Lovers in bohemia

one of the things i love most about my relationship with marlon is that we enjoy the same things. it makes time together utterly blissful. today's art attack was a great example.

after rolling out of bed at noon, we went to the red dot design museum on maxwell street for the market of artists and designers (MAAD), which i first heard about two years ago. it's a monthly market where all the goods must be handmade -- which made for an amazing browsing experience. i was getting a little mall-weary and starting to wonder where to find one-offs from indie designers and artists; i had begun to pine away for the rockwell urban bazaar, and the salcedo and legaspi markets. MAAD was just enough to save me from mass-manufactured insanity.

the red dot design museum

looking for an atm gave us a nice little look at chinatown, an area of singapore i've never poked around in. in fact, i don't think i've ever been to any chinatown, not even in manila.

the temple at chinatown

at the maxwell market: and i thought only pinoys could come up with signs like this

at MAAD, we found a surfeit of cute handmade jewelry, t-shirts, postcards, artwork, picture frames, bags, macbook stickers, magnets, accessories, dresses, notebooks, books and journals. (i'm actually thinking of selling at MAAD this year.) but hands down, the only thing i really, really gushed over and wanted to take home was the world's skinniest dog.

so tell me, ever thought about modeling?

this italian greyhound, aptly named "hungry", is owned by one of the sellers and seems like the perfect poster dog for figure-conscious singapore. adorable little hungry proved that he was also hungry for affection as he jumped all over me and marlon for big wet doggie kisses. sooooo cute!

we went to MAAD mainly for the portrait session -- you sit for ten minutes as a gaggle of illustrators draw your portrait. if you like one of the portraits drawn of you, you can buy it for $8.


marlon and i could barely keep still. i realized this is my fourth time to sit for a portrait in my whole life. i'll post the portraits we bought, and my four past portrait kwentos, in another entry.

we bought books from basheer graphic books -- an illustration book for me and a creative project/collage book for marlon, which sort of seemed like a swap of interests.


i also got a cute necklace with pendants made from a 1970's chinese-english dictionary. great concept -- the pendants were cutouts of interesting word pairs like "dangerous" and "adventure", "filial" and "loyalty", "air" and "vital". this was the word pair i chose, which is both apt for marlon and me, and how we chose to spend today.


later on, we went to the main basheer graphic bookstore at the bras basah complex in bugis (also known as the site of ze famous one-dollar bookstore), a discount art book xanadu for any artist/designer. picked up an old book of textile-patterned gift wrap up plus some art materials nearby -- did you think these two art-starved stragglers were about to let all this indie inspiration just slide by without tossing off a few projects of our own?

crossed the from bras basah complex and walked past the mint museum of toys (which should be another great weekend outing) to va va voom cafe for a tasty, light and south beach-friendly vietnamese dinner.

and now, after returning home to do some vacuuming with my spanking new hot pink vacuum cleaner (every couchwife should have one!)...


the hubby and i are putting those art materials to good use; he's working on an acrylic portrait of a rajasthani woman we photographed on our honeymoon, while i found a year-old sketch of hilda from the mahotella queens that i am turning into a collage with some new papers and marlon's old art materials.

so enough blogging, it's back to bohemia for now ;-)

Prints charming

while marlon was away on business, i promised marlon that i would rehabilitate the last remaining war zone in our home: the walk-in closet. it took me three sweltering afternoons, but i finally cleared out the foot-deep pile of clothes that literally carpeted the floor. the closet (or at least my half) now looks like this:


amazing! new things i found out about myself: i have nearly twenty skirts and two pairs of pants. yes, just two. technically, just one -- i retired the other pair after my honeymoon, when i saw all my pictures and saw that boot-cut flares were not doing anything for me anymore.

i was also shocked to see how many prints i own. i'm a sucker for paisley -- the three rightmost dresses (pink, red and black) are all paisley prints.


cute no? two-thirds of the prints in this picture are from vintage dresses picked up from various ukays. i've recently been inspired by agathe of stylebytes (the world's chic-est secretary) to revisit my closet and embrace my love for vintage and prints, instead of buying new stuff to keep up with how people dress around here.


i would totally flip out if i had a secretary who would walk into the office every day looking 152x more stylish than me! ang bongga niya no?

---
photo from stylebytes.

Project Runway Philippines

speaking of project runway, here's a funny coincidence. a bride from the weddings at work group just asked me to send her pictures of my wedding gown, saying that she was a huge fan of kate torralba but didn't think she could afford her. so i recommended the designer i would have chosen if kate and i hadn't agreed on a "friendly" rate -- veejay floresca.

in my email, i described veejay as "kind of like christian siriano from project runway" -- young (they're both 21, or least veejay was when i consulted with him early last year), super creative, extremely fast, and fun! they even kind of look alike. of course, christian ended up winning project runway.

the dutiful bride emailed me back to say that veejay would be tied up for the next two months with project runway philippines. hu-waaaa? project runway philippines?!?!?!?! may ganon?

apparently it started taping last week. all i know is that the local workspace (a.k.a. parsons) will be at the school of fashion and arts in makati. but who will tim gunn and heidi klum be? judges maraming puwede -- the greats like rajo laurel and inno sotto, even some of the fossils icons like ben farrales. i hope they do a great job on the show, not like the snoozefest that was philippines' next top model. we have so much fashion design talent, it truly deserves a well-planned and excellently produced show.

it will air on ETC... not that i'll get to see it. darn! i'm oddly happy for veejay -- i ran into him at gma after i decided to go with kate and he was most gracious about everything. he's great and i still want him to make me something someday :-)

best of luck, veejay (if you ever google yourself and come upon this blog). as the venerable tim gunn would say, "make it work!"

---
photo from veejay's multiply.

LBD love

i'm so proud of marlon! *tears*

despite all the inherent pitfalls of shopping for a picky wife, my husband bit the bullet with surprising aplomb. he completely bowled me over today with the little black dress he brought back from a business trip to guangzhou.

the mess is in HIS corner of the closet, not mine!

i love love love it. it fits perfectly and is super flattering! he pegged it on a drapey black dress i bought in malacca, which i think was a very smart thing for him to do. after all, don't we girls always fall for stuff that looks like stuff we already have? except that the malacca dress is office-appropriate -- this lbd is a strictly night-out version. i can already envision it with my gold stacked heels, or with purple tights or fishnets.

marlon recently shocked me into silence, then into gales of laughter, the first time he did a spot-on heidi klum impersonation; he has the bisected-sentence, nonchalant ice princess delivery down pat. he even has her script committed to memory: "we asked for avant-garde -- and all you gave us -- is a sad -- brown -- dress " and "your outfit looks cheap -- and poorly constructed." i suppose this dress is one of the less bizarre effects of having a husband patiently sit with you through that weekly dose of project runway.

That's the spirit

i love it.


i spotted this sign in a thrift shop on evangelista street, bangkal, makati.

i wonder. if the shop owner believed in the secret, would it have read: "mayaman kami, mayaman kami" instead? haha.

All hail the beauty regime

merriam-webster is quite clear on this, and so am i.

re·gime (n.)
\rā-ˈzhēm, ri- also ri-ˈjēm\
a: mode of rule or management
b: a form of government (a socialist regime)
c: a government in power (predicted that the new regime would fall)
d: a period of rule
i.e. "The Philippines was placed under martial law during the Marcos regime."

versus

regimen (n.)
\ˈre-jə-mən also ˈre-zhə-\
a: a systematic plan (as of diet, therapy, or medication) especially when designed to improve and maintain the health of a patient
b: a regular course of action and especially of strenuous training
i.e. "Her daily skincare regimen includes at least five different whitening products."

i think somebody forgot to tell the singaporeans. not only have i heard "regimen" being swapped for its politically-oriented sound-alike in conversation by the locals ("swimming is good exercise regime, lor") , i've seen it published in more beauty and fitness articles than i can count on both hands. i guess it's easy for the average joe to confuse the terms, but i would have expected more from editors, particularly of some of the international glossies they have around here.

my mental nitpicking has finally found a voice simply because my first assignment for a local mag involves writing about a skin "regime". yep, that word appeared on my job brief. and now i am faced with an interesting professional dilemma. do i:

a. sell out and use "regime" just to fit in? (the very thought makes my scalp bristle)
b. avoid using the word altogether? (a truly creative exercise as it is a skincare article)
c. use "regimen" and meekly await the inevitable striking of the n?
d. use "regimen" and eagerly await my chance to educate an editor? (we all love to be right, don't we?)

i feel like i'm going to get spotted and crucified by a local for criticizing locals, so i'll say this as well: i've found extremely brilliant beauty writers in singaporean magazines. the type who'll leave copy editors and writers with their mouths open, or drive housewives out to the nearest department store without having to drop the ubiquitous word, "must-have". (i happen to be both a writer and a housewife, so i know what i'm talking about). they may have to share space with the barely concealed press releases, but they exist nevertheless.

now if you'll excuse me, i've got a regime to attack.

Kitchen kakikayan

i found these random photos while cleaning out my camera's memory card. these are the fun kinds of things i like to do in the kitchen, when i'm not more seriously trying to follow in the footsteps of jamie oliver, my ultimate culinary crush. really, i never thought puttering around in the kitchen could be so much fun.

1) birthday cookie

we celebrated marlon's birthday (march 23) with a quiet evening at home watching stranger than fiction. in the middle of the scene where maggie gyllenhaal's character, who is a baker, offers will ferrell, who is auditing her bakeshop, a plate of fresh chocolate chip cookies, i suddenly had an overwhelming urge to break out the cookie mix and bake.

good old betty crocker was a no-brainer: just add two eggs, water and butter. now i understand why maggie randomly bakes at odd hours of the night, like at 1am during our kiddie sleepover. it's quite therapeutic, you don't need a whole set of implements and skills, and the smell is dah-vine.


ah shet. kaya pala leave spaces between cookies. our dozen or so cookies fused together to become a giant sheet of sugar. so i decided to decorate it and hit two birds with one stone: hubby's birthday and cookie craving.


as the syrup was a bridal shower gift, it may have been intended for less wholesome pursuits.

2) mint and lemon water

way back when we started dating, i knew marlon had major houseband potential. however, nothing prepared me for the day when he would chop up some fresh mint, slice up some lemons, stuff them into a bottle of water and store it in the fridge.


3) brainless grilled fish

i got this recipe out of my favorite cookbook, superfast foods. season fish steaks (white fish works best, but salmon and tuna are okay too) with salt and pepper, slap them on a greased grill pan (foil is optional but helps), spread dijon mustard and grated parmesan on top, and grill in an oven for ten to fifteen minutes. gaaaah ang sarap. virtually no oil pa.


you can substitute any type of mustard and any type of cheese. i personally would like to experiment with a two- or three-cheese variation. if you don't have an oven, you can even do this in an oven toaster!

ang saya saya!

Back to school?

hello, i'm back in singapore again.

there's a lot to write about, so much has been going on. lately i figured out what's been stopping me from blogging more regularly is this feeling that i have to write about significant past events before writing about what i really feel like writing about at the moment. so i'm putting that aside for now to say...

damn was it hot today. hahaha.

i'm finally making use of the reading corner in our bedroom to, well, read. i have an industrial fan aimed at me and am dredging the bottom of a glass of iced kapeng barako.

i am also surfing for arts courses. over the past few weeks the possibility of being an illustrator has opened up for me. i've been drawing and painting since i was small, although i haven't been as dedicated to it as i was in childhood. while racking my brains for new ways to find work here in singapore, i figured i might work on building up a portfolio of work as an illustrator and see where i can ply it.

also, i've always thought that if i would ever go back to school, i would take fine arts or design. and here seems like a nice place to do it. hindi ako masyadong natuwa sa mga nakita ko sa national museum nila, pero one thing that really strikes about singapore is its design savvy. i love old things and i love manila's cultural mishmash of kitsch, but i also like this aspect of living in such a young city. things are so new and so... designed.

so i'm contemplating plowing some of my earnings (yes, i'm about to have earnings very soon) into a short course. so far i've turned up courses on abstract painting, basic western art (as opposed to chinese i guess) and visual communication at nafa, a school in a part of town that i really, really like.

can't decide quite yet. the visual communication course seems to be the best compromise of "wishful" and "useful" in that it complements my experience and will allow me to invent myself as a writer/designer. my preference in art runs to rather graphic styles as well. but at $1,200 per term (and the likely necessity of a mac) it seems quite pricey. i'm not making that much... yet.

the abstract painting course's focus on exploration of materials intrigues me. it hints at collage, which is one of my favorite art forms. i would love to pick up some new perspectives and techniques that i can use. and at half the price of the viscomm course, it's beginning to look really, really good.

western art is just to really give me basic drawing skills and teach me to focus. i'm not particularly excited by it, but it could be really be useful.

i've been sidetracked by tempting little offbeat classes. like batik painting at the substation! but what the hell would i do with that, right?

Goodbye Nanay

my maternal grandmother, whom we called nanay, passed away in her sleep a little past midnight on wednesday. she had been confined in the hospital after coming down with a high fever the previous thursday, and had been showing signs of recovery despite being unconscious for several days. but our lord was kind, and took her painlessly and peacefully at the ripe, ripe old age of 94.

there are many other ways i've seen His kindness over the past few days. He also spared my mom from having to make any agonizing decisions over whether to keep her attached to all the medical equipment in the hospital in the hope of recovery, or simply to take her home and let the inevitable happen. i can say without a doubt He is truly wise, and makes the best decisions of all.

nanay has been one of the constants of my life, one of those that you think will never go away. she has lived with our family my -- and my sister's --- whole life.

this is the first time that i've faced a death in my own family. i was three when my dad died, so it was never really real for me.

there is much to say about nanay, and about the past few days, but i'll save that for when i get back. my sister and i flying home later tonight (after much wrestling with cebu pacific's insane ticketing system) to be with our mom, who is my biggest concern at this point. marlon will follow on a jetstar flight tomorrow morning. the funeral will be in my mom's home town of sta. cruz, laguna on sunday morning.

please say a prayer for nanay and our family. and when you do, please thank God for me -- for her long and full life, her peaceful and painless passing, and for the new angel who is now looking out for my family from a long-reserved, choice spot by His side.

Transliteration

omigod i can now blog in hindi characters! not that i actually know how to read indic script, but it's still pretty cool.

now i can also see what my dad's name (amitabha) looks like in this script. i've thought of getting this as a tattoo, but never knew what it would look like.

अमिताभा

tadaah!

okay fine matutulog na ako.

Oo nga naman

midnight chat with eena.

Deepa: wait i have to get it out right now -- i think the neighbors above us are having sex!!!! hahahahaha
Eena: hahahhaha
Deepa: i'm hearing pounding on the floor! hahahahaha!
Deepa: so sad. this is the first time i've heard sounds like this since we moved in in january!
Eena: baka naman nagp-pound ng pepper
Eena: haha
Deepa: ang laki naman ng pinangpa-pound ng pepper!
Deepa: and the layout of the condos is mostly the same, so bedroom din ang nasa ibabaw ko
Eena: ah ok. don't complain
Eena: you never know what the neighbors downstairs are thinking!

Alternate universe

it's funny. one of the reasons i was ecstatic to be assigned an episodic plug was because i thought it would be easy, and exactly like what i used to do for gma. in fact, those words have popped out of my mouth almost every time i talk about it to someone. but after day one on my first freelance promo project ever, i feel like i'm in an alternate universe.

and it's not bad at all. as i told marlon before he flew off to bangkok this evening, i wouldn't say it was easy, but i wouldn't say it was hard, either. the best thing about it, i think, is that i'm learning. and i know that short of a major fuckup, in at least ten days' time, i will have a piece of my work airing on international cable tv.

i showed up bright and early at the bda office (okay, 10am is not early by the standards of the working world), ready to view my episode of the show. already the jargon is different -- i "log" rather than timecode tapes, make a "log sheet" versus a shotlist, "cut" not script an episode, and produce a "promo" rather than a plug.

instead of a cushy little preview bay, i sat at a high stool in a room full of machines, kind of like the ingest room at post production. one thing carried over from my gma universe though -- the room for previewing tapes was ice cold!

and once i was in there, after a few minutes of help from lay tuan and a guy named raj, i was on my own. no george to teach me about the script format or make me watch showreels, or ayee to ask "sino si hagorn?" and cheer me on my first script, or bj to introduce me around the floor, or marian to squeal for voiceover scripts in the minutes leading up to 7pm, or dino to approve my script.

sorry for the digression. but god, i really miss my team right now.

anyway.

i took a loooong time (by my standards at least) to view the tape -- two hours. i felt rather self-conscious about the time i spent viewing, but i'd like to think the people at bda have better things to do than clock the freelancer. it was kind of like my very first day at gma, when i intently watched an entire half-hour episode of encantadia before going through it a second time to take down my shots. because, apart from the jog-shuttle mechanism on this particular betacam being a little hard to manipulate, my gulay, the material is awesome. complete, beautifully shot, and smart.

this is where i spin off into the aforementioned alternative universe. writing the script back in my cozy, cushy bedroom, i entered a new realm where lightning speed or ingenuously making do suddenly didn't matter so much anymore. with so much well-shot, well-written material on my hands, it began to occur to me that the challenge was not to be glib or slick, but to really figure out what the piece (the piece! i'm already talking about a television program like it's a piece of art!) intended to say, and say it in 30 seconds.

not to shock and awe, but to pare it down to one issue, and keep it simple.

to find the bottom line quickly, and to communicate it elegantly.

which i think i did, but i wouldn't be surprised if i didn't. i find myself excited to wake up tomorrow to find feedback of any sort in my inbox -- and not because i think i'll get rave reviews (although they would certainly be nice).

maybe because i want to know how close, or far, i've come to hitting the mark. because i want to find out my place in this universe, which is both strange and familiar. but most of all, because i want to learn.

Episode one

on wednesday, i woke up to a wonderful, wonderful email from lilian at bda.

i have this small project for you. it's an episodic promo. would you be interested in doing this?

in j's words, tumumbling ako. would i be interested in my first paying job in singapore EVAR?!?!?! hell yeah!

lilian went on to tell me the rate for a 30s episodic promo spot: SGD250. she explained, rather apologetically, that if they had a generic series plug for me to do, the rate would be much higher but would i mind? what did i think?

what did i think? forking over two hundred fifty dollars to a workaholic-turned-housewife who can barely afford to get herself a mani-pedi or keep herself stocked with magazines and chocolates (my weekly must-have luhos) without dipping into the hubby's pocket is like offering a glass of water to a man in the desert.

and two hundred fifty dollars for an episodic? dios mio, marimar! ina-outsource pa ba 'yon? that's nearly a third of my monthly salary at gma for something i used to do every single feckin' day! (and on really long days, i could do literally half a dozen episodics in a day!)

put it this way: two hundred fifty dollars for an hour of logging tape. maybe another hour of scripting -- at most (this generous speed assumes that i am practically brain dead, wear lead weights on my fingers and take a languorous snack break). on my first day at gma, i wrote my first script in ten minutes. and i knew nothing about the job or the show. my fingers were literally trembling as i typed.

then maybe another half hour each for revisions (if any) and brainstorming with/briefing the graphic designer (which used to take me and charlie eons). here i'll have to supervise the voiceover session and edit session, which i never did back home, but that's just another two to three hours tops, five if things go badly or slowly.

so, total it up and it works out to two hundred fifty dollars for less than eight hours of exactly the same type of work i used to do (and love to do) and the chance to wedge my foot in bda's door. who am i to complain?

wait, it gets better. the next day, bda's production manager lay tuan emailed me with the details.

i'm doing a promo for THE BBC!

the promo spot i'm doing is for an episode of BBC's horizon. (clicky on the linky. the promo for the memory episode is awesome.) and i have ten days to do it! kakaloka! toto, we're not in gma anymore!

first of all, i actually received a production schedule for an episodic. at gma, you're fortunate to even get a job order. second, the schedule stretches out over ten days from viewing and timecoding to final edit and dub out (or as they say here, dump out). the long gap between scripting and edit is for client approval and revision. back home, the faster the better! episodics have been known to be viewed, scripted and edited within hours.

i got all my instructions (plus a couple of sample promo spots and a nice tip from lay tuan to bring a jacket) last week, but i'm still thrilled and delighted. i feel totally vindicated to have held out for (and pursued) work that i really love and can get super duper excited about. i don't think i would be in this big a tizzy if i had sold out for an easy-come job like... i don't know, a tindera at an estee lauder beauty counter. which i seriously considered for... one whole afternoon. haha!

tomorrow's the big day! i plan to wear my gray team manila shirt (reprezzzzent y'all!). and right before i step into the bda office, i will put on my nice, new, hard-won hat -- you know, the freelance on-air promo writer/producer one.

*kilig* i can't wait.

A tale of two interviews, continued

interview #2: beverly

departure time: 930am, 1.5 hours prior

mode of transportation: shuttle bus to mrt station, mrt to toa payoh bus interchange, bus # 145 to tanjong pagar road

background research: i was asked to visit five portals/websites for women and be ready to discuss what i liked or disliked about them. it was a surprisingly easy task -- at some point, i've actually have been a regular visitor to three out of five of them: glam, daily candy and ivillage. (remember those superfun virtual makeovers? those were from ivillage.) one was a fun new discovery, fab sugar, and the last was the beverly site itself. it was, i think, the most reading i've ever done for an interview -- and i have four legal sheets of notes to prove it.

i also had to put together a writing portfolio -- i laid out and printed most of my pieces from the star (i rarely kept up with my articles when they came out in print, so all i had were soft copies), plus the things i wrote for penshoppe, wedding essentials, manila bulletin, candy and gma, and stuffed them into a clearbook.

outfit: cream, brown and pink printed wrap dress from folded and hung. i love this dress, it's so comfy and easy to wear. wore it with my vintage rose pendant and leopard-print heels.

took this photo in the only clean corner of the closet (on marlon's side nonetheless!). in fairness mukhang may blue filter!

the proceedings: after half an hour on the bus, i started to worry that i would be late. so i brought out my trusty street map to try and figure out where i was and how long it would take me to get to tanjong pagar. the skinny, reserved-looking chinese man sitting next to me seemed to notice. he leaned over and mumbled: "are you going to chinatown?"

"sorry?" i said politely, as i could barely hear him. this was to become an often-repeated word in the course of our conversation.

he repeated his question. "no, i'm going to tanjong pagar," i replied.

two-minute silence. then he mumbled something.

"sorry, what?" speak up man!

"half an hour," he repeated.

"oh, it'll take me half an hour to get there from here?" darn, i was going to be late.

we rode on in silence. "is the weather ok?" said my seatmate suddenly.

"what? uh, yeah it's fine," i said, mystified.

"if it's too hot for you, it's ok with me to swap seats." i had the window seat.

"no, no, it's fine, i like the sun," i replied, giving him a little smile. silence again. then -- "do you always take the bus?"

"huh? uh, no, this is my first time to take the bus to tanjong pagar," i said distractedly, as i riffled through my notebook for the number of my interviewer. i had to tell them i would be late.

"oh." he fell silent. "do you take the train?"ano ba 'to, twenty questions? animal, mineral, vegetable? i gave him a small, tight nod. pause. "mumble-mumble-this-mumble-train."

"sorry, what?"

"we can do this again on a train," he said.

ano kamo? i must have misheard. alam mo naman ang ingles ng mga taga-rito. "yes, you're right, i can do this again on a train," i said, somewhere between forced politeness and complete befuddlement. "maybe next time i'll take the mrt coming down here."

our charming little chat was interrupted by a call from my interviewer. after i hung up, my seatmate shook his head. "we can do this again on a train," he repeated, louder this time.

i believe i frowned at him. "do WHAT?"

he smiled a little turtle-like smile. "what we're doing now."

aym zorehhh! bakit biglang may "we"?!!! hindi ka cute!!! at may asawa na ako!!!

by divine intervention, the bus had stopped at the landmark indicated by my interviewer. i grabbed my stuff and quickly got off the bus.

and he followed me off! he walked toward me, calling, "this is not your stop! this is not it! this is not it!"

che! paano mo alam! ikaw ba si madam auring?! i quickened my pace, dialing my interviewer as he gabbered on behind me, and just praying that he would leave me alone. i couldn't believe he got off the bus with me.

when i looked behind me after getting directions over the phone, he was gone. thankfully.

when i got to the office, it turned out that the man i had been talking to over the phone the wasn't person who had set up my interview. and the man who set up my interview had forgotten that he had set it up at all. in fact, he wasn't even in the office -- and wouldn't be back that day!

ganda.

so the only interview i had that day was from the creep on the bus! i do not want to know for what position that would have been.

the verdict: that did not go well at all. let's try that again, shall we?

A tale of two interviews

last week i had my first ever interviews in singapore. two of them! a monday 11:30 a.m. with bda, and a thursday 11 a.m. with a (from the looks of it, new-ish) women's beauty/fashion/wellness portal called beverly, where i applied as a freelance editor.

i was so excited, i planned both of them obsessively: departure times, routes and modes of transportation, background research, and of course, the all-important outfits. i even printed a copy of my cv to bring with me to the actual interviews, which i NEVER did for an interview back home.

anyway, this is how it went.

interview #1: BDA

departure time: 9:30 a.m. (yes, two hours in itty-bitty singapore. can you say praning? this at least gave me time for a hazelnut latte at tcc.)

mode of transportation: shuttle bus from condo to mrt station, mrt to somerset, taxi to bda's office on kim yam road

background research: hooo boy. major kapraningan here. apart from looking up BDA's clients and viewing their showreel online, i wrote down in my little notebook (just to refresh my memory) how i worked in gma, what i contributed to the team, how i came up with ideas, the challenges that i faced getting each of the 10 plugs on my showreel produced and how i overcame them, positive feedback from my boss... GAWD. what a geek.

outfit: black architectural-cum-smock-type dress from jonker gallery in malacca (my sister has the exact same one in white and told me not to wear it to an interview) plus a cobalt blue shrug with gold nautical-type buttons. wore it with my favorite vintage gold rose necklace and very new open-toe black patent wedges, which killed me -- i had major breaking-in blisters by 11 am. thankfully i am a whiz at minimizing a blister-induced limp, so nobody at bda even noticed.

the proceedings: it was less of an interview and more of a very, very nice long chat with lilian, bda's business director. i started to relax when i realized that there was so much to learn about producing promos outside of gma and the philippines -- and i might as well just soak it up. she didn't even ask to see my showreel!

after an hour-long gabfest, i found myself getting flutter-in-the-guts excited about getting the chance to do promos for all these different shows from all over the world. yup, it's confirmed: nothing gets me going like tv does. i felt vindicated that i stuck to my guns about holding out for work that really, really gets me excited -- such a huge departure from the "i'll take anything" me of yore. i was just overwhelmed that i was even just sitting there. i wonder if lilian got even the slightest bit creeped out by my shining eyes and dopey smile.

and... they have a cat in the office! a huge fat gray adorable cat! it was sleeping in a basket under lilian's desk the whole time i was there. when i saw it, i just melted. it was like... hot damn, can it get any better than this? hahaha!

outcome: i am now part of their pool of freelance creatives! yay! go me! basically it means they'll call me if there's a script to be written or produced that their in-house team can't take on, or if they want me to pitch an idea for a project. super excited to see what will come my way!

verdict: worth every single feckin' blister.

next up: interview #2.

Contemplating Christian

it's friday evening and i've been zonked out the whole day. having a zonked-out, sick husband at home the whole day gives me an excuse to do this.

i had two interviews scheduled this week and i'm tamad to blog about them. they were both really interesting, to say the least, and i just don't have the mental stamina at the moment.

all i am capable of doing now is contemplating a christian bale-a-thon.

the thought was born a few days ago when marlon and i were discussing our celebrity crushes. (brief digression: i actually have a married friend who is shocked that i "allow" marlon to have crushes on other people, and that he and i are so open about each other's celebrity crushes. heller. we're married but not dead.) i named all of his correctly: anne hathaway, natalie portman, keira knightley and scarlett johanssen. he asked me to name mine, for the record: jamie oliver, dingdong dantes, brad pitt only in meet joe black, jude law only in enemy at the gates, and (what a motley crew!) christian bale.

then i realized i have seen a sh*itload, if not all, of christian bale's movies. yes, even newsies. inulit-ulit ko pa yan. so i decided to look up his filmography and check out which ones (at least within a 10-year cutoff, oa na yung mga prince of jutland era) i haven't seen. i realized that with the exception of american psycho and i'm not there (which is coming to town next week as part of the singapore international film fest), watching all the movies on this list will be a major test of the limits of my love for christian bale.

• american psycho -- the ever-elusive holy grail of christian bale dvds. where does one find a copy of this in asia??? i am almost tempted to buy this off amazon!
• i'm not there -- heath ledger (RIP) as bob dylan is a major, major plus. must see next week!
  
• 3:10 to yuma -- a western? errrr...
  
• rescue dawn
• the new world
• harsh times
  
• equilibrium -- though this looked like a cheaply produced movie from the trailers, muntik ko nang patulan when it first came out.
• laurel canyon -- sounds cheesy. sounds like a girly movie.
  
• shaft -- okay, at least i can get marlon to watch this with me.
• all the little animals -- ano kaya ito?
• velvet goldmine
  

in fairness what an extensive filmography ha. he played jesus christ in a tv movie. interesting.

oh my god wait! he's going to play john connor in terminator 4? *squeals* that's going to be soooo hot. casting coup ito! if there's anyone who can revive the terminator franchise after that last red-leather-jacketed monstrosity and claire danes killed it, it's definitely christian bale.

hmmm. i wonder if the local dvd rental has any of these movies. and i wonder when we'll finally have the spare cash for a dvd player!

Missing bading

if you are what you are nostalgic for, then this speaks volumes about me.



i miss gma! i miss michael v and my other favorite artistas! i miss my beloved badings! i miss being babaeng bakla!

on that note, thank goodness bitchik will be here next week. haha!

Home improvement

talk about cause and effect. the following photos, i realized, aren't just the effects of the latest round of home improvement chez plazo. they also contain the cause of our severe end-of-the-month penny-pinching!

note to self: whenever you wonder all the money went for march, open your eyes and look around the house, won't you?

anyway.

one of the first things marlon and i did when i got back from manila some time ago was nurse my segunda mano hangover. i love, love, love vintage clothes and furniture. my mom and i had spent an afternoon poking around second-hand haven evangelista street in makati, alongside a surprising number of very handsome, very well-dressed, very buff and very gay couples. it was all i could do to not cart back any antique glassware -- imagine the potential mess in my handcarry!

back in lah-lah land, my little hands itched to get on some pre-owned furniture. and with a little scouring on the net, i discovered hock siong waste dealers. ignore the, er, unprepossessing name for a sec and get a load of this -- they have a warehouse full of furniture from hotels and model flats. it sounded great on the screen, but going to the actual warehouse on kampong ampat road totally blew me out of my socks, as the unfortunate kristy lee cook would say.

imagine a really good piece of furniture or painting -- then imagine a hundred more just like it. marlon and i had no trouble getting a pair of bedside lamps, or replacing the shade of one when it tore. of course, you can also imagine a hundred pieces of hideous faux french or overblown oriental furniture. there were pieces that just screamed HOTEL too much to ever be put in any other setting.

so, speaking of other settings, i now segue into the pictures of our hotel finds. out of the hotel and into the bedroom!


our little hotel-ish reading corner in the bedroom. the chair and bamboo floor lamp together cost less than a hundred dollars. after throwing a scarf from chatuchak over the lampshade, it is now dim enough to be a nice nightlight. the scrappy little rug was left behind by the previous tenant, and i wonder why i haven't thrown it out yet!

i can totally imagine this white and chrome lamp on a hotel bedside table.


the flowers are part of a spur-of-the-moment bouquet marlon got me one sunday afternoon. we don't have vases at home, so i stole one of the jars we use to store sugar and salad dressing.

marlon and i never had bedside tables, so now that we do, we have to cure ourselves of odd before-bed habits (i stick things under my pillow while he puts them on the floor). it's great having bedside tables. we now have someplace to put before-bed treats like good books, hot chocolate and freshly toasted coffee buns from bread talk. let me tell you, these things totally make our day.


i think marlon particularly loves evenings like this at the end of a grueling day at the office. here he is in "contented studmuffin at home" mode (pre-highlights, of course).


one of his nicest surprises for me when i got home from manila was a new lamp. he actually devised a whole wiring system for the two glass lamps we carted home from jaipur, and fixed them to a wrought-iron stand we bought specifically for this purpose. i swear i learned about circuits in high school just like he did, but i never would have pulled this off! it must be a boy thing.

he painted the whole thing silver and used a lot of chrome wire, which gave it a nice artsy look. it now stands in a corner of our living room and casts pretty patterned shadows on the wall.


the condo happens to have a special lighting fixture in the living room, the type that paintings are displayed under. it seemed only fitting that the first pieces of art that marlon and i ever bought together be hung there. we bought a pair of miniature paintings in udaipur, the first stop on our honeymoon in rajasthan. these paintings are gorgeously detailed beyond belief and i love that they now have a place of honor in our home.

finally, we dressed up the daybed with some ikea cushions, and bought an ikea paper lamp for some mood lighting.


the daybed will probably need another set of big pillows to get the sinfully stuffed look we want, but it's starting to look quite homey, don't you think?

Point of no return

i truly thought my inner cheapskate would never give in. or that it would at least hold out for much longer.

i honestly believed i would have my salon services -- haircut, color, mani-pedi, waxing -- done in manila forever. i have seen local salon prices. i have converted them to pesos in my head and wept. i have heard the stories of women who saved up their salon must-dos for weeks (possibly months). until their next trip home. i really thought it could be done!

maybe it was the euphoria of finally getting my dependent's pass, or boredom with my perpetual ponytail, or a wildly hopeful belief in creating hireability via haircut. whatever it was, i crossed the dotted line, my own personal point of no return, and finally got my hair cut in a singaporean salon.

and i must say...


i quite love it.

the experience was great -- the stylist was unfazed by my wavy hair. he just knew what to do, and i heard nary a whimper about getting my hair relaxed or whatever (although he did sell me a root retouch). it all felt very expert.

it's day three of the new 'do, and even with the blowdry gone and the natural curl kicking in, it's holding up quite, quite well. it just looks a little more george fayne-ish now. if you've ever read the old hardbound nancy drew books and seen the illustrations of nancy's tomboy-ish friend george, you'll know what i mean.

marlon also had his own personal first that afternoon: highlights!

i've seen that hat somewhere before. tee hee.

very sci-fi.

the process was quite interesting. the colorist started out with highlights (what i personally refer to as the jologs phase of the color job) then did a flat color to tone them down.

voila! highlighted hubby!

as you can see, marlon is quite happy with his new look -- about as happy as i was with mine.

we immediately hied off to adrian's farewell dinner to test our new hairdos' performance in a social setting. shrenik was gracious enough to document our experiment with his camera phone.

we tried to go out and party to celebrate our new looks, but the vodka at adrian's just made us too sleepy. yes, i do believe we're getting on in years. so we just sat by the river at clarke quay with cones of hokkaido soft ice cream (one of my new singapore favorites!) before heading home.

It's official

i'm no longer a tourist in singapore.


i am soooo happy i got this just when i did. my 30-day "social visit" or tourist pass in singapore would have been up on thursday. without the dependant pass, i would have had to exit and re-enter singapore (by way of malaysia would be easiest) just to get another 30-day stay until the dependant pass was approved. yuuuurg hassle.

on this pass, i am considered marlon's dependent, which is pretty much how it is until i get a job. my future employer will have to apply for a letter of consent from the ministry of manpower (every time i say this out loud, i almost say "ministry of magic" -- that's seven volumes of harry potter talking) for me to be able to work.

i am slightly bothered that it's spelled "dependant" instead of "dependent." even blogger spellcheck is flagging it as an error. but whatever. i'm free to stay. yay!

Scary successes

the previous post made me think about what makes a good scary movie for me.

i find that the horror movies that i consider really, really good are those that sear one cinematic moment into your mind. as i mentioned in the previous post, shutter and the ring really did that for me. as did emily rose (the fear of 3am), omen II (the three little numbers on damien's scalp, plus his grey-eyed scowl), the exorcist (two words: spider walk), the others (nicole kidman and the children staring stoically into a window), to name a few.

i even remember one scary shot from early childhood, though i was too young to remember the movie: a white-faced, dark-haired girl trapped in the depths of a well, looking up in terror. (can anyone ID this scene?)

those that didn't pull off this brain-branding were pretty unsuccessful with me, and thus became largely forgettable: dark water, the reaping, the blair witch project, stigmata, gothika.

oddly enough, it must be an image; while i will forever remember the creaky-burpy sound the ghost made in the grudge ("aaa-aa-a-a-a-a-a-aaaa"), i thought that film was a complete waste of my time and money. i have no idea why hollywood picked it up for a remake.

the orphanage seems to be, so far, the only exception to this rule.

what are your success criteria for a scary movie? and what scary moments are stuck in your head, possibly for a lifetime?

p.s. if you're wondering why i didn't link to any of the movies i mentioned here, googling the first few and seeing their movie posters really creeped me out. time to go call marlon.

Not a single scare wasted

marlon and i have just seen the orphanage.

i think it may just be the best ghost story i've ever watched in my life.

i'm still reeling.

i wanted to watch it simply because it was billed as having been produced by guillermo del toro, not to mention the really cool movie poster. marlon, who hates scary movies and only ever watches them because of me, had to be prodded with a reference to pan's labyrinth to even consider it.

i don't really expect much when i go to see a scary movie. maybe just three to four scares, which can range from the cheap and predictable ("turn around, it's behind you!" or peek-under-the-bed type thrills) to the deeply disturbing (shutter's backbreaking shock, for example, or sadako's big moment in ringu).

so i really did not expect layers upon delicate, poignant layers lying under every well-thought, well-played scare. i did not expect to walk out of the cinema and think about love and loss, growing up and coming home, childhood and innocence, responsibility and blame, guilt and forgiveness, seeing and believing, and what truly has the power to disturb and terrify us to our very cores.

what is the greater horror for a mother: a creaky house full of the spirits of dead children, or the inexplicable loss of her own child? are ghosts really scary only because we meet them in our world and not, in a manner of speaking, in theirs?

none of hollywood's pointless scares or ghosts jumping out of closets here.

from a writing standpoint, the movie was extremely neat. not a single scene or reference wasted. if you played connect-the-dots with the script, you could most definitely connect one event in the first half of the film with another that would unfold in the second half. brilliant.

marlon and i raved about the movie all the way from the cinema to the mrt. on the train, he fell into a long-ish, thoughtful silence. then he gave me a sudden, tight hug.

if you want to know why, go and see the orphanage. go. just go!

i hope it comes out in manila. if not, get the dvd.

Getting into the game

i was beginning to get really frustrated with the results of my job search here in singapore. or rather, the non-results. after spending nearly three weeks in couchwifely languor, i had decided to really sink my teeth into the task of finding a job. not just any job, mind you -- one that i love, enjoy and am inspired by. nothing less! (this is also how i am about clothes nowadays. if i don't look spectacular in it, i'm not buying!)

and so i set about creating games for myself, games that i would change around every so often just to keep having fun. the first was the 20 game -- twenty CVs sent out in a week. then there was the 3-to-5 game -- three to five CVs sent out daily.

yesterday afternoon while i was hanging out with phyllis (the doctor wife of one of marlon's work friends) at her flat, i realized how much i had really gotten into my games. "gotta go soon, phyllis," i told her at four p.m. "i told myself i'd send out at least three CVs today."

"wow! you're so dedicated!" she exclaimed. "that's a lot!"

"oh, it's nothing! i once sent out twenty in a week," i said dismissively.

to say that phyllis was shocked was an understatement. she actually sputtered. "twenty?!" she wondered. "my god deepa! i'm so lazy! i've sent out two in the last year!"

now here's the kicker. they both want to hire her. and there i was, pushing thirty applications made, and not a single interview lined up.

after that exchange, i began to feel tired, like all the hustling for a job had suddenly caught up with me. i got very, very frustrated and very, very upset last night, to say the least. while there was no doubt i would return to my various job-seeking games anyway, i felt resigned and very easily pissed off.

i just got my very first "result" -- i'll tell you what it is in a minute -- and now i've realized all i had to do was change my game... again. thank heavens the universe will never run out of games for us to play. sick of looking at my cv? stopped looking at it, stopped tweaking it. and stopped sending the damn buggers cvs out and sat at the phone following up past applications instead.

and in this manner, i actually lined up a "chat" (is this a euphemism for an interview?) with the first company i applied to after moving here -- and one that totally got my heart thumping when i saw the job posting! the company is bruce dunlop (BDA), an international creative agency that specializes in doing on-air television promos. how perfect is that?! check out their website to see just why i'm in lust. they're putting together a pool of freelance writer/producers, and i'm dying, dying, dying to jump in and swim with the rest of them!

and the funny thing is, this is like the fifth time i've called them -- and i applied nearly two months ago! i never would have thought i'd still get the chance to come in for a chat.

i don't know how it's going to go on monday. but it's like i've gotten a jolt that's going to power me through the rest of my job hunting. just in freaking time, i might add -- i was not a pretty sight last night.

so it's time to change the game again. and this time the game is called "what am i going to wear?"

any advice... fashion or otherwise? ;-)

Sinful sugar Sunday

i spent most of yesterday with marlon and his two closest friends from work -- shivaani and shrenik, whose wedding in kolkata we attended two years ago. i love these two friends of marlon's and i'm happy that they're among my first friends here in singapore.

shrenik apparently is a man after my own salt-and-sugar-crazy heart (must have them one after the other), and i saw the full extent of his fiendish powers yesterday. what was possibly more mind-boggling than the amount of sugary snacks he keeps in the house is that, well, they're still around -- if i had all my favorite snacks in the house, they would all be gone in one afternoon. (except a small jar of nutella, which would take me two.)

the amount of sugar we had in the span of eight hours was beyond belief. consider:

• a bowl of ferrero rocher
• a pack of pepperidge farm dark chocolate chip and pecan cookies
• filipino tablea hot chocolate with condensed milk (our contribution)
  
• a pint of ben and jerry's cherry garcia
• various starbucks drinks: caramel frap, chai latte, iced tea
  
• coke zero
• honey dijon kettle chips
• magnum ice cream bars

and that was still over and beyond the indian lunch cooked by shivaani, who, bless her heart, fell promptly asleep as soon as the opening credits rolled for paprika (totally surreal japanese animated movie). i managed to hold out for the length of the dvd, but was totally zonked out for the rest of the evening. my head felt dull and heavy, and i got cranky if i had to think for too long. at home, i couldn't even read dangerous liaisons for five minutes without my pulse pounding at my temples. who knew that this was what lay on the opposite end of the spectrum from a sugar high?

but shrenik, diyos ko, totally out-sugared us all. yes, even me! he even brought out another bag of chocolates as if we hadn't already been methodically hustling our collective blood sugar to critical levels. he exhibited no visible delay of his motor functions, while marlon practiclally had to prop me up in the mrt station. it was truly awe-inspiring. i concede defeat.

or maybe not. i thought last night's saccharine bacchanalia was enough to put me off the sweet stuff for at least a couple of days. whaddya know, barely 24 hour hours later here i am blogging while munching on a crunch bar.

so when was the last time you had a sugar orgy?

Sneaky sneaky

it's cleanup saturday at the plazos, and while ironing marlon's polos i had the following epiphany.

now that i'm in charge of ironing in this household, i hold the power to banish the polo shirts that i've always hated! since marlon makes a beeline for the ironed polos every morning, the answer is simple. i'll just never iron them! mooooahahahaha!

of course this could totally backfire. then my husband will not only wear icky polos to work, but he'll wear wrinkled icky polos to work.

still, worth a try.

incidentally, i ran out of cds to play while ironing, and turned to the stash i grabbed from chris ong when he moved to the states. i wonder how my conservative chinese neighbors are liking the creepy atonal scandinavian contemporary choral music.

A short note on the Twilight series

gutsy dear, i was actually going to post this in the comment section as a response to you. but then i realized it was getting a bit long, and that i had opinions coming out of my ears about these books! so i decided to just blog about it very quickly.

so, stephenie meyer's twilight series -- i liked it, although i didn't think i was going to at the start. started off a bit slow for me, but as i continued reading (especially through the end of the first book), i found that i couldn't put it down.

i liked a lot of things about it, like how the author kept some parts of the vampire and werewolf mythology and tossed out others (garlic, crosses, etc) to really make them out to be the ultimate predators. definitely upped the books' cool factor.

i also liked how the cullens were written -- they were quite fascinating, even endearing. the action sequences and the sudden changes of pace every now and then were great too.

it reminded me of a very goth sweet valley high -- essentially the problems are the same (dad doesn't like boyfriend, boyfriend is overprotective, girl falls into a bad crowd, etc) but in a totally different context.

i found the love 'bits' a bit much, and tended to forward through them. it was actually like wuthering heights in that way, lots of pages spent on declaring passion for each other and all that. i did find that the mushy parts were useful for a bit of a slowdown before the big, set-piece, how-cool-is-that epic action parts. parang... love love blah blah and then biglang BAM! tracker vampire! vampire-werewolf dustup! newborn vampire army! yeah! rrrrawr! bring it on!

funny, while i was back in manila and marlon was alone in the flat, he saw these books in our bookshelf late at night and freaked. paano ba naman, they were lying beside my copy of william peter blatty's the exorcist (which has such a freaky picture on its spine that i store it spine facing into the shelf) and tony perez's spirit questors series (which i bought freshman year when doreen brought up the idea of me becoming a questor).

"what is this black book with the ghosty hands and the flower dripping blood?! why do you have such scary books?!" he demanded. "why are you bringing these things into the house!?!?!"

i think i scared him even more when i said, "what? what black book? i don't own anything like that!" he really freaked out then. "how did it get here then?!" he practically bellowed, before vowing never to pick them up.

when i got home and saw the books in question, i realized that i'd actually borrowed them from my sister, and forgot that i did. oh well.

now i actually think he'll find them more girly than scary. kasi naman, all the passages rhapsodizing on edward's godlike good looks! kind of reminds me of how i would write when i was younger -- all my short stories had some unbelievably handsome, sophisticated guy falling madly in love with plain old me. haha! girl's fantasy talaga.

Couchwife and comforter

it's been cold, gloomy and raining all through yesterday and most of today -- perfect weather for curling up in my pajamas, under a fluffy comforter, with a good book. so i did just that. in this case, it was three good books -- i turbo-read my way through stephenie meyer's twilight trilogy.

it reminded me a lot of high school, which was (eeek!) over eight years ago. reading in bed was one of my favorite things to do on days when school got canceled because of the weather. i used to live near enough school to walk home the minute classes got called off, which was great -- i would practically jump into bed with a book after my ten-to-fifteen minute walk.

in contrast, some of the other girls had to wait for their parents to finish work to pick them up, or their bus services to get to school all the way from paranaque and alabang. there were horror stories of girls who spent the whole night in their schoolbuses in the rain and in the traffic, only to arrive home in paranaque the next morning. all this was were pre-ayala interchange, pre-C5 and pre-skyway, of course.

so i was enjoying myself, what with my bottomless supply of brewed kapeng barako to offset the cold, until i started feeling a little guilty, and well... baboy about spending the whole day in my pj's.

then i realized that i hadn't done this in years... not since i started working! i mean, have you ever gotten sent home from the office because of the weather? i went to work the morning that freaking milenyo struck, for goodness' sake -- and stayed there!

and i realized there was no point feeling guilty, not just about staying in my pj's, but about having this time to myself. i admit i've been antsy about being between jobs lately, but i just got that there's no point in beating myself up about it. that i can actually do things i've wanted to do for a while now. that i can actually have fun with this time in my life. and that there's nothing wrong with me for being who i am now.

which is a couchwife under a comforter, very quiet and very contented.

The boss flies budget

i've often wondered if there still exist cebu pacific marketing collaterals with the ill-fated tagline "the new filipino time" on it -- they should be burned, because the new filipino time seems a hell of a lot like the old filipino time.

have you ever read a rant about a delayed cebu pacific flight on this blog? no sirree! they've become so common that i get over the announcement of the delay in the time that it takes me to roll my eyes and sigh. oh, and i always show up late at the airport if it's a cebu pacific flight.

i've taken ten or so flights with cebu pacific over the past two years; marlon has taken about five or six. none of them ever left on time. ever.

which is why, on my cebu pacific flight back to singapore, i could hardly believe that we were all boarding the plane at precisely 8:15 p.m. the flight was scheduled to leave at 8:30 p.m.

i was incredulous. and maybe more suspicious than pleased. "wonder of wonders! i think we're actually going to leave on time!" i texted marlon.

i was at the tail end of the queue, since i was seated in the second row of the plane. i was tuned out and shuffling mindlessly into the tube when a couple of middle-aged men in front of me began to turn around and crane their necks behind me. "it's john! it's john!" the daddy types gabbered to each other furiously.

maybe john was their kabarkada who was late, and surprise, he made the flight! i thought idly.

i surreptitiously glanced behind me. at the very end of the queue, waiting for a short distance to open up between him and the rest of us, was an snowy-haired chinese man dressed in a suit and holding a walking stick.


and so, as he stepped into the tube with the rest of us budget travelers, the mini-mystery of "john" was solved, and so was the heretofore unexplainable phenomenon of a cebu pacific flight actually leaving on time.

abah. JOHN GOKONGWEI pala ang potah!

as he waited to step into the plane -- excuse me, his plane, the female flight attendants giggled nervously and joked about petitioning him (in sugary sweet stewardess tones, of course) for a salary hike.

"omigod ayan na siya, nakikita ko na siya!"

"welcome aboard, sir... increase!"

"kindly fasten your seatbelt for takeoff... increase!"

"oxygen masks will drop down from overhead... increase!"

it was hilarious. i remembered being back at gma, and the fog of heightened alertness and mild dread (more from the prospect of making a complete fool of yourself, than from the presence of the boss himself) that would crop up the minute flg would step into an elevator with you.

i sat behind him and his wife for the entire flight. i was pleasantly surprised that he would use a budget airline for his own trips (even if it was a budget airline that he owned). it was really cute to see him eat cup noodles and drink C2 like the rest of us hampaslupa. oh, and in the spirit of eco-chic, his carry-on luggage was a reusable canvas tote stamped with a goldman sachs logo. o diba, sosyal ang lolo mo.

i toyed with the idea of coming up to him, shaking his hand and telling him how glad i was to see him on my flight -- because he was the only person who could ever, ever make it leave on time.

but i didn't. he slept through the entire flight, and we all know how cranky people can be when they're bagong gising. maybe next time.