The Second Wedding

This picture won't give justice to the one I've felt during the entire ceremony. I've realized romanticism still resides in my cynical hypothalamus. After all the tears I cried, I am still in love with love.

I will be posting my looooooooong review of the wedding once my mind would start working. As to the question when would it be, I don't know. Ha ha ha! But I will surely be writing about it.

As of now, I'm pretty exhausted. I'm getting sleepy and dizzy every hour and I need to recharge. Feed me. Ha ha!

Major Major

William Baldwin: What is the one big mistake that you did in your life? And what did you do to make it right?

Venus Raj: In my 22 years of existence, there is nothing major, major problem that I have done in my life. Because I am very confident with my family and the love they are giving to me. So thank you so much.

I wasn't really impressed with her answer. Among those questions given, this is the easiest one because it's something that could be drawn from a personal experience, from the heart, from something that one has felt. Unfortunately, our candidate failed to nail it. The moment I heard her answer the question, I already had accepted that she won't be the queen but I still hoped that she would win.

What happened these past two days have been a rollercoaster ride to us, Filipinos. Yesterday was a drama full of shit by this police officer who was so foolish by taking some foreigners as hostage. He could have just climbed on top of a billboard or perhaps use those useless craps called squatters as hostages. Add it with his brother and the latter's daughter who were successful enough in taking the limelight and took advantage of their much-awaited exposure. It's just a shame that a fault of one Filipino taints the entire nation. I also think that some of those shots were from stray bullets caused by the lack of skill of these so-called snipers.

This morning, I was able to watch the pageant real-time as it was broadcast via the internet. Thanks to the world-wide web that I didn't have to watch ABS-CBN and be drowned by numerous advertisements. Honestly, I started being pessimistic when the 10 semi-finalists were called. But when our country was announced as the 15th semifinalist, tension built up in me. Swimsuit and gown rounds followed. Philippines made through to the top five.

Then the question and answer. The so dreaded round that people, especially Filipinos are eying on, being too critical with the content, grammar and pronunciation.

If she answered that in a Toastmasters meeting, I'd say that there isn't any correct nor wrong answer anyway. But there is a wrong comprehension of the question. I commend her for standing there with utmost grace, poise and elegance. I didn't feel the nervousness in her face. I like the timbre of her voice. It could have been better had she really analyzed the question more. She could have played with it in a way that she won't sound self-righteous and that her answer won't be more of a series of greetings. She could have just answered it right away by saying that she couldn't have been where she is right now had she not been able to commit those mistakes. Or perhaps cite one mistake and then turn it around by seeing the lesson from that experience because after all, there are no mistakes in life, only lessons learned. Nevertheless, she made us proud as Filipinos. Advancing to top 15 is no easy feat walking in high heels, skimpy two-piece swimsuits and that hideous silver huge gown that might get attracted to a magnet. She has somehow slightly redeemed the bad image that we created yesterday. And I salute you for your "Major, major" performance.

As for those bashers who keep on saying that "Sayang" or that Venus is so stupid, you better shut up. It's not easy to be on stage. Had it been you who were up there, you won't even qualify for the top 15 so better be happy for her. At least she sort of redeemed us from the shame that we've gone through yesterday.

The "Major, major" thing isn't stupid. Not even foolish. Ignorance must have told those people that such expression sounds so lame but no. If you mean what you say, utter it twice. I say "Thank you, thank you" when I really mean it. Only sensitive people appreciate that.

Thank you Venus! You've really really got it.

Beauty Queen

I love the look of my facebook newsfeed this week. MOST of my friends changed their profile photos to their favorite cartoon characters when they were still children. Some did not follow the instruction that they posted a picture of a cartoon character when they were already grown-ups but what the heck? As long as there are cartoon characters, that's going to be fun.

The original campaign goes like this:

Change your facebook profile picture to a cartoon from your childhood and invite your friends to do the same. Until monday there should be no human faces on facebook, but an invasion of memories. This is for violence against children.

And with a creative Toastmaster friend, he changed it to:

Because I care about the welfare of children and do want to contribute to protect them from any type of abuse, I willingly changed my profile picture to a favorite cartoon character from childhood. I hope you will do the same...or else, your human face might be mistaken ... as a cartoon character. Ha ha ha!

That was highly effective because most of the people changed their profile pictures after then.

Then a high school friend, after ruthless criticizing some high school characters' appearance and Facebook posts, asked me:

Mai: How will changing our profile pictures into cartoon characters help prevent violence against children?

Me: It has a psychological effect. Seeing these cartoon characters will carry us to a retrospective journey, reminding us that once, we were also children, and that we wanted to be happy, we had shallow dreams, we appreciated simple things, we showed what love is in the best that we could and realizing this will make us think that the children of today also have to feel the things that we felt and the ideas that we thought of and this will make us not hurt them but instead love them with all our hearts. Since the children are the hope of our nation, the next generation will be full of love. And with that, there will be world peace. I thank you!

What makes an effective and winning answer in beauty pageants is to pinch the audience's hearts by including the the words love, children, nation and of course world peace. Ha ha!

Botch, Shuses and Stakings

While one's hair is his crowning glory (which I unfortunately lost after a few months of being a call boy) , his footwear are his stepping goodies. Being a person who is so highly critical, who studies people from head to toe, I really can't help but notice them from their hairstyle (or hair loss in my case) and hair color, to their beautiful or oogly faces, to the cohesive clothes to the floral blouse and printed pants (the so-called astronauts), and yes, one of the my gazillion pet peeves - their footwear.

Just a disclaimer, I'm not a fashionista. I have my own share of "what am I wearing" moments but I'm more of a safe casual person than a fashion-forward fashionably daring one. In the first place, I don't want to be noticed only because of my physical attributes but because they know me as a person.

These are the things that irritate me and when I say I'm irritated, I want to approach that person, take off what he's wearing, throw it, ruin it, have one truck run over it, or burn it. Worse, I want to stab that person to death so that he would bleed and liters of blood will flow down to what he's wearing. Morbid huh?! That's the reason I changed my blogsite. I don't want to be criminally liable though I know now that plain planning of an act does not constitute an overt act, thus, no crime has been committed yet. But I'd better be on the safe side.

• Boots - I call them botch for some reason that I don't know. My best girl friend endured months of being ruthlessly criticized because of her oogly botch. I even told her that I wanted to throw them away or put them on fire. I could not stand the unappealing chunky heels and the unflattering tip of the footwear. I believe that one can have good pair of boots by simply choosing the right style and it's even difficult to find one in shoe stores, how much more in ukay-ukays? Furthermore, I really think that there are only a few people who could pull off wearing boots - and those are the ones with long, slender legs, not like Charisse who's chunky and short, cutting her short legs shorter. And my God, Philippines is too hot to have boots worn everyday. Unless you're a celebrity or again, you really look good with boots. Other than that, better wear ...

• Havaianas - The first time I saw this brand made me think, "Okay, they're just like the usual 50-peso Spartan rubber sandals I'm wearing at home minus the very expensive name and the high price." I feel it's impractical to wear this brand because it just looks ordinary. Only a few people in the province appreciates this because people are more into aesthetics and not into brands. It's not even that soft. The only advantage that I know is that it lasts because my friend told me that her dog tried biting her pair of Havaianas but there weren't any bite marks traced on her footwear. I'm not that rich and curious to to try that with my dogs. And Bleach is not a bad dog to be biting anything he sees.

• Crocs - My initial impression on this brand was - bulldozer. I would only wear it when I'll go swimming in a beach full of corals so that I won't have another [very] close encounter with another sea urchin and be hospitalized and undergo surgery because of its deadly and transparent spines. Some friends tell me that it's so comfortable to one's feet but my slippers are comfortable so why should I try another one?

• Brown Shoes - Brown is the color I least like. I find it being worn by old people. I only had a pair of brown shoes to pair up with my khaki pants because khaki and anything with tint of brown is better worn with brown shoes (and belt). A lot of men I see wear brown shoeses [sic] with black pants which hurts my eyes. I want to bring that leather dye (lang king) and wipe it to those brown shoes. Ha ha ha! So bad! I see one in the class who does that. Ha ha ha! Another sign of bitterness. I've observed that fashion crime since first week of class but I still didn't dare to tell him. Who am I to do that? I'm not a legitimate stylist.

• Stockings - Although they are helpful to prevent varicose veins, they shouldn't be worn with open-toe sandals. Isn't the purpose of wearing open toes to show the toes and the newly-pedicured toenails? One more thing. Could girls have the decency to clean their feet when they wear sandals? I really think that hygiene starts with one's feet. If a girl takes care of her feet well, how much more does she take good care of the other parts of her body? (wink)

These and more than these are a few of the things I hate to see. I know I still have a lot of things observed but my memory degradation is preventing me from recalling them. I might write a part 2 of this once I remember them. You might have some things to add. I would surely appreciate it.