Desmond & the Lemon-substitutes.

In baking and cooking, there's what is known as a cooking substitute, which stands in place for something else you're missing. For example, some people say sour cream can be almost successfully substituted for full cream, as is the same with lemon and lime. Of course, they always swear that the finish product is good enough (or better).

I think it's the same in life. You know how life gives you lemons? I believe sometimes it gives you oranges, and you're supposed to do the same thing--make lemonade juice. Of course it'll taste nothing like the sour-ey pick-me-wake-me-up that we're used to, but it'll make a sweet greet-you-in-the-morning drink. Same principals. The finished product is good enough for fruit juice (or better, for the non-sour-toothed).

But at the end of the pulpy road... lemon isn't orange, and neither is sour cream, full cream. They were different for obvious reasons, and the finished product is never the same, even if sometimes better.

I watched my mom make a whole canteen of food today. First frying noodles, and then making mango-flavored jelly, before finally slicing up two oranges. And...? I had no big revelation. I'm just waiting for the jelly to set, before I nonchalantly ask my mom if I'm allowed to taste one. But if life does give me oranges one day, I'll just make the same puns as everyone else does, with the lemons: sell it, throw it back in Life's face, make juice, make pie, clean up the tough stains... Oranges and lemons are both citrus fruits, they should be good enough, right?I cannot help much what is given to me, or what someone else does. I can only cope, and hope that things will be better. And make the adjustments, hoping the finished product is good enough, or if I'm fortunate, better.

Desmond and the Long Break.

Blogger has dropped out of the popularity race, and now all the cool kids are endorsing the indie-ish tumblr and the incessant twitter. I have to say--and be slightly embarrassed while I do--that I have a tumblr. Several, in fact, and I actually have followers. Hee! Of course, most of the times, the people who think they are cool, really aren't, and so I really am not either. Also? I'm a sell-out for not updating my blogspot for three months now. Yes, that day finally came, and multiplied itself a hundred times over. I stopped blogging.

This blog has held a lot of history for me. I've seen myself grow, and I've seen my childishness, and dare I say it, my brief flashes of maturity. I've been overtly and unwisely honest at times, and mind-scrambling-ly guarded on other occasions, and in all of it, I've used writing this blog as a means to mark my time and remember my moments.

2012 so far has been a year of moments. Of course, every year has moments, but as we all know, certain moments in our lives are milestones. Towards the end of April, I finally got my own room. Yes, it's been a loooong and whine-ful wait, but I now have a room to clean and take care of, to slather with photos and other half-baked crafts that I know are terrible, but choose to think are stamps of my creative individuality. I finally have a room to call my own.

Of course, 2012 also marks the end of my undergraduate studies. I'm still waiting to have my convocation which happens in approximately 2 weeks, but that's a milestone too. I am a graduate! I get to wear a gown and a clunky hat, and worry about falling on the stage, and getting no cheers. I get to leave my schooling, laid-out, timetable days, behind, and enter the pre-working limbo of hours and hours of drama shows and spontaneous and continuous eating. Basically where nothing is dictated by any sort of time-based system. I've been living that for about 2 months now, and believe me, it's a heck of a slow-acting freak house. When the freak reaches it's maximum (which for me is kinda now), it hits you hard and shows no mercy. The only way to counter it is to rally up an inexperienced army of past working experience (none), and other past vaguely-relevant achievements that really aren't much to boast about anyways.

That's the next milestone--looking for a job. Which is really where I'm at now. I'm in-between states, and I'm in-between a rock and an incredibly soft and comfortable place which I now have to leave because of eviction on the grounds of graduation. It's unsettling and scary, and I just want to huddle up in my blanket and cry on my bed. The bad news is, I can't do that forever. The good news is... I now have a room where I can do that in private confidence.

Thank God for 2012's milestones. Some, and counting.

(I applied for some places, and we'll see who gets back. Also, I went to the gardensbythebay the other day. )