Walking with a goddess named Lu-Ann

Lu-Ann, the fairest of goddesses that I’ve ever known is leaving for Brisbane today. My heart sank, I didn’t know she’s leaving too soon.

Lu-Ann is a new-found friend from Down Under. A mixed brand between a Filipino-Chinese mother and a full-blooded Spanish father, she perfectly looks like a clone of who else but me. Joke! The truth is we’re both drop dead gorgeous: I look dead, she’s gorgeous.

Let her trudge the streets and you see necks craning and heads twisting just to worship her.

We hang out together just a few times not long before but we easily hit it off as “beacchy sistahz.”

I have the hard time decoding the “Haleerr” accent. She has the patience to act like a parrot for me, repeating every single word that made up every sentence that she’d blow into my eardrums. I call it a language barrier. She calls it a hearing problem.

A certified shopping addict, she crashes into the mall like a daily habit terrorizing every shop that plies with fashion accessories, bling blings, jewelry, bags, shoes, clothes and a lot more of kikay stuffs.

Mention of a shop that sells chocolate cake and she’ll get there in a flash. One time, we made a stop in a café that is famous for choco desserts. In between gobbles, we babbled everything about chocolate and the 5 million and one boyfriends she’s got (“ssshhh, don’t tell Momma,” his hazel brown eyes warned me). Funny, how stories aplenty can be told about chocs and boys.

Now that she’s heading for home sweet home, I just wish her all the best. OK, I will surely miss her but I know she’ll miss me more.

Breaking Into Dance

It’s summer! And I’d been gearing up to embrace it with reckless abandon. For someone like me who loves to do lots of (crazy) things all together most of the time, summer is the most relaxing part of the year. Or so I thought, not until I joined a dance workshop.

Over the weekend, I signed up for a two-day dance workshop with The Manouvers. Jason Zamora and Jon Supan (of The Manouvers) , together with US-trained professional dancers Chennie and Mabel taught us the foundation of hip-hop or locally known as street dance. Viola, only then I learned that hip-hop is just a hodgepodge of ancient moves like strut, funky and break dance!

“Are you sure you wanna do it?” I told myself. “Why not?” said the half of me. I think I have a fighting spirit that my body doesn’t understand.

I love to dance, no doubt about it. My solo dance performances, apart from the group presentations some of which I choreographed, in every Christmas or induction party I had in my elementary and high school classes can prove it. Looking back now, I wonder aloud how my classmates never launched a protest for seeing me dance in every class party we had; maybe because they saw me as an authoritarian class president. But who cares, I had fun.

But hey, dancing is not just about having fun, I learned from the workshop. It requires discipline and a lot of practice. I realized I don’t have the luxury of both, for now.

Nevertheless, more than anything else, I learned that DANCE means Decision, Action, No Compromise, Commitment and Excellence.

So I tried to strut my funky way until I broke my bones into dance. Literally, that’s hip-hop. My way. Urrghh?*&^%@!!!

Summer Fire!

i was in a middle of conversation with a long-lost friend who visited me at work when suddenly a colleague came out of the door behind me and shouted "there's fire in the neighborhood!" i was terrified not by his breaking news but by the way his lines pierced my eardrum... i went outside to check things out and true enough a black smoke billowed just above some structures which are a stone's throw away from our office...

that was about 4.30- p.m. (11 april 2005)

shortly, sounds of wailing sirens, of traffic cops' whistles, of honking cars, of raging fire and the shouts of victims and the cries of children dominated the airwaves while curious onlookers started to mill around the fire scene...

with the presence of international consultants and volunteers in our workplace, the scene of multi-colored people helping one another hauling computers, printers, books, files and everything their adrenaline can muster looks like a magazine feature story that had this title: "Filipino bayanihan goes international"

while everybody else was in frenzy, i went back inside and picked up my purse and two envelopes of personal files including photos (which I guess are one of life's valuable possessions), then i went out for safety..

i thought it was weird because i never did panic nor felt some surge of adrenaline; (maybe my exposure to a number of shocking realities, thanks to my stint as a news reporter, had something to do with it) there was something in my gut telling me that our edifice would be spared... i had all the presence of mind to utter a little prayer for the fire to stop, that no limbs and lives would be wasted...

and God heard my prayer....

on Spanglish

the movie may appear so simple as it depicts everyday-life of a family, but there are a number of insights that can be drawn from it...

here are a few :

lesson #1: a mother would rather die so her child may live

lesson #2: language difference is not much of a barrier if you have a translator

lesson #3: a monotonous almost involuntary day-to-day activity such as lying on a bed or stepping on the floor sometimes demand a very difficult, life-changing decision making process

lesson #4: sometimes an analogy such as floor:working brain or bed:damaged brain makes SENSE (go figure!)

lesson #5: for a child, 5 cents is 5 cents

lesson #6: guilt has a Spanish equivalent

Of men and chasing skirts (Part 2)

If women, attractive or otherwise, love to be chased, count me in. It's not because women are simply mean or playing hard to get. It doesn't take a genius of a man to tell if she does so. They just buy time. Unfortunately, buying time is not men’s business. Well, as I see it. In this day and age.

Most women I know need time to get to know the person better. They get the feel of the water first before taking a plunge. While a number of men I encounter immediately wants to take that plunge only to find out that the water is burning hot and want to snap out of it in a heartbeat.
If she decides to go out with him on a date or two, he's assured of some degree of likeness, if not attraction, from her. But stop being a high-jumping hysteric, dude. It doesn't mean you have already completely won her. Not just as yet. Unfortunately, some guys would think this way too soon. And when the reality dawns on him, whalla--a romantic drifter is born (or is it burned?)!

I can’t seem to find a convincing reason why a lot of men are always on the rush of winning a woman’s heart. Wise men say only fools rush in, so a song goes. Does it have to do with social acceptability? Macho culture? Or is it sexual fever? I wouldn’t know.

There’s one reason I know, though.
In this swirling world of instant coffee and noodles, a drifter's life is just as short-lived as batting an eyelash -- the moment you open your eyes, he's already in a table next to you sipping coffee with “another” dream girl. And the only thing you can do for the time being is wish him the best of luck, hoping that his antics work this time. But you see, this is not really something back-breaking, talk about the glaring statistics of women outnumbering men. Banking on such a phenomenon, some men can always find a way to abuse their “homecourt advantage”— throwing easily grandpa’s trusty virtues of patience, persistence and perseverance out of the window. And this leaves many women especially those who are riding the bandwagon of “Generation Instant” to settle for less.

If there’s one “general” characteristic that is annoying about skirt-chasing drifters, it is their inability to forge a platonic friendship with the once-object of their affectionate gaze . Put any innocent femme in this scenario and a cry for justice can’t be helped. For a man to put women in a box-- girlfriend or nothing-- is plain sinful. Worse, to swear at her as a “woman with a heart of stone” or an “enemy of the State” is gross.

Now the drifter ceases to be one, but the question is: “Is he getting the kind of woman that he’s ever wanted?” But should he doesn’t want to settle for the best, is his’ to keep. Anyway.

In my book, men don’t have to be a Brad Pitt to succeed on attractive sensible women. But this is another story.

Published in Sunstar Weekend Magazine as"Who's Chasing Skirts". August 6, 2005. All rights reserved)
http://www.sunstar.com.ph/weekend/index.html

pirated love story

Yani said I had to share my "love story" now, otherwise I will not be able to make a real one ever, at all. So meantime, here's My (Pirated) Love Story. Thanks to http://www.love.2loop.com.

----------------------
A LLLOVE STORY ...STORY ...STORY...STORY (Now, you know when something is pirated!..lol!)

One dazzling summer day at Boracay Island you see the most incredible creature you have ever seen. His name is Sean, and every move he makes just turns you on more and more. You nudge your best friend Yani and say, "Wow, that has to be the most wonderful body I have ever seen." Suddenly, he looks in your direction and starts walking right towards you!!! he says, "I noticed you staring at me from over there. I just had to tell you, that I think you are so
fantastic , and was wondering if you'd like to go to Milky Way with me and dance ?"

With a stupid smile on your face you say, " Cool " and go with them. When you finally get toMilky Way , he moves closer to you, and gives you the biggest kiss ever. The two of you are passionately kissing, when you feel a star hit you on the back of the head. You open your eyes to find out it's all a dream, but there is a note left next to your bed. It reads:

"Sean is the love you've been waiting your whole life for. He will ask you out in 3 days or less, but only if you send this e-mail to at least 10 people within the next few minutes. The more people you send it to, the sooner they will ask you out, and you both fall in love. Do not take this lightly, because if you simply ignore this, you will have bad luck in love for the next
3 years!"

Hmmnn...we'll see......

Yuletide thoughts

It's in this time of the year that I found myself in two (2) extreme emotions: euphoria and melancholy. It is heartwarming to see people exhange Yuletide greetings and gifts with happy faces. You see people's generosity overflowing especially to those who are less privileged. Christmas songs fill the cool air. Yet amidst all these glitters, i can't help but feel down because the real meaning of the Season is not something that you can see or hear.

what a waste?#@$!

I’ve never thought some supposedly intelligent guys can be that boring (ouch!). For instance, take this guy who can talk all about himself for hours and at a speed of 87 words per minute: his sports routine, diet, women she dated, how he almost got married, how much he wanted to own a car to get more dates (Hello, he might as well buy a car who knows how to ask a girl out). It just made me wonder if ever this guy knows that a sentence doesn’t have to start with “I” all the time. If I were to suggest how he could make money (if ever it could) out of narcissism, he might as well own, produce, direct and star his own TV show and named it “All About Me” if not, create a movie: “How To Lose A Girl In 10 Seconds.”

Oh well, this is a sad fact; a very, very sad one knowing that male population has been outnumbered by that of the female in scary proportion. While my first theory: “All good-looking guys are either gay or married” is gaining ground, here comes another theory--- “Some intelligent good-looking guys are better off keeping their intelligence and good looks with themselves.”

Celebrating Christmas....

I think there is no better way of celebrating Christmas than with the children. Christmas is for children, I guess.

Over the weekend, I had the chance of taking my time off with over 50 children, who -- if not attending Saturday Cathechism classes that my organization have been conducting for the past three years now--are in the streets peddling fruits, cigarettes, candies and other goodies. (Sadly, some of these kids were pushing drugs for some unscrupulous grown-ups.)

Thanks to some people with generous hearts, we were able to treat the children dinner, play with them, showcase thier talents in singing, dancing and poetry; and most of all, give them a couple of gifts to their heart's delight.

Yeah, what the children's tiny hands had carried on the way home may just wear out and perish soon. But we hope the daylong affair of being cared for and given importance by their Kuyas and Ates, familiar or not, was something that will forever stay in their hearts.


And I guess, Christmas is for the children-at-heart, too. Because I enjoyed the event, perhaps more than the kids did.

unplugged

whew, i can't believe i haven't been bloggin' for 48 years already, thanks to the toxic urban life... anyhow, nothing earth-shattering changes have happened in my life in that hiatus.. though, i was able to wax an article in between my psychedelic moments; and thank God, it saw print in a Cebu weekend mag..

here it is....


Inhibitions Not Included
By Roslyn D. Tambago

Living in a grown-up world can be a letdown. Damn all that social etiquette, ethics, norms and what have you, attached to whatever is "social." Hey, don’t these often foil the triumph of what they call the freewheeling, passionate human spirit? Urrgh!
But who says it's not fun to be a grown-up? Well, you just have to be with the right people, at the right time.

One day I found myself amidst a bunch of promising writers and cartoonists flocking together for a comics workshop. And they were younger than the twenty-something me, save for the visiting resource speakers.

Suddenly, I felt out of place. Anyhow, I was able to resist the temptation of pushing the imaginary self-eject button. I decided to go on with the three-day affair and appointed myself as a tacit spectator on top of the official designation as participant. I guessed I would be better off with the former.

The first day brought us into mute mode, except of course, for the speakers who took turns in sharing with us the effectiveness of comics in social advocacies, the history of comics, among other significant topics.

Call it putting-the-best-foot-forward day. Even then, I found the stillness bizarre for these male-dominated youngsters whose looks can easily pass for members of some rock band. Bite me, but you know how rock stars can be raucous. There was a Bob Marley look-a-like, a Bon Jovi, a Bono, even an Eddie Gil (for lack of analogy). The thought of how they care for their hair was mind-boggling. How often they shampoo their hair? Do they use a conditioner? Do they use a comb? Is that a wig?

On the second day the glacier started to give way. In between lectures on storyline making and scriptwriting, a waft of giggles from one side now would float from the other end shortly. Somehow, human connections began to weave.
Real skin slowly surfaced, too. A quick panning through the room revealed personalities that are as colorful as their outfits. Some looked like they just came from a pajama party or from a street-begging routine, one sat all day like a Yoga master , another posed a blank stare; still others doodled on a blank paper while some pairs engrossed themselves on occasional whispered conversations or hummed a favorite tune.

The third day was a social psychology case study in progress. Time to put into practice the learning we got from the past two days, we were set out in groups. We took the mission of creating a four-page comics of our chosen storyline. Each group had to go through the entire process of comics-making from brainstorming on the storyline down to the computer-aided coloring of illustrations.

Once the actual tasks began, the room instantly turned into an animated representation of authentic human behaviors (or was it resembling a psychiatric ward?).In the middle of writing scripts, someone would just stand up and strike a winning air-guitar pose, strum his ribs and belt out "Wake me up inside…call my name and save me from the dark…” In no time another one would take centerstage and initiate a gag show. Someone momentarily put his sketching pencil to rest and before you'd figure out the next move he already broke into dance. Soon there would be pop-up scenes of dancing, singing, somersaulting.

But nothing beats the panache of self-expression and the defiance of social grace when somebody in the midst of everyone released his gas only plants would love. Such biological sound and “aroma” was only met with cackles and instinctive breath suspension. The rolling-on-the-floor laughter was just endless.

Such scenes at any point never cost a thing to the speakers nor to the organizers; they were unmindful of the clatter and the outrageous celebration of freedom, so were we. No amount of superego formation lines of "don't do this, don't do that " could be heard from anybody. Everyone was allowed to be in their own little worlds. Everybody was his own person. The result: five comics representing five stories campaigning against illegal drugs and corruption.

To find myself in the same spot again would be the rarest of chances. However, my stopover in that world of the creative yet real, of the avant-garde yet down-to- earth and of human beings unplugged from social correctness is a recall that will always put a wide grin on my face.


(Published: Sunstar.Cebu. Weekend Magazine. November 20, 2004)

When things just go in circles, become a vicious cycle and less interesting, procrastination seems to be the best option.

We wake up in the morning, rush to work, eat and sleep. The cycle continues as long as the air goes in and out of our lungs.

Life is like chasing the wind.

it's over!!!

after months of sleepless nights and eyebugz, i finally decided to end a four-year (very intimate) relationship. yesterday: 3.15 p.m., October 10, 2004. we were imperfect beings but the times we had were just perfect; letting go of each other, i think would be the hardest decision i would ever make in this lifetime. sometimes, we have to give up some priceless possessions inorder to live a precious life ; we have to go beyond our comfort zones so others will be comforted....



by the way, i was talking about a long black hair that was cut for a cause.

on success...

“To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; to leave the world a little better; whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition; to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is the meaning of SUCCESS." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

good ol' friends...

“make new friends but keep the old, one is silver the other is gold”

it’s always refreshing to see long-lost friends again…

yesterday , I bumped into my two ol’good-looking guy buddies whom I’d not seen for what, a century? Buddy1 is an MD with a toxic schedule balancing practice and studies with TV soap opera guestings and badminton tourneys; been based in Manila finishing up his fellowship chuchu in internal medicine… he’s in town and had three days to paint it red. Buddy2 is a gimikiro-turned-genius, now burying himself into loads of books, if not his fingers into the barren skin and bones of innocent cadavers, to keep up his top 7 slot in a reputable medical school … Body 3 , I mean Buddy3 (that’s me), does nothing but balancing between sanity and insanity….see how BUSY everybody is??? But being pre-occupied with so many things doesn’t mean though that there is no room for distractions, at least for positive distractions like going out for a date…

as the visiting UFO, Buddy1 called the shot of inviting me and Buddy2 for a dinner in a certain resto. being the most organized person (just schedule-wise) of the day, I set the time and negotiated for the change of venue. I had to catch a meeting afterwards. the negotiation took loads of text messages and arguments before the two gave in because they also had appointments, one had a badminton tourney to beat, the other had books waiting. In an emphatic manner I told them: gentlemen, my meeting concerns nation building! So they shut up and conceded.

So we ended up converging in a Chinese resto. there were only three of us but it seemed like we’re in a frenzied corporate meeting passionately debating over the question: “If you only have three strands of hair left on your scalp, which is better: have them grouped or scattered?” Geesh, everybody was screaming and blurted out 120 words per minute!!! ( I counted them.) Yes, there were just a thousand and one things to catch up with each other, and we just had barely an hour to do it!

between bites and ruckus LOLs, we managed to cover a wide range of topics from showbiz to politics, from sports to weddings, from beauty to madness, from hair to nails…

and before I knew it, I was almost an hour late to the meeting…dang! so I almost literally flew to the venue only to be met by a locked door making faces at me….

Now , that’s what I call LIFE!

on love

this is cool....

"Love can make you HAPPY but often it hurts , but love's only special when you give it to someone who is really worth it. So TAKE your TIME and choose the best. Love isn't about becoming somebody else's "perfect person." It's about finding someone who helps you become the best person YOU can be. Never say "I love you" if you don't care. Never talk about feelings if they aren't there. Never touch a life if you mean to break a heart . "


So, when is the last time YOU say "I LOVE YOU" to someone and YOU MEAN IT?

d roadless travel....

i first encountered this famous book by Scott Peck: The Road Less Travelled way back in college through my classmates who are majoring in Philosophy (it's their book report).. but i never had the chance to browse, much less read it judging from the bunch of thick-glassed brats who always carried it with them wherever they go, almost making it a fashion accessory. so i thought it's boring, surreal and too ethereal a read for someone who's trying to understand the dynamics of real people in a real environment. …now that I got the chance to get hold of it, I’ve been proven wrong…

as of this writing, am not yet through with it but this early I’ve been amazed at how wonderfully Peck relates mysterious concepts such as love, grace, discipline, religion and truth with d contemporary condition of human life based on his many years of experience as a clinical psychiatrist…

Peck calls for a life that is totally dedicated to the TrUTH …but I guess this is something hard…some people (including myself) that I know will do everything just to shun from it--- summoning reinterpretation, rationalization, regression, reflection and the rest of Mighty Defense Mechanism’s minions to the rescue… ”reality bites” so to speak but truth to tell, it’s only through facing reality that one tastes the sweetness of freedom…if only they could realize that! “escape from freedom” as Peck contends has been human’s favorite mantra…and it has been proven to be a potent source of our problems and miseries….

life is a matter of choice so is FREEdom…

is there such a thing as aBsOLuTE FReeDOM? now, that’s another blog, i guess...

am sooo HAPPY a good friend of mine has finally met the man whom she wants to grow old with..she's ENGAGED!!! wowowwww!!!

cheers to an EVERLASTING BLISS and FRUITFUL UNION for Jingky and Seven....! God bless!

ala lang....

it's not always that i like to doodle my thoughts...this is one of those moments--i call brain (if ever i have one, has to confer with my doctor yet) freeze: i am physically kicking but mentally sleeping...if i were elsewhere, not at work, i would have been zzzzing my way to the dreamland, where everything, everbody is FREE... but hey, am in a real world, where survival of the fittest (or is it fetish?)is the name of the game...whether i like it or not, i have to play the game..play it fair...play it cool....

ooops, got to go,i have to win the game...

of men and chasing skirts...

if women (attractive or otherwise) loves to be chased, am on it. it's not because they're simply mean or playing hard to get (it doesn't take a genius to tell if she does so), they just buy time...

if she decides to go out with him on a date (or more), he's assured of some degree of attraction from her...but this doesn't mean he's already won her, unfortunately, some guys would think this way too soon...and when the reality dawns on him, whalla...a drifter is born (or is it burned?)! but u see, in this rapidly changing world of instant coffee and noodles, a drifter's life is just as short-lived as batting an eyelash-- the moment u open ur eyes he's in a table next to u sipping coffee...with "another" woman of his dreams..and the only thing u can do is wish him the best luck and hope that his antics work this time, which is not really something back-breaking 'coz all he needs is someone on his boat and there are a lot of them (talk about women outnumbering "boys", and i said boys)

my question is: are there still men with 3P's (read: patient, persistent and perseveing) these days???

just a weekend thing...

Today is Monday and I want to start my day right…and that is by blogging…

My weekend was a blast…

Saturday. attended a talk by adrian ding and anthony pangilinan on “excellence in the workplace”…they shared a bunch of tips on how to live a life with purpose and a balanced life…what they said were not really new things but it’s good to be reminded about life’s basic things once in a while… in striking a balance between out professional life, relational life and personal life, it’s always the latter that is compromised the most…yes, we loved to dream, BIG dreams at that, but if we don’t take care of our physical self, at the least, forget about them because it is our BODY that will take us to our DREAMS – a fact, ironically, too obvious to be noticed…oh, by the way, I had to cut classes inorder to get myself to the seminar (sshhh..) , but it was a decision, (or demeanor?), I didn’t regret coz that’s one of the things I would later learn from it: “I’ve got to learn to say ‘NO’ to honor my ‘YESes’

Sunday. oh, it was a body-care day! after attending church, I, together with girlfriends yani and rhea went for some soothing back rub and facial touch to say goodbye to the previous week’s stresses.. after over an hour we stepped off the health club feeling light and fresh amidst the kiss of the afternoon sun and decided…it’s time for a mouth exercise! …so we had some pizza and iced tea…. burp…ooopps.. it’s time to go for the weekend ritual---- MOVIES!!! We’re sooo lucky to chance upon the last leg of the 3-day Cine Europa (europian film festival ) at SM City Cenimas…our eyes feasted on Czech’s award winning film—Divided We Fall…the flick happened in a Czech town occupied by Nazis (late 1940’s, toward the end of WW II) where a childless couple came across a young Jewish man named David and kept him in a pantry for years. It’s a dramatic film with a twist of black comedy about fighting for survival…between 1 and 10, I give it a 9!!!


Enough of the psychedelic limbo…it’s time to deal with the real world…