18 August 2011

Conversation of the year

Taxi driver: May gusto sana akong itanong sa inyo.

Me: (Thinks of escape tactics once he brings out his gun/knife, or whatever weapon of choice) Ano po 'yon?

Taxi driver: May kinakain ka bang special?

Me: (Okay, he will sell me exotic food...) Paano hong special? Kakaiba?

Taxi driver: Oo—pangpaganda. May kinakain ka bang pangpaganda?

Me: Ay, wala ho.

Taxi driver: Nagtataka kasi ako, bakit ang ganda mo.

Me: (Putragis) Naku, (wishes to give a self-effacing response, but blurts out the first thing in my mind anyway in hopes to end the exchange) sinuwerte lang ho.
Taxi driver laughs, I come out of the cab alive.

07 August 2011

Getting there

The thing about playing the piano is you only enjoy it when in the process of getting it. By the time you're almost there, merely polishing, you're tired of it, you want to move on to a new piece. Learning that last difficult piece makes you excited about learning a more challenging one. The bitter-sweet thing about all this is you never really get there. You'll never master it. At least I don't. Every playing is completely flawed.

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