A Quarter of Myself

Disclaimer: This post exists because a certain Filpina author named Caryn P. Santi tagged me over at Wattpad. 😛 I’m going to try my best to make this worth your while. <3

First, some ground rules.

Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. (T: This is a looooong note.)

At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. (T: Dayum. That’s going to be difficult.) You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it means I want to know more about you.

Let’s begin.

1. I have a pet bunny named Max. Max Rusca.

There’s a Heneral Luna reference there somewhere. If you haven’t seen the movie, do it. Anyway, this is Max.

He’s been with us for six months now, and we initially thought he was a girl until his balls dropped, freaking us out. I have never had a bunny before (I used to have dogs, adorable askals) so having him as a pet is an entirely new experience for me. Max is the reason why I thought of the initial concept for my #StrangeLit novella, even if it morphed into an entirely different thing altogether. He’s a sweetheart, and likes getting cuddles.

2. In high school, I had three orgs.

I was an official member of the dance club, and an honorary member of drama and glee. Before graduating, I penned a stage play for the high school drama club and got to help direct its very first run during my freshman year in college. After that, I also got to direct the glee club on their yearly concerts. Fun times. <3

3. Sometimes I got into trouble for writing fiction . . .

. . . because I would do it in the middle of class. Geometry, for example. Kids, don’t try this at school. Unless you’re really, really good at Mathematics. I failed Geom on one quarter in junior year.

4. My favorite author is Mitch Albom.

And one of the things I’d like crossed out of my bucket list is to meet him in person and give him a copy of my book, Paper Planes Back Home, because in some way or other, he inspired me to write and finish it.

5. DBSK/Cassiopeia will always be my fandom.

Got hooked on them in 2006, three years after their KPop debut. Wrote fanfiction (they call it real-person fiction now, I found out) and about them. Collected their albums, posters, magazines, etc. Broke my heart when they disbanded, lost some friends over it too. Which side did I take? Yunho and Changmin’s. They’re my top 1 and 2.

And I will refuse to get into any more discussions about how they disbanded and why I stuck with the leader and the magnae because I don’t think I’ll ever be over it.

6. I’ve always loved the magic of theatre, but I got reeled back in only recently . . .

. . . because the Les Miserables movie (2012) and the most gorgeous Enjolras (Aaron Tveit) made himself comfortable in my headspace. Plus a friend of mine “reintroduced” me to Philippine theatre, and then Rak of Aegis happened, and, well . . . now I’m extra poor.

Exhibit A: Aaron Tveit

7. I always thought I’d be a film/TV director,

because that’s what I aimed to be while I was pursuing a degree in Communication Arts. Over time I got disillusioned because of network politics and bad practices within the industry, and I got myself jobs that were not necessarily not connected to media, but ones that allowed me to earn more money than my first job (which was at Studio 23).

Would I return to it if I had the chance? I considered it before, but I don’t think I would anymore. I feel like I’m now too old and tired to be bothered with all the shenanigans going on. Besides, mainstream media is so yesterday. LOL.

8. Sometimes I like to keep people guessing.

I don’t know what it is, but people are often wrong about their assumptions of me even if we’ve already been working together/friends for a while. Sometimes it’s about sexual preference (“Are you lesbian?”), vices (“Really? You don’t drink, or smoke?”), or the schools I went to (“I never would have thought you were from La Salle.”). It might sound a bit upsetting sometimes, but I’ve learned to roll with it as time went by. It gets fun sometimes.

9.  I might just be the most Pisces Piscean to ever Pisces.

If you’ve read any books or texts about Pisces behavior, there is a 99% chance the words describe me. When I first read about zodiac traits (I wasn’t a believer before), it freaked me out to realize how eerily accurate the descriptions were. Being a Pisces gets tiring sometimes, though, but I like being one anyway.

It’s interesting to note, though, that I’m on the Pisces-Aquarian cusp, so I can display Aquarian qualities at times too. They happen very rarely, though.

10. My favorite food: adobo, sinigang na baboy, and dinuguan.

AKA mga pagkaing pampabata. But seriously, there was one time my mom stopped cooking anything with pork in it because 1) she was hypertensive and had to watch her diet, and 2) what she eats, everyone eats. I swear to God, when I had the chance to eat out, I would order any of these three food items just to satisfy my craving. And that whole No Pork Shiznit went on at home for about a year, I think.

My mom went to the province for a bit, making me in charge of the kitchen. What did I cook? A HUGE serving of super asim sinigang na baboy that lasted us three days! 😛

11. I like the beach, but can’t swim in it for long periods of time.

The scenery is really what I like about it, but the saltwater always messes up my skin, which irks me a whole damn lot. I’ve learned to steer clear of swimming in beaches whenever I can, and appreciate swimming trips more when there’s a pool nearby. I like the water so much, but the sea just does ugly things to my skin. And my skin’s already messed up to begin with (i.e. skin asthma, etc). 🙁

12. I can Korean. (But it’s rusty now.)

Back in 2012, I took two levels of Elementary Korean at the Korean Cultural Center at Bonifacio Global City. The decision to take said classes was fueled by 1) my love for Korean entertainment (music, dramas, movies), 2) the fact that I was getting bored out of my wits because I’d been working from home for about a year then, and; 3) the tuition fee back then was only P750 for 72 hours of language class. That included the textbook and CDs too, mind you. I heard it’s more expensive now, so I’m really glad I was able to grab that chance while it lasted.

I also took a Korean cooking class and a KPop dance class after those two semesters of language classes. Some of the best decisions I’ve made so far. ^_^

13. There is a nine-year gap between my little sister and I, but sometimes I don’t feel like it exists.

I’m not sure if it creeps her out to realize that I was old enough to change her diapers all those years ago, though. 😛 I love her. She just got herself a job last week and I couldn’t be a prouder ate. <3

14. My favorite sport is basketball.

Back in high school, I sorely wanted to be part of my school’s basketball varsity team but even before I could go to a try-out, my mom told me she disapproved of it because it’s a rough game and I might injure myself playing. I tried switching to volleyball, but she didn’t approve of team practice schedules naman. Bummer.

(As a sidenote, I think that if I really had pursued trying out for the basketball team I would have quit before graduation because my asthma wouldn’t have allowed me to play for long periods of time. Double bummer.)

Anyway I still watch basketball from time to time, especially because Gilas Pilipinas. WOOHOO!!! <3

15. I am a frustrated musician.

I used to own an acoustic guitar–I think I was 14 or 15 then when my dad bought it for me–and I never really had formal lessons. I just bought those cheap songhits from the wet market and tried to learn chords from the free chord chart usually found in the center fold. I did learn some songs, but playing music took a backseat when I started getting busy with dance club rehearsals as well as writing that play for the drama club. Eventually, there was this earthquake that caused my guitar to fall–it was hanging by a nail on the wall–and incur a crack. Didn’t sound the same since.

Two years ago, I started developing a liking for ukeleles. I don’t remember why but I do remember passing by music shops and lingering in front of their windows so I can look at ukeleles. Sometimes I’d go inside and ask how much they were, and I was surprised that something so small could cost so much. (Like, P18,000 was just WOW.) Luckily, I stumbled upon a huge sale last year and was able to buy myself a really nice ukelele for only P2,300.

Do I still play? Yes, I’m constantly trying to learn new songs. The last one I learned was the Lava Song from that Disney Pixar short shown before the Inside Out movie. Oh, and I helped a friend arrange music for a song he wrote, which he used to propose to his girlfriend just last month. Good times. ^_^

16. The short story/comic entitled 25 Lives will always be an inspiration for me whenever I write.

I have written and am currently writing something that follows this concept, and I’m not sure yet if I’ll pursue actually writing a book with this theme in the future–because it has been done many times–but I really really am utterly in love with that comic, and it will never NOT make me cry every time I read through it.

17. I used to make clay accessories.

Back in 2008-2010, my friend Cherrie and I built a small business together called Things You Don’t Want. We made and sold clay accessories in bazaars and online as well (Multiply was still the happening place back then). I just left my job in 2008 and clay crafting became my bread and butter until I got a regular job again in 2011. Things You Don’t Want is now closed, but the Facebook page is still around. Because memories. 😛

18. If you ask me what I do for a living, I’ll tell you I’m a jack-of-all-trades, master of none.

And it’s true. My chopsuey work experience would be the cause of it. I started in TV production as a researcher, trainee location master, talent coordinator, PA and trainee writer before I entered the outsourcing industry which required me to beef up my skill set to include project management, graphic design, social media management, copywriting, etc. Now, my job title is Producer, and it covers a whole lot of things, from event conceptualization to execution. It’s pretty tough especially when you have a team as small as mine, and at this point, I’m just trying not to drop any of the balls I’m juggling.

19. Jeon Jihyun/Gianna Jun was, is, and will forever be my muse . . .

. . . in that there might never be a huge piece of fictional work that doesn’t have her as a character (main or otherwise), in one incarnation or another. I just love love love and adore her. <3

20. I can’t sleep without my foot pillow.

It’s something I never grew out of. I just need something to rub my feet against, and it should be a little rough, like the texture of a kulambo (mosquito net), or else I can’t sleep. If I’m sleeping over at someone else’s house I usually bring an extra pair of socks for bed. No matter how humid the weather is, I need to put those socks on so I could get a good night’s sleep. Silly, I know, but . . . well.

21. My lovelife (if you can call it that) consists of unrequited feelings, missed connections, and almosts-but-not-quite.

Therefore . . . I only live vicariously through other people’s (and my fictional universes’) romances.

22. “I have nodes.”

Remember Chloe’s line from the movie Pitch Perfect? Yeap. That kind of resonated with me. I was barely a teenager when I was diagnosed with a node on my vocal chord and was instructed not to speak for a whole week. I brought a magic slate around back then, and for someone as talkative as me, that whole week was pure torture.

We never got around to having that node removed because it didn’t bother me anyway. I do lose my voice easily, though. A round of performance-level karaoke should do it. >_<;;

23. I also have GERD.

GERD is short for gastroesophageal reflux disease. To put it simply, it’s a health condition that’s kind of like heartburn but worse. You experience acid reflux when you eat/drink too much of the bad things, and you can also develop reflux cough and reflux asthma. My GERD was diagnosed way back in 2007, and the doctor forbade me to eat oily and/or spicy food, chocolates, and drink coffee.

HELL, I TELL YOU. >_<

I still drink coffee though because I’m a rebel like that. #pasaway

24. My favorite Disney heroine is Mulan.

I know it wasn’t told in a historically accurate manner, but . . . #goals. No, I don’t mean I want to pretend to be a man and join the military and dangerous shit like that. I want to be able to do what I want and not be boxed by what society wants me to be, and be respected for what I do, no matter how small . . . is what I meant.

Plus she’s badass. Who doesn’t wanna be badass?

25. I believe that I am a Luftmensch (see featured image).

My every idle moment (and even the not-so-idle ones) is filled with daydreams that, more often than not, turn to fiction. My brain works on overdrive all the time, so if you ever bump into me anywhere and find me with a blank expression, it’s most probably because there’s an entire production happening inside my head.

It’s tiring, I tell you. But it’s also so much fun.

---

OH MY GOD I’m finally done!

And now I’m going to tag Caryn (because required), Ate Gette, Chi, Rix, Maddie, and Therese. (I can’t do 25, huhu. ;^;) Good luck, you guys. It took me two days to finish this . . . mostly because I keep filtering things to keep this post as interesting as possible. Hope you had fun, though! ^_^

Wanna ask me something about anything written here? Go ahead and comment. I’ll answer to the best of my abilities~ ^_^ Let’s chat!