Thin and Thankful

I'm back to a hundred pounds. I weighed myself this morning before going to work because I thought I was gaining weight from all the holiday festivities. In short, I felt fat. I expected to be at 110, or 105 at least but no, I was a hairline away from the 100-pound mark. So that actually makes me 99.99999 pounds.

I am admittedly underweight, not exactly by choice but I'm not complaining either. My height is somewhere between 5'3" to 5'4", depending on how straight I stand.

My weight has always been a constant source of speculation among people that I've come across with. For instance, a college classmate once asked if I was anorexic. I thought she was joking. It turned out she used to be one and I was amused to meet the first ever anorexic person in my life. You see, eating disorders were just things that I read about. I couldn't help but be amused. Acquaintances have assumed that I do vigorous workouts or that I enjoy sports at least. They ask me for tips on losing weight. They do not understand that there was never much weight to lose to begin with. Still others just stare at me, then my plate, speechless at the huge mountain of rice for my lunch.

Know that I tried gaining weight at various stages in my growing up years. I was a stick, shapelessly straight from head to toe. Okay, there was a slight bulge in the tummy area. Not a pretty sight but I've since learned to hide it but that's a different story. I wanted to be voluptuous. Curvy. Full-figured. Believe it or not, I wanted to add more meat to my thighs and arms. When I was younger, I would look at my thighs pressed to the chair that I was sitting on and think they should look like that, ideally. Years later, friends would tell me how much they envy my skinny legs and arms so I had learned to think that they were alright after all. I would get complimented on for no other reason than because I was thin.

So I guess I'm lucky. Lucky to not have to starve myself to be thin. Lucky to never have to compute how many calories a slice of chocolate cake has. Lucky to have been born in this century when thinness almost equals attractiveness or even health. Yeah, I'm lucky to be thin. Sometimes I forget.

Random Christmasy Events

December is the time for get-togethers. Here are random (stolen) pictures of various get-togethers I attended, from the dinner with officemates to dinner with High School batchmates to the dinner with we screw crazies...

Achi Janice's Wedding

So my eldest sister, aka Achi Janice, finally got married last Sunday. That was December 16, 2007. These are the unofficial pictures, taken mostly while we were preparing for the wedding. I'm not sure when the official ones are coming out.

The following pictures are taken mostly by Nuna, Iel, Bin-Bin and whoever else got hold of my camera.

D's Band

It's not a party until someone takes off his clothes.

D's Band is the winner of the Battle of the Bands in our company Christmas party. Each band performed three songs. This is their first. For bookings, tell me and I'll ask them. Hahaha! Band members: Jay Casal (lead guitar), Alben Viernes (rhythm guitar), Dong Yap (bass guitar), Eman Pallos (drums), Abdi Duwa and RC Calimlim (vocals).

Again, I stole this video so shhh...

VHS Christmas Party '07

These are random pictures of our company's Christmas Party. I stole them from different sources. Please don't sue me.

- Victoria's Own -: Too Feminine - Aigner

http://victoriasown.blogspot.com/2006/05/too-feminine-aigner.html
I did my biggest splurge of the year last night. I was hoping to find gifts for my friends but I ended up buying myself a super-expensive one--keep in mind that I practically never buy anything over P300, espcially not for myself. Which is good because I can justify this purchase. And one more thing, it's going to be paid at 0% interest over a period of six (6) months.

I can never write a review good enough for a scent and I don't really have to because there's the Internet and Ms. Google anyway. So clickety-click!

I'm so bangoooo! ;)

Friendster - 廓 dada 廓

http://profiles.friendster.com/35610413
I am posting this link for no other reason than because she quoted a part of my story, "Kawil" in her profile. No, I have no idea who she is. And no, I never denied being vain.

Garage Sale @ Bin-Bin's

To minimize clutter and earn money in the process, we had our garage sale last weekend. :)

Dogeaters (A Play About the Philippines)

Rating:	★★★
Category:	Other

I can understand why Jessica Hagedorn's "Dogeaters," the novel and then the play, became a hit in the US. After all, anything coming from and about this side of the world must be exotic, right? The very title suggests a barbarism that has been accused of the Filipinos by their colonial masters through hundreds of years. A Fil-Am writer in New York writing about the Philippines... not only that but the Philippines at its most controversial and interesting time. It definitely has all the ingredients of a hit. That's for the American market. When writing about a group of people, it only follows that that group of people will be the hardest to please. And I am not pleased.

Asked if it was good by a friend, I could only muster a non-committal, "It was ok. It was not spectacularly good but it was ok." Pressed for more by the question, "Will you recommend it?" I answered, "Only if you have nothing to do. It's not a complete waste of money and time naman. But it's not something to really rave about. Go and watch 'Avenue Q' na lang." But one can only write so much in a text message so I felt compelled to write this review.

From the point of view of a Pinoy audience as myself, the play is soulless at best. Uninspiring. Clinical. Cold. Just some of the words that come to mind at the moment. I am not moved in any way. Not once in the more or less two hours of sitting in the dark theater am I transported back to the Martial Law era, when the play is supposedly set. I cannot sympathize with the characters. Any characters. They remain to be actors playing out roles for me onstage. I do not feel anger, hurt, shame nor pride. I do not feel. Period.

And don't get me wrong, the acting is quite good.

So what went wrong?

-The material is huge: the scope too wide, the story too thin. Logically, one will not be able to find anything wrong with the story. Everything is probable. Historical, even. But the depth of each life's story is inevitably sacrificed. What's more is that this play attempts to tell a nation's story.

-The problem of language. Perhaps it is practical to have it in English. It is, after all, originally a novel in English for the American audience, and then a play staged in Broadway. Watching it in Manila, however, makes it a bit difficult to believe that a junkie who lives in the slums of Tondo would talk to his uncle-pimp in English. Sure, they compensate by having a Filipino accent. Err, unfortunately, it does still ring false to a Pinoy's ear, just as the story itself carries with it a certain sense of detachment.

-I do not know how long and how extensive a research was done for this story but perhaps Hagedorn should be writing about the Fil-Am experience instead. Maybe then there could be some truth to the emotions in her story and it would not feel as clinical. It does not seem as if the story has any clear and deep understanding of a Pinoy's sensibilities at all. It claims to be a play about the Philippines and yet it does not feel Pinoy.

I cannot help but compare the play to "Avenue Q" because it was the last I watched before "Dogeaters" and I watched it in the same venue. "Avenue Q" had no pretensions. It simply is a story about a confused young man eager to know what life is all about as he searches for his purpose in life. It's about this one man who realizes how inadequate his college degree is, how immature and scared he is when it comes to love and commitment, how the internet is for porn...

And that's where "Dogeaters" ultimately fails. It attempts to tell so much and yet everything comes out as two-dimensional. It's soulless! *wails.