2015 Achievements

So it's new year. And sue me, I will get on that bandwagon despite the 99.99% chance that I will hate myself for failing it. I have set 10 goals this year. 10 things that I need to achieve by 2015. And I am declaring that I will get them all done thus the title. And besides, I think that if I accomplish even three of them I would be extremely happy already.

So. What are the 10? It will not be anything involving changing my penchant for run on sentences. So here goes, in no particular order:

1. Lose 25 kilos.
2. Get an underwater digicam.
3. Post at least 2 blog entries a month.
4. Finish at least 2 chapters of the book I hope I finish.
5. Go to Palawan (by June)
6. Save 3k a cut off
7. Get braces (I have uneven teeth, something short of horribly uneven)
8. Get a voter's id. (Sheepish smile)
9. Get a passport.
10. Bring at least five friends to church.

There you have it. Goals for the year. What are yours? And do you think I can achieve mine?

The Happy Deprived Childhood

Childhood. We have all been there. Some of us for three seconds and some of us never left. But either way, no matter how much some of us would deny, NO ONE left unscathed. And yes some scars run deeper than most, and this is not an attempt to make light of your deep scars just make fun of my light ones.

What are these (imagine me making air quotation marks) light ones you ask? Things that everyone else seems to have learned during childhood that escaped me. I'm sure you also have a list. Feel free to write about it. But now is the time to feel sorry for me and the things I was deprived by.

So here is the list of things I have never learned as a kid:

1. Ride a bike

2. Swim

3. Roller blade

4. Skate
5. Bowl.

I know, I know, these are horribly... oh I don't know, what's the word... shallow? haha. For some. But hey, for me? It made growing up a bit... challenging. Can you imagine not knowing how to ride a single bike? I had to say goodbye to what would have been romantic park stuff. I was stuck with the walking. And somehow that was boring compared to bike rides. It's not like I could ask for balloons and stuff while going around the park. It would seem more like a dude taking his little sister out to the park instead of a potential girlfriend yes? 

Same goes for skating and the blades. And bowling. The whole swimming thing didn't stop me though. I still am as thirsty for the pool or beach or river as any regular swimmer. If not more. I'm just more paranoid and more... safety conscious. And just how sexy can you be in a bulky neon green life jacket... but then I think... it's ultimately more preferable to drowning. Nothing less sexy than a dead girl. Uhh. Hmmm. A bloated dead girl. (I feel the need to clarify because nowadays lots of people find dead things sexy. Like uhm, vampires. AND those wierdoes with the whole necrophilia thing. So anyway, drowned dead self not sexy. Although neon green life jacket not sexy as well.

So. I have learned to compensate by finding activities not involving the five. Like, food, movies and karaokes. Still it's unhealthy. Right? It promotes a sedimentary life style? 

City in Heels

My brother and I just moved into our tiny but happy little apartment. And as we, well he and my cousins, were carrying all our things from one place to the other, (btw all my cousins who helped with the move actually agreed that I have enough clothes and shoes and stuff for ten people which I pointedly ignored) I realized a lot of things about the city I live in. Like a few reasons why I love and hate it at the same time. 

 Like, during the move and the hauling truck stopped right in front of my house, and I realized… IT STOPPED RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY HOUSE!!! As in it was just at most five steps from the road to my doorstep. And it was amazing!!! (Please read on and let me prove how I am not as crazy as I already know you think I am… or maybe let me prove that I’m crazier.)

I’ve moved five times in the course of my life and in each and every single one of those places there had to be at least 10 meters worth of walk from the road to my doorstep. Don’t get me wrong, for MOST of those places, there is a road, but cars don’t dare venture because it’s too steep on the way there.  So the fact that there were only five steps from the road to my door was new and surreal and amazing. Cue choirs of angels.

It may not be something new to all of you guys but it is for me. In this magical city I live in, the mountainous, chilly and rainy place that it is makes it so that there will always be places you will have to walk, climb and or hike to. And when I say climb, I mean CLIMB. As in AT LEAST two flights of stairs, climb. As in you do NOT have a choice climb. 

In this city there are houses and places that are only accessible after a few minutes of hiking. We’re all used to this. We enjoy the walk because of the weather and the trees and because we don’t really have a choice. Plus it’s exercise.  And it’s all we’ve ever known. 

The only time I actually realized how effort-full it was to live in this city was when I went through puberty and fell head over heels, pun intended, in love with high heels.  I mean seriously, have you ever tried walking on uneven rocky ground in stilettos? Have you ever tried climbing even one flight of stairs in heels? Without wobbling. Or taking a nose dive? Have you ever--- well basically it’s HARD with a capital H. 

At this point, some of you might ask Loridor, why bother? Why torture yourself? Why subject yourself to the arguably patriarchal social pressure to look good? Why? WHY? WHY?!!? If you have to ask you are either a heterosexual male, who I will claim to be a hypocrite because we both know you find girls in heels to be hotter than not. (Assuming the woman walks right in heels. I will not be held liable for those women who waddle. I do not waddle. I will write a separate entry for rules on wearing heels.) OR you might be a woman (or woman at heart), who has never found the right heels. Heels make you magically, temporarily, lose pounds. They give you an immediate boost of confidence and they make your butt look AH-MAY-ZZING. Not that mine needs a lot of help. *eye brow wiggle* If you do not fall in either of these categories, feel free to take it up in the comment section. :P

But anyway, that was the first time I realized this city was not as perfect as I thought. It’s hard to be a shoe-holic in the mountains. O.O

The second awakening was around the time when I had to start buying my own groceries. I do the groceries twice a month. So that means I have a large haul each and every time. And this large haul needs to be carried from cab door to my front door. Can you imagine carrying at least four kilos of items on each arm? (Yes where I’m from we measure weight with kilos, go find an online calculator to convert it to pounds if you need it). Now imagine having to do that for 10 to 15 meters. Now add stairs. And there you have it. EFFORT.

It is the same reason women from this city develop huge leg muscles that are famous through out the land. Logs as some people would call it. (Mine aren’t logs yet thank goodness!) I mean good for the men that the hike helps them avoid “chicken legs” i.e. super thin legs in proportion to their whole body but still, for the w omen of this city it Is a pain to live with. 

But like I said, these are epiphanies. They are not something people who grew up here realize immediately. Until confronted by an outsider. But then it’s not so bad compared to all the good things that are in this city. It may just be a fair trade. What are the good things about this city you ask?

The weather.  (Or is it climate?) I love the cool weather. It’s the only place in this tropical country that has free air conditioning 24/7. Why? Like I said, beautiful weather. It’s just the right temperature, not too cold, not too hot. I mean it could get a bit cold but nothing a light jacket, a brisk walk or a cuddle wouldn’t fix.

Second thing to love about this city is how tiny it is. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not the smallest city out there. But compared to all the other metropolises out there, this is small. Other people want to live in big cities. I don’t. There’s a comfort in knowing most of where everything is and how to get there. The whole place is home. Also this city is not so busy. It’s a city that sleeps. A bit early in fact. But still. I love the relaxed atmosphere it has. (After the rush hours of course). 

And the tiny-ness of this city leads me to the third reason I love it. You can walk to anywhere. You don’t have to take a train or the bus because its all within walking distance. And a walk in this city is lovely. Lots of trees and flowers and again, the goldilock effect of it all, not too warm, not too cold. 

If you really have to get a ride, I believe we have the nicest cab drivers in all the land. Ding ding ding! That’s number four. (Fine, 95% of them are super duper nice. You may still meet a tiny amount of douches.  But that’s still better than the statistics elsewhere.) They will not drive you in circles to jack up the fare. Nor will they refuse to give you change. They will give you your 50 cents back if you don’t tell them to keep it. Unlike cab drivers elsewhere that would REFUSE to give your 20 bucks back. Why do I feel like I’m the authority in this? It’s because of my job. Which forces me to leave the house at weird hours of the night. Which means I take the cab often. Which is a testament to my intelligence, because really, even if I can walk to my work place, it’s still not a smart thing to do at midnight or three am. :P

Another innocuous, not so obvious reason why I love this city is… the produce. We get fresh veggies and fruits A LOT and we don’t have to pay through the nose for them. I love veggies. I’m not a vegetarian but I understand the need for fiber in our lives. And I like the fact that just a quick trip to the market provides me with the healthy and yummy. Among other things. This is a city of thrift stores too. We call it the Wagwagan (Wag like tail wag, and Gan like the gan in gander so, wag-wag-gan.) Why is it called that? Because you would have to dig through piles of items (depending on what you’re shopping for, it could be clothes, stuffed toys, bags, shoes etc) to get what you want and once you see one you like, you shake the dust off of the item. That action is wagwag in the local language. Anyway as I was saying, these thrift stores are popular throughout the country. You can get branded stuff for a really really low pri--- well you probably know what a thrift store is. 

Hmmm and lastly, I like the name of my city. It’s unique. And it stumps a lot of international visitors. Here it is: Baguio City. *smiles evilly* Now tell me how to read that… fine, because I’m nice I’ll tell you how. You say it like Bag-yo. Bag like bag and yo as in the yo in yoyo. Did you get it right the first time? 

 

And there you have it. A quick Get-To-Know-My-City post. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t want you to move into the city. Yes that’s right. I said DON’T move into the city. Why you ask? Because I don’t want my city to be crowded. But feel free to visit. Visit anytime. And make sure not to leave messes. Don’t make me “accidentally” step on your toes with both heels.

The Romantic Cynic

Don't get me wrong, I believe in love and all the jazz. I just want it all dramatic and beautiful, original and epic. So I think that anything that falls short of that is not worth doing, reading, writing and watching. This is a place where you will read praises about all the things I love and rantings about all else that fails. 

Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoy. Feel free to comment. :)

The Romantic Cynic also known as Lor, likes food, shoes, the beach, travel, clothes, boys (I think in that order :P) And singing, dancing, writing and shopping. Movie watching. Book reading. Commentating :P. She also has a penchant for run on sentences and referring to herself in the third person. She loves family dinners, her cat named Lucy and its three kittens Sugar, Spice and Mojojojo. The Lor also has a deep, deep, love for God. Who is dramatic, beautiful, original and epic all at the same time.