putting the helm in helmet

I had a first today, or so I think.

Dec 15, apart from it being one of my bestfriends, Risa's birthday was also the the day when Vietnam saw the full force of the Helmet law. A few months back, Vietnam's governmet passed the Helmet law, first applying only to government officials. To give everyone enough time to purchase their equipment, they announced the December 15, 2007 will be D-Day. On that day, everyone - driver or passenger, gov't official or not (rich or poor, young and old!) found riding on the streets of Vietnam are required to wear a helmet, otherwise it's a 100,000 -200,000 VND penalty. And you could be fined as many times on the street if you are caught.

Thus, helmets, they're the new fab fashion accessory!

So today I got on Son's bike and wore a helmet. For the first time in my life (or maybe I wore it during one of those DWTL activities?). I don't really remember. But today was the first time at least that I wore on the street and on a bike. In short, I wore it for its real purpose. :) It was weird - I've worn a hat of course, even a hard hat but a helmet is something else. It feels too heavy on your head and it makes you sweat faster because of the padding. But that's just me complaining. I think the helmet law is a great thing, what with all the street accidents happening on these streets everyday. I'd take anything that could preserve your brain from frying on the pavement(ok, too graphic) anytime over, well, the "comfort" of your hair flying freely all over the place.

Dec 15,2007. Mark that day in history: the day the helmet helmed Saigon's streets into a safer place (hopefully) . For hygenic purposes, I'm getting my own and I'm getting it in pink. At least if I'm getting helmet hair, I'm getting it in style.

I pray that it suits me, I hate bad hair days. Among other things.

Option to Shower

I've had my share of interviews gone haywire in my years as a recruiter. On a bad day, you can meet 9 out of 10 really bad ones. And the 10th one, just when you are losing your patience turns out to be either 1) painfully so-so or 2) unexpectedly weird. If you ask me, I prefer the weird to the so-so, at least it provides for entertainment.

Anyway. My client, Julie told me this story one day when she interviewed a candidate for her company. Considering how hard it was to hire really good people here in Vietnam, this guy did pretty good at the start of the interview. He seemed to really know what he was talking about and Julie was happy for such breath of fresh air - relieved too that she would finally be able to hire someone for a position that's been open for months. Until towards the end of the interview that went like this:


Julie: So, it looks good, I think we can work out something here. Before we end, do you have any questions you want to know about our company, the job? Feel free to ask...

Candidate: Yes I actually have one question...

Julie: Shoot!

Candidate: Do you have washroom in the office?

Julie: Oh, yes of course we do. It's on the third floor and actually I can give you a tour now...

Candidate: Um, does it have a shower?

Julie (now really finding this weird): Um, sorry no we don't. Can I ask why?

Candidate (looking sinccerly disappointed): Oh. Then I can't accept the job. I'm sorry.

Julie (a little bit speechless, but damn this was too weird so she can't just let it go): I'm sorry, but did you just say that you can't accept the job because we don't have a shower???

Candidate: Yes. I need to shower a few times a day at work. It's really important.

Julie was stumped, bewildered, and in the end just felt like cracking up. She managed to thank him for his time and say sorry that they couldn't reach "to an agreement". Because, really what do you say to THAT?

Projection

GMA on Trillanes et. al:

“You saw it on television. It’s clear that the actions of these few desperate men reveal just how out of touch they are with the hopes and dreams of the average Filipino,” the President told the Filipino community here after her arrival for a two-day visit.
"The actions of these misguided men undermine each and every one of the genuine aspirations of real Filipinos. Instead of working to bring the nation together by working within our democratic process, their actions merely are fuel for selfish motives, for personal gain,” she said, adding that in the end, “the rule of law prevailed.”
“The transgressors will not hold this nation hostage with impunity. They will be punished to the full extent of the law. Justice shall be served and the interest of the people upheld,” said the President.
(http://www.inquirer.net/)


In psychology it's called Freudian Projection:
'A defense mechanism in which the individual attributes to other people impulses and traits that he himself has but cannot accept. It is especially likely to occur when the person lacks insight into his own impulses and traits.'

Everything she said above could be easily directed at herself. I loved the statement where she observes how out of touch those people are to the hopes and dreams of the average Filipino. So out of touch (and brazen) is she that she doesn't even mind that the aspiration of every Filipino - regular or not - is to have her a** kicked from office, an office which by the way she stole. Trillanes' only faults are that 1) he didn't learn from history - it flopped before why do it again? 2) he didn't get the needed mass to achieve tipping point 3) he offered himself up for the power, so now he's just like the rest of them politicians.

But hey this pseudo-president is on the right track of her own impending downfall. Soon, we all hope! And so that proverbial Moonpools and Caterpillars song, 'Soon' comes to mind, "And one day soon, it's gonna happen to you and when it does it won't be prettyyyyy..."

Meeee (possibly the most pa-cute blog title)

(I got this from my friend's blog)

Type your answers in Google Images and pick an image off the first page. etc.

[1] The age you will be on your next birthday:

[2] A place to which you’d like to travel:

[3] Your favorite place:

[4] Your favorite object:

[5] Your favorite food:

[6] Your favorite animal:

[7] Your favorite color:

[8] The town in which you were born:

[9] The town in which you live:

[10] The name of a past pet:

[11] The first name of a past love:

[12] Your bestfriend's nickname/screen name:

[13] Your nickname:

(Well, it's my blog. :p)

[14] Your first name:

(Yes, my first name is Nitro.)

[15] Your middle name:

[16] Your last name:

[17] A bad habit of yours:

[18] Your first job:

[19] Your grandmother’s name:

[20] Your major in college:

...and finally [21] Your favorite word:

Sister Love in Saigon

They came, they saw and they conquered. And now I miss them. It's actually been three weeks since my sisters and almost-brother came to visit us in Saigon. They stayed here for a week - too short, but we managed to pack a lot of activities (and a lot of eating!) in the 7 days that they were here. Nov 2, Friday was the day they arrived. We were too excited to see each other we forgot to take the reunion airport pic! We remembered to take it just before we left Hung Vuong 2 (where we live) that night:

On their first night, it was dinner in Ben Thanh market where we sampled fresh spring rolls, pork barbecue, fried clams with garlic, red snapper (or simply tilapia!) and hot vit lon otherwise called balut. Yes, balut exists in Vietnam and it is eaten in a very saucy manner - with matching "throne" where you put the egg and teaspoon.

Day 2, we were off to Mui Ne in Phan Tiet for some sun, sea and sand and more. I love Mui Ne - it's not only a beach but there are loads more to see like the white and yellow sand dunes, the red canyon, fishing village, and fairy stream. Unfortunately the Red Canyon was closed on this trip but we managed to see all the other sights plus lounge in the beach and pool for some quality bonding time and great food. Dinner was spent in Luna D' Autonno, which they absolutely loved. The pizza and pasta were perfect to cap off an adventurous day.










We went home the next day and the rest of the time flew by so fast. On the days when I had to work, I booked them to a trip to the Cu Chi tunnels and Mekong Delta where they had their share of the culture and history of Vietnam. On their last day, they hit the museums and did some heavy duty city walking (and map reading - we armed them with a map of Saigon and left them to their own devices). In between, of course we spent time for shopping and lounging and seeing the sights. Mags had his share of the Vietnam coffee experience, where after two glasses of robusta coffee, he felt jittery and restless and unable to sleep til dawn. Haha. Apart from that, it was all about food: Temple Club, Luna, Ngon, Windows Cafe, and Black Cat on the last night for the Big Cheese Burger.






One thing was for sure - it was never without our friend, Tiger.



.... or Miguel, or Zorok, depending on our mood and who was available:)


It was fun and tiring, but ultimately it was just great to be together again. But as most vacations go, it ended and it was pretty hard to get back to normal after 7 wonderful days of togetherness.



In the airport, we didn't cry over goodbyes but afterwards we had to admit to each other that when we had gone our separate ways (me at home alone and them in the pre-departure area) we cried. Well the world turns - Julia after that weekend started with a new job, Tenten back to her day job and then the more enjoyable night job of singing in a band, Mags back to cooking school and playing in the band too, and well, Lem and I, we continue to survive the Saigon life while always longing for home and if that can't happen yet, the next big vacation.



In the meantime, in able to cope with the perils of our mundane existence, we have taken to planning our next reunion and this time it includes Cambodia plus more of Vietnam sometime next year. Can't wait for that, but there's another reunion that happens next month and this time it's no where else but home.






See u soon girls...and boy - and well, everyone else! More of our pics are in my multiply, here.

Favorite: Bubbles

Some post-Halloween pics from home. Meet my favorite powerpuff girl Bubbles, in Egyptian garb:

Sugar

Spice

And everything nice

(if you're on her good side)

My cousin Leslie a.k.a Bubbles is one of the people I truly miss. She sent me a drawing via my sisters on their trip and I was surprised to see she draws so well now. Well, she "traces drawings" well is what my sister tells me. Leslie is my little friend who manages to make me feel better on a bad day, laugh out loud with her silly antics and kabarokan, annoyed when she gets too bratty, protective when I see how the world can possibly be not kind to her always... This tiny package makes me feel closest to knowing how mothers feel about their kids: you want to protect them and wish nothing would harm them, ever. Or just plain selfishly, you just wish they would never grow up. There's just a handful of people I love to bits and she's one of them. One of the best reasons to go home soon.

Excited

2 Nov 2007 @1430 hours (GMT+7:00) Bangkok, Hanoi, Jakarta

My sisters and brother are landing in Saigon in 24 hours and I can't wait. Excited to see them, excited to be away from work, excited for the weekend getaways, excited over the loads of stuff from home. and excited for another day away from the office on Monday. No manic monday for me next week. Yey!

21 December @ 1900 hours (GMT+8:00) Singapore, Kuala Lumpur

Got a passport, will use it. Confirmed the flight and the ticket is sitting pretty in my cabinet, ready to be used. Guess where I'll be til Jan 4? Extremely excited about that too. :)

So no more blues for me, there's at least two things to look forward to! Did I mention I was excited?

Spooked

So the story goes that when I was about a few months old, I was witness to a supernatural being on my crib side. We were still one happy family living in Malate, some guests were in the house and they suddenly remembered that the baby (me) upstairs had no company. One guest nonchalantly said, “No, I saw a woman with long hair standing by her crib.” But when they did a count everyone was downstairs including my yaya who had been sent out to do an errand. They never left me unattended from then on until I had my baptism. In the Philippines, elders have this superstition about not leaving un-baptised babies alone as it makes them prone to visits by evil spirits...

An uncle of mine who was a non-believer of anything supernatural had his dose of a hair-raising moment. He went to a business conference somewhere in a beach resort in Batangas. He was taking a nap in the double decker bed when he felt a presence standing by his side. He opened his eyes and saw a lady shrouded in black (no face, no flesh that he could see). His story becomes blurred at this point but he remembered thinking of jumping from the deck above to the bed of his roommate below. Just before did, the black lady shifted and moved to the place beside the bed he was just about to jump into. Glided was more like it, like the black lady had skates. The the usual story ensued that a girl was raped and killed in that room, then buried in the beach, and she has been haunting them ever since…

My aunts who lived in a dorm called Ilang-Ilang in UP had their own creepy stories to share. One aunt had a white lady haunting her dreams of which circumstances of the dream I now forget. But the creepy thing was not just the dream. But the fact that they discovered that the other girls who lived in the same column of all four floors in the dorm as hers shared the same dream on the same night.

Still in UP, another aunt was studying late into the night when her dressing drawer suddenly opened on its own. Inside it was the copy of The Exorcist, a thick book, which she was reading in those days…

In the 80's, my older sister, Shirley lived with my mom and our other sister in Pampanga. She woke up in the middle of the night to see a girl who looked and was dressed like my other sister (in yellow pj's no less) sitting on the edge of the bed with her side to her. She called her and asked why she was awake and the girl didn't answer, didn't even look. She looked beside her and saw my real sister sleeping soundly, with the doppelganger sitting still at the edge of the bed...

And then there are those stories that are not so spooky but you know it comes from the other side.

A week after my lola died, we were trying to get our lives back on track and trying not to think of the loss that still stung. But not without her last say. In the car on our way from work we noticed the very strong smell of flowers right in the middle of Skyway. No one talked at first until I asked my sister and our driver if they could smell it too. They did and the smell stayed with us for a few minutes until we managed to pull ourselves together. We rememebred her fondly then and we remember her fondly now.

Fresh from a traumatic moment in the morgue when I saw Papa placed in a body bag, I made the decision to ride in the van with him to keep him company on one of the last journeys of his "life". My main concern was to make sure that they treat his body with care and for it to not be loaded into the van like it was some piece of luggage (cause I've been warned that they do that to dead bodies). When it was just him and me, a certain fear creeped in, the kind you have around dead people. It lasted for seconds until I felt calm and profoundly sad all at the same time, remembering that the person in that bag wasn't just some dead body or a potential ghost, but flesh and blood and history all together. Nevermind out family's dotted history - those trivial things fall apart and lose their meaning in the face of the love and loss you feel when a person dies. I felt his presence comforting me, telling me that his meaning in my life doesn't change, it only evolves. In that moment, I felt the powerful feeling of calm, longing, sadness and complete understanding and acceptance of what happened all at the same time, it was overwhelming. In that dark van I sat still and remembered all that was when it was still happy and bright in my world.

Behind us, my uncle (his brother) was trailing us in his own car having his own thoughts when in the expressway past the toll gate, his broken e-pass suddenly sounded off letting him free to pass. The e-pass was broken for a week, and in fact on his way home from the wake that same night he tried to use it again and it didn't work. Maybe it was a mechanical glitch, maybe it was supernatural trick courtesy of the guy in the bag who meant the world to us.

In this season, and in life, we choose what we want to believe. Some believe in the total existence of ghosts, evil spirits, messages from the other side, little miracles. Some choose to be lighthearted and play dress up and get as much candy as they can. Some remember their dead in prayer. Some just wait for the next spooky adventure or story and hope that they will be able to sleep at night afterwards. Me, I try to do all of that even as i live far, far away. Be spooked everyone.

"When a person dies, one does not stop loving him, does one?" - Ayn Rand, We The Living

To Live

It's becoming increasingly hard to enjoy Sundays, especially when Sunday afternoon hits. Right then the feeling of being on the verge of a fresh Monday creeps in. More than when I was back home, my life in Saigon makes me live and crave for the weekends in a way I never felt before. Work is demanding and tough, and the idea of the luxurious, decadent "expat" life is but a myth. At least in my life and most of my circle. We live for the weekends and if back in Manila "live" means partying, I mean "living" here to refer to one or all of the following:

1. Sleeping til your head hurts
2. Lounging in your house or someone else's house
3. Eating Filipino food
4. Watching dvds
5. Occasional bar trips that only last til 12midnight or if you're lucky, 2am.
6. Pampering oneself in the spa
7. Blogging
8. Chatting with your friends and family back home
9. Meeting up with friends to catch up on what you missed out because of the work that barely keeps you sane during the week.
10. Planning getaways and feeling better by just planning

Saigon is a happening city. It is hot - active, alive, colorful, going through a rebirth - all the things Manila went through decades ago. It is interesting to see how the landscape of Vietnamese life is changing due to the opening of their gates tp the rest of the world. Coming from a place with widely opened I feel a little bit weary and protective over this country that isn't my own. I have this nagging feeling that they may not be quite ready for it - like a kid being given too much candy and money too fast. I personally hope they manage to keep their country's identity and inimitable charm intact. Some say it is a good time to be here especially on the business front, if you are into that stuff. Frankly I'm just here for the experience. And what an experience it has and continues to be. But some days, you just want to hibernate into your own world, thinking and dreaming of home and how closer you are to getting back there each day you spend in this place. Some days, you just want to "live".

Pardoned

I'm not surprised by the decision at all. Not even by how quickly it was done like she was running out of time or something. Check out her full statement below. Whereas my ass. (Bitter)comments in bright yellow & parenthesis mine.


Arroyo grants pardon to Estrada

By Lira Dalangin-Fernandez
INQUIRER.net
Last updated 06:48pm (Mla time) 10/25/2007

MANILA, Philippines -- Convicted president Joseph Estrada is a free man.
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo granted pardon to the 70-year-old deposed leader following a recommendation by the Department of Justice (DoJ), Press Secretary Ignacio Bunye said in a press conference on national television.
Interior and Local Government Secretary Ronaldo Puno has been instructed to deliver the order to Estrada at 9 a.m. Friday at his rest house in Tanay, Rizal, said Bunye, concurrent executive secretary. The process of serving the pardon starts when the former president accepts it and would take about three hours to arrange, Bunye said.

President, Bunye said the pardon was granted after Estrada publicly agreed not to pursue any other elective office. It is also part of Arroyo's policy of releasing prisoners who have reached 70 years of age and in recognition of Estrada's six years in detention, much of it under house arrest, Bunye said. With the pardon, “Estrada has been restored his civil and political rights,” Bunye read. But Bunye said the forfeiture decision imposed by the Sandiganbayan anti-graft court remained in force, "including all writs and processes issued by the Sandiganbayan … except for the bank accounts he owned before his tenure as President."
The President’s order in full:
“Whereas, this Administration has a policy of releasing inmates who have reached the age of seventy (70),
“Whereas, Joseph Ejercito Estrada has been under detention for six and a half years, [In his sprawling mansion nonetheless]
“Whereas, Joseph Ejercito Estrada has publicly committed to no longer seek any elective position or office, [but he can always take that back and run anyway or better yet let his son win]
“In view hereof and pursuant to the authority conferred upon me by the Constitution [but which I don't really deserve because I cheated], I hereby grant executive clemency to Joseph Ejercito Estrada, convicted by the Sandiganbayan of plunder and imposed a penalty of reclusion perpetua. He is hereby restored to his civil and political rights.
“The forfeitures imposed by the Sandiganbayan remain in force and in full, including all writs and processes issued by the Sandiganbayan in pursuance hereof, except for the bank account(s) he owned before his tenure as President.”
Bunye made no mention of the political pressure being exerted by Estrada supporters for release following his sentence of life imprisonment earlier this year for massive graft. Bunye said the President's decision was based on a Department of Justice recommendation, which contained the same reasons given in the "whereas" clause of the order. Asked what had prompted Arroyo to act swiftly on the recommendation, Bunye said the President found sufficient reasons to grant Estrada pardon.
"The [fleeting] power of the President [which by the way is just being sustained by pure luck and pangbabraso] under the Constitution is absolute once the conditions for the grant of the pardon are there, the principal condition being that the sentence has already become final then that can set into motion the process of granting executive clemency," Bunye explained. In granting the pardon, Bunye assured that the President had considered all factors, including those opposing it [but the way cheats and thieves think is not how you and I think so consider her thinking useless]. The pardon came amid allegations by some groups that the move was a "political accommodation" to Estrada [and of course some cash has been thrown around in that deal too]. The chief government prosecutor and lawyers who won the plunder case against Estrada also opposed the move by the Palace, saying "the timing is not good" and “too early.” But Malacañang officials said granting pardon to Estrada was a reconciliatory move that could finally pave the way to unity. Estrada, who was sentenced to life in prison by the Sandiganbayan anti-graft court on September 12 for plunder, told the anti-graft court on Monday that he was dropping a motion for reconsideration on his verdict and would seek "full, free, and unconditional" pardon from Arroyo. The President [the epitome of all that is evil and greedy in the world] was reportedly elated when she was told of Estrada's decision. The Sandiganbayan Tuesday granted Estrada's motion to waive his right to appeal his conviction. Dropping the appeal makes the court's decision final and paves the way for the process of initiating a presidential pardon.

* * *
Revolution again, anyone?