Two days ago, I was so frustrated by all the little things that were
going wrong. I think I’m past the inflection point now, because things
are looking brighter and brighter.

Yesterday, I had lunch and dinner with most of my barkada – my closest
friends. The jokes—in-jokes—laughter—craziness—wow! I’ve missed
this *so* much, and I hadn’t even realized how much I was missing
until I found myself laughing harder and longer than I had in the past
year. My friends in Toronto are wonderful, but they’re new. We have no
in-jokes yet, and no deep connections between each other. Here… Ay,
the way we joked around, it was as if I’d never left!

Things have changed, though, and they’ve changed for the better. My
friends are settling into life, finding their paths. I’m particularly
proud of Marcelle. His magic tricks have boosted his confidence. I
like Estelle, one of his new friends.

I was quiet towards the end, but that was because I was realizing just
*how* much I had missed them, and how much I want to spend so much
more time with them. I want to experience things with them, spend time
with them, be part of their stories, share the unbloggable things. We
have a long-overdue girls’ day out (maybe window-shopping one of these
weekends!). I want to walk around Intramuros and go to museums. I want
to invite people over for videoke and overnight chats. Fun stuff.

Seeing them again made me happy. When I’m happy, it’s easy to stay
happy, and to get even happier.

But the universe didn’t stop there. Last night, I gave up on getting
my wireless card to work with the access point over here. I texted
Simon, telling him that the fates were conspiring to force me to write
letters. He called on my cellphone and we chatted for twenty minutes!
Then we got Skype working and we talked a bit more… It was so great
hearing him again!

We chatted again during breakfast. We used speakers for a while, so
everyone could hear and chat with him. Quite a few stories! I enjoyed
that because that was a good way for my family to get to know him, and
vice versa. Then I plugged in the headset and chatted with him about
life, society, friends, culture shock…

Hearing about what’s going on in his life made me happier, too. No,
not because poor Shane is suffering from food poisoning, although I’m
glad that Simon’s there to take care of him. I’m happy to hear that
working at Roger’s office is working well for him, and that Simon has
spent lots of quality time with his family.

And with such a good start to my day, how can I not find it easy to be
happy?

The technology stuff still hasn’t gotten completely sorted out. My new
wireless card refuses to associate with the Netgear router. I still
haven’t been able to get into IBM’s VPN. I still have to talk to my
research supervisor and figure out where this thesis is going.
But the universe has made it easy for me to see that life is good,
and when I see that, then it can get even better…

I’m looking forward to catching up with my e-mail and sorting out a
few things. Thanks to my friends and to Simon for helping make it so
easy to see how life is good. =) Yay!

Random Emacs symbol: gnus-article-strip-all-blank-lines – Command: Strip all blank lines.