Twenty things and twenty-one mistakes

I remember lying in bed, imagining a sophisticated woman wearing red heels and tight skirt. She has makeup all over her face, her shiny black hair in a bun, and you can almost smell success from her scent. I thought by the time I was 20 I'd be her.

Seven years later and instead... I'm me. I haven't finished college. I have 1.25 per cent--which equates to 3 units of research--left to receive that much-awaited diploma. I am not sexy nor confident. My hair is longer than my arms and it still sticks out no matter how much molding clay I apply. I don't even know how to put makeup on and I don't wear perfume anymore. Success is twenty feet high and I am stuck on the ground. 

My defense mechanism to this dissonance was, of course, to do nothing. All my life, I learnt that by not doing, I couldn't be blamed for anything. I can, however, blame my parents for bringing me into this cruel imperfect world. For so long this was my mindset: I don't like my existence and the responsibilities that came with it.

Eight months--this imperfection troubled me for eight months. I was paralyzed. I needed to rethink my life and thank God--thank God He enlightened me through His words. I know now how my heart is deceitful and how I shall not let it fool me.

I've done twenty things and twenty-one mistakes. I'm willing to accept that, pick myself from the ground, and start again.

Success is not about what people think of me. I am the measure of my success and I don't need my family's, friends', or society's opinion regarding my choices. I am rebuilding myself with this philosophy in mind: I don't need to fit into anyone's preferences. My choices will be wrong, I will stumble again, and I will try again the next day.

This is my imperfect life and I am willing to accept it now--to let it flow freely, knowing that God will be there to support me.

False awakening and lucid dreaming: The terror and the fun

A plain grey door is facing you. You turn the knob and encounter a gruel-looking monster whose features are similar to Marvel's Groot, only he is less adorable. Of course you become frightened... but then you realize, "Where am I and why would such a creature exist in the real world? A-ha! I'm dreaming! I am now lucid, I can make it better!" And make it better, you did. The walls become clearer, the monster become kinder. Everything is light now. Just as you wanted.

For a few moments you are actually having fun and feeling triumphant since you've been wishing to have another lucid dream for a long time. What makes it better than just being aware is that you were also controlling it. Still joyous, you look to your right when all of a sudden, you find that something dark is eating up the wall. You become afraid and lose control: the whole place becomes even bleaker and worse than before. What should you do? You bite your fingers and you feel the pain but you are still there. Your brain is making a fool out of you by stimulating the sense of pain. How do you wake up? Com'on body, wake up!

The thought of not being able to escape the nightmare that you have created is eating up your insides and making your heart beat fast. How do you wake up? How do you wake up? You struggle for what seemed like five minutes looking for a way out until everything turns black. Your eyelids open and you find yourself lying on the floor, the thought of escaping the previous nightmare making you happy. You look around and you thought to yourself, "Where the hell am I? What the hell are they?" They look a lot like horses but if they were horses, shouldn't they be standing on four feet? You are still dreaming. You have not awoken. You have been fooled again by your own subconscious.

This makes you panic even more: what the actual fudge? This is similar to what happens to movies--Inception much? Wake up! Wake up! How do you wake up? Contrary to popular belief, biting and the sense of pain won't do it. The world collapses around you, the familiar blackness engulfed your sight, and all of a sudden you find yourself lying on a hard floor. This might be it. You don't know how, but maybe you have woken up for real. You open your eyes, and lo and behold... another fantasy world with queer surroundings and surreal creatures. Seriously? You know you are dreaming but you have no idea how to wake up, so you list all the inconsistencies you experience in your head. In the real world, no such colorful tree with candies as fruits exist. In the real world, people look human, not like hairy animals wearing suits and carrying suitcases. Damn it, why aren't you still waking?

You are trapped. You jump in your dream and you walk but your body seems to be still: you must have woken up if your body was acting out together with your mind. And then that does it--it makes you remember that 9gag post you read about sleep paralysis. You might not be able to wake up at all unless somebody wakes you hard. What if you end up trapped here until you die?

Another blackout. Your head feels light and you wake up to the familiar light-blue misplaced tiles in your house. You are home. You brush your teeth and you talk with your brother. It's dinner time and you were watching a movie. Wait, what? Why is everything happening like you were still in a dream, in such a way that successions were really fast? This isn't the way in the real life. Time. Where's the time your spent idle? You are still dreaming! Your heart beats faster than ever. How long will you be trapped in your dream world? How much sense of fear of being trapped, being lucid, and being helpless all at the same time should you suffer before it all ends?

Something shakes you and you wake up to a mere blackness. You feel the familiar pillow you used and the mini comforter you spread out on the sofa. You are awake now... aren't you?

The story of our family's little brave-heart

A mother whose depression and anxiety was manifested through her screeching wails that can be heard through the thin walls separating our houses, a father whose gambling addiction was taking a toll on his family's poverty, and a sister who grew up to endless screams and ended up mentally retarded--this is the kind of family Harry was born into. To make things worse for him, Harry can be considered an 'accident.'

It was around 2 am on the sixth of November (if I remember it correctly) when we heard Nanay shouting her lungs out in front of our door, "Myrna, manganganak na si Cecil!" My mother, who is a midwife, got up right away, took some utensils from Tita Cecil (who was a government nurse), and helped her younger sister deliver birth. For nine months, Tita thought she was nurturing a single child inside her womb. My mother also believed her ordeal was over after successfully taking out a bloody baby boy (later named Harold) and handing him over to Nanay. She was puzzled when she noticed another human being encapsulated in the womb: after a few minutes of tugging and carefully holding the infant's head--there he was, the unexpected twin baby brother: Harry.

The twins were extremely good-looking but badly taken care of. I would hear Tita Cecil crying and wailing against the two babies' cries of hunger, "Bakit ba kasi ganito ang buhay ko? Hirap na hirap na 'ko!" She would yell to her heart's content until everybody in our cramped neighborhood was awake and Nanay would have to comfort her and the three kids. Hilary, the oldest of them who was three years old, not understanding any better, would sometimes chime in. When there's calm, I would visit the babies, play with them, and put them to sleep. Sometimes, the calm was because the babies were left to their own cribs and Tita has gone off somewhere. 

When times got so hard, Tita Cecil would try to commit suicide by blocking the jeepneys going through our street. She also attempted to jump off the Tullahan bridge. You'd think she was bluffing until the day after her daughter's fourth birthday, when she hanged herself to death on their upper floor. I can vividly recall that moment when Nanay, looking a lot weary and older, told me to come over and look at Tita's lifeless body on the floor. Nanay said her body was still warm when she saw her and she shouted as loud as she could to notify everyone. It was too late.

Their house was later evacuated: Tito Allan, the father of the three and widower of my departed Tita, Harold, and Hilary would live in Caloocan leaving Harry to my grandparents. In turn, the house's leasing charges would be given to Tito Allan. Harry grew up with us in the tiny compound, nourished by Nanay and Tatay, but his siblings were less lucky. Hilary and Harold lived in a tiny cardboard shelter which roof would fly along with the wind during a storm. Harold was way darker than Harry, his teeth untended, and he would speak colloquial and swear words. Harold, being calmer and kinder, was my favorite of the twin when they were babies. Due to their living conditions, as kids Harry became more well-mannered.

Harold would sustain his and his sister's food by scrapping, as noticeable by his distress when we would throw away plastic, "Akin nal lang. a! Pwedeng pang-kalakal 'to!" Tito Allan was a failure of a father who would spend his nights gambling. Some days, he would come to the compound and would take Harry with him and leave Harold with Nanay. One such unfortunate day was when Harold took Harry's yellow bike and drove off to the street, only to meet a fatal accident with a jeepney at the corner of the road. Harry lost his twin brother to excessive blood loss due to his lung's injury. However, the one to take the hardest blow was his eldest sister. During his funeral, Hilary would mutter, "Wala na. Wala na si Harold, wala na akong kasama. Ikaw na lang Mama ko, Tita, Wala na 'kong mama e." It was heartbreaking.

Almost a year later, Harry would lose his second father figure as well. Our dearest Tatay passed away last August to a heart attack.

I don't know how much an eight-year-old boy could endure. Similar to his sister, Harry is suffering from a mental illness perhaps brought up by Tita Cecil's upbringing with endless screams and forced alcohol consumption (both by Tita and Nanay) when he was an infant. It's hard for him to focus at school and learning to read is quite catastrophic. He has such an unfortunate family background (although I have dysfunctional relatives as a whole) and he has experienced so much loss in the few years of his life. I cannot speak for his pain nor can I gauge how far he understood. All I know is that the kid definitely needs some loving. Right now, he walks from school back home alone and would help Nanay in selling ice candy and gelatin on the street afterwards. What a little brave-heart.

Our little William Wallace

Popcorn lovin' and poppin'

Yesterday, I decided it was time to finally consume some popcorn that we have stored in the pantry. They've been silently sitting there for half a year at least, and I just read this Internet article that said it's good to have popcorn for snacks. As a kitchen apprentice who couldn't cook pancakes without breaking them apart, I asked my mother some guidelines on how to properly handle the popcorn.

Mom simply said, "Just cook them in low heat, like the way you do with pancakes."

I'd never seen her prepare the popcorn--they just magically appeared on my plate--so I never really had any clue on what I was doing. And so there I was, heating the pan in low heat and readying myself to throw in some corn-popping experience.

The first few seconds were calm and full of apprehension: the seconds that followed were full of popcorn flying in every direction possible. How can I not know that they pop like fireworks? There were a few that popped low and managed to remain on the pan, and then there were some that managed to fly to the sink, to the floor, to the table, and to the refrigerator. It's like they decided it's time to conquer our kitchen.

As the chaos ensued, I thought to myself, 'Mom, you could have told me to cover the pan.'

I learned from then on and covered the pan for the next batches. As for the first few that rebelled against my will, well, it's gross but I still ate most of them. I picked them up and put them straight where they belong--to my mouth.

I love popcorn and each of them deserves to be treated equally, even if they've been to unlikely places, like the carpet for example.

This is not a scam: Read to the end and win up to P100,000 in two easy steps!

 Scams are everywhere. We see posted text exchanges between a scammer and a victim shared in social media which is often funny when the 'victim' outsmarts the scammer. We've read about the application available in Google Play that doesn't really amazingly and impossibly turn your phone cameras into X-ray, and you've probably seen a 'LOSE 50 lbs in a day! Try these super easy two steps to a flat belly!' advertisement on a website.

 Now, now... we've heard enough scams on bigger scale (Napoles, congressmen, and senators, I'm looking at you) but this does not discuss that. I just want to tell you about the little scams I've heard of and have been experienced by people I know even though you've probably heard them too... because I can and have the time.

TEXT SCAMS. Some people have been fooled by this and they've lost significant amount of money. Scammers pretend as OFWs abroad while some would claim as a family member who's been into an accident, he's in the hospital, please send money and load by the thousands immediately even though he won't tell exactly where he is.

I haven't received any of those kind except for the usual 'YOU WON A P100,000 CLAIM YOUR PRICE AT THIS HOTEL IN CEBU.' Quite shockingly, my godmother who never joined any raffle promos actually believed this crook and gave out P20,00 expecting a return of P100,000. Go figure.

One seen solution to stop this text scams altogether is to have registered sim cards. That way, text messages can be traced. However, we are yet to see results as the TELCOM companies argue that it would be too much burden on their side. We are well behind the technology and security that first world countries enjoy. Registered sims will be beneficial in the long term, but then again, we need to look at the people who are in power and how they conduct their transactions.

RECRUITING AGENCY SCAMS. You know how the system goes--you pay them and they help process your papers to companies they are connected with abroad. You need to give them money of course, and they don't come cheap. Scam agencies will suddenly disappear without a trace together with your hard-earned money and your dream as a hard-earning-worker-abroad.

My friend's father wanted a stable job abroad and joined a recruiting agency. The whole family thought it was their way out of poverty, only to realize that the agency was a scam even though they've done a Google search on them. It would be wise to check which agencies the Department of Foreign Affairs lists as legit. Besides, anybody can put up a website that looks credible.

LOAN SCAMS. The scammer employee asks an accomplice to open an account. The employee then tweaks his account information and digitally enters an amount in tens of thousands. The next day, the accomplice will withdraw the amount and walks away with a hundred thousand pesos. Meanwhile, the employee lives luxuriously out of the institution's money.

I can't disclose important information as it may negatively affect a certain corporation's name. The flaw here is the security of the digital exchanges, as it gives power to those who input such information. It shouldn't be the case. It is better to pay off IT and computer engineer experts than to lose money by millions because the system is heavily unsecured.


It's sad that these scams exist. Can't everybody just work hard and receive as is due? These scammers are intelligent in such a way that they manipulate people's feelings, blindside, and vulnerability, but they are also pathetic.

Poverty is a burden almost all the countries have to live with (behold, the beloved United States has its share of homeless, too) and in third world countries it's a vicious cycle we have to endure. It's sad how this state has turned us into arschlocher as the Germans would put it. Yes, I read The Book Thief.

Wayback Wednesday

I never liked (pre-social media meaning) Throwback Thursday or Flashback Friday photos so much but when I accidentally came across our old pictures... screw it, I thought, I'm participating.

The past is something we carry into our present and future and photos are good way of preserving moments in our lives. The following pictures weren't scanned but photographed again. So meta.

Taken seven years ago with le baby brother.

Taken when I was three years old. This was my Ninang's wedding.

Jayson when he was around two years old

I capture moments but not that much because the megapixels of my phone camera are limiting. My mother's new phone, however...

I hope I could get more of these. My mother was very pretty when she was young and I'd love to show off but most of our albums are hidden away in a faraway province.

Feb Fair 2014

 My Feb Fair 2013 was fun but this year... this year tops all the other fair I'd ever been to.

 First, I got to see Up Dharma Down (UDD) live last February 12. We heard that they were to perform at 11 pm so Ash and I took a nap, drank our Swiss Miss (my other true love) and coffee to keep us warm and then marched off to the Fair Grounds at Freedom Park.

We jived with the other amateur bands and Mude until I felt my bladder getting heavier and heavier. Damn them coffee and Swiss Miss. We searched for restrooms, begged the guard from Women's Dorm, and walked miles to no avail until we heard the jocks introduced UDD. I mean, we were tired and heavy-bladder-burdened, but hey, UDD was so awesome!


 On Feb 13, we went to the grounds earlier at 8:30, this time with Cham. It was important we came across every booth because it was our last Fair together. (It also was important we cleared out our bladders before leaving, too). We were impressed by the fire-throwing acts and the extremely pogi kuya among them.

The only closest to decent shot I could ever get of the extremely pogi fire-throwing kuya. I'm so sorry my phone camera was low res.

We went to a photo booth. If you look closely, you'll see Cham and Ash talking at the wrong instances.

 We then enjoyed the ever fast Ferris wheel. It was still fast and all, but my experience the second time around didn't match my excitement about it. We rode the ironically very funny Horror Train. Oh boy, my stomach hurt a lot from laughing from that one.

We were sad about waiting in line for the Ferris wheel.

The Ferris wheel where all the screaming noises come from.

We were so tired after three hours of standing, waiting in line, and eating isaw but it was worth it. I don't have a bunch of close friends, just this two, and I'm so glad to have spent my two Fairs with them.

The both of them are gorgeous.

Ash and I feeling the grass beneath.

Cham and I spreading our skirts like they were dresses.

I feel both happy and sad about this. Happy, because Ash will be graduating soon and sad, because we won't be seeing each other in a few months.

Batangas is love

My family together with my grandma and two cousins from my mother side decided to have a vacation at Batangas where my other relatives are. My kins from my father side live there and we make it a must to visit them annually, at least. My other cousin (Rona) and godfather from Taguig went there too so we had a little family reunion.

On the first day, December 30, we went to the lake where we got to swim away the worries. They tried to teach me to swim with my head up from the water. For an asthmatic, it's really troublesome when you can't stay swimming for a long time (except when floating of course).

From the left: Mae, Grandma, Harry, Mama, J, Me, Ninong Nanding, and Papa.

We had a pictorial on the way home after the swim. From the bottom: Harry, Mae, Rona, Me, and J.

The rest of the day, I took a long sleep and woke up only to eat and sing on the karaoke. They had a nice sound system, as in they had huge speakers that stood higher that a toddler. I enjoyed calling the rain but it didn't really hear me.

My aunts served us good food, which I chose not to eat much of because my cousin Rona has lost a lot of weight and now I'm bigger than her, and that's depressing.

On the second day, we went earlier to swim so that our skin won't burn too much. I didn't want to go after an hour or so because I was practicing but the oldies were itching to go home, so us kids (ehem) didn't have much choice.

Notice that we changed clothes. From the left: Me, Mae, and Rona.

Later, Harry--the little kid that we bullied way too much--broke down and cried when my godfather took a shot of him taking a bath naked. He cried like a spoiled brat. I mocked him which made him madder and then he threw stuff away. I love and hate that kid at the same time. He's such a pain in the arse sometimes.

By the afternoon, Rona, J, and I went with our cousins (Kuya Jun and Kuya Danny who was a tricycle driver) to Tanuan which was a thirty-minute ride away from our location. I wish I could post here photos of the nice scenes my eyes feasted on. That night we had a good night of karaoke (yet again!) and a bunch of our relatives finally arrived.

On the third day, the first of the Gregorian Calendar year 2014, we had to say goodbye. We took the chance to take more photos instead before leaving.

Shot was taken on the third day morning, an hour before we said our goodbyes. That's me with Rona. She's lost a LOT of weight from dieting. Mom says it's because she's got discipline which I lack.

That's me standing in the middle of Papa and J.

Those days were well spent with good food and kind people. How I wish every day of my life could be a replica of those moments.