What am I now?

How am I classified? By ethnicity? By citizenship? By the language I speak?

In a way, I feel kind of privileged. I have the distinct ability to see through two lenses, which is kinda cool, eh? I had asked a friend on facebook his opinion on North American-born/raised Filipino comedians who poke fun at the Filipino accent (upon speaking English). I noticed that his response was largely from a Canadian-born perspective. And for a moment, I reveled in the fact that I had a rebuttal (not that it was a debate)! I don’t, however, think I ever replied because I was sidetracked by the sudden realization that while I am able to see through two lenses, which one, now, must I claim to be the primary one?

It just floored me how I have two nationalities. It’s unsettling.

I know that there’s always the option of always introducing yourself as a Filipino-Canadian. And it’s not like I have to stop speaking Tagalog or being concerned with Filipino things. But there is always this guilt. Like I’m jumping ship.

Here’s some backstory: I was watching the TV Patrol (news) yesterday on TFC (The Filipino Chanel) and seeing as it is, yet again, typhoon season, Julius Babao and co. were reporting on small towns and villages affected by flooding, boat crashes, oil spills, busted electrical circuits, etc. At one point, Karen Davila, one of the anchors, was standing in front of a screen titled ‘Suplay ng Kuryente’. That translated to ‘Electricity Supply’. I had to squint my eyes to see if that was spelt correctly. I turned to my dad and asked, “What is ‘supply’ in Tagalog?”  To which he looked at my mom, who looked at her mom who was equally confused. We eventually came up with ‘rasyon’. (Mini story time! Scroll to the end to read footnotes or click here) Which is really just a Tagalog-ized version of ‘ration’, an English term.

We continued talking about words and the Tagalog language for a while, concluding how, for the most part, it is a lot of English derivatives and even more so of Spanish derivatives. Ie: Filipinos count in Spanish. It’s true. I have never heard anyone count higher than ten in Tagalog. Which makes me question how much of Tagalog, of the Philippines, was really, truly Filipino. (And if you do your research, you’ll easily find that the essence of the word Filipino, and the name of the country itself… is all rooted in someone else’s roots- Spain. Which, if you are a Filipino like me, is MUCH cause for some pretty awful self-scrutiny and an identity crisis of epic proportions. OMG WHAT ARE WE???)

With this idea of there not being a concrete definition of Philippines, it feels kind of traitorous to, in any way, leave. Like the fact that I live in Canada. Or that I speak English more than I do Tagalog. And that I think in English even when I am speaking in Tagalog. That I mostly read and watch English books and movies and listen to English music.

I feel like I always have to compensate for these facts. By, for example, that book I bought in a bookstore in the Philippines that I had SO much intention of reading but haven’t picked up since. Or the fact that we continue to subscribe to TFC despite their programs, soap operas and actors being of astronomically crappy quality. Or by drawing up a family tree for the Navals and Pocsidios and Reyeses and Mayos in an attempt to reconnect with the home country. Or this blog itself; containing a few entries in which I feel the need to defend the country from whatever criticism (sometimes my own). Or this habit I have of looking down on the use of Taglish (Tagalog English) while subsequently being unable to eliminate it from my own speech.

There’s always been this kind of… dichotomy since I moved here. And the fact that in one week and five days, it will be made official, just makes it all the more… unsettling. My biggest fear is that as the years go by, when the ratio of Filipino-living to Canadian-living decreases, the ratio of my Filipino-identity to Canadian-identity might decrease all the same.

Footnotes:

In Chemfields, a pharmaceutical company that my dad designed machinery for as a mechanical engineer, the employees were treated very kindly. I distinctly remember a dental procedure for my dad (paid for by the company) that I sat in as a kid. The dentist was a very gay man who, funnily, kinda had a crush on my dad. Or maybe he was like that with everyone? Anyways, along with witnessing this great dental plan in action, I also remember sitting in our jeep on the way to the company warehouse to go pick up some rice. The relevance of this story to the word ‘ration’ is that my dad and his coworkers would refer to their monthly rice supply as ‘ration’. So that’s how we came up with ‘ration’ being a sort of equivalent for ‘supply’

snap snap snap snap snap snap snap

It’s a mixture of things, really. For example, there is the smell of a bottle of perfume that we haggled for in Canal Street from a young Indian man (We knew he was Indian because our sole Indian companion haggled for us and got us the bargains). It is an incredibly sweet smell that is probably more fit for a shower gel or body scrub than an actual perfume. Not in the vanilla-y or chocolate-y or coconut-y sense, but anyways. It’s just sweet. You almost want to down the bottle it if it wasn’t so inedible. I had worn it once and I was waiting in the Univeristy LRT station to take the train home. I caught a breeze and all of a sudden, I felt, for a moment, I felt New York. I heard the first few bars of my favourite song from the musical we saw and then there was the feel of the mid-morning sun as we made our way to Central Park, holding on to our breakfasts-to-go (courtesy of the hotel) in one hand and a styrofoam cup of hot chocolate in the other.

It’s weird that despite the 7 facebook albums by me alone and the 1234654879123+ by others, there is not one photo that I can say: that’s New York. Not the pictures of walking down an avenue in Central Park, not the pictures with the NYPD in wall street, not the picture beside the pigeons atop the empire state, nor the Sarsi party after Broadway night. Definitely not the barely recognizable Statue of Liberty through the fog or even the Picassos, nor that great big wall covered by a Monet. It wasn’t the pictures in the limousines to and from the hotel, nor the shots from the fancy dinner at Maria Pia. And that is bizarre. I love all those moments but nothing quite says New York to me as that strum of the guitar and that candy-sweet scent.

And so now I have to ask: WHY do I insist on taking 20000+ pictures when I’m on vacation? Cause trust me, come August 11, I will probably have dedicated a whole separate site/blog section for the trip to L’Ecosse.

So after watching Transformers 1 and 2 back to back, I had to push my brain back into thinking-mode. I had seen this months ago but I never wrote about it. While the Transfomers movies were completely lacking in real quality, here’s one brimming to the top with it- not necessarily in effects and CGI and all that.. but a very good and very thoughtful narration. And no, before you do, don’t look it up on IMdB. Don’t look at the list of actors (it’s amazing, trust me, one is so unrecognizable beyond my belief but is SO GOOD. Still, don’t look at it beforehand), just… watch it, from start to finish, I’d even highly recommend skipping the trailer. Ok fine, I’ll spoil you with one thing: Judi Dench is in it. It is also available online, free of charge, in all its entirety.

… No really, I watched it consecutively since someone had recorded them on the PVR. I remember being amused by the first one. No joke, I enjoyed Transformers the first time around. I have no reasoning for this but actually seeing it again… I don’t remember what was so entertaining. I’m really drawing blanks on this one (that’s what she said). I guess things are really different when you watch them in the theatres than when they’re in a home theatre. Still… I’ll be forever confused as to why I recommended Transformers 1 to friends. I guess my brain just shut down for the entire showing time. I was also somewhat convinced that I was missing out, not having watched the sequel. BAHAHAHA, yeah, missing out.

That said, Transformers 1 was at least better than Transformers 2. I knew exactly what was going on in #2 even after fast-forwarding through 3/4 of the movie when the EXPLOSHUNZ were happening. Of course, they were going to bring back Megatron and of course there’s a second all-spark-ish thing. And of course it was going to EXPLOSHUNZ the Earth. And..well, that was basically the plot, I think. Yes, save the earth from pissed-off robots.

That said, I still can’t figure out who’s a Decepticon and who’s an Autobot. Aaaand why Hot Girl is dating Geek. Aaaaand what the purpose of Even Geekier Roommate was. Aaand how the hell did the parents (who were supposed to be eating escargot in Paris) ended up in the middle of Egypt?!?!? But I guess that’s what I get for fast-forwarding. Oh, AND WHY DID THAT ROBOT HAVE TESTICLES?!?!? AND WHY DID WE HAVE TO SEE JOHN TURTURRO NAKED???!?!?!?!?!

I am traumatized by John Turturro’s almost bare ass only being concealed behind a thong imprinted with S7. When I think S7, I don’t think Sector 7, I think S CLUB 7, the popstars of my childhood. And now, when I think John Turturro, despite thinking he’s a good actor, I will always have that scene in my mind. Always.

But anyways, what was I expecting from Michael Bay? A story? Pfffft. Acting..? Pffft.

I don’t like the movie critic above because he only reviews blockbusters and video game movies and expects them all to be holy-shit-awesome but I did think this review was more entertaining than the movie so.. ya.

Is it too much to ask that movies be… just better? A nicer selection would be greatly appreciated, you know. Better bang for my buck that isn’t necessarily literal bangs and EXPLOSHUNZ. It kinda sucks when months go by and the only choices are Stoner Flick, Thriller Without the Thrill, Dance Movie and Misogynistic Romantic Comedy. I only remember one movie from last year and that was the amazingly original District 9. Oh, and I guess I that movie with the tall, blue, cat-looking aliens, technically came out last year, too.

And one last thing. I realize that my brain really does turn off when I watch movies like this. Really! When they went to the some place (I don’t even know anymore) to wake up an ancient transformer, there was a scene when the camera zooms into the Decepticon marking on the transformer for a while and I really had no idea what I was looking at. Like, none. It was at that moment that I realized I was actually being asked to put two and two together in a Michael Bay movie. The next thing that happened was Megan Fox shouting “Oh no, he’s a Decepticon!!!” and there was noise and running and stuff and I couldn’t figure out why this was all happening. I was thinking: Is that bad? So what if he’s a Decepticon? *KABOOOOM* Oh, right. Those are the bad guys..

It was such a bizarre experience and I don’t think things like yoga and deep meditation can ever have such a mind-emptying impact on me as the transformers movies. Wow…maybe that’s the reason to like these movies. They stop you from thinking. That makes sense.

I have come to the conclusion that even as I rip my hair out and scream bloody murder at the thought of school, essentially, I love it. I love school. LAAV IT.

I love all those Social Studies classes and World History classes that I had originally abhorred with every fiber of my half-awake being. I love every map I’ve had to colour and label, every dictator, conqueror, activist I’ve ever had to write a paper on and the teachers who have had to mark it. I love all those books and stories I’ve had to read for Reading Comprehension, all the limericks, haikus, and couplets I’ve had to decipher. I love every chemical reaction I’ve witnessed that left big grey stains all over my fingers, arms, burnt through my lab coat and made me smell awful. I love calculating the acceleration of a ball hurtling down a cliff . I love pi and I love deductively reasoning out the lengths of edges of polygons using mathematical identities.

So why the love-fest?

Because I realized my education, while half-useless, is better than no education at all. I may never need to differentiate an integral ever again, but surely critical thinking has its benefits. The sheer ability to read, to write, and more so, to understand what I read and write must have its benefits and I am so, so, so thankful that my right to an education is well respected in my country. Sometimes I feel like I can be the shittiest student and still, the government will pay to have me educated.

In contrast to that, there are places where political leaders do not realize the power of knowledge. Where government officials- public servants- are too busy covering up indiscretions in their private life to  be of any use to the public. Then, they try to fix it by promising money, money, money. Kung may Erap, walang hirap. This slogan alone is a Get-Rich-Quick Scheme. It is! And even worse that it is being used at all: that it WORKS! And that it is the slogan for the same man convicted of plunder under his former failed run as a president. This man, Joseph Estrada, came in 2nd in the presidential race.

The winner: Noynoy Aquino, son of Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino, assasinated under Marcos’s dictatorship and face of the 500-peso bill, and Corazon Aquino, the housewife that led a revolution against Marcos, former president and victim to cancer in 2009.

I feel like the only reason he was even thrust into candidacy was the death of his mother in August 2009. If she hadn’t died, would people have been so infected with the “Yellow Fever”? I feel like there’s really no other reason he won seeing as he was so invisible in Filipino politics prior to the campaigning. It makes you question just what people are basing their decisions on. And my suspicion is in names. They’ve associated the Aquino name with all things good and the outpouring of condolences for Tita Cory on her death bed seems to be the only force that kept the momentum. After all, the apple shouldn’t fall far from the tree, right?

Back to the topic on hand: education. Why is it relevant? Well, in my education, I learned to be critical of things. I learned NOT to be a sheep. I learned to weigh out pros and cons and to look at the bigger picture. I learned not to be fooled by shallow promises of money because I also learned that literally giving money to people does not lead to a richer nation but to inflation, that horrible horrible thing that happens when a loaf of bread costs a briefcase of money. I learned that what will help are social programs, that fund education and health care, to make sure that first and foremost, your citizens are COMPETENT to work towards a better future, not hopeless, disenchanted and weary of a stupid government they can’t even trust. I learned that people who are proud of their country will do anything to keep that country afloat and will not abandon it any second they get to live the American Dream. So give them something to be proud of, not something that makes them want to GTFO asap. As much as I respect the OFWs for all their hardships, I also find it deplorable that people are the Philippines’ best commodity, some claim they’re the #1 export- people!

I think that if the Filipino voters just knew more, if they understood more, they would never be swayed by empty promises propped up on flashy pagodas surrounded by celebrities. For example, the overwhelming majority of universities, colleges, the youth and most professionals were vehemently against those two front-runners. So what happened? Who voted for those two?! There’s that saying that Democracy only works when the voters are informed. And how can that be when so few people can afford three meals a day, let alone study?

Am I being elitist? Yeah, I think this makes me elitist. Like, oh, the poor can’t vote, they’re uneducated so they must be stupid. I don’t want to think that, but I think that I do think that. Just being honest, ya know? I think I should be sorry for them, cause they’re victims to a craptastic government. But then, instead of lamenting the loss, shouldn’t we just focus on how to NOT have victims to a craptastic government by oh, I don’t know, not having a craptastic government in the first place? Weed out the Manny Pacquiaos, the Lucy Toresses, the Joseph Estradas, the Imelda Freaking Marcoses, the incompetent individuals who are just interested in being in power and not in actually serving the public.

I keep trying to figure out why I care so much. No law in effect, no idiot in office in the Philippines can compromise my rights and freedoms as I am a citizen of Canada. I am not ruled by PGMA but by Stephen Harper and his cabinet. I guess it’s like an onlooker-complex thing. You bitch and bitch about something that doesn’t concern you in the least. But when it actually does  matter (ie: Canadian Politics), you proceed to fold into the fetal position humming to drown out the outside noise.

possible measures of my first year of post-secondary schooling.

1. Sep 2008- April 2009: this consists of the first two semesters. Technically, this is measured as my first year.
2. Sep 2008- Dec 2009: this would include the third semester. It is possibly the correct measure because I often feel that it is just an extension of the first year. It also was like limbo because I already knew before the third term sttarted that that was going to be the last semester there.
3. Sep 2008- present (’til Dec 2010): this would more eccurately encompass my whole.. er… ‘journey’ of becoming a post-secondary student. It includes what you can call ‘The Dark Year’, but I actually call it ‘The Learning Year’, just to spare my ego (Sep 2008 to Dec 2009). It also includes the Semester in Limbo and lastly, my ACTUAL first year into my real bachelor’s degree program.

So, really, two years out of high school, two months away from eliminating ‘teen’ in my age (*see note below), I am still a first year who’s done a lot that meant a little. I’m feeling like I’ll be worse than a ‘perpetual student’; no, I’ll be: a perpetual first-year student! That’s even worse! Forever dazed and confused, forever theorizing and never living up to one’s potential…

…not to say that I’m pessimistic about my future. I’m still pretty sure I’ll be a nurse. We’ve spent enough money on this degree that there is basically no more turning back. Not only that, I do think there is progress. At least, now, there is a point. I have a path carved out by the program, guidelines and schedules I have to adhere to and that’s really all I ask for because I remember that was the one missing element since graduating from high school. A real plan (I now see that “I want to be a doctor” is NOT a plan).

Well, anyways, I’ll keep this short. Only time will tell if I’ve made something of myself. We’ll see in a few years.

*note: Why can’t we be like hobbits? They say age this way: 115 is eleventeen and five years old!

My bed.

I like to pull the comforter over my head, tuck it in behind my legs- kinda like a mummy. Sometimes, if it’s comfortable, I tuck my hands behind my back and lie on them to keep them warm. Maybe rest them somewhere along my neck between my head and my shoulders- also really warm (cause of all the arteries going up to your brain). It can get really stuffy under the blanket but of only if you breathe like crazy. Paced breathing is the key. Keep calm. Breath quietly, too, if I can help it. Music helps, but only one song being repeated over and over. No playlists. I find it’s hard to capture a feeling if there’s too many songs played in succession. Piano works best for me, like the River Waltz from The Painted Veil. Or Comptine d’Une Autre Été or La Valse d’Amélie from the soundtrack of Amélie the movie. Maybe something by Yiruma.

Oh wait, I should note that there are some exceptions to this music rule, if mood strikes.These exceptions are:

1. Pocahontas soundtrack. Yes.
2. Spring Awakening Soundtrack, minus the really scary one about child molestation.
3. Dresden Dolls/ Amanda Palmer stuff. But there are categories under this. slow, silly, and feminist.

The song for today is from the Tropicana commercial where Tropicana hoists a massive glowing balloon above a city up north during the month where no sunlight reaches the Canadian north. It’s called The Great Escape by French-Canadian, Patrick Watson.

Hey child, things are looking down,
That’s OK you don’t need to win anyways
Don’t be afraid just eat up all the grey
and it will fade away
Don’t let yourself fall down

Ironically, today might be the day I screw up the project. I have a mid term to study for and I am sick and nothing is working right and I just want to crawl into bed and I am falling back into my quarter-life crisis mode and I CAN’T TASTE FOOOD and so I am really cranky and I just wrote this because I really need a study break and I can’t think of doing anything else for this break because I can’t eat because, like I said, I CAN’T TASTE FOOOOD and so I am incredibly cranky. I’ve taken to eating a teaspoon of sugar to see if I can taste it. BIG mistake, because apparently, there was enough that I can, but it wasn’t as pleasant as I thought it would be. And this is probably a very pointless entry, but I thought I should mention it because I… can’t think of anything else to do. I could, of course, study… yeah. I could do that.

I don’t like being sick.

Last Christmas (I gave you my heart…na na na naa..), I used those ready-made Pillsbury Crescents, so flakiness was absent- dough that comes out of a can shall not be trusted to deliver quality, ever.  Today, I wanted to make homemade dough, which required the use of yeast to make the bread rise. Having done a few biology labs in high school and university using yeast, I thought: How hard can it be?! Answer: Not hard at all. Really, easy. Assuming, of course, that you actually use yeast. Unlike me. Who mistook beef broth powder for dry yeast. Yes, you read that right. BEEF BROTH POWDER, IN BREAD. You can go ahead and laugh out loud, I sure did. And so did my mom. She tried very hard not to laugh too much, bless her, but I really won’t blame anyone for pointing and laughing. It truly was my biggest baking blunder, yet.

What a disaster! I was trying to make puff pastry, which required laminating the butter so that we can make layers and layers and layers of flaky goodness. It meant I had to fold the dough to enclose 1 cup of butter (blocks flattened to look like a sheet), flatten, fold, flatten, fold, flatten, fold and flatten. By the second flattening, the butter had oozed out of my dough, and all over the kitchen counter. SUCH A MESS. 1/2 of the butter probably ended up in the garbage, and the other half oozed out in the oven. I don’t know how WebJoe07 and Mr. Pino Ficara do it so well. Oh right, they’re actually chefs. WebJoe07 is even a pastry chef.

That said, it doesn’t taste too bad! And it’s not too ugly to look at, right? I mean, it’s food. Who cares if it really looks like a big, brown.. pile… of things…

The day was not a bad day at all. I learned. Hopefully, my mom also learned that if she wants her children being non-idiots, she needs to idiot-proof the house. Labels will help. We are not as smart as you might hope we are. (I can’t imagine living in my own house. In all likelihood, I will wist away and die of starvation. That OR, I’ll just revert back to eating at home.)

Lastly, here’s something beautiful I saw today:

It’s just the pantry door, at 6 o’clock, while the sun was setting. I’ve been living in this house for 5 years and I can’t believe I’ve never notice this happen.

So anyways, that’s about all that’s new since the last entry. I have nothing substantial to write and I noticed that the ‘food’ category had only one entry. I’ve decided that to truly reflect me as a person, there must be substantially more. Ergo, here is a post on my favourite type of salad.

I should mention that this is NOT MINE and I’m merely stealing from a lovely couple who were kind enough to offer their house to a friend and me during a weekend in Calgary- and best of all, feed us. (<3<3<3)

There isn’t much to it since it’s literally the type of food you just ‘toss’ together. Here’s what’s in it:

• lettuce, duh.
• feta cheese
• cucumber
• tomatoes
• dried cranberries*
• toasted walnuts*
• with balsamic vinaigrette (as seen on CanadianLiving, my <3 magazine)

*Dried Cranberries: raisins/prunes are NOT sufficient substitutes. It’s not sweet enough (but that might just be because I have a really high threshold for what is actually sweet, developed over the years of snacking on sugar). Sufficient substitutes might be: apples, mandarin oranges and mangoes/dried mangoes.

*Walnuts: must be toasted. I’ve found no other capable substitute, toos. Almonds suck, pencans=barf, macadamia=meh. I have a feeling pistachios will work fine, but I’ve never tried it with this. Regarding the cheese, I also have a feeling that blue cheese will taste fantastic! I’m a fan of blue cheese though, so some might, uh… vomit.

It’s worth mentioning that yesterday, I cried in class. We watched a movie called “Wit” by Mike Nichols. It is a movie adapted from a play about a woman being treated for Stage 4 metastatic ovarian cancer. We are currently learning Nursing Values in class and our prof wanted us to watch a movie about a patient and the nurse and physicians looking after her. Kinda like a case study.

Since I associate nursing with being kind, generous people who really like to make people better and give out hugs, rainbows, puppies and all that incredibly optimistic happy bubbles type of people, I was kinda wary that the movie we were going to watch was something sappy and overly sentimental. You know those movies? Where the point really is just to make you cry, not tell a story? But alas, the lead character is Emma Thompson. She does an amazing job- Ahhh-mazing. The script was great, and more so, her timing was great. You respect the character, not just pity her. It’s quite beautifully well done, if I can even say that about a cancer at all.

The movie is done with 4th wall wide open and the speaker (Thompson) often speaks directly to the audience. In one scene, she addresses my initial wariness against The Cheese Factor (sentimental BS). She admits to The Cheese Factor and criticizes the ‘corniness’ of the scene, how sentimental the nurse is being, all that. But then she says, as corny as it is, what else can you do? This is no time for wit, for fancy wordplay…now is a time for kindness, simplicity. I like that that was addressed. I think I’ll refer to this often in the future.

Last thing: I loved that she was a professor on 17th century literature, specializing in the Holy Sonnets of John Donne. I just about squeed when I realized she was reciting Holy Sonnet X (Death, thou shalt die…), because I remember studying it in English 111 (=My fav class forever).  Oh English class. I miss it. So. Much.

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BTW: I just looked up ‘Wit’ (2001) and it’s got like an 8/10 on IMDB and 80% on RottenTomatoes. It is also, apparently, widely shown in med/nursing schools on how NOT to be a health care professional. Huh. Also, Roger Ebert, world-renowned movie critic and cancer survivor lists this as one of the best films of the year.