my favorite sin

"vanity, my favorite sin..."

well, only once in a while...and today i feel the need to be vain.

i must say that the past 38 (almost) years of my life had been pretty colorful, having a lot of lessons learned and quite a lot more to pay attention to. sometimes i stop in recollection and think about who i am, because i may be drowning in a quagmire of colorful events, and in the process, forget who i really am and the things that i believe in. sometimes, i tend to become a pushover, my kindness being mistaken for stupidity...but hey, i can be like a leaf that would ride with tide, or a rock that stands firm against it.

today i sat down and asked myself who am i. the big things are easy to remember, but the miniscule memories of the past hidden in a pocket full of youthful adventures are those that keep me standing firmly on the ground. as i recounted each one of them, i couldn't help but smile at my idiosyncracies, ambivalence and recklessness. i remember old friends, has beens and even those whom my relationships with never worked out.

why didn't i do this before? what accounts for the delay could be due to my perceived insignificant existence. so i thought, am i that insignificant? i guess not. i have and had a large share of problems and heartaches too. today, after an emotional day in school, i feel like basking in memories of my past, indulging in a bit of vanity to make me feel a tad better. now to those who'd stumble upon this, i'm not trying to sell myself. i'm homesick, tired, distraught, single ( i just severed a budding relationship) and bored. allow me to introduce myself...

1. joyce jimenez is the name of a beautiful, sexy filipina actress. my 3rd year-D class (4 years ago) in DLSZ started it all. they called me joyce because to all of my students, i'm ms. jimenez. the batch after that continued the "tradition" and hence found a more profound meaning for "sexy".

2. i'm the eldest of 4 children, once referred to by my dad as the black sheep and the under achiever.

3. as a kid, i used to dress up like Super G while my sister impersonated Darna...kung hindi kayo pinoy, di nyo sila kilala.

4. the very first movie i saw in a movie house was Gorgo. the second was Saturday Night Fever at the Harrison Plaza. i remember i was 7 years old that time and i couldn't forget how infatuated i was with john travolta.

5. i was crazy over metal lunch boxes and the first one i had was a gift from my grandfather. it was a classic, flip top lunch box and although it was made of hard plastic, i loved it dearly because it was my first, it had Snoopy stickers on it, and it was yellow. my second lunch box was made of metal and had vinnie barbarino on it. my staples: hardboiled egg and calamansi juice.

6. i watched voltes 5 every friday afternoon.
i couldn't remember exactly what day daimos and mazinger z were shown, but i watched them too. did i mention star rangers? i remember imagining myself as erika while my crush-turned-nightmare was richard :)

7. i had an avid "fan" when i was in 3rd grade who wrote me in the list of noisy students in class if i refused to talk to him during study period. and since i never learned my lesson, i ended up staying after school to clean up with the cleaners for the day... oh how i hated him!

8. i got c's and d's in high school math. that's why i took up engineering in college at a reputable engineering school and taught math 7 years after. my skills were developed in college though, as i usually did a boyfriend's homework. thank God he was lazy.

9. when i was 19, i got bitten by a japanese spitz because of my friend's lack of common sense.

10. i used to be a 36-25-36 and had great looking legs. don't ask me what happened.

11. the very first novel i read was the Godfather, but i have always loved Memoirs of a Geisha.

12. i love kare-kareng buntot ng baka with tripes and adobo. ofcourse, di masarap ang kare-kare kung walang bagoong. and not to forget, paksiw na bangus :)

13. i'm a scatter brain...and i work best when things are scattered. but of course i get organized too.

14. i have an 11-yr old daughter who likes Eric Clapton, harry potter, wrestling and ballet (not necessarily in that order).

15. although my stay in la salle wasn't too long, it's the institution i love most.

16. i'm a weeper and a sucker for love stories. i remember when Rico Yan died, i always cried whenever i saw his image on tv, the tabloids, etc. i used to see him around at the taft campus and i couldn't forget that he smiled at me each time i bumped into him.

17. when i was in college, my hair was always cropped very short. once, due to the hairdresser's ineptness, she trimmed it too short...how's 1 cm? but i was really conscious about my hair, that after that mishap, i had a private hairdresser who also worked as a columnist for Woman Today and Manila Standard. he once gave me a nice haircut, shaved my nape to shape like the mcdonald's arches, made me pose here and there and ...there i was...had my pictures published in one of the november weekend issues of the Manila Standard in 1989.

18. i worked as a McDonald's crew member in 1987and resigned 7 months after. i trained as a drive thru and counter person at the Greenbelt and northmall branches respectively. may QUAD pa noon at mistulang parke pa lang ang glorietta. remember the big cinderella boutique alongside goodwill bookstore fronting glorietta? it had the biggest mcdonald's branch then. we used to wear maroon colored uniform with white pinstripes and the white visor on our heads to keep hair from falling off. di pa gumagamit ng plastic bags noon sa mcdo and service was really fast.

19. anything unconventional catches my eye.

20. i love dressing up.

21. when i started studying in Mapua in 1985, my pocket money then was only P20 ($0.40), which later on increased to P30 ($0.60) by the time i graduated in 1990.

22. inabot ko pa ang panahong P0.25 lang ang pamasahe at P0.30 ang hulog sa payphone. madalas ako'ng makipag telebabad noon sa boypren kong hilaw kaya naranasan ko'ng kabugin ako ng mga nakapila sa payphone hehehe.

23. the very first LP album (long playing a.k.a. 33 rpm records) that i bought for myself was Air Supply's, the very first cd was Chuck Mangione's.

24. the first song i learned to play on the guitar was Sharon Cuneta's High School Life (ang baduy).

25. my first kiss landed on my right temple...and i felt like fainting afterwards!

26. i know how to cook good food, specially for a loved one.

27. i'm allergic to smoke. once i tried smoking a stick of cigarette (this was 1st yr college), i got hospitalized for asthma. never tried it again since.

28. i have a penchant for cute smiles, yung mga maginoo pero medyo bastos :) i also love good conversations, snuggling and... i would be a hypocrite if i'd say i don't get smitten by good looks. but believe me, if you don't have anything sensible in between your ears, sayang ang good looks mo, itago mo na lang. i easily fall for men who can carry a good conversation, are witty and sensitive.

29. i also have a penchant for trucks and SUVs. i guess it's because i used to work at a forwarding company where i was always tasked to go to the manila port area, north and south. i experienced riding a prime mover and have always dreamt since to have one like that inside my garage :)

30. i believe in sta clause, in miracles and i hope to stay in love with teaching despite the atrocities i've been experiencing.

31. there was a time when i would go to Hard Rock cafe in Malate (which eventually closed as it was not a franchise) 3 times a week, almost remembered the repertoire of the MTV display and became a connoisseur drinker. i could distinguish one brandy from another, befriended Jack Daniels and Jose Cuervo, and could down a chilled San Miguel Super Dry to the last drop in one drinking. excuse me, di po ako lashengga *hik*.

32. i love going to fancy restaurants. one place i could not forget is the Sky Lounge of the Manila Diamond Hotel. you know why? aside from the magnificent view of the Roxas Boulevard boardwalk and the Manila Bay sunset from the 27th floor, i had the privelege to have dined and wined with two of the men i loved dearly...my daughter's dad and, in another occasion, Ray Briones.

33. i love shoes and watches :) i used to be a size 7, but my feet got bigger after giving birth and i'm now an 8 or 8.5.

34. i'm a good matchmaker but have not found the right one for me (or i may have found him, but he hasn't found me yet...labo).

35. for clothing, i'm a young dresser. though i like black, white and pink, i also go for shades of brown, green, purple, and sometimes blue.

that was fun :) there's still quite a lot, but i'd reserve that for YOU who might want to know me more. now if you're interested, talk to me, i could use a friend :)


PS. Sir Rolly is right, might as well add 3 more to account for all 38 years of my life! here goes...

36. as a kid, i was allowed to go out to play with neighbors and friends early in the morning and even late at night. we used to have a little playhouse that my uncle built, a hut made of bamboo slats. i enjoyed playing bahay bahayan, playing mom and cooking leaves. one time, i remember getting stung by a bee on my hip when i inadvertently hit it while playing hide-and-seek. i also remember feeling very sad and sorry for the unhatched eggs that our pet pigeon deliberately dropped as i snooped around its nest...tsk-tsk-tsk i didn't know i shouldn't do that.

37. i got married in 1995, separated in 2004, divorced in 2006.

38. when Mcsi died in 2004, i didn't know why God had to put me in that situation being his teacher and one of the persons he saw last. now, i realized, He had to put me through all that to prepare me for things seemingly more difficult to bear and are yet to come.

there, i've completed all 38 :)