The Weirdness in Me

Being a Manila girl through and through, I have acquired a taste of the bizzare. In fact, it is once of the things I look for it in a city. I find comfort in the city life's strangeness. One favorite expressions is, "That's so weird!" because life in Manila IS weird.

Thomas couldn't live in Manila. The pollution in the air gave him a nasty ear infection , which made him admire the fact that I am Manila's cockroach: I can take the rancid air, the confusing streets, and the darkness in people's hearts.

One of the things that I miss about big city life is the edge that it gave me. It may not have been healthy, but these are the things that defined who I am. Dinner at 2 a.m. at a tapa joint after a one night stand, deep conversations with strangers with whom you'll never meet again, deranged lunatics raving at streetcorners, the occasional flasher.

You can take me out of the big city, but you can't take the big city out of me.

I liked Jena, but one of the things that I could never get over was the fact that it is postcard pretty. Too pretty. In it may lie a heart of darkness, but the green of the hills and the smallness of ordinary life was just too...normal. It scared me and freaked me out, because for me, it was truly weird.

I don't like the city where I live better than Jena, but I find more comfort in the fact that because of its size, weird things can still happen to me here in my new city.

I was hanging out with a co-worker and a couple of his friends at his balcony. Suddenly, a naked man materialized at the window in the building opposite his. He was smoking. Naked.

All the girls huddled excitedly at the show. The naked man, in his 30s, a thin, dark Italian type, would smoke a fag every hour. Watching us, watching him. At his third appearance he sat at his windowsill and started pulling on his man bits. The girls started to scream and laugh their heads off.

Me? I just sat back, satisfied that life was back to normal.

My First Suman Latik

It's a bit too late to include this post in the whole Suman Latik movement of last year, but slap an apron on me and call me Betty Crocker. I made Suman Latik Baby!



I followed the recipe from the English Patis blog. Thanks so much Leila for sending me lihiya for my birthday! I can now make a piece of home whenever I want!



It all started when a student of mine told me that he had to cut down his banana tree for the winter. I asked for all of his banana leaves to make suman! Suman is glutinous rice cake, with lye water mixed in. Before asking me whether suman is toxic, lye water is a staple of SE Asian desserts, and the Germans also use it to make pretzels. It's actually some sort of sodium-potassium mixture, or potash (?)

I had a hard time finding lye water here in my city. I went to the Vietnamese stores, but they all told me that they didn't have it! I think they do have it, but they didn't know what I was talking about. I tried to find the Vietnamese name for lye water, but I didn't find it on the internetz. So if you know the Vietnamese name of lye water, help a poor Filipina sister in need and send me the name! I don't want to trouble Leila of sending me lye water all the way from Darmstadt again!

Love+Marriage= Children?

I have reached a certain age, and I am at a certain point in my life, where people feel entitled to assume that I want to get pregnant. You can pretty much tell a woman's age by the questions people throw at her.

When I was around 23-25ish, people bugged me when I was gonna get married, regardless of the fact that hey, I'm SINGLE! or that I haven't met anybody I was willing to suffer for more than 2 days. Nowadays, MIL, my sister, and most mothers I know are bugging me when I am gonna get pregnant.

My MIL, probably wanting a new purpose in life, has pointedly proposed that we either a)move back to Jena or b) that she move in with us, without any regard for our ambitions or career chances or the fact that I want my privacy, dammit.

I think I am ready for children. However, not now, not yet. I have too many things to do and too many ambitions left unfulfilled. Besides, if childcare were just as easy as it is in the Philippines, where I can hire a nanny for 50 € a month, or in the old GDR, where childcare is institutionalized. But we're not in the GDR anymore, sweetie.

I was glad to know that my mother and my aunt support my decision. Not now, not yet.

Pilipinas, Gising!

Nakaka-frustrate basahin ang balitang ito.

Doctor to honor Ramadan rituals in space

By VIJAY JOSHI, Associated Press WriterWed Oct 10, 4:56 PM ET

A Malaysian doctor who will spend the last days of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in space has vowed to follow the rituals of his faith even as he hurtles around Earth at 17,000 mph.

Sheikh Muszaphar Shukor lifted off Wednesday in a Soyuz spacecraft from Kazakhstan, en route to the international space station where he will spend about 10 days.

The spacecraft — which also carried an American and a Russian — will take two days to reach the station, a period coinciding with the last days of Ramadan, the month when Muslims fast from dawn to dusk. Sheikh Muszaphar has said he will fast and pray in space, even though clerics said he could delay the fast.

"I am not sure how it would be done but I will share my experiences (with) all the Muslims all over the world when I get back," the 35-year-old Sheikh Muszaphar wrote in his Web journal. "After all, Islam is a way of life and I am quite sure I would not face much difficulties."

Sheikh Muszaphar is taking vacuum-packed Malaysian food, including skewered chicken, banana rolls, fermented soybean cakes and ginger jelly to mark the end of Ramadan.

A bachelor who has become a national heartthrob, the orthopedic surgeon will not be the first Muslim in space — Saudi Prince Sultan bin Salman joined the crew of the shuttle Discovery in 1985 and there have been several others since.

Still, the mission initially presented a dilemma about fulfilling religious duties such as fasting, kneeling for prayers in zero gravity or facing Mecca to pray.

After all, praying five times daily on a craft that goes around Earth 16 times a day would have meant praying 80 times in 24 hours. Also, it is virtually impossible to face Mecca continuously in a craft traveling at such high speed.

Muslims are required to wash their hands, feet, face and hair before prayers — a luxury on the Soyuz where water is so precious that even sweat and urine are recycled.

To get around these problems, 150 Malaysian scholars, scientists, and astronauts brainstormed and published an 18-page booklet of guidelines for Muslim astronauts.

If he follows the guidelines, Sheikh Muszaphar can forgo fasting in space and make up for it when he returns to Earth. He can pray three times a day instead of five, facing any direction, and he can do without the ritual washing.

On Tuesday, Sheikh Muszaphar told reporters his trip will be an inspiration for his Southeast Asian homeland as well as to other Muslims worldwide.

"It's a small step for me, but a great leap for the Malaysian people," he said, rephrasing Neil Armstrong's words after the 1969 moon landing.

Pilipinas, GISING! Imbes na asikasuhin niyo yang si Teri Hatcher at Big Brother, isipin natin kung saan patungo ang mga buhay natin!

I mean, hello, si Manny Paquiao na lang ba ang greatest Filipino? Mga OFWs? Bago tayo gumawa ng mga kung ano-anong online petitions, alisin nating ang kakitiran ng utak natin, huwag tayong masyadong padadala sa sulsol ng mga pari at pulitiko at mayayaman. Napaka-insecure ba natin na hindi tayo makapag-isip sa sarili natin? Huwag kayong tumingin sa Amerika, huwag kayong umasa sa Simbahan at sa Puliloko. Nasa atin ang solusyon.

Sa totoo lang, hindi na ako nagbabasa ng balita mula sa Pilipinas. Nanggagalaiti lang ako sa galit!