Studying Abroad

To this day I still say that one of the most memorable experiences of my life was my stint as a student in the UK. I will probably bring this up many more times in the future as I feel it really changed me. Next year it will have been 10 years since I left that country behind and yet it often feels like it was only a couple of years ago that I was waving goodbye to my Malaysian classmates in Heathrow. I've already mentioned three things about the UK that stand out to me, in another post. But what those years mean to me is in more than what was extraordinary, but also what was commonplace. The quaint Covent Garden in London, the little shop where I got a medieval wax seal, the old lady who gave me a token of a boot which was supposed to be for good luck, the artist who etched the very first pencil drawing of my dog (who has passed away now), the numerous, confusing stops in the Underground, the quiet scenery while walking to Buckingham Palace, the bus trips to the country, the small grocery stores and the dime a dozen Body Shops. I can go on and on. I always tell myself that I would love to have my kids experience that kind of a stay in another country. And I feel a certain kind of kinship for other people who do or have done the same thing. This exchange student had these experiences abroad as well. It's interesting to read about his situations and feel the similarities and differences to mine. Truly, studying abroad is a must.

This is Fun!

Lists like this is one of the reasons I am enjoying blogging so much.

From Livi.

Here’s the game: you have to answer the question with ONE WORD only and then you have to tag 4 people.

1. Where is your cell phone? WAITING
2. Your significant other? WORKING
3. Your hair? TIED
4. Your mother? SERVING
5. Your father? PROUD
6. Your favorite thing? LAPTOP
7. Your dream last night? NONE
8. Your favorite drink? MOJITO
9. Your dream/goal? RICH
10. The room you’re in? OFFICE
11. Your hobby? BAKING
12. Your fear? POVERTY
13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? STABLE
14. What you’re not? EXTROVERTED
15. Muffins? NOPE
16. One of your wish list items? SLIMNESS
17. Where you grew up? ORTIGAS
18. The last thing you did? ATE
19. What are you wearing? COMFORT
20. Favorite gadget? LAPTOP
21. Your pets? CUFFLINKS
22. Your computer? DELL
23. Your mood? UNSURE
24. Missing someone? KIDS
25. Your car? NONE
26. Something you’re not wearing? GLASSES
27. Favorite store? M&S
28. Like someone? NO
29. Your favorite color? AMBER
30. When is the last time you laughed? TODAY
31. Last time you cried? SUNDAY

TAGGING: Ren, Affie, Jerry, Ruy

Footie

Whenever I think back to my years in England, I think of 3 main things: the Weather, the Lifestyle, and the Football. Let's go through these topics one at a time shall we?
The Weather: Living in a tropical country is fantastic for some people, but for me, it's often boring. Funnily, I happen to like the cold. When I went to the UK I was overjoyed to find the temperatures I had always wanted. I remember marveling at the colors of Autumn and the sunny-yet-coolness of Spring. I miss these 2 seasons to be honest. They made things so much more interesting for me.
The Lifestyle: This was also quite different. I was a student when I lived in England so that is the perspective I will be using as my point of comparison. Student life in the UK is definitely much more to my taste than student life here in the Philippines. While the scene is interesting enough in my home base, the mix of cultures, the access to more Premiere activities, and the vast choices one finds in a school in the UK, I found, were much more exciting. Aside from that, the many different extra-curricular activities made my head spin. It helped that, as a student, you are given a lot of discounts and freebies therefore making it easy for me to enjoy the student life in and outside the campus without straining my wallet too much.
The Football: Finally, the thing that amazed me the most was the love of everything Football going on all over the UK. I am not a sporty person. Never have been and yet I found myself drawn to the infectious fever that was the English Premiere League and the World Cup. In the Philippines, the sport of choice is usually basketball so it really was new to me to see all these people so obsessed with Football. I ended up quite enjoying the sport and still follow it as often as I can today. I am sure that people who have always loved Football or those who have grown to greatly appreciate it (as I do)would find this site EPL-English Premier League very informative, helpful, and interesting.
As an aside, I always love bumping into blogs that give me a little taste of what I lovingly consider my second home- the UK.

Quarter Life Crisis

I've been looking through Facebook recently and I've been marveling over the fact that I was able to find a lot of my classmates from elementary and batch mates from high school. In fact, I was pleased to start communicating with some really old, good friends again. At the same time, I've been amazed by the lives they lead today. A few are pretty well-known, a few have remained good looking, a few look really happy living their full lives abroad. This led me to reflect on myself and where I am right now. Is this what is commonly known as Quarter Life Crisis? I know I enjoy my job, I love my family, and there is a lot of opportunity still out there. But sometimes I think about the "what if's" and get depressed. And then I feel guilty for feeling depressed. This is very tiring. I wish I could figure it all out already.

Who Do You Believe?

A very interesting case was presented to me a couple of weeks ago. It's something I am still unsure of as to how to answer. Before anything, of course, let me give some background.

This story is about 2 very good friends of mine- Kay and Jason.

History: Kay and Jason have been married for almost 5 years. They were together for 3 before that. They have 1 child, a daughter, who is 3. Roundabout the end of the 3rd year of their marriage, they went through what is commonly called a "rocky patch". Jason had an affair, and Kay found out about it. They were able to get through it though. It wasn't easy. I watched from the sidelines as Kay struggled to find trust and Jason struggled to find redemption. Now they appear ok. Until Kay called me with a dilemma.

Background: In the middle of the whole bruhaha that was the affair, Kay had discovered that one of Jason's close friends knew about the affair from the beginning. Why would this be a big deal? Well, this friend had also become her friend, or so she thought. Thus, the discovery of the knowledge felt to Kay like a betrayal as well. Needless to say, she deleted all info of the friend (whom we shall call Sandra) from her contacts- cel phone, email, multiply, friendster, facebook.

Present: Years had gone by and suddenly Sandra had found a way to contact her. It seems one of Kay's officemates knew Sandra and it was through him that Sandra got Kay's contact details. Kay told me Sandra contacted her telling her she wanted to meet to talk. Kay considered and decided to hear her out (over my strenuous objections). It was this talk that was interesting.
Sandra presented all the arguments for her case, for why she did what she did (meaning: keeping the knowledge of the affair a secret for a long time, sometimes even asking normal couple questions about it, regardless of the fact that Kay was also supposed to be her friend) of friends being caught in the middle, having bad personality traits winning in situations of drama, etc. She also said that she understood Kay's ill-feelings towards her but she told Kay she wanted to explain her side and she hoped that, through this Kay would have a more accurate picture of what her position was, and that she could save the friendship. Kay told me that her arguements were quite convincing so, in the spirit of being open-minded, she decided to give Sandra a chance. After this, Kay and Sandra met one more time over coffee just to catch up and try to make a go at mending the friendship.They talked about their lives at present, what was new, what was old, etc. It was during this meeting that Sandra involuntarily divulged to Kay that Jason had mentioned to her very recently that he just wasn't feeling a friendship connection with Kay and that he was disappointed that Kay always wanted to spend her free time with the daughter. Now, I had to struggle to keep from saying "I told you not to talk to her anymore". You should have heard Kay explaining how surprised she was to hear that. She told me she just smiled at Sandra, thanked her for the head's up, and then went home. When she and I talked she explained that she was confused about what Sandra had said because 99% of the time, she and Jason were together, either out with friends or at home relaxing. Kay said she did spend time with the kids as well but this was usually at the same time Jason would be at the office (he works in real estate hence the odd schedule).

The Dilemma: who should Kay believe? Should she go with what she sees and feels, what she knows from the way she interacts with her husband, and from what appears to be a good, mending, growing relationship despite the fact that she had been wrong about their state of affairs before (circa the affair); or does she believe Sandra? Who has brought dependable information to her on several occasions before, who would appear to have no reason to be destructive, but who naturally cannot be trusted the same way anymore?

What do you guys think? I'm stumped.

Of Children and Husbands

I read a post from http://www.livingorsurviving.com on why we love the person we love and it really took my breath away. Let me outline the points I found particularly interesting and why.

When we’re little, our mother is the center of our attention, and we are the center of hers. So our mother’s characteristics leave an indelible impression, and we are forever after attracted to people with her facial features, body type, personality, even sense of humor. If our mother was warm and giving, as adults we tend to be attracted to people who are warm and giving. If our mother was strong and even-tempered, we are going to be attracted to a fair-minded strength in our mates.

The mother has an additional influence on her sons: she not only gives them clues to what they will find attractive in a mate, but also affects how they feel about women in general. So if she is warm and nice, her sons are going to think that’s the way women are. They will likely grow up warm and responsive lovers and also be cooperative around the house.

Conversely, a mother who has a depressive personality, and is sometimes friendly but then suddenly turns cold and rejecting, may raise a man who becomes a ‘dance-away lover.’ Because he’s been so scared about love from his mother, he is afraid of commitment and may pull away from a girlfriend for this reason.

While the mother determines in large part what qualities attract us in a mate, it’s the father–the first male in our lives–who influences how we relate to the opposite sex. Fathers have an enormous effect on their children’s personalities and chances of marital happiness.

Just as mothers influence their son’s general feelings toward women, fathers influence their daughter’s general feelings about men. If a father lavishes praise on his daughter and demonstrates that she is a worthwhile person, she’ll feel very good about herself in relation to men. But if the father is cold, critical or absent, the daughter will tend to feel she’s not very lovable or attractive.

I have 2 kids; a son and a daughter. You can imagine why this excerpt was very interesting to me. I knew even before I had my kids that parents affect their future relationships in many ways. But the difference is the reality that now I am a mom and what I do, how and who I am, can directly affect my little boy. This is scary, very scary. I am not the most easygoing person. Neither do I think I am particularly extroverted. I can be exacting as well. And I am a self-confessed nerd, bookworm, geek. I often place a lot of weight on knowledge and logic and reason. But I try not to judge people as best I can, and I am working everyday on seeing the positive in the situations I find myself in. It is scary to think that my son can use me, and all my neuroses, as a benchmark for what he would want for his future wife/mate/partner or that he can turn out as a reaction to who and how I am. For my son, I would hope for a woman who would bring out the best in him, inspire him, and love and be faithful to him. I would also like for him to love knowledge but to be open to experiences that could give him knowledge books never could, to be more sociable and not so uptight when he grows up. Gosh, I hope I am not damaging him in any way.
My daughter's development is of equal concern to me. My husband is very extroverted, not much of a bookworm or an academic even, very free with rules and ideas, and has a tendency to lean on self-centerdness and selfishness. Now, this is in no way meant to bring him down. But naturally, for my daughter, I would want for her to grow up with a thirst for knowledge and pushing the boundaries to become anything she wants to be, to have clear limitations, clear ideas of what would acceptable and unacceptable to her, and one who would be capable of loving greatly. As for an ideal mate, I would hope for a person with much the same qualities as the person I wish for my son- someone who would inspire her and bring out the best in her, someone who would love and be faithful to her. I hope my husband inspires her to be these things.

Or as George Burns, who was Jewish and married the Irish Catholic Gracie Allen, used to say: his marriage was his favorite gig, even though it was Gracie who got all the laughs. The two of them did share certain social similarities–both grew up in the city, in large but poor families. Yet what really drew them together was evident from the first time they went on stage together. They complemented each other perfectly: he was the straight man, and she delivered the punch lines.

This excerpt was what spoke to me the most. I believe my husband and I are rather opposite in most our ways but that these traits not only make the relationship interesting but also make us complement each other in our own unique way. Even if he sometimes wishes for more commonality, and I sometimes agree that some arguments would be easier resolved if the just automatically agreed, I still end up thinking that they way we are and who we are is what makes "us" work the way we do. And that differences aren't necessarily bad. And that there can definitely be beauty in discord. I am hoping that I am showing and convincing my husband of these points every day we spend together and every time we work to make our relationship better.

Pain, Eyesight, and Medical Coverage

I fell down the stairs early Sunday am. I consider myself someone with a relatively high pain threshold but that was p-a-i-n-f-u-l. I have very bad eyesight see. I am near-sighted. And, stupid me, in my rush to see why my son was crying, I forgot my glasses in my room. To give you a better picture of my house, let me compare it to a typical English house. You know, the ones that go upwards instead of sideways? So I rushed downstairs to get to my son who was in the living room with his yaya, then I brought him to his room on the 3rd floor, and I rushed down to the 2nd floor to my room to get my glasses while he was on the throne. I fell down the last 3 curving steps of the stairs that leads from the 2nd to the 3rd floor. Fantastic huh?

Thankfully I have good HMO coverage. When I went to the hospital Monday (after my the swelling of my foot had not subsided and had gotten decidedly swollen instead), I had a consult, x-rays, and diagnosis- all on my HMO!! This was great because going to the hospital is quite expensive. The only sucky thing though was that my HMO did not cover the crutches I needed. So now I have to look around for inexpensive crutches. It would have been silly to get crutches worth 2k when I would be only using them for 2 weeks max. I am using one of those four-legged cane thingys that my husband was able to borrow from his friend. It isn't very helpful thought. I am hopping around now, every muscle I know and didn't know aching like mad, and not getting really far. Would anyone have info as to where I can get inexpensive crutches asap? ahhhh, Pain!!!!!