Regression

I recently realized that one of the main reasons I love doing Body Balance and yoga so much is because I get to spend so much time upside down. And part of what makes it so much fun is getting to bend and twist myself into the oddest poses that would normally be socially unacceptable for any self-respecting adult to do in public.

It's as good as being a kid all over again.

Don't get me wrong I was never one of those kids who did cartwheels and other gymnastic feats with ease - things that must be taught when you're still young enough to know no fear. Even then, the only place I could do a handstand would be in a swimming pool. And I could never flip myself upside down and back on the monkey bars to save my life.

But I always used to enjoy folding over and touching my toes, let my head hang straight down between my legs, and look at the world from a completely different perspective. I also used to like raising both legs straight up or cross-legged against a wall while lying on my back and pretending I was sitting on the wall sideways. And I always liked lying on the floor and scissoring my legs into the oddest angles, toes pointed like some demented ballerina's.

All of the above I get to do in class - and more! No wonder I find it so much fun.

Serious practitioners may find what I am saying a little irreverent - maybe even sacreligious. Don't get me wrong - the poses are hard work and more difficult than they seem. But being given the license to basically be a carefree child again, even for an hour a few times a week, is part of why it's such a stress-release for me, too.

I suppose the longer I do it, the more serious I'll be and stop doing yoga to relive the joy of being a hyperactive kid. But, knowing me? I seriously doubt that will ever happen.

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Wheels

Ballerina on a Bike by humminggirl

Because I've been so wishy-washy about looking for a car, my friends have been at me to ride a bike as an alternative to all the walking I've been doing. (Perth, being the outdoor city that it is, has an amazing network of dedicated bike paths that can take anyone almost anywhere.) And since I've become fairly more fit since I got here, everyone believes I can probably handle a bike. After all, it's supposed to be a skill that you never forget once you learn it.

However, due to my inherent pessimism (and my kinesthetic stupidity), I wasn't about to buy into that last assumption blindly when I hadn't been on a bike for almost a decade. Besides, in all things there were exceptions, and I was pretty sure that the exception would be me.

For one thing, I wasn't one of those kids who grew up with a bike. My parents were on the verge of buying me one when I was around six, at the time still blissfully ignorant of the fact that their eldest child was athletically challenged. Just to see if I was ready for a bike of my own, they borrowed my next-door neighbor's bike with training wheels, put me on it - and I ended up tipping over and hitting my head on the gutter and getting knocked out. The details of that fateful afternoon are fairly sketchy to me for obvious reasons, but I do know it warranted an emergency room visit.

Needless to say, my parents never considered giving any of us bikes ever again.

After that debacle, the next time I even got near a bike was in high school. Learning to bike as an adolescent presented one major dilemma: the absence of training wheels. You just had to hop on a two-wheeler even if you didn't know squat about keeping it upright and pray you didn't tip over and get crushed under it. And we aren't even counting the humiliation factor in. Surprisingly, I did learn to bike eventually - in the parking lot of PICC on a rented BMX. And, by some miracle, managing to do so without any memorable or remarkable spills.

Me being me, I was completely charmed by the wind on my face as I rode, the relative speed of it, and being able to indulge my inner wanderlust. I was hooked, and even not having a bike of my own could stop me. Borrowing our neighbor's BMX bike, I used to tuck my hair into a cap, dress like a boy, and ride around our subdivision almost every afternoon. I even tried to move on to an adult bike - a mistake which I paid for with some considerable embarrassment when I rode into the neighborhood tennis wall because it was too high for me to stop with dignity. Despite this minor setback, I kept at it until the end of that summer - but had to give it up once school started once again. I only got to ride again a handful of times after that, when my cousins and I would hire bikes on weekend outings with the family. I'm fairly sure that I hadn't been on a bike since college, at the latest.

Hence my understandable reluctance to get on one again - let alone make it my primary mode of getting around.

Happily enough, I've just spent my afternoon proving myself wrong and the adage right.

There's a certain symmetry between past and present to have my very first bike ride in ten years on a friend's borrowed bike in an empty parking lot. With no training wheels, of course. Just armed with a helmet (required for riding anywhere in WA) and a prayer, I wobbled my way into the first round, completely forgot my brakes, and almost ended with a spill.

I may have looked like a crazy overgrown kid to all passers-by, going round and round the parking lot with no apparent purpose or destination in mind. But it was worth looking a fool to feel the speed of it again, with the wind on my face washing over my huge grin at knowing that I could still do it.

No, I'm not ready to get out on the bike paths just yet. Fingers crossed, a few more sessions in the parking lot ought to do it. But once I get the hang of things - I'll probably be on my way to owning my very first bicycle.

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Channeling Sporty Spice

my battered 3 year old rubber shoes - whose soles have been recently glued back on as a stop-gap measure. I need new ones!

My relationship with fitness has always been erratic to say the least.

Maybe it was my debilitating self-consciousness and fear that I'd end up making my team lose the game (which happened enough times in my budding career as a PE dunce for my fear to have a basis), maybe it was just my general aversion to anything that would make me sweat, or maybe it was my resigned acceptance that I have always been and ever will be "nerd" with mental calisthenics as my forte. But having learned from my elementary physical education classes that I had the athletic ability of a plant, I've never been particularly enthusiastic about any sport I actually had to participate in.

Of course as I grew up, my teenage vanity and my parents' constant prodding made it imperative I get off my butt and get fit. Exercise became a means to an end - losing weight and looking great. Always existing in my life alongside the latest fad diet, exercising would get me results but I would feel absolutely miserable and tired all the time. I mean, who would be happy subsisting on only an apple for breakfast, an egg for lunch, and nothing for dinner for every day activities, not to mention adding an hour-long aerobic session daily on top of it?

Needless to say I wasn't able to sustain that particular diet and weight loss program for very long.

The funny thing about me is that when I am into the whole fitness thing, I am really into it. Seriously into it. I've been through a biking phase, walking phase, a tae-bo phase, a regular gym rat phase, even a very short yoga and swimming phase. (All nice, individual activities - I never got over the trauma of being the team goat.) But once I stopped, inertia would often hit - and it often took serious shake-ups to motivate me to get going again.

Apparently moving to another country falls under the category of a major shake-up - because for the nth time in my life, I am once more channeling Sporty Spice.

Getting back into the active swing of things began as something of a necessity. My lack of wheels initially forced me to walk anywhere and everywhere, and I rediscovered the benefits of having an endorphin high.

After a few weeks of maximizing my on-foot exploration, I realized I had enough time on my hands to make a serious bid for fitness once more - and signed up with a local health club. I do time on the elliptical, the treadmill, and the rowing machine, life weights, and attend the yoga classes. The endorphin high is amazing, and great antidote to on-the-job-stress and on-my-own loneliness. To mix it up, I've kept my fitness walking for weekends when I feel like wandering - and there are just so many beautiful spots here in Perth for walking or jogging that's just a train ride away.

I'm really buying into the sporty, outdoor lifestyle of Perth. I can't imagine feeling this enthusiastic about walking or running in Manila, that's for sure - I happen to have an aversion to inhaling gasoline fumes. I'm even thinking of getting my first grown up bike - never mind if I haven't gotten on one since college. And I am even flirting around with the possibility of training for a 10K run in April, something that I've never ever done before.

Every time I get started on a fitness craze, I always swear that I'm going to stick to it this time around. After all, being a doctor, you would think I'd know enough about the benefits of exercise to keep me motivated, specially given all my personal risk factors and the fact that I am not getting any younger. But I know from falling off the wagon so many times over the years just how hard it is to keep a fitness program up - often because life gets in the way and it just becomes less of a priority. But I am hoping that this is the time when the fitness crazy part of me really sticks for good.

I'm just glad that my schedule here allows me this great form of "me time" - and that Perth is just so conducive to a healthy, active lifestyle. I may have the athletic ability of a plant, but what I seriously lack in ability I make up for in enthusiasm. With the weather warming up, I am looking forward to more outdoor fitness activities in the spring sunshine.

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Fishball Memories

Fishballs! Squidballs! Quail eggs! Kikiam!

I was just in Diliman for an errand yesterday, and any visit to my college alma mater is not complete without a pit-stop at the decrepit COOP to get my fill of these goodies. Not because I think it's more sanitary - it's just the only place where I've gotten street food with no adverse consequences following.

Being a doctor, you'd think I would be more wary of any kind of street food - but, truth is, it takes a good deal of willpower for me not to just buy them from anywhere.

I don't know why I love the stuff. It's all just mostly flour, binders, and flavoring (with the exception of the quail eggs in batter) - not a squid or fish or piece of meat in sight. The little suckers are deep fried in hot oil and smothered with a mysterious brown sweet and spicy sauce - the exact flavor of which I cannot seem to reproduce at home. For some reason, the sauce made by the vendors always tastes better.

But there's more to my long-standing love affair with fishballs and squidballs than an addiction to processed flour, the MSG of the mysterious brown sweet sauce, and health-risky behavior. For me, certain foods have a way of triggering certain memories by association. I have a lot of memory-triggering foods, but this is among my most favorite.

During the summers we spent in my grandfather's house in Project 2, my cousins and I used to drop whatever we were doing to gather around the fishball cart that passed by his house every afternoon. We would dip the fishball skewered by bamboo sticks into the jars of sauce - no ladles and plates back then! Five pesos worth of fishball was enough to fill the tummy and completely ruin our appetites for dinner - but lolo would each give us five pesos to spend anyway.

When I was in college, friends and I used to frequent the fishball stand just in front of the Main Library after class - our recap and chika sessions disguised as an afternoon snack. A good number of times, a fishball session for me and my best friend would be a pretext to swapping secrets about anything and everything under the sun. We would buy two sticks each and tote them away on a paper plates, finishing them off over good conversation once we'd found a spot to sit at in the Sunken Garden. Fishballs were obviously the precursor of the ubiquitous Starbucks of this generation.

Eating this stuff again always manages to bring me back to those much happier, less complicated times of my life. And, of course, let's not forget that despite the lack of any substantial ingredients, they actually taste good.

Ever since medical school, after I made the acquaintance of typhoid fever, hepatitis A, and the other wonderful possible consequences of eating street food of any kind, I haven't really been able to indulge in them all that often - which is why it's such a treat every time I can. When I do, I cross my fingers, eat up, and hope my immune system does the rest!

For readers passing by: What is your favorite memory-triggering food and what memories do they trigger? And for fellow UP Diliman alum - which fishball stall served the best fishballs and what was your favorite UP food?

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Out of Narnia

I first fell in love with the land of Narnia as a little girl watching a cartoon version of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. The story of four ordinary children stumbling by accident into a magical land of talking animals and other mythical creatures come to life immediately captured my imagination. But it was when I found the entire series of books a few years later in our school library that I became a lifelong devotee.

There are seven books in this series by Christian author C.S. Lewis, all of which are related to each other yet can stand alone. Despite criticisms against them in recent years for their alleged "racist" and "sexist" undertones, these books stand as classics that are still loved the world over by both children and adults alike even today.

I've read all of the books in the series too many times to count and, even today, I continue to go back to these stories over and over again. One thing I've enjoyed about revisiting these books as a grown up is finding parallels to my Christian faith woven into the narrative. While C.S. Lewis denies that he created Narnia as an allegory of Christianity, he does not deny the existence of similarities, specially between Christ and Aslan, the Great Lion son of the Emperor-Over-the-Sea, guardian and savior of Narnia.

Reading the books as an adult, I have learned to appreciate the stories through the lenses of my experiences and see the instances where the fiction mirrors my life, more specifically my walk in faith.

In one of the books in the series, when Aslan tells some of the children it would be their last visit to Narnia, he explains that was because it was time that they got to know him and love him in their own world. Because he had met them and allowed them to know him in the fantastic world of Narnia, it would be easier for them to meet him and recognize him in their own world.

I have been given the privilege to meet God in very personal way many times in my life. Like the children of the Narnia saga, these encounters have seemingly been a product of coincidence, but with eyes of faith, I've realized that they were really brought about by His design.

But once I am back in the Real World, it becomes so easy to forget.

It's so hard to hear His voice in the noise and distraction of life. It's so hard to see how He is moving in my life when I'm so caught up in my own concerns. I praise Him that despite my stubborn insistence on straying, He constantly brings me back to Narnia, to remind me that He is the God of miracles, the God of love, and the God who keeps His promises.

That is the constant challenge He has for me - that I may persevere in the walk that He has called me to walk even during the times in my life when I can only vaguely remember the brief glimpse I had of Him. And it is my prayer that He will give me the grace to have that seeking heart, that I may be sensitive to feel Him moving in my life, recognize Him in my everyday, and love Him unabashedly - even when I am out of Narnia.



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Rickrolling Down Memory Lane

It's a testimony to how much time I've been spending on-line these days that I've been a victim of the Rickroll too many times for me to keep track of.

Not that I've minded it too much.

While many perpetrators of the latest huge internet prank are probably too young to remember Rick Astley's heyday, the sight of the hiralious dance steps, the big hair, and the high-waisted pants evoke in me a feeling of nostalgia. (Admit it, people, you all used to wear your hair and your pants this way, too!)

I was ten years old when Rick Astley's big voice first hit the Manila airwaves. At the time, I was just beginning to discover the joys of having my own set of cassette tapes to play on my own Walkman. Unfortunately, it was the late 80's - hardly a dignified era for the pop music scene.

While I did experience the tail-end of the New Wave music era, 80's pop music got its hooks into me pretty well. My preferences at the time ran to the ever-present Madonna, Debbie Gibson (whose songs I used to sing to with a hairbrush in front of our full-length mirror), Bananarama, Kylie Minogue, the Jets, and New Kids on the Block (I dare my elementary and high school classmates to deny their devotion to these guys!).

And, of course, there was good ol' Rick, whose songs I still - to my shame - know the lyrics to to this day.

Most music junkies have memories associated with the songs they grew up to, and for me Rick Astley's songs are no exception.

Those familiar big band vocals and distinctive Stock, Aitken, and Waterman beat brings to mind my first-ever trip to Baguio (My "Hold Me in Your Arms" cassette was among the few we took on the trip, and we played it whenever our car radio could not pick up broadcasts from any station); the silly dance-aerobics presentation we had for our fifth grade PE class (for which we used one of his songs), and, yes, watching quintessential Rick-Astley-wannabe Roderick Paulate singing and dancing to "Together Forever" on TV with my mom at home.

My musical tastes have broadened, matured, and hopefully improved over the past 20 years. But I confess there's a secret place in my present-day iPod for Rick Astley's greatest hits - as well as many of those old 80's pop ditties I grew up to but should have sent to some forgotten place to die. And, yes, believe it or not, there are days when this playlist still gets exclusive playtime while I am negotiating exasperating Manila traffic. Yes, singing and bopping to kitschy 80's pop music makes me less inclined to shoot the other traffic-causing idiots on the road.

I second this motion: given the influx of 80's acts into the Manila concert scene and the huge exposure he's getting from the Rickrolling phenomenon, it's high time someone brought Rick Astley to Manila. If I'm here, I just might splurge on a ticket and watch him do a live Rickroll - no tricks required. What can I say? I'm a fan, albeit a closet one (but not anymore! *LOL*).

To convince the skeptics and as a treat to the closet fans who are just dying to admit it, I'll leave you with the internet video sensation that has caught the world by storm - Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up." That is, if you haven't been a victim and seen it for yourself! Won't this be awesome seen live?



On the other hand, if you're not up for a dose of Rickrolling fun - you should check out this great Muppets video instead.

Enjoy!

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Faith Like a Child's

photo by skoric

As I wander the middle of nowhere in this in between time in my life, this is one thing I have in such short supply.

Letting go and letting God is something that has always been so hard for me. Despite knowing this in my head, my gut still refuses to accept that all I have is the illusion of being in control. Because I am not, no matter how hard I try to be on top of all the variables or clutch my life's steering wheel tightly in my hands.

So I continue to run around with a cloud of doubt always hanging over my head, constantly second guessing and mulling over worst case scenarios, afraid to make the next move or to take risks because of a hundred what-ifs and what-might-happens.

Why is it that even if I know in my heart God only wants the best for me, I can't stop worrying and - at the expense of sounding blasphemous - wondering if He really knows what He's doing?

My heart obviously has a lot of catching up to do.


* * * *

Help Me Believe
music and lyrics by Nichole Nordeman

Take me back to the time
When I was maybe eight or nine
And I believed

When Jesus walked on waters blue
And if He helped me I could, too
If I believed

Before rational analysis and systematic thinking
Robbed me of a sweet simplicity

When wonders and when mysteries
Were far less often silly dreams
and childhood fantasies

Help me believe
cause I don't want to miss any miracles
Maybe I'd see
Much better by closing my eyes
And I would shed this grown up skin I'm in
To touch an Angel's wing
And I would be free
Help me believe.

When mustard seeds made mountains move
A burning bush that spoke for You
was good enough

When manna fell from heavens high
Just because You told the sky
To open up

Am I too wise to recognize that everything uncertain
Is certainly a possibility

When logic fails my reasoning
and science crushes underneath
The weight of all that is unseen

Help me believe
cause I don't want to miss any miracles
Maybe I'd see
Much better by closing my eyes
And I would shed this grown up skin I'm in
To touch an Angel's wing
And I would be free
Help me believe.

When someone else's education
plays upon my reservations
I'm the first to cave
I'm the first to bleed

If I abandoned all that seeks
To make my faith informed and chic
Could you?
Would you?
show Yourself to me?


* * * *

Post Script: To everyone who has expressed interest in joining the upcoming Blog Rounds - thank you so much in advance! I am looking forward to reading all of your posts. I'm really sorry I have not been able to answer your comments one by one - I haven't had much time to breathe these past few days, let alone blog! But don't worry, I promise we will go on as scheduled. :)

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I Won?

Have you ever won anything from a raffle?

I have a long history of having absolutely no luck when it comes to winning raffle contests. I never win. Never. As I child I remember spending hours filling out booklets upon booklets of raffle coupons my parents would redeem after their weekly grocery shopping for supplies - and I never won a single thing even once. Apparently my mother knew something I didn't - that the exercise was a waste of time - which is why she left all the filling out to me and my sister.

My rotten batting average with raffles extends to even those giving away door prizes at a party. You know the kind where you put your name inside a fishbowl as you enter a Christmas party? I never won in any of those things either. There was one party I attended where only 5 of about 50 people DIDN'T get any sort of prize whatsoever. I was one of them.

Being naturally inclined to cynicism, I eventually reached the same conclusion, and sometimes even wondered if ANYONE really won - especially the retail store sponsored ones. Raffles were just a marketing ploy to get foolishly optimistic costumers to push their spending budget higher in order to get more tickets, for more chances to win the cash/car/house and lot/trip or whatever else they were giving away at the time. I was thinking that maybe all those winners - since we never really got to see them anyway - were just a figment of retailers' imaginations. So I'd end up half-heartedly filling up coupons and dropping them in drop boxes... then absently chucking out the stubs.

But that attitude is about to change because - get this - I finally won!



Okay, okay... so it's not a car or a house or a trip. It's a bottle of Red Jeans Verseace perfume. Well, it was a raffle from the women's accessory section of a small department store near my house so the prizes weren't anything big - but that's beside the point. The perfume can smell like gasoline, for all I care, but the point is that I won. I won! I finally won something from a raffle. People actually win these things after all.

My mom already mentioned it to me this morning, but I was half asleep when I got the message and didn't quite believe her. The registered letter arrived this afternoon, have a look see:



It's true! My losing streak has finally been broken! And I am now a BELIEVER. Now only if my romantic losing streak were as easy to break, I'd be sublimely happy. But maybe the fact that my luck has turned is a good omen for other good things to come. Maybe.

Okay, I'm going to have to find that stub now... due to my oh-whatever attitude I had been using it as a bookmark for one of the paperbacks I brought with me to Amanpulo last week. I think the last time I saw it was on my quarters' apartment floor... uh-oh. Maybe I should just get started on that affidavit of loss.

Do you have any retail raffle-winning experiences? Let's make believers out of these cynics, people!
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Pipe Dreams

On more frustrating days, I wonder what my life would have turned out to be if I hadn't chickened out at the sight of the bright studio lights when I was 4 years old.

I was just about to burst into the Philippine TV scene as Nova Villa and Freddie Webb's precocious daughter on Chicks to Chicks, thanks to my aunt's showbiz connections. I was smart, I was confident, and my mother and my aunt had practiced me at being cute till I could do it on demand. I was all set and raring to go.Until I saw those lights.

It was the end of my showbiz career.

On other days, I toy around with the idea of giving up my current career to spend the rest of my days as a freelance fluff piece writer/romance novelist/lounge singer. This would be more realistic than trying to break into showbiz at my current age of 27, and thus less of a pipe dream.

On really bad days, I can actually imagine myself doing this for real despite the fact that romance novels in the Philippines are published in Filipino. I cannot string together a respectable essay in my own language that doesn't sound like a complete joke. Given that particular handicap, how am I supposed to write dialogue for my characters that might pass for a romantic conversation without making them sound like they were possessed by a bunch of colegilialas?

Last night, my friend Honey railroaded me into singing a number on stage at this open mic acoustic bar... and I realized that while I may have the voice of a potentially good lounge singer, I am definitely not blessed with the vampy, confident personality that marks any good solo performer. I was too shy to look my audience in the eye. It was like being 4 years old again, with those huge studio lights flashing in my eyes. I love to sing, and in certain circumstances I like to perform, but I don't think I have the gumption to make it a for-the-rest-of-my-life thing.

Despite these roadblocks to my potential escape routes, I keep these pipe dreams alive just to keep my sanity on those days I feel I can't go on. And there are glimmers of hope.After all, they do publish local chick fic in English now. And maybe, just maybe, one of these days I might gain enough confidence to be that vampy, smoky voiced singer I've always secretly wanted to be.

On the other hand, maybe those hard days are all set to come fewer and farther in between - and I will finally be able to kiss my pipe dreams goodbye. But maybe that's the biggest pipe dream of all. Click here to read the rest of this post.