Hmmm...can't really remember when i spent valentine's with somebody 'special'. Last year, I found myself walking the small town of Kampong Cham, Cambodia (as in small, you can walk the whole town in ten minutes) with a bunch of guys and girls, then finally converging in one expat restaurant that serves great Tiger Beer and Carlsberg. If i remember correctly, around this time last year, a server in that restaurant was flirting with Sean and asking stuff about him. She found him the most attractive among the men i was with. Meanwhile, the rest of us were just watching the exchange. She couldn't believe that he was Asian.
It was also around this time that I had the pleasure of meeting Colin -- my grandfather turned father -- who has always been wise and kind.
As we passed the stores in town, there were plastic hearts and flowers all over. What do you expect, it's a very earthy place (as in red earth). Not much flowers there.
Tomorrow, i'll be celebrating valentine's in a two-day meeting. Never really got immersed into the whole valentine thing anyway. It's such a headache to go out into the streets and see the traffic. Last time i went out to celebrate valentines was, hmmm...when i was in college, i guess. Law school valentines were spent with a special person, of course, with the name of grace since it is her special day as well.So it wasn't really to celebrate valentines, but purely to celebrate my dear friend's birthday. And that beat any valentine from my younger years.
I'm more actually excited to celebrate February 15 in Quiapo with buddies of mine.
So what's so special about valentines? If somebody tells me it's to celebrate the day of lovers, i'll punch them in the nose i swear...because seeing the couples these days, you'll KNOW that they're celebrating valentines EVERY SINGLE DAY with their public display of affection (myself included). Besides, true romance should be celebrated everyday.
Valentines instead is like Christmas in "How the Grinch Stole Christmas". For others who didn't get to read the book, it's actually a story of commercializing a holiday, to the point that people have learned to relate Christmas not with values, but with material stuff...or so until Grinch stole Christmas and got proven wrong. But for Valentines, i still believe that it's really an opportunity for stores and establishments to cash in the dough. Because, contrary to what others might believe, St. Valentine has nothing to do with romantic love. He was actually a martyr, like all saints are in one form or the other. However, February is the fertility month (but how come a lot more people have birthdays on October, it seems?) It is also the day that women, in the olden days, had their day in court.
Anyway, i'm not making sense anymore. So to end this, and to greet everyone a happy valentines, I am stealing the text of my friend that she quoted from another source because it made me laugh...(sorry Rods)
"IF two eventually fell in love, despite the disparity of their ages and academic levels, this only lends substance to the truism that the heart has reasons for its own which reason does not know" (Chua-Qua vs. Clave, 169 SCRA 117)...
(Although I would have loved it more to post Justice Cruz' discussion in one case about star-crossed lovers in one crim case, which I don't have any strength anymore to remember, much less look for it. Maybe next year...)
It was also around this time that I had the pleasure of meeting Colin -- my grandfather turned father -- who has always been wise and kind.
As we passed the stores in town, there were plastic hearts and flowers all over. What do you expect, it's a very earthy place (as in red earth). Not much flowers there.
Tomorrow, i'll be celebrating valentine's in a two-day meeting. Never really got immersed into the whole valentine thing anyway. It's such a headache to go out into the streets and see the traffic. Last time i went out to celebrate valentines was, hmmm...when i was in college, i guess. Law school valentines were spent with a special person, of course, with the name of grace since it is her special day as well.So it wasn't really to celebrate valentines, but purely to celebrate my dear friend's birthday. And that beat any valentine from my younger years.
I'm more actually excited to celebrate February 15 in Quiapo with buddies of mine.
So what's so special about valentines? If somebody tells me it's to celebrate the day of lovers, i'll punch them in the nose i swear...because seeing the couples these days, you'll KNOW that they're celebrating valentines EVERY SINGLE DAY with their public display of affection (myself included). Besides, true romance should be celebrated everyday.
Valentines instead is like Christmas in "How the Grinch Stole Christmas". For others who didn't get to read the book, it's actually a story of commercializing a holiday, to the point that people have learned to relate Christmas not with values, but with material stuff...or so until Grinch stole Christmas and got proven wrong. But for Valentines, i still believe that it's really an opportunity for stores and establishments to cash in the dough. Because, contrary to what others might believe, St. Valentine has nothing to do with romantic love. He was actually a martyr, like all saints are in one form or the other. However, February is the fertility month (but how come a lot more people have birthdays on October, it seems?) It is also the day that women, in the olden days, had their day in court.
Anyway, i'm not making sense anymore. So to end this, and to greet everyone a happy valentines, I am stealing the text of my friend that she quoted from another source because it made me laugh...(sorry Rods)
"IF two eventually fell in love, despite the disparity of their ages and academic levels, this only lends substance to the truism that the heart has reasons for its own which reason does not know" (Chua-Qua vs. Clave, 169 SCRA 117)...
(Although I would have loved it more to post Justice Cruz' discussion in one case about star-crossed lovers in one crim case, which I don't have any strength anymore to remember, much less look for it. Maybe next year...)
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