My Christmas Wishlist

I was blog hopping and noticed that a lot of bloggers had their Christmas wishlist posted! So I thought I'd make one for myself too.

Some of my wishes though are intangible:

1. I want my old Darna self back. I'm getting a whole lot better now, but I know I could be better (still no-thanks to the doctor who gave a wrong diagnosis! Grrr!).

2. Bathroom accessories. I had my bathroom renovated last month and it's pretty bare right now. Also needs a fresh coat of paint, but I'll have to be away before that can be done.

3. Shelves for my books! 

4. Some CDs... Bugoy's new album and some other OPM CDs.

5. Frames! I want to re-decorate my basement and I'm planning to decorate it with as many photos as possible. 

I guess that's just it, I don't really fancy having expensive stuff. Less is more. =)

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Now, I know why bloggers have been posting their wish list! It's because of Melo's contest! Join na nga rin ako hehehe :D

Tales of the Pigsa

It starts like a pimple, then becomes a small lump, then you find yourself in pain because of an angry red hardened mound. It shows up on your back, in your kilikili, elbow, on your butt cheeks, or worse in between it. That small angry mound would actually bring you to your knees because it is very painful and if untreated. And then the mound progresses and an "eye" appears and you basically just have to wait until it bursts, unless you you do the bottle-thingy (and I don't really want to describe what that is about). 

The Pigsa, in Western terms it's called a boil.

(I don't have any photos of it sorry).

Now you might wonder WTH I'm blogging about it. LOL. No, I don't have one now, but I experienced it as a kid and for some strange reason last night's telebabad with the Sweetie veered towards the P-word. So we ended up talking about it for awhile.

When I was a kid my Mom and I stayed in Bicol for a few weeks to clean-up my Mama Lola's house. She passed away a few months before so we were tasked to clean-up the house and re-paint it. That was the time that I got a pigsa on my elbow. And then on my kilikili! It was a very painful summer!

Anyway, I realized last night that I don't really know how the pigsa comes about because they gave me the following reasons when I was a kid:

1. You don't eat vegetables.

2. You have dirty blood.

3. Because you did not take a bath! 

Argggh! 

So I did a bit of research and apparently a pigsa is a skin abscess and according to MedicineNet.com it can be caused by prolonged travel (because of sitting), ingrown hair, a splinter or even a cut. 

Now the mystery has been solved after 2 decades. LOL. 

Did you ever have one?

Are You Happy?

I am!

So, are YOU happy?

It was Fr. Hilarion who asked the question this morning during his homily. He asked it again and again until everyone answered back. The sermon was all about why you are happy and it made me realize a couple of things.

I've been through 5 weeks of hell. Well, hell for me is being unwell and not being able to do what I usually do. I've been feeling really sad about it too, but thank God my real doctors are back and I'm feeling so much better now. No thanks to the doctor who made a wrong diagnosis when I was in the hospital, I would've probably been in tip-top shape 3 weeks ago if I managed to take the right medication. But, I'm just glad now that I'm (almost) back to my cheery and perky self, I hope though that all the pain would be gone soon.

I'm also happy because I have a loving family, Sweetie and a bunch of really crazy friends who hovered around the past few weeks. And mind you I could get really cranky when I'm sick and I'm just really glad that they put up with me. And I believe that's what is really important in life coz you can do without all those material things, but you cannot do without your family and friends. That would be a really lonely life. Sniff, sniff, sniff.

And it also made me remember an old friend who said that in his province they have to show-off to show their status and wealth. We had an argument about that and it came to a point that he told me I had no ambition. He was then pushing me to buy a car and buy other stuff. I'm a very prudent person especially when it comes to buying things. I buy only when needed (a very important lesson I learned from my Kuya). 

Eventually I parted ways with this friend of mine because he had very different beliefs (and he betrayed me). I can only shake my head now because I got news about him selling his soul, just for money. Well, I hope eventually he'll realize that happiness and wealth is not about having all the latest gadgets or being able to buy material things. 

The gold of happiness is in relationships and not material things. That's what Fr. Hilarion said this morning and I hope you guys are happy too.

Bee happy!

The Telenovela Roll

During the times that I do watch TV I watch telenovelas too and when I got sick the only thing you can just do is watch TV. 

My favorite TV channels are ABS-CBN, Discovery Channel, National Geographic and Myx. I left Miguel control the remote more often than not and just watch what he watches. He doesn't watch telenovelas though and would rather sit in front of the PC to watch Youtube videos or study apps by following tutorials.

So the past few nights I thought about writing a blog post about the telenovelas I've been watching (and have decided not to watch). I'm bad at remembering TV channels so I'm usually stuck on ABS-CBN after dinner.

Telenovelas are a lot like sushi, don't you think? They come in different flavors:

1. Dyosa - I didn't like Dyosa when it started, but eventually the story kinda changed and it became charming. My Mom though said that she doesn't understand why people just keep getting kidnapped or zapped every other day. 

2. I Love Betty La Fea - I'm a fan of John Lloyd, `nuff said. 

3. Kahit Isang Saglit - Best storyline and I think well done. Goes to show that when there's pressure to do really well we can do it. 

4. Eva Fonda - Christine Reyes is very pretty and sexy indeed, the show though for me is very violent and too sensual to be shown on primetime bida. So I just usually change the channel when this comes up. (If you're a fan, I'm so sorry, but that's just my opinion).

5. There's was this Korean soap that was a no-brainer, I think it was "Three Dad's and a Mom" or something. It was funny and when I say it's a no-brainer, I mean it's a show that you can just watch and laugh because of the engot things they do. 

Pinoy Fear Factor is not a telenovela, but looks like one coz there's drama to it compared to it's foreign versions. I guess this is so coz they're stretching it to fit a whole week. I also find it weird they decided to use many Spanish words. 

Well, this is what happens when your movements are limited. LOL.

PacMan Wins vs. De La Hoya

I must admit I slept through the fight. LOL. I watched several of Manny Pacquiao's fights before and it always got me too excited. I did not want to get stressed so I slept.

BUT, I woke up just in time to catch the interviews after he was declared a winner. I admire both fighters for being humble when they were being asked questions that they could've used to make yabang. De La Hoya kept saying that he had nothing bad to say about Manny and that Pacquiao deserves all the accolades. Manny, on the other hand, also just said that he's just a boxer who'd train hard for any fight he has to do. 

Despite all the disappointment I've been feeling about Manny because he joined the political bandwagon (and lost), I felt proud. He is a Filipino after all and I'm sure he made a lot of sacrifices to win the fight. I just hope he doesn't run for any government position anymore. 

Congrats PacMan!

Professor A (a.k.a. Miss A., that's me!)

A few months ago my high school buddy (and 4-years laboratory partner) asked me if I wanted to teach. I said yes not knowing that I would actually start teaching a graduating class by September.

I did not know what I had gotten myself into. 

And I must say I have new-found respect to the teaching profession. It's not easy and very challenging. I found myself STUDYING and doing research. It would take me at least 3 hours to prepare for a 90 minute class. 

Because of my work I do a number of speaking engagement, so I stupidly thought that teaching a class would be as easy. I was wrong. Teaching a class is very different from going through a preso to an audience you will just see for an hour. When you teach a class there is a deeper commitment to engage the audience, because at the end of the term you will ask yourself, "Did they honestly learn something from me?"

I was out for three weeks because of my sickness and I realized after going back to teach that I missed my students. They were not as kulit as I expected. There was a good balance between brilliant kids and the lazy ones. And well from my desk in front I think I kinda know who's going to be ahead (well more or less).

I just hope though I won't be as sorely disappointed with myself since I feel I would've been able to give more to my students, but sometimes ya-know things just get really crazy. 

To my students, we have one class day left! Woohoo! or Awww? Hope you picked up something from me and good luck with your thesis!

Bolero Ka Ba?

Most of my non-Filipino speaking friends do not understand that question and it’s funny how they’d scour the internet just to find out what it means.

Thank God, Google now translates Filipino into many other languages or vice-versa.

I could honestly say that Filipino is one of the harder languages to translate especially since words can mean differently when you add “na” “an” “”han” “um” like with the word kain which can go as “kumain” “kumakain” “kainan” ‘nakain”. And our language evolves so much that Filipinos who left the country 2 decades ago probably wouldn’t understand the terms we currently use.

I was very excited when I found out about Google Translate. Before it had Filipino in it (first in Southeast Asia mind you!), I used it already to translate some emails I’d get in other languages (some of my friends like giving me a hard time) and whenever I do research I ran into websites written in other languages. It’s just a click away to translate!

I thought it was quite impossible to translate our language that easily. The Google translation tool though is not based on the work of linguists (there aren’t any people typing madly in the back-end to translate stuff you put in), but it’s a machine translation based on an algorithm and not rules. I’ve been reading “Planet Google” lately and it’s interesting to understand better how Google actually does it.

Google Translate provides us an easy tool to understand other languages and having Filipino in it is very helpful too! Although if you're going to be making marketing collaterals better have a linguist involved in it to be sure. 

So, bolero ka ba? actually asks, "Are you a gigolo?" Haha.