Caustic Thoughts

Random funny thoughts with a taste of Pinoy and a hint of acid.

witandwisdom

MisObedient

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My daughter just wrapped up her first year of school. Whew! One year down, 15 more to go of sleeplessness, financial juggling, project-making and time mismanagement.

Predictably, schools have their ways of making parents feel glad that they went through all that stress, distress and duress. My kid’s school had a special awards day. Their teacher was so considerate and understanding of what we’d gone through that she gave all 55 or so pupils in her grade level a special award. They should have called it the common awards because there’s nothing special about something that everyone’s got.

I suspect that the teacher must have had a really hard time. Aside from having had to think of multiple synonyms to respectful, diligent, helpful and everything nice until she got 55 awards, she also had the monumental task of rationalizing each award.

My daughter was awarded Most Obedient. That was after she snuck out of class after I told her to stay put. She only made it in time to the ceremony thanks to a harassed teacher assistant who managed to locate her without a tracking device and drag her and one other deserter to their proper places.

A couple of other parents commented that their kids’ awards appeared to be positive takes on gray character traits. That led to a panel discussion among the more humorous parents.

This is what your kid’s awards might really mean:

  • Most Energetic – Your kid can’t stay put and is the reason why his teacher’s curly hair is now straight
  • Best in Performing Arts – Your kid loves to dance on top of tables and impersonates the teacher behind her back
  • Most Well-Groomed – You or the nanny is obsessive compulsive or has a phobia for dirt, the exact term for which your kid will never ever get to spell correctly, ever
  • Most Resourceful – Your kid can figure out how to give his classmates a black eye with a paper clip

Of course, we were just kidding. We all really love and appreciate our kids, even those who seem to redefine their special awards.

How The Fortress Was Won… By FB

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It felt like I was the last person standing. While the world around me succumbed to the siren song of the curly-haired demigod of geekiness Mark Zuckerberg, I built an anti Facebook fortress where the mere mention of Join, Like or Connect were punishable by beheading.

Last week, a small hole in my wall finally let the virus that is FB in and life as I knew it has never been the same. My former student, Bianca, says my being in FB is the equivalent of the Berlin Wall falling.

The first few days seemed almost like standing trial for crimes against humanity. Those who knew me well enough expressed such great surprise that I was convinced I committed murder. I killed my image… er… principles, I meant my principles.

Of course my friends are all happy that they can now get updates of what I eat, think and the amount of fat I’ve put on since high school but I still feel like writing a ten-page defense.

I need to be in FB because online work is how I put food on the table, send my kid to school and keep the Bureau of Internal Revenue happy. Anyone who’s worked online for a living knows that lighting incense and offering baskets of eggs on the altar of FB’s creator is part of the gig. Competing services and products who already have one million Likes will kill you if you don’t have you’re own page to gather your friends and stalkers.

So how cool is a job that let’s you work in FB? At first it’s as cool as drinking tea in the middle of the Sahara. I don’t just interact with friends, I also create and manage Facebook pages. Finding out where all the buttons, features and functions are and what they do is like reading directions to the comfort room in hieroglyphics in the middle of a maze.

The first time I jumped into the morass of social media, I found myself screaming in the halls of a virtual sanitarium, “…Bleep… you Facebook! Go to …bleep… Facebook!”

My second attempt left me temporarily immobile after 8 hours of trying to decipher geek speak for Like boxes.

My third try killed the nerves in my eyes but not before I managed to create the first FB page I owned with enough bells and whistles to cause brain damage.

Now that that’s done, the next step for me is to figure out the delicate dynamics between Google and Facebook and why Mark Z doesn’t seem to be in speaking terms with the big G. I need to figure this out because some online properties have reportedly been caught between the exchange of bad blood and male bovine manure between the two giants.

Yay, it sure is fun to be in FB.

Remember Your First Real Dance?

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That poor chap outside of your family circle in his father’s extra large suit, who had the misfortune of being picked for the first rose in your 18th birthday, was not your first dance. Go back many years more and you might be able to dig up suppressed memories of that fateful day when you were led to believe you looked cute in crepe paper, a banana headdress and a polka dot dress. Our minds are wonderful auto organizers so if you’re having a hard time recalling, you’ll find your memories filed in a folder labeled “Embarrassing School Foundation Days”.

My daughter just had her first dance. We were never told there’d be one. The kids were measured for costumes without parents’ consent and the next communication simply gave us the bill. I had the courtesy to ask my daughter what she really wanted to do with her life and she said she wanted to dance instead of getting a PhD in nuclear physics.

I figured she wasn’t being exploited or abused so I let her do the twist with her friends. They danced happily, oblivious to the world around them and even to their flailing, out of step partners. Despite the complete lack of synchronized movement and understanding for what they were doing, the kids managed to draw oohs, ahhs and wows from their captivated blood relations.

The older pupils who were required to dance upwards of the 60s didn’t fail to please their parents as well but the kids themselves looked like they were in mourning. These are the kids trapped between the internal tug of war between childhood and adolescence and who are incapable of busting a convincing groove if a song doesn’t contain “Baby, baby” every ten seconds.

One group dutifully pointed up and down to the tune of the 70s under the watchful eyes of teachers who probably included “grades” in every sentence to the pre dance pep briefing. That group forever redefined the Bee Gees’ “Stayin’ Alive”. Except for those who enjoyed the shiny costumes and the fake sideburns, the rest had the pained, unhappy expressions of kids under raw vegetable diets. I’m sure it got worse for some of them. Young parents under the spell of his royal geekiness Mark Zuckerberg will not fail to populate the web with photos that will forever defy “delete” or “forget”.

Seriously, why do we do this to our children?

There’s a Fly in My President

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Noynoy AquinoA couple of weeks ago Archbishop Oscar Cruz revealed that two powerful groups (distributors of political steroids, no doubt) have decided to flex their well-oiled, influential muscles and kick President Aquino off his seat. My eyeballs rolled involuntarily when I heard that and as I struggled to regain control of my organs, the distraught Pinoy in me whispered, “Here we go again.”

Cruz says Aquino’s incompetence has diminished his cutie points considerably. Well, in the seven months he’s been on the helm, lives have been lost, justice has been denied and the dumb have grown dumber. Also, the belt-tightening has grown so extreme that I now have the waistline of a waif. Two more inches tighter and I’ll qualify as a supermodel.

I wonder who they think is a better fit. The last time we raised our hands and complained, “Waiter, there’s a fly in my president,” we got served a chipmunk with a penchant for the shiny baubles in our coffers. Sadly, those who complained a second time to the waiter were thrown into jail. Apparently, exchange policies for tarnished presidents are valid for only one swap.

I don’t think we’ll ever get one who owns a magic stone he can swallow to turn him into a caped champion of the masses who can drag goons to limbo by their nose hairs, make oil companies drop to their knees, force politicians to do the public a favor by drowning themselves in their own dirt and whip the trash in the Pasig River into gold. For now, all we have is this president who seems to be losing the loyalty of his hair follicles and who might be having a hard time grasping the full scope of his work; but would you really rather have another economic genius with itchy palms?

What is Marriage?

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I’m sure Wikipedia has the long, convoluted, partially correct answer, but since four years of college and another four years of trying to decipher Google’s Terms of Service have damaged my brain, I am now incapable of understanding definitions beyond “Duh”.

Sometimes I get the impression that marriage is a legally binding agreement that allows individuals to demand that their partners, who have future plans of hiding from obligation in the Swiss Alps, listen to the now classic song “Financial Support” by Kevin Federline. Those who actually have partners who cooperate fully may alternatively use their documents to gain express access to their rights and benefits and to those of their children, financial or otherwise, from legal institutions.

That inaccurate definition is the result of two decades of watching friends and family hit their heads against marriage contracts that have the physical attributes of paper but the internal qualities of concrete. I’m certain that if I said that in one of my six theology classes in college, I would have never been given my diploma.

Quite recently, this simplistic perspective has expanded a bit thanks to Vilma Santos. In one of her movies she complains to her partner that the reason why he is compelled by his parents to provide for their needs first rather than hers is because his parents bank on the fact that they aren’t married. That implies that if they were married, she would have had the right to demand that she and their kids be the first in his list of concerns.

I pretty much put my ear against closed doors or watch quarreling neighbors with a popcorn bucket in one arm. I remember one woman very close to home echo a similar line, “Why do you always go home to your parents when they call for you? Don’t they know we’re married?”

Actually, the couples I know fight in very public places where they prefer to spill their guts and all the gory details of their disastrous unions. What I gather from them pretty much verifies the truth behind Vilma’s lines.

So that means I can now turn to my husband and demand that aside from surrendering his wallet, assets and die cast car collection to me, he is now required to prioritize my demands because we have a marriage contract. Sweet.

Senior Power

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I distinctly remember the power of pregnancy, not the “life-changing, awe-inspiring realization of true womanhood” kind of power. I mean the power to cut through lines and attract free unsolicited assistance anytime, anywhere. All I needed to do was exaggerate the difficulty of carrying the biological basketball in front of me and even snatchers gave me a free pass.

Last month, I witnessed an even greater kind of power, the power of senior citizenship. My mother despite having hidden her real age in a top secret, maximum security facility, finally gave a clue to the number of corrupt presidential terms she’s had to live through.

She is at least 6 decades old. The senior citizen card she keeps in a special red flip case proves she passed the application to the exclusive twilight club. Amazingly, her age was an advantage for us when we were in Cebu. We used her like a charm. Everywhere we aimed her at, we got great deals. How did she do it? Aside from discreetly making her eyes glow red in front of service crew, she flashed her ID card like a police badge and exerted her power of discount!

In instances when cashiers declared ignorance over the procedure for processing senior citizen discounts, my mother said the magic words, “I’ll report.” Those that actually cared for their employers suddenly gained the exemplary research abilities of doctorate degree candidates and found out how to work the calculator.

When we left, my mom was still having a blast with her badge but she did have one issue and she asked me to blog about it. Apparently, some who get shown the senior badge kick, scream or put up a fight.

Cebu’s water district is subtle about it but they seem to be succeeding at discouraging some of the more arthritic seniors from jumping through hoops and loops to get price cuts. Ma says, showing the senior ID isn’t enough. To get the discount that’s mandated by law, she’s required to submit a number of documents and a photo of herself holding a recent newspaper issue.

Maybe ma should start using her laser beams.

Homecoming

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My Christmas gift to myself was a family trip to my hometown, Cebu City. A lot has changed. It felt like staring at a familiar friend’s new nose lift.

The city now has a subway. Although the sandwich of the same name seems longer in comparison, the tunnel did give the momentary feel of getting plopped into a high speed car chase movie sequence.

Then there’s the bigger, better Ayala mall and The Terraces. Standing at the center of Ayala Park with four floors of restaurants on one side and two more floors of eating establishments on the other can push your salivary glands into overdrive. Depending on your financial capacity, the experience might be akin to dying and preparing to enter the gates of food heaven or getting stuck in the lowest pit of hell, staring up at happiness you can never have.

Other structures have sprouted too around the city as if Jack made a career out of planting magical beans for infrastructure. Years ago when I left, the IT Park only had NEC and East West. Now it’s packed with towering steel and granite.

Of course, depending on your perspective, Jack doesn’t seem to always have a knack for recognizing perfect seeds. There’s the Crown Regency which my brother says looks like a façade for a giant videoke bar at night. One of its main claims to fame is its roof deck which holds the Sky Experience Adventure where they ask you for P550 to scare the heebie jeebies out of you.

With all the growth everywhere, there’s a flipside to everything. For three nights, my mother, without fail told us bedtime stories of how you could lose your life, limb and mobile phone in the city. Walking the streets solo is no longer recommended even in broad daylight because armed thugs, descended from those Twilight vampires no doubt, have developed some immunity for sunlight. Incidentally, my husband’s phone was stolen at twilight on our way to church.

Homes offer no guarantee of protection if you live in open, unguarded villages like my mom. My brother says our once peaceful village is now the shopping mall of thieves who have lost their manners and plunder even at noon.

You could also lose more than worldly possessions. My old Catholic school now surrounded by blinking neon lights and bars looks like an old, faded memory of quieter times buried deep in the subconscious.

As if to punctuate the whole mixed experience, my husband asked The Book of Answers at Fully Booked, “What should I do with my life?”

It answered, “No.”

When I make sense of that answer, I’ll make sense of what it felt like to come home to Cebu.

The Typical Wife

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My husband and his pals have a base idea of what a typical wife is. Arms akimbo, the typical wife barges through the informal “social” gatherings of inebriated men, lets fly strings of verbal barbs and drags her man by the ear each time to get him home. The rest of the ruffians who witness such instances of utter and absolute humiliation, duck in various directions to protect their egos from the sting of the typical wife’s wrath.

I don’t fit the description. That’s why my husband’s friends love me too. The females in the typical category warn me of my folly. They say men need to be flogged in public so they don’t forget who their real bosses are. I don’t throw sharp words, breakable objects or facial contortions at my husband in public or in private because I’m too lazy. With two kids I don’t want to have to be the mother of a fully grown person.

The other night I found my husband tinkering with his phone in the dead of the night. Having settled on an inexplicably difficult mood (which I’d like to blame on hormones, Google, the president, Justin Beiber, the man on the moon or anyone/anything else other than myself) I asked him who the hell he was texting in the dark.

His jaw fell and the silence was long and pronounced. “Are you my wife? So what’s next? Are you gonna attend all my social events? Are you gonna stand with your fists up in front of my buddies?”

“When those things happen, my dear, you’d better worry that your real wife got kidnapped by aliens.”

Really, I just don’t know what came over me.

The Look Of Greed

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My husband told me the other week that if you typed mukhang pera ka (loosely translates to: you’re a gold digger or greedy for money) in YouTube without the quotes you’ll get the face of the former Philippine president Arroyo. The clip with her face on it has dropped to the sixth spot today but it’s still on page one in YouTube.

Arroyo has it easy actually. I remember many years ago that if you typed miserable failure into Google, you’d get the then U.S. president Bush’s page on the first spot! Fortunately for Bush, Google came to the rescue and removed him from his perch before he started fermenting in rotten tomatoes.

How do these things happen?

The Arroyo clip is apparently one of only very few clips to which the phrase mukhang pera ka is associated with so naturally when you search for it, you get her. In Bush’s case, it’s all thanks to search engine optimization (SEO). Hordes of unhappy Americans simply banded together and linked to his page using miserable failure as anchor text. They figured they couldn’t just throw sticks and stones at the White House so they did it with virtual sticks, which, by the way, are perhaps now more damaging than real ones.

Incidentally, Google is still the biggest search engine and on the second spot is YouTube, which is actually also owned by Google. It’s nice to know world leaders are dominating the engines for search phrases.

Where The Money Is

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Technically, I failed lots of subjects in high school, those that formed the basis for profitable careers: algebra, physics, entrepreneurship, chemistry and, uh, P.E. (think Pacquiao, Nadal, Jordan, Woods). I was probably allowed to graduate either because I had top notch group mates who pulled my grades up or I had teachers who dreaded encountering my redefinitions of their subjects’ core principles for another year. I argued that x+y=depression and that entrepreneurship meant tricking your grandmother into buying female hair loss products.

In college, my interests remained largely unprofitable. I excelled in ancient history, art appreciation, sociology, theology, classical literature and community service. Instead of imagining enterprising ventures like my classmates I imagined riding the Starship Enterprise or living in castles in the air.

I’d probably be doing great if I decided to pursue a career in the nunnery but a contract signed before a judge has already made sure I’ll never escape the secular world with all its persistent concerns of making enough money to put milk in bottles and upstart kids to school. I badly need to educate myself differently. More importantly, I need to teach my kids to think differently before they follow my ship and hit an iceberg.

Fortunately, a fall into a rabbit hole has brought me into the world of internet marketing where everyday I get to sip tea with mad marketers who know where the money is. I just need to get more infected with whatever they have to get over the kind of upbringing that somehow makes making money so scary.