My Lounge family

These pictures were taken for the Mandala 2011 yearbook. In the picture are some of the people closest to me in the Psych department. Though they probably consider me as their Nanay on account of our age differences, I feel like they're my BFFs. They keep me young with unrepressed laughter! Love you, guys!!!

A script for yesterday's laughter

Scene 1: Early morning conversation at home

T: Can I borrow your Toshiba netbook, please?

J: Sure, use K's account. Her password is "Sweetie" with a capital S.

T: Sweetie? S-w-e-a-

J: No, S-w-e-E

T: Ok, S-w-e-A-

J: No, no, no! It's Sweetie, as in, like K! Double E! Not sweaty, as in like you pag pinawisan ka after you walk.

T: Ah ok, I get it! (hindi na nagtangka mag-spelling ulit) 

Scene 2: Conversation in the car in the evening

J: So, K, this is what Papa said this morning ... blah, blah, blah!

(Laughter from everyone)

T: E kasi naman, Bisaya ako. Pareho lang naman sa amin ang pronunciation nun kahit na magkaiba pa ang spelling! S-w-e-e-t-i-e ... swety at S-w-e-a-t-y ... swety pa rin! Hahaha!

(More laughter from everyone)

T: Besides, puede naman kasing gamitin both words to describe Kara, di ba? Especially when she puts off her showers for later in the day! Hahaha!

(K groans)

J: Sorry but this scene is going to end up in my blog.

(Laughter from everyone)

kurokuroatbp

http://kurokuroatbp.com/
Written by "TOE," someone I used to know at SHP as a teen-ager. Now, a diplomat posted abroad.

What Men Should Know

Got the following story in my e-mail. Really worth sharing ...

Young King Arthur was ambushed and imprisoned by the monarch of a neighboring kingdom. The monarch could have killed him but was moved by Arthur's youth and ideals. So, the monarch offered him his freedom, as long as he could answer a very difficult question. Arthur would have a year to figure out the answer and, if after a year, he still had no answer, he would be put to death. 

The question?... .What do women really want? Such a question would perplex even the most knowledgeable man, and to young Arthur, it seemed an impossible query. But, since it was better than death, he accepted the monarch's proposition to have an answer by year's end. 

He returned to his kingdom and began to poll everyone: the princess, the priests, the wise men and even the court jester. He spoke with everyone, but no one could give him a satisfactory answer. 

Many people advised him to consult the old witch, for only she would have the answer. 

But the price would be high; as the witch was famous throughout the kingdom for the exorbitant prices she charged. 

The last day of the year arrived and Arthur had no choice but to talk to the witch. She agreed to answer the question, but he would have to agree to her price first. 

The old witch wanted to marry Sir Lancelot, the most noble of the Knights of the Round Table and Arthur's closest friend! 

Young Arthur was horrified. She was hunchbacked and hideous, had only one tooth, smelled like sewage, made obscene noises, etc. He had never encountered such a repugnant creature in all his life. 

He refused to force his friend to marry her and endure such a terrible burden; but Lancelot, learning of the proposal, spoke with Arthur. 

He said nothing was too big of a sacrifice compared to Arthur's life and the preservation of the Round Table. 

Hence, a wedding was proclaimed and the witch answered Arthur's question thus: 

What a woman really wants, she answered.... is to be in charge of her own life. 

Everyone in the kingdom instantly knew that the witch had uttered a great truth and that Arthur's life would be spared. 

And so it was, the neighboring monarch granted Arthur his freedom and Lancelot and the witch had a wonderful wedding. 

The honeymoon hour approached and Lancelot, steeling himself for a horrific experience, entered the bedroom. But, what a sight awaited him. The most beautiful woman he had ever seen lay before him on the bed. The astounded Lancelot asked what had happened 

The beauty replied that since he had been so kind to her when she appeared as a witch, she would henceforth, be her horrible deformed self only half the time and the beautiful maiden the other half. 

Which would he prefer? Beautiful during the day....or night? 

Lancelot pondered the predicament. During the day, a beautiful woman to show off to his friends, but at night, in the privacy of his castle, an old witch? Or, would he prefer having a hideous witch during the day, but by night, a beautiful woman for him to enjoy wondrous intimate moments? 

What would YOU do? 

What Lancelot chose is below. BUT....make YOUR choice before you scroll down below. OKAY? 

Noble Lancelot said that he would allow HER to make the choice herself. 

Upon hearing this, she announced that she would be beautiful all the time because he had respected her enough to let her be in charge of her own life. 

Now....what is the moral to this story? 

The moral is..... 

If you don't let a woman have her own way.... 

Things are going to get ugly 

Adobo PutoShop, atbp

      Iba talaga ng Pinoy kapag ang pinag-usapan ay paglalaro ng mga katagang hiniram sa Ingles at ginamit bilang Filipino o ang kabaligtaran nito. Kitang-kita mo ang ating angking talino sa paggamit ng dalawang wika sa mapaglikhang paraan!

     Katulad ng Adobo Putoshop. Yan ay pangalan ng isang kainan sa San Juan na ang specialty ay ano pa, puto. Hehehe! Siempre, hiram yan mula sa Adobe Photoshop. Malapit naman sa aming bahay, may pagupitan na ang tawag ay "Felix the Cut" Salon. Hehehe na naman! Minsan naman nang naglalakad ako sa may Quinta Market sa Quiapo, nakita ko na naman na nakapatong sa isang tumpok ng maliliit na hipon ang "Hibi duty".

     Nakupo, galing talaga natin! Kayo, meron pa ba kayong idadagdag dito?

     

How about in the Social Sciences?

John J. Simmins writes the following huh-larious description of how science proceeds in the world of modern funding:

I am an “ex” scientist. I have over 100 publications in the field of materials science and physics. Many of these publications are in peer reviewed journals such as The Journal of the American Ceramic Society, Materials Research Society Journal and Journal of Applied Physics. I have sat on committees that review papers for these journals. I have worked at the following national laboratories: NIST, Oak Ridge (site X) and Brookhaven National Laboratory. I have spent 10 years living off of federally funded research. I have written winning proposals for government funding in the 10’s of millions of dollars. In short, I am very well aware of the process of getting and keeping funding and getting papers published in peer reviewed publications.

I have seen papers (perfectly good, well researched) papers rejected for publication for the following reasons:
1. The paper went against prevailing theory on a topic.
2. The paper was submitted by a company that was a competitor for government funding.
3. The paper was submitted by a government agency that was a competitor of the reviewer’s agency.
4. The author of the paper was disliked by one of the reviewers.

This is how the funding process works:
1. You determine what the latest ‘hot’ topic is (global warming, ceramic superconductivity, stealth technology).
2. You write your proposal to fund the work you’ve been doing for years in your area but you slant it towards the hot topic.
3. You almost “prove” that the above hot topic is effected in a way that is positive toward your research.
4. You write a follow-on proposal where you state that the really big break-through will occur in the next funding cycle.
5. Oh, and you try to partner with entities that always get government funding.

It works like this: You study frogs in the Black Hills of South Dakota. Nobody wants to fund the study of frogs. Why would they? So in the early 80’s you write your proposal to study the effect of the hole in the ozone layer on the frogs. The mid 80’s your try to figure out how to write a proposal on frogs and missile defense but give up. In the 90’s you write proposals on how frog pee can help certain forms of cancer. You partner with NIH on this because they are getting lots of funding, being the ‘hot’ agency. You both know that the results are useless from the get go but you do it anyway. In the late 90’s you write proposals on how frogs from South Dakota can be used to detect nerve gas as part of the Global War on Terrorism. You routinely reject papers to the Journal of Herpetology that claim that five lined skinks can detect nerve gas by their tails falling off. In the 2000’s you are awarded grants to study the decline of frog populations in the Black Hills due to global warming, despite the fact the frogs were there through the last dozen ice ages and that they’ve survived eight periods since the last ice age where the temperature was much warmer than now. You know that the frog population is declining because the government is leasing the land to cattle ranchers and the cows are crapping in the water but you don’t really care because you’re now just a few years away from retirement and you don’t want to work at Burger King.

Dear God Letters

Dear God,

* I think about you sometimes even when I'm not praying... ELLIOT

* Did you mean for giraffe to look like that or was it an accident? ... NORMA

* I went to this wedding and they kissed right in church. Is that ok? ... NEIL

* Thank you for the baby brother but what I prayed for was a puppy ... JOYCE

* I do not think anybody could be a better God. Well I just want you to know but I am not
just saying that because you are God ... CHARLES


Dear God,

I wish I had days with no papers to check! No reports to write! No deadlines! No  meetings! Except maybe to have friends over to a sparkling, clean house. Cook for them a nice, guilt-free meal. And then have long, intoxicating conversations till we feel we've had too much of the drinks but not enough of the company. So we plan for another day like that soon.

JOANNE

Hilarious Holiday Stress Buster

If you think this is funny, you should see the elves in action. Viewing the video of us dancing really made my day. My husband who was asleep, woke up and got out of bed to find out what was causing all those gales of laughter from us. In order to have a copy of the video, you have to shell out some dollars. So that not being in my need-to-buy list, I was just content with watching the video every time the holiday stress got to me. Thanks, Bong & Diday, for this wonderful piece of fun!

Confessions of an ideal-weight junkie

           "Every time I hear the dirty 
      word 'exercise',
      I wash my mouth out with
      chocolate."
           
      "The advantage of 
      exercising every day
      is so when you die, they'll say,
      'Well, she looks good doesn't she.'"

     Ayan, ayan... kitang-kita ang dahilan kung bakit kailangang kong bumalik sa pageexercise! (Pansinin nyo na di ko sinabing kailangan na akong mag-diet!) Bakit nga ba kung kailan ko natuklasan ang kasarapan ng iba't-ibang klase ng pagkain ay tsaka naman bumagal na ang aking metabolism. Para bang ilang minuto lang pagkatapos kong kumain ng 2 French macaroons ay nasa baywang ko na ang ebidensiya! Kaya ang wardrobe, kailangan nang palitan dahil sa nagsisikipang pantalon at iba pa!

      Pero iniisip ko mga. Dapat ba akong mabahala, for aesthetic reasons, sa aking paglapad at pagbigat? Bakit pa e sa aking edad, dapat what you see is what you get! Anyway, I have long been out of the market, so to speak. I have earned the right to not worry about what others will think of my weight.

     Pero sana nga ganung kasimple. It's really not what others say but what I think about my body that takes center stage. I have long been grappling with this issue of the perfect body (on me!) As a child and well into my early adult years, I was grossly underweight.  Given that and my height, people would say I should be a model. Wow, I thought! But the damper was my friends would add... " as a poster child for the Malnutrition Program" of the government. Sigh! 

     It seemed like even if the amount of food I took in could rival the volume that men in my group took, my weight still hovered around 100 pounds. Even after I had given birth to my first baby, I would still visit Slimmer's world for a weight gain program just to achieve that elusive dream of 120 pounds on my 5'5 1/2 frame.

     But after my second child, things changed. My post-partum weight refused to go away. Even if it was not too far from the magic number 120, it still didn't make me feel content. A few years later, in a phase of my life accompanied by much anxiety, my weight went down to around 112. Still another bummer for me even if outwardly, I thought I had achieved (without trying) a look that would make heads turn.

      And so the saga continues to unfold... At present, my self-imposed weight standard remains to haunt me. But not so much because I can no longer fit into my usual size 8 but because the numbers that appear on the weighing scale (I stopped looking months ago) signify health implications. If I lose weight, will the aches and pains in the joints go away? Will lessening my sweets intake ensure the diabetes gene doesn't kick in? Will cutting down on the dairy and the meat relieve me of allergic rhinitis symptoms? Should I resume swimming and mat Pilates so that I become physically fit again?

    Maybe I should take to heart these probable measures to ensure optimal living. I'd like to live a healthy life till I'm beckoned to go to Kingdom come. So now, it really doesn't matter if I ever get to be 120 pounds in this  lifetime. All I want to do now is... fit into my favorite pair of form-fitting jeans and look good in them! (Hehehe! Mababaw pa rin!)

Ode To Joy

Sesame street's ode to a timeless classic... A must view when one's sanity is hanging by a thread.

Tsinelas

Palagi na lang nawawala ang kabaak ng tsinelas ko!!!   It is a typical occurrence when I need to use my slippers when I get out of bed. This picture was not planned. This was what I found when I was searching for something to shod my feet the other day. The half of each one  of them were missing or at least not where I had left them when I took them off before getting into bed.

Sometimes, I think that there's an elf stationed under my bed  whose sole duty is to get the other half of a pair of slippers as far away as possible from its partner.  Why do you think I have four pairs? It is not because I love collecting them. They're there because sometimes the missing halves don't reappear until after a few days of futile searching and so I always have a pair in reserve. But on this particular day, yes, all of them were astray!

   Haaaay!  Maybe I should put the slippers in a basket under my bed so they'll stay where I took them off? Or do you think I have to offer tidbits to the tsinelas elf so he'll (I'm sure he is male) go away and leave my slippers in peace? Or should I just entirely do away with slippers and go barefoot inside the house? I'm desperate for a solution. Any ideas?

Automatic Confession

Just in time for Holy Week!

The Look

There's a story behind the look. Someone described me in this picture as "radiantly beautiful". But this person might think twice about saying it again if it were revealed how the image of me got that way. Well, the secret is about to unfold.

A request from the editor of a glossy fashion magazine for a columnist from our department was referred to me by my boss. With little hesitation, I agreed to write an advice column and one of the requirements was I had to submit a picture they would put with the column. So after I had written, submitted, and edited the final version of the column, my work got the editor's approval. But not the ID picture I submitted along with the column. It was too teacherly, perhaps. Not consistent with the image of glamor they wanted to project.

So they scheduled me for a photo shoot. Huh, me in a photo shoot?! What happens there? What do I need to do? What clothes should I wear? PANIC! But the editor told me to just relax and they would take care of everything.

And take care of everything they did. The shirt in the picture is theirs, way too large for me but held back behind me by a bulldog clip to make it appear it fits me perfectly. The lips are Angela Jolie-like (Well, not really!) because of something called "Venom". It's like a balm applied to the lips which plumps it up (As warned, it did sting a little). My straight-as-a-pin hair was made even straighter by a straightening iron. And smeared with gel in some places to make stray wisps of hair behave. Of course, there's the foundation and blush expertly applied to disguise the brown spots and wrinkles and instead show in-the-pink-of-health cheeks. And then the eye make-up to open up my eyes some more! Even my smile disguised my wicked thoughts then. "Why am I subjecting myself to all these just to be able to see my words in print in a magazine?"

Yes, this picture was a result of a conspiracy to fool those who would behold it! But you might think that surely there is something in the picture that is genuine. Oo naman - my shoulder, the color of my hair, and my pearls!

So those of us who admire the models and actresses with seemingly blemish-free skin in the magazines, think again!!! If an ordinary person like me could be made to look this way, how much so with the celebrities whose bread and butter depends on looking glamorous and divine?

And incidentally, the magazine never came out (But that's another story)!