Etiquette

My friends and I were in a tight fix several nights ago. The night proved itself to be a defining moment in each of our lives, as we battled with a life altering decision.

To eat with proper etiquette or not.

If we stuck to our prim and proper selves, an image that society has drawn out for us and obviously demands from us, we would have ended up eating at a painstaking pace in rather peculiar positions. Then again, if we screwed etiquette over, we might be damned for life and be called “barbaric” in our eating habits (though, that is nothing new to us).

We ended up throwing etiquette out the window and eating in a less civilized way – though, not close to what others might call barbaric. The fact of the matter was: we were hungry. And besides, we were the only ones in the restaurant.

Don’t get us wrong, we are highly civilized people. Make us sit through a high class meal, and we assure you we do not burp at random timing or in varieties of pitch. If we even feel the need to, we can spice up the evening and start a discussion that would probably blow your mind away.

Now, that night, proved itself to be entertaining in its own little way. With the word ‘etiquette’ and all its meaning thrown out the proverbial window, we had a good laugh as to how odd we might have looked. Try eating in an area with little to none leg room and in wee little chairs, and you would know what we mean. But then again, all of us are vertically endowed, so perhaps it was also our genes fault that we had to try to eat several feet away from the table.

The tiny-ness of it all would have been perfect for a tea party, though. This now reminds me of my first tea party. I never owned a tiny plastic tea set made out of pink (since early on I detested the color) but instead, I made use of my mother’s expensive china – which now has several cups missing and is awfully mismatched. And instead imaginary tea, I used real liquid (what’s the point of having a tea party without any tea?) But since I wasn’t allowed to handle anything hot (I am a perpetual health hazard), I ended up pouring Sugar-Free Coke to Mr. Boo-boo, the once white Teddy Bear and Mr. Hopper, the Bunny Rabbit and my dinosaur T-Rex.

As a child, I was taught how to properly sip tea – the whole “pinky out” and ‘sip not slurp’ deal. I did that around grown-ups, after all, I was a ‘good little girl’. But around Mr. Boo-boo, Mr. Hopper and T-Rex, I held the cup in my clumsy hands and slurped Sugar-Free Coke.

Those are times I’d like to relive.

Now, if there were more people like Mr. Boo-boo, Mr. Hopper and T-Rex, the world would be a happy place and we can slurp all the Sugar-Free Coke we want – without worrying what others might think.

Stresstabs

Once you have your very first Stresstabs pill at my age, you very well know that your fate is sealed.

You just know that there would be more pills for you to swallow and more paperwork to haunt you forever. You know that as the first pill dissolves in your stomach and runs through your system, that you would be condemned for life as being the busiest person in the entire universe (in an overdramatic sense) and your social life becomes close to nonexistent.

You see yourself nose high in paperwork and hideously black eye bags. You will continually work yourself into a frenzy and your nerves would just about be ready to short-circuit.

For the past four months, I forgot how I looked without the eye bags. It’s something that comes along with being extremely busy and multitasking virtually everything. When I get extremely busy, I usually no longer walk down the corridors, but instead haunt them with a possessed look.

At the rate that I am going, I am sure that I would be making the makers of Stresstabs very, very happy. (And I in turn, stress-free.)

As I bought my first eight 7+1 Stresstabs (with Iron) packs at some nondescript pharmacy after a harrowing doctor’s check-up, I wondered how many other stressed souls were buying Stresstabs at that very evening.

With everything going on around us, who wouldn’t be stressed out?

I glanced at the guy next to me, wondering if the prices of the medication he bought stressed him out. With prices skyrocketing to Pluto, I wouldn’t be surprised if random people on the streets would die due stress attacks.

My friends and I have this tendency to think like extremely old people, and remember the yesteryears where with 5 pesos one could buy a lot of things and one could still go home with only 3 pesos in ones pocket. Only remembering these things makes me want to consume an entire 7+1 Stresstabs pack in one sitting.

They say that stress will make you look old, which in a way seems fitting on me and my friends (since we think like old people). But then again, looking old at my age stresses me out (since I obviously don’t want to look old), which in turn makes me stress about not stressing about stressing about looking old. Am I making sense?

Remembering Hello Kitty

I never was a fan of Hello Kitty. Growing up, I was all about Sailor Moon and the Power Rangers. Hello Kitty trends never interested me (lunch box sets, plush toys, stationary sets, hair clips). Frankly, I could’ve only cared less about the annoying little fur ball.

Until now, the only two Hello Kitty items I own are the Hello Kitty bedside lamp my cousin gave me during my Elementary graduation years ago. It’s broken now, a sign that I don’t like the commercialized cat (yet, I do appreciate the gift. I still have it by the way).

And the other one, which I thought never existed, is the Hello Kitty photo album that a friend gave me during my High School graduation. I rediscovered this item while I was packing my clothes. The sheer pinkness of it all nearly blinded me.

I stopped packing and stared at the hideously pink (or is it white?) fur ball, as it waved at me, as if taunting me to pick it up and be engulfed in its obscene cuteness. Part of me wanted to feed the retched thing to my dogs and the other part of me wanted to pick it up and skim through its contents.

I picked it up anyway.

Upon opening the album, I was greeted by my old High School pictures. Every page held captured moments that I had long forgotten. As I flipped through the pages, I could have sworn, that somewhere in the background I heard Sandie Shaw croon ‘Always something there to remind me’.

Memories.

Yes, we all have a lot of them – yet, we barely remember all. I only graduated from High School a couple of years ago, however there are certain moments in that not so glamorous stage of my life that have escaped my cerebral cortex and sad to say, these are the tiny events that mean the world to me.

I’ve finished packing. I’ve moved out and into a new place I call ‘home’, away from my parents, away from my home. Away from the old memories and the pink Hello Kitty photo album.

I left the old album at home, and this year I intend to fill a new album. Hello Kitty or not – I don’t care. It’s what’s inside that counts.

I used to worry about forgetting important events, knowing very well that my memory escapes me most of the time. But as Shaw sang in the 1960s ‘How can I forget you? But there is always something there to remind me, always something there to remind me’, I’m glad to own the Hello Kitty album – never mind the fact that it is indeed a Hello Kitty album.

Sometimes, it’s so ironic that something you don’t like that much holds so many precious memories. Perhaps, Hello Kitty isn’t so bad after all

Caller ID

Imagine this: You’re on a nice date, having after-dinner coffee, chatting about god-knows-what. For several brief minutes, the world seemed like a perfect place. The soft glow of the coffee shop and equally soft music add to the oh so romantic effect of the night.

You take a dainty sip of your hot Café Mocha, in a cheap attempt to look extremely girly and shy.

The two of you talk of school and how things are with your families. Both of you nod politely as something impressive was being said – never mind the fact that it made you feel incompetent and stupid(“Oh, so you were a Valedictorian? How nice,”).

You suddenly realize that he seems like a really nice guy, nothing like the other blokes you’ve been with. You faintly wonder if he’d ask you out again. All of the sudden you feel extremely giddy and girly inside.

But as I said, all of this lasted only for several brief minutes.

Suddenly, your phone rings, successfully bringing you out of your reverie. You curse your luck as the retched piece of technology continues to vibrate away in your purse. You check the caller ID.

And your perfect would just crashed.

With slight panic, you reject the call, hoping your date did not see the caller ID – if he did, that would be embarrassing. You smile nervously.

Seconds later, your phone vibrates again. You feel like crying – somebody must be conspiring against you up there.

“Your phone,” your date points at your phone, which was now in clear view. “Home,” he adds, with a grin.

You mentally die of embarrassment and offer him a small smile. So much for being cool and independent.

Answering the phone, you hear the infamous tagline of your mother.

“Naa ka’y plano mo uli?”

You check your watch, it was well past 10 PM.

You faintly wonder what you did to deserve to live.

Sighing, you answer that you do have plans to return home. You see your date laugh. You then decide that it was perhaps better to just jump off a bridge and to put an end to your nonexistent social life.

You begin to wonder what the use was of being well over 18 and not being able to enjoy its perks – say, going home slightly after 10?

Yep, you realize, your life’s just peachy.

Je ne sais quoi

Hardcore movie watching should be considered a sport – make that a extreme sport, since there is the possibility of hypothermia, immobile eyeballs and sore rear-ends. Let’s not forget the 10 straight hours that go into that.

My thesismates decided to do just that on the first day of the French Film Festival held in Ayala Center Cebu. And let’s just say, our body temperatures will never be the same again.

We sat in the same seats for 10 straight hours, only leaving them for the occasional bathroom break and required food intake. By the time we left the cinema, we were delirious and started talking in mock French – which we still do up to this day (“Omelet du fromage!”).

Film festivals are another great wonder in the world (next to coffee, that is). It would be insane to pass up a great opportunity to watch good films and not spend a dime. And if your lucky, you get to meet and greet (or perhaps stalk) filmmakers.

I watched all films, one of which I watched again since the way the characters in L’Esquive (Games of Love and Chance) talked fascinated me. French is an incredibly beautiful language, and hearing kids talk a mile a minute just makes me giggle, since it all sounds like gibberish (as if it didn’t sound like gibberish to being with).

I tried to teach myself French years back, since I had this strange vision of climbing the Eiffel Tower with some French poet and eat baguettes and escargot (yes, snails!) up there. Yet, I soon realized while learning how to roll my tongue properly that I lacked that certain je ne sais quoi in teaching myself French.

Oh well, the poet will just have to wait – I’ll just continue reading French poetry to myself and mispronouncing every other word.

Right now, I’m in no hurry to teach myself French again. I’ve forgotten most of it, if not all, and my French-English dictionary is in no condition to teach me another round of French as it is yellowed and frayed. And honestly, I lack the patience to do so anyway.

If we all want to learn French, we might as well go into the sport of hardcore movie watching. 10 hours can do wonders to your French vocabulary after reading all those subtitles.

Speaking of subtitles, wouldn’t it be great if people came with subtitles? That way, we all could be easy to read and understood – just like French films.