name) is, I assume, a member of the family who owns the restaurant. Or perhaps a close relative. I came to this assumption because a) she closely resembles the cashier, who I take to be one of the owners simply because she never wears a uniform and b) she is always here whenever I/we come over to eat.

My drink was already waiting when I got back to my table after visiting the buffet spread. Noting that one type of sushi was especially good, I went to the bar for more. When I came back to the table, the used plate I had left behind was already cleared, and my drink had been topped up. This Jill is very efficient, I thought to myself, noticing that she moved between tables and did her job with the same speed I use when crossing the Taft Ave. MRT station in my rubber shoes, which is to say, very fast.

As I watched her balance a loadful of half-empty plates, this thought suddenly came to me: Is this her American dream? Did she, like so many of us, leave her home for the promise of ‘greener pastures’ in this foreign land? Does she have dreams and secret hopes that she nurtures while she waits tables, day after day, in this buffet restaurant? Or was this it, was this the only thing that she came for?

I must admit, I’m a hopeless romantic when it comes to dreams and goals. I’m the eternal optimist, albeit a pragmatic one. I believe in dreaming, and in going after dreams, even when we sometimes have to take the long and circuitous route to get to where we want to go.

So there I tarried over the plate of savory sushi, my thoughts now jumping from Jill the waitress to my own self, to my family, to my friends. And to the people I’ve met along the way to my goals, who helped me get a second wind by giving me an encouraging word, a comforting hug, some well-timed advice.

And suddenly, sushi half-forgotten, I felt a wave of gratitude for everyone who helped me get to where I am now. It is not yet the destination I had originally set out for, but I believe that I’m nearer to where I want to go in part because of the people who helped me and blessed me and cheered me on.

And so, as I left the coolness of the restaurant for the 97-degree Florida heat, I whispered a silent prayer. For Jill the waitress, that she might get a second wind to last her through her busy day, and hopefully keep alive whatever dreams she might have. And for myself, my family and my friends, that we would always find the strength and the faith to keep on going. And that, even when our goals seem very far off or when we start to feel like nothing much is happening at the moment, we never stop dreaming.

Posted under Navel-Gazing

The first (and almost last) time I held a tennis racquet was when I was a gawky 13-year-old with pink ponytail-bands and pink-rimmed eyeglasses (hehe, those were the days…) when one of my first-year highschool classmates *tried* to teach me the rudiments of the game.

Suffice to say, I did a bad job at that ‘first lesson’, being very thin(!) and very uncoordinated at that time. Plus, I had to keep my pink-rimmed eyeglasses from slipping down my nose the whole time. (Why I didn’t just take those glasses off the same way I did when I played volleyball, I really can’t remember. Maybe it was because the tennis ball was so much smaller. Heh.). I’ve always thought that that session was a total failure on my part.

So, in a conscious effort to put that ‘failure’ as far behind me as I could, I never tried taking up tennis again. That is, not until last week (some 17 years and maybe 40 pounds later) when one of my friends handed me her tennis racquet and got off her side of the court, leaving me with the racquet in my right hand, while with my left I was still holding the volleyball that I had brought to the park.

Telling myself that if my friend, who is about the same height and weight as I am (although I think she’ll be quick to challenge this assertion), could play the game then I could too, and because my ‘opponent’ was already sending a whizzing bright green ball my way, I let go of the volleyball and did my best to hit the tennis ball with the racquet hard enough so that it got over the net and to the other side of the court.

To make a short story shorter, I found the game surprisingly fun. In fact, I enjoyed every minute of it, even when, the second day I played, some of our friends good-naturedly (I hope!) heckled me from the sidelines, and laughed when I held the racquet like one would hold a baseball bat.

After playing for two days, I was hooked. I’ve bought my own racquet (for heights 4′ 6″ - 5′, haha) and a tumbler of tennis balls. I’ve been bugging my friends about playing this afternoon (there is sunlight in these parts until about 8:30pm), but it seems that everyone who plays is either at work, or resting so that they could stay up late to watch the NBA game tonight.

Oh well, the NBA it is tonight then. And tomorrow…tomorrow it better be tennis.
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Quick question: What’s YOUR game these days?

Posted under Navel-Gazing