Tagged (again)!

Wooohoo! A break from work! Internet’s down, so I finally found time to compose an entry for mineistheearth. There’s plenty to say after more than a week’s absence online, so this is the perfect time to say them. Besides, my boss can’t blame me. I HAVE to do something while I’m here in his office, don’t I?


INSTRUCTIONS: Remove the blog in the top spot from the following list and bump everyone up one place. Then add your blog to the bottom slot, like so.

1) Pointless Drivel
2) Shelli’s Sentiments
3) Curiosity Killer
4) Chrissy
5) Kim

Next select five people to tag: (if you haven’t done it already)
1) Winky
2) Raymond
3) Leigh
4) Ganns
5) Idjea


What were you doing 10 years ago?
I was about to start my freshman year at the Ateneo de Manila University. Come June 1997, I learned how to struggle graciously with a couple of subjects: Filipino 1 and PE (Fitness Walking)! I was never good at physical activities, but at least the gym workouts now are helping me compensate.


What were you doing 1 year ago?
I was starting my new job. :-)


Five snacks you enjoy
1) Nagaraya regular or adobo-flavoured crunchy peanuts
2) Canned peaches in syrup
3) Chocolate wafers
4) Ham with mayo on wheat bread and a glass of milk
5) Oreos and a glass of milk


Five songs to which you know all the lyrics:
1) Smooth (Santana feat. Rob Thomas)
2) Love Moves in Mysterious Ways (Julia Fordham)
3) Again (Janet Jackson)
4) Sana Maulit Muli (Gary Valenciano)
5) You Oughta Know (Alanis Morissette)
Note: I've memorised other songs, but these are the top five that I feel I can blog about without blushing.


Five things you would do if you were a millionaire:
1) Spruce up my folks’ home in Quezon City and purchase the title to my family’s ancestral home in Paco, Manila

2) Upgrade and buy up everything on my list of “I Wants”

3) Go on a trip around the world with someone special

4) Put up my own business – preferably something related to food and/or clothes

5) After accomplishing items 1-4, I’d start a pension fund, which would be, at most, 20% of my remaining net worth, and then I'd contribute the rest to charities that would benefit Filipino street children.


Five bad habits:
1) I smoke.
2) I crave for chocolate way too much.
3) I blog at work, something I really shouldn’t be doing.
4) I gossip. Kindly. :-)
5) I drink coffee as if it’s water.


Five things you like doing:
1) Travelling
2) Writing – hence, the blog. D'oh!
3) Reading Nora Roberts novels – my guilty pleasure
4) Singing in the shower
5) Having Wednesday or Friday night drinks with my Maddoggers!


Five things you would never wear again:
1) Anything with a floral pattern printed on it – these clothing items should be banned from the face of the earth, forever!

2) Butterfly clips to tie back my hair. They are soooooo ten years ago, man.

3) Fitted pants. My thighs have already revolted and won against these things.

4) Stockings without garter clips holding them up on my legs during a job interview - I did this only once in my life, when I had an interview for an internship position at J. Walter Thompson (one of the world’s largest ad agencies). The stockings started rolling down my legs as I descended a staircase, on my way down to the ladies’ powder room to re-touch my make-up. Due to highly strung nerves, I accidentally ripped the bloody hose as I pulled them up. I had to go bare-legged during the interview. It was just my luck that I forgot to shave my legs that day, too. *sigh*

5) Runny mascara during a job interview – After I took off the torn hose (please see #4), I was already sweating cats and dogs inside the very hot restroom. I checked myself in the mirror and simultaneously wiped dripping sweat off of my brow. Horrifyingly, a straight black line appeared from one end of my right brow to the other end of left brow, as soon as I put my hand down from my face.
Note: I still got the job at J. Walter Thompson, despite items 4-5.


Five favorite toys:
1) My PDA
2) My car
3) My office laptop – which I bring home to watch DVD’s on
4) My gym’s ab machine
5) My sister’s mobile phone, since mine sucks.

Burned!

A trip down to the town of San Juan in Batangas was exactly what the doctor ordered for me this past weekend. Expect another "Fun in the Sun" entry to be posted here soon (insert: I just love love love the fact that I live two to three hours away from a good beach - north, south, east, or west.)

However, the prescribed "drug" I took this weekend turned out to be addictive, waaaay too addictive... Today, I look as if I deliberately boiled myself alive. Head first. From my hairline down to my underarms, I'm an Oompa-Loompa personified. Oi vey.

The Dances That I’ll Never Dance Again

I love to dance.

By myself.

And, in private.

My moves are never ever to be seen in public. They’ve been known to stop traffic and cause horrendous appalling accidents that could have been avoided in the first place. But I’m game with trying new things at least once in my life. So, when my gym trainer suggested that I try out the aerobic classes they were offering to all gym members, I thought, “Sure, why the heck not? How bad could it be?”

Well, I found out a few days ago exactly how bad it CAN be. It can be stupendously horrible, atrociously bad, and hideously awful. First off, the aerobics instructor was a man - one who is more girly-girl than I am. Jesus, he has an hour-glass figure and a flexible frame. He has shaved legs, too, to boot! Second, he was very very good, but had a soft soft voice. I stood at the back of the class and struggled to hear his instructions. To my mortification, I found myself with a pair of tangled legs, two lead arms, a dreadful rhythm, and THE sweatiest body to hit that dance floor EVER.

As I went through the class, I distinctly heard him instruct us to do the “mambo,” the “cha-cha-cha,” and the “boogie” several times during the exercise routine. My gawd, I have not had any training whatsoever in dance (except the ballet, when I was five years old), so I ended up massacring all three dance steps. My brain and my hips swayed in opposite directions; my two left feet brought me crashing into other students; and, my stiff hands stubbornly clutched at my waist.

I checked my watch – I’ve only been in the class for 20 minutes and I decided I’ve had enough. The instructor has ordered us to pair up... Pair up?! No friggin’ way. I’d much rather take my individual humiliation and drown myself in a Jacuzzi. Moral lesson learnt: I’ll stick to fantasizing about Patrick Swayze in Dirty Dancing, Mikhail Baryshnikov in White Nights, Channing Tatum in Step Up, and Marques Houston in You Got Served. No more dreaming about dancing like the stars.

But, I’ll still hippity-hop my way around my 30-sqm condo to the sound of Jojo’s Too Little Too Late any darned time I want to, thank you very much.

Dear God

Thank you for not making me a young mommy. Below is the reason why I think you made me choose not to have kids surrounding me 24 x 7 x 365. They’ll probably drive me to drink too early too soon. But, lawdy, I just gotta love ‘em. And, thank you, for creating such wickedly funny people (teachers, most probably) who post these things on the Net, too.




And, God, please don't hate me, but I sooooooo agree with these following prayers:


Indeed, why DID you create siblings, particularly sisters, in the first place? I could have been much much happier as a single child.

Nevertheless, I acknowledge that you are omniscient and omnipotent. Elliot summed up my sentiments quite well, to tell you the truth:


Amen.

Stuck

Dedicated to Conne and PJ. Thanks for the ride yesterday. Also dedicated to our office building’s administrator/manager. May you rot eternally in your own edifice.

Yesterday afternoon, I decided to hitch a ride with my friends, Conne and PJ, to my condo because rains started to pour down in the middle of the sweltering humidity we’ve been experiencing recently in this part of the world. Conne and I packed up our laptops and boarded the elevator that would take us down from the fourth level of our office building to the ground floor, where PJ was waiting. Ten seconds into the ride, the elevator car’s lights abruptly shut off, throwing us into pitch black darkness. Simultaneously, we heard an ominous thump and felt the car’s floor bump heavily against our feet. We mentally screamed: we’re stuck.

I swear, it was the longest minute of my life. Conne started wheezing (ladylike-ly, of course), and whipped out her mobile phone so we would have some semblance of light inside the 50-year-old elevator carriage. I silently prayed that there would be a button on the control panel that would signify “EMERGENCY. "A prayer was essential because some naughty building tenants had been scraping the labels off of the elevators’ buttons. Thankfully, though, there it was – a bedazzling yellow button with a black bell drawn on it. I pressed on it. Nothing. I pressed it again, harder. Still nothing. We mentally screamed: we’re stuck.

And I could not find my blasted mobile phone inside my personal black hole (i.e., my bag). So, I shouted for help. Conne breathed even more heavily (but ladylike-ly, of course). I shouted louder, and thought, “Is this it??? My end has come in the form of a 1x3x7-foot elevator cab, with dirty white walls that had badly scrawled curse words drawn on them?” I mentally screamed: I don’t even have a bloody boyfriend who’ll miss having me around!

Suddenly, the lights came back on. We heard a whirring sound (the elevator motor, I presumed), and praised whatever god there may be, for it seemed as if our ordeal with the small, bad, elevator was over. Another sixty seconds later, the doors chug-a-chugged opened. Hallelu - - wait - - where are we? On the seventh freakin’ floor. Never mind, never mind. We found a staircase and started our descent. We mentally screamed: we’re free.

While waiting for us inside his car, PJ fumed. We had made him late for his next appointment. We screamed: we got stuck.

Ten Weird Facts About Kim.

Thanks for tagging me, Conne! This kept me from drooling over my laptop at work today. Mega bored, man.

1. I can drive any type of commercial vehicle (even prefer stick shifts over automatic transmissions) and manoeuvre a yacht. I’m fairly confident that I can fly a plane, which is why I’m already searching for good flight schools. But - I do not know how to ride a bicycle.
2. I own over 80 bags. I only have about 15 pairs of shoes.
3. I abhor soft drinks.
4. I can speak fluent Chinese (Fookien, to be more exact) but cannot write in that language.
5. Similar to the fact that I need three alarm clocks before I feel compelled to get out of bed, I need (on average) three cups of very very black coffee (no sugar, no cream) every morning before my brain can function normally.
6. I use my right hand to write and to hold chopsticks, but I use my left hand in just about every other one-handed type of activity – playing badminton/tennis, texting on a mobile phone, carrying a bag, holding a cue stick, using a calculator, etc.
7. I recently bought a trendy-looking black trench coat to wear in the office. It’s 38 degrees Celsius outside.
8. I’m allergic to Maybelline lipsticks.
9. Like Chrissy, I’m also allergic to certain types of metals that are being commercially used to make earrings. Also, apparently, my ears prefer earrings made of gold. Too bad, gold earrings are so not in fashion now. Hence, I let my ears suffer.
10. I can only passionately play one piano piece from memory: Beethoven’s “Für Elise.” The first part only. I don’t know how to play how to play the second part.

Action-Packed Weekends

The past two weekends saw me enjoying two wild Hollywood movies: Antoine Fuqua’s “Shooter” and Sam Raimi’s “Spider-Man 3.” With a tummy stuffed full of caramel-covered popcorn and store-bought orange juice (this may seem like a yucky combination to some, but I actually prefer this to popcorn and soda. I hate soda/soft drinks) during these last two movie outings, I have to say I was on a pseudo-adrenalin rush.

Mark Wahlberg portrayed Bob Lee Swagger. Bob Lee (oi, whatta name! *muffled laughter*) is a disillusioned military sharpshooter/marksman who sequestered himself from the world when his spotter and best friend had been killed in a mission gone awry. Tobey Maguire’s Peter Parker/Spider-Man, on the other hand, is a revered super hero saving New York City from the weirdest and most deadly enemies NYC has ever seen (spoiler: it’s a good thing the Sandman saw the error of his ways at the end of the film, for how, indeed, can you destroy sand?). True, Spidey hides his real identity from his adoring fans, but it’s only because he wants to protect his loved ones from harm. Unlike him, Bob Lee hides from the world because he felt that he needed to.

The difference between the two characters and the two movies is the result of the two different men who helmed the creation of these films. Fuqua used to direct music videos – he had actually won industry recognition for directing Coolio’s 1993 “Gangsta Paradise” video – and eventually moved into mainstream film making. I had watched three of his previous works: “Training Day” (starring Denzel Washington and Ethan Hawke), “Tears of the Sun” (with Bruce Willis and Monica Belucci), and “King Arthur” (where I first got to ‘know’ Clive Owens and Kiera Knightley). Comparing these past works with “Shooter,” though, I think that Fuqua has not lived up to the hype. Oh, Wahlberg’s great and everything, but it didn’t drive me wanting to relive the film all over again (which is my personal “metric” of what a great film is). In King Arthur, I wanted to be like Knightley’s Guinevere and I decided that Owens was the best Arthur ever (even though I didn’t originally think that he was right for the role). In “Training Day,” I bawled my way through most of the film, and wished that military men in real life ARE as dedicated, idealistic, and yummylicious-looking as the ones Willis and his comrades played onscreen were. In Training Day, I absolutely hated Washington’s misdirected and rogue cop character, and debated with friends about the ethics of the tactics used in today’s crime-fighting world. With Shooter, I merely watched the film, ate my popcorn silently, and wondered about why the movie ended the way that it did.

Raimi’s “Spider-Man 3” is another story: it abso-bloody-lutely rocked! And, he’s finally found a way to contain and control Mary Jane’s annoying screams! I think choosing Topher Grace to play Eric Brock/Venom was just perfect – I never could tell Grace and Maguire apart . There are some scenes that screamed “guilty pleasure!!!” scattered throughout the film (i.e., Peter dancing that nerdy dance in front of a boutique, MJ and Peter canoodling on a huge spider web), and I blushingly giggle at them. Raimi does have a sixth sense when it comes to knowing what his audience wants. I usually end up thinking, “well, that show was a wee bit embarrassing, but what the heck, I loved it anyway). C’mon, admit it. You watched “Xena: The Warrior Princess” and “Hercules” on TV at some point in your life, too… I grudgingly admit that I did. Every week. And I wore black for an entire week after both shows suddenly dropped out of boob tube existence.

Watching these two films were exhilarating, heart-pumping, and mind-boggling (*sigh* Philippine cinema has yet to catch up, unfortunately). Nothing else has the ability to take my attention away from everyday problems. Now, I am soooooooo looking forward to Harry Potter: Order of the Phoenix, Shrek the Third, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Transformers, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, Knocked Up, etc. etc. etc. Man, my savings look like they’re gonna be depleted this summer.