long story short

If you had told me ten years ago that I would one day fly to another country to watch a sporting event, I would have laughed. Not because I disliked sports. I simply did not think I possessed that particular kind of religious zeal.

I understood traveling for food. For museums. For history. For theme parks. For books, even. But sports? Flying overseas to watch a race that would be over in two hours? That seemed like something other people did.

And yet, this March, I found myself in Japan, with my husband, wearing shirts and caps I’ve amassed over the years, signaling my devotion to #55 and his many teams (Williams, Ferrari, McLaren, Renault). Totems that signaled my genuine affection not just for one driver but for the whole spectacle that is F1.

Somewhere along the way, I had become one of those people.

This is our third trip to Japan together, and this time, it was built around a single goal: watching the Formula 1 Japanese Grand Prix at the Suzuka Circuit. After months of planning train routes, studying maps, and convincing ourselves that spending all four days (from Thursday to Sunday) at the Circuit would be worth it, we found ourselves standing among thousands of fans making the pilgrimage to one of motorsport’s most iconic venues.

One of the many things I realized was this: Formula 1 on television does not adequately convey speed. At Suzuka, the cars seem to arrive out of nowhere and disappear just as quickly. The sound reaches you first, then the car flashes past, and before you can fully process what happened, the next one is already approaching. Corners that look manageable on screen suddenly appeared impossibly fast in person.

It was such a thrill getting to watch everything that I only get to see on screen. Free Practice 1, 2, and 3, Qualifying, and, of course, the Race itself. Even the feature races were exciting. This weekend was only one out of twenty-four races. It will not heavily decide the eventual champions, at least not yet. Every session will be fleeting. But this fleeting nature is precisely why it felt like every single moment is important. Especially for us, who won’t get to catch any of the next races this season in person. It will probably be a while before we can fly to another track again. I knew to take it all in and revel in the chaos and excitement right as it was happening. Before you know it, the next race will be happening, and Suzuka will be forgotten. Before you know it, we’ll be back on our couches, reminiscing about this very weekend.

Our tickets were in Grandstand B2, right along Turn 1. We saw all the action just right after the lights went out. We knew Ferrari had good starts but I was so psyched that Oscar led after the first turn. Our grandstand had so many Aussies, so the crowd around us was roaring when he overtook the Ferraris and the Mercs. We were lucky to have gotten FM radios to listen to the English commentary. favorite teams, Williams and Red Bull, weren't doing so well, but to be honest, I actually didn’t mind. To actually see and hear all these cars in motion? Chills, literal chills. My husband and I both had tears in our eyes because we couldn't believe we were actually seeing them run past us.

Is this what all sports fans have been chasing, all along? What I’ve been missing out on? Not the results themselves, but the chance to inhabit a moment, alongside fellow devotees, before it all becomes a memory? On television, every race blends into the next. There is always another practice session, another qualifying hour, another Sunday race. At Suzuka, every session felt finite. Once FP1 ended, it was gone. Once qualifying was over, that was it. I found myself paying attention to things I would normally ignore on a broadcast: the support races, the trackside interviews, even the downtime between sessions. And the fans! Japanese fans go all in with their fandom. The costumes, the fan “props”, and just their whole vibe. It was sooo much fun to see all of it. We had traveled all this way. It felt wasteful not to enjoy every part of it.

Honestly, an unexpected highlight of the F1 weekend for us was Thursday. We unexpectedly caught an Aston Martin/Honda event that was about to start, so we waited in line to check it out. To our surpise, it was a small fan meet featuring F1 2009 World Champion, Jenson Button, who was Aston Martin's ambassador this year. We actually got to see him! And even better, because I was wearing an Aston Martin Suzuka exclusive cap, I was selected to get an autograph! Incredibly lucky would be an understatement for that whole afternoon. We got him to sign my cap and my notebook, and the best part? I was even featured on the Aston Martin F1 Instagram page, while I was beside Jenson!

Aside from that, we also caught all the driver interviews on Friday and Saturday morning. We lined up at the Nagoya train station at 5:50 am! Just to catch the interviews that started at 9:30 am! Seeing Carlos Sainz on stage, a few feet away from me, felt so surreal. Not life-changing, not earth-shattering. But just one of those moments where my brain briefly struggled to reconcile reality with something that had previously existed only through a screen. Same way I felt for all the other driver interviews, to be honest. Before that weekend, they were all “characters” in an ongoing story that unfolded every other weekend. Now, I saw a little glimpse of their humanity, even if only through a few jokes and silly remarks. I don’t know them any more than I did before I went there. Maybe I knew them even less (some were more charming than I thought). But they were real, and I was there. And it felt great.

I was so happy about Kimi’s win. He's my driver this season; I enjoy seeing drivers find their footing and rising to the occasion when it matters. Seeing the podium celebration was so unexpectedly moving. It’s quite an exciting feeling to be there, surrounded by thousands of people cheering as the champagne sprays. Everyone – even the non-Mercedes fans – was excited and happy to be there.

The food at Suzuka was fantastic – to no one’s surprise, obviously. Every stall we tried was good and reasonably priced, which isn’t something you can say about any major sporting event. Our favorite was the Heineken booth, where you could get a souvenir Suzuka aluminum cup for ¥400 and a free cooler if you bought six cans. Watching Formula 1 with a cold beer in hand? No notes. The only downside of the entire weekend was the transportation situation. Despite Japan having one of the best transit systems in the world, Suzuka weekend completely overwhelmed it. Every day, the choice was either to queue for hours or walk several kilometers to a less crowded station. For two days, we ended up walking almost 6km each way. Thankfully, we were with friends who had done Suzuka before and knew all the shortcuts. Honestly, though, even the walks became part of the fun. We spent them talking about the sessions, comparing photos (we had different tickets and seats), and reliving the weekend while it was still happening.

Sports fandom often looks irrational from the outside. And maybe it is. It asks a lot of people. Time. Money. Energy. Attention.

But standing among thousands of strangers making the same “pilgrimage,” surrounded by our friends, I finally understood why people do it. You are not traveling for two hours of racing. You are traveling to be part of a community that exists only briefly, assembles around a shared obsession, and then disappears until the next race.

The race itself is the reason everyone comes, but the real high point is everything that happens around it.

On to the planning the next! Maybe, Australia?

My Books Read for 2025: A total of 24 books. A pat on the back, self.

I'm writing this a little late -- okay, very late. It's already February, and this was supposed to be a nice little reflection on last year's books sometime in early January, when people were still earnestly reflecting on the books they loved in the last twelve months and earnestly setting reading goals for the next twelve. The thing is, I'm already elbow-deep into this year's reading (I'm already on book number 10!), but I still want to post about some of the recent books I loved, and how much of them mirrored my state of mind at the time. And I suppose, this belated look back is also a "looking forward" of sorts, because the way I want to approach this year is through the books and topics I'm intent on diving into. Not in a rigid, "resolution" kind of way, but in a more hopeful sense that the good sentences I come across will rearrange my thinking, that I can let these stories widen the room a little and let me look beyond the obvious.

My absolute favorite book from last year was First Love: Essays on Friendship by Lilly Dancyger. Four months later, I still cannot, cannot stop thinking about it. I didn't expect much from it; I don't even recall what prompted me to download the e-book. But it was a book that I finished in a day, and that's truly a feat for me these days. But wow this book was so raw, touching, gutting, and grounding. It was sad but in a good way. It made me feel unburdened. It's the kind of sadness that leads to clarity and hopefulness. As with most stories of grief and celebrations of life. The author wrote so lovingly about all her girl friends here; each chapter told a story about her girls, either a funny anecdote or a pivotal moment in their friendship. It made me think about my own girl friends and how the love I have for them mirrors the kind of affirmation I need in my life. This book was gut-wrenching because the author was very honest about grieving the friends she's lost, especially her cousin, the sister-slash-best friend she had growing up, and whose light appeared to be the central star around which all her other friendships revolved. Her cousin was robbed point-blank, raped, and murdered while she was going home from work in 2010. As she navigated her adolescence and adulthood and as she tried to make sense of this loss, she found comfort and healing with her girl friends. She was also confronted with more heartbreaks as some friends passed away or simply grew apart. But in all these essays, she managed to humanize and celebrate each friend, and acknowledge the impact they all had on her life. It was such a lovely book. 

I hold my friendships so close to my heart. Friendships are the tessellations of ourselves, so said Lilly Dancyger. They mirror who we are back to us; but it doesn't necessarily mean we are all identical or the same. They reflect who we are (or were) and how capable we are of loving. Of mothering. Of caring for another person so deeply, in a non-romantic, but equally adoring way. I love my friends. I love my friends. I have no sisters, but I think I consider them closer than siblings, because with them, I have a choice. I chose to have them in my life still, and vice versa. This decision to remain in each other's lives feels more real and proactive to me than siblinghood (which I'll never know about, but, ah, well.)

I cried at almost each chapter that Dancyger went through with her friends. The love she had for each of them. The highs and lows they went through. The stories she remembered about them. Would I ever get to write and honor my friends the same way? I hope I do. One by one, maybe, in this journal. I hope I can think of an anecdote to perfectly capture who they are, through my lens, of course, but also in a way that is quite objective. By writing about them, maybe I am hoping that I will never lose them.

I also thoroughly enjoyed reading I Remember Nothing by Nora Ephron. It was a collection of essays about aging, her reflections about growing older finding small joys even as life throws you some disappointing curveballs. I'm a Nora Ephron fan, I love her movies, I love her humor. I didn't think I could relate to much of the stories here, especially since I'm still relatively quite young. But I'm also not young young anymore, and to be honest, I do worry about growing old and losing a part of myself along the way. The book approached growing old in a very honest way: a little anxious, but not terrifying. It encouraged me to stop being in denial about the reality of becoming old, but see it as gaining more experience, not caring so much about what other people say, and just enjoying the ride. It calmed my nerves and made me laugh so hard while doing so. Thanks, Nora. 

This year, as of this writing, I've already managed to finish 10 books. Ten! I'm honestly quite impressed, although I'm really not surprised. A few weeks ago, as a New Year's gift to myself, I bought an iPad Mini. I know, I know, my Google Pixel(s) and the Microsoft Surface(s) were just as shocked. But the thing was, while I thoroughly enjoyed my attempt at fully transitioning to an ereader (I had a Kobo), as a huge graphic novel fan, I just couldn't enjoy them well enough in that medium. I also found ereaders too limiting? That is the point for most people, to have a dedicated gadget just for reading. But I found myself leaving it at home or not bothering to stash it in my bag most of the time. In the last few years, I got more reading time out of my Google Play Books app on my old phone or on my old tablet (which has become very slow, hence the need to replace it) because I could read while taking a break from doing some other task, while waiting in line, or while stuck in traffic (and I'm not driving, of course.) I'm so glad I bit the bullet. Best purchase of the year so far. 

Highlights of the last month: Orbital by Samantha Harvey. My expectations were a bit high because it won the 2024 Booker Prize. I'm so glad that this book did not let me down. I loved it so much. It was the kind of book that made you feel both in awe of the story it was telling and of the way it was written. Samantha Harvey's sentences felt grandiose and lyrical, poetic and straightforward at the same time. You felt the weight of the narrative with each passage, yes, but you also felt weightless. Like gravity both existed and did not exist in the space that was occupied by her words. It was a novel about six astronauts orbiting the Earth, but it somehow managed to make the entire planet feel intimate. Reading it felt like being reminded that all the things that consume our attention every day, our deadlines, our anxieties, our little victories and disappointments, are only a tiny part of a much larger story. It sounds obvious when you say it out loud, but there was something comforting about seeing the world from that distance. The book made me feel small, but not insignificant.

Maybe that's what I want from reading this year. Not necessarily more books, although I certainly wouldn't complain about that. Just more moments of perspective. More sentences that surprise me, unsettle me, make me laugh unexpectedly, or help me articulate something I didn't know I was feeling. More stories that rearrange the furniture in my head, even if only slightly.

So that's the reading year ahead: no ambitious numerical goals, no genre bingo cards, no pressure to read the books I'm "supposed" to read. Just curiosity. A willingness to follow interesting threads wherever they lead. If last year gave me a book about friendship that reminded me how lucky I am to be loved, and a book about aging that made me a little less afraid of the future, then I think I'm already on the right track.

Here's to more good sentences.

Someone once said about David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest, “Life is made entirely of the middle.” 

I wouldn’t know how accurate that summary is — I’ve yet to muster the time or mental stamina to trudge through the whole novel. What I did manage to finish, however, was his posthumous essay collection about tennis, String Theory, which felt like the perfect read given that it coincided with the Australian Open and my sudden (and hopefully not fleeting) urge to pick up a racket. Well, a Padel racket, but close enough.

For the entire month of January, I've actually managed to start playing this new sport. Which threw me in for a surprise because I'm normally not very good at committing to these things. A fundamental flaw of mine — one I’m constantly working on, yes, I'm aware — is that I hate not being good at something right away. I'm very impatient, mostly only on myself. I’m pretty sure this stems from a childhood of luckily excelling right away at the things I was made to try: swimming (which is probably why it’s the only sport I actually care about), playing the piano, quiz bees and writing (basically things that involve outsmarting other people on paper). 

Which is why picking up Padel has been a whole new experience for me. Not only is it my first time actually playing, but it’s also my first time being forced into doubles (with my husband, no less) and my first time trying out a sport purely out of peer pressure. I’m not instantly that good at it — which normally would be my cue to quit — but this time, I don’t have that option. So I have no choice but to keep playing: suck at it, get a little better, suck again, and then play some more.

Interestingly, this whole "flailing at padel" thing has pushed me to overcompensate in other areas, just to balance out the feeling of failure. I’ve actually stuck to a daily walking/running routine, read more, written more, and paid attention to more sports than I ever have. I have watched more sports documentaries, read more sports histories, learned more about sports-related tech and patented inventions, and deep-dived into more athletes' Wikipedia pages than I ever had in the last 30ish years of my life. Turns out, being frustrated about one thing has somehow made me better (and weirdly well-informed) at everything else.

I know, it's not a zero-sum game. But I'm compelled to at least break even with myself—if I can’t be instantly good at one thing, I might as well get better at everything else I'm doing in the meantime. Funny how the impulses we learned as kids still somehow run the show as adults. Even funnier, it works. I'm actually improving in other aspects of my life just because I'm sucking and still trying at one thing. Imagine that? Being pikon is the self-improvement hack I never saw coming.

One thing I like about padel (which is something also present in tennis): the second serve. A built-in do-over, a quiet acknowledgment that messing up the first try doesn’t mean the game is over. There’s always another chance to get it right. Leaves room for error — although just one, before it becomes a fault. Still. Another shot is always there.

"Life is made entirely of the middle." If that's true, then this middle I am currently in, while feeling hopeless, is essential. Learning to sit through discomfort and the long tedious stretches of the routinary, is just part of the deal. So far, actually, I haven't really failed; I'm just not that good at one thing yet. But I've become better at other things, so that's definitely got to count for something. Right?

Hmm. Now that I think about it, maybe tackling Infinite Jest wouldn’t be the worst idea — if I’m already wading through struggle and clamoring for small wins, might as well go all in. 

"A day certain is understood to be that which must necessarily come."

— Article 1193, Civil Code of the Philippines 

And yet, we repeat these wedding rituals with good reason. We go through it, like characters cast in a play, dutifully and happily playing our parts. When people collectively embrace a familiar pattern, there's a sense of unity, a shared existence in this world that feels natural and effortless, like a group of strangers singing the same song, or dancing to the same chorus. We're all familiar with weddings. We understand, even if we haven't experienced it ourselves, the close calls, the brushes with mortality, the swelling and overwhelming feeling of seeing love vocally being affirmed. It's human to marvel at how timing and chemistry conspire to make coincidences, like two random people meeting, feel serendipitous.

Adding a little slant to how we did things certainly made things feel more genuine to us. But ultimately, just going through the motions of what we already expect: saying our vows, sharing a moment with our friends, dancing, drinking, repeatedly being vocal and open about our love — it's cathartic in many ways. The cliches are imbued with new meaning, ones that are personal and special only to you. When done with the right person, and surrounded by the best people, the form and function of it all feels incredible.

The venue was small, but the atmosphere was electric. The anticipation was palpable as the lights dimmed and the band took the stage. The raw intensity of their guitar riffs. The drums pound with a thunderous rhythm, rumbling and reverberating through my chest. The bass shredded through the air with incredible energy and emotion. All this coupled with the mesmerizing stage presence and vocals of Chino Moreno. It was a sight to behold. I had tears in my eyes for an hour and a half. 

There was a particular period in my life when I truly thought the only type of music that resonated with me was loud, rebellious, clamorous rock music. Limewire opened the gates for all the bands that spoke to the inexplicable rage inside teenage me. I kind of enjoyed having that dark little bubble of blind fury every time I played them on my iPod mini. I just wanted to grow up, be free, and become the version of myself that didn't have to succumb to the system. (Classic teenage angst, amirite? #eyerolls)

The funny thing, though, is that the older I got, the less angry I've gotten. Which isn't to say I'm not incredibly furious at what's happening in the world and that I'm not perpetually anxious about what lies ahead. I am. But I don't know what happened. Somewhere along the way, I've lost all the tools to be angry. I find myself lacking the tools to feel anger as I once did as a raging, hormonal teenager. It's something I never expected and certainly not something I'm happy about. In a strange way, I've developed a coping mechanism of brushing things off, which, I think, has resulted in me losing the ability to channel my anger in a healthy manner. I'm not quite sure how it happened, but I've realized that I've lost touch with that aspect of my emotions, and it's left me feeling somewhat unsettled. I've gotten so used to playing the charade, of abiding by the "rules," of wanting to not ruffle any feathers that I've just... completely forgotten how to get angry. Whereas other people need to control themselves when they're angry, I have to will myself to feel mad. At best, I just act passive-aggressively. At worst, I think about all the ways I could've dealt with a situation more easily if I had just been mad, then become even more frustrated with myself after. What is this? What happened to me? Maybe I need therapy. 

But in the meantime, I get all the anger I need from the rock and nu-metal bands I still listen to. One of them being Deftones. Their music has become a conduit for me to channel my anger and tap into emotions that I often avoid or struggle to express. Their songs are raw and visceral, delving into themes of confusion, rage, and misery with an intensity that resonates with me on a deep level. Through their music, I find myself confronting emotions that I might not otherwise allow myself to feel, and it's cathartic. It's as if their lyrics and melodies provide a safe space for me to explore the complexities of my own emotions, even the darker ones that I may shy away from in my daily life. When Chino belted out "Let's sail in this sea of charms, let's drown underneath the stars, let's drink with our weapons in our hands," in Rocket Skates, I sing along as if praying with every word. When he wailed, "I'd like to be taken apart from the inside then spit through the cycle right to the end," in Tempest, I scream with all my might. When he pleaded "Take me one more time, take me one more wave, take me for one last ride," in Sextape, I actually cried. 

It was such a meaningful experience for me, finally seeing one of my favorite bands live. A month and a half before that concert, Taylor Hawkins of the Foo Fighters, one of my favorite drummers, passed away all of a sudden. It left me in complete shock, and in a surprisingly intense kind of grief that I've only ever felt for another musician: Chris Cornell. It made me realize how much I actually value seeing my favorite artists perform live. It can be expensive, yes, sure. But their music accompanies me for about 80% of my life — background music for driving, working, doing chores, everything else in between — that the least I could do was give myself the opportunity to immerse myself in them live. To feel the goosebumps on my skin with every riff and every verse. To sing to every line. To jump to every refrain. To feel everything that they intended their audience to feel — and more. Because every line means something different to each one of us. I wanted to give myself that. And I did. I am so glad I did. 

I'm writing this post fifteen months late. But seeing as we're still very much in a time of emotional and mental anguish, I realized how important it is to look back on experiences in our life that felt spiritual. That made us connect with the divine and the sublime. It is good to be reminded about what it means to be alive. 

"I watched a change in you, it's like you never had wings, now you feel so alive." 

Deftones has been my pressure valve, releasing the pent-up frustrations, confusions, and longings that simmer beneath the surface. So grateful to have bought tickets, so glad to have ignored the inner voice in my head that wanted to avoid big crowds, so happy to have given in. 

Tonight, I feel like more, they sang. And I did.