MY TEN RANDOM FACTS

i been parpolised by an award! thanks to tintintetay for this :D

Here are the rules:
- Each blogger must post these rules.
- Each blogger starts with ten random facts/habits about themselves.
- Bloggers that are tagged need to write ten facts about themselves.
- You need to choose ten people to tag and list their names.
- Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they've been tagged and also to read your blog.


okay...random facts about me:

1. i used to climb a lot as a kid: trees, walls, rooftops, cabinets, etc. you name it, i've been up on it first and fastest. i taught my brothers to do it and never had a fall. we'd gauge a wall, spotting hand/foot holds and the best route to take to a perch and just launch up. sometimes to get from one place to another, we'd have to climb one end of a wall and balance beam to the other end. nevermind if it was a twelve-foot drop on either side for a scrawny kid. our parents and neighbors gave up on trying to make us stay down and just prayed we never had an accident. my philosophy was, i didn't climb anything i couldn't stay on top of. i hated getting hurt and having to go to the hospital, so that was incentive enough for me to be good at what i did. but sadly, the glory days of height were soon over when my mother figured out she could put us to good use cleaning the rain drains of leaves and overripe fruit that fell from the trees towering above our rooftops. it wasn't so much fun after that. haha.

2. i hate needles. the kind that they stick in you at the hospital. i am deathly afraid of something happening while they stick me with the needles and they rip out my veins. with all due respect to everyone in the medical profession, i am just afraid. i pleaded with the nurses and my doctors to be gentle when i was giving birth and they wer putting on the dextrose. but oh, lucky me...they had to give me shots almost every other hour with different medicines because i was hypertensive, going 180/100. the bad part of it was i've never had so many needles stuck in me in my entire life! i felt like a pincushion! and i hate needles!

3. i can live on books. i can lock myself in my room with books to read and just go out to eat, do my girly business and go back to reading. i can not talk to people for an indefinite period of time as long as i have a good book. yes. i am a bookworm of the worst kind. i was banned from the library as a child for reading too much. they told me to go outside and play. i was like, what? get dirty and scabby while all those books are begging to be read? worlds are waiting to be discovered and explored! and they said yeah, nice try. go play... so i went. and got caught in the cross-fire of a water balloon fight. to think i was wearing my nice pink dress and white stockings. dammet. i went back and got a book and read in a quiet corner of the playground.

4. i played cards for money in college. not all the time, just whenever i'd REALLY need funds (which at least just happened 2-3 times only. damn xeroxed readings!). my luck ran strictly along those lines. whenever i'd run out of money for necessities, i played for the pot. not that we were hard-up, but i made it a point not to be a burden to my parents and go beyond my allowance. however, those readings and research projects really can cost a student a lot, so sometimes, i wouldn't have anything left for lunch or for fare going home. i walked home when i could, but having classes all day would drive me to play so i could have fuel for my brain. i'm not a hot shot player, but my luck would only work when i really needed the money...something along the lines of, when all else fails....and i'd win the pot. i just knew that if i played for profit or pushed the limit of my luck, i'd lose what i won. so i'd always quit while i was ahead. of course my opponents always wanted to win the money back and i'd get a stare down as i beat it out of there. still, they know i never play to rip them off. after all, i'm only following tradition. my dad did it, playing cards and shooting pool for food and fare, and so did my brothers. but always never for profit.

5. i like spaghetti noodles with kare kare and bagoong. nope, don't knock it til you've tried it. it's true pinoy pasta hehe! i first had this while infanticipating with Oona.

6. i am a frustrated violinist and ballet dancer. i can't play the instrument even if my life depended on one silken tone. and i have two left feet plus about a hundred pounds unsuitable for a tutu.

7. i wanted to be a pilot and an astronaut. buuuut i couldn't make the height requirement and all that math gave me vertigo.

8. the first dream i remember is about worms floating in my bedroom. i was about 3 years old at the time, my mom says. squiggly, sesame street worms floated in the dark. i kinda freaked out about it because i knew i was supposed to be asleep and worms didn't do that. let's not ask Freudian dream interpreters what that dream meant.

9. i'm a sucker for road trips. i love travel. if i can travel (in style of course!) for a living with my family in tow, i would! especially the beach. but i love mountains too. i think i'm at my most peaceful when i'm on the road. i'm lucky rf shares my joy of the open road. we try to indulge ourselves whenever time and money permit!

10. i am a die-hard, dyed in the wool, true blue romantic. i may be a liberated, opinionated, strong-minded woman of the latest independent breed who can outlast, outthink and outdrink most creatures of the other sex; but i love surprises, doors being held open for me and flowers on special occasions. i love walks in the park, sunsets, rose petals on my bed and a man who woos me and sweeps me off my feet. i read romance novels ( i love a good bodice ripping story) and swear solemnly by wine and candlelight dinners. poetry, handwritten notes and lazy afternoons with feathers rank way up there with a hot, sweaty salsa night and being kidnapped for a secret rendezvous.   

i now hereby tag MEC, Jonas, Johnny, Den, Jimbo, Jen Trajano, JenCC, Elapot, John Becaro, Pheng, Lette and Rei! 

My Kid Rocks The Classics

We've been spending the past three weeks at my parents' house. Typical of a household of artists, Oona's been getting a music education courtesy of my family's collection of CDs ranging from Vivaldi to Yngwie Malmsteen, from the Beatles to the PussyCatDolls. So far, we found out Oona's got a taste for the classics: Chuck Mangione, Jimi Hendrix, the Zombies and most especially, Velvet Underground. She's been swaying, jumping, hopping and bopping (with the occasional wiggle here and there) in an evolving interpretative dance routine. She's managed to insert significant pauses and facial expressions into the programme as well!

We're still waiting to see what other stuff she likes and if this musical journey will somehow transform her into another Einstein, Eisenstein or just give her a weird taste in music her future Kindergarten class will find so unique, it will merit a mention in their school yearbook. 

On My Thirtieth, On My Godparents and Me

i have turned a grand, glorious old age this year! THIRTY! and as the way of the universe goes, it's a time for introspection for me, more than any other time. so many things have happened in the closing of my twenties that i really ought to be more depressed than jubilant.

for now, i want to share my ninang linda's birthday letter to me and my reply to her and my lupon (battalion) of godparents. it's my fondest wish that oona will have the same experience (oreven better) with her own set of godparents. my ninongs and ninangs have always managed to be part of my life in the truest sense of their being my godparents. it's not the gifts or monetary equivalent of their presence, but their guidance and involvement from the little things to the major events and milestones in my life. my ninang fe, ninang chi and ninong jun are even our ninangs and ninong at my wedding! i personally felt that it was just right that the people who were called to guide me would still be the ones to help us through another milestone in the life rf and i share.

***

ninang linda is the ninang i saw least of all my fabulous ninangs and ninongs (most are from my parents' set of dear friends from the UP Mobile Theater). however, her birthday letter touched me deeply as it reflects the bonds we share as ninang and goddaughter. 

dear, dear laya:  

i was about your age when told by one of my own ninangs that she couldn't believe how the little doll she once held in her arms to receive the sacrament of baptism was now writing her...  

and such is the cycle of life.  it's our turn to tell you how hard it is to believe that the little girl who lay on my own baguio bed once now runs her own gig.  

happy birthday sweety, and have the best always.  

ninang linda

***

how long and short our lives really are and how incredibly they intertwine with people we love. having a child, i can only just imagine how i would feel when my own Oona turns thirty. how time flies, doesn't it? she made me so nostalgic and introspective . . . the right mood, i guess, for a soul-searching 30th birthday.

and here is my reply to her and the rest of my beloved ninongs and ninangs.

to my dearest, the most beautiful, talented, glorious and taray ninangs (and ninongs) ever (shempre nagmana ako and of course, ninong freddie is the tarayest of them all!),

thank you so much for the happy thoughts and birthday wishes! i truly felt the love across the digital space! we may not always have been present in the everyday aspects of each other's lives, but the grace of your presence/s has always managed to be felt. 

i find myself really amazed that i've been alive for thirty years. to some it seems the end of the world, leaving their twenties, but not so with me. i feel like the world is my oyster...again! it's funny, but i felt energized when i realized i made it to my "grand old age" (according to my soul sisters, of whom some are biologically boys), as opposed to pop culture where we're supposed to be depressed at the onset of the "mature years". what i can't believe is how excited i am about this next leg of my life adventure! my past year has been an uphill climb and still continues to be, but now it feels like the slow climb of a roller coaster before it dives for the mother of all loop-de-loops.

we, my friends and hubby, have decided to celebrate my 30th for as long as we possibly can. my dearest and bestest friends being scattered all over the globe, it's impossible to have a proper bash so we'll have to do it by installments. personally though, i plan to celebrate everyday. i've only started being thirty last night and my retrospection have only just begun so we figure it's going to take a full year (or more) for a proper festive celebration of what it means to me.

i expect a lot of changes in my life, a lot of letting go's and a lot of coming full circles. i can only thank the universe for the constancy of my roots, of which you are all an indelible part, that gives me strength and assurance in the cycle of life. i feel truly blessed to have been part of your lives from my very beginnings. through the wisdom of my parents (did i say that out loud?! hehehehe) that secured strong women, men and glorious gays in guardianship over me as my godparents, i can truly feel the touch of the goddess as i go through my own cycles as maiden, mother and far off into the future, as wise crone. 

so far, my hubby says he likes being married to a thirty-year old and my daughter doesn't seem to mind it when my knees are killing me and i can't crawl on the floor with her. i look forward to whatever my life is going to bring me from this point onward. i just know it's got to be more interesting, nerve-wracking and fulfilling as the previous years that have brought me here. it's already an auspicious start to the year when i realized i can now look down past my boobs to the floor without my tummy getting in the way! hah!

again, thank you for being part of my life, my ninangs and ninongs! i doubt my life would ever be the same without you.

love ever, 

your Laya

***

i may not know them all through and through, and they may not know me like my own parents do. but i know, that should anything have happened to my parents, none of them would have hesitated to have stepped into the myriad roles i would have needed in my life to grow into a person to be proud of. 

i hope, after thirty years of life, they can all look at me and say that the blessings they bestowed upon my infant head have truly been well-tended and fruitful. all i can say is i've certainly had one heckuva ride! :)