One Year and Seven Months

My Delusions
We are almost two years married. Did it change anything in me? Have I learned how to cook or do household chores? Hmm. The answer is no. I may not learn any of the domestic work but I do learn something about myself that makes me appreciate Irwin more and the people around me. I learned to know myself, I accept myself as who I am.
After taking a neuropsychiatric examination which is a requirement for employment and after doing some researches on giftedness, I had the realization that maybe I am a gifted adult. Majority of the characteristics of a gifted individual fits me. I have an above average IQ, consider myself creative, I can learn new things and be good at it, I am resourceful, I think different than most people, I tend to seek the company of older adults, I get restless if I am not learning, sensitive, compassionate, likes ambiguity among others.
As a child I remembered creating poems, I remember changing the poem Tree into something else. I was creating poems because I want to join the contest in Uncle Bob's TV show on channel 7. Maybe I envied those kids on TV because they have a lot of nice things which I do not have. In high school, I have several original compositions of novels, short stories, I was making poems too, and I have a notebook full of it. I was eyeing the Youngblood section of Inquirer but I never had a chance to really submit anything.
I was good in Math, but I developed a phobia for it when my high school teacher reprimanded me because we were laughing while praying. I was the only one caught, no; I was the only one who confessed to doing it. I was getting high grades but my last grade was 89 and the rest of my classmates were 90 and above even though I performed better than them. I never hated math after that though. My hate for math started in fourth year high school, I took the exam on Trigonometry, It was a 50 item test and I have one mistake. The highest scorer got a perfect score and she was acknowledged. She was the president of Math Club. I was not a president of any club. I was very happy with my grade it was an achievement. I was waiting for another announcement of the next higher scorer but I was not called. I could never forget that day, that was the time where I hated math.
I remember too when I was in elementary, I do not want to have a high grade, I was keeping my grades average so my classmates would not envy me. I remember one classmates who commented “ Bakit alam mo ang lahat?” instead of being proud, I was embarrassed because she said it like she don’t want me to know anything. She made it look like she was so embarrassed because I know the answer and she did not. Ok, so I better shut up because people get insecure.
I remember to keep on the average side, not too showy people might notice. Maybe that is one reason I never want to get any attention to myself. I never wanted to be the center of attention.
I remember in my fourth year in high school, I got a 99 percentile grade on my NCEE. I ranked 5th in our class, there were 4 who got the 99+ , they were the valedictorian, salutatorian, president of the student council and secretary of our class and me, I was just an ordinary student. I take it as an achievement too, I got higher grades than our class president, and only four from our batch got the 99++ percentile.

My grades were average in college. I worked as a secretary and after that shifted to IT as a programmer. I worked as a technical support, a nice term for technician, I wanted to learn so I asked to be transferred to that department. I learned a lot, I was the only female in the group. I think that also an achievement. After that work I applied as an agent in a call center, I was on top of the class during training and even after when we were deployed. I got a high score on my first day and first week until third week. I quit after that. I am working as a teacher now and based from the last teacher's evalution, I got the highest rank among all teachers. I have no previous experience in teaching but that is a proof that I can do something good even with limited resources and skills. Siguro tsamba lang kasi mabait ang mga students ko, maybe it is the sensitive me who is working or the compassionate me, or the deeper knowledge of human condition helped me to teach those students. Maybe they see my dedication to help them learn.
I think I will never do what my previous teachers did. All I have to do is believe in them and in their capabilities. Maybe after a lot of soul searching on what to do, I could say I am home.

Kasal, Kasali

We watched the movie last Monday, January 1 at Robinson's Galleria for the 7:45 showing. I was with my ate, mama and Irwin. We were a bit late so we were rushing to get to the parking lot after dropping ate and mama to the entrance so they could buy the tickets. We got a parking near the elevator. As we were about to board the elevator, the passengers going out were Angel Locsin, Jennilyn Mercado and other kapuso stars. We'll they just looked familiar to me. I asked Irwin if he wants to stay out of the elevator and he laughingly said yes. Maybe that made his day seeing Angel Locsin in the flesh.

Going back to the review, we were not able to see the start the movie so the first thing we've seen was the scene where Gina Pareno was preparing the Batotay, or Longanisa and incredulously asking Juday why she is getting married when they do not know if she has a boyfriend and of course Juday's famous answer was "Hindi ako buntis".

Gina Pareno's acting was so convincing it was like she was not acting; she is so funny as the mother of Juday who is a "politicians" or barangay kagawad. She was a typical Filipino mother on a typical scene in a province with a typical marital situation where the parents are separated and left the mother bitter with the separation.
It was a "typical Filipino" portrayal during weddings. Bride informs her family, Groom asks for the bride’s hand in marriage and both parties would talk about the wedding. The Grooms parent Ariel Ureta and Gloria Diaz were the rich parents and Gloria was accused of being “matapobre” to the family of Juday. Ariel Ureta was the rational and understanding one. His line “ pabayaan mo na ang anak mo, kasal niya yan hindi ikaw ang ikakasal” would hit a lot of Bride-to-be or former brides, Filipino or non-Filipino because people really can’t help by share their ideas during weddings.
I know a friend who wants a solemn wedding in a secluded farm with only 50 guests and her parents wants to invite at least 300 guests. More or less just like in the movie, they ended up getting a civil marriage.
Juday’s acting was funny, “typical” again of Juday, she is effective in portraying underdog characters, like in her past tele-serye, where the poor girl gets the rich man and lives happily ever after. Reminds of “I’m sorry my Love” with Onemig Bondoc. Really, I watched it and it never failed to make me laugh and fall off the seat the first time I’ve seen it.
One thing for sure that really caught my attention, she lost a lot of pounds! She can wear mini skirts and show off her legs, her shirts were small in size I guess. It inspires me to lose some weight too. Well, Juday is not the “typical” beauty like Claudine, Bea, Roxanne, and other stars but she has no competition when it comes to comedy series. She can really make me laugh. It is so natural of her to say those quick, long lines.
Guys are attracted to these gals I think because of their sense of humor. Like Ryan A, again he is a “typical” rich, mama’s boy who can’t decide on his own that he keeps on asking his friends for decisions that he should make himself. Even in the proposal for marriage, he kind of let Juday decide if he would go to the States or not by asking Juday to marry him. It shows a little weakness in his character role, and that weakness compensates or compliments Juday’s assertive and aggressive role.

Overall, this movie shows what everyone of us knows already but failed to recognize them. Married life in the Philippines is different because of close family ties and because of this we have to consider everybody in our decision, parents, relatives and friends. Close family ties encourages living with the parents, much to the chagrin of the bride or the groom who wants to live separately but can’t because of financial difficulties and practicality. A groom or a bride would really never realize the difficulty or challenges of married life unless they live in a separate house apart from the parents. Well, I hope Juday would inspire me to be myself just like her in any setting or situation and not the best foot forward show that I seriously am trying to do. I am glad we watched this movie because right after watching it, we planned to move out and build our own house, maybe look for a place where we could rent or buy a house on a loan. I never have to point out to my husband anything, I never said a word, the movie says it all.