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A Random (Corny) Conversation With Myself...

And it went like this:

Me1: (while scooping some rice out of the cooker) Hmmm. Bad carbo.
Me2: Ooooh. Bad carbo (points at the scooped rice). You know what else is bad carbo?
Me1: (incredulous) There's another kind of bad carbo? Wazzit? Wazzit?
Me2: E di, carbo-nara! (nyuk nyuk nyuk)
Me1: I have got to be the corniest semi-geeky girl alive. (facepalm)

-fin-

My Dad Is On Facebook! (Gasp!)

You go home after work and the first thing you see upon entering the house is your dad with his back turned to you. You tiptoe towards him and you see him in front of his laptop, one-finger-typing his way into cyberspace. A few more steps and you happen to look at the upper left side of the screen and you see a familiar blue banner with the word clean logo of FACEBOOK. You get a sinking feeling in your tummy because you knew that what you have been delaying for quite some time now is happening. The inevitable has happened.

Your. Dad. Is. On. Facebook.

*sharpsuddenintakeofbreathfollowedbygibberish*

Yes, fellow netizens. My technophobic of a father has recently taken a ride on the bandwagon called Facebook. He has been bugging me about getting his own laptop (with matching threats of destroying mine if I didn't get away my arse from my laptop pronto!) and practicing MS Word and Excel (which have been left in limbo after discovering the joys of Gmail and Facebook). After a month of badgering me, we finally hunted for that laptop which will match his needs (spacious keypad, widescreen) and preferences (he wants it in black. Any color will render him unmanly. Men!). So I discarded the idea of getting him those insibinsi netbooks (keypad and screen are too teeny-sized and I can sense that familiar impatience of mistyping words and squinting at the screen - not a good sign). But the salesman kept on insisting to my dad that the Samsung netbook is a bang for the buck with the free external optical drive. Little did Mr. Salesman know I can be charming and ruthless at the same time. With crushed spirit, he grudgingly went to the stockroom and brought us the Dell Vostro.

Kaching-kaching moments after, we head home to tinker around with the new laptop. It was pre-installed with Linux and it had Mozilla Firefox so my dad was able to connect to the internet immediately. I taught him the basics of manuevering through the WWW while arguing with him because of username and password stuff. Few days after, he was still fuming over his password and username and why they don't work. I checked out what he was doing and he was putting his username and password in different sites! After arguments (and threats of destroying my laptop, again!), slo-mo version of my explanation, and permanently saving his passwords in the browser, I retreated peacefully to my still-unsmashed laptop.

Fastforward to morning after. He was proudly telling me how he found his highschool batchmates in Facebook. He also found his long lost acquaintances (don't ask me how long they were lost. Let's save it for another blog later) as well as his other relatives (oh my! As if I don't have enough already!), kumpares and kumares (sadly, no long-lost ninongs or ninangs for me. There goes my aguinaldo on Christmas). Even his ex-girlfriend and the girl he almost courted. THE ABSOLUTE HORROR!

THE ABSOLUTE HORROR! HORROR! ABSOLUTE!

My dad has found a constant (internet) companion with these lovely ladies who we shall hide under the codenames X1 and X2. Both are in US, and with the time difference between our country and theirs, it's convenient for them to chat up my dad.

....who is online every single night. He is on Facebook but I don't really know much about his online activities because he did one thing I didn't see coming.

HE BLOCKED ME AND MY SISTER ON FACEBOOK *gaspgaspdoubledoseofcursingandwhatnots*

Yes, fellow netizens. My father, whose flesh and blood were a part of my genetic structure, has decided that he doesn't want to see or know about my activities, statuses about my rantings in life, and links that could potentially interest him.

When asked for the reason on blocking us, his two lovely ladies (ahemwalangkokontraahem): "Wala lang. Ayoko lang makita yung mga post ng mga kabataan ngayon. Nire-reject ko nga pag bata ang nag-add sa akin eh. Di ko lang type."

This statement must have been made with the jejemons in mind. Those ruthless, language-bending humanoids have scared my dad into internet safety. Hence, the blocking.

Hence, failing me of my stalking prowess. Damn. I so wanted to see who are those lovely ladies. Damn you, blocking! Damn you!


This is the MAN. Take note of the mustache.

Not Just Another Holiday.

[photo credits to wikipedia, edited by me]

Tomorrow, we shall celebrate National Heroes' Day (Araw ng mga Bayani) and according to wikipedia, we celebrate it yearly on the last Monday of August. Along with this celebration, we also commemorate the famous Cry of Pugad Lawin by the Katipunan as led by Ka Andres Bonifacio.

But for us yuppies and students, it's just another holiday - no classes and no work with all day to play. Tsk tsk.

Whenever did we start knowing the meaning and importance of these holidays? We remember them and gingerly mark them on our calendars at the start of the new year, eargerly making plans for that much awaited long weekend and holiday economics (as coined by our former president, GMA). We book flights whenever airlines declare seat sales (which may turn out to be a farce and a conspiration against the flying population. heh. bitter much) and map out itinerary faster than we can say "manong, para ho!" to a speeding jeepney from hell. As I've said, the meaning of such holidays is completely lost on us. Ask any jejecap-wearing teenager or a Havaianas-slippered sosyalera what are we celebrating tomorrow. Come on. Ask them. Or better yet, ask yourself.

Am I starting to see that familiar blank face whenever we see impossible exam questions? Hmm. I knew it.

Well for starters, you could think of what your grandparents did when World War II erupted. They would have a couple of stories on survival and anecdotes of what life was back then. They had bomb shelters and quivered in fear when Japanese troops invaded barrios. There were countless rape victims, stories as told by the comfort women during that time. The boys grew up fast and signed up for the military. Those who were already fighting the war died and dropped like flies.

My maternal grandfather, Lolo Jovencio Lagmay, was an army sergeant in the military. My mom used to tell me that my Lolo Ben was one of the few survivors of the infamous Death March. He never went home for a time and they figured he was already dead so they held a padasal for him. They were on the 40th day of the padasal when he suddenly appeared on the doorway. Everyone scrambled for cover because they thought he was a ghost!

After the war, my Lolo Ben settled with his wife in a shanty somewhere in Aparri, Cagayan. They lived off on pension that he received while he waited for a letter from the US, granting him American citizenship and finally rewarding him after fighting on the side of the Kanos. But he was too weak when he received the letter and long travel is no longer advisable. He died a poor man. But other than that, he was not given recognition nor prestige for being a good military man and serving the country. Or should I say, countries.

There are a lot more stories like my Lolo Ben's. War veterans who, in their heydays, fought bravely and looked at Death unflinchingly. They are not like the Manila policemen who had to stick closely to the bus so they won't get shot dead. War veterans who died waiting for their rewards and reminiscing about their glory days. They are not like the policemen who sit around and order people while they reward themselves with hefty bonuses and glorify their fat, sorry asses.

These war veterans are the heroes. They are the bidas in the movies of their so-called lives. Let us remember them. The heroes. Your grandparents. Your parents. After all, tomorrow is National Heroes' Day.

After being cooped up in a classroom-like setting for my 2-day training, I have decided that I wanted to learn more and go back to school. But to become a full-time, or even a part-time, student would not suit me well since that would mean foregoing some of my time in exchange for being cooped up in and fed with theorems and ideas.

Aaaaah. Additional knowledge in exchange for my precious time. I have utilized my precious time cavorting with el bf

Fefer Erflens.

Paper airplanes, or fefer erfleyns as we like to call them, remind me of a time I was a newbie in the office and we'd throw paper airplanes in our spare time. Over such origami and laughter, I became closer to a friend. Secrets were told and familiarities cropped up at some point in time. It was the time that no one minded us and our crazy antics, the time that everyone treated us like kids because I was in my early 20's while she was barely out of her teens. But time decided to hop on of our own paper airplanes and zoomed past all our childishness. Before we knew it, we were both in our mid-20's while those paper airplanes decided to carry us to maturity and growth. At some point, our paper airplanes would each have to choose a path of their own to take us with them. We would both reach the end via different routes, routes chosen by our own paper airplanes.

Amidst all these traveling, one thing shall remain constant. That is the presence of paper airplanes in our lives at some point. We found someone to share our craziness with, someone who dreamed with us over paper airplanes.