life story

updates, travel, writing

She's back from hibernation!

Hello, blog.

Gosh, for a person who claims to love writing, I sure do suck at updating my blog. How has it been eight years since my last post? And for it to be a travel-related one, written during an epic cross-country road trip J and I took in 2014, which I never even finished chronicling…tsk, tsk, tsk.

A lot has happened since then. Once we finished our US road trip, we went to Europe for a last vacay as just us two. Went back to the US and bought a house. Adopted a dog. Had a baby. Went through hell and back with that beloved baby. Enjoyed domestic life. Moved to a different country. Had another baby. Enjoyed the expat life. Traveled a lot. Ate a lot. Embarked on a fitness journey. Moved back to the States at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic in a process that had Amazing Race vibes. Hunkered down during the pandemic. Ushered one kid into kindergarten life. Helped a loved one say goodbye to life. Hunkered down some more. It’s definitely been a wild ride.

Now we’re here. Year 2 into the Age of Covid, with two rambunctious sons and an anxious dog. The past year has been a whirlwind of anxiety, heartache, panic, boredom, and sadness, but we were able to get through that dark tunnel and are now staring down a glimmer on the horizon (which I will be writing about more regularly in the future, I hope). Thankful to be alive. Grateful to be happy, healthy, and sane despite the current state of the world. Hopeful for better things to come.

See you later, blog. 💖

updates, year30, travel

The Grand Move: Consolidated updates of our last days in San Jose

The following are status updates posted on Facebook and Instagram regarding our big move to the east coast, after being in the Bay Area for three years. I figured I really should be a better website owner and actually fill mine with content.

November 20, 2014 at 6:00 PM (Thursday)

November 22, 2014 at 11:40 PM (Saturday)

  • Dinner, courtesy of random pantry contents: ground beef, white and black beans, kernel corn, coconut milk and curry, all mixed together. (Edible)
  • Boxes of clothes: Jason - 1, Jam - 5
  • Semi-argument over my excessive amount of shoes = 1
  • Number of steps: Jam - 5834 (indoor, boxing of shit), Jason - 16,400 (outdoor, carrying boxed shit to pod)

November 23, 2014 at 6:00 PM (Sunday)

Three years in a box. #vsco #VSCOcam

A photo posted by Jam Kotenko (@superduperjam) on

November 25, 2014 at 4:28 PM (Tuesday)

Attention, America! You have one more Asian driver to make fun of. ✊

A photo posted by Jam Kotenko (@superduperjam) on

November 26, 2014 at 10:07 AM (Wednesday)

The Grand Move, An Update: Today, we said goodbye to our junker, Jenny (to be said in your best Forrest Gump voice).

A photo posted by Jam Kotenko (@superduperjam) on

November 27, 2014 at 8:28 PM (Thursday)

Instant Thanksgiving for two, Safeway style. #thanksgiving #holiday

A photo posted by Jam Kotenko (@superduperjam) on

November 28, 2014 at 5:48 PM (Friday)

  • Time to completely empty the apartment, donate to Goodwill, and load the Jeep: 8.5 hours
  • Status: Sardine Can on Wheels (see pic)
  • Grumpiness level: fluctuating between 50-95%, but both on the fast decline since we're fuckin' done!
  • Hunger level: 100% for both
  • Time it took to wave goodbye to apartment: 5 seconds
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Sayonara, San Jose! It's been real.

writing

The J&J Story, The Wedding: Our wedding vows

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Marriage is a very important step in a couple’s relationship, it signifies a promise that is made in the hearts of two people who truly love and respect each other. It is a pledge to be the best of friends and the most caring of partners. 

Happiness in a marriage is not something that just happens. A good marriage must be created and nurtured. In the art of marriage the little things are the big things.

It is never being too old to hold hands.
It is remembering to say "I love you".
It is speaking words of appreciation and showing gratitude in thoughtful ways.
It is cultivating flexibility, patience and understanding.
It is having the ability to forgive and forget.

It is not marrying the right partner; it is being the right partner.

writing

The J&J Story, The Engagement: How it happened through a small bottle of Absinthe

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We went over to our friends Daniel and Kari's house to celebrate a low-key New Year's Eve with them.  They served veggies and meat and cheese on a hot plate then chocolate fondue for dessert.  We spent our night playing a card game called Phase10 and even watched a live telecast of the ball drop at Times Square when the clock stuck 12.  We were drinking and having a fun time when we saw a collection of untouched absinthe bottles, which is a type of liquor that's known to be strong.  Dan dared Jason to drink the whole mini-bottle, and of course, Jason did.  Halfway through he stopped and looked like he was going to be sick.  He didn't throw up, but I knew he was done for the night.  We all took a small swig and DIED.  Apparently, absinthe needs to be diluted with water before drinking, and Jason drank it pure.  He said it felt like his esophagus was on fire.

​The dare that went wrong.

​The dare that went wrong.

So Dan pointed us to a room we can crash in and helped Jason to bed while I helped Kari clean up.  When I got to the room Dan told me I didn't have to go to bed too if I still wanted to stay up and talk, but Jason gave me his puppy dog look so I told them I'd look after Jason and said good night.

Jason told me to get in bed and held out his arms, so I got in, turned the lights off and got into my usual fetal position, with Jason hugging me from behind.  I remembered that during Christmas, when his mom asked me what we planned to do when my visa expires, he said "she can extend" so confidently, and I knew for a fact that I couldn't extend because 6 months is the max for my visa, so I kept thinking he knew something I didn't, that he had a plan.  I knew it could be marriage, but it could also have been something at his job...maybe he was able to get me one, too.  So Christmas night, I asked him again (for the nth time) what his plans were, and he said his usual reply, "I've got it under control, trust me" with that exasperating grin of his.  So I said, "Will you at least tell me when New Year comes? I AM DYING HERE."  After a long pause, he said yes and that was the end of it.

So back to bed, fetal position, Jason hugging me from behind.  We were talking in whispers.

Jam: You owe me. What were you talking about last Christmas?

Jason: What do you mean?

Jam: What you told your mom about me extending?

(silence)

Jason: Do you want to get married?

(silence)

Jam: Huh?

Jason: Do you want to get married?

Jam: Do you?!

Jason: I do.

Jam: Are you sure???

Jason: I am. I've been sure for a long time. 

(silence)

(tears)

Jam: Wow.  

Jason: so...will you marry me?

Jam: Hell yeah!  Yes!  I've been sure for a long time, too!

Then Jason started explaining why he can't give me an expensive ring yet because he had to put money away for paying my adjustment of status process, but I just stopped him and hugged him tight and just told him I loved him.  He said he was happy and I said I was, too.  Then he kinda drifted off to sleep.  Meanwhile, I was eyes wide open, DYING TO GO ONLINE and tell someone, but the signal in the room was weak.  I couldn't fall asleep.  I was too happy and excited and I don't know...relieved that we wouldn't have to be apart for so long.

The next day, it was like nothing happened when we woke up.  We agreed not to tell anyone until we told our families, and Dan and Kari were actually also in the middle of planning an August wedding, so we didn't want to steal their thunder while we were guests in their house.

We left, got into the car, I turned the radio on and started singing.  It was like any normal day.  In the middle of some highway I just blurted out OMG ARE WE REALLY GETTING MARRIED?! :P The other day when I woke up, I looked at him and yelped, OMG ARE YOU MY FIANCE?!  Haha, it's funny.  It doesn't seem real to me yet that everyday feels like an OMG kind of day, and it will be that way until it actually happens, I think. :)

writing

The J&J Story, The Beginning: How jamglam met jfk32 and stayed together despite being an ocean apart

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jamglam was a Filipina in Manila looking for a worthy pen-pal to exchange email correspondences with.  An experienced participant of long-term, long-distance relationships, she didn't let proximity get in the way of true love, wherever that is.  She was also tired of dating Filipino guys, who don't seem to "get her".  She went on the dating website OKCupid to meet a man from a different place, to learn a different culture, to have a friend in another country she can visit in case her dreams of traveling the world come to fruition.  Also, she was new to online dating and was terrified of potential creepers, so she focused on people outside of the Philippines instead, just to be safe.

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jfk32 was an American in New Jersey who only came there to claim a free boat he found on Craigslist.  He really didn't know anyone in the area, and since he went there with a work-from-home job in the middle of winter, he had very limited opportunities to meet anyone new.  He's had a few girlfriends in the past and has tried casual dating for a while, but none of them have gone the distance or have been successful in keeping him interested in the long run.  He went on OKCupid with the hopes of finding gals to hang out with, armed with a firm resolve not to take anyone seriously just yet. Hey, a man's got to have high standards, ya know.

For some reason, jfk32 landed on jamglam's profile, and she happened to be online to catch that view as it happened.  Right away, she checked out his profile, liked what she read, and sent this message:

Hey there!
A discussion about life, the universe, and everything sounds awesome.
I was checking out your profile and I think you're an interesting guy. 
Lemme know if you want to get a correspondence going—easier to ramble on about life and anything like it if you have the option to compose it before sending :) Chatting is fine, too...I'm not here on OKCupid that often, but if you reply it'll get to me and I can give you my email address or skype/YM handle if you'd like.
Hope to hear from you soon!
Jam

His response:

If you want to talk, you should tell me about one dream you have for yourself. I don't even care if you make it up, or you haven't taken one step to get to it. I'm just interested in hearing what people have to say :-).
My dream is to sail around the world, stopping at as many countries as I possibly can, and staying in them as long as I can. I don't care if it takes me 10 years to get around the globe. I want to crack open coconuts with rocks and drink the sweet water inside, I want to jump off high cliffs into deep pools of crystalline water, I want to hike across deserts where nomadic herders still roam, visit cities and villages and no-man's-lands, meet people who challenge my American view of the world, and just get lost in life. It's crazy, it's over the top, but I think about it every day.
Anyway, get back to me if you want to talk!

In a span of a month, they went through all stages in the Getting To Know You phase of any online relationship.  Epic emails of a thousand words each turned into daily text chats on Skype.  Then voicemail mp3s sent by email.  Then finally, video calls.

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Fact: If you meet someone you can talk to every day and every night and still find the energy to email five times a day and not get sick of each other, then that's probably a great sign. 

I think they both realized that early on.  He first told her how he felt by sending a Youtube link to "I Think I Love You" by David Cassidy.  She eagerly answered him with "If I Fell" by The Beatles.  A month and a half later, he arrived in the Philippines (after traveling 17,000 miles) to come be with his girlfriend for two weeks.  That was enough time to make him realize that she's the one, the one to make him go back to the States, sell all his possessions, quit his job, and come back to be with her. 

After a full year of adventures visiting new places in the Philippines and Asia, she returned the favor and said yes to coming to the US with him to continue the dream.

writing, college

Graduation tale

Pick me up love / From the bottom / Up to the top love / Everyday…

My computer—my most loyal companion for the past couple of weeks since my last term in college ended—is playing the Dave Matthews Band track Everyday, which has been playing daily, promptly, at exactly 7:00 AM, the time I am programming my insomniac self to wake up so I can get my much-needed regular exercise.  Only today, I set it at 5:30AM, and it’s not because I missed three days worth of early morning jogging (another habit I would like to make regular).  I set it early because at 8:00AM today, I am expected to attend my graduation.

So yes Dave, I am up, only after three hours of sleep; it doesn’t even feel like I’ve had any.  To tell you honestly, I don’t even feel the excitement one ought to feel at the impending end of one’s scholastic experience.  I don’t feel the usual graduate-to-be’s anxiety over the fact that after today, she will be another member of the growing population of the unemployed.  I am not sure what the reason really is, but one thing’s for sure…if there is anything that is supposed to hit me today, right at this moment, the moment I wake up to a day marking yet another accomplishment, it has not made its rightful kaboom yet.

I trudge towards the bathroom, splash cold water on my face, take a quick cold shower (they are the best in this heat), get in my white-polka-dotted-with-black dress and 4-inch pumps (they can kill people, and my feet too!), make my face up (which sounds really weird, now that I have typed it), grab a few chocolate chip granola bars and took two sachets of 3-in-1 coffee, empty it into my Starbucks tumbler, put in an inch of hot water to dissolve the powder first before pouring in cold water and ice, to complete my wake-me-upper drink.  Kia texts and tells me that there is virtually no traffic and that she will meet me at the graduation venue.

In the car, I try to play an mp3 CD I burned earlier of a couple of songs from my Up And At ‘Em Playlist, but the car radio fails miserably, and we are forced to listen to early morning radio.  Stephen Bishop’s It Might Be You plays and I cringe while I try to remember why I hated that song in the first place.  I think it has something to do with it being the theme song of a guy best friend in high school and his then-girlfriend.  I also remember that I sort of had a crush on him, and my gal pals Danii, Iris and Jomai (who are still three of my best-est friends to this day) could not understand why.  I also remember that we used to do spit shakes (yeah, in high school…how juvenile and disgusting) and he once dared me to wear his retainer, and I did.

As our car was making a U into the driveway of the venue, my dad asks me if I want a corsage for my chest, and I say I didn’t mind.  As if on cue, a strange man comes up to me as I was getting off the vehicle, with two corsages: one for me, one for mom.  I find it weird that my mom had to have a corsage, too.  As he pins the flower onto the toga I am hurriedly wearing, he mumbles, “Ma’am, 200 pesos for the two flowers.”  Oh, right.  Nothing in Manila is ever free.  I see Kia approaching us with her dad in tow, and like a mommy she reminds me that according to the grad invite, we are not allowed to wear flowers on our togas.  And the photographers outside are NOT official photo takers, so don’t get fooled (at this moment I feel immense gladness that I have her whenever I can’t bring myself to be a hard-ass.)  Mom scans the crowd for the strange man to return the flower we were fooled into buying.

My mom and dad document our walk to the entrance with their digicams and camera phones.  Kia and I make the best of it and pull Tyra faces while I help her get made up and while we fix each other’s togas.  We separate from our parental units and hurriedly go inside to find our classmates in Multimedia Arts already lined up for the grand entrance. We have about five minutes to kill before it starts, during which JM shows me his grape-flavored cigar (Kia says EEEWW) and I show them my iShuffle ingeniously hidden underneath my garb, in case the 3-hour name-calling got too boring.

The graduation march plays, and we are asked to start walking to our seats.  The person in front of me tells me to be careful going down the stairs, or we might do a domino effect and topple over like black tiles (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGnNlQ-KNv4).  I try to look for my folks in the sea of supporters.  I remember that I failed to tell them to choose seats on the right side so they were near my batch.  I hope they figure it out.

The professors do their entrance.  I find it sort of amazing that our teachers are required to wear the togas from the respective colleges they’ve graduated from.  Some are in black with red trim, blue trim, gold trim, some with weird-shaped hats, some with just sashes over formal wear.  The winner is an old math professor that had a pure gold toga and a cap that resembles a chef’s hat with gold tassel trimmings around the perimeter, making him look like a lampshade.

After everyone gets into place, the baccalaureate mass begins.  I think to myself, even if I am a non-practicing Catholic, I still have the mass responses pretty much memorized and it peeves me that they chose really weird mass songs for the choir to sing, ones the crowd can barely sing along with (I try to remember one of my more favorite mass songs, but I pull a huge blank).  Then I remember that I almost never attend mass anyway, only during occasions like this.  I start to think about religion, and I remember this OKCupid question I answered previously: Would you be willing to change your religion for your significant other?  Yes, No, Maybe/I Don’t Know?  Then I remember the movie Fools Rush In starring Salma Hayek and Matthew Perry wherein Salma’s character says that if they were to have kids, she would like to raise them Catholic (since she was Catholic).  Then that got me thinking really, really hard….what is Matthew Perry up to now?  Is it true that the whole gang agreed to film a Friends movie in 2011?  How much will they get paid if they used to be paid 1 million per episode before?

Another break, then the graduation proper begins.  Our college, School of Design and Arts, is the first to get called. There is only one graduate under the Music Production course, and he is not in his seat.  He probably didn’t bother attending.  The whole walk to the edge of the stage, I was chanting…don’t trip, don’t trip, damn I am hungry, don’t trip…  They call my complete name, which is 26 letters long, including my surname.  I walk towards Brother Vic, the school’s president, and I see a familiar smile on his face. “Jam!”  He knows me by my nickname and he seems mighty glad to hand me my fake diploma.  I grin my usual Jam grin, the ear-to-ear variety, and communicate this message with my eyes: Yes, Brother, I am graduating today.  With grace and with joy.  I walk a couple more steps towards the x mark in the middle of the stage, face the crowd, and do a little bow.  I get off the stage and walk back to my seat.  30 minutes into the program and my Kodak moment is over.  My poor parents have to sit through a few more hours of random names being called before we can leave for our celebratory lunch.  My seatmate Gab nudges me with his elbow and laughs when finally, our favorite person on the grad list gets called (Jacky A. Chen).  Finally the last girl on the list gets called.  She has the best deal if she decided to sign up for the video coverage; she got the most applause.

In the middle of the Magna Cum Laude’s speech while she recounts how she got to where she is and thanks her parents for sacrificing a lot to send her to this school, it hit me: IT IS FINISHED.  We sang the Benildean hymn, and I realize that after three years in this institution, I still have not memorized it.  The more general Lasallian alma matter hymn, I do know by heart.  This reminds me of the reggae version someone made: http://bit.ly/aKIH7Z

Everybody now wants to have a picture with anybody they know.  Kia and I start looking for our two favorite professors who decided to attend our graduation so we can say thanks, but we get sidetracked for photo ops multiple times along the way.  I am probably going to get tagged in X number of Facebook images, X being a gazillion.

After a few more minutes of camwhoring, I slowly walk, inch by inch, to our car.  My high heels are killing my toes off one by one. In the car, mom nags me that now that I am officially done with school, I ought to do my pending projects for them, like her website, the layout of the new book she is writing, my aunt’s brochures, and all these things she thinks I ought to do on a “family discount”.

We go into a Japanese restaurant and order plates of spicy tuna salad, ebi tempura, maguro and salmon sashimi. Spicy tuna makes me happy somehow.  I am glad my dad chose this restaurant for lunch.  Few more photos are taken; among my parents’ four children, I am the only one who actually went through graduation.  My older siblings just waited for their diploma in the mail and did not march.

My sister-in-law Gel and I go to the bookstore to get a few art supplies she needs while my sister and niece go to the pet store to get chew toys for their dog Twitch.  We agree to rendezvous at the frozen yogurt shop.  People in my immediate circle seem to love the stuff; personally, I’m more of a chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream kinda gal. Gel and I walk over to Fully Booked.  While she looks over sketchpads and acrylic paints, I walk over to the sci-fi section to see if they had the book Cryptonomicon, a recommendation made by a new friend.  On our way back to the fro-yo shop, we ponder on this question: can people actually be born gay or do certain events in our lives trigger the inherent switch in all of us?  I think about the way that sometimes I find girl-on-girl kissing in movies hot (provided that one is Megan Fox and the other is Amanda Seyfried), but I cannot, for the life of me, imagine myself getting physically intimate with a woman.  Gel says, “If you can’t see yourself muff-dive, then you’re straight FOR SURE.”  I can pretty much claim that, thank you.

We get to the fro-yo shop.  Gel gets plain with mango, almonds and choco chips as toppings.  I, on the other hand, get choco chips, cocoa pebbles and choco syrup.  Yes, I completely ice creamed it up with all that chocolate, just the way I like it.  After a few more photos, mom inquires quietly, “Jam, how do I recover deleted photos?”  I ask her to hand it over and discover that my camera’s memory card is COMPLETELY WIPED OUT.

I spend most of the afternoon trying not to get too upset about that.  I even go with Gel to the front of the restaurant where we ate lunch to try and re-take some photos.  I keep her company and let my folks go ahead home.  We spend a hot day in traffic taking half-assed pictures in her Volkswagen Beetle to replace my deleted ones.  I still have a bit of hope that something can be done to recover them, though.

A few more hours are spent at the mall.  We walk around and look at stores.  I remember a guy once telling me that I would look really pretty and sexy with a flower in my hair, so I buy a headband that had one.  Jiki, Gel’s friend, comes to meet us and we hang out at one of our favorite restaurants, Cibo.  We order nothing, Jiki orders an iced tea.  More photos.

At this point in the story, I feel the fatigue set upon my abused body.  I have not been sleeping particularly well, you see.  8-10 kilometers away, my bed in my bedroom is giving me signals for me to come home and take refuge.  After a few more rounds in the mall, looking for a parlor that had vacancy for a mani-pedi or a spa for a massage, I call my mom to come pick up her favoritegraduate.  I need to go home.

She picks me up fifteen minutes later.  I get home, go straight to my bed, and fall into it face first.  Sigh, what an incredibly relaxing feeling, having 5 fluffy pillows cushion and cradle my tired body.  I look over to my inspiration wall and spot the post-it I put up around three months ago: Feb. 27, 2010.

It is finished.