i am woman, hear me rawr!

Pssst….wanna know a secret?

Well, not about the lives of the Upper Eastsiders, but about me.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be an actress. Yup, an actress. In fact, I even auditioned for the local educational show, Batibot. I made it through the first round of auditions (I was really cute way back then…and yes, bibong bibo pa!) all the way to the final test which started with one simple question: Do you know how to speak Tagalog.

FAIL!

Growing up in the 1980′s, speaking in Tagalog was not given a lot of importance, at least in my family and school. This is something I’ve since regret and being a preschool teacher, I make it a point that my students be exposed to our native language and I try to remind parents that telling their kids that speaking in Tagalog is bad or wrong is such a bad mind-set. Anyway, for me growing up, that was my waterloo.

As I got older, I gained weight and lost confidence in myself. Then out came my true nature, which apparently is an introverted, shy individual who finds it difficult to even ham it up in front of a digicam. While on occasion I enjoy putting on a show, especially in front of my preschoolers, I have packed away my showbiz dreams. I do keep them alive, however, by getting my fill of television series’ and movies, and writing about these instead. This is why landing a stint writing for the Philippine Online Chronicles’  Sosyal channel has been a dream come true Do check out my articles there

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Here’s another self-affirmation post: I love my long hair!

Since I’ve decided to make it a point to affirm myself every now and then, I am taking the time to look at what I love about myself, whether on the inside or out. For today, it’s the out that I will look at.

As I said, I love my long hair. This is the longest it’s ever been, and more than just being long, it finally has a nice, healthy sheen to it. Growing up I used to have terrible hair. When I say terrible, I mean it! It was kinky, matted and quite coarse. It was so bad I couldn’t let my hair hang loose. I’d always have to have it in a bun or cut really short. It was the kind of hair that one would probably have resembled an afro or looked good in those little braids that a lot of African American children have. The problem is, while I do like those looks, here in the Philippines it wouldn’t sit well, mainly because of the kind of weather we have.

For a long time, I had struggled with hair issues. Now, I finally got the kind of  hair I like. The only thing I worry about, however, is the fact that when I brush my hair, I seem to have so much falling hair. This kind of worries me because I have a family history of baldness. My dad, no matter what kind of hair loss treatment for men he had tried, still ended up with a balding head. Add that to the fact that my mom says I take after him a lot!

So, to care for my hair, I try my best to keep it healthy and conditioned well.  I do monthly deep conditioning treatments and when I have the extra money, I get a hot oil treatment as well. I also keep my hair tied up or covered whenever I am under the sun for prolonged periods of time and when possible, I try not to shampoo too often, since this dries up hair (or so they say). One thing I can’t help but do, however, is brush my hair when I come out of the shower. They say this is quite bad as it leads to split ends and that instead of brushing, I should just comb it. So far, I can’t get myself to do that!

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Another thing I love about going to the beach is how soft and smooth my skin gets after a quick beach getaway, especially my feet. The sand does wonders for them. My mom says its because the sand works well in exfoliating dead skin, which I guess is quite true since I feel the results. If only I could do it also in my face to remove all the blackheads especially around my nose area!

Seriously, though, the feeling of the sand beneath my feet is such a wonderful feeling. Of course it the sand is rocky, that’s not necessarily true but for the most part, walking barefoot in the sand is one of my most favorite feelings ever. It makes me feel so connected to nature and it touches something deep in my core. I used to tell my therapist that that feeling always gave me a sense of peace and balance which is why whenever I am stressed out, I make sure I head to the beach because by walking barefoot in the sand, I feel so much better. It’s kind of like the negative energy exits my body and is replaced by a sense of positivity and warmth. When my feet are happy, so is the rest of me.

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Being overweight sure does a lot of things to your ego.

I’ve noticed that since I’ve regained a lot of the weight I had previously lost, I’ve become more mean to myself. I tend to put myself down and joke about myself. I guess by hiding in the guise of humor, I’m able to hide away my insecurities about myself. Also, by bringing in humor, I appear like I don’t really care much about what people say when they see me waddle down the hall. Oops, there it is again: putting myself down.

Today I will take time to affirm myself: despite being overweight, I think I look pretty okay At times, I would even say I look good, or at least I carry myself well enough. That doesn’t mean though I still wouldn’t want to lose weight. I mean, if I come across safe diet pills I probably wouldn’t hesitate to take them, but in the meantime, I am trying to be kinder to myself, especially when it comes to weight issues.

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As a Mac user who refuses to buy Microsoft Office for Mac, I’ve had to find alternatives for the popular and easily-accessible Word, Powerpoint and Excel. Mac has a good counterpart for it, namely Pages and Keynote. However, because I’ve gotten so used to Microsoft office, getting the hang of the layout and feel of Pages and Keynote is a bit difficult. I still get confused about animating my powerpoint texts, for example. However, the transitions and effects of Keynote are WOW! That’s all I can say!!! I remember that when I was in Cebu for a convention, I used Keynote for my presentation and after the first slide, the audience went woooah!!!!

However, since I need to compute grades, I need a spreadsheet program. I don’t know why I don’t have the Mac equivalent, which is Numbers. I must have deleted it accidentally or something when I removed all the programs that I don’t use. So since I needed an Excel equivalent and I couldn’t afford the installer discs of Office 2008 for Mac, I downloaded Open Office. So far it’s been pretty smooth sailing, but I’ve noticed some little differences with the shortcuts in the two programs. That’s about it though.

Will continue to test it more. My ultimate test, however, will be the ease of it’s Powerpoint counterpart. However, since it’s term break, that will have to wait. For now, I’m going on vacay mode!

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I still have a beach get-away hangover. I woke up this morning eager to head out to the beach again only to remember that I’m back home and the only thing waiting for me is a pile of paperwork to accomplish. Nevertheless, much as I wish I was still on vacation, I’m glad I got to have a brief respite from the hustle bustle of everyday. It’s been so hard to free up my schedule to go on a weekend trip to the beach, what with my preschool classes, my teaching load in the university and my writing jobs. I actually thought I wouldn’t be able to see the beach anytime this summer. Finally, I was able to squeeze it in.

Along with my family and a good friend of mine, I spent two days in Punta Fuego in A huge 7 bedroom house, just a street away from the beach, complete with a sun deck and a jacuzzi. I couldn’t use them though because the hot tub was kinda clogged with sand. All that was missing were walk in bathtubs. It would have been great for a nice relaxing bubble bath after a leisurely lounge at the beach.

It was paradise! Sure I had to lug my work with me, but checking papers and grading essays by the beach was still so much better than having to be stuck at my desk, right? It came at just the right time because lately, I’ve been feeling down and burnt out, which tends to be the case when I take on too much work or have too many things on my mind. There’s something about being in the beach that really rests not just my body, but also my tired and weary self. So now I’m all dark and toasty on the outside and on the inside, so bright and shiny all over again Happiness.

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Not too long ago, I saw a Yahoo! trending topic that read “Leonardo Di Caprio”. I clicked on the link and saw that it was because he was promoting his upcoming thriller, Shutter Island. From that time on, I knew I wanted to watch the movie. For one, it was a psychological thriller. Given my line of work, it definitely was a topic of interest. Secondly, this is the exact kind of genre I love watching. I’m not really very much into the scream-y, gory type of thrillers, but those that kind of play with the mind really fascinate me. This is why I was really looking forward to catching Shutter Island.

I was able to see the film last Tuesday and all I can say is: I got lost in it! I liked most of it, but the others kind of left me thrown off. The storyline was quite interesting and I liked the twists and turns the tale took. It’s kind of difficult to really review the film because any little statement I give will end up becoming a spoiler! I remember I commented in a Plurk thread how it reminded me of another film and a fellow blogger pointed out that I inadvertently spoiled the ending for him!

Here’s an attempt at giving you, my readers, a rundown of the film without revealing much: The story starts with US Marshall Teddy Daniels heading off to Shutter Island, home of an asylum for the worst of the worst psychologically insane criminals to investigate the disappearance of one of it’s inmates. However, as he tries to unravel the mystery behind her vanishing, he soon finds himself haunted by memories of his past, including that of his dead wife Dolores.

Shutter Island is directed by Martin Scorsese. This is Di Caprio and Scorsese’s fourth collaboration. For me, the film had a very distinct Martin Scorsese feel to it, what with the musical score and the style of storytelling.

Do I recommend this film? Well, this would definitely be one of those movies in which I would have to say “it would depend”. For me, I liked it. Others were less forgiving about the way the film ends in particular. Nonetheless, if you’re looking for a good way to spend an afternoon, do catch it. Don’t expect anything lighthearted or heartwarming though.

Thank you SM Cinemas for the invitation to the special screening of Shutter Island. The movie is now open in all local cinemas nationwide.

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Lately the summer heat has been way too stifling. I can barely stand being in my room for long because it’s unbearably hot. Add to that the fact that my bed is right under the windows in my room, which happens to be at the side where the sun sets. by around 3-4 pm, I get the full brunt of the summer sun. So lately, Bubba and I have been spending time out in the garden under the trees where there is some semblance of a breeze. I’m lucky my house has a pretty large garden so it helps cool the place, even just a little bit. However, because of Bubba’s playfulness, plus my brothers’ love for soccer, I can’t do much with the garden in terms of putting up lots of outdoor décor , light fixtures and even potted plants. Before, we used to have very nice lampposts around the perimeter fence but a lot of them have either gotten rusty or were broken by my the boys playing soccer. Bubba also plays a lot of catch and digs around the garden so whatever we would put or install ends up as a new plaything for him. One thing, however, that we’ve managed to do for the garden is to install hammocks under the trees. I wish though that I had one of those swivel garden umbrellas and a garden swing where I can sit with my laptop and just enjoy the breeze. Then again, I’d need a new laptop for that too since my lappy’s battery has gone kaput!

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