Human Writes

Losing People

2008-03-09T09:51:00.001+11:00

I have never had a friend die on me before. I was looking at his photos earlier and realized that I will truly honestly miss Alvin.

I had a cousin who died a few years ago. Among my 52 thousand first, second, and third cousins, she was by far the kindest. When I was very young, she babysat me for the longest time. And whenever my father would lash at me because I refused to eat (again), she would use her own body to ward off the blows. Then she left. I cried like it was the end of the world. I was sitting on our doorstep still wearing my jammies and fluffy slippers. I cried while she was trying not to. I cried while she was walking farther away. I was still crying long after she was outside the front gates beyond my line of sight. I think I was 5 or 6 years old then. But I remember that day.

Then I grew up. Had new babysitters. Met friends. Had crushes. Fell in love. Fell out of love. Graduated. Got a job. I saw her only once in a few years. But somewhere in the back of my consciousness I knew I still loved her.

It was cancer. They said she had an awful time.

The worst thing was the last time I saw her. By that time the doctor said she had a few months. She actually came up to Manila just to see us. It was the saddest most awkward time. All of us knew what was coming but we all pretended everything was alright. We ate, had fun and joked. All that time there was someone screaming in my head, "You fucking bastards! She is dying! Do something about it! Don't let her leave me again!" It must be what a funeral would be like if the deceased were sitting among the living. Drinking coffee and eating suman, "So yeah, I'm dying in a few weeks and I am in terrible pain for most parts of the day, but where did you get that lovely blouse?"

She told me to be good. To take care of mama. To take care of my brother. To eat my greens. To make her proud. And I'm still trying, to this day.

She died back in the province. She left a husband and two kids. One of which is my godchild. I have a godchild for every cousin and relative so I probably have 3 dozen godchildren.

I don't know yet how exactly my friend, Alvin, died. But they say that it was very sudden. I was on a bus last Friday on my way home after a few drinks after work when I got a long-distance call on my cellphone. It was one of our other friends asking me to stay calm and not to be shocked because Alvin has died. How the fuck do you stay calm after news like that?

It was his birthday last February 29. He was 28 (7 if we really want to be strict about it). He got married only a month ago. To his childhood sweetheart.

The last time I saw him was when we had lunch together in Makati because I was leaving for Sydney. I remembered his birthday but I didn't send him a message. I really should've.

Life Update

2008-02-10T08:00:00.000+11:00

I have been a very, very bad blogger. One month of withholding my thoughts and experiences? Sacrilegious.

The whole drama about lunch is over now. I've found my peace with that, along with the fact that I get to go out with colleagues and other friends sometimes. So being alone for lunch a few days out of 5 isn't so bad anymore.

And the most interesting things I see when I go wandering around at lunch. Just last week, there was this travel promotion going on at the Martin Place fountain. I got a really big kick out of watching great tango and hot, half-naked Brazilian guys doing the capoeira. The next day, at the same place there was a debate/forum going on conducted by young lawyers regarding same-sex marriage and whether it was a human rights issue. Was nowhere near as hot as the Brazilian guys (come on they had 6-pack abs and they knew how to use 'em) but it was interesting nevertheless.

And I discovered body-boarding a few weekends ago. Fucking awesome. Really. At first I was just doing it a few meters from the shore alongside the other ten-year olds and their parents but after an hour of so, I kinda got the timing and promoted myself and joined the eleven-year-olds on the farther, bigger waves. Got to ride one all the way to the sand. Wooohooo.

I flunked my first attempt at the NSW driving test. I was over-speeding (twice), failed to give way, and I hit some rubbish (I think it was an old dining chair set out there for council clean-up) on the kerb while kerb-side parking. Flunking the test would've been ok if not for the fact that I've been driving for YEARS and should've known better. AND I have been driving all that time, in MANILA. The most treacherous, predatory driving conditions on the planet.

So yeah, failing the driving test was really hard on me, just ask Adrian and Marian. Thank you, again, for taking the brunt of my after-exam wrath while Earl was still at work.

Been sort of addicted to Facebook. This too shall pass though. Like all things.

Been wanting to move to Balmain.

Been wanting to bodyboard again but Sydney summer this year is a big joke.

Been wanting to go out for drinks after work but seems logistically improbable.

Been wanting a new pair of kick-ass, I'm-a-gonna-walk-all-over-you boots. Maybe next month.

Been a lot things. Mostly just bored again.

Cheers,
Ets :)

Lunch Sucks. Big Time.

2008-01-04T13:27:00.000+11:00

I just came back from YET another incredibly lonely lunch. I find all my teammates are gone, probably had lunch together. Gaddemit. I knew I should've held out a bit longer.

I usually feel hunger around 12 and by 12:15 I better eat or I get really cranky. These guys eat around 12:30 or later. By that time I'd probably be half dead in my seat from starvation. Oh well.

I really should get used to having lunch alone anyway. It's been a little bit over a month now and I still feel like crying at lunch. It's soooo lonely. Waaaah. I miss my friends. I miss Fazolis. I miss long, happy meal times. I miss laughing, I mean REALLY laughing. You know where you feel like you're breaking apart at the sides. I miss having coffee with people who can talk about other things besides the weather. No offense meant to anyone, but I have always thrived on conversations. Make me think. Disagree with me. Argue with me. Challenge me. Tell me something new. Chatting just leaves me feeling tired. But it really is such a necessary evil when in new environments.

Yesterday I had fish and salad (read: fish and leaves) I was trying to be healthy. I ended up hungry again by 2pm. Today I had deep fried calamari. I ended up feeling like I needed to have beer with it. Go figure.

After lunch I dropped by a designer shirt store to buy a friend a shirt that was supposedly on sale. But they didn't have the color she wanted. So I just came back here to the office. And felt even lonelier than I was before I left.

I will definitely try hassling these guys to eat with me next week. Definitely probable. Probably not. Never mind. I'll probably just get take-away and start eating at my desk.

Loser.

One Bus Ride

2007-12-22T15:06:00.001+11:00

Three weeks. That's how long I've been working. They say be careful what you wish for, you just might get it. :)

Nah. It's been a blast. I love the guys at work, they seem to be a really cool bunch of people. We had a great Christmas lunch last Thursday. I won't start blogging about co-workers though, in fears of being dooced. Not that I have anything to bitch about. Yet. But knowing me, I'll probably find something.

Anyway. So it's in the city. I take the train in and the bus out. Takes a total of 2 fucking hours of my life everyday. I've forgotten how commuting can be so mind numbing. I was thinking of bringing my brand-spanking new (AHEM!!!) Nikon and take photos of the commuters on the train but I doubt that a strange woman taking candid random photos would be a welcome thing to tired, cramped early morning commuters. I'll content myself with observing them behind my glasses.

There was this one lady on the bus yesterday on my way home. She was shouting something at the bus driver, like "Are you sure this is the 518? Come on open the door again, I wanna go out and see for myself." Like the driver wouldn't know what route he was driving, right? But he opens the door anyway and lets the woman have a look a the sign. And of course it was the 518. So the lady pays and takes a seat 2 rows in front of me.

A few stops later, must be on Druitt Street, a guy comes in and sits across from Doubting Tess (that's what I was calling her in my mind). Pretty normal looking guy. Twenty-ish. Had a plastic bag of godknowswhat. And an ancient looking pocket book. So he proceeds to read his novel.

Doubting Tess turns to him, pokes his shoulder and proceeds to badger Unassuming Tom (that would be the guy) about what sort of book he was reading. And they seem to have a conversation about it. They appear to be agreeing on something because Unassuming Tom keeps bobbing his head up and down. But what I really think he was thinking was, "Geez, did I sit on the wrong row. How the hell do I get out of this one?"

Anyway, he got off at Rozelle which was not that far from where he got on. So he never got to read a line of his book. Poor Unassuming Tom. So Doubting Tess was left, again with no one to talk to. So she just flips her dry, messy hair back and forth. Back and forth. Again and again over the back of the chair. I was thinking this was some sort of ancient Aussie bus ritual and was considering doing it myself lest I offend the transport gods of old. But luckily reason prevailed and I remained still.

Then while Doubting Tess was flipping her hair, her eyes met mine. I nearly jumped out the window. It was similar to the feeling you get when you think you've accidentally deleted a whole weeks worth of project work. I started praying that she wouldn't come over and start talking to me. And thankfully, 3 Asians came on the bus and one of the girls sat beside me.

But after sitting for like 2 seconds, she pops straight up again and moves to the seat across me and slams her huge Gucci bag quite loudly on the empty space beside me. I thought this was very rude (not to mention embarrassingly startling for me) so I got ready to smash her face in but then laziness overcame me and again I remained still. Turns out she was just saving that seat for their other girl friend. Whew. Newsflash: "Laziness saved Asian socialite from certain death. Or at least serious body harm."

Nothing much happened after that so I just sang quietly in my head. Half an hour later, the bus was nearly empty and it was my turn to get off. 'Night driver. My life is so fucking exciting.

My Angel

2007-11-07T19:00:00.001+11:00

Testing Post via Windows Live Writer

2007-11-07T15:16:00.001+11:00

This is a test.

Hello World.

The Land of Milk and Honey and Kangaroos and Dingoes

2007-10-13T11:33:00.001+10:00

In the past few months, friends and family who haven’t been in contact with me in ages started emailing and sending instant messages. And quite a bit of them are remarkably unaware of what Sydney is like.

Quite a lot have this image of deserts and kangaroos and bush land and babies being eaten by dingoes. Several were concerned about how I was able to cope with the lack of people and general civilization around me. Some were troubled about the extreme discrimination that they say happens here. I would always reply to their concerns with calm, “We’re good. No those are common misconceptions and it’s not like that at all.”

So to set records straight here are some things about Australia and Sydney in particular that we have observed and judged to be true so far:

1. To those unfamiliar with how Australia looks like and it’s location, here it is:

Now we live in Sydney as you can see in the map above. This map should also serve to educate those in Australia who think that The Philippines is in Europe. The Philippines is not in Europe or anywhere near the Panama Canal. It is a group of 7,107 islands above Australia on the other half of the equator. And no, I will not explain what an “equator” is. Google it.

The desert in Australia is in the middle of the continent. Here’s a climate map of Australia:

As you can see in the above map, Australia has quite a large portion of desert area as emphasized by the big red circle. Again, we live in SYDNEY as shown in the smaller red circle. Big circle – desert. Small circle – NOT desert.

Sydney actually has what they call a “Humid Subtropical” climate. Which means NO DESERT. If you can imagine how far Manila is from Davao, triple that and you will have an idea how far we are from the desert here in Sydney.

2. In our nearly two years here in Sydney I have only seen about a dozen kangaroos and maybe 5 koalas. And all of them are in the zoo. If I look out our window at home, I will NOT find a kangaroo there chewing on my tomato seedlings. Why is this, you might ask? BECAUSE WE DO NOT LIVE IN THE OUTBACK.

We actually live in a suburb a few minutes away from the central business district which if you compare that to Makati, we would be living in Ortigas.

3. And it was just one case of dingo eating the baby and that was never really confirmed. And guess what, this dingo-eating-baby incident happened in 1980 while they were camping near Ayer’s Rock which is located in the DESERT. SYDNEY NOT IN DESERT!

Refer to this article for more information on the Azaria Chamberlain Disappearance (Azaria being the baby taken by the dingo).

4. And while you’re reading that article in Wikipedia, might as well look up the population of Sydney. It’s 4 million. By my standards, that would be enough people to keep me happy. Here’s a chart comparing Metro Manila and Sydney. You figure it out.

Metro Manila: AREA: 166 sq. km. POPULATION: 11,289,368

Metro Sydney: AREA: 12,144 sq. km. POPULATION: 4,119,190

5. Now here’s the issue I have tried not to touch, not even with a 10-foot stick for the past few months: discrimination. I will not talk about Malu Fernandez, Teri Hatcher, or Jon Stewart because frankly, there’s probably nothing left for me to say after what has been said by the 11 million people in Metro Manila.

I will instead assure everyone that in the nearly 2 years that we’ve been here, we have not yet experienced any form of discrimination; not me, not my family, not our friends. Metro Sydney is a pretty multi-cultural place according to Wikipedia, "Sydney has the seventh largest percentage of a foreign born population in the world, ahead of cities such as the highly multicultural London and Paris."

It is not uncommon for people of different cultures to clash or be wary of one another, but to actually hold out certain rights and privileges based on someone’s cultural background has been outlawed long ago. Sometime during the era when the computer was invented, maybe.

Personally, there are certain cultures here with which I have stereotypes. I know for a fact that people coming from “a certain country” would push and elbow other passengers when getting on the bus. This would include cutting in front of old people and mothers with prams. And the ridiculous fact that there are only two of you getting on the bus does not deter this behaviour from them.

I have been witnessed by some to have pushed back and scream bloody murder into the faces of such people.

I, for a fact, do not hold this opinion by my lonesome. The lady I chatted with on the bus last week has the exact same opinion of “them” as I do. And I was fairly sure she was a normal, sensible being. Until she started talking about ukuleles. I might blog about that incident some other time.

So to answer the question, “Is there blatant discrimination in Sydney?” my answer is, “No, there is no such discrimination in Sydney.” Aside from the discrimination coming from me, of course. And this I will keep to myself for fears of being Malu Fernandez-ed.

So in conclusion,
· we do not live in the desert,
· there are no kangaroos or koalas in our backyard,
· the dingo incident may or may not have happened,
· we do not live alone in our suburb,
· and the only resident of Sydney guilty of discriminating against others is me.

Life Update

2007-09-26T11:02:00.000+10:00

Yes I am still here. Sometime late August, around my birthday, our PC stopped working. Just wouldn’t POST. After several troubleshooting attempts by my husband and after using my time-tested method of smacking the tower and kicking it around, we decided to take it to a shop where they have the extra video cards and memories and CPUs to troubleshoot. Turned out the memory bus was busted. So the technician just transferred the two memory modules to the other working memory slots. Viola! It’s aliiive!

Anyway, during that period of technological breakdown, I discovered my green thumb. I planted some herbs in recycled pots and I am happy to report that they are now thriving little seedlings of basil, tomato (roma and cherry), and chilli.

-oOo-

Angela has been going to preschool for more than a month now. And has been sick with cold and cough ever since. It’s the colds season here (winter turning into spring) and the kids in school just sneeze and cough at each others faces, and the fact that Angela doesn’t eat like a normal human child doesn’t help. We have taken her to the “nice doctor” and he said that she’d be right as rain with water and lots of rest and sent her off with some lollies and a new red pen.

Right now, she has the laptop on www.nickjr.com ‘s radio and playing the Dora the Explorer station on full volume right beside me making it impossible for me to actually do some productive studying on the PC.

Over the period of one month, Angela has become amazingly good with her conversational skills. Although there are days
when all her sentences still start with “because”, it is quite delightful to hear her start some sentences with “actually”. Like, “Actually, mom, because the flowers are growing.” To which my default response is, “That’s wonderful, anak.”

We have started teaching her to count in Tagalog. “Isaw, Dahlawaah, Tatlow, Apat, Lee-mah!” “You’re so tabachoy.” I know, I know, my daughter has now turned into a konyong kolehiyala. But I’m working on it, and I’m hoping that soon she’ll become a bit more jologs. Welkam to da jaangel!

-oOo-

For my birthday, we decided to stay at home so that Angela can have all the rest she can get. So we just opted to sprinkle fertilizer all over the lawn. Not a bad way to spend a birthday I guess.

-oOo-

I have recently started sending out my resume. Yes, you read it right. I have started looking for work. Finally deciding that my ass has grown fat enough, I updated my resume and sent it out to job openings and promising companies. Here’s hoping for a reply soon. So if there’s someone out there looking for a Systems Analyst/Programmer specializing in VB/C#.Net...

When A Cow Laughs, Does Milk Come Out Her Nose?

2007-08-17T17:31:00.000+10:00

Living in a first world country really is something else. Take the transport system for example...

Back when I was in high school, I started commuting all by myself. During those days, there were no trains (MRT), no FX taxis (a cheap mass produced AUV that takes 10 passengers and charges a significantly higher fare because it is supposedly air-conditioned), and no shuttle services. I got around the hard way - by waiting for a jeepney. I would take a jeep from Marcos Highway and get off Katipunan, take the Katipunan jeepney to the front of the school. Simple, right? Not quite. Waiting for a jeepney on a normal school day during rush hour is like waiting for love to happen – it takes a long time, sometimes painful and requires an incredible amount of luck. There was even a period of time where I would walk to school along Marcos Highway (yes it’s a highway), cross the Marcos Bridge, along Katipunan Avenue and finally land in school, all caked in dust and smoke, bleeding feet inside school shoes, and sweating like a pig. That was during the major road works near our area and so all traffic within a 20 kilometre radius was diverted into our highway. O happy days.

Getting home would be the reverse. I have hitch-hiked a couple of times just to get home. There were times when I would settle with sitting on my Coleman water jug on the floor of the jeepney because it was getting dark and I really desperately wanted to get home already. Blessed were the guys because they could hang on to the back of the jeepney (we call this “sabit”). Sometimes there are as much as 10 guys hanging on to whatever bars were sticking out at the back of the jeep; holding on for dear life. Then the driver would literally snake its way along the length of Aurora Boulevard and Marcos Highway at neck-breaking speed like the devil himself was on its heels.

Then came along the FX taxi. I was in college and commuting became infinitely better. It was maybe 4 times more expensive but it was air-conditioned and more comfortable. This is of course if you’re lucky. Some FX’s have a fan that churns out hot carbon-monoxide from the engine. In this case, half the passengers pass out and the other half stay awake by berating the driver. FX’s can accommodate 4 passengers in the middle section but if there are, er, horizontally-gifted people on the ride, one of the seat-mates will have to sacrifice half his butt and thus paralysing half of his body.

Then the MRT was completed. Oh joy is me! This was around the time I was working already. I can get to Makati from anywhere along EDSA (one of the busiest, heaviest traffic roads in the Philippines, quite possibly the galaxy) in record time! That is if you can squeeze in during rush hour. Now this is a true story: There was one time I was on my way to Ortigas from the Ayala Station in Makati on a rush hour. I barely got on a train compartment and only because the throng of people around me pushed me into the train. Once inside, I only had enough room to move my nose and my neck. Couldn’t even scratch my chin. It was not a problem of holding on because it was that packed that everybody was pushing on everyone else just enough so that no one falls over. On the bright-side, it brings out cooperation among fellow commuters, doesn’t it? Now I was on one side of the train and I was starting to worry that I couldn’t get to the other side because that would be the door which opens to the platform I was getting off to. But again, the stars were smiling down on me that day because quite a lot of my co-passengers were getting off at the same station as I was. So it was merely a matter of letting the flow of sweaty human bodies carry me out of the train into the blissful open space of stationary ground.

Now this long blog entry has a point. And I shall get to that shortly. Living in Sydney for a little more than a year now, Earl and I have observed that people who have lived here all their lives, in this first-world country, demand more of their government, of their products, and of their people. If something is a bit off or unsatisfactory, they do not hesitate to voice it out and the glorious thing about it is, their complaints are heard and are acted upon. I understand that this constant complaining and over-reacting is necessary to continually improve their standard of life. This is a good thing, so good on you, Aussies!

BUT! After recounting my painful ordeal of over a decade of pain, torture, and wretchedness, I, being the self-righteous, proud, foolish Pinoy that I am, scoff at their misery over this: http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22251401-2862,00.html.

No. THAT is not a cattle truck. I hereby declare that until one has riden on the MRT or the LRT, one cannot claim to be any kind of bovine specie.

Compared to what I’ve been used to, I think their transport system here is bliss. Here in Sydney, track-work and bus improvements go on all the time and although it can be a bit of a hassle during these times, I believe that it will get better. Sana lang ganon din sa Pilipinas.

Tarantino Rides A Pedicab

2007-08-16T11:23:00.000+10:00

Woohooo! You just gotta love the guy:

The Pinoy - Tarantino rides pedicab to escape traffic to Philippine presidential palace

Little Victories

2007-08-16T10:52:00.000+10:00

Well, what do you know. It’s been one year of blogging today. In commemoration of this momentous occasion, allow me to share with you a video of an artist that I found on http://www.candyrat.com/. His name is Nicholas Barron, he’s a blues/folk singer from Chicago, and this one's called "In Spite Of Myself". HWAW!

- oOo -

In other news, yesterday, Angela finished a whole serving of pork steak and basil fried rice. It took her nearly 2 hours to eat but I was close to tears with immense joy that she has eaten some food.

I was reading about fussy eating among preschoolers and apparently, it is quite common. And numerous articles further say that as a mother, it is my primal instinct to feed my young and trying to make my daughter eat is an extension of this instinct. Whew for a moment I thought I was turning into something really horrible, like Miss Menchin.

Here's a useful website filled with all sorts of articles for parents: Parent Center

Angela's First Day Of School

2007-08-09T11:20:00.000+10:00

We weren’t expecting it until around next year, but as luck would have it, we found a vacancy and Angela started pre-school the other day. One minute she’s my little baby girl and I’m changing diapers and smelling her armpits and the next she’s got a backpack, new friends, and totally forgetting about me standing at the doorway tears streaming down my face. Next thing you know she’ll be graduating and getting married. Waaaahh!!!!

I wasn’t sure really if she was going to be difficult but being how she is, it took about two seconds to adjust and bam, I suddenly have all this time in my hands and for the first time in more than one year in Sydney, I had a cup of coffee in a sidewalk cafe. And it was quiet.

I hung around for an hour though just to see how she handles this new environment where she isn’t the centre the universe. The first thing she does is ask the teacher if she could do some painting, and since we were a little early, they more or less had open activities. It was incredible that she was sharing and not scratching out other kids’ eyeballs or screaming bloody murder into their faces. (Whew, pat on the back for mommy!)

Then came story time, it took a while for her to get the fact that story time meant the teacher was the one to tell the story and not her, which usually is the case when Angela and I do it. I get as far as “Once upon a time, in a land far, far away...” and everything else she “reads” herself. She makes up the story based on the pictures. At times it amazes me how she actually comes up with this elaborate story while reading “Programming with C#: MS Official Course”. Anyway, so she finally decides to sit down and find out if this lady (read: teacher) is any good at telling stories. And after about three words out of the teacher’s mouth, a little hand shot straight up into the air, waving, with a little voice going “Oh teacher, teacher, teacher!” frantically. This of course was Angela. The teacher had to acknowledge her, and Angela ran to the bookshelf, pulled out a book of her choice and asked if the teacher could read this one instead. I was in a corner, snickering and thinking to myself, “Oh you people wouldn’t know what hit you. Good luck on a very long day. Mwahahahaha.”

The teachers were all quite amazed at how confident Angela is. She didn’t have any trouble at all socializing with other kids. And her impatience and restlessness was due to the fact that she was 3-years old. Not surprising, she didn’t eat any of the fruit served at tea time, but at least she ate some of the chicken that I packed for her lunch. It was also good news that she didn’t have any toilet-related-accidents because although she is toilet trained, she sometimes holds out telling us about needing to go to the toilet when she is distracted or doing something particularly fun or new.

I took a few pictures and you can see them here. I couldn’t take pictures of other kids because the school had a confidentiality thing, that is some parents do not agree to having their kids’ pictures taken.

Just One Of Them Days

2007-07-27T17:14:00.000+10:00

Now eating has always, ALWAYS been a big problem with Angela. It’s not that she doesn’t eat enough. The problem lies in the fact that she doesn’t eat. Period. In the recent months, though, she has started to see food not as the Evil Substance Sent By The Devil Himself Through My Very Own Mother To Torture Me but as something that can actually be quite enjoyable.

So this afternoon, I asked her if she wanted to eat pochero (a pork dish with sweet tomato sauce and bananas) since this is one of the few dishes that is not as repulsive to her as, say, tinola. But it seems that today is one of those days when she considers food as a vile matter again. And so I ask her what she wants to eat instead.

"I want lampin and milk." Lampin is a square piece of white cloth which she uses as a security blanket.

And I go, “But don’t you want to eat pochero? It’s yummy and it’s color red!”

To this she replies, “No. I want to eat only white things. WHITE THINGS.”

But then she notices that it’s starting to get dark outside and drops everything that she’s doing, including watching her DVD of Cars for the 5,124th time and exclaims , “Weeeeeyt A MINUTE! Where’s MY SUN? Ha? Where is it?” As if I, the evil mother imposing ridiculous red-colored food on her, was the root of this recent wickedness of hiding HER sun. Just like in the playground when her playmates go home and she just realizes it she demands where I put HER PEOPLE.

So I take her to the window and show her that the sun is going down behind the clouds and that don’t you worry, it’ll be back tomorrow morning.

“Oh, okay. Mum, can I have some ice cream. Ha?”

“We don’t have ice cream.”

“Hownabout cookies? Can I have cookies, ha, mommy, pleeeease?”

“No, you have to eat your pochero first.”

“Can I draw lots of colors markers?”

Heaven give me strength.

Beowulf

2007-07-27T11:32:00.000+10:00

Now I can't quite remember how the real story goes. We read this for a book report for English class back in grade 8. I think we had to make some sort of graphic/comic book version of it. And Carlo Sace had the best drawings for the project, cause he was really into that thing back then.

Anyway, I was reading Neil Gaiman's blog and found that there's a trailer out already for the movie. AND they're going to show it on IMAX. Oooohhh.

Watch the trailer here.

The Humble Cassette Tape

2007-07-17T17:11:00.000+10:00

I recently came across this site and made some cool ones of my own:

It made me reminisce of the time when I used to make mix tapes. Most kids nowadays don’t even know what a cassette tape is. And this fact makes me feel very, very old.

What I used to do was put a blank tape on the cassette deck, tune in to my favourite radio station and wait for the song I want to come on. And I had to time the recording just right so that I don’t get the DJ recorded on tape. For this reason, 97.1 WLS-FM wasn’t exactly the best radio station to record songs because The Triggerman would start talking right into the part of the song where the words start and right away after the last lyric was sung, sometimes even during the last few lines of the song. And I’d be forced to record him anyway because it was the only way to get the intro and end parts of the song. And if you’re recording something like, say, Patience by Guns ‘N Roses, you just have to get the intro part since it is the ESSENCE of the song.

You must understand that during this era, WLS-FM was the cool radio station to listen to. Monster Radio RX 93.1 didn’t have Chico and Delamar yet; I didn’t even know what NU 107.5 was, in fact I wasn’t even aware of these stations’ existence then.

Back then, my most precious mix tape was that of the GnR/Bon Jovi back-to-back showdown that they had that I recorded. I brought it with me to one of our field trips to listen to on my Walkman during the bus trip. Then tragedy struck. I was skipping on large rocks to cross a little stream, I can’t remember for the life of me why I was doing that, and the cassette tape fell out of my pocket, into the water. My friend behind me was able to save it without falling into the water but alas, it was garbles and gurgles for the most part of “You Give Love A Bad Name” on side A and “Don’t Cry” on the side B. So what I did was, in my opinion, one of the bravest sacrifices I ever made in that period of my life – I cut the ruined portions out and taped the two ends back together. The result was something like: “I play my part, and you play your game. You give love a asdweraasdfgy... arwdgsfy Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty! Oh won’t you pleas take me hooome. Woah woah!” Sigh. Those were the days.

Nowadays, the worst that could happen is you get an mp3 that’s only 64kbps. So you just delete it and download another version. In a way, not having that convenience made all those songs more cherished. And the fact that you had to wait for them to be played on the radio or else buy a tape just adds to the immense satisfaction of hearing them played. Makes you wonder what the old folks thought of the cassette when in their time all they had were vinyls which only had one or two tracks on them.

Oh well. Rakenrol!!

You got to admit it’s getting better. Getting better all the time.
- The Fab Four

Me As A Simpsons Character

2007-07-06T15:41:00.000+10:00

To make your own go to the Simpsons Movie website.

Home

2007-07-06T15:24:00.000+10:00

Today we mark the 1^st year (and a month) anniversary of our family here in Sydney. This post just came in a month late mainly because I am a very, very lazy person. After a year, I have learned quite a bit about the Aussies, their land, and their ways. Maybe not that much yet, but enough.

In one year, we have mastered the ways of the public transport system, mainly the buses and trains. I never leave home without a bus schedule or without knowing the nearest train station. The locals are aghast at how we survive without a car especially with a toddler in tow. Some are astounded that we have actually covered more of Sydney by public transport and by foot than they have done in their lifetime living here. We, as survivors of EDSA and SLEX, QC and Makati, Antipolo and Las Pinas, are actually amazed at the efficiency of the buses and trains here. Not to mention the ferries. Sure, they come late a lot of times, but it sure beats standing on Aurora Boulevard for 2 hours, every day, praying for an FX or a jeep to come by and squeeze you in. I’ve got commuter-horror stories that will send chills down your spine.

We have visited a lot of the suburbs and have walked aimlessly along their streets just scoping out the area. We have window shopped in all the major malls reachable by train, spent hours scouring the city streets and the shopping areas. We know where to buy bagoong, longganiza, tocino, bangus, tuyo, extraderm, munggo, maggi, mang tomas, everything except kangkong.

Hours have been spent basking in the heat of the summer sun in Bondi, Manly, Shelly, Balmoral and Bronte. I am fairly certain that this coming summer, we shall be visiting dozens more. And even if I only need to look down to see that I have breasts, it still amazing to see others having them out in the open in the beach.

We know that JB Hi-Fi has everything in the way of DVD’s and audio CD’s. You can get everything from Wooly’s but Coles have cookies baked by angels. For cheaper groceries, we go to Franklin’s. For any big purchase, wait for a sale. Best time is in June and September and Christmas season.

Always give up your seat for the elderly in the bus. Don’t forget to say “thank you” to the driver on your way out. The garbage truck comes on Thursday so get your bins out by Wednesday night. Look right when crossing the road, many left-hand-drive natives have been run over while crossing the road looking the other way. Everything closes by 5 pm, except on Thursday. “Chucking a yuey” means making a U-turn. You put thongs on your feet not on your crotch. Say hello to the people passing by the front of your house. No need to push, you’ll most surely get a seat anyway. When the sales people ask you if you need anything, respond! Pretending that they aren’t there is rude. The weather forecast is always right. The telemarketers will always pretend to have gotten the wrong number, put the phone down before it’s too late.

In one year, we have become familiar. We have learned how to swim. Do we dare call Sydney “home”?

Even the Pinoys we have met in the past year, those who have lived here for more than a decade, they still use the term “uuwi sa Pinas”. “Uwi” means “to go home”. After all these years living here, why do they still say that? Why not “babalik” which means to “return”? Does that voice in their head whisper now and again, “You do not belong here”? Isn’t it enough to have dyed their hair blonde, to have perfected the Aussie accent, to have celebrated Australia Day drunk and half-naked? Doesn’t that ritual of being dubbed “citizen” mean that this is where you belong and this is who you are?

Of course we love living here and this is certainly a great place to raise children. But the fact remains that no matter where you are, how ever far across the ocean you have decided to settle, regardless of how long you have been there, where you’re from will always be “home”.

I might be more comfortable living here. I might actually prefer living here. I guess someday, I might actually stay here for good. And I guess I might only come for a visit in the land of my birth whose anthem I have sung every Monday morning, five times a week, for eleven years; whose jeepneys and buses I have rode for nearly three decades; whose polluted air I have inhaled for nearly all my life; but that place will always be home.

To Bee or Not To Bumblebee

2007-07-03T15:07:00.000+10:00

I've been getting quite a lot of off-the-blog comments about the last post regarding the Transformers movie that we recently watched. And I’ve read some reviews and seen some interviews. Most of them liked it a lot and there are some who like it not.

Then there are the fanatics, the hardcore, the purists who said that Michael Bay has ruined their childhood. Right. You see, if they wanted the purest form of anything, they shouldn't really watch anything else but the first series. Or maybe a documentary. Not just for Transformers, of ANYTHING. If a book was made before the movie, don't watch it. Chances are, that really cool line that the character said on page 52? They didn't put that in the movie. And if a TV series happened before the movie? Don't watch it. That commercial immediately after the most dramatic scene? Not in the movie! Or if maybe a graphic novel came before the movie version, don't watch the movie, man! They probably couldn't get the exact RGB combination for the underwear the hero had on in the comics. It might actually be cyan or teal and not really periwinkle blue. It’s a MOVIE. They “make-up-stuff”. The use their “imagination”. It could be called “creativity”. You can even make your own version of it if nothing satisfies you. But for gawdsake, man! Don’t ruin it for everybody else who aren’t made up of as much sunshine and rainbows as you are.

And guess what, Michael Bay couldn't have ruined your childhood just by making Bumblebee a Camaro. The bullies in your school who pulled your underwear up over your head could've done it. A drug addict parent could definitely do it. A childhood lived in poverty spending cold, wet nights living under the bridge could ruin a childhood. Not having enough money to eat three meals a day much less go to school could put a real dent on a child’s life. A TRANSFORMERS MOVIE DOES NOT DO THAT. Only you can do that to yourself.

Anyway, just got a bit worked up at reading reviews on the net and getting comments. This would be my two cents worth. This being my blog and all, I am entitled to do that now and again. If anyone disagrees, as is bound to happen sooner or later, you can simply leave a comment, email me, or if that just isn't enough space to bitch around, MAKE YOUR OWN BLOG.

Just to give you an idea of how much she liked it, Angela is currently jumping off the window sill on to a chair going "ala-wala-lala" ending off in a fighting stance. She declares that she is a robot and so I assume that she is an Autobot (Optimus Prime I think). This is a good thing because maybe now I can be Bumblebee instead of being Mr. Wil Turner to her Captain Jack Sparrow impression.

Wish My First Car Could Do That

2007-07-02T14:38:00.000+10:00

After having watched Transformers last Saturday, Angela has concluded that she likes robots better than pirates (this being the third movie she has watched in a cinema with Superman Returns as the first and Pirates of the Caribbean 3 as the second). I am hoping that she'd ask her dad to buy her an Optimus Prime so that I could have a go at it too.

This was the first film that we have watched here where the cinema was actually full. Wow. Maybe it was the fact that it was only the third day of showing or maybe just because the movie was awesome. Although there were quite a lot of people who went to see the film, it was still a far cry from the cinema queues that regularly happen back in Manila. It was a great relief that I didn't have to kick people down the steps just so we could get the good seats. Not that I did that when I was in Manila. Not all the time, anyway.

Although the Camaro was incredibly sweeet, I'm still a bit disappointed that they didn't use a VW Beetle. Oh well. And I really liked the guy who was playing the part of the head of the secret group mainly because I still think of him as the sneaky butler in Mr. Deeds ("I am very, very sneaky, sir"). Hated the fat black hacker-dude. I've always hated him. He was in that movie where a kangaroo runs off with his red jacket. Still hate him. The leading lady was HOT! I am extremely pleased that she didn't have to saved from the evil monsters, not once! You go, girl! And there's this bit where the Autobots were trying to hide...well it was very funny. Some people might have not seen yet.

Go see it, for crying out loud!

It is very funny despite the sappy bits here and there, and my gaaash, haang galeng ng action sequences! I get kilig fits whenever Optimus Prime transforms. "Hang gwapo ni Optimus Prime!!" I could just imagine the girls back in Manila actually whispering that to their movie-seatmates during Optimus' hero-shot. The funniest part about the whole thing is whenever a really funny scene comes along and everyone in the cinema laughs, Angela would shush them in her loudest shush and people would actually shut up thinking that some serious movie critic is concentrating on the film. They'd be surprised.

Here’s some links:

www.TransformersMovie.com - Official Movie Site

www.AutobotsRollout.com - So you can drool at the cars.

The Epiphone Incident

2007-06-27T14:38:00.000+10:00

So, how’ve you been? Good good. Right. So I’ve been busy lately. I’ve recently started this project making a dollhouse out of the cardboard boxes that we used last year when we were moving here. Still cutting out windows for the second floor. It’s going great except that Angela insists on sleeping and eating inside the dollhouse which is not a very easy task considering it IS a doll-house.

And, AND! A few weeks ago, as a waaay advanced birthday gift, Earl bought me a guitar. I’ve been busy re-acquainting myself with the fretboard recently. Gawd I missed playing. Oh and the day we bought the guitar is a really funny story. So I’ve been phoning music shops all over Sydney for this particular model and apparently only Gallin’s Guitars in Annandale has it in stock. And there’s only one left. Good thing the guy I talked to (thanks, Liam!) was kind enough to hold it for me until we get a chance to go there that weekend. So weekend came and it was raining like signal #2. They said that they haven’t had this much rain in 60 years or something.

So we went there and it was pouring and the wind was unbelievable. But nothing, not rain nor wind could keep me from getting that guitar on that day! And never having been to Annandale before, I naturally miscalculated where to get off on the bus and got a bit lost. Now this would have been perfectly alright and would have been actually fun if it wasn’t raining and ridiculously cold and we had to be pushing a pram on the sidewalk while trying to find a guitar shop in the rain.

After wandering and asking people for directions for a few minutes, we finally found Gallin’s Guitars. As we went in, the heavy wooden door slammed closed right behind us, startling everyone in the store. The wind was THAT bad.

So I was “Is Liam around?” And they were “Oh that’s him right there”. And after trying out the guitar, drooling at the other guitars, we were finally paying for it.

Then Liam asked, “So where are you guys parked? Not too far I hope.”

And I was, “Nah, we came by bus.”

“So do you guys just want to leave the box with us, we can just throw it away for you.”

And heaven forbid that I throw away a perfectly good cardboard box. If I had been keeping the moving-to-Oz boxes for more than a year and am now creating a dollhouse out of them, then we are going to be bringing this guitar box home. Now imagine how big this box is: it contains one acoustic-electric guitar, an acoustic amplifier, and several guitar paraphernalia. So this is not just a box. This is a BOX.

So I said, “No, we’ll bring the box.” And Earl had to carry that box, in the pouring rain, in the freezing wind, through two bus rides, against all reason and logic, and despite the incredulous look on the faces of the people inside the guitar store. That was my waaay advance birthday gift. Woooohoooooo!

Alma Matters Most

2007-04-20T10:17:00.000+10:00

My batchmate Ramil posted this in his blog very recently. Just wanted to share it.

I'm not really sure when the demolition/relocation will take place. But it really bothers me that if and when the time comes, we'll be coming back to a high school building which brings no memories.

It would totally suck not being able to walk across the asphalt parking lot in the old building and say "Hey, this is the exact spot where I smashed my face in the hot asphalt when I fainted during our C.A.T.'s."

Or pass through the covered walk adjoining the "old building" to the "new building" and think, "I hated the Masons for making-tambay here and try to make every passerby so self-conscious."

Or this is the Bench. OUR BENCH. Where we marked our official group name in semi-permanent marker to last for generations. Of course the rain washed it away a few hours after that. But it was still our Bench.

Just too many memories. If and when they tear those buildings down, I hope they realize that they are crushing much more than bricks and mortar. They'd be breaking a lot of hearts.

Making Faces

2007-04-12T09:37:00.000+10:00

This collage was created using Picasa.

If you look closely you will find that Angela is sporting a bear-print pair of jammies and purple fingernails.

Yes, we're still in the "My - Body - Is - A - Work - Of - Art" phase, keeping in theme with the green spots.

How To Draw A Car in MS Paint

2007-04-11T09:23:00.000+10:00

Will take around 5 minutes to watch, but really, if you're reading my blog, I think you have time for this.

Saging Lang Ang May Puso

2007-04-11T09:20:00.000+10:00

Nowhere else in the planet has such conviction was matched with greater reason.

Reminds Me Of My College Days

2007-04-10T12:10:00.000+10:00

Particularly the college days when I take exams and find out about their existence 2 minutes before the exam. These are probably some of the solutions I should have come up during those times.

The last one has got to be my favorite.

Thanks to Zeny Bojo for posting this in our UPIS95 eGroups.

The Sydney Royal Easter Show

2007-04-10T11:40:00.000+10:00

For Easter Sunday, we went to The Sydney Royal Easter Show.

Then I found out just yesterday that if we put off our visit one day later, we would have been there at the same time as Nicole Kidman. Dammit.

More pictures here.

Or you could click on "PULL" at the top of this page and click on the Flickr banner there. I realized that most people don't notice that detail. And the fact that they can comment on the posts by clicking on the number after the date of the post on the post title. Curious.

What’s A Ooly’s?

2007-04-10T10:57:00.001+10:00

Last Saturday, the 7^th of April marked a significant day in the toddler life of Angela. It was the day she started asking "What Questions". We were at the Westfield mall at Hornsby, a very long way from where we live, and how we got there is entirely another different story.

Anyway, so we were there and we're trying to decide if we should do some grocery. And I said, "Sa Wooly's na lang tayo mag-grocery para madaming gulay?" And before Earl could get any word out, Angela looked at me, tilted her head to one side, scrunched her face and squinted her eyes showed her teeth and said: "What's a Ooly's?" I swear, the cutest thing I have ever witnessed thus far in my whole life.

After that, pretty much everything we said was followed by Angela asking, "What's a this?" and "What's a that?" Still with the same tilted-scrunched-cutest-face-ever look. And each answer we gave would warrant a follow-up what-question.

My friend Melvi whose youngest son is pretty much the same age as Angela warned me about this. The next phase she said is the "Why?"-phase. I know there will come a time when this will probably tire me out and cause me to tear out every single strand of hair on my head, but in the meantime, I will relish every what-question and try to come up with a definition that does not contain another word requiring further definition.

Why We Should Stock Up On Milk

2007-03-24T16:55:00.000+11:00

For the past few weeks I’ve been having these flashbacks of places I used to be familiar with. Not really déjà vu, more like flashes of really thin slices of totally irrelevant and insignificant moments of my life.

Like a few days ago, I was walking to the kitchen (probably to wash the dishes again since it occupies probably half of my housewife-life) and I suddenly get this image of me being in myself and looking out the window of our old car to this street in Las Piñas that we always used to go through on the daily drive to work. Or me looking at my feet as I’m walking along the Beta Way (a footpath that cuts across the woods between College of Engineering and AS Building. Totally random useless flashbacks. They don’t even evoke any feeling or nostalgia, just images. Like someone forcing my eyes open and squeezing tiny drops of memories into them. And then I’d just stand up, brush myself off and say, “Hey, what the hell were those drops for?” And find that I’m talking to nobody and carry on with the mundane things that I do everyday.

So I got to thinking about how they say that at the last moments of your life, you get a really severe flashback of your whole life right before your eyes and thought maybe I was getting these near-death flashbacks. Only maybe they weren’t really sure if they were going to kill me off yet and were hesitating about it and accidentally spilled drops of the flashbacks down to earth. So all I get are these three-second-long segments of nonsense instead of the whole feature length movie.

That’s why ever since the flashbacks started I’ve been uncertain about going out of the house, because you’ll never know. And just when I have these hesitations, we keep running out of milk so I keep having the need to go down the street to the local grocery two blocks away. And you know that they also say that accidents usually happen within a 500-meter radius of your home, or something like that.

Absolutely ridiculous, I know. I really should get out more often and get some social interaction because I am going nuts. Or stop making pancakes for breakfast so that we won’t need milk so often.

Down The Rabbit Hole

2007-03-23T10:05:00.001+11:00

So they’re having their state elections this weekend. What’s really strange is that it’s going to be tomorrow and yet, YET have I to see a single movie star/singer/athlete to go on stage or on TV and sing a stupid jingle for their candidate. What’s even more perplexing is that we’ve received several campaign flyers in our mailbox and there hasn’t been a single movie star running for a position. AND I can’t find a single wall that’s completely covered in campaign posters featuring candidates with the phoniest smiles ever to grace a human face.

Very strange, this land.

Like a Moth to the Flame

2007-02-26T11:06:00.000+11:00

It’s like the morbid curiosity that overpowered me when Niño Calinao was shot dead in AS Walk when I was in college. I knew I’d see the blood on the floor but I HAD to go and look. The feeling was exactly the same as I watched the video clips of the girl on Startalk (?) going on and on about being in love or having had an affair with this James Yap guy who I just found out happened to be already married to Kris Aquino. (Forgive my ignorance, when I left the Philippines they were still just going out). All the time I was watching her interview with Lolit Solis, I had this look on my face which was the precise physical translation of “I can’t believe I’m wasting my precious time watching this garbage”.

All four clips are available on YouTube. If you really insist on seeing it.

I Shall Return

2007-01-30T10:15:00.000+11:00

The equivalent of the Philippines’ Independence Day here is what they call Australia Day. In contrast to our celebrating our freedom from a 300-year rule by Spain, Australians commemorate the landing of the First Fleet in Sydney Cove.

It still amazes me how different it is living in a first world country. Whereas we celebrate by having a modest parade or simply going to the mall to catch a whiff of air-conditioned, bacteria-infested cool air, Sydney carries out a plethora of activities amounting to an exorbitant amount of money which probably hardly makes a dent on their budget but would have sent off a whole batch of Filipino students to finish elementary, high-school, and med school. The amount spent for the petrol of that fighter jet alone that they sent off to burn would have fed an impoverished family of seven for a half a year. Nevertheless, it was an absolutely fantastic day spent with really good friends – Pinoys, Aussies, Kiwis, Englishmen, Slovaks, Dutch, and Singaporeans alike.

And of course, when in Australia, do what the Australians do. So we went on a cruise. It was funded by my husband’s company so we didn’t really have to spend on it. All we had to do was show up, get on the boat, eat the food (get second and third helpings of the cake), drink some champagne and cheer and toast to the half-clad, flag-body-painted, Aussies on the other boats. And although I’m not Australian, there’s this feeling of warmth and pride when I wave their flag. I do wish it was the Philippine flag though. Because although I’ve always been politically apathetic (or politically PATHETIC, as my friends put it), I have always been patriotic.

I guess it takes root in the fact that the Filipino people has partially paid for my education since kindergarten. And since kindergarten, it has been instilled in our minds that it is our duty as “iskolar ng bayan” to never forget what this country has given us and to always be in debt to our mother land. Never let the Philippine flag touch the ground, get wet in the rain nor allow it to become tattered, torn, or faded in the sun. It is not to be used as clothing or table cloth or anything of that sort. Heaven forbid use it as a two-piece bikini. It has to be raised up properly and folded with such reverence and respect to make Jose Rizal weep with pride and nationalism.

With all this talk on flags and pen-wielding national heroes, don’t ask me what I’m doing waving a foreign flag in a foreign country, cruising on a boat on a foreign sea. There comes a time when all the dreams you have for your country takes a backseat for the ones you have for your family.

Note: His famous speech, in which General Douglas MacArthur said "I came out of Bataan and I shall return", was made at Terowie, South Australia. Fancy that.

Spot

2007-01-09T10:35:00.000+11:00

Since I’ve become a full-time stay-at-home-mum, my life has consisted of five-minute segments of activity. Each time I try to sit down and focus on some matter, my daughter would come along demanding that I draw a flower or erase the board. Or sometimes ask for a cookie because Cookie Monster started eating one on the show she’s watching. And most times it’s just because she wants me to “baby” her while she’s watching cartoons – which is soooo adorable if only I didn’t have to do it fifteen thousand times a day.

A week ago, she discovered that whiteboard markers are also good for drawing spots on your body. This totally makes it all worth it:

So This Is Christmas

2007-01-03T10:15:00.000+11:00

Christmas was always Aloy’s thing. She absolutely LOVED Christmas. Somehow the holidays used gave me the blues. But that was a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away. I was actually expecting to get the blues this year, big time. As it turned out, I was too busy enjoying myself to bother getting the blues.

My husband’s officemate’s mother’s cousin’s family took us all in for three days during Christmas.That translates to Marian’s auntie let us ransack her home for three days. What’s amazing is these people hardly knew us and yet they let us take over their son’s room, eat their food (oh glorious food), watch movies in their huge TV, drink their booze, swim in their pool, get smashed to bits in their table tennis, and basically turn their lives upside down for three days.

I’m not sure, but in their street it seems that we were the only folks hanging about celebrating Christmas for three days. Now that’s not so bad considering the fact that Pinoys put up Christmas décor on November and take them down around March which means we as a Filipino people celebrate Christmas for nearly half the year. Some don’t even bother taking the décor down at all, translating to eternal Philippine Christmases. Anyway, I think there were around twenty or more of us hanging around the house – family and strays.

PLUS at midnight of Christmas Eve, we got gifts! Lots of it. Allow myself to explain…myself. For the benefit of Mr. Kite. Pinoys don’t sleep on Christmas Eve. Somehow this night evolved pretty much like New Year’s Eve in that we party till the stroke of midnight and let all the firecrackers blast away. There’s no go-to-bed-or-Santa-can’t-put-the-gifts-under-the-tree nonsense. First of all, Santa Claus doesn’t visit the Philippines on account of all the traffic. So we just stuff our faces with food and wait for midnight and open the gifts. So that’s what we did here in Sydney, minus the firecrackers of course.

---oOo---

New Year’s Eve we spent over at the Verzosa’s again. This time Tita Cecil’s cousin’s daughter’s officemate’s wife’s friend took us in. That translates to Marian and Adrian let us ransack their home (again) for New Year’s Eve.

But at around 9pm, we went to Gladesville Bridge to watch the family edition of the fireworks display on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It was pretty good but the main fireworks were at midnight and that one we just watched on TV back at Marian’s because the logistics of getting home after midnight from the city was just too complicated.

It still amazes me how organized and disciplined Australia is. Of course they still think they’re getting it bad and how their world is crumbling down in chaos. The headline the morning after was the death of one teenager after being beaten by hooligans on his way home on New Year. That was pretty awful, actually. Then I read the Pinoy news on the internet and found out that 907 people were injured and around 250 of that were children below 10 years old. And that Nature Church in Las Piñas? Burned to the ground. Beat that. Happy New Year.

Watching The Wheels

2006-12-12T10:31:00.000+11:00

I only realized this just now – last week was our half-anniversary of being here in Sydney. Looking back on the past six months, I am proud to say that I have been a most successful tambay. In my whole life, I cannot recall ever having wasted so much time on the internet.

Friends and former colleagues I’ve chatted with often ask me if I already have a job. And they usually follow up with, “Aren’t you getting bored yet?” Knowing them knowing me, it would be logical to think that I’d be bored on the first two months. But me, apparently not knowing me enough, realized that I actually DON’T want to go back to work yet. The original plan was, find a childcare centre then find myself a job. And this job-finding activity was supposed to start on our 6^th month here. I could ramble on a handful of excuses on why exactly the plan is not being followed but it all boils down to I DON’T WANT TO GO BACK TO WORK YET.

I do miss the regular social interaction with people above the 3-4 year-old bracket. I miss drinking cheap but decent enough coffee at Fazoli’s and spend the lunch hour talking with actual grown-ups. Well physical grown-ups anyway. Mature adults are an entirely different classification, which I myself am trying to get into. I miss using my brain for outlining tasks other than what to cook for the next few days and how to convince my daughter that it is not poison and I’m not trying to kill her. It would just be nice to see her eat anything besides cookies, Pringles and milk-less breakfast cereals. I miss getting email that isn’t trying to convince me in getting into multilevel marketing or that I need to buy their pill because I might be suffering from erectile dysfunction, which I assure you I am not and it is highly unlikely, if not impossible, that I will suffer from it in this lifetime. I miss Patchie going “Ano, two bottles?” at 5:30 and knowing for a fact that there’s a great probability that she’ll be buying sisig or sizzling pork steak for everyone aside from paying for the beer itself.

What I DON’T miss is waking up early five days of the week to spend the next ten hours or so of a perfectly good day indoors when I could be at the beach or the park or the mall. I don’t miss spending two hours in traffic, holding my piss until the next gas station comes along, picturing how good it would be to finally get home and snuggle in a chair with a glass of iced tea and a really good book. I don’t miss the butterflies in my stomach when I’m being asked to do a presentation or something to the effect of standing in front of a group of people trying to get them to understand what I’m saying when all I could think of is if they could see my bra through the gaps between the buttons of my shirt.

I take great pleasure in the fact that I can now do the things in my mental To Do List that back then were only doable on weekends. I have taken up knitting and am now working on something. I can’t exactly tell you what it is because, frankly, I don’t know what it is. It could be a scarf or an afghan, whatever. And following the instructions on Better Home and Gardens magazine, I finished crocheting a handful of white, sparkly delicate snowflakes that we now use as Christmas tree ornaments. The next thing I’ll do is finally finish the nearly decade-old cross-stitching project that Aloy has been nagging me to finish. I’ve created a playhouse made of recycled furniture and appliance corrugated boxes for my daughter (but note that Tita Marian probably enjoys it far more than Angela). I can finally Google all the topics that I’ve been obsessing about in my life. I’ve finally created my Amazon.com wish lists of books and DVDs. AND I’ve finally found the time to blog!

I probably still have a few months worth of things to do before I get bored. So the answer to the question is “Aren’t you getting bored yet?” is no. Not just yet.

“I’m just sitting here watching the wheels go round and round
I really love to watch them roll
No longer riding on the merry-go-round
I just had to let it go”

John Lennon
Watching the Wheels

Why All Walls Should Be Laminated

2006-11-07T10:56:00.000+11:00

I have spent the better part of this morning trying to erase pencil drawings in our dining room wall using a small Staedtler rubber eraser. I got them all off before the wall started staining red due to the blood rubbing off the stubs that used to be my fingers. Now THAT would be hard to explain to the real estate inspector coming on Thursday.

“Yes sir, we thought it was a good idea to redecorate the house. And with oil prices and other expenses going up and all, we decided to save some money and use our own blood to repaint the walls. Lovely, isn’t it?”

The Perils of Cutting Grass

2006-10-31T11:52:00.000+11:00

So I was mowing the lawn this morning. We just got this push reel mower, which is a manual lawn mower that requires pure human brute force to cut the grass. Halfway through the backyard lawn, I started feeling a bit short of breath. And by the time I was sitting in the dining room, it felt like I was having a major heart attack. My daughter was, “Mum! Play tayo ng blocks! Come on!” In my head I was saying, “In a minute, baby. Mommy’s still having a stroke.” Two glasses of water and 15 minutes later, I was okay and surfing the net again.

Nah. It wasn’t that bad. I’m doing the other half again this afternoon.

Only In Da Pilipins

2006-10-10T16:55:00.000+10:00

October 6 marked our fourth month in Sydney. Curiously enough, I hardly had any major bouts of homesickness. But these are the things that I truly miss:

1. Coke Litro – na mabibili lang sa sari-sari store sa katabing bahay nina Ate Buena.

2. C2 Green Tea – At first I was skeptical about this drink, thinking it was probably just another food fad, like Zagu (which I never really liked). But eventually, I found that it was indeed quite refreshing.

3. Making tusok the fishballs. – Of course I could just get some from the grocery and make the sauce. But eating fishballs is a much more profound experience involving manongs, recycled cooking oil, vehicle exhaust, and the probability of hepatitis.

4. Kangkong – I have searched and found that this does not exist in this part of the world. If it does, PLEASE TELL ME WHERE TO GET THEM. We have been suffering from eating a kangkong-less sinigang for the past 4 months.

5. Sunken Garden – Kahit mas garapalan ang mga nagu-ungungan sa Botanical Gardens dito, wala namang nagbebenta ng fishballs (see number 3).

6. Quick-thinking drivers – My GASH. Sa totoo lang, pardon me for saying this, pero may kakulangan siguro sa multi-vitamins ang mga drayber dito. May be the reason why road accidents are fewer here. Hmmm.

7. Pan de Sal – na nilalako sa madaling araw or nabibili sa Fortune Bakeshop. Eat it with condensed milk, or strawberry jam, or butter and lots of sugar, or plain pero sinawsaw sa kape.

8. JOLLIBEE!!!! – I’ve always preferred Jollibee to McDonald’s (whose food I refer to as “tastes like paper”). Palabok, Chicken Joy, kahit aling breakfast meal, PLEASE JUST GIVE ME SOME JOLLIBEE FOOD!!

9. NU, Chico & Del on RX – I still haven’t taken to Aussie music and listening to the DJ here usually makes me go “wha?” Still haven’t got the accent down pat.

10. MGB – I wonder how this year’s Halloween episode will go.

11. Spoofing a Pinoy commercial – and someone gets it.

12. Pirated DVDs – Yeah, yeah. Shame on me. But at P75, come on!

13. San Miguel Light – Supposedly there’s some here, still haven’t seen one though.

14. Close-Up – Mas masarap sya kesa Colgate.

15. Modess or any cheaper, comfortable napkin – Marian was right, ginto ang napkin dito.

16. Kape sa Fazoli’s – It’s cheap, sometimes it passes off as decent, and the company always brings great entertainment value.

17. BF Ruins – where you can get the pirated DVDs. (See number 12)

18. Greenhills – for everything they sell.

19. SM Department Store – for being the Mecca of retail.

20. Cheap and on-time cinemas – Maryosep, para kong nasa proibinsya dito. Huli na, mahal pa. Ok funny story. We watched Superman Returns and the usherette told us that we had to leave the pram outside the cinema because this was a “busy night”. So we were like 20 minutes early expecting a MegaMall-ific crowd and probably having to sit on the floor to watch the movie. Lo and behold, there were around 50 people inside the 100-seating capacity cinema. Ang O.A. ni manang, “busy night” daw.

21. David’s Salon – I know a P45 haircut would probably turn out the same as a P200 one at David’s. But it smells better at David’s. (Haircuts here would set me back to around AU$50. DALAWANG LIBONG PISO! BAKLA KA! SAPAKAN NA LANG TAYO!)

22. Tocino – I will find some here and I swear I will LOVE IT and never take it for granted ever again.

23. Sisig and Tokwa’t Tokwa – Ultimate Legendary Pulutan Of All Time.

Basa Sa Dagat Part II (Wag Kayong Magung-ungan Dyan!)

2006-10-03T13:50:00.000+10:00

One of the major tourist spots in Sydney is Bondi Beach (bon-day bee-tch). So we moseyed our fat asses off to the famous piece of earth to check out what all the hoop-la is about. And boy, did we find out.

As soon as we got a spot to spread our banig, we immediately noticed this girl. It was not that she was blond and beautiful and bronze that made her a very outstanding individual. It was mainly because her breasts seem to be lacking any form of covering whatsoever. Ah. So those are the hoop-las.

She wasn’t alone either, as you let your eyes roam around the crowded beach, breasts upon breasts abound. Although, I must say, it wasn’t as shocking as the fact that there are tourists (Japanese by the looks of it) walking around with high-tech cameras (some are even SLRs I believe) obviously taking snapshots of the bare torsos. They don’t even pretend to be there to do some sun-bathing since they were wearing double-breasted suits, or long sleeves and slacks. What they do is they “pose” in front of the half-naked women and let someone “take their picture”. Right.

A Little Madness in The Spring Is Wholesome Even For A King

2006-09-14T16:43:00.000+10:00

September signaled the start of the “BER” months. Before, this meant that I can finally wear that long sleeved shirt or turtle neck blouse with maybe a light jacket to the office without having to sweat like a pig all day long. Living here beneath the equator for 3 months now, this central philosophy of mine is shattered and totally reversed because September now marks the official start of spring. The cold winter season is over. Yahoo for me.

And to celebrate this momentous occasion, the Verzosas have accompanied the Ferraris family to the prestigious Manly Beach. Despite the forecast that there is a 40% chance of rain that day, we went on the ferry at wharf 3 at Circular Quay (I have learned that that’s pronounced as “circular key”).

Ahhh, the beach. I nostalgically thought to myself, it doesn’t matter where you are in the world, the sun shines just the same, the sand still feels good on bare feet, the seawater still salty. But nostalgia was smashed to smithereens when I noted that this seawater was taken from the ice cube trays of a refrigerator just as ice was about to form on the surface of the water. For the first time in my whole life, I did not take a dip in the sea while at the beach. To have done so would’ve been ridiculous, if not deadly, to a tropical islander like me. True, I have braved swimming in the waterfalls of Sagada when the temperature was similar to this. But back then, I had the sensibilities of a feather duster so let’s all charge it to experience.

We went to 2 beaches actually. The other one was Shelly Beach. It was a beach full of shells. Really. Actually it was an enclave a small distance from Manly. We decided to go there because from Manly it appeared that it was warmer on that area. But as they say, the sun is always sunnier on the other beach. It rained a few minutes after we got there. Yahoo.

And just as we were ready to throw in the beach towel and go home, the rain stopped. And the other 60% chance of sunshine began. Yahoooo!

That’s the small Shelly Beach on the picture on the right, with me smiling like an idiot, but looking pretty hot in my Puerto Galera shirt and cool beach shades.

Soon it got pretty boring on the small beach. And true to the saying, we went back to the sunnier Manly Beach. On the way back, we noticed a couple who were in the water doing *something*. I elegantly labeled their activity as “ung-ungan”, a term widely used by my former officemate, Ched, to refer to couples eating together with their noses practically overlapping. Anyway, back to the couple in the water. Being the typical Pinoys that we are, we just HAD to stop for a moment and gawk at them. So that’s what we did. But the couple soon tired of whatever it was they were doing and cinematographically ran after each other on the sand.

Further down, we noticed another couple in the water. This time the girl was sitting on the guy’s shoulders (like when kids do the water fighting thing) and we noticed that she seemed to be wearing absolutely nothing at all. And again, we had to interrupt our journey to gawk some more at the strange white people and their beach behavior. It turned out that she was just wearing a bikini that was almost the same color as her skin, thus giving the illusion that she was naked. Awww. So the brown people moved along and got on with their lives.

Footnote: There weren’t very many manly men at Manly Beach, only really HOT women. Of course that included me and Marian. This is my blog. I can say whatever I want. If I think I’m hot, then I will say so. I’m hot.

Footnote: The title is a quote from Emily Dickinson.

When I Met IKEA

2006-08-29T15:06:00.000+10:00

Angela loves the park. Although we haven’t tried it yet, I think that if I take her to the park and leave her there and come back after a few hours she wouldn’t notice at all. The park provides hours and hours of pure pleasure and delight.

Ets loves Ikea. Although her husband hasn’t tried it yet, I think that if they’d leave her there and come back after a few hours she wouldn’t notice at all. Ikea provides hours and hours of pure pleasure and delight.

Man alive! That place is like heaven. They just make shopping so much easier. If I was to live in the mall, I’d live in Ikea. First of all, they’ve got this free supervised play area where you could leave your kid so you can shop in peace. Then they have play kiosks all over the place so that if you could park your kid there and do more shopping in peace. They provide you with free strollers if you didn’t bring one, large bags, pencils and shopping lists, measuring tape. And if you get hungry because of all the shopping, there’s a restaurant/café where they provide decent affordable food, free refills, microwave and bottle warmer, disposable baby bibs, high chairs, and enough space to park the pram.

To bad they don’t take American Express.

A Car Named Petunia

2006-08-18T10:06:00.000+10:00

Once there was a car – an old rusty piece of metal running on faith alone. It was an old lady kind of car, four-speed, 1.6 engine block, respires premium gasoline at 6 kilometers per liter, white (predominantly; a good color of rust on some places), psychedelic upholstery, missing right side mirror, with a little kabig to the right, broken air-conditioning, no radio, sealed shut right backseat window, headlights on constant dim or black, solid as a rock and as dependable as the tropical weather. Petunia was the PERFECT name for her.

I started driving that car in college, right about the time I was doing my thesis. We used it to ferry my computer to wherever we were going to work on our thesis or to school to do presentations and stuff. Then I just borrowed it from my mom whenever I could to go wherever I could. My friends and I would park it behind the Main Library beside Sunken Garden and lie on the hood while looking at the shooting stars which were actually just satellites. College days wouldn’t be the same without Petunia. Ah, such juvenile fun.

And when I started working, I used it to go to work. Of course I sweated like a pig in an oven baking at 300-degrees Celsius for 2 ½ hours all the time since it didn’t have a working air-conditioner. And there was a period in time when the window on the driver’s side was stuck shut and the driver’s seat was permanently set to a reclined position and traffic just won’t quit like a nagging old housewife on menopause. So I drove it in the ridiculous metro traffic under the broiling heat of the sun passing through the windshield acting as a magnifying lens cooking the poor soul within – me. Ah, such fun.

Even after I got married and had Angela, we still used the car. By this time, it was under such a horrible state of disrepair that the car broke down around twice a month on average. But still, we used it and all our family road trips and vacations were possible only through the divine intervention of Petunia. We went as far as Tagaytay, Laguna, and San Juan Batangas. If that car could swim, we probably would’ve gone all the way to Boracay baby. Ah, such bitter sweet fun.

Somehow, I lost the hood ornament on the way to SM Megamall. Damn thing just fell off, I guess. I looked for it all over the parking lot, to no avail. Years after this happened, whenever I see a car like Petunia with their hood ornament intact, I make an attempt to steal their ornament. And one time, my husband and I were really seriously considering grabbing the one on the car parked near our apartment. Of course we didn’t. But I still think that we should have. I don’t think it would have been as important to the owner as it would have been to me. Really. It was that important.

Anyway, I was chatting with my brother the other day and he told me that they’d already sold Petunia. I was devastated. Totally shattered. I knew all along that it was going to happen, but nothing could have prepared me for the news. Just a few weeks ago I was crying to my husband because I was missing Petunia so much. We were walking in the city one time and saw a car the EXACT make and model and color as Petunia and I nearly broke down in tears right there on Pitt Street. Although this one is 2.0 and was right-hand driven, it’s pretty close.

The buyer was my brother’s friend. His name was “Dos” (as in Spanish for “Two”) and he and his dad owned this auto-repair shop. His dad was planning on restoring the car, leather upholstery and all. Ooooh. Can’t wait to see that. I really hope that they do a good job at it and not convert the car into an “owner-type” jeep (it’s a common type of vehicle in the Philippines much like the Jeep, but not really). I swear if they mess it up, I am coming up there to their latitude and kick their Spanish numeric names out of this solar system.

Sigh. I miss Petunia. So whatever it is the future holds for her, wherever it is she may travel without me, here’s to you, old girl! Keep the faith.

The Obligatory Introduction

2006-08-16T12:27:00.000+10:00

G'Day, mates! It has been 2 months and 2 weeks since my husband, my daughter, and I set foot on the glorious land down under. That was a rainy day on the 6th of June, 2006 (6-6-2006). Waw. I fervently hope that that was not an omen. And as I interrupt myself to get my daughter yet another scoop of ice cream this 14-degree winter day in Sydney, I think to myself, "Yes, I’ve got a permanent tan that only my country, the land of eternal sunshine and pollution, can bestow. So eat your heart out, white boys! Mwahahaha!" (Note that it must be said with as much yabang as only a Pinay can muster). That was the first time I was on a plane. (Actually I was on a plane on the way to Mindoro when I was 5 years old. But since I was 5 years old, that didn’t count.) This is the first time I’ve been out of my country.

So what's it like? It has been f@#king cold since we got here, being winter and all. It's not that bad actually, it's just that I'm used to sweating in my polyester office clothes while driving and walking around the stifling heat of Makati. The coldest is around 5 degrees, I think, and that's during the unholy hours of the morning that I don't even bother with. By the time I wake up it gets to around 8 degrees and peaks at 21 degrees around noon. If we’re lucky. And to make things even more *fun*, it rains! In winter! And wind chill is such a b!tch. Wearing 3 layers of clothing helps. And scarf and gloves. My kid really loves it though. She sweats all the time back in the Philippines, so this winter thing is absolutely wonderful to her.

We've only gone turista-mode in a few suburbs and in the city. Even though the public transportation is muy excellente, it's still a bit difficult going around with a toddler. If we pass a park or playground, chances are we'd be stuck there for quite a while. So the peaceful picture of a family going for a stroll on a nice day is shattered by the wailing of "PUNTA TAYO SA PAWWWK!!!" or "SLIDE NA SI BABYYYY!!!” Don't get me wrong, my daughter is abso-posi-lutely ADORABLE. Even strangers come up to me to tell me so. She's just not the type you can keep in her stroller, or anywhere for that matter, for long periods of time. That would be torture to her.

Australians seem like nice enough people. Very helpful bunch. So far, we've only encountered one old sonofabitch who rides buses and hates babies. That will be reserved for another blog entry. Suffice it to say that he's an old motherf@cker who hates babies. Or had some issues. Or was senile. So there.

We're still in the process of moving in to our rented house. Note the use of the word "house". A "home" would comprise of a "house" with "people" and "furniture". In this case, we only have the "house" and the "people" and next to nothing of the "furniture". What we have is 31 balikbayan boxes of clutter and toys. Very little furniture and appliances. But we're getting there.

And thus the birth of this splendid blog which I have been putting off for far too long. Somehow I must immortalize the events that unfold as we carve our pinoy niche in this corner of the world. Be it in something as impermanent as a blog.