Grounded again

For the second time in less than a year, my doctor had the great honor to ground me at home again for more than a week. I tasted hell the past few days, burning with 39 degrees fever and then sweating the bacterias and viruses out only to be hounded by them again a few minutes later. Now they are leaving me in peace, maybe temporarily while they wait to exhale for the second round of this excruciating match between them and me. Darn, I’m sick and tired of being sick!

So what to do when you’re coming out of haze but stuck in the corners of your apartment? I decided I would blog away and answer Daisy's tag. She tagged me to write six random facts about myself. She also asked me to tag six friends to do the same. Problem is, I can't do that because though my friends are gods and goddesses in their own rights, some of them still have no idea what a blog is. That or they simply find no sense in blogging. ..

SIX RANDOM FACTS ABOUT ME

1. I used to "stalk" Tom Lupton (then model-moviestar-DJ) when I was in college. I starved myself to death just so I could save my meager food allowance to buy a ticket to a Y101 sponsored party or concert where its DJ’s would be there so I could get a glimpse of him. I religiously listened to his radio programs. All these lasted for a few months. Then I grew up.

2. I’m a restless soul. I can’t be confined in one place for a long time or that would be the end of me. I have to take small trips now and then to feed this insatiable hunger to explore. I guess this is a typical characteristic of a Sagi like me.

3. I have a nasty habit of wearing the same clothes and shoes and eating the same food over and over again. Then one day I’m just done with them. I’ll never wear the clothes or the shoes again, never eat the same food, ever. Just like that.

4. I don’t like crowd and noise, and the so called night life. I partied hard in my younger years so been there, done that.

5. I have a strong abhorrence of people who smoke in public places, uncaring how many lives they slowly kill each second. Smoking in public should be banned everywhere.

6. I love life and being alive. There might be times when I feel just the opposite but it wont last 12 minutes. Though my zest for life makes me blindly optimismic sometimes but who's to complain?

Ok, maybe I can pass this on to two other friends; Eva and Mae. Please play along guys if you have time. Salamat.

With snow came the flu

Winter was so late in coming but when it finally did, it came with an entourage of tons and tons of snow that almost reached up to my knees. I don't mind winter as long as it's gorgeous outside like this:

Taken last Wednesday at the school's playground.

Along came the flu with snow. I'm down with it right now. I've never been so sickly in my life until I came to Prague and worked with kids. Maybe it's not a healthy environment for me. Take it literally or figuratively. :)

I turned to the internet for self-treatment. I'm just so lazy to go to my doctor and honestly, the fact that the temperature is minus something degrees outside doesn't encourage me at all to see him. The net said to just drink lots of fluid, take plenty of sleep and rest, and to take an aspirin if the headache will threaten to behead you. Hopefully the virus will get bored with you after a few days and will leave to ravage a new victim. But please, not A!

Well, I'm not at all delighted to be its host so I hope it will leave me in peace soon.

Mommy is a housewife?

One of our topics this month at school is occupation. After just a few days it is already quite clear that for our kids only two professions are the cream of the crop-- teacher and policeman. Most girls would like to be a teacher when they grow up and the boys don't want anything except to be belting with authority someday. No amount of glossy National Geographic pictures about space could budge them from their "dreams." Well, okay, a few policemen wannabes are leaning towards becoming astronauts only because they want to catch some aliens.

A few days ago we played a game in which one would think of a profession and the rest would guess what she/he was by asking questions, e.g. "do you work in a hospital?, " do you wear an apron?," etc. Then it was JH's turn (my co-teacher) to be asked what job she had in mind. Here's a snippet of the conversation which I'm trying to write in verbatim.

Kid 1: Do you wear white? Do you work in a hospital?
JH: No, I don't. I work at home.
Kid 2: Do you cook?
JH: Yes, I cook. I also clean the house.
Kids in a chorus: You're a Mommy!?
JH: No, I'm not a mommy. I don't have a kid. But I work at home. I cook, I clean the house. I iron the clothes, etc.

The kids started to look confused.

Kid 1: Are you a helper?
JH: No, I'm not. Helpers work at other houses. I work at my own.
Kid 2: Do you have a man?
JH: Oh, you mean if I have a husband? Yes, I do. He works in an office.

Silence. Frowns. Whispers.

Kid 2: I think you are really a Mommy.
JH: No, I’m not a Mommy. Ok, I'll tell you what I am. I am a housewife.
Kids chorusing: Housewife? Co to je? (What is it?)

JH: A housewife is a woman who stays at home and does all the work like cleaning, cooking, ironing, watering the plans, etc, while her husband is at work.

Kids chorusing and some yelling: But that's Mommy! Mommy cooks, cleans the house, does the laundry and irons the clothes. Mommy does everything. And she goes to work in an office, too like Daddy!

Oh well, what can I say? The mommies here in CZ really deserve a standing ovation. It's true, this is a country of superwomen. It seems to me they are unfazed in juggling everything at the same time. Ours is quite an expensive school and some of the kids' mothers hold high powered jobs yet they take their kids to school in the morning, fetch them in the afternoon, drive them to piano or ballet lessons and then cook and do everything at home later in the evening because for some reasons having a helper is quite unheard of in this country. On top of this, they still manage to look so darn good that some of them could pass as supermodels.

Really my friend Enday's description of wonderwoman is perfect--- we look at her and wonder. I wonder how the women here can do what they do without having a single hair out of place.

I might as well ask and learn the ropes from them.

Out of my closet

If my life would be based on the frequency of my posts, I would long be in a coma now. Busy busy me, that's one excuse. Another excuse and probably close to the truth is that I have nothing to write about. Or maybe I just have to plainly admit I'm a lazy blogger.

I really have nothing special to write about now. I'm actually forcing my brains to work so some words would come out. I just have nothing else to do. It's Saturday night. Normally in Cebu this is the time when we hit The Village to waste and be wasted. But there's no Village in Prague and if there was, who cares to go out when it's in the dead of winter? (Well, it's not a cold winter actually but at night it's still like 1-2 degrees.) The TV is useless as it has programs which I have no clue about as they are in languages I don't understand, not to mention that I hate TV's--I only watch it when I'm close to catatonia because of boredom. I have no books to read, no DVD to watch. The Saturday night, which I have waited and dreamed during the long and tiring working week, is apparently going to be wasted on this pathetic blog post.

I'm actually upset because I thought I would spend the night watching good movies on DVD. For some reasons the plan got aborted. You see, I'm a control freak. I like planning ahead. I hate surprises, good or bad. And when at the last minute the things I meticulously planned and looked forward to wont happen, it would drive me to madness even incomprehensible to my own self. Like right now.

Enough of this. I think I've blabbed too much and dragged too many skeletons out of my closet already.

Radio Ga Ga

I swear the last time I kept hearing Queen's Radio Ga Ga on air was when I was an overweight, runny-nosed kid with a lice-infested head. That was around 20 years ago. Things changed since then. Or so I thought...

Ok, let's get this straight first. I don't have lice - or maybe not yet as kids at school have them- and the flab has gone to a neverheard land. But the moment I arrived in Prague the runny nose is back with a vengeance--- so is the song.

Either the DJ's in this country have just discovered the band's music and can't get enough of it or they simply can't let FM rest in peace, I can only speculate. No offense meant for Queen's fans, especially to FM's memory. I just find it interesting that I hear this song played on air like two or three times a month at the minimum considering that I don't listen to the radio at all. The fact that I sometimes hear it when I'm carefully selecting good-looking tomatoes among the multitude of rotten ones at the grocery, or when someone opens a car door when I'm passing by, or when a must be deaf kid on the metro is playing his iPod close to blowing his eardrums to pieces, could only mean they are playing it all the time.

Another song not spared of this overrating by how often it is played is "I've Had the Time of My Life." Yes, Jennifer Warnes and Bill Medley still have a shining career in CZ. This was one of my favorite classics before but right now it's definitely losing its charm to my ears. I've come to this stage when I feel like I'm about to puke when I hear it. One lesson I learned in life is too much of something is not good for your intestines.

Also notably riding high on the airwaves is "The Final Countdown." Arrghhh.....

So what exactly is my point? Nothing, really. I'm just cursing our internet connection for being such a snail but I couldn't put the words here. It's the one at fault why I couldn't listen to my favorite stations in Cebu. It's so slow that sometimes waiting for the page to load is like waiting for eternity to end. I so miss Y101. Until we get rid of this turtle or snail or sloth connection and switch to broadband, I'm doomed to a life of radios going gaga.

Idiosyncrasies

Happy New Year!

We're back in Prague. We spent 11 days in Tišnov with A's family where we both had a sleeping and eating overload. It's also where my theory about one of the Czechs' many idiosyncrasies I noticed got confirmed; when they count with their fingers they start with the thumb.

I first noticed this with the kids at school. Everytime I asked them to count, the little thumb came springing first. Apparently it wasn't just me who noticed this phenomenon. My American co-teacher did, too. One day, out of the blue, this came into the discussion while the kids were having their snacks. There were three of us, one American, one Czech and of course, one quarter Russian and quarter Latin-American Filipina in the personification of moi. (I wish.)

And what do you guess happened? You're right, the Czech right away started the ball rolling with her thumb. The American and the Filipina laughed real loud at her. Then it was the American's turn and out came the forefinger first! The Czech and the Filipina kept on laughing. Finally, when it was the Filipina's turn, she sent her co-teachers laughing close to tears when the otherwise unassuming litte finger led the counting marathon.

I got encouraged about this little theory so I tested it on A. The thumb won, hands down. Then the other day in Tišnov, Mamka, Tatka and Michaela confirmed that this is a country where, though not everything deserves a thumbs up, the thumbs are perennially leading the counting game.

This also means that if you're a foreigner and if you buy a rohlik (roll or croissant) at a local bakeshop, chances are the Czech behind the counter will give you a thumb up. This, however, doesn't signify he's glad with your choice, that you are buying the greatest roll in town. This only means he is confirming if you are buying just one. So spring up that approving thumb of yours and say, "Ano, jeden rohlik, prosim."

Dobrou chut!