Friday, September 23, 2005

My Version of Vignettes About Mama (Part I)

inpired by Ronald Baytan's Vignettes About Mama

Cleanliness is Next to Godliness

Mama has this tendency to go way overboard when it comes to keeping things neat and tidy. She insists that before entering the house, we leave our shoes/sandals at the doorstep and then use the slippers we have inside (think japanese and korean culture). And boy do we have different sets of slippers: there's one for the first floor (depends if we wore open or close shoes too), one for each bathroom, one for the second floor, one for the room, one for the dirty kitchen, one for the veranda, and another for the garage. We have a stock of spare slippers at home for the visitors as well.

Mama wants our shoes dirtless that she'd have even the soles of these wiped clean after each use and before we can return them inside the shoe cabinet.

She hates it when we're rummaging through stuff and the fan's turned on. It doesn't matter if we perspire all day as long as dust and dirt won't go circulating everywhere, so she says.

We can't lie in bed if we have on outside clothes, in short, unless we take a bath or shower, we can't enjoy the comfort of our beds. And assuming we only took a shower, we then have to use our when-you-didn't-shampoo-pillowcase instead.

Sometimes we hear mama complain about things that she knows she doesn't have control of, like how those tasty breads are packaged and sealed and many others. She's super anal like that.

I used to not follow her when I was younger and when I didn't know any better. But I've grown to accept that this is how she is. At times we tell her to take it easy and that it's not possible for everything to be as hygeienic as she wants them to be. I think mama's doing just that lately and I think she doesn't see the need to nag us about things like these anymore.

Thursday, September 15, 2005

Pleasant Surprises

Blockmate #1 left for the States in 2002 unannounced (well, not totally since she told one from our block anyway).

Blockmate #2 left for the States soon after she finished our thesis and got her diploma unannounced as well.

Since then, most of us (their common friends and blockmates) would often have this type of conversations whenever we meet up:

Convo 1
person 1; Musta na kaya si c____?
person 2: O nga e. D na ba sya nag-email sa yo?
person 1: D na. Siguro kay [insert another blockmate's name here] nag-eemail sya. Not sure.

Convo 2
person 1: Ui, ano na balita kay m__?
person 2: Yun nga e, wala pa rin.
person 1: Wala talaga syang iniwang contact details nun?
person 2: Wala talaga e.
person 1: Si [insert another friend's name here] jaya? Baka pwede nya hanapin.

But what do you know? Last week, while kulit and i were on our way home from a movie, she received an sms from blockmate #1. Funny that earlier in the evening, we were just talking about her (again) together with kenot. Turned out that she's here on a vacation. As much as i wanted to see her as well, i just couldn't bring myself to go out last Saturday to meet up with her and other college friends (kulit and carrots, are there no pics by the way?).

Even blockmate #1 asked me about blockmate #2 and i remember telling her that maybewe can finally contact her already. I mean, we did hear from her (b#1) after three years, didn't we?

A month ago, I came up with a site that had her name and her email address but dismissed the idea of sending her a mail. Friday last week, while i was chatting with kulit, she sent me the same site thus i considered it a sign to go ahead and mail her. Subject head was Taking Chances cause I was. I was really hoping that that person would reply whether that was she or not. This morning, i was happy and excited to have seen that the person replied and that it was really her! Finally!

Next agenda, I hope one of these days, we could all get together.

Friday, September 9, 2005

Something to Keep Me Preoccupied

Two of us were just assigned the task of planning for our company's Christmas party. *is excited* Must check possible venues (checkpoint is next week already!), come up with different committees (and recommend committe heads), think of a theme and lots of other details.

Yay! More work/tasks for me.

Thursday, September 8, 2005

still bored

what are things you enjoy doing even when there's no one around you?
write. read. shop.

what lowers your stress/blood pressure/anxiety level?
really sad songs (seriously). nailbiting. comfort foods. sleep. prayers.

7 things that scare you.
the devil
not being able to serve Him
cats and dogs
cockroaches
murder stories
losing people i love
telephone ringing in the middle of the night


7 things you like the most.

books
music
notebooks and ballpens
being by myself
silent car rides
asian movies
sweets

7 important things in your bedroom.
bed
stereo
clothes
bags
letters and cards and other keepsakes
journals
blank notebooks

7 random facts about you.
i act based on gut feel
i get bored and restless easily
i'm super picky when it comes to food (sweet potatoes, nuts in ice cream/cakes/chocolates, melon, langka etc.)
spendthrift
i take time (too much time sometimes) to open up
i'm super close with my family
i don't like talking on the phone for hours anymore


7 things you plan to do before you die.

study again
live in another country independently
meet with people i've lost contact with
fall in love (although we can't actually plan this)
travel across asia and europe
work/volunteer in a non-government organization
engage in at least one sport (hahaha)

7 things you can do.
eat/dine out alone
stay in a deserted room (even if there are talks about ghosts it)
watch tv the whole day
stay the whole day without eating
tell a guy i like him
listen and remember details
control my spendings

7 things you can't do.
cook.
drive.
swim.
memorize directions.
stand copycats (how come there's always one lurking???)
not tell my siobe everything
doubt Him

7 things that attract you to the opposite sex.
wit
sensitivity
that bad-boy aura (tsk)
height
way he dresses
eyes
his diction

7 things you say the most.
"nye"
"seryoso? joke ba yan?"
"abnormal naman..."
"sira ka"
"whatever"
"isipin mo ha..."
"bored na ko"

7 celeb crushes.
marat safin
edison chan
stephen fung
preston mercer (that For Love or Money guy)
chad michael murray
daniel wu
jason hsu (of 5566)

the world wide web is boring me

The problem with my pc is that it takes 2-8 minutes just to compile and give or take another 2 minutes to ant restart. Thus, I wait for 10 minutes or so before I can check my module. I have to go through this even if I only changed a single line or a single variable in my code.

What I do while I wait is to surf the net (what else is there for me to do?). The thing is, I think I've ran out of sites to check out. And aside from hopping from one workspace to another for a chit-chat and instant messaging and listening to my mp3s (earphones ban has been lifted so yay!), I don't know of other ways to entertain myself.

Sunday, September 4, 2005

Ode to the Traveling Pants' Sisterhood

Backtrack to year 2004. It wasn't like at first sight when I first saw The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. But Carrots must have felt otherwise that she decided to give it a try. It was her copy then that Kulit and I borrowed. It was a surprise to find the book more than I thought it would be - just one of those young adult books. Now to year 2005. I recently read the third and last installment of this series (Carrots being the owner would seem to be the last one to read it) and it was saddening to finally bid these 4 girls we got to know and love. It's actually like saying goodbye to Sex and The City and Friends.


What is it that makes the Traveling Pants books special? For me it's because:


1. it's about friendship. It takes on what friendships are about - being there for each other whenever and wherever no matter what. That physical presence sometimes isn't the be all and and all to assure someone that they're there for you.


2. it's about love. Basically there always has to be romantic angle in every story right? Obviously, this here has that as well - from first love to lost love to rekindled love. It's like you're actually there because one way or the other you've felt what these girls felt when they were too afraid to love, or when they finally decide to risk it only to find themselves in a situation they were afraid of in the first place.


3. it's about relations. There's the mother-daughter bond, sibling relationships, the grandchildren-grandparents relationship, the first and second families, the strangers who amazingly touch your life.


4. it's about identity. These are four girls with four different personalities you get to know. Each has their own strengths and weaknesses. But truth be told, I guess i see me in them (many probably would see themselves in these fictional characters as well). It's not about Bridget being athletic that I can relate to but it's her running away and moving fast when she doesn't want to confront things that eventually catches up on her. Then there's shy and timid Lena and her playing-safe-attitude. Tibby with her I-don't-care-what-the-world thinks and aren't we all like that sometimes? And Carmen who doesn't like changes at all and who wouldn't want to risk her comfort zones.


5. it's about feelings. I love the writer. She knew what words to use and knew how to describe perfectly how the girls were going through that i find myself giggling, being excited, and (most of the time) crying too.


And since we liked the book so much, it's a given we wouldn't miss seeing the movie. I can't say I was disappointed nor was i satisfied. Sometimes I think it would be best to just stick to reading the novel or just stick to watching the movie adaptation (which I did for A Walk to Remember) so that there wouldn't be space for disappointment since it usually leads to that. My main reason was just curiousity anyway. Having seen and heard Lena say this on screen was different when I read it straight from the book. It was deeply moving when I read these words, and it uh wasn't when it came out from the movie. Still, it's not like it's not worth our enthusiasm.


On a last note, here's some of my fave lines/quotes/whatever you may call it from the said book series:

Bee couldn't outrun her troubles, so she'd entered her own version of the witness protection program..

The trick Bee always had was to keep moving, moving at a pace so fast it was thrilling and even reckless. But after last summer, she'd paused for a bit and the painful things - old, supposed-to-be-forgotten things - had caught up with her.

How did you separate attraction from love? (Lena on thinking about Kostos)

But there were times when you feel miserable and you wanted to feel better, and other times when you felt miserable and you figured you would just keep on feeling miserable.

There are two kinds of people in the world. The kind who divide the world into two kinds of people and the kind who don't.

I want you to leave me alone, but not ignore me. I want you to miss me when I go away to college, but not be sad. I want you to stay exactly the same , but not be lonely or alone. I want to do the leaving, and not have you ever leave me. That's not really fair, is it? (Carmen on her mother)