[update] and we smiled, our faces like a mirror showing us our secret sides;
i'm not cute, really. i just like to pretend i am.
Being sick? HUGE "NO, THANK YOU".
I'm curled up in bed as I type this (well the first part of this, obviously).
I've been confined to my room, to my bed, and have been spending a lot of it sleeping here and there. I did go to the doctor the day before yesterday though. Had a check-up and have been prescribed an upped dosage in pain medication and a very, very low dose of propranolol (asdlfkjhasdflkjh yes, I know it is for hypertension, no I am not high-blood, doctor said it is to help dilate the vessels in my head to help blood flow to the brain or something asdlfkjhsdf /very bad at explaining these kinds of things).
I missed out on two days of work last week due to somewhat intense migraines (doc said the severity is mild, at least I am not compelled to go to the ER?) that prevented me from standing and moving around much less heading off to work, seeing the AZKALS game on TV (2-1 ;n; don't mind boys! We'll hit the qualifying round for the World Cup next time!), and even... idk enjoying my food :|
I'm going to rest up a bit more today. Passing up on watching Captain America with the youngest brother :( Does anyone else want to hold my hand while I do my very best to see if Chris Evans does my greatest hero justice? (At this point, I am just going to pretend that Sebastian Stan does not exist. EVER. I will not apologize for being annoyed that I am so very disappointed in how they flipped Bucky's character six ways to Sunday. Honestly, my brother and his girlfriend went to see the movie yesterday and Nate was generous enough to give it an 8.5 -- this is very high considering that we have been always doubtful about casting Evans as Cap
But seriously, world. We need to talk. Can I like, just get better already? Being stuck in my room to rest is not fun. No really, it is seriously not fun. Being sick is not fun. Ever. I hate it. I am an active person who goes places. I am not suited for all this sleeping. My back hurts :(
BUT ANYWAY! BULLETS! Well, not really. I AM VERY BAD AT FOLLOWING MY OWN INSTRUCTIONS (Noey, really, enough capslock. Or not).
VAREKAI! The whole production was gorgeous and flawless even when some of the performers tripped up... it was just utterly incredible I am speechless forever at the fact that 
Bhex had us seated on the front row (B, forget it, my adoration is reserved for the violinist and one of the drummers who leaned forward at our section winked This honestly deserves it's own post with accompanying photographs (not from the show, it was not allowed). I have to scan/photograph the program soon for this. But that might have to come at a later (and much delayed) date because I am not quite functioinal enough for a properly coherent post.
But yes. MOST AMAZING EVENING EVER. Christmas came early this year and I think my 2011 has been offiicially made because I cannot honestly think of anything else that could top this as the best thing that has happened to me thus far.
Played catch-up (somewhat, still so much backlog wtf) with my watchlist and the verdict is as such:1. Ano Hana requires a LOT of tissues and I highly recommend cuddling under blankets and lots of pillows. TEAR-JERKER CENTRAL, MUCH? ;n;
2. Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger. FYES.
Em is HOOKED. (ta)BASCO is BEST VILLAIN EVER. CAPTAIN IS FOREVER LMAO. JOEFACE! LUKA! DONDONDONDONDON! AHIIIIM (I will honestly never understand why some people don't like her Princess is kickass okay???). Gai omgFINEyouaretoocuteandLULZYforwords. Rozyn. Sachibi. What have you gotten me addicted to???3. Samurai Sentai Shinkenger. Yes, um. We are seeing a trend. Aiba is ROFLMAO. Shogo is favorite character of all time. Red is v. handsome (no, don't worry I know his name I just like calling him 'Red'; can someone explain to me why his mother looks ridiculously young in this series???). Mako is officially my favorite Pink after Princess and Kotoha-chan is just... utterly precious. I could go on really blahblahblah and I am not even halfway through with the series asdlfkjhasdlfkjh--
4. HanaKimi2011. Okay. I know that there have been changes to the plot and a huge ton of people have been hating on this drama a lot, but frankly speaking: take it as a wholly different series unto itself. Personally, I could tell you a lot of reasons why the first drama turned me off but I'm not going to do that and admit that since I never really finished it I really have no right to criticize it. So, I'm going to (wo)man up and watch it... after this series finishes. Besides: hnggggggh OT3 and sadflkjhsdfkjh the chemistry IT IS THERE! and bffery forever and wahehehehehe~ omg you two and KIRIYAMA RENN AS NANBA SEMPAI and sdflkjhsdf lol I am not a fan of
[Addendum: Because LOL SO HARD TO FIND GIFS SO STILLS WILL HAVE TO DO] Oscar M (mmmmmmmhm?) Himejima
5. Ouran Host Club Drama. /watching it now. err. in a bit. um.
GUEN WHERE ARE YOU. I neeeeeed youuuuuuuu. LOL.6. NND. Sort of, but not really in the fandom yet. I have much to learn, apparently, but it is necessary for people to listen to this and this and this. That is Mi-chan covering the DRRR!! first opening theme. Neko being awesome and singing in English; and Yamai being... ugh her voice is so gorgeous and the song just... wonderful. IDK IDK IDK. I appreciate music in a variety of forms, language is no barrier when the voices get it across.
Ice cream. I want it badly in my life. I've been craving for it non-stop. Same with Mom's spaghetti which she has already laughed at me and agreed to make for when Len comes over this coming Saturday. I foresee a lot of... shenanigans? And /cough/ Project Chiisai. Len? Len? Where are you, Len? Puppy is as sick as me, I think. I'm not entirely sure if he's just doing the sympathetic pains bit, because he hasn't stopped curling up right next to me since Thursday night. I talked to Mom, I'm thinking maybe after she and Neal come back from church that maybe I should bring baby over to the vet (or they should, I fell asleep prematurely last night before the assigned time that I could take my medication :( so um). Apparently he was crying while I had fallen asleep. He seems perky enough now, but he was sleeping a lot yesterday and a little earlier this morning. I might just give in and give him another bath because it honestly might just be the fact that he's shaved and naked as a ... babe? IDK. Will dig up his t-shirt. /breathes My SAD has been acting up, so I apologize in advance if I vanish and then come back, vanish and then come back. This is mostly on IM and Plurk and Twitter though? I have good friends. I just wanted to put it out there that you're amazing and I love you all. A lot. Thank you, for being in my life.-----
And now for that meme I need to get back to answering:
30 Days → 01, Introduce yourself. | 02, Your first love. | 03, Your parents. | 04, Your most significant childhood memory. | 05, Discuss your feelings on the word “love” and the way it’s used today. | 06, Your day, in bullets. | 07, Your favorite super hero and why. | 08, Your favorite quote, in your handwriting. | 09, Your siblings. | 10, The shoes you wore today. | 11, Ten things that make you smile and a picture of yourself smiling. | 12, What’s in your bag? | 13, Short term goals for this month and why. | 14, A book that you’ve read more than 3 times. | 15, Your best friend. | 16, The weather outside. | 17, Ten things you’d like to say to ten different people, without using names. | 18, Your favorite birthday. | 19, A picture of you when you were younger. | 20, Your favorite writing project/universe. | 21, The fears you can't seem to shake. | 22, Something that makes you feel better. | 23, A prized possession. | 24, Something that makes you cry. | 25, A first. | 26, One interesting fact for every year you’ve been alive. | 27, Something that you miss. | 28, The places you went to today. | 29, Your guilty pleasures. | 30, One last moment, in great detail.
It's occured to me that come December my parents will have been married for twenty-nine years. Twenty-nine years. That's not even counting the years they spent together as a couple without the trappings of vows and rings and marriage contracts.
Just thinking about it makes me tear up a little, because its something to be in awe of... and envy; the fact that you can hold on as long as that. I know my parents aren't unique in this. Lots of couples have lasted longer. But these are my parents and things haven't always been easy for the family -- so to have it dawn on me that it's been twenty-nine years since they said "I do," ... it's a huge thing.
| In a city as small as the one both my parents grew up in, it was easy enough for people to know each other by reputation or last name. The elementary and high school they both attended was one of the small handful of schools available, so in a community that small, it wasn't as though they were going to miss out on each other. |
| Dad was three years ahead of Mom, and when people mentioned his name it was normally to praise how intelligent and hard-working he was. My father applies himself well. Ontop of having a natural ability to pick up concepts and formulas, he has an eagerness to learn and understand things, and he never skimps on putting in the effort required to get the job done. He was top of his class, Valedictorian and went on to a scholarship in UP Diliman. He was on the project team that worked on the BNPP and was sent to the US to be consultants on one of the power plants there. He's a war buff, likes working on train layouts (one day, when I buy them a house, he will have that room, the one he can just use as a workshop), used to avidly collect the do-it-yourself scale models of ships and tanks. He's the eldest of eleven kids between a police officer and a teacher, all of whom finished school and attended university. He's a conservative individual in some ways, but very progressive in others; and while he and I may clash sometimes, he's my dad and in some ways my hero. Who else can I sit beside during football games and yell at the TV with, after all? Who else could I discuss the news with over dinner and get my own two-cents' in? (I like to think sometimes, that my ability to think on my feet when I'm down to the wire is something he passed down to me. The stubbornness is a given. The part that me argues passionately for what I believe in, too. I know that I'm nowhere near his level when it comes to handling maths and the more technical stuff -- I acknowledge that I have different strengths. But his determination, his steadfastness, and the fact that he doesn't ever like giving up on things... I would like to think I got that from him.) Mom on the other hand, had been lauded for her brains and her beauty. Look guys, Mama was a bombshell, okay. People in the halls referred to her as one of The Two Sisters. She had no shortage of suitors and was fairly well-off and once you got past the fact that she was intimidating in that quiet, intelligent way, she was a pretty awesome person to be around. It's funny really, how growing up, its only when she recounted her teenage years to me that she realized that people admired (and envied) her as much as they did. They called her aloof and 'mataray' (this is the closest translation I could find for the word). I want to take a moment for my non Tagalog-speaking friends here on LJ to know that terms here (save for a chosen few) can be used both negatively and positively and in this case, my mom was regarded as a bit of both. Mataray, maldita, snob. Lol. Yup, that's how people viewed my mom, or so has been recounted to me. What people don't know is that Mama is painfully shy. She likes to keep things simple. Social politics or passive-aggressive warfare aren't her thing. She cries easy and is the type of softie that would pocket little kittens that might get drowned in the rain (I remember running downstairs because she asked my yayas -- the help -- to call me down from my room. She had these three kittens tucked in her jacket's stomach area and they peeked their heads out and mewled. Dad was upstairs at the time and he's none too fond of cats because they tend to hide their poop, but we kind of just sat on the floor in the livingroom and played with them. Mom and me, utterfly fearless in the face of feral kits. I think it's because she has this natural instinct to be gentle with creatures that they sort of just gravitate to her. She told me once, that had she had the head for medicine, she would have wanted to be a vet. I tell her maybe that isn't such a good idea, because she sometimes doesn't know how to just say no.) Bottom line with Mama: If you're a good person, she will like you, like that you hang out with her kids. She's forgiving. A lot more forgiving than I am, to be honest. It's a running joke between her and my godmother that the personalities of their daughters' got switched. When I met Apple for the first time after twenty-five years early this year, I finally understood why that was. (I am vain, let's be blunt about it. I whine about the same things most girly-girls do: my fluctuating weight due to stress, my inclination to make-up, my addiction to shoes/boots and pretty things. I am particular about my personal scent, the products I use, the texture of my hair as it is affected by my current choice of shampoo and conditioner. I can wander the mall for hours and not buy anything because if the fabric fall isn't right or it feels just a little bit 'off', I will prefer to go home empty-handed.) One of their first meetings (the one I like telling people and therefore the reason why I am mentioning it here) was at the community pool. Mom knew of Dad then, I think they'd already been introduced or interacted because he was in the same year as my uncle who is the eldest of five in Mom's side of the family. Mom went out of the pool on the side Dad was in. He told her that her nose resembled a tomato. Lol, how is that for non pick-up lines? LMFAO. There were a handful of other instances. Like I said, the city was small, the neighborhoods even smaller. Mom's family is well-known. Dad has excellent taste in beautiful women. He courted someone in her neighborhood. Obviously, no one in this house discusses dad's previous girlfriends because dad won't. We talk about his Hollywood crushes though, these dark-eyed beauties that Mom just laughs over because she teases him about the fact that he has this black and white shot They met again during college. Though Mom eventually shifted to Phil. Women's University, she spent a year at UP in the dorms. She told me once that she'd go down to the Sunken Garden to have a smoke and a chat with other people from home or just... people who spoke the same language as you. The thing about living in a country with so many languages (I refuse to refer to them as dialects because the grammatical structure and the vocabulary can vary tremendously) is that unless you're from Manila, your native tongue is what you speak, not Tagalog (which is considered to be the country's official language). If it were a simple problem of dialect and accents, it would be fine, but people who speak Tagalog can't understand Bisaya (Cebuano, really) or Ilonggo or whatever other chosen dialect you speak and vice-versa. Mom and Dad speak Ilonggo, or a variation of Hiligaynon. It's this gorgeous, sing-song-ish language that I've managed to pick up but rarely speak here because... I don't have people to practice it with! But yes, back on track-- So Mom would go hang out under one of the trees with the girls. They'd light up on Marlboro reds and catch up while the boys often played football. The important thing about this is how one of Mom's acquaintances pointed my dad out to her; to which Mom just shrugged, took a drag and said, "Yup, I know him. Tikalon na siya." Tikalon is Ilonggo for 'arrogant' or 'full of himself'. That's the closest approximation to a translation that I can make. I guess we know where I got my 'tsun', huh? I was sitting in the back of the car the other day because we had to pick up Mom, Neal and then I had to withdraw and get my meds. Dad hasn't been able to have his hair dyed black again, so the gray hairs are pretty obvious. Mom doesn't dye, period, but she's always had light brown strands in her hair, so the gray hairs don't really look utterly out of place. My parents aren't getting younger and life isn't getting easier. It makes me want to cry because I've hit that age where I wish the only thing either of them had to worry about was retirement and IDK, breeding shih tzu puppies for lulz (they like dogs, okay; Punch is Dad's companion when picking up Mom and the boys while Porkchop of the mixed heritage is usually left to nap beside my nocturnal self). On the other hand, I'm grateful. A number of my friends have lost their parents this year to disease or accidents. I nearly lost Dad sometime back in college (this is something I will not discuss or disclose atm) and whenever Mom's BP acts up, I swear, I go into panic mode. Twenty-nine years of marriage. That's barely past the halfway mark to their Golden Anniversary. And life help me, they're going to make it to that. Just you wait and see. |