ami

mother packer

Sat, 28 Nov 2009 03:44:57 GMT

I hate packing. It�s such a task. Realizing it only after numerous packings is funny on my part. Normally, one would think that packing being related to going away is what makes it dislikeable. Somehow, yeah. But the definite reason why I wish my stuff would form a line and one-by-one arrange themselves neatly�even topsy-turvy as long as they would fit�in those bags is because most of the time, I�d rather use the time for packing to spend more time with the ones I�m leaving behind.

Packing is not sad. It�s such a preoccupying task that you wouldn�t have time for sad recollections or associations. Well, for someone a bit obsessive like me, it is. I get so absorbed organizing which things into which bags that I honestly believe that I get wrinkles when I pack. �Clothes here, books here, shoes here . . . No, wait, maybe the shoes and books can go together . . .� I get near crazy doing it.

But after years of moving around (So that�s why it�s dakilang nomad!), I�ve gotten very efficient at it. But still, I don�t intend to move to a new place again during my stay here in Cebu. I don�t want wrinkles.

ayoko na nang baboy

Sun, 25 Oct 2009 06:28:21 GMT

Lately I get into one of my foulest moods when it's mealtime or when I'm shopping for food. They're harsh reminders of how limited my choices are. No pork. No wheat.

I can eat pork in the strict sense of the word. I don't have hypertension or allergic reactions to it. But I grew up not eating pork because of religious practice I have grown accustomed to. I will never eat pork unless the situation comes when it's my only chance of survival.

Now wheat is a different story. I can't eat anything that contains wheat. Can't because I have anaphylactic reactions to it. Since my last two horrible, and I mean horrible, allergy attacks last August, I've avoided wheat products like the plague.

That leaves me quite a limited range when I'm buying food. You will understand once you visit Cebu, where everything has pork in it. Sometimes when I'm grocery shopping, I scream profanities in my head.

"Putang ina! Wala bang walang harina?"

an internally and externally restless taxpayer's weekend

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 16:08:16 GMT

Has there ever been a time in your life wherein you wanted to squeeze the airways of a person shut for being so stupid? A person who would always kick himself (yes, I use masculine pronouns when referring to people in general, it doesn't threaten my femininity in any way) in the rear, both cheeks, for having done something so obviously stupid that he shouldn't even be mulling over doing it in the first place because doing that stupid thing is even unthinkable? And what's even more baffling, even more incomprehensible than someone in Wowowee declaring that Willie Revillame is an inspiration, is that that person just keeps doing the same mistakes over and over, as though he has amnesia concerning only this area in his life, as though he is not a living creature that naturally learns what is nurturing and what is a threat to its existence.

There's always that person. Once or twice, maybe even three times, you come across someone like that. That person could even be one of your closest friends. And yes, sometimes, that could even be you.

The first paragraph is a rhetorical question. I am a klutz and one way or another end up hurting myself (physically). I have a problem estimating space and I bump into things all the time. As I write I have a bruise in my butt (talk about kicking oneself in the rear) for having miscalculated and sitting on the edge of the bed�the wooden part, not the cushion part�the other night. I do learn; I have learned from this experience to look before I sit. But I will bruise myself again in the very near future. Over another object.

I cut my hair. Trimmed it is the more precise term. "Like it makes a difference," I imagine the voices of people who hate my hair answer. I did it to take out the split ends; the last time I trimmed it was June, and I've seen unhappy tips since last month.

Just once and for all. I will not "fix" my hair, okay? I will not have it treated, I will not cut it to a less ridiculous and less impractical length. So to whom it may concern, stop it. I am not growing it and keeping it curly so I can deliberately get on people's nerves. There is no one who influences me to that extent. I do no not keep it wildly curly just so I can be "weird" or different.

Here it is: I find treatments too much trouble, my vanity does not encompass my hair, and I am have no problems with it whatsoever. If it offends you, then I can't help you. I can't apologize for being curly-haired, just as Pokwang can't apologize for her face (I have nothing personal against her) or Sharon Cuneta won't apologize for being fat. Look at them, they're happy as clams. I certainly won't go to the trouble of "fixing" it just to get the nod from dear old mister public. My hair doesn't hinder any aspect of my life, so it stays unless I grow tired of the current style and would like to change my look. End of story.

My UP Cebu barkada Yarry texted to go see the European film fest in Ayala but I declined. Instead I watched three rom-coms and three Queen concerts on DVDs this weekend. Twawang. I declined because getting up is too much trouble.

My body is in pain today. I blame Haruki Murakami.

I just finished reading his memoir on running. Haruki Murakami, by the way, is a writer whose essays and nonfiction I find more entertaining than his novels and short stories. Each one to his own is all I can say.

For the past weeks, with this week being the climax, I have felt the strong tug of an inner desire to do any physical activity. I guess it's bound to happen to someone who sits in front of a PC and edits manuscripts for at least eight hours daily, especially to someone who used to do martial arts, go biking, and jog maybe three kilometers; to someone who likes hiking and walking and climbing hills and just move the body.

I bring a book to work always, and the most recent one I finished is What I Talk about When I Talk about Running by Haruki Murakami. So in this book he talks about suddenly taking up running and then joining marathons.

And presto, last Friday I felt a stronger tug from my body. I just had to do something that increased my heart rate.

So after work I went to Timezone and shot hoops. By myself. Pathetic, I know.

And yesterday I convinced my roommate, Faith, easily by the way, to go to the nearby sports complex and jog.

I let loose like an animal and just took off.

Of course, I gave my body quite a shock. I overdid it (jogged maybe about two and a half kilometers plus calisthenics) with the last time I did this maybe being a year ago or more.

My muscles hurt with lactic acid today. And thus the rom-coms and being strapped to the bed. That was fun though. I might do it again next weekend.

I grow old

Sun, 11 Oct 2009 15:50:05 GMT

There are some things that are maybe better off not realizing. Without meaning to (and without wanting to) I have come to the awareness that I am twenty-three years old, that my parents are nearing sixty, and that a number of people I have genuinely interacted with in the past and are connected to me in some way have left the state of being.

When I think about my parents�and it�s not rare for me to think about them; they are among the people that I know I truly love because of the room for pain I have in my heart for them�I wonder if they are truly happy. One if the saddest thoughts I have is of them reaching sixty and feeling an ache for something they could have done but couldn�t. I know that that�s their business, but I�m an unhealthy person that way.

Someone made me realize that I�m at my prime. So now I�m worried that I�m not doing anything about it, and before long I�m a senile and incapacitated bag of wrinkled skin who didn�t do anything when she could. And I actually allow my days to pass this way, wondering, purely unrealized theories and vague wishes of not wanting it to be this way but not knowing how I want it to be either. This is the best way I can put it: I�m in the best shape I�ll probably ever be in all aspects of my existence, and I do not want to wake up one day and realize that I haven�t put that to any use. I�d rather die. So now that I�ve written it down, I�ve figured out what I basically need to do: figure out what it is exactly that I want to do (which I should be capable of fulfilling, of course) and try my hand at things.

And yes, I am unhealthy this way. Aren�t you?

Ever since I took literature classes in college, I have disliked vagueness in any written work. But there you go, a vague post. I can�t put a finger on it yet myself. When I can, I�ll be more specific.

a sense of obligation

Sun, 13 Sep 2009 07:28:36 GMT

I really hate MS word right now. It makes my brain vomit. It�s what I look at eight hours a day for five to six days a week. But I feel sorry for this blog, my blogs.

A lot of things have happened since I got a job. Of course, right? Duh, it�s been�July, August, September��almost three months. But trust me when I say a lot.

I�ve been to Bohol how many times? I�ve lost count. And it�s not for the beaches. Since July four relatives have died. That�s four deaths in around two months. It�s been horrible. The latest one was last week. I know how, being Pinoy, we can make light of any morbid situation, but my relatives have got to stop making those �Who�s next?� jokes. At first they dispelled some of the gloom when two relatives died one after the other, but when a third and fourth death came, it just became sick.

Everybody dies, I know, but concurrent with that reality and our eventual (and inevitable) acknowledgement of it is also the other reality that we are humans and we feel. I threw my phone on the bed and yelled expletives last Saturday when my brother messaged me of my aunt having died. A week earlier from then, I was eating puto maya with her and the rest of the clan, my uncle�s funeral being the reason we all got together again.

They�re not unbearably painful, these deaths. We (me and my relatives) all function perfectly well (that�s just one of those things that I stopped berating myself for�it�s all right to laugh at Family Guy even when a relative has only very recently died because the fact remains that Family Guy is still funny, and my relative is and will be dead forever, and my sense of humor didn�t die along with the person). But it�s gotten me to think about my mom�s feelings about her siblings dying and how I�ll feel when that would happen to me. One thought leads to another, and I�m up at three in the morning thinking about death.

So I have a job that requires me to suck my brain dry daily, a job where your stress level is relative to the client�s IQ (there are a lot of jobs that have that description, I know, but I�m not blogging so I can talk about other people�s jobs). It�s a job I like, but I�ve had a difficult week. I�m gulping caffeine in all forms, a substance I refused to have myself identified with in the past because anything that deprived me of sleep was an enemy.

Also, my wheat allergy has reached its peak. I cannot eat anything with wheat. When you really think about it, that�s a lot of food I can�t eat. I itch all over, bloat, and pass out.

I�m actually about to leave for the hospital in a few minutes as I write this. One of my aunts is there for an operation.

It isn�t so hard to figure out that I�m pissed while writing this, isn�t it? Yeah, fuck you, universe. You and the sense of obligation you do not have for all beings.

Then an inner voice answers in reflex, �Thank your stars you didn�t die during your last anaphylaxis, bitch. You�re alive and you�re happy and you fucking know it.�

I hear you.

Every word of his novels is gold.

Sun, 23 Aug 2009 13:10:08 GMT

chapter 34 of Milan Kundera's Ignorance

A human lifetime is 80 years long on average. A person imagines and organizes his life with that span in mind. What I have just said everyone knows, but only rarely do we realize that the number of years granted us is not merely a quantitative fact, an external feature (like nose length or eye color), but is part of the very definition of the human. A person who might live, with all his faculties, twice as long, say 160 years, would not belong to our species. Nothing about his life would be like ours��not love, or ambitions, or feelings, or nostalgia; nothing. If after 20 years abroad an �migr� were to come back to his native land with another hundred years ahead of his life ahead of him, he would have little sense of a Great Return, for him it would probably be not a return at all, just one of the many byways in the long journey of his life.

For the very notion of homeland, with all its emotional power, is bound up with the relative brevity of our life, which allows us too little time to become attached to some other country, to other countries, to other languages.

Sexual relations can take up the whole of adult life. But if that life were a lot longer, might not staleness stifle the capacity for arousal well before one's physical powers declined? For there is an enormous difference between the first and the tenth, the hundredth, the thousandth, or the ten-thousandth coitus. Where lies the boundary line beyond which repetition becomes stereotyped, if not comical or even possible? And once that boundary is crossed, what would become of the erotic relationship between a man and a woman? Would it vanish? Or, on the contrary, would lovers consider the sexual phase of their lives to the barbaric prehistory of real love? Answering these questions is as easy as imagining the psychology of the inhabitants of an unknown planet.

The notion of love (of great love, of one-and-only love) itself also derives, probably, from the narrow bounds of time we are granted. If that time were boundless, would Josef be so attached to his deceased wife? We who must die so soon, we just don't know.

after six years

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 10:18:32 GMT

I don't like spending. I'm a total cheapskate. I hated asking my parents for money, even though I knew that shelling out cash is part of the contract between couples called childbearing.

This is one of the reasons I moved out to look for a job without any of my folks telling me to. I bet they've long gotten used to my sudden announcements anyway. We're not dirt poor, but I hate being a burden to anybody. (As to the reason why I moved out, I just knew that Cotabato was gonna drive me crazy. I can't wait to get my family out of that crazy place.)

I am now officially independent. Make that last Thursday, when I received my first paycheck. So what do I do for a living, and where? I copyedit manuscripts in an American publishing company in Cebu. With teaching as an exception, I couldn't have asked for a job more fitting for an English major. Since I've had no illusions of a grand, exciting yuppie life from the beginning, I have absolutely no problems to speak of regarding my current job. I perform the tasks required of me, not prodigy-like but sensibly enough. I have made friends in the office, of course excluding Kim (who is not only my workmate but roommate as well; we theorize that a few weeks more and one of us is going to smother the other in her sleep, I love you Rimberly).

I'm not homesick, though I'm already making vacation leave plans in my head. I live with two of my best college friends, and we have a blast making work-exhaustion bearable through sick jokes we never run out of. I have an out-of-this-world relationship with my boyfriend (who I love to pieces for coming here on my birthday, the day I got hired; I have freak luck, as Ruby's boyfriend said, dapat tumaya ako sa lotto nung July 9).

I'm doing fine here. I'm a far cry from the Fatimah in Cebu six years ago. I'm happy.

reding-ready for the interview
(badang concept by Faith Gumalal)

happy birthday to me!

my favorite place on Earth'

Sat, 06 Jun 2009 07:30:17 GMT

In a municipality in Bohol named Baclayon, there was a couple who bore fifteen children, ten girls and five boys. One of those girls became a nun and three became priests. The other surviving children populated the whole Philippines with girls and boys who bore the Plaza intelligence and good values, as this blog is evident of. (Cut me some slack, this is MY blog.)

It's been around a week since we got back from Bohol, my mom, Dan, and I. It's embarrassing and sad to say that the last time I was in Bohol was lola's funeral. I feel bad every time there's a reunion I can't attend. No, really bad. Bohol is my favorite place on Earth, and is the home of one of my favorite people.

When we arrived I barely got to rest and the next thing I knew, I was in Baclayon Church for the baptism ceremonies of my newest nephew and inaanak, Magnus, my cousin Karen's second boy.

I'm a Muslim. But my Christian relatives only show me kindness. There's no religion with family.

Four years ago Karen made me attend her wedding as one of her bridesmaids; this year she made me ninang. Normally, Muslim and Christian traditions wouldn't allow that. But there are things more valuable than tradition. (I stand out like a sore thumb in a Catholic church though. I have no idea what to do at what moment. But hey, as I said, there are things more important than that.)

Baclayon Church

Karen, Mommy and Magnus' grandma, Auntie Zaida

And that was only the first day!

The next day was the celebration for Uncle Pol's 25th year as a priest, which was the main event of our reunion. If I was instant ninang on Magnus's binyag, I was instant emcee, dancer and singer at the program for Uncle Pol. I suck at emceeing even if people don't believe me (kasi nga raw, magaling sa English), and I don't like dancing in public. But anyway, I wasn't the only one who was pressured into doing things.

hehe, go Uncle Noy

with my co-host from Israel, haha (my cousin Adon)

Things got even better on the third day, which was spent touring Bohol on bus. If you want to imagine the size a family of fifteen can amount to once they get together complete with their own families, imagine the number of people that can fill up a large bus. We visited Sagbayan Peak (I call it the other Chocolate Hills), a butterfly farm (they had great ice cream, LOL, and no, not made of butterflies; there was one butterfly that smelled like chocolate though, not edible), and Loboc River, home of the cutest primates (next to humans, haha), the tarsier.

Sagbayan Peak

dami namin!

For those who bother to ask (like moi), they actually wait for the butterflies to finish their life cycles before they're made displays. They don't kill them.

There was a time when tarsier could be petted by tourists, but it was found out that it shortened their life spans. Now they're for your eyes only, and turn off your camera flash! They're nocturnal. (at least I got to pet them once, they're just so cute and gentle)

If you're wondering why we skipped the beaches, well it's because we have one right in our backyard.

Come and visit Bohol. I want to live here someday.

Plenty of our Bohol pics here.

it's about time

Sun, 17 May 2009 15:16:52 GMT

It's no secret: I love BONNIE PINK. I adore her and I have her music for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Okay, not really, but you know what I mean. If you do then you're a close friend. If you're a close friend you've probably seen my Plurks, YM status messages and other raves on her. Heck I'm serious on getting to see her perform live even just once before I die.

I first heard Bonnie singing It's Gonna Rain as an ending theme to Rurouni Kenshin. That song is among the ones that got me really interested in J-pop, and It's Gonna Rain is my all-time favorite Rurouni Kenshin song (RK featured L'Arc~en~Ciel and Judy and Mary among other bigatin J-pop artists).

My first Bonnie album was Even So, and all I can say is lucky, lucky me. This turns out to be (at least according to me, very reliable, haha) one of Bonnie's most liked albums by real fans of hers. It is a dark album (that's how most reviews describe it and there's just no better word), with Bonnie working the happy-sad elements she's really good at. I just became a dedicated fan after Even So. At present I have listened to all her albums that I know of.

I was able to listen to her latest album ONE this afternoon. I played the album on our old but still reliably loud stereo (I have to kick it to make it work sometimes, but it still produces great sound, LOL) despite the household not really being J-pop fans and sat back to enjoy the ear candy. Before the intro to track one could finish I saw the crossword portion of today's daily which I abandoned earlier on the living room chair and was suddenly in the mood from some brain cell work.

This is the result of this afternoon's activity:

LOL. I reviewed ONE while doing the crossword. I never cease to amaze myself. XP

As for the review itself, those scribbles pretty much say everything.

Won't Let You Go reminds me of Burning Inside from her previous full album Thinking Out Loud. I thought it didn't make a great track one and that maybe Princess Incognitio or even Ring a Bell should've been handed the job of intro to the album.

Fyewsha Fyewsha Fyewsha is another of Bonnie's songs that I just file into my mental playlist of summer tracks.

Princess Incognito reminds me of Just a Girl Bonnie.

Track four, Joy, has already grown on me since it was released as a single and it's not very hard to like anyhow.

Mousou Lover reminded me of Catch the Sun and later on Take me in due to its shady mood.

As for Kane o Narashite, I didn't think it was much of a hit when Bonnie released it last year, and now I don't really like it that its English version Ring a Bell makes it as a bonus track to this album. I mean, come on. They're in different languages but they're still the same song, and they're even very close semantically.

But after this came in the most disturbing-in-a-good-way and possibly the one I will conclude to be the best track after many listens: One Last Time. Though I thought there were just too many instruments that I couldn't really hear Bonnie anymore starting from the bridge part, this track is still a winner. I still think that Bonnie is at her best when she sounds in grief. And yeah, I'm afraid it's gonna be one of those tracks I'm gonna listen to when indulging in depression.

Rock You till the Dawn to me is a mix of pop rock and R&B, reminding me for some reason of Imagination from Thinking Out Loud.

Fed Up which is a collaboration with Craig David is the one I least like at first listen of this album. They sound really good together but I'm just not feeling this song.

PLAY & PAUSE is new! I've never heard Bonnie do an R&B track like this before, and she raps in it! (So cute!) But it strangely reminds me of Hikki. (O.O)

The next track Himitsu reminds me of anime themes in the 90s. A number of Bonnie's songs have been anime tracks so it's not a very far-off comparison.

The next one is another track I marked. Try me Out is added to my summer playlist. It's just so laid-back-by-the-pool cute and a very easy listen to my ears.

The next track is something I really liked at first listen (from her recent Joy/Happy Ending single), even more than I did Joy. The reason that I like Happy Ending so much may be Bonnie's hopeful lyrics, but I think it makes a really good soft rock track. It would have been the perfect last track to this album but Bonnie puts in Get on the Bus (which I note in the crossword sounds like a filler) and Ring a Bell.

Overall I think this is a really good original album from Bonnie, better than her previous Thinking Out Loud and Golden Tears. There are many new songs which are all treats. I've read in a Bonnie Pink forum how ONE has all the previous Bonnies in a package. I agree, and I think that versatility is what makes this album a real treat for all BONNIE PINK fans like yours truly.

If I review Bonnie by comparing new tracks to her old ones it's because I'm no musician or music expert and this is the only way a fan can do it. I'm very partial to older Bonnie albums (Even So which remains my favorite, Present and Just a Girl), and maybe this is another reason why I keep making comparisons to her old songs. But nonetheless any new song from Bonnie is a treat, and I am her fan now and always.

P.S. 70 down is gimlet, a drink which Bonnie mentions in A Perfect Sky. Look at how happy I was at the coincidence (I even drew a smiley x.x).

ain't going down without a fight

Fri, 15 May 2009 05:16:28 GMT

If I'm going to hell it isn't your fault, so stop trying to "save" me. You know I'm not going to hell. There IS no hell.