Googly, Giggly

#154: And Quickly Going for the Kill

She gave him googly eyes. (With googly meaning scanning his retina for any hint of reciprocation of her adoration.) Sheep eyes was what another blogger called it. She was making sheep eyes at him - she who had a boyfriend somewhere. (In her pocket perhaps? He was peculiarly absent in conversations.) She touched his cheek at some point, almost cupping his face. Ah, the angel has her tricks.

The relationship is on the rocks, she explains with a pained look that's almost real. She's uncertain about her future with him. But see, the present is here for the seizing! Tall and lean with wide-eyed browns that speak thousands of words they probably don't even intend to convey.

She slinks about shyly - if slinking can be done with shyness, and continues her agenda through the night. If this deal pulls through, she'll have someone to catch her even before she and her boyfriend are through.

Australia Day

A Day at the Beach: One of the Most Aussie Ways of Celebrating Oz Day


Supposedly Candid but Uncannily Posed.


Olivier: Sweetest French Guy On Earth. (Okay, on the beach that day.)


Just in case you forget what holiday we're celebrating.


Capuccine (Olivier's Wife), Double OOlivier, Nicolas (hiding his severely barbered head under a cap so his brain doesn't get fried.)

How To Deal

#153: With Not Knowing

I don't know how to deal...

With heels that look good but are not practical for taking 10-minute walks to the bus stop with 5 kgs. of junk on each shoulder. With sneakers that are right but do not fit my pants or my bracelet or the non-sloppy look that I am going for in school. With white shirts that have red color runs because I placed a Coca-Cola shirt with the white laundry. With awkward attempts at conversation and straighforward invitations for football games, cowboy parties and beach BBQs. With unexpected silence from the one you expect to speak and the outpouring of words from one you least expect.

I don't know how to...

Read in the house without falling asleep. Log on without chatting. Watch tennis on TV without getting bored. Pronounce a classmate's French name without feeling embarassed. Answer.

I don't know how...

I get through the day with a mere 1000 calorie food intake. I've allowed myself to live within walking distance of the beach without going there. I've been able to wake up each day for an 8am class with less than 5 hours of sleep. I always seem to attract trouble whenever I let someone get close.

I don't know...

If it was very Meg Ryan of me to walk barefoot from the bus stop to the house today or if that was pure "ghetto." If Coke Zero's ad is good apart from the cute lead character. If it's even possible to keep friendship when lines have been crossed. If being Asian gives me the excuse to be indirect.

I don't...

Want to end up in the same situation I was in 4 years ago. Want girlfriends accusing me of something I'm not guilty of. Want to even come close. Want to think at this point because it's Australia Day tomorrow and no one should think on holidays.

I...

Will just go to Coogee Beach tomorrow.
And walk barefoot on the sand.
And float my worries away on a giant pink slipper.

Resurrection of Rain

#152: Remembering Rain

Here comes the rain again
Falling on my head like a memory
Falling on my head like a new emotion...

------------

It's been raining the past 7 days here in Sydney. And it's the cold kind of rain that sends random shivers up your skin. Sleep has been kind. Each morning opens up possibilities but each night calls into account the ones that have closed. Much like counting change on the bus ride home.

My mind wanders off to a forgotten time when he was the apple of my childish eye - the one who moved like a swan amongst barefoot children who walked more like chickens. When he turned to look, you yearned to be at the right spot so you could receive the glance, though devoid of real meaning. His were eyes you could drown in. And drown, I did. There was no other reason. No other merit by which I could justify my innocent craving. He was merely beautiful to behold and that was enough to sustain me from fourth grade till 2003. His name is Rain.

And he was the last of my childhood that I had had to discard. As you grow older, you start asking the harder question of "why." Why do you like this person? Why do you look at him this way? Why do you think there is a chance? Why do you think there isn't? And so the list grows longer and longer until feeling is reduced to the rational. "I think I feel" has more weight than a naked "I feel." I no longer trust "I feel."

But when it rains and it's cold and you catch glimpses of his eyes in a roomful of strangers, your heart leaps once more at the memory of that unreasonable fire which burns on nothing but air. Rain returns to stride across the room and command your gaze. He resurrects to call you to throw out your life vest and drown in his eyes. For a second, you embrace his gaze... and in the next, you find yourself riding the bus home counting your change.

Internationally Domestic

151: Domesticated Diva, International Lola

Cornstarch. Why does this house not have cornstarch? Oh yeah, because I'm doing the groceries now and no longer my mom. Mental note: get cornstarch. Asian homes need to have cornstarch. But hey, I'm proud to say that even without it, I'm cooking our dinners. Plus doing laundry, washing dishes, the whole household managing thing... Goodness. Who would've thought I would get domesticated? (Even my mom had given up hope.)

So today is the 5th day of B-School. And while everyone is promising hellish workloads over the next 18 months, someone made sure that our first week was all about spoiling and feeding us truckloads of free food. (Reminds me of the practice of feeding an animal the best stuff just before slaughter.) We got our course materials today and I was pretty much pleased that I didn't break my back carrying them from the releasing office to the locker. (I could've gotten paralyzed across the 4 meters that I had to cross. But then that would've been better than the torturous lawn bowling experience I had to go through today.)

As part of the "socializing/getting-to-know-you" drive, the school organized a Lawn Bowling activity for all MBA students (a large majority of which had not encountered Lawn Bowling before.) It should've been okay. I was wearing the only rubber shoes I was able to bring, along with the only hardcore sportshirt I had... only to be told that to do Lawn Bowling, you had to take off your shoes (yes, and walk barefoot across the wet lawn) and forget about your shirt because Lawn Bowling actually goes on even under pneumonia-inducing rain.

I hated the game. One, because I can't get it right. Two, because there was no time to create a system to get it right. I remember one of the exercises in our Six Sigma Training which involved getting a golfball straight into this cup to accumulate a group score of 500. The farther you are from the cup, the lesser the points. A hole-in-one gets you 20 points or so. Anyway, the trick in that game is to practice, practice, practice until you develop a personal system for getting it right - or at least close. Our trainer called it, "Eliminating variances." I ended up with the highest number of points, hence pulling the group score up. "And you know why Gladys got the highest score? Because she was the one who kept on having a go at it... not giving up until she found a system to achieve precision..." Ah yes. That's probably the trainer's technical way of saying, "She practically hogged the good golf club and crossed over to fanaticism." I guess he was pretty proud of himself to have been a very good Six Sigma trainer.

So the day ends with me chucking - not just the lawn bowling ball - but the whole concept of the evil game itself. (Okay, it's not evil. I just don't like it.) I can't really tell if this is a good Friday or not. There are just days which you can't classify outright as being good or bad.

The whole week however was fabulous. There's nothing like having tea with someone from Ireland, Indonesia, Japan, India and Lebanon, then sitting down for lunch with people from France, Belgium, Germany, Canada, Switzerland, Tonga, Sri Lanka, Malaysia. (Without getting intimidated, mind you. I mean, I practically surprised myself. Why is this so much easier than my orientation week in another environment a year ago?) I'm loving it. When I gave my introduction before the whole class, I think I was able to do it in true vivaglam way (good balance of seriousness and goofiness. Sorry, I really can't take the goofiness out). The Dean made a positive comment on it over lunch. The program coordinator tagged me as the class's Glamour Girl after that session for reasons that confused me. Talk about recall.

Talk as well about the exhilarating experience of turning domestic and International at the same time. Have I already said I'm loving it?

Australian Sinigang

#150: A Familiar Bowl of the Unfamiliar

There was a local movie a few years back called, "American Adobo." I didn't get to see it but it supposedly covered typical lives of Filipino immigrants in the US. When we were in London last year, our aunt, for our first meal with her, declared that we should all have Adobo - this pork stewed in soy sauce, vinegar and peppercorns that's a staple in Filipino tables. (Uhm. Why? We're in London. Aren't you supposed to introduce us to Bangers and Mash?) Apparently, she had missed the dish so much that our family's visit meant that my mom (who cooks excellent adobo), could cook her excellent adobo for her. My mom did everything right, but since the soy sauce was not Silver Swan, the vinegar was not Datu Puti, and the pork was not the Filipino pork raised on PigroMix, it tasted weird.

Here in the Sydney, I'm temporarily living with 5 other Filipinos in a house that's no longer Filipino. It does still have its fish sauce but strangely, no subscription to The Filipino Channel on cable. Two of the guys here are already Australian Citizens with the others working towards that as well. Tagalog is still the official household language but they speak of the "Lucky Country" as their own and of the Philippines as a distant land. A memory of a previous home in a previous life.

Last night, they cooked Sinigang for dinner. I don't know how to cook sinigang. I just know that ours at home is on the clearer and more sour side. This one had lots of tomatoes, had huge chunks of radish and had soft Aussie beef. It was really good but as I looked at my bowl, I wondered if it was still Sinigang or it was an Aussie dish based on the memory of another land.

Celebrating A New Chapter

#149: New Year in Sydney