Tuesday, September 30, 2008

From the other blogs: Sunday, February 05, 2006

dead hair rashdi: ouch! what was that all about!?
mama: that dead hair was sticking out.
rashdi: THAT didn't feel like dead hair!!!

From the other blogs: Sunday, October 09, 2005

ending perfectly good emails with "forward this to ten people you care for the most and you will be rewarded with the luckiest day you ever had tomorrow".

about four of the ten people i love the most do not have email.

From the other blogs: Monday, October 03, 2005

aristhemedes lamarck d.c. cruz. grade 3. why burden a child with this name? i grew up fighting "monabelle". my feelings of intense hate for my name has not gone away. maybe a little diminished. but there still and very strong.
when i first went to school as a tag-along to my way-too-mature-for-her-age older sister maita, i did not know that my name was the letters M,O,N,A,B,E,L,L and E i wrote on the first line of my pad paper in school. when asked, i always say my name was yenyen. it was not even my official nickname of moonyeen, a derivation of my legal first name, but simply yenyen, invented by lisping siblings who couldn't pronounce the fancy red-indianish moonyeen. during that first year in school, i, auguring of things to come, got bored with the normal and decided to put a bar connecting the two "l"s. and when the teacher, mrs. odilao, asked who her new student named Monabehe was, i only vaguely thought that it was probably me she was referring to and that i shouldn't have tampered with the symbols because they apparently stand for something to others.

when i was old enough to do so, i remember questioning my mother and father about their judgement in choosing a label for me. instead of feeling special in being the only child among seven to be so blessed as to be baptized with the cleverest combination of their names, ramon and annabella, i felt like the singled out ugly duckling, so hated and unloved that i was condemned to a life lived with the eternal burden a terrible name.

i hated being introduced to others. i blame my name now for my shyness and underachiving in high school and college. monabelle did not match my idea of who i was. in my mind, i was this vibrant, cool and intelligent chick, everything opposite what "monabelle" called to mind.

it has been over a decade since i have been introduced to others as monabelle. in a previous career, my official byline was yenyen. and it has been yenyen since then. my email, my calling card, everything almost except my ATM card.

googling monabelle will produce an old lady in ohio and a gift shop in UK and the most wonderful of all, the one which might make me love my name finally, is this theory that leonardo da vinci painted monabelle, not monalisa.
i am grateful to the kabalarians for putting into words the effect my name had, is having on my life.

Although the name Monabelle creates executive ambitions, we emphasize that it limits self-expression and friendly congeniality with a moody disposition. This name, when combined with the last name, can frustrate happiness, contentment, and success, as well as cause health weaknesses in the reproductive organs, heart, lungs and bronchial area.

The name of
Monabelle has made you rather reserved and, at times, secretive about your personal affairs. As a result, people find it difficult to understand you and you suffer through loneliness. You are interested in understanding life along scientific, religious, and philosophical lines. Also, you derive much enjoyment from reading and from being out in nature. At times, you find it easier to express your thoughts in writing, rather than verbally. You are astute regarding the value of money, have good business judgment, and can drive a hard bargain if such is required. This name has not allowed you to express fully the softer, more spontaneous qualities of your nature because of its practical business attributes.

From the other blogs: Thursday,, September 29, 2005

at 3:24 each afternoon, unless i get lucky, i have to stop being idle at the office and start working for my family. i briskly walk the 150 meters to my daughter's kindergarten school, evading the pricking afternoon sun. then i wait with other mothers, fathers, yayas, lolas and others to whom the task of bringing snotty kids home is assigned. surprisingly, however, i look forward to doing it. seeing jana's happy face emerge from her classroom is unexplainable bliss. seeing the face light up when she sees her mother waiting for her is even more than that. the happiness of motherhood for me is condensed into the smile of each of my three children when they see me, after having been absent from their lives for a week, or, in the case of playing peekaboo with diego these days, after 3 seconds.

jana's face would shoot sunshine and her feet would skip, not walk, when she sees me by the gates. then she would run shouting "mama ko yan!". this week, this routine was even made more special two times. on tuesday, she came out of her room, holding on to teacher jessica's hands, with her pink lunchbag unzipped and worn as a hat, with a pink dot stamped one each on her forehead, cheeks and on her nose, right between her eyes. removing the lunchbag did not help but only revealed the sorriest attempt at a bo derek cornrows 'do. i sent her to school the following day wearing a conservative headband pushing all hair off her face. taking after her nomal-is-boring parents, she refashioned it during class into something a flower power girl from the 60s would be proud to wear to woodstock, the band worn horizontally across her head, covering her eyebrows, and her fine , wavy hair falling in an unkempt fashion to her back.

dresses do not escape her fashion experimentation. last night she tried on five party dresses to wear to yaya mila's ice cream eating session. party at the drop of a hat indeed. i never study my outfit the way she does. she looks at all angles the way i should but, as i said not very long time ago, never do. she sways and shimmies in front of the mirror. she smiles. she covers all angles. she did not get this from me.

Thursday, September 25, 2008

Exactly two years

following the guidelines of an agreement with myself, i have just posted an entry from one of my old blogs (may they realize they will soon rest in peace).

its a post written by an obviously excited me, jumping up and down at the thought of leaving for the states in a year's time.

a conversation between the me now and the me then would probably go like this:

me now: hello! what are you doing here? 2008's almost up and you're nowhere near stamford.

me then: so?

me now: so you still live a hand to mouth existence.

me then: i have my vogue...

me now: there is that.







From the other blogs: Monday, September 26, 2005 #2

the great delgado migration to the states will take place november 2006 or thereabouts. a year later than hoped. i have been going on and on about how terrible it is to subject myself and my family to this limbo of being not really here anymore in zamboanga but neither being really in stamford yet.

ate evelyn, my cousin's wife who is our agent, said that maita and i will be flying out late october, early november of this year, but not outside the country but only to manila for a video conference interview with the stamford hospital system, together with their other applicants. maita insists that our absolutely no-fail method of acing tests (interviews included) will shoot us to the top 2 positions. like our dad, if only 50% will be accepted, we'll belong to the upper 50% percentile. if only 20%, then we'd be there too. if only 1%, that would be the two of us.

once they think we're cute, they'll give us a written job offer, which, if we will sign, will catalyze the petition process with the US Immigration Services. a process which takes 9 to 12 months. thus the november 2006 leaving date.

which brings me back to the question, should i or should i not accept the offer to be chair of the mass communications department?

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

From the other blogs: Monday, September 26, 2005

status report

jana the non-stop-in-the-car talker: "two ang name ni kuya, rashdi ramon. two ang name pud ni papa."
papa the cool and stoic driver: "no. papa only has one name."
jana tnsitc talker: "no. lola said two ang name ni papa: ariel, papa."

==================

mama: it looks like you will stay in ferndale one more year. we will have another jacket made for you.
rashdi: no! i want to graduate in ateneo!
mama: huh?
rashdi: i am bored with having no internet in ferndale. you have to pay Ps 20 to use the computers there after classes.
mama: if we hooked up at home, would you stay at ferndale?
rashdi: yeeeeeeeessssssss...

============================

tufty hair: neh!
mama and papa: you want bread and peanut butter baby?
tufty hair with two giant upper front teeth: NEH!

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Consolidation is so exciting

this is my fourth attempt at blogging. i so want this to be the last and the only.

so, starting tomorrow, i am going to upload one entry a day from my three other blogs into here.

it will take a lot to stay true to my self-imposed one-old-entry-a-day rule but i will really, really give it my bestest because i feel my old blogs petered out because of poor self-discipline. there. i said it. i have poor self-discipline.

then i am going to link my multiply, my shelfari, my flickr, and my 43things accounts here. i will be ONE!

i will not be linking my friendster -- because i do not have one!

Because to me it's torture to endure

i hate the morning sun.

Monday, September 22, 2008

What in heaven's name is bondadoso?

Two taps on the forehead with his extended forefinger. Then two thumps on the sternum. This was followed by a pointing in the general direction of his left shoulder. This is my three-year-old Diego's version of the signing of the cross.

We went to the ten o'clock mass in Sta. Maria for a change. Change here being an ambitious word, considering that the pattern is only worth three weeks.

I like the early masses better because there are less babies. Diego, to his credit, was very poised, but it's cruel to expect kids to maintain social grace for more than an hour. To outwit a meltdown, we marched him to the altar for holy communion, came down to give an apologetic and rapid thanksgiving, then exited to the playground outside the side door. We humbly received the final blessing seated in the metal swing.

There are more big people in the ten o'clock too. And the organist was late. i recognized the singer from college. He used to be a seminarian. Bong something. He gave a high school friend The Count of Monte Cristo. Seminarians were popular with girls when I was in high school and college. He was seated near the organist (but sang a capella for the first thirty minutes, see reason above) and throughout the course of the mass, he stoically sang despite the regular visits three little kids paid him. His presumably. An ex-seminarian with three kids. Now you know not to trust a priest-wannabe who gifts you with The Count of Monte Cristo. If he'd gifted me with Calvin and Hobbes, I'd have married him myself. But I wasn't the kind of girl seminarians liked. In college, I thought one of them had the hots for me. I found out later he only desired one thing from my person -- answers to our zoology lecture final exam. To be given to him on a newsprint platter DURING the exam.

i liked that the classics-gifting ex-seminarian father of three chose to sing familiar songs. my mother and i share a dislike for masses where the choir monopolizes heaven's attention. i propose that heaven is pleased by earnestness, not quality singing. and that Jesus and all the saints like people to talk directly to them, not through a choir.

I saw a child with a red baloon in church. Going home, we saw a baloon vendor amongs the kakanin stalls across the road from the church grounds. Go for the puto sold in one of middle stalls. It's the one with five putos to a pack sold for PHP 20. It's bigger than the usual ones, less white, and very hot when we bought it. The smaller putos of PHP 10 per pack, the ones with flat, rather than erupted, tops taste like dry and cold clumpy rice.

In his homily, the priest gave a quite accessible explanation of the difference between being just and being generous and why you need to be both. He talked mostly in chavacano, using some never-heard of words. now i need to look up bondadoso.