Night Rain -- a repost

I was halfway through my last stick,
while sipping sweet hot tea with milk,
when I suddenly
heard a rumble coming from the west.
I stopped for a brief moment to listen,
trying to decipher what the noise was,
where it was coming from.
Could it be an old-beat up car?
A jeepney on its way home from a day of work,
plying through Manila’s busy thoroughfares?
Somehow,
I could not make sense of what the rumble was.
Slowly,
the noise grew louder.
Could it be rain?
I looked at the evening sky.
No stars were in sight,
even the moon seems to be out for the night.
As the noise seems to approach me,
I felt a gush of strong wind,
not the usual cold night breeze.
Still, the noise seems to have a mind of its own,
slowly drawing nearer.
Then,
like soft pebbles,
drops of rain poured,
onto the streets,
onto the plants,
into my roof.
It was an extraordinary experience,
waiting for the rain,
waiting for the drops to come pouring from the sky,
for this gift from the dark firmament
to soak the hot sweltering evening.

- 7:55pm, 09 September 2004, Thursday

43 Things

My friend Tanya mentioned about this website where anyone can post their “43 Things”. It’s like a wish list… 43 things you’d like to do in your life. It can be as trivial as “smile everyday” or earth shattering like… hmmm… let’s say “get “married soon”.

Don’t ask me why 43, and not 34 or 50… I still have to look that up. (Send me a note if you want to get the website, or just google it.)

I would like to share with you my very own “43 Things”. I actually did some modifications. Instead of 43, I reduced my list to 31 – each item representing one glorious year of my life. Yes folks! I’m already 31!

You can’t see all 31 items in the list. I just had to edit out some things, hehehe.

1. Learn how to swim
2. Travel to Egypt
3. See the ruins of Pompeii
4. Visit the US
5. Go back to Europe
6. Sing in a lounge bar
7. Buy a camera
8. Learn photography
9. Put up my own art exhibit or photo gallery
10. Go bunjee-jumping
11. Get a dog
12. Read more
13. Finish my thesis
14. Learn to do cartwheels
15. Ride a bike again
16. Learn a foreign language
17. Lose 10 pounds
18. Learn how to dive
19. Put up a business – spa or salon
20. Buy a new car
21. Buy a house in tagaytay or somewhere near the beach
22. Meet ________
23. Have a couple of beers with ________
24. Put up a consultancy firm on HR and OD
25. Meet Carly Simon
26. Watch more movies

So the remaining 5 things, you just have to guess.



9:36 pm
23 March 2006, Thursday
Kuala Lumpur

Sing-kah-poh!

Let’s go to Sing-kah-poh! I love going to Sing-kah-poh!

Sing-kah-poh is a hawker’s place near our place. They serve, of course, mostly Chinese food and some stalls serve Indian food. But everytime I eat there, I order the fried rice with salted fish. I keep forgetting what’s it called in Bahasa. See? It’s that good, I always have temporary amnesia everytime my tongue goes near it. Really yummy! It’s Malaysia’s version of fried rice and tuyo, only better, faaar better. And the serving, man, it’s fit for 2 people. Or, if you’re like me, who sometimes goes on the ‘kain-karpentero’ diet, then this meal is for you!

Now, what does Sing-kah-po mean? It’s actually the name of a country here in Asia. Take a guess… a wild guess. Sirit na? It’s named from one of the hottest country here in Southeast Asia… Singapore!!! Still don’t get it?

Here’s the trick. Pretend you’re Chinese, I mean pure Malaysian-Chinese. Now, try to pronounce Singapore… slowly. Sing... kah…poh! Galing no?

Anyone wants to go to Sing-kah-poh?


18 March 2006
12:49am
Penang

Going oriental – belly dancing

As a result of being a bum for almost 3 months, I decided to realize the first social need of all human beings – self actualization. Yes, my goal is to self-actualize, to be the best of what I can be. So aside from realizing my dream of being the next Van Gogh, I decided to enroll in something I am very interested in.

I love dancing – evident in the a) many Friday nights spent dancing and partying in Xaymaca (a local reggae bar), and b) the many excruciating hours I spent during my childhood dance lessons (ballet, jazz, and hawaiian). In fact, I also enrolled in a jazz dance class a few years back. The thing is, my dance teacher had this habit of always shouting at his students with 2 left feet, i.e. ME! So I said goodbye to him, and his sour temper.

I’ve tried a lot of dance classes – ballet, jazz, Hawaiian, ballroom dance – and somehow, I felt that it was not what I am really good at. In ballet, the ballerina needs to have small boobs and small head. I have a pretty ok-sized head, but I am what you will considered as “well-endowed”. So I decided to say goodbye to my ballerina dreams. Jazz dancing requires the dancer to be flexible and pliable (hehehe, wait, that word is only used for metals, right?). I am not flexible at all! Ballroom dancing requires you to have a dancing partner. Well, too toxic to find an excellent male dancer. Soooo…I decided to enroll in a different kind of dance class – Belly Dancing! Yahoo!

Why not! I think I am pretty much qualified to become a belly dancer – I love dancing, and I have a belly, kinda big actually! Hahaha! Seriously, my dance teacher told us that belly dancing would look good on women with curves in their mid-section. She didn’t say that belly dancers need to have love-handles, but that’s my interpretation. And she allowed me to enroll in her class, didn’t she – me, with all my lovehandles.

According to the internet, belly dancing is also known as Oriental Dance. And is very popular in the middle eastern countries. Well, what do you know, I dream of going to Egypt one day. This may be the first step towards the realization of another dream – embracing the Egyptian culture and traditions! And who knows, I might be able to use my belly dancing skills should I travel to Egypt one day. I can moonlight as a belly dancer outside train stations, giving passers-by the best belly dance performance, in exchange for a few dollars. Hehehe. So oriental! So Gypsy-ish! I am so excited!

I’ve finished the whole belly dancing course – all 6 grueling sessions of swaying, undulating*, and swishing my hips to the beat of oriental music. I loved it! It felt so sexy, so feminine, so empowering!

So the next time you have a lot of free time, extra cash, and a sudden urge to do something different, try belly dancing, and undulate your blues away.


Note:
* Undulate is the rolling, rippling and heaving movement used in belly dancing. The movement is usually concentrated in the mid-section, and causes the belly to rise and fall, resulting in a snakelike movement.


11 March 2006
Sunday
3:45
Penang

Van Gogh wanna-be

I love sunflowers.

I love Van Gogh’s Sunflower.

Looking back, I don’t know if I liked sunflowers because of Van Gogh’s painting, or if I liked Van Gogh’s painting because I liked sunflowers.

In any case, I got hooked on Van Gogh’s paintings. Especially after I visited his museum and got to see his paintings with my own eyes. I started downloading pictures of his paintings in the internet, trying to imitate his artwork through sketches. And mind you, my sketches were not a pretty sight. My version of the chair in one of his paintings (of his room, I think), didn’t look like a chair at all! (see photo).

But since I had this delusion that someday I would be like him, with millions of people admiring my artwork, in my own museum, I decided to take up art classes in January. I actually took art classes 8 years ago. But since my previous boss was a workaholic and wanted his staff to work overtime, and even over the weekend, I was not able to graduate. Damn! My classmates even had medals and certificates!

That class was actually frustrating. Since it was done in the summer, we had a lot of young classmates – as young as 9 years old. And my ego was at its lowest since I could not even draw a vase! It’s like rubbing salt to injury when I took a peek at my 9 year old classmate’s drawing. It was damn good! Far better than mine! Well, I just convinced myself that the kid would be the next Malang of the Philippines.

But as they say, never say never. I would not let a 9-year old art freak step on my dreams of becoming the next Van Gogh. So, I enrolled…again. This time, I chose the weekday classes, Wednesday mornings. For sure there would be no kids attending the class. And if there are, I would convince their parents that primary education is far more important that art classes. I could not afford to let another kid ruin my dream! Bwahaha!

Art class is really fun! Especially with a teacher like ours. (Send me a message if you want to enroll in his class). He always has a good and encouraging word for everyone. One time, while looking at my sketches, during our nude sketching sessions (no, we didn’t sketch in the nude, we had a nude model, hahaha!), he looked at my artwork, and commented, “Ang galing ng sketch mo ah!”. I looked at him incredulously, and thought, this man must be crazy! My sketch didn’t look like a woman at all! It looked like a large log with a large fruit hanging at the end! But hey, he’s a master in art, he really must see something in my work, right? Nonetheless, I was very disappointed with what I did. I wanted to pay my respect to the girl posing as our nude model. It’s not easy literally stripping off all your clothes in front of 20 amateur wanna-be artists. I wanted to make art out of what she is doing, because it is what supposed to be done… art. Unfortunately, no matter how I tried to find the best angle, best lighting and shadow effect, the best pencil, and the best sketchpad, my sketch simply did not look like her. Maybe my forte is in abstract art. Can’t wait for our lesson in abstract!

I can’t let the small things bother me. I believe that I am an artist! I would not let comments of my teacher’s assistant like, “Anong nangyari sa vase mo, binagyo?” get to me. They don’t realize my potentials! They don’t know art! They don’t know that I’m the next Van Gogh! (Come to think of it, Van Gogh didn’t become famous until he became crazy, cut his ears and died. Morbid, morbid thoughts! I love my ears!!!)

In the basic art class, we were able to do pencil sketching, shading, pentel pen sketches, craypas drawings, and watercolor. I liked craypas best. You’re supposed to color the paper with full force, in order to completely cover the paper. It’s a good therapy, I tell you. Just think of all the things that pisses you off, and you will never notice that you actually have covered your whole sketch page with color! – red for blood, green for bile, black for misery.

After several Wednesdays of pure concentration and sheer determination, I was able to graduate! Yahoo! Finally, the first step to my dream of becoming the next Van Gogh! I am victorious!

My fearless forecast? I would be busy the next few years doing artwork for my exhibit, for my art patrons, for my future museum. So if I were you, you should immediately commission me for an artwork. I will be the next hot thing in art! I will be famous! I will be the next Van Gogh! Bwahaha!!!

Disclaimer:
The author is not morally and socially responsible for any statements written in this blog entry. It was not her who wrote the article, it was her delusional, evil, self-consumed twin sister, psychologically traumatized because of the still-unfulfilled dream of becoming a visual artist. Rest assured that the evil twin sister is being psychologically counseled and treated for her delusions.


05 March 2006
8:05pm
Penang