Summer heat

IT’S officially summer when a Popsicle begins to melt the minute it leaves the freezer, and when one Popsicle is not enough to lower down one’s body temperature.

Ladies and Gentlemen, its summer and boy is it hot!

I’m sure right now, a good chunk of the Philippine population are swarming beaches everywhere and parading around in Speedos and skimpy bikinis. The beaches of Boracay and Bantayan are without a doubt filled with underdressed people soaking up the sun.

So while most people are out by the beach, enjoying a stress-free summer, sipping pina coladas and making good use of the ultraviolet rays of the sun, the rest of us are stuck at home or at work, or even in school, sweating our hearts out.

Honestly, it’s too hot to do anything. Once you step out into the sun, you know you’ll get baked in a matter of minutes. Five minutes in the sun, and you’ll be sweating like a pig and suffer a heat stroke.

Summer and I have a love-hate relationship. I love summer because it usually means no classes, a long break and no school work (though that recently changed with thesis assignments and our internship). At the same time, I hate summer because it’s extremely hot.

Yes, I know, hating summer is considered high crime. Go on, sue me. I don’t care. All I know is that it is hot and all of us are literally cooking to the point of resembling a well-done roast beef.

I guess we now have a reason to use Paris Hilton’s catch phrase: “That’s hot!”

It is summertime like this that makes you wish that you could lug around a huge air conditioner or better yet, turn off the sun for just a few minutes. Come to think of it, it would just be better to stick one’s self into the refrigerator and stay there for a couple of hours.

I remember lying in bed one afternoon and staring at the ceiling, doing nothing but watch a spider diligently working on its web.

Since my room in the city faces directly the sun in the afternoon, it comes to no surprise that the room is sweltering (even the air that the electric fan provided was warm). The sight of a spider web reminded me that it was time to clean the room–yet again. But because of the extreme heat, normal body functions were temporarily turned off.

After watching the spider complete its web for what seemed like centuries, the spider slowly climbed out the window, off to God knows where.

I fell unconscious soon thereafter, tired of watching a spider work.

I woke up hours later, when it was relatively dark and conditions already have cooled down. I checked the web, to see if the spider came back.

It never did.

That poor thing must’ve burned to death under the heat of the sun.

Easter bunny and eggs

AS A KID, I adored rabbits. I worshipped Bugs Bunny, ate raw carrots, owned a mountain of rabbit stuffed toys, bought countless rabbit stickers and talked my parents into buying me my own living, breathing Bugs Bunny.

Easter, therefore, was one of my favorite holidays.

I loved the mystery of the Easter Bunny. At that time, it was rather confusing-was it the rabbit who would lay the brightly colored eggs? But then again, that was scientifically impossible. Or did the bunny pair up with a giant chicken who would lay the Easter eggs?

Either way, it never really mattered who produced the eggs, but what was really important was finding these colorful treats.

I remember waking up on Easter Sundays without much refusal and the customary “five more minutes.” Dressed in mismatched sleepwear, I’d run around our old apartment trying to find the hidden treats that the “Easter Bunny” lovingly placed in tiny baskets filled with synthetic grass.

Treats like colorful hard-boiled eggs, egg-shaped candies, chocolate Easter Bunnies and stuffed toys are what I would usually find (not the healthiest breakfast, I know).

As I think about it (and as you remember your own Easter experiences), it is childhood memories like this that make me want to become a child again. To wake up on Easter Sunday and wonder what the Easter Bunny has left me-would I find another stuffed toy or would there be more chocolate and candies this year?

Ah, the wonders of a child’s mind.

The Easter Bunny never really did last long, though. I soon discovered that the Easter Bunny was my mother, who would wake up in the wee hours of the morning and diligently hide the treats all over our apartment.

Nevertheless, believing in the Easter Bunny (or in Santa Clause for that matter) was fun while it lasted, although it was rather disheartening to find out that a life-sized “bunny-wabbit” did not exist.

When we moved to the Philippines, I tried to bring the tradition of Easter egg hunting with us. It lasted for a few years, until that fateful year when we forgot how many eggs we hid in our house.

All of you should know that once an egg rots, it stinks big time. Apparently, we failed to find one egg, which was hidden behind a desk.

After a few days, finding it wasn’t really that difficult.

We stopped the whole egg hunting tradition after that smelly fiasco, and have since preferred a subtler and less stinky Easter celebration.

May your Easter be a happy one, and please do count your eggs before hiding them.

The March Hype

MARCH usually means three things to every young adult: the dreaded finals– which entails cramming sessions, accomplishing final requirements, clearances and projects; the onset summer vacation–which creates a huge hype among the youth, spending way too much on beach stuff (i.e. Speedos!) and daydreaming of the beach while in class; and every senior’s favorite–graduation, which on one hand means liberation from the clutches of academics and on the other hand, means stepping into the corporate world and earning your own money.

March certainly is a busy month.

To many, March means the end of one stressful school year. It symbolizes the end of the piles of homework, projects and clearances. It certainly means the end of teachers following you everywhere, professors breathing down your neck and classmates harassing you about the group project. To others, it means the beginning of the so called “real world”, where they swap their school uniforms and school bags for carry-on cases and corporate attires. The ceremonial receiving of the diploma also means picking up the classified ads and looking for a job.

This year, another batch of fresh graduates joins the list of the employed and unemployed. Lucky are those who graduate with jobs already waiting outside the school gates. The pressure is now on for those grads who have yet to find a job.

Finding the right kind of job these days can be tough. It’s even more difficult trying to find a job that’s in the line of one’s degree. One has to get lucky to actually land a job that’s somewhat related the degree he or she has earned.

Graduating is a rather big step for anybody, I think. Even more so when one graduates from college. It’s certainly more than just finishing school and becoming a degree holder.

It’s about getting a job and earning a living. It’s about independence and responsibilities.

Ultimately, it’s about growing up, and (gasp!) becoming an adult.

Help me; I think I just had an aneurism.

March certainly brings us a lot of things. And when you thought that December was a heavy holiday, think again! Behind all the fun and games, sunscreen, tanned boys and girls and diplomas, there’s a deeper side to March!

As seniors all over the nation graduate and free themselves from the bony clutches of academics and fire-breathing professors, they deserve a round of applause for having survived all those years in the educational system.

Congratulations to all the graduates and happy job hunting!

Clean-up

MY ROOM is a fire hazard. It would not be a surprise if everything in my room would just spontaneously combust one summer’s day and everything will go up in flames.

I sound like a pyromaniac.

On top of my clothes cabinet, a stack of boxes and newspapers can be found (and gathering dust). Underneath my rickety study table, I have yet another pile of newspapers steadily growing. In another corner, I have a steadily growing pile of handouts and photocopies (mostly journalism, literature and advertising photocopies.) And I own a cramped bookshelf.

Now, throw in a match and everything will go up in flames.

As chaotic as my room may seem, I promise you that it isn’t that bad. It’s more of an “organized chaos” than chaotic in general.

I’m sure a lot of teenagers will agree with me here.

I’ve been trying to clean up my room for some time now. But with school keeping me busy, the only time I come home is for sleep, a bath and to change my clothes (in that order).

Before things got extremely busy with school, my room was fairly organized. Everything was where it was supposed to be. But once school started keeping me on my feet 20 hours a day, there was hardly time to organize and keep the room clean.

Now I live in a fire hazard zone and I have dust bunnies under my bed.

I’ve been trying to find time to clean my room. It’s astonishing that I simply cannot find time to pick up a broom and start cleaning. But then again, I don’t own a broom, so, perhaps that was just it. Just to let you know, the broom in our boarding house mysteriously disappears once in a while.

It’s rather funny. I used to think I’m well equipped with cleaning materials. I got cockroach repellant for roach invasions, fly paper, rags, detergent and the whatnots. Yet I do not own a broom. How embarrassing.

One night, I was contemplating over my room’s doomed future while waiting for my interviewee to arrive. I sat by a roadside café and all of the sudden a peddler walked by carrying a bundle of brooms on his back.

Ladies and gentlemen, I knew that that was a sign. God has spoken, I just knew it.

But God sure knew how to keep His conversations short.

My source arrived and as we exchanged greetings, my room’s salvation walked down the street, brooms still on his back.

It’s ok, I consoled myself. I had to think of it this way, had I bought the broom, I would have looked like a total idiot carrying a broom around while conducting the interview.

Bottom line boys and girls, clean your room. Don’t wait for dust bunnies to grow and your room to catch fire. And don’t wait for the roadside broom man to sell you his brooms–he walks fast.

Shopping Bug

I never really understand why a large chunk of the female population loves shoes and shoe shopping (and well, shopping in general). Don’t get me wrong, I love a good pair of shoes and shopping can be fun sometimes but when I hear somebody talk about their extensive shoe collection (and by that I mean, owning 40 pairs of shoes which are organized alphabetically), I can only gape.

Why so many pairs?

“You need one for every occasion, for every bag, for every shirt, blah, blah,” my friend goes on and on. As she lectures me on fashion 101 (I’d like to think, however, that I am not a fashion disaster), my ears become numb.

I have never been much of a “shoe girl”. I’m more of an accessories, bags and funky tops type of girl–if that’s how you define them anyway. Shoe shopping for me is perhaps the most tiring. I don’t have the “perfect” feet that would fit in practically every type of shoes. But then again, I might just be really unlucky and the pair that I’m looking for is always unavailable.

Mind you, I do love a good pair of heels, or as others call them: stilettos (if they fit!). But they are an obvious health risk, since I’m no expert in walking in these death contraptions (expect me to trip all over the place in them), not to mention the back pains they cause. Ah, the pains of being a woman.

I go crazy over accessories. My friends say that I might as well stop eating, and just spend my savings on necklaces and bracelets I find in the streets of Colon. I admit that I’m a rather compulsive buyer when it comes to accessories. But of course, they have to be reasonably priced. If I were not just a little bit rational when shopping, I might as well start getting used to the idea of eating air.

The way I spend on books has not been much of a secret. I spend way too much on them. My bookshelf is already piled with books to the point that it is already difficult to pull one out without triggering a book avalanche (a classmate pulled a book out, she got hit square in the face by Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart).

I believe it is naturally a part of any woman’s genetics to have the itching need to shop, whether for beauty purposes, fun and entertainment or perhaps for nerdy reasons.

Ah yes, women are programmed to shop.

Speaking of celebrations and womanhood, the month of March is officially Women’s Month. So ladies, this is our month and let’s be proud of being a woman! See you at the malls!

Radio

I've learned to love the old AM/FM radio again.

In the age where technology has taken over practically everything, we have teens sporting IPods, MP3 players and MP4 players of all sorts, shapes, colors and sizes. And our good, old (and extremely bulky) radio is left in the corner.

What a sad ending for something we grew up with.

The player that I have with me still comes from my elementary days. Grade five specifically. I remember when cassette tapes were still the hottest thing, and everyone had to own a cassette player or a walkman.

Back in grade school, we did a lot of dancing, doing intermission numbers and joining contests (losing in most of them). Since we were all young and obviously had no idea how badly we danced, the demand for owning a cassette player was high. After all, we had to practice.

So, a few dancing comrades and I bought players (at the expense of our parents of course). The players, by the way, all looked the same.

Needless to say, our dancing still did not improve.

My black cassette player will soon turn 10 years old. And within the span of 10 years, it has been used and abused (and maltreated), although I share a lot of happy memories with it.

I remember my Backstreet Boys days. Like every fan girl, I danced to the beat of "Get down" and squealed at the sight of Nick and AJ. I still own boy band tapes, as embarrassing as it sounds. And sometimes, I still find myself humming a boy band tune.

I have never been one to follow trends. So when people started buying CDs instead of cassette tapes and began using the CD player, I stuck with my trusty old cassette player. To this day, I still don't own a CD player.

My cassette player no longer plays tapes. I only use it for its radio functions, listening to AM news stations and radio dramas (yes, I've started to like them-thanks to my college major) and FM music stations, even if my music is limited to oldies songs. I love music from the '60s and '70s.

I have never been tech crazy. MP3 players don't amaze me and Discmans are not of my interest. I listen to music on my laptop, or on the radio. Besides, I can't afford an MP3 player. It's too impractical anyway.

It's a good thing I still own my cassette player. The music I get may not be crisp and clear, and I get talky DJs and annoying advertisements (and not to mention, nauseating campaign jingles) but nothing really beats listening to the radio and remembering the yesteryears.

Now, how about you start tuning your own radio and start appreciating something from the "past?"

Voiceless

I USED to think that being hoarse is totally cool. There’s nothing better than having a really gruff voice especially when your normal voice is similar to a mouse’s squeak. Imagine how much you’ll surprise others with your husky, not-you voice.

“What’s with the voice?” people would ask.

“Had a concert,” you’d respond–the most common (and overused) answer. Of course when I answer that, people just laugh at me. They know I can’t keep a tune, let alone actually sing anything without butchering the lyrics.

After intramurals, you’d meet a lot of people whose voices have turned into faint and husky whispers. These are the people who are usually filled with team spirit, scream their hearts out and drink a lot of cold water.

I never got hoarse after intramurals. Maybe because I’m not usually the one who’s into screaming at the sidelines, jumping up and down with my pom-poms. But then again, my sport of choice for the past three years has been Scrabble, and screaming is not allowed in the Scrabble area (I hate to imagine screaming scrabble players, throwing around scrabble tiles in rage and screaming angrily at the referees).

The idea of having close to no voice at all seemed appealing to me (having no voice would be a plus). With my usual voice strangely high, yet sometimes soft (and still raging) pitch, I’d love to have something lower and huskier, even just for one day. Call me strange, but a day of "huskiness" is all I ever asked.

I got what I wanted a week ago. I sounded like a squished rat, or somewhat like a teenage boy undergoing puberty. Some said that I sounded like a cow being flattened by a bulldozer (I have no idea where that analogy came from). Perhaps, at one point, I had no voice at all.

The whole hoarseness ordeal all came naturally. No screaming and singing were involved–just the flu and asthma (again, I’m an extremely sickly person, I might as well live in a bubble).

And let me tell you, there was nothing cool about sounding like a teenage boy.

They snicker. I admit, I sounded funny. I’d laugh at myself for sounding strange. But after getting made fun of for the nth time of the day, it just gets old.

They don’t understand you. It gets frustrating when people don’t understand you. In the end, you act like a total idiot and pantomime everything.

Nobody can hear you. This sucks. I spoke in a pitch that only dogs could hear. Nothing becomes more frustrating than not being heard or getting your point across. There’s always so much to talk about, yet there you are, with no voice.

Like I said, I used to like the idea of being hoarse.

Well, screw that.

I want to be heard. And so should you.