Question: Share to us one of the strangest dreams you ever had.
Answer: One of the strangest dreams I had would be one of the earliest I could still recall. I had this dream when I was very young; I remember it probably because I dreamed it several times over. Before I turned 12 years, our family lived in Makati together with parents and siblings of our mother's. We lived in the furthermost apartment unit of three units, the family-owned compound was fronted with my Lola's dress shop and beauty salon.
Ours was a two-storey, two-bedroom apartment unit. I slept in the room that faced the stairs. In the dream, I remember myself peering into the living room from the top of the stairs. In the living room I saw myself and my elder sister each sitting at two single side sofas separated by a side table. Instead of the side table there was toilet-shaped lavatory; we took turns turning the faucet on and off, and the water was overflowing.
This dream was from a long time ago. I'm not sure if I've missed any other detail. But aside from this scene I also remember that I found myself in front of the beauty salon's entrance, which held a door with clear glass pane three-fourths its size. I was crouched on the doorstep, snooping, seeing straight, long-haired, fair-skinned hairdressers attend to dark-skinned, wildly afro-haired customers.
The last time I told this was back in Baguio with student-volunteers who helped mount a photo exhibit at the University of Baguio. One volunteer told me that she didn't feel good about the dream-story at all - that dreams that involve water are usually bad. I have a dictionary of dream symbols but I've yet to will myself to go over details of the dream, refer to the dictionary for meanings.
[Question selected at random from Ice Breaker 2: Hard Questions]
Funnyplace is one of my pleasurable haunts on the 'Net. I stumbled upon the site while searching for funny TV commercials in Youtube. More than the funny, clever storylines, TV commercials featured in Funnyplace are sometimes my source for interesting music. I got an e-mail update from Funnyplace two days ago which included a KIA Spectra commercial. It features Joe Purdy's "Can't Get It Right Today." I have no previous knowledge of Joe Purdy or his work until this commercial: I listened to a fragment of the lyrics, Google for some leads, then Youtube, hoping to find the full song. Lucky me, see Youtube embed below. (More about the artist in his website.)
Eon first showed this to me, then found it again while bloghopping at Tumblr. With a quick Google, it seemed to me a popular product with online stores such as AllPosters.com. Copyright 2004 by Knowledge Unlimited based in Wisconsin, whose products are claimed "to close student achievement gaps and make learning a joy." I'm still curious though how these rules came about, particularly whom among writers and academics (and other sources) actually contributed into coming up with the list. Couldn't find anymore background information online on this, but my guess, this poster's gonna be something "iconic." Can a Wikipedia entry be anticipated soon?
When waters brought by Typhoon Ondoy began flooding the apartment, best efforts were exerted to prevent water damage to appliances and furniture. A race against the fast rising waters, my household also suffered a slight loss to property. On the apartment's ground floor, I had several corrugated boxes and plastic crates of books and other documents, packed about a year ago in anticipation of a move-out that didn't happen. Not all boxes were salvaged: the corrugated boxes in particular were already too wet to be efficiently moved out of its place
Sunday morning, when we started the salvage and clean-up work, I dug through the wet boxes and see whatever could be salvaged. Many souvenir items I got from my trip to Japan were destroyed: souvenir items from the Edo, Tokyo Modern and Hiroshima Art museums, Nikko national park, and Kyoto's Kiyomizu temple.
And there were books, mine and my hunny's. We have a sizable collection: aroud four plastic crates, a full shelf, and then some more inside two clothes cabinets upstairs. Almost two crates of books were beyond salvaging. I noted down the books we lost before packing the pulpy remains in two large plastic bags:
Novels of the Thursday Next series of Jasper Fforde - "The Eyre Affair," "Lost in a Good Book," "The Well of Lost Plots," and "Something Rotten" - all paperback, one of which we had two copies (couldn't remember which)
Yann Martel's "Life of Pi," paperback
Stephen King's "Danse Macabre," second-hand paperback
Matthew Pearl's "The Dante Club," paperback
Three-in-one special edition of J.R.R. Tolkien's "Lord of the Rings," paperback
Hitchcock Tales, full title unrecorded, second-hand hardbound with cover jacket
Pulp Fiction, one book from the series, full title unrecorded, discounted purchase
Stan Gibilisco's "Astronomy Demystified," second-hand purchase
"World's Best Fairy Tales," author unrecorded, passed-on hardbound
"The Art Book," a coffee-table publication by Phaidon, second-hand hardbound
"The Photography Book," a coffee-table publication by Phaidon, second-hand hardbound
Simon Schama's "A History of Britain II: The British Wars 1603–1776," based on BBC documentary of the same title, discounted purchase, hardbound
Gary Larson's "Far Side" second and third collections of illustrations, second-hand purchases
Dr. Seuss' "Horton Hears a Who," second-hand hardbound, ca. 1970's edition (green book cover)
"Prentice Hall Literature: The American Experience," an hardbound textbook, second-hand purchase
"Psychic Self-Defense," publication information unrecorded
Ernest Hillen's "Way of a Boy," passed-on paperback
There were some other printed stuff in conditions that render them unrecognizable without special effort. My hunny, in reflection, mentioned over chat the book collection we could rebuild a little at a time in the future, the mementos from Japan were a total loss. I roughly estimated all the books lost cost us around 9,000 pesos (almost 200 US dollars).
No strangers to devastations of typhoons, these Bicolanos still couldn't believe this much flood water brought by Typhoon Ondoy (International code name: Ketsana). I was fortunate enough to have hosted a sleepover for this group of friends all hailing from Lupi, Camarines Sur. The water that flooded into my apartment's ground floor could have been worse if they weren't around to help in shoveling the water back to the street. In their hometown, flooding only meant that the river overflowed, bringing with it, free supply of freshwater fish into their backyards. In Metro Manila, they realized, it meant stench and filth from the sewers.
Saturday, 26th, around 8 AM, I woke up with rain strongly pouring and I wondered if it would be wise to bring my PC for repair today. An hour later, I looked outside the door, the road outside, which is a slight downhill slope began to fill up, and I worried that the intersection at the end will definitely be flooded already. And half an hour later still, I noticed that the little flood had reached the sidewalk. I thought then that this was the usual worst of a heavy downpour this side of Metro Manila. Another half-hour later, the water has arrived my doorstep, which had a foot-high "dike" to step over upon entering the house. I thought, this rain must already be doing something bad in different areas of the Metro. Just before noon, with the help of the houseboy and his friends, who I had fortunately hosted for an overnight stay, we were already trying to plug cracks in walls "breathing" in the flood water. By noon time, with the help of a small pail and dustpan, we began to shovel out water. At the deepest, I got over two inches of flood water to deal with. A day after, after scanning news on television, I knew I was one of the lucky ones.
Question: What childish things do you still do as an adult?
Answer: I'm not sure if it's childish, but something that I still do is "daydream." In idle moments - when the 'Net or television or any of my usual media of recreation don't appeal at the moment - I just dream up of a life that most definitely could never be possible (short of actually stumbling upon a genie's lamp... oops, another daydream). I even do this fantasizing to lull me to sleep sometimes. I don't know why it works, considering that I let my mind work up a bit. But it does at times fail to bring sleep when I get too fired up with the "daydream" scenario.
Funny thing about picking this question, there is actually this daydream I have that is one of the stem sentences you finish for your My Opera profile: "if I won a million dollars, I would..." A million dollars would be close to 50 million in local currency. As far as high school, I think I have fantasized about this, only difference then and now being a little bit more "systematic" or "intelligent" in budgeting the amount.
As now being an adult, the one additional factor in my daydream is the budgeting of some amount for charity as well as some amount to "sustain" towards life expectancy. (No, not even in my childhood did I dream up of "investing" for a scientific breakthrough like living forever.)
Sometimes I think this daydreaming could be faulted for times when I don't seem to feel satisfied with what I have at present. But sometimes I think it has done wonders for harnessing my taste in several things: coupled with the occasional window shopping, I now almost have a complete picture of how my dream house should look like (i.e., if ever I do get to put that together, or even just parts of the ideal).
[Question selected at random from Ice Breaker 2: Hard Questions]
I've known this only as the fruit from whose seeds we get chocolate. Last night was not only my first time to see cacao (or cocoa) for real, it was also my first experience eating the fruit itself as dessert. The boys from Bicolandia brought some back from their vacation. Now, I've got a bunch of seeds in the kitchen left to dry; the boys hinted at somehow making home-made chocolate powder from these.
Question: What was the worst advice you ever gave?
Answer: I've given advices to friends that turned out for the worse. I guess that's the problem about giving advices: they're generalizations of learning from one's own experiences, and experiences are personal. Especially when advice is sought with regard to love and relationships. I think even in the face of a very profitable publishing business on these concerns, surely the bottom-line will always be oneself.
Recently, a friend who now has Singapore for residence, visited and met us who remain in Manila. As the usual case in reunions, we ended up reliving many shared anecdotes. My friend, who was at the end of recapitulating his roller-coaster love life, attributed some hits and bruises to things I've said. I remember specifically him recalling what I've said about getting into heated arguments with lovers. I was made to remember that I once said that arguments are a normal part of communication between partners, and pursue issues we must and seek to resolve, but must not put the future of a relationship at stake. I think my statement was something like "argue with your issues because you want to resolve it, not because you're thinking of calling it quits."
Truth to tell, I actually read this from one of those love and relationship advice books (not exact words). I believed it, and saw its wisdom with my own relationship. Somehow my friend felt that much of emotional anguish he had to bear in the past only amplified the falsity of this advice. Surely, there's no easy way to realize the why and wherefore of the difference in outcomes.
So when it comes to giving advice, I have this personal resolve: don't advice, counsel. Listen, reflect back, probe with questions. That's it. Of course, this won't always be easy for me. I'm very opinionated.
[Question selected at random from Ice Breaker 2: Hard Questions]
Answer: My desire is both radical and underwhelmingly ordinary. I desire for reasonable comfort in life, one that affords me civilian privileges not unlike any other hard-working citizen.
I don't desire lavish luxury, finances or fame. I just want to live within modest means, in my own abode, with my own family setting, with responsibilities affirmed and protected as any other spouse. For such an ordinary goal in life, it's really surprising that many people don't see that I deserve it. It inflames me that other people believe that desiring such contributes to the decay of civilization as we know it.
When I was much younger, a friend chided me for having lack of ambition, for not wanting to achieve fame and fortune; even when life ahead promised so much, my thoughts were already geared towards something "boring." That friend of mine has unfortunately passed on. Little did he realize how the challenge posed by gender and sexuality equality is seemingly now the Last Ultimate Challenge.
In Legazpi City, I attended a public hearing for a proposed provincial legislation on non-discrimation on the basis of sexual orientation and gender identity. Activists who unjustly represented the Faith-based communities were not interested in a dialogue on the basis of fundamental human rights. They just wanted our laws to maintain a "blind eye." To my mind, their bottom-line was (1) to insist that people do not care about protecting rights of LGBT persons; (2) to portray that LGBT persons themselves don't need lawful protection; and (3) to shame legislators for considering a measure that is mere folly as well as divisive as well as counter to "development."
I call them unjust representatives of Faith because these activists spew much hate, stubbornly resisting of civil dialogue, and still brazenly proclaiming a false gospel of love and compassion - one that has conditions, one that excludes, one that only accommodates their self-righteousness.
[Question selected at random from Ice Breaker 2: Hard Questions]
WIDGETIZE