Drinking Game

Gloria Arroyo’s State of the Nation address.

OK she includes things like the Nuclear Weapons Non-proliferation Treaty… this is significant how?  It’s as if we had something to proliferate in the first place.

Wonder how many people took out a keg and drank every time they heard or saw:

1. How successful the Philippines is now compared to the old days.
2. A bromide.
3. A really tired cliche.
4. A word very popular with college professors in the late 1800s.
5. Clapping idiots.
6. Arroyo mentioning her father.
7. An English word or phrase — like ‘emancipate’ and ‘microfinance loans’ — is inserted into a Filipino statement (meant to appeal to or for the benefit of the masses).
8. Subtle remarks aimed at political opponents.
9. How education and jobs have improved in the Philippines.
10. Filipinana formal wear in shocking colors or weird combinations
11. An Everyperson was “nandito” (and said Everyperson waved on cue).
12. A vague non-reference to Charter change.
13. A vague non-reference to running (or not running) for office again.

Meanwhile, we have a morning show at DZMM.  Pinky Webb filling in for Korina Sanchez for a morning talk show: “[Ano'ng ibig sabihin ng] ‘pussyfoot’?…  Kilabot… pwedeng magnakaw...”  Aargh.  Politicians, stop using words like ‘pussyfoot’ in speeches on national TV, and people who get to be commentators and journalists, please go back to school.

Funky Divas At 20

I came across an article in May 2008 that Dawn Robinson rejoined former group members Cindy Herron, Terry Ellis, and  Maxine Jones on some dates performing as En Vogue just April of that year.  On some dates, second replacement member Rhona Bennett filled in.  I was thinking, great… four original members on some gigs are better than no appearance together. But I didn’t think of the semi reunion much… in 2005, Robinson also briefly reunited with En Vogue only to back out soon after.  Apparently, business talks failed to come to a favorable agreement.

Rhona Bennett performs with Terry and Maxine during one of Cindy's maternity leaves.

I have this habit of checking up pop culture favorites and non-favorites — authors, actors, musicians, business people, companies, animators, thinkers, painters, toys, politicians, graphic artists, photographers — on their latest stuff when they have ‘em… one of the reasons I’m thankful we have the Net now (DSTS: yet another way of wasting time.  Get to work, woman!).  This kind of proves the saying you know you’re no longer young when you find yourself reminiscing more often than you used to.

So anyway, today I decided to look up old groups I liked when I was in high school.  After covering pop and grunge, I went on to R&B.  I look up En Vogue again and saw a Youtube post of EV on The View on May 11, when they announced their 20th anniversary tour… with Dawn Robinson.

The ladies today: Maxine Jones, Dawn Robinson, Cindy Herron, Terry Ellis. Look at Cindy's waist. She had four kids, dammit...

Before I go further… it’s actually been 20 years since that group was put together?  Man, now I really feel old.

I’m not a die hard fan — I also liked their contemporaries, SWV, TLC, Xscape, to name a few… but En Vogue had their own thing.  The group was conveniently classified into R&B, but then their sound and image were not exactly like those of most groups.  They started out looking like the usual 90s act — wore Color Me Badd-ish multicolored shorts with matching suit jackets on Oprah —  but eventually En Vogue projected kind of more like elegant, earthy glam, and many a fanboy rhapsodized about their classiness.  Brownstone and The Braxtons would come close, but not quite.  And yet whenever I caught them on TV (light skits, guesting in sitcoms; interviews), they came across as funny (nerdy nerds in A Different World) , accessible and down-to-earth, which was a refreshing change to the usual bitchy diva or keepin’ it real gangsta image many female R&B artists insisted on then. 

The package was pretty and well-balanced, designed for easy marketing.  Tall and svelte, Cindy Herron, a former beauty pageant contestant, I imagined, was drafted mainly to hook in mainstream pop consumers and people outside the general African-American audience.  In a funny bit they performed on In Living Color, she was heckled by Wanda (a hilarious cross-dressing, strategically-padded, perpetually puckered Jamie Foxx) as “light-skinned!”  The pretty, doe-eyed Terry Ellis had a girl-next-door charm; she had an engaging sense of humor and played off hosts the best during live interviews.  Maxine Jones is petite with a beauty that’s truly sista; her eyes are warm and beautiful with an interesting shade (not contacts).  I think many fans didn’t pay much attention to her as she was kind of serious and quiet when she talks, but I found her appealing and she displayed this enlightened quality.  I also thought her gap-toothed smile, more prominent in the earlier years, added much to that appeal.  She demonstrated the best acting abilities of the four members (seen when EV guested on Roc).  And we come to Dawn Robinson; I thought she had a very interesting combination of facial features.  Her eyes were sultry, like narrowed cat’s eyes, and she had full pouty lips.  She’s the youngest member, described as “feisty” by her older colleagues, and was acknowledged the real sexy one — out of their costumes, Cindy, Max and Terry rarely wore clothing that showed shoulders, legs, the midriff and a bit of cleavage like Dawn did.  They were attractive, but somehow their attractiveness never intimidated.  Sudden flashback on the number of hours spent trying to copy their sashaying walk in the video for “My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It)”.  And no, I didn’t get it (surprise), but it was fun — and funny — trying!

Of course, there’s the undeniable talent.  An En Vogue trademark was flawless three-part harmony in addition to all four members being capable of singing pyrotechnic leads, despite different vocal styles.  Cindy’s was the pop sounding lead voice — lighter than the rest and smooth, but with good strength; Maxine’s style of singing lead, I think, had the most sass and personality; Terry’s soulful, emotional solos are put to use in good parts of earnest love songs, and Dawn’s leads fairly crackled with spontaneity and passion.  I found it pleasant to see each member take turns being leads, unlike most groups that usually delegated lead vocals to one or two members (Mr. and Mrs. Knowles?  You couldn’t have been more subtle).

The earlier years saw En Vogue having more of a pop kind of R&B sound, very similar to the freestyle groups popular at the end of the 80s, and during this period Cindy usually led the fast songs (“Lies”, “Hold On”, “You Don’t Have To Worry”) with Terry taking over for ballads and syncopated solos (“Don’t Go”, the intro for “Hold On”).  Funky Divas showed more self-assured performances from the members, with Dawn and Maxine being featured on many singles (“Giving Him Something He Can Feel”, “My Lovin’ (You’re Never Gonna Get It)”, “Give It Up, Turn It Lose”, “Free Your Mind”).  Eventually exposure balanced out for all four.  My particular favorite EV song/video was “Runaway Love”, because Cindy and Terry each had a verse, Dawn broke it down in the bridge, and Maxine did the Barry White bit (spoken parts and bass) all throughout.  

At the peak of their popularity Dawn Robinson decided to leave the group to find herself and do different things.  Noted she didn’t become more popular than when she was with En Vogue, likewise EV3, while good, was not quite right, seemed like something was missing.  En Vogue almost faded to obscurity; not being songwriters, I guess the four depended on producers for the direction of their materials, which, after 1997, never surpassed what they were able to achieve in their heydey.  

Early replacement member Amanda Cole (right), when Maxine took time off for family and business.

Of course, there were also the years when Maxine Jones and Cindy Herron alternately took time off for family matters, thus introducing the replacement members Amanda Cole, then Rhona Bennett (a former Mouseketeer!). Performances were adequate but the magic wasn’t the same. 

Now all four ladies are back again, and for forty-year-olds they look great.  They were celebrity contestants for charity on Don’t Forget The Lyrics and they still sound great (Wayne Brady was, like, whoa, dream come true!).  There are talks of a 20th anniversary album. I have their Greatest Hits compilation in addition to Funky Divas and EV3… what are the chances to have the next album with new songs?  

Dawn, you’ll probably have your personal growth projects and valid issues with management and producers again, but please for the love of fans stay with the group, at least long enough for you and the girls churn out a couple of good albums again.  I’m asking this after years of having to sit though airplays of  Destiny’s Child (okay, Destiny’s Child occasionally worked on me, but the herky-jerky moves and wobbling repetitive lyrics in chorus can only take me so far… and how can I invest fan interest in DC for team dynamics when it’s really just Beyonce with conveniently shuffled back-ups?), Girlicious (seriously, aargh), and the Pussycat Dolls (a bunch of prancing Vegas showgirls installed with Nicole Shershrzzzthesinger).  Show ‘em how it’s done!  Don’t change your mind soon and happy touring.

Whoop! There It Is.

Ultrasound session. I waited for DSTS so he could participate.  The kid had other plans, however, and wouldn’t sit still long enough to uncross the legs and let the nice OB lady see the good stuff! Do you know I get the blame for this as well?  According to some scientific studies, the baby inherits its energy from the mother.  So if your mom is mild mannered or lethargic, the kid probably is, too.  And if the mother is hot-tempered and running all over the place, well… the baby will take after that.  I think this may be why Filipino tradition insists the husband indulges the cravings of his pregnant wife, so the wife wouldn’t throw hissy fits all the time and pass on her hissy fits and other bad traits to the unborn kid.  However, DSTS is far from the traditional Filipino husband; he’s more of a Binondo boy.  And so I made my bed.  DSTS had been hoping for a girl; he’s sweet to little girls.  The little jellybean was jumping all over the place and the OB was like, “There it is!… it’s gone!  I only had a glimpse!  It was blurry… ”  Our eyes never left the screen as we waited for OB lady’s conclusion: “… It’s probably a girl!”  

My sister-in-law, aunt and godmother to two boys, was hoping subsequent additions to the family would be girls; she finds it easier to shop for little girls.  The elder sister-in-law is also expecting; she’s about a month behind me, but we’ve yet to receive news whether it’s a girl or another boy for her.  My mother-in-law is a dear but sort of traditional — not very, I’ve met friends with really traditional elders and all I could say was whoa (sometimes scary).  Anyway, [DSTS's] Mama was all, “Oh.  Oh!  I knew it was going to be a girl.  Yep,” because she noted the Little Spud’s hair at the nape doesn’t have the pointy peaks that was “traditionally” indicative of a male kid to be born next.  When a child’s hair at the nape has a sort of rounded shape, like the Little Spud’s, the next baby to be born is supposed to be a girl.  However, during the earlier months when we totally hadn’t a clue about the gender, she kept calling my fundus “shoti”, little brother.  She insisted I’d be happier with another boy, because girls are worrisome and less useful when they grow up and goes away to another family to live when they marry, anyway — I was just quiet and thinking, wasn’t she a girl once herself and what’s up with this comparison when her own (in my personal assessment, when I met him) less impressive brother came to mind  – whereas if I had two boys, both would live with me with their families, they’d carry DSTS’s name and multiply some more, and we’d have a lively household! Which…

Perish the thought.  I don’t think I’m leaning toward the idea of a clannish house much.  I may eat my words, but I hope, boy or girl, they would go live on their own and spare their spouses from an ornery and eccentric mother-in-law I’d probably become should I reach my old age.  My family is less traditional; my grandmother never went to temples much and opted to read different books.  Her children listened to the Beatles and Simon & Garfunkel in the 60s, attended and hung out at the UP campus and grooved to the likes of Sly and the Family Stone and ABBA in the 70s.  My brother had a baby girl and my mother was cool.  Mama and the aunts were told about the update, and Mama was like, there, you have one of each kind, aren’t you pleased with yourself!  Aunt Bebop, who has two strapping boys, would have loved a daughter for a second child herself, but in contrast her husband preferred another boy, simply for camaraderie and boyhood companionship he could provide for the ah hiyah.  My father’s reaction was more like my mother-in-law’s (“Eh?  OK, good.”) but for a different reason — he’s more at ease bonding with little boys.  However, he said it’s a different case for my brother, who’s an only son like he was, and while he dotes on his granddaughter, my brother needs to produce a son!

My mother-in-law also happens to be such a girly girl like DSTS’s sisters, and she tends to favor girly games (“[Little Spud], wrap this cloth around your head… like a veil…”), singing “Do Re Mi” and “Favorite Things” — in my opinion, The Sound Of Music has some of the girliest-sounding Rodgers & Hammerstein songs (the Von Trapp boys even wore clothes Fräulein Maria fashioned out of floral-patterned curtains!) — and inadvertently buying stuff for the Little Spud featuring designs and characters that are either borderline or undeniably feminine: pigs and puppies wearing skirts and ribbons on the head (the prints were blue line works; she just didn’t notice the drawings at the time of purchase), pastel blue flip-flops with tiny pink diamond paint accents on the side, Pooh and Piglet stuff with pink backgrounds, Disney Princesses and Hello Kitty stickers…  

I wonder if I sometimes look pained.  She meant well.  I do my best to carefully say my apprehensions and explanations — “Ma, do you know my Aunt Bebop is observing a case of a five-year-old little kindergarten boy who only answers to the name of ‘Miss Munoy’?  Maybe it’s not a good idea to play that veil game with [Little Spud] at this age.  Or ever.  What do you think.” Or, “Hey, an engrossing but dragging and depressing 天公痛好人 scene in which this little boy who just cries and cries and cries is looking for his father who was a former gangster who impregnated a moll then went to the lam, was reformed, got out of prison, then got betrothed to a goody-goody, but then he resolved to become a Buddhist monk and so he left the goody-goody and the goody-goody married a mentally-challenged man who whines about performing his husbandly duties because he deems the act just… icky, and now everyone’s messy and crying and banging their heads on the floor!  How about letting him watch Go, Diego, Go?”  It really sounded better than how it looks now on pixels.  :)  

I had my check up again and as usual, the kid was doing the wriggly, kicky swimming thing.  After a while of sliding the scanner on my tummy a few times, the OB asked me to lie on my side.  This time the little jumping jellybean cooperated to have her “picture” taken.  DSTS is gonna get his wish and raise a daddy’s girl.  And we have a set.  Will the Little Spud just love her to bits and warn her about the doctor who sticks pins at him every time he goes to the clinic?  I’m assuming Mama and the sisters-in-law will take care of the pink stuff quite well on their own; I’ll attend to the rest left out in the palette.  And hopefully that’s it, or DSTS and I can forget about retiring.

Use The Potty, Spud.

About a week ago, my mother and Aunt Bebop came over to see how the Little Spud is doing. He’s now about a year and five months old.  My aunt noted the diaper.  She advised me I stick to the plan of toilet-training him before he turns two, while I’m working from home and can supervise the project.  ”You want him to be like your cousin Taffy?”  I shook my head.

When Cousin Taffy was growing up, he was left in the care of just nannies from morning until night — his dad traveled and his mom, a pharmaceutical exec, came home from work late — and his nannies never bothered potty training him properly.  I don’t know if that’s related to what we discovered when he came to live at my mother’s for a couple of years of high school — his younger siblings seem fine — but until now, in his mid-twenties, we know his laundry often resembled the one Kathy Bates pointed to in a scene from Waterboy.

Potty training at one year and four-plus months, I found, is a bit tricky.  He’s now more curious and prefers whirling around than focusing.  I bought a dozen plain white baby cotton panties for this undertaking and laid down the new rules with I Married A Gangster, the temp nanny.  Little Spud will wear diapers when taking naps and before bedtime; after meals and during playtime before baths, it’s gonna be just cotton undies and Air Spud. 

We’ve had an on and off ritual since December right after we sacked Mata Hareh and throughout his two months with the second nanny, Angles McTangles.  Whoever’s in charge — me, my mother or my mother-in-law — would make him go diaper-less, then we have a small cup or the handheld potty, and we time him from the first go, usually he has ten to fifteen minutes in between wee-wees.  We make shh-shh sounds while standing behind him, bracing his frame.  He had a few hits and a lot of misses — Little Spud keeps wanting to touch the water in the potty.  This now makes me think back to the time my Shenzhen neighbors were urging me to get the Little Spud –while still relatively clueless and passive at that age — split pants, and practice holding him suspended over bushes or garbage bins.  Maybe they were right, only I was debating the sanitary merits of split pants and baby butt touching the floor.  However, their one-year-olds and older seem used to the potty with no problem at all.  

Little Spud knows how to say, “wee-wee” for number one and “poo-poo” or “oh-oh” for number two, but more often than not he says these when he’s in the middle of the doing the deed or has finished.  So I need to work on observing his usual routine, and timing.  I took on number two, a daunting task that even my mother-in-law seems hesitant to tackle.  The first attempt, I coaxed him to sit on the potty; he became anxious and insisted to stand, and so the mess landed on the floor.  I then decided to have him get more familiar with the potty. I also showed him the toilet bowl more often.  ”When Mama needs to go poo-poo, she sits here, see?”  I sit on the throne with my pants on and make slight grunting noises while he watches from his stroller, observing.  I update my mother and aunt.  Mama said with girls it was easier for her, just sit them on the potty for both number one and number two.  She stayed at home with my brother until he was six, and he started potty training when he was younger than one year, so she also didn’t have this problem with his potty training.  My aunt said, “Why don’t you have DSTS demo how to pee for Little Spud?  My boys learned how peeing’s properly done from their Dad at eight to nine months.”  DSTS is in China at the moment.  I’ll have to make do.

I was able to make some progress with number two; while giving him his lunch one day, I noted from a change in his facial expression that he was about to go.  So I asked him, “Go poo-poo, yes?”  He confirmed, “Yes.”  I took off the panties and sat him on the throne, making soft grunting noises while he fidgeted a bit and looked at me, repeating “Poo-poo?  Oh-oh?”  I said, yes, relax and go on with the poo-poo.  He was still for a moment, then resumed fidgeting.  I check, and ta-dah.  Poo-poo’s in the bowl.

I did the dance of joy.  Little Spud was delighted he could make me happy by just dumping.

Back to number one.  A series of soaked baby panties later, I Married A Gangster was complaining the Little Spud wouldn’t cooperate with the cup.  I think she’s expecting him to act like the grown-up that she is.  I’ve instructed her how things are done but she’s insinuating somewhat that even I couldn’t do the instructions, and maybe the diapers should stay — it’d make her job easier.  I’ve kind of expected this after hearing her comment about a different training she did for all her five kids when I briefed her on day one (her three-year old youngest daughter still wears diapers on days out), and I know it’s rare for people to be patient with things like potty training when they’re dealing with kids not their own.  Still, this annoyed me as, by day, I need to put time into work (I take over evenings), and I really hate it when someone who agreed to do the things we clearly outlined during the interview comes back to me so I’ll do that job I delegated to that person!  Why did I hire her in the first place?  The nanny also balks at my instruction, when the Little Spud goes while still wearing bottoms, to emphasize to the child that clothes would be smelly and wet and icky as a consequence for not verbally alerting a grown-up.  I think the Little Spud gets more anxious when with her because of her way of speaking — kind of fast and high pitched, and she sounds frantic, like hurry-up-hurry-up-hurry-up; he’s not used to this and he struggles more, trying to break free when she tries to hold him in place for wee-wee sessions.  

My mother suggested to try making him pee the moment he wakes up from sleep or a nap; he won’t struggle so much then.  I tried this and it worked, and he’s relaxed a bit during subsequent tries at playtime.  I’ve done this a few times and so has my mother-in-law.  Just to make a point, I then did a demo, showing the result to I Married A Gangster, with Spud tucked in one arm, beaming after I praised him for doing a good job.  I asked if she finds the job so difficult that I would oblige her to to make other arrangements — I really don’t like wasting my time with people who won’t do the work.  The following days, she seemed more patient and managed pretty well with several no-spill pees.  

Eventually we’ll attempt lessening dependence on diapers even more for naps and bedtime. Crossing fingers he takes to it; might need to stock a couple more sheets and an alternate rubber mat.  

Today marks the fourth day in a row I made the Little Spud poo on the toilet and the second day he’s managed to pee in the potty without spilling anything on the floor, and I’m thrilled. Of course I’ll give it’s probably not as good as what our Shenzhen neighbors have shown us with their kids, who are mostly completely potty-trained by two years, split pants and smelly garden bushes notwithstanding.  But I’m happy with the progress.  

I wonder if it’s a good idea to try the Shenzhen style with the second baby. Would that improve our potty stats?

Pick A School

One of the more serious things DSTS and I recently discussed was choosing schools for the kids.  Yes, it’s probably counting chickens and all but that’s what it’s like being married to someone like DSTS!  On the other hand, this can balance me out when I can’t get past convolutions.

The parents prefer we continue the tradition of Chinese language and math courses in addition to the standard Philippine curriculum.  I was lobbying for Chiang Kai Shek College.  I think it’s good enough, Chinese courses are comparable to, if not better than, say, Philippine Cultural, Hope, Tiong Se, UNO, Manila Patriotic, or Sakya.  Facilities are OK and improving.  We’re also CKSC alumni, we have a background on its rules and regulations, and the alumni association’s quite active with the schools’ development (and politics) and things like giving students incentives and future benefits when they do well with schoolwork (and politics).  

My mother-in-law is advocating, for one, UNO High School, because she remembers DSTS’s “better days” with the terror principal in charge, and the written exams that test your logic.  I objected, because first, the terror principal — he’s probably retired, but I’m not updated on UNO stuff so I don’t know how things are done there now — reportedly did a Big Brother, having a million cameras in the campus and monitors set up in his office, and did things like cutting people’s bangs when they refused to get a haircut.  He was also probably the reason why young students were scared of going to the bathroom; I approve of discipline, but traumatizing small kids who may develop low sphincter muscle control and urinary tract infection is just… wrong.  They also had the written exams that “fortified logic”, the one DSTS aced while many students failed.  A sample instruction: “Put a line around the correct answer.”  Majority was stumped.  I was like… m’kay, clever way of telling ‘em to encircle your answers… but when I teach my kids what a line is, I’d like the line to stay a line.  Is that OK?

My mother-in-law’s second choice is St. Jude’s Catholic School, if we could afford it; she hears Mass every Sunday and had fond memories attending Immaculate Conception of Manila for English and Filipino classes when she was younger.  She attended CKSC Chinese classes in the afternoons, but “Tiong Ching e yingbun kho tsin bue ti dit!”.  She still isn’t impressed with CKSC’s curriculum today.  According to her, DSTS and his sisters stopped becoming as academically competitive as she’d like the minute they transferred from UNO to CKSC.  However, I know they maintained good grades throughout their CKSC years, in fact DSTS and Jay, his younger sister, belonged to the so-called “nerd section” of the class.  DSTS said Mama’s standards may be subject to perspective.  :)

DSTS thinks UNO doesn’t have much weight but is considering St. Jude’s.  He laid out his case: St. Jude’s standings on English and Chinese education are way better than CKSC’s.  One of the godfathers at our wedding was also a CKSC alumnus.  While acknowledging St. Jude’s standards also went down compared to when he was still attending CKSC grade school and high school, he also opted to send all four kids to St. Jude’s because of higher standards (however, no objection from his wife, who herself went to St. Jude’s).  

My mother’s classmate married late and her daughter went to St. Jude’s; she maintained an above 85% average all throughout.  She didn’t do this to compete in honors (but she was fifth in overall standing as a result); the alternative getting below 85% is to transfer schools.  Because of those standards, plus probably because of the conditioning included, more St. Jude’s students go on to study in better universities (De La Salle University, Ateneo University and the University of the Philippines; DLSU and Ateneo are Roman Catholic universities, UP’s liberal and the state U).  Godfather’s eldest is at Ateneo.  My mother’s classmate’s St. Jude kid is also at the Ateneo, many of her classmates went to Ateneo as well.  

Brief segue: La Salle was probably a French guy who contributed something to philosophy, education or studies the way Thomas Aquinas did, right?  However, I’m wondering why the Jesuit school’s called Ateneo — alumni are called Ateneans.  I really don’t know, only they make me think of Athens and Athenians, who were named after the classical Greek goddess Athena, which are nowhere near making me think of anything Catholic.  I’m welcoming enlightenment; right now it’s making sense like naming your kid Martin because you believed the Gregorian calendar dictated that your kid’s birth month coincided with the feast of one of the St. Martins, so of course you should name the kid in its honor as per acceptable Catholic tradition.  And yet etymologically, the name Martin means “dedicated to [the Roman god of war] Mars.”

DSTS wryly notes our batch only had one UP alumnus, and only about a couple or so went to Ateneo.  A very small handful studied abroad (no big-name universities, though).  A majority who were acknowledged as ‘haves’ opted for De La Salle and St. Benhilde, while the rest, including both of us (University of Santo Tomas), spread out in the U belt from UST, PUP and FEU to CEU, Mapua Tech, St. Scholastica.  Of course there’s the loyal chunk who stayed in good ol’ CKSC, which, while not so bad, relied more on connections rather than academic achievements and capabilities.  Take a look at Class of ‘99; not one accountancy major passed the board.  However, all students, according to the recruitment program, were assured of jobs upon graduation.  Here I countered that while the St. Jude students are academically good that they got into the top universities, I’m also supposing the fact that their families could afford sending them to St. Jude’s for their elementary and secondary educations probably increased the chances that they could afford Ateneo and DLSU tuitions, right?

My objections to St. Jude’s are mainly because of religion, which, for me, makes the controlled environment you want to put your kid into even smaller.  Take my not being Roman Catholic out of it or what I don’t think is consistent with its own versions of things that happened and dogma; what I would like is to have my children ask me and their father questions about life, hear what we think we know about it, see their world for themselves and learn, then make up their own minds on which paths to follow.  This is what I had with my parents, who had their beliefs, and CKSC, a neutral zone without the incense burnings and hail Marys and ohm-mani-padme-ohms.  I was exposed to different things and opinions, there was no enforcement of just one thing during the impressionable years; I saw, and I followed what I thought was right for me when I was able to understand enough.

Well, spirituality doesn’t exactly hold much these times when it comes to practical domestic discussions.  I do agree with DSTS that we want the best for the kids, and we’re talking about the best available education.  And because we’re neither from well-off families nor do we have much advantages to offer, if we could afford it, we would like to shoot for the best.   Talking about alternative schools: St. Stephen’s, Grace Christian, Hope Christian, Jubilee… these would’ve been fine, if only the friends I’ve met from these schools didn’t tell me that they’ve kind of forgotten even the basics by the time they hit the universities.   Conversational stuff, compositions (English, Chinese, Filipino), general knowledge… even theology, sometimes?  Not much better than what I know.  And they thought CKSC stuff were more difficult.  So I think I’ll pass.  

In some cases of these friends from St. Stephen, Grace Christian, Hope Christian and Jubilee, it’s their parents who are Roman Catholic or Buddhist, but enrolled them in their schools for one of the reasons: convenience in location, Chinese lessons, a more affordable tuition fee.  Then the kids embraced the school’s teachings and went home to tell their parents about why it’s not good to revere graven images and paying respects to minor saints or dieties or ancestors in addition to the one true God (okay, sometimes they made a concession for the Trinity).  The parents were flummoxed how to explain things.  This is what happens when you throw in religion to something that could be uncomplicated, and it’s the flummoxing I’d like to avoid in the early stages.  

A few also admitted that the discipline in some the Christian schools were near to non-existent.  This is because those schools’ teachers usually go with subdued encouragement, gentle prodding and world peace compared to the Catholic school’s signature tough love during a child’s formative years. It’s those crazy Sunday school kids and the turn-the-other-cheek Sunday school teachers all over again! And this has confused me even then… isn’t it written somewhere in Proverbs when you spare the rod, you spoil the child? There’s a reason the Old Testament is included in the Bible. To illustrate, one pal once said St. Stephen’s High School had some students smoking inside the campus.  I asked what the principal did.  

“Sabi niya, ‘Please stop that; it’s bad for you.  Not to mention it’s against the rules.’”

Ano’ng sabi ng students?

“Wala, tiningnan lang siya.”

I imagined they blew smoke in the principal’s face and the principal merely blinked.  Maybe coughed.  I have watched too many John Hughes films.  In contrast, there’s the standard acknowledgement of exemplary discipline enforced by no-nonsense nuns, even verified by Jessica Zafra (And Tina Fey! Bitch Is The New Black skit, Weekend Update!) herself.  

While at CKSC we didn’t have the nuns, our time was under the reign of this tough lady disciplinarian who whupped the rebellious types’ butts to shape whether they liked it or not.  She had the presence; when she passed by the corridors, I swear it’s like Moses and the Red Sea.  Or that scene featuring the intro of the Axe Gang in Kung Fu Hustle.  It was something.  And unlike the human rights violator-terror principal from UNO, I don’t think she ever needed to resort to actually cutting tufts of hair to successfully compel even the smarmiest resident assholes to get the prescribed haircut!  However, she passed away years ago (rest in peace), and the heir apparent to her post I’ve heard is about as intimidating as a plush donkey.  I don’t know CKSC’s current stat on discipline.

While St. Jude’s is a possibility, I am, however, hoping to draw the line on exclusive schools — say, Xavier, or Immaculate Conception Academy if for a girl — simply for the reason that I think they restrict exposure to and interaction with peers of the opposite sex.  It happens I noted many classmates I’ve met at the university who went to exclusive schools or were restricted by their parents to spend time with the opposite sex placed more emphasis than they should on snagging then maintaining relationships at the expense of achieving their full potential at academics than those who went to coed schools.  The then-objects of their affections weren’t even all that, too.  It’s like they were deprived or something.  Then again, baka nagkataong wala lang talagang that hilig sa school stuff, pwede din.  And there were the few who opted not to have relationships after experiencing difficulties relating to culture/gender differences when they meet new people at universities and at work.  When someone of age chooses to remain single, it’s best to do so because it makes him or her more fulfilled as an individual, and not because he or she couldn’t get past the idea that potential partners have cooties or something… that adjustment should’ve been settled by puberty, but how would they practice dealing if we corral them off to just one kind at the time they’re growing up, observing others, and being supervised on adapting to the basic social rules?

It’s not like I’m pro rushing kids into relationships, but I want things balanced.  Not too much off-limits stuff, but not too much “Go for it!” either.  These are just opinions revolving around personal thoughts, okay… I’m not saying it’s not cool for you to put your kids in schools with religion, or exclusive schools.  If you happen to agree with the religion and the location and tuition fee’s fine… even better, it’s smoother sailing compared to us displaced people.  Whatever works for you; you don’t need people telling you what to do.  Lots of kids and parents we know stand by them and did well in life, actually, as I’ve mentioned.  I may be wrong, and this is just me airing out my ignorance in a copious manner as usual (humor me).

Which is why DSTS asked me to think things over; anyway it’s not an immediate decision.  He did admit that, eventually, should times get worse, we may opt for CKSC after all, which will always be more affordable than St. Jude’s.

How about the convolutions that DSTS was supposed to balance out?  Oh, nothing.  Just that sometimes I’m thinking, what, I’m letting the system beat my ideals out again, simply because they’re not practical?  Do I justify with things like what counts with spirituality is what environment one would provide at home? What about self-righteous acquaintances who’d lecture me that this is a bad testimony and faith is what counts the most, and that I’d failed big time, and that who cares that non-Catholic Christian  schools with Chinese and standard courses in this country offer comparatively sub-par education so long as it’s apparently the “right” thing to do?  

I’m also imagining I’m gonna be made to go to PTA meetings or called by the teacher who’d ask me if I can ask my kids to participate reciting the rosary more, maybe I can coach them at home.  There may be no such things, but… Aargh.  I’m gonna be invited to my kids’ confirmations or whatever standard traditional rituals and the teachers and parents will smile, turn to me and say, “Well, you know what to do!” and… Aargh.  What if the deluded proponents of democracy in the Philippines feel that the government is inept yet again and inspire another band of military poseurs to attempt another coup on a school day and St. Jude’s near the Malacanang palace and… Aaargh.  Of course I’m also gonna have to help the children memorize hail glorious Mary stuff and I’ll be clueless or hesitant and they’ll ask me why and I’m gonna need to ‘fess up and they’ll be confused why I sent them to that school in the first place when I don’t believe in supernatural Mary stuff and I’ll have to show them the Bible and how Mary was never prayed to in Jewish tradition and guess what, so was Jesus, and yes, we’re not Jewish though we believe in their God but as to why, it’s… faith, and Mary worship got into the Catholic faith because when the missionaries traveled West they wanted pagans to transition from goddess worship to the faith better, and the kids will get even more confused and disillusioned and I’ll just mess up their faith in God and… Aaargh.  Then they’ll ask me why Amah is staunchly Catholic but she goes to a Taoist-Buddhist temple as well, and is this allowed by the St. Jude nuns or the Pope, the Taoist priests and the Dalai Lama and wasn’t Buddha Indian, so how come the Dalai Lama’s been Tibetan for the last fourteen reincarnations and… Aaaargh.

Apologies

I’ve been remiss with regular posts due to even more changes at work — much were disappointing, too… the need to rest more these days, and other serious things that make me not want to blog, but there they are.  Made me realize I still prefer writing thoughts down, after all.  Will try to post earlier written entries.

New Blog

Okay, so I mentioned I don’t like keeping multiple blogs.  However, this blog is so chunky and twisty and texty.  Entries mostly don’t have a point.  I’d like to keep it that way.

That blog is full of pictures.  Wala lang, I’ve gone visual… and the entries are short.  I suppose DSTS prefers this blog.  Also maximizing my 3 gigabytes.

Moved

OK, so I made a move again. I hope it’s for the last time.

I’ve mentioned I started with fooling around with a free blog offered by the Friendster networking service. It seemed like a good idea; it was as beta as I was, and it was connected to people I know from which I found a handful of readers willing to put up with my junk to this day. :P It was an outlet to write about people, things, and events I encounter as I work and travel between Shenzhen and Manila. At the time, the Friendster blogs were provided by Typepad — service was poor to middling. Not so attractive templates. On the side, I’ve been checking out Blogger, which was already popular and became integrated with Google in which I have accounts, and I noted Google dropped its Pages in favor of Blogger. Then about last year, Friendster made the switch to WordPress services, and I admit the templates with customizable widgets and headers made stuff much more fun. Themes are much more attractive than Blogger’s (although Blogger does have its advantages as well). However, with the switch, my blog became inaccessible to me as WordPress turned out to be one of the service providers that were blocked by the Great Firewall of China. As a contingency I blogged with Blogger for a few months.  I’d like to say not all publishing sessions were a success — sometimes I really get blocked and need to save and publish another day.  Perhaps it was the service package we got that was not so good.  But at least with Blogger, some publishing happened.

During this time I’ve been trying to figure out a way to combine my old blog with my new blog. There are Import and Export Blog tools in Blogger. I downloaded the XML code of my old blog. But it seems Blogger is still working with its Import capability because after a few tries, nothing uploaded. I checked forums, and what advice I got from those regarding posts from other services, such as logging onto drafts.blogger.com and making a temp account, seem to no longer apply. My Blogger admin page indicated the Import tool works with Blogger export files, and no mention of export files from other services.

I came home for the holidays and for some things related to work.  I log into Blogger again and had another go… no good.  What happens is, when you hit the Import button, the panel will seem to process this, but after a few minutes you will be prompted, “Could not import file.” or something like that.  Then I thought, what if I check out the non-Friendster WordPress service? I created a WordPress account, found the Import Tool, and held my breath as I pressed ‘upload’. No hassle, worked as it should, and all my posts since 2005 in the old Friendster blog found a new home. Giddy from the development, I exported my Blogger posts and attempted upload. Except for a few formatting incompatibility (some paragraphs lost spacing), there was no delay or problem.

So now I will mainly blog with WordPress. Here’s my Pros/Cons list for the free service:

Pros:

• Nice templates.  Purely personal, of course, but I find more of the combinations of fonts and color pleasing than those offered by Blogger.  Themes offered include designs suited for specific bloggers: photo or art bloggers, group bloggers, writers.
• Good content management tools.
• Both Export Blog and Import Blog tools work fine.
• I only knew this today, when I wanted some background on storage space.  But it’s definitely a winner at 3 GB, and a big step since it only offered 50 MB in 2007.  Good news for blogs featuring media files.
• In addition to the main page containing your blogs, you can make extra Pages.  You want a Page showcasing pictures from your latest party?  Your favorite things?  Short stories?  Easily done.
• There’s an input field for CSS.  However, I have no idea how to use this.  :)

Cons:  

• WordPress Comments sections seem to be more susceptible to spammer posts, even if I’ve already updated security settings (hold up comments containing more than one link for moderation; key words).  There’s this widget they call Akismet that helps block spam. 
• The admin panel is not very complicated, but if you’re coming from the admin panels of Friendster Blogs and Blogger, it takes getting used to.  I’m still finding my way around.  For example…
• … Customizing the Index page of the blog seems not possible with the free service.  I’ve wanted to add some stuff like Feedjit to the sidebar, however I couldn’t find the HTML input field for that.  This is not the case with the Pages.  
• Admin panel not accessible from China

In case I need to go back to China, I will probably just have to store my entries in my computer using Journler when things come up, then upload them to WordPress later.  

If you’re making a new blog from scratch and don’t need to import things anyway, Blogger could be for you. I did say Blogger had its advantages.  Here’s Blogger’s Pros/Cons for the free service:

Pros:

• Simpler, less confusing user interface
• Good content management tools
• Export Blog tool is OK; Import Blog tool works with Blogger-exported blog files only.
• It has a field for customizing HTML, XML, or CSS, so it’s easy to install stuff like real-time chat boxes and Feedjit.
• It’s a part of anything Google makes or develops, so I’m thinking it’s more compatible with things like Google Search, and I’ve noted my comments for moderation has few to nil spam, among others.
• As of last year, 1 GB of storage space.  Not as big as WordPress’s 3 GB, but compared to 20 to 50 MB hosting space offered by others, still good. 
• Admin panel accessible from China, though with the service provider I got, publishing success was not consistent (but unlike with WordPress, at least I managed to post a few).
• You have a choice to go with html or xml for your templates; WordPress doesn’t.  You can customize them…

Cons:

• … But I think Blogger is not done with tweaking.  The infamous bx-code errors happen pretty often for third-party XML templates, though I found you lessen this incidence by not applying any widget to the sidebar until you have decided on your template.  
• Problems importing XML files of blog posts from other services 
• I wasn’t satisfied with the available template combinations.  They’re not bad, only I was like, I like these colors, but why did they use this font?  Can I get rid of this header?  
• Third party Blogger XML template developers adapted WordPress templates for Blogger for bloggers yearning for a little bling.  These sometimes feature the familiar WordPress main page with tabs immediately below the header linking to other ‘Pages’ (About Page, etc).  However, Blogger doesn’t have the Pages feature in its admin panel.  If you want to use this template feature, you may need to create separate Web pages then link from this blinged Blogger blog.  But I’m not sure about this, I could be wrong.

You may want to check for other comparisons dealing with hardcore coding, posting from your mobile cell phones, paid blog services, or blogging with paid hosting or domain names, all of which I am not familiar with.

Will now be diving into a muck of tags and categories from two different blogs and see about putting them in order.

UPDATE (23 January 2009): Finished checking; there were two or three posts that didn’t get imported, even as I’ve repeated the process twice more.  So the WordPress Import tool isn’t perfect, as of this writing.  Had to upload the three entries manually, and as a consequence, I lost BCS’s comment in this post.

Divine Secrets Of The Yaya

We decided to let Mata Hareh* go.  She was our first adventure in the realm of hiring nannies — I don’t think she’d be the worst; I’ve heard other horror stories… but I only hope things get better as we go.

In the course of the time we knew her, we unearthed quite a lot… like for one, we found out she had a love child not very much older than the Little Spud three months into her employment.  No problem if she has a child; it just means we needed to keep track of the Little Spud’s things.  She insisted that the child was just a nephew she adopted as an ‘investment’ because she’s an unmarried woman of a certain age, which she thought would neatly explain why one day her younger sister, whom Mata said was the child’s neglectful, unmarried and unemployed mother, contacted DSTS so he can tell Mata Hareh to wire them money as they have run out of food for Mata’s son (“Hinde, anak niya pu se Entoy.“).  We asked the neighbors who’ve previously worked with Mata for three years, and they confirm the sister’s version of the truth.  Mata Hareh only responded that the housekeepers of her former employers were jealous of her because she was treated special, being the nanny of the granddaughter, and being the youngest of the staff there.

One Sunday she had her day off and came home two hours later than she said she would.  She wore a spaghetti-strapped tube top and a pair of short shorts, so I don’t think church was on the agenda.  I thought then she just went malling or movie watching with the housekeeper’s helper, as the housekeeper usually spent Sundays when she didn’t go home to her brother’s home in Bulacan.  Two weeks later we found out that Mata persuaded the new helper to help her ask about bus routes, went to Bataan where she’s never been to before — all these just so Mata could meet her boyfriend of several months via the wonders of cell phone text messages.  The eyeball date ended at first sight, with the boyfriend clarifying the end of the ‘relationship’. 

We never let these get to us much.  However, we could not ignore her tendency to lie.  But we were thinking as long as the offenses don’t harm anyone.  Personally I don’t have a problem if she wants to have boyfriends — a girl’s entitled to her fun, right?  And as long as she keeps doing her job well.  Unfortunately, in the job department, she’s also not all that.

The deciding point was when she and the Little Spud needed to stay behind at my mother’s Pampanga residence, which had space to spare compared to DSTS’s family’s apartment in Manila.  The Nanshan branch office I was transferred to had to close down last November, and DSTS and I needed to terminate the lease of the apartment.  My mother lost an amount of money that was meant to pay for a transaction.  Mama admitted it was a mistake that she’d been distracted, thinking, while doing several things at once.  I also guess she was used to trustworthy housekeepers; our last two have worked with her for more than ten years without any occurrences of theft.  She didn’t want to falsely accuse anyone.  However, after a few days, Mata Hareh was witnessed by the housekeeper, the helper, and the part-time laundry woman talking to the male helpers (who were hired by Elder Aunt for her air cleaning service and did odd jobs for my mother’s production area in their spare time) about maybe helping her look for a replacement because she was planning to leave without telling us.  This prompted the housekeeper to tell my mother, seeing the sudden desertion would affect the Little Spud, and in my absence, at that.  Mata never got along with her; Mata claimed the housekeeper was also jealous of her charms and the attention she got from the boys.  

All three handmaids also heard Mata Hareh suggest for the men to maybe come see her in Manila after she’s left; she’ll pay for their fare, the food, and the places they will go to.  It wasn’t long ago when my mother called to ask if I’d OK an advance for Mata Hareh because she needed money to wire to the province — I said not to trouble herself, for there were previous advances, and I’ll be there in a week in time for pay day, anyway.  Where did Mata Hareh suddenly get the money to treat three men to what sounds like a right jolly holiday in Manila?  And because she shares the same room with the housekeeper and the helper, they sometimes wake up in the dark hearing sounds of crinkly plastic bags, and they make out her shape packing things in the dead of night.  The Chinese often described this with the old adage, eating pilfered food but not wiping one’s mouth. 

I went home a week after, partly frustrated because my mother was hesitant to act.  I think she’s become soft with age; she used to be so decisive and forceful.  DSTS stayed behind to continue managing the stuff we moved.  We took Mata Hareh and the new helper to the police station for blotter, as they were the ones in the house when the money vanished — the housekeeper was in Bulacan, the men were out of the production compound.  Mata insisted on her version of the story despite the new helper saying otherwise, such as the time she left this scene, or what she was doing when this occurred.  My mother’s other mistake was she didn’t do the blotter herself on the day she lost the money — this is standard procedure that I saw my Aunt Bebop do when I was younger, and even what friends and co-workers advise, trusted helpers or no.  Had my mother done that, maybe we’d get Mata to confess.  This is what the police also told us.  Reports should be done within two days, so they can detain suspects for questioning.

As I expected, we couldn’t find the money on Mata Hareh.  She may have sent the money away already or had one accomplice to hide it for her.  Then that was followed by an outburst of lies when asked why she suddenly needs to leave when just a few days before she said she needed money and she listed things: I was unreasonable — which was probably why she happily partook the ice cream and other comfort food I offered when I relax on Friday evenings watching DVDs, why she enjoyed dinner she liked that I don’t normally get when I’m by myself, and why she could be exempt from laundry duties because I insist everything to be machine-washed when in China to save both of us time for other chores.  Back home, with the mothers’ places each equipped with an old-fashioned laundry area, she needed to hand wash her own things in addition to the baby’s clothes.  She said my mother was unreasonable — my mother who ensured her house help had nine o’ clock and three o’ clock snacks and insisted them sitting on the table with the family during meals.  She also said my mother-in-law was unreasonable — my mother-in-law was the one who wanted to give her a chance and hired her despite her physical handicaps to which DSTS was not entirely comfortable with, with reason.  

It was a round table thing and everyone in the household was there during our discussion; we didn’t know the extent of her gall to distort what the deal was until that day.  The part-time laundry woman was like, “Are you sure about what you’re saying?  We’ve known this family for years, they’re not like that.”  Mata Hareh then claimed the Little Spud was too hyperactive for her, she was having a hard time carrying him around.  This was funny because she and I had an understanding that I do not want the Little Spud to get used to being carried around a lot, so she usually watched him while he played in his crib, or pushed him in his stroller.  My mother said this may have to do with the recent development of the Little Spud independently walking — of course she needed to follow in case he stumbled during scheduled exercises.  ”It’s like you never took care of the [DSTS's] neighbors’ little girl for three years since infancy,” I said.  ”That kid was not as hyper as [Little Spud],” she haughtily retorts.  I’m deducing she lasted as long as she did in that household because both the little girl’s parents were in Taiwan working most days of those years, and she had no supervision putting crimps on her style. 

“What about your invite to the men to go out in Manila,” the two house staff ask.  I pointedly followed up with a question where she will get financing for such a project.  ”It was just a joke!” she protested.  Alas, all knew about the Bataan boy. Mata takes men very seriously.  She swerved and said the only person kind to her was DSTS… and that I was jealous of her as well.  Which… by Glork.  And the household collectively raised their eyebrows in part because my siblings and I have never been the jealous types — this trait was actually one of DSTS’s minor complaints when we were dating.  And she did not know DSTS, who’s managed tooling workers before, and applies more rigid punishments for misbehaviors.  Because DSTS worked in another Shenzhen area, and comes home only three times a week, and she’s lived with me in the apartment every day.  I said my mother talked about an advance on her behalf; I was assuming she needed cash.  ”I shall return to Leyte and just wait for a lucky break,” she said.

We checked her bags and we found an Anna Sui perfume — a little something left by owner of the apartment we rented but she insists was a gift from a relative working in Japan; a box of perhaps 60 pairs of earrings — we don’t know where she got those; sexy black and red lingerie — I don’t want to know; and some of the Little Spud’s things, like baby washes and packs of Johnson’s baby wipes, which she said was not the Little Spud’s but gifts from the same relative in Japan.  I informed her Johnson & Johnson’s was neither the popular nor the more economical brand in Japan, in addition to the fact that the text printed on the stuff was Chinese, not Japanese.  These were the stuff they brought from our apartment.  She only said, “Bahala ka kong ayaw mung manewala.”  At this point?  Um, no.  I took the baby things back.  

DSTS called me and asked to talk to her, and as she grasped the cell phone, her stoic expression promptly burst into tears.  ”I stayed for you,” she cried.  Have you ever?  The laundry woman shook her head.  ”My little boy is sick, I will not go back to Leyte, what, and laze around?  Nothing will happen. I’ll suck it up, stay in Manila, look for another job.”  Wha… what just happened?   She turned to us.  ”I do not tell you all my problems,” she said.  And then she was quiet.  I asked DSTS later what he said that finally shut her up; he replied that he told her he will follow through with taking her to the police station himself if he ever see her in Manila or near Mama’s place again.  We searched her person, then we escorted her to the bus station.  She had been the Little Spud’s yaya for nine months.   

DSTS and I didn’t meddle with the other helpers, as they were technically not under our employment.  But the accomplices turned out just the same; unfortunately for my mother, it’s really too late.  A few days after Mata Hareh left, the male helpers went AWOL.  We don’t know if they met up with Mata who managed to keep the money by sending, or if  they were entrusted the money and then they split — and split the sum, which add up to a good few months’ salary, three ways.  These boys have worked for my mother for just under two years.  There was nothing to do but report the incident.  Vein in my forehead ticking, I had a serious talk with my mother to be stricter with the next people we hire, and to take action immediately if such occurrence happened again — they’re no longer like the folks we worked with years ago.  She sadly agreed.

For medical reasons as well as to spend time with DSTS while he’s home, the little Spud and I have been staying in Manila.  My mother paid us a call this morning, and introduced a woman applying for the position of nanny.  She was recommended by one of the trusted former housekeepers.  The replacement seems like a nice lady, 40 years old, no husband and children.  We’ll see… Mata Hareh said the same thing when we hired her — see, she’s spoiled me for other hirees now.  The replacement’s patience keeping a one-year-old in check and her language skills also seem better, though it’s too early to say for sure.  The Little Spud took to her after a few minutes.  I don’t know about her childcare skills yet.  For his own personal reasons, however, DSTS would like to keep looking for a better candidate.  My mother persuaded him to keep the replacement, who told us she’s been looking for work for months, for the time being — my brother T2jim, who’s a doting Papa to a six-month-old little girl, could always take over if we decide to hire another helper.  As it happens, another FedEx package is on the way, and the Little Spud will need someone else to carry him around more often.  

2008 was not so good… at work, at home, or on health.  Hope this year we have better luck.  :)

* Mata Hareh is one Analisa Sabodogo (b. February 9, 1976).  A native of Leyte, she is petite, with bleached dark skin, and just slightly hunchbacked.  Distinguishing features of the face are a prominent overbite and one lazy eye (left) afflicted with cataract.  Should anyone happen to be presented with or consider this person for household employment, I’d be happy to provide a fair reference, shortly outlining background (we have copies of her records), skills, and disadvantages.

Or you can save both of us the trouble and just look for somebody else who needs and really wants to work.

Worlds Fail Me

I was researching a very popular local topic for a portfolio and from time to time I get a few misses from Google, one of which is a case of a hopeful migrant from the West.  The forum stayed with me somewhat not because I found the insights helpful, but because a couple of posters branched off into defining ‘first world’, ’second world’, and ‘third world’ countries.

One poster defined India as a Second World country.  Another corrected the poster and said First World comprise the developed countries (which include the US, of course… Canada and most of Europe), the Second World are the ‘communist blocs’, and Third World as ‘developing countries’.  Hmm.

Still another opined that the First Worlds were the superpowers, like the US again, the Second Worlds are countries that were ‘aligned’ (with the US?), like ‘the UK, Canada, East Germany, Cuba’, and the Third Worlds are the ‘non-aligned’ countries (‘Egypt, etc’).  Hee.  Wonder how my current boss, who’s British and thinks they’re the best people who’ve ever lived on the planet (remembers all those wars with the Spanish and French and all) would feel about that.  Also, the Philippines have since time immemorial insisted it’s ‘aligned’ with the USA, which… Second World?  These Americans are killing.  No, I didn’t check, but they have to be Americans.

‘Third World’, I get, having grown up and lived in a country that is one, and it’s mentioned enough in Asian history books, what with Asia teeming with developing countries and all.  However, I do avoid using the terms ‘First World’ and ‘Second World’ (I either use ’superpower’ or ‘developed country’ for the former), because like those people, I don’t know exactly how they’re defined, and so I was never comfortable using them.  Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone refer to a country as Second World, actually.  And I haven’t heard people use the those terms in a conversation yet, so I never thought about it much, too.  So I’m thinking it’s actually awkward for me if I’m to suddenly blurt out in a meeting, “Blah-blahstad is a second world country in which the market for toner could be potentially hot.”  I do understand these three ‘worlds’ are commonly used in modern language.  

I had a love hate thing with Philippine history books which sound and read like Jose De Venecia that we had to go with in social studies.  The history books that my mother used were kind of more detailed, being reprints from books brought to the country by American soldiers/teachers after the Second World War.  The later editions I got stuck with were already kind of edited, I suppose, to tone down the role of the Church in great happenings such as the earlier blueprints for world domination, the Inquisition, as well as its influence on present-day issues like advocating birth control and passing unto law Philippine divorce (dudes, even the Spanish, who put the Church in place here, have ‘em.  The Italians, who live around the Vatican, have ‘em!).  Wait a minute, getting lost again… I brought up the history textbooks because I’ve never read one that mentioned the first and second worlds either.  However, in them, I have read about the ‘Old World’, which discovered the ‘New World’, and these Worlds’ people continued voyages that led to their discovery of the ‘Third World’.  

The Old World was how the European countries saw themselves in the old days.  The really old worlds were of course Greece and Rome, which either played or fought with their more uncouth neighbors the Visigoths, the Gauls… sometimes further out there with Phoenicians, Egyptians, Persians.  All right, I also used to read translated Asterix comicbooks of which my uncles were big fans.  

Of course actual research shows the oldest civilizations were in Asia; Europe actually got what religion they had from those ancient Babylonians who were extinct by the time Europe arrived at civilization, but this is Western history: those of the West were the enlightened people, the Old World, who discovered the New World.  Which included the Americas, which Columbus thought was India.  And then they found gold and corn and chocolate and coffee and tobacco and other treasures there (in return they bore gifts of horses and technology and plague) so they were psyched to see more of the world, so they set forth and found more diamonds, gold, silver, and spices in the Third World.  I assume they called it the Third because it does not belong to the Old or the New.

It’s interesting to note that Europe had already traded with Asian countries — I mean, they already had tea, gunpowder and paper — long before it set foot on the New World.  Maybe membership is a club thing and you have to be properly colonized and integrated long before you’re excluded from the label Third World.

Using the terms ‘Old World’ and ‘New World’ now sounds archaic.  And I have never really heard anybody talk of second worlds until that forum.  Is it a valid phrase?  Is it used more in the West?  First and third worlds, more commonly heard, don’t sound right without a second.  Today, First World, perhaps Second World, and Third World are used more to denote global influence, financial capability and military might.  And perhaps the fellow who suggested that ‘first’ meant the superpowers was partially right, only it’s more like First Worlds are superpowers, the Second Worlds are developed countries but not superpowers, and the Third Worlds are the still developing poorer countries.  I could be wrong, though.  Let me know.

And this is why DSTS says I could never focus on work on hand.

The Book Matched The Cover

A book titled Iago’s Brain In Igor’s Body Through The Eyes Of Edvard Munch.

Did I mention Mata Hareh probably looks like Mighty Man’s sidekick Yukk inside his doghouse minus the heft and lovableness and decent eyesight and loyalty and inferiority complex?  Well she does. 

In a nutshell, my mother went soft and Mata Hareh pulled a fast one and then we played cops.  I’m still pissed off, generally at everybody involved in the mess.

What have I learned?  I hate lecturing my mother (and my mother hates being lectured by me). I hate employing people (boy, that’s a new way to look at the Big Heads, huh).  I’ll probably ixnay the next personal reference by DSTS’s neighbors.  And we’ll never hire another esthetically-challenged nanny for our kids again.  Hey, if most of them are going to be rotten inside, might as well do the corporate thing and get one who represents well.

It’s Animal Farm, and I’ve just turned Farmer.  Happy holidays.

Whiffed

As far as perfumes go, many women of acquaintances, usually from work of yore (because perfumes aren’t exactly favored in Poor, Poor Village) swear by Chanel No. 5 or the offerings from Ralph Lauren or Benetton; I’m told it’s not necessarily a preference but a statement thing (and I was like, really, Benetton? Mikee Cojuangco.  That’s how narrow-minded I was). The female Elders, however, and me by extension I guess, favor scents from Clinique and Estee Lauder.  The main reason was these two labels somehow didn’t irritate the skin compared to others.  And by chance I kind of liked the combinations.  Maybe it’s the citrus, or the olive hints; maybe it’s the flowers.  But we’re really not into one or two offerings with musky sandalwood; too overpowering.

Once, after being assimilated by the Borg which was before Poor, Poor Village, I stumbled upon a collection of lesser potency — mostly eau de toilette rather than the more concentrated eau de parfum – though not necessarily less appealing.  I guess being eau de toilette for the hardcore perfume freak means you just have to spray more often because it evaporates faster. 

Crabtree & Evelyn was founded in 1973.  Its founders, based in Massachusetts, combined names of British fauna (‘crabtree or wild apple’) and a British botanist (John Evelyn) with packaging design and colors (‘in the British apothecary tradition’) that’s, well… British-influenced.  However, it is presently Malaysian, being owned by a Malaysian business venture, although it’s still ‘an American retail establishment’.  Marketing sure is swell.

As every December, the Crabtree & Evelyn shop in Kowloon’s Harbour City conducted their annual ‘giveaways’.  That meant they slashed prices of some pretty stuff that were on display for 2008 and offered Christmas gift packs.  Don’t get fooled, though… a bottle of eau de toilette a little bit smaller than my fist presently costs around HKD 600.00, which meant a 50% ’slash’ is still… something!  They also had the standard hand lotion and bath stuff; I adored that the hand lotions were packaged in big tin tubes, like oil paints. 

This year, I fancied a ‘giveaway’ called Summer Hill.  It’s floral with a hint of citrus, much like Sonoma Valley of an earlier batch.  I loved Sonoma Valley.  But many if not all C&E scents are made in limited batches, so it’s common to see them end up in eBay for even more ridiculous prices.  I wonder if Summer Hill is kind of Sonoma Valley but in different percentages of the ingredients.  My Sonoma Valley ran out three years ago, so I can’t compare.

What, I Said That?

 

[Hillary Clinton] is going to be an outstanding secretary of state. And if I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t have offered her the job. And if she didn’t believe that I was equipped to lead this nation in such a difficult time, she would not have accepted.      

                                                                  – Barack Obama

 

That was certainly big of him.  I thought he thought Hillary Clinton was a shrew (and she thought he was naively idealistic) and now they’re making nice.  So much for change.  Or maybe this is ‘change’ — he’s trumpeting non-divisiveness.  I’ll say it again, he is smooth.  But well, people listen to him so it’s probably good.  Difficult times it is, and why not put Hill in charge of talking the kinks out with Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, North Korea, and China.  Oh, remember Hillary condemning China for unwanted baby girls and other human rights violations; negotiations would be interesting.  Is Hill up for it?  We always thought she had more brains and balls than Bill did and DSTS said Bill’s advantage was his EQ — Hillary, while having the brains, couldn’t make people relate to her as her husband and Barack Obama can.  Nevertheless, secretary of state seems a shoe-in.  Most approve of Obama and Clinton’s body language. Now let’s see if she’s in.

Meanwhile, as Ted Kennedy remains unwell, Caroline Kennedy angles for Hillary Clinton’s vacated New York seat.